Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / Checking in on the DHS Shutdown, SAVE America Act, and war in Iran
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
- 0:03Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
- 0:06Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
- 0:08Speaker 1: of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of
- 0:11Speaker 1: them at hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google,
- 0:14Speaker 1: Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Graace America. Good Wednesday to you
- 0:19Speaker 1: on Hewent Inside the Beltway on the Salem New Channel,
- 0:22Speaker 1: Salem Radio Network. All of our great radio affiliates, welcome aboard.
- 0:26Speaker 1: We've talked to bottom with guests today, most talking about Iran,
- 0:30Speaker 1: but I'm starting off with Mary Katherine Ham, co host
- 0:33Speaker 1: of Getting Hammered, and there was a super duper normal
- 0:37Speaker 1: getting Hermreed today with Kelly Mayer as our guest host
- 0:41Speaker 1: as opposed to Vic Mattis. I found it very amusing,
- 0:45Speaker 1: Mary Katherine. I don't know Kelly, what's the deal on? Kelly.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Kelly is a political operative out in Colorado, So she
- 0:54Speaker 2: works in the Big Square States, formerly on getting Republicans elected,
- 0:58Speaker 2: but the party out there doing so great these days,
- 1:01Speaker 2: and that's one of the things that she comments on
- 1:04Speaker 2: and observes and tries to correct to the best of
- 1:06Speaker 2: her ability by getting normal people into the party, because
- 1:09Speaker 2: once the party goes into a spiral in a state,
- 1:12Speaker 2: it is hard to get back.
- 1:14Speaker 3: So that's what's going on out there.
- 1:16Speaker 1: But is she super duper not normal like your kids
- 1:20Speaker 1: thought of you. She's played super duper not normal.
- 1:27Speaker 2: She's I mean, we all have our ways. All my galfriends,
- 1:31Speaker 2: I would say, are a little too into politics to
- 1:34Speaker 2: be actually normal, but they But she is a normy
- 1:38Speaker 2: mom out there.
- 1:39Speaker 1: Not normal to get a wake off and say, I know,
- 1:43Speaker 1: I'm going to go to auctioneer school. And I've never
- 1:46Speaker 1: heard of auctioneer school.
- 1:48Speaker 4: You know.
- 1:49Speaker 1: When I would get a week off, I would go
- 1:50Speaker 1: to like Saint John's College and read great books with
- 1:52Speaker 1: a bunch of venture capitalists, that sort of. But the
- 1:56Speaker 1: auctioneer school in Iowa in a blizzard, that's just not normal.
- 2:01Speaker 2: Hey, you know what, We're just opening up new areas
- 2:03Speaker 2: of capitalism to understand and it's very powerful.
- 2:07Speaker 1: I have one more question before we get to the
- 2:09Speaker 1: serious stuff. You have a star spangled banner renission. You
- 2:13Speaker 1: can sing the star spangled banner.
- 2:17Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn't say it's a treat, but I
- 2:19Speaker 2: can hit the notes.
- 2:20Speaker 3: I can carry a tune.
- 2:21Speaker 1: Yes, okay, I my request wild I.
- 2:26Speaker 2: Mostly wielded as a weapon because if there's a rowdy crowd,
- 2:29Speaker 2: I just start the anthem and then they hush, and
- 2:31Speaker 2: then I say, ah, look you here's the real singer.
- 2:35Speaker 1: I have a request, which is, when Vick is in
- 2:38Speaker 1: the house, that you get whatever kind of boombox you
- 2:42Speaker 1: need and you warm up the pipes and you let
- 2:46Speaker 1: us hear it, because you never know when you're going
- 2:48Speaker 1: to use it. We were in the middle of Yosemite,
- 2:52Speaker 1: somewhere way off in the middle of nowhere. Actually it
- 2:55Speaker 1: was in the Canadian Rockies, and all of a sudden,
- 2:58Speaker 1: the fetching missus Schwett thought, you know, there might be
- 3:00Speaker 1: bears around here, and she broke into the Star Spangled Bears.
- 3:04Speaker 2: The bears, look, you don't want to you don't want
- 3:07Speaker 2: to surprise them, and they're very patriotic, so very patriotic.
- 3:10Speaker 2: It all works out when you use that as a tool.
- 3:13Speaker 1: All right, Let me come around to patriotism. Your assessment
- 3:16Speaker 1: of our war with Iran.
- 3:20Speaker 2: Look, to me, the media seems to be almost not
- 3:24Speaker 2: at all focusing on what looked like tactical and operational
- 3:27Speaker 2: pretty tremendous victories along with alliances and open support from
- 3:34Speaker 2: Arab states that you would not have suspected Gulf states
- 3:36Speaker 2: that you would not have predicted several years ago. And
- 3:40Speaker 2: so I don't want to miss that part of the
- 3:43Speaker 2: story for the fact that everyone is reporting only on
- 3:46Speaker 2: there are risks here.
- 3:47Speaker 5: Of course, there are risks here.
- 3:48Speaker 2: There are risks in any military action, but it seems
- 3:52Speaker 2: to me that there's a lot of overlooking of the
- 3:54Speaker 2: actual victories happening.
- 3:56Speaker 1: Now we're Americans. We don't like to hurt people, we
- 4:00Speaker 1: really don't. But the way to win a war is
- 4:03Speaker 1: to blow up the bridges and the roads, destroy the
- 4:06Speaker 1: power plants, and decimate the refinery so they can't make
- 4:10Speaker 1: any money afterwards. And I'll bet the people of Iran,
- 4:14Speaker 1: the families of the thirty thousand plus people were murdered,
- 4:18Speaker 1: would not mind if we told them what we were
- 4:20Speaker 1: going to do and they could stay away from it.
- 4:22Speaker 1: What do you think?
- 4:24Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think that the people of Iran have
- 4:26Speaker 2: shown to the best that they can.
- 4:28Speaker 3: Obviously they're sort.
- 4:28Speaker 2: Of cut off from things that they are supportive of
- 4:31Speaker 2: much of this and the clips that we have seen,
- 4:34Speaker 2: but I'm not sure.
- 4:37Speaker 3: Exactly what that looks like moving forward.
- 4:40Speaker 1: Well, I'm afraid we won't take a kill shot because
- 4:43Speaker 1: the President doesn't want to blow up the infrastructure that
- 4:47Speaker 1: allows Iran to rebuild. We do dominate that you wouldn't
- 4:51Speaker 1: know it from the media, but we have complete air supremacy.
- 4:54Speaker 1: We can hit anything we want to hit any time
- 4:57Speaker 1: we want. We can hit it three times between the
- 5:00Speaker 1: Israeli Asia and we've hit sixteen thousand targets. But the iergy,
- 5:05Speaker 1: she keeps bringing people out of retirement and they're old killers,
- 5:08Speaker 1: they're ruthless sobs, they're not going to be reformers.
- 5:14Speaker 2: Well yeah, and I think it's an open question what
- 5:16Speaker 2: the American public will tolerate when it comes to length
- 5:20Speaker 2: of a military action or how much you can employ
- 5:24Speaker 2: a kill shot, because that, you know, our sort of
- 5:27Speaker 2: military supremacy in the actual operational part is not really
- 5:31Speaker 2: in question at this point, certainly coupled with Israeli intel,
- 5:34Speaker 2: which is amazing, and those two working together. But I
- 5:37Speaker 2: do think there's a question about how much the public
- 5:41Speaker 2: is willing to stomach, and sometimes that threshold can be
- 5:44Speaker 2: quite low. So I think, and of course Trump is
- 5:46Speaker 2: attuned to that.
- 5:47Speaker 3: To some degree.
- 5:48Speaker 1: Now, what did you pay for gas last, Mary Catherine?
- 5:53Speaker 2: I'm not sure I could tell you, but I'm in
- 5:55Speaker 2: northern Virginia, so it's expensive.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Okay. My son is visiting California paid six and a
- 6:02Speaker 1: half dollars a gas with a gallon of gas on
- 6:05Speaker 1: his way to Disneyland today, and that's not unusual. We've
- 6:08Speaker 1: been there before in California under Joe Biden, but it's
- 6:12Speaker 1: not what we've been used to for a while. I
- 6:14Speaker 1: don't think the American people will break and run on
- 6:17Speaker 1: Trump if he brings the regime down. This is a
- 6:19Speaker 1: world historical moment. It's a pivot moment. This regime has
- 6:23Speaker 1: been nothing but evil for my adult life. Do you
- 6:26Speaker 1: think we've got three months of hardship in US?
- 6:31Speaker 2: I think some people are interested in the world shifting moment.
- 6:35Speaker 3: That this is.
- 6:35Speaker 2: I think he needs to make a case for it regularly.
- 6:37Speaker 2: I think an Oval Office address on this and why
- 6:40Speaker 2: it's important would be helpful. Because people are concerned about
- 6:43Speaker 2: the gas prices. They are as concerned about their home
- 6:45Speaker 2: lives and how things look there for what they can afford.
- 6:49Speaker 2: And if it looks like he is too distracted by
- 6:51Speaker 2: this and not making that case. It does run a
- 6:53Speaker 2: risk of alienating people before the midterms.
- 6:56Speaker 1: Now I've got audition, I feel that's worth it. I've
- 7:00Speaker 1: got August Flueger coming up. He runs a Republican Study Committee,
- 7:04Speaker 1: and I'm going to make my plea to him. Please
- 7:06Speaker 1: do a reconciliation. Please put your arm around the Pentagon
- 7:10Speaker 1: supplemental double it fask for two hundred billion, given four
- 7:13Speaker 1: hundred billion, Tell them to spend it on Golden Dome
- 7:16Speaker 1: Fund DHS through the end of the term so that
- 7:19Speaker 1: we don't go through this ridiculous stuff at the airports anymore.
- 7:22Speaker 1: And hang any other Christmas tree ornament. But do it
- 7:25Speaker 1: in two weeks. It's not really complicated, Mary Catherine. You
- 7:29Speaker 1: can do it with fifty one votes in the Senate,
- 7:32Speaker 1: and you can do it with a majority. You can
- 7:34Speaker 1: lose Massey who won't vote for it. But what do
- 7:37Speaker 1: you think should they at least try?
- 7:40Speaker 2: Look, I do think it's probably important in the near
- 7:43Speaker 2: term to do something domestically, to say that you're doing
- 7:46Speaker 2: something and say, look, these are our priorities. We're making
- 7:49Speaker 2: sure that these people can't mess with you in the
- 7:50Speaker 2: future by pulling funding. By doing these shutdown stunts. I
- 7:55Speaker 2: think they could have been better over the last bit
- 7:57Speaker 2: about messaging that this is wholly a project of the
- 8:01Speaker 2: Democrats that are proactively attempting to do this. The media
- 8:03Speaker 2: is not going to back you up on that. You've
- 8:05Speaker 2: got to make that clear yourself from the beginning so
- 8:07Speaker 2: that people standing in these TSA len lines know why.
- 8:10Speaker 2: But yeah, profering an actual solution to that through legislation
- 8:13Speaker 2: would probably be a good pitch for people.
- 8:15Speaker 1: Okay, last question about Northern Virginia. They shut the schools
- 8:20Speaker 1: down in anticipation of thunderstorms that did not come. Now, yes,
- 8:24Speaker 1: in Warren, Ohio, thunderstorms meant Tuesday. What is wrong with this.
- 8:30Speaker 2: State many things, But what's wrong with a lot of
- 8:34Speaker 2: blue localities, particularly when the politicians are aligned with teachers' unions,
- 8:39Speaker 2: is that they practiced closing schools for several years. They
- 8:42Speaker 2: got really good at it. And the places that practiced
- 8:44Speaker 2: closing schools continue to.
- 8:46Speaker 3: Do it at the drop of a hat. And places
- 8:47Speaker 3: that practice being open.
- 8:48Speaker 2: Are better for students and will do it even through adversity. Pittsburgh,
- 8:52Speaker 2: by the way, closing for the NFL Draft for three
- 8:55Speaker 2: days while that happens I mean, that's Detroit didn't do that,
- 8:58Speaker 2: and they had seven one hundred and seventy five thousand
- 9:01Speaker 2: people in town for the draft. But this is what
- 9:04Speaker 2: leadership and education does now in blue areas.
- 9:07Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know that. I'm going to get Selena
- 9:11Speaker 1: Zito on the case. Mary Catherine, I'm always good to
- 9:14Speaker 1: see you. Follow her at MK hammer, Listen to her
- 9:17Speaker 1: at Getting Hammered Along the podcast Very Funny podcast Today,
- 9:21Speaker 1: Welcome Back in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt and no C. Rothman,
- 9:23Speaker 1: senior writer for a National Review. Iran Warhawk. I'm just
- 9:28Speaker 1: going to now use that as your lower third, Noah,
- 9:30Speaker 1: because you're like me, you're an Iran warhawk. Do you
- 9:34Speaker 1: think Donald Trump has it in him to finish the job?
- 9:38Speaker 6: I sure hope he does. I mean that is the
- 9:40Speaker 6: biggest question mark, isn't it. I kind of think that
- 9:43Speaker 6: we've been seeing over the course of this week could
- 9:46Speaker 6: be any number of things. It could be everybody has
- 9:49Speaker 6: been said, well, maybe he's just trying to manipulate a
- 9:50Speaker 6: wheel markets, or maybe he's just trying to look for
- 9:52Speaker 6: a diplomatic off ramp, or perhaps he's sowing dissension within
- 9:55Speaker 6: the ranks in the IRGC and the clearsy. Everybody thinks
- 9:59Speaker 6: that their brothers and arms are going to sell them
- 10:01Speaker 6: out right.
- 10:02Speaker 3: Could be all of those things. It could be none
- 10:04Speaker 3: of those things. We don't know.
- 10:06Speaker 6: But what we're seeing in the press seems to be
- 10:08Speaker 6: an exploration of every possible downside of this war except
- 10:12Speaker 6: the prospect of stopping too soon. That's the most dangerous
- 10:17Speaker 6: of all the outcomes that are presented before us right now.
- 10:20Speaker 6: And it seems to me that the press exploring all
- 10:22Speaker 6: these outcomes leaves that one unexplored because it's the one
- 10:25Speaker 6: they want.
- 10:26Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right now. I want to make
- 10:28Speaker 1: it clear because I'll say this, if the war ends
- 10:30Speaker 1: during this broadcast, we are much better off today than
- 10:34Speaker 1: we were twenty five days ago because the face of
- 10:37Speaker 1: the regime is revealed. Most of the regime has been shattered,
- 10:40Speaker 1: and their military war making ability has been set back decade.
- 10:44Speaker 1: But they would more than that, if they had one.
- 10:46Speaker 3: More than that.
- 10:46Speaker 6: You Yeah, I mean, I have a twenty seven hundred
- 10:50Speaker 6: word piece on this on the website if you're interested
- 10:52Speaker 6: in my thoughts in all.
- 10:54Speaker 3: Of their luggery.
- 10:56Speaker 6: Yeah, and the extent to which I can't contain them
- 11:00Speaker 6: beyond the fact that we have defanged, for the most part,
- 11:03Speaker 6: RAN's capacity to project power across its borders. We have
- 11:06Speaker 6: also re ordered the geopolitical landscape in ways that are
- 11:09Speaker 6: very beneficial to US. China and Russia have been exposed
- 11:12Speaker 6: as fairweather friends. The strategic pac that they signed with
- 11:15Speaker 6: Iran as recently as in January isn't worth the ink
- 11:19Speaker 6: that was spilled on it. Their radars and anti air
- 11:23Speaker 6: systems have been exposed as insufficient to meet the threat
- 11:27Speaker 6: posed by Western airpower, and the Gulf States seem rather
- 11:32Speaker 6: completely arrayed against Iran, recognizing that Iran is the threat
- 11:36Speaker 6: in their neighborhood, not Israel, not the United States, and
- 11:39Speaker 6: the United States is the only power on Earth that
- 11:41Speaker 6: has both the will and the capability to see to
- 11:43Speaker 6: their defenses.
- 11:44Speaker 1: They're going to be gradually there in eric in orbit
- 11:46Speaker 1: as a result. Ambassador Yusef Alo Taiba, who is really
- 11:50Speaker 1: one of the more influential and important ambassadors in Washington,
- 11:53Speaker 1: DC's been here for a long time. Ambassador from the
- 11:56Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates to the United States, has a peached
- 11:59Speaker 1: in the Journal the UAE stands up to Iran. This
- 12:03Speaker 1: war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses Tehran's full
- 12:08Speaker 1: range of threats. I think that's an appeal for the
- 12:12Speaker 1: kill shot, and by that I mean blow up the highway,
- 12:16Speaker 1: blow up the bridges, blow up the power plants, blow
- 12:18Speaker 1: up the oil refineries, reduce the country to penury that
- 12:23Speaker 1: people will take it from there. Do you agree with me?
- 12:27Speaker 6: Well, I don't know. The President doesn't share that outlook.
- 12:29Speaker 6: As you said in the last segment, he wants to
- 12:31Speaker 6: leave as much infrastructure in place for a successor regime
- 12:34Speaker 6: to utilize and so the Iranian people can get a
- 12:37Speaker 6: post Islamic republica ran off its feet as soon as possible.
- 12:40Speaker 6: I'm not going to second guess that scenario. It's too
- 12:43Speaker 6: soon to think about post war scenarios in the midst
- 12:45Speaker 6: of the conflict. But people accuse me of being pollyannish
- 12:48Speaker 6: about this war merely because I don't emphasize the negatives
- 12:51Speaker 6: or the theoretical negatives honestly possible downsides of which there
- 12:56Speaker 6: are many and I'm willing to recognize and explore. But
- 12:59Speaker 6: what they don't explore is the degree to which the
- 13:01Speaker 6: tactics which are begetting the strategic of benefits that we're.
- 13:05Speaker 3: Going that we're enjoying now and will.
- 13:06Speaker 6: Enjoy as a result of this war are immensely successful.
- 13:10Speaker 6: People brush them off as saying a da YadA, YadA, YadA.
- 13:13Speaker 6: We never win the post war. But you get to
- 13:16Speaker 6: the post war by the tactics. If you don't focus
- 13:19Speaker 6: on the beat by beat and you talk about the
- 13:23Speaker 6: day after, the audience has no idea honestly what you're
- 13:25Speaker 6: talking about, and it's prime for pessimism. And that seems
- 13:28Speaker 6: to me to be honestly sort of the ticket into
- 13:31Speaker 6: sophisticated circles. Now, if you're not really hopeless in dower
- 13:35Speaker 6: and melancholy about this war.
- 13:37Speaker 5: Well you're just not a serious person, or you're.
- 13:39Speaker 1: Not crazy yourself knowing it's weird. I agree, but I
- 13:43Speaker 1: am not. I think we are crushing them. I think
- 13:45Speaker 1: the American.
- 13:46Speaker 6: Worlitaria, it's at a granular level.
- 13:48Speaker 1: Yeah, And the only thing that has bothered me happened yesterday.
- 13:53Speaker 1: The IRGC is not bringing people out of the freezer.
- 13:56Speaker 1: They're bringing out the sixty eighth to seventy year old
- 13:58Speaker 1: generals who fought way back eighty to eighty eight against Saddam.
- 14:02Speaker 1: They're hardened killers. They've got money in the bank and
- 14:06Speaker 1: their four oh one k's are at risk, and they're
- 14:09Speaker 1: gonna kill everyone they need to kill on the street.
- 14:12Speaker 1: So they're not going to a regime of moderates. They're
- 14:16Speaker 1: bringing the old hardliners out of retirement to replace the
- 14:19Speaker 1: ones we've killed. That tells me that we're gonna we're
- 14:23Speaker 1: gonna be in the war for a one I don't
- 14:24Speaker 1: know is that I got you go ahead?
- 14:27Speaker 4: No?
- 14:28Speaker 1: Can you can you talk?
- 14:29Speaker 7: You?
- 14:29Speaker 3: Can you hear me?
- 14:30Speaker 1: All right?
- 14:31Speaker 5: So yeah, sorry about.
- 14:32Speaker 1: That, That's okay. My point was yesterday they brought the
- 14:35Speaker 1: old guard out of retirement, the IRGC guys who were
- 14:38Speaker 1: killers for here. That's a bad sign. They're not going
- 14:42Speaker 1: to make peace with Donald Trump. Do you agree?
- 14:45Speaker 3: No, they're not going to make peace.
- 14:47Speaker 6: Just about the entire idiot the regime, the IRGC and
- 14:50Speaker 6: the Claresy, which are one and the same, are highly ideological,
- 14:53Speaker 6: highly committed to the revolutionary creed inside Iran, and the
- 14:57Speaker 6: old timers are going to be even more inclined towards
- 14:59Speaker 6: that that outlook. But the post war environment that we
- 15:04Speaker 6: want to create is one of internal fragmentation within the regime.
- 15:09Speaker 6: Expose elite disagreement over how the best course of internal
- 15:12Speaker 6: survival is individual survival. Those disagreements will have to materialize
- 15:17Speaker 6: after the war, and they involve the disintegration of patronage networks,
- 15:21Speaker 6: institutions that break down the isolation that I Ran experiences
- 15:25Speaker 6: on the world stage beginning to bite is well, including
- 15:27Speaker 6: not just the Western world, but the anti American axis Russia, Beijing, Moscow, Beijing,
- 15:32Speaker 6: North Korea, et cetera. And those old timers are going
- 15:36Speaker 6: to be the people who expose those internal divisions.
- 15:39Speaker 3: They can't be in hiding.
- 15:40Speaker 6: They have to be visible, because those are the people
- 15:42Speaker 6: who have to break at some point, either with the
- 15:44Speaker 6: regime or with the people, and they have to compel
- 15:48Speaker 6: a confrontation at some point with the internal mechanisms of
- 15:51Speaker 6: this regime versus the conflict with the people in the streets.
- 15:55Speaker 6: And we can anticipate that another conflict with the Iranian
- 15:59Speaker 6: people will material as it has pretty regularly over the
- 16:02Speaker 6: course of this century two thousand and one, twenty nine,
- 16:05Speaker 6: twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty five.
- 16:09Speaker 6: We're going to see another one soon, and we need
- 16:12Speaker 6: to see the Iranian regime exposed so that it can
- 16:15Speaker 6: it's its internal divisions can be visible by the publican
- 16:18Speaker 6: by the wider world. So I'm not entirely horrified by
- 16:22Speaker 6: the prospect. In the near term, it will be horrible
- 16:23Speaker 6: for the American people, difficult for us.
- 16:25Speaker 1: But in the last questions, who besides Noah Rothman and
- 16:29Speaker 1: Hugh Hewittt are Iran warhawks?
- 16:33Speaker 6: Well, you know, it really does depend on who you ask.
- 16:35Speaker 6: And I think the American people would be supportive of
- 16:37Speaker 6: this project. As Mary Catherine said in the last segment,
- 16:39Speaker 6: the President needs to enlist the American people in this
- 16:42Speaker 6: national project. Sacrifices will be asked of them. They already
- 16:45Speaker 6: are and the President needs to be forthright about that.
- 16:48Speaker 6: But within the Republican Party, the majority of them are
- 16:51Speaker 6: supportive of this war, apprehensive about its outcomes, anxious about
- 16:54Speaker 6: its conduct, but supportive of the war aims and its
- 16:57Speaker 6: conducts so far. And that's a that's a bedrock that
- 16:59Speaker 6: the President can build on. He should get to work
- 17:02Speaker 6: on it because that apprehension is only growing and the
- 17:04Speaker 6: American public want to know that their investment in this
- 17:07Speaker 6: project is going to yield returns.
- 17:10Speaker 1: Not only yield return but that it's a world historical
- 17:13Speaker 1: moment of the likes of which we have not seen
- 17:15Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty nine. Rare when you realize that you're
- 17:19Speaker 1: in the middle of a pivot. Everybody should know this
- 17:22Speaker 1: is that right now, it's like nineteen eighty nine, and
- 17:26Speaker 1: we have to topple this regime. We just have to
- 17:29Speaker 1: no see Rothman, thank you. I'll be right back in America.
- 17:32Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Morgan back in America. You do it here on
- 17:38Speaker 1: the Salem New Channel, joined by Sarah C. Bedford to
- 17:41Speaker 1: The Washington Examiner follow on exit. Sarah C. Bedford, Sarah,
- 17:45Speaker 1: do the Democrats know that they are losing the country
- 17:49Speaker 1: over the TSA and Brouglio.
- 17:53Speaker 3: No, Actually, it seems like they don't at all.
- 17:55Speaker 8: In fact, it seems like they're taking the opposite lesson
- 17:59Speaker 8: from this. Republicans have accused them, i think quite credibly,
- 18:02Speaker 8: of moving the goalposts on what a DHS funding deal
- 18:06Speaker 8: could look like. They don't seem to be acting in
- 18:09Speaker 8: the situation is that they believe they're going to shoulder
- 18:12Speaker 8: any political blame for the long lines we're seeing at
- 18:15Speaker 8: airports and the other knock on effects of the dj shutdown.
- 18:19Speaker 1: If that's the case. Why is there an effort to
- 18:22Speaker 1: basically do a seizure on the way to the forum
- 18:25Speaker 1: to Chuck Schumer because Chris Murphy and the other people
- 18:29Speaker 1: have lean and hungry looks in their eyes.
- 18:33Speaker 8: Well, it's a problem for Schumer because every time that
- 18:38Speaker 8: he has ultimately accepted some sort of deal that leads
- 18:41Speaker 8: to the reopening of government. Now, this is a partial
- 18:43Speaker 8: government shutdown, but twice now we've seen Schumer do that.
- 18:46Speaker 8: With full government shutdowns, He's faced an enormous amount of
- 18:50Speaker 8: backlash from the Democratic base. There's already talk of challenges
- 18:54Speaker 8: to his leadership should Democrats expand their minority or even
- 18:59Speaker 8: an in a less likely scenario, take control of the Senate.
- 19:03Speaker 3: There's talk that.
- 19:03Speaker 8: Maybe Schumer isn't the man for the moment for Democrats.
- 19:06Speaker 8: So he's worried about his leadership position as well. And again,
- 19:11Speaker 8: you do have Democrats acting as if they don't think
- 19:14Speaker 8: that they are going to pay a political price for
- 19:16Speaker 8: this shutdown. And so there's not a ton of incentive
- 19:20Speaker 8: or pressure on Schumer right now to accept what might
- 19:23Speaker 8: be considered by the base a bad deal.
- 19:25Speaker 1: All right, let me go over to the others. I
- 19:27Speaker 1: have criticisms of the GOP as well. Congressman Fluberry is
- 19:31Speaker 1: coming along later. He runs the Republican Study Committee, and
- 19:34Speaker 1: I'm going to press him on reconciliation. Is it going anywhere?
- 19:37Speaker 1: Because the GOP is not going to get anything done
- 19:40Speaker 1: unless they do it on reconciliation.
- 19:44Speaker 8: It's going to be an enormous challenge. You can only
- 19:46Speaker 8: lose three senators if you're going to do that, and
- 19:50Speaker 8: obviously the margins for Johnson maybe even smaller at this point,
- 19:53Speaker 8: so it's really really hard to get all of.
- 19:55Speaker 3: The Republicans on board.
- 19:56Speaker 8: But you're right, reconciliation will be the only train leaving
- 19:59Speaker 8: this this year realistically for a lot of priorities, and
- 20:03Speaker 8: there are a bunch of things that Republicans want to
- 20:05Speaker 8: get done. They want some extra Pentagon funding for the Iranmar.
- 20:09Speaker 8: There's some talk of potentially trying to shoehorn parts of
- 20:12Speaker 8: the Save Act electron integrity measures into a reconciliation bill.
- 20:16Speaker 3: And you could also put funding.
- 20:18Speaker 8: For ice removal and enforcement operations in a separate bucket
- 20:22Speaker 8: and fund it through reconciliation and not have to hash
- 20:27Speaker 8: out all of this immigration enforcement stuff with the DHS deal.
- 20:30Speaker 8: So there are a lot of reasons for Republicans to
- 20:32Speaker 8: do a reconciliation bill, but because it's a heavy lift.
- 20:35Speaker 8: That's why you've seen reluctant so far this year from Republicans.
- 20:39Speaker 1: They could, I believe, fund DHS through the end of
- 20:43Speaker 1: the Trump term so you don't have to worry about
- 20:45Speaker 1: that again. They could take the Pentagon's floated two hundred billion,
- 20:49Speaker 1: they could double it and add money for Golden Dome
- 20:53Speaker 1: and the Golden Fleet, and they can. A lot of
- 20:57Speaker 1: this stuff from say won't make it past the Senate
- 20:59Speaker 1: part elementarian or a bird bath, but they're not going
- 21:02Speaker 1: to get it through the talking filibuster either. They might
- 21:05Speaker 1: as well take a run at it. And I just
- 21:07Speaker 1: don't understand doing nothing. Does anyone tell you why they're
- 21:10Speaker 1: doing nothing.
- 21:12Speaker 8: I think there's fear for some of the vulnerable members.
- 21:15Speaker 8: I mean, you have Susan Collins of Maine, for example,
- 21:18Speaker 8: has said she doesn't love the idea of doing reconciliation.
- 21:21Speaker 8: She's going to be in a very bitter reelection battle
- 21:24Speaker 8: this year, So you do have some Republicans on the
- 21:27Speaker 8: bubble who are nervous about voting for stuff that might
- 21:30Speaker 8: come back to haunt them and You're right about parts
- 21:32Speaker 8: of the Save Act not making it through the bird bath.
- 21:34Speaker 8: There's talk of potentially measures that might incentivize states to
- 21:38Speaker 8: pass their own voter ID laws, but that certainly will
- 21:41Speaker 8: not satisfy conservatives who say, this is an eighty twenty issue.
- 21:44Speaker 8: It's so popular even most Democrats support it. Why can't
- 21:48Speaker 8: a Republican trifecta in Washington.
- 21:50Speaker 6: Deliver this for us?
- 21:52Speaker 3: And that's a valid criticism from conservatives.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Well, it's not of a not in my eyes of criticism,
- 21:59Speaker 1: because the bilibuster is the filibuster is the filibuster, and
- 22:03Speaker 1: if we change it, it's gone forever. And I guess
- 22:07Speaker 1: Republicans just have to be willing to stand up and
- 22:09Speaker 1: say that, and Mike Lee will get mad. But Mike
- 22:12Speaker 1: is a good guy, you know. The Republicans who understand
- 22:15Speaker 1: this do not want to end the filibuster. Has anyone
- 22:18Speaker 1: made the argument yet?
- 22:21Speaker 9: No.
- 22:22Speaker 8: I think you're right that there's not an appetite to
- 22:23Speaker 8: end the filibuster. But there could be a way that
- 22:28Speaker 8: Republicans could break out the most popular parts of the
- 22:31Speaker 8: Save Act, and I'm talking primarily about voter ID and
- 22:34Speaker 8: strip out the things like the proof of citizenship, to
- 22:37Speaker 8: register to vote, and the stuff that Democrats have really
- 22:40Speaker 8: voiced more aggressive objections over. It would be hard for
- 22:43Speaker 8: Democrats to oppose a voter ID only bill, And in fact,
- 22:48Speaker 8: Schumer has sort of hinted that, look, we're not opposed
- 22:50Speaker 8: to voter I D we know eighty percent of America
- 22:52Speaker 8: wants it. It's all that other stuff. So Republicans could
- 22:55Speaker 8: sort of strategize and not let perfect be the enemy
- 22:57Speaker 8: of the good if they really want and voter ID.
- 23:00Speaker 1: I hope they do that. I didn't realize you what said.
- 23:02Speaker 1: They should get what they can. The good must not
- 23:05Speaker 1: be the perfect, must not be the enemy. They're good.
- 23:08Speaker 1: Sarah C. Bedford on X from The Washington Examiner, good
- 23:11Speaker 1: to talk to you. Thank you, Sarah. Don't go any America.
- 23:14Speaker 1: Danny Pletka from ai AS next as we go back
- 23:16Speaker 1: to the war, Stay tuned, Welcome back in America. I'm
- 23:23Speaker 1: Hugh Ewett, Danny Pleck, Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute,
- 23:27Speaker 1: co host with Mark Tison of What the Hell Is
- 23:29Speaker 1: Going On podcast. I saw Mark out for dinner on
- 23:33Speaker 1: Virginia Danny, and I thought Danny's probably working. Mark's out
- 23:36Speaker 1: here having drinks. That's not really fair, Danny. You ought
- 23:39Speaker 1: to tell him he needs to be working more. I'm
- 23:41Speaker 1: so glad you're here because I want to ask you
- 23:43Speaker 1: is do you think the Trump administration has it in
- 23:48Speaker 1: them to finish the job? And by that I mean
- 23:52Speaker 1: bite down. It might mean high energy prices for three months,
- 23:56Speaker 1: it might take three months to clear the straight of
- 23:57Speaker 1: horror moves, but bring this down? Do you think they've
- 24:01Speaker 1: got it?
- 24:04Speaker 3: So that's a great question.
- 24:06Speaker 4: I think that the problem is the end of the sentence.
- 24:09Speaker 4: Does the Trump administration have what it takes to fill
- 24:13Speaker 4: in the blank if it's to open this trads of formus.
- 24:17Speaker 4: I think there's no question they have what it takes.
- 24:19Speaker 4: They have a plan. I think that they are executing
- 24:22Speaker 4: on that plan. I think the President hasn't faltered. I
- 24:25Speaker 4: think he recognizes that he can not allow the Iranians
- 24:30Speaker 4: to at will close the straight. But if the question
- 24:34Speaker 4: is does he have the will to see our campaign
- 24:39Speaker 4: from the air tople the regime? I think the answer
- 24:41Speaker 4: to that increasingly is no.
- 24:45Speaker 1: Why do you think that? Because I'm betting unless they
- 24:48Speaker 1: hit his fifteen points, which is effectively the dismantling of
- 24:52Speaker 1: the regime, in the way that the South Africans gave
- 24:55Speaker 1: up their nukes and the Libyans gave up their nukes.
- 24:58Speaker 1: They're not the regime anymore, Harmonias, They're corrupt dictators at
- 25:03Speaker 1: that point, Why do you think Trump will blink if
- 25:07Speaker 1: they don't deal.
- 25:10Speaker 4: I don't think it's a question of blinking, Hugh. I
- 25:12Speaker 4: think it's a question of defining his end game. And increasingly,
- 25:17Speaker 4: what I hear in Washington, and frankly from the Israelis
- 25:23Speaker 4: as well, although I'm hearing a lot, is that their
- 25:29Speaker 4: aim is to create the circumstances under which the Iranian
- 25:34Speaker 4: people can reclaim their country. It is not to bomb
- 25:40Speaker 4: the regime into smithereens.
- 25:42Speaker 3: So there's nothing left.
- 25:43Speaker 4: And I will say this, if you and I think
- 25:46Speaker 4: about this, and you have a lot of experience, you know,
- 25:48Speaker 4: going back decades as well, if you think about this,
- 25:52Speaker 4: there are very few campaigns from the air that execute
- 25:57Speaker 4: a regime change, so you know, so I think those
- 26:00Speaker 4: are the big caveats right now. And that's very much
- 26:04Speaker 4: what I'm hearing, and that is what my co host
- 26:06Speaker 4: Mark Tissen is hearing as well.
- 26:08Speaker 1: So what do you think happens if the we will stipulate.
- 26:13Speaker 1: The Iranian people want to be rid of this regime
- 26:15Speaker 1: and they would fight for it if they had weapons.
- 26:18Speaker 1: What happens if Iran runs out of electricity and oil?
- 26:22Speaker 1: I mean, if we really do shatter their infrastructure like
- 26:25Speaker 1: the President threatened to do and then walked it back.
- 26:28Speaker 1: Is that good for the Iranian people? It's bad, it
- 26:32Speaker 1: would be make rebuilding harder. But in the short term,
- 26:35Speaker 1: doesn't it make it easier to throw off the regime? Yes?
- 26:39Speaker 4: Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more. Look, you know,
- 26:43Speaker 4: on the one hand, you want to preserve as much
- 26:46Speaker 4: as is possible in order for a successor regime to
- 26:50Speaker 4: take over. On the other hand, you need to recognize
- 26:53Speaker 4: there are forty seven years here, and as you and
- 26:56Speaker 4: I have discussed previously, this isn't a strong man government.
- 27:00Speaker 4: This is a system. This is a dictatorship. The Islamic
- 27:04Speaker 4: Republic is a giant infrastructure and it needs to be crushed.
- 27:09Speaker 4: And unfortunately there will be some baby thrown out with
- 27:12Speaker 4: the bathwater here.
- 27:14Speaker 1: Well, what worried me this week is that they began
- 27:17Speaker 1: to get old timers off the bench, people who fought
- 27:20Speaker 1: in the eighty eighty eight war IRGC retired general. They're killers,
- 27:25Speaker 1: They're not They're enjoying their lucre. They're enjoying their corruption,
- 27:29Speaker 1: but they've been brought back to kill the next wave
- 27:32Speaker 1: of that regime's not changing, Danny. Do you think there's
- 27:35Speaker 1: any chance of it changing?
- 27:38Speaker 4: Not a chance, No, absolutely not. Look, they are inextricably
- 27:43Speaker 4: tied to it. And I would add, there's so much
- 27:47Speaker 4: money at stake. Even if you discount the ideology, and
- 27:50Speaker 4: I don't discount the ideology. These people believe that they
- 27:55Speaker 4: are God's chosen leaders.
- 27:56Speaker 3: They believe that they are.
- 27:58Speaker 4: The only people who can lead in wrong. And even
- 28:01Speaker 4: if you set that aside and you think that's a
- 28:03Speaker 4: bunch of you know, think tank clap trap. They have
- 28:06Speaker 4: so much money that they've stolen and they if they
- 28:10Speaker 4: are going to hold on to that money, they need
- 28:12Speaker 4: to hold onto power.
- 28:14Speaker 1: I don't know if you know a Valley Naser, he's
- 28:16Speaker 1: all right, JOHNS Hopkins, and he wrote the book Iran's
- 28:20Speaker 1: Grand Strategy. When you read that or you listen to
- 28:22Speaker 1: the Ready g they're never going it's a zombie regime.
- 28:25Speaker 1: But it's pretty hard to kill a zombie. You agree
- 28:28Speaker 1: with that assessment, it is.
- 28:30Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely I mean, look, you know, I watch cable
- 28:33Speaker 4: TV just like everybody else, and I know just.
- 28:35Speaker 7: How hard zombies are to kill.
- 28:37Speaker 4: And you know, of one of Iran's most loving analysts
- 28:43Speaker 4: here in Washington, somebody who really always takes the side
- 28:47Speaker 4: of the regime, said to me a couple of weeks ago.
- 28:49Speaker 4: You know, he said, the regime says that thirty percent
- 28:52Speaker 4: of the people are with them. Even if that's half true,
- 28:55Speaker 4: we are talking about millions and millions of people. This
- 29:00Speaker 4: is going to be a hard job. I think the
- 29:02Speaker 4: Iranian people can do it. I think there's a tipping point.
- 29:06Speaker 4: I think we can help push it. But I worry
- 29:09Speaker 4: that both the Israelis and the Americans are overconfident in
- 29:14Speaker 4: our ability to put the Iranians in a position from
- 29:18Speaker 4: which they can't come back.
- 29:19Speaker 5: They can always come back.
- 29:21Speaker 1: Are we too restrained? And by that I mean they
- 29:24Speaker 1: do have power plants, they do have oil production facilities.
- 29:27Speaker 1: They have command and control structures that will blinker the
- 29:30Speaker 1: entire city and throw it into darkness. They have overpasses,
- 29:34Speaker 1: they have roads and bridges. We did not spare that
- 29:38Speaker 1: with the Allies in World War Two. We didn't spare
- 29:41Speaker 1: it with Vietnam, and I'm not sure we should be
- 29:44Speaker 1: sparing it now, should we?
- 29:47Speaker 4: No, you are completely right, and there are other mistakes
- 29:49Speaker 4: we're making in terms of the assets we have. We
- 29:52Speaker 4: should absolutely be hitting everything. We should be allowing the
- 29:55Speaker 4: Israelis to hit what we're not hitting. And in addition,
- 30:00Speaker 4: only fifty percent of Iran is Persian. There are Azari's
- 30:04Speaker 4: that are Ba Loochs, there are Kurds. Everyone hates this regime.
- 30:09Speaker 4: This regime has.
- 30:10Speaker 3: Murdered absolutely everybody.
- 30:13Speaker 4: And if they're bad to the Persians, you can only
- 30:16Speaker 4: imagine what they're like to other minorities. Those people want
- 30:19Speaker 4: to stand up and revolt. Those people want to march
- 30:22Speaker 4: on towns in the north, in the south, and we
- 30:24Speaker 4: should be letting them. So far, the president has not
- 30:28Speaker 4: been willing to let them, in part because because Erduwan,
- 30:34Speaker 4: the dictator in Turkey, does not want to see the
- 30:36Speaker 4: Turks get the Kurds get any any liberty whatsoever, and
- 30:40Speaker 4: so he's talking him out of it day on day out,
- 30:43Speaker 4: and that's wrong.
- 30:44Speaker 1: I did not know that, and that is why we
- 30:47Speaker 1: talked to Danny Plutka follower he Plukka at Ai and
- 30:51Speaker 1: listen to what the hell is going on with Mark Tishan. Danny,
- 30:54Speaker 1: don't let him go out and drink when you're working.
- 30:56Speaker 1: I'm telling you I saw him out there at the bar.
- 30:58Speaker 1: Thanks having a good time, I mean, with work on.
- 31:00Speaker 1: Thank you, Danny. I'll be right back to America States
- 31:03Speaker 1: in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Welcome to the second hour
- 31:05Speaker 1: of today's program. I'm joined by Abe Greenwald. Abe is
- 31:09Speaker 1: the executive editor of Commentary magazine. He's also a frequent contributor,
- 31:13Speaker 1: almost daily contributor to the Commentary podcast. Abe. I found
- 31:17Speaker 1: today's podcast to be very interesting, especially towards the end
- 31:21Speaker 1: when you raised the possibility that maybe persuasion is no
- 31:25Speaker 1: longer possible in America. You want to expand on that.
- 31:30Speaker 3: Yeah, sadly, I think that's true, and actually I wrote
- 31:33Speaker 3: a newsletter.
- 31:33Speaker 10: To that effect that was sent out just about half
- 31:36Speaker 10: an hour ago. I think that Donald Trump should have
- 31:44Speaker 10: laid out a lucid and convincing argument for going into
- 31:48Speaker 10: Iran when he did in the way he did. But
- 31:54Speaker 10: I think you should have done it because that's the
- 31:56Speaker 10: job description. Do I think it would have weighted some
- 32:01Speaker 10: vast number of Americans who are now doubting the war.
- 32:05Speaker 5: No, I don't.
- 32:06Speaker 10: And to whatever extent it would do so, I think
- 32:09Speaker 10: I apologize my dog is growling. So whatever extent it
- 32:12Speaker 10: would do so, it would I think that would be
- 32:16Speaker 10: very fleeting. As the media anti war coverage, Walt's war,
- 32:24Speaker 10: anti war coverage has just swallowed up what is really
- 32:29Speaker 10: an ongoing string of remarkable successes in this war.
- 32:32Speaker 3: So the effort to talk.
- 32:35Speaker 10: Down this war, to discuss it as if it's some
- 32:38Speaker 10: sort of travesty, is so overwhelming. I mean, I'm kind
- 32:42Speaker 10: of reminded of the argument that people made about Israel
- 32:48Speaker 10: post October seventh that, you know, if the Israelis just
- 32:52Speaker 10: could explain better to people why they were doing what
- 32:55Speaker 10: they were doing in response.
- 32:57Speaker 3: To October seventh, as if October seventh wasn't proof enough
- 33:02Speaker 3: taped and filmed for everyone to see, wasn't the case
- 33:07Speaker 3: enough for what the Israelis were doing?
- 33:10Speaker 10: And so similarly, if you look back on forty seven
- 33:13Speaker 10: year history of the running regime, it's provocations, it's violence,
- 33:18Speaker 10: it's killing, its weapons development, its terror supporting, and so on,
- 33:25Speaker 10: and you don't see the case for war right now,
- 33:28Speaker 10: You're not going to see.
- 33:28Speaker 1: It, you know, Hey, I am reminded of the movie
- 33:34Speaker 1: Chariots of Fire. Did you ever see it? Yes? Okay,
- 33:38Speaker 1: So the sprinter is the Jewish Kid nineteen twenty Olympics
- 33:42Speaker 1: true story, and he asks a professional track coach make
- 33:46Speaker 1: me faster. He says, you can't put in what God
- 33:49Speaker 1: left out. God has left out of a lot of
- 33:52Speaker 1: Americans basic knowledge about the evil nature of the regime
- 33:56Speaker 1: in Iran. I mean, I don't think they understand it.
- 34:00Speaker 1: So it's the equal the Chinese Communist Party, and they
- 34:04Speaker 1: are the equal of Putin on his worst day. These
- 34:07Speaker 1: are the three worst regimes in the world. North Korea
- 34:10Speaker 1: would be in that rank, except they've done about as
- 34:13Speaker 1: much damage as they can do short of precipitating in
- 34:16Speaker 1: nuclear war. Do you think Americans understand how evil Iran
- 34:19Speaker 1: is and its ambitions?
- 34:23Speaker 3: No, I think they're doubtful. I think they don't quite
- 34:25Speaker 3: believe it.
- 34:27Speaker 10: I think that's also because we suffer from still Vietnam syndrome,
- 34:34Speaker 10: Iraq and Afghanistan syndrome. And then that's all complicated by
- 34:39Speaker 10: Trump derangement syndrome.
- 34:41Speaker 5: And on the left you have.
- 34:43Speaker 10: These anti colonialist idelogus who believe that any action the
- 34:48Speaker 10: US takes his prima facia a war crime, and on
- 34:52Speaker 10: the right, a lot of what used to go under
- 34:57Speaker 10: the banner of patriotism has been swallow up by nationalism,
- 35:01Speaker 10: which looks at American national interests from the most narrow
- 35:06Speaker 10: lens and would say, well, even if they are an
- 35:10Speaker 10: evil regime, what does.
- 35:11Speaker 3: That have to do with us? So I think all
- 35:14Speaker 3: told yes.
- 35:15Speaker 1: No now At twelve forty seven this afternoon East cost time,
- 35:20Speaker 1: Ambassador Yusef Alotaiba, who is the United Arab Emirates Ambassador
- 35:25Speaker 1: to the United States and really one of the most
- 35:28Speaker 1: talented people in the business inside of DC. I've had
- 35:31Speaker 1: an opportunity to have dinner with him a few times.
- 35:33Speaker 1: He worked very hard at making his country understood to
- 35:38Speaker 1: the Beltway press corps. He posted a piece over at
- 35:42Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal which I recommend to every listener,
- 35:46Speaker 1: and it reminds people the UAE, which is forty miles
- 35:49Speaker 1: away from Iran across the Strait of Hormos, has absorbed
- 35:52Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred and eighty missiles projectile drones. They're
- 35:57Speaker 1: standing tall with us, and it finishes the tagline is
- 36:02Speaker 1: that this war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses
- 36:10Speaker 1: Tehran's full range of threats and the way that it ends.
- 36:13Speaker 1: The last three paragraphs. Iran's nuclear capabilities have been degraded,
- 36:18Speaker 1: its proxies have been weakened. More needs to be done
- 36:21Speaker 1: to remove the missile and drone threats, and we are
- 36:23Speaker 1: ready to join an international initiative to reopen the strait
- 36:26Speaker 1: and keep it open. We aren't asking the US to
- 36:28Speaker 1: carry the full burden. We are defending our people, protecting
- 36:32Speaker 1: regional stability and global prosperity, demonstrating that re alliances are
- 36:36Speaker 1: built on cooperation and contribution, not dependency. Finally, we want
- 36:41Speaker 1: Iran as a normal neighbor. It can be reclusive and
- 36:44Speaker 1: even unwelcoming, but it can't attack its neighbors, blockade international waters,
- 36:49Speaker 1: or export extremism. Building a fence around the problem and
- 36:53Speaker 1: wishing it goes away isn't the answer. It would simply
- 36:56Speaker 1: defer the next crisis. That is blunt blunt can get
- 37:01Speaker 1: that puts u AE in with US in Israel. Don't
- 37:05Speaker 1: you think it's time that Trump just resolves to finish
- 37:08Speaker 1: the job.
- 37:10Speaker 10: Sure, and I'm not I'm not certain that that he's
- 37:14Speaker 10: He doesn't feel the same way. You know, he's very
- 37:16Speaker 10: hard to read, to put it very mildly, and part
- 37:20Speaker 10: of my thinking here, my suspicion is that in his
- 37:26Speaker 10: announcing these very positive talks, suppose it talks with Iran,
- 37:33Speaker 10: is in sense some way of him demonstrating for the
- 37:37Speaker 10: world going to that he's going to get an unreasonable
- 37:43Speaker 10: response from the running regime that's going to reject diplomacy,
- 37:49Speaker 10: and that he will then have made a stronger case
- 37:53Speaker 10: for finishing the job after.
- 37:55Speaker 1: Now finishing the job. In my view, I don't think
- 37:57Speaker 1: we're going to send ground troops and in any sort
- 37:59Speaker 1: of maybe to secure this strait. I don't know. I'm
- 38:02Speaker 1: a civilian, but I do think it means taking out
- 38:06Speaker 1: their dual use power plants, taking out their oil refineries,
- 38:11Speaker 1: taking out their bridges and roads that allow command and
- 38:14Speaker 1: control the function. In other words, treating it like an
- 38:16Speaker 1: enemy in World War two, but with the precision that
- 38:19Speaker 1: can save civilian lives. Would you support that?
- 38:23Speaker 5: Oh?
- 38:24Speaker 3: Sure, I would support that. I mean I would probably
- 38:26Speaker 3: go farther. I mean, I think we should retrieve fistle material.
- 38:29Speaker 3: I think that would be a wise move.
- 38:32Speaker 1: And I think.
- 38:34Speaker 10: Then there's job finishing that goes beyond what America.
- 38:41Speaker 5: May be willing to put itself on the line.
- 38:43Speaker 10: For In other words, I'd be perfectly fine if we
- 38:45Speaker 10: left under the conditions that you describe. I'm very doubtful
- 38:50Speaker 10: that there wouldn't be some ongoing operations having to do
- 38:55Speaker 10: with Israel and the Masade and their coordination with.
- 38:59Speaker 3: The run people to actually overthrow the regime.
- 39:05Speaker 1: And I also but that's if we took out the
- 39:08Speaker 1: infrastructure and we said we had to do it. The
- 39:12Speaker 1: regime is irredeemable. They're promoting by the way, they're getting
- 39:14Speaker 1: old Irgc people off the bench. They're bringing it hardened
- 39:18Speaker 1: killers who had, you know, walked through minefields in the
- 39:21Speaker 1: Iraq Iran War. They're true believers, their fanatics. If we
- 39:25Speaker 1: just said we had to do it, We're sorry, America.
- 39:27Speaker 1: We spared as many lives. They will be bankrupt, they
- 39:30Speaker 1: will be out of gas, they will have no friends.
- 39:33Speaker 1: Isn't that the way to bring it down?
- 39:36Speaker 10: I think that's that's that's where that's the road we're
- 39:39Speaker 10: headed down. Yeah, and I think that that is exactly right.
- 39:42Speaker 1: Yeah, and should I think Republicans ought to just stand
- 39:46Speaker 1: up and say we support this, we want to pass
- 39:49Speaker 1: the Supplemental we are the party of Security and Defense,
- 39:52Speaker 1: and go into the November elections and let the Democrats
- 39:55Speaker 1: be in favor of leaving this evil regime in place.
- 40:00Speaker 5: Sure, I mean.
- 40:02Speaker 10: I have to admit I think part of the calculation
- 40:05Speaker 10: here on the administration's part is that maybe the midterms
- 40:08Speaker 10: are a lost cause anyway, So let's do what's necessary
- 40:14Speaker 10: and then we'll let the chips fall where they may.
- 40:18Speaker 10: If the war proceeds along the same lines that it's
- 40:21Speaker 10: been going up till now, I think it's going to
- 40:24Speaker 10: be the kind of situation where six months from now,
- 40:27Speaker 10: polls will show a large chunk of Americans saying, oh,
- 40:32Speaker 10: I was always for it.
- 40:34Speaker 1: I agree. But do you think President Trump understands this
- 40:37Speaker 1: is the most important month of his presidency in history's terms.
- 40:41Speaker 1: I think it is We're not going to go to
- 40:43Speaker 1: war with China if we can avoid it. I think
- 40:46Speaker 1: this is the month. Do you agree with that?
- 40:49Speaker 3: One hundred he's going all in on changing the world.
- 40:53Speaker 10: I think he's very cognizant of that, and I think
- 40:57Speaker 10: it's reflected in.
- 40:58Speaker 3: His demeanor, his behavior, the way he speaks. He is
- 41:04Speaker 3: not rattled.
- 41:05Speaker 10: He's unbelievably focused, and I think I think I think
- 41:10Speaker 10: he's you know, there's a lot of discomfort with Trump's
- 41:15Speaker 10: being murky about messaging and being contradictory about messaging, and
- 41:21Speaker 10: I have to say I've grown quite comfortable with it
- 41:23Speaker 10: because I think there's a good strategic reason for doing that,
- 41:26Speaker 10: and he's using that well.
- 41:28Speaker 1: I heard you say that today. I just said I
- 41:30Speaker 1: can't wait to talk to Ada. You're exactly right, Ed
- 41:33Speaker 1: Greenwald follo him on exit a Greenwald. Sign up for
- 41:36Speaker 1: the newsletter at commentary dot org and listen to the
- 41:39Speaker 1: podcast every day. You'll be smarter for it. Thank you,
- 41:42Speaker 1: a stay tuned, America. I'll be right back talking back, America.
- 41:49Speaker 1: I'm cue Hewitt. Early visit this week from Matt Continetti.
- 41:52Speaker 1: Matt is the head of Domestic Policy Studies at ai
- 41:56Speaker 1: SO also calumn is for the Wall Street Journal. He
- 41:58Speaker 1: has an excellent column in Today Journal entitled I Got
- 42:01Speaker 1: to get the title right. Get to the right page here.
- 42:04Speaker 1: Voters lose in congressional WrestleMania, and my favorite line in
- 42:08Speaker 1: it is Washington is too distracted by bitter infighting. It's
- 42:13Speaker 1: too busy imitating professional wrestling to address voters economic concerns.
- 42:19Speaker 1: Matt You're exactly right, you expect that's going to change
- 42:21Speaker 1: anytime soon.
- 42:24Speaker 3: Unfortunately not you.
- 42:25Speaker 11: I mean, we can just see what's happening on Capitol Hill,
- 42:29Speaker 11: where there seemed like there could be a deal to
- 42:31Speaker 11: open up the Department of Homeland Security and address the
- 42:36Speaker 11: pay lapses for TSA agents. But it seems like the
- 42:40Speaker 11: Democrats are getting cold feet. Why because they're so fearful
- 42:45Speaker 11: of their far left base, which despises ICE so much
- 42:50Speaker 11: that the Democrats are willing to impose costs on an
- 42:53Speaker 11: entirely different set of federal employees, the TSA agents, the Coastguard, FEMA,
- 43:00Speaker 11: all of whom are suffering because of this shutdown, while
- 43:03Speaker 11: ICE ironically is fully funded for years thanks to the
- 43:07Speaker 11: working Family's tax cut that was passed via reconciliation last year.
- 43:12Speaker 11: So this type of empty, gestural politics that we're witnessing
- 43:17Speaker 11: on Capitol Hill doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
- 43:21Speaker 1: It's a pretty damning piece. I recommend everyone go and
- 43:25Speaker 1: read it. But I also want to talk about the
- 43:27Speaker 1: world historical event that's unfolding. This war has the possibility
- 43:32Speaker 1: of taking off of the map the equal of any
- 43:35Speaker 1: evil regime on the world's map and a thorn in
- 43:39Speaker 1: the side of free people for forty seven years. First question,
- 43:42Speaker 1: do you think Americans realize how evil Iran is the regime?
- 43:48Speaker 1: I do?
- 43:49Speaker 5: I do.
- 43:50Speaker 11: I think that when you've looked at American public opinion
- 43:54Speaker 11: prior to the launch of Operation Epic Fury, Americans have
- 43:58Speaker 11: understood the Iranian regime for what it is. It's the
- 44:02Speaker 11: world's largest sponsor of terrorism. It's killed Americans, it's held
- 44:07Speaker 11: our people hostage, it's attacked our allies, it's oppressed its
- 44:12Speaker 11: own people. Now, the public opinion currently is I think,
- 44:17Speaker 11: refracted through the lens of Donald Trump. And so when
- 44:20Speaker 11: you see these polls saying that the public may be
- 44:23Speaker 11: divided on what we're doing right now in Iran, I
- 44:26Speaker 11: think you always have to read them with the view to, well,
- 44:29Speaker 11: how does the public feel about Donald Trump? And we
- 44:32Speaker 11: know that about half the country right now won't accept
- 44:35Speaker 11: anything that Donald Trump does, even if he is addressing
- 44:39Speaker 11: a longstanding threat to American national security, like he's doing
- 44:44Speaker 11: with our Israeli allies in Iran right.
- 44:47Speaker 1: Now now about twelve forty seven today, the Journal posted
- 44:50Speaker 1: an editorial by Ambassador Yusuf Alataiba from the United Arab
- 44:55Speaker 1: Emirates of the United States, one of the true professionals
- 44:58Speaker 1: in diplomacy inside the Beltway. In it, he basically the
- 45:02Speaker 1: subtitle says it all this war requires a conclusive outcome,
- 45:07Speaker 1: one that addresses Tehran's full range of threats. And I
- 45:11Speaker 1: recommend I read part of it to Abe Greenwald in
- 45:13Speaker 1: the last segment. And the bottom line is finish the
- 45:17Speaker 1: job Donald Trump. He doesn't say it explicitly, but that's
- 45:21Speaker 1: the message. Do you think the President has it in
- 45:23Speaker 1: him to finish the job? Oh?
- 45:27Speaker 3: I think he has it in him.
- 45:28Speaker 11: I think that he's hearing messages like Ambassador of Taibas
- 45:33Speaker 11: from other partners, including the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia NBS,
- 45:38Speaker 11: probably other Gulf states as well. We know that's the
- 45:41Speaker 11: message he's hearing from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan Yahoo.
- 45:45Speaker 5: So President Trump wants to hold out.
- 45:47Speaker 11: The possibility of a diplomatic resolution, but when you actually
- 45:52Speaker 11: look at what the Americans are asking of the Iranians,
- 45:57Speaker 11: it's nothing that the Iranians will accept because it's the
- 45:59Speaker 11: same thing that we've been offering earlier. And when you
- 46:03Speaker 11: look at what the Iranians are counteroffering the Americans. It's
- 46:07Speaker 11: nothing America would accept. I mean, it's absurd, but it
- 46:09Speaker 11: would involve US recognizing Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
- 46:15Speaker 11: It would involve US paying Iran reparations for the attack.
- 46:20Speaker 11: So I think while President Trump always holds out diplomacy
- 46:23Speaker 11: is an option, he recognizes the need for force, and
- 46:26Speaker 11: he also uses diplomacy sometimes as cover for putting our
- 46:31Speaker 11: forces in place. So I think it's very interesting that
- 46:34Speaker 11: the end of Trump's latest deadline for the Iranians to
- 46:38Speaker 11: agree to the diplomatic proposal will coincide with the arrival
- 46:42Speaker 11: of our marines and some of our components of the
- 46:45Speaker 11: eighty second Airborne into the region. So he may just be,
- 46:50Speaker 11: like earlier, playing out the diplomatic channel while he's putting
- 46:53Speaker 11: all of his forces in place for the next stage
- 46:56Speaker 11: at the conflict.
- 46:57Speaker 1: So how would you react, Matt Continent, Given that we
- 47:00Speaker 1: precision strike, we can blow up every bridge, we can
- 47:04Speaker 1: blow up every power plant, we can blow up every refinery,
- 47:08Speaker 1: bankrupt the regime so it cannot pay its forces. They
- 47:11Speaker 1: are not promoting moderates into these positions that are vacant
- 47:15Speaker 1: because of assassinations. They're pulling old IRGC people out of
- 47:19Speaker 1: the off the retirement rolls, off the bench and their killers.
- 47:25Speaker 1: So they're not gonna blink, They're not gonna change. Shouldn't
- 47:28Speaker 1: we reduce them to poverty before we throw ground trips
- 47:32Speaker 1: in there and then wait and see what happens. Well, Hugh, I.
- 47:37Speaker 11: Think we need to reduce the regime to poverty. What
- 47:40Speaker 11: I think that means is we need to take a
- 47:42Speaker 11: real hard look at the sources of revenue to the regime,
- 47:47Speaker 11: and that does mean their energy flows. And so that
- 47:50Speaker 11: does mean that not only do we need to get
- 47:52Speaker 11: the Strait of Harmuz open, create a channel for commercial
- 47:55Speaker 11: traffic free of Iranian threats, but we should also look
- 48:01Speaker 11: at stopping the Iranian ghost fleet, stopping their refining capacity.
- 48:06Speaker 11: I'd be reluctant to take measures that would affect the
- 48:09Speaker 11: Iranian civilian population because we're going to rely on that
- 48:12Speaker 11: civilian population to be the boots on the ground in
- 48:16Speaker 11: overthrowing the regime.
- 48:17Speaker 3: Eventually.
- 48:19Speaker 11: When I listen to the military experts like General Frank
- 48:22Speaker 11: Mackenzie or Admiral Mark Montgomery on your program, it seems
- 48:26Speaker 11: to me that the military has a war plan in place,
- 48:30Speaker 11: and one that they have been pursuing very effectively, and
- 48:34Speaker 11: that probably has two to three more weeks left in
- 48:37Speaker 11: it before all of our military objectives are complete. I
- 48:41Speaker 11: trust General Kin, I trust Admiral Cooper, I trust our
- 48:46Speaker 11: US fighting men and women to pursue that plan, and
- 48:49Speaker 11: I think at the end of it will have a
- 48:51Speaker 11: very good outcome, so long as we don't abandon the
- 48:54Speaker 11: effort before all of our objectives are complete.
- 48:57Speaker 1: Well, I would follow through on their target list, but
- 49:00Speaker 1: before we called it a day and sailed away with
- 49:04Speaker 1: a straight open and their ability to blackmail US reduced,
- 49:09Speaker 1: I would darken the place because I think it would
- 49:11Speaker 1: assist the Iranian people and frame themselves if the agents
- 49:14Speaker 1: of repression don't have the internet or energy. Last word
- 49:18Speaker 1: to you, Matt.
- 49:20Speaker 11: I agree, and I think that just points to the
- 49:22Speaker 11: fact that even when the bombs stop dropping, Hugh America
- 49:26Speaker 11: will still have a role to play. The people haven't
- 49:29Speaker 11: taken to the streets yet, but when they do, they're
- 49:32Speaker 11: going to need our support. That's why Trump sent help
- 49:35Speaker 11: in the first place. So when they do go out
- 49:38Speaker 11: on the streets, we need to be prepared to help
- 49:40Speaker 11: them finally overthrow this regime.
- 49:43Speaker 1: Well said, By the way, if they do that, I
- 49:45Speaker 1: believe that will make up a lot of ground in politics.
- 49:48Speaker 1: But more importantly, from history's perspective, this is Donald Trump's
- 49:53Speaker 1: big moment. Last do you agree with that, Matt. It's
- 49:56Speaker 1: his big moment. It's his moment.
- 50:01Speaker 11: Like he told the Atlantic, this is his time to
- 50:03Speaker 11: run the country in the world, and he's changing the
- 50:05Speaker 11: world in extraordinary ways. You know, it's so funny, Hugh,
- 50:08Speaker 11: quickly remember she Jenping said that the world was going
- 50:11Speaker 11: to see things that hadn't seen in one hundred years. Well,
- 50:13Speaker 11: he was half right, except it's Donald Trump that's making
- 50:16Speaker 11: those things happen.
- 50:18Speaker 1: Well said Matt Connetty follow him on exit continent. He
- 50:21Speaker 1: read his peaches in the Wall Street Journal and over Ady,
- 50:24Speaker 1: I thank you, Matt, coming right back with Congressman Fluger.
- 50:27Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Welcome back America.
- 50:34Speaker 1: I'm he Hewett. I spend most of my time on
- 50:36Speaker 1: the war, but once in a while I sneak in
- 50:38Speaker 1: someone who does a little bit of policy, including Representative
- 50:41Speaker 1: Andy Vlueger from Texas. He's the chairman of the Republican
- 50:44Speaker 1: Study Committee and August. Excuse me, I say, Andy, I'm sorry, August.
- 50:48Speaker 1: And you gave a speech on X that I saw
- 50:52Speaker 1: talking about the Democrats and the shutdown of Deehat. Do
- 50:57Speaker 1: you think that issue is going to last Congressman through
- 51:00Speaker 1: to the fall.
- 51:03Speaker 9: Well, I mean, my Democrat colleagues on the Homeland Committee said, well,
- 51:08Speaker 9: let me tell you.
- 51:08Speaker 3: Why we got here. We got here.
- 51:10Speaker 9: Because ICE agents were taking illegal aliens out of the country.
- 51:14Speaker 9: And you know, the narrative is just that they were
- 51:18Speaker 9: very emotional about it, and I just had to refute that.
- 51:21Speaker 9: I said, No, the reason we got here is because
- 51:23Speaker 9: we're cleaning up a mess where ten million illegal aliens
- 51:25Speaker 9: have come into this country under Joe Biden's presidency, which
- 51:28Speaker 9: was a complete disaster. And I said, not a single
- 51:30Speaker 9: Democrat had any sympathy for Joscelyn nunger A's parents or
- 51:34Speaker 9: for Lake and Riley's parents, who were both tragically murdered
- 51:37Speaker 9: by illegal aliens. That's the reason we're here. And now
- 51:40Speaker 9: you're unwilling, even with an open border policy that was
- 51:43Speaker 9: completely disastrous, you're unwilling to support TSA agents, Coast guardsmen,
- 51:48Speaker 9: Border patrol or ICE to just do their job to
- 51:50Speaker 9: keep our country safe, even though we heard testimony today
- 51:53Speaker 9: saying the terror threat on our American airlines is still high.
- 51:58Speaker 3: So it's very shameful.
- 51:59Speaker 5: And it's try that we're in this situation.
- 52:01Speaker 9: And yes, I don't think that this issue is going
- 52:03Speaker 9: to continue to be an issue that defines the Democrats
- 52:05Speaker 9: of who they are.
- 52:07Speaker 1: I think Republicans have taken back the party of Defense
- 52:12Speaker 1: and deterrence, and I think seriousness. How about a reconciliation bill,
- 52:17Speaker 1: a second process that funds depending on supplemental times too,
- 52:22Speaker 1: given whatever they want in times to, and then funds
- 52:25Speaker 1: DHS through the end of the Trump term so we
- 52:27Speaker 1: don't have to deal with this insanity. I mean, there
- 52:29Speaker 1: are has been lots of leaper sells. I was in
- 52:31Speaker 1: the government a long time ago. I know there are
- 52:33Speaker 1: a lot of bad guys. How about just using reconciliation
- 52:36Speaker 1: to get the garment working again?
- 52:39Speaker 9: Well, Hugh, as you know, I chair the Republican Study
- 52:41Speaker 9: Committee one hundred and ninety members. We've been pushing for
- 52:44Speaker 9: reconciliation for months now, and we are certainly open to
- 52:48Speaker 9: a defense supplemental in DHS funding, but I think it
- 52:51Speaker 9: needs to be more than that. You know, Democrats have
- 52:53Speaker 9: obstructed passing anything. If President Trump cured cancer, they would
- 52:58Speaker 9: vote against it. And that's the trage nature of where
- 53:01Speaker 9: we are.
- 53:01Speaker 3: So we have to.
- 53:02Speaker 9: Codify the rest of President Trump's agenda, and reconciliation is
- 53:06Speaker 9: the mechanism by which we can do this. So, yes,
- 53:08Speaker 9: we can certainly include defense supplemental and DHS funding, but
- 53:12Speaker 9: I don't think that can be the sole focus of this.
- 53:15Speaker 1: When's it get started? What frustrates me because I don't
- 53:18Speaker 1: want to lose the midterms. I don't think it's an inevitability.
- 53:21Speaker 1: I certainly don't think losing the Senate's an inevitability. But
- 53:24Speaker 1: you got to do something. What are we waiting for?
- 53:27Speaker 9: Well, you're speaking my language. This is exactly what we
- 53:30Speaker 9: have been pushing through the RSC.
- 53:33Speaker 3: Let's go. We did such a good job through.
- 53:36Speaker 9: One big, beautiful bill of identifying so many of Joe
- 53:39Speaker 9: Biden's errors and the things that he caused pain and
- 53:42Speaker 9: suffering to every American family with. But there is more
- 53:47Speaker 9: work to be done, you know, and our constituents want
- 53:49Speaker 9: to know that we can unify even with a one
- 53:51Speaker 9: seat majority. We can and we will unify. And this
- 53:54Speaker 9: is why we have been moving with the sense of urgency.
- 53:57Speaker 9: RSC with one hundred ninety members has come together and
- 53:59Speaker 9: so we want to do this. I know the Speaker
- 54:02Speaker 9: is in favor of it. Let's put the items on
- 54:04Speaker 9: the board that we think we can accomplish. That include
- 54:08Speaker 9: housing affordability, healthcare affordability, energy affordability, but now probably also
- 54:15Speaker 9: need to include national security and defense items.
- 54:19Speaker 1: So when does that decision get made? Congressman further, when
- 54:23Speaker 1: does somebody say the starting gun goes off?
- 54:29Speaker 9: Well, I think the starting gun has gone off, and
- 54:31Speaker 9: there are many of us who are working on this,
- 54:34Speaker 9: and I know Chairman and Jody Arrington is extremely motivated
- 54:38Speaker 9: as the Budget Committee chair to move this. So I
- 54:40Speaker 9: think the starting gun has gone off, and we as
- 54:43Speaker 9: a conference we'll be looking at a lot of the
- 54:46Speaker 9: proposals and making those recommendations to Speaker Johnson asap.
- 54:51Speaker 1: Okay, So last question, how long does it take once
- 54:54Speaker 1: the Budget Committee gets the work, gets a budget, gets
- 54:58Speaker 1: it over to the Senate and they agree, and then
- 55:00Speaker 1: you got to go to the authorizing committees and the
- 55:02Speaker 1: Committee of Jurisdiction. How long until we could see that
- 55:05Speaker 1: get through Because if that arrived in June or July,
- 55:08Speaker 1: it could change the dynamic in the fall.
- 55:12Speaker 9: Well, certainly, and that's the goal I think you just
- 55:14Speaker 9: nailed it is. This has to arrive no later than
- 55:17Speaker 9: June July timeframe. This is a two minute drill. You know,
- 55:20Speaker 9: the one Big Beautiful Bill was really more of the
- 55:25Speaker 9: long game, and we had some time on our side
- 55:28Speaker 9: to get that done by the July fourth date that
- 55:30Speaker 9: we set last year. But this is a two minute drill.
- 55:33Speaker 9: It's more compact and narrow. The focus will be narrower.
- 55:36Speaker 9: So you know, you just nailed it. I mean, we
- 55:39Speaker 9: have to get this passed no later than July, and
- 55:42Speaker 9: it will have an impact because those policies will come
- 55:44Speaker 9: into play and American families will benefit from all of them,
- 55:48Speaker 9: and our nation will be safer and more secure as
- 55:51Speaker 9: a result of us continuing to work. We're not done
- 55:53Speaker 9: and we're going to continue to fight every single day.
- 55:56Speaker 1: Well, bravo on your floor remarks, and we're floor remarks
- 56:00Speaker 1: behind a podium with other members, and I thought, well done,
- 56:03Speaker 1: August Bleuler, Thank you so much, Congressman. Keep pushing the RSC,
- 56:08Speaker 1: to keep pushing the leadership, to keep pushing reconciliation because
- 56:11Speaker 1: we need it. Don't go anywhere in America. I'm coming
- 56:13Speaker 1: right back on the hu Human Show. Welcome Back America.
- 56:19Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by Josh Krashauwer, editor in
- 56:22Speaker 1: chief of Jewish Insider. Josh from your thirty thousand foot perspective,
- 56:27Speaker 1: how goes the war?
- 56:30Speaker 12: Well, look, it does seem like the Trump administration is
- 56:34Speaker 12: trying to negotiate diplomatically with Iran and through back channels.
- 56:39Speaker 12: Apparently it doesn't seem like Iran is receptive. From the
- 56:43Speaker 12: looks of this fifteen point plan that was proposed, it
- 56:46Speaker 12: looks like it's very similar to what was introduced to
- 56:49Speaker 12: the Iranians before the war, and like was the case
- 56:53Speaker 12: before the war, Iran has rejected it. So, you know,
- 56:55Speaker 12: I don't think I think there is some domestic political
- 56:58Speaker 12: pressure that Trump has faced, especially when it comes to
- 57:01Speaker 12: higher gas prices. But when it comes to the military
- 57:04Speaker 12: uh landscape, Look, I think the US and Israel are
- 57:08Speaker 12: accomplishing things ahead of schedule and are actually achieving, as
- 57:11Speaker 12: we've talked about on this show, a lot of their
- 57:13Speaker 12: military objectives. The challenge though, is number one, the straight
- 57:17Speaker 12: up wore moves and and and figuring out how to uh,
- 57:21Speaker 12: you know, deal with that and clear clear up the shipping,
- 57:24Speaker 12: and that may take uh, you know, more military action
- 57:28Speaker 12: to do so, more more military assets, more UH personnel
- 57:32Speaker 12: in the region. So that's a big, big, big wild
- 57:35Speaker 12: card going forward. And I also think, you know, we're
- 57:38Speaker 12: still seeing Israel being being in the Goal Skulf States
- 57:41Speaker 12: as well, facing UH military or sorry ballistic missile attacks
- 57:45Speaker 12: day in, day out. And and the question is, you know,
- 57:47Speaker 12: how many how much more of the launchers and the
- 57:51Speaker 12: missiles does I Ran have and how long is there
- 57:54Speaker 12: is there is there a the stockpile gonna last for.
- 57:59Speaker 1: Now, Josh. About three hours ago, Ambassador actually an hour
- 58:04Speaker 1: and a half ago, Ambassador Yusef Alan Taiba from the
- 58:07Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates to the United States posted published over
- 58:11Speaker 1: at the Wall Street Journal a column the UAE stands
- 58:15Speaker 1: up to Iran. This war requires a conclusive outcome, one
- 58:19Speaker 1: that addresses to Tehran's full range of threats. Points out
- 58:22Speaker 1: the UAE has been on the receiving end of twenty
- 58:25Speaker 1: and eighty missiles, drones, rockets, you name it, and they've
- 58:30Speaker 1: had it. I think that is a sign that the
- 58:33Speaker 1: Golf allies are going to go over from being merely
- 58:35Speaker 1: on the defensive, but to the offensive, and that the
- 58:38Speaker 1: endgame's got to be the regime's got to go.
- 58:41Speaker 12: What do you think, Well, yeah, not just usfl a
- 58:47Speaker 12: little tibo who wrote that in the Wall Street Journal today,
- 58:49Speaker 12: but we also saw the New York Times report you
- 58:52Speaker 12: yesterday that the Saudis have urged Donald Trump and the
- 58:57Speaker 12: administration to continue all to continue to fight militarily to
- 59:03Speaker 12: get rid of the noxious regime in Iran. And then
- 59:07Speaker 12: and I think they are much more concerned, frankly, that
- 59:11Speaker 12: that there could be some remnant left in place and
- 59:14Speaker 12: would still pose a threat, an ongoing threat to the
- 59:17Speaker 12: Gulf states, their economies, and and and and their way
- 59:19Speaker 12: of life. The the you know, I think the the
- 59:22Speaker 12: Amoradi ambassador to the US, I think, in that column
- 59:24Speaker 12: put it put it pretty well. He said, building a
- 59:26Speaker 12: frience around the problem and wishing it goes away isn't
- 59:29Speaker 12: the answer. It simply defers the next crisis. So if anything,
- 59:33Speaker 12: and you know, you look at the where the UA
- 59:35Speaker 12: in Saudi was before the war and where they are now.
- 59:37Speaker 12: They're they're much more supportive of of the military action.
- 59:40Speaker 12: They're not uh eager for it to end right now.
- 59:43Speaker 12: They want more, more accomplishments on the battlefield, and they
- 59:47Speaker 12: really have actually said that they would like to see
- 59:51Speaker 12: a different regime in Iran, and so that that's a
- 59:53Speaker 12: very notable comment from two of the closest golf state
- 59:57Speaker 12: allies of the of the US.
- 59:59Speaker 1: Now, I expect hutis are going to get involved here
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: pretty soon, and the Iranians sort of suggested that today
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: because the people that they're replacing the dead leadership with
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: are veterans of the IRGC who had basically retired, but
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: they're hard killers who are seventy years old, fought in
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: the Iran I Rock War, part of the Revolutionary Guard.
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: The original Solomani could force kind of harden those guys.
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: They're never going to change, Josh, do you think that's
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: the correct assessment. They don't know how to be normal.
- 1:00:33Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, I think that is the correct assessment.
- 1:00:34Speaker 12: And intendidly like that's what a lot of the people
- 1:00:36Speaker 12: who are a little more wary about the military operation
- 1:00:39Speaker 12: had worried about, which is that you could get rid
- 1:00:41Speaker 12: of some of the top leaders, as the US Israel
- 1:00:43Speaker 12: operation has done, but you still have layers and layers
- 1:00:47Speaker 12: of IERGC and besiege and other you know, you know,
- 1:00:51Speaker 12: parts of the regime that are have every incentive to fight,
- 1:00:55Speaker 12: fight till the death because otherwise, you know, they're they're
- 1:00:58Speaker 12: every every benefit they've had since the nineteen seventy nine
- 1:01:01Speaker 12: revolution is going to go away. So you know, this
- 1:01:04Speaker 12: is you know, you've seen mixed reported on this, but
- 1:01:08Speaker 12: you know, I think the initial notion that that you
- 1:01:10Speaker 12: could easily with air strikes degrade and get rid of
- 1:01:14Speaker 12: the regime is proving to be a little too optimistic,
- 1:01:16Speaker 12: and it's probably gonna take you know, not only longer
- 1:01:20Speaker 12: military action, but perhaps boots on the ground if they
- 1:01:22Speaker 12: do want to achieve those ends, which I'm not sure
- 1:01:24Speaker 12: if the US really wants to go that far, but there.
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: Are boots on the ground. Before we go to boots
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: on the ground, though, we can destroy their oil production.
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: The UAE can seize their money, so can Bahrain. The
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: port facilities can be destroyed, and indeed the power plant
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: in Tehran, bridges can be blown out. All sorts of
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: stuff can be done that doesn't involve boots on the air.
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: It hurts the Iranian population short term, but the regime can't.
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: It's a zombie regime already. Take away their oil and
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: got nothing. Should we do that?
- 1:02:04Speaker 12: Well, I think the Trump administration has shown that they
- 1:02:07Speaker 12: are wary at least we've what we've seen in the
- 1:02:09Speaker 12: last few days of actually destroying energy facilities that could
- 1:02:12Speaker 12: actually hurt not just the people of Iran and then
- 1:02:15Speaker 12: their ability to you know, the economy that totally and
- 1:02:20Speaker 12: you know, in the economy of the regime so to speak,
- 1:02:22Speaker 12: but it could also affect the global oil market. And
- 1:02:24Speaker 12: you see that the Trump administration has been very receptive
- 1:02:27Speaker 12: and very you know, concerned about the domestic political pressures
- 1:02:30Speaker 12: back home about rising gas prices. So you know, I
- 1:02:32Speaker 12: think that was certainly an option that was that was floated.
- 1:02:35Speaker 12: But that was also when when Israel hit an energy
- 1:02:38Speaker 12: facility of about a week ago, and the US apparently
- 1:02:41Speaker 12: was supportive.
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: Of it, but.
- 1:02:44Speaker 12: They quickly backtracked when it turned out to affect the
- 1:02:48Speaker 12: world market globally. So you know, I think a lot
- 1:02:50Speaker 12: of sensitivities about the economy, and that's that's affecting the
- 1:02:53Speaker 12: strategy here against Ran.
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: There is but last word to you, at some point,
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: if the objective is to get this regime collapsed, if
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: they haven't collapsed after pages one through fourteen, don't we
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: up there. We can't leave them there? Do you agree
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: with me about that? You cannot leave them in place?
- 1:03:12Speaker 12: Look at the very least, at least in me is
- 1:03:14Speaker 12: really perspective.
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: There's they want to wipe out.
- 1:03:17Speaker 12: The missile launchers, the ballistic missiles, and I think the
- 1:03:20Speaker 12: next most important thing is getting rid of the nuclear material.
- 1:03:25Speaker 12: That may also require some special operation forces to do that.
- 1:03:29Speaker 12: So there may need to be more more you know,
- 1:03:31Speaker 12: more more assets or more you know, military personnel in
- 1:03:35Speaker 12: the in the region to handle some of the operational goals.
- 1:03:38Speaker 12: But I think you know, they've done a lot and
- 1:03:41Speaker 12: the question is what is the timeline going forward?
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: I hope they do a lot more. Josh croush Houer,
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: thank you. Follow them on Act Josh crash Hower. Read
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: him at Jewish Insider. Stay tuned. I'm coming back and
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: the Ready Gore next hour on the Huge Hewitt Show.
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: Here on the Shale, you've heard me talk a lot
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- 1:05:11Speaker 1: Mothers walk miles for clean water. Children are exposed to
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- 1:06:07Speaker 1: And thank you Lauren and Etangrace America. I'm Hugh Hewett
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: has promised Aviv Reta Gore is back. He is the
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: Middle East correspondent for The Free Press. He's also the
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: host of Ask Kaviv Anything. And if you ever join
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: a Patreon community, this is the Patreon community to join Heviv,
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: thank you for joining with me today. I got a
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: lot to talk to you about. But I'm sort of
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: glad we missed a couple of times earlier this week
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: because I got to hear the episode with Professor schufton today,
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: so that added to my list. Can you first tell
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: people about the Patreon community and why they want to
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: be a part of it?
- 1:06:39Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks you, I appreciate it very much. We have
- 1:06:42Speaker 7: a podcast that's trying to teach this region, trying to
- 1:06:45Speaker 7: teach the history of the region of Israelis and Palestinians,
- 1:06:48Speaker 7: of the big ideas that drive the Iranian regime. For example,
- 1:06:52Speaker 7: it's not just a bunch of crazy people. They're big
- 1:06:54Speaker 7: and profound and serious ideas, and they're generations old. And
- 1:06:58Speaker 7: when you really understand that, you begin to be able
- 1:07:00Speaker 7: to really understand policy better, why they respond.
- 1:07:03Speaker 5: The way they respond, why they can take.
- 1:07:05Speaker 7: Catastrophic levels of damage and still hold out. Right, that
- 1:07:08Speaker 7: was an episode I did before the war began. The
- 1:07:11Speaker 7: bombs are are not going to fellow this regime, and
- 1:07:14Speaker 7: if you understand why, you also begin to understand what
- 1:07:16Speaker 7: will fill this regime, what kinds of narratives, what kinds
- 1:07:19Speaker 7: of strategies will So that's what it's about. And the
- 1:07:22Speaker 7: Patreon community was just a way to keep the lights on,
- 1:07:25Speaker 7: you know. It's a way to pay five dollars a
- 1:07:26Speaker 7: month and help us fund this thing. We are five
- 1:07:29Speaker 7: salaries at this point. We try and have fact checkers
- 1:07:32Speaker 7: and things like that, and it turned into a real community.
- 1:07:36Speaker 7: There are forums there, people are discussing, people are sharing
- 1:07:39Speaker 7: studies they pull from all over the internet, and I
- 1:07:42Speaker 7: have learned a lot and people ask questions that then
- 1:07:45Speaker 7: guide our future episodes.
- 1:07:47Speaker 5: So it's a new world.
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: You know.
- 1:07:50Speaker 7: I grew up in print journalism and this is a
- 1:07:52Speaker 7: whole new world, and it's kind of wonderful.
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: It is kind of wonderful, especially if you have a
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: war going on and run up to a war and
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: it will at war for two and a half years.
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: The United States has been at war for one day
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: and then now we're in day twenty six. Let me
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: begin with the big broad question, how do you assess
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: the war that began on ten to seven? How is
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: that war going? That means all of it?
- 1:08:19Speaker 7: On ten seven, Israel went to war against an idea,
- 1:08:26Speaker 7: not against a specific militia, even though that specific militia
- 1:08:30Speaker 7: is absolutely our enemy. It wants to murder my children,
- 1:08:33Speaker 7: it says so every day. You have to be a
- 1:08:35Speaker 7: very particular kind of Western ideologue not to hear it
- 1:08:38Speaker 7: when it's their fundamental idea.
- 1:08:40Speaker 5: We certainly went to war with Kamas, but.
- 1:08:42Speaker 3: We looked around them.
- 1:08:42Speaker 7: We said, wait a second, how could Kamas want this
- 1:08:45Speaker 7: war in Gonza? What is the meaning of these tunnels?
- 1:08:48Speaker 7: This the biggest tunnel system in the history of war,
- 1:08:51Speaker 7: I mean, just the most comprehensive system that the only
- 1:08:55Speaker 7: the means that the only way to get to Kamas
- 1:08:57Speaker 7: is to go through Palestinian cities, is to blow up
- 1:09:00Speaker 7: entire regions in order to blow up what is, by
- 1:09:04Speaker 7: far I mean fivefold the next biggest military tunnel system.
- 1:09:08Speaker 7: It's the biggest thing Palestinians have ever built. And Hamas
- 1:09:11Speaker 7: spent Gaza's entire economy for fifteen years on building it.
- 1:09:14Speaker 7: And so this is the war, this war, this way
- 1:09:17Speaker 7: that Gaza looks, This was what Kamas planned, This was
- 1:09:20Speaker 7: what it would take to get Kamas out of those tunnels,
- 1:09:22Speaker 7: and it wasn't enough to get Ramas out of those tunnels.
- 1:09:25Speaker 5: And critiques are all all you want.
- 1:09:27Speaker 7: I think it's really important to critique wars. And this
- 1:09:29Speaker 7: was a war food in an urban environment with civilian
- 1:09:32Speaker 7: dead in the many thousands, So this is not But
- 1:09:35Speaker 7: my point is a strategic tactical on how will Tramas
- 1:09:38Speaker 7: possibly want plan build a war in which the only
- 1:09:43Speaker 7: possibility for the enemy coming for you? After you commit
- 1:09:46Speaker 7: a massacre like that and announced many times since October seven,
- 1:09:49Speaker 7: then you will commit it again and again and will
- 1:09:51Speaker 7: never not commit it.
- 1:09:52Speaker 5: But the enemy is going to come for you.
- 1:09:54Speaker 7: And then you build this tunnel system. And then in
- 1:09:56Speaker 7: two and a half years of war, after building what
- 1:09:59Speaker 7: is basically the most common brandsive bomb shelter system in
- 1:10:01Speaker 7: the history of war, not letting a single gusen child
- 1:10:04Speaker 7: into it for two and a half years, what is that?
- 1:10:07Speaker 7: How do you understand these things? Assume that Kamas isn't
- 1:10:10Speaker 7: stupid or crazy. Assume that it's normative. Real thoughtful human
- 1:10:13Speaker 7: beings live in a certain world and are responding to
- 1:10:17Speaker 7: how they see the world. And it turns out that
- 1:10:20Speaker 7: the idea driving Khamas.
- 1:10:21Speaker 5: Is this particular idea.
- 1:10:23Speaker 3: It's called in Arabic the mukalama.
- 1:10:25Speaker 7: It translates into resistance in English, but that doesn't describe
- 1:10:29Speaker 7: what the word means. What the word means in Arabic
- 1:10:31Speaker 7: is something much much bigger. It's a kind of mass
- 1:10:34Speaker 7: martyrdom ideology in which Muslim thinkers, over the last century
- 1:10:39Speaker 7: and a half I've tried to explain why Islam is
- 1:10:42Speaker 7: so far behind the West. And one of the streams
- 1:10:45Speaker 7: that come out of this conversation between theologians and political
- 1:10:49Speaker 7: leaders has been this stream called the Muslim brothers, or
- 1:10:52Speaker 7: the Solophists, or the basically Jihadi radicals, however you call them.
- 1:10:56Speaker 7: Is this stream that says, we are very weak, but
- 1:10:59Speaker 7: our weakness is a kind kind of purity. The Westerners
- 1:11:02Speaker 7: are very powerful, but that makes them also arrogant. The
- 1:11:04Speaker 7: we can humble or closer to God by definition, and
- 1:11:08Speaker 7: so God will intercede on our behalf. How do we
- 1:11:10Speaker 7: get God to intercede on our behalf in the great
- 1:11:12Speaker 7: civilization of war against the arrogant, powerful West. Martyrdom, sacrifice,
- 1:11:18Speaker 7: mass martyrdom, and sacrifice that demonstrates our faith, that brings
- 1:11:22Speaker 7: God into history in intertwo intervene and allows us to
- 1:11:25Speaker 7: defeat the great powers of the West. This is the
- 1:11:27Speaker 7: animating idea behind the Iranian regime. Pomani, the founder of
- 1:11:33Speaker 7: this regime, talked about the Musta the fiend, the humble,
- 1:11:35Speaker 7: defeating the Musta Kamilian, the powerful, the arrogant, and explicitly
- 1:11:40Speaker 7: explained that martyrdom was the path that closes that gap
- 1:11:44Speaker 7: between weak and powerful. It's a way of thinking about
- 1:11:47Speaker 7: the world and instead of looking at the West as
- 1:11:49Speaker 7: a kind of successful best practice right democracies, it turns
- 1:11:53Speaker 7: out build better economies, stronger political systems, more stability. When
- 1:11:58Speaker 7: you're switching out your leader every years, you tend to
- 1:12:01Speaker 7: be a more stable political system than when you're just
- 1:12:03Speaker 7: a bunch of tyrants who inherit from each other all
- 1:12:05Speaker 7: of these best practices the West brought. Instead of that
- 1:12:08Speaker 7: being the secret to the West's power and success and
- 1:12:11Speaker 7: scientific advancement, it's a way of saying, actually, none of
- 1:12:16Speaker 7: that is true. All we're all living through a kind
- 1:12:18Speaker 7: of mystical religious situation. And if we just are willing
- 1:12:21Speaker 7: to die enough and to have our people die enough,
- 1:12:24Speaker 7: and that's how you, then we win, and that's how
- 1:12:26Speaker 7: you and the victory is a religious victory, and that's
- 1:12:28Speaker 7: how you produce a ramas that plans the destruction of
- 1:12:33Speaker 7: Gaza as its foundational strategy and force multiplier. And we
- 1:12:37Speaker 7: looked around the region and that on October eighth and
- 1:12:41Speaker 7: we said, well, that's Risbalah Krasbela is absolutely willing to
- 1:12:45Speaker 7: have leban Un destroyed in the Great War to defeat
- 1:12:47Speaker 7: the arrogant Israeli power Western power, which is how they
- 1:12:51Speaker 7: frame it, and that's Iran. Iran talks about us as
- 1:12:55Speaker 7: the little Satan, and America is the big Satan. It's
- 1:12:58Speaker 7: not that it hates America because America supports Israel. It
- 1:13:02Speaker 7: hates Israel because it sees Israel.
- 1:13:04Speaker 5: As part of America. I know there's America is the
- 1:13:06Speaker 5: thing it hates most and first.
- 1:13:08Speaker 3: And most profoundly.
- 1:13:09Speaker 5: And if people want to understand why, you.
- 1:13:12Speaker 7: Have to go to Ali Shariati.
- 1:13:14Speaker 5: That's the name to google, and.
- 1:13:15Speaker 7: You will discover a kind of Marxist theoretician who melded
- 1:13:19Speaker 7: Shia eschatology with Marxist ideas in the nineteen sixties and
- 1:13:22Speaker 7: seventies and was Folmani's great teacher on these issues. And
- 1:13:27Speaker 7: so they see us as that and they're coming for us,
- 1:13:29Speaker 7: and they're undeterrible because they believe that martyrdom is strength,
- 1:13:33Speaker 7: and if you have an enemy that is literally willing
- 1:13:35Speaker 7: to burn their own society to the ground on the
- 1:13:37Speaker 7: altar of the destruction of you, because they believe God
- 1:13:40Speaker 7: has decreed it. There's no deterrence, it's literally undeterable, and
- 1:13:44Speaker 7: there's no peace and there's no compromise.
- 1:13:47Speaker 5: You actually have to defeat this enemy, the Nazis.
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: And have to be defeated. Now, for twenty years, maybe seventeen,
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: I've been telling people they need to read Lawrence Writes
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: The Looming Tower to understand Sunni extremism and Katube and
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: the Muslim Brotherhood. After you did episode ninety three, which
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: is your two and a half hour extravaganza on resistance
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: theology on the Shia side, then you followed it up
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: with episode ninety nine, which is the one hour version.
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: I went and found a book entitled Iran's Grand Strategy
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: of Political History by Valley Nasser, who's at Johns Hopkins
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, and it's
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: really good, and it's sort of a slower version for
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: readers or listeners of what ninety three and ninety nine do,
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: but I was able to understand it. Are you familiar
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: with that book?
- 1:14:41Speaker 3: I haven't read it. I know of its existence. I
- 1:14:44Speaker 3: really ought to read it.
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: It makes the same point, so you do about maybe
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: in a little less judgmental, a little more academic approach,
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: but yours is more entertaining, and it made this a
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: lot more understandable when you have we have two enemies
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: Sunny fundamentalism, Wahabist extremes, a mal Kaita and the Iranian regime,
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: and they sometimes work together. And then you get a Asarkali
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: who will sometimes try and just go right after the
- 1:15:11Speaker 1: Shia throat. There is no alternative except to destroy the
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: Iranian regime. That's what John Fetterman said yesterday. Is there
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: an alternative other than destroying the Iranian regime?
- 1:15:25Speaker 7: The idea has to die, it doesn't you know if
- 1:15:29Speaker 7: you can't literally destroy the regime, Because if I'm saying,
- 1:15:32Speaker 7: because for forty seven years, this regime has literally succeeded
- 1:15:35Speaker 7: at nothing, built, nothing developed, nothing driven one of the
- 1:15:39Speaker 7: wealthiest countries in the world naturally in terms of both
- 1:15:42Speaker 7: human intelligence and in terms of hydrocarbon reserves, has driven
- 1:15:46Speaker 7: its economy.
- 1:15:47Speaker 5: Into the ground.
- 1:15:48Speaker 7: So this is a regime that has done nothing but
- 1:15:51Speaker 7: destroy every part of Iranian society. That could possibly have
- 1:15:54Speaker 7: built out any kind of power center to.
- 1:15:57Speaker 3: Oppose the regime.
- 1:15:57Speaker 7: There's simply no one organized any on an Iranian society.
- 1:16:01Speaker 7: The Iranians made sure of it. Who could resist, who
- 1:16:04Speaker 7: could organize against this regime. So maybe the regime can't fall.
- 1:16:07Speaker 7: But we don't actually need the institutions to fall. What
- 1:16:10Speaker 7: we need is the idea to die, the idea that
- 1:16:14Speaker 7: says we must destroy Israel on the path to destroying
- 1:16:17Speaker 7: America in all of the arrogant West in order for
- 1:16:20Speaker 7: Islam to be redeemed. And along the way, it's okay
- 1:16:22Speaker 7: if the entire Iranian people chokes to death on our
- 1:16:25Speaker 7: tyranny and on our incompetence, that.
- 1:16:27Speaker 5: Idea, and we found some prospects of the military of.
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: The wrong, but pause for a moment. Of that idea
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: has to die. We'll come back. I don't know what
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: happened when the music came up. You got modeled there,
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: But we'll come back and fix that. Stay tuned in America.
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: I'm here Hewett. You're watching the Here Hewitt Show on
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: the Fail New Channel. Welcome back to America. My guess
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: is a vive Rettick Gore. He is the host of
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: Ask evive anything. It's also the Middle East. Corresponding for
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: the Free Press. Follow him on ex Ataviv, redig Gore
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: and join his patroon. You'll think that's the best. And
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: five dollars a month you spent Haviva before he went
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: to break. You said the idea has to die. I
- 1:17:12Speaker 1: hope it does. But in the meantime there are a
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: two front war going on. The latest battle ten seven
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: led to a battle in Gaza. There was a battle
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: in Lebanon and Hesba Lah. Now there's a battle over
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: the skies of Iran and there's a battle in southern Lebanon.
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: How do you assess those two battles? Just like World
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: War Two had many fronts and many battles. Some were
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: terrible Tarawa, some were the Marianas Turkey shoot, others were
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: really risky Normandy. We've got two right now, Israel in
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: southern Lebanon, and Israel and American maybe the UAE and
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: maybe Saudi Arabia joining in over the skies of Iran.
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: How do you assess both of those battles and their
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: immediate objectives not against the idea but against the regime's power.
- 1:17:57Speaker 7: If you understand this war as a war against an
- 1:18:00Speaker 7: ideological front, it's going astonishingly well. If you want to
- 1:18:05Speaker 7: pick apart every single individual battle, it's going fairly astonishingly
- 1:18:09Speaker 7: well in military terms. I don't know about political terms.
- 1:18:11Speaker 7: Israel certainly hated among many parts of the world right now.
- 1:18:15Speaker 7: Some of that is propaganda. Some of that is that
- 1:18:17Speaker 7: there is this terrible war in Gaza, but you know,
- 1:18:20Speaker 7: there was a worst war going on in Sudan nobody
- 1:18:22Speaker 7: talked about or saw. There's a lot of discourse, a
- 1:18:25Speaker 7: lot of propaganda. The Israelis and the Palestinians and the
- 1:18:28Speaker 7: Iranians are symbols to a whole lot.
- 1:18:30Speaker 3: Of ideologues all over the world.
- 1:18:32Speaker 7: Israel certainly has a huge problem in terms of its
- 1:18:34Speaker 7: public persona public image on the world stage. Militarily, it
- 1:18:38Speaker 7: is a victory every step of the way. People will
- 1:18:40Speaker 7: then argue, you can't kill an idea. People will then
- 1:18:43Speaker 7: argue still there. People will argue, the Iranian regime hasn't
- 1:18:46Speaker 7: fallen yet, it can still burn things to the ground
- 1:18:49Speaker 7: on its way out. Maybe that means it can never
- 1:18:51Speaker 7: be felt because nobody's willing to literally remove twenty percent
- 1:18:54Speaker 7: of the oil supply for five years. Yeah, You could
- 1:18:57Speaker 7: argue that, sure, but that would assume that Israel is
- 1:19:00Speaker 7: thinking the way most Westerners think about this war, which
- 1:19:03Speaker 7: is to say, we have a pinpoint problem, We're going
- 1:19:05Speaker 7: to attack it with a pinpoint solution, and if it
- 1:19:08Speaker 7: isn't all finished and within two weeks and we're all
- 1:19:10Speaker 7: home drinking our eggnog, then then we've lost. That is
- 1:19:14Speaker 7: not how the Israelis are thinking about it. The Israelis
- 1:19:16Speaker 7: are thinking about this in Middle Eastern terms. The idea
- 1:19:19Speaker 7: will come for us in one form or another, no
- 1:19:21Speaker 7: matter what we do in any one arena.
- 1:19:24Speaker 5: So it has to be.
- 1:19:25Speaker 7: All the arenas, and the idea itself has to die.
- 1:19:28Speaker 7: On October eighth, I went on a podcast and I
- 1:19:30Speaker 7: was asked this question what happens now? And one of
- 1:19:33Speaker 7: my main arguments was, this is not.
- 1:19:35Speaker 3: Going to be about Goza.
- 1:19:36Speaker 7: This is going to be the beginning of a war
- 1:19:38Speaker 7: that must go to Fisbella and a war that must
- 1:19:41Speaker 7: go to Iran, and it might take five years. And
- 1:19:44Speaker 7: I got some emails of people telling me, what, you're silly,
- 1:19:47Speaker 7: not even you're a warmonger, You're just that's a silly
- 1:19:50Speaker 7: thing to say.
- 1:19:50Speaker 3: Israel's not going to challenge Iran.
- 1:19:52Speaker 7: Israel's not going to take on the costs the two
- 1:19:55Speaker 7: hundred thousand missiles and rockets hitting Tel Aviv that would
- 1:19:58Speaker 7: be involved in attacking Fisbellah. And here we are two
- 1:20:01Speaker 7: and a half years later, and actually it is exactly
- 1:20:04Speaker 7: what has happened.
- 1:20:05Speaker 5: And so Israel is vastly.
- 1:20:06Speaker 7: More powerful than it was two and a half years ago.
- 1:20:08Speaker 7: Its enemies are vastly weaker than they were two and
- 1:20:11Speaker 7: a half years ago. And that has to continue, and
- 1:20:13Speaker 7: it may have to continue for years more until the
- 1:20:16Speaker 7: idea no longer makes any sense. And Hugh, I'm sorry
- 1:20:19Speaker 7: to go on like this. Can I just one last
- 1:20:20Speaker 7: point about this. It's happened before, our experience of this
- 1:20:25Speaker 7: has happened before. In the nineteen fifties and sixties. Israel,
- 1:20:29Speaker 7: tiny little third world Israel that began its life rationing
- 1:20:32Speaker 7: egg powder to children because they didn't have enough food
- 1:20:35Speaker 7: to feed the children, tiny poor, impoverished Israel under a
- 1:20:38Speaker 7: British and American arms embargo, faced Arab armies united behind
- 1:20:45Speaker 7: this charismatic Nasser with brand new Soviet hardware coming at
- 1:20:48Speaker 7: them to demolish and annihilate them. And this idea of
- 1:20:53Speaker 7: pan Arabism that Naser was selling, that unified Egypt and Syria. Briefly,
- 1:20:57Speaker 7: that brought up Jordanians, and then the Iraqis all to
- 1:20:59Speaker 7: attack us, all it once again and again and again.
- 1:21:02Speaker 7: This idea was basically the argument that if the Arabs
- 1:21:05Speaker 7: lost in forty eight because they were disunited, if they
- 1:21:07Speaker 7: unite and remember their strength and remember their unity, the
- 1:21:11Speaker 7: Jews stand no chance. How did that pan Arabist idea die?
- 1:21:15Speaker 7: We destroyed it in tank battles in the desert. So
- 1:21:18Speaker 7: we've already been through this cycle and we have to
- 1:21:21Speaker 7: go through it again. And by the way, if we
- 1:21:23Speaker 7: can't kill this Mukawama idea, this terrorism self sacrificial mass
- 1:21:27Speaker 7: martyrdom terrorism ideas, it already doesn't stop in the Middle East.
- 1:21:31Speaker 7: It's going to be exported everywhere because it works. It
- 1:21:34Speaker 7: had better not work, and we're going to make sure
- 1:21:36Speaker 7: it doesn't work.
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: Now. You already named the price, although I thank you,
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: you priced it too high. You said the world has
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: to get along without twenty percent of its oil supply
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: for five years. In fact, substitutionary effect will take place.
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: People will find alternative forms of energy. Shouty's already opened
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: up their pipeline that they haven't used for years. You
- 1:21:55Speaker 1: can build a pipeline from Saudi Arabia through Israel to
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: the Mediterranean. It can. You can get the oil. It
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: takes a year and a half to get the oil.
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I think the world will produce more.
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: America can produce more, and some costs will go. I
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: think it's worth it whatever it takes, and I think
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: Trump might think it's worth it. Do you think the
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: Israeli Do you think UAE and Saudi Arabia have come
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: around to the fact we cannot live across the Strait
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: from this fanatical, medieval, theological, crazy regime.
- 1:22:30Speaker 7: Before you know, from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty four,
- 1:22:34Speaker 7: Iran took out something like twenty tankers in the Persian
- 1:22:37Speaker 7: Golf and in the Tanker War, in the Irani Rock War,
- 1:22:40Speaker 7: there were four years where hundreds of tankers in the
- 1:22:43Speaker 7: Persian Golf were hit by this Ragis team.
- 1:22:45Speaker 5: This idea that every time it's in danger.
- 1:22:47Speaker 3: It shoots up the global oil supply. You want to
- 1:22:49Speaker 3: live under that shadow.
- 1:22:50Speaker 7: I'll say more than that, the energy prices can be
- 1:22:54Speaker 7: spiked at Iran's will, because it can start blowing things up.
- 1:22:57Speaker 7: That is its one strategy. By the way, has no strategy.
- 1:23:00Speaker 7: It has no air force that can fly, it has
- 1:23:02Speaker 7: no navy that can sail. All it has is the
- 1:23:05Speaker 7: ability to blow up somebody else's tankers. A more productive
- 1:23:08Speaker 7: society and government's tankers. That's not any word of bad
- 1:23:12Speaker 7: word against Persians. The Persian people are amazing. This regime
- 1:23:14Speaker 7: can only destroy and only ever has. But I'll say
- 1:23:17Speaker 7: another thing. Iran sits on something like the third largest
- 1:23:20Speaker 7: hydrocarbon reserve in the world. We keep talking about, well,
- 1:23:23Speaker 7: what will happen to the cost of energy if Iran
- 1:23:26Speaker 7: blows up tankers in the strait of promos. Why don't
- 1:23:28Speaker 7: we have this conversation about what happens to the cost
- 1:23:31Speaker 7: of energy if the Iranian oil and the Iranian gas
- 1:23:35Speaker 7: enters the global market. Actually doesn't have sanctions on It
- 1:23:40Speaker 7: isn't the plaything of grand empires. They're not trying to
- 1:23:42Speaker 7: constantly demolish entire nations and the police. But this unbelievably
- 1:23:46Speaker 7: vast oil reserve comes onto the market naturally and builds
- 1:23:51Speaker 7: up Iran and makes everybody's oil much cheaper. On the
- 1:23:55Speaker 7: other side of this regime lies a much, much lower
- 1:23:59Speaker 7: price of oil for everybody. That's also part of this conversation.
- 1:24:03Speaker 7: We can only see the bad side, there's also a
- 1:24:05Speaker 7: good side, and it's massive. So you know, you want
- 1:24:08Speaker 7: to live in the shadow of a bullied trying to
- 1:24:11Speaker 7: get a nuke that has already done this again and
- 1:24:14Speaker 7: again and again, go for it. I think that I
- 1:24:17Speaker 7: can't afford to. It's told me this won't end until
- 1:24:20Speaker 7: I'm dead. So here I am responding to somebody who
- 1:24:23Speaker 7: told me I have nothing to lose. I submit that
- 1:24:26Speaker 7: the world has vastly more to gain from this regime
- 1:24:29Speaker 7: falling than they have to lose from this regime being
- 1:24:33Speaker 7: in its death thrones.
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: After they fired whatever they had at Diego Garcia. Everybody
- 1:24:38Speaker 1: in Western Europe should have figured that out. When we
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: come back, I'm going to ask again the follow up,
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: does the golf get it? And in fact, if the
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: Golf gets it, can the coalition do what has to
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: be done? Because the Iranian people are done with this too.
- 1:24:53Speaker 1: They have thirty five thousand of them murdered in January,
- 1:24:57Speaker 1: and I have to think they're done with this too.
- 1:25:00Speaker 1: So the idea might already be dead, but a zombie
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: regime is a zombie regime. I'll be right back with
- 1:25:05Speaker 1: Aviv ready Gore once again. You can foll him on
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: exit and Viv Ready Gore. You can join his Patreon
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: and you can read him at the Free Press where
- 1:25:12Speaker 1: he's their Middle East correspondent station. Welcome back, America. You
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: hewit with Aviv Reddy Gore. We're in week four of
- 1:25:21Speaker 1: the war, Aviv, that is the war with Iran, that
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: American's condent. We're going actually the thirtieth months of the war,
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: which began on ten to seven. Do you think the
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: world will wake up and do what has to be done?
- 1:25:31Speaker 1: And by the way, you hew it, not anybody else.
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: Nobody's told me that think you have to destroy the
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: oil infrastructure of Iran. You have to impoverish the nation
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: and impoverish the IRGC, because they just keep pulling old
- 1:25:44Speaker 1: IRGC guys out of retirement to put him in charge
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: of a regime. When Israel United States kills them, they've
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: probably got a limited supply somewhere, but not for a
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: long time, and they got to run out of hardliners.
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: You fought in the Iraq Iran war for ten years,
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: thirty five year years ago. They got a lot of
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: those crazy people. So do you think the world's ready
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: to do what has to be done, which is to
- 1:26:06Speaker 1: blow up their ability to sustain their regime.
- 1:26:11Speaker 7: I mean the Europeans, absolutely not. Europe has willfully made
- 1:26:16Speaker 7: itself completely dependent on Russian energy and on Persian Gulf energy,
- 1:26:22Speaker 7: something that is not true of the United States. And
- 1:26:24Speaker 7: Europe has disarmed itself of militaries and the ability to
- 1:26:27Speaker 7: project power. And Europe is now at the mercy of
- 1:26:29Speaker 7: everyone else, of the whims of various Middle Eastern powers
- 1:26:34Speaker 7: and the United States and everybody else. And so they're
- 1:26:37Speaker 7: really very nervous and very angry and very upset. We're hearing,
- 1:26:40Speaker 7: we're hearing interesting things from the Italian leadership, from the
- 1:26:46Speaker 7: German leadership, and from the Japanese leadership. Ironically, eighty years
- 1:26:50Speaker 7: ago the Axis powers and they get the great danger
- 1:26:55Speaker 7: represented by the ideology that Iran leads and isn't this
- 1:26:59Speaker 7: sole purveyor of leads in the Middle East, And they
- 1:27:02Speaker 7: don't want this war to end with the regime intact.
- 1:27:04Speaker 7: They might not have anything to contribute in terms of
- 1:27:06Speaker 7: toppling it, but they certainly are on the side of
- 1:27:08Speaker 7: the Gulf States. They're on the side of Israel in
- 1:27:10Speaker 7: this war, even if some of them, like the Italians,
- 1:27:13Speaker 7: don't say so. Ironically, it is the allies of Europe,
- 1:27:17Speaker 7: the French, the British, who are utterly unwilling to see
- 1:27:21Speaker 7: the actual challenge posed by these ideas and the destructiveness
- 1:27:25Speaker 7: of them to Iran and to the region and to
- 1:27:27Speaker 7: the oil infrastructure of the world and all of that.
- 1:27:30Speaker 7: So I think the world understands. I'll put it really simple.
- 1:27:34Speaker 7: If this regime survives this round of war.
- 1:27:36Speaker 3: That is okay.
- 1:27:38Speaker 5: That is okay.
- 1:27:38Speaker 7: I was asked in the twelve day war in June
- 1:27:41Speaker 7: this exact same question. You bombed them for twelve days,
- 1:27:43Speaker 7: you killed a bunch of generals, and here they are
- 1:27:46Speaker 7: still picking.
- 1:27:48Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a long war. This is not the
- 1:27:52Speaker 5: kind of war.
- 1:27:53Speaker 7: That is exactly catered to the schedule of your TikTok
- 1:27:56Speaker 7: feed like. This is a long, serious confrontation between deep
- 1:28:01Speaker 7: ideas and ways of life and ways of thinking about
- 1:28:04Speaker 7: the world. And it will be decided in time. It
- 1:28:06Speaker 7: will be decided in investment, in will, in a test
- 1:28:09Speaker 7: of wills, and in sticking power.
- 1:28:12Speaker 5: And that remains true.
- 1:28:13Speaker 7: So we brought down this regime a few very large pegs,
- 1:28:18Speaker 7: and the world might because of the energy prices pulled back.
- 1:28:22Speaker 7: The United States might pull back. I don't ask Trump
- 1:28:24Speaker 7: to lose the midterms for me. I don't think he's
- 1:28:27Speaker 7: doing it for me. I think there are a thousand.
- 1:28:28Speaker 7: But not living under the shadow of Iran's veto of
- 1:28:31Speaker 7: shipping in the Strait of hor moves is reason enough
- 1:28:34Speaker 7: to not have this regime rule for another twenty five
- 1:28:36Speaker 7: years in that region. But nevertheless, he has given me
- 1:28:40Speaker 7: this great gift. It's a great gift to me, even
- 1:28:42Speaker 7: if it wasn't specifically meant for me, and I don't
- 1:28:44Speaker 7: have the right to ask for more.
- 1:28:46Speaker 5: But we will have another war. There's no other choice.
- 1:28:49Speaker 7: Iran will not stop fighting, will not stop demolishing nations,
- 1:28:52Speaker 7: will not stop expanding.
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: Now, yesterday Israel called up four hundred thousand reservists. If
- 1:28:58Speaker 1: I read my Israeli English line, which press correctly, what's
- 1:29:03Speaker 1: that mean heavy, That's that's the whole shebang. That's everybody
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: who can get called up.
- 1:29:09Speaker 7: Basically, it's uh, it's flexibility for the army. It's flexibility
- 1:29:16Speaker 7: for the army, for Lebanon, for a longer term fight
- 1:29:21Speaker 7: with Iran. It is Israel signaling a willingness to keep
- 1:29:24Speaker 7: going at a very strong level and to escalate. One
- 1:29:28Speaker 7: of the things that Professor Schiftan talks about is this
- 1:29:31Speaker 7: idea of escalation dominance. You face an enemy, and the
- 1:29:35Speaker 7: enemy he wants to escalate until you bow out, and
- 1:29:37Speaker 7: you want to escalate until they bow out. Well, whoever
- 1:29:40Speaker 7: can escalate farthest wins, and so the ability to project
- 1:29:45Speaker 7: the willingness to escalate is very much part of this
- 1:29:48Speaker 7: more that's that's my sense of it. Four hundred thousand
- 1:29:50Speaker 7: people were not called up. The army was given permission
- 1:29:53Speaker 7: by the political echelon to begin to do that.
- 1:29:56Speaker 5: In terms of.
- 1:29:57Speaker 3: Logistics, which is which is mostly a signal.
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: Okay, it does it? Do you think it signals that
- 1:30:04Speaker 1: the Lebanon south of Latani is going to be occupied
- 1:30:07Speaker 1: on a more or less permanent basis thirty seconds to
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: the break.
- 1:30:12Speaker 7: What we have heard from Israeli officials, it's a big
- 1:30:16Speaker 7: question of how much of it is rhetoric and how
- 1:30:18Speaker 7: much of it is actual policy. What we've heard from
- 1:30:21Speaker 7: Israeli officials is we have to root out Chrisbelasbela.
- 1:30:24Speaker 3: Remains a threat. We will root it out until it
- 1:30:26Speaker 3: is dead.
- 1:30:26Speaker 7: We can do this forever they claim they can, we
- 1:30:29Speaker 7: can too, and we will hold south of the Litani
- 1:30:32Speaker 7: until we have defeated them.
- 1:30:34Speaker 3: Instead of Hasbela.
- 1:30:35Speaker 7: Saying that about Israel back when Israel occupied southern Lebanon
- 1:30:38Speaker 7: for eighteen years, like America's Afghanistan experience and then Israel left,
- 1:30:42Speaker 7: now it's the opposite.
- 1:30:43Speaker 5: Chasbelah will never not.
- 1:30:44Speaker 7: Play the war against us, but we will hold that
- 1:30:45Speaker 7: territory and hurt them until they are the ones wholieve.
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: One more segment with a vive ready gourd, don't go
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: anywhere in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Welcome back in America. I'm
- 1:30:56Speaker 1: Hugh Hewett. I want to thank you Vieve reddi Gore
- 1:30:58Speaker 1: for a lot of time. I have a column coming
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: out tomorrow. We have an ally in Israel that is
- 1:31:02Speaker 1: really unique. We've never operated with an ally, even in
- 1:31:05Speaker 1: World War Two, at this level of interoperability and command
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: and control. So it's really an extraordinary point in military history.
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: And not many Americans know much about what the Israelis
- 1:31:16Speaker 1: think of their point of view. And I list a
- 1:31:18Speaker 1: few people and my Fox News call them tomorrow, including
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: a viv about whom Americans ought to be aware and
- 1:31:23Speaker 1: follow so they know what our ally is doing now,
- 1:31:26Speaker 1: our allies politics matter a lot. The Khaki election. I
- 1:31:31Speaker 1: don't know if you remember in nineteen hundred the English
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: thought they'd won the Second World War. They hadn't, but
- 1:31:35Speaker 1: they thought they'd won. So I think Lord Salisbury called
- 1:31:38Speaker 1: a snap election won more than four hundred seats. The
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: poor Liberal Party got smashed. They were below two hundred
- 1:31:43Speaker 1: seats because they have a really quick election in England.
- 1:31:48Speaker 1: And you can do that when you think you've won
- 1:31:50Speaker 1: a war. Can BB do that? I asked all this
- 1:31:54Speaker 1: yesterday's no, no, no, it's going to be in October.
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: What do you think.
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: We're going to find out very soon?
- 1:32:02Speaker 7: It depends on a very few people, and I don't
- 1:32:04Speaker 7: like to predict what a very few people will do.
- 1:32:06Speaker 3: It's easier to.
- 1:32:07Speaker 7: Predict what one hundred million people will do. It's hard
- 1:32:09Speaker 7: to predict what three people will do. The Knesset has
- 1:32:13Speaker 7: to pass the budget by the end of the month,
- 1:32:17Speaker 7: and they might pass an extension and give themselves a
- 1:32:19Speaker 7: couple more weeks or something like that. But if they
- 1:32:21Speaker 7: don't complete the budget process properly and all the different things,
- 1:32:26Speaker 7: then the Kannesset is legally required to dissolve itself to
- 1:32:29Speaker 7: snap elections, which happened ninety days later, so that would
- 1:32:32Speaker 7: be July. If they do pass that budget, then the
- 1:32:37Speaker 7: elections will be at their regularly scheduled time in October.
- 1:32:42Speaker 7: What's fascinating about that is that this would be one
- 1:32:45Speaker 7: of the more hated governments or more divisive governments.
- 1:32:49Speaker 5: In the history of Israel, which.
- 1:32:51Speaker 7: Is, by the way, not unexpected after October seven. And
- 1:32:54Speaker 7: it's also a much more polarized time than it was
- 1:32:56Speaker 7: in many periods in Israel's passed. So I'm not even
- 1:32:59Speaker 7: accusing of being somehow beyond the pale of although.
- 1:33:02Speaker 5: In some of the things they're doing, I'm extremely troubled.
- 1:33:06Speaker 7: But it would be even though it's one of the
- 1:33:09Speaker 7: least liked governments, and even though it hasn't actually won
- 1:33:12Speaker 7: in any poll that I know of since it was
- 1:33:15Speaker 7: voted in in December twenty twenty two, it will be
- 1:33:18Speaker 7: the first Israeli government in history to last its full
- 1:33:20Speaker 7: term if they managed to pass a state budget.
- 1:33:22Speaker 5: Now, can they pass a state budget? I think so.
- 1:33:27Speaker 7: I think so because the ultra Orthodox are getting a
- 1:33:30Speaker 7: lot of what they want, mainly a ton of money.
- 1:33:32Speaker 7: The religious Zionist factions of the government are getting a
- 1:33:35Speaker 7: lot of what they want again, mainly a ton of money,
- 1:33:37Speaker 7: and everyone is getting enough that you know they're going
- 1:33:41Speaker 7: to stick with it. As we get closer to election day,
- 1:33:44Speaker 7: by the way, the various different right wing factions are
- 1:33:47Speaker 7: all going to need to try to cannibalize each other's
- 1:33:49Speaker 7: voters because they have some overlapping constituencies. And that's a
- 1:33:52Speaker 7: lot of the times leading up to Israeli elections, and
- 1:33:54Speaker 7: this is true of many parliamentary systems where parties that
- 1:33:57Speaker 7: are together in a coalition share many ias tend to
- 1:34:01Speaker 7: then produce all kinds of artificial crises to have something
- 1:34:03Speaker 7: to distinguish themselves to their bases as they enter the
- 1:34:06Speaker 7: election season. So it's not a big question whether the
- 1:34:10Speaker 7: election is in July or August or October, but those
- 1:34:13Speaker 7: are the kinds of structural things that we have to
- 1:34:16Speaker 7: watch for to know.
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: It's the last question, and you've got three or four
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: minutes on this one, so take your time. Natanyao has
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: done a brilliant job in waging this long war. He
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: got caught off by surprise, and he was wrong about
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: a moss but he's done a great job waging this war,
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: and he's got President Trump working with him. We're waging
- 1:34:38Speaker 1: this war, and finally we've come to grips for the
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: Iran over those guys that were run Finally. I'm seventy
- 1:34:44Speaker 1: years old. I've been waiting for this for a long time.
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: I saw Ron fall into chaos on the couch with
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: Richard Nixon and Zan Clementi as a writing member's staff
- 1:34:52Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine and eighty, so I
- 1:34:54Speaker 1: remember it very well. Do you think that matters to
- 1:34:58Speaker 1: the average ars Israeli or are they just as likely
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: to do what the English did in nineteen forty five
- 1:35:03Speaker 1: and throw Churchill out after he was the only man
- 1:35:05Speaker 1: who could have beaten the Nazis and dead, and nevertheless
- 1:35:08Speaker 1: they threw him out because they were the English and
- 1:35:10Speaker 1: they were tired of him.
- 1:35:14Speaker 7: I have to tell you a lot of Israelis who
- 1:35:17Speaker 7: really appreciate it too on the war think that he
- 1:35:21Speaker 7: has hurt them, betrayed them, and led them in bad
- 1:35:26Speaker 7: directions on a host of domestic issues that have no
- 1:35:30Speaker 7: saliens or residents that really are understood outside of Israel.
- 1:35:33Speaker 7: For obvious reasons, how much does anyone else around the
- 1:35:35Speaker 7: world understand America's healthcare debate?
- 1:35:37Speaker 5: Right, but elections can be about health and unemployment and.
- 1:35:41Speaker 7: Not about the big thing that the world cares about,
- 1:35:43Speaker 7: like the Rock War twenty five years ago or whatever.
- 1:35:46Speaker 7: So the answer, as the far as the polls tell us,
- 1:35:49Speaker 7: is how does not his current coalition does not at
- 1:35:52Speaker 7: this moment have a majority, It does not have a
- 1:35:54Speaker 7: parliamentary victory, and it.
- 1:35:57Speaker 5: Hasn't any poll.
- 1:35:58Speaker 7: Now, somebody will find me one poll by right wing polster.
- 1:36:00Speaker 7: I'll take that back. I'm not saying there literally isn't one,
- 1:36:03Speaker 7: but I follow the polls very closely, and certainly none
- 1:36:05Speaker 7: of the mainstream ones over time. Does that mean that
- 1:36:08Speaker 7: the opposition has a victory. We don't see a clear path.
- 1:36:12Speaker 7: We're talking about an election between you know, sixteen parties,
- 1:36:16Speaker 7: of which eleven will make it in roughly give or take.
- 1:36:19Speaker 5: That's how it works.
- 1:36:19Speaker 7: So it's always a kind of chaos math to try
- 1:36:22Speaker 7: and figure out that path. But a lot a lot
- 1:36:24Speaker 7: of Israelis say things like, and it's now the.
- 1:36:28Speaker 3: Trigger on Iran.
- 1:36:29Speaker 5: That was terrifying, that was scary, that took guts.
- 1:36:31Speaker 7: We didn't know that Iran would not respond competently if
- 1:36:35Speaker 7: it had responded much war come.
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: You didn't was, yeah, you didn't know that.
- 1:36:42Speaker 7: It could have been two thousand ballistic misses on Tel Aviv.
- 1:36:44Speaker 7: It could Tel Aviv could have been on fire. And
- 1:36:47Speaker 7: he knew the potential cost. He also knows the cost
- 1:36:50Speaker 7: of letting Iran continue to develop, letting this regime produce
- 1:36:54Speaker 7: the capabilities it wants to produce. The Chinese where literally
- 1:36:56Speaker 7: they signed in agreement a month before the war to
- 1:36:59Speaker 7: hand Iran it's supersonic missiles. You know what that would
- 1:37:01Speaker 7: have done to the strait of Hormones. An American aircraft
- 1:37:03Speaker 7: carrier could have been taken easily by an Iranian gunboat.
- 1:37:06Speaker 7: I mean, we're talking about an upgrading of their capabilities
- 1:37:09Speaker 7: that we have stopped. And so Nittagnell pulled the trigger
- 1:37:14Speaker 7: and made that absolutely terrifying decision on every domestic policy
- 1:37:18Speaker 7: issue that I care about, that my kids' lives depend
- 1:37:21Speaker 7: on on this massive welfare state over in the ultra
- 1:37:24Speaker 7: Orthodox community that is larger, they get more per capita,
- 1:37:28Speaker 7: and they get incentivized not to work in a vast scale,
- 1:37:31Speaker 7: something like fifty percent of their men don't work at all,
- 1:37:33Speaker 7: and the ones who do work tend to be low
- 1:37:34Speaker 7: earners because their education system is a separate education system
- 1:37:38Speaker 7: that doesn't teach math in English after fourth grade.
- 1:37:40Speaker 5: Now, Israel is not a hydrocarbon power.
- 1:37:43Speaker 7: Yeah, it has some natural gas reserves right now, but
- 1:37:45Speaker 7: not compared to Middle Eastern levels.
- 1:37:46Speaker 5: And that's very recent.
- 1:37:48Speaker 7: All we have built we have built with human talent.
- 1:37:50Speaker 7: We have built with the simple fact that the Israel
- 1:37:53Speaker 7: invests more in R and D than any other nation
- 1:37:57Speaker 7: on Earth per capita. It is the number one on earth.
- 1:38:00Speaker 7: Is That is what we are. That is our strength,
- 1:38:03Speaker 7: that is our power. Now, I'm a big fan of
- 1:38:05Speaker 7: religious education. I'm the son of a rabbi. I have
- 1:38:08Speaker 7: podcast episodes about holidays and diving into the Jewish religious bookshelf.
- 1:38:11Speaker 5: I'm a huge fan of religion.
- 1:38:14Speaker 3: Ditto Christianity.
- 1:38:15Speaker 5: I am a big thing.
- 1:38:17Speaker 7: You've got to work that doesn't need to get them
- 1:38:19Speaker 7: not working, and movie tolate it. And if he has
- 1:38:21Speaker 7: expanded that there was a law passed this week this
- 1:38:25Speaker 7: week by this kind asset, when everybody else is hunkering
- 1:38:28Speaker 7: down in bomb shelters, when people are losing jobs because
- 1:38:30Speaker 7: businesses are closed, this kind of set passed. The law
- 1:38:33Speaker 7: that expands the powers is a redemicult course.
- 1:38:36Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah, good on the war, bad on
- 1:38:40Speaker 1: everything else. Have they writing Door, I will check back
- 1:38:43Speaker 1: with you in a few weeks. I greatly appreciate your
- 1:38:45Speaker 1: time today, very illuminating as always Episode ninety nine Friends.
- 1:38:50Speaker 1: I asked to be of anything to me too,