Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
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Speaker 1: Welcome the Big Weekend Pod, and a big one it is, indeed,
Speaker 1: John Ellis, Matt Continetti, Ben dominic Eli Lake, and Daniel Silva,
Speaker 1: New York Times number one best selling author of the
Speaker 1: Gabriel Lawn series. He's back with his new summertime blockbuster, Ransom.
Speaker 1: That's the dessert, after we cover the serious stuff, the
Speaker 1: escalation of the war, big escalation in the war on
Speaker 1: Thursday night, carrying over into the weekend and reviewing the
Speaker 1: President's speech with John Ellis and Eli Lake and Matt
Speaker 1: Contenetti and Ben Dominicic, and then of course Dan Silva
Speaker 1: and I will talk at length about Ransom. So settle
Speaker 1: back and enjoy your workout, because this is a real special,
Speaker 1: big Weekend Pod, and I hope you enjoy it. I'm
Speaker 1: he Hewett, Stay Tuned, Glory and even Great America. A
Speaker 1: lot coming up on this. Prior of the Hilltale Dialogue,
Speaker 1: author Danny Silva is back talk to me about his
Speaker 1: brand new book Ransom, Matt Conney, Ben Dominic Eli Lake,
Speaker 1: And of course we begin, if we do most fridays,
Speaker 1: with John Ellis, founder and editor in chief of News Items. John,
Speaker 1: the price of oil is at eighty two dollars a
Speaker 1: bail right now, you are of the opinion China holds
Speaker 1: the key to whether it stays there. Can you explain why?
Speaker 2: Well, as we know, the US and Israel attacked Iran.
Speaker 2: Iran shut down the Strait of horm Mooz, shutting down
Speaker 2: the straight of the of horr Moves cut you know,
Speaker 2: cut off essentially twenty percent of the world's energy supply.
Speaker 2: And so everybody assumed that the price of oil would
Speaker 2: go to one twenty one fifty eight, two hundred, depending
Speaker 2: on who you talk to. Well, it turned out it didn't.
Speaker 2: It's now in the eighties. It's likely to go lower.
Speaker 2: And the reason for that is that China has dramatically
Speaker 2: reduced its imports from the Middle East. And when I
Speaker 2: say dramatically, by almost half they've gone into reserves, which
Speaker 2: they have apparently bountiful amounts, and they have plugged into
Speaker 2: their solar plants which are enormous. And so the price
Speaker 2: of oil, which everybody thought would go up, has actually
Speaker 2: been relatively stable. Some people think experts think that it
Speaker 2: could go down into the mid seventies, maybe even as
Speaker 2: low as sixty five if China continues to not import
Speaker 2: the amounts of oil and gas that it was importing before,
Speaker 2: which would obviously have some terrific knock on effects lower
Speaker 2: inflation and perhaps even lower federal interest rates. So it's
Speaker 2: one of those weird things where what do you make
Speaker 2: of the iron situation?
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a live feed of the American airlift
Speaker 1: to the Middle East right now, and it's an air bridge,
Speaker 1: it's fueler supply, fueler supply. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: go big over the weekend. What do you think? I
Speaker 1: think so?
Speaker 2: I think you know, you can tell by how close
Speaker 2: US forces are to the Gulf, I mean to the
Speaker 2: Strait essentially, or to Iran. And if more and more
Speaker 2: assets as they're called, are closer and closer, then it's
Speaker 2: likely that you know it's going to go bigger soon.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I'm I've long been of the
Speaker 2: view that the way to win the war is to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we've successfully completed phase one. Phase two is blockade and
Speaker 2: even tighter sanctions. The Iranian economy will collapse, and so
Speaker 2: we just have to be patient. I think that would
Speaker 2: be the best course. But you know, I'm not the president,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Really I'm a hybrid between Long drun or I would
Speaker 1: take out the dual use electricity plants just to make
Speaker 1: it harder on the IRGC and everything. And if there
Speaker 1: are like keybridge to Bondara bas like he did last night,
Speaker 1: that can get blown up. But then I would do it,
Speaker 1: you suggest, because it's going to be an internal revolution.
Speaker 1: Eli Lake's coming up after you. He's pointed out the
Speaker 1: history of regime collapse is usually internal, not external. It
Speaker 1: does happen sometimes with external forces, but it's usually internal.
Speaker 1: Let me turn to the spooky stuff you sent me,
Speaker 1: the AI exo self. This is not for me. I'm
Speaker 1: a boomer. You're a boomer, But you also make the
Speaker 1: argument the Exo self is going to be like a
Speaker 1: second skin the youngs were before long tell us about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I think people are familiar probably with metaglasses, which
Speaker 2: you wear, and it connects you to the internet and
Speaker 2: you can take pictures with those glasses and so on
Speaker 2: and so forth. The next iteration of that is essentially
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence in your pocket, and that is always on
Speaker 2: following everything you do. You can talk to it as
Speaker 2: you go along throughout the day. It can take notes
Speaker 2: for you, it can do agentry for you and get
Speaker 2: you a plane ticket or call somebody you need to call.
Speaker 2: When you go to sleep, it'll monitor you sleep. And
Speaker 2: the thought is is a man named Kevin Kelly, who's
Speaker 2: the founder of Wired magazine, who wrote a terrific column
Speaker 2: about this in which you said, eventually, the next generation,
Speaker 2: not our generation here, but the next generation. I guess
Speaker 2: generations will grow very comfortable with this because they'll have
Speaker 2: the world's intelligence in their pocket that will tell them
Speaker 2: how they're doing, tell them what they need to know,
Speaker 2: tell them where they need to be. And it's totally
Speaker 2: scary because it's a second self in a sense, because
Speaker 2: it gets to know you as you talk to it,
Speaker 2: as you talk to others. It records everywhere you go.
Speaker 2: And people say, well, that's impossible, but actually, given where
Speaker 2: metaglasses is right now, and you know it's not at
Speaker 2: all unthinkable to see mister Kelly's vision realized in the
Speaker 2: next three, four or five years.
Speaker 1: John, I can tell from the bookshelf behind you you
Speaker 1: are a reader. And I assume you grew up reading
Speaker 1: history and great thrillers like Daniel Selda's thrillers and Lend
Speaker 1: Dayton's thrillers and Lacret and that was your summer reading.
Speaker 1: But you had to do your history, et cetera. I'm
Speaker 1: afraid the new AI and the new online era will
Speaker 1: not be readers in the way that you and I
Speaker 1: were readers. Does that cross your mind? What happens when
Speaker 1: you basically raise a generation of people don't read compulsively
Speaker 1: because of boredom.
Speaker 2: I'm concerned about that. I mean, how you process information.
Speaker 2: It's been in studies show that if you write it
Speaker 2: manually on a piece of paper, you process the information
Speaker 2: better than if you type it on a keyboard. Now
Speaker 2: we're going we're getting rid of that. We've gotten rid
Speaker 2: of the you know, penmanship, and now we're going to
Speaker 2: get rid of the keyboard. It's all going to be voice.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, you're going to have people who
Speaker 2: are listening to podcasts, who are listening to you know,
Speaker 2: Instagram feeds and so on and so forth. But I
Speaker 2: think for authors it's going to be a fallow period.
Speaker 3: Let's put that.
Speaker 1: And for people who actually are informed by history, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the AI data centers though that would power
Speaker 1: the etso self and all this revolution. Who's winning this war?
Speaker 1: Because both the right and the left are angry about it,
Speaker 1: But I think the left is angrier.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that what's happened in these democratic primaries.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the sort of secret sauces
Speaker 2: that the left has deployed is opposition to data centers
Speaker 2: to sort of the symbol of big text power. But
Speaker 2: in the case of the left wing of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: they've also been specifically critical of big tech, and they've
Speaker 2: been specifically critical of the you know, the power of
Speaker 2: AI making people ordinary people, so to speak, uh, you know, powerless,
Speaker 2: And this is you know, we saw it with Kathy
Speaker 2: Hochel banning for one year development of any data centers
Speaker 2: in New York State. She didn't do that because she
Speaker 2: thinks it's the right thing to do. She did that
Speaker 2: because the left is rising in New York State. As
Speaker 2: you know, Mandani being the being the sort of primary
Speaker 2: example of that.
Speaker 1: The one that's most interesting to me.
Speaker 2: Is Francesca Francesca hang, excuse me, who is the left
Speaker 2: wing candidate for governor in Wisconsin is the primary upcoming there.
Speaker 2: She has used the data center slash big tech issue
Speaker 2: to her advantage, and it's quite possible she'll win the nomination.
Speaker 1: John Ellis, the fracking issue ten to fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: was glowing down to by the left, and they convinced
Speaker 1: the American middle for a while that fracking was bad
Speaker 1: for you, until the American middle figured out, we like
Speaker 1: natural gas, we like our house is heated at the
Speaker 1: old prices, and we want the oil price to be down.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the campaigning and data set as
Speaker 1: an AI is similar to the data the campaign against
Speaker 1: fracking of a ten fifteen years ago, and it will
Speaker 1: eventually turn when productivity is measured and people understand we
Speaker 1: really need this. You know, I can tell you a story.
Speaker 2: My son in law is in the alternative energy space
Speaker 2: and they are developing a solar plant, if you will,
Speaker 2: in Hood County, Texas, which is west I think of Elpaso.
Speaker 2: I think Quitt County, Texas was eighty two percent Trump,
Speaker 2: and so he's coming down from you know, alternative energy.
Speaker 2: He's thinking, these people, aren't you know, they're not going
Speaker 2: to like me. They're not going to like the idea.
Speaker 2: They couldn't he said, they couldn't have cared less about
Speaker 2: his solar plant. They were fine with that. What really
Speaker 2: had them riled up was the building of a data
Speaker 2: center in Hood County. And so I think what's unusual
Speaker 2: about about this issue is that it unites the right
Speaker 2: and the left, and so it's a different kettle of fish.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, I think people are really
Speaker 2: concerned about enormous power being transferred to a very very
Speaker 2: small group of people. So I don't mean real power
Speaker 2: energy the grid. You mean the grid, No, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about real power like you know, if you if you yeah,
Speaker 2: or just power. If you control the most important technology
Speaker 2: arguably in the history of mankind. And they're aren't that
Speaker 2: many of you. You have the most money, you have,
Speaker 2: the most juice, you have, you know, On and on
Speaker 2: it goes. And people in Hood County, Texas or Brattleboro,
Speaker 2: Vermont are of a similar opinion.
Speaker 1: That this is not a good idea.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can unite Bannon with whoever the left
Speaker 2: wing strategist is on this issue.
Speaker 1: Wow, I have to let that settle a little bit.
Speaker 1: Hassan Piper and Steve Bannon wouldn't have thought about that.
Speaker 1: John ellis editor, founder of News Items, which I begin
Speaker 1: my day with, and you want to as well, the
Speaker 1: substack that condensers and organizes all the world's news overnight
Speaker 1: so you don't have to read all everything in order
Speaker 1: to understand what matters. Most news items from John ellis
Speaker 1: Thank you, John. I'll be right back with Eli La.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. Eli Lake is the pre press correspondent
Speaker 1: who's also the host of Breaking History. Eli. I am
Speaker 1: looking at the live feet of the the US Air
Speaker 1: Force airlift to the Middle East. It is ongoing, continuous
Speaker 1: and busy. What do you think is happening. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I would imagine I have something to do with Iran.
Speaker 1: Seems like the President is hinted, at least in his
Speaker 1: you know speech last night that you said, you know,
Speaker 1: wait and see something about it.
Speaker 4: He mentioned it.
Speaker 5: He kind of said, well, well, and we'll see more
Speaker 5: in Iran soon. So I don't know, you know, well,
Speaker 5: we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 1: John Ellis just speculated the best way to finish this
Speaker 1: war is to deliver a big blow and then just
Speaker 1: keep the blockade in place and see what happens. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that theory?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, my view is that if if Trump,
Speaker 5: if Trump, it's really Israel in America. If the result
Speaker 5: of the two wars is that we've taken away the
Speaker 5: Iranian nuclear program and we haven't suffered a global recession
Speaker 5: and there you know, hasn't been other kind of cat
Speaker 5: traffic effects of that, then that's overall going to be
Speaker 5: a you know, then that's a that's a win.
Speaker 4: It doesn't.
Speaker 5: It's not a win in the conditions that we may
Speaker 5: have hoped initially with the initial decapitation strikes and getting
Speaker 5: rid of promenade. It did not end up in toppling
Speaker 5: the regime, but I think the regime is much weaker
Speaker 5: and it doesn't have a nuclear blackmail, and then over time,
Speaker 5: hopefully the slow process of you know, military naval escorts
Speaker 5: of ships in the straight up form moves close to
Speaker 5: the Oman side will hopefully you know, mitigate the the
Speaker 5: blackmail of the of the regime when it comes to
Speaker 5: the straight offem Mousa.
Speaker 1: I want to switch to two men who would be
Speaker 1: president Ambassador Ram Emmanuel Kilmer may or Chicago, former chief
Speaker 1: of staff to the President, and jade E Vance, the
Speaker 1: Vice President. Ram Emmanuel gave a speech last week in
Speaker 1: Tel Aviv that was very specific in his criticism to Israel.
Speaker 1: The Evans gave it three hour interview that I've not
Speaker 1: yet listened to. I've read many accounts of some of
Speaker 1: them conflicting. I assume you're up to speed on both.
Speaker 1: How do the two men compare in their approach to Israel,
Speaker 1: if at all?
Speaker 6: It's a good question.
Speaker 5: I mean, I want to start with Ram Emmanuel, who
Speaker 5: you had a great interview with. I thought on the
Speaker 5: show this week and I disagreed with his speech. I
Speaker 5: still come I think he's coming from a place of
Speaker 5: what he's what he calls tough love, but I think
Speaker 5: he misdiagnoses the problem in that. What he's saying is
Speaker 5: is that if Israel can show a path to a
Speaker 5: two state solution and you know, meet halfway some of
Speaker 5: you know, it's critics, then you will find that then
Speaker 5: Israel will find that it's isolation in elements and pockets
Speaker 5: of the West will diminish and go away.
Speaker 4: I think he's wrong.
Speaker 5: I think what the problem is is that we've all
Speaker 5: already seen it in the UK Labor Party, the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party right now is in the process of, at the
Speaker 5: very least forming a coalition with people whose views are
Speaker 5: basically Prohamas, that are anti Western, anti American and anti
Speaker 5: Israel and don't believe that the Jewish state has a
Speaker 5: right to exist. And if you form a kind of
Speaker 5: how do I put it, if you form a coalition
Speaker 5: with a group like that, because of their illiberalism, because
Speaker 5: they are not committed to our values, they will ultimately
Speaker 5: end up eating their you know, the children of the revolution,
Speaker 5: or they will ultimately end up prevailing by any means necessary.
Speaker 5: We saw a preview of that this week on the
Speaker 5: podcast known as drop Site News, where Rocanna, who has
Speaker 5: you know, recently kind of reinvented himself to pander to
Speaker 5: this crowd, was you know, repeatedly asked in a kind
Speaker 5: of struggle session by one of the interviewers, Jeremy Scale,
Speaker 5: whether you know Palestinians had a right to attack Israeli
Speaker 5: soldiers and it kind of why can't they do October seventh,
Speaker 5: where they attacked these military bases and it was insane,
Speaker 5: you know. To to Kna's credit, I'm not a fan.
Speaker 5: He didn't take the bait. But the point is is
Speaker 5: that that's where it's headed. So I just think that
Speaker 5: that rama Manuel is kind of going to Israel, beating
Speaker 5: up on Israel in, you know, and his argument is like, hey,
Speaker 5: you got to do some of these things and that'll
Speaker 5: be the way out of your isolation. And my point
Speaker 5: is is that it's not going to make a difference
Speaker 5: if you have center left parties aligning themselves with these
Speaker 5: hard leftists.
Speaker 4: Now, in the case of JD.
Speaker 5: Vance, my issue with him was more about he kind
Speaker 5: of implied that he, you know, there might be some things,
Speaker 5: there might be files that connect Jeffrey Epstein to the
Speaker 5: CIA and the Mozad, but you know, the probably destroyed a.
Speaker 1: Long time ago.
Speaker 5: That is pouring gasoline on conspiracy theory. You're the vice president,
Speaker 5: you need to be responsible when you're asked about that.
Speaker 5: I also think that his theory that you know themou
Speaker 5: that he that he was negotiating with the Iranians was
Speaker 5: somehow sabotaged by harsh criticism inside the United States among
Speaker 5: you know, pro Israel supporters of Trump is risible. It
Speaker 5: was sabotaged because the Iranians are who they've always been,
Speaker 5: which are you know, a bunch of terrorists who lie.
Speaker 4: So you know, that was disappointing.
Speaker 5: But you know the bottom line is that I made
Speaker 5: this case on the commentary podcast. Jd Vance is not
Speaker 5: somebody who I think hates Israel or once you know it,
Speaker 5: sort of wants to see its destruction, or is overly concerned,
Speaker 5: is convinced that is what's become a monstrosity. Jd Vance
Speaker 5: wants a grown up relationship between the United States and Israel.
Speaker 4: I do too.
Speaker 5: By the way, I'm in favor of ending the military
Speaker 5: aid in the military subsidy at this point, So that
Speaker 5: strikes me, as you know, fairly reasonable. And he's been
Speaker 5: pretty consistent. If you go back to twenty twenty four
Speaker 5: and you listen his speech at the Quincy Institute, what
Speaker 5: you find is as a politician who is making the
Speaker 5: argument that Israel is a valuable ally because it can
Speaker 5: defend itself and defend American interests. So on that point,
Speaker 5: I will just sort of say I think he's okay.
Speaker 5: I do have a lot of other problems right now
Speaker 5: with Jade Vance in this world, and you know, chief
Speaker 5: among them would be you know, he still is I
Speaker 5: think an ally and won't denounce Tucker Carlson, who I
Speaker 5: really do think is like launched into orbit.
Speaker 1: You will let me ask you out there, low on
Speaker 1: time here, Yeah, and it might go into the break.
Speaker 1: I've interviewed the Vice present a lot when he was
Speaker 1: running for Senate in the Senate and a couple of
Speaker 1: times since to be been Vice president nominated. He's always
Speaker 1: been Israel is its own country. It needs to do
Speaker 1: what it needs to do to protect it security, kind
Speaker 1: of a grown up attitude. I think both Ram Emmanuel
Speaker 1: and jd Vance are playing the first inning of the
Speaker 1: long game in the question for the nomination by going
Speaker 1: to their left or to their right in the case
Speaker 1: of Vance, so Ram Emanuel went to the left. Vance went
Speaker 1: to the right just to kind of touch base before
Speaker 1: you go back to the center right and the center left.
Speaker 1: Are they doing the same thing for their respective parties?
Speaker 1: And I haven't heard the Vance interview. I'm just trusting
Speaker 1: your assertion there.
Speaker 5: My concern really about Dvance is less to do with
Speaker 5: what he says about the US Israel relationship, And it's
Speaker 5: much more to do with the fact that he seems
Speaker 5: to be in a position if you want to say
Speaker 5: he's tacking to his right right now or trying to
Speaker 5: keep shore up his base of not offending a bunch
Speaker 5: of anti Semitic conspiracy theory, you know, nonsense people. My
Speaker 5: view is that those people, just like I don't think
Speaker 5: I'm glad that that Buckley ultimately led the chart to
Speaker 5: get the Burchers out of the party. Well, we have
Speaker 5: a Bircher problem in twenty twenty six on the right,
Speaker 5: and jd Vance at this point has shown me that
Speaker 5: he doesn't want to offend him.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean he's one of them, because.
Speaker 4: I don't think he is.
Speaker 5: Rob Emmanuel's problem is that he doesn't understand how insipid
Speaker 5: and terrible the new left popular socialists are that are
Speaker 5: trying to enter the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Think longer on that, Eli, because I think it's the
Speaker 1: same problem for both guys. But you're smarter than I am,
Speaker 1: so I'll wait to read what you write in the
Speaker 1: Free prom or say I'm breaking history is a wonderful podcast.
Speaker 1: ELI like fall him on. Actually, ELI like thank you
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. What continetti, I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit high.
Speaker 4: The loring. I ain't saying action never took a troll
Speaker 4: on me for what is work.
Speaker 1: I can finally we going back America. I'm Hugh Hewittt.
Speaker 1: Matt Contenenny is my guest head of Domestic Policy Studies
Speaker 1: at the American Enterprises Too calmnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: And this is my now new feature for the young,
Speaker 1: the young members of my show New and Rising Stars.
Speaker 1: I just want to see if Matt is hip. Do
Speaker 1: you know who this is? Matt Connetty.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not young, and I am not hip. It's
Speaker 4: mattis now lumineers.
Speaker 1: It's Max McNown and he's a big deal among the young.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad to hear I'm not the only guy
Speaker 1: emotional music deal that was.
Speaker 7: I was so I mean, I don't know, kind of
Speaker 7: depressing intro. I'm so geared up to talk about the
Speaker 7: news of the week and now I might, you know,
Speaker 7: have to sippolaate or something.
Speaker 4: And because I'm a.
Speaker 1: Little bit dumb, but I'm a lot more free. That's
Speaker 1: kind of like the world. Uh, let's go to Iran
Speaker 1: Matt Conney. I have just read Rebecca Heinrich's estimate that
Speaker 1: if there's a ground force, it won't be for long,
Speaker 1: but there might be ad for it. I listened to
Speaker 1: Posish speech last night. I was kind of disappointed he
Speaker 1: didn't do more on Iran, but he said stay tuned,
Speaker 1: and the real time air bridge visuals are amazing. Everything
Speaker 1: is going to the Middle East Bass. What do you
Speaker 1: think is going to happen.
Speaker 7: Next Well, I think the President is preparing to escalate
Speaker 7: the conflict, and I think what we've seen you in
Speaker 7: the past week is a gradual escalation, and not only
Speaker 7: a return to combat operations, the resumption of the blockade
Speaker 7: on Iranian ports, but now also targeting dual use infrastructure
Speaker 7: in Iran, which of course we've been talking about on
Speaker 7: this program for months, but taking out some of those bridges,
Speaker 7: taking out some of those economic facilities, transportation hubs, all
Speaker 7: part of an effort to seriously degrade and eventually deny
Speaker 7: Iranians the ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz.
Speaker 7: So I'd say the preparations we're seeing taking place right now,
Speaker 7: or providing the President options to continue that effort in
Speaker 7: the coming.
Speaker 1: Week Congressman Hargen from North Carolina told me earlier this week,
Speaker 1: we cannot take Karj Island as I've been proposed, because
Speaker 1: it's lower than the high ground from which the Iranians
Speaker 1: could fire onto it. I was unaware of that basic fact,
Speaker 1: but he's a Special Forces veteran. Were you aware of
Speaker 1: that fact?
Speaker 7: Well, I suppose I was aware that a lot of
Speaker 7: that coastal topography, as you can see on the map,
Speaker 7: is elevated, and it's a mountainous part of Iran, which
Speaker 7: is in general with kind of a mountainous country than
Speaker 7: large country, but the plenty of mountains there, and so
Speaker 7: you see the drone and missile teams that have been
Speaker 7: harassing the shipping in the Strait of Hermus are able
Speaker 7: to kind of operate within these elevated conditions, kind of
Speaker 7: sneak in and out and fire at shipping.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: I think one point Congress and Harrogan made that stuck
Speaker 7: with me was this idea of boots on the ground
Speaker 7: and how an operation to siege carg Island would be
Speaker 7: different than our incredible rescue operation of the two downed
Speaker 7: airmen earlier in Operation Epic theory, this would be an
Speaker 7: operation where we would seize and hold ground Iranian territory,
Speaker 7: and that of course would mean that our soldiers would
Speaker 7: be the targets of drone and missile attacks. And so
Speaker 7: if we're going to pursue that policy, I think every
Speaker 7: effort needs to be made to prepare for how the
Speaker 7: Iranians would attempt to retaliate an attempt to harm our soldiers.
Speaker 7: I think that's one reason why President Trump, of course,
Speaker 7: has always been very reluctant to put boots on the
Speaker 7: ground unless he knows that the mission is defined, that
Speaker 7: there's a time set, and that the objectives can be achieved.
Speaker 1: The opportunity for other ground troops. Do you think our
Speaker 1: Arab colleagues, Israeli forces, but UA, which is deployed with
Speaker 1: US to Afghanistan, deployed with US to Iraq, you think
Speaker 1: that the UA and other Arab troops might be involved
Speaker 1: in such an incursion where necessary.
Speaker 7: I'd be very skeptical of that idea, Hugh, mainly because
Speaker 7: our golf allies have participated in some extent in retaliating
Speaker 7: against Iran, because of course Iran has been striking at
Speaker 7: them since the very beginning of the open conflict earlier
Speaker 7: this year.
Speaker 4: But I don't say I'm not sure they've been at
Speaker 4: the forefront.
Speaker 7: Let's say certainly not anywhere near where Israel was during
Speaker 7: the first phase of Operation Epic Fury, Operation Roaring Lion
Speaker 7: for the Israelis. So I'd be surprised if we saw
Speaker 7: a deployment of golf military assets in any in any
Speaker 7: ground operation, just as you know I begin I'd be
Speaker 7: a little bit surprised if there were a major ground
Speaker 7: operation in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Matt Contney during the break
Speaker 1: talk about the President's speech on Thursday night, Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: He'll be back after the break to talk about Ram
Speaker 1: Emmanuel and Vice President Advance. Both men gave speeches. They
Speaker 1: were different, but they were the same. One gave a speech,
Speaker 1: one gave an interview. I want to be specific. Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. I'll be right back on the huge deal
Speaker 1: of show. I'm back now with Matt conten Any of
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal and AEI. Matt. I stayed up
Speaker 1: later than I wanted to. I do Fox and Friends
Speaker 1: first this morning in the five o'clock hours, so I
Speaker 1: didn't really want to stay up to watch the President's
Speaker 1: speech and thankfully it was only twenty seven minutes, and
Speaker 1: I said, I stayed up for that. I got the
Speaker 1: documents down this morning. What'd you make of it? And
Speaker 1: the DOCUMENTCY released which were heavily redacted, I mean very
Speaker 1: heavily redacted.
Speaker 7: But it was a very interesting speech that the President
Speaker 7: gave Hugh. I like the fact that he wants to
Speaker 7: give more of these addresses. I think it's a setting
Speaker 7: we don't usually see him in. I thought the subject
Speaker 7: to the speech was very much defined. You know it
Speaker 7: previously in the week we had heard it would be
Speaker 7: a potpourri or a shmorgasboard. But he wanted to talk
Speaker 7: about election integrity. He wanted to talk about the Save
Speaker 7: America Act. And I really think that's what this speech
Speaker 7: was about, marshaling some new evidence, some new disclosures to
Speaker 7: say that our election system is vulnerable. It's vulnerable to
Speaker 7: outside influence, it is leaky, it is not very efficient,
Speaker 7: for sure, especially when you think of states like California
Speaker 7: or New York, and we need to be.
Speaker 4: Addressed and there.
Speaker 7: I think that the message on the Save America Act
Speaker 7: is useful for a couple reasons. Politically, One is it
Speaker 7: is a defined agenda item, and it's critical for President Trump.
Speaker 4: Two, it's something that the.
Speaker 7: Base of the Republican Party cares passionately about. And right now,
Speaker 7: the big I think challenge facing Republicans ahead of midterm
Speaker 7: is a lack of enthusiasm for the election, kind of
Speaker 7: a complacency. People are more or less happy with President
Speaker 7: Trump's tenure in office if you're a Republican, so they
Speaker 7: need an additional reason to go to the polls. And
Speaker 7: so what I see in this speech is President Trump
Speaker 7: giving his voters a reason to go to the polls,
Speaker 7: to advocate for the Save America Act and to put
Speaker 7: on pressure on the Senate to pass it.
Speaker 1: You know, the reveal to me because I did get
Speaker 1: the first document down on the chicoms They've got two
Speaker 1: hundred million American voter files. That means they know name, address,
Speaker 1: and residents. That's very unnerving. Don't you find that to
Speaker 1: be very unnerving? Oh?
Speaker 4: Incredibly.
Speaker 7: I mean the Chinese penetration of American systems of identification,
Speaker 7: whether it's a voter role, remember the OPM hack many
Speaker 7: years back, where they just they seized all the information
Speaker 7: of government employees. Over decades, China, we now know, of course,
Speaker 7: if you look at the mayor in southern California who
Speaker 7: was revealed to be a China spy.
Speaker 4: China has penetrated.
Speaker 7: Our society, and so I think it's totally legitimate for
Speaker 7: the President to raise this issue. We have to be
Speaker 7: concerned about it, and we have to take steps to
Speaker 7: secure our voting process. And then we also have to
Speaker 7: look at the voter ID point, which is something he's
Speaker 7: stressed in, which is part of the Save America Act
Speaker 7: that is extremely popular, initiative voter ID. It's common sensical
Speaker 7: we take ID everywhere. Everyone has an ID. Obviously there
Speaker 7: are a few exceptions that can be addressed, but you know,
Speaker 7: hard cases don't make fruit law. Right, people like the
Speaker 7: idea of voter ID. And again, that's an issue that
Speaker 7: President Trump knows his voters respond to, and something we
Speaker 7: see at work in last night's speech.
Speaker 1: And he sucker punched a lot of the left that
Speaker 1: thought he was going to relitigate twenty twenty and he
Speaker 1: did not, except for a couple of cues here and there,
Speaker 1: he really didn't. I mean, right back with Matt Cotton
Speaker 1: and he stay tuned America. The Jack wasn't so busy.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm playing happy Jack with Matt Connelly.
Speaker 1: Didn't like my downer music the last time edried it.
Speaker 1: Do you like happy Jack?
Speaker 4: Matt?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Of course? How can I not love smiling? Here is
Speaker 4: get into our next segment.
Speaker 1: Let me put for for you two exhibits. Ambassador, former
Speaker 1: mayor of Chicago, former chief of staff to the President
Speaker 1: of the United States, former member of Congress from Emmanuel
Speaker 1: goes to Israel gives a speech. I discussed it with him.
Speaker 1: This week. Vice President Vance flies to California does a
Speaker 1: three hour interview with Joe Rogan, which I have not
Speaker 1: listened to, and I'm leary of clips because of AI
Speaker 1: and editing. But maybe you know more about it than
Speaker 1: I do. I think they were doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: which is playing to a part of their party that
Speaker 1: they perceive a need to at least be on talking
Speaker 1: terms with as they quest for the presidency. What did
Speaker 1: you make of both and how do you compare each?
Speaker 6: All?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: Well, just to start with Emmanuel, I mean their ram
Speaker 7: Emmanuel's speech, of course, was based on partisan reasons. Ramamanuel's
Speaker 7: thinking of running for president in twenty twenty eight, and
Speaker 7: his party has taken a sharp turn against the state
Speaker 7: of Israel. We saw that just in the House this week,
Speaker 7: where over one hundred House Democrats voted to cut off
Speaker 7: aid to Israel. You know, ten years ago the number
Speaker 7: would be zero. Now it's one hundred and three, and
Speaker 7: you can just see there. The Democrats are becoming an
Speaker 7: anti Israel party. Ram Emanuel knows it. In his speech
Speaker 7: in Israel, Emmanuel made three claims Hugh that I truly
Speaker 7: disagree with. One is the idea that Israel is isolated.
Speaker 7: Israel is not isolated at all. It accounts among his
Speaker 7: allies the most powerful democracy in the world, the United States,
Speaker 7: and the most populous.
Speaker 4: Democracy in the world, India.
Speaker 7: Another claim Emmanuel made was that you know, for too long,
Speaker 7: he says, American support for Israel has been unqualified.
Speaker 4: We've done whatever Israel wants.
Speaker 7: And my response to him there is look in the mirror,
Speaker 7: mister ambassador, because you worked for three presidents Clinton, Obama
Speaker 7: and Biden whose support was not unqualified at all. I mean,
Speaker 7: who did in fact that, in Obama's case, did everything
Speaker 7: he could to create daylight between the United States and Israel.
Speaker 4: And then the third idea.
Speaker 7: He had is this idea for a twenty three state solution,
Speaker 7: the idea that rather than try to have a two
Speaker 7: state solution between Israel and a potential Palestinian state, the
Speaker 7: settlement of the Israeli Palestinian dispute should be submerged within
Speaker 7: a settlement between Israel and the Arab League. But that
Speaker 7: is just an evasion in my view, because at the
Speaker 7: end of the day, the obstacle to peace in the
Speaker 7: Middle East is not Israel. The obstacle to peace in
Speaker 7: the Middle East is Palestinian denihilism, Palestinian denial of Israel's
Speaker 7: right to exist. That is what has prevented every single
Speaker 7: peace agreement from bearing fruit. And until the Palestinians change
Speaker 7: their attitude toward Israel and accept Israel's right to exist
Speaker 7: as a Jewish state, you will not have any peace.
Speaker 7: So that is rama Manuel a speech that he is
Speaker 7: delivering to an anti Israel party, but I think that
Speaker 7: was riddled with errors. For Vice President Vance and his
Speaker 7: interview with Joe Rogan, I'm not sure actually what the
Speaker 7: party aspect of it is. Hugh, I have to tell you,
Speaker 7: because as the Democratic Party is turning against Israel, the
Speaker 7: Republican Party is not in fact, the Republican Party is
Speaker 7: driving out the anti Israel members. And just look at
Speaker 7: that resolution I mentioned. It was sponsored by Thomas Massey,
Speaker 7: a Republican lser. But who is just Republican loser who
Speaker 7: just lost his seat to a primary challenge sponsored by
Speaker 7: President Trump. So who is the audience that that Joe
Speaker 7: Rogan represents and that jd.
Speaker 4: Vance is catering to with his comments.
Speaker 7: It's not Republicans, but it is part of the Trump coalition.
Speaker 7: It is kind of the newer elements of the Trump
Speaker 7: coalition that were very important to Trump's victory in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty four. What they're called low propensity voters. They're not
Speaker 7: necessarily attached to the party structure, they did not like
Speaker 7: the way things were going under Biden, and they were
Speaker 7: part of Trump's winning coalition in twenty twenty four. And
Speaker 7: I think they're what the Vice president is concerned about
Speaker 7: is keeping those voters in a potential twenty twenty eight coalition.
Speaker 7: At the same time, I think some of the claims
Speaker 7: he made we're also ill founded.
Speaker 1: Is it possible? I argued with rom Emmanuel, there are
Speaker 1: factual errors in his speech. The United States was not
Speaker 1: around nineteen forty eight. Ike was actually very hard on them.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, we were absent in sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Nixon came in and saved Israel in seventy three, and
Speaker 1: that's when the modern rule. So I was just wrong
Speaker 1: on fact. Is it possible? Jd Vance is playing to
Speaker 1: an esthetic Paul's among younger voters, which is it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter what you say, but it matters where you
Speaker 1: say it, and that in the course of saying it,
Speaker 1: you demonstrate that you're a real person who hasn't been
Speaker 1: fabricated in an industrial sized turnout politicians assembly line.
Speaker 7: Well, I think there's absolutely a part of that. I
Speaker 7: think about the Joe Rogan experience. It's an incredibly successful
Speaker 7: and popular podcast. Itself became an issue in the twenty
Speaker 7: twenty four campaign when President Trump sat for a three
Speaker 7: hour interview and Kamala Harris would not appear right because
Speaker 7: she didn't want to have to talk for that long.
Speaker 4: She wouldn't have been able to.
Speaker 7: So jd Vance is showing that he can be like
Speaker 7: President Trump again, trying to maintain the winning coalition from
Speaker 7: twenty twenty four in these coming years ahead of twenty
Speaker 7: twenty eight, and then you also raise a good point
Speaker 7: with the younger generation. I mean, there's no question that
Speaker 7: the two parties are now polarized on the question of Israel.
Speaker 7: Younger voters, though as a whole they are it seems
Speaker 7: to me to become our becoming as a whole more
Speaker 7: skeptical of the US Israeli alliance. There's clearly rising anti
Speaker 7: Semitism among this generation.
Speaker 4: So if you want to kind.
Speaker 7: Of keep them in the coalition as well, you might
Speaker 7: be saying statements that you know that there's Israel, Israel's
Speaker 7: involved in an influenced campaign to undermine the mo OU
Speaker 7: when there's no real evidence of that. There are people
Speaker 7: who had criticisms of the MU and people who saw
Speaker 7: a ran for what it was. They were the ones
Speaker 7: who were saying that this MoU wuldn't work, and guess.
Speaker 4: What, it didn't.
Speaker 7: But you might if you might want to say, look,
Speaker 7: this is we don't need to have a stronger relationship
Speaker 7: with Israel as we have had in the past. If
Speaker 7: you want to kind of make sure that you have
Speaker 7: connections and inroads to these to these younger voters.
Speaker 1: I think that's very very sharp. Matt Continey and I
Speaker 1: look forward to listening to yesterday's comment podcast, on which
Speaker 1: I assume you were but I couldn't listen to it yesterday,
Speaker 1: and reading your Wall Street Journal expressions call him from today,
Speaker 1: which again I'm behind today because of a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate the time as always. Follow Matt on
Speaker 1: exit Continetti, read him in the Wall Street Journal, hear
Speaker 1: him on the Thursday episode of the Commentary podcast, and
Speaker 1: Fridays and Tuesdays when we're lucky here on the New
Speaker 1: Hewitt Show. I may miss you next week. Matt. By
Speaker 1: the way, I've got to go to Florida and we'll
Speaker 1: be guest hosts both of your days next week. Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere, America.
Speaker 4: I ain't saying that you never too. Console on me.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America, Morning, Glory, and even Grace. I'm Hugh HEWITTT.
Speaker 1: And that is this week's quiz for Ben Dominant's opinion
Speaker 1: editor at The Daily Wire, Fox News contributor host of
Speaker 1: the Big Ben Podcast, trying to test and see if
Speaker 1: he actually knows any about new music. Ben, you know
Speaker 1: that is a lot.
Speaker 3: That is that it's mac something, isn't.
Speaker 4: It It is?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a half point Max mcgowon mcdown all right.
Speaker 3: Sorry, said there's not a lot of musicians neared Max.
Speaker 1: You know, Matt Connanny didn't even play. He didn't even
Speaker 1: try and get in on the game. So you're much
Speaker 1: that's probably because of your wife, right, she's the country person. Right.
Speaker 3: Actually, you'd be surprised by by by my playlist. I would,
Speaker 3: I would thank you, Hewitt. But yes, I've I've heard
Speaker 3: this and and I can't always name, you know, the
Speaker 3: country song if you kind of you need to listen
Speaker 3: for a little bit to get something. But I did that.
Speaker 3: This one has come across my radar. So yes, all right, so.
Speaker 1: I got this is cultural. We'll get the politics. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the names of actresses who are under forty,
Speaker 1: you know, I just they're gone and there they come,
Speaker 1: like in the Lioness that we're watching it now and
Speaker 1: the Fetching Missus. Hewett knows who every one of the
Speaker 1: young stars are, and I have no idea.
Speaker 4: Do you.
Speaker 3: Lionis is So it's that is actually one of the
Speaker 3: rare entries in the Taylor Sheridan cinematic universe. I should
Speaker 3: say that I am that I have not actually watched
Speaker 3: I know Kidmond's in it. But other than that, no,
Speaker 3: Nicole Kidman, isn't it.
Speaker 1: She's fabulous, as is everyone in the first two episodes
Speaker 1: Grab You. But okay, so I'm glad, or at least
Speaker 1: for one. For one, let's get to the serial.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you. I'll tell you the thing. The thing
Speaker 3: that is true about this though, is that what's amazing
Speaker 3: to me is that there are actresses that you know
Speaker 3: when you're my age, exclusively from trailers for movies that
Speaker 3: you never see like I think I think a good
Speaker 3: example of that. I mean, I've actually seen a lot
Speaker 3: of movies with her because I think she's a good actress.
Speaker 3: But Margaret Qually is somebody who I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I was having a conversation with the other day. I
Speaker 3: was like, how many actual movies have you seen with
Speaker 3: her in it? And they were like, uh, she's in
Speaker 3: the Tarantina one for that I've met.
Speaker 1: You're a millennial though, right, You're you and your spouse
Speaker 1: are millennials.
Speaker 3: Truly millennial?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, and so what's that? What I got to
Speaker 1: ask the other day is who are going to be
Speaker 1: the opinion makers among the next generation? Now? I know
Speaker 1: gen X pretty well I know the millennials pretty well.
Speaker 1: I don't know that anyone's risen to the top in
Speaker 1: gen Z, has anyone.
Speaker 3: The only people who've risen to the top in gen Z,
Speaker 3: I would argue to this point, have been video creators
Speaker 3: and influencers, and some of those I think have been
Speaker 3: quite you know, creative and an innovative. Nick Sureley would
Speaker 3: be a good example of that. There are people. I
Speaker 3: think the people who are going to rise to the
Speaker 3: top are the people who are already demonstrating a capacity
Speaker 3: for doing something more than offering opinions. Namely they're doing
Speaker 3: reported opinions and the like, or they're digging into things.
Speaker 3: But look, it is it's it's a it's a it's
Speaker 3: a generation, a zoomer generation that I am. You know,
Speaker 3: we have multiple staffers now staffers, not just interns, who
Speaker 3: were born after nine to eleven, and and I sit
Speaker 3: down with them on regular occasion to do what we
Speaker 3: call nineties lunch, and we talked through various things that happened,
Speaker 3: you know, before they were born, basically that led up
Speaker 3: to the world that they were in. And they'd say
Speaker 3: all sorts of interesting things. For instance, you know, one
Speaker 3: of them last week was saying, I had no idea
Speaker 3: that Bill Clinton was so charming, and indeed he was,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, gaps to fill there.
Speaker 1: Okay, you work among a very young demo, and so
Speaker 1: I'll ask the same question I asked of John Ellis.
Speaker 1: John is always on Salem News Channel with his books
Speaker 1: behind him. And when John and I are bout Boomers
Speaker 1: and we're growing up, there's like three networks and they're
Speaker 1: usually running bad stuff. So you read and you read,
Speaker 1: and you read and you read. You read comic books,
Speaker 1: and then you read thrillers and you read Ludlam and
Speaker 1: then you read history. And all you did was read, read, read, read, read.
Speaker 1: That's going away, Ben, Nobody reads the way that the
Speaker 1: boomers read because we had nothing else to do. What's
Speaker 1: that going to do to the political talent in America?
Speaker 3: This is the thing that I think is going to
Speaker 3: happen from that. And I actually can use a again
Speaker 3: my own fellow junior staffers, who are who are you know?
Speaker 3: Obviously if you come and work for the Daily Wire
Speaker 3: or something like that, you are someone who has the
Speaker 3: ambition to work you know potentially in the media political
Speaker 3: field that the thing that is marked about them is
Speaker 3: they are always asking me for book recommendations. I've given
Speaker 3: books to each of our younger staff good in the office.
Speaker 3: Uh and and they're different books, you know, based on
Speaker 3: there In fact, this might amuse you. I gave the
Speaker 3: John Pudortz's book, Uh, Hell of a Ride about the
Speaker 3: Bush Campaign to somebody to the other day. I gave
Speaker 3: a copy of Primary Colors to somebody the other day.
Speaker 1: Oh, very good, Joe Klein.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, it's not you're not just I
Speaker 3: think you have to ease them into, you know, the
Speaker 3: point where they're reading Orienti Flacci, or they're you know,
Speaker 3: or they're going back and you know, so what was
Speaker 3: this Christopher Hitchins guy about or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, I read deeply in British history. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know British history, and I'm just I'm finishing a new
Speaker 1: book on Oliver Cromwell and Charles Second because it's something
Speaker 1: I grew up with. It became a passion because it
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting and weird. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: does that anymore.
Speaker 6: Do they?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it takes a while for people
Speaker 3: to get into that. One of our younger staffers, I
Speaker 3: think that this would be of interest to you is
Speaker 3: actually someone who basically wants to read every book that's
Speaker 3: about Richard Nixon and right now is you know, I've
Speaker 3: given him a couple and I think that you know,
Speaker 3: he's he's very you know, he's fascinated by a certain
Speaker 3: period in history. I think that this is going to
Speaker 3: be the differentiator going forward. If you are a zoomer
Speaker 3: who manages to still take time to actually read books,
Speaker 3: to not just live on the Internet, to not just
Speaker 3: live in the world of Instagram reels and TikTok and
Speaker 3: x and everything else, that is going to be the
Speaker 3: thing that separates you from other people because you will
Speaker 3: have the capacity for not just you know, historical knowledge,
Speaker 3: but I think deep thought about the differences between those things.
Speaker 3: You're completely right by the way. When I was growing up,
Speaker 3: my family didn't have cable, you know, we didn't you know,
Speaker 3: we had the limited networks, and so you know, I
Speaker 3: literally worked at the local library and I would take
Speaker 3: the time at the end of the day to you know,
Speaker 3: take all of a stack of books and that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. That's it's a it was a mark then
Speaker 3: of just sort of starting early today, I think it's
Speaker 3: a mark of standing out within a generation that yeatistically
Speaker 3: is just not reading books the way that they ought to.
Speaker 1: It will be an enormous advantage. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I hope you tell that young staffer. Although it's not
Speaker 1: much loved by Nixon people, Nixon Agonisties by Gary Wills
Speaker 1: is a left wingers view of Richard Nixon, which is wrong,
Speaker 1: but it's good and it's good to have that kind
Speaker 1: of a I spent last week and at Lacasa Pacific
Speaker 1: a one hundredth anniversary celebration, so I was deep into
Speaker 1: Nixon world last weekend. So I'm glad to hear that
Speaker 1: you've got one set in my way. If they ever
Speaker 1: wanted to be a guest on The Uwitt Show, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: No, let's get to the Let get to the news.
Speaker 1: There is an airlift. I'm watching the live stream tracking
Speaker 1: the United States Air Force airlip. It's massive. Ben. What
Speaker 1: do you think we're going to do over the weekend
Speaker 1: in Irun?
Speaker 3: You know, Hugh, I'm reluctant to guess, only because I
Speaker 3: feel like I've been wrong on your program so many
Speaker 3: times when I thought the President was going to lean
Speaker 3: so hard into them but I still think that that
Speaker 3: is the case right now. I think he's fed up,
Speaker 3: he is set up with this situation. And you know, look,
Speaker 3: I think and we can talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: what the Vice President did when he went on Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan this week, but the MLU is in the past.
Speaker 3: It's in the rear view mirror. It was a punt
Speaker 3: that that potentially had some kind of squeaky way that
Speaker 3: it might have worked. A lot of us who were skeptical,
Speaker 3: I think we're proven right by the actions of the
Speaker 3: Iranians since then, and there is just no defending it anymore.
Speaker 3: And there's there's just nothing. I mean, look, I heard
Speaker 3: the words from from Tom I heard the quotes from
Speaker 3: Tom Cotton about this, and I agree with them. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just not it is not a situation that is
Speaker 3: in any way stable. We have to, you know. And
Speaker 3: then this is something that I think I appreciate it
Speaker 3: from Cotton because I think it's important to redefine the
Speaker 3: nature of what victory looks like right now for voters
Speaker 3: and people who are listening and people you know who
Speaker 3: basically kind of tuned this out at some point and
Speaker 3: then and have this vague idea that we are losing,
Speaker 3: which we are not. But also, you know, we aren't
Speaker 3: winning like we haven't been. You know, we've accomplished great things,
Speaker 3: but but what does victory look like? And I think
Speaker 3: that that's something that Republicans need to understand. They should
Speaker 3: be defining and then saying here's what we need to
Speaker 3: do to achieve this. This is the goal that we have.
Speaker 3: And that gets rid of the accusation from both right
Speaker 3: and left that this is going to be some you know,
Speaker 3: forever war situation, boots on the ground in a ran situation.
Speaker 3: That is not you know, what we're trying to do here,
Speaker 3: and that's not something that is part of you know,
Speaker 3: the president's overall approach to foreign policy. It's never been
Speaker 3: part of it. And so instead, I think it's important
Speaker 3: to say, look, this is our definition of what victory
Speaker 3: looks like. We think we're going to have to take
Speaker 3: these additional steps in order to achieve it. It is achievable,
Speaker 3: and we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: I hope he does that. I wish he had done
Speaker 1: it last night. During the break, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about two speech or a speech and an interview Ron
Speaker 1: Emmanuel and JD. Vance because they were both talking to
Speaker 1: perceived political groups of influence within their party, I think,
Speaker 1: but we'll compare and contrast. But in the meantime, Senator
Speaker 1: Cotton said, we need to destroy their military ability to
Speaker 1: project for us, and that includes threatening the straight down
Speaker 1: me and regime change could mean the collapse follows. But
Speaker 1: that's doable, Ben, thirty seconds of the break, don't you
Speaker 1: think that's doable.
Speaker 3: It is doable, and it's by doing the things that
Speaker 3: we haven't done yet, which we've target, which we've talked
Speaker 3: about before, the targets that we have not hit and
Speaker 3: decided not to hit because of you know, frankly, I
Speaker 3: think there was this window where they were trying to
Speaker 3: get a deal done. Now that's over and so now
Speaker 3: you got to hit it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Ben during the break and
Speaker 1: after the break, don't go anywre America. But I'm back
Speaker 1: with Ben Dominic now. Ben, I have not seen the
Speaker 1: Vice President's interview with Joe Rogan, and I refuse to
Speaker 1: watch clips because they can be manipulated. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to make the time.
Speaker 3: I guess, Yeah, I would encourage you to do so.
Speaker 3: And yes again whenever The danger by the way of
Speaker 3: going on Joe Rogan, and this has to drive political
Speaker 3: consultants crazy, is that you end up talking for two
Speaker 3: and a half three hours, and that can be completely
Speaker 3: manipulated or taken out of context in ways that are
Speaker 3: completely unfair to the person being here.
Speaker 1: That's why I won't watch the clips because I don't
Speaker 1: even know if they're real, much less in context. But
Speaker 1: we have these two parallel events. Rama Manuel ambassador of Japan,
Speaker 1: Mayor of Chicago, chief of staff to President Obama, powerful
Speaker 1: member of Congress, the Emmanuel family is powerful in many ways.
Speaker 1: He goes to Israel, gives a speech blasting BB and
Speaker 1: Israel and warning them. Jade Evance goes on Joe Rogan
Speaker 1: and I don't know what he does yet, but I've
Speaker 1: seen stories that allege he's done a lot of things
Speaker 1: on the How do you compare those two presentations? And
Speaker 1: we're going to go into the next segment as well,
Speaker 1: so take your time.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: The thing that I'll focus on the road interview first,
Speaker 3: just because it seems to me that the Vice president
Speaker 3: is trying to achieve something with this interview, that he's
Speaker 3: trying to achieve multiple goals, he's trying to humanize himself,
Speaker 3: which I think he does quite well. But I think
Speaker 3: he's also trying to reshape the narrative around this MLU
Speaker 3: and the people who were criticizing him over it, because
Speaker 3: I think he views this, you know, correctly, as being
Speaker 3: his first major sojourn into foreign policy where he really
Speaker 3: owned something within the administration or was viewed as it's
Speaker 3: leading champion, and it didn't work out, and so now
Speaker 3: he's trying to, I think, you know, reframe this thing.
Speaker 3: The thing that bothered me, I think it was You
Speaker 3: can pick different things out about it, but I still
Speaker 3: think it is disingenuous to sort of paint this as
Speaker 3: being a deal that went bad because of any actions
Speaker 3: on the part of Israel or people who support Israel
Speaker 3: or those who you know, view US as having a
Speaker 3: close alliance with Israel. I did think it was it
Speaker 3: was funny that he did something that a lot of
Speaker 3: people who I think are in the kind of moderate
Speaker 3: can't do when they're talking about foreign policy, which he said,
Speaker 3: you know, why can't we just have a relationship with Israel,
Speaker 3: which is like our relationship with England and France. Number one,
Speaker 3: have you checked our relationship with England and France free
Speaker 3: because it's not actually that good. In fact, I would
Speaker 3: put Japan, South Korea, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, yes, there are a number of nations
Speaker 1: I would say before we get to ten Downing Street.
Speaker 3: So I look, you know, we can we can discuss that.
Speaker 3: Set that aside. But look, I think that the mistake
Speaker 3: that the vice president is kind of making here is
Speaker 3: one that says that he's kind of trying to appeal
Speaker 3: to the same people over and over. And those are
Speaker 3: the people who listen to these who listen to these
Speaker 3: podcasts primarily. And I think that the vice president has
Speaker 3: the capacity, he's shown it before, to adapt and to
Speaker 3: reach across lines that he couldn't have crossed. He said
Speaker 3: all sorts of terrible things about Trump even after he
Speaker 3: was first elected president, and he ended up as his
Speaker 3: vice president. This is a guy who has canny knowledge
Speaker 3: about politics. You don't get to you know, you don't
Speaker 3: get to that point without having it. I think that
Speaker 3: he is operating here though with an attitude that it's
Speaker 3: just a little bit too online. And so I wrote
Speaker 3: a piece this week at The Daily Wire. The trend
Speaker 3: right now for for millennial parents is to give their
Speaker 3: kids a nineties summer, to send them outside a ton more,
Speaker 3: you know, get rid of screens, you know, less and
Speaker 3: less time with content that's been made since the nineties,
Speaker 3: and let them have more freedom. I think the Vice
Speaker 3: president needs a break from being online all interesting.
Speaker 1: We'll come back to come back online just a moment,
Speaker 1: stand by Ben, Welcome back America. Not happy music, happy
Speaker 1: Jack for Ben Dominic. Making sure that he knows, we
Speaker 1: know he likes the who. We'll give him some old
Speaker 1: stuff Ben. When Jad goes on Joe Rogan, I think
Speaker 1: he's making an aesthetic. I haven't even read it yet
Speaker 1: or seen it. I think he's just making a statement
Speaker 1: that I can do Joe Rogan to the youngs. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's part of it.
Speaker 3: I think it's a major part of it. He's basically saying, Hey,
Speaker 3: the flex here is I have the capacity to sit
Speaker 3: down and speak intelligently about all these different topics with
Speaker 3: the guy who basically, you know. My favorite comparison of
Speaker 3: the Rogan is that he interviews somebody as if he
Speaker 3: is like a Mongol warlord from the steps. He's just
Speaker 3: no conception. You know, mothers, why tree is so tall
Speaker 3: explains Joe. You know that kind of thing, which is
Speaker 3: which is actually I think a talent to a certain degree.
Speaker 3: It's it's something that uh, you know, I think if
Speaker 3: we still had it, uh you know, would would.
Speaker 1: I hear there are a lizard people under the trees?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly so. But the other thing
Speaker 3: that I think he's doing there is, you know, he's
Speaker 3: sending a I think he's trying to send a message
Speaker 3: about sort of how he will be different than this
Speaker 3: current Trump administration. That's the part of this that I
Speaker 3: don't like, because I feel like he's almost he's just
Speaker 3: jumped ahead. He's acting as if he's the candidate, as
Speaker 3: if he's potentially, you know, just like I'm the foregone
Speaker 3: conclusion of the nominee, and I'm telling you the kind
Speaker 3: of very very dangerous I would have, and that is
Speaker 3: very very dangerous.
Speaker 1: You got that blank on your left. It's not left wing,
Speaker 1: it's a left flank of the right wing. And that's
Speaker 1: that's open. Give me at least two minutes on ram
Speaker 1: Emanuel Ben because I think that was a watermark, a
Speaker 1: high water mark of anti Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: When you get the Mayor of Israel. Rama Manuel's father
Speaker 1: fought in the War of Liberation in nineteen forty eight
Speaker 1: to save the State of Israel. To get him to
Speaker 1: basically hammer baby, but he's really hamming all, hammering all
Speaker 1: because then it's not going to be different. Isisinkott's not
Speaker 1: going to be different. They're not going to withdraw them
Speaker 1: the West Bank. So he's just beating them up with
Speaker 1: all of them.
Speaker 3: No, And I think that you're correct about this, and
Speaker 3: it really the sadness about this to me is that
Speaker 3: I really do believe that Israel is very close and
Speaker 3: we've seen it happen with with domestic issues in the past, Hugh,
Speaker 3: when it came to the you know, the NRA, and
Speaker 3: when it came to the pro life issue. There were
Speaker 3: there have been points in our lifetimes when that was
Speaker 3: something that was a bipartisan issue where you could get
Speaker 3: people on board, you could get people from the other
Speaker 3: side to come across. I truly feel like this that
Speaker 3: Israel has unfortunately ended up in a space despite all
Speaker 3: the efforts that the people who have funded different candidates
Speaker 3: and tried to work, you know, have tried to do,
Speaker 3: you know, within American domestic politics, they are becoming a
Speaker 3: monopartisan issue, and that is a dangerous place to be
Speaker 3: as a country, regardless of what that country is like,
Speaker 3: and particularly when it comes to Israel. So look, I
Speaker 3: am depressed by what I am seeing. I hope that
Speaker 3: there's going to be some pushback against it. We will
Speaker 3: see what comes out in terms of the remaining primaries,
Speaker 3: especially Michigan. But I think that one of the things
Speaker 3: that we can take away from the last essentially a
Speaker 3: couple of years that have followed October seventh, is that
Speaker 3: the shift that has happened among young people in America
Speaker 3: and therefore more sizeable among the Democrats than the Republicans,
Speaker 3: has turned Israel into a monopartisan issue where even people
Speaker 3: who have supported it in the past have have frankly
Speaker 3: a slowing willingness to say anything publicly. They try to
Speaker 3: keep their heads down. And you saw that vote, I
Speaker 3: mean play out in the House when it came to
Speaker 3: Thomas Matthew's proposal, The idea that you would have one
Speaker 3: hundred plus Democrats, you know, going along with that. You know,
Speaker 3: it just it boggles the mind of the way that
Speaker 3: they used.
Speaker 1: To be deeply troubling as it's our most important strategic
Speaker 1: ally got nothing to do with religious tradition, nothing to
Speaker 1: do with anything else. We need them. They project power
Speaker 1: and they have the will to do so, and they're
Speaker 1: on our team. Ben Dominich from The Daily Wire Fox
Speaker 1: News contributor the Big Ben Podcast, Thank you, my friend
Speaker 1: fallow them on x at b Dominich. My friends, you've
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Speaker 1: the hands and feed of Christ, bring hope, relief, God's
Speaker 1: love to families who've lost so much. I'm you, Hewitt,
Speaker 1: and I thank you. Welcome back America. I'm so pleased
Speaker 1: to welcome back author Daniel Silva, whose brand new bestseller
Speaker 1: Ransom is fabulous. And I gon't emphasized how I often
Speaker 1: compliment Daniel Silva about his books. This one is great.
Speaker 1: Daniel Silva, welcome back. I was trying to think of
Speaker 1: how to describe this to people, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: say it's a counter save counter surveillance escapade like the
Speaker 1: Lisbon Game, only for a reader. Because the misdirection is
Speaker 1: wild in this one. So have you heard that from
Speaker 1: other Silva addicts?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: I actually last evening I was doing an event in
Speaker 8: suburban Philadelphia and one of the audience members was questioning
Speaker 8: me about the complexity of the of the plot and
Speaker 8: how it sort of seemed to effortlessly tie together in
Speaker 8: the end, and how did I do that given the
Speaker 8: fact that I don't outline my books to begin with,
Speaker 8: And it was interesting trying to explain it. But yeah,
Speaker 8: it's a it's a It is a fast paced, uh
Speaker 8: summer read.
Speaker 6: It's really entertaining.
Speaker 8: It's part kidnap drama, it is part global thriller, uh.
Speaker 8: And it does deal with one of the most you know,
Speaker 8: serious challenges facing.
Speaker 6: The West right now.
Speaker 8: We all know that Russia is waiting a warf conquest
Speaker 8: in Ukraine, but it's less well known is that Russia
Speaker 8: is engaged in a years long campaign of sabotage and
Speaker 8: subversion against the countries of Western Europe, and one of
Speaker 8: their most effective weapons in their arsenals right now are drones.
Speaker 1: So I want people to understand Daniel Silva knows the
Speaker 1: GRU which is the old military intelligence KGB, being the
Speaker 1: equivalent of the CIA and the military intelligence being like
Speaker 1: our Defense Intelligence agency, and the GRU as you describe it,
Speaker 1: Daniel Silva is the brute the brute force operation and
Speaker 1: they're not subtle. And MI I six doesn't like them,
Speaker 1: or at least the folks out at the cottage don't
Speaker 1: like them as much as they like the KGB.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say that they like the KGB, you know,
Speaker 6: the KGB is. The SVR is the equivalent of the CIA. Now.
Speaker 6: During Soviet times it was almost.
Speaker 8: Its own separate state in a way, and it had
Speaker 8: border functions, internal secuit ccurity functions, had I forget how
Speaker 8: many directorates there were of the old of the old KGV.
Speaker 8: But now the new SVR is the foreign intelligence operator.
Speaker 8: By the way, it does its fair share of wet
Speaker 8: work and other special operations. But the GRU, specifically Unit
Speaker 8: two nine five of the gr U, is really a sledgehammered.
Speaker 8: It has one mission, and that is to destroy liberal
Speaker 8: democracy as we know it. Vlaimir Putin views the very
Speaker 8: existence of democratic I'm saying small L, small D liberal
Speaker 8: democratic regime countries in the West as an existential threat
Speaker 8: to Russia, and he is trying to do everything possible
Speaker 8: to undermine and subvert them and destroy them, destroy NATO.
Speaker 8: And in the short term though, he's trying to punish
Speaker 8: the countries that have provided aid and sustenance to Ukraine.
Speaker 8: And I tell you a top at the top of
Speaker 8: his list, Britain is always there, but the country of Denmark.
Speaker 8: He has a special loathing for Denmark. I thought that
Speaker 8: Denmark crazy.
Speaker 1: That came I did the capabilities of our Western European allies.
Speaker 1: During the longer part of this what you'll play in
Speaker 1: two weeks. I'll put on the podcast immediately. For Silva
Speaker 1: addicts who want to get a teaser, then go get
Speaker 1: Ransom and read it. You can get the podcast today
Speaker 1: and then after I'm back next week. The week after
Speaker 1: we'll play the rest of this interview. But I want
Speaker 1: to read you from your pastoring Act quote page two fourteen.
Speaker 1: Remember you must never, under any circumstances despair, to hope
Speaker 1: and do act. These are our duties in misfortune. How
Speaker 1: long have you been waiting to use that? In a
Speaker 1: Gabrael Alan novel?
Speaker 6: You know it appeared in it.
Speaker 8: It was the epigraph actually for the collector. Yes, and
Speaker 8: I reprised it. I reprised it in this circumstance to you.
Speaker 6: You know that the I don't. I don't want to give.
Speaker 8: Too much away, but it's the character named Alice Winter
Speaker 8: is a very important character in this novel, and I
Speaker 8: wanted to you know, she comes across as as someone
Speaker 8: who's just sort of interested in being rich and a
Speaker 8: social media influencer. And then but actually when we get
Speaker 8: to know her a little better, she's a highly intelligent person.
Speaker 8: And she used that quote, so I repriased it for
Speaker 8: fans of that previous book, and I.
Speaker 1: Want people to look forward to you. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell you much about the character, but there is Oscar,
Speaker 1: and Oscar sort of like the new Goat that you
Speaker 1: know from all the gabriel Al novels. So Oscar is
Speaker 1: there for a little bit of fun. I want to
Speaker 1: know though in the short segment we have to it
Speaker 1: a half minutes left. Is Proteus real? I've asked you
Speaker 1: that before, but I can't remember what your answer is.
Speaker 1: That's a way to happen on your phone.
Speaker 6: Yes, it is real.
Speaker 8: I gave it a different name, uh and a different company, but.
Speaker 6: Yes, the way it's used is.
Speaker 8: A little different. But you know, look malware, which is
Speaker 8: what it is. It's very very common now. You know,
Speaker 8: we can't live without our phones, but if it were
Speaker 8: up to me, I would I would not have one anymore.
Speaker 6: These things they.
Speaker 8: Have our life on them, and it's so easy to
Speaker 8: turn it into just a little spy that follows you around.
Speaker 8: To trust me, Everyone in China their their phones are
Speaker 8: hacked by the government, and so you know that capability
Speaker 8: does exist to turn your phone into a full time
Speaker 8: surveillance device. So you're using the microphone to listen, you're
Speaker 8: using the camera to watch, You're reading text messages, you're
Speaker 8: reading emails, You're you're monitoring browsing, you're looking at location data.
Speaker 8: You know, it's it's a it's a stunning amount of
Speaker 8: information that we carry around in our pocket.
Speaker 6: It about ourselves.
Speaker 1: It is. In fact, you get so much tradecraft from ransom,
Speaker 1: especially new info on gate analysis, new info on surveillance techniques.
Speaker 1: Yet to read it, just to make yourself prepared. But
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous thriller. When I come back after breaking,
Speaker 1: I'll put it on the weekend pod. I'll play it
Speaker 1: in a week from now. We're going to get more
Speaker 1: deeper into the plot without giving anything away, But I
Speaker 1: want to tell the audience there is one perfect way
Speaker 1: to do this book. Get the hardcover and then indulge
Speaker 1: yourself and also get the audiobook. So I read the
Speaker 1: first three quarters in hard copy and then I got
Speaker 1: the audio book, and I've slowed myself down. I was
Speaker 1: obliged to slow myself down, and it's much better that
Speaker 1: way to read the thriller? To me, has anyone else
Speaker 1: done that? Daniel Silva? We got one minute. Did anyone
Speaker 1: do it that way?
Speaker 6: I am?
Speaker 8: I am ever surprised to return to last night. Someone
Speaker 8: tells me that every year they do the print version
Speaker 8: and the audio version.
Speaker 6: I'm very lucky to have an extraordinary actor who does
Speaker 6: the work on the books. And yes, so you're not alone.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. But it does work that way. You
Speaker 1: don't go too fast, you enjoy it. And this one
Speaker 1: is so riveting. Daniel Silva is Ransom everywhere, Number one
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller. Almost certainly keep listening to podcast
Speaker 1: or come back in two weeks and I'll play the
Speaker 1: rest of my interview with Daniel Silva. Stay tuned. I
Speaker 1: am back now with Daniel Silva, author of the brand
Speaker 1: new bestseller Ransom. I think it's his twenty fifth Gabriel
Speaker 1: Alon novel. I was describing it to the Fetching missus
Speaker 1: Hewett last night as a mix between a college reunion
Speaker 1: and a funeral for a loved one, So that the
Speaker 1: funeral for the loved one you see some friends you
Speaker 1: only see like ones every twenty years, and then the
Speaker 1: college reunion you see them every five years. You're best friends.
Speaker 1: And then there's some characters you don't want to see.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people are back, some people are missing,
Speaker 1: some people are back. I'm not gonna give anything away,
Speaker 1: but when, since you don't write with an outline, do
Speaker 1: at least begin with the number of characters you want
Speaker 1: to bring back for this episode.
Speaker 8: I don't want to correct the host that if you
Speaker 8: could believe it, it's the twenty sixth Gabriel Na. Oh
Speaker 8: my gosh, I know, I know, and it's my twenty night.
Speaker 8: So next year is a huge milestone here for me.
Speaker 8: Look I I I I have said this many many times.
Speaker 8: I shall say it again. I have tried to outline
Speaker 8: a book. It never doesn't work for me. The finished
Speaker 8: product never looks the way the way I outlined it.
Speaker 8: So I always thought it was a waste of time.
Speaker 8: And what really happens is that I tend to think
Speaker 8: of my first draft as actually a very long, detailed outline,
Speaker 8: and then I turned that that that that first, that
Speaker 8: first draft, into a second draft and ultimately a third
Speaker 8: and fourth draft, And that's that's how I do it.
Speaker 8: But I do think in this book, I'd say that
Speaker 8: I saw at least one hundred pages before I started writing.
Speaker 6: I didn't start with absolutely nothing.
Speaker 8: But by the time I finished the writing, finished the
Speaker 8: first chapter, I had it all figured out. I knew
Speaker 8: what the twist was going to be at the end.
Speaker 8: So I figured this one out a little earlier than
Speaker 8: I sometimes do. Sometimes I like to just go for
Speaker 8: a ride with Gabriel and experience things through his point
Speaker 8: of view and work it out with him.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, though, it's been game, and we're not
Speaker 1: going to tell people what the losen of the game
Speaker 1: is with its references. It's like a World Cup summer
Speaker 1: book because it's got own gold and it's got a
Speaker 1: regulation play and the Lisban game. Was that on your
Speaker 1: mind when you were doing this, No, it wasn't.
Speaker 6: But they are European characters.
Speaker 8: British characters, and so I did borrow some football terminology.
Speaker 8: I think own gold did get in there in regulation
Speaker 8: play got into it, but that was written law before
Speaker 8: the World Cup.
Speaker 1: Office. Okay, well it's nicely time I.
Speaker 6: Did borrow some SERMs.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about something that we can discuss.
Speaker 1: Because it's an actual episode from history. We won't tell
Speaker 1: how it fits in. I had completely forgotten about the
Speaker 1: IRA mortar attack on Number ten Downing in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: When John I had it had gone from my head,
Speaker 1: Daniel Silva, because you know, you sleep on one side
Speaker 1: long enough and everything drains out. How did was that
Speaker 1: on your mind when you sat down or did that
Speaker 1: come in the course of the Just something to educate
Speaker 1: the readers about.
Speaker 8: No, no, I mean I wanted to without giving too
Speaker 8: much away, you know this that aspect of the plot
Speaker 8: was inspired by a series of real life events last autumn.
Speaker 8: You will remember that that Copenhagen Airport was shut down
Speaker 8: for several hours by a drones form its last September.
Speaker 8: They had to close the airport for six hours or so.
Speaker 8: It resulted in a spillover of travel disruptions all across
Speaker 8: the continent. But in the days that followed there were
Speaker 8: drones swarms at other civilian airports and at Danish military bases.
Speaker 8: Danish Prime Minister was so alarmed by this situation that
Speaker 8: she came this close to calling up the reserves. They
Speaker 8: never excused Russia flat out, but if you listen to
Speaker 8: their statements, it's clear that they believe and they know
Speaker 8: that Russia was behind it. And what what's interesting was
Speaker 8: that there was this previously scheduled emergency summit that was
Speaker 8: supposed to take place in Copenhagen just a couple of
Speaker 8: days after this, and the Danish intelligence service was so
Speaker 8: alarmed that the Russians were going to try to attack
Speaker 8: the summit with drone that they closed the airspace. They
Speaker 8: laid their hands on every drone kit at signal jammer
Speaker 8: anti drone kit, I should say a signal jammer they
Speaker 8: could lay their hand to try to protect that meeting.
Speaker 8: And that was the inspiration for the plot. And the
Speaker 8: very important meeting that takes place in my novel takes
Speaker 8: place at number ten, and I wanted to remind people
Speaker 8: that Number ten had been attacked before. John Major is
Speaker 8: a dear friend and a longtime reader oh, and I
Speaker 8: slid a conference in there. Yes, he got back to
Speaker 8: me just a couple of days ago, and so he
Speaker 8: was there and he you know, he's in the cabinet
Speaker 8: room with his entire cabinet when that when that mortar hit,
Speaker 8: I mean, and windows blew out and everyone is diving
Speaker 8: under the table.
Speaker 6: And he.
Speaker 8: Reacted with such extraordinary calm in that moment, and I
Speaker 8: wanted to sort of pay tribute to him. But yeah,
Speaker 8: that's a real incident, and I referenced it for very
Speaker 8: specific reason.
Speaker 1: I wish that we had British prime ministers anywhere near
Speaker 1: like the British prime ministers you invent for your book,
Speaker 1: and like mister Major. In fact, you even got a
Speaker 1: wonderful complement of Margaret Margaret Thatcher in here. She has
Speaker 1: a touch of missus Thatcher. She scares me more than
Speaker 1: mister Thatcher. About a different European leader, and we won't
Speaker 1: say which country, but it's an invented European leader. I thought.
Speaker 1: The only thing we disagree about Daniel Silva about Russia
Speaker 1: because they're a menace, is that the breach in between
Speaker 1: America and NATA is real. But I think it's because
Speaker 1: they took their holiday from history longer than we did.
Speaker 1: I polled all the defense spending GDP numbers. Jeremy down
Speaker 1: to two point four percent. France is at below that.
Speaker 1: Finland's at two point nine percent. That's pretty good, the
Speaker 1: Netherlands at two point six percent. Great Britain's at two
Speaker 1: point three percent. They couldn't even get a destroyer to
Speaker 1: the c of Omni was the Persian golf. They got
Speaker 1: to get more serious about this because Putin's a killer.
Speaker 6: They are serious about this.
Speaker 8: If you I can't remember which chapter.
Speaker 6: It is, but you know, gosh, I'm gonna let that ring.
Speaker 8: Okay, But Graham Seymour is working on a document that
Speaker 8: he's about to deliver to the Joint Intelligence Committee, which
Speaker 8: is overseers of the British intelligence community, and he's telling
Speaker 8: them we will be at Russia in the very near future.
Speaker 8: And I put that in the book, and I debated
Speaker 8: it until the very end.
Speaker 6: I said, I'm leaving it in there.
Speaker 8: And I don't know if you'd noticed a piece in
Speaker 8: this in the Times of London last weekend that they've
Speaker 8: now European intelligence services and political leaders are in agreement.
Speaker 8: It'll probably be will be in a shooting war by
Speaker 8: twenty thirty, Mark Ruta, the NATO General Secretary. If you
Speaker 8: read the quote at the end of the book talking
Speaker 8: about how this war is going to be, you know,
Speaker 8: along the lines of the ones that our grandsparents lived through,
Speaker 8: they are very.
Speaker 6: They are convinced.
Speaker 8: As soon as Putin is done in whatever fashion in Ukraine,
Speaker 8: his economy is a war economy. He can't make a
Speaker 8: transition back to a peacetime economy. There he is. He's
Speaker 8: going to continue with the wartime economy. He's going to
Speaker 8: rebuild his military and probably go straight for Estonia, and
Speaker 8: then then we're in the shooting war. And then what happens.
Speaker 8: Are we going to let him take it? Are we
Speaker 8: going to react? Are we going to be in a
Speaker 8: full fledged war? And will the United States be a
Speaker 8: part of that war? Interesting questions.
Speaker 1: I don't think we will let them take it. I
Speaker 1: believe that Poland, with its four point three percent GDP
Speaker 1: and Ukrainian technology, Lithuania is at four percent, be at
Speaker 1: three point seven, Estonia at three point four. I know,
Speaker 1: I just met with someone out in California, just came
Speaker 1: back from Latin, where our ambassador is at least Argiros.
Speaker 1: They're ready, I mean they're getting ready for this. And
Speaker 1: Poland may be the most prepared. Well, Finland is the
Speaker 1: most prepared NATO ally, so the Nordic country. The countries
Speaker 1: on the front line are ready, and Ukraine is invented
Speaker 1: left the right.
Speaker 8: That's the key word front, the frontline countries. And the
Speaker 8: other thing that you said is Poland and and I
Speaker 8: think the Poles could probably beat the Russians practically single handedly.
Speaker 6: If all the all that. I was.
Speaker 8: Discussing this very issue with one of my advisors who
Speaker 8: helped me with the with the drone technology on this book.
Speaker 8: There's no way that the Russians are going to beat
Speaker 8: to leave the United States out of it. The European
Speaker 8: powers can handle them on their own right now. They
Speaker 8: are rearming. Yes, Brittain is lagging behind. They have the
Speaker 8: terrible economic situation, the politics are in disarrayed. But the
Speaker 8: frontline countries are ready to go and they're not gonna
Speaker 8: They're not going to.
Speaker 6: Be taken over by the Russians.
Speaker 8: That the question is will it stay will it stay conventional?
Speaker 6: What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: I don't think Putin is so stupid. He has children,
Speaker 1: I always take some solos in the fact that they're
Speaker 1: atheists and they have children as opposed to Iranians who
Speaker 1: are millennial as twelve vers, and they don't really care
Speaker 1: if the world blows up and everyone else. The atheists
Speaker 1: that have children, all they have is the country to
Speaker 1: go forward. But it's the theocrat fanatics and Iran I
Speaker 1: worry about. I want to go back, though, to a
Speaker 1: couple of fun things in this book. Well, another World
Speaker 1: Cup reference or football reference in the European style. D
Speaker 1: I Peel gets to play in the Premier League. I
Speaker 1: was so happy to see him back, and I nurse
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, you're going to start
Speaker 1: another series with d I Peel that can be made
Speaker 1: into a BBC series that goes for you know, a
Speaker 1: season at a time, like Shetland, which somebody watches in
Speaker 1: the Silva household, right, either you or Jamie watch Shetland
Speaker 1: because it's in the book.
Speaker 6: We watch it side by side.
Speaker 8: We're Shetland addicts and I had to put a round bok.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great, so are we. And I
Speaker 1: also liked the fact a frequent guest on the program
Speaker 1: over the here has been Peter Baker. The only thing
Speaker 1: I found even slightly unbelievable that anyone in the Trump
Speaker 1: White House would leak to Peter Baker much less maybe
Speaker 1: they do. He's a fine reporter and he's never played
Speaker 1: a partisan game in his life, but his wife plays
Speaker 1: a partisan game. And so it's a it's an interesting
Speaker 1: bit of did Peter call you yet?
Speaker 8: Yes, Peter and are very good friends, very good friends.
Speaker 8: And I don't do that often. I don't name people
Speaker 8: by name. But I wanted to give a tip of
Speaker 8: the hat to Peter, so I let him break the
Speaker 8: news that there's going to be an important summit at
Speaker 8: Downing Street, that that the British were hoping to keep
Speaker 8: quiet for a couple more days.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you about And I learned things
Speaker 1: every time you write a book. A mountain set in Switzerland,
Speaker 1: inhabited by the or Off dragon, inhabited by the deathless
Speaker 1: soul of Pancha's pilot I have never heard of that
Speaker 1: in my life. Where did you find that? That's a
Speaker 1: legend in Christian myth? Where did that come from?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's it's Pilatus, It's named for him. It's right
Speaker 8: near Interlockin. I wrote a biography of a speculative biography
Speaker 8: of of.
Speaker 6: Punches Pilots in the in.
Speaker 8: A book called The Order, And I did think I
Speaker 8: did reference that Pilotis in that. So you know, in
Speaker 8: early Christian literature, you know, Pilot was described as as
Speaker 8: as his deathless soul, that he for his eternal punishment
Speaker 8: was that he sort of wandered the woods of Europe,
Speaker 8: you know, you know, mortally grieving guilt, guilt written for
Speaker 8: what had happened.
Speaker 1: Jacob Marleyva books provided and so.
Speaker 8: But then one legend is that he inhabited he lived
Speaker 8: up up on the top of Mount Pilazzis up there,
Speaker 8: and people used to claim that they would see him
Speaker 8: sitting on a rock weeping in this this sort of
Speaker 8: sulfas spring up there. Anyway, that's Mount Pilazzis. Next time,
Speaker 8: next time you're interlock and it's right there.
Speaker 1: Well, where do you get your mountaineering, As I recall,
Speaker 1: you're not yourself a mountaineering I'm not. I've clibed one
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand foot peak and I called it Quitch Mount
Speaker 1: Sherman in Colorado's that's too hard. Where do you learn
Speaker 1: your mountaineering stuff? Because that that figures.
Speaker 6: In the well.
Speaker 8: Christopher Keller is a world class mountaineer, and that's been
Speaker 8: referenced in his character from the beginning. Uh And so
Speaker 8: you know, I I try to find, you know, first
Speaker 8: person accounts by by mountaineers of specific climbs, and so
Speaker 8: Christopher lived for many years. Of course, of course it
Speaker 8: actually has some serious mountains on it. And so you know,
Speaker 8: I approach it like any other aspect of the book.
Speaker 6: I try to I try to get it right.
Speaker 8: And some someday I'm going to write a book with
Speaker 8: Christopher that uh uh, maybe steal a little bit of
Speaker 8: the Igres section and write Nearing Thriller was one.
Speaker 1: Of my earliest weathers. It's really one of the.
Speaker 8: Greatest fabulous of all time. He was fabulous. He was
Speaker 8: just an extraordinary writer. Travallion to let me.
Speaker 1: Go then to a sapling Harry Wilson, now Daniel Silva
Speaker 1: doesn't introduce people by accident. They come back and people
Speaker 1: will be like I say, it's a college reunion or
Speaker 1: a family funeral. Harry Wilson shows up. He's not around
Speaker 1: very much. But you don't do that, do you. You don't
Speaker 1: introduce people for no reason. I mean, we've got the
Speaker 1: factotum for Graham Seymour. You mentioned Graham Seymours in the book,
Speaker 1: so I'll go with that fact totem. We've got the
Speaker 1: people at the cottage again, silver readers will know, maybe
Speaker 1: they'll remember what I'm talking about there. It's wonderful. It's
Speaker 1: comfortable to find these people. But when you bring someone
Speaker 1: in like dipl he shows up. Oh he was a
Speaker 1: kid ten books ago or twenty books ago and now.
Speaker 6: Twenty five books ago.
Speaker 1: Was he in the first book, the second book?
Speaker 6: First book? First? Okay, first, So he's.
Speaker 1: Back, and he's getting older, and he's got skills. Now
Speaker 1: we've got Harry. Do we expect Harry back?
Speaker 6: I think so.
Speaker 8: You know, I just needed I needed to move the characters,
Speaker 8: and I I hate throwaway lines.
Speaker 6: I hate throwaway scenes. I always try to make each scene.
Speaker 8: A little special, in in in some way, And so
Speaker 8: I created a tiny little character and created some interaction
Speaker 8: between the Sapling and the legends to try to just
Speaker 8: bring him into into sharper relief.
Speaker 6: I can't imagine we won't see Harry. His name is
Speaker 6: too good to.
Speaker 1: Let exactly there, and Mary Ala Cruse is too competent.
Speaker 1: We won't even tell people where mary Ala Cruz is,
Speaker 1: but she's too competent to let her disappear. Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that a good expectation on my part? You know?
Speaker 8: I when I was writing those scenes, I actually thought, boy,
Speaker 8: I would like to carry this character with Gabriel a
Speaker 8: little longer. And in the end I had to let
Speaker 8: her fall by the wayside as the as the second
Speaker 8: act began.
Speaker 6: But I just I just love that character. And again
Speaker 6: I just did a couple of little things with her.
Speaker 8: You know, her hand was all swollen and scraped, and
Speaker 8: it turns out that she's a real badass, and that
Speaker 8: there's a couple of lines of dialogue when she and
Speaker 8: Gabriel are driving that are to be some of the
Speaker 8: funniest things that.
Speaker 6: He's ever said. They were great together.
Speaker 1: It's a great thing. But I appreciate that you go
Speaker 1: you're aware of what happens in resort places, because I
Speaker 1: live not far from one, and they have Romanian seasonal staff,
Speaker 1: and I do not know where they go. I don't
Speaker 1: know where they live, and what you describe I have
Speaker 1: never experienced. But it made perfect sense to me. Have
Speaker 1: you been to such a place?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 8: I mean, you can't you can't not go to be
Speaker 8: in such a place in places like the south of France,
Speaker 8: where you know, you see like dormitory like settings if
Speaker 8: they're lucky. But in this case, and this has been
Speaker 8: well publicized, you know, beat this population. I'm going to
Speaker 8: get it wrong, but it goes from a tiny little
Speaker 8: bit in the winter and then all of a sudden
Speaker 8: it explodes. And I've had the situation. It's happening on
Speaker 8: Nantucket for example. You know, essential services workers in Nantucket
Speaker 8: can't afford to live there. Uh so they are commuting
Speaker 8: by the ferry every single day. And and I'm so
Speaker 8: sorry about that phone. I'm in a hotel room and
Speaker 8: I always wanted to to point that out and said,
Speaker 8: there's a character that we find in a in a
Speaker 8: homeless in camp.
Speaker 6: But they're all workers.
Speaker 8: They're all working their fingers to the bone, but they
Speaker 8: can't afford to live in the place where they work.
Speaker 8: It's impossible, and it's a it's a very special scene.
Speaker 1: Now I want I turned to some of the technology
Speaker 1: you introduce us to, and there's a lot of drones,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to come back to because I believe
Speaker 1: you are correct, and in fact, someone else who is
Speaker 1: an actual real spy told me a long time ago
Speaker 1: that in twenty five years, no one will live in
Speaker 1: the White House because the President of the United States
Speaker 1: can't be in a known location because of drug technology.
Speaker 1: And that shadow falls across your book. And it's true
Speaker 1: to you what Ukraine is doing because of necessity. They
Speaker 1: were outside of Putin's villa by about one hundred miles
Speaker 1: when they sunk a part of the Russian fleet this
Speaker 1: last week in the Sea of Azov. So it's really
Speaker 1: not that much of a stretch to threaten everyone and
Speaker 1: everything in the world, is it.
Speaker 8: No, I can't remember the exact phrase that I used,
Speaker 8: but no political leader is going to be safe. You
Speaker 8: won't be able to go out and sit in the
Speaker 8: back garden of Number ten down the street, because the
Speaker 8: drone could come over anytime, killed you.
Speaker 6: The south lawn of the White House. I mean that.
Speaker 8: I know that, you know President Obama like to go
Speaker 8: out out there and play play basketball with his friends.
Speaker 6: Forget about that.
Speaker 8: And and the anti drone kits are you know, only
Speaker 8: so effective. You know I didn't use a tether drone
Speaker 8: in in in my climactic finish here, but I mean it.
Speaker 8: You know you know about tether drones. They have a
Speaker 8: tiny little filament of five rock the cable. You could
Speaker 8: have several kilometers of it. You're not going to block
Speaker 8: a signal there, and that drone is going to find
Speaker 8: its target. It could it could be a drone that
Speaker 8: that drops an ordinance, or or it can be a
Speaker 8: kamikaze drone like I had in this book. We are
Speaker 8: the Pandora's box. Analogy is overused, but I shall use
Speaker 8: it again. We have opened Pandora's Box. And I don't
Speaker 8: think the world is ever going to be the same again.
Speaker 8: And there I think you're right. I think we're going
Speaker 8: to come to a place of the very near future
Speaker 8: where our political leaders at very senior government officials have
Speaker 8: to stay, their whereabouts have.
Speaker 6: To be unknown. They won't be able to move around,
Speaker 6: and they can't walk around in public.
Speaker 1: Did you note that this is not in Ransom because
Speaker 1: it's not set in the Middle East. Saronic is the
Speaker 1: new drone boat maker for America, and America sent three
Speaker 1: drones into Bondarabas last week to blow up a submarine
Speaker 1: into submarine pens. Did that? Did you catch that? Daniel Sylvia,
Speaker 1: you're on book Tour for Ransom. So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: you're catching everything that's going on in the war, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot that's going on in the war.
Speaker 6: There is, it's it's most of it is not really great.
Speaker 8: And this you know, how we got into this war
Speaker 8: in the first place, and it's so unprepared for the
Speaker 8: possibility that that the Iranians were going to expand the war.
Speaker 8: I don't understand how we made that mistake, but it's
Speaker 8: something that I encountered actually talking to Israeli politicians.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 8: You know, they had this this thought that they they've
Speaker 8: reached this conclusion that we could hit the Iranians really,
Speaker 8: really hard and that they wouldn't respond, And it's to me,
Speaker 8: it always seemed delusional. And I could tell you that
Speaker 8: that people in Mossad, who who you know, worked the
Speaker 8: Iran file, they did not think that. But I think
Speaker 8: that you know, elements of Lecud and the Israeli right,
Speaker 8: you know, somehow convinced themselves that the Iranians would not
Speaker 8: target that their golf neighbors and would not shut down
Speaker 8: international commerce.
Speaker 6: But that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you surprised? We talked and seven but we
Speaker 1: haven't talked since the Iran War began, and I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit stunned that Hesbelah was able to For example,
Speaker 1: under the Crusader canceled castle three miles from the Israeli border,
Speaker 1: they were able to create a mile of granite tunnel
Speaker 1: and the Israelis and the American didn't know it was there.
Speaker 1: And they've got these tunnels. In Gaza, it's sand, you
Speaker 1: can dig through sand, but in Lebanon it's just granite.
Speaker 1: And they have been doing that and we haven't been
Speaker 1: able to see him from the sky and Israel and
Speaker 1: been able to penetrate Hasbilah to know that it's there.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised by that?
Speaker 8: No, No, this is a serious, serious organization.
Speaker 6: You know they've been around now.
Speaker 8: Since the eighty We sort of came to know them
Speaker 8: after the Berlin excuse me, that Beirut Barrack's bombing when
Speaker 8: they killed two hundred and forty.
Speaker 6: One of our marines.
Speaker 8: I think that that explosion that went off was the
Speaker 8: single largest explosion on planet Earth since World War Two.
Speaker 8: It was an extraordinary device that they assembled and delivered
Speaker 8: to the target. You know, this is a serious organization
Speaker 8: with incredible weaponry, and you know they should not be underestimated.
Speaker 6: But no, Look, it's probably easier for them to tunnel.
Speaker 8: You know, they have to worry about collapses the way
Speaker 8: they have, you know, all of the tunnels and guys
Speaker 8: that have to be reinforced all the time. They can
Speaker 8: go into into solid rock and hide their stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to one more bit of technology,
Speaker 1: deep fakes. Uh. The week we're taping this, the vice
Speaker 1: president gave a three hour interview with Joe Rogan, which
Speaker 1: I have not watched it. I've never seen a Rogan interview,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that I can deal with a
Speaker 1: three hour interview by anyone of anyone. But he had
Speaker 1: a three interview.
Speaker 8: We are we not doing three hours now?
Speaker 6: No, are not doing a three hours.
Speaker 1: We do forty minutes. And that's you usually at the time.
Speaker 1: Normally you're making it at one program in July fourth,
Speaker 1: but logistics didn't work this year, and we'll just play
Speaker 1: it out. But the vice president goes on. So I
Speaker 1: see a bunch of clips online. I don't believe any
Speaker 1: of them, Danny, do you until I watched the original?
Speaker 1: That's like water stamped. I'm not going to believe it.
Speaker 8: Wow, So that's where you are already, you're questioning it's interesting.
Speaker 6: Yep, that's where we are. And these things are very.
Speaker 8: Very good, and it is only a matter of time
Speaker 8: before we have a situation where, I mean, you don't
Speaker 8: have to go and stage a fake propaganda movie anymore.
Speaker 6: You just sit at a computer and do it.
Speaker 8: And you know we're going to have Estonians killing Russians
Speaker 8: or something that some sort of provocation for the for
Speaker 8: the invasion that's going to happen in the near future,
Speaker 8: the drones, deep fakes. A.
Speaker 6: Life's getting interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I'm going to retire into and a
Speaker 1: half years. Daniel Silva, I helpe. You never do because
Speaker 1: I want in my retirement. But I want to know,
Speaker 1: are you worried about it? I don't think AI can
Speaker 1: do Gabriel Lan novels. I don't think an AI machine
Speaker 1: can produce a ransom novel, do you No?
Speaker 6: No, I do not. But they can produce they.
Speaker 8: I mean a couple of writers have acknowledged that they're
Speaker 8: using AI to produce their books or portions of their books.
Speaker 8: It's not something that I'm it's too much fun. I
Speaker 8: don't know why you would use AI to write your
Speaker 8: book for you, that's it just seems ridiculous. But it's
Speaker 8: inevitable that that a fully AI novel, this is going
Speaker 8: to enter the bloodstream of American publishing at some point
Speaker 8: in the near future, just like we have, you know,
Speaker 8: full AI music, fake AI bands that are popping up
Speaker 8: on Spotify and Apple Music.
Speaker 6: It's just inevitable, I think.
Speaker 1: So I want to I have asked you this question
Speaker 1: probably every year since we've started doing this, which is
Speaker 1: probably twenty years now. We may have started seven or
Speaker 1: eight years into the series and devoted a full show
Speaker 1: to the first seven or eight books, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to keep the question current. Alon ought to be
Speaker 1: a television series like Fauda. I learned yesterday from an
Speaker 1: Israeli blogger who interviewed me that Fouda is about ready
Speaker 1: to release and they are dealing with ten to seven
Speaker 1: in the first two episodes. But you don't have to
Speaker 1: watch them, and you can still watch the series, and
Speaker 1: they've made that known to the Israeli public. And I
Speaker 1: won't watch it because I wouldn't watch the film.
Speaker 4: Did you watch the film?
Speaker 1: By the way, did you watch the Israeli government approved
Speaker 1: forty five minute film of ten to seven. No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not did not.
Speaker 8: I didn't know it existed. What is the forty five
Speaker 8: minute When.
Speaker 1: They want to BRIEFE got by me. Yeah, when they
Speaker 1: want to brief foreign journalists who doubt what happened on
Speaker 1: ten to seven, they have a forty five a minute
Speaker 1: version of what Hamas filmed that day. It's all Hamas footage.
Speaker 8: So it's not yes, okay, that that I know about. Okay,
Speaker 8: I do know about that. Yeah, And so I have
Speaker 8: never watched it.
Speaker 4: So is this ever?
Speaker 1: Is Alan ever coming to the little or the big screen? Ever?
Speaker 6: I don't know. You know, I had, I had what
Speaker 6: I thought was a perfect deal a few years ago.
Speaker 8: And you know, look, it's more common for something to
Speaker 8: be optioned and not made than it is for it
Speaker 8: to be optioned and made. So I've sold the book
Speaker 8: the series four five times. I think it just have
Speaker 8: never been able to get across the finish line. Right now,
Speaker 8: I retain the rights. And you know, there are conversations
Speaker 8: that are happening, you know, regularly, some serious, uh, some
Speaker 8: not so serious, and we shall see. I am at
Speaker 8: this stage more than comfortable to let him exist on
Speaker 8: the page. You know, there's no Lucas Davenport series either
Speaker 8: on television. A great character by my colleague John Stanford.
Speaker 8: You know, it is what it is, and I think
Speaker 8: that right now, in the current political situation, I'm not
Speaker 8: sure the time is right for a Gabriel Lout series.
Speaker 1: Well, the Slow Horses series has become such a magnificent
Speaker 1: hit that everybody waits, and the Lioness has come out
Speaker 1: and fouta I mentioned. I just think it's such a natural.
Speaker 1: Let me close this way. You just mentioned another great
Speaker 1: thriller writer. You're the you. I think you hold the
Speaker 1: title right now. You're like, I'll leave. Someone's going to
Speaker 1: knock you out someday, but not yet. And Ransom will
Speaker 1: sell more than any other thriller this summer, so no
Speaker 1: one's going to knock up for at least in a year.
Speaker 1: Do you ever gather at a place like Wilton's, with
Speaker 1: the way the art world gathers at Wilton do the
Speaker 1: thriller writers at the top of the game ever gathered
Speaker 1: together just to relax?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 8: You know, we bumped into each other now and again.
Speaker 8: I had a wonderful evening. I guess it's my second
Speaker 8: night of tour. My friend Amore Tolls interviewed me at
Speaker 8: the strands, So there's two writers who got together into
Speaker 8: Wilton's like setting and talked about our work. It's just
Speaker 8: there were three hundred people watching us do it. So
Speaker 8: you know our schedules, you know, don't don't really allow it.
Speaker 8: Everyone's on deadline, I tell you all. And frankly, all
Speaker 8: of my writer friends are of the non fiction variety.
Speaker 8: The aforementioned Peter Baker, Bob Woodward is a dear friend,
Speaker 8: you know. Shane Harris is a dear friend. All of
Speaker 8: my friends are what I like to describe as real writers.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm the guy who just making the stuff up.
Speaker 1: You're just making a real journalists happy because it's something
Speaker 1: in the summer. Daniel Silva, there's a book tour underway.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time in the middle of it. It's
Speaker 1: over at danielsilvabooks dot com. You can find out where
Speaker 1: Daniel is going to be if you want to go
Speaker 1: and get a copy of Ransom. Sign congratulations on another
Speaker 1: number one New York Times bestseller and keep the streak
Speaker 1: going for as long as I'm alive. I want to
Speaker 1: keep reading this in the summertime. Daniel, my best to
Speaker 1: your wonderful wife and safety and success on your tour.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bet