Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / The Big Weekend Pod

Transcript

The Big Weekend Pod · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there and of course to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues. All of them at hueforhillsdale.com
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: or just google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning Gloria and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: evening Grace America. Welcome to the big weekend pod after
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a big blowout in the midterms. Republicans got thrashed and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I don't mean like a six-year itch thrashing i mean
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: like a 1994 thrashing that the democrats got after they
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: tried hillary care and a 2014 thrashing after president obama
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: passed obamacare uh thrashing on that level we haven't seen
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it since 1974 after the resignation of president nixon is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: pardoned by gerald ford that summer and autumn and uh
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the republicans paid at the at the polls it's going
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to be um At least four, probably six, maybe eight years,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: ten even, before the Republicans can think about a unified
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: three branches of government. Good news is they made the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: tax cuts permanent. So for anyone to raise taxes, they'd
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: actually have to pass a law that raises taxes. And
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: after the jobs numbered today, 160,000 new jobs, the working
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: families tax cut, the big beautiful bill, that's kicking in.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's like morning in America. Ronald Reagan lost some seats
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in 1982. People didn't believe he was going to win
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the fight to bring down interest rates.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: People didn't believe the tax cuts mattered.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Growth went. We had morning in America two years later.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: It's entirely possible. In fact, I think it's likely that
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: when we roll into 2028, there's going to be a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: booming economy, booming economy. Will that settle? Will that answer
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: other issues raised like the Iran war? Well, finish that.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: That'll be taken care of. I hope the president's got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the B-2s in the air overnight. I hope this is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: coming to you after news of strikes on Pickaxe Mountain
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: came out on Saturday morning. But I don't know, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not on the inside. On the inside now, Stephen Miller,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: new chief of staff. Look, that job is a very
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: hard job. Not surprised that after two years, Suzy Wiles
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and the president have agreed that she's going to move
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: into a different position. She served the president very, very,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: very well. Stephen Miller is a loyalist. I've only met
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: him once, 2015, in a coming and going in a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: television studio. He is a loyalist. He knows the president's mind.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: He knows how to work with the president, and he
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: will be very much a man in command and doing
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: what the president wants. I want to emphasize that, doing
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: what the president wants. What the president's going to want
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to do is stand up when he has to stand
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: up to Congress and deal with him when there's an
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: opportunity to do a deal. Something I've said, and you'll
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: hear on today's show with some of my guests, is
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that we're entering a new era of negotiation, and Donald
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Trump's pretty good at that. As I said on Thursday
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: night's special report, He and the Trump Organization have done
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: projects in 18 different countries all across the United States.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: He's dealt with every level of land use official, including
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: crazy ones at the California Coastal Commission, successfully. So can
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: he negotiate with DSA Democrats? Probably not. But most of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are not DSA Democrats. What do they want?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: What does he want? Then you come together. It is
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the reverse, by the way, of John Boehner trying to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: deal with Barack Obama. And nothing got done because Barack
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Obama would bait and switch John Boehner, and John Boehner
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: failed his speaker for that reason. He couldn't deliver a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: big deal. And Donald Trump, the art of the deal?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We will see. But talking with John Ellis today about
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: what happened, how do presidents come back from things like that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Eli Lake about what happened. Matt Continetti about Iran primarily,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: but also what happened. Ben Dominich about what happened. Jonathan
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Williams on some good news. President of ALEC, American Legislative
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Exchange Council, will be here. And then I'm going to
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: tack on at the end an interview I did with
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo on Thursday to gauge from the former Secretary
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of State what it is that he thinks needs to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: be done by the Republican Party. Ron DeSantis has already
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: weighed in. I have a list of 15 people who
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I want to check in with, from Glenn Youngkin to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Doug Ducey, to Ted Cruz and Dave McCormick, people who
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: maybe might possibly get in the race for president. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: want the vice president on. I hope he comes on
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and talks a lot. I hope we can get Secretary
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Rubio on and talk a lot, but especially President Trump
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and talk a lot. But for today, sit back and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy the big weekend pod after the big storm blew
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: away the roof and blew down the house and Republicans
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: are out in the rain looking pretty soggy. Been there before,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: done this before, and it ain't the end of the world.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Pick it up. Get going. Time to rebuild. And we
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: start on this big weekend podcast. Morning, glory, evening, grace, America.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: What a weekend review program we have for you today.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm beginning with John Ellis, founder, editor-in-chief of News Items,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: my indispensable morning newsletter. John, we've got a couple things
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to talk about, but there is breaking news. Stephen Miller
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is in as White House Chief of Staff. Susie Wiles
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: is moving to a different position, not leaving the administration
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: or the Trump circle, but moving out of the Chief
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of Staff. You will know. Andy Card did four years.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: James Baker did four years.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: H.R.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Haldeman did four years. President Obama had four or five
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: chiefs of staff, and this will be Donald Trump's eighth
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: chief of staff if we count Mick Mulvaney. What do
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: you make of it?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not surprised. I think that Trump likes to double
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: down on things, and so I think that's what he's
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: done here. I think if you're a Texas Republican and
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: you've seen your fortunes destroyed in the recent elections. And
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: one of the principal reasons for that is Hispanic voters
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: going left or going blue. You might think that Stephen
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Miller would not be a good message, but it's the
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: president's choice. And I'm not surprised. I mean, Susie has
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: had a battle, I think, with breast cancer. And, you know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: that job just takes your life away. So if something
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: else is trying to take your life away, it's probably
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: not a bad idea to step aside or take on
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: something less stressful.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Quick follow up. I'm told I don't know Stephen Miller.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I met him once going in and out of a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: green room in 2015 or 16. I'm told he's a hawk,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a national security hawk, that this would happen the day
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: after the national security meeting on Iran. Do you draw
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: any conclusions from that? I don't.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I think that Trump, you know, I think they must
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: be given the recent openings, if you will, that the
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Iranians have made on some kind of nuclear rethink. I'm
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: not quite sure what you would call it, but some
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Iranians have shown some movement on the nuclear issue. And
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: so if that's the case and if Trump thinks the
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: threat of a strike is going to move that case along,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I think that's what it'll do. but I obviously have
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: no access to what the briefings are, what the negotiations are, etc.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: All right, John Ellis, let's go to the topics we
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: talked about. Money in the message. One of the things
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I took my opium from before Tuesday was the Republicans
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: had this massive cash advantage, maybe a billion dollars. Where'd
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it go? At least. It did not work. Well, I.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things about the money was
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: that it reinforced the message that you could– first of all,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: they advertised it, right? We have so much more money
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: we're going to win.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: We have billions of dollars.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Elon Musk is going to put in $ 460 million. We're
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: just going to overwhelm them with money. And so the
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: message to a persuadable voter, as they're called, was they
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: think they can buy my vote. So that's not a
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: good message. And then the avalanche of money that the
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Republicans spent, there are only so many television advertising dollars
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: that can be spent. There's only so much you can
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: do on digital. If you took half of what the
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Republicans spent and you said, okay, throw out the people
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: who are absolutely certain to vote that are going to
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: vote Republican, and let's go after that group of people
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: that we have to get to the polls in order
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: to be successful. It would be like $ 200 per voter.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: You could get them like an Uber premium and drive
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: them to the polls and drive them home and give
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: them a good sandwich or something to throw in. How
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: this money was spent, I think, is a myth. I'm
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: waiting to read the story that explains where did all
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: this money go? Because there is a ceiling as to
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: how much you can spend on television advertisements.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And there is not a ceiling on how much you
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: can spend on get-out-the-vote operations and actual staff in states
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and a Republican Party organization. Those have atrophied, John. You
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Do they make
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a comeback now? We actually need to have people on
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the ground who are serious, sane, center-right to conservatives, but
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: not fighting battles over who's the first deputy district chair
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in the third district of Ohio.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing is that what they said was
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: this money will not only enable us to bury Democratic
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: candidates with negative advertising, it will also make possible the
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: greatest get-out-the-vote operation in the history of mankind. They said
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: that publicly. I'm not making that up. The greatest voting
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: operation in the history of mankind is going to lose,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: in terms of total vote, by 13 million to the Democrats.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: It is arguably the worst get-out-the-vote effort in recent history. Um,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: so I, I, I want to, I want to read
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the article, whoever writes it, hopefully Maggie or somebody will
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: get it together.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I find it news items. I'll look for it. You'll
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: find it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Here's my, my followup question. This is an order of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: magnitude worse than a typical blowout. It is 1974, 1994,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: 2010 proportions. Those are the only three I think come close.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: What Clinton and Obama weren't killed off, uh, Jerry Ford
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: almost came back. What do they do to survive a deluge,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a typhoon, a tsunami? The actual tsunami actually came.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure what Trump will do, but what presidents
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: have done, the thing about Trump is that he's different
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: from Clinton and Obama, for instance, in that they were
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: in their first term and Trump is in his second term.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: It's not coterminous, but he's in his second term. So
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: there's no reelection campaign awaiting him. He's done in 2028.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: So he's not going to be able to get anything
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: through the Congress, obviously. He can veto whatever the Congress
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: throws at him, because as you point out, it's not
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: a veto-proof majority that's been achieved. But when presidents get
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: into that last two years of a presidency, in a
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: two-term presidency, What they do is they focus on foreign affairs.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: In Trump's case, ending the war in Iran in a
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: kind of peace with honor way would be an achievement.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Settling the war in Ukraine by not abandoning the Ukrainians
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: who have fought valiantly against the Russians would be a
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: huge achievement. And I think, given the dangers that AI
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: has poses, getting something done on AI safety would be
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: a huge achievement.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: John, in news items this morning, you brought to my attention,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I did not know this, the size of the purge
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that Xi Jinping has been conducting in the Central Committee.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Is that an opening for Trump to do anything, or
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: is China just so, and their jobs are terrible, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: their recession is real. Is there an opportunity to do
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: something there with a maybe? less than secure, Xi Jinping?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I'm not certain. I mean, I don't know if there
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: are leaders that you can push, but the old rule
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: is never getting away when your enemy is destroying himself.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: And the Xi Jinping regime, I mean, a quarter of
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: the ruling body, if you will, has disappeared or been disappeared.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: So it's an extraordinarily fragile, I think, fragile regime. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: as they continue to stagger along, I think that don't
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: get in the way of it. Just let it take
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: its course. The problems in China are so deep that
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: it's not at all clear that Xi is going to survive.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Last, last quick point before news items came out today
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: or after news items came out today, jobs report 160,000 jobs.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I think we're watching a replay of the economy, 82
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to 84. Reagan got hit hard in 82, uh, hadn't
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: turned it around. The tax cuts kicked in and it
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: was morning in America two years later. Are we in liftoff, John?
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, the, obviously I don't think anybody knows for sure, but, uh,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: But it's astonishing that the jobs report and the jobs
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: reports have, generally speaking, been so positive because the downward
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: pressure from the technology, although it hasn't fully asserted itself, obviously,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: is a real concern. So the fact that people are
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: figuring out how to hire people and thinking that they
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: need more people is really good news.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Is part of that the CapEx on AI that will
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: go away?
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Big time. Yeah, big time. But it's not going to
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: go away. I mean, you know, they're going to keep
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: building it out. Obviously, there are companies that are going
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: to fail and there are data centers that aren't going
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: to get built and all of that stuff. But the
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: infrastructure required, the energy infrastructure required, that's not going to
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: go away because we're The United States needs artificial intelligence
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: to remain competitive.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: John Ellis, find him on X at Ellis Items. Find
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: News Items on Substack. It is the indispensable morning newsletter
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: around the world in 15 to 20 stories summarized for you.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You learn what happened overnight. News Items at Substack. John
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Ellis is at Ellis Items on X. I'll be right
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: back with Eli Lake. Stay tuned.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Welcome back, America.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Eli Lake is with the Free Press. He is the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: host of the Breaking History podcast, frequent contributor to Commentary Magazine,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: welcome guest here on Friday. Eli, I listened to the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Commentary podcast yesterday. First, I've got to say, I laughed
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: out loud when John said, J.D. Vance is simultaneously going
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to run as heir to Donald Trump and his chief critic.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: That's a very nervy strategy. I thought, that's a bold strategy, Cotton. And,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you guys spent most of the thing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: You skipped go.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: You didn't collect $ 200. You went right into piling on J.D.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: Vance.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair. Let's talk about it. J.D.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Vance didn't lose the election. Did you guys do any
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: autopsy at all?
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I wrote a big piece on election
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: night that gave a lot of reasons, one of which wasn't,
• 16:24
  Speaker 7: I think, you know, the Iran war. I don't have
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: the view that it was the only reason. But I
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: thought that was a very opportunistic, I mean, it's a
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: very kind of simplistic way to explain a momentous historic
• 16:37
  Speaker 7: election saying that it was the Iran war.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: If he hadn't done that, it wouldn't have been so bad.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not so sure about that.
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: I think there were a lot of things that were
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: a problem, starting with the tariffs in terms of policy,
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: the optics leading up to it with the president going
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: to a lavish Halloween party with caviar, you know, on
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: Halloween at Mar-a-Lago when people are suffering, you And the
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: final message was, you know, 25 minutes on the reflecting
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: pool and all of that. I think that there were
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: issues with how the president, which you and I support
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: the Iran war, and we'd like him to finish the job.
• 17:12
  Speaker 7: We think it's vital to American national security and global security, frankly. So,
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: you know, there was very little effort, I think, from Trump, who.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Is a good communicator, to make the case to the
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: American people.
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: Instead, it was a chaotic at times message when it
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: was intense in the first two months, which was either
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: we're going to wipe out your civilization or we've achieved peace.
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: None of, you know, both of those things weren't right.
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: And then, you know, you had the period of the MOU,
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: which I don't think was very good. And then, you know,
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: it's been a blockade, which I think has largely been successful,
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: but the president doesn't make the case. He's not advocating
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: for the policy. And so instead, that is then taken.
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: Up by the many critics on both the left and
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: the right. And what I felt what J.D. Vance was
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: doing was that he was trying to reach out to
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: the Tucker Carlson wing of the party. Tucker Carlson, in
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: this midterm, said he was, you know, gave a de
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: facto endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Said he wouldn't vote for.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Don't misunderstand me. I'm neither pro nor con, J.D. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: just thought we ought to focus on what happened and...
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: The vice president's post comes after the election. I think
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the Iran war is a history legacy-making move by the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: president if he finishes it. We are eight months into
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the real war. The blockade is two months in. Guadalcanal
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: did not happen for eight months after December 7, 1941.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, did not happen
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: for 10 or 11 months. We're just getting started here.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: They put out a pretty good meme game, but they're
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: dying on the vine, and I think Trump's going to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: stick with it. And by the way, Stephen Miller's a hawk.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: This is good news.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll see.
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: I think that there was a very good kind of 80%
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: agreed policy on closing the border that Trump gets a
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: lot of credit for that, especially after Biden. I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: the theatrical sending ICE agents into cities that caused these
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: many insurrections, and then you had the other things, which
• 19:22
  Speaker 7: has been corrected, which everybody thinks has come from Stephen Miller,
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: was kind of.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: A terrible policy.
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: And the issue is trying to get, I think, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: why not focus on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes
• 19:35
  Speaker 7: if you have a kind of realistic understanding that you're
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: not going to deport whatever 11 million people?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And so let's get the really bad ones.
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: Let's do that, as opposed to something that struck me as,
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: and I've seen it in Washington, D.C., where I live,
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: I just think that that is something that is, you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 7: that that alienated a lot of people. We could have
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: had a real policy win that would have been a
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: kind of consensus and move the needle and that we
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: hopefully would never go back to an open borders Democratic presidency.
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: And instead, I felt like, you know, it pushed too hard.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: And that is largely, I think, the influence of Stephen Miller.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. And if I had a villain
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: to name, and it's always too simplistic to name a
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: villain or a person. I'd name Kristi Noem. I just would.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: She didn't know what she was doing.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: It was a disaster.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And what I expect to happen, we're entering a new
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: era of negotiation. Trump has spent his whole life in negotiation.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I think he ought to say to the Democrats, bring
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: me a regularization bill. All right? And we'll talk. I've
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: got A, B, and C I want. you want D, E,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and F. I'm not going to give you a path
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to citizenship, but if they're not violent, they can stay
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: on a work permit for 10 years or something like that.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: There's a deal to be done here, Eli. Do you
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: think they'll do it?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Well, Trump's a dealmaker.
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: Again, though, I don't see the appointment of Stephen Miller
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: as a kind of sign that he's willing to make
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: a deal. But on the other hand, I think that,
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: you know, if Trump has, you know, Trump's Got to
• 21:00
  Speaker 7: think about what his options are. And this is such
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: an historic kind of blowout at this point that, you know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: it does recalibrate the kind of political position. And it's
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: such an extraordinary thing because I think two years ago,
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: the Republican Party had a new kind of coalition that
• 21:15
  Speaker 7: could have led to a generational conservative era. And I
• 21:20
  Speaker 7: feel that that is now frittered away. And, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 7: now the people on the right, the Republican Party, need to, OK,
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: let's think about how to get it back.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: During the break, I'll talk with you about the nastiness
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of El Sayed. But we had this jobs report today.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I think we're in an 82 to 84 period. You
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: have enough political memory. I actually lived it. We went
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: from the dump in 82 to mourning in America in
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: 84 because the tax cuts kicked in and they accelerate growth.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I think we're in a takeoff mode, economic-wise. Do you agree?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Winning is a great deodorant in every sport and in politics, too.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I really, really hope so.
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: My concern is that with the new majorities for Democrats
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: in Congress, that they may force a kind of regulation
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: of AI that will stop the innovation in its tracks.
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: So I think that's something to watch. I think the
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: stock market responded to that concern. And we'll see. I mean,
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: if there's a silver lining, it's hardly a silver lining,
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: is that the majorities are so healthy right now that
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries cannot be held hostage by
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: the socialist far left so there might be room in
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: that respect as you said for a kind of deal
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: with the White House where you could get some sound
• 22:43
  Speaker 7: policy that you know again governs to the middle which
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: I think would be good at this.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Point and if you don't like Stephen Miller messaging on
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: immigration chiefs of staff don't message Eli at least historically
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: that's fair enough they don't walk outside and talk to
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: people Cause they're buried. It's the worst job in Washington.
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:06
  Speaker 7: Well, yes, it's one of the, in some ways it's
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: one of the most powerful jobs in Washington. Listen, I
• 23:10
  Speaker 7: agree with you, Hugh. Um, well, I mean, and you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: I guess we'll sort of see, but you know, he
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: has a track record of kind of being obviously really brilliant,
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: smart guy, but kind of being somebody who, you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: doesn't sometimes see the warning signs. It takes more extreme
• 23:26
  Speaker 7: kind of path my way or their highway. Um, So,
• 23:30
  Speaker 7: you know, I'm in a wait-and-see mode. I don't want to,
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: you know, we'll see. I'm sure that there's going to
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: be some other transition. I was very sad, by the way,
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: to see Harmeet Dhillon resign. I think she was an
• 23:39
  Speaker 7: excellent choice in the Justice Department, and I hope someone
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: of her quality and caliber will be replacing her job
• 23:47
  Speaker 7: at the Civil Rights Division. Yeah, I knew Brad Reynolds.
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: You have to go into this Office of Civil Rights
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: with a knife between your teeth and pistols in both hands.
• 23:57
  Speaker 7: It's a left-wing place. It's a tough place to run.
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: Eli's going to stick around with me because we've got
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: to talk about El Sayed, and then we'll put it
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: into the podcast this weekend.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. So, Eli,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I'm running along this morning listening to you guys, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I understand the angst, and I understand John talking about
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the community, and it was a very interesting close of that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: But I was also thinking about Matt Brooks and the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Republican Jewish Committee. They do a great job. But we
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: need a Republican for Israel committee. Republicans for Israel. RFI.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I am an RFI. It's got nothing to do with
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: being in a community. It's got to do with America's
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: national self-interest. Is anyone going to build that? That used
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to be a PAC, but it was too Jewish, if
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: you get my meaning. It's got to be, they're our ally.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: We have to stand with our ally.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Anyone going to do that? I've got a guy. I've
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: got a guy. His name is Senator Ted Cruz.
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: I think that's your, that's your, that's the, By the way,
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: Senator Ted Cruz has been just terrific on this.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, he has.
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: When it was not as popular, he has put his
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: neck on the line and taken on the forces within
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: the Republican Party that I think are or border on
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: anti-Semitism and I think has made a terrific case for Israel.
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: I am really despondent, Hugh, that if it's true that
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: 60 to 70 percent of the Jews in Michigan voted
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: for Abdel El-Sayed, I kind of throw up my hands.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know what's going on. You know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I almost wondered. I can't get to you guys fast enough.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You can't trust an exit poll ever on anything.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: People lie.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Very good point.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Let's see the data.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: But I'm kind of shocked if that's the case. It's
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: a hundred and some thousand people who are Jewish in
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: Michigan who so it's not necessarily going to tip the
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: scales of the election, but I am in, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 7: the famous phrase from Midge Dexter, sooner or later, you're
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: going to have to join your own side, and I'm like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: come on.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, and by the way, it's also, it's not like.
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: Mike Rogers was a Bush-era Republican, very middle of the road.
• 26:00
  Speaker 7: If you didn't like the rough edges of Trumpism, you
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: should have had no problem voting for.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Mike Rogers, so I'm really... Puzzled on that.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Did you ever read The Winds of War and War
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and Remembrance, Eli?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: No, I should, actually.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, you should. Aaron Jastrow is the secular Jew who
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: ends up in the death camps and recognizing that the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: evil has come. I don't think there's anyone unaware that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: anti-Semitism has unfurled its flag and is flying it. Do
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you think anyone's unaware of that? Ted Cruz is right,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: but he's running for president. We need somebody else who
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: isn't running for president. But do you think anyone is unaware?
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: I think that's great. I'll say the other thing. With
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: the exception of the Washington Free Beacon and a few
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: other outlets and the free press, I mean, we've done
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: some good stuff.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: The rest of the media.
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: Completely ignored what our a phone book worth of network
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: connections between Abdel El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood. I'm not
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: saying he's a member, but I'm saying he is a
• 27:05
  Speaker 7: fellow traveler 100%. If you look at who was giving
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: the organized money to his campaign, if you look at
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: his family, if you look at the letter he signed,
• 27:13
  Speaker 7: you can go through the.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: List, and that story was buried.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: You're right, and that's why the free press is rising
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and the old media is dying. That's why the free
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: press is thriving and old media is dying because they
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: don't cover the story. Eli Lake, thank you. Follow Eli
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: at Eli Lake. Listen to Breaking History. I'll be right back, America.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm joined by Matt Continetti,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist for The
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, wrote a very important column over the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Target today. on why President Trump was right to strike
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: at Iran, right to carry on the war for 40 days,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: right to tear up the MOU, right to reimpose the blockade. And, Matt,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I've said it four times in four days. I hope
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the B-2s are in the air right now. Do you
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: think they are?
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: I don't know, Hugh. I'm a little bit skeptical.
• 28:12
  Speaker 8: I think that President Trump has a big decision to make.
• 28:15
  Speaker 8: He's going to Florida this weekend. Interestingly, he's not going
• 28:18
  Speaker 8: to the big college football game tomorrow. probably to have
• 28:21
  Speaker 8: more meetings about the situation in Iran. And he really
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: has a few options. He can continue down the road
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: he's traveled, which is the embargo, while also engaging the
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: negotiations with Iran. He can sign another MOU-type deal where we,
• 28:40
  Speaker 8: you know, Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, we
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: pay the Iranians to open up the Strait of Hormuz
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: and inevitably they'll start firing at traffic again Or he
• 28:51
  Speaker 8: can resume combat operations. He can go big with Israel.
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: He can go smaller, try to clean out some of
• 28:58
  Speaker 8: the missiles that have been put in place in the
• 29:00
  Speaker 8: Strait of Hormuz. And most importantly, I think, if you
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: resume combat operations, you have to hit some of these
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: dual-use targets. You have to hit some of the transportation networks.
• 29:12
  Speaker 8: You have to hit the power plants. And you have
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: to begin arming the opposition to delay the groundwork. to
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: bring this war to a conclusion with the fall of
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: the regime.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Now, I agree with all that. I did have a
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: very long talk with a smart guy about the Middle
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: East this week. They've got about 1,400 ballistic missiles. We've
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: got to get those. They've got warehouses full of drones.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: We've got to get those. The production assembly lines for
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: both of those to the extent. They are rebuilding military. bases.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: We need to go get those. And there's Pickaxe Mountain,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: which some people worry about. I do, because I listen
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to Mark Dubowitz. Other people don't. And we have to
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: do what you just said, and I have been saying.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Karge Island, look, just do it. Just don't let them
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: export oil for 10 years.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It's tough.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: It's not something we wanted. But Matt is... They're never
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: going to change, right? They're not going to change.
• 30:04
  Speaker 8: Well, I think that's the fundamental fact that we've learned
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: over the past years. Even in this ceasefire moment since
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: April 7th, when Trump declared the ceasefire, and we've been
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: in this period of alternating defensive, retaliatory strikes and negotiations,
• 30:24
  Speaker 8: Iran has not changed its behavior.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: They're playing for time. They saw what happened in the election.
• 30:31
  Speaker 8: They saw Vice President Vance's social media post blaming the
• 30:34
  Speaker 8: election solely on the war. They know that in 2028,
• 30:37
  Speaker 8: they could very well have either a Democrat or a
• 30:43
  Speaker 8: Republican president who is going to be ready to cut
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: a deal and who doesn't understand, like President Trump understands,
• 30:50
  Speaker 8: the true dangers of the regime acquiring a nuclear weapon.
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: And so they're going to play for time. All they
• 30:56
  Speaker 8: need is two more years. And that's why I think
• 30:58
  Speaker 8: it's so important for Trump to really spend the next
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: two years making sure that he does not hand this
• 31:04
  Speaker 8: problem over to his successors. The problem of the Iranian
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: regime has been a problem that has lasted almost 50
• 31:10
  Speaker 8: years since the Islamic revolution in 1979. President Trump is
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: the first president in all that time to take the
• 31:15
  Speaker 8: fight directly to the mullahs. And I think he, it's
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: his legacy to, to really just finish this problem, finish
• 31:24
  Speaker 8: off the regime, finish, uh, disable their ability to acquire
• 31:29
  Speaker 8: a nuclear weapon, and not hand it past the baton
• 31:32
  Speaker 8: once again like his predecessors have.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I was waiting for you to use the L word
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: before I did. It is his legacy. The Supreme Court
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: on the domestic side, the tax cuts on the domestic side,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the border stealing on the domestic side. Iran is his legacy,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and it will be the first line. Every history textbook
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: compresses every significant president to three or four sentences. If
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: he can cow or collapse this regime, it changes the world.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And I don't know that he made the argument well
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: or if his speechwriters didn't know how to make it,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: but it's the 1930s and he acted before Hitler took Czechoslovakia.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Good on him.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: And he's acted several times.
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: He took out General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: IRGC back in 2020, a man responsible for killing, wounding,
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: maiming hundreds, multiple hundreds of Americans over the course of
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: the Iraq war. Then he had Operation Midnight Hammer last
• 32:26
  Speaker 8: year took out the major Iranian nuclear sites, buried the
• 32:31
  Speaker 8: nuclear program. Now he has had Operation Epic Fury, four
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: weeks of very successful strikes against the leadership, against the
• 32:40
  Speaker 8: air defenses, against the Navy, against critical targets, nuclear targets.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: And then he paused.
• 32:47
  Speaker 8: And we've been in this position where no one is
• 32:51
  Speaker 8: satisfied and the war has been unresolved.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And so I don't think you can say that the war.
• 32:57
  Speaker 8: affected the election, which it clearly did, without saying, well,
• 33:01
  Speaker 8: you know, the war really only lasted four weeks.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: And ever since April 7th.
• 33:08
  Speaker 8: We've been in this period of negotiations, start, stop, bomb
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: one day, back to the negotiating table the other.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: More on that during the break. More on what happens
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: next for the GOP after the break. Stay tuned to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Matt Continetti and me, Hugh Hewitt. So Matt Continetti put
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: a bow before we turn to rebuilding the Republican Party
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: in the next segment on Iran. Guadalcanal did not happen
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: for eight months after Pearl Harbor. It took us eight
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: months to do anything. I mean, the Doolittle raid came,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: but that was a pinprick. It was symbolic. Operation Torch,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I think, was 10 months before we invaded North Africa
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: in World War II. This is in its eighth month.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and we've stopped and started. It's neither a failure nor
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a success. We are decisively winning, but we have not
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: decisively won. Do you think, A, I don't think that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the election was decided because of this, but is that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: a message the president should be saying every night? Not
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that we sunk the Navy and the Air Force, but
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that we are winning and we will win.
• 34:07
  Speaker 8: Hugh, I think whatever decision the president decides, makes in
• 34:10
  Speaker 8: the next few days, he does need to explain it
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: to the American people. And he needs to explain the
• 34:16
  Speaker 8: decision more frequently than his opening message when Operation Epic
• 34:22
  Speaker 8: Fury began in February.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: One can return to that speech.
• 34:25
  Speaker 8: I often do that video message Trump released at the
• 34:29
  Speaker 8: beginning of the war. And you can see what his
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: objectives were. And we've gone a long way to achieving
• 34:36
  Speaker 8: most of them. But what the problem is, is that
• 34:40
  Speaker 8: he never made the case repeatedly. I think he gave
• 34:43
  Speaker 8: one other major address on the Iran war. Clearly, he
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: defends it, you know, in his constant interactions with the press.
• 34:51
  Speaker 8: But I think it's important, especially when you start a
• 34:55
  Speaker 8: military action without getting the congressional authorization, you need to
• 34:59
  Speaker 8: continually depress the case and do so in a way
• 35:02
  Speaker 8: that reminds people of the dangers of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Now,
• 35:05
  Speaker 8: if he decides to cut a deal, he's going to
• 35:09
  Speaker 8: have to defend that too. And so whatever he does,
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: I think it's up to him to really make the
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: public case.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Cutting a deal. What a disaster. Now, the good news,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Stephen Miller is the new chief of staff. Mark Caputo
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is reporting it. It's consistent with what I've been told.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know Stephen Miller. I think I met him
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: once for like a minute. I've been told that Stephen
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Miller is a hawk, a national security advocate in the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: mold of Reagan. Good news or bad news or no
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: news at all vis-a-vis the war.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's good news.
• 35:41
  Speaker 8: I mean, Stephen Miller is an extremely capable individual. And,
• 35:45
  Speaker 8: you know, I mean, this is a job I think
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: that he's been preparing for really for the past, you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: 12 years. I mean, even before he joined with Trump, remember,
• 35:54
  Speaker 8: he was primary advisor to Senator Jeff Sessions. And so
• 35:59
  Speaker 8: he's had this kind of– he's been in training for this,
• 36:01
  Speaker 8: I think. So he's coming to the job extremely prepared.
• 36:04
  Speaker 8: I think he is hawkish in all dimensions. Definitely an
• 36:07
  Speaker 8: immigration hawk. I also think a national security hawk, a
• 36:10
  Speaker 8: crime hawk as well. And he's very capable, I think,
• 36:14
  Speaker 8: bureaucratically as well as in terms of communications. So I
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: think it's a good thing for the administration. It definitely
• 36:20
  Speaker 8: signals that Trump will not be backing down. He won't
• 36:23
  Speaker 8: be backing down on immigration. And maybe that suggests as
• 36:28
  Speaker 8: well he's not going to back down on his decision
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: to go to war against Iran.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And I don't know that he's going to be able
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to message as much. Last question before we come in.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: The chief of staffs are not messengers, right? They don't
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: go out and talk.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 36:43
  Speaker 8: I mean, Susie Wiles definitely didn't give many interviews. But
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: I expect that Stephen Miller will make the job his
• 36:51
  Speaker 8: own in the same way that Donald Trump has made
• 36:53
  Speaker 8: the presidency his own.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Well said. I'll be right back with Matt Continetti. Stay tuned.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: We'll talk GOP rebuild. Welcome back. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Matt
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Continetti is in the house. Follow him on Exit Continetti.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Read him in the Wall Street Journal. Matt, you deal
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: with my booking producer quite often. You know her. She's
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: very good. I had her send out invites this week
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to talk about the future of the GOP to Vice
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: President Vance, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Besant, Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Burgum,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Secretary Pompeo, who's already accepted, been on yesterday, Senator Tom Cotton,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Dave McCormick, Senator Tim Shee, Governor DeSantis,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Governor Doug Ducey, former governor, Governor Huckabee in Arizona, Governor
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Kemp in Georgia, Governor Youngkin, former governor, Ambassador Haley. Anybody
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I left off that we ought to be talking to
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: about 2028?
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: Was Senator Hawley in there, Hugh?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: He was not.
• 37:53
  Speaker 8: The list was so long. It was such a comprehensive list.
• 37:56
  Speaker 8: I don't want to critique it in any way. But, yeah,
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: he would be a name I'd put in there. Definitely
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: he will be part of this conversation. and maybe he's
• 38:06
  Speaker 8: looking toward a presidential run as well.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: So what forum is best? I'm going to talk with
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Larry Arnn about this, Dr. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: about serious extended conversations with people who want to help
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Trump rebuild the blowout, because it was the actual tsunami.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: It's 1974, 1994, 2010, epic blowout. It's not A six-year
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: course correction, it's a blowout. What's the GOP need to do?
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: Well, I think the GOP needs to get back to
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: some of its foundational principles and to develop for the
• 38:46
  Speaker 8: long haul. You know, this election, Hugh, was decided on
• 38:50
  Speaker 8: a variety of factors, but the main one, of course,
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: was the state of the economy. And Americans are just
• 38:55
  Speaker 8: not feeling this very good economy Donald Trump has helped
• 39:01
  Speaker 8: usher into being. And so what that means is we
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: need to get incomes up and the incomes need to
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: rise faster than inflation and also recoup all the losses
• 39:12
  Speaker 8: of the inflationary period, which, of course, is going to
• 39:15
  Speaker 8: enter its sixth year next spring. And so I think
• 39:18
  Speaker 8: the way to do that is to have a very
• 39:21
  Speaker 8: solid pro-growth agenda and to talk about how we can
• 39:25
  Speaker 8: make a rising tide lift all boats again. And so
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: that's one piece of it. I think the other piece
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: of it is we're going to have to look at
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: how some of these groups moved away from the GOP
• 39:36
  Speaker 8: and what it might do, how we might get them back.
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: I think part of that is saying that we're going
• 39:42
  Speaker 8: to focus more on people's problems than, say, legacy building
• 39:48
  Speaker 8: in Washington, D.C., golf courses, Kennedy Center, what have you.
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: I think that will be important as well. But to
• 39:56
  Speaker 8: your point about the blowout, this is not going to
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: be a quick fix. I think it's going to take time.
• 40:05
  Speaker 8: And what that means is people are going to have
• 40:09
  Speaker 8: to start thinking more in terms of being members of
• 40:12
  Speaker 8: a coalition than simply saying, it's my way or the highway.
• 40:18
  Speaker 8: To divide at this moment when the Republican Party is
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: very weak, is the road to future disaster.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as bad as 64. We're not at
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: 32 senators. We're at 44 to 46. But it's pretty bad.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you about the investigation frenzy headed our way.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I've been telling, I've been dropping Judge Stephen Larson cards
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: everywhere because the first one who gets them wins. But
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: everyone is lawyering up because the Democrats are going to
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: do what the Democrats, You and I aren't going to
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: get called, but we might be the only two people
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I know who don't get called. What do you think
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: that will do?
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Knock on wood, Hugh.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Knock on wood. I suppose we could. What do you
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: think the strategy, large, ought to be for Republican battling
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: against this? They can't do Dick Cheney in Iran-Contra, right?
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: He was the loyal supporter of President Reagan. There is
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: no Dick Cheney in the Congress to do that, as
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: far as I can see. So what's the story? What
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: should be done?
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: Well, the Democrats are going to overreach. And they're going
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: to overreach in every way. They're going to overreach on policy.
• 41:25
  Speaker 8: They're going to overreach on messaging. And they're going to
• 41:28
  Speaker 8: overreach in some of these investigations. And so I think
• 41:32
  Speaker 8: for the people who might be on the other side
• 41:37
  Speaker 8: of the committees and investigations, they're going to have to
• 41:42
  Speaker 8: be careful. But they're also going to have to be
• 41:44
  Speaker 8: ready to challenge them. some of the claims made against them. You,
• 41:48
  Speaker 8: you talked about Iran Contra. I mean, let's not forget
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: it was Oliver North's testimony, uh, there that kind of
• 41:54
  Speaker 8: turned the tables on some of the Iran Contra hearings
• 41:58
  Speaker 8: and also kind of made Ali North a star in
• 42:02
  Speaker 8: Republican and conservative circles. So I think there will be
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: some opportunities. I don't want to, maybe that's not the
• 42:09
  Speaker 8: right word, but there will be places in times where
• 42:11
  Speaker 8: the democratic inquisitorial overreach could actually, um, have conservatives who
• 42:19
  Speaker 8: are targeted come out kind of shining brighter.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: And that happens oftentimes, yeah.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Now, last question. Last week you wrote anti-Semitism is on
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the ballot. Anti-Semitism won, Matt. So I just talked to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Eli lately about this.
• 42:34
  Speaker 8: You don't need to remind me.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, great thing. RJC is great.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: We need an RFI, Republicans for Israel. coalition, and it
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: just can't be Jews and a long time. Do you
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: think that can be formed? Eli nominated Ted Cruz, but
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is running for president. Can that actually rise
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: up Republicans for Israel? Because they're our most important strategic ally.
• 43:00
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good idea. Of course,
• 43:02
  Speaker 8: we have several pro-Israel groups, Christians United for Israel's doing
• 43:07
  Speaker 8: excellent work as well. I have to say, when I
• 43:09
  Speaker 8: look at the exit polls, Hugh, and I know you
• 43:11
  Speaker 8: don't like exit polls, but One result that really struck
• 43:14
  Speaker 8: me was the fall off in voting among evangelical Christians.
• 43:19
  Speaker 8: And we know that evangelical Christians are among the most
• 43:23
  Speaker 8: committed supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship and alliance. And to
• 43:27
  Speaker 8: see their numbers drop quite significantly from about a quarter
• 43:33
  Speaker 8: of the electorate to under a fifth, that says that
• 43:37
  Speaker 8: there's something bigger here. And what it also means is
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: that the alliance and Republican support for Israel is going
• 43:46
  Speaker 8: to weaken if you don't have those great evangelical voices
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: making the case for the alliance.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Did the propaganda against, quote, Christian nationalism, which is absurd,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: it's just a small segment of evangelicalism, but did that work?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Did that divorce people from politics? They don't want to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: be painted with that brush?
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of factors.
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: You know, I also think we have to consider that
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: this was the first midterm where the pro-lifers felt disappointed
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: in what the Republican administration has been doing. And the
• 44:20
  Speaker 8: social issues, you know, the conservatives and the administration have
• 44:24
  Speaker 8: focused on the trans issue. That didn't have quite as
• 44:28
  Speaker 8: much of a punch, even though states, at the state level,
• 44:31
  Speaker 8: people continue to want to protect girls' sports. But the
• 44:36
  Speaker 8: life issue has been left aside, and I think that's
• 44:39
  Speaker 8: really dampen the enthusiasm of Christian voters.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: A great message, and especially Catholic voters, too. Matt Continetti,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: thank you. Follow him on Exit Continetti. Listen to him
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: on the commentary podcast and read him over at the
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: American Enterprise Institute. I'll be right back. Morning, glory, and evening,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Grace America. Welcome to the Weekend Lookback. Ben Dominich is here.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: He is the opinion page editor at The Daily Wire,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Fox News contributor. Sorry our camera connection didn't work on
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: election night, Ben. I really wanted to hear you in
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the middle of the storm and the deluge as the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: tsunami was coming ashore.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I want to know what you.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Were you clinging to a piece of wood? Was there
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a rubber tire in the road? What were you doing
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: on election night? Drinking?
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: No, on election night I was... Unfortunately, I was not drinking.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Matt Walsh got the whiskey on set. I did not
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: have that request. banked in when it came to the
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: Daily Wire's coverage. We appreciate the more than a million
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: of you who tuned in for that. And we and
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: I would have more to like to have joined you
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: than anything you. But unfortunately, we just got hit by
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: a gigantic storm in Nashville, basically about 10 minutes before
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: I was supposed to join you. And it killed the Internet.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I want to begin by saying this is
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: where Iraq, Iran war hawks come to cry. So let's
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: cry about that first. I am not blaming the Iran war.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I am blaming gas and diesel prices and a bunch
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: of other things, all of the above. But the president
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: made the right decision in February. I want him to
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: finish the job. What does Ben Domenech think?
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to have a slightly different opinion. One
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: point that I will make is that I think that
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: your Iran-Warhawk lineup needed to– have a bit of humble
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: pie delivered to them when it came to the case
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: they ever made for the war and the way that
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: it would play out and the expectations of the American people.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: At the same time, what I would say is picking
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: one feature out of the list of wrongs that led
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: to this result is a complete, cowardly, ridiculous, and idiotic game.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: You can't just point to one thing and say this
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: is the reason all these people lost. And the reason
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: you can't do that is because good candidates lost and
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: bad candidates lost, people who localized their election lost, people
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: who nationalized their election lost, people who claimed all sorts
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: of things in terms of their affinity with the president,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: and people who didn't know themselves from him. They all lost.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: And so what happens in a situation like that, you
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: should say the whole thing is a problem. It's not
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: just one thing. And when it came to the Iran war,
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: what I would say is I wonder now, especially after
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: the vice president's remarks on the subject, which I think
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: were far too online, far too early, and I believe–
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: have actually dramatically increased the number of people who are
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: going to compete with him for the 2028 Republican nomination.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: I think those remarks are indicative of an extremely narrow
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: and misunderstanding of the electorate in the question. One of
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: the things that went on in this election, Hugh, that
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: I think should not be missed by people across the
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: country is, a complete backlash against data centers that was
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: totally bipartisan that, you know, basically saw all of the
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: AI based agenda go down when it came to any
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: kind of local voting or anything along those lines. What
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: kind of solution did the Republican party offer on that front?
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: What was their consistent voice? I think that was actually
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: a critical factor when it came to consistent voice. The
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: president had the best policy, which is they got to
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: pay their way and they may not burden the grid.
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: And they may not hurt the water supply. Yeah, but
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: that was not being said. That was not being said.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: The other thing, of course, is that there was no
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: affordability agenda. What was the Republican affordability agenda? Basically nothing.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Basically like, well, this is the fault of this, that,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: or the other. The economy is great. Things are going up.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: And the problem from that perspective is that all the
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: lefties could basically say, we will wave a magic wand
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: and make all your problems go away. And they won
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: with that argument. This is not a scenario where you
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: can pin this to one thing. I actually think that
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: the difference between this and the 2006 scenario is that
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: the war mattered more in 2006. The war was more
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: of a drag in 2006 than it was this year.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: There were 100 KIA in Iraq in October of 2006,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: 10 in Afghanistan in October of 2006, zero in the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Iran conflict.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: It is absolutely not a comparable situation, and yet you
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: got a comparable wave tsunami, whatever you want to call it.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: And so the situation that I think we have right
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: now is this. Do you want to finish the job?
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: To your point, I think obviously they should. In the
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: same way that I was opposed to the Iraq war
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: back in the day, I supported the surge because I
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: think that once you go into something, you should finish it,
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: and you should finish it right, and you should finish
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: it on America's terms as opposed to the terms.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: Of the enemy.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: And that's what I think has to happen now in Iran,
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: and I hope the president does it. I know that
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: we are going to get to this, but Frankly, I
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: am encouraged by the fact that the president has picked
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: the next chief of staff that he has. And it's
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: not because I think that Stephen Miller is some brilliant,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: insightful person when it comes to politics. It's because I
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: wanted the president to respond to this by doing the
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: same thing that Barack Obama did in 2014 and say, fine,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: you've had your piece. You've said your deal. I am
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: not going to deal with you. I'm going to just
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: go around you with my pen and my phone, and
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be the most effective president that I could.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: you know, that was ridiculous at the time. We all
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: thought it was ridiculous, but you know what, this is
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: a new era of politics. And if Donald Trump wants
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: to do that, I think that's actually a better thing,
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: especially when it comes to foreign policy and what would
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: come from dealing with this ridiculous leadership that he's going
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: to have to deal with. And now Kim Jeffries and
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer, who are only going to be trying to
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: pick off his family members and send them to jail.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Now I, um, I don't know Stephen Miller. I've met
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: him once for less than a minute in a green
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: room in Florida in 2015 or 16. I think his
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: reputation is as a hawk on national security. I'm glad
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: about that because, to borrow a sports metaphor, winning is
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the deodorant, right? That clears the locker room. Win the war.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: And I do, however, want– no one has talked about this,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: so I want to talk about it with you, Ben.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: No one.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I have heard no one. Part of the Trump coalition
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: were Hispanics. They did not like the open border. I
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: don't believe they showed up at all for the president,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: and if they did show up, I think they voted
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: for Democrats, because when they wanted to close the border,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: they did not want to deport peaceful, illegal immigrants. Do
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: you agree with me?
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: I'm going to disagree with you, Hugh. I actually think
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: that Hispanics actually proved you wrong. I think that if
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: you actually drill down into the numbers, and this is look,
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: we are talking in early days. We're going to get
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: more data on this. And so it's very possible that
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: I will be saying, you are right, I am wrong,
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: in a couple of weeks. But in the early numbers,
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: what I actually see is, you had bigger problems among
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: young men than you did among Hispanics.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's true. Again, it's an all of the above
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: on my menu, but no one's talking about the Hispanics.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: The young men get talked about every day, and I
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: don't We can talk about that.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: The point that I actually think is funny about it,
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: and just because I think it reflects on what the
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: actual case for things is, is that if you end
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: up in a situation where Hispanic voters– actually came out
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: and voted for Republicans at a higher clip or with
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: less losses than what you saw among white suburbanites, it's
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: an indication that your white suburbanites, your allies, were more
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: offended by those ICE raids in their communities than the
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: actual Hispanics were, which I think is a telling element
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: of this. But look, Hugh, the problem is And the
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: temptation that the president sort of indicated in his call
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: with Brett on election night was he said, you know,
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: I'd be willing to work with Democrats, you know, on
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: certain subjects. The one subject, the one policy area that
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: he mentioned was immigration. Picking Stephen Miller says. yeah, there
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: ain't no deal. There is no amnesty deal that's going
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: to come out of this. There is no patching things
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: over or trying to sort of reassess things in the
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: 2012 autopsy way. We are going to be who we are.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: And I actually think that that's very healthy for him.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: And I think it's actually healthier for the party to
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: as opposed to trying to do some kind of patchwork
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: deal that, you know, tides them over or is anticipating
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: a Democrat 60-seat majority, which is something that's very realistic
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: after election night.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: All right, let me talk to you a little bit
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: about the Hispanics. A very smart guy sent me an email.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Texas Republicans got crushed on Tuesday. Major contributing factor, desertion
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: of Hispanic voters. Just look at the border counties. Trump
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: appoints a guy perhaps responsible for driving those voters away.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: If I was a GOP state rep in San Antonio,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I would not be a happy camper to say the least.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Right or wrong?
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's wrong, but I also think that
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: if you look at those Valley voters, their primary concern
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: was the economy. Their primary concern was diesel. It was
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: not ice. This is the thing that I think people
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: over-interpret these results in the frame of ice raids within communities.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: On the border, people do not have that attitude towards–
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: in fact, I mean, you know, it's an outsized number
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: of Hispanics who are represented within Border Patrol. These Valley voters,
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: they cared about the economy, but here's the other thing.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Ken Paxton had done nothing for them, nothing for them
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: in terms of their output, in terms of anything that
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: they had looked at as an issue set. They didn't
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: hear anything from him about their livelihoods, how he was
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: going to improve them, how he was going to solve
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: any of these economic problems. And they should have. I mean,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: if you are running for office, you should have an
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: affordability agenda. This is very basic.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll be right back with Ben Dominic during
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the break. He'll be back on the other side. We're
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: going to run through my list. How to rebuild, how
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to rebuild, how to rebuild after a tsunami. You've got
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: to go eat, and you've got to get a hammer
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: and some nails, and we'll talk with Ben Dominic about
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: that after the break. And during it, stay tuned. All right,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Ben Dominic, my friends at Commentary, like me, are very
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: disturbed by Al-Sayed winning and the way in which he
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: has won, which is to spike the ball and not
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: to back down or attempt to build a bridge. It's
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: very disturbing to me. How disturbing is it to you?
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it should be disturbing to everybody, but
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: I also think that it's an indicator of something that's
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: deeper and evil and problematic when it comes to our politics,
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: which is that anti-Semitism has taken a much greater role
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: within both parties than anyone seems to have wanted to
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: acknowledge until basically this moment. The leftist affiliation with anti-Semitism
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: shows up more in the polls. And with Al-Sayed, you
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: have Hassan Piker, you have Cenk, you have all the
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: other people essentially have access to the ear of a U.S. senator.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: And you know the power that that carries in terms
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: of their ability to shut everything down, take everything over
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: your one of a hundred. It's huge. It is in
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: no way equivalent to having a handful of crazy people
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: members of the House. On the flip side, I think
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: that the Republican side has been woefully unwilling to admit
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: that this problem is much deeper than just looking at
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: Tucker and some podcasters who engage in this kind of
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: anti-Semitic talk, that they have a real problem when it
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: There was my friend Mark Dubowitz, who is over at FED.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: He was tweeting out, you know, yes, he's a hard worker,
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: and I, of course, support his mission. He was tweeting
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: out things of encouragement about Republicans saying, you know, oh, no,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: we still actually support Israel, et cetera, et cetera, in
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: exit polls. And I had to point out to him,
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: young voters are not in those exit polls. Young voters
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: did not vote on Election Day. Young voters, especially young
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: male voters, stayed away from the polls, and those are
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: the people who are the problem for you. And the
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: voters who went to the polls on Election Day and
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: are part of these exit polls, they are the rapidly
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: decreasing portion of the Republican coalition. When they decrease, you
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: could end up, Hugh, and I'm not saying this in
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: an exaggerated way, you could have a bipartisan consensus. that
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Israel is a problem. Our relationship with Israel is a problem.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: We need to completely destroy our relationship in order to
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: be better friends around the world to all the other
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: countries that we care about. You know that kind of language.
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: You've heard it before, and it's going to come back.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: It scares me. In fact, I just finished talking to
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Eli Lake and Matt Connetti. I love the Republican Jewish Coalition.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Matt Brooks does a great job. We need a Republican
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: support Israel. Ted Cruz has been doing the job, but
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: we need a Republican support Israel coalition because they are
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: our greatest strategic ally, the equal of anyone around the world,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: and certainly the best in the Middle East. And I'm
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: not doing this as an evangelical. I'm doing this as
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: a national security conservative. We need Israel.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but here's the thing, Hugh. The whole winds are
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: against us on this point. You and I are in
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: complete agreement on this, and we have to recognize it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: And the thing that I think that has not happened
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: early enough is that people have been lulled into this
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: feeling that, oh, think about it. are okay because they
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: look at overall numbers and the like, but the truth
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: is it's only the older folks that are holding people up.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: You're right, and we'll talk in the break. Welcome back, America.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: During the break, Ben diplomatically pointed out that the Reagan
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: coalition people like me are dying, and we're going away.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a cruel way to put it, you.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: But it's blunt, and it's true. It's true, and it's blunt,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: and we are dying. And so the Reagan coalition ain't
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: coming back, and I'm not sure the Trump coalition is
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: coming back. This is not a question of who wins.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: It's a question of how do we have the conversation.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Here's my list of people who matter the most. in
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party right now. Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, Secretary,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: this is including Donald Trump, of course, Vance Rubio, Secretary Besson,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Burgum, Secretary, former Secretary Pompeo, Senator Cotton,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Senator Cruz, Senator Hawley, Senator Dave McCormick, Senator Tim Sheehy,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Governor DeSantis, former Governor Ducey, Governor Sarah Huckabee, former Governor,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: soon to be former Governor Kemp, former Governor Youngkin, and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Ambassador Haley. How do we arrange, I'll talk with Larry
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Arnn about this next hour, for these people to have
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: serious conversations at length about what the party needs to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: be after President Trump. He's going to be the key
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: player for the next two years, but the 2028 campaign
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: has begun.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: The 2028 campaign has begun, and Hugh, I want to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: point something out here. The Vice President obviously sent out
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: his remarks, his interpretation of this election. which was interesting
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: and signal-sending. And I think I attempted to be too
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: clever by half. And I also think that he did
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: it way too early. I think it's the kind of
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: thing that you save for a debate stage a year-plus
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: from now, as opposed to putting it out the way
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: that he did. But he put it out. I think
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: the effect is to throw chum in the water. And
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: I think that the number of competitive candidates... realistic candidates
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: who will be on that debate stage dramatically increased because
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: of the vice president's reaction and his decision to distance
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: himself from the president of the United States as early
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: as he has. And I just want to point something
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: out to you, Hugh. I don't know the last time
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: that you looked at the favorability ratings of various vice presidents.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it's not the kind of thing you'd normally
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: look up, but, you know, Some of them are pretty popular.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: By the way, the most popular modern vice president, if
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: you want a trivia card, Dick Cheney, plus 41.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Because he had no ambition to be president. He was
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: not going to run.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Exactly, exactly. But you go down the list, and you
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: look at these people, and it's like, oh, you know what, well,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: Vice President Vance, he's less popular than Kamala Harris. He's
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: less popular than Dan Quayle. He's less popular than Mike Pence.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: He's less popular than Al Gore. He's less popular. You
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: just start going through the list, and it's like, wow,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: none of these people became president. What is the vice
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: president thinking? Why is he doing what he's doing? From
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: my perspective, it's threading a needle that he doesn't need
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: to thread, and it's creating distance between him and the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: boss that he should not create. And I think that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: the actual conversation about the future of the party includes
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: a lot of the people that you just listed. But
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: Vice President Vance, he's chosen the path that he wants
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: to go down, and I think the whole conversation now
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: is about, okay, who's the best person to knock him
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: off this path?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: John Podhortz on Commentary Podcast today, or yesterday, I listened
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to it today, said the vice president is running simultaneously
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: as the heir to Donald Trump and his chief critic.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: That's a nervy strategy. It reminded me of the best
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: in show. It's a bold cotton, a bold strategy cotton. And,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it just might work, Ben. No one's ever
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: tried it before, right?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's going to work. Well, I don't know.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: But I just– look, I appreciate John's insight into this,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: but the thing that I would– it's dodgeball, by the way,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: not best in show. But the thing that I do
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: think is critical to understand in this moment is I
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: think a lot of people are taking lessons from this election.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: And a lot of them are good. They're lessons about
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: the way that you need to form an agenda for
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: the American people, the way that we absolutely on the
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: right need to have a consistent response when it comes
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: to AI data centers and other concerns related to those,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: et cetera. One thing that I do think, though, is
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: being used by the vice president and others.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 9: To cover up all of this, is to just say,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 9: this is just about a relationship with Israel, and the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 9: fact that we supported this Iran war, and that just
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 9: covers up everything else.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: Really? Because, you know, corruption was the second most important
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: issue after the economy, okay? And how do you think
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: people interpreted that conversation? Because it wasn't just about Epstein
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: files or, you know, what have you. It was about
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: a lot more than that. The vice president can't talk
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: about that because it would actually involve him being a
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: bigger critic of the president. He's not willing to do that.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: He and others, I think, are not willing to do that.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: But that is something that is absolutely a drag on
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: the Republican Party. And I would argue it's a bigger
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: drag than the Iran war.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: All right. Here's a good closing question. I have been
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: telling people. Be the first to call Judge Stephen Larson,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: my old law partner, because he's very good at investigations,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: white-collar lawyer. You're going to need someone next to you
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: at the table before the Senate and the House. But
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the dais are going to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: be Republicans in these hearings on corruption, and they're going
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: to try and pin everything on Donald Trump that isn't
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: stapled down and nailed down. They're just going to do it.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: It's a frenzy of recrimination is coming our way, and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Republicans on those committees have to make a choice. Howard Baker...
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: In Watergate, Dick Cheney and Iran Contra, what should they do?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, man, that's a great question. I think that their
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: attitude should be... complete and total aggression against what is
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: going to be an absolute witch hunt on the part
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: of these Democrats to take them apart as much as
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: you can and to point out the ridiculousness of what
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: they are going to do. They are going to try
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: to take, by the way, not just cabinet officials, but
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: lower down people, people who don't even have government jobs.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: They're going to try to create a scenario where where
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: their lawfare allies can send these people to jail as
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: soon as they exit the hearing room. You cannot treat
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: that as a reasonable or acceptable use of oversight power
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: in any way, shape, or form. By the way, there's
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: one person you left off your list. I think I've
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: got to point it out.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: Who is it?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: Well, he's only the most popular cabinet member. and that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: is one Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, like it or not, Hugh,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: whether you like it or not, he is absolutely part
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: of that 2028 stage, and you've got to be ready
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: for that, because he's going to have a following behind him.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to take the big brains over at
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: The Daily Wire and try and figure out how to
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: have A process. You can't put... We've got 18 people
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: on this list already. We can't put 18 people on
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a stage and give them two minutes. We need to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: have long conversations.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: Can I very quickly take one off the stage? Ted
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: Cruz can't run for president. He's got to go back.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: He's got to save Texas. He's got to be John
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: Tower now. He's the only statewide Texas Republican. He has
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: the money. He's dodged the bullets. He knows how to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: build coalitions, and he knows how to figure out and
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: adjudicate the kind of fights that are going to happen there. Ted,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: you've got to give up on your dreams of the
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court and the presidency. You've got to save Texas
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: for the future of the country.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: We disagree. I want Ted Cruz defending Israel in any
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: forum that the Republicans have. So, Ben Dominic, more ahead.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I was suggesting that between Town Hall and The Daily Wire,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: we ought to bring them in three at a time,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: four by four, and do three hours of in-depth dives
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: to talk about everything. Ben Dominic, follow him on Exit,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: be Dominic, read him at The Daily Wire, see him
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: on Fox News. Thank you, Big Ben.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. Jonathan Williams is the president of the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: American Legislative Exchange Council, about which I say now more
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: than never. Alec.org slash you. Jonathan, can we start with
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: some good news, please? Can we start in North Carolina?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Because we need some good news.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we sure do this week, Hugh. And North Carolina
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 6: is an interesting example. It's a Many of your viewers
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: were out there seeing the top line numbers, obviously, in
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: the U.S. Senate race, which was not positive for conservatives,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: or the legislature, which was arguably even worse, going to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: a supermajority liberal government there in North Carolina in the House.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: But in the very same evening, and this is very curious, Hugh,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: voters who are putting in these new liberal majorities in
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 6: the House and then, of course, in the U.S. Senate race,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 6: were at the very same time voting overwhelmingly to cap
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: their flat income tax and lower the cap from the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: previous cap in the state constitution by a 60-40 margin.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: You add that to property tax relief that they also
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: approved at the ballot. And then you add that to
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: photo ID requirements and election integrity requirements. And it paints
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 6: a very complicated picture, to say the least, that I
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: think my takeaway, I think our takeaway is We remain
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: a center-right country. People really appreciate the ALEC, kitchen table, conservative,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: common sense ideas. And for whatever reason, they were sending
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: a message on some of those other political races. The
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: bottom line is North Carolina realizes it's been successful for
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: so many years because it's followed the ALEC limited government principles.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: And those voters were not going to give up on
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: those principles.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: And they don't want their taxes raised. That's why I
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to begin with North Carolina. I want to go
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: to California, Nick, had a little bit of good news.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: They rejected the billionaire's tax.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: We've talked about that several times on the show now,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: and I never thought I would utter that sentence together,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: that California and good news piece of it. But we
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: did have good news in that they did see through
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: this horrible idea that would have accelerated the out-migration even further.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: And so there was some common sense at the end
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: of the day that it did come out of California.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 10: Who would have ever thought that, right, Hugh?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: And in the middle, between North Carolina and California, is Iowa.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: And they made a move to keep their taxes low
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: as well. Tell people about that.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: Well, and once again, not a great night for conservatives
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: if you look at the governor's race or some of
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: the other races politically.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 10: But voters, I think, rightly came in and adopted.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: An ALEC idea that says the legislature will need to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 6: have a supermajority vote. to increase any business income tax
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 6: or personal income tax. As you know, with Governor Kim
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: Reynolds and the great ALEC legislators out there over the years,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 6: they've become a real tax cutting leader, going to a
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 6: flat tax and all the things that they've done to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 6: get the cost of living down in Iowa. And voters said,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 6: we want to make it more difficult for future legislators
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: to raise our income taxes specifically as a key driver
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: for future growth.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Now, my ad is also off to Alec, because your
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: model policy on voter ID was adopted in Ohio, North Carolina,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and Nevada with constitutional amendments, and states like Kansas, Arkansas, Alaska,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, and West Virginia passed citizen-only voting amendments. So
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Alec continues to have this incredible impact, and I'm hoping Democrats,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: it's nonpartisan, I'm hoping Democrats come to the convention and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: learn how to do good government. Are you an optimist, Jonathan?
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 10: I sure am. You know me, Hugh.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: I'd say Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, vegetarians, we want them
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: all at ALEC to learn from the common sense ideas.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 10: And I think that's the takeaway.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, Americans have not given up on common sense solutions,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: and we want to be there across the board to
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: support these ideas. And I heard from one chamber leader,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: lost his own race, Hugh, this week, that wrote me
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: and said, ALEC is needed now than ever to continue
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 6: to give us hope around these common sense principles.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Now, Jonathan, I don't often ask you to do this.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: Can I get you to stay an extra segment? Because
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: I'm weeping for Colorado. Weeping for Colorado. I never thought
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: it would happen. Let's set it up and let's talk
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: about it. What did they do on Tabor? What is Tabor?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Explain to the national audience what Tabor is and what happened.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 10: Yeah, it was a really bad outcome there.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 6: It's something that we've already talked about for a long,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: long time at ALEC and we've talked about on the
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 6: show many times. It's their Taxpayers Bill of Rights in
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 6: their state constitution since 1992. And it's limited the growth
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 6: of government in Colorado to really a rate of population
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 6: plus inflation. So if you have a one or two
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: percent population growth and a one or two percent Inflation growth,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: you're looking at a reasonable 4% to 6% growth that's
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 6: allowed in government spending. But the minute that government wants
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: to grow faster than that, it needs to go back
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: to taxpayers and ask for the ability to raise more
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: taxes or to spend more. So a common sense approach,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: and even as Colorado has gone very blue and continues
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: to do that in this election cycle. In previous years,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: voters have said, we want to continue to keep that
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 6: limit in the state constitution.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: This year was different.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 10: Voters said they're going to give it a pause.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: I think that's very bad news because that's been the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 6: one thing that's kept Colorado from becoming California was this
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: limit on government growth. That's not going to be there
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 6: for the next number of years.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Williams, president of the American Legislative Exchange Council. I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: hope he can stay for at least three more minutes
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: is what I need. I got to cover what happened
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: in Washington state as well, because there were so many
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: initiatives everywhere. And Jonathan's got his finger on it. You
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: should join Alec if you're a legislator or adjacent. ALEC.org
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: slash you. I'll be right back. Welcome back, America. Jonathan Williams,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: president of the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC.org. You should
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: go there, ALEC.org slash you. Sign up if you're a
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: state legislator or adjacent to one. Jonathan, before we get
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: to the macro picture, rich states, poor states.com, and how
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: much work you're going to have to do on April,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Washington State, what did the statewide initiative do or not
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: do there?
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 10: Well, this was an effort by.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: taxpayer groups to say this idea of creating an income
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 6: tax in Washington may not be a very smart idea.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 6: And they went to the ballot and asked voters to
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 6: repeal what the legislature had passed.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 10: And unfortunately, that effort came up pretty short, Hugh.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: And so the Washington state personal income tax at nearly
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: 10 percent will be in effect for the future here.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: And it's going to be a big drop when it
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: comes to the new rich states, poor states rankings.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 10: Now, as you know, you can pull out.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: Your phone or you can go to your computer and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: type in rich states, poor states dot org. And you
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: can hit that adjust policies tool when you go to
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 6: your state. And you can actually put in the fact
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: that Washington state's going to have a 9.9% personal income
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 6: tax versus zero in last year's edition and see what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 6: it does to their ranking. And lo and behold, it's
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: going to move Washington state into the bottom 10 states
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: for economic outlook. And that's just going to be devastating
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: for its future growth prospects. You don't need to go
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 6: very far, but to remember that Starbucks moving their operations
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: there to Nashville, Tennessee, a no-income tax state there in Tennessee,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 6: of course.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 10: And you have Howard Schultz, CEO, moving.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: To Florida and taking advantage of that no-income tax state
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 6: as well.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 10: And there will be countless others.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 6: I was out with Washington legislators earlier this year, and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 6: they realized, the conservatives did, that the no-income tax status
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 6: was one of the reasons Washington state always was a
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: growth magnet. I'm really afraid for the future of Washington
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: state after the vote this week.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: So, Jonathan, going out to 30,000 feet, you are the
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: guy who does richstatespoorstates.org.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: It's for free.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Anyone can get that if they want to get the book.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: My question is, you've got to jumble those ratings a lot,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: don't you? I mean, this was an epic night. I
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: don't know who held the line the most. I know
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Ohio is going to go backwards if they do any
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: of the stuff they want to do as Democrats. Texas
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: could go way backwards. Florida will stay there. Utah will
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: stay there, right? They hung tough.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there were certainly some losses of conservatives in those
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: states as well.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 10: But I mean, they retained their strong majorities.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 6: And I think, you know, I'm going to be out
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: in Utah in early January. As you know, we have
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 6: our annual meeting in Salt Lake City in July. I
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: would love to have you and all the listeners come
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 6: out and be a part of that as always. But
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 6: I think Utah wants to continue to double down to say,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: how do we continue to stay at number one? And
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: I guess if you look at it in a sense
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: of some of their big competitors, like North Carolina is
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 6: going to be slowed down to catch Utah and some
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: of the other states like Texas that have been nipping
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 6: at Utah's heels are going to be fighting it out
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: to your point, Hugh, to retain those gains, whether it's
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 6: education freedom, which will be under attack, whether it's the
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: tax cuts and other pro-job creation policies.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 10: The one I'm quite worried about is Arizona going forward.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: They're going to have the first liberal trifecta of state
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 6: government for over 50 or 60 years. And there's going
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: to be some big efforts, unfortunately, to try to overturn
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 6: that education freedom and their.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 10: 2.5 percent flat tax.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: And so if you're looking at it from Utah's perspective,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 6: a lot of the competitors are going to be more
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 6: challenging to keep catching Utah. But on the other hand,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: we're going to have some important policy wins that we've
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 6: fought for for all these decades to go out there
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: and protect as well.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: OK, last question. Population shifts tell a big story. There's
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: not enough room in Florida for everyone. Tennessee, North Carolina,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: housing prices are going to go up because people are
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: going to leave Washington state. They're going to flee Colorado.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: They may have to pick up and leave Arizona. People
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: don't like to be taxed. How much movement, actual physical
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: movement of people do you expect in the year ahead
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: because of this election, Jonathan Williams?
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, I think there's enough check and balance
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: in some of those states still. I mean, the Conservatives
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 6: have kept a one vote margin in the North Carolina
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 6: Senate at the moment that will stop the excesses of
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 6: what otherwise would be turning back on some of those policies.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: And of course, you have voters putting things like that
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: tax cap into the state constitution to protect against things
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: that just happened with new progressives that are out there.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 10: Looking to change policies.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: Policy.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 10: So I don't see a ton of states radically going
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 10: backwards this year.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 6: But you do have to watch those Arizonas and a
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: few other states that are going to have some real
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: challenges ahead. And that's why some of our friends have
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: reiterated how important ALEC will be to galvanize common sense
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 6: ideas and voters from across the spectrum to come out
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 6: and talk about what it is that it's going to
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: mean to save so many of those great ideas that
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: have been passed over the years in states like Arizona.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Amen and amen. And if you're listening... Go to ALEC.org
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: right now. Sign up for the newsletter. Go to ALEC.org
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: slash Q if you want to join. They are a
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: sponsor of the program. But I'm telling you, especially if
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: you're in a minority, like my friend Robert up in
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: New Jersey, you've got to have policies to hold up
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: and show to people. And Jonathan and the team at ALEC,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: Lisa and the whole gang, they produced them. And they
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: are going to have a lot of work ahead of them.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad you're ready for it, Jonathan. Thank you
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: for spending extra time with me on a Friday afternoon.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: You'll get caught in traffic now, but I appreciate your
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: taking the time. Thank you, my friend.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: Welcome back, America.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: Time for Tarzana Joe, who I sure has a poem
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: to lift all of our spirits.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 11: I hope so, but I will tell you the first thing.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 11: Usually at the end of the poem, I say, and
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 11: that's whatever the name of the poem is by Tarzana Joe.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 11: But I'm going to tell you at the beginning that
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 11: the title of the poem is Aftermath. And the reason
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 11: why I'm telling you now is because when I went
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 11: to save it on my hard drive, I had like
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 11: four other poems called Aftermath from 2022 and 2020 and 2016.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 11: What it tells me is that you always have to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 11: lick your wounds and you have to look towards the future.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 11: Poets often see the future, and that vision can be numbing.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 11: But I'll make you a confession that I didn't see
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 11: this coming. I will tell you, Tuesday evening was an
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 11: evening for the birds, and that rarest of occasions when
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 11: I'm at a loss for words. But even writing haiku,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 11: poets have to make a sound, although we know that
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 11: sometimes silence is profound. I've been comforting conservatives with words
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 11: I won't be quoting today. and avoiding my progressive friends
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 11: now far too busy gloating. I went looking for a
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 11: bright spot, because, frankly, I wouldn't mind one. Was stymied
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 11: in my searches, so I asked A.I.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: To find one. And much to my.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 11: Amazement, you Luddites mustn't scold me, after spinning for a moment,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 11: this is what it told me. Send not to ask
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 11: the party for whom the bell is tolling. Republican positions...
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 11: still do better in the polling. Folks don't want open borders.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 11: They want voter ID. They don't think violent criminals should
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 11: walk away scot-free. Putting these things forward is what candidates
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 11: should do. Now, are there any out there?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: I can think of one or two.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 11: That's Aftermath 2026 by Tarzana Joe.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: And how many Aftermath poems have you had to write
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: for the program, Joe?
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 9: Four.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: Four. Four aftermath poems out. That's not bad. Four times
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: in all these years.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 11: I may have written an aftermath poem that I didn't
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 11: call aftermath, but that, you know, will sit on the
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 11: ground and, you know, pick me.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Lay me down a while.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Wait a while and rise and fight again. Scottish poem.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Very famous man who I can't remember. Another poet who
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: won't be... Tarzana Joe will be remembered forever because he
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: writes poems for you, the people of the United States,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: and I've never had an unsatisfied customer from Joe. So
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: all I would ask you to do, if you need
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a poem for a wedding, for an anniversary, for a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: farewell party, for a Christmas gathering, a Thanksgiving toast, it's
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: time to get in line with the man who knows
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: the most, who will rhyme whatever the season and whatever
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: the reason. All you have to do is get in
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: line pre-season. That was a riff, Joe. I hope you
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: like that. Tarzana Joe.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: TarzanaJoe.com.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: Hit the I need a poem button. Is TarzanaJoe.com functioning
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: to 100% satisfaction?
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 12: Absolutely.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: Up and running. Top of the line.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: TarzanaJoe.com. I need a poem button or to read Aftermath
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: 2026 to your friends. Thank you, Joe. Hi, Hugh Hewitt
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: for Carbon Zero. Every day there's another headline about artificial intelligence,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: and it's advancing faster than most of us could ever
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: have imagined. Raises an important question, where is all of
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: this headed? One reason why I think you'll find Carbon
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Zero so interesting, it's a novel from AI pioneer Craig Stanchel.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: His third, someone who spent years working in artificial intelligence,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: understands both its incredible potential and its very real risk.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: I'm holding an advanced copy right here, and I can't
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: put it down. I read it in a couple of days.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: In Carbon Zero, one seemingly harmless request to an experimental
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: AI sets off a chain of events no one saw coming.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: It's a fast-paced thriller, but one that makes it especially
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: compelling because it's believable. It feels believable. If you enjoy
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: stories that make you think as much as they entertain,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: I think you'll want to get a copy of Carbon Zero.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: It's available now. Go to Amazon and search for Carbon
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Zero by Craig W. Stanfill. That's Carbon Zero. Get your
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: copy today and start reading. Carbon Zero, wherever fine books
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: are sold and on the web. Hugh Hewitt here for
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Carbon Zero. What happens when artificial intelligence follows the instructions
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: given it just a little too well? That's the question
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: at the heart of the novel Carbon Zero, a new
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: techno-thriller from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfield. Craig is one
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: of my book club sponsors, and his perspective comes from
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: years of real experience with artificial intelligence. I'm holding an
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: advanced copy right here. And when I read it, I
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: couldn't put it down. The story begins with what seems
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: like an innocent request. A brilliant young AI researcher jokingly
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: tells an experimental AI to stop global warming. Instead of
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: treating it like a joke, the AI gets to work
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: and the consequences quickly spiral beyond anyone's control. Remember the
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: Hugging Face incident? Think about that. It's the kind of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: novel that keeps you turning pages because the technology feels real,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: making you wonder whether this fiction is far from reality.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: Carbon Zero is available now. Go to Amazon. Search for
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill. That's Carbon Zero. Go
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: get your copy today and start reading. Hi, it's Hugh Hewitt.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: If you are self-employed, own a small business, buy health
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: insurance for your family, you already know how expensive health
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: care can be. Here is the question. When was the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: last time someone actually looked at your entire health insurance strategy?
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: Not just your premium. Your deductible. Your out-of-pocket exposure. Your doctors.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: Your prescriptions. What could happen financially if someone in your
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: family actually got really sick? That's what John Roman and
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: his team at U.S. Medical Plan do. They understand the
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: different health insurance markets, and we've got a lot of
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: them in the United States. They help you determine which
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: coverage or combination of coverages makes sense for your situation.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: You're not dealing with an algorithm or a nameless call center.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: You have a team you can call. This open enrollment,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: don't just buy another health insurance plan. Build a strategy
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: and execute. Call U.S. Medical Plan at 877-410-4321. That's 877-410-4321. 877-410-4321.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: Or visit usmedicalplan.com. That's usmedicalplan.com. Consumer Cellular has unveiled a
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: way to get a brand new smartphone of your choice
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: and unlimited service without overcomplicating your wireless bill. Check out
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: this new $ 59 bundle offer today. For just $ 59 a month,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: you get a brand new 5G smartphone plus your unlimited talk, text,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: and data rate plan. That $ 59 is the monthly cost
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: of your phone and your service combined. And if you
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: use my promo code, Q50, you get an additional $ 50
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: off your service. Call 1-800-411-4454, 1-800-411-4454. If you're over 50,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: the $ 59 bundle gets you a brand new 5G smartphone
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: and unlimited everything rate plan with 36-month easy pay financing.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: Once you pay off your phone, you own your phone,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: not the company owning the phone, you own it. 1-800-411-4454
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: or visit ConsumerCellular.com slash you. Ask about the $ 59 bundle.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Use my promo code Q50 to get the additional $ 50 off.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: If you have to use my promo code, that's 1-800-411-4454.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: 1-800-411-4454.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: Don't forget Q50. Brand new phone. Unlimited everything. Great price.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: Good morning, glory and even grace, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: as promised, after the tsunami on Tuesday. And we're looking
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: for people who actually know or might guess well what
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: has happened. Among them, of course, former Secretary of State
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo, also former CIA director, also former congressman from Kansas,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: now head of CNQ Advisors. That's his own shop. West
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Point graduate, Harvard Law. You remember all that. Mr. Secretary,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: welcome back. What's the Matter with Kansas was the name
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: of a book in the 90s or the aughts. What's
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: the matter with Kansas? What happened? And not just Kansas,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: but across the map.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I remember that book well. He was wrong too.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 12: Thomas Frank wrote the book and said Kansans were stupid.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 12: That's also not the case this time. What they are
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 12: is frustrated and a little bit pissed off. Pissed off
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 12: that they haven't been told the truth. Pissed off that
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 12: prices are high, that tariffs impacted our farmers dramatically in Kansas.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 12: They could see that their lives had not been made better,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 12: and they let everyone know it that night.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: Well, let's walk through it all, but I listened to
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: the Ruthless podcast today. Those fellows are pretty good, and
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: they warned against what's happening online. Everyone's taking their pet issue.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: You didn't do this. Everyone's taking their pet issue and
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: said it's because of my pet issue. You just listed
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of them, and you actually listed the number
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: one that they found in the internal polls across many campaigns,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: which is corruption. Now, corruption means a lot of different
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: things to a lot of different people. In Minnesota, it means...
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: Somali daycare centers in New York City, it means Medicaid fraud.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: But to others, it means self-dealing. What's it mean to you?
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I think there is a perception.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 12: So I was out, I was in Michigan on Sunday,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 12: the day that Stevens made her announcement. I was back
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 12: in Kansas the week before that. And I heard it
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 12: every place I went, Hugh. I heard that just like,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 12: we're not getting told the straight story. We're hearing about
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 12: people getting rich who are inside a government. We're hearing
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 12: about Those who benefit from federal programs that don't deserve it.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 12: Student loans that aren't being repaid, right? And people who
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 12: work in a machine shop like the one that I
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 12: ran in Kansas saying, I didn't even go to school.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 12: Why is my taxpayer money going to repay somebody's student loan?
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 12: That's the kind of thing when they see government not
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 12: doing the most basic things that Republicans have stood.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 5: For for decades, right?
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 12: Smaller government, more freedom, a little bit of space to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 12: move about the cabin. and they see us doing things
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 12: that drive prices up and not actually doing the things
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 12: that create markets that really create wealth and jobs, then
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 12: when they see people inside of government trading stocks and
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 12: doing all of those things, they think, well, that's indecent,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 12: and I'm just going to vote for change, and damn it,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 12: I'm done with whoever's in office today.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes a lot of sense to me. I
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: do want to walk through some of the issues, but
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to when you first ran
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: for Congress. Has the Republican electorate and the independent electorate,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: the Democrats have gone off the left cliff, but has
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: our electorate changed much, even though we've had a charismatic
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: burst of populism under President Trump? Did the base Republican
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: case change?
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 5: No, it hasn't changed. Times change. We have to deliver
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: it in a different way. But Hugh, your point's a
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 5: good one.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 12: The last huge wave election I was part of, 2010,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 12: the Tea Party class of 2010, I was one of
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 12: those 70-plus Republicans who was elected that day out of nowhere.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 12: I was running a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas before that. No,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 12: what they really want is a government that's decent, that's smaller,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 12: that doesn't tax them into oblivion. They want to take
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 12: care of their families. In Kansas, they are deeply, I'll
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 12: call it, conservative with a small C. They understand family
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 12: and community in deep and important ways. And when they
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 12: see the state, they see all these things happening, Hugh,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 12: they reject it. And they haven't changed in the sense
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 12: of times move on. But the central notion of peace
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 12: through strength, let's not be wimps and appease the bad guys.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 5: Kansans can tell evil from good.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 12: And when they see us walking away from those central ideas,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 12: they get really upset and they take it out on
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 12: those who are in office. There's no doubt about that.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 12: I think that's what we saw Tuesday night.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to come back to peace through strength in
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: our second segment, Mr. Secretary. I want to stay with
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: the traditional stuff. You're not anywhere near as old as
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: I am. I'm old enough to have worked in the
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: 1974 congressional campaign of Paul Cronin and gotten blown out.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: I remember 76. I was around when we got beat
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: over the head in 2006 and 2008. We always get
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: off the ground. Any words of optimism for Republicans, independents
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: who are right-leaning about how long it takes to come
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: back and what you do to get back in the game?
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 12: Oh, no, we'll come back. We'll come back not because
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 12: you think so or I think so. We'll come back
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 12: because people at the end in America understand that the
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 12: Democrat Party has nothing for them, that the ideas that
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 12: are being put forward by the senator-elect in Michigan and
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 12: Bernie Sanders and AOC, these are not things that are
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 12: good for the people of America. And I think centrally,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 12: you talk about all these times we've been on the
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 12: mat before. know that the party will come back if
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 12: we'll stick to the core ideas that have delivered such
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 12: good outcomes, not just for our party, not just electoral wins,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 12: but really good outcomes for America that grew our economy
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 12: and created more space and a lot of wealth for
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 12: the least amongst us as well.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you about two races in particular
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday night that upset me the most. Senator Susan
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: Collins in Maine, the conscience in the Senate, Joe Manchin
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: campaigned with her. She was the most powerful woman in Washington, D.C.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: until Tuesday night, chair of the Appropriations Committee. They threw
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: her overboard for a guy I just think is a schlub.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: And then Michigan. You were in Michigan. I got nothing
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: against Muslims being in office. I got a lot of
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: worries about Abdul El-Sayed. What are your thoughts on both
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: those races, Michigan and Maine?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very interesting.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 12: In those two races, we had very good candidates, candidates
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 12: that fit their state very nicely, right? Susan Collins is
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 12: a warrior, a political animal, and a good senator. Not
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 12: as conservative as I am, but nonetheless, a really good
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 12: fit for Maine. And she just got blown out in
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 12: a way that no one could have predicted. Same thing
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 12: in Michigan, right? Mike Rogers, who was the chairman of
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 12: the Intelligence Committee when I was in Congress and on
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 12: the committee, good candidate, center-right conservative, true believer in American exceptionalism.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 12: gets beat by a guy who's just dangerous. And your
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 12: point about people's faith, whatever faith someone's of, that's fine.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 12: But this is a guy whose family is deeply connected
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 12: to the Muslim Brotherhood and who could not tell the
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 12: difference between good and evil, between Israel and Iran. I'm
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 12: very surprised the people of Michigan couldn't see through that
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 12: and elected him. I'm not as surprised that Susan Collins,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 12: in a time when the mood is as sour as
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 12: it was, was unable to use her enormous political skill
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 12: to still prevail against a really bad candidate.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: So, Secretary Pompeo, we'll again turn to specifics on the
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: world after this, but you mentioned Reagan peace through strength doctrine.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: President Trump put his arm around that. Most Republicans didn't
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: run on that, though. The Golden Fleet, a trillion and
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: a half, they didn't get it done. I'm told they
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: can't get it done. How important is it to defense
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: plus up our industrial base and our shipbuilding capacity, etc., etc.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: etc.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 12: You've talked about this for years. We had 300-ship Navy.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 12: I don't know what we have today. We have to
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 12: go rebuild. We saw it in the munitions challenges that
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 12: we faced.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 5: You're right.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 12: Very few candidates ran on this. They thought it was
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 12: somehow unpopular. My sense of this is always the American
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 12: people get it. If you articulate a vision for American
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 12: security that'll keep their children and grandchildren safe, they're prepared
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 12: to give a president a lot of space to do
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 12: the necessary, whether that's spending money, pushing back against Vladimir Putin,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 12: who is terrorizing Europe, or the Ayatollah who continues to
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 12: terrorize the Gulf and Israel and even the United States.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 5: American people do that.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 12: But you have to make the case, you have to
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 12: explain why it matters to the people of Kansas that
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 12: the Ayatollah is not successful in clothing the Strait of Hormuz.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 12: And I know we'll talk about this, but I've heard
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 12: some in the aftermath of the election say, well, gosh,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 12: that was the thing that cost us, and we just
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 12: need to walk away from this. Trust me, you walk
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 12: away from this conflict where it sits today, energy prices
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 12: ain't coming down.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to come back to that last question
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: for this segment. On Tuesday night, Bill Hemmer, your friend
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: and mine, we both are Fox News contributors, kept going
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: back to his map to my hometown, Trumbull County, Warren, Ohio,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: to Mahoney County, Youngstown, Ohio. And Rob Portman won it.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: Trump won it. John Huston lost it. How do you
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: lose the counties that had flipped for the first time
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: in my lifetime 10 years ago?
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't know.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 12: We lost counties in Kansas. We lost Finney County in Kansas,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 12: if you know Finney County at all. That's a serious
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 12: Republican stronghold. I think we lost Hispanic voters with some
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 12: of the methods that were used to enforce the immigration rules.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 12: People saw these videos and didn't like it. I think, too,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 12: that when we could see it was beginning to slip,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 12: we were way too late. We began to put effort
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 12: into these races only after Labor Day when somehow the
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 12: die was already cast. I saw some candidates like our
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 12: friend Tom Cotton in Arkansas got the got the joke
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 12: and in the summer began to do the hard work
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 12: of campaigning. So I think we made some tactical on
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 12: the ground political errors. And then I think we didn't
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 12: honor the people's wishes, which is to talk about an
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 12: affordability and explain why the Republican Party is the better
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 12: party to deliver an affordable, good life for ordinary Americans,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 12: not the liberal Democrats.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: And a last question before break. We got a minute.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big tariff guy, but I'm not blanket
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: against them, especially when they're used against China. Is that
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: where you are on tariffs?
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I'm not a big tariff guy, and we should
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 12: be trying to partner with our nations that are allies, right?
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 12: So think about Canada, right? We hurt people all across
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 12: the United States by picking a fight with Canada when
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 12: they provide a lot of energy for us and a
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 12: lot of things that really benefit us.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 5: And I think people could see that.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 12: We were picking on our friends in ways that weren't
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 12: making their lives better. I think that had ramifications, too.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 12: And I don't think there's any doubt that over time,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 12: tariffs do drive increasing us.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 5: They are taxed.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 12: And blanket tariffs that aren't aimed at a particular purpose
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 12: don't benefit our nation.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Secretary Pompeo. We're going to
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: talk about the war, and we're going to talk about
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: what to do next in that war, because that's my
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: particular part on the bingo card, if I had one
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: thing to talk about. So I get to talk about
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: it with the former Secretary of State and head of
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: the CIA. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. As promised, Secretary
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: Pompeo has stuck around for a second segment with me today. Mr. Secretary,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: I know you don't feel obliged to agree with me,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: and you'll tell me if you think I'm stupid. That's
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: what old friends do. But I am convinced that I
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: hope the B-2s are in the air right now headed
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: for Pickaxe Mountain and that the MOU is a bad
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: idea and we've got to finish the job. What do
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 12: Hugh, I'm happy to tell you when I think you're stupid.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 12: It seldom happens, and it certainly doesn't happen on this file.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 12: I hope it's the case, too. There is still more
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 12: work to be done. The president's decision to deny not
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 12: only a nuclear weapon, but the conventional systems, Hugh, right,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 12: all the systems that would have made truly impenetrable fortress Iran,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 12: The president took them out, and we can now fly
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 12: over this place with impunity, and we should. We should
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 12: keep the economic blockade in place. We should continue to
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 12: press every nation to stop providing any resources to Hezbollah,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 12: to the Houthis, to the other proxies in Iraq, and
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 12: to the regime itself. If we get that right and
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 12: then do the necessary, take down more capability, then we
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 12: can reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and then we can
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 12: rebuild the infrastructure that's been destroyed, and then the American
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 12: people will get the affordable energy that I know was
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 12: so much on everyone's mind in the election on Tuesday.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: And to double down on that, I think our most
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: important or at least the equal of any of our
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: strategic allies is Israel, a nuclear power that can project
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: and has the will to project force. And then the
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates, little Sparta, I think they struck back
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: at the Islamic Guard themselves. I'm not sure if Saudi
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: Arabia did, but Saudi's got our oil and they're our
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: ally as well. We stand with these people, right? We
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: don't let them just get, if we don't finish off Iran,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: they'll terrorize our friends forever.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 12: No, we need to finish the job for them. Most importantly, though,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 12: we need to finish the job for ourselves, for America.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 12: President Trump fundamentally grasped this. When I see comments that
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 12: talk about Israel as being the problem, that's the things
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 12: that Syed said. That was the commercial he ran. He said,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 12: Israel's causing our bananas to be more expensive. And then
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 12: I've seen Republicans say that one of the things we
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 12: have to do is fix the relationship in Israel. My gosh, Hugh,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 12: I was the CIA director. Our most important security partner,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 12: bar none, was Israel, both as an intelligence service and
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 12: the military. Our Gulf state allies are central to American success.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 12: This is in America's interest to deliver, finish the job.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 12: And I'm also disheartened when I hear people say, well,
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 12: we can't do that. We bombed them and it didn't work. No,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 12: we bombed them. We were very successful. We simply clutched
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 12: out and tried to do a stupid deal. We called
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 12: it an MOU that was never going to work. with
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 12: a regime that is implacable and isn't going to honor
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 12: anything they sign. We knew that with you, with the JCPOA.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 12: We need to go back at this, deal with resolve,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 12: make it very clear that there will be no free
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 12: pass for the Iranian regime and will ultimately prevail for
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 12: the American people.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: So, Secretary Pompeo, we've got two other big conflict fronts.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: We've got the Ukraine-Russia war, where Russia invaded twice under
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidents, and we have helped them. And I hope
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: we continue to. But China remains our biggest menace. China
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: was not discussed. I don't think anyone discussed China in 2026.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: Did they?
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 5: Too little.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 12: And we've been too willing to placate Xi Jinping under
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 12: multiple presidents from multiple parties, Hugh. It's the central problem
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 12: of the next 15, 20 years. They are supporting the
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 12: Iranian regime against us. They provided components that have killed
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 12: American kids. They are helping the Russians. The Chinese-Iranian axis
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 12: is very real.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 5: And you're right. It wasn't part of the conversation in
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 5: any serious way. It needs to be.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 12: I hope it will be an important part of the
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 12: conversation that President Trump will take forward and then an
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 12: important part of the.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 5: Conversation in the campaign in 2028.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 12: I will tell you, there are too many that were
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 12: elected from the Democrat Party who don't see that, who
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 12: are prepared to cozy up to the Chinese Communist Party.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 12: We know evil and we know the aggressor. We know
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 12: who it is in the Middle East. We know that
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 12: it's Vladimir Putin. terrorizing Ukraine. And we know that it's
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 12: Xi Jinping that is threatening every American as well. We
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 12: have to be serious about this. We will prevail, just
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 12: like the Republican Party is going to rise. America will
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 12: be fine. But we need leaders who are prepared to
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 12: do the necessary things to provide the security that the
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 12: American people so richly deserve. And I'm convinced they will
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 12: demand in 2028.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: At the risk of putting people to sleep, I'm going
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: to bring up the debt. And I'm going to do
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: it in the context of the fact we need a
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: trillion and a half dollar defense budget like President Trump
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: has requested. So on the one hand, I'm saying we
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: got a 40 trillion dollar debt. On the other hand,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I'm saying we need to spend another trillion and a half.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: Can you reconcile those two deeply in, I think, necessary
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: strategic important points?
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 5: I certainly can. By the way, they're not remotely inconsistent.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 12: You spend a trillion and a half trillion dollars on defense,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 12: and you will continue to have the United States dollar
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 12: as a reserve currency for the world. The single most
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 12: important thing to grow the American economy is that we
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 12: protect and secure America, maintain our freedom, property rights, basic
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 12: human dignity. We can grow the economy. And that, Hugh,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 12: that's the only way out of $ 40 trillion hole that
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 12: we're in. GDP growth, not a two and a half
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 12: or three, but a four or four and a half
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 12: year on year. You can spend the money on security,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 12: you can deliver for the American people, and you can
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 12: dig our way out of this incredible challenge we face
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 12: with $ 40 trillion in debt today. And by the way,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 12: to your point earlier, did anybody campaign on this interview?
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: No, they didn't. And a lot of people tried to
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: have it both ways on data centers. And that's where
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: I interestingly want to finish with you. I read this
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: morning that Outer Mongolia has become data center central for
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: the People's Republic of China. They're just building them everywhere
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: because they know it's the future. Now we've got the
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: left in this country and some populists saying, well, they
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: can't have a data center in my state. What's Mike
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: Pompeo think about that?
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 12: I think markets should drive the outcome and markets are
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 12: going to demand enormous amount of compute and the United
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 12: States needs an enormous amount of compute to keep people
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 12: safe and to win the technology fight against the Chinese
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 12: Communist Party. We can build these facilities, right? They're buildings
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 12: with servers in them. We can build them in a
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 12: way that is environmentally safe, whatever it is the left wants.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 12: We can do it in a way that doesn't drive
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 12: utility rates through the roof. We can tax them appropriately.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 12: All of those things are reasonable. But if we put
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 12: a moratorium on it, we ban them, or we say
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 12: we're just not going to play in that game, the
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 12: Chinese Communist Party will own compute, they will own AI,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 12: and that is not good for your children, my children,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 12: and our grandkids, Hugh.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: Let me close with this. Almost a decade ago, you
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: were kind enough to invite me out to Langley when
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: you were the director of the CIA. And my last
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: question was to you, are we capable of keeping up
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: with our adversaries in the world of cyber? You said,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: we've got that, Hugh. Don't worry about that. Do you
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: worry about it now?
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 5: Yes, it's always something we should have in the front
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 5: of our minds. I worry about it greatly.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 12: We saw the North Koreans take $ 6 billion in tokens, apparently.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 12: It's a constant threat. We're in a pretty good position.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 12: We have continued. By the way, under Republicans and Democrats alike,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 12: we've continued to do hard work, hardening our systems. But
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 12: on defense, you got to go 100 for 100. On offense,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 12: you just have to have one breakthrough. We need to
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 12: maintain the capacity to defend ourselves from cyber threats. And
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 12: you see, both in the Middle East and Europe, that
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 12: becoming an even greater part of kinetic warfare. But it
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 12: matters to economies as well, Hugh. I'm convinced that our
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 12: model is the right one. university systems, private sector leadership.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 12: Those are the ways you deliver on cyber protection for
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 12: the United States. I'm convinced the United States will prevail
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 12: there as well.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Secretary Pompeo. By the way, is Pipehitter still
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: up and running? I don't know if you've got a
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: political arm anymore.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 12: I'm focused on things other than that for the moment,
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 12: but I still care deeply about America in the same
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 12: way that you do, Hugh.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: Well, Mr.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: Secretary, don't be a stranger. Keep coming back because, boy,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the Republicans are going to need a lot of good
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: advice to navigate This particular channel of politics where we
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: have not been for a long, long time, 2008, we
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: are down to 41 senators. We can rebuild. We need
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: to listen to people like Mike Pompeo in the course
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: of doing that. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.