Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
Speaker 1: of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of
Speaker 1: them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Reas Amarica. I'm Hugh Hewett on this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on. There's really one big story.
Speaker 1: The big story is let me read it to you.
Speaker 1: I Meet Segal posted this earlier on x A Meet
Speaker 1: of course Channel twelve, leading political analyst in Israel, and
Speaker 1: it's very wired in Israel. According to Barak revide I
Speaker 1: Meet begins. The US in Iran are at the closest
Speaker 1: point to agreement since the war began. The framework includes
Speaker 1: point one, the US and Iranian naval blockade will be
Speaker 1: gradually lifted during the detailed negotiation period. Red light, red light.
Speaker 1: Detailed negotiation period. You don't need a detailed negotiation period.
Speaker 1: They need to stop firing at chips and let the
Speaker 1: ever everybody out in our blockades got to continue. Point
Speaker 1: number two, the United States will commit in the memorandum
Speaker 1: of understanding to graduately lift sanctions and release tens of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of frozen assets. Bad. That gives Donald
Speaker 1: Trump the odor of Barack Obama. That's his palets of cash.
Speaker 1: The regime is on the brink of collapse. They can't
Speaker 1: pay their thugs. Don't give them any money ever. Number Three,
Speaker 1: negotiations are still under way on the duration of the
Speaker 1: uranium enrichment free what the President told me on Monday
Speaker 1: on this program, No enrichment, not now, not ever, never,
Speaker 1: And they're maybe it'll be fifteen years, maybe it'll be
Speaker 1: at least twelve. No, no enrichment. They don't need it.
Speaker 1: They're fanatics and lunatics, as Marco Ribio said yesterday, they're
Speaker 1: insane in the head, as the President said on Monday,
Speaker 1: they're lunatics. As Marco Ribio said, they're lunatics. They don't
Speaker 1: get to enrich period. Then two sources claim that Iran
Speaker 1: would agree to transfer the highly enriched uranium it possesses
Speaker 1: out of the country. Okay, that's fine, that'd be step
Speaker 1: number one. Okay, Iran, you're serious. We got the blockhead going.
Speaker 1: We're going to send in a team from the International
Speaker 1: Atomic Energy Agency. They're going to supervise the excavation of Fodor.
Speaker 1: They're going to take out whatever remains, and they're going
Speaker 1: to ship it to the United States, much like we
Speaker 1: did with Libya, much like we did with Ukraine, much
Speaker 1: like we did with Kazakhstan, much like we did with
Speaker 1: South Africa. We know how to do this. That's where
Speaker 1: we start. We get your six hundred pounds or one
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of hu. Even if it's dust, as it
Speaker 1: probably is, you might be able to use that dust.
Speaker 1: It's a good faith measure. That's where we begin. Then
Speaker 1: they say the United States is expected to get Iran's
Speaker 1: response within forty eight hours. Now I don't know who
Speaker 1: link this. I can't believe Steve Witkof for Jared Kushner
Speaker 1: have their name on Munich two point zero. I can't
Speaker 1: believe the president would agree to this. I really can't.
Speaker 1: It's time to go back to war with these people.
Speaker 1: They shot at the UAE yesterday, fifteen missiles, two cruise missiles,
Speaker 1: a bunch of drones. They're not serious, they're killers. They're
Speaker 1: a lunatic. To Mehiti's in charge, it's a hunta time
Speaker 1: to go back to war in a kinetic fashion until
Speaker 1: they say, you know what, we can't win this. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I just want the president to know what's coming. Former
Speaker 1: Secretary of Stain Anthony Blinkin was at the Economic Club
Speaker 1: of New York. He's still defending the JZPOA today, cut
Speaker 1: number seven.
Speaker 2: You know, this gets to something larger, which is we're
Speaker 2: living in a time, in a period where that is
Speaker 2: so binary, where it's impossible it seems for people to
Speaker 2: hold multiple ideas in their heads at the same time.
Speaker 3: And so yes, from I think Steck to.
Speaker 2: The United States, in many countries in the region, around
Speaker 2: the world and clear rent is not a good thing,
Speaker 2: which is why administration after administration has looked at how do.
Speaker 4: We deal with this?
Speaker 2: But the conclusions that previous administrations drew were different than
Speaker 2: the ones that President Trump drew. When during the Obama administration,
Speaker 2: when we brought when we got the JCPOA, the around
Speaker 2: nuclear deal, of course we looked at military options, but
Speaker 2: we concluded then that if we exercised a military option one,
Speaker 2: there could be all these second and third or consequences,
Speaker 2: including straight orf Hord moves, including attacks on our forces
Speaker 2: and our people, in the region, including attacks on our
Speaker 2: partners in the region, and to what gain we assessed
Speaker 2: back then.
Speaker 4: It's been publicly reported that in all likelihood, if.
Speaker 2: We wanted the program, we might gain a couple of
Speaker 2: years at best, that Iran would be rebuild and it
Speaker 2: would rebuild deeper underground. It would be harder to get out,
Speaker 2: and we'd be right back where we started. On the
Speaker 2: other hand, doing the hard work of diplomacy getting a
Speaker 2: deal bought us, in the case of the JCPOA, ten fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty years, depending on the different constraints.
Speaker 1: It bought you nothing with regards to missiles, remember that
Speaker 1: it bought you nothing with the big guard to the
Speaker 1: forest of missiles that they built around Fulldor. Got you
Speaker 1: nothing about underground pickack from and Fodor. It bought you
Speaker 1: nothing except lies and death and more terrorism around Israel.
Speaker 1: It was a complete and abject failure. Don't mister President
Speaker 1: do what they did because it's already out there. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's just signing the JCPOA. Why do you tear it
Speaker 1: up in the first place. Don't fall for that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we've got Richard Goldberg, who helps stand up the National
Speaker 1: Energy Dominance Council. Now with the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy,
Speaker 1: talk about what is going on in Iran right now,
Speaker 1: the reason we don't want to step in and save
Speaker 1: them kind number eight.
Speaker 4: Listen, they're looking at the intel right.
Speaker 5: We talked a little bit earlier you have in this
Speaker 5: discussion about the fracture in the regime. President pezeshk In,
Speaker 5: who's sort of the political person who's managing the government,
Speaker 5: sees the money running out, doesn't know how he's going
Speaker 5: to make payroll, is gasoline about to come to a shortage,
Speaker 5: all of these things that he's dealing with, banks teetering on,
Speaker 5: the vergic collapse. And then Ahmud Vehidi, who's heading this
Speaker 5: committee running the country based from the IRGC, who to
Speaker 5: keep the war going. And so you know, the president
Speaker 5: is seeing this food fight going on. Maybe he likes that.
Speaker 5: Maybe he thinks going back to major military operations coalesces
Speaker 5: that committee instead of fracturing the committee. So I think
Speaker 5: there is this ying and ying here. Now, what would
Speaker 5: you do at the lowest level of escalation, I would
Speaker 5: say the Rock Island, which is a little tiny island,
Speaker 5: to go back to the map that sticks out right
Speaker 5: there next to the Strait of Horn moves is where
Speaker 5: the IRGC has run their quote unquote toll booth out
Speaker 5: of It's where they have a coordination cell.
Speaker 4: I mean just take them out at that point.
Speaker 5: I mean, if they're firing, that's your moment to respond
Speaker 5: with self defensive fire on key IRGC based as in
Speaker 5: command of control. I'd start with the Rock Island to
Speaker 5: see if you're able to send a message.
Speaker 1: They cannot last, all right, they cannot last. They don't
Speaker 1: have any revenue. There are thugs are leaving, they've got
Speaker 1: division within the regime. Maybe you push you a little
Speaker 1: bit harder, like Richard Goldberg suggests, but you don't collapse.
Speaker 1: Chris Wright check Tery of Energy, made the key point
Speaker 1: on Fox Business this morning, and Maria Barroomo cut number six.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Maria, I think what we saw and certainly what
Speaker 6: the Iranians saw with Project Freedom is one way or
Speaker 6: the other, the United States is going to have free flow.
Speaker 4: Of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker 6: It can be in an agreement with Iran, or it
Speaker 6: can be without an agreement with Iran. And I think
Speaker 6: the fear that the United States's military is going to
Speaker 6: open the strait, whether Iran wants it or not made
Speaker 6: them realize if that's true, we've gotten nothing. We have
Speaker 6: no remaining leverage. Maybe we should get more reasonable and
Speaker 6: get back to the table with the United States and
Speaker 6: see what we can get out of this.
Speaker 4: We're going to have to give up.
Speaker 1: Our new core program.
Speaker 6: We're going to have to stop terrorizing the Middle East. Hey,
Speaker 6: maybe the ninety million people in Iran can find a
Speaker 6: way to a better life. But the only leverage they
Speaker 6: have has been impeding flow of traffic through the straits
Speaker 6: of Hormuz, and Mike Worth is right. They've been successful
Speaker 6: at that so far. But we can change that if
Speaker 6: we need to do it unilaterally.
Speaker 1: He's right, we can, and we should. Secretary Wright is correct.
Speaker 1: They've run out of money, they've run out of options,
Speaker 1: they have no cards left to play. They're counting on
Speaker 1: American left pressure on other than Trump to warn of
Speaker 1: a wipeout at the elections in November because of gas prices.
Speaker 1: I think the argument you make to the American people is,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about the pain at the pump. We've got
Speaker 1: to bring this regime down because they're lunatics and they
Speaker 1: cannot have nuclear weapon. One more cut. Marco Rubio at
Speaker 1: the White House left turn yesterday cut number eleven.
Speaker 7: Everyone has shown that it's been able to withstand a
Speaker 7: lot of pressure, and yesterday President Trump has said that
Speaker 7: they may run out of oil storage in two weeks.
Speaker 7: Do you believe that that will be the thing that
Speaker 7: gets them to the table to give up their nuclear ambitions?
Speaker 8: And if not, what will be that thing?
Speaker 9: Well, look, they're suffering devastating damage to their economy, you're right,
Speaker 9: But it's not that they're able to withstand pressures that
Speaker 9: they don't care that their people are suffering. You understand, right,
Speaker 9: there's a difference between we can understand pressure and we
Speaker 9: actually don't care. Now, I think there are people in
Speaker 9: their system that care more than others.
Speaker 4: You know, some of the elected.
Speaker 9: People that you see, some of the people you see
Speaker 9: on television with the suits on. You know, those guys
Speaker 9: care because they know, at the end of the day
Speaker 9: they have to live in the reality. And then you
Speaker 9: have an other element of their government, the clerical, the clerics,
Speaker 9: the IERGC types, who probably are more immune to that
Speaker 9: and care less. They're more interested in regime survivor at
Speaker 9: all costs. But ultimately, the pressure points are what they are.
Speaker 7: They add now that they were before, because the administration
Speaker 7: has said that the Iranian regime is divided, making it
Speaker 7: very challenging.
Speaker 9: Well, it's been challenging to deal with them diplomatically because,
Speaker 9: for example, an offer will be made and then it
Speaker 9: takes five or six days to get a response because
Speaker 9: you have to get it through their whole system.
Speaker 4: They have to find the supreme leader wherever he hides.
Speaker 10: They got to get.
Speaker 9: Him to sign off, and their system has always been
Speaker 9: multi layered in this way. It's obviously become more complex
Speaker 9: because of the damage they suffered during the war. But
Speaker 9: look suffice that to say Iran has to pay a price.
Speaker 9: They're not going to change their position out of the
Speaker 9: kindness of their heart. There has to be a pressure
Speaker 9: point on them that causes them to realize they cannot
Speaker 9: continue to close the straits or they face crushing economic consequences.
Speaker 9: But also you know global diplomatic isolation, which they have
Speaker 9: proven in the past to be susceptible to. But you're right,
Speaker 9: they have a high pain threshold, but they don't have
Speaker 9: an unlimited pain threshold.
Speaker 4: Nobody does.
Speaker 1: Nobody does. The lunatics on in charge of your own
Speaker 1: right now they have the highest pain threshold. Maybe you
Speaker 1: want to kill them, Maybe you want to kill the eighty.
Speaker 1: I think Harmoni two point zero is already dead. But
Speaker 1: maybe you want to kill the rest of the Linta,
Speaker 1: but you don't do a deal with them. I'll be
Speaker 1: right back when Noah, author of the forthcoming Blood and Progress,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. Norah Rothman his neck on the u
Speaker 1: U at chet.
Speaker 11: With a body gout in silver pain, every heaven place, detail,
Speaker 11: whatever he wanted you, and he laid it out the
Speaker 11: waste it is by gods and said the game with
Speaker 11: no match for the jagab.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. That is a course Dylan from Blood
Speaker 1: on the Tracks. I use that now as Noah Rothman's
Speaker 1: intro music because his new book, Blood and Progress comes
Speaker 1: out soon. You should pre order it now. I just
Speaker 1: posted the link on my ex account. Noah, welcome back
Speaker 1: from your European tour. Was that a tour in advance
Speaker 1: of the publication of Blood in Progress?
Speaker 12: It was neither a tour nor European. I took a
Speaker 12: week with my wife in Jamaica in advance of what
Speaker 12: I hope will be a very busy book.
Speaker 4: Tour, and I thank you for contributing to that. We
Speaker 4: will make possible here.
Speaker 1: We are going to try and make that a number
Speaker 1: one on the New York Times. In order to get
Speaker 1: it going. You got some unfortunate help when you were
Speaker 1: away at the White House Correspondence Association, when you had
Speaker 1: another leftist with a gun tried to change American history.
Speaker 1: This is becoming a movie that repeats all too often.
Speaker 12: Noah, yeah, no joke. And it's pretty ghost to promote
Speaker 12: my book about this phenomenon on the back of what
Speaker 12: could have been epocal violence. But it's nevertheless the fact
Speaker 12: that we are surrounded by incidents that confirm the thesis
Speaker 12: of this book.
Speaker 4: And it's equally.
Speaker 12: Interesting to hear people pivot directly after an incident after
Speaker 12: incident of left wing violence to the preternaturally violent right
Speaker 12: and a threat posed to it. This book addresses that,
Speaker 12: but also that particular shooter was fascinating because of the
Speaker 12: banality of.
Speaker 4: The things that he believed in, just the kind.
Speaker 12: Of stuff that passes for casual political discourse on forums
Speaker 12: like Blue Sky, to the extent that CBS's Norah O'Donnell
Speaker 12: confronted the president with this guy's ramblings, which should have
Speaker 12: been discredited by his actions, but the degree to which
Speaker 12: mainstream reporters, democratic activists, even democratic politicians marinate in this stuff.
Speaker 12: False notions about the President being a pedophile, a rapist,
Speaker 12: a traitor to the United States, this is all just
Speaker 12: common fair in left wing discourse, and it's radicalizing, and
Speaker 12: it's the sort of thing that democrats and and progressives
Speaker 12: need to be aware of because impressionable minds, distorted minds
Speaker 12: are taking action on the things that they're saying you
Speaker 12: need to act on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can we pause on that for a moment. I
Speaker 1: asked the President about Nora O'Donnell on Monday, because I
Speaker 1: would have gotten up in the left if someone repeated
Speaker 1: a libel about me, And he said, well, that would
Speaker 1: have drawn more attention to what do you think about
Speaker 1: her reading that that was premeditated? She and her producers
Speaker 1: worked through whatever his response might be. I've done enough
Speaker 1: network debates. I know how they do this stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't that doesn't happen accidentally.
Speaker 4: I honestly don't know.
Speaker 12: But I would posit the theory that the notion that
Speaker 12: the president was convicted of something akin to criminal sexual
Speaker 12: assault in the Eging Caroll case that the Russia probe
Speaker 12: was more ambiguous than we are led to believe, and
Speaker 12: that the president has unswortid affairs relating to Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 12: on Jeffrey Epstein's Island. These are the sort of things
Speaker 12: that are factually deficient. You cannot prove them in a
Speaker 12: court of law, but they are beyond dispute in liberal discourse.
Speaker 12: And if you spend a lot of time in liberal discourse,
Speaker 12: as I'm sure CBS News producers, consumers, and even Nora
Speaker 12: Donald herself, does you think this is pretty banw Indeed,
Speaker 12: you probably think that the president should answer for it.
Speaker 12: And yet it's the sort of thing that animates killers
Speaker 12: would be killers to who believe themselves to be the
Speaker 12: instruments of history to go out and execute directives they
Speaker 12: think are being are imperatives and moral and ethical imperatives.
Speaker 1: You keep score. I've read the PDF of Blood in
Speaker 1: Progress when it was in Galley's, but I don't remember
Speaker 1: if you kept score to the level of the attempts
Speaker 1: to kill presidents going all the way back to Truman
Speaker 1: and the Puerto Ricans outside of Blairhouse? Are they from
Speaker 1: the left always? Some can be mad like Hinckley and
Speaker 1: your colleague Charles C. W. Cook says there are people
Speaker 1: or just lunatach, there are political violence, and there's just
Speaker 1: some that's violence. And what category do the attempts to
Speaker 1: kill the president usually fall.
Speaker 12: Well, one thing I don't do is break everything down
Speaker 12: into statistics and numbers, because they are deliberately misleading in
Speaker 12: a lot of ways. The first chapter is I think
Speaker 12: you might remember, goes into the many databases that attempt
Speaker 12: to identify where these things fall and create some sort
Speaker 12: of a numerical, quantifiable system around them. And I tell
Speaker 12: these stories in terms of the human beings around them,
Speaker 12: because they're all subject to some sort of disordered thinking
Speaker 12: first of all. Second of all, those who engage in this.
Speaker 12: As one document that was presented to the Department of
Speaker 12: Homeland Security in twenty twenty ten twenty twenty one, I'm sorry,
Speaker 12: made clear that there are intimidation campaigns against individuals who
Speaker 12: engage in the study of left wing extremism. Indeed, some
Speaker 12: of the authors of the studies of left wing extremism
Speaker 12: are participants in those movements themselves. According to this document
Speaker 12: that was within the Hope Department of Homeland Security and
Speaker 12: the databases themselves are shot through with shoddy research and
Speaker 12: a lot of assumptions that inform the conclusions. So I
Speaker 12: don't do any of that, not to say that it's
Speaker 12: not valuable, but it just gives you an incomplete picture.
Speaker 12: And I know this because I was doing statistical analysis
Speaker 12: for CSIS in two thousand and five, trying to categorize
Speaker 12: Islamist attacks in a database, and statistically it's helpful, but
Speaker 12: it also obscures more than it clarifies, because you're reducing
Speaker 12: very complex events to a series of numerical codes.
Speaker 4: And I just don't do the job that you need
Speaker 4: to do. That's mass shootings stories in isolation.
Speaker 1: When you read something about mass shootings, it's never any
Speaker 1: use to you because it includes drive by shootings over
Speaker 1: drugs with Columbine. And it makes me crazy because the
Speaker 1: databases they're wrong. Okay, I'm going to jump on subject.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard my monologue. I'm very
Speaker 1: exercised about this proposed one page deal. Have you read
Speaker 1: about it? What do you think about it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Me too, and I share your apprehension.
Speaker 12: For the very first time in this war, I am
Speaker 12: concerned that the president's going weak in the knees. A
Speaker 12: lot of people have been anticipating that he was going
Speaker 12: to wiggle out of this war at the nearest possible opportunity,
Speaker 12: and they have not yet realized. I think it's underrecognized
Speaker 12: the degree to which he has been committed to his
Speaker 12: stated objectives from the outset.
Speaker 4: But yesterday was super weird, Hugh.
Speaker 12: The entire administration was trotted out to outline, roll out,
Speaker 12: ingranular detail, Project Freedom, the necessity behind it, the strategic
Speaker 12: and tactical imperatives that were informing it, and the moral
Speaker 12: and ethical necessity of seeing it through. Marco Rubio when
Speaker 12: he was on that podium, framed this operation as a
Speaker 12: humanitarian necessity. This is a criminal enterprise that's holding twenty
Speaker 12: three South thousand mariners hostage. They need to be rescued,
Speaker 12: and we are the only navy on the planet Earth
Speaker 12: capable of doing that. And then a bunch of hours
Speaker 12: later the president backs off. And this comes at a
Speaker 12: time when the Iranian regime and there are some interesting
Speaker 12: reports around how the IRGC field commanders and IRGC commanders
Speaker 12: have gone a little bit rogue here when they were
Speaker 12: attacking ships, attacking that South Korean ships, shooting missiles, drones
Speaker 12: and other assets at.
Speaker 4: The Oman and ua E and that this was against.
Speaker 12: What the political class like Perizeshkin want and that's the
Speaker 12: sort of thing we should be cultivating. But they shot
Speaker 12: at our partners in the Gulf States. And what was
Speaker 12: our response to roll back this military operation to forcefully
Speaker 12: reopen the strait?
Speaker 4: No no, no, no.
Speaker 12: Tran whatever's left of it seees that is weakness, and
Speaker 12: then we'll see that as as leverage that they can exploit, exploit.
Speaker 1: I spoke to him at length. I had a half
Speaker 1: hour with the president on Monday. He was very firm.
Speaker 1: I mean he was no enrichment, not now, not ever.
Speaker 1: Never we get it all back, they're going to be
Speaker 1: out of money. But they can't support the terrorists. And
Speaker 1: there's a fourth one missile missiles have got to be
Speaker 1: They got to have some missiles because of their neighborhood,
Speaker 1: but they can't have too many. And we get to
Speaker 1: inspect pretty pretty dependentative.
Speaker 12: And he hasn't really budged off any of that. I mean,
Speaker 12: there was one weird twenty four hour period where he
Speaker 12: was talking about a twenty year moratorium, but that came
Speaker 12: and went, and otherwise what we're hearing are from unnamed
Speaker 12: sources deep within the administration, have reporters like Barack Revied's ear.
Speaker 12: So I'm skeptical, but the administration's actions have made me
Speaker 12: skeptical of the president too. Here for the very first time,
Speaker 12: and I do see the I mean, I understand what
Speaker 12: he's saying. We need to have this handover of this
Speaker 12: ahu the highly enriched uranium.
Speaker 4: But what do they do with that?
Speaker 12: It's inaccessible and they lack facilities to enrich.
Speaker 4: And or refine them.
Speaker 12: What we can't have is an Ranian regime that voluntarily
Speaker 12: generously gives us the straight up wore moves back that
Speaker 12: will all but guarantee China will shut down the straight
Speaker 12: of and do this better than the Iranians if this
Speaker 12: has to be done by force.
Speaker 1: I didn't even top And Joe, if you have more time,
Speaker 1: I'll keep you for a second segment because I think
Speaker 1: Israel ow to get involved here. But if you don't,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. Plug in progress. It's coming out soon.
Speaker 1: Go and Pley order it right now. I'm too feel it.
Speaker 11: Now there's a wall between us, something.
Speaker 13: That's been lost.
Speaker 14: I took too much for Breaded.
Speaker 11: I got my signals crossed, just could think to all again.
Speaker 11: On a non eventful mom come in, she said, I'll
Speaker 11: give you a shelved up front.
Speaker 1: I'm back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Another track from
Speaker 1: Blood on the track Bob Dylan's best album. Noah c.
Speaker 1: Rothman is still with me. He's the author of the
Speaker 1: forthcoming book Blood and Progress. So that's his new bump
Speaker 1: music ending from Blood on the track. Are you even
Speaker 1: familiar with the album Noah Blood on the Tracks?
Speaker 4: Not really. I was never a big Dylan fan. I'm
Speaker 4: aware of the songs, but the album the.
Speaker 1: Greatest album on the ill. Yeah, the greatest album of
Speaker 1: the seventies. So Noah, I wanted to put a question
Speaker 1: to you. I'm trying it out on you before I
Speaker 1: tried it on John pod Or It's Next Hour. Jd
Speaker 1: Vance told me on this show when he was a
Speaker 1: senator or running for vice president, I can't remember that
Speaker 1: nations have their own interests and they have to follow
Speaker 1: their own interests. We don't control Israel. Israel doesn't control
Speaker 1: us at this point. I think it's an Israel's interest
Speaker 1: to act against en Ron in a way that blows
Speaker 1: up this deal.
Speaker 12: What do you think, Well, yeah, I tend to agree,
Speaker 12: and I agree on the substance. I think that there's
Speaker 12: something that those who are in that realist mold that
Speaker 12: kind of get a little bit wrong about national interest
Speaker 12: is that they discount values as being interests, and that's
Speaker 12: just historically hard to support. Values are interests. Nations act
Speaker 12: on values, armies move on stories, and values related alliances
Speaker 12: are more valuable because they're cheaper to maintain than the
Speaker 12: sort of associations that Russia and China maintain, because their
Speaker 12: alliances are coercive, and coercion is expensive. You have to
Speaker 12: maintain this whole apparatus in order to hold that, you know,
Speaker 12: you have to manufacture the gun that you're holding to
Speaker 12: your allies head, which costs money, as opposed to a
Speaker 12: values related alliance, which is far more easier to maintain
Speaker 12: and longer lived, as NATO demonstrates, and as are but
Speaker 12: an emerging relationship with Israel demonstrates. So a side digression there,
Speaker 12: But I do believe that Israel has the right and
Speaker 12: the legitimate interest in seeing the Ranian regime defanged.
Speaker 4: I don't think that the.
Speaker 12: Israeli government under Benjamin the Yahoo would accept something akin
Speaker 12: to whatever the terms of this memorandum that are being
Speaker 12: bandied about are, and Israel would have the latitude to act.
Speaker 4: Of it's on its own accord.
Speaker 12: There's a lot of people who are afraid that Israel
Speaker 12: would drag the United States back into another conflict here
Speaker 12: in the event that we reached the ceasefire that Israel
Speaker 12: did not observe. But we spent the last three or
Speaker 12: four years since the October seventh massacre, supporting Israel and
Speaker 12: its endeavors, but not taking an active role in them.
Speaker 12: And I don't foresee a condition in which we stop
Speaker 12: the fighting, but we simply just disengage from the Middle East,
Speaker 12: and the CIA has no role in a post war Iran.
Speaker 12: The United States will be engaged in the region, and
Speaker 12: Israel maybe will engage, be engaged in a more kinetic fashion,
Speaker 12: and we may take a support posture there. But it's
Speaker 12: not like the United States as being terms are being
Speaker 12: dictated to the United States from Jerusalem. If anything, it's
Speaker 12: the other way around. And frankly, the Benjamin and Yahoo
Speaker 12: government is kind of frustrated with it as reporting it.
Speaker 1: Is the other way around, and that brings me at
Speaker 1: this very period in time. I'm reading The Finest Hour
Speaker 1: with Doctor Larry Or on second volume in Churchill's or memoir.
Speaker 1: First three chapters are about France enters into a separate
Speaker 1: piece and Britain says, screw that We're going to fight
Speaker 1: on a loan. I think Israel has a right to
Speaker 1: walk away from this if we collapse, and that I
Speaker 1: don't think they would be without support in the United States.
Speaker 1: What do you think the reaction would be to that.
Speaker 12: I think they would have support from the Trump administration.
Speaker 12: They wouldn't have any support from the Democratic Party or
Speaker 12: the left. And Israel lacks some of the capabilities necessary
Speaker 12: to execute the operations that we took on during the
Speaker 12: kinetic phase of this conflict.
Speaker 4: So Israel would be at a significant deficit, but they
Speaker 4: wouldn't give up.
Speaker 12: Its security priorities it has doctrinally across parties, This is
Speaker 12: not a partisan issue in Israel. Israel takes its security
Speaker 12: initiatives into its own hands, and it does not necessarily
Speaker 12: differ to the West.
Speaker 4: Occasionally it does.
Speaker 12: Occasionally Washington can make it to what it wants is
Speaker 12: Reel to do, and some more often than not, the
Speaker 12: Israeli's chafe under that but they understand that the relationship
Speaker 12: with Washington is important to preserve, but not at the
Speaker 12: expense of Israeli national security and certainly not at the
Speaker 12: expense of Israeli lives. If it looks like Iran is
Speaker 12: getting close to something like a breakout, it would act.
Speaker 1: And not at this moment. At this moment, when Iran
Speaker 1: is on its back and you can deliver the death
Speaker 1: blow to the regime that wants to kill you, you
Speaker 1: get the last minute, you deliver the death blow, then
Speaker 1: I will take fifty percent.
Speaker 12: Yeah, And I don't think I'm not sure, but I
Speaker 12: don't think the president is holding out for a moment
Speaker 12: when his critics and adversary is at home or abroad
Speaker 12: will say we're vanquished, we're undone, we're forever discredited.
Speaker 4: You win.
Speaker 12: I think a lot of people who are critics of
Speaker 12: the president think that's what he wants, and they've always
Speaker 12: said that he would just put his name on something
Speaker 12: like a acpoa light and walk away, and he's demonstrated
Speaker 12: time and time again that that's not his objective.
Speaker 4: This is why I'm very skeptical of this.
Speaker 12: All the reporting around this memorandum of understanding, but only
Speaker 12: skeptical to a point because the administration is making a
Speaker 12: lot of sudden movements and loud noises that are making
Speaker 12: me very nervous.
Speaker 1: Hearing me about nous. C Rothman follow him on exit
Speaker 1: no A. C. Rothman. Thanks for the extra time. Go
Speaker 1: and order Blood and Progress. Get your copy on the
Speaker 1: first chance available. Blood and Progress is available Amazon, Farms
Speaker 1: and nobook bookstores everywhere. Blood and Progress. Stay tuned on
Speaker 1: keep you.
Speaker 3: This is very simple.
Speaker 14: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon because as tough as
Speaker 14: they are, we want to keep them alive.
Speaker 10: We want to keep all of you alive. Iran cannot
Speaker 10: have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 14: And they won't add They've agreed to that, among other things.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewett. That's President Trump moments ago.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Serf C. Bedford, cheap and investigation and
Speaker 1: reporter at the Washington DC Examiner. Hello, Sarah, I am
Speaker 1: back and forth on the deal because the reporting is
Speaker 1: all over. I hate the reporting, but I don't think
Speaker 1: the president will do it. What do you think?
Speaker 15: Well, Trump has really played his cards close to the
Speaker 15: vest this entire time. He doesn't like to give a
Speaker 15: lot of visibility into how talks are going, particularly in
Speaker 15: a foreign policy context, and a lot of times when
Speaker 15: the media starts to catch on to how negotiations or
Speaker 15: negotiations are going, he'll say.
Speaker 8: Something that kind of throws them off the scent to.
Speaker 15: Maintain that strategic confusion. So, you know, it's not clear
Speaker 15: of whether that's what Trump is doing right now if
Speaker 15: there is really a lot of sticking points. But the
Speaker 15: reporting is that Iran and the US are nearing some
Speaker 15: sort of two page, fourteen point agreement that would end
Speaker 15: the hostilities. But Trump is starting, Look, not only will
Speaker 15: hostilities resume if iron doesn't agree to this, but also
Speaker 15: the bombing will be even more intense then win the
Speaker 15: campaign first began. So he's clearly applying maximum pressure to
Speaker 15: Iran right now to accept whatever's in that deal.
Speaker 1: Here is a second comment in the White House on
Speaker 1: that deal, cut fifteen.
Speaker 16: You're facing the pony right now in Iran that has
Speaker 16: refused to submit. You've seem optimisticchnology maybe closer to a deal.
Speaker 16: What's different about this moment now than in other moments
Speaker 16: where a deal has seemed close.
Speaker 10: Well, why do you.
Speaker 3: Say they're used to submit?
Speaker 14: You don't know that, you don't know, what's a firing
Speaker 14: on a few days ago.
Speaker 3: I know, a few days ago.
Speaker 14: It's a long time ago, you know, in the world
Speaker 14: of war a few days ago.
Speaker 3: No, they want to make a deal badly, and we'll
Speaker 3: see if we get there.
Speaker 14: If we get there, they can't have nuclear weapons. You know,
Speaker 14: it's very simple.
Speaker 3: But what's not to submit.
Speaker 14: So they had a navy with one hundred and fifty
Speaker 14: nine chips and now every ship is blown to pieces
Speaker 14: and lying at the bottom of the water. They had
Speaker 14: an air force, lots of planes, and they don't have
Speaker 14: any planes. They don't have any anti aircraft, they don't
Speaker 14: have any radar line, their missiles are mostly decimated. They
Speaker 14: have something they have probably eighteen nineteen percent, but not
Speaker 14: allowed by comparison to what they had. And the leaders
Speaker 14: are all dead. So I think we won. This is
Speaker 14: now now it's only a question of Look, if we
Speaker 14: left right now, we're around and it would take them twenty.
Speaker 3: Years to rebuild.
Speaker 10: You would call that vy.
Speaker 14: We're in good shape, right, We're in good shed and
Speaker 14: now we're doing well. Now we have to get what
Speaker 14: we have to get. If we don't do that, we'll
Speaker 14: have to go a big step further. But with that
Speaker 14: big set, they want to make a deal. We've had
Speaker 14: very good talks over the last forty four hours and
Speaker 14: it's very possible.
Speaker 1: That we'll make okay. So, Sarah, how do you read that?
Speaker 15: I think it's true that the longer things like the
Speaker 15: blockade of Iran on the straight up our moose goes on.
Speaker 8: You know, that pressure compounds.
Speaker 15: It's not just the military pressure that the Trump administration
Speaker 15: has put on around, it's also the economic pressure, which
Speaker 15: the effects of that compound every day that does pass.
Speaker 15: With the successful blockade and Trump paused I think it
Speaker 15: was called Project Freedom, where the US was going to
Speaker 15: escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. He's pulling
Speaker 15: every lever that he has to put pressure on Iran
Speaker 15: to take this deal. And you know, I guess you
Speaker 15: do see a little bit of mixed messaging out of
Speaker 15: the Trump administration though on whether is the conflict over
Speaker 15: or are we preparing to head into the most intense
Speaker 15: bombing campaign evern that we've seen so far. Trump is really,
Speaker 15: I guess, applying as much rhetorical pressure on Iran right now.
Speaker 8: While he waits to see whether they accept his deal.
Speaker 1: Sarah so, okay, you gave me your comment on that.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about what happened in the House
Speaker 1: last week. All of a sudden, Speaker Johnson passed everything.
Speaker 1: Did anyone see that coming?
Speaker 17: Right there?
Speaker 15: Was looking for a while and Democrats in the media
Speaker 15: were gleefully rubbing their hands together waiting for what was
Speaker 15: supposed to be a massive Republican failure in the House.
Speaker 15: But at the last minute, Johnson and the White House
Speaker 15: were able to cajole people to get this rule over
Speaker 15: the finish line that sort of procedurally cleared the way
Speaker 15: for a number of important pieces of legislation to boo forward.
Speaker 15: Johnson is a really enormously difficult time getting the DJs
Speaker 15: funding over the finish line, and also getting the FISA
Speaker 15: Section seven oh two renewal over the finish line, which
Speaker 15: is a key surveillance tool that the Trump administration really
Speaker 15: just wants a clean reauthorization of. It shows you how
Speaker 15: difficult governing is with his ever slimming majority in the House.
Speaker 15: But Johnson was able to pull out a win there
Speaker 15: and lobby some holdouts to get the rule through.
Speaker 1: So well as President Trump, to your knowledge, involved in
Speaker 1: pushing the final football over the final yard because Speaker
Speaker 1: Johnson never says anything he didn't get excited, which is
Speaker 1: a very very useful trait in a speaker with a
Speaker 1: small majority. He never gets angry.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and Trump is usually involved in some fashion in
Speaker 15: getting sticky pieces of legislation in the end zone his
Speaker 15: legislative team, at least is if Trump himself isn't involved,
Speaker 15: he famously likes to call holdouts and massage them, especially
Speaker 15: if you have rank and file members who are for
Speaker 15: whatever reason opposed to something like parts of the.
Speaker 8: Farm Bill or Section seven h two.
Speaker 15: So Trump's involvement is usually what gets it over the
Speaker 15: finish line.
Speaker 8: But a lot of times the White House will.
Speaker 15: Like to withhold that until sort of the end of
Speaker 15: the negotiation process, so they don't fire that bullet too early.
Speaker 8: They wait until they're almost at the finish line to
Speaker 8: get Trump involved.
Speaker 1: All right, classic problem with legacy media. I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to find out if the FIJA extension was one year,
Speaker 1: two years, four year, how long did they extend the
Speaker 1: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for I believe.
Speaker 8: They were looking at eighteen months.
Speaker 15: But it's interesting that you brought up those shifting timelines.
Speaker 15: The White House's request to Congress shifted what the House
Speaker 15: Intelligence Committee wanted, shifted what Johnson was willing to back,
Speaker 15: moved all over the place, and so were the demands
Speaker 15: from the conservative holdouts who wanted to see reforms.
Speaker 8: So that was actually a pretty messy.
Speaker 15: Process to get sectioned seven oh two reauthorized.
Speaker 8: But ultimately what the White House wanted was.
Speaker 15: A clean eighteen month extension so they didn't have to
Speaker 15: deal with this surveillance power issue for a while.
Speaker 1: They got eighteen months. Okay, you're the first person that's
Speaker 1: been able to answer that for me, not surprisingly. Sarah C. Bedford,
Speaker 1: Thank you from the Washington Examiner. Follow on exit, Sarah C.
Speaker 1: Bedford follow me to the next segment of the e
Speaker 1: hewits Hewett joined now by John pod Horor, It's editor
Speaker 1: in chief of Commentary magazine, my companion, almost an hour
Speaker 1: a day Monday through Friday on the Commentary podcast. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they take a day off, John, I have spent the
Speaker 1: first two hour inveighing against the alleged deal that Barack
Speaker 1: reviewed reported on today. I need a tag team partner
Speaker 1: to take over. It's a terrible idea. What do you think?
Speaker 13: Yeah, so we can we can just close up shop there.
Speaker 13: It's a terrible idea, and the question is why we're
Speaker 13: here now. I mean it's fourteen ideas or twelve ideas
Speaker 13: or something like that. And I don't, frankly, understand what's
Speaker 13: going on. Because he told you on Monday.
Speaker 3: I believe that his.
Speaker 13: Bottom line was that the United States needed to secure
Speaker 13: physical control of the Iranian dust, the uranium. And that
Speaker 13: does not seem to be what is lined up in
Speaker 13: this report, which we don't have a piece of paper here,
Speaker 13: but if the report is to be believed, he's looking
Speaker 13: for a way to wind down the war with words.
Speaker 13: And I don't know what changed between when he spoke
Speaker 13: to you and when Pete Haggs I spoke yesterday morning,
Speaker 13: and when Marco Rubio spoke yesterday afternoon, and these two
Speaker 13: statements yesterday evening and this morning about how he was
Speaker 13: suspending the escorting of the ships through the horn moves
Speaker 13: straight called Operation Freedom, and that you know, we were
Speaker 13: maybe on the way to a deal. So you spoke
Speaker 13: to him, did seem to you like he was.
Speaker 1: Four red lines or three and a half red line.
Speaker 1: No enrichment ever, not after twelve, not after fifteen, No enrichment. Ever.
Speaker 1: Number two, we get all the agu we get it.
Speaker 1: We get I guess we have to go dig it
Speaker 1: up and the IAEA might help, but we didn't get
Speaker 1: into that. We get it. Number three, I said, no missiles,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, it's a tough neighborhood. They might
Speaker 1: need some missiles, but inspections of those missiles, And then
Speaker 1: I brought up to are prox. He said they're out
Speaker 1: of money anyway, and that that implies no, no finding
Speaker 1: a turn. So I walked away feld of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is good and we're going to win. It's Munich
Speaker 1: two point l if the snatcher's defeat from the jaws
Speaker 1: of victory, isn't it.
Speaker 13: I mean, you know, I I said on our podcast,
Speaker 13: you're you're you're going in these world historical terms, I said,
Speaker 13: if this happens, and that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 13: I'm so skeptical of it. I think even he should
Speaker 13: be in a position to understand that this is the
Speaker 13: end of his administration as an effective functioning political organization.
Speaker 13: He's pushed all his chips into the center of the table.
Speaker 13: Here he will he will be mocked by his enemies.
Speaker 13: He will have disappointed his friends. He will cause the
Speaker 13: people who are his hardest line andubmost diehard supporters to
Speaker 13: come up with increasingly preposterous explanations for why this suspension
Speaker 13: is a victory that clearly it wasn't or it won't be,
Speaker 13: And all of this happening seems to leave him in
Speaker 13: a worse rather than a better situation. My colleague Gabe
Speaker 13: Greenwald would tell you, Look, the war was wildly successful.
Speaker 13: There is no Iranian nuclear program. Iran will not be
Speaker 13: able to get a bomb, or create a bomb, or
Speaker 13: build a bomb, or enrich uranium. Henceforth, its program is rubble.
Speaker 13: That's more than we could ever have hoped for. And
Speaker 13: I understand that to be the case. But geopolitically, geo strategically,
Speaker 13: Iran will have some claim to the idea that it
Speaker 13: withstood you know, it withstood the Colossus, it withstood Goliath
Speaker 13: and is now standing. And I don't know what argument
Speaker 13: there will be against that.
Speaker 1: You're a friend than mine, Noah Rothman. Noah Rothman just
Speaker 1: made the point last hour that if China watches us
Speaker 1: fold up like a cheap chair, they will immediately assert
Speaker 1: control over the South China Sea in much the same
Speaker 1: way Iran does and then settle for half a loaf.
Speaker 1: My argument to the President on Monday was, and because
Speaker 1: it's completely sincere from my point of view, this is
Speaker 1: the most important thing he's done up until now. It
Speaker 1: was the Supreme Court. But if the actually crushes the
Speaker 1: Iranian nuclear threat, that's a world historical achievement that goes
Speaker 1: into the history books. You can hate them all you want.
Speaker 1: But if he de bangs Iran and gets rid of
Speaker 1: their nuclear program, he won big time. This deal is
Speaker 1: not that, is it, John? A deal is not that.
Speaker 13: No, By the way, the other problem that we face
Speaker 13: is that is that if we start defining the end
Speaker 13: game of this war as an agreement to reopen the
Speaker 13: Straits of hor Moves or an agreement to suspend the
Speaker 13: nuclear program. The problem here is that, say July seventeenth
Speaker 13: and Israel bombs Tesbola site and the Iranians say, we
Speaker 13: don't like this, so we're going to close the straight
Speaker 13: for forty eight hours. What are we going to do then?
Speaker 13: I mean, it's always it will always be conditional. And
Speaker 13: I think the weird part here is if you think
Speaker 13: through the logic of what I just laid out to you,
Speaker 13: because Hormuz became the card that they played. He kind
Speaker 13: of has to go for regime change now because if
Speaker 13: the thing that has to happen is that Hormuz remains
Speaker 13: open as a matter of course without anybody worrying that
Speaker 13: it will be closed, the regime that is standing cannot
Speaker 13: remain standing because it has closed the straight.
Speaker 4: And it now has that as it's trump card, if
Speaker 4: you will.
Speaker 13: So he's actually deepened the necessity for a successful military
Speaker 13: conclusion to the war that has a regime change effect.
Speaker 13: That's not where this was six weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I don't think I a capitulation is necessary now. And
Speaker 1: by capitulation there are a lot of ways that can come.
Speaker 1: A declaration that the ships can move and they don't
Speaker 1: fire on them, and we get back the HU. We
Speaker 1: start digging it up right away. But I want to
Speaker 1: ask important question John. First of all, some good news
Speaker 1: minutes ago and meets ago reported that Israel killed the
Speaker 1: head of the Radawan force and his deputy in Lebanon today.
Speaker 1: So some good news. Why don't they go kill the
Speaker 1: Eiti that if you're Israel the question I posed, and no,
Speaker 1: I want to pose it too. If you're Israel, and
Speaker 1: you see this deal on the table, don't you just say,
Speaker 1: we're not going to leave this up to we like
Speaker 1: Envoy with Coff and Envoy Kushner very well, but this
Speaker 1: is our country and we're going to go kill Dahiti.
Speaker 1: Don't you do that right now?
Speaker 4: If they can? I mean, you know, look, once you revealed,
Speaker 4: once you revealed.
Speaker 13: The extent of your penetration, as is Reel did with
Speaker 13: the decapitations on February twenty eighth, once you reveal that
Speaker 13: countermeasures can be taken, like I maybe they know where
Speaker 13: he is. Maybe maybe Vahiti is one of their agents.
Speaker 13: I don't even know, but you know, it could be.
Speaker 13: We don't know who their agents are. But I do
Speaker 13: think that the central issue here is he Trump has
Speaker 13: to like this is a real moment of choosing for him.
Speaker 4: He is feeling some.
Speaker 13: Internal pressure to find a way out of something that
Speaker 13: I'm sorry but he started. That is to say, he
Speaker 13: took what I think was a noble and world historical
Speaker 13: opportunity to reset the map of the twenty first century.
Speaker 4: I'm glad he did.
Speaker 13: I think it was a great thing that he did,
Speaker 13: and he can't go wobbly now. First of all, politically,
Speaker 13: it makes no sense. He's already weakened. This will weaken
Speaker 13: him further, both domestically and abroad. And secondly, he will
Speaker 13: be remembered in the history books to somebody who did
Speaker 13: not follow through on a great opening military victory to
Speaker 13: secure the political victory that is the inevitable result of
Speaker 13: a successful prosecution of a war.
Speaker 1: Now, John, I think he takes in a lot of information.
Speaker 1: Do you think he's hearing this point of view? Because
Speaker 1: this point of view is if you fold, you never
Speaker 1: get the stink off. You're not the art of the
Speaker 1: deal anymore. You're the art of the collapse. And so
Speaker 1: you can't fold right now. And fourteen points is folding
Speaker 1: unless they can't capitulate. I mean that is theoretically possible.
Speaker 1: Capitulation you leave them some dignity, but there's a lot more.
Speaker 13: Right So, he said a couple of minutes ago, he said,
Speaker 13: he's giving them a week to agree to the terms
Speaker 13: of the deal, whatever they are, and they may not
Speaker 13: be Barock Revide's deal points, but he's giving them a week.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 13: If in the course of that week he does not
Speaker 13: get the signals and signs that he wants he can
Speaker 13: move toward forcing them to capitulate in the one advantage
Speaker 13: of this week or a month, or even six weeks
Speaker 13: or something like that, of not of leaving the status
Speaker 13: quo as it is is they're going to have to
Speaker 13: cap their oil wells. They themselves have hundreds of thousands
Speaker 13: of barrels of oil sitting on chips in the strait
Speaker 13: that we are not letting out. So they when you
Speaker 13: cap an oil well, you are doing yourself immense economic
Speaker 13: and structural damage. So I don't really know whether you know,
Speaker 13: A long term play is what he should be making here,
Speaker 13: But he's gotta like stiff in his spine.
Speaker 1: I agree, And I'm gonna come back with John vod
Speaker 1: Rtz and during the break, I'm gonna ask John to
Speaker 1: put himself in bb netanyah whose place exactly with elections
Speaker 1: coming up, with his career on the line, and have
Speaker 1: him speculate what BIB might do regardless of what President
Speaker 1: Trump does. Stay tuned. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm joined by John pod Horriz. Sean
Speaker 1: is the longtime editor of Commentary Magazine and he is
Speaker 1: the host every morning Monday through Friday of the Commentary podcast,
Speaker 1: which is my first listen whenever it posts. John also
Speaker 1: knows Israelly politics like very few people in America does.
Speaker 1: And I think, John, I think I've heard you say
Speaker 1: and I agree with it, that the greatest living politician
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world is bib Netna. And by politician
Speaker 1: we mean people repeatedly have to win election. He just
Speaker 1: keeps doing it. He just concluded security cabinet. I mean
Speaker 1: it went on a long period of time. I think
Speaker 1: it ended. What do you think he does right now
Speaker 1: if he thinks Donald Trump's about to make a terrible mistake.
Speaker 13: So BB's hands have been a little tied in This is.
Speaker 4: Not Iran related.
Speaker 13: So as the Iran sis started took place, BB turned
Speaker 13: his attention to his terrorist problem in the north, which
Speaker 13: is across the Lebanese border. The Iranian proxy has Bolaw,
Speaker 13: which has been the both a target has been targeting
Speaker 13: Israel since October seventh, and well before October seventh, with
Speaker 13: a gigantic cache of ballistic and other kinds of missiles.
Speaker 13: And of course Israel has struck back with the famously
Speaker 13: with the beepers, with the walkie talkies, and decided in
Speaker 13: the course of this war that it was going to
Speaker 13: see what could do to solve its Hesbola problem once
Speaker 13: and for all by pushing has Blah at the very
Speaker 13: least north of this river called the Latani, which is
Speaker 13: about twenty miles from the Israeli border, clearing out the area,
Speaker 13: probably reoccupying it for the for the near future, and
Speaker 13: striking Hesbla targets in their headquarters in Beyrout. And Trump
Speaker 13: asked him at some point to stop hitting Beirout. It's
Speaker 13: the weirdest ceasefire ever. Israel and Hesbela have a ceasefire
Speaker 13: that says that Israel can do whatever it wants in
Speaker 13: the ceasefire. It can strike, it can hit, it can fire,
Speaker 13: it can respond. But the clear idea was don't go
Speaker 13: into Beaute. Don't strike in bey route I'm trying to do.
Speaker 13: I'm playing, I'm playing seventeen cards. That complicates my life
Speaker 13: too much. Don't strike Bei route. So today they struck Beirute.
Speaker 13: The assassination of the head of the Rowan Corps was
Speaker 13: in Beirut. That says to me that bib now believes
Speaker 13: whether this is I don't think he would do something.
Speaker 13: If Trump or Rubio or whatever asked him not to
Speaker 13: said please don't, it's too.
Speaker 4: Complicated for me.
Speaker 13: The gloves now maybe off for BB in Lebanon, and
Speaker 13: the main thing for him in the election that is
Speaker 13: coming in October is that he needs to fulfill his
Speaker 13: promise he had. There are three promises. He was going
Speaker 13: to eliminate Hamas as a threat. He was going to
Speaker 13: pacify the northern border so that people living in the
Speaker 13: north of Israel are not living under this constant threat
Speaker 13: of missile attack which they've been under, and that his
Speaker 13: life long or his career long obsession with ending the
Speaker 13: Iranian nuclear threat would end in success. If he achieves
Speaker 13: those three aims, or at least substantially achieves those three aims,
Speaker 13: then his case before the Israeli people is very clear
Speaker 13: in the coming election, which is I did it. I
Speaker 13: did what I said I was set out to do.
Speaker 13: I know you think that I'm partially responsible for October seventh,
Speaker 13: but I took the bull by the horns. I found
Speaker 13: this relationship with this American president that has led us
Speaker 13: to a new kind of authority, centrality power. We are
Speaker 13: working together in a way that two countries have not
Speaker 13: worked together since World War Two, and I am the
Speaker 13: leader to go forward. He's been prime minister for so long.
Speaker 13: I mean he's been prime minister basically for twenty years
Speaker 13: with a gap excuse me, for like seventeen years, with
Speaker 13: the gap of a year and a half somewhere in
Speaker 13: the middle. One outright and election after not having won
Speaker 13: an election for many years, and he's got a really
Speaker 13: serious rival risk chain it was rarely. People are tired
Speaker 13: of him. He's been there too long in many ways,
Speaker 13: and he needs to make the case that he delivered
Speaker 13: what he promised. So he and Trump are they're not
Speaker 13: across purposes because part of what he promised was this
Speaker 13: relationship with America that has come to this full flower.
Speaker 13: And israelis loved Trump and believe Trump is their best
Speaker 13: friend ever. But he has to make a special plead
Speaker 13: that he deserves another term at his age after all
Speaker 13: this time, after the security failures on October seventh meant
Speaker 13: that you know, they had not been looking in the
Speaker 13: right way at the threat from Gaza and say, I
Speaker 13: deserve another chance, or I deserve another term to be
Speaker 13: the person who can lead us forward, and then I will,
Speaker 13: then I will retire, but.
Speaker 4: He's got two or three.
Speaker 13: He's got a major opposition party that is now formed
Speaker 13: undernough Tally Bennett, the previous the prime his former deputy
Speaker 13: who became prime minister. He's made a coalition, a weird
Speaker 13: coalition with a weird politician. It's basically just the Anti
Speaker 13: It's BB versus the ANTIBB Party, and BB's the threat
Speaker 13: to BB is that the ANTIBB Party has enough exhaustion,
Speaker 13: enough people who don't like him, enough exhaustion and this
Speaker 13: sense that maybe he didn't finally deliver on all of
Speaker 13: his promises. That's their hope, that's their aim. So he
Speaker 13: and he knows this very well. He's under no illusions
Speaker 13: about what it is. He's not there because of love,
Speaker 13: and so he has to he has to make good
Speaker 13: and say, look who do you want? You want these
Speaker 13: schleppers or do you want me? Look what I've just done.
Speaker 13: Look how that does changed in space?
Speaker 1: Does he have it in him or do you expect that?
Speaker 1: He will say to himself, I've got a killer ron
Speaker 1: more than I need to win this election, more than
Speaker 1: I need to have Donald Trump love me in Israel,
Speaker 1: and therefore I'm going to blow up this deal the
Speaker 1: old fashioned way with bombs. You know, I think the
Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates would would be with him on this.
Speaker 1: We're not going to let the United States enter into
Speaker 1: a deal. Jd Vance told me on this show. Nation
Speaker 1: states have to act in their own interest. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's in Israel's interest to allow that fourteenth point
Speaker 1: deal to go, do you no?
Speaker 13: But I don't think that he is going to hit
Speaker 13: at the fourteen point Deal in order to prevent Trump
Speaker 13: from signing it.
Speaker 3: That's a bridge too far.
Speaker 13: He is not going to intervene to save the United
Speaker 13: States from its own foolishness. That that that I think
Speaker 13: is a that's a that's would be wishful thinking for hawks,
Speaker 13: and it would be it would be very foolish for
Speaker 13: him to do that. If Trump is done, Trump is done,
Speaker 13: if he's not done, if he can encourage him to
Speaker 13: continue and say that you know we can win this.
Speaker 13: You just need to be more you know, you just
Speaker 13: need to be more stouthearted instead fast and use us
Speaker 13: however you.
Speaker 3: Think we need to use.
Speaker 4: He could us also to help you, but to help
Speaker 4: you achieve this resolution.
Speaker 13: We're here to do whatever is necessary to achieve the
Speaker 13: resolution where where the United States wins this war with Iran.
Speaker 4: But I don't think he in the UA will blow
Speaker 4: it up.
Speaker 13: First of all, I don't think they have the means
Speaker 13: or the I don't think they have. They cannot bring
Speaker 13: this regime down. They cannot reopen the Straits of Hormuz,
Speaker 13: they cannot secure naval passage. That one thing Israel cannot
Speaker 13: do is have material effect on the naval, on the
Speaker 13: shipping in these areas that are one thousand miles away
Speaker 13: from it. But it can serve as a partner if
Speaker 13: Trump wants to go and re establish our military supremacy
Speaker 13: over Iran from the air and on the ground.
Speaker 1: Gosh, I hope Prime who's on the thumb with the
Speaker 1: President making that argument, because I think he is more
Speaker 1: precisive than anyone else in the United He does not
Speaker 1: run us the boy. He can be percisive. John Podhortz,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the extra time today. I greatly appreciate the
Speaker 1: commentary podcast every morning. Keep doing it, do it more,
Speaker 1: do it longer, good faster. Thank you, John. I'll be
Speaker 1: right back in America. Stay tuned. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewett. When I get exercised about something having
Speaker 1: to do with national security, try and get former United
Speaker 1: States Senator Jim Talent to join me. He's from the
Speaker 1: board of Directors of the National Reagan Institute on Keeping
Speaker 1: America Safe and Secure and Against All Evil or something
Speaker 1: like that. Senator Talent, welcome. I had lunch day with
Speaker 1: Roger as a team. So I really can never remember
Speaker 1: the name of the Institute's board on which you serve.
Speaker 18: That's fine, but it's close enough. It's about our purpose. Yeah,
Speaker 18: keep us safe, justice in the American way, And I
Speaker 18: love that, and I love Roger. Now tell me, uh,
Speaker 18: there's a fourteen point plan. There's a ten point plan.
Speaker 18: What do you make of all this?
Speaker 19: Look, I understand people concerned about an American president going
Speaker 19: wobbly because in the last forty seven years, the only
Speaker 19: two that haven't dealing with iron ore Reagan and uh
Speaker 19: and and Trump. But there is absolutely nothing about the life,
Speaker 19: the experience, the statements of the writings of Donald J.
Speaker 19: Trump to suggest to me that he's going to split
Speaker 19: a pot when he holds four races and he thinks
Speaker 19: he holds four races, and I think he does hold
Speaker 19: four races. So look, I'm willing to be convinced if
Speaker 19: there is a deal and it's a bad deal, you know,
Speaker 19: I'll say so. But right now I think he's just
Speaker 19: maneuvering you. And let's we're worried about him going wobbly.
Speaker 19: Let's not us go wobbly while while we're worried about him,
Speaker 19: Let's let's give him some running room and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going probably because on Monday he was on
Speaker 1: the program and he was adamant, no enrichment ever, and
Speaker 1: we get the highly enriched uranium. They may get some missiles,
Speaker 1: but not that many, and we need to have inspections,
Speaker 1: and don't worry about the terror proxies. They haven't got
Speaker 1: any money anyway. That's the summary. And I presented it
Speaker 1: as this is your greatest achievement ever. And he didn't
Speaker 1: disagree with that. H does he? You know real estate
Speaker 1: guys will cut deals if they get seventy five percent
Speaker 1: of it, Yeah, he said.
Speaker 19: He says in the book he says, I think very big.
Speaker 19: I push and push and push and push. And he
Speaker 19: said sometimes I have to settle for less, but usually
Speaker 19: I get everything I want. Well, you here's what I
Speaker 19: would say to you. He knew he went on your program,
Speaker 19: he knows the kind of questions you're going to ask.
Speaker 19: He knew what he was going to say, and he
Speaker 19: knew what he did say, and all that to me,
Speaker 19: to me, is a very good reason to believe that
Speaker 19: he's not going to do anything he told you he
Speaker 19: wasn't going to do. I just like I said, I mean,
Speaker 19: I'll wait to see, but if I have to choose
Speaker 19: between trusting how he's handled himself really for the for
Speaker 19: the first term and now a year and a half
Speaker 19: into this one, as compared to this reporting, which I
Speaker 19: don't want to run anybody down, but no, I'm disinclined
Speaker 19: to believe it. And I'll point out you the plot,
Speaker 19: the blockade is still in force. The only thing we've
Speaker 19: done is he's he's.
Speaker 1: He did he suspended project.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did.
Speaker 19: And I kind of think, and I'm not saying I
Speaker 19: agree with this, I think I disagree with the tactically
Speaker 19: from what I know, I don't think Trump's ever been
Speaker 19: that that frantic to clear the straight I mean, I
Speaker 19: thought it would happen a couple of weeks ago. I
Speaker 19: think I said so on the show. I think he
Speaker 19: feels like it hurts the Iranians a lot. Those whole
Speaker 19: episode is hurting them and hurting other countries more than
Speaker 19: it's hurting us. I think eventually we will get the
Speaker 19: straight clear. But again that's another point. If you're trying
Speaker 19: to signal to the other side of negotiation that they
Speaker 19: don't have you in a you know, an advice, you
Speaker 19: want to let them know that that what they're trying
Speaker 19: is actually working.
Speaker 3: So look, there was always.
Speaker 19: A possibility that that this episode would end with the
Speaker 19: regime staggering on. If that happens, we have a lot
Speaker 19: of other tools to continue putting pressure on them, beginning
Speaker 19: with the economic ones. We have covert tools. We don't
Speaker 19: know who's being armed in Iran. We have cyber tools.
Speaker 19: I've been surprised we haven't seen anything cyber and maybe
Speaker 19: they've been doing it and we just don't know. We
Speaker 19: now have a new coalition in the Middle East, we
Speaker 19: have the UAE. We've shut down their financial transactions. So
Speaker 19: when the president says he holds all the cards, I
Speaker 19: think he does. And uh, I don't think we're gonna
Speaker 19: get a bad deal. I really don't.
Speaker 1: And now Jim One of the things he does do
Speaker 1: he often has done, is appeared to be negotiation when
Speaker 1: he's not negotiation, because he loves to be known as
Speaker 1: someone who offered the deal, right. He likes to be
Speaker 1: known as someone I tried to make peace with him.
Speaker 1: This could be that, right, Oh sure.
Speaker 3: And it could.
Speaker 19: It could have something to do with the pakistanis asking
Speaker 19: him to do something. Maybe the President is a little
Speaker 19: is a little upset that not more countries stepped up
Speaker 19: right away to say, yeah, we're going to send ships.
Speaker 19: So he's figuring, Okay, I just I won't initiate Operation
Speaker 19: Project Freedom right now. We'll just keep blockading the Iranians
Speaker 19: and see who calls me up and says, you got
Speaker 19: to get this straight clear.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many different variables out there.
Speaker 1: You again, I Senator Talents coming back on the other side.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. He's the upbeat guy. We've had John Podhortz,
Speaker 1: Nolah Rothman may be the downbeat guys. Jim Talent's the
Speaker 1: upbeat guy. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm huge Hewett.
Speaker 1: Inside the Beltway with former Senator Jim Tallan, who sits
Speaker 1: on the Reagan Institute Board of Directors. Senator, we all
Speaker 1: have our different red lines. Minor are not regime chain?
Speaker 1: Mine are they commit verbally and in writing, no enrichment. Ever,
Speaker 1: we get the HU and we get an inspections regime
Speaker 1: that is thorough and it wasn't in the JCPOA of
Speaker 1: all their facilities and of their missiles, and some kind
Speaker 1: of a deal on missiles. The President indicated they got
Speaker 1: to have some defense, and I understand that, but I'm
Speaker 1: not looking for them to hold elections or give up
Speaker 1: their money. I don't expect to Syria. What are your
Speaker 1: red lines?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess if I had one.
Speaker 19: I mean, if the President called me up and asked
Speaker 19: my advice, and I don't have a cell phone number, I.
Speaker 3: Think I would say, mister President.
Speaker 19: The thing I would be very careful about is giving
Speaker 19: them sanctions relief unless we get everything that we want,
Speaker 19: and unless we get it up front, and if there's
Speaker 19: something we want that they can't perform upfront, no sanctions relief.
Speaker 3: In other words, I.
Speaker 19: Don't want Operation Economic Fury. I'm getting the names mixed up.
Speaker 19: I don't want Operation Economic Fury stopped. Don't let them
Speaker 19: up off the mat. That's what they in my opinion,
Speaker 19: what they really want. And no, I mean if we
Speaker 19: have to walk away without getting everything we want, but
Speaker 19: we maintain all the other tools, the economic tools, the
Speaker 19: covert operation, the cyber the Israelis.
Speaker 3: Who are a tool in this.
Speaker 19: I mean, at some point we're going to end this, right,
Speaker 19: we end it with the straight open and if the
Speaker 19: regime staggers on, we maintain our right to apply all
Speaker 19: other tools of power to continue constraining them and to
Speaker 19: continue trying to get them to collapse.
Speaker 3: So that would really be my red loaning.
Speaker 1: I agree with that, because money keeps them alive, and
Speaker 1: right now they haven't got any money.
Speaker 3: Now, No, we're not helping them get off the map.
Speaker 1: Molser comes to him and says, you're going to lose
Speaker 1: fifty seats in the House, and you're going to lose
Speaker 1: six seats in the Senate. Do you think he has
Speaker 1: to care about that? By the way, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's doable. I don't think that's possible. And I believe
Speaker 1: you can actually argue that it're on is a good
Speaker 1: thing electorally if you stay the course. If you fold,
Speaker 1: it'll kill you.
Speaker 19: Yeah, I think the president is very confident that once
Speaker 19: we get past this and oil prices start going down,
Speaker 19: with the prospect of them going down further, this will become,
Speaker 19: if anything, a political winner.
Speaker 3: Now, the truth of the matter is that this.
Speaker 19: Kind of an exercise, barring an unusual circumstance, is not
Speaker 19: going to switch a lot of votes in the fall.
Speaker 19: I mean, I think that's going to be about the
Speaker 19: other things that he's doing. The crime, the immigration, the
Speaker 19: energy policy, the fact that the economy is doing well,
Speaker 19: I mean, all of that. So I know, I don't
Speaker 19: think this president is number one. I don't think he's
Speaker 19: that scared of the midterms. And I think if there
Speaker 19: is a president who would say this is too important,
Speaker 19: I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing now to
Speaker 19: make America great again, I think it's this president, all right.
Speaker 1: So I want to switch just slightly on you. You ran
Speaker 1: against fairly mainstream Democrats though they were leftists, but they
Speaker 1: weren't Graham Platner, L. Saed in Michigan, Flannagan and Minnesota.
Speaker 1: What's happening over there? What has happened to the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party that you served with?
Speaker 19: Well, I think the hard left has accumulated enough power
Speaker 19: within the party and I don't you know, I haven't
Speaker 19: traced all the ways that they've been able to do this.
Speaker 19: That the Democrats who are more in the center, to
Speaker 19: include incumbents, just don't feel that they can bucket. I
Speaker 19: think that they're buck the trend, buck what they want.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 19: You need to get on some really insightful Democrats are
Speaker 19: political scientists to get the tracing of that, and then
Speaker 19: they're energized on the left. I think it's going to
Speaker 19: take another, probably significant electoral defeat in a presidential year
Speaker 19: for them to moderate. Remember you, we kind of went
Speaker 19: through this in the seventies. They lost three presidential elections
Speaker 19: in a row, and then we saw Dick eb Hard
Speaker 19: and Clinton and the others forget the name of it now.
Speaker 19: But they start their more modern thing and they move
Speaker 19: to the center and we get Clinton, and I think
Speaker 19: that so this is a periodic thing with them, and
Speaker 19: I think we're going to have to win another presidential
Speaker 19: election and then I think they'll moderate because otherwise they
Speaker 19: know they're going to be cut off from power.
Speaker 1: Last question I had to do with the Chinese. If
Speaker 1: Jijenping got on the phone last night with Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and said, we're not doing this summit unless this war
Speaker 1: is over. How does Trump react to that?
Speaker 19: I think Trump finds a way to respond by imposing
Speaker 19: extra costs and consequences on the Chinese that are.
Speaker 3: Not directly related to this.
Speaker 19: Trump's going to let he he is not going to
Speaker 19: let Jijenping think that he Trump wants this summit more
Speaker 19: than Jon Ping wants it. That's another negotiating axiom. You
Speaker 19: you don't ever let the other guy know what you
Speaker 19: want and how bad you want it. And frankly, I
Speaker 19: don't think Trump cares. I mean, I don't think that
Speaker 19: is a big I he'd probably laugh at it. He'd say,
Speaker 19: you think you're going to influence me on this? You
Speaker 19: need this more than I do.
Speaker 1: I'm still looking for some reason to turn around. And
Speaker 1: you did mention or John pod Ortz maybe Pakistan asked him,
Speaker 1: and he's being nice to Pakistan because he doesn't want
Speaker 1: a war with India. That president's got a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff on his desk.
Speaker 19: He may look, we don't know what he's hearing from
Speaker 19: within that regime. And we've talked about this in the
Speaker 19: show a little bit.
Speaker 3: I mean the.
Speaker 19: Fact that there is a hard liner who is as
Speaker 19: a titular matter in charge of the i RG. Doesn't
Speaker 19: mean that everybody in the i RG isn't cutting deals
Speaker 19: with Pozaskian or some of the others. I mean, that's
Speaker 19: what happens here in others. There are going to be
Speaker 19: factions within the i RG. So we don't know what
Speaker 19: the president is hearing about the possibility that they will
Speaker 19: basically agree.
Speaker 3: To our terms. So I look, I hope there is a.
Speaker 19: Possibility that John Potterwortz and others who are so worried
Speaker 19: about this, and I understand why, that their concerns end
Speaker 19: up being vindicated. But remember I listened to I listened
Speaker 19: to your interview with Noah, and you know what's by
Speaker 19: the end of it, Noah was saying, you know these
Speaker 19: reports out there. When I compare that to how trust
Speaker 19: his Trump has handled himself through this whole thing, I'm
Speaker 19: kind of not inclined to believe in the reporting.
Speaker 3: And that's where I am.
Speaker 1: All right, that's very related with Sarah Bedford us to
Speaker 1: and maybe or maybe I'm I'm talking myself down off
Speaker 1: of the tree, but I'm still very worried.
Speaker 18: That somebody I'm one of these guys invested in the
Speaker 18: best result possible in Iran.
Speaker 3: I have just I'm going back and reread art of
Speaker 3: the deal.
Speaker 1: You and all right, we're in the same place.
Speaker 19: I don't know me.
Speaker 1: We're both happy with the result. Jim Talent. You can
Speaker 1: follow him on x at Jim Talent and you can
Speaker 1: stay with me. I'll be right back on the GUTA Show,
Speaker 1: Race America, Hewett. Welcome tour three of today's program. As
Speaker 1: you begin your commute home, I bring you the one
Speaker 1: in only Mary Katherine Ham. She is the host of
Speaker 1: the Getting Hammered podcast. She is the host of the
Speaker 1: Normally podcast. She's a Fox News contributor. She has guest
Speaker 1: hosted for me in the past and I hope again
Speaker 1: in the future. And she's funny. However, we are agreed.
Speaker 1: Graham Plattner is not funny, Mary Catherine. I listened to
Speaker 1: your Getting Hammered with Vic Mattis this morning, and yesterday
Speaker 1: I wrote about Graham Platner for Fox News saying this
Speaker 1: is not funny, this is not a joke. Tell people
Speaker 1: what you think about.
Speaker 20: Well, I think, first of all, I hate being guess
Speaker 20: lit about the idea that Nazi tattoos are bad, like
Speaker 20: that's a we all pretty much agreed on that until
Speaker 20: they had a Democratic Senate nominee who they wanted to
Speaker 20: support who has a Nazi tattoo.
Speaker 17: And then they're like, oh, wait, well you have to
Speaker 17: really take it in context.
Speaker 8: There is no context.
Speaker 17: It's bad.
Speaker 20: It is a useful heuristic for somebody being very bad
Speaker 20: and dumb in the extreme if they have something like
Speaker 20: that tattooed on their body.
Speaker 17: But it's a neat trick.
Speaker 20: They're doing where democrats can see white supremacy everywhere except
Speaker 20: for on the guy with the Nazi tattoo. But look,
Speaker 20: you don't have to only use the Nazi tattoo. You
Speaker 20: can ask has this guy lauded Hamas and its tactics
Speaker 20: before another Jewel annihilating group?
Speaker 17: Indeed he has, Like these.
Speaker 20: Are there's a lot of things that line up here.
Speaker 20: Has he appeared on the podcasts of anti Semitic forces
Speaker 20: in the National Conversation?
Speaker 17: He has?
Speaker 20: He said he's a big fans, So there's several things
Speaker 20: you can put together.
Speaker 17: But I would say that like.
Speaker 20: The doorway being the Nazi tattoo is like a perfectly
Speaker 20: reasonable way to.
Speaker 17: Make your decision about this guy being not good.
Speaker 1: It is, and I want to tell you what I
Speaker 1: object to the most is when Chris van Holland and
Speaker 1: other people say, and they don't say it out loud
Speaker 1: exactly like this, give him a break. He has PTS.
Speaker 1: You know what. A lot of people have PTS and
Speaker 1: they don't get Nazi tattoos. Moreover, a lot of people
Speaker 1: without PTS do. Moreover, you remember how we went through
Speaker 1: that whole phase where everyone in the military was a
Speaker 1: skinhead and an extremist. Yeah, and it wasn't true. It
Speaker 1: wasn't true. It slandered everyone, and that was a left
Speaker 1: wing talking point. Well, the one guy that turned out
Speaker 1: to have been that was this guy. And I don't
Speaker 1: think we ought to overlook that.
Speaker 20: No, they've been telling us for six seven, eight years, right,
Speaker 20: that the military is just crawling with white supremacists an extremists.
Speaker 20: But the second we find one with actual evidence, and
Speaker 20: by the way, one of the ways white supremacists identify
Speaker 20: each other is tattoo art guys, that's how they do it.
Speaker 20: The second we find an actual person instead of slandering
Speaker 20: this whole group of service people, they can't manage to
Speaker 20: decide that that's a problem.
Speaker 17: And yet I think they it's really bad form.
Speaker 20: In fact, Jon Favreau when we were when he was
Speaker 20: going back and forth with me about it, implied that
Speaker 20: I was the problem for not being patriotic enough to
Speaker 20: support this brave marine who I was sneering by noticing
Speaker 20: that he has enough to tattoo. And I'm like, sir, no, Like,
Speaker 20: I'm not the problem for noticing there can be service
Speaker 20: members who have bad intentions and do bad things. We
Speaker 20: all know that I objected to the mass smearing of everyone.
Speaker 20: And now again, once you have a real person who's
Speaker 20: running for Senate for whom there is real evidence, they're like.
Speaker 4: Moving on it along.
Speaker 17: Mary Catherine question patriotism.
Speaker 1: Once you make the pod Save America Bro hate lists,
Speaker 1: you've really made it. I've been on it for years
Speaker 1: because i think Ben Roads is a moron, and I've
Speaker 1: been very explicit and explaining the reasons why the other
Speaker 1: guys don't bother me. They're just talking entertainment. What are
Speaker 1: the talking points prenident Obama wants us to put out?
Speaker 1: But Ben Roads thinks he knows something and he doesn't
Speaker 1: know anything. But once you've made their list, you've really
Speaker 1: made it. In the land of conservative commentariat, when you
Speaker 1: draw the ire of the pod Save America bros. Let
Speaker 1: me talk a little bit about the other side of
Speaker 1: that race. It's not just Graham Platner. He wants to
Speaker 1: her out maybe the most responsible member of the Senate. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty conservative and Susan Collins and conservative is me.
Speaker 1: But she represents Maine in a way very few senators
Speaker 1: embody their state. She's so thoroughly Maine. She can't walk
Speaker 1: down the street without ten people saying hello, and she
Speaker 1: remembers their name. She's from the county Aroosta, I think
Speaker 1: it's called Aroostak, the one that's up in near camp
Speaker 1: at the Canadian border. There's nobody up there, like eight
Speaker 1: people in the hardware store or family runs. She's as
Speaker 1: main as they get. And they want this guy who
Speaker 1: went the Hotchkiss and was at the tune in in
Speaker 1: DC to take her out. That's the dumbest move Main
Speaker 1: could make.
Speaker 17: Yeah, No, I think you're right.
Speaker 20: I think that she knows that she's always going to
Speaker 20: face a fight, right She's in this blue purple state.
Speaker 20: She knows that somebody's going to come in at her
Speaker 20: every time. So I think she's very prepared, as is
Speaker 20: her staff for this idea, and also it just gives
Speaker 20: the lie to the critique from many.
Speaker 17: Who don't like Trump, or who are left.
Speaker 20: Center, or who former conservatives even who say like, oh, well,
Speaker 20: Trump is the actual problem and his sort of way
Speaker 20: of doing things as the problem.
Speaker 17: If you say now that.
Speaker 20: Susan Collins is the problem, yeah, perhaps you are just
Speaker 20: a Democrat like you. You're just four very far left people,
Speaker 20: and I would appreciate you.
Speaker 17: Being honest about that and not claiming that.
Speaker 20: There's some other form of Republican which is exactly Susan Collins,
Speaker 20: which you would be okay with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I want to go back and ask you
Speaker 1: about the PTS I'm coming up on. You work with
Speaker 1: Travis Mannon Foundation. I work with the Fund, so we
Speaker 1: both deal a lot with veterans who brought back wounds,
Speaker 1: both visible and invisible, from the war. I really hate
Speaker 1: when people attribute anything that they don't like to PTS,
Speaker 1: because people with PTS actually struggle. They work very hard
Speaker 1: to make sure it doesn't take over their lives. And
Speaker 1: I think this is creepy with Chris van Holland saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy has had his bad days because of PTS.
Speaker 1: I don't like other people making that argument for veterans,
Speaker 1: do you have an objection to it?
Speaker 20: No, Yes, the effects can be very real when you
Speaker 20: come back from combat.
Speaker 17: Of course, he got this while he was in service
Speaker 17: on leave.
Speaker 20: I think this is part of the sort of victim
Speaker 20: hierarchy of Democrats, like once you have an identified issue,
Speaker 20: they will just blame everything on that, like you know,
Speaker 20: the stutter for Biden or dyslexia for Newsom, And it's
Speaker 20: not fair to use that in that way, and it
Speaker 20: actually insults other people who struggle with this. And by
Speaker 20: the way, if you do have struggles and you have
Speaker 20: gone through dark parts of your past, you reckon with
Speaker 20: that and you say like, I got this really awful tattoo,
Speaker 20: and you don't lie about the fact that you didn't
Speaker 20: know what it was. Because he's a military history buff.
Speaker 20: There are contemporaneous reports from friends that he knew what
Speaker 20: it was, and his own political director, who took off
Speaker 20: from the campaign because of this, was like, guys, he
Speaker 20: knows what it is.
Speaker 17: So you have to reckon with the mistakes. If you
Speaker 17: indeed made mistakes.
Speaker 20: In a dark period of your life, you should be
Speaker 20: able to come back from that. But you have to
Speaker 20: actually tell us how you repaired.
Speaker 1: No, I also have a theory, which I'll test out
Speaker 1: on you, because you're very sharp on this stuff. The
Speaker 1: governor got out, and she sited pulling, or other people
Speaker 1: sited pulling. I think she got out because she didn't
Speaker 1: want to deal with the left for six months she's
Speaker 1: been She's seventy nine years old. She'd be the lowest
Speaker 1: ranking member of the Senator. Jen Mills is the governor
Speaker 1: right now. She's gonna have a great time in Maine
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. May she have a
Speaker 1: long and productive one. She doesn't want to deal with
Speaker 1: the crazies. And I think she took a look at
Speaker 1: this and said, he's raising a bunch of money from
Speaker 1: the crazy left. I don't want to deal with Act
Speaker 1: Blue people for the rest of my life. I'm out.
Speaker 1: That might make more sense than oh, I can't win.
Speaker 17: I think that's a fair theory.
Speaker 20: She also got into the race quite a bit later
Speaker 20: than Platner and then got out early, so maybe her
Speaker 20: heart just wasn't in this from the beginning. I wouldn't
Speaker 20: blame her being seventy nine and maybe wanting to take.
Speaker 17: A pass on this.
Speaker 20: And yes, the left is particularly aggressive about people like
Speaker 20: her when they want a grand platner in the race instead,
Speaker 20: and so that that might not be a pleasant trip
Speaker 20: for her, and she wants to opt out of it.
Speaker 1: Now, broadening the scope, we have in Michigan mister l Sayed,
Speaker 1: who's basically a stand in for Hermas, and we have
Speaker 1: in Minnesota Peggy Flanagan, who's to the left of Tim
Speaker 1: Walls by a lot. If you can believe that what's
Speaker 1: happened to our Democratic friends, because I got lots of
Speaker 1: Democratic friends that I went to college with. They've been
Speaker 1: my friends still. They've always been wrong, but they've never
Speaker 1: been crazy.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 20: I don't know if it's this year, because midterms will
Speaker 20: be challenging for Republicans regardless, but I hope it's this
Speaker 20: year that they have to contend with the fact that
Speaker 20: they are too far left for so so very many people.
Speaker 20: I was just looking at numbers for union households and
Speaker 20: how they've gone from a thirty one point advantage for
Speaker 20: Democrats and presidential elections to.
Speaker 17: An eight point one over like you know, thirty years.
Speaker 20: These are generational losses of people who were steadfast Democratic voters,
Speaker 20: and they're going further and further, I mean else, I
Speaker 20: ed was on the trail with Hassan Piker, who is
Speaker 20: fanboyd for hamas many times or Hesbela specifically and its
Speaker 20: flag two weeks after an attempted massacre of Jewish school
Speaker 20: children by a HESBLA inspired attacker. Like, the idea that
Speaker 20: that's even happening is crazy, and I would imagine that
Speaker 20: many normal voters will look ascance at it, or I
Speaker 20: would hope.
Speaker 1: Well, last quick question, there's a deal floating around. I
Speaker 1: hate it. I hate everything to do with the deal.
Speaker 1: We have one minute. I don't think Trump is behind it.
Speaker 1: I don't think he'll agree to it. But what do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 20: Yeah, I'm skeptical of all first reports of these things,
Speaker 20: so I'll wait for it to shake out a little
Speaker 20: bit more. Also, any deal that's on the table can
Speaker 20: be scuttled very quickly in the age of Trump, Like
Speaker 20: he'll see something that is like allegedly a one page
Speaker 20: deal and then it'll be gone within two days. So
Speaker 20: I would not set your sights it as something that
Speaker 20: is definitely happening.
Speaker 1: Just yet from your lips to President Trump's ears, because
Speaker 1: it's what made the one page that the wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal loves so much in their reporting is nothing short
Speaker 1: of Munich to point out. Mary Catherine Ham, host of
Speaker 1: the Getting Hammered podcast with Vic mattis follower on x
Speaker 1: at Mkammer and of course at Normally or other podcasts.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere in America. You'll see her on Fox News
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Philip Belboni is next on They give you a show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, back with my
Speaker 1: monthly Yeah. Philip Valboni, founder and editor in chief of
Speaker 1: Globalposts dot com. Philip usually brings me bad news, but
Speaker 1: he brought me good news today because the story we
Speaker 1: are focused, the lead story and Global Post today about
Speaker 1: local election in the United Kingdom, which Philip tells me,
Speaker 1: is going to lead to Kier Starmer getting kicked around
Speaker 1: a lot. And I don't like Kiir Starmer. So Phil,
Speaker 1: you've done me. You made me happy this morning. Before
Speaker 1: we get there, though, would you tell people about the
Speaker 1: special because I want them to subscribe to GlobalPost dot com.
Speaker 10: Sure, thank you, Hugh.
Speaker 21: We're offering fifty percent discount on a subscription to Global Posts.
Speaker 10: For all of your listeners and viewers.
Speaker 21: So in order to do that, you just go to
Speaker 21: GlobalPost dot com and in this subscription process, there'll be
Speaker 21: an opportunity to enter promotion code and that would be
Speaker 21: Hugh h just your first name in h lower case letters,
Speaker 21: and that will apply the fifty percent discount. The subscription's
Speaker 21: only forty six dollars, so they would get it for
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Speaker 1: Year, and it's a good menu will be you'll be
Speaker 1: smarter than anyone you know about world events because the
Speaker 1: Globe does what the New York Times and the Washington
Speaker 1: Post and Wall Street Journal used to do to together
Speaker 1: cover the world in depth, and they do it with
Speaker 1: maps and graphics. There's also a free opportunity for teachers
Speaker 1: and students, which I hope we talk about at the end.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about kir Starmer and these local elections.
Speaker 1: First of all, Phil, I don't understand British Parliament very well.
Speaker 1: What are the local elections? I'm there're three thousand of them.
Speaker 1: Who's standing for what?
Speaker 21: There's actually fifty five hundred of them, and these.
Speaker 10: Are the local councilors. Here it's not parliament.
Speaker 21: So the parliamentary election that brought care Starmer to power
Speaker 21: the Labor Party two years ago is.
Speaker 10: A different animal.
Speaker 21: And those elections aren't due until twenty twenty nine unless
Speaker 21: the Prime Minister decides to call them early. So these
Speaker 21: are local elections across England, Scotland, Wales.
Speaker 10: And this is basically like the United States.
Speaker 21: It's you know, city councils that are mayors up for
Speaker 21: reelection or election. So that's what this is about. But
Speaker 21: it's very important. It's really grassroots British politics. And so
Speaker 21: I think the headline in our lead story today said
Speaker 21: it very well. We said a storm is coming for
Speaker 21: the governing party that would be Labor. Of course, they
Speaker 21: could lose a significant number of seats that they have
Speaker 21: the most seats consul seats up for election, more than
Speaker 21: twenty one hundred. They could lose a lot, maybe not all,
Speaker 21: but you know, maybe fifteen hundred eighteen hundred seats.
Speaker 1: And then we remember phil when the Conservatives got wiped
Speaker 1: out in Canada maybe twenty years ago, they were down
Speaker 1: on like two seats. Waves like that do happen in
Speaker 1: parliamentary system. Now there are five parties there are the
Speaker 1: nationalist parties both Wales and Scotland, the Green Party, Labor, Tory,
Speaker 1: Concernative and now Reform. Who's going to emerge. Who's going
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 21: The UK is likely to be the big winner tomorrow.
Speaker 21: The leader of Reform UK is Nigel Farage, pretty well
Speaker 21: known guy, certainly in the UK but also in the
Speaker 21: United States, friend of our president, and he is the
Speaker 21: best known for really being the spark plug behind taking
Speaker 21: Britain out of the European Union. So he's doing extremely well.
Speaker 21: He's likely to come in His party is likely to
Speaker 21: come in first. Perhaps with the dominant performance. Labor is
Speaker 21: going to get wiped out, probably the Conservatives will go
Speaker 21: down even more. And the Green Party, which is I
Speaker 21: guess you could say a left party, was pretty much
Speaker 21: not single issue but very heavily into the environment, but
Speaker 21: has now broadened their focus to book issues as well,
Speaker 21: so they are expected to do extremely well. So you
Speaker 21: know what's interesting here was that, I mean British politics
Speaker 21: is really now poise to be very different than it
Speaker 21: had been for shall we say centuries, you know, with
Speaker 21: two parties dominating.
Speaker 10: I mean you have to think about the United.
Speaker 21: States here, with our two dominant parties and pretty much
Speaker 21: nobody else.
Speaker 10: Would this ever happen here? Who knows? I mean, but
Speaker 10: I think it's interesting, Well.
Speaker 1: What interests me, phil and I don't know if it
Speaker 1: works this way. Reform is new and so they don't
Speaker 1: have much of a bench that I have a lot
Speaker 1: of backbenchers in parliament to They expect the local elections
Speaker 1: to produce local candidates who can run in the next
Speaker 1: parliamentary general election, so that reform. They'll probably do a
Speaker 1: deal with the Tories to divide up constituencies for first
Speaker 1: past the post, but they need candidates. Do you think
Speaker 1: they'll get their candidates out of tomorrow?
Speaker 10: I'm sure that.
Speaker 21: I mean, there's been a lot of kind of high
Speaker 21: profile defections from the Tory Party over to reform. If
Speaker 21: they do extremely well tomorrow, I think, you know, success
Speaker 21: in the parliamentary elections when they're next held and having
Speaker 21: the right candidates will follow. I mean, this will be
Speaker 21: a major signal that the British public, or at least
Speaker 21: a substantial percentage, is backing the ideas.
Speaker 10: A reform is about immigration.
Speaker 21: It's about the economy, it's about national pride, it's about
Speaker 21: we quoted one woman in our lead story today who
Speaker 21: said I just want my country back. That's kind of
Speaker 21: as a simplistic way of saying it, but kind of
Speaker 21: they're not happy with the way things are right now.
Speaker 1: I saw that quote and I think she said something
Speaker 1: like I wanted to be British again. Now. British is
Speaker 1: actually it's not a particular ethnicity. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: four different countries. So being British is not saying I
Speaker 1: want to be a stuffy Tory from London. It encompasses
Speaker 1: a lot, but it's it's two thousand years of history.
Speaker 1: It goes back to even.
Speaker 22: And if you're living in Slotland, Wales or the Northern Ireland,
Speaker 22: you're different people, right. But I mean, if you if
Speaker 22: you hold enough to remember the past, even like the
Speaker 22: post World War two, when people felt like one country,
Speaker 22: right it is the United Kingdom and they remember that
Speaker 22: and they want.
Speaker 21: To feel that again. Is that possible in our crazy
Speaker 21: world today? I surely don't know.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait till Friday and the Global Post because
Speaker 1: I want to know what the results are. I don't
Speaker 1: know that anyone's going to cover this. That's why the
Speaker 1: Global Post exists to cover stuff. Like that. Let's quickly
Speaker 1: remind people Phil the Global Post does a great work
Speaker 1: by being a bailable the teachers and students. How do
Speaker 1: they sign up for free?
Speaker 21: Just go to the website GlobalPost dot com, look for
Speaker 21: Global Education in the navigation, and then you are able
Speaker 21: to sign up. We have a special link for high
Speaker 21: school students, college students and teachers entirely free for as
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Speaker 21: We have middle school, high school, college, and university. You
Speaker 21: could be in another country or you could be in
Speaker 21: the United States. We have more than sixteen thousand of them,
Speaker 21: and we just did a survey of all the students
Speaker 21: who it's wonderfully encouraging.
Speaker 10: I've said to this to before, Hugh.
Speaker 21: I think it's one of the most important things we
Speaker 21: do is helping these young people discover the world and
Speaker 21: be better informed.
Speaker 10: You really need to do that.
Speaker 1: I think those students who understand the world will be
Speaker 1: the leaders of our country and maybe those other in
Speaker 1: which they're getting The Global Post, by the way, the
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Speaker 1: I don't know who doesn't for you. Phil. Sometime we
Speaker 1: should talk about that. But your graphics are amazing. GlobalPost
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