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The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated - The Big Weekend Pod · Salem Podcast Network

• 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, a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: for hillsdale.com or just Google Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Morning,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Lori and even Grace. Welcome to the Big Weekend Pod.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. Thank you for joining me today. There's
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of news to review because we are less
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: than three weeks away from an election in the United
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  Speaker 1: States that could determine so very much that a lot
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  Speaker 1: of our focus today was guest John Ellis of News Items,
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  Speaker 1: with Matt Continetti of the Wall Street Journal and the
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  Speaker 1: American Enterprise Institute, with Ben Dominich of the Daily Wire,
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  Speaker 1: and of course with just me. And the data that
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  Speaker 1: I bring you is about the elections. And I think
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  Speaker 1: it was a good week for Republicans. I think they
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  Speaker 1: won the week pretty handily. and that's because the price
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of oil went down and stayed around $ 90 a barrel,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and that meant gasoline, at least in the Northeast, is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: about $ 4. 35 a gallon. That's coming down, and that's good.
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  Speaker 1: Employment report was not as strong as the month before,
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  Speaker 1: but it's still pretty good. And going in, the Republicans
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  Speaker 1: have buckets of money, and the Democrats have buckets of problems.
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  Speaker 1: For example, we don't know where Mr. Tallarico is. Now,
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  Speaker 1: maybe he will have serviced overnight, and on Saturday he'll
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: show up somewhere, and he'll say, boy, that was a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: bad flu. I had a really bad flu. Or we'll
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: find out, but it's just weird. And El-Sayed blew the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: debate with Mike Rogers big time, as I'll talk about
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: with Matt Continetti and Ben Domish today. It's not a
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  Speaker 1: hard question. Who's more dangerous, the United States, Iran, or Israel?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Israel's our ally. We have been fighting a war with them,
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  Speaker 1: wingtip to wingtip, as they say, in March and April
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  Speaker 1: of this year. And they've taken casualties, we've taken casualties
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  Speaker 1: in a battle with Iran. And Iran has murdered more
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  Speaker 1: than 1,000 Americans since 1979 when that regime took over.
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  Speaker 1: They're the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world. They
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  Speaker 1: supply Hamas with weapons and money, Hezbollah with weapons and money,
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  Speaker 1: the Houthis with weapons and money. They send assassination teams
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  Speaker 1: around the world. They are absolutely a nightmare regime. So
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  Speaker 1: for Al-Said not to be able to answer that question...
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  Speaker 1: Not once, not twice, but three times. He said, that's
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  Speaker 1: a dumb question. That's a ridiculous question. That's a ridiculous question.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
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  Speaker 1: It's an easy question. And the fact that he can't
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  Speaker 1: answer an easy question tells us all we need to
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  Speaker 1: know about Abdul El-Sayed. But there's news in other races
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  Speaker 1: as well. Susan Collins, not unexpectedly, scissored up Troy Jackson
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  Speaker 1: pretty badly. Michelle Tafoya remains locked in a dead heat
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  Speaker 1: in Minnesota. We've got closing numbers in Ohio where we
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  Speaker 1: got a poll this week. John Husted ahead of Sherrod Brown,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: who is increasingly infirm, and people notice it. I just
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  Speaker 1: thought it was a very good week. Doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: they'll win next week. I meant that they won this week.
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  Speaker 1: So sit back, settle in, enjoy this week's. Weekend Review,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the big weekend pod. Good morning, Lori. My name is
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  Speaker 1: Grace America, and a good weekend to you. The Big
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  Speaker 1: Weekend Review is here, and it begins as it does
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  Speaker 1: most days on the weekend when we're joined by John Ellis.
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  Speaker 1: He's the founder and editor-in-chief of News Items, first thing
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  Speaker 1: I read in the morning. I usually post one or
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: two of the items on X. John always sends me
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  Speaker 1: five stories. You know, John, I'm so glad to get
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  Speaker 1: your first story because I never did any math after
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: taking calculus in high school 50 years ago. I've always
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: felt like I left the field down, and now I
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: realize it didn't matter that I let math down because
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  Speaker 1: OpenAI has solved all the problems. Tell us about this.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it hasn't solved all of them, but of the
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  Speaker 3: 500 most important problems that math presents, it has solved
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  Speaker 3: 90 of them. Tuesday, they released more than 350 findings,
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  Speaker 3: many of which are probably worthy of a Fields Medal,
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  Speaker 3: which is sort of a gold medal of mathematics. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I think of this as like a seminal week,
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  Speaker 3: maybe the most important week in the history of mathematics,
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  Speaker 3: because what OpenAI has accomplished has advanced mathematics significantly. to
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  Speaker 3: a point that no one could ever imagine it would
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  Speaker 3: be advanced. And to give you some idea of what
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  Speaker 3: they've accomplished, basically, if you went back and compiled the
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  Speaker 3: last century's worth of math and said, okay, this is
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  Speaker 3: the best of it, OpenAI released something approximating that in
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  Speaker 3: one day.
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  Speaker 1: What I thought about, John, when you sent me this note,
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  Speaker 1: was the number of doctoral candidates spread out across the
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  Speaker 1: United States in higher math, and they've been working away
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  Speaker 1: for seven years at one of these problems. And along
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  Speaker 1: comes Claude or ChatGPT and just says, start over, find
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  Speaker 1: a new PhD thesis. That's got to hurt.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's not just mathematicians that will be affected.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about wealth management, right, you
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  Speaker 3: have passive investing, which is ETFs and mutual funds, and
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  Speaker 3: you have active investing, which you have somebody you think
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  Speaker 3: is capable of picking stocks, there is no way in
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  Speaker 3: God's green earth that a stock picker can know nearly
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  Speaker 3: as much about the stock market than AI can. And
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  Speaker 3: so that's, you know, wealth management, investment advisors, as they're called, are,
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  Speaker 3: you know, employ a lot of people. And If Sam
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  Speaker 3: Altman and Dario decide that they want to focus their
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  Speaker 3: attention on investing, then all of those people.
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  Speaker 4: Are going to be redundant.
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  Speaker 1: You're right. You remind me of the Kiplinger letter, and
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  Speaker 1: they used to come out with the technicals analysis that
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  Speaker 1: you could look at gapping up in the teacup, whatever
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  Speaker 1: it was. I always thought it was mumbo-jumbo. But if
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  Speaker 1: it's all numbers, AI is going to be better at
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  Speaker 1: that than the folks at Kiplinger. Let me go to
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  Speaker 1: number two, because this matters a great deal to me,
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  Speaker 1: that the economists have come around to my way of
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  Speaker 1: saying things. Iran is on the brink, I think, and
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  Speaker 1: apparently the economist agrees. John Ellis?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're pointing out that the economy in Iran is
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  Speaker 3: in desperate shape, which I think everybody knew. The fact
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  Speaker 3: and the piece that really struck out to me is
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  Speaker 3: that soldiers in the Iranian army, which is different from
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  Speaker 3: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but nevertheless is an army, are
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  Speaker 3: not being paid. So if you have an army that's
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  Speaker 3: not being paid, they may feel that the right thing
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  Speaker 3: to do is get a new regime that will pay them.
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  Speaker 3: So for the first time, it's not, in my knowledge,
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  Speaker 3: and I assume that the economist reporting is correct, that
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  Speaker 3: we've had people who are opposed to the regime, but
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  Speaker 3: they don't have guns. And if the army, the soldiers
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  Speaker 3: are not getting paid, they do have guns. So that
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  Speaker 3: may be the tipping point that President Trump and others
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  Speaker 3: are hoping will cause Iran to come to the table
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  Speaker 3: rather desperately.
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  Speaker 1: As you pointed out, and I think you've said this
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  Speaker 1: in news items a few times as well, they were
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  Speaker 1: such fools to walk away from the MOU. But they did,
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  Speaker 1: and we are where we are. Let's turn then to
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  Speaker 1: Secretary of War Hegseth announcing that The execution of Major Hassan,
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  Speaker 1: the Fort Hood shooter from 20-plus years ago, will occur
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  Speaker 1: on December 3rd. Now, John, that is certain to be delayed.
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  Speaker 1: I just, if I had to bet, if there was
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  Speaker 1: a polymarket on that, I'd just bet, okay, let's look
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  Speaker 1: to 2028 at the earliest. But you think it's very
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: convenient if Hegsett decides to run for president.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think the one thing that two events occurred
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  Speaker 3: in previous presidential campaigns, President Clinton and then Governor Clinton
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  Speaker 3: allowed an execution to go forward despite very strong opposition
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  Speaker 3: in the liberal wing of the party. Then Governor Bush
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  Speaker 3: allowed an execution to go forward. That was seen to
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  Speaker 3: be a political move to help him in the primaries.
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  Speaker 4: Whether it was or not, we can debate. So But,
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  Speaker 4: you know.
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  Speaker 3: Secretary Hexeth has already campaigned in Iowa. There's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of talk about him running for president in 2028. And
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  Speaker 3: this may be a replay of the Clinton-Walsh thing, except
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  Speaker 3: in this case, he's talking about live streaming it, which
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  Speaker 3: I can't imagine President Trump will allow to go forward.
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  Speaker 1: Neither do I. Moreover, that would be another reason to
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  Speaker 1: delay the actual execution on a separate thing. Let's move
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  Speaker 1: on to number four. Can you remind people what margin
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  Speaker 1: of error means in a poll? Because we are down
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  Speaker 1: to the point now where I would guess seven out
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  Speaker 1: of eight Senate races are in the margin of error.
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  Speaker 1: At least.
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  Speaker 4: The margin of error, there are a couple of things
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  Speaker 4: about polls.
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  Speaker 3: One is that 19 out of 20.
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  Speaker 1: Of them are believed to be accurate.
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  Speaker 3: There's a so-called confidence factor of 95 percent.
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  Speaker 4: So there are 20 polls. One of them is going
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  Speaker 4: to be out of whack. The second is.
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  Speaker 3: That the margin of error can be plus or minus three,
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  Speaker 3: plus or minus four. Realistically, because it's so difficult to
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  Speaker 3: poll now, the margin of error is at least four
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  Speaker 3: and probably five. So if Hugh Hewitt is leading John
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  Speaker 3: Ellis 46 to 43, Hugh Hewitt.
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  Speaker 1: Might be behind John.
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  Speaker 3: Ellis 48, 41, because that's within the margin of error.
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  Speaker 3: And so when you read about these polls, as we
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  Speaker 3: do over and over and over again, The narrative is...
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  Speaker 3: is Hugh Hewitt leads John Ellis by three, but that's
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  Speaker 3: not the case.
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  Speaker 4: The race is a statistical tie.
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  Speaker 3: And so all of the stories and on and on
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  Speaker 3: and on about so-and-so leading so-and-so and the Democrats can
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  Speaker 3: recapture the Senate. And it's all based on polls, which
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  Speaker 3: are within the margin of error. Literally all nine of
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  Speaker 3: them are within the margin of error.
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  Speaker 1: That's so remarkable. And I heard today on the commentary podcast,
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  Speaker 1: New York Times cannot get, they got 8,000 out of
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  Speaker 1: 28,000 phone calls answered. That's such a low.
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  Speaker 4: That's high.
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  Speaker 1: Is that high? Wow.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, the refusal rate is usually 90% plus.
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  Speaker 3: So if you were to interview 50,000 people, you would
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  Speaker 3: get maybe, maybe 2,500 at the best.
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  Speaker 1: Good for the New York Times. I want to make
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  Speaker 1: sure I get to your observation about Paul Krugman, who
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I don't often talk about on the program. But he
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: made me think, because he brought it to my attention,
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  Speaker 1: that the riots in France are really about a transfer
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of wealth from Gen Z to to the boomers who
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: are living longer in France with very, very cushy retirements,
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  Speaker 1: and the French kids feel like they're getting scraped. That's
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  Speaker 1: coming to a theater near us soon, isn't it? I
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: think so.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, Paul's piece on the problem of the French bonds, essentially,
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  Speaker 3: is the retirement age is 62. Macron tried to move
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: it up to 64 and couldn't get it done.
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  Speaker 1: The actual.
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  Speaker 3: Age of retirement in the US, unless you take it early,
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  Speaker 3: is 67 before you start getting paid Social Security.
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  Speaker 1: So there's that.
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  Speaker 3: There's whatever, five years of payments that probably shouldn't be made.
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  Speaker 3: And the French people are healthy. So it's not a
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  Speaker 3: matter of living in some kind of disastrous environment. So
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  Speaker 3: there's that. And then there's the fact that I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to miss this here, but the fact that the French
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  Speaker 3: literally appear to be politically incapable of dealing with this
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  Speaker 3: has sort of broken through to people who are in
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  Speaker 3: college and their cohort, younger people essentially, that all of
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: the money is going to the oldsters and they're getting screwed.
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  Speaker 3: And so usually student demonstrations take place around exam time
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: in May, but these demonstrations are taking place in October,
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  Speaker 3: so they're somewhat more serious.
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  Speaker 1: And the one fun fact to know and tell, we
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: want to leave everyone with, the life expectancy in France
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  Speaker 1: is a stunning 87 years of age, two years older
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  Speaker 1: than the United States. I'm surprised by that, John Ellis,
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  Speaker 1: are you?
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  Speaker 3: You would think all that rich food would do them in,
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  Speaker 3: but apparently not.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: The filterless cigarettes is what I had down to get them.
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  Speaker 2: John Ellis, thank you.
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  Speaker 4: I forgot about Gola.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Gola. They're out there smoking a chimney every time
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I've been in France the last 10 years. Go to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: News Items and John Ellis. Google, subscribe. You'll be smart
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: every morning by 6.30 in the morning. Stay tuned, America.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back on The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. Matt Continetti is with us now. Matt,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: of course, is with the Wall Street Journal for Expressions
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: columnist there at the Journal. He's the head of domestic
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He's a regular
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: panelist on the commentary podcast, including today. He's got a
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: banger of a column today in the Journal. October 7th
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  Speaker 1: is still testing us. I want to talk to him
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  Speaker 1: about it. But first, after I listened to the commentary
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: this morning, Matt, I thought of the old line from
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: some bad Western... where the hero shows up, and they ask, oh,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: so you came alone? He said, no, I brought my
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: friends Colton Wesson. So now I'm thinking, you brought your
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: friends Chad and Claude. Do you do everything with the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: chat GPT at your fingertip now?
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  Speaker 5: This is the 21st century, Hugh. You know, if you
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: have a question, you type it into an AI engine.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: You don't go to search anymore. Even Google is basically
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: turned into an AI if you ask it a question
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: rather than just search for a topic. So Yeah, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: was doing some research looking at polling misses in Senate
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: races going back to 2014. And just to cut to
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: the chase, there have been a lot. Especially when you're
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: dealing with red states. There just seems to be this
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: persistent inability of pollsters to account for conservative, working-class, Trump-supporting
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: voters in their polls.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: My favorite example that you cited was Susan Collins from
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: six years ago where Sarah Gideon was five to six
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: points ahead and Susan Collins won by nine. So that's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a 15-point swing from the last poll. I expect we
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: will see some of those. I don't know where they
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: will be. Maybe they've gotten better. Maybe they've gotten worse.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: There certainly is no reason to expect them to have
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: gotten much better. Is there, Matt? That's the key part.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: There's no technological reason out there for us to assume
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they're better at their work than they used to be.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Well, considering the polls undercounted Trump just two years ago.
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, remember the headline, what, 10 days before the election,
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: seven days before the election in 2024? The Ann Seltzer
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: poll out of Iowa showing Kamala with a huge lead
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: turned out to be completely wrong. So I just think
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: we need to be skeptical of all the polls, all
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: of these ratings agencies moving these races into toss-up. You know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: the thing about toss-up is the races are within the
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: margin of error, which by definition means they could go
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: either way.
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  Speaker 1: And so I think it's far from over in the Senate.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: John Ellis just reminded me, every single race of the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: nine big races are within the margin of error in
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: some polls. Every single one. Every single one. So we
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: don't know. But you mentioned Ann Seltzer. You just made
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: me think of Candy Crowley. If you're going to live
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a life on the public stage, Ann Seltzer, Candy Crowley,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: don't make your last act a face plant. Because that's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: all that anyone will. I mean, Ann Seltzer did great
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: work for years. She gets that one big swing and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a miss at the end of her career. Candy involves
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: herself in the debate with Romney and Obama. And that's
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: what comes to mind. By the way, any memories of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Mike Ditka fresh in your mind?
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Well, I was a little too young to appreciate Ditka
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: in all his glory. But, you know, I love the legend.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: I love following his post-football career, of course. And, I mean,
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: he is the inspiration for one of the greatest SNL
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: skits ever. with Dick Schwersky's super fans there in Chicago,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: where it's who would win, Ditka versus God? And the
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: answer is Ditka.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Ditka. Let me go to your column today. October 7
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is still testing us. Summarize it for the audience in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: two minutes, Matt, because I then want to get to
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the El Sayed application to this. Sure.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: Well, my point in the Wall Street Journal today is
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: that more than all of the destruction of October 7th,
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: more than all the wars that followed the October 7th
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: attack on Israel, what Hamas was doing was really testing
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: the Western world. It was really testing our ability to
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: see good and evil, to distinguish right from wrong. And
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: when we look at the events that have followed October 7th,
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: we see that All too many people have failed that
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: test and are continuing to fail that test. And despite
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: the initial support for Israel on October 7th from Western governments,
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: everything that's happened in the three years since has led
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: to an erosion of support. It has led to more
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: sanctions against Israel, more calls for a Palestinian state. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: most paradoxically to me, even after President Trump comes to
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: power in 2025, having campaigned as a supporter of Israel,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: and then setting into motion a chain of events, Hugh,
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: which we've covered on this program, whereby eventually Hamas agreed
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: to a ceasefire and the release of all the living
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: and the dead hostages. Despite this great success, anti-Israel sentiment
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: and anti-Semitism globally has only increased. And so it's a
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: very disturbing comment on our times.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm going to continue talking with Matt during the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: break about this, but I want to mention it before
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: we go in. Last night, El-Sayed asked three times, once
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: off air, twice on air, who's a greater danger to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the United States, Israel and Iran? El-Sayed refused to answer that.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I'll ask Matt Continetti if that is not, in fact,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: all the evidence he needs for the fact that America
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is having trouble with the easy questions. Stay tuned. I'm
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: back with Matt Continetti. Matt, let me play for you
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the last of the three exchanges that Abdul El-Sayed had
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: with moderator and Mike Rogers and Leland Bittert yesterday. Cut
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: number 12.
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: I don't consider an ally a country that takes us
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: to wars we don't need to fight, and I don't
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: want to be fighting wars we.
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: Don't need to fight.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: I just think that makes both of them kind of dangerous.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I'll ask one last time.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Israel or Iran?
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: That's, again, a ridiculous question. I think Both of them
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: have proven dangerous in their own way. One, at risk
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: of attacking us. One, getting us into wars.
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: We have no business.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Matt, what do you make of that answer?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Because I think it's transparent that he's an Islamist apologist
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: at best.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's just an atrocious answer. First of all,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: to say it's a ridiculous question is in itself ridiculous.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: It's a pretty simple question. Who's the greater threat to
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: the United States?
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And you know what?
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: Pretty simple answer.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It's Iran.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: It's Iran that has been calling for death to America
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: since the Islamic Revolution. It's Iran that's behind terrorist plots
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: around the world that have killed Americans. It's Iran that's
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: killed our soldiers in the Middle East for decades and
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: injured our soldiers. It's Iran that's created this ring of fire.
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: It's Iran that's firing on international shipping. It's obviously Iran.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: And the fact that he can't say that, Hugh, is
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: such an indictment of his candidacy, of his worldview, and
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: of his supporters.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: It's revelatory. I'm just so stunned that that's the only
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: answer he can come up with, which is to object
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to the question. In 1833, there was a Supreme Court case, Matt,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: called Barron v. City of Baltimore, or City of Baltimore v. Barron,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I might get it wrong, where Chief Justice Marshall said,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: This is a question of great importance, but fortunately not
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: much difficulty. That's what this is. It's a very important question.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It's also easy. Should anyone in Michigan be comfortable voting
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: for this guy if they don't like Islamist terrorism? No, no.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: And I think people in Michigan are coming to awareness
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: of that fact. You know, I've just been struck over
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: the past week. You've had these focus groups on MSNOW.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: where Democratic voters are actually emotionally pained because they're saying
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: they can't bring themselves to support al-Sayed because of his
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: response to that attempted terrorist attack on the synagogue. And
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: then you have an anecdote from the veteran political journalist
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: Ron Brownstein telling CNN that he was speaking to a
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: black minister in Detroit who said, this guy al-Sayed cares
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: more about Gaza than he does about Detroit. And that
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: preacher is absolutely right. And I think once people recognize
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: that fact, they know they cannot support this man.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And we will play on the other side an ad
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that Mike Rogers unveiled today, and then we'll run down
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the Senate scoreboard with Matt Continetti. Don't go anywhere, America,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: except over to X. Follow Matt at Continetti. Sign up
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: for The Wall Street Journal. You can read him twice
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a week in the Free Expressions column. And do not
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: miss him on the Thursday or the Friday edition of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: The Commentary Podcast every week. Stay tuned. Welcome back, all
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you weekend celebrators. Remember, Saturday, 8 p.m., Guardians vs. White Sox.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: We know who the angels are on the side of,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the Guardians. Matt Continetti is back with me from the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and American Enterprise Institute. Matt, I would
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: like to play for you Mike Rogers' new ad. It's titled,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Meet Taylor Weintraub, Cut Number 16.
• 22:51
  Speaker 8: Temple Israel is probably one of the most important places
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: in our lives.
• 22:56
  Speaker 9: It is.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: our safe place.
• 22:59
  Speaker 8: Just afternoon on March 12th, my son Madden was in
• 23:02
  Speaker 8: his classroom when a terrorist attacked his school. He admitted
• 23:05
  Speaker 8: his intention was to kill Madden and everyone in that school.
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: I just felt my whole world crumble. I've never run
• 23:13
  Speaker 8: faster in my life. I've never screamed or cried harder.
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: Is my son safe? Are his friends safe? Are his
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: teachers safe? I think of March 12th every single day
• 23:23
  Speaker 8: when Abdul El-Sayed said, hurt people, hurt people. He gave
• 23:27
  Speaker 8: an excuse to someone who wanted to murder children. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 8: the fact that it's on his website says everything that
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: we need to know. He put the words out there
• 23:35
  Speaker 8: and he cannot take them back. Mike Rogers is here
• 23:38
  Speaker 8: to listen to us and here to help us feel safe.
• 23:41
  Speaker 8: I'm a lifelong Democrat, but this election, I'm voting for
• 23:44
  Speaker 8: Mike Rogers. Abdul El-Sayed should never be our senator.
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: TFM is responsible for the content of this advertising.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So that's an uppercut, Matt Kennedy. What do you think
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: about that ad?
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: Extremely powerful ad, I think unassailable, and I think gets
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: right to the heart of the matter. I mean, I
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: do think Michigan's the most important Senate race this year.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: We've talked about that, and it's because of what Al-Sayed represents. And,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: you know, his side knows this, too. We had that
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: story that AOC was crowing to supporters earlier this week,
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: that if Abdul Al-Sayed can win Michigan, this sort of socialistic, anti-Israel,
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: anti-Semitic situation toxic brew that is taking over the Democratic
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: Party could win everywhere. And so it's moms like that
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: in that ad, I think, who are really the last
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: line of defense.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And one senator, I like to remind the audience, one
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: senator can do so much damage. I am reminded of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the Tommy Tuberville boycott of general officers and admirals. He
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: screwed up. hundreds of careers by that stunt, and he
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: eventually withdrew it. But one senator can screw up a
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff, Matt Continetti, and it's not only the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: canary in the coal mine, it's six years of a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: radical in the United States Senate. It will be a nightmare.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that's my point, Hugh.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely right.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: One senator has a lot of power, and because the
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: Senate terms are staggered over presidential administrations, the senators elected
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: this year will either be the base of support or
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: the obstacle to the next president's agenda. And so if
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: the Democrats take over the Senate this year, they are
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: building the foundation for a socialist agenda in 2029.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Well said. Now let's run through their candidates quick for
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the scoreboard. First of all, we have Al Sayed in Michigan,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, Tallarico in Texas, and Troy Jackson
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in Maine. Those are the four most radical members of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the Democratic slate. It's sort of like the cast of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: The Office minus Jim. Do you think all or any
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of them are likely to be good senators if they win?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Not whether or not they're going to win, but do
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: any of them have any talent?
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Well, maybe I'll just think of a Paul Wellstone or
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: a Russ Feingold. Those were progressives who I obviously disagreed
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: with in every way possible. But nonetheless, I thought they
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: were pretty good senators. None of the individuals you mentioned.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: I think, would rise to the level of a Wellstone
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: or Feingold.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I agree. I just think they nominated the weakest class.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Then we look at New Hampshire, John Sununu versus Chris Pappas.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: What is the Matt-Claude-ChatGPT vibe? Because I'm no longer assuming
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: it's your vibe.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: My pal Claude, as we were mentioning, that New Hampshire
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: race is one, actually, where he is skeptical of the
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: Republican chances. And I do see in the polls... Pappas
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: kind of widening his lead. So that would be an upset,
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: I think, if Sununu, who's a great candidate, pulls it
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: out in the end.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I am skeptical, although Mike Watley is welcome here and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: will be on a couple more times. He is the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: one I have the least amount of hope for catching.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, I would think Georgia has more of a
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: chance of a surprise than North Carolina does because Ossoff,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: he's an accidental senator. What does your friend Claude say
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: about Georgia and North Carolina?
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, Georgia, North Carolina, I didn't need the AI
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: to see where the polls are headed. Ossoff is outside
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: the margin of error ahead of Mike Collins. And then
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: North Carolina, Roy Cooper, popular former governor, he's definitely outside
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: the margin of error for Whatley. So what we have
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: right now when I see it, Hugh, is Democrats are
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: picking up one seat, and that's North Carolina. Everything else
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: is a toss-up.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I think Dan Sullivan will
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: end up beating back Dirty Trick, Decoy Dan Sullivan, and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Mary Peltola. And I can't imagine Ashley Hinson not winning
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: or John Huston not winning or South Carolina going the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: wrong way. I don't know enough about Kansas to have
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a guess. But if that's the night, if it's a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: net one pickup for the Dems, are they going to
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: be as disappointed as Republicans were in 2022? Oh, I
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: think so.
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: I think there will be a lot of gnashing of
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: the teeth. But remember, There's also that Michigan race. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: so even if they pick up North Carolina, if they
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: lose Michigan, it'd be net zero. So we could have
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: a range of outcomes.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: And Minnesota. It just seems unbelievable. But she's so bad.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's a fraudster. She's got no communication ability.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Her ads are weird. And Michelle Tafoya is a pro.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Do you have a vibe on that, Matt Connettie?
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Only that, you know, we have polls showing it close
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: and showing Tafoya within reach. And I think it's exactly
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: because of what you're pointing out, Hugh, which is that
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: Peggy Flanagan is not a very attractive candidate. She is
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: tied in with these corruption scandals. Walsh is unpopular and
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: a mess. And so if there's anyone who's going to
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: make a run for this Senate seat, it would be
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: someone like Tafoya, who is an independent candidate. And, you know,
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: and that's kind of the same profile you see with
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: Rogers in Michigan. Sununu, New Hampshire, and Collins in Maine.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: The northern Republicans, they're less tied to President Trump, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: so I think that allows them to run campaigns where
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: they can focus on their enemies' faults rather than what's
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: going on nationally.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And looking way out, Matt, Ossoff is already on the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: short list for Democrats, but are there any of the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: other people on this list that you think has a
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: national future? Because I think there is one if he
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: gets past this race.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: Well, I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. My
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: view is that if El-Sayed wins, he'll almost certainly begin
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: a presidential campaign in 2028. I agree with that. Even
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: if he doesn't think he's a serious contender, he's still
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: going to run because he's that much of a narcissist.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I think Chris Pappas is actually a fairly... eloquent and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: smart young man who would represent generational change, but also
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: not be weird as Flanagan. We'll be right back, America.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Morning Glory and Evening Grace, America. I'm Hugh
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Hewitt with 25 days left till we actually finish this
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: election cycle. It's going to be necessary for me to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: run down the board with Ben Domich, who is the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: editorial page editor at The Daily Wire, Fox News contributor.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: host of the Big Ben podcast. Ben, before I do that, though,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I got to ask you, the Guardians managed to win
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: two in a row in Chicago after losing two in
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a row in Cleveland. Fifth frame, winner go home, winner
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: go forward, loser go home. Tomorrow night, 8 o'clock in Cleveland,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Gavin Williams on the mound. He pitched last night. Sean
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Burke on the mound for the White Sox. You got
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a favorite?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I'd say to you, I think the White Sox are
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: going to win. But I also will say that I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: don't say that with a ton of confidence because the
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: White Sox have also shown their propensity to make not
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: technically error mistakes in clumps that have dogged them at
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: various points throughout the season, but particularly in this postseason.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And your Guardians, I will just say, that is a
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: tough atmosphere. It is a tough atmosphere. And it's one
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: that I think that is... is really challenging in a
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: lot of ways. Look, this is playoff baseball. Crazy things happen.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So the fact that they could get to this point,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I think, has proven their mettle, and they very much
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: could come out the winner. Personally, though, I think we're
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: going to see the White Sox, and that would create,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I think, ultimately, if we see things play out the
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: way that they might afterwards, that could create the ultimate
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: opportunity underdog sort of situation for them if they end
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: up going against the Dodgers.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: It would be either the Guardians or the White Sox.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I don't really care about Tampa Bay. They don't carry
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the kind of legacy.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: That the other two clubs do.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: But let me ask you in terms of the, and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: then I'll get off sports, I promise. I always get emails.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Don't talk about Ben with sports, but I want to.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Dodgers have a payroll of $ 410 to $ 433 million. The
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Guardians have $ 87 million. I think we're going to have
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a strike that goes on for two years, because that
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: can't go on, right? That just can't go on.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Well, but the flip side of that is, should you
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: be in the position, if you want to avoid a strike...
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: shouldn't you be cheering for every team other than the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Dodgers to win so that they can have some kind
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: of possibility.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Of avoiding it?
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Because that's the narrative, obviously. This is an unsustainable situation.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And I agree with that. It just is. And in baseball...
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It matters more than in almost any other sport. You
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: can't have, just given the length of the season and
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: everything else that goes into it, you can't have these
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: payrolls be as out of whack as they are, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I understand why we could. But the ultimate end of
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: it could be multiple years without baseball, which would be horrible.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, horrible for the country, by the way. I
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: have my idea for the impasse, which is a hard
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: salary cap, For 24 out of your 26 roster players,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: but you can have two that any limit can go. So,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, there can be 60 players around the league
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: making ridiculous money, but the other 24 have to play
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: within a hard cap. Have you got any ideas? Because
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: we really can't have a strike.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I think that that's a good idea. I like that idea.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: At least on the surface, I think that it's something
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: that could be potentially a way out. But, Hugh, we
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: have such an uneven situation going on right now within
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: baseball that it has to be solved on some certain level. Look,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: here's the one thing I will say. As a father
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: of young kids, it makes a big difference to not
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: have baseball. I would like to be able to take
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: both of them I mean, I've taken the oldest to
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: her Nats games. She has run the bases. She has
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: experienced it. She has learned how to score the game,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: which is something that I think is important to learn
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: when you're a kid, and whether you're going to do
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: it or not going forward. And I have a three-year-old
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: who's about to turn four, and I know that she
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: was envious the last time of not going to the game,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: and I wanted to take her to her first game
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: this season. Do not deny me that Major League Baseball.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Do not take that away and make me, you know,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: have to wait another year or a year after that.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: It's just something that is it's just criminal to do
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to American kids.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think we see a President Trump? presiding over
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: a summit of ballplayers, union representatives, and management?
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: It would be very in keeping with his personality to
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: do exactly that. If there's ever a president who wants
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: to be able to add to his ledger, save baseball.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Save baseball! The next time you interview him. Next time
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: you interview him, you need to put that to him,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: because if you put that in his head, you could
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: actually be the savior of the MLB season.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Everyone should start peddling that. We should build expectations. Okay,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: let's go to the serious stuff. Last night, Abdul El-Sayed gets,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: for the third time in the day, a question, who
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: is more dangerous, the United States, Israel, or Iran? This
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: is the third time he gets it, and the second
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and the third time, cut number 12.
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: I don't consider an ally a country that takes us
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: to wars we don't need to fight, and I don't
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: want to be fighting wars we.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: Don't need to fight.
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: I just think that makes both of them kind of dangerous.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I'll ask one last time.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Israel or Iran?
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: That's, again, a ridiculous question. I think both of them
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: have proven dangerous in their own way.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: When he was asked that by Leland Bittert, Ben Dominich,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: earlier in the day, he said it was a dumb question,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and then twice last night to the local anchor, he
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: said it's a ridiculous question. It's neither dumb nor ridiculous.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: It's just easy, and he can't answer it. What's it
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: tell you?
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, my friend Peter Meyer, a former congressman who
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: does a great job, by the way, on CNN, had
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: his response to this, and he said this is someone
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: who respects Al-Sayed, even if he disagrees with him emphatically
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: on virtually everything, probably everything. He said, it is a
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: ridiculous question. It's ridiculous if you don't have an immediate answer.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: The immediate answer is obviously the nation state that has,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: you know, for 47 years called for death to America
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: is a greater foe of us than anything that you
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: could say about even even with the most extreme, like
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: short of Tucker level revisionism view of Israel. You know, like,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: how can't you answer that question? Also, what kind of
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: campaign advice is this guy getting that he thinks that
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: this is the kind of thing that he can get
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: away with? Because I will tell you this, Hugh. If
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: you can get away with this, it says something deeply
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: and very, from my perspective, scary about the Democratic coalition
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: that they will tolerate this type of attitude. Because historically,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: that is not the kind of thing that Democrats would
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: look at and say, oh, that's totally rational. No. Instead,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: they wanted to play up the idea that, no, no,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: we have these Democrats who will take on terrorists. you know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, he was the, you know, he, you know,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: he droned more people than anybody, you know, he, he,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: you know, killed so many terrorists and, and that kind
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: of thing. They would boast about it. You know, I
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: remember that, you know, in terms of Jeff Goldberg's framing
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: of his presidency. And now they're at a point where
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: they're like, we can't even say that Iran is an
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: enemy of the United States of America, even when they
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: declare it constantly, repeatedly, loudly, that that should be the
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: easiest question for him to answer. And yet he had
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: trouble with it. And from my perspective, I think that
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: his campaign, you know, look, I think he very well
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: may end up winning. But I think that his performance
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: in that debate should get everyone who has been endorsing
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: him in the past couple of weeks, all these mainstream,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: quote unquote, Democrats who've been coming to his aid. Do
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: they look in the mirror and have any hesitancy about
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: that now? Because they certainly ought to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Here is your friend Peter Meyer last night with Abby Phillip.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Cut number six.
• 38:20
  Speaker 7: Is when he was asked.
• 38:21
  Speaker 10: Who's the greater danger to America, Israel or Iran?
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Three times he was asked that.
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: He refused to answer. Afterwards, he said, that's a dumb question.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: And he was right.
• 38:30
  Speaker 10: It is a dumb question because the answer is so
• 38:32
  Speaker 10: painfully easy.
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: But he couldn't say that.
• 38:35
  Speaker 10: He criticized Mike Rogers for asking him to condemn Hamas, Hezbollah,
• 38:38
  Speaker 10: Al Qaeda, saying they're scary words. But he hasn't condemned them.
• 38:42
  Speaker 10: And they are scary words because they've killed hundreds of
• 38:44
  Speaker 10: thousands of innocents, including 3,000 Americans three miles south of here.
• 38:48
  Speaker 10: So at a certain point, it goes from either this
• 38:50
  Speaker 10: is political malpractice at the best or he can't or
• 38:56
  Speaker 10: he won't because of something deeper.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: And that is far more troubling. And I just I.
• 39:01
  Speaker 10: Don't get it because I don't want to get it
• 39:02
  Speaker 10: because it really is.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I do. So I think it's the latter. That's my opinion.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: because it is political malpractice, and everybody and his brother
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: would say, note the fact that the regime murdered 30,000
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: to 50,000 people in January, and then you can walk
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: away from the regime. Why tie that anchor? But if
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you're living in a culture of Islamist apology, then you're...
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: not able to do it on a dime. It's not
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: natural for you.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: It isn't natural, but, you know, Hugh, you and I
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: have been around a lot of politicians, and one thing
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: that Americans know about politicians is they lie. They lie easily.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: It's in their nature, okay? And look, we understand that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: We book it in. So it kind of tells you
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: something when he can't just lie, when he can't just say, oh, yeah,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Israel's our ally and Iran's the problem, et cetera. And
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the problem is, wait a minute, you can't even bring
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: yourself to fake that in order to try to get
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: this job? That's really disturbing.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I haven't thought about that. You're right.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: That is so close to your heart that you can't
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: actually bring yourself to say that. That's the thing. You'll
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: lie about all these other things that we're used to
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: politicians lying about, about you providing unicorn farts as the
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: answer for Medicare. You can't lie about this?
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: You are very right. Okay, I'm going to take Ben
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: to break. We're going to cover some of the Senate races,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm saving Texas for the other side. Don't go anywhere, America.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'll be back with Ben Domenech in
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a moment. I'm back with Ben Domenech. And Ben, I
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: want to ask before we go on, what has happened
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to the Big Ben pod? Have you put it on
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: hiatus or too much work over at the Daily Wire?
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I'll be quite honest with you, Hugh. I put on
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: hiatus and we have plans for it at the Daily Wire,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: which I'm not yet able to announce, but I hope
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to announce soon to bring it back and bring it
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: back in a new and more frequent format. So I
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: hope to be able to say that. I hope to
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: be able to say that soon, but I can't quite
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: say it yet because I've got to put pen to paper.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Let me first talk to you about New Hampshire. I'm
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: going to talk to you about the I call El
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Sayed Flanagan in Minnesota, Tallarico in Texas, and Troy Jackson
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: in Maine the cast of The Office minus Jim. They're
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: such bad candidates. But New Hampshire, Sununu's a good candidate.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Troy Jackson definitely has a chili recipe.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. They're terrible. But what do you think about
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire? Can Sununu pull that off?
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I actually think he can. I actually think that that
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: may be a more competitive– I mean, look, Republicans are
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: pulling money out of North Carolina, reportedly. They've basically given
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: up on Georgia. And certainly, that's not necessarily the map
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: you thought they would end up with. But New Hampshire
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: and Maine, to me, look like extremely winnable races for Republicans,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: just given the dynamics there. And I don't think that,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, Troy Jackson, I think, is just an embarrassment.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: I don't think Democrats nationally don't want to say anything
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: about him, and I think that it's, you know, we
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: know what Susan Collins can pull off. But, you know, look,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: this is a very odd map, Hugh. I mean, you've
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: got to, you've paid attention to all these different midterms
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: over the years. This one just seems sort of unorthodox.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're focused on Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Texas, which
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: ought not to be in any competitive situation, right, with
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: normal candidates.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: You would not think that that would be a situation
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: where you would have different people feeling– I mean, no
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Democrat that I know wants to talk about Minnesota. They
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: don't want to talk about Maine. They do want to
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: talk about Texas. They want to talk about Michigan dependent
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: on the day. It's basically whatever the latest cycle is.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And that, to me, is something that's an odd indication–
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: One thing that I do think, though, that Republicans need
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: to be aware of is that there could be some
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: of these races or even one of them that just
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: sneaks up on them. And we see this happen sometimes
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: in midterms where, you know, Democrats would like to make,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: you know, Nebraska and Kansas and they would like to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: make Ohio, you know, all these sort of things. They
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: would like to elevate them. I do think that they
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: should feel confident about North Carolina. They should feel confident
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: about Georgia, of course. But I do think that this
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: is a situation where Republicans could pull off, you know,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: a couple of seats here that just don't. They buck
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: the trend for different reasons that have more to do
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: with the candidate quality.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Take the sting out of it. And they may have
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: peaked too early and gas prices are coming down. We'll
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: know more next week. Stand by and be right back
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: with Ben. Talk Texas. Don't go anywhere.
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: Welcome back, America.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm playing that music. It's my fourth
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and final round of Name That Tune with Ben Dominic.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: It's culturally yet back within the mainstream of America, having
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: had a baby. Do you know what that is? that.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Well, that's Mick. I don't know what he's... I can't
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: tell what he's singing.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: He's singing Strange Game, which is the theme song for
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Slow Horses.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is the theme song for Slow Horses. That's
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: what I know it from. I was also going to
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: give you props for having David Gray as the outro
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: for the last one.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I don't actually pick much of the music. I do
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: pick the stump thing.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I still think I would really love to challenge you
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: at some point With the rule being I can only
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: use something that's had a billion streams on Spotify.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: You'd still own me. It'd just be signing up for
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: embarrassment like James Tallarico has. All right, let's go to Texas.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: We know what the rumor is. The rumor, and we
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: have no sourcing for this other than random posts on X,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that he's not well and that he's checked into a facility.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: That's the rumor. We don't have any sources. We don't
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: have any verification. But I have never seen a candidate
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: leave the campaign trail for two weeks before an election.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Have you? I have not.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: It is unprecedented. And, you know, I made this point
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: on with Sandra Smith earlier today on Fox that You know,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I've been around a lot of campaigns and covered campaigns
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: where people lose their voices or they get sick near
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: the end of the campaign. I'm sure you have as well.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: And they're housing tea. They're using surrogates. They're having their
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: wife come and talk. They're standing there and they're saying, hey,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: you know, welcome, you know, and that kind of thing.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: But they're trying to croak their way through it because
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: that's what you have to do at the end of
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: a campaign where everybody's paying attention. And look, the one
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: thing I will say about this, and again, just like you,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: my sources are Republicans in Texas. It's senior Republicans. It's
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: people who are in top offices and in the Statehouse
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: in Austin. And they all say this is something more
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: than the flu. Now, what that is, I think, is
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: hard to define, and we don't know what it is.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: But I will say it is really, really hard to
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: see a competent campaign one that has had so much
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: money poured in behind it from national Democrats, come to
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: the end of the road, be a coin flip away,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: a margin of error away from winning the Democratic dream
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: of a blue Texas, and have the candidate disappear for
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: almost two weeks? That doesn't make any sense to you.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense on just a basic level.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: And by the way, he has a huge social media following.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Why not just follow? you know, stick him in an
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Oxford and a blazer and put a UT hat on
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: and sit him in front of a camera and say, hey, guys,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of weird rumors going around,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to see you on Sunday in San
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Antonio or something for a rally and just get rid
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: of it. Why haven't they done that? It's malpractice.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are a lot of reasons on
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: why they might not have done it, which we can't know.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: But the fact that they have not done it, I
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: thought back to John Fetterman's race. two years ago, four
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: years ago, Fetterman won, and he was dark for a month.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: But everyone knew why, right? Yeah. They knew. Why hide this? Yeah.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, to me, it's something that's really very, very odd.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: And it's a gift to Ken Paxton, who quite frankly,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: I think, had been losing this race. Not to say
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: that he was going to lose, because I've actually been
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: emphatic that I always thought he was going to be
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: able to pull it out. When national money started flowing
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: into his race, I thought that that was going to
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: make a difference. But at the same time, it's like
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: this is a flawed candidate who you were doing a
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: really good job of running against, keeping it very close
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: in a red state. And I just think that this
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: makes no sense. So we'll see what happens here in
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: the next day or two. But Tallarico owes the voters
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: an explanation. And I don't know that they're going to
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: offer that. I think that they may try to just
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: like skid past it. The Fetterman example is a great
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: comparison because Fetterman's people, from the get-go, they said, this
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: is the way he is. You are going to vote
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: for this guy knowing sort of the status that he has,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: which is a solid negative. I remember watching that debate
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: and feeling so uncomfortable, which was why it was so
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: amazing that he still won. But he won with people
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: knowing the defects that he had. And I think that
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: in this case, we don't know what's going on with Tallarico,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: and it's kind of disturbing that they aren't telling us.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: All right. Now I want to finish by talking about Iran.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: We've gone the roller coaster ride this week again from
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: President Trump has ordered three sets of options for a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: big return to kinetic operations to no, we're having productive
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: conversations with him. Is Trump managing the price of oil
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and gas? And he made the announcement earlier today about
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Putin releasing a lot of diesel in the market like that.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to go in that direction. Hugh.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that, what is that about?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm not buying it, for one thing. If Putin
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: guarantees me anything, I'm not buying it.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I know that the president is trying to,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: you know, play this sort of end to the midterm
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: game in a way that is smart and savvy and
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: keeps prices low and has people thinking that all these
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: things are trending downward. I think he's probably very frustrated
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: that he's living in an environment where the GDP looks good.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: The job losses look smaller than, you know, you expect.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: The consumer spending looks good. You know, the wage levels
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: look great. And he's probably very frustrated when it comes
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: to the way that people are talking about the economy,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: and maybe he's pulling at these different strings to think
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: that it's going to change people's minds. I think that's
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: a mistake, and I think that it's already baked in
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: one way or the other. Look, the president has made
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: a difference, I think. Getting out there and barnstorming, I
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: do think it actually helps these candidates, regardless of what
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: the legacy media says about it. I think they want
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: him there. I think he could have made a difference, frankly.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: You know, the vice president went to Alaska. He's going
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: to Alaska. I think that could make a difference in Alaska. Oh,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: In Ohio? He can live in Ohio, and that will
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: help the vague and John Husted a lot.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And so I don't completely reject that
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: narrative of like people don't want him around. I don't
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: believe that at all. I think that one of the things, though,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: that the president can be susceptible to is this idea
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: that there's some kind of immediate solution. You can wave
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: a magic wand, make these things better when it comes
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: to gas prices or something like that overnight. I think
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: he's frustrated by what he sees. I don't think that
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: there is a magic wand. I don't think any of
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: these things are going to be quick solutions. And so
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: I hope that he doesn't go too far down that road.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: I will put something to you, Hugh, with the time
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: that we have left, because it's a point that I
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: made on the District Club, which people can watch on
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the daily liar, you know, heartless promo here this weekend.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Looking back, wouldn't it have made sense for John Thune
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: to have gone to the White House at the beginning
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: of this year and said to the president, look, you
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: want a bunch of stuff that our guys don't want
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: to do? You know, a bunch of things that they
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: think are edgy or on the, you know, that they
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: disagree with on certain levels. I will deliver all those
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: things for you if you just do me one favor
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: and you endorse all of our incumbents. Isn't that the
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: kind of play that someone like Mitch McConnell would have
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: made in that position? And do you think that that
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: would have made a difference in the way this cycle
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: played out?
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: That's a very good question. Leader Thune, I don't doubt
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: that he tried. But I also think I will never
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: understand the Cornyn decision. because John Cornyn didn't vote for impeachment.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I will never understand that decision. But I don't doubt
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: that John Thune tried, but it would have been– It
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: would have been a way.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: To lock them together, to say we're not going to
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: get in the way of the things you want. We
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: will pass them. We will deliver on what the House
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: has delivered to us. But we need this from you.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: That's a good look back. It's also a good look forward.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's a very good look forward for
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: 2028 and whoever's running for whatever job. Ben Domenech, thank you.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: We'll watch the District Club this weekend. We'll also be
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: watching the Daily Wire opinion page for the interview of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: the weekend. And I look forward to the return of
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Big Ben sometime down the road. Don't go anywhere, America.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. Hugh Hewitt here
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: for Carbon Zero. What happens when artificial intelligence follows the
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: instructions given it just a little too well? That's the
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: question at the heart of the novel Carbon Zero, a
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: new techno-thriller from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfield. Craig is
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: one of my book club sponsors, and his perspective comes
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: from years of real experience with artificial intelligence. I'm holding
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: an advanced copy right here, and when I read it,
• 53:11
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• 53:14
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• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Morning, morning, evening, Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Continuing to
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: look back three years ago to the day after Israel
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: was invaded by Hamas and Hamas conducted the massacre of 1,200,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: wounded 5,000, carried off 250 in captivity, and launched what
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: is now a three-year-long war that is still underway. I'm
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: joined by Haviv Redig-Gore. one of the leading public intellectuals
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: in Israel. Haviv has got a great podcast, Ask Haviv Anything.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Got a great Substack, havivrediger.substack.com. He has a Patreon community.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: It's the only one I belong to, and he is
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the Middle East correspondent for the Free Press. Haviv, thank
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: you for coming back on the day after the third anniversary.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Before I get into that, I have two very specific questions.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: The first is, is there a consensus in Israel Hebrew-Israeli
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: media about the imminence of a return to major combat
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: operations with Iran?
• 57:12
  Speaker 9: No, I think that the expectation that I am seeing
• 57:16
  Speaker 9: is that nothing will happen before the election. Netanyahu has
• 57:19
  Speaker 9: been warning that our enemies are looking to escalate before
• 57:23
  Speaker 9: the election.
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: You know, our enemies are always looking to escalate if
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: they have an opportunity and an advantage.
• 57:29
  Speaker 9: It's not like the Ayatollahs, you know, don't escalate if
• 57:32
  Speaker 9: they think they could win. But It's treated mostly, including
• 57:35
  Speaker 9: by right-wing press, as a campaign discussion. And it's not
• 57:40
  Speaker 9: trying to remind Israelis he's a wartime prime minister, etc.
• 57:43
  Speaker 9: So I don't think there's that expectation that will happen imminently.
• 57:47
  Speaker 9: I should just say I don't know the internal secret planning.
• 57:50
  Speaker 9: And obviously you want to catch them by surprise. So
• 57:53
  Speaker 9: that's not a guarantee that it isn't going to happen.
• 57:56
  Speaker 9: But that's not being talked about as far as I
• 57:57
  Speaker 9: can tell.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's in Reuters in the United States that Trump
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: has ordered up a couple of presidential options that would
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: do that. We'll follow that. I was just wondering if
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: it made it into your drinking water. Second observation after
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the three-year look-backs yesterday, many people compared 10-7 to 9-11.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: But in fact, I've always kind of compartmented 9-11 as
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: being the actions of 19 people on a rat tail
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of a couple of hundred. 10-7 was 6,000 people came
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: over at once. Has that sunk into the world yet,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: that 6,000 people were engaged in that massacre?
• 58:37
  Speaker 9: It's a difference in scale, but it's a difference in
• 58:39
  Speaker 9: scale because Israel's close, whereas America is far away.
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: 9-11 was a function of an idea.
• 58:44
  Speaker 9: And that idea, it's not most of the Muslim world,
• 58:49
  Speaker 9: but a small minority of the Muslim world is many, many,
• 58:54
  Speaker 9: many millions of people. And the idea has to do
• 58:57
  Speaker 9: with Islam and its weakness and how it comes back
• 59:00
  Speaker 9: and a kind of pietistic revolution against the kings and
• 59:03
  Speaker 9: the dictators, especially in the Arab world. A lot of
• 59:06
  Speaker 9: things happened. Bin Laden hoped that America... would launch a
• 59:11
  Speaker 9: great war against Islam, a crusader war in his mind,
• 59:14
  Speaker 9: and Islam would unite and rise up in history and
• 59:17
  Speaker 9: restore itself. It was a part of a larger Muslim
• 59:21
  Speaker 9: conversation about what's happening in Islam today. And so 9-11
• 59:24
  Speaker 9: was very big in the Muslim world as well. It
• 59:28
  Speaker 9: wasn't 19 people. They saw themselves, and many, many people
• 59:32
  Speaker 9: in the Muslim world, again, no majorities, but many, nevertheless
• 59:36
  Speaker 9: saw themselves, saw them as representatives, as the spearhead of
• 59:40
  Speaker 9: something big and profound. In that sense, October 7 was
• 59:44
  Speaker 9: that very thing as well. Hamas, unlike some other Palestinian
• 59:50
  Speaker 9: ideological factions, movements, historical movements, Hamas belongs to the part
• 59:56
  Speaker 9: of Palestinian politics that for a hundred years saw the
• 59:59
  Speaker 9: Palestinian story and the clash with the Jews as primarily
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 9: about redeeming Islam, as primarily about Islamic honor and Islamic shame.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 9: And therefore, there is no cost too great to pay
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 9: for the redemption of Islam. They're not susceptible to any
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 9: argument that this would be worse for Gaza, that there's
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 9: a better future if you accept the Israelis and build
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 9: trade relations. They're not susceptible to those arguments because they
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 9: have a fundamentally religious vision. I think October 7 and 9-11,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 9: when you understand the ideas in which they're embedded and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 9: that drove them, are actually remarkably similar. Hamas has grown
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 9: out of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, just as Saeed Qutb,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 9: who is the spiritual inspiration for Al-Qaeda, grew out of
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 9: the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: So there is a very close, deep relationship there.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: All right, now, I listened to the commentary podcast which
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: included Dan Senor from 10-8, three years ago, and Dan
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: had just talked to you. And I judge from what
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I heard of their rebroadcast, I don't recall what you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: said to Dan, that they were unprepared for what the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: world would bring in the next three years, which is
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: this tidal wave of anti-Semitism. Did that thought even occur
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: to you, that Senor might be actually winning by unleashing
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: this tidal wave?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 9: Sinoir expected, we know this because we know he wrote
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 9: this to people. Sinoir expected an Israeli retaliation. He describes
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 9: at one point an Israeli nuclear attack on Gaza that
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 9: would unify the resistance front, the Mukawama front, the Iranian regime,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 9: the Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and some more Sunni groups
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 9: who would come in on Hamas' side. He expected what happened,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 9: I think, to large parts of the Western left to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 9: happen to large parts of the Muslim world and the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 9: Arab world. Ironically, it happened a lot less in the
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 9: Arab world than in the Western left. I think Hamas
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 9: was very pleasantly surprised about that. There wasn't a sense
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 9: among Israelis, I certainly didn't realize, the depth to which
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 9: very radical... you know, third worldist, you know, anti-Western ideas
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 9: that position Israel as the sort of Western avatar of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 9: the West, that if you stand against, you are cleansed
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 9: of the sins of the West. The depth to which
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 9: these academic ideas, marginal ideas, you know, very, very academic
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 9: ideas had penetrated the mainstream, especially among the young in America,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 9: especially on TikTok and social media. I think Hamas was
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 9: pleasantly surprised by that, and Israelis were surprised, but unpleasantly,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 9: by that radicalization and mobilization.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Are you horrified that people held celebratory remembrances yesterday in
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: the United States? I mean, cheering what Hamas did three
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: years and a day ago. Did that shock you, or
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: are you surprised by that?
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: You know, there's a Yiddish word, which means.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 9: Essential, get to the point, be blunt. Your young people
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 9: over there in the West have lost their story because
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 9: your sense-making institutions no longer believe in the Western story,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 9: in the American story, in the British story, in the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 9: French story. And when your young people are taught that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 9: their only job is to deconstruct stories, and if you're
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 9: older than 30, you're probably an idiot a befuddled idiot
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 9: locked into some crazy supremacist idiocy, and there is no
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 9: true story, there is no reason and no meaning to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 9: a community, to a shared polity, then they go looking
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 9: for other meanings and other stories. And they will land
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 9: on whatever is most exciting. They will land on whatever
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 9: is most preposterous. They will land on whatever is most
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 9: violent and most mobilizing and most thrilling and And they will.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 7: Do that because that is how the.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 9: Attention economy works. That's what gets clicks. And they live
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 9: not in real world, real space where you touch people.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 9: They live on TikTok. And so you have a generation
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 9: of young people over there.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: I'm going to get emails.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I apologize.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 9: I'm just going to say what I think is happening
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 9: from my limited perspective. You have a generation of young
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 9: people over there being fed not the American story, not
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 9: the Western story of any kind, but In fact, the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 9: most crazy, radical, click-baity version of reality. And those young
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 9: people are thrilling to violence and thrilling to meaning and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 9: thrilling to sacrifice and thrilling to all things that if
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 9: a society can't give them in healthy ways, they're going
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 9: to find it in unhealthy ways. The fact that you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 9: have quite a few people celebrating a massacre. You can
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 9: think that a war is terrible and a massacre that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 9: launches it is also terrible. That seems like the healthy
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 9: thing to think. But to thrill at the idea of
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 9: a massacre is not my problem. It's your problem over there.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 9: I mean, these kids are America's future. They're not Israel's future.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 9: So I think they are exactly what they look like.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 9: They're young people, so radicalized online and so empty of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 9: any sense of their own story and their own history
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 9: and their shared polity in America that they're thrilling to
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 9: the craziest stuff they found online.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 7: And I don't take them seriously.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 9: I think they're lost children who have not had the parenting,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 9: the socialization into their own society's meaningful story that gives
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 9: them a place.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: In the world. Lost children grow up and they vote.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty alarming situation as you lay it out.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: And I got another question on the other side of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the break that ties into this because it is, I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: think you accurately diagnosed it right there. And It's very
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: troubling for anyone in the West to take a look
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: at what happened in Paris in the last week or
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: in the United States on the third anniversary. But I'll
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: be right back with Haviv Reddick-Gore. I remind you, he's
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: the Middle East correspondent for the Free Press, which you
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: ought to subscribe to. He has a Patreon community, which
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: is the only one I belong to, Haviv Reddick-Gore. His
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: podcast is Ask Haviv Anything in his Substack, havivreddickgore.substack.com. I'll
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: be right back, America. Stay tuned. Welcome back. I'm Hugh
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Hewitt with Haviv Reddy Gore. You can follow Haviv at
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: his Patreon community. You can read him in the free press.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: You can listen to his podcast. Ask Haviv anything or
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: get his sub stack. Haviv, connected to the last question
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: I asked you, does Israel have incidents like the United
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: States is now going through the Cornell 7? Does that
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: happen in Israel the way it happens in the United
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: States at fairly regular occurrences, some depraved party gets out
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: of control and there are, he said, she said, issues?
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 9: There are, so just, it's a great question. What I know,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 9: and I'm no expert on this specific social problem, this
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 9: specific issue, is that generally rates of sexual violence happen
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 9: relatively at similar levels across extremely diverse societies and including
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 9: religious versus secular, including Western versus Eastern, as far as
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 9: they can tell.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 7: And there's very huge gaps in reporting.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 9: I mean, if you look at the actual data, Israel
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 9: has way more rape than any Arab country. And that's
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 9: not because there's no rape in Arab countries. That's because
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: there's no reporting in Arab countries. Um, and, and in Israel,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 9: there is a very serious professional modern style, you know,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 9: academically clear, you know, kind of scientifically, in other words,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 9: consistent reporting. Um, So generally, the question is, yes, I mean,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 9: these kinds of problems exist in America, they exist in Israel.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: I think that.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 9: The deeper question of the Cornell 7, as I understand it,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 9: is the different narratives and a woman who thought she
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 9: was not experiencing a sexual assault and then realized, because
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 9: a little bit of the socialization questions that she was
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 9: and people are racing to say, well, that's how it works.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 9: You know, you only realize necessarily after. And a lot
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 9: of this is your own narrative of what happened to you.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 9: You know, these are huge and profound questions that I
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 9: don't have a good say on. I'll just say there
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 9: were cases of Israeli college students engaging in these kinds
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 9: of questions, and they became public news and major news.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 9: Nothing recent, but about 20 years ago, there was a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 9: very famous case. And so rock song written about the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 9: fact that the boys got exonerated in a court because
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 9: there wasn't enough evidence, but the general belief is they
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 9: were guilty. And there's literally a popular song in Israeli
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 9: pop music taking the side of the girl, of the victim.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 9: So Yes, these are phenomena that happen everywhere.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: The reason I ask is because what you said about
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: our young people are the lost boys. It's a not
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: uncommon occurrence to run into something that most people would
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: simply say is depraved behavior, especially at an elite institution
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: like Cornell. That's an ivy. So depraved behavior, no matter
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: who's at fault or who gave consent or didn't give consent,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: is alarming if it happens among elites. And do you
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: think depraved behavior or you could do school shootings too
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: i mean but i'm just my my theory is israel
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: can't doesn't have time for depravity because your life is
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: on the line all the time what do you make
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: of my theory.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 9: There is in israel a lot more marriage a lot
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 9: more monogamy a lot more okay this is really unfair
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 9: to pose to me because i think you know the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 9: culture i live in is is way better than every
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 9: other culture because that's what everybody thinks when they live
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 9: in a culture and are used to it. But I
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 9: got to just say it, and some of the data
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 9: bears this out, that Israelis have stronger marriages and marry younger.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 9: And so a lot of the Tinder culture that produces
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 9: some of the data on unpleasant sexual experiences, on a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 9: lower desire to actually couple and marry in many Western countries,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 9: not just the United States, A lot of that is much,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 9: much better in Israel because it's a more conservative society,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 9: including secular left-wing Israelis.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: They tend to be more secular.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 9: We know, for example, they have more kids than any
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 9: other developed nation. Secular left-wing Israelis, not just the religious.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 7: So yes, I think we're much healthier on a lot
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: of those questions.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 9: But the scale of how– first of all, we have
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 9: no school shootings. That's not a phenomenon that has ever
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 9: existed in Israel. And we're a very well-armed society. There's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: a solidarity there. that I think compensates for a lot
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 9: of the loneliness that is endemic in many Western societies
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 9: that we don't see in Israeli society. And there's good
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 9: research on this. American young people are just.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 9: I said things very flippantly, but the data really is
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 9: a little scary.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: It's not flippant. And it's all American data.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: You have YouGov.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 9: Polls and Pew polls of American young people where they
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 9: ask them about political violence.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: For example.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: And 40%, 50%, depending on how you frame the question,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 9: will support political violence. And they're radicalizing in that way
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 9: on TikTok. And so this is a real black hole.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 9: You said they grow up and vote. Yes, as you say, right?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 9: That's the problem. You will have a future of people
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 9: much less connected to hard realities, much less risk-taking. American
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 9: kids are marrying less. They're having fewer kids. They're taking,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 9: you know, founding companies, risky issues of like founding companies
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 9: are happening less in certain parts of American society. Measure
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 9: by measure by measure, this generation is in real trouble.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 9: And I don't know that the American conversation, the public
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 9: conversation is.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: Really dealing with it.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 9: And that's how I read this screaming in support of
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 9: October 7. If you support October 7, you're not opposed
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 9: to the Gaza war. You just want You just took
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 9: sides on who should die. You're not a moral person
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 9: who doesn't like human rights violations.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: You're right over the target. It's all connected. Let me
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: ask you now about a book that came out probably
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: before you were born, Amos Oz in the Land of Israel.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: One of the most impactful books on me. There's a
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: chapter in there, I think it's an argument on life
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: and death, where he talks to a settler who's very grim,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: who just says, in the end, there's going to be
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: blood feuds between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs forever. Is
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: that grimness growing after 10-7?
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 9: That sense of things, we unfortunately have very good polling
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 9: on this question. I know it's three years to October 7,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 9: and so every conversation is grim, but that sense of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 9: things is almost universal among Israeli Jews. It's almost universal
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 9: among Palestinians. I mean, it is 90% on both sides.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 9: People who say it with horror, people who say it
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 9: with determination to win. It doesn't matter if you're on
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 9: the far right, far left, anywhere in between. Um, the
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 9: vast majority think that peace is not possible. Coexistence is
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 9: not on offer. Uh, obviously it's because of the other side. Um, um,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 9: If you ask me who I think it is, I
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 9: will tell you it is mostly the other side. Then
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 9: I have all, you know, decades of explanations for it.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 9: But nevertheless, we know from the polls that both sides
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 9: will say roughly that. And, you know, Avinathan Ol was
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 9: one of the hostages who was emaciated and tortured in
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 9: Hamas custody.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 7: And he came out of Gaza and.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 9: He gave an interview recently before the third anniversary of
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 9: And he's a former Sayeret Matkal guy, you know, commando,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 9: very serious guy. He tried to escape. He was an
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 9: extraordinary guy. And he said a few things. One, he said,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 9: you know, he supported the tougher war rather than, you know,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 9: even if it caused a hostage jizz because you can't
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 9: let Hamas get away with taking it. He said a
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 9: few things that the right very much liked. And then
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 9: he said something that the left very much liked. He said,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 9: I tell Arabs, including he's describing a conversation with one
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 9: of his Hamas captors, and he said, I'm going to
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 9: be here in 100 years, and you're going to be
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 9: here in 100 years, and the question before us is
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 9: what we want to happen in those 100 years.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: Huh. All right, I'll be right back with Aviv Reddick-Gore.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Follow him on X at Aviv Reddick-Gore, at Patreon, Substack
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: by the same name, and his podcast is Ask Aviv Anything.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: He writes for the Free Press. Stay tuned. Thank you.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt with Haviv Rettig-Gore. Follow
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Haviv on Exit, Haviv Rettig-Gore, and you'll find his Patreon,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: his Substack, his free press links there as well. Haviv,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: this is for a question. Is the world, is Israel,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: is the United States and our Jews in the United
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: States better off today than they were three years and
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: two days ago?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 9: It is my view that on balance, Israel is better off.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 9: There are tremendous weaknesses and challenges and things that have
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 9: gotten much worse. They all pale in comparison to the
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 9: scale of danger we faced from the enemies we have
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 9: pushed back.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 7: Not yet defeated. They're still there.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 9: They're willing to sacrifice their entire societies to destroy us
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 9: because there's a grand religious vision.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: At work here.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: But nevertheless.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 9: Iran is far less able to threaten Israel. Hezbollah is
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 9: certainly far less able and Hamas is far less able.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 9: Israel is safer from a threat that is big and
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 9: real and would only have gotten worse. People don't remember
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 9: that Hezbollah had an arsenal of 200,000 missiles and rockets
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 9: and that Israel is a very small country. That is
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 9: enough to set pretty much every Israeli city on fire.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 9: And that is no longer the case. And so the
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 9: danger that we have managed to demolish to push back,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 9: to remove.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: Puts us in a better position.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 9: We have done it at terrible cost to Israel's international standing.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 7: I'm leaving aside the grand moral.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 9: Questions because they're not part of your question, but they're
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 9: obviously relevant of the other side of the Gazan suffering primarily,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 9: but obviously of everything else. But we have, I think,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 9: partly because this government has handled itself very poorly, crashed
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 9: in Israel's international standing, but If I had to exchange
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 9: Israel's situation today for Israel's diplomatic situation today, for Israel's
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 9: security situation today, after October 7, I would have taken
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 9: that deal without minimizing any of the dangers and any
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 9: of the collapse. I think American Jews are in a
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 9: worse situation. An endemic, latent anti-Semitism that was marginal is
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 9: moving into the mainstream. I know some of the people
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 9: watching us are saying, no, it's not. It really is
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 9: criticism of Israel, because you're not looking at the polls
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 9: of young people. It is happening in a significant way
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 9: among young people, and it is about Jews. Antisemitism is
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 9: becoming more and more mainstream on the right. On the left,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 9: there are forces making it so.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: It is useful.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 9: If you look at Mayor Mamdani in New York, with
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 9: all of his promises, all the DSA promises, very few
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 9: of those promises he can actually fulfill. But going after
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 9: Israel is very cheap.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Did you read his statement yesterday, Haviv, on the third anniversary?
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Did you read the Mamdani statement? I did. What did
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: you think of it?
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 9: The point of his statement was to talk not about
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 9: October 7, but about Gaza. And the point of all
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 9: the DSA candidates and the point of all the progressive
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 9: candidates that I saw, or a lot of them, obviously
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 9: not some of them who really are more centrist, but
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 9: is to say just enough about October 7 so you
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 9: can only talk about Gaza. The problem with that is
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 9: that it is wind in the sails of the people
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 9: who think October 7 is justified, and that's what he
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 9: was trying to do.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 7: He was trying to say, yes.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 9: October 7 is terrible, but also October 7 is not
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 9: the story, not even on October 7. Incidentally, he commemorates
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 9: Nakba Day on Israel's Independence Day. In other words, the
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 9: last living Jews in the Eastern Hemisphere founding their self-determination,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 9: their state, their country, and a country that could have
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 9: been split down the middle, and the places where there's
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 9: an occupation were held by Jordan and Egypt and not
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 9: given to the Palestinians, annexed by Jordan at that period,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 9: and there could have been a Palestinian state established then.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 9: That founding of Jewish self-determination that finally emptied out the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 9: displaced persons camps in Europe when America wasn't taking them
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 9: in and nobody was taking them in, and the complete
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 9: emptying out almost entirely of the Muslim world of its
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 9: Jews into that place, the last living Jews of the
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 9: Eastern Hemisphere, He thinks should be the Nakba Day, the
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 9: point of his message on October 7, the point of
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 9: his refusal just to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 9: in the Eastern Hemisphere where they didn't have the option
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 9: to become Americans. The point is to deny the Jews
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 9: any piece and element of their story. They don't get
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 9: to be victims. They don't get to be heroes. They
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 9: don't get to have meaning. They don't get to have
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 9: an arc. They don't get to have a human experience
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 9: that if you want to challenge them, you have to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 9: actually know something about.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 7: They get nothing. There is only history.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 9: The Palestinian Arab Muslim experience. And that was the point
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 9: of his October 7 message and of his Nakba Day
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 9: commemoration on May 15th.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: So 30 seconds. When you look at Abdul El-Sayed, I
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: look up there and I see he's Muslim Brotherhood light,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: maybe not even so light, and he's a menace in
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: the United States Senate. I think he's a real threat
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: to the way that we do democracy. What do you see?
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: And like I said, we have 30 seconds.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 8: Of the break.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 9: I think this whole generation, this second generation American Muslims
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 9: who are very politically engaged are very interesting and very
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 9: mysterious to me.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 7: I don't understand them.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 9: He's deeply American but thrilling to this Arab identity and
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 9: revolutionary Arab identity. And so there's something weird.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 7: Happening there that needs to really be studied.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 9: I think he's radicalized because he wants that story of
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 9: Arab identity because he's born in America and doesn't have it.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 9: And that's true of Mamdani who comes in from overseas,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 9: but nevertheless, it's a whole generation of young American Muslims today.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: We'll come back to that. I'll be right back with Habib.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. My last
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: segment with Habib Reddy-Gore today, three years and a day
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: after the invasion and massacre of Israel by Hamas from Gaza. Habib,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: this is sort of a strange question, but I think
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: you'll understand it. I think of you personally, and I've
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: only talked to you via this medium before, as somewhat
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: soft-hearted and big-brained. But I am wondering, are you personally
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: harder than you were three years ago? And is your
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: very wonderful wife online, Rachel, is she harder? And are
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: your children harder? And by that I mean grim-faced, teeth-set,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: we-aren't-going-anywhere harder.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 9: I think we're Americans after Pearl Harbor. We're not harder
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 9: in the sense that the purpose of a society, the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 9: purpose of a country, the purpose of a government is
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 9: to make our children's lives better. If the Arab world
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 9: can give me that olive branch that gives me 100
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 9: years of peace and happiness and prosperity, I take it fully, immediately, joyfully.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 9: I dance the jig in the street for it. As
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 9: long as what is offered, parts of the Arab world
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 9: have done that, by the way. And you see the
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 9: Israeli responses. It's deep and heartfelt and complete, you know,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 9: alliance and loyalty. But as long as the world around
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 9: us keeps producing, and the world around us is very diverse.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 9: It's not everybody, obviously. But, you know, it doesn't really
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 9: matter the people who are sitting out the.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Issue, right?
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 9: If I face five different terror organizations and a massive
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 9: regime with a population nine times my population and a
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 9: quarter of the world's oil, and it is set against
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 9: me and demands to destroy me as its foundational ideology.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 9: Iran established Quds Day as a national holiday with a
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 9: military march through the streets. It has no border with Israel.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 9: It has no reason to obsess about Israel. It's certainly
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 9: not doing it for Palestinian rights. It doesn't even give
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 9: Iranians rights. This is a religious ideology that needs my
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 9: extermination to validate and redeem Islam. And as long as
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 9: that is the enemy, I will fight them and I
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 9: will fight them to the bitter end. And hopefully the
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 9: Iranian people will bring down this terroristic regime that has
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 9: kept them back and kept them down.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 7: For 47 years.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 9: But if they don't, I have to fight these people
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 9: until they are dead and gone.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 7: Hamas has to die.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 9: For the first time in my life, I support a
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 9: death penalty and it is only for those specific kinds
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 9: of organizations that demand a genocide of my people publicly
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 9: and explicitly. And I say that because they take hostages
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 9: to release their people in prisons, and so.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 7: We can't hold their people in prisons.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: And I say that because the prisoners that we released
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 9: in a hostage exchange back in 2011 with Gilad Shalit
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: built October 7 to take hundreds of hostages and bring
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 9: on this very war that would unite the Mukawama Front
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 9: and go to a war that they thought would ultimately
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 9: destroy my people.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: They have to die.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 9: Now, I would never have said things like, they have
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 9: to die. The Hamas organization has to die. And that's
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 9: on the battlefield, and it's true of a death penalty
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: within Israel. I would never have supported that until October 7.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 9: But they're undeterrable, and they have clarified that point. And
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 9: it doesn't even matter to them that their own people
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 9: will suffer terribly. They genuinely don't care about their people's suffering.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 9: Their people's suffering is proof of their piety in their
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 9: ideological system. And so they're undeterrable, just like incidentally, not
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 9: just like, but there are parallels here to Imperial Japan,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 9: run by the extremists toward the end of World War II.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 9: At the end of the day, they have to be
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 9: brought down.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 7: If that's hard, then yes, I've become hard.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: So let me close with this question. I think Iran
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: is on the ropes. I would not be surprised if
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: it collapses, provided that President Trump keeps the embargo and
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: the blockade in place. And there may be a couple
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: more rounds of, quote, kinetic conflict or not, but there
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: are They're cut off from oxygen, which is imports and exports.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: I think they're going to collapse. If that happens, are
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: you an optimist about how the region can change?
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 9: If Iran is ruled by people who care more about
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 9: Iran than about grand ideological wars, you know what protesters
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 9: were shouting against the Iranian president, the Iranian regime representatives
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 9: shooting at them, the various militias and IRGC forces killing
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 9: the tens of thousands of Iranian protesters back in January.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 7: They were shouting, no.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 9: To Yemen, no to Gaza, no to Lebanon, yes for Iran.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 9: In other words, they were shouting, we support, we want
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 9: to rebuild our own Iran. Anything that replaces this regime
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 9: that just cares about Iran. This is a country with
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 9: a nominal GDP per capita of Haiti even though it
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 9: sits on the world's third largest gas reserve and fourth
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 9: largest oil reserve. The regime is doing that to its people.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 9: It is preferring its insane religious war. All Iran needs
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 9: to get up and become one of the wealthiest countries
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: in the world with the brainpower of an Israel and
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 9: the extraction money of a Saudi Arabia is literally to
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 9: be ruled by any two-bit worst possible Western political party.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 9: In other words, you just have to be ruled by
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 9: somebody that basically kind of wants to run the country
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 9: even badly.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: If only they want to steal. If that's the only
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: thing they want to do is steal, that's fine.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 7: That would already be enough.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 9: A South American corrupt regime on the likes of Venezuela,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 9: probably not Venezuela, but everything less bad than Venezuela, Iran
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 9: would be this flourishing success story. And so if, you know,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 9: I said back in February before the war began, before
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 9: Trump's major, the war with Israel had already happened, a
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 9: couple of rounds, etc. But before Trump's major beginning of
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 9: offensive operations, I said back then, including on your show,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 9: they're not going to be brought down by missiles. This
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 9: is going to take a lot because they're built to
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 9: suffer trauma. You decapitate this regime, they'll think of them
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 9: as martyrs and fill their shoes immediately. You can't bring
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 9: them down with bombs. You can bring them down by
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 9: making it untenable for them to run their patronage economy.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 9: It's important to remember the IRGC owns 50% of Iran's GDP.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 9: The Bonyad, the foundations run by the Supreme Leader's office,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 9: own another 20% of Iran's GDP. Those are rough figures,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 9: estimates of think tanks, but they're probably pretty accurate. This
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 9: is a country totally robbed by their feudal overlords. And
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 9: if you break that economy, you break the IRGC. And
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 9: this was part of the conversation about what, so to speak,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 9: Trump was doing wrong. Now, Trump did a lot right
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 9: on this question of how you bring down this regime,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 9: but missed that element. Hormuz forced a rethink in the
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 9: White House, and what they landed on, I think, was
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 9: exactly the right policy that had been missing from day one.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 9: They landed on it fairly quickly, and that's been the
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 9: policy for the last few months. And the Iranian regime
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 9: is now on its back feet, desperately worried about what's
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 9: going to happen domestically, about the protests renewing, and pretty
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 9: much in America's palm. It has to last a while.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 9: They have a lot of life left in them. It
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 9: can't be something you end before the midterms. It has
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 9: to last a while, and I think, yes, it'll succeed.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: It's not going to end before the midterms. If any,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: it'll accelerate. Haviv Reddy Gore, it is always good to
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: catch up with you. Thank you for the extra dollop
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: of time today. Follow Haviv on X at HavivReddyGore. Join
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: his Patreon community. It's really wonderful. Listen to his podcast,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: Ask Haviv Anything, and read him in the free press.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Haviv. I'll be right back.