Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
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Speaker 1: I'm you, Hewittt. Welcome to the Big Weekend Pod. Four
Speaker 1: weeks of the war with Iran are in the books.
Speaker 1: America continues to win decisively alongside of our ally Israel.
Speaker 1: Two allies have stood up verbally strongly with us, the
Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates and Ukraine, and all the people out
Speaker 1: there have been wondering, shall we really be supporting Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Take note. Old Europe is nowhere to be found. I
Speaker 1: mean they sit around, they say they're going to participate
Speaker 1: in opening the Straits of Horror moves, but we haven't
Speaker 1: seen a British ship, we haven't seen a French ship
Speaker 1: Wenesday in anything from Old Europe that we liberated twice
Speaker 1: in the last century. But the United Arab Emirates, they're
Speaker 1: getting into the fight, and Ukraine has been in the
Speaker 1: fight for weeks, sending all the anti drone technology to
Speaker 1: protect our golf allies. So when it comes time to
Speaker 1: remember this for let's remember who was there and who wasn't. Now.
Speaker 1: I've been a long time supporter of NATO. Everyone listens
Speaker 1: to my show knows that. But at some point you
Speaker 1: have to say, are those countries broken beyond repair? Now?
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll revive. It's possible Nigel Farage or somebody else
Speaker 1: will rise in Britain. It's possible that Macrone's successor won't
Speaker 1: be a weak need surrender monkey. I don't know it's possible,
Speaker 1: but them been there thus far, and UAE and Ukraine
Speaker 1: have been And when I count wins and losses and
Speaker 1: friends and allies, I want you to remember that Ukraine
Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates. Secondly understated by our defeatist and demoralized
Speaker 1: legacy media is the fact we're winning decisively. We're winning
Speaker 1: so fast you can't even leave how fast we're winning.
Speaker 1: We're winning in every part of the country, We're winning
Speaker 1: in every battlefield. We have lost seventeen Americans, another a
Speaker 1: dozen are severely wounded. Their families are suffering grievously. It
Speaker 1: is not a war without costs. We've lost two f
Speaker 1: fifteen to friendly fire. We've lost a dozen drones that
Speaker 1: were old school. But the Israelis have lost between twenty
Speaker 1: and twenty five civilians and soldiers and a number of
Speaker 1: direct hits on their infrastructure. Our golf allies have lost
Speaker 1: more than twenty of their people. So it's not a
Speaker 1: bloodless for and we are smashing Iran on every level.
Speaker 1: And there's no telling who's in charge. There's no telling
Speaker 1: what is a lie and what isn't a lie. But
Speaker 1: so long as the war goes on, I'm all in
Speaker 1: favor of it because Iran's killed more than a thousand
Speaker 1: Americans since the revolution in nineteen forty seven. They are
Speaker 1: our sworn enemy. They chant death to America and they're
Speaker 1: sleep and they mean it. They want it to happen,
Speaker 1: and I am so glad this is finally happening. And
Speaker 1: I'm still broadcasting because they've been killing Americans for as
Speaker 1: long as I've been on the air, and I've been
Speaker 1: on the air a long time. Finally, I want to
Speaker 1: point out two things. First of all, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are mad at Donald Trump for not giving a
Speaker 1: Churchillian speech, you know, summoning the nation to war. We
Speaker 1: will fight on the beach at a different time, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people now he's not clear, and he
Speaker 1: changes his mind and he's ambiguous. I will use a
Speaker 1: Churchillian if you listen to Doctor Ironer and I talk
Speaker 1: about Winston Churchill on the Hillsdale Dialogues all the time.
Speaker 1: I've been in Churchill's The Gathering Storm for a year now.
Speaker 1: If you listen to us talk about Churchill, I think
Speaker 1: you will have heard us refer to the famous I
Speaker 1: think it was a toast that he gave ironically in
Speaker 1: Tehran at the Tehran Conference in nineteen forty three, and
Speaker 1: I believe he gave the toast to Stalin, and the
Speaker 1: toast went in wartime. Truth is so precious that she
Speaker 1: must always be attended by a bodyguard of lives. In
Speaker 1: other words, you've always got to use misdirection in war.
Speaker 1: You don't tell people what you're going to do. You
Speaker 1: don't tell them what you've done. You don't tell them
Speaker 1: what losses you've suffered. You tell them the truth that
Speaker 1: we're in a war and we got to win it.
Speaker 1: It's an evil regime. You tell them big victories. Churchill
Speaker 1: kept suppressed the news of sinkings sometime for weeks at
Speaker 1: a time and a month at a time. But we
Speaker 1: are winning decisively. But spare me the og. He hasn't
Speaker 1: given us the battle plan in detail to put on
Speaker 1: the front page of the New York class. No, we're
Speaker 1: trying to win. And then, finally, the biggest picture of
Speaker 1: all what Donald Trump is doing right now with this war,
Speaker 1: along with Secretary of Exist Sherman of the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 1: of Staff, Cain, everyone up and down the chain of command,
Speaker 1: and everyone a Jay to the Shain of Command, Vice
Speaker 1: President's Secretary of State, Gang of eight, and the Senate
Speaker 1: in the House. People on the inside, they know that
Speaker 1: he's restoring American deterrence which is lost by Joe Biden
Speaker 1: when he withdrew precipitously from Afghanistan in the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, which led to the Ukraine War. He's
Speaker 1: also restoring deterrence with Iran, which was given away by
Speaker 1: Barack Obama in the JCPOA, which was the worst deal
Speaker 1: in history, as President Trump said. And he's doing it
Speaker 1: in a way the same way that Reagan and George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush did over a period of time. Reagan started with
Speaker 1: GREATA small operation killed a bunch of Cubans, got him
Speaker 1: off of Grenada. George H. W. Bush followed with the
Speaker 1: Panama invasion, then with the big punch in Gulf War one,
Speaker 1: and after Gulf War one one hundred Hour War. Though
Speaker 1: it was perhaps concluded too soon, it re established in
Speaker 1: the minds of our enemy, do not mess with America.
Speaker 1: That same message is coming through right now now. And
Speaker 1: if you have not yet read Mobilized by Schum Sandcar,
Speaker 1: that's spelled shyam sa nkr Sandcar and it's simply called Mobilize.
Speaker 1: Schum wrote it with Madelon Hart, and I talked to him.
Speaker 1: You can find it over at my YouTube channel. On Thursday.
Speaker 1: Realize that, yeah, we didn't build a lot for the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, and maybe that we got lucky that
Speaker 1: we're now building what we need for the next generation
Speaker 1: of warfare, which is completely different from what we needed
Speaker 1: to win the Cold War. Golf four one, Golf four two,
Speaker 1: the March to Baghdad. It's a different kind of war.
Speaker 1: And right now you'll hear me ask Sankar this if
Speaker 1: you listen to it, how soon can we build a
Speaker 1: long range drone with a heavy payload by the hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands that can take off from anywhere in the
Speaker 1: United States and go anywhere in the world. Because when
Speaker 1: we've got that, we've got the terns. And by the way,
Speaker 1: when can we deploy that Leonidas system that you talked about.
Speaker 1: The Leonidas system is a way to knock down drones?
Speaker 1: And how soon can we defeat the chicoms Leonidis. The
Speaker 1: battlefields of Ukraine and Iran are showing us stuff, But
Speaker 1: more importantly, they're putting to end. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it'll be immediate or if it'll take a year,
Speaker 1: but this regimes finished in Iran. Everybody hates it. They're
Speaker 1: out of money, their leadership has been destroyed, their weaponryes
Speaker 1: and the shambles. They're getting off one or two missiles
Speaker 1: a day, sometimes five, a very great cost to Israel, annoying, exhausting, tiring.
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of Israel support the war because they do
Speaker 1: not have a defeatis demoralized press. So sit back and listen.
Speaker 1: They have John Allison Ellis items to talk about, some
Speaker 1: of the headlines you might not have seen. I've got
Speaker 1: Charles C. W Cook, who is pro war sort of.
Speaker 1: And then I've got Eli Lake who's very pro war.
Speaker 1: And so the new news and review is coming up
Speaker 1: this week is a fabulous weekend review the Big Weekend Pod.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Enjoy the Big Weekend Pod Studio
Speaker 1: Beltwigh Today it is the Weekend Review program. And what
Speaker 1: a week it's been. The conclusion of the fourth week
Speaker 1: of the war with Iran. I begin as I do
Speaker 1: most Fridays and weekends with John Ellis, Founder of News Items,
Speaker 1: editor in chief of News Items, and John always sends
Speaker 1: me the stories he wants to cover, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: the first story was Iran. John, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you the stage, but I'm going to say beforehand, I
Speaker 1: try and read everything about the war, listen to the
Speaker 1: informed speculation, and I'm an optimist. I think it's going
Speaker 1: very very well. I'm not sure you are, so have
Speaker 1: at it well. I think.
Speaker 2: It's difficult because the Ranians have a lot of leverage
Speaker 2: with the straight being able to close the straight essential
Speaker 2: which creates stress, you know, all the way down the line.
Speaker 2: East Asia obviously the ones that feel it most acutely first.
Speaker 2: So it also seems unlikely that that can be resolved
Speaker 2: without the commitment of US troops quote on the ground
Speaker 2: end quote. And I think that's what President Trump is
Speaker 2: leading up to. And anytime troops are on the ground,
Speaker 2: you want to be you want to be hopeful that
Speaker 2: need it'll work out, and you want to be realistic
Speaker 2: about the fact that it might go awry.
Speaker 1: Now I'm reminded, and I remind everyone of an ironically
Speaker 1: something Churchill said in Tehran in nineteen forty three to
Speaker 1: Stalin in more time. Truth is so precious it must
Speaker 1: be protected by a bodyguard of lives. So I don't
Speaker 1: believe anyone on anything. All I can tell is facts
Speaker 1: and the facts from scentcom and the idea they do
Speaker 1: seem to dictate to us that the Iranian military is crumbling.
Speaker 1: It's in shambles. Oh.
Speaker 2: I think that the you know, the projection of force
Speaker 2: that has been executed by the Americans and the Israelis
Speaker 2: is just absolutely astonishing. And to me it's a wonder
Speaker 2: that the regime, the Iranian regime still stands. I don't
Speaker 2: think there really is a regime anymore. I think it's
Speaker 2: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that remains. They have a
Speaker 2: very decentralized command structure, and so if you know, if
Speaker 2: one part gets blown up, other parts all across the
Speaker 2: country keep going. And really the question is how much
Speaker 2: pain can they withstand. They've withstood enormous pain so far.
Speaker 2: The historical record the Iran Iraq War in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: They lost six hundred to eight hundred thousand people in
Speaker 2: that war. So they certainly have a history of being
Speaker 2: able to withstand a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely true. In there once again relying on children recruits.
Speaker 1: But that was forty seven years ago and the revolution
Speaker 1: was fresh and the enthusiasm was there. Now the real
Speaker 1: is worth nothing. And the people I talked to it
Speaker 1: you tell me, if you talk to other people, adamal
Speaker 1: Mark Montgomery and others, they tell me that the operation
Speaker 1: in the Strait, while difficult, is not that difficult, especially
Speaker 1: if we have allies, and you pointed out to me
Speaker 1: we do. We've got real allies who are going to
Speaker 1: help us clear and keep the straight open. Once that's done,
Speaker 1: They've played all their cards, haven't they. I think they have.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is, we have friends who have
Speaker 2: family in Tehran, and you know, on the ground so
Speaker 2: to speak. No one's looking forward to getting slaughtered by
Speaker 2: leading and uprising in downtown Tehran, but there's real hope
Speaker 2: that the US operation will be successful, and that has
Speaker 2: to eat away at the regime. I think the card
Speaker 2: that the Iranians have is that the longer they can
Speaker 2: delay the you know, petroleum products getting through the strait,
Speaker 2: the more difficult it is for everyone all around the world,
Speaker 2: you know, to continue on with their normal economic activity.
Speaker 2: If it's done, If this operation is successful in the
Speaker 2: next two to four weeks, then you know it'll it'll
Speaker 2: slowly but certainly go back to where we were before.
Speaker 2: If it goes much longer than that, then it really
Speaker 2: becomes problematic.
Speaker 1: Last on this topic, John, I've told people I think
Speaker 1: it will go to early June, because at that point
Speaker 1: it's either frozen or it's over. And I also think
Speaker 1: the Trump card is he has to win. He can't lose.
Speaker 1: If he loses, it's the most important sequence of events
Speaker 1: of his two presidencies, and it will mark him forever.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with me on the stakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's existential for both sides, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is it.
Speaker 1: If they don't.
Speaker 2: You know, if if they don't quote, well, if they
Speaker 2: don't not lose, then they're dead. Then it's over. The
Speaker 2: population will turn against them. It'll be curtains for them.
Speaker 2: And for Trump. He's not going to die, obviously, but
Speaker 2: he will politically, he'll be dead. So both sides, you know,
Speaker 2: need to well, the Iranians need to not lose and
Speaker 2: the Americans need to win. And well, you know, there's
Speaker 2: no other other way.
Speaker 1: Now. I want to combine two of your topics, both
Speaker 1: the AI backlash and the Big Energy conference in Houston
Speaker 1: this week, because it seems to me to be that
Speaker 1: in a graded we need AI. AI projects are increasingly
Speaker 1: running into local nimbiism and that was, I guess to
Speaker 1: be expected, but we really can't afford it.
Speaker 2: Why don't you explain, Well, you know, AI needs electricity essentially,
Speaker 2: and in order, we don't have enough on the grid.
Speaker 2: So we have to build out capacity with dedicated natural
Speaker 2: gas plants, with dedicated solar, with dedicated wind, and as
Speaker 2: much of it as we possibly can to keep the
Speaker 2: data Summer Data Centers Humming, twenty four to seven. There's
Speaker 2: real concern amongst voters in America about big bad Ai
Speaker 2: and the big bad companies behind them. My son in
Speaker 2: law is working on a solar project in West Texas
Speaker 2: and he thought, you know, they got all their approvals,
Speaker 2: they were going to provide power to a data center there,
Speaker 2: and he you know, everything was going smoothly, and then
Speaker 2: it'll was all reversed. And at first he thought, well,
Speaker 2: that's because people in Texas don't really like solar power,
Speaker 2: but actually that wasn't the reason at all. What they
Speaker 2: didn't like were the data centers themselves. Uh so they
Speaker 2: you know that that populous backlash I think is not
Speaker 2: just about the noise and the water that's used to
Speaker 2: make these data centers go. I think it's also a
Speaker 2: concern that these big companies basically are rolling over everybody
Speaker 2: and that they have no voice in in how this
Speaker 2: is happening. And we're seeing this backlash everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you see it in West Texas and you know
Speaker 2: you're you're you're looking at a genuine populist issue, arising.
Speaker 1: Tea party sort of stuff. And I got to say,
Speaker 1: I talked yesterday with Shiam Sankar volunteered got this new
Speaker 1: book out, Mobilized, which I read in two days fabulous book.
Speaker 1: We got to build a lot of ai DA data centers,
Speaker 1: We got to build a lot of factories to produce
Speaker 1: drones and anti We got to build a lot. So
Speaker 1: people have to make the argument to Americans that we
Speaker 1: need to build. Is anyone doing that? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I mean Trump has been all in on AI and
Speaker 2: data center, So that's a positive. You know, having the
Speaker 2: president fully supportive is a good thing. But there's a
Speaker 2: story in the Washington Post today that the US has
Speaker 2: used up eight hundred and fifty Tomahawk cruise missiles and
Speaker 2: we only make about three hundred a year. Are you
Speaker 2: know you and I have talked about this before, that
Speaker 2: we don't have mind sweepers. We have these weapons that
Speaker 2: don't work. We lack munitions where we need them. You know,
Speaker 2: we need to build out much greater capacity for Tomahawk
Speaker 2: cruise missiles. It's stunning to me, how you know, how
Speaker 2: the war has revealed the deficiencies in our in our
Speaker 2: defense manufacturing capabilities.
Speaker 1: Sankar makes the argument, he persuaded me, it's not the
Speaker 1: stockpile that's the issue, it's the production line behind it.
Speaker 1: You have a big stockpile, but if you haven't got
Speaker 1: a production line, You're screwed. The good news is people
Speaker 1: like Palmer Lucky any names throughout this entire book, which
Speaker 1: I recommend to everyone, called Mobilize. He names about a
Speaker 1: half dozen, maybe even a dozen entrepreneurial companies that are
Speaker 1: building the weapon system that Ukraine is using in that
Speaker 1: we're using and we can mass produce. John ellis if
Speaker 1: we choose to. But I don't like your son in
Speaker 1: law's experience. We got to go to the break to
Speaker 1: talk about gambling because we really to talk about gambling.
Speaker 1: But are they overcoming are they going to overcome the
Speaker 1: resistance in the Texas model? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean those you know, those permits and permissions that
Speaker 2: were granted have been withdrawn. So my son in law
Speaker 2: sort of stuck. They don't know what to do. You know,
Speaker 2: their choices are to bring legal action, which you know
Speaker 2: and out of state company bringing legal action against against
Speaker 2: the local.
Speaker 1: Advisory board or whatever it is. That's going to be difficult.
Speaker 1: So I did that for thirty years. That was my
Speaker 1: land News practice for thirty years. Never good to be
Speaker 1: out of state against the locals. John Allison is going
Speaker 1: to stay with me one more segment during the break,
Speaker 1: which we'll put on the Big weekend Pod, Don't Go Anywhere, America.
Speaker 1: I'm back with John Ellison. John, I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you about the story on gambling and baseball. Last night,
Speaker 1: Baseball Season Open Guardians won two home runs from Chase
Speaker 1: to Lotter, only the seventh rookie to ever do that
Speaker 1: in his first game in the Major League. But gambling
Speaker 1: is hanging over baseball. Two Guardians are not playing this
Speaker 1: year because they're going to go to jail, probably for gambling,
Speaker 1: and gambling is ubiquitous everywhere. Do you think there's a
Speaker 1: way to teach gen alpha and gen beta that this
Speaker 1: is a crazy, addictive, life ruining habit. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I find the whole gambling thing and prediction markets to
Speaker 2: be extraordinarily dangerous. You have a generation of kids that
Speaker 2: are you know, have a view or many have the
Speaker 2: view that their financial futures are by no means secure,
Speaker 2: and so they have sort of turned to kind of
Speaker 2: I'll win the lottery or I'll be able to you know,
Speaker 2: bet correctly and therefore make more money to have a
Speaker 2: better financial future, and that is.
Speaker 1: Not going to work out.
Speaker 2: And the amount of advertising that goes into urging people
Speaker 2: to gamble. I mean I watch a fair amount of
Speaker 2: local news and stuff it in sports events on TV,
Speaker 2: and the amount of advertise, I would say that half
Speaker 2: of the ads I see on you know, a Knicks
Speaker 2: game or whatever have to do with betting. So it's
Speaker 2: really discouraging and you know, the horses out of the
Speaker 2: barn and I'm not sure we can get it back
Speaker 2: into the barn. So it's going to take some real
Speaker 2: leadership at the national level, end at the state level
Speaker 2: to you know, encourage people to you know, you know,
Speaker 2: cap them out that they're willing to bet or something.
Speaker 2: But it's it really is a it's really troubling.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, the only answer is actually federal preemption
Speaker 1: and coupled with maybe nil a lot, because it's going
Speaker 1: to bankrupt a generation. They just don't realize it yet.
Speaker 1: That Arch Schlater is a name every Buckeye football fan knows.
Speaker 1: Great quarterback went to jail for gambling. Event. It's an addiction,
Speaker 1: and it gets there's a bell curve and it's going
Speaker 1: to get so many people and it's going to get more.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you wrote about it in the news items. If
Speaker 1: you want to subscribe to news items, just Google news
Speaker 1: Items and John, you'll be smarter to anybody else by
Speaker 1: six fifteen every morning if you do get it so
Speaker 1: John Allis follow him on exit Ellis Items. Thank you, John,
Speaker 1: I'll be right back. Welcome back, America. I'm to Hewett
Speaker 1: Charles C. W. Cook as my guest senior writer, Senior
Speaker 1: editor for National Review, podcaster Exurreinaire on The Editors and
Speaker 1: his own podcast, The Charles C. W. Cook Podcast. Inexplicably
Speaker 1: a Jacksonville Jaguars fan, Charles, I was in your neck
Speaker 1: of the woods two weeks ago at Flagler College, guest
Speaker 1: of John Delaney. Had a wonderful time at Amelia Island
Speaker 1: and at Flagler. But have you ever been to the
Speaker 1: Kennedy Space Center.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I took the kids last year.
Speaker 1: What did you think of it?
Speaker 4: I thought it was fantastic. I loved it. I'm into
Speaker 4: all that stuff though. It's one of the things I
Speaker 4: loved about America when I was little.
Speaker 1: Well, I love it too, but I thought it was
Speaker 1: ineffectively educational. Other words, it was s Timu Disneyland and
Speaker 1: not educational enough. Did you find out what you needed
Speaker 1: to know? Did your kids.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it depends what you mean. We had
Speaker 4: a great time standing next to the huge rockets and
Speaker 4: going inside this space shuttle and so forth.
Speaker 3: I suppecially right.
Speaker 4: Maybe they could have been more reading, but we could
Speaker 4: do that at home. It was seeing set in five
Speaker 4: and a space shuttle and the original consoles they used
Speaker 4: on the Apollo program.
Speaker 3: That was the best part.
Speaker 1: All right. I like the memorial too. We'll have to
Speaker 1: talk about this at greater length, Charles. I want to
Speaker 1: start in an unusual way. I want to play for
Speaker 1: you something that Marco Rubyo said on the tarmac in
Speaker 1: Europe today about Cuba to a reporter and then break
Speaker 1: out brought out into Iran and the war, the information war.
Speaker 1: Here's what he had to say in response to question
Speaker 1: about Cuba cut number ten regime change. But now there
Speaker 1: seems to be a sense that perhaps President Trump.
Speaker 5: Would be happy with the win, which would only entail
Speaker 5: an economic deal.
Speaker 1: You said, the sense where do you get that sense
Speaker 1: from report? Well, there's a lot of reporting that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of faith any no, no, no, no, no. Any reporting
Speaker 1: on Cuba that you didn't get from me or the
Speaker 1: president is a liar because there're the only people working
Speaker 1: on pine change. We're warning you, guys, all these sources
Speaker 1: that are pitching you on Cuba, on Old Jack, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're not in the mix. I promise you they don't
Speaker 1: know what the hell happens. What's your reaction to that statement,
Speaker 1: I think absolute clarity and truth.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's particularly appropriate given so much of
Speaker 4: the coverage of the war in Iran, about which, as
Speaker 4: you know, I have been ambivalent. But the coverage of
Speaker 4: the Iran war is driven by a lot of wish casting.
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of it on the pro war side,
Speaker 4: but the press seems to be running its own show.
Speaker 4: So I'm not surprised to hear Secretary of State Rubio
Speaker 4: exasperated that the same thing's happening on Cuba.
Speaker 1: Well, you and I going to talk about Ironda, but
Speaker 1: I'm in with the Hawks, with Noah and Eli Lake
Speaker 1: and a few other people Eleana Johnson, John bad Or.
Speaker 1: I want to win, win, win, win, and make sure
Speaker 1: no one can say we do other than win. But
Speaker 1: I also don't believe anything that anyone says, including the President,
Speaker 1: because ironically enough, at the Terran conference in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: Churchill said to Stalin, in wartime, truth is so precious
Speaker 1: it must be guarded by a bodyguard of lies. Why
Speaker 1: would we believe anyone about the war?
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, that's one reason, though I find it quite
Speaker 4: difficult to evaluate. And I've said over and over I'm
Speaker 4: someone agnostic because I just it's not that I'm a
Speaker 4: foreign policy expert anyway, but I find it so hard
Speaker 4: to know what's going on, to get past the agendas,
Speaker 4: to get past those lies.
Speaker 3: It's a long way away.
Speaker 4: It's not affecting Americans, particularly with the exception of gas prices.
Speaker 4: It's not likely in London in nineteen forty one. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's pretty difficult to tell.
Speaker 1: So what have you been able to glean that you
Speaker 1: think is reliable. I think we're kicking the living daylights
Speaker 1: out of the Iranian military and the regime, and they
Speaker 1: have one card, which is the Strait. And I also
Speaker 1: think that's not a particularly difficult though it is a
Speaker 1: dangerous mission, it's just not a difficult mission.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not sure we agree on the last part.
Speaker 4: We certainly agree on the first part. I think it's
Speaker 4: a one sided war. The United States has a remarkable military.
Speaker 4: It's done remarkable things. They clearly don't have the ability
Speaker 4: in Iran to fight back.
Speaker 3: I don't really know what the state.
Speaker 4: Of the regime, such as it is, is, but yeah,
Speaker 4: we're winning in that respect. I'm more worried about the
Speaker 4: Strait than you are, purely because I.
Speaker 3: Am not sure that there is enough.
Speaker 4: Willingness from the public and perhaps even from the President,
Speaker 4: to do what would be necessary to reopen it, especially
Speaker 4: given gas prices higher and the mid times are a
Speaker 4: few months away.
Speaker 3: But I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: I base my optimism only on the informed speculation of
Speaker 1: people like where Admiral Mark Montgomery's retired now, but he's
Speaker 1: let a carrier strike force group, and the fact that
Speaker 1: people like Aaron McLean and his guests at School of
Speaker 1: War seem to believe. It's also not a particularly difficult
Speaker 1: military objective, though it is dangerous to a small person.
Speaker 1: It's not the Battle of the Atlantic, but it's not nothing.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Charles c. W. Cook. Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. I'm back now with Charles c. W. Cook. Charles,
Speaker 1: another Marco Rubio quote for you, cut number six on
Speaker 1: the Allies. Did they want to set up a tolling system?
Speaker 1: In the strengths of Hormons. Not only is this illegal,
Speaker 1: it's unacceptable, it's dangerous for the world, and it's important
Speaker 1: that the world have a plan to confront it. The
Speaker 1: United States is prepared to be a part of that plan.
Speaker 1: We don't have to leave that plan, but we were
Speaker 1: happy to be a part of it. But these countries
Speaker 1: have a lot of state, not just to see seven countries,
Speaker 1: but countries.
Speaker 6: In Asia and all over the world have a lot
Speaker 6: of state and should contribute greatly.
Speaker 1: To that effort to ensure that need of the straits.
Speaker 5: Of hormones or frankly, any international waterways should ever be something.
Speaker 1: That's controlled or told by a nation state or.
Speaker 7: By the terroristics of the government like the one that
Speaker 7: exists in Iran.
Speaker 1: Today and that clerical, radical clerical regime. Now I don't
Speaker 1: want to beat up on you because you used to
Speaker 1: be British, Charles, but I am so disappointed in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and in France Old Europe. Meanwhile, people like
Speaker 1: Ukraine are doing their part. The Poles are stepping up
Speaker 1: to the extent that they can spare stuff. UAE is
Speaker 1: in the fight. What do you make of Great Britain
Speaker 1: and FRN Are they spent as forces in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we talked about this last time. I think
Speaker 4: they're absolutely spent. I think they're run by people who
Speaker 4: don't think about foreign policy much, who are not interested
Speaker 4: in projecting power, who have come to the conclusion that
Speaker 4: the United States will protect them if push comes to shove,
Speaker 4: but that everything else can fall by the wayside.
Speaker 3: The French.
Speaker 4: We'd love to make jokes about the French in the
Speaker 4: US and especially in Britain, but the French do have
Speaker 4: a very proud military history. The big low point, of course,
Speaker 4: was that the first Hurdle in World War Two, But
Speaker 4: before that they were a remarkable fighting force and they've
Speaker 4: been a remarkable fighting force. More recently, they've just decided
Speaker 4: for now not to play the game. So yeah, basically
Speaker 4: they are spent.
Speaker 1: We did talk about this three or four weeks ago.
Speaker 1: What we didn't get to Can a nation change its
Speaker 1: mind and reclaim? Can it come back?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: But it's very difficult, and it takes will and it
Speaker 4: takes time. Even missus Thatcher didn't get everything she wanted
Speaker 4: to done. That's not for lack of will on her part,
Speaker 4: although maybe some around her like will. She had eleven years.
Speaker 4: It's not enough. You have to commit to a part
Speaker 4: to do that. So you would need to see a
Speaker 4: substantial and long lasting change in Britain, France and other
Speaker 4: nations before that happened. And I'm just not sure they've
Speaker 4: got it in them absence some sort of international cataclysm
Speaker 4: that pushes them into it, which I should be very clear,
Speaker 4: I don't want.
Speaker 1: Oh, nobody does thirty seconds. In terms of anybody at
Speaker 1: all in the British political firmament who has the capacity
Speaker 1: to lead such a renewal, I don't think it's Nigel Farage.
Speaker 1: But is there anyone?
Speaker 3: No, well, no, I don't think there is.
Speaker 4: But of course, as we know from American history, that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean they don't exist. Nobody knew Abraham Lincoln would
Speaker 4: be the man to do it, Nobody knew George Washington
Speaker 4: would be the man to do it. Certainly nobody knew
Speaker 4: Churchill would be He was something of a laughing stock
Speaker 4: in the nineteen thirties. So if there is the will,
Speaker 4: if there's the demand, then often the supply catches up right.
Speaker 1: Right back with Charles C. W. Cook standby Welcome Back America.
Speaker 1: Charles C. W. Cook is my guest. He's senior editor
Speaker 1: at National Review. Host they podcast that bears his name,
Speaker 1: Charles C. W. Cook podcast, frequent contributor to the editors. Charles.
Speaker 1: This is a long clip of President Trump on the
Speaker 1: Five last night, but it is very emblematic of how
Speaker 1: he communicates. He calls in to the highest rated show
Speaker 1: on cable. His face isn't on, He's just shooting the
Speaker 1: breeze with five hosts, cut number.
Speaker 8: Fourteen, like the ultimate pol But I knew how well
Speaker 8: we did the second time, but the third time we
Speaker 8: made it too big to rig. So for those people
Speaker 8: that say the level of popularity, CNN, your friends at CNN,
Speaker 8: fake new CNN, one of the worst networks you'll ever say,
Speaker 8: one of the most dishonest, disgusting groups of people. But
Speaker 8: what happened is they did a poll and the poll
Speaker 8: came out yesterday, day before and is Trump losing MAGA support?
Speaker 8: The poll was one hundred percent. And you know their polster,
Speaker 8: he's got a lot of energy and he's pretty good.
Speaker 8: He probably won't have a job very long. But he said, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 8: It was one hundred percent of the people, the MAGA people,
Speaker 8: and which is mostly I think MAGA is almost the
Speaker 8: whole Republican Party. You want to know the truth, Almost
Speaker 8: everybody endors wins. Almost every single person that I endorse wins.
Speaker 8: And Kayley knows that better than anybody. She was witnessed
Speaker 8: to it for a long time and she's doing a
Speaker 8: good job, by the way, but almost everybody. So they
Speaker 8: did a poll, let's see it then two days ago,
Speaker 8: and I think you probably saw it, maybe you put
Speaker 8: it on, but it was one hundred percent support. So
Speaker 8: it's wrong. We have people that are weak or stupid
Speaker 8: or low IQ people that don't mind having a ran
Speaker 8: have a nuclear weapon. The MAGA people are smart. Now,
Speaker 8: that doesn't mean they want us over there. For like
Speaker 8: Bush for for years, you know, just for years. I
Speaker 8: always said, don't go into a rack, but if you do,
Speaker 8: keep the oil. Well, we are a very powerful military
Speaker 8: with the most powerful military nation in the world, and
Speaker 8: we did a big number on them, and our people
Speaker 8: like it because they don't want to see us one
Speaker 8: hundred percent, think of it. One hundred percent in a
Speaker 8: CNN poll. A CNN poll, which are the worst polls, almost.
Speaker 1: As bad as Fox poles. I hate Fox bowls well,
Speaker 1: so Charles A. What do you make of the method,
Speaker 1: and B what do you make of the message?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the method's good. I think it's refreshing
Speaker 4: after Joe Biden. I have no issue with modern presidents
Speaker 4: using modern techniques. The message bothers me in so far
Speaker 4: as it's incomplete.
Speaker 3: Trump's right.
Speaker 4: He is in good standing with Republicans and in good
Speaker 4: standing with self identified MAGA supporters.
Speaker 3: That's important.
Speaker 4: You want to keep your base on side, but he does,
Speaker 4: and I think sometimes the right suffers from this issue.
Speaker 4: Conflate the right or the Republican Party or MAGA with
Speaker 4: the country and elections are one in the middle. He's
Speaker 4: not doing particularly well with independence, He's not doing well
Speaker 4: with Democrats, but he's never going to do well with Democrats.
Speaker 4: We do have a two party system. So less important
Speaker 4: than how he's doing with MAGA is how he's doing
Speaker 4: with everyone else. And I think there's a tendency with
Speaker 4: Trump to ignore that. He effectively sees his supporters as
Speaker 4: the only people he has to please, and I worry
Speaker 4: about that, And you know you do not have disagreed
Speaker 4: on this a little bit, but I worry about that
Speaker 4: with Iran too. Okay, So one hundred percent of MAGA
Speaker 4: supports this action. That's good. I'd rather that than the opposite.
Speaker 4: But what does everyone else think? And how long is
Speaker 4: he going to be able to keep this up if
Speaker 4: the Poles keep looking like they do now.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'll be able to judge the Iran
Speaker 1: war until after it's over, and probably a good bit
Speaker 1: of distance thereafter. But I do think it has the
Speaker 1: potential to be a pivot point in history, that if
Speaker 1: Iran were to go from the dark side to the
Speaker 1: right side, even to sort of neutral Swedish kind of
Speaker 1: side though they're in NATO. Now let me come up
Speaker 1: with a better analogy, but just not be the agent
Speaker 1: of evil that it's been for forty seven years. It
Speaker 1: would represent such a great win for the world. Am
Speaker 1: I right about how important this moment is? Because I
Speaker 1: think we haven't had a moment like this since nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine about which we were aware when it was happening.
Speaker 3: Yes you are.
Speaker 4: I was saying on the editors this morning that I've
Speaker 4: spoken to a lot of military veterans in the last month,
Speaker 4: partly because of where I live in Jacksonville, it's near
Speaker 4: a naval base, and partly because they come to events
Speaker 4: I've spoken at. We get chatting, and pretty much every
Speaker 4: single one of them is elated by this because they
Speaker 4: say that if they served in Afghanistan or Iraq, Iran
Speaker 4: was instrumental in killing their friends.
Speaker 3: Many of them have volunteered to go over.
Speaker 4: Some of them are in the reserves and have volunteered
Speaker 4: to go over, And you do get the impression talking
Speaker 4: to them just how pernicious Iran has been in targeting Americans,
Speaker 4: in providing weapons and support to those who would hurt us. So, yes,
Speaker 4: I think you are right. I just think that if
Speaker 4: the politics and the virtue of this get too far
Speaker 4: upa then we'll have a problem.
Speaker 1: And then a final question. I spent yesterday talking to
Speaker 1: Sham Sankar, who wrote this book which I recommend to
Speaker 1: you and to everyone who's serious about defense, so called Mobilized.
Speaker 1: He's the chief technology officer at Palenteer. And between what
Speaker 1: we're seeing on the Ukraine Russian front and now Ukraine's
Speaker 1: making long range strikes into rush against undefended LNG terminals
Speaker 1: and the drone warfare and the you know, let's pick
Speaker 1: off this besiege. You standing on the corner in Kum
Speaker 1: and they're gone. War has changed completely and I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to articulate it. Do you agree with
Speaker 1: me about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I must say I'm very worried at the moment
Speaker 4: because defense spending is about sixteen percent of the federal budget,
Speaker 4: but the way the politicians talk that you would think
Speaker 4: it was eighty And increasingly the argument against the wars
Speaker 4: it is to expect, which is not a good argument
Speaker 4: against the war. And people say, oh, if we spend
Speaker 4: the money on this or that instead, then we could
Speaker 4: do this or that. But we're actually spending most of
Speaker 4: our resources on entitlements and on social spending and not
Speaker 4: most of them on defense. And I worry that we've
Speaker 4: got the balance wrong. I think you're right. I think
Speaker 4: there is a huge change of foot I think there
Speaker 4: are a lot of threats. I think we're underprepared. And
Speaker 4: the fact that the rhetoric is going in the other direction,
Speaker 4: that is that we're somehow wasting money or overspending on defense,
Speaker 4: is alarming to me because I think we should.
Speaker 3: Be spending more on defense and less on social spending.
Speaker 1: And I think if you read mobilize, the turn has happened.
Speaker 1: We don't have to spend as much per dollar of
Speaker 1: defense bought that we have been spending because the new
Speaker 1: systems don't cost what the old systems cost, and we're
Speaker 1: not burdened by technology costs if we're willing to shed
Speaker 1: the old. Charles gw cot bom him on Exit, Charles,
Speaker 1: you be joined by one of our favorite guests, Eli
Speaker 1: Lake at The Free Press, host of the Breaking History podcast.
Speaker 1: And I asked Eli for extended time today because we
Speaker 1: got to talk you about the Iran War. But I
Speaker 1: have to start with the new episode of Breaking History
Speaker 1: because it absorbed an hour and a half of my
Speaker 1: time today because I kept replaying parts of it to
Speaker 1: make sure I got it right. Eliot, it's a fabulous,
Speaker 1: fabulous addition. Though I'd never heard of Kayla until today,
Speaker 1: and I only knew a little bit about the Red Brigade.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I wonder where you get your ideas from.
Speaker 7: Well, this was Jay Solomon, who was a dear friend
Speaker 7: and a colleague at the Free Press. I had known
Speaker 7: he was working on this and its friends do. He'll
Speaker 7: tell me about it. You'll never guess where she is now.
Speaker 7: She's in Lebanon. She's doing this. And I just said,
Speaker 7: as soon as this comes out. I want to make
Speaker 7: sure I get we do a breakdown of the story,
Speaker 7: because it is a fascinating tale. I don't know if
Speaker 7: it's I think she is an I mean this in
Speaker 7: the sense of she's an outlier. I think she's an
Speaker 7: extraordinary example of someone who would be willing to I
Speaker 7: think she is now putting her life in danger to
Speaker 7: follow her kind of radical belief that she is now
Speaker 7: aligning with them.
Speaker 1: Well, she's resistance, but it's happened before. Is she in
Speaker 1: Iran now?
Speaker 7: Well, no, she's not in Iran. She's in Lebanon. But
Speaker 7: she has traveled No, no, she traveled to Iran. So
Speaker 7: but she she's now based in Lebanon basically kind of
Speaker 7: working for Iranian Press TV, which is their propaganda arm.
Speaker 7: And I saw a parallel to someone who we did
Speaker 7: an episode last year on, which is Ulrikameinhoff of the
Speaker 7: Bottom Mine Holf group of the Red Army faction in
Speaker 7: West Germany, as somebody who comes from and you could
Speaker 7: also look at this as the weather underground in America,
Speaker 7: which I've also looked into, and I've done work on
Speaker 7: UH and breaking history as well. What is it when
Speaker 7: you have somebody who is basically raised with all the
Speaker 7: advantages of the West, people who go to college, who
Speaker 7: have all these opportunities in front of them, why did
Speaker 7: they then join the forces that are trying to destroy
Speaker 7: our country? And that was a question that that when
Speaker 7: you were a young aid to Richard Nixon, that was
Speaker 7: what America was kind of going through, because that was
Speaker 7: right after you saw the kind of weather underground in
Speaker 7: the early seventies and some of these other offspring. Germany
Speaker 7: is a fascinating example because Alrika Meinhoff was such a
Speaker 7: successful celebrity journalist who then literally joined the terrorist group
Speaker 7: that she was interviewing or the leader of. She helped
Speaker 7: break him out of jail. Andre Spotter. So to me,
Speaker 7: I'm fascinated by this question, what are the conditions in somebody?
Speaker 7: Why do they break rad what makes them.
Speaker 1: Yeah breaking? One of the things that I occurred to
Speaker 1: me was listening Greta Thunberg came to mind, and this
Speaker 1: lethal comment nation of celebrity and youth and if whatever
Speaker 1: you get your endorphins from, if you get your endorphins
Speaker 1: from being famous for being a political actor, because for
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons, it can happen when you're young,
Speaker 1: you might be trapped. It might be worse than being
Speaker 1: a child actor. In many ways. It's like being a
Speaker 1: child actor, eli, isn't it. Yeah. I think it's a
Speaker 1: great analogy. Yeah.
Speaker 7: If you think about people who become incredibly famous as children,
Speaker 7: like Michael Jackson, they usually have very unhappy adulthoods. And
Speaker 7: the reason for that is that they experience a kind
Speaker 7: of the rush of fame at such an early age.
Speaker 7: How do you just sit with yourself, read a book,
Speaker 7: you know, go to a cafe.
Speaker 1: It's very hard.
Speaker 7: And I do have some sympathy and something like that
Speaker 7: did happen with Kala Walsh, which is that you know,
Speaker 7: she was being featured in the New York Times as
Speaker 7: this wonderkind activist when she, you know, as a fifteen
Speaker 7: year old, gets involved in Ed Markey's race for the
Speaker 7: Senate and I think, you know, through a series of
Speaker 7: decisions that she makes, she kind of gets more and
Speaker 7: more radical.
Speaker 1: Some of that.
Speaker 7: As Jay I think really ablely reported that she was
Speaker 7: also spotted at first by Cuban intelligence and then later
Speaker 7: by the Iranians, and they be chilling them.
Speaker 1: It's so chilling. And my message to parents and teachers
Speaker 1: out there. Let them be speech tam nerds. There is
Speaker 1: a vent for them to let them do mock trial.
Speaker 1: Let them get involved, but don't get on TV. And
Speaker 1: the TV producers think it's cool to cover the kids
Speaker 1: who are going on strike, it's not. You're distorting their reality.
Speaker 1: Let them be anonymous and as absolutely useless to the
Speaker 1: modern world as they are until they can vote and
Speaker 1: actually participate. I don't care what they know. They're not
Speaker 1: old enough to know anything, are they. I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you're a great violinist, you just can't contribute anything
Speaker 1: to us. Well.
Speaker 7: Yes, and I also thought about it. I'm a fairly
Speaker 7: new father. I have a four and a half year
Speaker 7: old daughter. I can't imagine the anguish of the father
Speaker 7: and what he must be going through because you're always
Speaker 7: going to love your child. But what happens when your
Speaker 7: child decides to basically align themselves and join the cause
Speaker 7: of terrorists who want to destroy your country. That is
Speaker 7: a hard, hard fate and I would not wish to anyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, let me turn to Iran because we had
Speaker 1: a lot to cover. Yeah. First, the end of the
Speaker 1: fourth week of the war is today. I think we
Speaker 1: are living in a moment of history as significant as
Speaker 1: the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's a pivot point
Speaker 1: where the possibility of changing the trajectory of the world
Speaker 1: is in front of us, and we're watching it unfold.
Speaker 1: And I don't see it being covered that way. First
Speaker 1: of my being melodramatic, and two do you see this
Speaker 1: weirdness in the coverage that I do?
Speaker 7: Well, Listen, I respect somebody who would say, I'm not
Speaker 7: sure how this is going to end. There's a lot
Speaker 7: we can't know, and we don't know, but I'm not
Speaker 7: optimistic for these reasons. Okay, fine, because history tells us
Speaker 7: there's never been successful regime change from the air or
Speaker 7: something like that. What I have a problem with is
Speaker 7: the tenor of the coverage, which is assuming or asserting
Speaker 7: or smuggling in the conclusion that the war is already
Speaker 7: a failure and how why Because the price of gasoline
Speaker 7: has gone up because we have yet to resolve the
Speaker 7: Strait of Hormuz. And when I see analysts, and I'll
Speaker 7: name some like Valey Nasser, who you know is the
Speaker 7: former president of SYS. I think he's still at SEYS.
Speaker 7: Johns Hopkins, serious guy, very respected, kind of getting out
Speaker 7: there and telling me that you know, now you've just
Speaker 7: made the Iranian regime more hardline and more determined to
Speaker 7: get nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: I want to bang my head against the wall. You
Speaker 1: have no.
Speaker 7: Idea how much these pressures from the financial I mean,
Speaker 7: are they going to pay the salaries of the besieg
Speaker 7: and the IRGC officers, to the decapitation strikes, to the
Speaker 7: fact that I don't know about the command and control
Speaker 7: obviously there is some And then I think in some
Speaker 7: ways I was talking to you know, Dwayne, you know
Speaker 7: before we got on, and he had a great point.
Speaker 7: I want to credit him with this by extending these negotiations.
Speaker 7: What a mind game Trump is playing on the regime.
Speaker 7: Now you've got all the long knives out looking at it.
Speaker 7: Who's the collaborator, who's selling us out? Because I think
Speaker 7: there is a lot of confusion. So I just think
Speaker 7: all of these assumptions that it was a blunder, that
Speaker 7: we're going to be stuck with an even more radical regime,
Speaker 7: there's no reason to think that at this point, I personally.
Speaker 1: Am make a diversion. But last week and this week
Speaker 1: Sunday and Monday, I listened to Vali Nasser's Iran Grand
Speaker 1: strategy of political history, and I recommended it to people
Speaker 1: because while I did detect a certain softness towards part
Speaker 1: of the terrible atrocities Iran committed, especially in the eighty
Speaker 1: to eighty eight war, that it was objected. I thought
Speaker 1: it was objected about the history. So he's gone off
Speaker 1: the deep end because I want to withdraw my recommendation
Speaker 1: of Iran is very good. I want to say.
Speaker 7: The reason I bring him up because he has done
Speaker 7: important scholarship. His response now as a commentator on the war,
Speaker 7: what I think he makes this error, which is that
Speaker 7: he is assuming everything he knows about the nature of
Speaker 7: Iran's regime would apply without factoring in unprecedented levels, as
Speaker 7: I said, the decapitation and everything else. My problem is
Speaker 7: that his analysis is if they would behave the same
Speaker 7: way they always have, even though they've never faced a
Speaker 7: challenge like this before. And my challenge to it is,
Speaker 7: how are you going to I mean, I'm sure I
Speaker 7: agree that I understand the nature of what Haviv Redik
Speaker 7: Gore talks about the muk Ohama ideology, that you know,
Speaker 7: it's important that we will face death willingly and all
Speaker 7: of this. That's true for some but most times in history.
Speaker 7: As you know, most people are not martyrs. They don't
Speaker 7: seek martyrdom. The reason they don't seek martyrdom is because
Speaker 7: most human beings want to live and spend time with
Speaker 7: their families.
Speaker 1: So at a.
Speaker 7: Certain point, I'm just saying I would like to know
Speaker 7: how the regime is. I'm sure there is fracturing, and
Speaker 7: I'm sure that we can't really see it because that's happening,
Speaker 7: you know, around the dinner table in private homes at
Speaker 7: this point. But it's got to be intense, That's what
Speaker 7: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm a civilian, civilian that I do also know the
Speaker 1: military rule that when thirty percent of any particular military
Speaker 1: organization has been rendered inoperable either killed or wounded, that
Speaker 1: that formation loses its effectiveness thirty percent. Can't you cannot
Speaker 1: lose thirty I think they've lost more than thirty percent
Speaker 1: of the IRGC. We'll come back and talk about that
Speaker 1: during the break and after the break with Eli Lake.
Speaker 1: Follow him at the Free Press, follow Breaking History, and
Speaker 1: follow him on Exit. Eli Lake. Stay tuned. I'm back
Speaker 1: with Eli Lake. Eli. When we come back from break
Speaker 1: on the network, I'm going to ask you where do
Speaker 1: you get your information from because too many people are
Speaker 1: getting lowsy information from too many sources. But if I
Speaker 1: have a chance on Special Report tonight, I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote Churchill ironically in Tehran in nineteen forty three talking
Speaker 1: on his birthday to Joseph Stalin, when he said, very famously,
Speaker 1: in war, truth is so important, so precious, that it
Speaker 1: must be protected by a bodyguard of lies. S So
Speaker 1: I assume everybody's lying when they talk about the war,
Speaker 1: unless it's sentcomm telling us something we've blown up. Do
Speaker 1: you bring the same filter to everything you hear? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love the bodyguard lies.
Speaker 7: I also like the fog of war is an important
Speaker 7: because sometimes you think you know something you don't.
Speaker 1: It's a great it's a great point.
Speaker 7: Again, there's so much that we can't know about the
Speaker 7: internal dynamics of like the kind of unit cohesion or
Speaker 7: battalion cohesion. Uh in the repressive instruments of the state,
Speaker 7: the institutions like the IRGC, like the BESIEG, like the MOIS,
Speaker 7: their intelligence service. And then what we do get is
Speaker 7: we get this leader has been knocked out. You know,
Speaker 7: the Israelis are pretty good. It's when they confirm the kill.
Speaker 7: So I mean again, you know, sometimes Trump, who you know,
Speaker 7: it can sometimes, I think his critics say, always all
Speaker 7: over the place, but he can blurt out truths, you know,
Speaker 7: in his in his you know, unique kind of style
Speaker 7: where he at one point, I think he said it
Speaker 7: on Fox and Friends last night. What did he say
Speaker 7: or not Fox and Friends? It was the five where
Speaker 7: he said, not a lot of people want to be
Speaker 7: the next leader.
Speaker 1: So that tells me two things. One is maybe.
Speaker 7: Most of a most of a common ae is dead
Speaker 7: or is just he also said he was gay and
Speaker 7: a como or inpacitated. We haven't seen him right, he
Speaker 7: was saying he was gay, right, Okay, that you know, okay,
Speaker 7: But my point is is that well is he is
Speaker 7: he telling us something there that there is a leadership
Speaker 7: vacuum and nobody wants the job. That's pretty important information, right.
Speaker 7: I mean, now, I'm not saying that Trump is the
Speaker 7: most reliable narrator and everything, as I think you're right
Speaker 7: about the bodyguard of lies. But I also think that
Speaker 7: he has a propensity because he is unfiltered so much
Speaker 7: of the time, to blurt out truths that other people
Speaker 7: won't say. In fact, I think it's a key part
Speaker 7: of his appeal. That's not my of course, only sources
Speaker 7: of information, but I'm just saying that that's an important factor,
Speaker 7: you know. But when you ask me the question again,
Speaker 7: I have other other sources that I think are or.
Speaker 1: Bring it back after visuals. But he My favorite President
Speaker 1: Trump's story is when he talks about the discombobulator. He
Speaker 1: so badly wants to tell us what it is, but
Speaker 1: he knows they they got to.
Speaker 6: He comes right up to the edge again and again
Speaker 6: to tell us what the disc combined.
Speaker 1: He named it, by the way, he did.
Speaker 6: You see in the cabinet meeting yesterday they said they're
Speaker 6: going to put his statue up to him in Venezuela,
Speaker 6: And with perfect timing, he said, I care more about
Speaker 6: the statue. And you know, it was self effacing, but
Speaker 6: it was funny.
Speaker 1: It was genuinely fun Yes, yes, I think it is
Speaker 1: generally funny.
Speaker 7: I mean on Venezuela. The one thing I'll say, oh
Speaker 7: go ahead, we got a minute.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 7: What I'm gonna say is that I really hope that
Speaker 7: there is some planning now that we've got some distance
Speaker 7: to finally get to what a transition and an election.
Speaker 1: I under stand the logic.
Speaker 7: I understand the strategy of not wanting to go straight
Speaker 7: to a Maria Machado or something like that. But at
Speaker 7: a certain point there has to be an election so
Speaker 7: we can have a legitimate government.
Speaker 1: All right, pause, right there. I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think Rubio's got that under control. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: with Eli Lake. Teach get you. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewett. I'm playing radical music from the seventies
Speaker 1: because of the latest Breaking History edition by Eli Lake,
Speaker 1: which is about when kids go breaking rad is what
Speaker 1: it's called, and I would recommend you listen to Breaking History.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk with Eli about Iran, primarily
Speaker 1: in the fog of war when truth must be protected
Speaker 1: by a bodyguard or lies. You are a national security
Speaker 1: reporter for as long as I've known you. He would
Speaker 1: you tell people how long you've been doing it? And
Speaker 1: then b how are you reporting this war? What do
Speaker 1: you rely on? Okay?
Speaker 7: So I have been writing about national security since two
Speaker 7: thousand and one, when I was hired as a young
Speaker 7: man for by the old old Wire Service called UPI
Speaker 7: to cover the State Department, and that was a wonderful education,
Speaker 7: you know, beginning and then and then you know it's
Speaker 7: I sort of from there. I covered the two thousand
Speaker 7: and three Iraq War. I went to a rock several times,
Speaker 7: covered Afghanistan war.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing it two thousand and one. That
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 7: Let me that, okay, So two thousand and one, two
Speaker 7: thousand and twenty five year, Yah, it's a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you when you made that choice, how would
Speaker 1: you prepared to do that? Where did you go to
Speaker 1: school and what did you study? Oh?
Speaker 7: Thank you for I went to I went to a
Speaker 7: Hebrew day school called a Kiba Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia,
Speaker 7: where I grew up. And then I went to a
Speaker 7: liberal arts college called Trinity College, which an excellent school.
Speaker 7: Recommend it, and I knew that I wanted to write.
Speaker 7: I wrote a lot in college, you know, for our
Speaker 7: college newspaper, and I got a job after doing some
Speaker 7: political work. Back then, I was far more left. I
Speaker 7: worked with the Democratic Party briefly in the cycle of
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety four when I graduated, doing opposition research and
Speaker 7: other things. And then, as you remember, they lost very
Speaker 7: badly that year, and I didn't have any killary Care,
Speaker 7: Hillary Care.
Speaker 1: Yes, all of that.
Speaker 7: And I then got hired with a newsletter company called
Speaker 7: Inside Washington Publishers, which has launched a number of careers
Speaker 7: in among Washington journalists. Jim vanda High worked there, John
Speaker 7: Bresnahan worked there.
Speaker 1: I can name more.
Speaker 7: It was a wonderful experience, and that was a job
Speaker 7: where they took you with no journalism experience. If you
Speaker 7: knew how to write and you were ambitious, they gave
Speaker 7: you a very low salary, but they also gave you
Speaker 7: an expense account. And my job was to cover the
Speaker 7: Office of Water at the EPA. So you can imagine
Speaker 7: the jokes right themselves, Eli Lako were covering the Office
Speaker 7: of Water. But it was a great experience because, as
Speaker 7: you know, and I would I recommend it, it's a
Speaker 7: great experience in Washington journalist because I had to actually
Speaker 7: cover the EPA the rulemaking process, but also Congress. I
Speaker 7: had to get to know lobbyists and really learn how
Speaker 7: policy was made. And it was it's hard work, but
Speaker 7: you know you.
Speaker 1: For thirty plus years I was a land use lawyer
Speaker 1: while also being a broadcast journalist. And what I did
Speaker 1: in land use lawyer was dealing with the Army Corps
Speaker 1: of Engineers, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
Speaker 1: EPA whenever they would want to elevate a four or
Speaker 1: four permit, and that meant the division of water. And
Speaker 1: so you were cast into regulatory hell. But you'll learn it.
Speaker 1: You'll learn it well.
Speaker 7: And I'll say, I think my experience there were two
Speaker 7: things that kind of made me kind of intellectually go
Speaker 7: towards the right. It was reading a book called Free
Speaker 7: to Choose by Milton Friedman and Rose Roodman, which was
Speaker 7: really influential for me, I have to say. And the
Speaker 7: second thing was covering the EPA, because what ended up
Speaker 7: happening was I went into it having been a left
Speaker 7: wing college student thinking that the bad guys were the industry.
Speaker 7: And what I found out was that one a lot
Speaker 7: of times there would be mandated technologies that didn't work,
Speaker 7: and it was the industry people who had to just
Speaker 7: pay for it even though it didn't work, and then
Speaker 7: they would know that there would be another one. I
Speaker 7: thought that was kind of deeply unjust. But the other
Speaker 7: thing was is that you realize that it's not this
Speaker 7: clear division, Hugh as I'm sure you know that, oh,
Speaker 7: industry is always the bad guys, and they don't like
Speaker 7: environmental protections. A lot of them love the regulations because
Speaker 7: it keeps their competitors out of it. And so once
Speaker 7: you sort of once I was you know, once you
Speaker 7: have some Milton Friedman and the sort of first hand
Speaker 7: experience of dealing with the inefficiencyeds of the regulatory state.
Speaker 1: I think it is a road to making you a conservative.
Speaker 1: The regulatory community wants clarity and decisions. They don't want
Speaker 1: ambiguity and delay. It is that simple. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've had a chance to read the new book yet,
Speaker 1: Mobile Eye ELI by Sean Shankar, who's the chief technology
Speaker 1: officer at Palent. It's on the future of warfare and
Speaker 1: how we prepare for it. I talked to him today
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes, and I'll tell you regulators will kill us.
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll get us killed in the next war
Speaker 1: if we don't get them out of the way. Because
Speaker 1: we got to develop a lot of new stuff in
Speaker 1: a hurry, and we can, but we need the regulators
Speaker 1: to get out of the way on land use and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Back to it, if he get into
Speaker 1: the supply chain is absolutely one of the takeaways is
Speaker 1: the stockpile is not the problem. The production line is
Speaker 1: the problem. So you can have no stockpile if you've
Speaker 1: got a production line. And I gave my hypothetical, if
Speaker 1: we need a long range drone that can be fired
Speaker 1: from anywhere in the United States, from Alaska to Texas
Speaker 1: to Florida to Maine, carrying a decent heavy payload that
Speaker 1: can go around the world, how long will it take
Speaker 1: us to make that and where can we make it?
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know the answer, but it's very doable.
Speaker 1: So that's what we need. And I also found from
Speaker 1: him Ukraine is now producing. Are you sitting down a
Speaker 1: million drones a month? A million drones a month? Wow? Wow? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And their main ally they're helping us. Only the UAE
Speaker 1: and Ukraine have actually raised their hands and say we're
Speaker 1: in this fight. I hear Saudi Arabia is back. There
Speaker 1: anyone else actually in the fight besides his real New
Speaker 1: York obviously. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I mean, the the Israel part of this is just amazing.
Speaker 7: We've discussed it a few times on the show. I
Speaker 7: just have to say, I mean, I think they emerge
Speaker 7: if the war goes as we think it will, I
Speaker 7: think Israel emerges as a kind of regional hedgemon at
Speaker 7: that point.
Speaker 1: Enough of edgemon that Turkey is afraid of them.
Speaker 7: I think Turkey is already I mean, has to respect them.
Speaker 7: But I think when i'm when I'm when I what
Speaker 7: I mean, what I mean by regional hegemon is that
Speaker 7: Israel will be capable of performing a lot of the
Speaker 7: role that America does now in the region, which is
Speaker 7: to sort of be the guaranteur of the stability and
Speaker 7: this freedom of navigation. I think Israel has demonstrated that capability,
Speaker 7: not immediately, but if you talk about this idea that's
Speaker 7: been in our conversation now for a quarter century, America
Speaker 7: has to pivot to Asia to kind of meet the
Speaker 7: moment against the Chinese communists.
Speaker 1: This might be our ticket to doing that. Now. Do
Speaker 1: you think you're getting rid of that issue? Is only
Speaker 1: ten million people? I think sometimes nine million work for
Speaker 1: the masade, but it's not the case. Do you think
Speaker 1: they have Turkey as penetrated as they do Ron.
Speaker 7: That's a great question, and I don't want to answer
Speaker 7: it just yet, but I would say this, if it's
Speaker 7: not the case now, it will be the case within
Speaker 7: a few years.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm coming back with Eli Lake for one
Speaker 1: more segment after the break. I'll talk to him during
Speaker 1: the break as well. Don't forget Breaking History has been
Speaker 1: his brand new episode. His dropped on breaking rad when
Speaker 1: kids become political radicals, and boy, there's a bad case
Speaker 1: right now. Do not miss it. It's over at the
Speaker 1: Free Press website. You can also get wherever podcasts are available.
Speaker 1: Eli's coming right back one more segment on the air,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to him during the break as well.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned when I come back, Eli Lake, I am
Speaker 1: going to ask you on the network where you get
Speaker 1: your information from that you rely on. Okay, But now
Speaker 1: I want to get your prediction. Guy Benson and I
Speaker 1: were talking about when the war will wrap up, and
Speaker 1: he was a little bit stunned when I said, by June,
Speaker 1: I put no stock in estimates from anyone, even Trump,
Speaker 1: because nobody knows because the enemy gets are saying this too.
Speaker 1: But by June, the massive firepower that has been accumulated
Speaker 1: by then will have crushed everything there is to crush,
Speaker 1: and the straits will be open. What is your prediction, Well,
Speaker 1: I would look at it like this.
Speaker 7: I think that there will be a phase of combat
Speaker 7: operations that will come to a close, and it may
Speaker 7: be as long as June, it may be sooner, maybe
Speaker 7: a little later, and I don't necessarily know, but that's
Speaker 7: one way let's look at that. That's the big American
Speaker 7: join Israeli flying sorties all that. Then there's another phase
Speaker 7: which I think we have to keep in mind. Israel
Speaker 7: has Iran wired that Mosad appear to be everywhere.
Speaker 1: There are a number of relationships that Israel.
Speaker 7: Has made over the years with various ethnic factions within
Speaker 7: Iran and other opposition groups.
Speaker 1: I think, and I think that then there will be
Speaker 1: a real.
Speaker 7: Push once the bombs stopped dropping, which is what Trump
Speaker 7: and Nana who have said all along, to then foment
Speaker 7: or rekindle the energy that we saw at the.
Speaker 1: Beginning of the year.
Speaker 7: And that I think is really interesting because Israel's demonstrated
Speaker 7: that they already control drones that are armed that can
Speaker 7: take out besides a tech checkpoints in Tehran. They've shown
Speaker 7: that they've shown that capability.
Speaker 1: So then you have.
Speaker 7: This prospect that I think we talked about before of
Speaker 7: a velvet revolution of sorts in Iran, but with close
Speaker 7: air support from Israel, and I would love to see it,
Speaker 7: and I think that that image will be the real
Speaker 7: end of the war. That might not be for six months,
Speaker 7: it might not be for a year. I think that's
Speaker 7: a little long, but that's how I look at it.
Speaker 7: The real end of the war is when the Iranian
Speaker 7: people finally take their country back, and of course the
Speaker 7: Islamic Revolution of seventy nine.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about kinetic action major. I don't think Trump
Speaker 1: will leave anything left that can be bombed or shun coom.
Speaker 1: We'll say to him, finally, sure, we're bouncing rubble now
Speaker 1: and we can't waste the munitions we need him in
Speaker 1: the Pacific. When do you think that point comes?
Speaker 7: It's hard to say, because I think you have to
Speaker 7: look at two things. One is the straight up permus
Speaker 7: that's got to be You got to have a situation
Speaker 7: where the Iranians can no longer threaten to close it
Speaker 7: or threaten the vessels that go through. So he's got
Speaker 7: to solve that problem before he can end the war.
Speaker 7: And the second thing is is the you know the
Speaker 7: four or five hundred I forget the exact number kilograms
Speaker 7: of enriched uranium that are at the bottom of these,
Speaker 7: you know, underground facilities and Naton's Fourdeaux and Isfahan. He's
Speaker 7: got to make sure he we got to get that.
Speaker 7: I think he wants that. I think that's that. Those
Speaker 7: are the two things I wanted I would see to
Speaker 7: look as at the end of the kinetic operations.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll be right back with Eli. Like Shay tuned.
Speaker 1: In America, I'm Hugh Hewett. Clean water is not complicated,
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Speaker 8: Kid.
Speaker 3: Don't matter what you did off, don't tiptoes, don't time,
Speaker 3: no both then stay within the.
Speaker 1: Tear around about Pepa queen news. Bought of clean clothes
Speaker 1: you don't need to wear. A man of Welcome Back
Speaker 1: America subtraining Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan. Noticed the weathermen
Speaker 1: in that that's the originals. Yeah, I had a letter.
Speaker 1: I have a letter from Tom Ayden that ends with
Speaker 1: don't you don't need a weatherman to know which way
Speaker 1: the wind blows? Tom? Because he was mayor. He ran
Speaker 1: from mayor in LA. When I was doing the nightly
Speaker 1: news there Eli, we got five minutes. I listened to
Speaker 1: Aaron McClain yesterday with a couple of great guests, you know,
Speaker 1: Richard Goldberg and another great guy and informed speculation is smart.
Speaker 1: So I like listening to school war. Who do you
Speaker 1: listen to? What do you read to get information on
Speaker 1: the Iran war?
Speaker 7: I was, I got a I got a list. The
Speaker 7: first of all Iran International. Iran International has I think
Speaker 7: real coverage, not just of Iran's internal opposition, but they
Speaker 7: do have a way of getting the information out of
Speaker 7: the country, even when there's an Internet blackout. It's always
Speaker 7: worth reading them, and so that's at the top of
Speaker 7: my list. Iran International Commander. They had a great interview, terrific. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 7: I love that. And A Meet Sagal Nadava Yel you
Speaker 7: know them, probably from Dan Senor's great Call Me Back.
Speaker 7: We are now publishing at the Free Press. A Meet
Speaker 7: Sagal's daily newsletter. I highly recommend it. He gets very
Speaker 7: good stuff. He's very reliable, and so I like a
Speaker 7: Meet Sagala. I like anything in David A y'all does now.
Speaker 7: I still think you have to read the Journal, the Times,
Speaker 7: You have to read the big American newspapers even if
Speaker 7: you even though I think they have done you know,
Speaker 7: they've put a bit of spin on the ball. At
Speaker 7: the same time, I think that they have the ability
Speaker 7: and they have the resources to get to kind of
Speaker 7: pull out important scoops.
Speaker 1: It's important to know that. And then you know, I
Speaker 1: got to say I have started to really monitor. I
Speaker 1: have a list. I'm not going to give you the
Speaker 1: names right now.
Speaker 7: I can maybe private vite lator, but there's a lot
Speaker 7: you can get on x from Iranians who are not
Speaker 7: in Iran but are in constant contact. That's not necessarily
Speaker 7: for like news, it's social media, but it can give
Speaker 7: you a sense of kind of where the mood is
Speaker 7: and where people are. And this is very important because
Speaker 7: you know, you'll there are stories that suggest that I
Speaker 7: think Iranians are very fearful, but if that's all you
Speaker 7: get that, if they're very fearful at this point, you're
Speaker 7: not getting the whole story. What they're afraid of is
Speaker 7: that the war ends and then the whatever's left of
Speaker 7: the regime takes it out on the Iranian people. So
Speaker 7: that to me is a message to keep going and
Speaker 7: make sure that we understand that the war isn't done
Speaker 7: until we have a new regime.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 1: In the day of the war began, the free press
Speaker 1: recognized the demand signal, the bat signal, and they got
Speaker 1: Neil fergus They got you, Ferguson, they got you, They
Speaker 1: got everybody Aviv was on. Did they realize the demand
Speaker 1: signal is still up? I think if you ran that
Speaker 1: weekend gathering every weekend, you would own the interwebs. Uh,
Speaker 1: the demand signal for serious informed speculation. Informed speculation is
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. If Aaron McClain was on CBS
Speaker 1: for an hour, I'd watch it. Do the news media
Speaker 1: understand that serious people really want to know what's going on?
Speaker 1: We understand this moment in history.
Speaker 7: We definitely do with the free press. Just to give
Speaker 7: the Hugh Hewett audience a sense. I was supposed to
Speaker 7: in the month of March be off of print and
Speaker 7: just focused on the next full season of Breaking History.
Speaker 1: And as soon as the war started, literally.
Speaker 7: On the twenty eighth of February, I had a phone
Speaker 7: call with Oliver Weisman, my editor, and he said, Allie said,
Speaker 7: you know, you can't.
Speaker 1: We need you for the war.
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I know, and I'm by the way,
Speaker 7: a happy warrior in that regard, because I think it's
Speaker 7: such an important, you know, hinge of history story. So
Speaker 7: to me, you know, we'll get back to the breaking
Speaker 7: history thing. But yeah, no, I think we definitely understand it,
Speaker 7: and we've had some great stuff. We had Yoev Gallant
Speaker 7: was really good this week. You should read that on
Speaker 7: the importance of taking carg Island.
Speaker 1: I believe that the Free press has set the standard
Speaker 1: for good coverage. But what I really want is more
Speaker 1: podcasting from you, from Aaron McLain, from a commentary. I
Speaker 1: hate it. In fact, my reflex is when the commentary
Speaker 1: podcast talks about anything other than the war, I get
Speaker 1: mad at it because you know, I'm normally interested in everything,
Speaker 1: but all I wanted to do is talk about the war,
Speaker 1: because this is it's like the Berlin Wall falling and
Speaker 1: they're covering, you know how the magazine subscription is doing. No, No, well,
Speaker 1: can I come about I give.
Speaker 7: A little preview? Yeah, because I've gotten the message. Next week,
Speaker 7: early in the week we just recorded it. There is
Speaker 7: a long form conversation with me and Aviv on his
Speaker 7: really deep thinking on the theory of muk Ohama or
Speaker 7: kind of permanent revolution, and I think it'll it's all
Speaker 7: about the war, It's all about the implications. So I'm
Speaker 7: really excited about It's a good conversation.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to hear the episode ninety three and
Speaker 1: ninety nine of Asked Aviv Anything are the introduction to
Speaker 1: what will be the seminar that Eli will conduct with
Speaker 1: the Vive Ready Gore next week. You should subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Free Press because it really does take the Shariot
Speaker 1: stuff seriously. Eli, thank you for your extra time today.
Speaker 1: Shabbat Shalom and follow him at Eli Lake and I'll
Speaker 1: be back right after this. America Staytion