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Iran’s UK Plot May Be Bigger Than We Thought · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Karambas of Radio America
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Three martinis coming up.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: So glad you're with us for the Tuesday edition of
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: the Three Martini Lunch. And Jim, I think it was
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: just last week that we were talking about the suspected
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: terrorist attempt against Royal Air Force Base Fairford in the UK,
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: where the United States has a pretty significant presence as well,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: although the presence is Not as big as it was
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: a week ago, as we're about to explain here. And
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: it looks like the reason for all of this may
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: well lead back to Iran, although some of those dots
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: still need to be connected. But this is how you
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: lead your morning jolt today. It is apparently as bad
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: as some feared. The U.S. worried that the Iranians were
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: preparing a version of Ukraine's Operation Spider's Web, smuggling drones
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: into the country and attacking planes parked on the airfield.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal reports, quote, The U.S. abruptly moved
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: a dozen B-1 bomber aircraft from a U.K. military base
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: on Sunday because of urgent concerns about a potentially complex
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: drone attack ordered by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: to U.S. and European officials briefed on the matter. The
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: planned attack was part of a multifaceted Iranian plot to
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: target the aircraft and kill personnel at RAF Fairford, including
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: American pilots. And there are many reasons you want to
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: read the morning jolt, but one is because Jim Garrity
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: digs in way past the most recent headlines to this.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Also in July, there was this insufficiently noticed report in
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: the UK Daily Telegraph. Smuggling networks run by Iran are
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: responsible for transporting people with links to the Iranian regime
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: across Europe and into Britain. Tehran's officials told the Telegraph
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: they added that some human trafficking routes between the Middle
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: East and the channel were owned by by the Iranian
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Revolutionary Guard Corps. So, Jim, I know there's a few
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: more dots you can fill in here, but it looks
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: like Iran had very specific intentions here.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, the following sentence in the Daily
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Telegraph article from July, which again You know, I realize
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: it's a busy news cycle and, you know, Chapel Roan
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: had a hangnail. There's a lot of important stuff to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: cover in this world. But like when they say the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: IRGC owns some of the human smuggling routes, that seems
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: kind of important. The very next sentence says it comes
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: after Iran vowed to attack RAF Fairford following Andy Burnham's
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: decision to renew permission for the U.S. to use the
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: British base to launch airstrikes. So back in July, we
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: are seeing this very specific Iran wants to hit this
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: airbase and They have ways to get their people into Iran.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And the other article that struck me as interest from
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: last month, the UK Independent, said there were 340 security
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: incidents involving drones reported at or near Ministry of Defense
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: sites in the year from August 2025 to August 2026. Basically,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: it's doubling every year. Now, are some of these, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: dumb recreational drones saying, hey, let me fly my drone
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: near a military base. What's the worst that could happen?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, it's probably some of that. But, you know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: experts there are saying, the former defense minister, in fact,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: tells the paper, some of these are Iran, some of
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: these are Russia. This is definitely people up to no good.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And right now it's presumably only surveillance, checking out the base,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: seeing where planes and stuff's parked on the runway and
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. But it doesn't take much to add
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: much explosive to that and then use the drone to
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: try to attack some of the people or the structures,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the equipment on that base. So you start putting these together,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: it becomes increasingly clear why, like, it's like, okay, I
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: got into a discussion with Stephen Green, who I usually
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: get along with really well, yesterday. And I said, look,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: if you have this excuse to bring troops, planes back,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: you could theoretically apply this to almost any base in Europe.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He's like, are you downplaying the threat? No, no, not
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: in this case. And certainly what comes out here, this
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: is very serious. When we saw Operation Spider's Web executed
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: by the Ukrainians late last year, All of us were like, yes,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: this is awesome. And anybody who's in charge of a
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: military base, really anywhere in the world was like, oh,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: bad word. You know, if they could do that, if
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the Ukrainians can do this, anybody could do this. I
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: mentioned that I was over on my European trip earlier
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: this year. I spoke to a Finnish drone company, Sensofusion.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: And they're only an anti-drone drone company. They only build
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: interceptor drones. They're not into killing people. They only want
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: to kill other drones. Fine, you know. But they're building
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: a drone production factory that looks utterly indistinguishable from a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: shipping container. They showed it to us. This thing looks
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: like a shipping container. I don't even know if you're
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: a trained professional. There's nothing that makes this stand out
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: from an ordinary shipping container. Well, as you can imagine,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: the United Kingdom has lots and lots of shipping containers
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: come in. Shipping containers go all over the world. It's
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: all of our NATO allies and stuff. So anything our
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: guys can think of, there's a good chance the bad
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: guys can think of. Are there hostile states, drones, you know,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: sitting in some shipping container or some truck somewhere waiting
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: to strike a U.S. air base or an allied air base?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: We don't know, but the technology is out there. They
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: certainly could do it. And I'm sure that when Ukraine
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: did their attack, I'm sure every other country was like, hmm,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I wonder what it would take for us to do that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Could we smuggle our stuff into other guys' bases? So
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: very serious threat here. And I can't say this certainly
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: seems like a responsible move by the administration. The last
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: thing you want is to see a bunch of very
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: expensive B-1 bombers getting blown up on the runway. On
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the other hand, it now kind of raises the question,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: is it safe for the US to use any of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: these UK air bases or any various air bases in Europe?
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: You've got to be more vigilant than ever on that
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: because basically Iran seems to have a pretty well-organized system.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And a pipeline of sending operatives into the West. I mean,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: if they're literally admitting it to the Telegraph, it's.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Kind of them. Yeah, that might be bragging. That might
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: be like disinformation. But like the odds of the, it's
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: not like we could say, oh, it's not like the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps would ever do something like that.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: You know, they're too moral a bunch of guys to
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: ever get involved in human trafficking.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Well, not only that, but the UK, of course, has
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: its own immigration system. and crisis, some would say, certainly,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: and other Western nations as well. And so if you're just, hey,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: waving everybody in, you know, a few really bad actors
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: can get in pretty well undetected and cause a whole
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: lot of damage once they're there. So countries, wise up
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: and sift through these people a lot better than you
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: already are. In fact, we're going to talk a little
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: bit more about immigration in the United States here in
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: just a second and whether that's going to be a
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: factor here in the 2026 midterms. But as it relates
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: to this, hopefully, the fact that this is being exposed
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: means the plot is not likely to happen. But the
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Iranians are pretty dedicated to this stuff, unfortunately. So who
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: knows what they'll adjust? Who knows what else they'll do here? Greg,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: what do they have to lose? They're hanging on by
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: the thread. Their economy's been trashed. The birth rate, apparently,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: in the last year has plummeted.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Go figure. Iranians are a little nervous about having kids
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: in this situation. You know, at this point, their attitude
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: might be, we might as well, what else do we,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: you know, what are we worried about? Escalating with the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: United States? Escalating with the United Kingdom? Yeah, exactly. What's
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the UK going to do to you? Right.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: So carry on with the plan as you already have it.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Maybe tweak it or maybe just go to a plan
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: B if they have that, which would be pretty chilling
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: as well. So in any event, UK, you've probably got
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: some really bad actors on your soil. Hopefully you can
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: find them before they do a lot of damage.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Let's, in the meantime, talk about something also very important,
• 7:35
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• 8:06
  Speaker 2: You know, Greg, I figure if you're in charge of
• 8:08
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• 8:11
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• 8:15
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• 8:43
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• 8:46
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• 8:49
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• 8:53
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• 8:57
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• 9:02
  Speaker 3: slash 3ML. All right, Jim, on to the midterms. It
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: is October 6th. And so we are, you know, exactly
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: four weeks away from Election Day, as it turns out.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: So we're not quite to closing messages yet, but we're
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: getting pretty darn close. And of course, as time goes on,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: early voting begins in more and more states here in Virginia.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: It's been already been going on for more than two weeks,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: which is obscene and absurd. But in Wisconsin, we've got
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: that tight governor's race between Tom Tiffany, who thankfully survived
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: the plane crash into the lake a couple of weeks back.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: He's up against David Crowley, who's supposed to be the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: normal Democrat, defeated the radical socialist Francesca Hong in the primary.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: But David Crowley's got some baggage, too. And in the
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: latest ad from Tom Tiffany, it's pointing out what David
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Crowley has said in expressing his solidarity with illegals in
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: this country. This is a pretty brutal ad. Check it out.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And when it comes down to the immigrants, I'm not
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: an ally. I'm an accomplice.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be with you no matter what.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: In Dane County, a repeat drunk driver and illegal immigrant
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: killed two teenagers.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I'm an accomplice.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: In Fond du Lac, an illegal tied up and blindfolded
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a 12-year-old girl to rape her.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I'm an accomplice.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: In Milwaukee, a drunk illegal immigrant killed a special Olympian
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: on his way to church.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I'm an accomplice.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: David Crowley stands with illegal immigrants, not you.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: No matter what.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Jim, the word accomplice almost is an admission that something
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: illegal is happening here. So David Crowley, that word choice,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: hopefully will come back to haunt you severely in four weeks.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You know, if Tom Tiffany had done an ad where
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: he just said, you know, David Crowley supports illegal immigration,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: he's an accomplice. He wouldn't be nearly as ineffective an ad.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: But in this case, we can honest to God say
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Tom Tiffany isn't calling David Crowley an accomplice to illegal immigrants.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: David Crowley is attacking, is calling David Crowley an accomplice
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: of illegal immigrants. So if you think that kind of
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: attack is out of line, you should be critical of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: David Crowley. It's really, you think about it, Greg, in
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: all this era of negative campaigning, all these smears and attacks,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: it's just unconscionable for David Crowley to accuse himself of
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: being an accomplice to illegal immigration. That's what makes this
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: ad somewhat delicious there. And again, this looked like a
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: really darn competitive race. You know, Wisconsin is kind of
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: your classic purple state. The not great news. There hasn't
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: been a ton of polling out there, but the one
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: that there has basically has Crowley up by three, up
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: by five, up by four. You know, not within the
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: margin of error, but not, you know, you'd like to
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: see at least one Tiffany leading poll out there. We'll
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: see how this shakes out. This ad certainly seems like
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a fertile line of criticism here. But I'm sitting here thinking, Greg,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: do you think some Republicans are like, ah, if only
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Francesca Hong could have pulled it out?
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, that was the dilemma all along. Do you
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: want the super radical person to make the general election
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: where on the one hand, you have a better chance
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: of winning? On the other hand, you're one election away
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: from that super radical person actually having some power.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, thank goodness we have that sensible, moderate, illegal
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: immigration accomplice, David Crowley.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing with the Democratic Party. It's only
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: left and more left at this point. The question, though,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: you know, you and I have talked about this ever since,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: you know, in a couple of months after Trump retook
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: office in twenty twenty five. And the border numbers basically
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: went to zero compared to the Joe Biden era, which
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: was a total mess. And what you've been saying is, well,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: once that's not an issue people are concerned about because
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: it's largely been taken care of, do people still care
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: about that? You know, will this resonate not only in Wisconsin?
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Will it resonate in Texas, for example? We've been talking
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: about a lot of key races there that are tighter
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: than usual or other states around the country, Georgia, where
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the Lake and Riley situation happened. Is that still front
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: of mind for people when... preceding issue of a widely
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: open border during the Biden years has largely been handled,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: at least for the time being.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking about when we talk about
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the economy, you can argue that gas prices are only
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: one of a variety of factors. And people might say, oh,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: look at the unemployment rate. Look at the stock market.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Look at mortgage rates. There's all kinds of stuff that
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: goes into people's perception of the economy. But if you
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: drive around, you see gas stations and you see big
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: signs telling you what they want. And there's a good
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: chance you remember what it was last week. And you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: remember whether it was higher last week or whether it
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: was lower last week. If I had absolute total control,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I would have out of not just every ICE office,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: maybe out of every federal government building, number of immigrants deported.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Number of ones with criminal charges. And if you had
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: that sign, and as people drove around, it might be
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: a nice reminder. Oh, oh, oh, I like that part
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of what the administration is doing. Oh, that's good. Well,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: that's got to sound really dangerous. I'm glad they've been deported.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: You have this constant reminder of something like gas prices. Also, similarly,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: grocery prices. People buy it maybe, you know, usually once
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: a week. Sometimes more frequently, some less frequently. More frequently
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: if you have teenagers, you know. And, you know, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: whereas the people remember, oh, I paid this much last week.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: It seems like it's a little more expensive this week.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: You know, that affects their perceptions. Again, illegal immigration, out
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: of sight, out of mind. And so it's on the
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: one hand, it's terrific that we're deporting these dangerous criminals.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And it's not reassuring to see David Crowley saying, I
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: am an accomplice. But again, he's not saying he's a supporter.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: He's not saying an accomplice. Sometimes it's a slogan. Greg,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's a confession.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Exactly right. And don't forget, this is the state where
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: the judge basically helped the illegal escape very briefly from
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: her own courthouse because ICE was waiting in the lobby.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: So the left in Wisconsin, you can't use the word
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: moderate when it comes to pretty much all of them.
• 14:52
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• 14:54
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• 14:57
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• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Q-U-O dot com slash 3-M-L. All right, Jim, for our
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: third martini, we head over to Russia, or at least
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: the Russia-Ukraine war. And this is the heart of your column,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: your latest column for The Washington Post. Things aren't going
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: well for the Russians. They thought they were going to
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: have this thing mopped up in Ukraine within a few weeks,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: maybe in early 2022. I don't know if they've checked
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: their calendar over there, but it's now late 2026 and
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: things are still not good for the Russians in this campaign.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: But of course, they're stubborn and They keep going. You
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: point out that they've suffered between a quarter of a
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: million and 300,000 military casualties. So they decided they needed
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: a little bit of inspiration. So in early September, the
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Russian Orthodox Church believed it had an inspired idea, you're right,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: to help the morale of the Russian troops. So they
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: sent the right hand of Dmitry Donskoy to the front.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Donskoy was a prince celebrated in Russia for his victory
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. The Russian Orthodox
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Church canonized him as a saint in 1988. So they
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: sent what they called a reliquary containing a particle of
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: the relics of the holy and faithful Grand Prince Dmitry
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Donskoy en route to the front. Long story short, Jim,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: they now think they've lost the hand of this guy
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: who is their hero now more than 600 years ago.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: If that's not a sign that your military mission is
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: not meant to succeed, I'm not sure what is.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: First of all, I wish I was wearing glasses so
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I could take them off and just say exasperated. Andre,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: you're telling me you lost another saint's hand for fans
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of the Hunt for Red October? Speaking of Sean Connery movies,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: everyone knows that deep down I really want to be
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Indiana Jones. So anytime there's a story of a lost relic,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: that pings my radar screen. So one, first of all,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I want to point out that in today's Washington Post,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I put up a get-you-past-the-paywall-type link on my Twitter feed. Look,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: we don't get into religious talk a lot on this podcast.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: are really intertwined. And the Russian Orthodox Church is a
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: full-throated supporter and cheerleader of the invasion of Ukraine. This
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: does not strike me as a very Christian. This does
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: not strike me as what Christ would want. This strikes
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: me as a perversion of Christianity, but it's a free country.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: You do what you want. But I'm just going to say, Greg,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: if you bring the hand of a saint... to the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: front of a battlefield, and within like a week or two,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the other guys happen to attack in the right place
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: at the right time, and your guys retreat, and they
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: leave the hand behind. Do you think maybe God's trying
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to tell you something? As my old traveling companion Kyle
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Orton observed, the Lord works in mysterious ways, but Sometimes
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem that mysterious. That seems like a fairly
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: clear signal. I am not on board with your war crimes.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I spoke clearly through a burning bush, starters, right? Then
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I said, my son, I can't put this any clearer.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Stop killing people. Stop bombing hospitals. Stop bombing schools. Stop
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: kidnapping children. Yeah, that's how I would interpret that. But Greg,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: so this is a macabre, I suppose you could say
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: darkly funny, bizarre. No, of course, the Russian government says, no,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: don't worry, the hand fragment is fine. It's fine. No
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: one has shown it. So it's not like we have
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: any recent pictures. No word that the Ukrainians have it either. Apparently,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: it's somewhere along the lines, or maybe, God forbid, it
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: got blown up. So on the one hand, there's just
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: something utterly bizarre about this. But the more important part is,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: at least the Russians don't have any other major problems
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: going on right now that probably should require their attention.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know how inspired I would see by seeing
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: skeletal remains of a hand in terms of the fighting,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: but I guess their mileage may vary over there in Russia.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I would encourage them to send the full body of
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Lenin over. I'd love to see that. It's preserved. It's
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: right there.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: A little glassy and waxy looking, but can I just
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: point out, like, you know, thankfully this podcast, you're fine
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: with discussing my work at lots of other places. And
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I don't want to brag, but, you know, I went
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: through that entire column for The Post and never once
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: did I say that this leaves the Russians shorthanded.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I was going to say its new nickname now has
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: to be Lefty.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: No, the Russians are stumped. The Ukrainians are willing to
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: give them back the finger. You know, there's there's a
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: lot of ways I could have gone with this and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I did not. I save it all for you, dear
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: listeners and viewers. Oh, man.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Well, now they have to send out a team to
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: find that out. Now that, if they were going to
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: make an Indiana Jones 4, which they did not, let's
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: be clear about that.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: No, there were only three. There were only three. He
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and his dad rode off into the sunset and nothing
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: else happened.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: That's right. That's exactly right. But if they were to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: do one with the Soviets, the hunt for that would
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: have been a much better movie than anything else they
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: might have dreamed up at some point, but never actually
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: put together in a movie.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Early in the war, there was some... church that had
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: some other saint's relics that they immediately seized and brought back.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It is a little bit... People are like, oh, that
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: was back in the 1930s and Hitler was obsessed with
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the occult and the Ark of the Covenant and all
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: that stuff. This stuff still matters to people. And there's
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of either symbolic value or some would say,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know, showing your righteousness or your faithfulness in
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: trying to recover these relics that certain faiths see as
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: being not just human remains, but that there's something innately
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: holy about them. So yeah, if nothing else, it'll make
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: a good screenplay someday. All right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Well, if you're Russian and that leaves a bad taste
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: in your mouth, or you're just kind of creeped out
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: by human remains headed to the battlefield as some sort
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• 22:57
  Speaker 3: on to our chaser. This one might be a little
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: bit longer than usual because there's a lot to talk about.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert died earlier this week at
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the age of 84. Hastert served 20 years in the
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: House from the state of Illinois. He was Speaker of
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: the House from 1999 to 2007. However, after leaving the
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: House several years later, he was sent to prison in
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: 2015 for 15 months. for violating banking regulations so he
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: could pay $ 3. 5 million in hush money to a person
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: over a sexual abuse violation. So basically, as it turned out,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: between 1965 and 1981, while Hastert was working at a
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: high school in Yorkville, Illinois, he was a teacher and coach.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: He violated a number of different students. It's just a
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: disgraceful story. The defendant is a child molester, is what
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: the federal judge said at the time. And so, you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: a guy who had reached about as high in the
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: pinnacle of power outside of the White House as you
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: can get ends his life in disgrace. And the weird part, Jim,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: is you got to understand how he became speaker in
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: the first place. Late 1998, the midterms are for Republicans.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: It should have been a big one with Clinton dealing
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: with the Lewinsky scandal, but it's not that great. Newt says,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to stand for speaker again. Republicans say,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: all right, it's going to be Bob Livingston of Louisiana.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: And then it turns out he had an affair. It's like, well,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: we can't be prosecuting Clinton and having that. So they
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: shove him to the side. They get Hastert. And, you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: nobody in Congress knew what his past was. But the
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: fact that he actually accepted that, knowing his own background
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: in those circumstances was insane. So, yeah. So eight years,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: which is the longest run as speaker since Tip O'Neill continuously.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Nancy Pelosi served two four-year stints since then. But You know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: it's just a really bizarre and awful story when it
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: comes to Dennis Hastert.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Way back in, I'm glad you mentioned the years
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: that he was Speaker because I remembered running into him
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: back when I was working at Congressional Quarterly. I was a,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: you know, tadpole reporter. And I just happened to be,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: and when you're the Speaker of the House, anytime you
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: are not in your office or in some sort of
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: closed door, reporters tend to swarm around you like mosquitoes.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: with probably the same level of annoyance, asking all kinds
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: of questions. What's your response to what the president said?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: When is this bill going to come to the floor?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: All kinds of questions like that. So generally, very quickly,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: prominent lawmakers get very good at knowing, I'm not going
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to say secret passageways, but the less traveled ways. And
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I was by a bank of elevators with some other
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: reporter and a photographer. And all of a sudden, out
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: pops Speaker Hastert. And he's actually didn't come out. He's
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: going to the elevators. He's waiting for it. And if
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: you've ever been on Capitol Hill, the elevators can be
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: agonizingly slow, particularly when you're trying to not answer questions
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: of reporters. And he had just come from some ceremony
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: with Native Americans. So he was carrying this tomahawk. It
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: was a fairly large one. ornate and decorative and all
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: kinds of stuff like that. And I'm like, I think
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I said something like, who's getting their head chopped off
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: or something like that. Shockingly, not entirely reverent and appropriate,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: even back in 1999. And Hastert kind of just starts
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: beginning the story of the tribe that he had just
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: met and what a great honor it was and all
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And I'm sure I could just
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: see in his eyes, where the hell is this elevator?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Why is it taking forever? And there's a photographer there.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So could you hold up the tomahawk? You know, all
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: kinds of stuff. And so at that point, it was just, oh,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: just randomly running into the Speaker of the House on
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Capitol Hill at the right place at the right time.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Then we find out that he was, yeah, he was
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: kind of a monster. That this was, you know, unfortunately,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: unnervingly reminiscent of the Sandusky allegations over at Penn State.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: And it's funny because for a while, being a wrestling
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: coach was a part of that Hastert image and persona, right?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: And the idea that he was, he was a very
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: big guy and there was just kind of the, you know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I remember back in the, I want to say 2000
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Republican convention nominating George W. Bush. He said he was,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: you know, he bangs the gavel, you know, come to order.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And actually it kind of does come to order, but
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: he has to act like they're not coming to order.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: He's all right, let's bring him out. And Dwayne, the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: rock Johnson comes out and Dwayne, the rock Johnson, who
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: has always been very careful to not, uh, engage in
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: partisan politics too much. Comes out, crowd goes wild, and
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: he says, I'm here to remind you to vote in November.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I don't care which party you vote for, but it's
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: important to exercise your rights. And it's a perfectly nice one.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's a good example of just how much
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: nobody knew about any of this stuff when it came out.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Just very disturbing that somebody could do something as terrible
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: as that, get away with it, and rise to two
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: heartbeats away from the presidency.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Jim, hard to end on that kind of a note,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: but we'll do it for today and we'll reconvene tomorrow.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: See you then. See you tomorrow, Greg.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Jim Garrity, National Review. I'm Greg Karambas of Radio America.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't already,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: tell your friends about us as well. Thanks also for
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: your five-star ratings and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming.
• 27:56
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• 27:58
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• 28:01
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• 28:04
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• 28:08
  Speaker 3: a terrific Tuesday. Join us again on Wednesday for the
• 28:10
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