Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / The War in Iran and The Battle for the Senate

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The War in Iran and The Battle for the Senate · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there. And of course, to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: for hillsdale.com or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Good evening,
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  Speaker 1: Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, kicking the program off with
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  Speaker 1: Matt Continetti of the Wall Street Journal. Follow him on
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Exit Continetti. Read him, of course, at the Wall Street
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Journal and everything he puts out over at the American
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  Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute. Matt, we are engaged in kinetic conflict with
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  Speaker 1: Iran as we speak. I don't know if it's over yet,
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  Speaker 1: but the indications are we continue to, quote, mow the
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  Speaker 1: grass along the Strait of Hormuz. And the president has
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  Speaker 1: warned Iran, don't respond. Don't you dare escalate or I'll
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  Speaker 1: come back X hard. And if you do it again,
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  Speaker 1: I'll go X to the X power. What do you
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  Speaker 1: make of where we are?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think President Trump had to respond to you
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  Speaker 2: to these provocations by the IRGC harassing traffic through the
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  Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz. Trump said he was going to hit
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  Speaker 2: Iran in retaliation for attempted sinkings and harassment of some
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  Speaker 2: vessels through the Strait.
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  Speaker 3: And so he has.
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  Speaker 2: And so the question is, will Iran respond? And will
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  Speaker 2: that carry us up the escalatory ladder for another period?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Iran, I think, was not looking for more kinetic action.
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  Speaker 2: Some of the comments they've made in the past 24
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  Speaker 2: hours suggest as much. And right now, the regime is
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  Speaker 2: being hurt badly by the combination not of these strikes,
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  Speaker 2: but also, and perhaps more importantly, the renewed naval blockade
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  Speaker 2: of Iranian ports, which is really squeezing the Iranian economy.
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  Speaker 1: So mark down September 1, 2022. Hewitt realized Scott Besant
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  Speaker 1: might run for president. I don't know if you saw
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  Speaker 1: his speech at the G20, but he said, we're burying
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  Speaker 1: the head of the snake in Iran. We know where
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  Speaker 1: their money is in the Virgin Islands and everywhere else.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to asphyxiate this regime. This choke point in
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  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz will be gone in two years,
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  Speaker 1: and socialists are underachievers who are jealous of people who
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  Speaker 1: go to work every day. Scott Bassett wants to make
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  Speaker 1: me do the happy dance like Steve Martin. What do
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  Speaker 1: you think, Matt?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, Secretary Besson's been a breakout star of
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  Speaker 2: this administration. Not many people had heard of him despite
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  Speaker 2: his very successful career in finance before he became the
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  Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary.
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  Speaker 3: But the Republicans have fallen in love. There's no question.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, not only with Besson's policies and his pro-growth attitude,
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  Speaker 2: but also his kind of snappy rhetoric. And he's deployed
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  Speaker 2: that rhetoric against Iran. He's an Iran hawk. There's no
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  Speaker 2: question about it. And the combination of statements he made
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  Speaker 2: last week threatening secondary sanctions and penalties for businesses around
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  Speaker 2: the world that are helping the Iranian regime do business
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  Speaker 2: And now his comments at the G20 show that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's not just the Secretary of War that President Trump
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  Speaker 2: is relying on. It's not just CENTCOM Commander Brad Cooper,
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  Speaker 2: but it's also Treasury Secretary Besson who make up the
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  Speaker 2: Trump war cabinet.
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  Speaker 1: And maybe John Ratcliffe. Let me ask you, Matt Cotton,
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  Speaker 1: you're too young to remember the fall of East Germany,
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  Speaker 1: the fall of the wall, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think Iran could do the same? No, I didn't see
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  Speaker 1: it coming. No one saw it coming. I was astonished.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it would be the defining feature of my life.
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  Speaker 1: It hasn't been. There's been a before and an after.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think there might be an after Iran or
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  Speaker 1: an after IRGC?
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  Speaker 2: There will be an after the Islamic Republic. It's going
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  Speaker 2: to take a long time. But first, Hugh, I have
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  Speaker 2: to correct you. I can tell you exactly where I
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  Speaker 2: was when the Berlin Wall fell down. in nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 2: nine i was watching it on the evening news i
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  Speaker 2: was the news junkie even then.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh what a nerd you know that i
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  Speaker 1: don't know that.
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  Speaker 2: I was out of diapers yet yet exactly but i
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  Speaker 2: i i do remember the berlin wall so what happens
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  Speaker 2: i mean with the type of pressure that trump is
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  Speaker 2: subjecting the islamic republic is unprecedented trump is the first
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  Speaker 2: president since nineteen seventy nine to actually take the fight
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  Speaker 2: to the islamic republic and the economic warfare that he
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  Speaker 2: has imposed in recent weeks, reimposing this naval blockade, this
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  Speaker 2: new maximum pressure, these new secondary penalties and sanctions. That
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  Speaker 2: is something that the terrorists in charge have never faced before.
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  Speaker 2: So if I were the administration, I would be trying
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  Speaker 2: to set up a plan for what happens once the
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  Speaker 2: Iranian people take to the streets again, because I do
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  Speaker 2: believe that is in our future.
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  Speaker 1: All right, now I want to switch to domestic politics, Matt.
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  Speaker 1: I hope we can cover more on Friday. But preface
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  Speaker 1: this by saying a lot of people accuse me of
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  Speaker 1: being the George Costanza of political predictions because all the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: way back in 1980, I thought Ted Kennedy would beat
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  Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination. So I'm often wrong. However,
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  Speaker 1: I think the El-Sayed campaign is over. I think Mike
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  Speaker 1: Rogers has won. And I don't think he can get
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  Speaker 1: out of the hole that he's dug from El-Sayed. Do you?
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  Speaker 3: I think it's going to be tough, Hugh.
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  Speaker 2: Look, Labor Day weekend is the traditional start of the
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  Speaker 2: general election. So we can say, as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 2: that El-Sayed is headed into the general election in an
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  Speaker 2: incredibly weakened state. He has been on defense essentially since
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  Speaker 2: he won the primary. A primary, by the way, he
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  Speaker 2: almost lost, contrary to all of the prediction markets and
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  Speaker 2: the polls. And so I think Mike Rogers' campaign is
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  Speaker 2: in a pretty good place as the general election begins.
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  Speaker 2: He needs to continue to take the fight to El-Sayed.
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  Speaker 2: calling al-Sayed out for his radicalism, for his anti-Zionism, for
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  Speaker 2: his anti-Semitism, and also talking about the issues that really
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  Speaker 2: do affect Michigan voters. And that includes hitting al-Sayed's reckless
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  Speaker 2: Medicare plan and his, I think, his deep opposition to
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  Speaker 2: Second Amendment rights.
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  Speaker 1: I have a friend in Maine who sent me the
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  Speaker 1: Portland Press-Telegram letters to the editor page today. Lifelong Democrat.
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  Speaker 1: prominently featured. I am voting for Susan Collins, even though
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  Speaker 1: I've been against her before and always been a Democrat
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  Speaker 1: because we can't throw away the chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
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  Speaker 1: I think that race is flipped as well. Now, I'm
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  Speaker 1: looking through rose-colored glasses. I'm worried about Texas. How do
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  Speaker 1: you see the scoreboard right now in the Senate, Matt Continetti? Right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think if Michigan, because a potential Republican pickup,
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  Speaker 2: which affects all the Democrats' calculus, especially if Susan Collins
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  Speaker 2: is able once again to triumph in a blue state.
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  Speaker 3: I'm also looking at New Hampshire. It's very interesting there.
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  Speaker 2: The Democratic presumptive nominee is losing ground to Sununu, a
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  Speaker 2: storied Republican name. Kelly Ayotte's a very popular governor of
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  Speaker 2: New Hampshire. That's kind of a sleeper race hanging out
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  Speaker 2: there that would be another Republican win. So that would
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  Speaker 2: make the Democrats' problem harder still. Right now, you know,
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  Speaker 2: they're really hugging on this Tallarico race in Texas as
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  Speaker 2: their chance to get a Senate majority. If I were
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  Speaker 2: a Democrat, I wouldn't want to rely on Texas, especially
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  Speaker 2: when you have a candidate like Tallarico, who's only now,
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  Speaker 2: I think, being called out by Ken Paxton for some
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  Speaker 2: of his radical statements in the past, his kind of
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  Speaker 2: general kookiness, and the fact that he's out of step with,
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  Speaker 2: I think, most Texas voters.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they're going to have to pull Friday Night Lights
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  Speaker 1: off of every streaming service if Tallarico wins because it
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  Speaker 1: will no longer be the Texas brand. Let me close
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  Speaker 1: by asking you about Alaska, Matt. Dan Sullivan's a great senator,
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  Speaker 1: and he's a serious man, and he's a warrior on
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  Speaker 1: the NSC and Attorney General of Alaska. But they're doing
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  Speaker 1: dirty tricks up there with a different Dan Sullivan on
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  Speaker 1: the ballot who got on in their weird four-time, four-people-make-it,
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  Speaker 1: and they have that ranked-choice voting scheme that no one understands.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think Dan Sullivan loses? I can't imagine Alaska
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  Speaker 1: would be that stupid.
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  Speaker 2: Well, again, it's an uphill climb for the Democrats, Hugh,
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  Speaker 2: in these states that Donald Trump won by double digits.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Senator Sullivan is a great senator. He's especially
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  Speaker 2: tough on national security issues. But I think Mary Patola
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  Speaker 2: has a lot of enthusiasm from the Democrats on her side.
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  Speaker 3: I'll just say this.
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  Speaker 2: She did very well in the primary, in that ranked
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  Speaker 2: choice primary. Got a lot of votes. But that's also
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  Speaker 2: what happened the last time she ran for Congress, and
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  Speaker 2: she lost. So I think when you enter this general
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  Speaker 2: election season, Sullivan is going to have to say that Paltola,
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  Speaker 2: you know, she might be sounding the right notes for Alaskans,
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  Speaker 2: but she's going to have policies that are going to
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  Speaker 2: hurt them in the end, especially when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: energy development, giving the gavel to Chuck Schumer and other
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  Speaker 2: Democrats who really want to stop this energy revolution that
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has really done so much to build. make
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  Speaker 2: an advantage for the United States.
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  Speaker 1: And dare you peek yet at the Minnesota situation where
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  Speaker 1: Michelle Tafoya is a fabulous candidate and Peggy Flanagan is
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  Speaker 1: from Mars? Are you even looking, peeking at it?
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  Speaker 2: Look, as an NFL fan, I've always rooted for Michelle
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  Speaker 2: Tafoya and her commentary and now for her kind of
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  Speaker 2: independent candidacy for Senate. And the thing about Flanagan is
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  Speaker 2: she's far left.
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  Speaker 3: And she is caught up in the Minnesota fraud scandal, which.
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  Speaker 2: Let's not forget, forced Tim Walz from the ballot. Walz
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  Speaker 2: wanted to run for a third term, but when that
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  Speaker 2: fraud scandal broke last year, he decided not to. So
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  Speaker 2: there are vulnerabilities down the line for some of these
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  Speaker 2: Democratic nominees for Senate.
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  Speaker 3: And it's really up to the.
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  Speaker 2: Republicans to address the issues and make the case, but
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  Speaker 2: also to use kind of the upcoming convention in Dallas
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  Speaker 2: and then... I hope President Trump's travel near the end
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  Speaker 2: of the campaign in October to get Republicans enthused about voting.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think you could keep him in the White
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  Speaker 1: House with an injunction. I don't think Donald Trump is
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  Speaker 1: going to be anywhere but the campaign trail. Matt Continetti,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I hope to talk to you on Friday. Follow Matt
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: at Continetti on X. Read him in the Wall Street
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Journal free expressions and stay tuned. I got a lot today,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: including Majority Leader Thune, Jason Smith, Chairman of Ways and
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Means Committee. He's coming up. And Haviv Redigor in our
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: number three big Tuesday show today. Don't go anywhere.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: But it gets worse.
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: For poor Hugh and his beloved Cleveland Browns, they unveiled
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: a stadium in Graphic 6.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: What the hell is that?
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  Speaker 6: Is that for real?
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, they searched stadium. Did Darth Vader design this thing?
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: It looks like Darth Vader designed the Las Vegas Raiders one.
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  Speaker 8: That at least looks kind of– what is this?
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  Speaker 5: So for our audio-only listener, what it looks like is
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: that somebody had built a stadium and then hit it
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: with a sledgehammer.
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  Speaker 4: And it just sort of broke into pieces.
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  Speaker 8: Like instead of building a stadium, it was like you're
• 11:16
  Speaker 8: given 17 triangles. Build a stadium.
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  Speaker 3: Hello.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, Jerry.
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  Speaker 4: Hello, Ashbrook.
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  Speaker 1: Hello.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, you.
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  Speaker 1: How are you? Hello, Ashbrook. I know you were behind that.
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  Speaker 1: You're the Bengals fan. The others just followed you down
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  Speaker 1: the road, didn't they? You just came up with that
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: whole bit, didn't you?
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: Let me just come clean to you.
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  Speaker 9: I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, and kids who grew up in
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  Speaker 9: Cincinnati are conditioned to hate Cleveland.
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  Speaker 7: However, if you... are a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals.
• 12:01
  Speaker 9: You're a fan of its founder, Paul Brown, and that
• 12:04
  Speaker 9: is the same man whose namesake is the Cleveland Browns.
• 12:09
  Speaker 9: So we're brothers in a way, even if we compete
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  Speaker 9: twice a season.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: Newman.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: All right, Ashbrook, I'm going to tell you that right now,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, the odds of the Bengals winning the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl on DraftKings plus 1,800, On FanDuel plus $ 2, 000.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: On MGM plus.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: $ 2, 200.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Now, the Browns are at $ 20, 000 and $ 22, 500, so I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: am getting those odds. Actually, I'm getting Super Bowl appearance
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: odds so I can pay for the tickets if they
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: get there. But, Johnny, you're not hopeful, are you?
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  Speaker 7: I am very hopeful, Hugh.
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  Speaker 9: I mean, the way the Cincinnati Bengals conducted themselves during
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  Speaker 9: this preseason and the offseason, and when you consider Joe
• 12:58
  Speaker 9: Burrow and where he is in his career, it is
• 13:01
  Speaker 9: now or never for the Cincinnati Bengals. We've got the deepest,
• 13:05
  Speaker 9: most talented wide receiver room in the NFL, and we
• 13:09
  Speaker 9: have a rebuilt defense, which is what we needed last season.
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  Speaker 9: I mean, all our defense needs to be is like
• 13:16
  Speaker 9: number 15 in the league.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Ashbrook, I've only seen one clip. I saw Jamar Chase
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: hobbling off. And if Mr. Burroughs is where he needs
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to be, is that between the third or the fourth
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: knee surgery?
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  Speaker 9: Well, hopefully the offensive line will keep him healthy this year.
• 13:36
  Speaker 9: I mean, you listen to the Bengals writers, and they
• 13:40
  Speaker 9: insist that this is the best offensive line the Bengals
• 13:44
  Speaker 9: have had. protecting Joe Burrow in his career, and hope
• 13:50
  Speaker 9: springs eternal out of Cincinnati. All I have is the
• 13:54
  Speaker 9: idea that maybe we'll return to SoFi next week.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to go up and see the game
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  Speaker 1: this year with my two boys, and then we're going
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to drive up to the Raiders-Browns game, and I expect Talon,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: whatever his name is, from Arkansas, to be starting by
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that point. We'll be four quarterbacks in, so I'm not
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: an optimist. Let me turn to something happier. You guys
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  Speaker 1: founded Cavalry Consulting, and if Abdul El-Sayed called you up,
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  Speaker 1: and because you're mercenaries, you went to– you named a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: price and he met it. How could you turn that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: campaign around?
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  Speaker 9: Well, first of all, I'm not sure we would– There's
• 14:35
  Speaker 9: political consultants and then there are mercenaries, as you say,
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  Speaker 9: and I'm not sure we would have taken that job
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  Speaker 9: for El-Sayed. And I'm not really sure what he can
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: do to dig out from the hole that he's created
• 14:50
  Speaker 9: for himself. All of the associations with Hassan Paik or
• 14:53
  Speaker 9: all of the controversial things he has said about 9-11,
• 14:58
  Speaker 9: for crying out loud, and here he stands today. against
• 15:01
  Speaker 9: Mike Rogers, a professional from the American security business and
• 15:07
  Speaker 9: a guy who's dedicated his career to keeping our country safe.
• 15:12
  Speaker 9: On the 25th anniversary of 9-11, this race for Senate
• 15:15
  Speaker 9: in Michigan really is high noon in a way that
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: a lot of the other Senate races aren't.
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  Speaker 7: And this is the one where everybody's watching.
• 15:24
  Speaker 9: Of course, Michigan has been like fool's gold for Republicans
• 15:28
  Speaker 9: hoping for a Senate win since Spence Abraham in the
• 15:31
  Speaker 9: 1990s won. And I think this matchup presents us with
• 15:37
  Speaker 9: our best chance we've had since Abraham. And if you
• 15:42
  Speaker 9: look at the map and if you listen to what
• 15:46
  Speaker 9: Mike Rogers says, this guy is convinced that if he
• 15:49
  Speaker 9: just got two or three more votes in every single
• 15:52
  Speaker 9: precinct in Michigan last time, he would have won. And
• 15:55
  Speaker 9: so he has really set himself to working to deliver
• 16:00
  Speaker 9: those two or three more votes in every precinct this time.
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  Speaker 9: There's an awful lot of money that's come to bear
• 16:06
  Speaker 9: on the Republican side. There are an awful lot of
• 16:09
  Speaker 9: problems that have presented themselves on the Democrat side.
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  Speaker 7: And this is going to be a.
• 16:14
  Speaker 9: Very difficult cycle for Republicans, House and Senate. But this
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: race and this particular matchup really could set the tone
• 16:23
  Speaker 9: for our country for the next six years.
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  Speaker 1: Now, John, you'll remember Mitt Romney 2012 won the first
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: debate and sort of went into neutral and on a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: glide path. If you're advising Team Rogers, do you pile
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: it on and run up the score? Or do you
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: switch over to nice guy like Mitt did? He switched
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: over to nice guy. He couldn't like me. Don't worry
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  Speaker 1: about the dog on the top. He laid off of Obama.
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  Speaker 1: Do you lay off of Abdul El-Sayed or do you
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  Speaker 1: just pile drive it all the way through November 3rd?
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  Speaker 9: Under no circumstances do you lay off your opponent. We're
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  Speaker 9: talking here on September the 1st. Now is the time
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  Speaker 9: when you step on their neck. You have to drive
• 17:05
  Speaker 9: it in. And if you don't, then you're setting yourself
• 17:08
  Speaker 9: up for failure. You have to be so aggressive. from
• 17:11
  Speaker 9: Labor Day in that everybody in the state is like, man,
• 17:16
  Speaker 9: this campaign is so negative.
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  Speaker 7: But the problem is with a candidate.
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  Speaker 9: Especially like El-Sayed, you have to disqualify them from consideration.
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  Speaker 7: And this is a two-person race.
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  Speaker 9: And people are either going to pick Mike Rogers or
• 17:33
  Speaker 9: they're going to pick the other guy. You have to
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: make the case why they shouldn't pick the other guy.
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  Speaker 9: If he goes soft, he's coming up short.
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  Speaker 1: And then we go down to Texas. Look, Ken Paxton
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: is welcome here. His team doesn't want him to come
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: on because he's a Corning guy. I get it. But
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I want him to win. Does Paxton just go negative
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: every day, or does he try and repair his image?
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  Speaker 9: I think the same goes for Texas. I think that's
• 17:58
  Speaker 9: Paxton's only choice. You have to disqualify your opponent. And
• 18:03
  Speaker 9: when you're on a ballot with somebody as popular as
• 18:05
  Speaker 9: Governor Greg Abbott, you have a lot of lift from
• 18:09
  Speaker 9: Republicans who are turning out because they want that state
• 18:13
  Speaker 9: to continue to prosper. And so what they need to
• 18:16
  Speaker 9: do is remind every single voter exactly why Tallarico and
• 18:21
  Speaker 9: his vision for this country is wrong. You know, I
• 18:24
  Speaker 9: just saw a video from a private Zoom call that
• 18:29
  Speaker 9: Tallarico did recently where he's talking about how he wants
• 18:32
  Speaker 9: to take down capitalism.
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: I'm sorry, you, but I thought people in Texas just
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: wanted a better life.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: They like Texas.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: They do.
• 18:42
  Speaker 9: You have been to Texas. They like the place. They
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: don't want to tear it down.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I listened to Ruthless today, a fine defense of data centers.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: There are already 350 of them in Texas. I think
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Tallarico wants to take them down. They actually produce a
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: lot of revenue. A fine show today since you left
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the Browns alone. So thank you. John Ashbrook, a.k.a. Newman,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you again soon. Don't miss the Ruthless podcast.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Follow John at John Ashbrook, despite his bad takes on football,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: music means David Drucker of the Dispatch is with us. David,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you're a Rams fan, aren't you?
• 19:27
  Speaker 10: No, I was when I was a kid. They left
• 19:30
  Speaker 10: for St. Louis, and I excommunicated them, and that's just
• 19:33
  Speaker 10: the way it's been.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: All right, well, are you an Angels fan? Even though
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: they're back.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 10: Well, I know that the owner of the Rams purchased
• 19:42
  Speaker 10: the Angels probably for more than $ 4 billion. And I'm
• 19:46
  Speaker 10: not an Angels fan, but I'm very happy for my
• 19:48
  Speaker 10: friends who are Angels fans.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Well, you're very happy for Dwayne, who may not come
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: down off of the ceiling for a couple of days
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: because he disliked Artie Marino so much. All right, so
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that's our sports news. I got my L.A. correspondent doing
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that for me, Drucker being originally an Angeleno. Let's both
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of us talk about Texas where neither of us has lived.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Have you ever lived in Texas?
• 20:08
  Speaker 10: Yep.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: When did you live there? No, but I have family there.
• 20:11
  Speaker 10: My wife is from Texas.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I know that, but have you lived there?
• 20:16
  Speaker 10: I have not lived there.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: So neither have I. And I have friends in Texas,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not family. Look, I'm a twix in between here. Ken
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Paxton was not my choice. I was a John Corning guy.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I've been a friend of the program for a long time.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Gentleman scholar, great senator. Ken Paxton has problems, but I'd
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: vote for Ken Paxton in a heartbeat if I was
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: in Texas. And I hope he comes on the show
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and we help him. But Tallarico, man, this was the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: wrong cycle not to nominate Beto. What do you make
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of that race?
• 20:47
  Speaker 10: Well, look, I think this race is a toss-up, but
• 20:51
  Speaker 10: I still think Paxton is likely to come out on top,
• 20:54
  Speaker 10: notwithstanding a very difficult environment for Republicans. And part of
• 20:58
  Speaker 10: that is just the built-in advantage that Republicans have in
• 21:02
  Speaker 10: Texas because of the politics of most of the people,
• 21:05
  Speaker 10: a majority of the voters that live in Texas. I'm
• 21:08
  Speaker 10: really interested to see what's going to happen in the
• 21:10
  Speaker 10: Rio Grande Valley, right? These are majority Hispanic counties that
• 21:14
  Speaker 10: flipped red in 2024. But we've seen some discontent from
• 21:19
  Speaker 10: Hispanic voters because of the abuses of ICE in certain cities.
• 21:25
  Speaker 10: And people are unhappy with the economy. They're unhappy with inflation.
• 21:28
  Speaker 10: It's the one thing they hired Donald Trump to do. Now,
• 21:31
  Speaker 10: I can't, Hugh, make up my mind. quite yet about,
• 21:35
  Speaker 10: and I may never, about how I feel about Tallarico.
• 21:37
  Speaker 10: At times he seems to me like he gets the
• 21:40
  Speaker 10: joke and he's doing exactly what a Democrat should do
• 21:43
  Speaker 10: if you're running in the state of Texas. At other times,
• 21:47
  Speaker 10: you know, I take a look at his background and
• 21:49
  Speaker 10: all there is to mine there, the things that he
• 21:51
  Speaker 10: said years ago or relatively recently before he was the
• 21:55
  Speaker 10: Senate nominee for the Democratic Party, and I say to myself, man,
• 21:58
  Speaker 10: that's just going to be a tough sell.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: But he is a talented candidate.
• 22:03
  Speaker 10: And Ken Paxton is probably the most scandal-plagued politician I've
• 22:06
  Speaker 10: ever covered. And strange things can happen. Having said all that,
• 22:11
  Speaker 10: I keep telling everybody this. I will never predict a
• 22:13
  Speaker 10: Democrat wins in Texas, and one of these days I'm
• 22:15
  Speaker 10: going to be wrong.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I will never predict that Susan Collins loses in Maine,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to be wrong. This is, you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in Maine, got a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: lot of friends up there. My buddy Tony, the commercial
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: real estate czar of Maine, sent me this today from
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the Portland Press-Telegram website. Letter to the editor, I'm a
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: lifelong Democrat, and I want Susan Collins reelected. We'd be
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: crazy not to vote her back in. Mary Ann Lynch,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: retired lawyer, worked as an assistant to Governor Joseph Brennan,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: was campaign manager for the first CD 1980 campaign of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Democrat Harold Patrios, and served eight years on the Cape
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Town Council, including two terms as council chairwoman. First paragraph,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: as a lifelong Democrat and pro-choice woman, I'm supporting Senator
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins' record. At a time of extreme partisanship, Collins
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: is the most bipartisan senator in the nation. I also
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: support her because of her civility, her positions on social issues,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and her strong record. I don't think Troy Jackson can
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: beat her. What do you think?
• 23:17
  Speaker 10: Well, I think he's actually going to have a harder
• 23:19
  Speaker 10: time beating Susan Collins than, and just go with me here,
• 23:22
  Speaker 10: imagine Graham Platner, who didn't turn out to be a
• 23:27
  Speaker 10: flawed creep. And even though he had a lot of
• 23:30
  Speaker 10: left-wing positions, he was very charismatic. He was a very
• 23:33
  Speaker 10: good political athlete. I think Troy Jackson is a run-of-the-mill
• 23:36
  Speaker 10: Democratic politician. I think his error may ultimately be that
• 23:43
  Speaker 10: he is pitching on.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: ICE.
• 23:45
  Speaker 10: He wants to abolish ICE. On Medicare, on health care,
• 23:49
  Speaker 10: he's proposing Medicare for all. It wouldn't happen, but that's
• 23:53
  Speaker 10: his position. And I think when you look at Maine,
• 23:56
  Speaker 10: you have to understand that even though it is a
• 23:58
  Speaker 10: blue state, it is not a down-the-line blue state. The
• 24:01
  Speaker 10: Western Congressional District, the second CD of Maine, is a
• 24:05
  Speaker 10: 10-point Trump district. And there are a lot of culturally
• 24:10
  Speaker 10: conservative voters in the state of Maine. And I don't
• 24:13
  Speaker 10: think that Troy Jackson has been positioning himself in a
• 24:17
  Speaker 10: way to appeal to voters given how strong Susan Collins
• 24:22
  Speaker 10: has been.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Let's drop a little south of Maine, New Hampshire. I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: think they vote today between Scott Brown and John Sununu.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Sununu is ahead in the polls. It might be next week.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong about that. What do you make
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of Chris Pappas, who's significantly to the left of the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: two ladies who currently represent New Hampshire?
• 24:45
  Speaker 10: Well, look, he represents the fact that the center of
• 24:49
  Speaker 10: gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted left-wing. over the
• 24:53
  Speaker 10: past few years. In an environment like this, and given
• 24:57
  Speaker 10: the way New Hampshire usually behaves, I would expect Pappas
• 25:00
  Speaker 10: to win. But one of the things former Senator John
• 25:04
  Speaker 10: Sununu has going for him is that some segment of
• 25:08
  Speaker 10: people will assume that he's his brother. And John Sununu
• 25:12
  Speaker 10: has the name, but he wasn't the most popular Sununu
• 25:15
  Speaker 10: in New Hampshire. If it wasn't the father, it was Chris,
• 25:18
  Speaker 10: the former governor of and the continuity there may help him.
• 25:22
  Speaker 10: But again, you've got to look at the environment, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 10: New Hampshire usually plays to the environment.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And then finally, we have a minute. Alaska, the Democrat
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: won the primary, and Dan Sullivan can count on it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: It will go up 100% number of voters. What do
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you think up north?
• 25:44
  Speaker 10: I don't know enough yet, Hugh. It's hard to poll Alaska,
• 25:47
  Speaker 10: and it's one of those states– that can often look
• 25:50
  Speaker 10: competitive and then it's not. On the other hand, you know,
• 25:53
  Speaker 10: there have been a couple of times when I've taken
• 25:55
  Speaker 10: my eye off the ball up there and things happened
• 25:58
  Speaker 10: the way people warned or predicted they would happen, right?
• 26:02
  Speaker 10: And it's been a while since a Democrat won statewide there,
• 26:05
  Speaker 10: but these things kind of come around every once in
• 26:07
  Speaker 10: a while. Mary Peltola, a former statewide elected official because
• 26:13
  Speaker 10: it's an at-large House seat, She's well-liked and she's known.
• 26:18
  Speaker 10: And I know Republicans are treating this as though it
• 26:21
  Speaker 10: is legitimately competitive. They're not dismissing it.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I agree. They are and they should. Dan Sullivan is
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a great senator, does great things for Alaska. But it's
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that rank choice weird system. I just go in and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: vote for Dan Sullivan, the Republican, four times. I don't
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: care what the rules are. David M. Drucker, follow him
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: on X, read him in the Dispatch. Thank you, David.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. Senator John Thune,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Majority Leader Thune, coming up next hour. Morning, glory, evening, grace, America.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. So pleased to welcome back Majority Leader
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of the United States Senate, John Thune of South Dakota.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Leader Thune, welcome back. Before I run down the list
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of Senate races on my mind, the competitive ones, I
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: want to ask you about the fact President Trump has
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: ordered around actually two or three rounds of strikes on
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, indicating a zero tolerance
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: policy for attempting to remind the Strait of Hormuz or
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: fire missiles at our bases. What do you make of it?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: How long do you expect it to go on?
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: Well, I think, Hugh, obviously, this is important that he
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: get the Strait open and continue to collapse the economy
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: in Iran, which I think is happening, and I think
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: all tools need to be on the table in terms
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: of holding Iran and its proxies and its international supporters
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: accountable for their actions. So I applaud the administration for
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: finding unconventional ways to achieve what is the underlying goal.
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think the military objectives have been very
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: clear there. I think we've achieved those. Now the question
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: is we've got to ensure that it is an economic...
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: issue that the straight, the shipping lanes remain open, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: that Iran isn't able to start stopping, blocking, and tolling
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: people in an international waterway. And I think right now
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: that's what the administration's focused on. I hope they're successful.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Democrats blocked a replenishment appropriation, a supplemental, and a reconciliation. Three,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to go with appropriating the money that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon needs. Do you expect after the elections, Democrats
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: will become reasonable and fund the military again?
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: I hope so. I mean, there's enough. There are some Democrats,
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: and you know who most of them are, who actually
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: do care about national security. There are a lot of
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: them who don't. But I'm hoping that there are enough
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: reasonable ones there for whom national security continues to be
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: a priority because we do have to take care of
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: some of the rebuilding the military and some of the
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: munitions that have been depleted, resupplying, restocking. And we've got
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: a lot of allies out there who need our help
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: and need the types of things that we can make
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: and produce in this country. So we've got to take
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: care of that business first. Everything else is secondary. And
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: the rest is conversation if you can't take care of
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: national security. So I hope that the Dems come around
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: and become more reasonable. They should. But we'll see what
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: the election looks after.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Later, let's begin now with Senate races that are somewhat
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in doubt, if at all in doubt. And I'll do
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: it alphabetically. In Alaska, Dan Sullivan, speaking of national security,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: one of the stalwarts of the American military, facing an
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: odd situation up there with their funny voting system. Is
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: it going to be a resource-intensive requirement state, or do
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: you think Sullivan has what he needs to get over
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the finish line?
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: I think it's always a resource. And, you know, this
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: time around, the Dems, of course, as you know, are
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: playing dirty up there. This game they're playing, trying to
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: get another Dan Sullivan on the ballot. I mean, this
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: stuff is... So that needs to be stopped, and we
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: need to make sure that everybody, all the allies out
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: there are investing heavily in Alaska. It's a firewall state.
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: We have to have it. As you point out, Dan
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: Sullivan is a great voice on national security issues. He's
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: terrific for Alaska, gets a ton done for the state,
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: and he's got to remind the people of that. It
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: takes money to do that, and then he's got to
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: define his opponent, and it takes money to do that. Now,
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: Alaska is less expensive than some of the other states
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: on the map, but We've got to do what it
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: takes to win there because we have to have Alaska
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: to keep the majority.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Another national security stalwart is Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I got sent by one of my Mainer friends today
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the lead letter in the Portland Press Telegraph, and they
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: gave it a lot of play. I'm a lifelong Democrat,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and I want Susan Collins reelected. We'd be crazy not
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to vote her back in. It goes on and on
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: by an old Democrat. who says, look, she's chair of appropriations.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not crazy. We need Susan Collins. I would not
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: bet against her later, though. I would neither.
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: She is tough as nails and a terrific retail campaigner,
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: which in Maine still really matters. And the guy she's
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: running against, you know, I mean, they think he's an
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: improvement over the previous one. I'm not sure he is.
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: I think he's got all kinds of liabilities, baggage that
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: she can take advantage of and exploit, but... Again, you know,
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: we've got to make sure that all the allies are
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: on the field there, Hugh, that everybody's invested in that
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: race because that, too, that's another firewall state. You want
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: to keep them at the majority of the United States Senate.
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: You run right through states like Alaska and Maine.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go to Michigan. I am reminded of
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: the Monty Pythons get this parrot is dead. I think
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the El Sayed campaign is dead, and I think he
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't know how bad he is running a campaign. Mike Rogers, meanwhile,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: has been perfect pitch. How much money is that going
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to cost when the Democrats are self-destructing? Well, it is.
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: We've got a big commitment there within, of course, the
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: next 60-plus days. But Mike is running a great campaign,
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: and the Democrats did us a huge favor there by
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: nominating somebody that is so far out of the political
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: mainstream in the country and certainly in Michigan. that if,
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: you know, well-financed and Mikey doesn't mess it out, and again,
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: further define this guy for the voters in the state,
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: I can't envision a scenario where even Democrats in a
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: state like Michigan are going to say this is an
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: acceptable alternative for our state. He's got so many radical
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: statements out there, radical positions, and so I feel good
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: about the race, and obviously there are some political headwinds
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: that we're facing this year, but Michigan is a state
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: where we couldn't have a better, on our side, a
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: better candidate who I think is really set up for
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: success and a Democrat candidate that is very, very flawed.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: So let's keep running hard, Mike is, and try and
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: get that one across the finish line.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Back to New England, New Hampshire. Looks like Senator Sununu
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: will beat Senator Brown for the nomination. I don't know that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Things can surprise in the Granite State. Chris Pappas is
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: pretty far to the left for a New Hampshire Democrat.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: He's not like your Senator Hassan. He's not like any
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: other Democrat who's come out of New Hampshire. What do
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: I agree. I think if you look at Hassan or Shaheen,
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: even the delegation from that state, he's way left there
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: on the scale. And New Hampshire, people up there aren't
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: crazy left. And the Sununu brand up there is really,
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: really solid, as you know. And I think John... That's
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: one that hasn't been on everybody's radar screen, at least
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: right now, but I think should be because he's running
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: a terrific campaign. Got to get through the primary first.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: That's coming up here. You know, he and Scott Brown
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: have been duping it out. But if John comes out
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: of that, I think that's a race where we really
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: have a legitimate pickup opportunity that everybody ought to be
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: paying attention to.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: It's not a very expensive state, is it? I mean,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: they've only got four or five media markets, unless they
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: have to do Boston.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, you can, and we made investments and
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: we made commitments there early on. And so we've been
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: up on the air when I say we, the allies,
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: the Republican allies up there. And I think that reminding
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: people about Johnson, he's been great on the campaign trail.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: He's everywhere.
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: He's doing a great retail job. And, again, it's another
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: state where I think that really matters. So I think
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: he's well-positioned. We've got to make sure he has the
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: money he needs. But, yeah, if Pappas comes out of
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: that primary, again, I love that matchup. I think it's
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: really good for us.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Nebraska Democrats are doing dirty tricks. They're running a guy
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: named Osborne who's not an Osborne in the Nebraska sense
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of Tom Osborne. And Ricketts is a fine guy, but
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: they're running independent. Can you beat that back again?
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: We can. I think, again, there's a reason the last
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: time around he tried to pull this off. And the
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: Dems are trying it in a lot of states. They
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: tried it. You know, unfortunately, it failed in Montana, but
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: they succeeded in Idaho, in South Dakota. They got the
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: Democrat out of the race, so it's a run against
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: an independent. It's a business model that they think they
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: can get away with something on, and we just got
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: to make sure that, again, we define these people. These
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: are Democrats. Dan Osborne in Nebraska is a Democrat, and
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: he aligns with the Democrat on all the issues. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: if you look at where that party is going, they
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: have lost their minds. I mean, they are... The engagement
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: with the Socialist Winter Party and the way that you
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: guys are having to carry a lot of those positions
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: and issues in states like Nebraska, those are not winning issues.
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: Pete Ricketts will win there, but you can't take anything
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: for granted. He's working hard. He's all over the state.
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: I texted back and forth with him this morning. So
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: we're going to win there. But the Democrats are playing
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: dirty tricks a lot of places. Alaska is another example
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: where they're trying to get you know, multiple Dan Sullivans
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: on the ballot because they can't win in these states.
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: So we've just got to make sure we take care
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: of business, and Pete will do that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, we've got to cover the last three in under
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: two minutes. North Carolina, Mike Wadley. We've got Ohio, John Houston.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I think John Houston is going to be fine because
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Sherrod Brown is infirm as well as far too left
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: for Ohio. And then Texas where Tallarico is the weirdest
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: guy running. But a lot of people like me who
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: were friends with John Cornyn were disappointed John didn't get
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the nomination. What do you make of those three states?
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: Well, Watley's moved, and we're very supportive there. It's an
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: expensive state, but one that we're tracking closely and think
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: is going to be competitive down the stretch. And then
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: I would say the same thing. I think Ohio, I
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: agree with you. I don't know how Sherrod Brown, he's
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: so far left where Ohio is these days. And Houston
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: is just a really solid, good guy with a great message.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: And I think he wins. Texas is expensive. There are
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: 20 media markets down there, Hugh, and So, you know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: we need help there. We need Maggie Hank and everybody
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: else engaged, but we can't afford to lose Texas. So
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: everybody needs to, whether they like the way the primary
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: came out or not, get on board with the team
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: and make sure that Paxton wins.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Good to talk to you, Leader. Keep coming back for
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: updates as we get closer and closer. I know you're
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: just spending your entire vacation and your work break in
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: South Dakota on the road for Republicans, and I appreciate it.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Leader Thune. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Representative Jason Smith, friend
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of the program, is chairman of the House of Representatives
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Committee on Ways and Means. Welcome back, Mr. Chairman. I
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: don't miss much, but I have missed the connection between
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: ways and means and critical minerals. What is the connection
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and what was the hearing about today?
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: You know, the hearing is tomorrow, and there's a lot
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: of connections when it comes to the ways and means
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: critical minerals. For one, trade policies. It is extremely important
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: that we combat China's control on our rare earths and
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: critical minerals. And one way to do that is to
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: open up supply chains with countries that are friendly, whether
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: they're African nations or whether it's Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. Central Asia
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: countries that are not China, 90% of all of the
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: rare earths, the critical minerals, are being processed by the Chinese.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: And it's extremely important for us to have our own
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: independence and our own supply chains.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Mr. Chairman, before I retired, I was an endangered species,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: waters of the United States lawyer. And we have mining
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: interests all across the United States that have critical mineral deposits,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: but you cannot get the permits. Since they're critical minerals,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't we pass a notwithstanding any other law miners can
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: mine in the United States for critical minerals?
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: I think that's also another thing that you have to
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: work hand in glove on is regulatory reform in regards
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: to mining. If you just look at my congressional district
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: in southern Missouri, we have cobalt mines. We have lead
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: mines like the United States has. I believe it's forty
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: seven of sixty mines. different rare earths and critical minerals.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: We have all but relatively 13, 15 of them. We
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: just need to mine. We need to allow the regulations
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: to mine. And we also need to have the recycling.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Now, we would push boulders up the road, up the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: hill of the Natural Resources Committee, and we never get
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to the top. Can Ways and Means advance the legislation
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to streamline permitting or at least make peremptory declarations that
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: endangered species will not slow down the permit, waters of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the United States will not slow down the permit? We
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: will get the permit because They're critical. I mean that's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the key word, critical.
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately, that is not within our jurisdiction of regulatory reform.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: That would have to be in the natural resources and
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: also the judiciary committees. We can look at the incentives for–
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: pushing more mining and also more processing in the United States.
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: Those are things that we can do within our wheelhouse. Um,
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: of course our committee is over all tax over trade, um,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: healthcare and social security, but, um, we cannot force them.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: I wish we could on the, the unnecessary regulations.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Uh, now since I've got you chairman, uh, I think
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the GOP has got to hold the House if there's
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: any hope of salvaging something for Social Security long term.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I think you've got to hold the House if there's
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: any hope of making the tax code business friendly to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: grow the economy. How do you feel about holding the House?
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: You know, I'm very optimistic.
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: Whenever you actually boil down district by district, and over
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: the August recess, I was in seven different states, 11
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: different toss-up congressional districts campaigning for colleagues and candidates to
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: help maintain the majority. You boil it down, roughly, there's
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: only about 18, 18 truly toss-up congressional districts out of 435.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: And we need to win roughly six of the 18,
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: so a third of the 18. And when you look
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: at our candidates and my colleagues who are in those
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: battleground seats, I would bet on our team way more
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: than theirs. The terrain looks really good for Republicans. Keeping
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: the house, the environment, though, is difficult. But I'd take
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: the terrain any day over the environment.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: It's a six-year of a presidency, and that's always pretty bad.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I wonder, I have a column in Fox News today.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Remember the summer of love? You're too young to remember
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the summer of love.
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: 1967.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Some summers get defined by a word. This is the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: summer of the DSA. You know what socialism would do
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: to the country. Do those swing districts know that the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Democrats have basically gone to the left of the socialists?
• 42:09
  Speaker 7: They're going to know. I think most of them do.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: But you just look at it is truly common sense
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: versus crazy. You have Democrats winning seats everywhere. in Congress,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: winning seats in their primaries and very safe Democrat seats,
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: that they want to abolish jails. They want to abolish ICE.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: They want to defund the Pentagon. They want to abolish
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: The United States Senate. I'm not a fan of a
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: lot of the things the United States Senate do, but
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: we're definitely not going to abolish them. Like this is
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: this is maddening that this is what they're wanting to do.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: And their proposals, Hugh, their proposals, according to the Cato
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: Institute that just came out in the last few days,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: would cost would cost us nearly 200 trillion dollars.
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: Over the next 10 years. Think about this.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: They're always saying, let's tax the billionaires and we'll pay
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: for X, Y, and Z.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Well, guess what?
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: If you took the entire wealth of every billionaire in
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: the United States, it would be just under $ 10 trillion.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: $ 10 trillion. And they're proposing to spend $ 200 trillion over
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: the next 10 years.
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: It's crazy.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. And I've got you. So let's talk about
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Medicare for All, which is their slogan of the week.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: That's nuts. I'm a senior. I'm on Medicare. I do
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: not want Medicare ruined. I've been paying into it for
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: 50 plus years. Does anyone do the math on Medicare
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: for all? It's a nightmare.
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: It would destroy Medicare. Seniors should be so scared of
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: that term, Medicare for all, because as it stands right now,
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: the Congressional Budget Office projects that Medicare will become insolvent
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: by years 2032, 2033. unless Congress acts. Now, if you
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: made Medicare for everyone, insolvency would be immediate. And so basically,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: that's a huge problem for our seniors. And Medicare is
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: there to provide health care for our seniors.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: And I want to circle back and end where we
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: began on the critical minerals hearing tomorrow. Will any of
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: your Democrat colleagues come to that, given that it's a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: national security issue?
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: I believe that they'll all be there. The question is,
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: is will they be cooperative? I would expect like they've
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: done so many times at so many hearings, they just
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: use it as a landing page to criticize the administration.
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: And I'm sure they're probably going to try to go
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: after the president over the trade disputes right now, in
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: particular with Canada.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri and Chairman of the House
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Ways and Means Committee, thank you. Keep coming back after
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the election. We'll get back to reconciliation, I'm sure, but
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your taking time from your vacation and before
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the House returns to the work and to focus on
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: critical minerals because they are indeed critical. Welcome back, America.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Byron York is with The Washington Examiner, senior political writer there,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: has a newsletter at The Washington Examiner that you ought
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: to sign up for, Fox News contributor as well. Byron
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: has forgotten more about American electoral politics than most people
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I know, so I'm going to run down the eight
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: races for the Senate. Byron, you get to pick R, D,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: or T.
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: Toss-up.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Alaska, Dan Sullivan's race.
• 45:37
  Speaker 11: I'm very worried about this one.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 45:40
  Speaker 11: I'm saying D.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Maine. Susan Collins, R, D, or T? R. Michigan. R.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire.
• 45:58
  Speaker 11: Counters Maine. I don't know. I mean, I haven't spent,
• 46:02
  Speaker 11: you know, New Hampshire seems to be kind of sneaking
• 46:06
  Speaker 11: up on people. I had thought R, but let's do T.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's do Nebraska.
• 46:17
  Speaker 11: Nebraska is R.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. North Carolina. D. Okay. Ohio. D.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Ooh.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Texas.
• 46:33
  Speaker 11: Yeah, that's bad. Oh, man. I'm putting that in T category.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got two flips, three flips for the Democrats,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: one flip for the Republicans, so they would hold the Senate.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I actually believe the Republicans are going to run the board.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: If the T's. Yeah, if they win the T's. I
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: think they're going to run the board, Byron, and I
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: have a theory, which I want you to make it
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a piñata. Iran is going to work. Iran is going
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to work. Iran is working, and that's going to help everybody.
• 47:09
  Speaker 11: Well, I'm not going to make a pinata out of
• 47:12
  Speaker 11: this theory because I've been more hopeful, not politically, but
• 47:19
  Speaker 11: I'm talking about in terms of winning the war, more
• 47:22
  Speaker 11: hopeful about Iran in the last few days because, I mean,
• 47:28
  Speaker 11: the thing that was frustrating to me, of course, about
• 47:32
  Speaker 11: the war is that I thought that the goal of
• 47:37
  Speaker 11: the war should always have been, and it was, to
• 47:40
  Speaker 11: deny Iran a nuclear weapon. I don't think that can
• 47:44
  Speaker 11: be done forever in perpetuity, but it can be done
• 47:48
  Speaker 11: for a long time, and then they'll have to do
• 47:49
  Speaker 11: it again someday. And I think that goal has been
• 47:53
  Speaker 11: accomplished for quite a while, and we've spent the last
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: few months dealing with a problem that was created, that
• 48:01
  Speaker 11: didn't exist before the war, that was created by the war.
• 48:05
  Speaker 11: meaning the Strait of Hormuz. And clearly, the United States
• 48:10
  Speaker 11: is slowly but surely opening up the Strait of Hormuz.
• 48:14
  Speaker 11: I find it difficult, you know, looking at all the
• 48:16
  Speaker 11: different estimates of how many million barrels of oil are
• 48:19
  Speaker 11: getting through every day and how many vessels or how
• 48:23
  Speaker 11: much on each vessel, et cetera, how much is being
• 48:27
  Speaker 11: taken through different routes, either other water routes or pipes.
• 48:33
  Speaker 11: But the fact is, more and more of this is happening.
• 48:35
  Speaker 11: And when that becomes pretty stabilized, where is Iran then?
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: And basically, not just the president, but Scott Bessent the
• 48:47
  Speaker 11: other day basically says, look, the Iranian regime is dead.
• 48:51
  Speaker 11: They don't know it yet. He compared it to a snake.
• 48:54
  Speaker 11: You cut off its head and the body keeps kind
• 48:56
  Speaker 11: of flailing around for a while. So I do think
• 49:00
  Speaker 11: there's reason to be optimistic about what's going on in Iran. Now,
• 49:06
  Speaker 11: that's simply in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and renormalizing
• 49:12
  Speaker 11: the navigation around the world. What actually happens in Iran,
• 49:17
  Speaker 11: what succeeds, the current regime, that I just don't know.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: So, Byron, my optimism is that they are not so bright.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: And they have totally misjudged Donald Trump, who would have
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: gladly done the deal, the MOU, and then they broke
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the deal. And he's a real estate developer at heart.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: And you can't do that to real estate developers a
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: couple of times. And he, I do think he's frustrated.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: And now I think they let them rebuild the radars
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: right to the point where they were going to work.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: And then they took them out again and they haven't
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: got any money. And there's no country in the world
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: that can operate with on oil revenue that can operate
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: for long when they don't get any oil revenue. I
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: just think the cascade domino, you remember 1989 in Germany
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and Poland and all of Eastern Europe. It, happens pretty quick.
• 50:11
  Speaker 11: Yeah, it is one of these things where slowly, slowly,
• 50:14
  Speaker 11: all at once. And I agree. You know, when the
• 50:18
  Speaker 11: Soviet Union fell, it was really a lot of bad
• 50:24
  Speaker 11: intelligence or a lack of intelligence in parts of the West,
• 50:28
  Speaker 11: and certainly just in our popular press and everything. It
• 50:31
  Speaker 11: was like, wait a minute, the Soviet Union just fell? Really?
• 50:34
  Speaker 12: But....
• 50:38
  Speaker 11: But here, it's not so unexpected here, but you're right
• 50:41
  Speaker 11: about the, I should have mentioned more about the economic
• 50:43
  Speaker 11: pressure as well, in that now putting secondary sanctions, basically
• 50:49
  Speaker 11: putting sanctions on anybody who does, anybody, any third parties
• 50:55
  Speaker 11: who deal with Iran, is really, really very effective. And,
• 51:02
  Speaker 11: I mean, this takes me back to where we were
• 51:04
  Speaker 11: in the first Trump administrations. I mean, I'm one of
• 51:06
  Speaker 11: these people, I do not believe October 7th would have
• 51:08
  Speaker 11: happened if Trump had remained in office after 2020, if
• 51:13
  Speaker 11: he'd won the election. I don't think it would have
• 51:16
  Speaker 11: happened because they had basically put Iran in a box.
• 51:20
  Speaker 11: They had basically starved it of the oil revenue that
• 51:24
  Speaker 11: it used to make mischief around the world. And I
• 51:30
  Speaker 11: think that they were, you know, they didn't have a
• 51:32
  Speaker 11: nuclear weapon. And so once... once you attack in June
• 51:38
  Speaker 11: of 2025, take out the nuclear capability, keep up the
• 51:45
  Speaker 11: economic pressure, I think that's about as good as you
• 51:48
  Speaker 11: do with Iran. I don't have any optimism that some
• 51:52
  Speaker 11: wonderful democratic regime arises in Iran. Anybody who I think
• 51:57
  Speaker 11: lived through Iraq would be hesitant to think that. But
• 52:03
  Speaker 11: I do think your basic premise, things are getting better,
• 52:07
  Speaker 11: I absolutely agree with. But we're talking about the substance
• 52:11
  Speaker 11: of Iraq and of Iran, and that's the most important thing.
• 52:14
  Speaker 11: But as far as what effect it has on the midterms,
• 52:17
  Speaker 11: that I don't know. A lot of damage has already
• 52:19
  Speaker 11: been done.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of affordability problems baked into that cake,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: but Americans do like to win. Boy, do they like
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to win. And beating up on Iran after 47 years,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I like the enthusiasm numbers I'm seeing in the polling.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: So we shall see, Byron. We'll run this test on
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: you again in a month and see how you feel
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: about that. Byron York with The Washington Examiner. Follow him
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: on X at Byron York. See him on the Fox
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: News channel. Read him in The Washington Examiner. And stay
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• 55:04
  Speaker 7: More than likely, he would use humans.
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: Satan would love Christians to just be a spectator, not engage,
• 55:10
  Speaker 8: not participate.
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: Is there something he's trying to say?
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: Can you hear me now?
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: Pre-order the movie by September 10th.
• 55:15
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• 55:20
  Speaker 12: Celebrate America's 250th with a powerful movie marathon from Salem
• 55:26
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• 55:41
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• 55:46
  Speaker 12: all weekend on Salem News Channel.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Welcome as promised. Hour 3 has arrived. Haviv Reddy-Gore joins
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: us from Israel. Haviv is a man of many platforms.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: You can listen to his podcast, Ask Haviv Anything. I
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: never miss an episode. You can join his Patreon. It's
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the only one I belong to. You can subscribe to
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: him at Substack, havivreddygore.substack.com, or read him in the free press,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: where he's their Middle Eastern correspondent. Haviv, let's begin with
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: episode 140. Van Jones is in trouble. Because he said
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: to you on episode 140, you hosted him twice on
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: episode 110 and 140, he said, Abdul El-Sayed's policies are
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: insane because he wants to deny Iron Dome. And Van
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: pointed out that Iron Dome was actually backed by Barack
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Obama and most mainstream center-left and even, indeed, left-wing Democrats
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: because it's a defensive system. And now he's in trouble
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: for doing that with the fringe. How are we ever
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: going to get out of this if... People try and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: cancel Van Jones for saying normal things.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's actually right. He said a few things about
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: what El-Sayed believes specifically about Israel and how radical those
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: things really are. And, you know, DSA candidates want to
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: have their cake and eat it too. They want to
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: say crazy things like Mayor Mamdani wants to spend 10
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: years saying that the NYPD learned to abuse minorities. because
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: of its exchange program with the Israel police, the 20
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: cops a year who learn together some tactics about policing
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: communities that are multi-ethnic or hostage situations. It's one of
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: the smaller exchange programs, I think. I mean, they have
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: an exchange program with Jordan and Qatar and Singapore and Mexico,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: all places with, A, no civil rights, B, either no
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: civil rights or major problems in their police forces. But no,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: the exchange program with Israel and all the panoply of NYPD,
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: that's what You know, that's the lace, the boots that
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: the NYPD has on the neck of minorities. It was
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: this favorite line that Mamdani liked to say as an
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: activist and as a state legislator. They want to make
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: Israel into this bogeyman, into this evil thing. That is
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: the evil, all the evil, right? And project onto it
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: everything that worries them in America, economic justice, climate justice,
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: policing justice. And then when you call them on it
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: and you say, you know, you don't have to like Israel,
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: but it's quite likely that the NYPD never didn't have
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: to learn from Israel how to have race issues. That
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: might not have been something they learned from Israel. Maybe
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: they learned it somewhere else. And then, of course, there's
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: always this like backtracking and why are you nitpicking and
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: what are you talking about? And it's a complete misunderstanding. Actually,
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: he said that he loves all humanity. And so they
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: want to have their cake and eat it too. El-Sayed
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: has positions on Israel that are not– I'm concerned about
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: giving offensive weapon systems even to allies. Israel doesn't use
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: it the way I wanted to use it. I don't
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: need to pay for it, right? All those kinds of
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: things that are a completely rational debate about American weapon sales.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: And a rational debate about, frankly, American taxpayers and what they.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Should pay for.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: The aid debate is– I respect it profoundly. That's not
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: where al-Said is. He thinks the Israelis shouldn't have the
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: ability to defend themselves because, of course, the Iranians are
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: just misunderstood, nice, sweet people. And he thinks that the
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: Iron Dome is, you know, some nefarious thing that should
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: be restricted. Israel invented Iron Dome when no American manufacturer,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: no American official of the Pentagon thought it was even possible.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: And the American administration, the Obama administration and Congress took
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: a risk on funding it But they were not idiots.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: In exchange for funding the very expensive development of this
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: technology nobody really thought could work, except for a few
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: nutty Israeli engineers, America co-owns the system. It's co-produced by
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: American and Israeli manufacturers, and America can deploy this technology,
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: which is proven that it can work and nobody had
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: known it can work. America bought something.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: It wasn't like a gift. And to not want the
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: system to exist is a bad thing for Israel, but
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: a bad thing for America. And this guy has a
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: very radical, silly position. And if you call them on it,
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: that shouldn't explode in your face on social media.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I will come back to El-Sayed in a bit, but
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I want to focus on Van for a moment. And
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: full disclosure, I get along well with Van. We've done
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: some things together. It's been years since I've seen him,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: but we've done events in Central Park together. He's a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: rational leftist. I think I'm a rational conservative, and we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: get along fine. However, here's the problem. I don't know
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: that he'll come back on the Habib Reddy Gore Ask
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Habib Anything podcast. I hope he gave it 110, 140.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I hope he's back for 170. He is sort of
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: above the fray. He's big enough now with the Bezos Award.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have to worry about anything. And he's old enough.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have to worry about anything. But increasingly, conversations
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: are so siloed, Habib. I want to know if this
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: is the case in Israel as well. Secretary Clinton came
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: on this show after her failed run. We had a
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: nice long conversation for an hour and a half, two hours,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and she said, you know, I should have done this
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: before the election. I said, yeah, you should have. This
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: is actually not helpful to people that they don't go
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: in harm's way of controversy. Is that happening in Israel
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: that people are siloing, or is that not happening in Israel?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: I'll say this. I think the Americans are a shining
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: example of this. The Israelis... rarely, rarely, the most important Israeli,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: Prime Minister Netanyahu, will go months, not just not speaking
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: to hostile media, not speaking at all to the media.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: And that's something that because he's been so politically successful
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: with the way he's managed his politics, a lot of
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: other Israeli leaders have copied. And so there's a huge
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: and rich debate in Israel, a public debate. There's the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: print newspapers, the websites, television panels, they tend to be
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: serious and good and rich and there's broken news breaks
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: about corruption and all that stuff you would expect from
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: a public debate. But politicians rarely put themselves in that
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: kind of danger. Not enough to my mind. You're talking
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: to a journalist. I want them to do it more always, obviously.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: But not enough in Israel. I actually have to tell you,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: I have nothing but admiration for Van. He has no
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: interest in... in fighting back against some of these forces
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: on the progressive left and standing by the Jewish community
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: as he does and standing by.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Israel.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: I mean he has a lot of criticisms of Israel
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: and he voices them at my podcast and everywhere. But
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: he also thinks the prejudice against Israel has become something
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: that's actually poisoning progressives. I think he would accept that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: framing of it. and he'll come out and say it,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: and he'll just walk right into these very intense debates.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: He came on to my podcast, this Israeli guy talking
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: about stuff. By the way, the first time he came on,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: he talked about black Jewish relations, and he said some
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: things that got some American Jews angry. And so he
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: came on the second time, to literally sit there and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: have me read him the angry complaints and critiques of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: those American Jews. That is courage. That is extraordinary. I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: want to have that courage as someone who does public
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: discussions and debates. So Van, if he never comes on
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: my podcast again, he has done ten times more than
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: what most of us would be willing to do, and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: he's done it sheerly for principle, for what he believes in.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: All right, now I want to go back to El Saeed. Yesterday,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Vice President Vance said, I'm close to a quote here,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: there's something very, very evil about al-Sayed, and he represents
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: a growing force in the United States that wants to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: divide people based on their race, ethnicity, religion, background, and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: that will destroy the United States. A paraphrase, but pretty close.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with him that that's an evil way
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: to do politics?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: In the Middle East, your tribe is the most important
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: factor in how you function politically. That's true in Iraq,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: in Syria, in Lebanon. It's less true in Israel, but
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: it's not not true in Israel. It is important to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: people in Israel. And by tribe, I mean not your
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: political party, not your nation, not these things that are
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: very visible, but actually this informal thing, not formally often
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: recognized by states, that is the closest and most important
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: and thickest social bond that you actually have. These are
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: the people who will defend you, who will fight for you,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: who will protect you in a sometimes chaotic and dysfunctional
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Middle East. And so Lebanon is divided along these sectarian lines,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: and Syria and Iraq, and again, to a lesser extent,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: but it's still there, Israel, right? Large parts of the
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: Israeli population are Arab. Large parts of the Jewish population
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: come from the Arab and Muslim worlds. And that's a
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: big part of the culture. America has always been the opposite. That,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: by the way, is European nationalism, basically the basic story.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: That's what most of Africa functions like. I'm making sweeping generalizations,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: but tribe matters. Ethnicity matters. America was the place where
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: it doesn't, and it doesn't as a matter of profound
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: principle because there's the individual, and that individual has rights,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: and the system is built to protect the individual. The
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: individual comes first before anything else. And there is, in
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: the progressive worldview, I feel weird talking about it because
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: I come from a part of the world which doesn't
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: have that beautiful thing. But in the progressive worldview, that
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: kind of liberalism, they believe that it, in fact, is
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: a secret power structure meant to oppress minorities, and the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: whole world becomes coded to the protection of minorities, and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: therefore you have to identify minorities And therefore you walk
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: away from this idea of the individual in a civic
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: democracy that doesn't recognize blood and race as sort of
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: legal constructs and foundational contracts to a system that does.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: And that is a change for America, and I get
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: why a lot of Americans like Van would be very
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: nervous about it.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: And like J.D. Vance. I'll be right back, America, with
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Haviv Reddy Gore. Follow him on X at Haviv Reddy Gore.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Listen to Ask Haviv Anything. It's episode 140. It's the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: most recent episode with Van Jones. I'll be right back.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. Haviv Reddy Gore is with me. Remember,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: you can join his Patreon community. I have an Ask
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Question directly of him. You can listen to Ask Haviv Anything.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: You can sponsor him. an Ask Habib Anything podcast. You
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: can also read him in the free press where he's
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the Middle East correspondent. One more poll from your episode
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: 140 with Van Jones, Habib. Van said to you, there's
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: a dilemma for Israelis. Israelis feel like David, but the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: rest of the world say they look like Goliath. That
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: kind of stuck with me because I think that's true
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of me. I think Israel is our most important strategic ally.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: It's the only one we've flown wingtip to wingtip with
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: since World War II. They've been on the ground with us,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: other allies. But, I mean, the kind of mission that
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: we did in the 40-day war is unparalleled. Did that
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: resonate with you, that the world might think Israel is
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: a lot stronger than Israel perceives itself to be?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: You know, it's such a sensitive thing that Vance says there.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: It's such an interesting nuance. The answer, as simply as
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: I can put it, is it's always been that way,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: and Israelis talked about it. There's an old story about
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: the former head of the Israeli Air Force, Ezer Weizmann,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: ahead of the 1967 war, a couple of years before,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: he's headed to Washington to talk about buying some American
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: missile system, and he comes to the Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: who's this guy who still spoke Yiddish, he knew good
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: Yiddish from the old country, And he says to Levi Eshkol,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: what do I tell the Americans? Do I tell the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: Americans we are desperately vulnerable, the enemies surround us, they
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: have new Soviet armies, and if you don't help us,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: we're going to die? Or do I tell the Americans
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: we have the finest army in the Middle East, we
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: can defeat all the enemies who come at us, don't worry,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: you want to be on our side, we're the winners
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: in this region, and we're with you. The Arabs aren't
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: with the Soviets, we're with you, and you've got the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: better side of that deal. Are we Goliath?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Or are we David?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: Are we the winners? Do we look vulnerable? And Eshkol
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: was said to have said to him, you tell the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: Americans we are Samson the Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is the weakling
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: in Yiddish. You are Samson the weakling who's about to collapse. Both.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: And it's not a tactic. It's Totally genuine. When you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: talk to Israelis about their situation, they will say to you,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: we are united, we are strong, we are courageous. There
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: has never been a generation of Jews as strong. as
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: this generation of Jews. And all the ideologies that come
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: to destroy us will discover that either before they come
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: to destroy us, they'll understand it, or they'll come to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: destroy us and discover it the hard way. You'll hear
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: that strength, that courage, that willingness. And you'll hear, but...
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: By the way, why did the Pakistani defense minister three
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: weeks ago or whatever it was talk about destroying Israel
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: right after signing a defense pact with Turkey and Saudi?
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: Why is the entire Iranian regime obsessed with the destruction
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: of Israel 47 years? They literally instituted the only national
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: holiday they instituted is Quds Day, which is the one
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: with the military marches through the streets of the capital.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: They're obsessed with our destruction as part of their religious
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: understanding of how they redeem Islam or some silly thing
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: like that. We are actually vulnerable. You know, you drop
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: a nuke over Tel Aviv, you've covered most of the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: Israeli population. And so we're desperately vulnerable and unbelievably strong,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: and Israelis have that thought in their head at the
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: same time.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: And Van was.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: sensing you know and by the world when it thought
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: of us as small facing vast arab armies built by
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: the soviet union coming to get us in the cold
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: war saw us as this heroic david but now we're
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: so much more powerful the arab world is part the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: parts those parts of it those dysfunctional parts of it
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: that this that organize their politics around our destruction are
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: also incompetent kleptocracies and can't feel proper armies. And we
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: have become wealthier, more competent, more innovative. We spend more
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: per capita on R and D than any country on earth. That's,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: you know, Israel's not magically successful. It does the right
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: things to become successful. Um, and so now we're also much,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: much more powerful. And so that's, he touched on something
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: that for the Israeli experience is much, much more complicated and, and, and,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: and interesting.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, we are.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: We are both Goliath and David in our own minds.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: And I can see how someone from the outside looking
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: in could think one thing and then think the other.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: I thought it was fascinating. Again, I recommend episode 140
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: of Ask Habib Anything because Van is a smart guy.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Let me switch to the fact that as we speak,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: the United States is attacking Iran or has just finished
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: attacking Iran. Along the Strait of Hormuz, we're doing what
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: we did in the 12 days of combat that followed
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: the 40 days of combat. taking out their ability to
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: threaten the straight um is there a sense of alarm
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: in israel tonight because it's nighttime in israel is there
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: a sense of alarm in israel tonight that the war
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: will return to israel soon.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: Not unless iran really is falling really is desperate it
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: does not want to trigger and they've they've in response
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: to punish the americans they have bombed Jordan, Saudi, you know,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: either they or the Houthis, the Emiratis, Kuwait, they've done
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: a lot of damage to a lot of countries. And
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: they've avoided bombing Israel, because Trump has asked Netanyahu not
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: to join the offensives at this point in the game.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: And the Iranians don't want to give Netanyahu the excuse.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: And so if they do then attack Israel, and Israel
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: now comes into this war again, that means the Iranians
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: are absolutely desperate. I have to tell you, As far
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: as I can tell, I'm going to get emails, President
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: Trump is doing exactly the right things. The Iranian regime
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: at its fundamental core is a vast patronage system. The
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: IRGC owns 40% roughly of the GDP of Iran because
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: it owns the energy sector and the mining sector. And
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: the foundations controlled by the Supreme Leader, the Bonyads, own
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: another maybe 20%. This is a vast kleptocracy, a patronage
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: system at the scale of the Soviet Union, and actually
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: kind of built a little bit on the Maoist model.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: And Trump is choking that patronage system to death with
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: the counterblockade. And the counterblockade, it turns out, has been
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: managed very successfully. The demining has been successful. The route
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: that allows other ships accompanied by American forces to on
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz, along the
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: Omani coastline, has allowed ships to come in and out
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: that are not Iranian. And the Iranians have been unable
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: for seven weeks now to ship oil to China. The
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: oil that the Iranians were shipping to China, very cheaply,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: because it's sanctioned oil and China's the only buyer, was
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: a huge portion. There are different assessments that I've read,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: but something like 40% of the entire budget of the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: IRGC And if you haven't been able to do that
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: for seven weeks, China's going to survive. China has vast surpluses,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: and it can go out and buy for a regular price.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: On the world markets.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: But Iran's regime can't survive that. And this is a
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: regime that literally pays its population, the part of it
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: that's willing to play the game, to not bring it down,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: to be part of the system. And exactly like in
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: the Soviet Union, if you're loyal to Stalin, you have
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: an apartment, you have a car, you have everything you need.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: If you're not, good luck. And so he's choking them
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: with the only real mechanism they still have to control
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: their population, and they're getting desperate. This has to hold
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: out for as long as possible, and it's exactly the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: right policy. It's the only thing that has a chance.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: Just airstrikes doesn't have a chance of bringing them down.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: We've discussed that 15 times. This, after the decapitation, after
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: the airstrikes, after taking out their Navy, this is what
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: will do it if anything can.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: I agree with that, and we will continue to update
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: you as events occur. I do believe, by the way,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Aviv is exactly right, and the president posted on True Social,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: I put it on my own ex-account, that the Iranians
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: had better not strike back because they're going to get
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: X times the retaliation followed by X to the X
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: degree retaliation if they do. And there are targets. Believe me,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: there are targets. And we know where they are, and
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: the Israelis know where they are, and all of our
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Gulf allies know where they are. Stay tuned. Aviv will
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: be right back. We're turning to Israeli politics. Welcome back, America.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. My one advantage over Haviv, Reddick, Gore,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: and there are not many, is that I was a
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: young man in the Reagan White House and the Reagan
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: administration when the Soviet Union began to totter, and I
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: watched in 1989 as East Germany fell and then the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Soviets fell in 1991. Haviv was too young. Haviv, do
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: you think Iran can do what East Germany did? I mean,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: just collapse in a week? That was so astonishing to watch.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: I had a friend, Jim Strzok, flew there so he
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: could dance on the top of the wall. Do you
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: think that might happen in Iran?
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: Gosh, I hope so.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: There's never been a regime quite like this in the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: history of the world. It borrows a lot from the Soviets,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: from the Maoists, from all of those kinds of systems.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, really institutions and studying their military tactics and
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: their structures. Their Shiism is built on a kind of
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: Marxist interpretation of Shiism. But there is that religious dimension
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: that the Soviet Union never had. You know, when Trump
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: took out the president of, arrested the president of Venezuela,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: the vice president was perfectly willing to play ball to avoid,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: you know, the same fate. In Iran, they're willing to die.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: And that's what the religious dimension adds. And so they
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: seem to be much more stable. But I'll just say,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: they're not acting as if they're stable. So they have
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: tried to bump up the minimum wage very quickly and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: very significantly, but the massive inflation, it's 66%, I think,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: as of last month, the massive inflation has actually prevented
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: that from actually being a real bump in actual real
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: currency for most poor Iranians. But that's an act that
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: you do to prevent unrest. They have replaced a lot
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: of the leadership of the Basij. The Basij are this
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: paramilitary militia controlled by the regime whose job is to
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: go into the streets and beat to death protesters. And
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: they've replaced that leadership to make sure that they're the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: most loyal, the people most connected to the most extreme
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: hardline fringe that is now in control of the regime
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: because of the decapitation strikes of the U.S. and Israel.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: And so if you're replacing the leadership of the people
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: who will do the violence required to keep you in
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: power and desperately trying to hike up minimum wage, you
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: think you're vulnerable exactly in that way. And, uh, huge
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: amounts of the budget of the IRGC are wiped out
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: as we talked, as we discussed because of the American
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: counter blockade, which is extraordinarily successful, more successful than I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: think anyone in the administration would have guessed, uh, you know,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: seven weeks ago. So, um, I, I think they are fragile.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: I fragile, by the way, it could mean they have
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: a year left in them to do this, but that
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: is fragile. Uh, and I'll just remind you, please, Americans, um,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: When you assess the world, remember, the CIA was absolutely
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: convinced that the Soviet Union would last forever and the
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: Cuban regime would fall by the 70s. So don't take
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: assessments by your intelligence services. Do the thing that makes sense.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: Do the thing that the signals suggest you should do.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: Be very humble. The great Mossad, which has infiltrated this
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: regime in ways that are almost miraculous, was terribly wrong
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: on the potential to bring them down with military means.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 4: So even the Mossad on its one great nemesis for
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: 40 years, can be wrong on this. So let's with
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: all humility address the issue, but the Iranians are saying
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: to us we're vulnerable, and I think that's a wonderful thing.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: So I listened yesterday to Dan Senor talking to Montefiore,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: the historian who you also spoke with, and I've ordered
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the cauldron on audiobook, which is not out yet. Farouk
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: was overthrown by Nasser. Assad was overthrown by al-Nusra. Which
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: regime is it more like? Is Iran different from Farouk?
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: Is it different from Assad? Is it different from everybody?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: The Iranian regime has spent 47 years taking one of
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: the world's wealthiest countries and one of the world's most
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: talented countries in history just the sheer brainpower of their expats,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: and driving it into the dirt until it has, because
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: of all this hyperinflation for years and years and years,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: the nominal GDP per capita of Haiti, basically. This is
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: a regime that spent 47 years succeeding at absolutely nothing
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: except the gutting of every single power base in society
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: that isn't them. The university students, the traders, the labor unions,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: anything that they don't control, They smashed. And what that
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: means is that right now the only serious contender for
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: replacing easily, quickly, without bloody collapse, a fallen IRGC regime
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: is some other piece of the regime. And that is,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: I think, the hope of the– that's how the American
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: administration talks when you corner them on these things. And
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: I think that's the hope. And there are factions within
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: the regime, and we heard these amazing stories about the Israelis–
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: you know, grooming Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran who held
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: a Holocaust denial conference, but he was willing to meet
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: with Israeli spies to be the guy who replaces because
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: he hates what the regime has become basically because he
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: was sidelined by it. I think that's the thinking and
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: they're going to be looking for those kinds of people
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: in the regime.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: I have one more segment, and I'm going to move
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: to Israeli politics with Aviv. From an American perspective, are
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: they going to stay with us? Don't go anywhere, America.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. And welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: Aviv Reddy-Gore is with me. If you're just joining, Aviv is,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: of course, the correspondent for the Free Press in the
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Middle East. He runs the Patreon community, Aviv Reddy-Gore. You
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: can read him at substack, avivreddygore.substack.com. And his podcast is
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: a wonderful podcast, Ask Aviv Anything. Haviv, I talked to you, Dr. Oren,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: I talked to Nadav, Eyal, I talked to Amit Sehgal,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: my four sources. And you all make predictions. I'm not
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: going to ask for any more predictions because you all
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: tell me the same thing. Talk to us a week
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: before the election, we'll have a guess. So here's my
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: bigger question, which is, no matter who runs Israel next year,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: whether it's Netanyahu or any of the other would-be prime ministers,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: would that future prime minister order the IDF to fly
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: wing-to-wing with the American military if renewed combat with Iran occurred,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: such as we did in the 40-day war? Anyone who
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: could possibly be prime minister, would they be with us?
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, completely. The progressive left is led by the former
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: deputy head of the IDF, Yair Golan, a personally deeply
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: courageous man, strategist who thinks America built a world order
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: that is the healthiest and happiest the world has ever been.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: And Israel cleaving to that, even in times when it
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: is at odds with American policy, certain parts of the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: Bush administration, Bush senior, various times under Eisenhower, Kennedy, whatever,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: the American-led world order is the world order he supports,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: and he would absolutely make that call. And he's the
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: progressive deep left, and everyone to the right of him
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: would do so as well.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Part two of the same question.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: And of course, Iran wants to destroy us, right? So
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: it would be a gift of the Americans in the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: eyes of the Israelis. Even if the Americans do it
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: for their own reasons, it would be a gift to
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: the Israelis and everybody would join.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: Part two, in the United States, the left wants to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: defund the Pentagon. And I think it's a fair and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: objective statement that they would cut our 3% GDP to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: two and then to one and a half. We'd be Canada.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: In Israel, does every party that is likely to produce
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: a prime minister committed to to the IDF spending at
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: least the level that it's at now and to the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: research university and the Technion and everything that produces everything
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: that America uses, regardless of who wins, does it impact
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: the IDF's ability to wage war?
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. You know, it's not a luxury. They really are
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: coming for us. You can argue the Israelis are, you know,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: the Netanyahu government has been overly aggressive in bombing targets
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: in Syria tangentially related to certain Iranian or Turkish assets.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: You can come at Israeli policy completely, but you can't
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: pretend like the Iranian regime hasn't spent untold billions it
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: doesn't have and built entire militias dismantling Lebanon and weakening
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: Yemen and hurting Iraq just on the altar of the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: destruction of Israel, that this isn't a major theological concern
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: of theirs that they're willing to invest in because they
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 4: are primarily fundamentally a theological movement And if you don't
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: see that, then nothing that ever happens in the Middle
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: East makes sense to you. And the Iranian regime doesn't
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: make sense to you. So, yes, you know, having a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: real enemy that's actually coming for you really kind of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: simplifies this question. We spend vast amounts on R & D.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: If you combine, again, private and public, it's the highest
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: in the world. And we have this incredible scientific sector,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: incredible tech sector. the Israeli economy, the stock market has
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: risen during this war, and foreign direct investment has risen
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: in this war, and exports have risen in this war.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 4: And almost all of it is driven by weapon sales to,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: for example, Europe, which is now very quickly arming itself
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: against a potential future Russia that could invade Finland and
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: Poland and other places and not just Ukraine. And so
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: the Israeli engine of strength, the engine that gives Israel
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 4: its ability to survive against these ideological foes willing to
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: demolish their own economies on the destruction of Israel, is
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: all those things. No Israeli government is going to stop
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: those things, hurt those things, as you put it, make
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: itself less useful to America. That is something we need.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: Maybe there will come a time where The countries around
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: us will turn democratic and stable and happier and more
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: prosperous and less interested in obsessing about the Jews to
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: sort of deflect attention from the catastrophic failures internally of
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: these bad regimes. And then, yeah, our defense spending can
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: drop down to Belgium, but that's a few generations away.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, last question, and really what I'm driving at. Should
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: an American care at all about who wins in Israel?
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: Because it sounds to me like no matter who wins
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: in Israel, they will be our ally and a reliable
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: one unlike America, which sometimes is not so pro-Israel, Obama,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes very pro-Israel, Trump, and we go back and forth,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and the anti-Israel elements within the Democratic Party are in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: the ascendancy. Is there an anti-American element in Israel? That's
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: the way I'm asking.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: No, not outside of the very strange radical fringe. No,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: there's no... On the very, very far right, there's a
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: kind of anger at America asking Israel to... do sort
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: of basic, decent things occasionally. And on the very far left,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: there's a participation in basically the global sort of left-wing,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: third-worldist kind of ideology that's very anti-Israel, not just anti-America,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: but it's also anti-America. But we're talking about, you know,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: single-digit percentages on the edges in Arab politics. I think
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: most Arab politics are pro-America, and they have a completely
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: different sense of what's happening, the Arab community in Israel.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: No, there really isn't. If you care about some other issues,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: you might have a preference because you might think that
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: certain political factions, more center-right ones, center-left ones, might play
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: ball with America on some issues in the Middle East
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: or with the Palestinian issue, which is, of course, a
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: huge issue. You might think on those terms that you'd
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: prefer one or another. Those are the kinds of issues
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: Israelis are going to be thinking about on election day.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: But In terms of the loyalty to America and being
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: a useful ally to America, there's no difference in 85%
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: of the middle ground of Israeli politics.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: You know, Israel's unique that way. We only have a minute.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Israel's unique that way in the world. There's a pro-American
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: party and an anti-American party in every democracy. Do you
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: agree with that? We have one minute. Israel's unique that way.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: People have the privilege of thinking in adorable abstractions and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: falling back on the kinds of abstractions that their professors
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: teach them in classes, professors who've never done anything. But
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: if you read about the scholars and thinkers after World
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: War II, many of these people had gone into the
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: Navy and fought in the war and understood the world
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: because they had seen other countries and weren't just sitting
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: in the ivory tower. And these are people who had
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: a much bigger sense of the world and much more
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: understanding of the world. Then you also saw many other
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 4: countries really see American power as a good thing. You
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: saw these elites, political elites, academic elites. Israel is in
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: that post-war period in that sense. It knows the world
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: can be evil and it needs an American-led world order.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: And by the way, if Belgium were threatened, Belgium would
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: love America on both sides of its politics.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Well said. Aviv Reddy-Gore, always good to talk to you.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: Follow him on X at Aviv Reddy-Gore. Listen to Ask
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Aviv Anything, especially episode 140 and episode 93, which has
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: got nothing to do with Van Jones, but you should
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: listen to it anyway. Thank you, Aviv.