Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / SCOTUS and the VRA, Alaska's new oil rush, and the God Squad

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SCOTUS and the VRA, Alaska's new oil rush, and the God Squad · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale. I'm Hugh hewittt. Welcome to the Wednesday
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  Speaker 1: edition of the Hugh Hewitt Show. Let me begin by Jelly.
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  Speaker 1: I'll get to everything. Two big Supreme Court cases today,
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court finally making some sense out of their redistricting
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  Speaker 1: and race decisions. I'm a teacher con law for on
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  Speaker 1: those thirty years, and that area of the law has
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  Speaker 1: been a mess for a long time because Anthony Kennedy
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  Speaker 1: tried to come up with some rule against partisan Gary mannering,
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  Speaker 1: and finally they got rid of that when Justice Kennedy retired.
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  Speaker 1: Then they had kind of a rule which you could
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  Speaker 1: use race, but not too much, but maybe a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more. It made no sense at all. It's been
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  Speaker 1: a gobbledygook for decades. And they came out with the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: decision day in Louisianniversus Klai I believe is how you
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  Speaker 1: pronounced the second party. It says Section to the Rights
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  Speaker 1: Act does not allow you to use race to draw
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  Speaker 1: maps unless there's been actual discriminatory intent in the drawing
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  Speaker 1: of maps that preceded the new maps. Then you can
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  Speaker 1: use race as a remedy. Which can't use race as
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  Speaker 1: a factor in draw map. You can do anything else
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  Speaker 1: you want. We're back to where we ought to have
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  Speaker 1: been all these years. You may not use race to
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  Speaker 1: award benefits or to inflict penalties. Period. You can't try
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  Speaker 1: and help people based on their race. You can't try
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  Speaker 1: and hurt people based on their race. That's what the
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  Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendment is about. But if someone has used race
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  Speaker 1: to draw lines to discriminate against black people, then you
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  Speaker 1: can have a minority majority district drawn. It's about that simple.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: That's a big win. Also a big win for freedom
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  Speaker 1: of association. But the biggest story of the day, one
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  Speaker 1: about which President Trump just talked, was in the Wall
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  Speaker 1: Street Journal last night. Trump tells aids to prepare for
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  Speaker 1: an extended blockade of Iran. The president it prefers decisive victories,
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  Speaker 1: but none of the available options provides him with a
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  Speaker 1: swift exit. True it reads. President Trumps instructed AIDS to
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  Speaker 1: prepare for an extended blockade of Iran. The US officials
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  Speaker 1: said targeting the regime's coffers in a high risk is
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  Speaker 1: not high risk, low risk, high risks. Bid to compel
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  Speaker 1: a nuclear capitulation tear lone has long refused. In recent meetings,
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  Speaker 1: including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted
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  Speaker 1: to continue squeezing Around's economy and oil experts exports by
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  Speaker 1: preventing shipping to and from ports. He assessed that his
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  Speaker 1: other options, resumption of bombing, walking away from the conflict,
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  Speaker 1: carried more risks than maintaining the blockade. The regime cannot
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  Speaker 1: stay and not swear off nuclear proliferation, not swear off
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  Speaker 1: closing the straight of horror moves, not swear off the
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  Speaker 1: missile program that they were building, Not swear off terror proxies,
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  Speaker 1: not swear off massacring forty thousand of their people. Trump
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  Speaker 1: has red lines. He's enforcing them. He just gave a
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  Speaker 1: gaggle at the White House literally minutes ago after receiving
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  Speaker 1: the NASA astronauts from the recent mission, and he talked
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  Speaker 1: about Iran. Let's go to the iron cuts first, cott
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  Speaker 1: number twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the blockade is genius.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, the blockade has been one hundred percent full of proof.
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  Speaker 3: It shows how good our navy is. I can tell
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  Speaker 3: you that nobody's going to play games. We have the
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  Speaker 3: greatest military in the world, and I built much of
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  Speaker 3: it during my first term and we've been building it since.
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  Speaker 3: And the greatest anywhere in the world. Nobody even close.
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  Speaker 3: And you see that, whether it's Venezuela, which and they
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  Speaker 3: have a good military in Venezuela. But it was over
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  Speaker 3: in one day. It was actually over in about forty
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  Speaker 3: eight minutes. I ran the same thing. I mean, militarily,
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  Speaker 3: we've wiped him out. They have no military left. It's
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  Speaker 3: all the navies at the bottom of the sea. The
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  Speaker 3: air force is never going to fly again. We've got
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  Speaker 3: an amazing military. Now they have to cry uncle. That's
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  Speaker 3: all they have to do, just say we give up,
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  Speaker 3: we give up. Their economy is really in trouble. It's
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  Speaker 3: a debt economy.
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  Speaker 1: It is a dead economy, and it's going to get better.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the parrot in money Python. He also said
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  Speaker 1: this on talks with Iron number twenty four.
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  Speaker 3: It depends we have talks with heavy cocks with him now,
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  Speaker 3: and we're not flying anymore with eighteen hour flights. Every
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  Speaker 3: time we want to see a piece of paper, we're
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  Speaker 3: doing it telephonically.
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  Speaker 2: And it's very nice.
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  Speaker 3: Make a call or I have my people make a call,
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  Speaker 3: and you.
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  Speaker 2: Know the answered. I always like face to face, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I consider it better.
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  Speaker 3: But when you have to fly eighteen hours every time
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  Speaker 3: you want to have a meeting, and you know what
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the meeting is all about, and you know they're going
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  Speaker 3: to give you a piece of paper that you don't
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  Speaker 3: like before you even leave, it's ridiculou They've come a
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  Speaker 3: long way. The question is whether or not they're going
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  Speaker 3: to go far enough. So at this moment, there will
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  Speaker 3: never be a deal unless they agreed that there will
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  Speaker 3: be no nuclear warbots.
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  Speaker 1: It's clear there's not gonna be a neal until they
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  Speaker 1: wave off enrichment and give us the heel, the highly
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  Speaker 1: enriched uranium. But the President had done a gaggle, He
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  Speaker 1: had met with the Artemis two astronauts, and then he
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  Speaker 1: just took a lot of questions. Very interesting. He got
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  Speaker 1: one about his call with putin cut number nineteen.
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  Speaker 2: He told me he'd like to be involved with the enrichment.
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  Speaker 3: If he can help us get it, I said, I'd
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  Speaker 3: much rather have you be involved with ending the war
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  Speaker 3: with Ukraine. To me, that would be more important because
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  Speaker 3: we gonna we're gonna have that. Look, we're not gonna
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  Speaker 3: let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And we've knocked out
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  Speaker 3: there navy, We've knocked out their air force.
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  Speaker 1: We got that part down. He's not gonna let them win.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go to cut number twenty.
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  Speaker 2: Would that's the kind of ruling? I like, when did
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  Speaker 2: that happen? Well? It was this one? Really? Is that right?
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  Speaker 2: You tell me about the ruling? Well, did you see
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  Speaker 2: that fake news.
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  Speaker 4: On your call with President who?
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  Speaker 3: Today?
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  Speaker 4: Do you think the war in Iran ends first?
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  Speaker 2: For the war in Ukraine?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we talked about more about the war in Ukraine,
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  Speaker 3: but he would like to be of help.
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  Speaker 2: I said, before you help me, I want to end
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  Speaker 2: your war. So we had a good talk. I've known
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  Speaker 2: him a long time. I think he was ready to
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  Speaker 2: make a deal a while ago.
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  Speaker 3: I think some people made it difficult for him to
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  Speaker 3: make a deal.
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  Speaker 2: But we talked more about Ukraine.
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  Speaker 4: But which war do you think it is first?
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  Speaker 2: That's an interesting question, you know, coming from you. That's
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  Speaker 2: very interesting. Which war would end first? I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe they're on a similar timetable. I think Ukraine. Militarily
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  Speaker 3: they're defeated. Okayally you wouldn't know that by reading the
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  Speaker 3: fake news, but militarily, look there. Maybe so they had
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty nine ships. Every ship is right
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  Speaker 3: now underwater. Typically that's pretty good. What do you think, Jared,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's gonna be hard for them to make
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  Speaker 3: a naval comeback.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Now they have an air force.
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  Speaker 3: Every one of their planes has been shot down or
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  Speaker 3: has been decimated. They have missiles about eighty two percent
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  Speaker 3: are gone, and they have drones and most of them
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  Speaker 3: are gone.
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  Speaker 2: Most of the factories are mostly gone. And we have
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  Speaker 2: tremendous anti.
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  Speaker 3: Drone equipment now between lasers and that new very special
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  Speaker 3: machine gun that knocks them out of the air.
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  Speaker 2: Like flies, and we use bullets instead of million.
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  Speaker 3: Dollar missiles to knock out a thirty thousand dollars drone.
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  Speaker 3: So I would say, jareded would tell me that with
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  Speaker 3: everything you just heard, typically we're in pretty good shape.
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  Speaker 2: And in addition, their economy is crashing.
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  Speaker 3: There as you know, their money they go out their money.
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  Speaker 3: They don't have a name for it. Their money is valueless.
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  Speaker 3: They've got inflation that nobody's ever seen before. Other than that,
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  Speaker 3: I think they're doing quite well. If you read the
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  Speaker 3: New York.
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  Speaker 1: Times said now Caitlyn Collins gets a little loved from
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  Speaker 1: the present. It was a good question. Which war ends first?
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  Speaker 1: That's a great question, and he answered it. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know but he answered it. But you'd asked someone tell
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  Speaker 1: me about the Supreme Court Voting Rights Act. You know
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  Speaker 1: you're interested in that. It comes back around cut twenty one, right,
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  Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it.
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  Speaker 2: Where did it come out?
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  Speaker 5: No, it came out this morning.
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  Speaker 4: But basically very much narrows the voting rights at.
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  Speaker 2: Which you consider to win from.
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  Speaker 4: Way for Republicans.
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  Speaker 2: I love it.
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  Speaker 3: But my question is very good, we can end this discovery.
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  Speaker 2: I want to read it.
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  Speaker 6: Mike Well.
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  Speaker 7: The prement is that some Republican governors have not responded
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  Speaker 7: interests of what they're going to do.
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  Speaker 5: I guess early voting for example, and Louisian.
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  Speaker 8: Republicans door, what about early voting begins Saturday?
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  Speaker 3: There?
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  Speaker 2: For instance?
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  Speaker 4: Should they redrup map?
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  Speaker 2: And I would? I mean it depends. I mean some
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  Speaker 2: states don't need to redraw, and some do.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I know what the concept of the world,
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  Speaker 3: I just haven't seen the results. Yeah, I would say generally,
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  Speaker 3: I would think that they would want to do it.
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  Speaker 3: Some some are greatly helped and some, you know, it
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  Speaker 3: didn't make much difference.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say they would do that. They have
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  Speaker 2: time to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they should do it. If they've got an unconstitutional
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  Speaker 1: Gary Mander because they use too much race as a
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  Speaker 1: marker for lines, they should redo it immediately. Then cut
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  Speaker 1: number twenty two. On the United Arab Emirates leaving Opek.
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  Speaker 1: The president comments, that's why cut twenty two.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's great. I mean, I think it's great.
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  Speaker 3: I know him very well, Mohammed and very smart and
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  Speaker 3: to probably.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe once ago his own way. That's a good thing.
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  Speaker 2: I think ultimately it's a good thing for getting.
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  Speaker 3: The price of the guests down, getting oil down, getting
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  Speaker 3: everything down.
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  Speaker 2: They have it all. He's a great leader.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, so no, I'm okay. They're having some problems in Opeka.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The good news about that is the United air Memirates
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  Speaker 1: wants to pump more oil right now. I believe I
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: listened to Ron breakdown today with Mark David It's and
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  Speaker 1: a Saudi expert. I believe UAE is pumping about four
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  Speaker 1: million barrels a year of oil. They want to go
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to five million barrels a year, which would be good
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  Speaker 1: for the world oil market, and they don't want to
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  Speaker 1: be restrained by OPEK, so they're out. So the big
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  Speaker 1: alliance right now is Israel, the United States, UE, and
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  Speaker 1: I hope Saudi comes in because we need a new quad.
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  Speaker 1: The quad in the Far East is the United States, Japan,
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  Speaker 1: and Australia and India. But the new quad's got to
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  Speaker 1: be United States, Israel, UE and Saudi Arabia. That would
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  Speaker 1: be ideal. Stay tuned a lot more, including about eight
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  Speaker 1: minutes is the Freme Court argument today. You just got
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  Speaker 1: here at the station. Welcome back to America, Hewett inside
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  Speaker 1: the Relief Factors video, joined by Sarah C. Bedford of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: The Washington Janitor, where I also have a column day,
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  Speaker 1: but Sarah is on the on the news reporting side,
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  Speaker 1: not the opinion side. Sarah, why do you hear about
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  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana versus Clay And The
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: New York Post headline is Voting rights acts? Supreme Court
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  Speaker 1: victory gets GOP giddy over saving midterms. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if that's true, is it? Are they giddy?
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  Speaker 4: Giddy? Giddy's close to the right word.
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  Speaker 7: I think Republicans were really sweating after the Virginia redistricting referendum.
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  Speaker 4: Just like a week ago.
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  Speaker 7: It seems like a lifetime ago, but just a week ago,
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  Speaker 7: there was some real fears that perhaps Trump's redistricting push
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  Speaker 7: was going to completely backfire on Republicans. Now there are
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: green shoots everywhere for the GOP. You have a live
• 11:48
  Speaker 7: redistricting effort in Florida that looks likely to succeed, the
• 11:52
  Speaker 7: state legislature advancing a new map today that would net
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  Speaker 7: Republicans as many as four seats, And now you have
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  Speaker 7: this potentially landmarkedcision from the Supreme Court saying basically, litigates
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  Speaker 7: can't bring challenges to just straight up partisan maps under
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  Speaker 7: the guise of trying to block a racial gerrymander, because
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  Speaker 7: too often in courts today, left wing groups are using
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  Speaker 7: this antiquated section of the Voting Rights Act to bring
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  Speaker 7: challenges to Republican maps that are really partisan challenges under
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  Speaker 7: the guise of racial discrimination challenges. And the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 7: is saying, hey, guys, you can't do that anymore, because
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  Speaker 7: courts have said that partisan maps they're not for the
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  Speaker 7: courts to decide. And so it's a really big deal
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  Speaker 7: for Republicans because in the South, where they've wanted to
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  Speaker 7: do partisan jerrymanders, they've been held back by the threat
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  Speaker 7: of litigation.
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  Speaker 4: That's not there anymore.
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  Speaker 6: Now.
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  Speaker 1: I want to make sure the audiences understand. For years,
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  Speaker 1: the Deep South had a race problem, and they drew
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: lines to exclude blacks from natural majority districts. The Voting
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Rights Act came along in Section two empowered black voters
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  Speaker 1: to bring challenge interest to those maps, and they want
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  Speaker 1: and they should have won, because it's unconstitutional to use
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: race to penalize people. But after the nineteen nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: two amendments, they continue to bring maps to sort of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: argue affirmatively, we ought to have more districts than we do,
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  Speaker 1: and the Spreme Court has been messing around with this
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  Speaker 1: for twenty years. I don't teach the cases because there's
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  Speaker 1: such a mess. Now I'll be able to teach Alito's case,
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  Speaker 1: which basically said, use any algorithm that you want to
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  Speaker 1: draw your district use that. You know, you can have
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  Speaker 1: compact districts, you can try and maximize Republicans, maximize Democrats,
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  Speaker 1: but you may not put race into your algorithm. That's
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  Speaker 1: how I understand it. Is that how you understand it, Sarah, Yes.
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  Speaker 7: Yes, it's like the Chief Justice John Roberts quote, the
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  Speaker 7: best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: by race. And that's effectively what Alito was saying here,
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: that you can't sort of shoehorn your partisan challenges into
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: this racial legal framework that you know, like you said,
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: was drawn with very good rea in many decades ago.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: But Ilito acknowledges and his majority opinion that the social
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: and cultural conditions that necessitated the Voting Rights Act many decades.
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  Speaker 4: Ago no longer exists.
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  Speaker 7: And during oral arguments, it was Kavanaugh who was asking
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: these sort of pointed questions about, you know, what's the
• 14:16
  Speaker 7: end game here, Like, at no point in Congress or
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: the courts ever believe that these corrective actions that required
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: a little bit of racial discrimination to undo the effects
• 14:26
  Speaker 7: of a lot of racial discrimination. At no point did
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: the lawmakers envision these being permanent. And it's the Year
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: of Our Lord twenty twenty six at one point, do
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: we say they've met their goals? And it seems the
• 14:36
  Speaker 7: Supreme Court has said that day could be could be.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, the analogue, the analogy is actually a school
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: district because at once discriminated on the basis of race.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Once they've implemented desegregation and they've used all the tools
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and they've reached a decgregated state where races did not
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: have played. If they resegregate because of populationships, that doesn't
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: reinvent the discrimination loss it the same provoke. Now, I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: don't know how many states have got time to redistrict.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Florida's going to do it, Louisiana is going to do it.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: That might met Republicans five votes, but they lost four
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: in Virginia. They picked up five in Texas, they lost
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: five in California. Is it going to be a wash
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, absent to waive election.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: For the midterms, it could end up being a wash.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: Some of the states in the south of Alabama or
• 15:23
  Speaker 7: Georgia that potentially could redistrict because of the Voting Rights
• 15:27
  Speaker 7: Act victory here at the Supreme Court, they might not
• 15:29
  Speaker 7: have the time because the primaries are coming up in May,
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: or in the summer, but for twenty twenty eight and beyond,
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  Speaker 7: I mean in the long term for Republicans, this is
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: a huge step to leveling the playing field again where
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: Democrats had really tilted it towards themselves through things like
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: the successful litigation under the Voting Rights Act, Shenanigan's with
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  Speaker 7: the Census, all those sorts of things. So long term,
• 15:50
  Speaker 7: twenty twenty eight and beyond, this is a really bright
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  Speaker 7: spot for Republicans to start to again even the playing
• 15:56
  Speaker 7: field for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Justice Leader who wrote the majority opinion, use the
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  Speaker 1: term algorithm. Just put into your algorithm for your districts
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  Speaker 1: anything you want. Don't use race. And I think basically
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: with AI, if if a one party state comes into
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: play that has not already adopted the Independent Commission, they're
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: going to be able to gary mander their hearts out
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and no one's going to say a word. And who
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: wins under that scenario.
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  Speaker 4: Well, Republican.
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  Speaker 7: If every single state fired every single bullet.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: In the chamber that they have left when it.
• 16:31
  Speaker 7: Comes to jerrymandering, Republicans would come out on top because
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: they've just done it less historically than Democrats. Democrats have
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: already really aggressively jerrymandered the states where they control the
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: legislators and the governorships. If you look at Massachusetts, if
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: you look at Illinois, those states are already insanely jerrymandered.
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  Speaker 7: And while they might be able to squeeze out like
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: a seat here or a seat there, it's Republicans who
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: have a lot more juice in the lemon left.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: As jd Vance has put it when he's talked about this.
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: So this is not a war that Democrats wanted to
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: get started. And now thanks to this Voting Rights Act,
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: Republicans have a lot more room to maneuver that just
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: wasn't there before.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Now the Fed refused a lower rate today, Jerome Powell
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: also announced he's not quitting. He's breaking precedent, another example
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of Trump arrangement syndrome. Usually the FED chair is replaced
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and mister Warsh is going to replace mister Powell. Usually
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that outgoing chairman quits because you'll let the new guy
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: have the run of the building. Powell's sticking around. Is
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: there any blowback on that? Because it's just another broken precedent.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: It's really interesting because Powell had previously indicated that if
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: the Justice Department investigation was wound down, he would leave.
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: He was essentially like holding over Trump's head the idea
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: that he would stay on to try to get the
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: Justice Department investigation to end.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: But that appears to have wound down.
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: I mean, Trump seems to have agreed to that, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: then Powell didn't really stick by his end of the bargain.
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: So it'll be really interesting to see what plays out
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: with that. But you know Howell does undercut his own
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: perception of independence when he does things that could be
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: perceived as intentionally antagonizing Trump.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's exactly where I was going. Jerome Powell
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: just undercut his whole rationale by breaking the president. He
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: truly does have TDS. I now think I have to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: wonder whether they've been slow locking rate cuts because Powell
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to help Trump in the midterm. I have
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to believe that now because he's sticking on the TAD
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to make sure they don't cut rates like the majority
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: wants to do. Always good to see if Sarah seed
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Bedford follower at Sarah ceed Bedford Welcome from inside. The
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Beltleigh market closed about ten minutes ago. It was mixed today,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: but West Texas crewed. Is it one hundred and seven
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: dollars a barrel? And Brent Crude is at one hundred
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and nineteen in change To talk about that in the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: war and much more. I'm joined by the Secretary the Interior,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Doug Burgham. Secretary Burgham, welcome back. It's good to see
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you again. How goes the good fight in DC?
• 18:57
  Speaker 9: Well, Hugh, it's fantastic to be with you, and things
• 19:00
  Speaker 9: are going great here as they are going great for
• 19:03
  Speaker 9: our whole country.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: All right, let's start with the story in the Wall
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Street Journal this morning. Trump tells aids to prepare for
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: extended blockad to Iran? Has he told you that? And
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that's your secretary? Have you been in those conversations as
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: chair of the Energy Dominance Council, We've.
• 19:18
  Speaker 9: Been in a lot of conversations, and of course Chris
• 19:22
  Speaker 9: Right and I have both been intimately involved in this
• 19:25
  Speaker 9: in our roles on the National Energy Dominance Council. So yeah,
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: there's been a lot of discussion. But I just say
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: President Trump doing the right thing Iran, which basically we
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: should stop calling it Iran, we should just call it
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: the IRGC.
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: We've got a terrorist organization.
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: With an oil field and they've been militarily defeated, as
• 19:45
  Speaker 9: President Trump describes. But now with Scott Bessant with economic theory,
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: we've got to we have to stop them being able
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: to fund terrorism and fund exporting terrorism around the world.
• 19:56
  Speaker 9: I mean, they were funding as many as twenty four
• 19:57
  Speaker 9: different terror groups with oil money.
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: The blockade is not just.
• 20:01
  Speaker 9: A physical blockade, it's also an economic blockade to ensure
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: that they don't have the cash to keep raining terror
• 20:08
  Speaker 9: and holding the whole world hostage.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Now, mister Secretary, in my opinion, this is the most
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: important thing the President has done, including what he's done
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court. This is the most important thing.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Has he said to you anything like, hey, Doug, this
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is going to take six months. What's oil going to
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: cost after six months? In order to bankrupt and bring
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: down the crazies, the lunatics, as Secretary Rubio calls him.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Has he said anything like that to you a time range.
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: Nope, he has not. He has not talked about that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 9: As you know, President Trump, he gets lots of inputs
• 20:39
  Speaker 9: of lots of people. He's the one that's driving the
• 20:41
  Speaker 9: show and making the making the decisions here. I think
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: he's indicated to the whole world is willingness to get
• 20:48
  Speaker 9: a deal. But he's got some things that are unlike
• 20:50
  Speaker 9: past president when he's got a red line. If he
• 20:52
  Speaker 9: says they're not going to have a nuclear weapon and
• 20:54
  Speaker 9: they're not going to have the material to build one,
• 20:57
  Speaker 9: you know, he means it. And and so that's you know,
• 21:00
  Speaker 9: there are some things that have to happen. But President
• 21:03
  Speaker 9: Trump has described as recently as last week, multiple times
• 21:06
  Speaker 9: that he feels like that he's got he's got patience
• 21:10
  Speaker 9: is on, is certainly on. He's got the patients, and
• 21:12
  Speaker 9: he's got the time on his side in this negotiation.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And so you have no reason to question is resolved.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I hope you have no reason to question is resolved
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: because we got to win this. We have to win.
• 21:22
  Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I have none whatsoever. And again, I mean
• 21:25
  Speaker 9: this is a President Trump ultimately is already made the
• 21:29
  Speaker 9: world safer by massively degrading a ram's capability. We saw
• 21:34
  Speaker 9: their true colors when they were attacking their golf neighbors.
• 21:37
  Speaker 9: I mean, this is a in the middle of this,
• 21:39
  Speaker 9: you know, people, you don't start off a conversation with
• 21:41
  Speaker 9: about gas prices in the US. But this is a
• 21:43
  Speaker 9: realignment of geopolitical alliances around the whole world, and the
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: United States is going to come out of this much
• 21:50
  Speaker 9: stronger and aligned with those people that share our interests,
• 21:55
  Speaker 9: stronger than we went into it. And again, as you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 9: whether it's Venezuela, the Panama Canal, unleashing, unleashing our energy
• 22:03
  Speaker 9: in Alaska.
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: President Trump's got a strategy that's Cuba.
• 22:07
  Speaker 9: I mean, he's got a strategy really of reshaping the
• 22:10
  Speaker 9: whole world, and at the end, it's going to make
• 22:11
  Speaker 9: the world safer in America much more prosperous.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Let's go to Alaska, mister Secretary. We've got an LNG
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: pipeline that should be opening up there that Europe really needs,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: i mean really needs that LNG. Is it making progress?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Are you behind it? Is everyone going to get it done?
• 22:27
  Speaker 9: Yeah, everyone's behind it. It's making progress. But I would
• 22:30
  Speaker 9: say the other thing that's happened in the last eight
• 22:33
  Speaker 9: weeks is the interest in getting Alaska oil going again.
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: At one point, this was a state that was producing
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: almost two million barrels a day. Now it's down to
• 22:42
  Speaker 9: less than five hundred thousand a day. We've got a
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: pipeline with excess capacity, We've got Japan getting ninety two
• 22:48
  Speaker 9: percent of their oil from the Strait of Hormuz. You've
• 22:51
  Speaker 9: got other countries in the Pacific that are allies, places
• 22:55
  Speaker 9: like Korea, South Korea, where we've got twenty eight thousand
• 22:58
  Speaker 9: troops that are dependent on Middle Easter n oil. All
• 23:01
  Speaker 9: of these folks are ready to understand what it would
• 23:04
  Speaker 9: be to get us energy on a path that has
• 23:08
  Speaker 9: no chokeholds, and you're coming.
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: You're talking eight days from.
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: Anchorage to Tokyo, versus on a good week, it's twenty
• 23:15
  Speaker 9: eight days. If there's other conflicts going on in the
• 23:18
  Speaker 9: South China Sea or any of the straits that you
• 23:22
  Speaker 9: have to go through, it could be a forty five
• 23:24
  Speaker 9: day shipment time from the Middle East to Japan.
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: The eagerness to.
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: Buy more oil and more LNG from Alaska has never
• 23:33
  Speaker 9: been higher, and so of course, when you've got strong demand,
• 23:36
  Speaker 9: you've got a capital that wants to flow into that market.
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: We had a record lease sale on the North Slope.
• 23:42
  Speaker 9: We're back to holding the required lease sales at the
• 23:45
  Speaker 9: National Petroleum Reserve Alaska. We're not talking about a wildlife refuge.
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: We're talking about something is literally named the National Petroleum
• 23:53
  Speaker 9: reserve that Biden had shut down now open up again.
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: And we had over a dozen companies peeding up their
• 24:00
  Speaker 9: record revenue coming in that supports the state, the tribe,
• 24:03
  Speaker 9: the federal government. Record amount of interest from companies that
• 24:07
  Speaker 9: want to develop there. We've got the infrastructure on the
• 24:09
  Speaker 9: oil side to support them immediately.
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: So exciting time.
• 24:12
  Speaker 9: President Trump on day one executive order unleashing Alaska's enormous potential.
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: And under this administration, that's happening.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Mister Secretary, you're talking to a retired Endangered Species Act lawyer.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You convene the God Squad or somebody did the seven
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: members cabinet levels to decide to exempt the rice whale
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: from the ESA's restrictions in the Gulf of Mexico. Bravo?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Why don't you do that for like the California nagcatcher
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and the vernal pool shrimp and all the things that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: are in the way of housing development, driving up the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: cause of housing everywhere in the United States. Are there
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: more God Squad findings ahead?
• 24:51
  Speaker 9: Well, the first thing I would say is that you're
• 24:53
  Speaker 9: spot on you on the Let's just take a step
• 24:56
  Speaker 9: back and look at the ESA in general. You know
• 24:59
  Speaker 9: this thing was designed over fifty years ago to save species.
• 25:02
  Speaker 9: Ninety seven percent of the species that have gone on
• 25:04
  Speaker 9: the list have never come off. I would call that
• 25:08
  Speaker 9: a fail in the sense that's like the Hotel California.
• 25:11
  Speaker 9: You can check in, you can't check out, but it
• 25:13
  Speaker 9: is the point was.
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: To save species.
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: We should say we should be celebrating when things come
• 25:18
  Speaker 9: off the list instead of having a culture where we
• 25:21
  Speaker 9: celebrate when they go on the list.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: Because it turns out if you go on the list, it.
• 25:25
  Speaker 9: Guarantees that you may never be saved because ninety seven
• 25:28
  Speaker 9: percent never come off. But it's one hundred percent that
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: we're going to stop building stuff or raise the cost.
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: And we have to be a nation that is able
• 25:35
  Speaker 9: to build things. And so the weaponization of the NIPA
• 25:39
  Speaker 9: and ESA is you know, raises the cost of just
• 25:43
  Speaker 9: about everything you mentioned housing, it raises the cost of
• 25:47
  Speaker 9: building pipelines, or it stops all this, you know, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 9: we're competing in a world where we have to be
• 25:51
  Speaker 9: able to build infrastructure. If the ESA had existed, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 9: one hundred and fifty years ago, there wouldn't be a
• 25:57
  Speaker 9: single transcontinental railroad today. There wouldn't if it exists in
• 26:00
  Speaker 9: the nineteen sixties, there wouldn't be an interstate highway system.
• 26:03
  Speaker 9: So we have to balance these things out. We know
• 26:07
  Speaker 9: that we can balance that. We know we can be
• 26:09
  Speaker 9: a country where we can protect wildlife, protect the environment,
• 26:12
  Speaker 9: and build great things. But we have to get back
• 26:14
  Speaker 9: to that mentality because so much of the creep that
• 26:17
  Speaker 9: has gone on in these regulations. We looked at the
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: deeper regulations and Interior, eighty percent of what was in
• 26:23
  Speaker 9: those regulations was not connected to the original law. We've
• 26:26
  Speaker 9: taken eighty percent out and put it in an appendix.
• 26:29
  Speaker 9: People can look at it if they're interested. But you're
• 26:31
  Speaker 9: not being held to a standard that does not include
• 26:34
  Speaker 9: what Congress.
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: We're only being held to.
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: What Congress passed, not to what some other bureaucrat imagined
• 26:40
  Speaker 9: on top of the original legislation, and.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: The Exemptions Committee was meant to be used. I wish
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: you'd just schedule one monthly and ask for five files
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and get the gray wolf off, and get the grizzly off.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Let me close with this.
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: Well price and to answer that question.
• 26:54
  Speaker 9: To answer that question, the Secretary of War in the
• 26:57
  Speaker 9: Law for the Endangered Species Committee quested a meeting and
• 27:01
  Speaker 9: requested for national security purposes to hold that meeting and
• 27:05
  Speaker 9: when that meeting is held. It wasn't optional in the law.
• 27:08
  Speaker 9: It's a requirement that that committee vote if there's a
• 27:11
  Speaker 9: proof of a national security risk.
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: In this case, there certainly was.
• 27:15
  Speaker 9: Because you know, fifteen percent of our oil and gas
• 27:17
  Speaker 9: production comes from the golf and the idea that somehow
• 27:20
  Speaker 9: one lawsuit could shut down the entire golf, that's a
• 27:23
  Speaker 9: national security concern. And for people that are concerned about
• 27:27
  Speaker 9: the rice whale, all of the environmental protections are still
• 27:30
  Speaker 9: in the people that have to be observers on boats,
• 27:34
  Speaker 9: the use of the restrictions of speed, if there's whales
• 27:38
  Speaker 9: sighted in those areas, those things. No one lifted any
• 27:41
  Speaker 9: environmental regulations.
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: We just lifted the.
• 27:48
  Speaker 9: Potential of a lawsuit shutting down the entire golf.
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: That's the only thing we change.
• 27:52
  Speaker 9: Everybody's still concerned about protecting the rice whales.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I would love Secretary Headset to get it together.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And for the desert tortoise in the Mohave desert that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: screws up the training at the fort out there. I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: can go on and on. I want to get one
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: more question in, mister Secretary about pipelines in the Middle East,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: UA and Saudi Arabia picked up about a third of
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the oil supply via pipeline. Are they going to build
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: new ones?
• 28:18
  Speaker 9: Well, that's certainly a topic that's under discussion. And when
• 28:20
  Speaker 9: you take a look at the lost revenue versus the
• 28:23
  Speaker 9: cost of building pipelines, you take a look at the
• 28:25
  Speaker 9: ability to uh, you know, circumvent a rogue terrorist group
• 28:30
  Speaker 9: controlling I mean austraight, so I mean the IRGC is
• 28:34
  Speaker 9: basically the Houthi's now on the other end of the
• 28:37
  Speaker 9: of the Middle East. In terms of trying to control
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: a choke point. The world shouldn't stand for it. International
• 28:43
  Speaker 9: freedom of movement should be the standard. Are all of
• 28:46
  Speaker 9: our European allies and Pacific allies that are that receive
• 28:50
  Speaker 9: oil from there should all be on our side. But meanwhile,
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: of course UAE and Saudi can take they can take
• 28:55
  Speaker 9: things into their own hands. They've got the resources to
• 28:58
  Speaker 9: build that infrastructure. We should help them and make sure
• 29:01
  Speaker 9: that we get energy flowing around the world.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Secretary Doug burgham kid coming back. I didn't even ask
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you about to Teddy Roosevelt Library. I know it's opening
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: on July fourth and North Dakota. I'll bet you you're
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: going to be there. Come back before then to promote it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you, miss your secretary. I'll be right back in America.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: State tuned brogom back America from Secretary of Bergham. I
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: go to United States Senator Steve Danes from the Great
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: State of Montana. Senator, welcome back. I know you're about
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: to go to China. I got a bunch of questions
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: for you. But before I do that, you announced your retirement.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: You surprised me after you killed it for the National
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Republican Senatorial Committee. Then I got to thinking about it, said,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Steve Danes might be running for president. Have you ruled
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: out running for president.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: I'm not running for president, Hugh, I'm not doing that.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Is that a Sherman ask not now, not ever, and
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: ever statement?
• 29:52
  Speaker 10: Yeah, that's a not now, not ever. That's very Sherman asked.
• 29:56
  Speaker 10: You know, Hugh, and I had a really great long
• 29:59
  Speaker 10: chat with with President Trump with Susie Wiles as I
• 30:04
  Speaker 10: made this decision.
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: And Hugh.
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: When I graduated from college and I had a chemical
• 30:07
  Speaker 10: engineering degree, I worked for Procter and Gamble for thirteen years,
• 30:11
  Speaker 10: six of those years in China, launching American brand to
• 30:14
  Speaker 10: compete against the Chinese brands and dominate that market.
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: For US company. Then I came back to Montana.
• 30:20
  Speaker 10: We wanted to raise our four children in Montana, got
• 30:23
  Speaker 10: involved in a cloud computing startup. We took the company public,
• 30:26
  Speaker 10: we sold to Oracle right there in my hometown of Bozeman.
• 30:29
  Speaker 10: That was twelve years, and then I came to the
• 30:33
  Speaker 10: US House for two years, and then the Senate for
• 30:35
  Speaker 10: twelve there's fourteen years. You can see my life's kind
• 30:38
  Speaker 10: of it in chapters of twelve to fourteen year chunks.
• 30:41
  Speaker 10: Fourteen years has been a wonderful experience. I've so enjoyed
• 30:45
  Speaker 10: public service in serving the people back home in Montana
• 30:48
  Speaker 10: and getting a lot of great things done, changing the
• 30:50
  Speaker 10: Supreme Court, stopping the biggest tax increased in American history.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Doing wonderful things with President Trump and the Republican team.
• 30:57
  Speaker 10: But I'm ready for the next chapter. And we now
• 31:00
  Speaker 10: have seven grandchildren. Anybody who's listening who has grandchildren understands
• 31:03
  Speaker 10: weaving from zero to seven grand kids in the.
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: Last six years.
• 31:06
  Speaker 10: Hugh and I just want to spend a little more
• 31:08
  Speaker 10: time with those grandkids. But I will tell you this you.
• 31:10
  Speaker 10: I am not retiring. I'm repurposing. I got a lot
• 31:13
  Speaker 10: of energy. Love working the federal portfolio, love working the
• 31:16
  Speaker 10: multinational complexities that we face around the world, and so
• 31:21
  Speaker 10: I'm going to take the experience I've had in the
• 31:22
  Speaker 10: private sector in the public service, and we'll figure out
• 31:25
  Speaker 10: what to do next.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm right with you. I have seven sent
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to be eight grandchildren. Our highest in besth Houston is
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: attending baseball games and swim meets and school plays. That's
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: our highest in best use. So, okay, you're not running
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: for president. You're going to China, though? Are you going
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to meet with Chairman.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: G We'll see.
• 31:45
  Speaker 10: We have five US Senators headed over there to put
• 31:47
  Speaker 10: this in perspective view. From twenty ten to twenty nineteen,
• 31:53
  Speaker 10: there were fifty nine congressional visits to China in the
• 31:58
  Speaker 10: last six years, in three and I was one of them.
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: So there's just been a drought of engagements.
• 32:05
  Speaker 10: And I fully support Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessin's thirty
• 32:10
  Speaker 10: thousand foot view of China, which is this we cannot decouple,
• 32:15
  Speaker 10: but we need to de risk. So isolation and disengagements
• 32:19
  Speaker 10: is not a good strategy. Engagement, talking through our issues,
• 32:23
  Speaker 10: continue to advocate on behalf of American companies.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: Key, do you realize you the SMP five.
• 32:30
  Speaker 10: Hundred had about one point two trillion dollars of top
• 32:33
  Speaker 10: line revenue selling into China. You compare that to a
• 32:37
  Speaker 10: two hundred billion dollar trade deficit we had last year.
• 32:41
  Speaker 10: It's closed dramatically because of President Trump's leadership and Jamison
• 32:46
  Speaker 10: Greer and Scott Besson and Howard Lutnik and the team.
• 32:49
  Speaker 10: But our revenue surplus in terms of American companies is
• 32:53
  Speaker 10: six times greater than the trade deficit. So I think
• 32:56
  Speaker 10: it's important we continue to navocate for the Boeings of
• 32:59
  Speaker 10: the world, Procter and Gambles, the Microsoft, great US companies
• 33:03
  Speaker 10: that need that market, and you think about the United
• 33:06
  Speaker 10: States and China are forty percent of the world's GDP.
• 33:09
  Speaker 10: It's important we stayed engaged and we compete now. I
• 33:13
  Speaker 10: am in no way stepping back from the real challenge
• 33:16
  Speaker 10: we face ne the ip thefts, the multiple issues we
• 33:19
  Speaker 10: face right now with China, tariff and non tariff barriers.
• 33:23
  Speaker 10: But isolation, in my opinion's not a good strategy. I'm
• 33:26
  Speaker 10: glad to have a bipartisan group of Senators heading over
• 33:29
  Speaker 10: to China this weekend.
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: We'll start our meetings on Monday.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Senator, I'm no one to ask you for a commitment,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to do it anyway. Will you commit
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: to me to ask every Chinese official that you meet
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: with to let Jimmy Laie out of prison and to
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: go to England before he dies. Will you do that?
• 33:48
  Speaker 10: Well, let me tell you something, Hugh, I was just
• 33:51
  Speaker 10: in Hong Kong about three weeks ago, very aware of
• 33:54
  Speaker 10: the Jimmy ly situation. I've met Jimmy Lai here in
• 33:56
  Speaker 10: my office in Washington, in fact, had dialogue, written dialogue
• 34:01
  Speaker 10: with his daughter.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: It is a right gesture and a humanitarian gesture.
• 34:09
  Speaker 10: A gentleman there who is failing in his health will
• 34:11
  Speaker 10: spend his remaining years in prison to let him out.
• 34:15
  Speaker 10: So this is some of the dialogue we have. That's
• 34:17
  Speaker 10: some of the backshound work we do. Let me tell
• 34:19
  Speaker 10: you something. We've got a great ambassador there in China,
• 34:22
  Speaker 10: David Perdue. Yep, my former colleague here in the US.
• 34:25
  Speaker 10: Senate David was in Hong Kong with Sarah Lee and
• 34:28
  Speaker 10: Reebok and Singapore when I was in Guangzhou with Procter
• 34:31
  Speaker 10: and Gamble at the same time back in the early
• 34:34
  Speaker 10: to mid nineties. So there's quiet work going on behind
• 34:38
  Speaker 10: the scenes on behalf of mister Lai.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Well, President Trump has told me on this show, Senator,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: then he brought it up with you didn't get an answer.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Secretary Rubio says, there's ongoing work. I just think that
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: they've got to understand. I'm never going to believe anything
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: they say until Jimmy lies out of jail. It's sort
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of like Solza Needsen and Sarkarov and Bukowski in that era.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: If they can't let an old Catholic man out before
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: he dies in isolation, why would we ever trust them?
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Do you think that is a persuasive to them?
• 35:08
  Speaker 10: You know, it's a persuasive arguments, and it's something that's
• 35:12
  Speaker 10: clearly the relationship has been very strained, and trust is
• 35:16
  Speaker 10: the most important currency in any relationship.
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: I don't disagree with your point view, but having.
• 35:21
  Speaker 10: Spent six years working in China, I had two children
• 35:24
  Speaker 10: born in Hong Kong back in nineteen ninety four, in
• 35:28
  Speaker 10: nineteen ninety six, there are certain ways you engage in
• 35:31
  Speaker 10: work with the Chinese leadership that are much more effective
• 35:35
  Speaker 10: and they're done oftentimes behind closed doors. I just will
• 35:38
  Speaker 10: tell you, in doing a lot of deals with China
• 35:42
  Speaker 10: and having strong relationships with many of the leaders, there
• 35:45
  Speaker 10: are better ways if you want to get an outcome,
• 35:47
  Speaker 10: as on as why I get a press release and
• 35:49
  Speaker 10: clicks on social.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: Media, there's one way to do it.
• 35:51
  Speaker 10: If you actually want to get an outcome, there are
• 35:53
  Speaker 10: better ways, and I'm choosing the better way path.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Who is going with you?
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: Senta?
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Who are the other four?
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: So it'll be bipartisan.
• 36:02
  Speaker 10: We've got on the Democrat side Center Marie Cantwell, she
• 36:06
  Speaker 10: of course will be advocating for Boeing, Microsoft, for the
• 36:10
  Speaker 10: shipbuilding industry, and there for her state of Washington. I've
• 36:13
  Speaker 10: got to deb Fisher Center from Nebraska. She herself is
• 36:17
  Speaker 10: a cattle rancher. Her and her husband Bruce, running great
• 36:20
  Speaker 10: cattle operation there. The non tariff barriers on beef are significant.
• 36:25
  Speaker 10: Is the second largest beef export market in the world.
• 36:28
  Speaker 10: I opened that market up to US beef producers back
• 36:31
  Speaker 10: in twenty seventeen when I went over there with a
• 36:33
  Speaker 10: group of Republican Senators. It's been shut down for fourteen years.
• 36:37
  Speaker 10: We've got to open up again now. They've allowed some
• 36:40
  Speaker 10: non tariff barriers to shut it back down again, very
• 36:43
  Speaker 10: important for US producers. We're also going to have Senator
• 36:46
  Speaker 10: Jerry Moran of Kansas also a big aviation kind of
• 36:50
  Speaker 10: interest there in Kansas as well as advocating on behalf
• 36:55
  Speaker 10: of wheat and barley and our US agg producers.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: And then Center Mike Lee of Utah also be joining us.
• 37:00
  Speaker 10: So we've got a good delegation and we'll be in
• 37:03
  Speaker 10: China for the balance of the week next week.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a setup. That's sort of like putting the
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: volleyball up for President Trump to spike it. But I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: hope if the chairman sits down with you. Are you
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the leader of the DELI? Are you the senior member
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: in the area.
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm leading me.
• 37:19
  Speaker 10: Mectioned my seventh congressional visit to China, so I'm leading
• 37:22
  Speaker 10: the delegation.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: I was over there in March working.
• 37:27
  Speaker 10: In fact, before I went over in March of last year,
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: I met with President Trump and the Oval. We talked
• 37:32
  Speaker 10: about the importance of working on this fentanyl precursor issue.
• 37:35
  Speaker 10: Of course, the leading cause of death of eighteen to
• 37:38
  Speaker 10: forty five year olds in America. Can you put pressure
• 37:41
  Speaker 10: on China to cooperate to shut off those precursors, which
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: the precursors in are shipped to the Mexican cartels. That's
• 37:48
  Speaker 10: the fentanyl is produced and then chip in America to
• 37:51
  Speaker 10: kill Americans.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Well, good good luck to you on your trip. I'll
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: tell you, I know you don't work for pressurely, but
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: if Sherman g wants to a headway, I'll send you.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Jimmy lie home on the plane with the five senators
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and maybe Americans will relax a little bit more about
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: his intention. Good safe traveler, welking back America. I'm Hugh Hewett.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Jim TWNT was senator from Missouri to the United States
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Sanity is now a fellow with the Reaguan Institute for
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Peter's Strength.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: UH.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Senator talent Doug Bergham was on the start of the
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Hour and I asked him about the Wall Street Journal
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: story today that headline is Trump tells aids to prepare
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: for extended blockade of Iran. Doug Burgham said, he's in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: it to win it. He's not going to flex, he's
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: not going to fade. How long do you think extended is?
• 38:41
  Speaker 11: You know you I don't think it's going to take
• 38:42
  Speaker 11: very long because they're running out of room to store
• 38:46
  Speaker 11: their oil. And like, I don't want to go through
• 38:48
  Speaker 11: the whole history of it, but the Iranians have really
• 38:50
  Speaker 11: made some bad decisions. They get into war with the
• 38:53
  Speaker 11: two best air forces in the world and a navy
• 38:56
  Speaker 11: that specializes in precision bombing. Their air defense has destroyed,
• 39:01
  Speaker 11: their leadership killed, their offensive capabilities destroyed, their defense industrial
• 39:06
  Speaker 11: base destroyed, and meanwhile attacking the neighbors through which they
• 39:11
  Speaker 11: were executing their financial transactions and laundering their money. And
• 39:14
  Speaker 11: then they threatened distrait that they need a lot more
• 39:17
  Speaker 11: than we do. So the point is, I think they're
• 39:20
  Speaker 11: nearing the point where, even in the short term, they're
• 39:23
  Speaker 11: going to have two options, either surrender on our terms
• 39:26
  Speaker 11: or collapse. And the President knows that, and so I
• 39:29
  Speaker 11: think he's going to continue the blockade for as long
• 39:32
  Speaker 11: as it takes. But everything I've read suggests that they
• 39:35
  Speaker 11: got a couple of weeks left before they're going to
• 39:39
  Speaker 11: have to shut down their oil wells centator.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I hope they stays the course. Here. Oil today West
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Texas is at one hundred and seven and Brent CREWD
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: is at one hundred and twenty and obviously American energy
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: company are making boku dollars, but the rest of the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: world is suffering. I kind of view that as the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: NATO tax, that the tax on NATO that didn't pay
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: anything for the last thirty years. Now they're going to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: pay through the nose with the pump. But I hate
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: to see it happened to Japan and our allies in
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the in Asia. They've got a full Doug Burgham said
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: we should stop calling Iran and just call it the IRGC.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: What's the IOGC got to lose? They can't they bunker
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: down forever? Oh?
• 40:20
  Speaker 11: I think they've got a lot to lose you because
• 40:23
  Speaker 11: they need the revenue in order to pay their own people,
• 40:27
  Speaker 11: much less the proxies. And if they don't have that revenue,
• 40:31
  Speaker 11: how do they bunker down? I mean you you mentioned
• 40:34
  Speaker 11: before about the protest was going to hit the street
• 40:36
  Speaker 11: at a certain point, particularly if the country runs out
• 40:39
  Speaker 11: of gasoline. How are they going to suppress them?
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So so, Jeb, look, do you think.
• 40:45
  Speaker 11: They're missliege and paying for us?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I wonder do you think the besiege are going to
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: work like the TSA without money? Do you think they're
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: think they're going to show up like our TSA agents.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And I think only think you is that.
• 40:58
  Speaker 11: The regime is fraction I mean, we should not assume
• 41:01
  Speaker 11: the IRG is a monolith. And we should not assume
• 41:04
  Speaker 11: these civilian leaders who are obviously fighting with the IRG
• 41:09
  Speaker 11: leaders Fahiti, we shouldn't assume they have no contacts within
• 41:13
  Speaker 11: the IRG. I mean, the reason the protests failed in
• 41:16
  Speaker 11: January was in large part because the regime was united.
• 41:20
  Speaker 11: It's not united anymore. And you I'll add this, Okay,
• 41:23
  Speaker 11: we have a chance. And you know that's better than
• 41:25
  Speaker 11: anybody because you've been following this for the last two months.
• 41:29
  Speaker 11: We have a chance to create a lasting piece in
• 41:32
  Speaker 11: the Middle East that will greatly advance the security of
• 41:35
  Speaker 11: the United States and allow us to focus more on
• 41:38
  Speaker 11: Indo pay comp if you're the president. I mean, nobody
• 41:41
  Speaker 11: likes the higher gas prices, but they'll go down. You
• 41:45
  Speaker 11: can't refuse to do something that is so much in
• 41:48
  Speaker 11: the interests of the country because there's some short term pain.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Call me crazy, Jim. I think if the Republicans put
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: their arm around this and say we are winning and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: we are going to win, and we're sorry about the
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: gas prices. But that's what we have to do to
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: keep your children and grandchildren, say, from this lunatic regime.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I think they will rally to the Republican with that message.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 42:13
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, look, we have such a good we
• 42:16
  Speaker 11: have such a good platform to run on, all the
• 42:19
  Speaker 11: achievements in foreign policy as well as regrowing our own
• 42:23
  Speaker 11: defense industrial base, and then crime and immigration and energy.
• 42:27
  Speaker 11: You had Doug Berghmon, you've had Chris right on. We
• 42:30
  Speaker 11: have a really good platform to run on. And you
• 42:33
  Speaker 11: remember also when the President says it'll be extended, he's
• 42:38
  Speaker 11: making the point that it's going to be there as lung,
• 42:41
  Speaker 11: as it's as it's necessary. He's not saying that he
• 42:44
  Speaker 11: thinks it's going to be months. I mean, I don't
• 42:46
  Speaker 11: think he believes that, but I think he's signaling to
• 42:50
  Speaker 11: the Iranians that he's not backing down.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's going to be at least June,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: because and I told Guy Benson that when the war started,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I said, wait for June, because it's going to take
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a while for this to bite. And now it's starting
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: to bite. But they're not yet at I mean, they're
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: filling up the old container ships. I think of one
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: pump gas station filling up every car in town that's
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: going out. They're trying to They've got buckets, they got
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: they just can't put the oil anywhere. And I gather,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I'm no petroleum engineer. I gather when you shut down
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a well, it's not a good thing. Is that you're understanding.
• 43:28
  Speaker 12: Well?
• 43:29
  Speaker 11: I think, particularly when you have an oil industry like Iran's.
• 43:33
  Speaker 11: I mean, would I trust our producers in Texas, for example,
• 43:38
  Speaker 11: to be able to cap the wells and then start
• 43:40
  Speaker 11: them up later. Sure, because we use the best technology
• 43:44
  Speaker 11: and we know what we're doing.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I would not I would not.
• 43:47
  Speaker 11: Trust that that's the case in Iran. I don't think
• 43:49
  Speaker 11: they've run their oil industry as efficiently as they could
• 43:52
  Speaker 11: have run their oil industry.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: And let me get a comment from you about Ukraine, Jim.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: The Ukrainians have blown up the third large oil refinery
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: in Russia. They're now punching way above their weight. Do
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: you think Putin is looking for a way out? Now?
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a really good question.
• 44:10
  Speaker 11: And this is one area where I think the president
• 44:13
  Speaker 11: miscalculated initially. I mean, he saw what Russia is suffering.
• 44:18
  Speaker 11: He saw the strategic losses because of this war. I mean,
• 44:23
  Speaker 11: NATO is spending more money filling in Sweden. They're in NATO.
• 44:26
  Speaker 11: Syria has gone as an ally. They don't even control
• 44:29
  Speaker 11: the Black Sea anymore, you, I mean, they were in control.
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: Of it before the war.
• 44:33
  Speaker 11: And I think the president assumed that Peutin would want
• 44:35
  Speaker 11: to stop digging. But I think Pewtin is very concerned
• 44:39
  Speaker 11: that if this war ends, he has to go back
• 44:42
  Speaker 11: and give an accounting to the Russian people and especially
• 44:45
  Speaker 11: to the super patriotic military bloggers. And he needs those
• 44:49
  Speaker 11: people who are going to know why Russia suffered over
• 44:53
  Speaker 11: a million casualties and got what some additional territory in Ukraine,
• 44:58
  Speaker 11: maybe half the size of West Virginia. So I think
• 45:02
  Speaker 11: Putin is figuring, you know what, the war going on
• 45:05
  Speaker 11: is not good, but the war ending ain't so good either,
• 45:08
  Speaker 11: So I think we're.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Going to have to step up the pain of it.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Look at what they're hitting now, the Ukrainians that continue
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: to astonish me. Doesn't Putin have to worry about that, but.
• 45:20
  Speaker 11: Sure, I mean, and the thing that will get him
• 45:23
  Speaker 11: to use an off ramp is if the pain to
• 45:26
  Speaker 11: him increases. I have been surprised that we have not
• 45:29
  Speaker 11: taken greater steps, for example, sanctioning more of the banks,
• 45:33
  Speaker 11: really cutting off the oild traffic going after their shadow fleet.
• 45:37
  Speaker 11: And I think we may turn to that after the
• 45:40
  Speaker 11: Mideast is settled.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Gosh, I hope you're right. I hope that the practice
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: we're getting with Iranian tinker to apply to the Russian
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: ghost fleet as well. Thank you for listening to highly
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: concentrated Hugh. And don't forget one of our great sponsors
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• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Grace America. Welcome to hour three of today's You Hew
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: It Show. I'm joined by Mary Katherine Ham, co host
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of the Getting Hammered podcast, of which I listened to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the latest episode on my trundle this morning. Mary Catherine,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I know you were at the White House Correspondence Association dinner.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're You're okay. If people want the full story,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: they got to go listen to Getting Hammered from this morning.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: You and Vic talk it through. I got a couple
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: of specific questions for you, all right. Number One, when
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the room filled with what we used to call sheep dogs,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: the big men with big guns coming down trying to
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: get to the front, and you know that there's an incident,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you go behind a stairwell and you peek. Now you
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: know about Mumbai, right, and you know that there were
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: second wave attacks, and you know about the Second Intefada.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: There were bombs that were always set to go off
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: after the first responders got there. When did you let
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: down your guard?
• 48:00
  Speaker 13: So I wasn't behind a sterile. I just stayed at
• 48:02
  Speaker 13: my table and I was kind of behind a chair.
• 48:05
  Speaker 13: I would say between I don't know, like really.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: It wasn't long.
• 48:09
  Speaker 13: It was between like two and three minutes maybe where
• 48:12
  Speaker 13: it seemed as if things were rather calm and that
• 48:16
  Speaker 13: the Secret Service was assessing the room as opposed to
• 48:19
  Speaker 13: reacting to something.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: Now you're right about that.
• 48:22
  Speaker 13: My concern was bomb because I know I'm not specifically
• 48:26
  Speaker 13: a target, but there's an indiscriminate attack that can happen
• 48:29
  Speaker 13: at any time.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: So that was my.
• 48:31
  Speaker 13: Actual foremost concern, because even if you're surrounded by Secret
• 48:35
  Speaker 13: Service officers, that won't help you.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: But I think just a few.
• 48:39
  Speaker 13: Minutes in, I was fairly certain that something had happened,
• 48:42
  Speaker 13: and we were getting reports that something had happened and
• 48:44
  Speaker 13: the neutralized, and that.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: They were there to make sure that this room was safe.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: See, my foremost I saw reports about it was a
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: second wave was Mumbai when the Jihadis from Pakistan brought
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the rubber boats in the by and they spot out
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: alver of the city and they attacked my Abad and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: they attacked the hotel. And I mean, there probably is
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: no softer target than the Washington Hilton for that sort
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of an event, is there.
• 49:13
  Speaker 13: I mean the very scary part is that had he
• 49:17
  Speaker 13: wanted to do damage in a different way while we
• 49:19
  Speaker 13: were all funneling down in escalators, he could have done
• 49:21
  Speaker 13: plenty of damage at that time. He chose to do
• 49:24
  Speaker 13: it once the president was seated, which was a harder
• 49:27
  Speaker 13: thing to do because he.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: Wanted to hit the president right.
• 49:29
  Speaker 13: But there is yes, in many places in a free
• 49:33
  Speaker 13: country are soft targets, and I think there will be
• 49:35
  Speaker 13: a lot of thinking about whether.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: That Secret Service perimeter which did work, should be further out.
• 49:41
  Speaker 13: Although I was asked for a ticket and stopped at
• 49:44
  Speaker 13: a barricade half a block from the hotel, so there
• 49:48
  Speaker 13: was something out there, it's just not mags.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are blessed that most of the assassins in
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: the country are not as smart as Thomas Crooks who
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: did kill Corey. Comparatory and did wound President Trump, so
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: he was a successful assassink he just killed the wrong target.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: And then we got the lunatic in Florida who was
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: in the tree. Then we got the guy who tried
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: to get in there in four attempts. You reminded me
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: today at the fourth attempt. I'd forgotten the fourth attempt,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: and so.
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: Trump.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think I agree with my old radio and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: television colleague Chuck Todd. I'd never go to an event
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump again. But I do wonder if the
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: days of soft target events are over, sort of like
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: outdoor events after Charlie Kirks murder.
• 50:33
  Speaker 13: That's the thing that I think people are missing. I
• 50:36
  Speaker 13: agree with you that Chuck Todd's response is wrong. I
• 50:38
  Speaker 13: feel like that's a let the terrorists wing response, and
• 50:40
  Speaker 13: I would go to a President Tulvin.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: But I think that's what a lot of the press
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: is missing.
• 50:45
  Speaker 13: About the ballroom discussion, which is leyes Trump wants to
• 50:49
  Speaker 13: have this discussion. He's always been closing Trump when he's
• 50:51
  Speaker 13: at this press conference. But there is a real concern
• 50:54
  Speaker 13: in this day and age, particularly with this uptake in
• 50:56
  Speaker 13: the many attempts on Trump's life, about how you have
• 51:00
  Speaker 13: a cabinet level or presidential level event at all, and
• 51:04
  Speaker 13: that that might require something very different than it has
• 51:07
  Speaker 13: required in the past.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Now you've been around DC long enough that you will
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: remember the Comet Ping Pong pizza event of December twenty fifteen. Right, yes, right,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: that lunatic, like the lunatic on that, that doesn't mean
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: they're mentally unfit to stand trial, just means they're lost
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: in their head in a drama of their own making.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: That lunatic from ten years ago, he swam in a
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: different sewage infested set of waters. But if you swim
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: in sewage, you're going to get sick. He got sick
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and believed the whole Pizzagate stuff, and he got sent
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: away and was sentenced to four years in prison. He
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: didn't hurt anyone, He was shot into the ceiling. Four
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: years in prison by now Justice Kintaji Brown Jackson. Do
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: you think four years in prison is an appropriate sentence
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: for him? And what about this guy at the Washington Hilton.
• 52:00
  Speaker 13: Yeah, I think I assume this guy will get more
• 52:04
  Speaker 13: of These will be federal charges and very serious. I
• 52:08
  Speaker 13: don't know what the proper sentencing should be, but I
• 52:11
  Speaker 13: know on conspiracy theories. One of the issues is there
• 52:15
  Speaker 13: is both a judicial and a social correction for someone
• 52:18
  Speaker 13: who is on the right and a conspiracy theorist when
• 52:21
  Speaker 13: it comes to conspiracy theories that this guy was swimming
• 52:24
  Speaker 13: in the blue and non sort of like this old
• 52:27
  Speaker 13: pedophile Epstein idea and the.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Russia Gate, for instance.
• 52:32
  Speaker 13: Too often the mainstream and in fact elite speakers in
• 52:36
  Speaker 13: this country are in reinforcing those and are telling people
• 52:41
  Speaker 13: that these things are true. And so I worry about
• 52:44
  Speaker 13: the people who like him, and like several others have expressed,
• 52:47
  Speaker 13: are swimming in those waters.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm glad you you and I agree on Nora O'Donnell,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and I think the president's response was perfect. He did
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: not lose his call, which is what they wanted. And
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: mediate attempt to deflect, Oh do you think they're talking
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: about you? You work appropriately dismissive of that. They had
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: actually walked through that. In my view, you've worked with networks.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I worked with networks. You know they rehearsed the questions.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: You know they rehearsed the answers and the responses. You
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: know that was all rehearsed. Right.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: She thought about that for a long time.
• 53:19
  Speaker 13: Yes, And I would just offer the hypothetical, if a
• 53:23
  Speaker 13: racist gunman tried to kill Barack Obama, would you read
• 53:26
  Speaker 13: to Barack Obama less than twenty four hours later from
• 53:30
  Speaker 13: that manifesto.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Kind of saying does he have a point? No? Obviously not,
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: obviously not.
• 53:36
  Speaker 13: And I think it was designed for clicks and for
• 53:39
  Speaker 13: making him deny on camera something along the lines of
• 53:43
  Speaker 13: when did you stop beating your wife?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: I agree, and you're giving pole to this guy. I
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: don't think it worked. In fact, if anything, I think
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: it hurt sixty minutes and it gives Barry Wise a
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: big challenge about what to do with sixty minutes, because
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I sure wouldn't let if I was in the White House,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I would not let CBS army. Even though the President
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: was very gracious to the president of the White House
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Correspondent Association, they ambush him the day after he gets,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: you know, another the fourth attenth on his life. What's
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: wrong with the media, Well, what's.
• 54:13
  Speaker 13: Wrong with the media is that you've seen this many
• 54:15
  Speaker 13: times over as a congressional baseball shooting is another great example.
• 54:18
  Speaker 13: They're very uncomfortable with anyone right of center being a
• 54:21
  Speaker 13: victim for any period of time, and so what happens
• 54:24
  Speaker 13: is because they might have to reckon with the fact
• 54:27
  Speaker 13: that people who are Bernie Bros. Who camp out in
• 54:29
  Speaker 13: my northern Virginia neighborhood for a month tried to kill
• 54:31
  Speaker 13: an entire baseball team worth of Republicans, right, they might
• 54:35
  Speaker 13: have to contend with that.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: Instead, they want to contend with Trump.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Trump.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: The Trump is the villain.
• 54:39
  Speaker 13: He can't Republicans and him cannot be the victim. So
• 54:41
  Speaker 13: they have to switch the story. This story quickly switched
• 54:44
  Speaker 13: a couple of times. Once when they started talking about
• 54:46
  Speaker 13: the ballroom, they're like, ew, that's icky that he's talking
• 54:47
  Speaker 13: about the ballroom. We have to switch away from his assassination. Okay,
• 54:50
  Speaker 13: that was like twenty minutes. Then you got O'Donnell, who's
• 54:53
  Speaker 13: allegedly the victim of his nastiness and his reply, which,
• 54:56
  Speaker 13: as you say, was an appropriate reply.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: And then you've got Jimmy Kimmel.
• 55:00
  Speaker 13: They keep lining up new victims because they will not
• 55:03
  Speaker 13: reckon with the fact that the actual target and the
• 55:06
  Speaker 13: actual important, pre eminent attack on free speech is the
• 55:10
  Speaker 13: ultimate one where this guy's trying to murder someone to
• 55:12
  Speaker 13: make them stop talking.
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: That's the one you make.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: This so well in today's episode of Getting ham and
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: I hope people listen to it. But a couple of
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: follow up Do you agree with me if you swim
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: in SEWAs, you're going to get sick. Whether that sewage
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: is on the right or.
• 55:25
  Speaker 13: The left, Yes, in general, And I think a lot
• 55:30
  Speaker 13: of people who propagate these things, whether they're podcasters on
• 55:34
  Speaker 13: the right or mainstream media on the left. Where is
• 55:37
  Speaker 13: the part where we do ask ourselves to be responsible citizens?
• 55:42
  Speaker 9: Right?
• 55:42
  Speaker 13: That's I think it can lead if you just do
• 55:45
  Speaker 13: a numbers game, it can lead to someone making the
• 55:47
  Speaker 13: wrong call at some point and doing something crazy. However,
• 55:50
  Speaker 13: I do want to be careful about saying rhetoric immediately
• 55:53
  Speaker 13: causes violence, because we do have the right to have
• 55:56
  Speaker 13: free ranging, in fact jerky and mean speech at our
• 56:00
  Speaker 13: disposal when we're talking about politics. I personally try to
• 56:04
  Speaker 13: be responsible about it. At most times, I would not
• 56:07
  Speaker 13: say I'm perfect, but.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Now you're pretty close to you. You and Vic hit
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: the number all the time. Let me now follow up
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: with the not so shario stuff. After the dinner was over,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: and it was obviously had to be over because they
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: had breached the security and people had flooded the room.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: The president explained that, but you went to a Brazilian
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: restaurant because you understand surge pricing. I laughed. But a
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: lot of people don't understand that. Would you explain that
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: to them?
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, Well, twenty five hundred and three thousand people were.
• 56:34
  Speaker 13: Coming out of that ballroom around the same time in
• 56:36
  Speaker 13: a small area of Washington, DC, and it was like
• 56:39
  Speaker 13: a little cold and somewhat drizzly, So.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Everybody's going to be looking for a ride.
• 56:43
  Speaker 13: That means demand goes up, which means prices go up,
• 56:45
  Speaker 13: which means the people who care most about getting home
• 56:47
  Speaker 13: quickly will pay those prices. And I, who didn't want
• 56:51
  Speaker 13: to could wait with my friends and have dinner at
• 56:53
  Speaker 13: a Brazilian restaurant because I had not been harmed, luckily,
• 56:55
  Speaker 13: and we were protected by many people in that room
• 56:59
  Speaker 13: making sure we weren't and I waited about an hour
• 57:02
  Speaker 13: to go home and therefore pay a more normal price
• 57:05
  Speaker 13: outside of the extreme pricing.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: That's that's real reporting, Mary Catherine, just I thought, that's
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: actually local color. Anyone who leaves an event in Washington,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: d C. Knows what surge pricing is, which.
• 57:17
  Speaker 8: Is you're going to get hammered by the uber the
• 57:19
  Speaker 8: lift driver M four at mk amer on'm x listen
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: to Jenny Hammered with Mary Katherine and Vic Madison.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Come right back after the break. Joseph Lecant is here
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: with the War for Middle Earth. Don't go anywhere. I'm
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you here. Welcome back in America. I'm you Hewett. Once
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: in a while I indulge my own favorite reading, and
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I'm doing that with this segment. Joseph Lecant is back.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: He is with the Harriage Foundation. He is the author of,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: most recently The War for Middle Earth. JRR. Tolkien and C. S.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Lewis confront The Gathering Storm nineteen thirty three. In nineteen
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: forty five, Joe Lokurant, welcome back. I haven't talked to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: you since your first book about Tolkien and Lewis. This
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: is fabulous, I mean, it's really fabulous. Thank you for
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: coming back.
• 58:11
  Speaker 12: Well, Hugh, thank you so much.
• 58:13
  Speaker 14: I just say quickly, I'm no longer with the Heritage Foundation,
• 58:15
  Speaker 14: but I'm kind of a free floating academic right now.
• 58:17
  Speaker 12: But that's all right.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Well that's fine too, because I want people to go
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: and buy the War for Middle Earth just to learn
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: how people of extraordinary sense anticipate horrible events. And let's
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: talk about Toltien and Lewis from nineteen thirty three, let's
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: say nineteen thirty nine, no, six years. First, how did
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: they see the evil coming?
• 58:41
  Speaker 14: How did they see how do they have the insight
• 58:44
  Speaker 14: to see the evil comings? Kind of what you're asking,
• 58:45
  Speaker 14: Because they didn't have hindsight, they had insight.
• 58:49
  Speaker 12: And yes, they lived through the First World War.
• 58:51
  Speaker 14: Both of those men fought honorably in World War One
• 58:53
  Speaker 14: and survived, I think, Hugh. Part of the way they
• 58:56
  Speaker 14: saw what was happening and how this was a new
• 59:00
  Speaker 14: darkness that had to be reckoned with was they were
• 59:03
  Speaker 14: rooted in the classical Christian literary tradition and that gave them,
• 59:08
  Speaker 14: i think, a kind of moral foundation, a spiritual foundation
• 59:12
  Speaker 14: for their lives.
• 59:13
  Speaker 12: That gave them perspective.
• 59:16
  Speaker 14: So when the detalitarian states are on the rise of
• 59:19
  Speaker 14: the nineteen thirties, the will to power, this is a
• 59:22
  Speaker 14: big theme in literature.
• 59:23
  Speaker 12: Isn't it you?
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness, And what you have done so expertly
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: with this is draw how the gathering storm impacted their
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: work and their writing, and it went all the way
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: through the end of the War. But expand on that, Joe,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: tell people I want them to go out and read
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: The War from Middle Earth because I learned stuff in
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: it I'd never known about Tolkien and Lewis. I want
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: people to understand.
• 59:48
  Speaker 12: Well, that's exciting, Thank you, Hugh. Well think about it.
• 59:51
  Speaker 14: Totien begins writing The Lord of the Rings in late
• 59:54
  Speaker 14: nineteen thirty seven, and he's writing it right through the
• 59:57
  Speaker 14: Second World War. C. S. Lewis write the Screwtape Letters,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 14: he writes The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 14: Space Trilogy, and he does the radio broadcast for the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 14: BBC that become Mere Christianity all through the Second World War.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 14: So I am absolutely convinced the cataclysm of that war
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 14: is pressing down on their imaginations. And I'll give you
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 14: one example, Hugh. In nineteen thirty nine, just as the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 14: war starts, the Second World War starts, C. S. Lewis
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 14: is listening to a radio broadcast with his doctor friend,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 14: Doctor Haard Hitler is on the radio and it's simultaneously
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 14: translated into English there from the BBC, and he's absolutely triumphant.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 12: Lewis writes about this to his brother Warny and says.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 14: As long as the speech lasts, it's impossible not to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 14: waiver just a little at C. S. Lewis, impossible not
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 14: to waiver just a little. And then that's on a Friday,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 14: on Sunday, sitting in church, he gets the idea for
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 14: the scoop tape, the scoop tape letters, the diabolical fantasy.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 12: And it's not a coincidenc heal, it can't be.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: No, And I also think the science fiction trilogy is
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: very well explained. Lewis wrote three books. One of my
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: favorite all time book is the third book in that trilogy,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Doctor arn from Hillsdale, and I have spent a lot
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: of time telling you about that hideous strength. But all
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: three of them play into the rise of the evil
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: that is Hitler and of course Stalin at the same time,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: but Hitler is preeminent. However, the bonus in this book
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Oxford during the war. I had no idea that they
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: had like fire squads on the top of the university
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and that their lectures would go on and were packed.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I thought through the Oxford shuts around during the war,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: but it didn't.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 12: That's it did not.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 14: They have the blackouts, the sand bags, the sirens, Lewis
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 14: and Tolkien both are in there in the Home Guard.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 14: They're doing their bit for king and country. So think
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 14: about the pressures that are on them. They need to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 14: teach thee the right lectures, go to faculty meetings. So
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 14: the question you have to ask yourself, he was win
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 14: in the world. Are they finding the time to write
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 14: these great imaginative works. Well, they're mortgaging time from other
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 14: things evenings, weekends, and what.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 12: That tells me is they have to write, and it's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 12: very deliberate.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 14: They want to push back against the ideological madness that
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 14: is all around them. They want to offer the world
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 14: a vision of truth, beauty, virtue, friendship, faith.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 12: They're going to push back against the manness. It's very deliberate.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 14: So they're meeting together every week, as you know, Hugh,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 14: not only in the Eagle and Child pub but also
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 14: in Lewis's rooms in Mardland College, sharing their works in
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 14: progress every Friday evening right.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 12: Through the Second World War.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 14: It's just an ex story of friendship and imagination in
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 14: the crisis.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: It's also, by the way, something I didn't learn about Tolkien.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Samuel Johnson, I think wrote nobody but a Blockhead. Ever
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: wrote scept for money. He wrote the hobby, he made
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit of money, and then he liked it
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and his agent wanted him to write more. But I'm
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: not sure there's a market for more hobbitry. But but
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: there turned out to be, and I'm waiting market market
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: for it.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 14: Yes, he actually initially said was I have nothing more
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 14: to say about Hobbits.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: And C. S.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 14: Lewis is the guy who helps to convince him he
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 14: needs to follow through on this sequel.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: And you know J. R.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 12: Tolkien told Walter Hooper, who was C. S.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 14: Lewis's a personal secretary at the end of his life,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 14: he told him this story that Walter Hooper told to me.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 12: Tolkien said, you.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 14: Know, Lewis was such a boy and he had to
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 14: have a story, and that story, The Lord of the Rings,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 14: was written to keep him quiet. Well, I'm reading out
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 14: every chapter, literally every chapter to C. S.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Lewis as he's writing it, and Lewis and Tolkien teach us,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: especially in this time that we're in right now, when
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: we're again in a Cold War two point zero and
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: there are four major alliance of tyrants, Lewis says, only
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: the clear Sea Breeze of the old books can keep
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: your mind straight. No, I'm paraphrasing from memory here, but
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I love the way that he put that the sea
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: breeze of the old books, and I've been quoting it
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: to you because it's actually an argument for Hillsdale and
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Saint John's and any place that action teaches with the classics,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and it's a defense of fantasy and epic fantasy. Joe
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: explain why, especially for this time right now.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 14: Yeah, I think when you think about the works that
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 14: were most important to these men foretoken, it's Beowulf, this
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 14: story of this lone epic hero taking on radical evil.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 14: And for Lewis, he said, outside of the Bible, the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 14: most important work on his professional life was Virgils a need,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 14: the founding myth of ancient Rome, the great task that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 14: aneas has to found a new civilization. The point here,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 14: I think Hugh is devotion to duty, devotion to a
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 14: noble cause, no matter who else is with you or
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 14: not with you. So the idea of strength and resilience,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 14: courage in the face of great evil. Boy, we need
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 14: that message right now. It seems to me in the
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 14: world that we live in and the emphasis.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 12: That these men place on the individual.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 14: This is where they take those epic ancient stories, the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 14: classical medieval stories, but they give it a kind.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 12: Of a modern twist. So they're heroes.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 14: They are epic heroes, but not in the classical sense, right,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 14: because who are the heroes.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 12: In The Lord of the Rings. Well, it's like this
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 12: little guy called a Hobbam and Lewis Ham it's Sam.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 14: Sam is the hero, right, So they're not these superheroes,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 14: mighty muscular people. It's like the little children in the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 14: Chronicles of Narnia and a rat named repe Chief.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 12: That is a modern twist on an.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: It's a tribulus. I hope The War for Middle Earth
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: is selling.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 12: Well.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it got a lot of time.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it was that I stumbled upon it.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Did it get a lot of attention when it published
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: in November?
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 14: Well, we got a nice review from the Wall Street
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 14: Journal and also from Christianity Today and other really important outlets.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 12: So it's it's taking off. I hope.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: I hope you. I hope it. It's really a great
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: book for our time. The War for Middle Earth Tolkien
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: and Lewis confront The Gathering Storm nineteen thirty three to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. I listened to it. You might want
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: to listen to it or read it. It's an audio,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: it's a hardcover, it's an Amazon. Wherever I'm bookstores are
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: the welcome back in America. I'm Hugh hewittt. My guess
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: is Todd Ricketts, entrepreneur, better known perhaps as the Cohn
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: or the Chicago Cubs. I've gotten over my grudge against
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: mister Ricketts from twenty sixteen. I'm from the Cleveland area,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Todd Ricketts, So I'm still hurting from the Best World
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: series of this millennium. But that aside, you have built
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: a brand new search engine in which I am interested.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Tell us about FREESPOKEE.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Well, really it's pretty simple. What we've built is like
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: the best.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 15: AI search tool that you can use if you're trying
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 15: to inform yourself on the issues of the day and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 15: really anything in general. We have a complete search engine.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 15: But our idea kind of came from this idea that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 15: big tech was not just giving us information when we
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 15: search for it, whether it be on social media platforms
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 15: or on Google or what have you. They were leading
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 15: us down a narrative. They were trying to sell us
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 15: on an idea, not give us all the information. I'll
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 15: let us make up our own minds. And so Freespoke
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 15: we just kind of went back and went it the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 15: other way around and decided to deliver on the promise
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 15: of the Internet, which is to help people inform themselves.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: And so we kind of stripped out.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 15: The bias in our AI algorithm and we label content
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 15: whether it's left, right, middle, and really in adjust the facts, ma'am,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 15: give people perspectives of both sides of these issues.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Last night, I was at a Reagan Foundation event called
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Common Ground with my old friend Ruth Marcus, who's a
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: liberal and wrong, and she says I'm a conservative and wrong.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: But we were together and we were able to agree
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: about facts about the Supreme Court. However, Free Spoke is
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: trying to reach common ground for everyone. Is that even
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: possible anymore? To find a common understanding of the world
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: around us?
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 15: It has to be for our future, To be honest
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 15: with you, I mean, really, the rhetoric has gone a
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 15: little too far, I think in the politics in our world,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 15: in our country, and really we need to get back
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 15: to this idea of debate and understanding each other. And
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 15: I always feel like you know, in debate in high school,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 15: they always said, you know, the best way to argue
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 15: against someone is to fully understand their point of view.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 15: And that's what we're kind of trying to do. Is
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 15: it doesn't matter if you're left or right, Democrat or Republican.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 15: You can see your point of view and you can
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 15: see the other side's point of view and really get
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 15: your head wrapped around where there's common ground.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: So how does freespoke present the information? If you go
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: to Google, you'll get search results. They can be torqued,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: they are torqud. If you use Chrome, the same thing's
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: going to happen. How does freespoke present the information that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: makes it neutral?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 15: Well, so what we do is, first of all, we
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 15: built our own index. Excuse me, want to say it,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 15: I'm got to scratch my throat.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So that's fine. I drink water throughout the program. All
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: their fine, All right.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 15: So what we did is we built our own index
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 15: of the Internet and really started tagging things slightly differently
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 15: than Google and being we're doing and so really and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 15: then we have our own core Internet index, which is
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 15: tagged to be unbiased, and then we layer that algorithm
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 15: of unbiased on top of it, which really just kind
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 15: of is trying to show both sides of everything.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: And really that's that's the long and short of it.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, Todd records, why did you do this? That's not cheap?
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: You got a baseball club to run, You got another
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: World series coming up with the Indians, Ie Indians Guardians.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: Why you know?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 15: Really, I just think that that it goes back to
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 15: this idea of the promise of the Internet. When the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 15: Internet came along, it was like, oh, there's all this
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 15: new information that would have been so hard to find
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 15: that was just at your fingertips. And over time, whether
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 15: it be for maybe your political leadings or on an
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 15: effort to make money, these big tech companies have gone astray,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 15: and really free Spoke is really just kind of take
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 15: us back to the late nineties early two thousands when
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 15: the Internet was new and it was really just trying
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 15: to inform people. Because the longest short of it here
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 15: is that I have a lot of faith in the
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 15: American people to make up their own mind if they're
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 15: given good information, and the idea is like, we're going
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 15: to put it all out there in front of people,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 15: let them make up their own mind.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Well, Winston Church always said trust the people, and I do.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: How is free spoke taking off? I mean, is it?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: Are you going to make money on it? Is it
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: an active of generosity on your part? And last second question,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: where did you find the talent to build your proprietary
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: AI model and make free spoke work?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 15: Well, that's there's a couple of questions in there. So
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 15: so hopefully free spoke will be profitable someday. We're a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 15: new startup and we're just growing. We have a few
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 15: million users, but we could use a few million more.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 15: And really with the technology people, there's a lot of
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 15: a lot of talent that also sees the same things
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 15: that I saw inside of big tech and then they
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 15: see it. They had a front row seat for all
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 15: of that stuff. So that we've run into a lot
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 15: of people who really wanted to get away from that
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 15: and just you know, program and create technology that is
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 15: not biased or not trying to teach people a narrative.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Well, how has it been received by the Wired magazine community,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: by the tech writers? Do they like free spoke?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: Do?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 15: I think it works pretty much universally that people I
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 15: run into who use it give really great feedback, And
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 15: I think that goes back to we have a very
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 15: solid product that is built on good technology, and then
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 15: we've done some things that are a little bit more
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 15: interesting that others are not doing.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: For example, we.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 15: Transcribe podcasts and then reflect them in our search engines
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 15: because as we talk to our users, we found, you know,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 15: they're not going to ABC or CNN or Fox News
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 15: for their information. They're depending on the podcasters that they
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 15: listen to, and that's where they're getting a lot of
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 15: their information. So we've kind of gone through and you know,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 15: like I said, we transcribe all these podcasts and then
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 15: those get reflected in your search as well.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Oh well that is huge. Now, grandparent, I want to
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: is it safe for paers? Have you put in controls
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: for kids? Because you know, Google or Chrome or any
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: of them can take you places you don't want your
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: grand kids to go. What's free Spoke do about that?
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 15: One thousand percent actually from the get go, and we
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 15: didn't have a really deep thought on this other than
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 15: I just said I don't want to. We don't service
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 15: any pornography or any adult content on free Spoke, and
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 15: so what we do is our crawler is going through
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 15: the Internet as it identifies adult content, it tags it
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 15: adult content and puts it in a black box, never
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 15: to be seen again through our interface.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Well, bravo for you. So I want I want to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: recommend to parents at least give free Spoke a try.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: How long has it been rolled out for tom Rickets.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 15: You know, we've been working on it for a few
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 15: years and I think just in the last year or
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 15: two we've really felt like we have a product that
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 15: we can take to market, and so it's been up,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 15: but we haven't really been pushing it so much. And
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 15: this year was the year we said, we know, we
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 15: need to get out and tell people that we're here
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 15: and spread the word a little bit more.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I will give it a try. I encourage my
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: entire audience to give free Spoke a try. Is it
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: free spoke dot com? Is that it free?
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: That's it freespoke dot com.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 15: Or you can go to the app store or the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 15: Google Play and get it regardless of what kind of
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 15: phone you have.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I look forward to giving it a try and having
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: you back in a few months. In the meantime, Go
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Cubs and Go Guardians. We need to rematch Tom Rickets.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Free Spoke dot com America. Give
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: it a look, and come right back to the Galan Show.