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Where Do Republicans Stand With 2 Weeks To Go Until Midterms? · 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
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  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there and of course to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues. All of them at hueforhillsdale.com
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  Speaker 1: or just google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Glory to be
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  Speaker 1: raised in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt back inside the Beltway
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  Speaker 1: for the two weeks prior to the election. Wouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: anywhere else. Actually almost three weeks, not two weeks. I
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  Speaker 1: um I've got a lot to get through that's political,
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  Speaker 1: including why I feel great about Susan Collins in Maine,
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  Speaker 1: pretty good about Michelle Tafoya in Minnesota, better about Ken
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  Speaker 1: Paxson in Texas, and okay about Iowa and Ohio. Better
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  Speaker 1: about Iowa than Ohio. I think Ashley Hinton's doing better
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  Speaker 1: in Iowa than John Huston's doing in Ohio. I'll cover
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  Speaker 1: all those races today. I've got clips of all of them.
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  Speaker 1: But first, I want to begin with an interview that
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  Speaker 1: our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, gave to Matt Boyle
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  Speaker 1: of Breitbart, which had a number of important pieces in
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  Speaker 1: it that I want you to hear about. The first
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  Speaker 1: cut is not about Ukraine or anything. It's about actually
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  Speaker 1: Central and South America. Cut number 15.
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  Speaker 2: It really is remarkable just how fast this has happened
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  Speaker 2: across the Western Hemisphere. Why is it happening this quickly?
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  Speaker 2: I've seen some people out there suggesting, oh, it's USAID
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  Speaker 2: is gone, so they're not funding the NGOs and they're
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  Speaker 2: not funding the left. I don't know if that's why,
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  Speaker 2: but maybe that's part of it.
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  Speaker 1: But what do you think?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't think it's a coincidence to some
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  Speaker 3: extent that pulling foreign aid into the State Department and
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  Speaker 3: away from the sort of independent, do-whatever-they-want organization, which was USAID,
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  Speaker 3: has had a direct impact on what's happening in the region.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: There are groups in that region that are clearly aligned
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  Speaker 3: with anti-American leftists. Now, they may be dressed up as
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  Speaker 3: an environmental NGO or a group that works for the
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  Speaker 3: indigenous population in these countries, but the reality of it
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  Speaker 3: is they are part of this anti-American global network of NGOs,
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  Speaker 3: and we were.
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  Speaker 6: Funding many of them.
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  Speaker 7: We were funding many of them.
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  Speaker 3: Now, our foreign aid, we're still the most generous country
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  Speaker 3: in the world in foreign aid. The difference is our
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  Speaker 3: foreign aid is now designed specifically to further the national interest.
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  Speaker 3: We are not going to pay for things that are
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  Speaker 3: bad for America. We are not going to give money
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  Speaker 3: to people or organizations that hate America. And that's why
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  Speaker 3: that's now whether I can prove to you that's had
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  Speaker 3: a direct impact on these elections. I'm not sure we've
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  Speaker 3: studied it, but I don't think it's a coincidence in
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  Speaker 3: my personal.
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  Speaker 1: Then Secretary Rubio told Matt Boyle about what Europe needs
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  Speaker 1: to do about Russian energy cut number 16. That's exactly
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  Speaker 1: what happened.
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  Speaker 3: Their dependence on Russian energy is one of the reasons
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  Speaker 3: why Putin went into Ukraine, because he thought he could,
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  Speaker 3: because he believed Europe wasn't going to do.
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  Speaker 1: Anything about it.
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  Speaker 7: So I hope they've learned that lesson.
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  Speaker 3: It seems like they now are, but it takes time
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  Speaker 3: now to reverse engineer 20 years of both this green
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  Speaker 3: hyperbole in terms of believing they're going to go completely
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  Speaker 3: green and their belief that they could somehow not develop
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  Speaker 3: any domestic sources of energy and, in fact, just be
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  Speaker 3: overly reliant on one method. So the answer is I
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  Speaker 3: hope they are because Europe's future depends on it. Right
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  Speaker 3: now their economy faces, unfortunately, real stagnation in most of
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  Speaker 3: these countries.
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  Speaker 1: Because Then President Trump has refused to sanction Russia despite
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  Speaker 1: the passage of the Lindsey Graham Russia sanctions bill. And
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  Speaker 1: Matt Boyle pressed Secretary Rubio about that. Cut number 17.
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  Speaker 3: The United States, where he once again reiterated why it
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  Speaker 3: is that he's done the things he's done with suspending
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  Speaker 3: the sanctions for 60 days, is because he wants to
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  Speaker 3: see if there's an opportunity for the talks that are
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  Speaker 3: going on right now with both Ukraine and Russia to
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  Speaker 3: lead to something positive. and avoid another disastrous year of
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  Speaker 3: war and conflict.
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  Speaker 1: That was not to Matt Boyle. That was outside. Cut
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  Speaker 1: number 18, a gaggle.
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  Speaker 3: And now we've done everything we can, and we'll continue
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  Speaker 3: to do everything we can to help facilitate the end.
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  Speaker 1: Of that war.
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  Speaker 3: No one's winning that war. People are dying every day.
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  Speaker 3: Things are being blown up every day. Things are being
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  Speaker 3: destroyed every day. And he's talked about it. He's talked
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  Speaker 3: about the death toll. If you've listened to the president,
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  Speaker 3: he repeatedly cites the 25,000 people a month dying in
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  Speaker 3: these wars.
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  Speaker 1: And then cut number 19 from Secretary Rubio.
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  Speaker 3: The president's been clear. He'd like the war in Ukraine
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  Speaker 3: and Russia to end. He wants that war to end.
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  Speaker 3: He has said that when he was a candidate. He
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  Speaker 3: said it never would have happened had he been president
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  Speaker 3: at the time, but it did happen. And now we've
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  Speaker 3: done everything we can and we'll continue to do everything
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  Speaker 3: we can to help facilitate the end.
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  Speaker 8: Of that war.
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  Speaker 3: No one's winning that war. People are dying every day.
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  Speaker 3: Things are being blown up every day. Things are being
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  Speaker 3: destroyed every day. We want the war to end. We
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  Speaker 3: see nothing good coming from this war, and we see
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  Speaker 3: a lot of downside to it, including the very real
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  Speaker 3: risk of escalation and the spread of this thing spreading
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  Speaker 3: into another country because of a failed sabotage attack, because
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  Speaker 3: of drones that are hit with electronic warfare and they
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  Speaker 3: wander into a neighboring country.
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  Speaker 7: We see that every night.
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  Speaker 1: We see it every night. And so things are very
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  Speaker 1: tense along the Russia-NATO border. And along, of course, Russia
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  Speaker 1: and Ukraine, they're fighting. Ukraine is the good guy. We
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  Speaker 1: need to get more weapons to Ukraine. Putin is a gangster.
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  Speaker 1: We need to recognize that. The president can deal with him.
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  Speaker 1: If anyone can, it's Donald Trump can deal with Vladimir Putin.
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  Speaker 1: But Putin floated an idea over the weekend, which was
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  Speaker 1: so on the nose with the Munich conference of 1938,
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  Speaker 1: that we don't want any part of that. 1938, Neville
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  Speaker 1: Chamberlain flies to Munich sits down with Hitler, so does
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  Speaker 1: the French representative. And Hitler demands half of Czechoslovakia. No
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  Speaker 1: Czechs are there or they're in the other room. And
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  Speaker 1: Chamberlain gives him half of Czechoslovakia. I think it's in
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  Speaker 1: September of 1938. In March of 1939, Hitler takes the
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  Speaker 1: rest of Czechoslovakia, occupies Prague. You can't deal with dictators.
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  Speaker 1: Putin is a gangster. You can't deal with him. But
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  Speaker 1: President Trump and other strong leaders have tried to always
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  Speaker 1: deal with him. Every president of the United States has
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  Speaker 1: tried to deal with him since Clinton. There is no
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  Speaker 1: dealing with him. He's a gangster. Now, Brian Kilmeade talking
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  Speaker 1: about the other big story of the weekend abroad, which
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  Speaker 1: is France is burning. And I don't mean a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: I mean 600 different places across France and part of
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  Speaker 1: Italy as well. Brian Kilmeade talks about it. Cut number 22.
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  Speaker 7: They're afraid of the people. They allow the people to
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  Speaker 7: come there, and then now they're afraid of them. This
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  Speaker 7: is where President Trump is ahead of his time.
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  Speaker 9: He's going to give full credit for it eventually for
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  Speaker 9: clear-thinking people. He said you've got to watch your borders,
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  Speaker 9: and you have to also judge people coming into your country.
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  Speaker 7: They're going to benefit your country.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 9: Because Syria decides that Syria has a brutal revolution.
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  Speaker 7: It doesn't mean they have to all go to France
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  Speaker 7: and Germany. Ro Khanna, if you want to underline.
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  Speaker 9: Things that lawmakers say that miss the point, here's an example.
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  Speaker 7: Ro Khanna, who wants to be president?
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  Speaker 9: From the high schools of France to the streets of Madrid,
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  Speaker 9: young people are telling their governments the same thing. In
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  Speaker 9: an age of massive wealth inequality, they want a future.
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  Speaker 7: They can believe in.
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  Speaker 10: J.D.
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  Speaker 9: Vance says this is what happens when a nation lets
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  Speaker 9: its too many immigrants. From the global south, he is
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  Speaker 9: not just morally wrong, but misreading the moment. This is
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  Speaker 9: what happens when nations let wealth and power accumulate in
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  Speaker 9: the hands of the few. This is what happens when
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  Speaker 9: young people lose hope in their future. In America, let
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  Speaker 9: us listen to the young. We need an economic and
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  Speaker 9: political transformation now. America's next new deal. What is wrong
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  Speaker 9: with you? This is an accumulation of promises made by
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  Speaker 9: the state.
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  Speaker 7: They're impossible to sustain.
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  Speaker 9: They have the largest debt to GDP in Europe.
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  Speaker 7: And here's this.
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  Speaker 4: They said free child care, free health care.
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  Speaker 7: Free school, and you can retire at 60.
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  Speaker 5: The math was never going to work when you started it,
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  Speaker 5: and now it's beginning to implode because your services don't
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  Speaker 5: meet the moment, the promises don't work, and you keep
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  Speaker 5: electing the same people who think you can work 35
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  Speaker 5: hours and retire at 60 years old and have a
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  Speaker 5: successful democracy.
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  Speaker 7: You don't get it.
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  Speaker 9: That is a scary statement for any lawmaker to make.
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  Speaker 1: Brian Kilmeade is absolutely correct. The math doesn't work. And
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't work anywhere. It won't work here eventually. We're
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  Speaker 1: running a $ 40 trillion debt and a trillion plus every
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  Speaker 1: year because our entitlements are unmatched, mismatched with our actual
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  Speaker 1: life expectancy and what people actually do. People work to 75.
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  Speaker 1: That's just kind of routine. And the idea that you
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  Speaker 1: can pull out at 62, that's crazy. The idea that
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  Speaker 1: you don't have to work after 62, that's nuts. We
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  Speaker 1: have layered entitlement upon entitlement. We've given away golden parachutes
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  Speaker 1: to millions of government employees. There's no private sector counterpart
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  Speaker 1: to that. The public sector is overburdened with promises made
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  Speaker 1: to people who are now retired. And we're not going
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  Speaker 1: to be able to break those promises, but we can
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  Speaker 1: fix entitlements. It's going to take serious people, not Abdul
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  Speaker 1: El-Sayed or Abdul El-Sayed. The Michigan radical who's running as
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  Speaker 1: a Democrat is the most important race on the calendar
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  Speaker 1: this year. And I want to play for you is
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  Speaker 1: knock down of a young kid, or his attempted knockdown,
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  Speaker 1: it actually blew back on Saeed, this weekend, cut number five,
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  Speaker 1: the young man asked him about the Muslim Brotherhood, listen closely.
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  Speaker 8: What's your name?
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  Speaker 7: No, what's your name?
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  Speaker 4: No, what's your name?
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  Speaker 7: No, no, what's your name?
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  Speaker 4: No, your friend's got the mic here.
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  Speaker 8: I'm asking you a simple question.
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  Speaker 1: You give me your name, I'll answer the question. Hi, Tommy,
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  Speaker 1: how are you?
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  Speaker 4: Are you... Do you know what the Constitution of the
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  Speaker 4: United States is?
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  Speaker 1: I have one simple question.
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  Speaker 11: Will you disavow the Muslims?
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  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
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  Speaker 8: Well, because they're a terrorist group.
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  Speaker 4: Okay. No, no, but what are you implying?
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  Speaker 1: Do you assume that I wouldn't?
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  Speaker 4: Yes. Why not?
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  Speaker 8: Because I have not heard you disavow them yet. Have
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  Speaker 8: you disavowed them? I haven't heard you.
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  Speaker 1: Disavow them yet.
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  Speaker 8: I disavowed them.
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  Speaker 4: Do you? Great.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the thing about it.
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  Speaker 4: You're asking the question because implicitly you assume that I'll
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  Speaker 4: have dual loyalty.
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  Speaker 1: No, he's not asking the question because he assumes that
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  Speaker 1: Abdul Al-Sayed is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter. He's asking the
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  Speaker 1: question because Abdul El-Sayed is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter. He
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  Speaker 1: signed the letter on behalf of Mohammed Morsi, then president
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  Speaker 1: of Egypt, who was a Muslim Brotherhood stalking horse and member.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a good question. It could have been answered
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  Speaker 1: very directly with, I really, really dislike the Muslim Brotherhood.
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  Speaker 1: They're a terrorist organization, have been since BANA founded it
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  Speaker 1: in 1923, and they're up to no good wherever they are,
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  Speaker 1: and I will have nothing to do with it. Or
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  Speaker 1: he could have said, yeah, I think they're necessary for
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  Speaker 1: the Arab world, Some in the Muslim world, but not
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  Speaker 1: here in America. He could have answered it a hundred ways. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he went after a young man who asked an obvious question.
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  Speaker 1: How insecure is Abdul El-Sayed? How bad are his numbers?
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  Speaker 1: They must be pretty bad. More coming up after the break.
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  Speaker 1: Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Hugh Hewitt inside the Beltway after a week in Maine.
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  Speaker 1: Spent watching very closely the Collins-Troy Jackson race. I think
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  Speaker 1: that one... Pretty much baked a cake and put it
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  Speaker 1: in the oven. Susan Collins coming back. But I'm joined
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  Speaker 1: now by Jonathan Williams. Jonathan is the president of the
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  Speaker 1: American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, A-L-E-C dot org slash U,
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  Speaker 1: ALEC dot org slash U. Jonathan, we have to celebrate.
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  Speaker 1: I would not have believed it, but New York State
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  Speaker 1: has opted in to the scholarship program that Ted Cruz devised.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us about it.
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  Speaker 8: Well, this is the big one, Hugh.
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  Speaker 12: Nobody really saw this one coming, but Governor Kathy Hochul
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  Speaker 12: of New York, who, as we all know, is not
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  Speaker 12: a big friend of school choice or education freedom over
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  Speaker 12: the years.
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  Speaker 8: New York ranks, after all, 49th out of the 50
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  Speaker 8: states in the ALEC report on education freedom.
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  Speaker 12: Did the right thing here and has decided to opt
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  Speaker 12: in to the Trump education tax credit scholarships, as you mentioned,
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  Speaker 12: devised by the great Senator Ted Cruz.
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  Speaker 8: This is a huge deal.
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  Speaker 12: Jared Polis led it off as the first Democrat governor,
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  Speaker 12: but this will only be the second Democrat governor of
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  Speaker 12: the 31 states that have opted in.
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  Speaker 8: All the others have been.
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  Speaker 12: By Republican governors or by Republican legislators overriding their governor's vetoes,
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  Speaker 12: like in Kentucky and North Carolina. But Governor Hochul now
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  Speaker 12: going out and doing this, maybe some would say it
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  Speaker 12: would be for campaign purposes. Maybe she's doing it for
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  Speaker 12: the right thing from a perspective of saying it's what's
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  Speaker 12: right for the kids. I'm not going to judge her
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  Speaker 12: motives on it, but this puts every other progressive or
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  Speaker 12: Democrat governor in a really difficult position, especially those that
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  Speaker 12: want to claim that they're moderates to say they're to
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  Speaker 12: the left now of Governor Kathy Hochul of New York,
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  Speaker 12: the 49th state in education freedom across the country. But
• 12:44
  Speaker 12: kudos to Governor Hochul for doing the right thing on
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  Speaker 12: this one and aligning with this great movement that we've
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  Speaker 12: been working on it from an ALEC perspective all across
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  Speaker 12: the country.
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  Speaker 1: I think Bruce Blakeman must be catching up to her
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  Speaker 1: because this is an important thing, but it's not particularly political.
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  Speaker 1: I want to remind everyone how it works. Beginning next
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  Speaker 1: year in 2027, the regs are in draft right now.
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  Speaker 1: They're out for notice and comment from the IRS. Beginning
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  Speaker 1: next year, every individual can contribute $ 1, 700, or if they're married, $ 3, 400,
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  Speaker 1: to a qualified scholarship-granting organization, an SGO. And then that
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  Speaker 1: SGO will take that money and give it to schools
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  Speaker 1: as scholarships for students, and the taxpayer gets a credit.
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  Speaker 1: Why is a credit so much better than a deduction,
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  Speaker 1: Jonathan Williams?
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  Speaker 12: Well, in this case, you know, it's something, Hugh, that,
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  Speaker 12: you know, it's a dollar-per-dollar credit, right? I mean, this
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  Speaker 12: is exactly dollars paid in, you get dollar-per-dollar back instead
• 13:41
  Speaker 12: of deducting against your income. But more importantly, from the
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  Speaker 12: state's perspective, this doesn't cost the states a dime. This
• 13:48
  Speaker 12: is something that's federally financed because the federal government correctly
• 13:51
  Speaker 12: realizes that education opportunity is a huge.
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  Speaker 8: Goal that needs to be furthered across the country.
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  Speaker 12: And for a lot of these governors who, especially these
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  Speaker 12: progressive governors who always are at the trough in Washington, D.C.,
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  Speaker 12: asking for more money, It's awfully strange that they would
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  Speaker 12: turn down a so-called free new federal tax credit.
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  Speaker 8: It doesn't cost them a dime.
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  Speaker 12: So I think it's time for the rest of them
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  Speaker 12: to follow the lead of Governor Hochul in this case
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  Speaker 12: and realize that this is the right thing to do
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  Speaker 12: for parents and students all across their states.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to emphasize there is no downside for
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  Speaker 1: a state. It's a tax credit off your federal income tax.
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  Speaker 1: So the federal government will receive $ 3, 400 less because you
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  Speaker 1: got $ 3, 400, which you would have paid to the federal government.
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  Speaker 1: is going to go to an SGO, a scholarship-granting organization. Now,
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  Speaker 1: those have to be stood up. Those have to be qualified.
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  Speaker 1: They have to give to more than, I think, 10
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  Speaker 1: different schools. There are a number of things and hooks
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  Speaker 1: that go with it, and those SGOs can't spend overhead
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  Speaker 1: greater than 10%. There's a lot of protection there. But
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  Speaker 1: what a magnificent driver of freedom in the education, Jonathan Williams.
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  Speaker 1: It is going to remake American education. I mean, Ted
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Cruz gets the gold medal. medal for innovation in the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: One Big Beautiful Bill.
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  Speaker 12: Well, I'll tell you what, there's a lot of good
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  Speaker 12: ones in that One Big Beautiful Bill, but Senator Cruz
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  Speaker 12: is up there.
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  Speaker 8: And as you know, Hugh, you've been at our awards
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  Speaker 8: dinner before.
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  Speaker 12: We at ALEC love recognizing Cax Fair champions across the country.
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  Speaker 12: And I wouldn't be surprised to see Senator Cruz get
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  Speaker 12: one of those great awards from ALEC in the coming months.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you about the rollout now. 31
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  Speaker 1: states have said yes, and it just takes your governor
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  Speaker 1: saying we're in. There's no law required. You don't have
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  Speaker 1: to get it through a legislature. And 19 have said no.
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  Speaker 1: When you come around to do rich states, poor states.com
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  Speaker 1: this year, do you expect opting into this program will
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: be a significant factor in where you rank?
• 15:49
  Speaker 12: Well, it'll certainly be something we look at in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 12: ALEC report on education freedom that will come out in January.
• 15:55
  Speaker 12: So stay tuned for that, because I think it's going
• 15:57
  Speaker 12: to play right into what we're seeing play out across
• 16:01
  Speaker 12: the country when it comes to the state education freedom
• 16:04
  Speaker 12: revolution that we've been happy to be a part of
• 16:06
  Speaker 12: from an ALEC perspective. But it clearly plays into rich states,
• 16:09
  Speaker 12: poor states, this migration of families. going to states that
• 16:12
  Speaker 12: have more business opportunities, more employment opportunities, and more opportunities
• 16:17
  Speaker 12: for kids. So you really can't separate the two in
• 16:19
  Speaker 12: terms of economic freedom and education freedom going hand in hand.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Now, Jonathan, last week I was in Maine covering the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Collins-Troy Jackson race. I'm inside the Beltway now. And Maine
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: has got a lot of troubles. It's a pretty blue state.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And they've got an 8% income tax. They've got a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: death tax. They've got a bunch of things that prohibit
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: people from building houses and from moving up there. Federalism
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: is the greatest. I don't know how the famous came
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: up with this, but nothing works like federalism. And people
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: vote with their feet. Does that continue to be the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: great sort? Are people still going all over the country
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: to follow their dreams to the best state to live in?
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: Well, there's no doubt. I mean, it's a key message
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: from rich states, poor states every year. And here we are,
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: 20 million people moving across state lines just in the
• 17:08
  Speaker 8: last number of months.
• 17:09
  Speaker 12: And we track this trajectory and it ties exactly back
• 17:13
  Speaker 12: to what the founders were doing to put in those
• 17:15
  Speaker 12: checks and balances to keep central power from corrupting. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 12: this is something our good friend Lee Habib wrote about.
• 17:21
  Speaker 12: It's really socialism versus federalism. And at the end of
• 17:24
  Speaker 12: the day, federalism is the great check and balance on
• 17:27
  Speaker 12: big government ideas.
• 17:28
  Speaker 8: Because guess what, Hugh?
• 17:30
  Speaker 12: States can't build walls to keep people in if they
• 17:33
  Speaker 12: have these bad policies that don't work. People are going
• 17:35
  Speaker 12: to leave. They're going to look for more opportunity for
• 17:38
  Speaker 12: themselves and their families. And that's the name of the game.
• 17:40
  Speaker 12: That's the American experiment. And it's a wonderful thing that
• 17:43
  Speaker 12: when you think about it in the grand course of
• 17:45
  Speaker 12: world history, it's awfully rare that countries have experimented with
• 17:49
  Speaker 12: this kind of bottom-up governance that we have in the
• 17:52
  Speaker 12: United States.
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: And the founders, you know, thank God they were thinking
• 17:56
  Speaker 8: ahead of.
• 17:56
  Speaker 12: Their times just a bit to say, what is it
• 17:58
  Speaker 12: that we can put in the Constitution to prevent central
• 18:01
  Speaker 12: government planning and big government prevailing here in the United States?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And there is no more obvious comparison than California with
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a big long coastline and a lot of wonderful things
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: going forward, and Florida. They both should be booming. Only
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: one state is. It's Florida. And that's because of their
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: state legislatures and their governors. It's because of federalism. Agree
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: or disagree, Jonathan Williams?
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Well, 100%.
• 18:26
  Speaker 12: And nobody ever has moved away from California because of
• 18:29
  Speaker 12: the bad weather in California, right? And this is what
• 18:32
  Speaker 12: Paul Krugman and Mike try to say. It's all about
• 18:34
  Speaker 12: the weather, why people move. And nobody ever has moved
• 18:37
  Speaker 12: to Texas or Florida for better weather than California.
• 18:40
  Speaker 8: They move for economic opportunity. They move to make their
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: lives better off.
• 18:44
  Speaker 12: And they move to give their kids a better chance
• 18:46
  Speaker 12: with things like this education freedom movement that we were
• 18:48
  Speaker 12: just talking about.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: That is the number one, and I think you're going
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: to see more people go to wherever they can get
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a scholarship and a school. I think you're going to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: see lots of SGOs in the states that opt in.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Federalism makes the differences between the states known. They are
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: all collected in richstatespoorstates.com. Get your free copy of richstatespoorstates.com.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: A new one will be coming out. I'm sure Ohio
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is going to be near the top. especially if the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Guardians win tonight. Jonathan Williams, always good to see you,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: my friend. A-L-E-C dot org, Alec dot org slash you,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Alec dot org slash you, or RichStates, PoorStates.com. I'll be
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: right back. Stay tuned, America. Welcome back, America. Big elections
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: ahead in Brazil for the presidency on Sunday next week.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: for the prime ministership and every seat in the Knesset
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: in Israel, and then, of course, our midterm elections on
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: November 3rd. To talk about the one in the middle, Israel.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by Ambassador Michael Oren. Dr. Oren was the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: ambassador of the United States for Benjamin Netanyahu for many years.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: He is now the founder of the Israel Advocacy Forum.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Oren, what's going to happen? I just want to get
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it done and figure out who's going to be the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: next prime minister of Israel.
• 20:01
  Speaker 13: Good to be with you here.
• 20:01
  Speaker 14: I was just listening to your previous segment about prophecy, okay?
• 20:04
  Speaker 14: So now you're asking me to be a prophet, but
• 20:06
  Speaker 14: what's going to happen? On the basis, and I believe
• 20:09
  Speaker 14: in prophecy, don't I? I don't necessarily want to fulfill
• 20:11
  Speaker 14: that role, but here it is. If you look at
• 20:14
  Speaker 14: the statistics, no group, and there's two groups here. There's
• 20:17
  Speaker 14: the Netanyahu group and the anti-Netanyahu group. By the way,
• 20:20
  Speaker 14: it's pretty much what Israeli politics have been about for
• 20:22
  Speaker 14: the last quarter of a century. None of them are
• 20:26
  Speaker 14: capable of piecing together, cobbling together that 61% majority Knesset block,
• 20:33
  Speaker 14: there's 120 members of Knesset, 61 of the majority, that
• 20:35
  Speaker 14: would make a viable government. Trust me, I've been in
• 20:38
  Speaker 14: a government of 61. You don't want to be in
• 20:40
  Speaker 14: the government of 61. You don't get to go to
• 20:42
  Speaker 14: the bathroom because they yank you out for votes. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 14: even that minimum they can't reach. That does not mean
• 20:49
  Speaker 14: that in both these camps, they cannot start, ah, horse
• 20:53
  Speaker 14: trading back and forth. It happened back in 2015 when
• 20:56
  Speaker 14: Netanyahu's group actually lost the election to Stipi Libni. She
• 20:59
  Speaker 14: couldn't put together a coalition. Netanyahu could, and he remained
• 21:03
  Speaker 14: prime minister since then. So a really fascinating period. What
• 21:07
  Speaker 14: are they talking about in the anti-Netanyahu camp? That if
• 21:10
  Speaker 14: they cannot put together a government, they will at least
• 21:14
  Speaker 14: remove the current speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, who
• 21:17
  Speaker 14: was a Likudnik, replace them with one of their own,
• 21:20
  Speaker 14: and first of all, block legislation. The government cannot move
• 21:23
  Speaker 14: legislatively in the Knesset, but also they can pass legislation
• 21:28
  Speaker 14: that would prohibit an indicted.
• 21:31
  Speaker 13: Prime minister or minister from running from office, i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu.
• 21:37
  Speaker 13: Whether that would pass must or the Supreme Court remains
• 21:39
  Speaker 13: to be seen. So that's one option.
• 21:41
  Speaker 14: The other option is, okay, who's going to sit with
• 21:43
  Speaker 14: the Arab parties, including the moderate Arab parties?
• 21:46
  Speaker 13: Who would sit with the ultra-Orthodox parties? Nobody knows.
• 21:49
  Speaker 14: And will anybody outside of, say, the government bloc, will
• 21:54
  Speaker 14: anybody in the anti-government bloc form a coalition together with
• 21:57
  Speaker 14: Likud as long as Prime Minister Netanyahu remains the head
• 22:01
  Speaker 14: of that party?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to come back to the speaker in a moment,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to ask you about President Trump's endorsement
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of Prime Minister Netanyahu made yesterday. Does it make a difference?
• 22:14
  Speaker 13: Not a big one. Interesting enough, not a big one.
• 22:17
  Speaker 14: Uh, Netanyahu ran in the previous round of elections with
• 22:20
  Speaker 14: huge posters showing him shaking the hands of Donald Trump.
• 22:24
  Speaker 13: And the logo read, he's in a league all by himself.
• 22:28
  Speaker 14: Israelis are not enamored of that league anymore, especially since
• 22:31
  Speaker 14: the signing of the MOU to the United States and Iran,
• 22:34
  Speaker 14: which was perceived by many Israelis as sort of a
• 22:36
  Speaker 14: stab in the back. The president's popularity, his trust, his
• 22:40
  Speaker 14: credibility in the Israeli public has gone significantly down from
• 22:43
  Speaker 14: what it was. And so it doesn't necessarily redound to
• 22:46
  Speaker 14: Netanyahu's benefit. marginally, just marginally, they're talking about maybe an
• 22:50
  Speaker 14: increase of a mandate, a single seat at most.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: All right. Now, to remove the speaker, does that anticipate
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the anti-IBB bloc working with the Arab list?
• 23:02
  Speaker 13: On that specific issue? Yes, of course. And the Arab
• 23:07
  Speaker 13: list have said they're.
• 23:08
  Speaker 14: Willing to do that, sort of as an external non-participant
• 23:12
  Speaker 14: member of the government.
• 23:13
  Speaker 13: And This is one venue they'll try.
• 23:18
  Speaker 14: Now, I've often mentioned in this broadcast, watch out for
• 23:21
  Speaker 14: Victor Lieberman, head of a party that maybe get eight
• 23:24
  Speaker 14: or nine seats in Knesset.
• 23:26
  Speaker 13: But he's a very clever.
• 23:29
  Speaker 14: Politician, very experienced, a former foreign minister, former defense minister,
• 23:33
  Speaker 14: former foreign minister. I worked with him as a foreign minister.
• 23:37
  Speaker 14: He's never failed at any of these roles. And he
• 23:40
  Speaker 14: could try to pull a Naftali Bennett. Naftali Bennett, back
• 23:43
  Speaker 14: in 2021, had all of seven seats in Knesset. He
• 23:46
  Speaker 14: ended up being prime minister. Watch Lieberman come out and say, OK,
• 23:50
  Speaker 14: you don't want to go to another round of election.
• 23:51
  Speaker 14: You don't want to have Bibi as prime minister for
• 23:53
  Speaker 14: another three, four months. Make me prime minister. Even make
• 23:56
  Speaker 14: me prime minister in a rotation with somebody else like
• 23:58
  Speaker 14: Gotti Eisenkot.
• 23:59
  Speaker 13: And I'll go along with this. And maybe we can
• 24:02
  Speaker 13: pull out that 61%.
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: McLaurin, are you anticipating any kind of an October surprise
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: from or to Iran that would affect yours and our elections?
• 24:16
  Speaker 13: Well, I think the Iranians are more focused on your
• 24:18
  Speaker 13: election than our election.
• 24:19
  Speaker 14: I think that the Iranians would like to see a
• 24:22
  Speaker 14: change of a party in Congress. I think they could
• 24:25
  Speaker 14: strike a deal with the Democrats much more handily than
• 24:27
  Speaker 14: they could with the Republicans. And so they keep on
• 24:30
  Speaker 14: trying to provoke the United States into renewed kinetic action,
• 24:33
  Speaker 14: renewed warfare around the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere, attacking
• 24:38
  Speaker 14: Saudi Arabia, for example, and trying to drag America in.
• 24:41
  Speaker 13: And so far, President Trump has been unwilling to take
• 24:43
  Speaker 13: that bait.
• 24:44
  Speaker 14: Not an easy decision, considering the fact that Saudis are
• 24:46
  Speaker 14: very good allies of the United States, and they're getting pummeled.
• 24:51
  Speaker 13: And I think the president understands that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 14: Renewed warfare now would spike energy prices again and further
• 24:59
  Speaker 14: impair the chance that the.
• 25:02
  Speaker 13: Both or even one of the houses of Congress. That's
• 25:04
  Speaker 13: what the Iranians want.
• 25:06
  Speaker 14: The Iranians are less eager to drag us in because
• 25:09
  Speaker 14: they know they're dragging us in.
• 25:11
  Speaker 13: We don't care about gas prices. We don't even care
• 25:13
  Speaker 13: about the elections that much.
• 25:14
  Speaker 14: We care about an existential threat to the state of Israel,
• 25:16
  Speaker 14: and we will respond accordingly.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: All right, last question. Benny Gantz pulled out today, former
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: defense minister, former member of the emergency cabinet, followed the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: invasion of Moscow on 10-7. He's out of politics. Is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that a tragic story? Is that a story of a
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: military man caught in a world with which he is unfamiliar?
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: What is that a story of?
• 25:39
  Speaker 14: A deal of the above, but I think above all
• 25:42
  Speaker 14: it's sort of a morality cautionary tale. Benny Gantz was
• 25:46
  Speaker 14: a fairly popular chief of staff who came out, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 14: he was at that moment the messianic hero that was
• 25:52
  Speaker 14: going to take.
• 25:52
  Speaker 13: Down Benjamin Netanyahu after after so many years in power.
• 25:55
  Speaker 14: And I keep flashing before my eyes the picture of
• 25:58
  Speaker 14: Benny Gantz speaking in front of an audience in Tel
• 26:01
  Speaker 14: Aviv that's seemingly limitless. And everyone's screaming and so exciting.
• 26:05
  Speaker 14: And here we are, what is it? Five, six years later,
• 26:08
  Speaker 14: and he is now dropped out of politics. So the
• 26:10
  Speaker 14: cautionary tale is, beware. Glory is fleeting, particularly in Israeli politics,
• 26:16
  Speaker 14: but perhaps in all politics. And that at the end
• 26:20
  Speaker 14: of the day, Netanyahu is a hard act to follow.
• 26:23
  Speaker 14: And as I've said repeatedly, It is always premature to
• 26:26
  Speaker 14: predict his political demise.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I was hoping you'd get that in because I think
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that is your tagline. Never underestimate Netanyahu.
• 26:34
  Speaker 12: Always.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Michael Oren, thank you. Follow him on X America. D.R.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Michael Oren.
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: Thank you.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Ambassador Oren will be texting throughout and posting throughout the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: election cycle ahead. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere yourself.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. I'll be right back.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Joined now by our good friend, Selena Zito. She of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the New York Post,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the Washington Times, the DC Examiner. Good to see you, Selena.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: You were up in my neck of the woods, right?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Up in Ashtabula. And Warren, what'd you find out in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the Ohio races?
• 27:07
  Speaker 11: I was in the Mahoning Valley. So Ashtabula all the
• 27:10
  Speaker 11: way down to Columbiana County. And, you know, these are
• 27:16
  Speaker 11: the voters that you and I both know. who have
• 27:18
  Speaker 11: been traditionally working class Democrats, have handed and helped put
• 27:24
  Speaker 11: Democrats over the top in multiple elections, in particular in
• 27:28
  Speaker 11: presidential elections. But that all began to change in 2016
• 27:32
  Speaker 11: when we saw Trumbull and Warren, the Warren area and
• 27:36
  Speaker 11: Stark County and Astrabula flip to the Republicans. Mahoning Valley almost,
• 27:44
  Speaker 11: but not until 2020 and then 2024. And it also
• 27:50
  Speaker 11: helped place J.D. Hance in office. And that, to me,
• 27:55
  Speaker 11: is where this election is decided.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Now, where did you go in Ashtabula and Warren? The
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: rest of the places are fine, Stark, Columbia and all that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: But Ashtabula and Warren, those are the keys.
• 28:08
  Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I was everywhere and I
• 28:14
  Speaker 11: was talking to lots and lots of voters and And
• 28:18
  Speaker 11: voters are very reluctant to, voters are going to vote.
• 28:23
  Speaker 11: They're very reluctant to say who they were going to
• 28:25
  Speaker 11: vote for. But I will say that these are Republican-leaning
• 28:29
  Speaker 11: or independent-leaning Democrat voters or Republican voters who have voted
• 28:35
  Speaker 11: for Trump in the past, a little bit upset about
• 28:38
  Speaker 11: gas prices, but I really didn't get an indication that
• 28:43
  Speaker 11: they were going to switch allegiances But they were very
• 28:47
  Speaker 11: unwilling to say, I'm definitely voting for this person or
• 28:50
  Speaker 11: that person.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Did anyone say, I get the Iran conflict? I understand
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: what the president is doing. I don't know if anyone's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: made the argument.
• 29:01
  Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:02
  Speaker 11: They totally get the Iran argument and they totally understand
• 29:06
  Speaker 11: why it needed to be done. They don't like seeing
• 29:09
  Speaker 11: it in their gas prices, but they're very willing to.
• 29:13
  Speaker 11: to look aside from that because they understand the consequences
• 29:18
  Speaker 11: of not doing anything, which is what we've done for
• 29:21
  Speaker 11: 40 plus years, right?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: So Selena, this piece ran in the Washington Post. How
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: did the editors like it?
• 29:31
  Speaker 8: They loved it.
• 29:33
  Speaker 11: They really loved it. They really, is first my first
• 29:38
  Speaker 11: story for The Washington Post outside of Pennsylvania. And they
• 29:41
  Speaker 11: really saw that I understood Ohio and I understood what
• 29:46
  Speaker 11: was going on and what was the most, you know,
• 29:49
  Speaker 11: who the most important voters are in that state. And
• 29:54
  Speaker 11: they really loved the story a lot because it was
• 29:56
  Speaker 11: unlike anything they've seen.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So how many of the people that you talked to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: were wearing Guardians gear? Because they got to win tonight
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and they got to win tomorrow night.
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 30:07
  Speaker 11: Everyone was really into their sports teams. The Browns, too.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 30:16
  Speaker 11: So the Steelers. Remember, I don't think people understand this,
• 30:20
  Speaker 11: but in like Youngstown, it's a three-football team city, right?
• 30:25
  Speaker 11: You've got Browns. You've got Steelers, but you also got
• 30:29
  Speaker 11: the 49ers. So that's always, to me, really fun to
• 30:33
  Speaker 11: talk to people about that.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That's like when I went to Erie. I did not
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: know this about Erie until Steve Scully brought me up there.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And you've got the Browns, you've got the Steelers, and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you've got Buffalo Bills fans. That's a really schizophrenic city.
• 30:49
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you do.
• 30:50
  Speaker 11: And you can see why. Why that split and the
• 30:54
  Speaker 11: allegiance to those three teams?
• 30:56
  Speaker 8: It all makes sense.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Well, go say some beads for the Guardians. We had
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a 2-1 lead when I was on Friday, and now
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the guards are behind 3-2. They've got to win tonight,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and they're throwing a bullpen game, and then they'll have
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the big machine on the hill, Gavin Williams, tomorrow night,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: but they've got to get the win tonight. Selena Zito,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: follower on X at Zito, Selena. Go over to selenazito.com,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: sign up, get all of the things that she writes
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: in all of those different venues. President Trump's favorite journalist.
• 31:26
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  Speaker 1: look very different when you actually need to use it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: That's why you shouldn't wait until open enrollment is already here.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Call now and get on the schedule. Waiting until the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: last minute can mean rushed decisions, missed opportunities, and potentially
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: paying more than you needed to. John's team can review
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: your situation now, explain your options, have you prepared when
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it's time to make a decision. Don't wait until November
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to start making a November decision. Call U.S. Medical Plan
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: today at 877-410-4321. That's 877-410-4321. 877-410-4321. Or visit usmedicalplan.com. Welcome
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to the hour number three of today's program. Reminder, uh,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: This time, or actually late next hour, I'll be over
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: on the special report set with Brett Baer, so I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: hope you join us. I'm joined now by Lilacs, as
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: in jameslilacs.substack.com, National Review columnist, humorist, proprietor of his own
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: website as well, lilacs.com, which is almost a horror house
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of fun, if that's seasonal reference. James, I did not
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: know if you would be too depressed to talk to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: me today. Because Christiane Amanpour announced she is leaving CNN.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Are you okay? I wanted to do a wellness check.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: No, I'm not okay. I'm really not. I mean, 40 years,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: is that too much to ask? Could we not have 41? 43. 43? Okay. Well,
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: then we've had 43. That's three more than I thought.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: I guess I'll be able to get by. I can
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: get through. There are compensations. Laudanum. You know, I can
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: take any number of compounds to ease the sad, the pain,
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: but somehow we'll get through. A remnant of another age
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: when actually something would happen and you would turn to
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: CNN and say, I wonder what Christine says. There's Wolf Blitzer.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: He's going to tell us what's going on on the ground.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: It seems like an era that is long gone and
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: perhaps better than it is.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: All right. This is a fair question. I mean, honestly,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: objective question. What do you remember Christiane Amanpour for, if anything?
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: Portentous self-importance, actually. Somehow regarding herself as the equivalent of
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: the Avengers simply because she was there and reporting on it.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: And I don't know exactly when that began to curdle
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: for me, but I just sort of got tired and
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: stopped believing. And I can't exactly tell you why. It
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: may have been some question at a press conference. It
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: may have been a framing. It may have been one
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: of those moments that everybody has when they're listening to
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: a reporter and saying, wait a minute, the way you
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: phrase that indicates that either you don't know what I
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: know or you do know and you're not telling or
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: you have an agenda or something like that. Everybody has
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: one of those moments with the mainstream media at some point.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: And at that point, the invisible mental croupier's wand just
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: sort of moved her from the center of expectation of
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: objectivity over here to she's got an agenda, which, you know,
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: is people in the media.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Now, CNN has lost Jim Acosta. They have lost Don Lemon,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: now Christiane Amanpour. Do you think they're reeling or do
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you think they're getting ready for the makeover that might
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: make them relevant again?
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Well, none of those people made them relevant in the
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: first place. What made them irrelevant was, first of all,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: we had so many other opportunities and places to go to.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: When the first Gulf War happened, CNN was absolutely indispensable.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: They were there. The scuds were flying. I can't remember
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: the name of the guy, the scud stud, who was
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: sitting there on the rooftop of a hotel. But it
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: was exciting times. And they had a gravitas and an immediacy,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: and people trusted them. And that just vanished over the years.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: And they became just another competing voice. It's not necessary
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: for me to expect or hope that CNN is going
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: to reinvent itself. I would love to have something come
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: down the pike that is absolutely, completely, 100% objective, without question,
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: giving you both sides and the rest of it, and
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: not trying to play to what little, narrow, boomer, graying,
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Prius-driving ladies with the coexist bumper stickers happen to want.
• 36:56
  Speaker 10: I mean.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: It's there for the taking if they would like to
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: do it. But the idea that they went to CNN +,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: I think it was called, and they tried to charge
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: money for that, and nobody did, shows that the brand
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: has lost its left there an awful long time ago.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: But again, you're talking to somebody who doesn't really depend
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: on television for stuff at all unless something blows up.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Well, after my program tonight, James, I'm going over to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: do the last actual news hour in primetime. I mean,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: real news hour, that special report with Brett Baer. And
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I always reflect on why he gets 2.5, 3 million
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: people and CNN gets 300,000 people or 400,000. It's because
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it's straight. Brett's a straight news anchor. They do a
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of packages of interest to the center of the country,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: maybe center-right, maybe a little bit center-left, but of interest
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to the country. And then they have a panel, usually
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: with a conservative like me who's center-right and a lefty
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: who's kind of center-left and a third person who may
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: or may not be one way or the other. It's
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: just it's not that hard to earn credibility if you
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: just do what Brett does.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: No, but unfortunately, the industry, the demographics are dead for them.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: The people who watch this stuff are interested in what's
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: going on. They have keen minds. They want to engage.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: But also, they're probably likely to have the television set
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: on a lot. And it's a piece of furniture that
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: talks to them, keeps them company. And if it's not Fox,
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: it's the Weather Channel. The people who are getting the
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: news today from sources aren't going to those shows. I mean,
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: every young person I ask, you know, because young to
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: me now is a relative term, but I was talking
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: to some 20-somethings the other day, and I asked them
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: where they got their news, and they got their news
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: from TikTok. They got their news from TikTok, from stupid
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: little edited-down vertical videos of somebody saying something somewhere with
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: no idea as to whether or not it's true. They
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: have left the television model so far behind that in
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: order to get them, you have to get them where
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: they live, which is in a little doom-scrolling box that
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: they have in their hand that gives them the dopamine
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: hits all day. So, yes, I mean, it's not that hard,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: but somebody might not want to spend the time and
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: the infrastructure to do it because the audiences that they
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: want to reach are sitting there looking at news in
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: between pictures of AI-generated pieces of fruit having an affair
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: with a banana.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: All right. All right. I haven't seen that one. Would
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: you send it to me? I want to know about,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to bring an existential crisis to you in
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: just a moment. But before then, you're living in the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: middle of Tafoya v. Flanagan. And I like Michelle Tafoya
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: a lot. She was on last week. Can she actually
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: do this? What do you think? I mean, you do
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: have shootouts at Eden Prairie Park. homecoming game. And you
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: got $ 9 billion that walked out the door in the
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: line of the year, which is sell it to someone else, Peggy.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: I think she can.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: I do.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: The ad campaign recently has just been brutal against her,
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: tying her to Trump. Well, you know, and if you
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: hate Trump and you hate ICE and all the rest
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: of it, well, you weren't going to vote for her
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: in the first place. I don't know. In most years,
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: I would say, yeah, Flanagan is going to win, but
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: this is different. That it is actually a question, that
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: it's a doubt after the fraud that was perpetrated on
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: this state during Flanagan's tenure is astonishing to me. But
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: it tells you how some people will vote no matter what.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, and both sides has those people. It's mostly
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: the city. It's not the excerpts. I mean, when you
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: look finally at the map of Minnesota when it comes in,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: you're going to see a whole thread surrounding this little
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: glowing blueberry that is the metropolitan area of where I live.
• 40:24
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Last, now my existential crisis. I don't know what you
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: did during the summer, but the summer is now behind
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: us as Halloween is upon us. But I would normally
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: go through a couple of books a week because there
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was nothing else to do after the Gilligan's reruns, right?
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: You got home from work. You might have been a lifeguard.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: You might have been working at your dad's filling station.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is, you read. You read Trinity. You read
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: all those big books for this. You read, you read,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you read, you read. They gave you a knowledge base.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think teenagers read anymore for entertainment. Do you?
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: Few of them do. The ones that do are not
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: reading the sort of books that we did, maybe. I mean,
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: we would sneak an Arthur Haley, an Alex Haley novel,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: if it had any grown-up adult parts in it. Those big,
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: thick potboilers, the summer beach books that they do, the
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: market has diminished, and the market, like everything else, has fragmented.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: So what are they reading? They're reading young adult novels,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: which aren't exactly literary in their intention or in their execution,
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: but more or less just sort of describe a plot
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: like you would if you were narrating a movie. It's
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: not particularly good stuff. But then again, you know, the
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: Tom Swift books that I read as a child weren't
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: great literature either. A, it's good if they're reading. B,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to complain about the quality if they do.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: But C, I think you're right. They don't read as
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: much because there are so many of the distractions that
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: require less attention, less focusing. And with the fractured attention
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: span that we have today, gosh, who wants to spend
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: all that time on what they call a chapter book reading?
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: when you can just look at some funny little cartoons
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: here and, of course, see the AI videos of the fruit.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you two examples. Alan Drury, Advising Consent,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Fletcher Neville, Seven Days in May. Those are two bought books.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I love them. I wasn't even 16 when I read
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: those things, but I love them. They were believable. They
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: were accessible to a 16- or a 15-year-old. Is there
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: anything like that anymore? We have two minutes, James.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: No, there isn't. I don't think that there is. I mean,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: I'm sure that somebody out there is writing serious political novels.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, Seven Days in May is a cracker. But
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: if you had to do it today, people would look
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: at this and be scratching their heads. Why would I
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: want to read about middle-aged white men having power struggles
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: about nuclear disarmament conflicts and treaties and plotting a coup?
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: When you could be reading some magical fantasy adventure that
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: is sub-Tolkien in every single way, where there's people on
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: quests and people with powers and young women who have
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: issues but are great nevertheless and gender and all the
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: wonderful things, why would you read what teenager today can
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: possibly see themselves in Seven Days in May? That's the problem,
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: is that you have an audience that is expected to
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: see an insert of themselves in this situation. and have
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: everything spelled out in a dreary fashion. So again, like
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: everything else we've been talking about, the audience is there,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: it's just shrunk.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Existential question number two will come next week when Lilacs
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: is back, and it won't be about books this time.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: It's going to be about what the next generation is
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: going to do to our benefits, because Lilacs and I
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: are getting close to the point that we worry about that. Lilacs,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: thank you. Don't go anywhere in America except to lilacs.com
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: or jameslilacs.substack.com. Bethany Mandel is next. Stay tuned to The
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Coming
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: up after the break, I'll be joined by Gaudi Taub
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: from Israel for a little pre-election coverage there. Gaudi is,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: of course, preceded by Bethany Mandel, who is the proprietor
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of themomwars.substack.com. I think she's a friend of Gaudi. Am
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I right about that? We don't really know him that well.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: What should we know about Gaudi before we talk to him?
• 44:07
  Speaker 10: He is one of the smartest, most lovely men. Um,
• 44:11
  Speaker 10: he has such a handle on how the, how the
• 44:16
  Speaker 10: West is under attack. Like he's Israeli, but like he
• 44:19
  Speaker 10: really has such a window into Western values and how
• 44:24
  Speaker 10: American values intersect with Israeli values. He's brilliant and such
• 44:28
  Speaker 10: a delight.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: So we've got three elections coming up. Bing, bang, bong,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: which is Brazil this weekend, uh, Israel next week, and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: then the United States, of course, on November 3rd. How
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: do you feel about each of those, Bethany?
• 44:43
  Speaker 10: I'm not feeling great. I mean, I don't really have
• 44:46
  Speaker 10: a dog in the fight with Israel, and their election
• 44:49
  Speaker 10: system is so complicated that I can't even venture a
• 44:54
  Speaker 10: guess as to what's going on there. So I'm not
• 44:57
  Speaker 10: going to weigh in there, but it's very chaotic at
• 45:00
  Speaker 10: the moment. The midterms are looking real messy. I filled
• 45:03
  Speaker 10: up my tank yesterday. Yesterday, and it was double what
• 45:06
  Speaker 10: I normally spend. And I said to my oldest daughter,
• 45:09
  Speaker 10: this is why the Republicans are going to lose the midterms.
• 45:11
  Speaker 10: And I don't think that's fair, but nobody in life
• 45:14
  Speaker 10: said that life was fair.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: What did you pay?
• 45:19
  Speaker 10: So for our smaller car, we paid 50. And for
• 45:23
  Speaker 10: our giant SUV, it was 111 the last time I
• 45:26
  Speaker 10: filled it up. Ouch.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Early voting.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Early voting. I did my vote today. I always vote
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: early in Virginia. I went and cast my ballot. There
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: weren't very many people there, but it's not very interesting
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: in Virginia because Mark Warner is expected to romp and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: everyone is expected to hang on to their job. And
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I voted no on all the constitutional amendments because I
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: always do. Do you think turnout– but turnout was very
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: high on Sunday. I talked to one of the election judges,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and they had 1,800 people in my precinct on Sunday.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Is turnout going to be high
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: just to register– anger or support for Trump? What's your sense?
• 46:02
  Speaker 10: So the data that I saw was not good for Republicans,
• 46:05
  Speaker 10: that of the likely voters, it was much more likely
• 46:09
  Speaker 10: that Democrats were going to turn out than Republicans. I
• 46:12
  Speaker 10: think that people are feeling upset about the war in
• 46:15
  Speaker 10: Iran for many reasons. One of them is gas prices.
• 46:18
  Speaker 10: And so I think that that might depress turnout among Republicans.
• 46:23
  Speaker 10: And Democrats never miss an opportunity to vote against Trump
• 46:27
  Speaker 10: no matter what. And so I think that their get-out-the-vote
• 46:30
  Speaker 10: efforts are better. I will say I think that there's
• 46:33
  Speaker 10: an exception in places like Michigan. Everyone I've talked to
• 46:37
  Speaker 10: in Michigan have said that there is such a a
• 46:40
  Speaker 10: push to make sure that al-Sayed is not their senator.
• 46:43
  Speaker 10: Same in Maine. I've heard that there's a lot of
• 46:45
  Speaker 10: excitement not to have Troy Jackson in Maine, that I
• 46:49
  Speaker 10: think those will be exceptions to the rule. But I
• 46:53
  Speaker 10: think overall it's not looking great for Republicans.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Let me work on four Senate races, which are my
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: most important concern on election night. First, you mentioned Maine.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I was just in Maine, watched two of the debates
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: that Susan Collins had with Troy Jackson. Troy Jackson cannot
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: string three sentences together. He's he's over. She got angry
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: at her. He told her to shut up. He didn't
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. I can't imagine
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Maynard voting for a rookie over the most powerful woman
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: in in Washington, D.C. And she's the chairman of the
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Appropriations Committee. Can you did you see any of that debate?
• 47:30
  Speaker 10: So I didn't I watched small clips of the debate,
• 47:33
  Speaker 10: but I watched his his sit down interview with Dana
• 47:35
  Speaker 10: Bash in which Dana Bash was educating him on very
• 47:38
  Speaker 10: basic issues of foreign policy related to Iran. And so
• 47:41
  Speaker 10: I I mean, he was an 11th hour pick and
• 47:45
  Speaker 10: replaced a Nazi. And, you know, like you're not you're
• 47:48
  Speaker 10: not going to get the gold standard.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that interview for a moment. I
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: work with Dana. I think she's a great pro. But
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: do you think it's right to throw people the answers
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: just because they're struggling on air? He didn't know anything.
• 48:03
  Speaker 10: I mean, I, too, would pity him in that moment.
• 48:05
  Speaker 10: It was it was excruciating. I mean, the purpose of
• 48:08
  Speaker 10: the interview interview was to show that he was unprepared.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, to me anyway.
• 48:12
  Speaker 10: And that came across. He came across very unprepared, very unschooled.
• 48:18
  Speaker 10: And so whether she tosses him the answer or not,
• 48:20
  Speaker 10: the message is clear. He needed the answer toss. And
• 48:23
  Speaker 10: you don't get that on the Senate floor.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I just talked with Lilacs, and we focused mostly on Minnesota,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to ask you your opinion as well
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: of Peggy Flanagan, DSA adjacent, wacky left winger, and Michelle Tafoya,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: who just gutted her in their debate. Sell it to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: someone else, Peggy. That's the best line of the year
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: thus far. What did you make of her?
• 48:46
  Speaker 10: I mean, Safoya is another one that I think is
• 48:48
  Speaker 10: really promising. It's a hard map there. But she, I think,
• 48:53
  Speaker 10: is among the strongest candidates for Republicans nationwide. So, I mean,
• 48:59
  Speaker 10: here's hoping.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Then Texas, where Attorney General Paxton has
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: surged and has closed his statistical tie and in a
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: couple of polls is ahead of Tallarico. Tallarico's vanishing is
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: weirdness over all. What's your gut tell you again about Texas?
• 49:18
  Speaker 10: I don't know. I mean, I think that Paxton wasn't
• 49:20
  Speaker 10: the strongest candidate, but I mean, Tallarico is such a radical.
• 49:27
  Speaker 10: Texas is shifting and it's it's shifting not in a
• 49:30
  Speaker 10: great way. And so I don't know. I mean, that
• 49:33
  Speaker 10: that's another area that really that really troubles me.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: All right, that's not good. I feel good about your
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: first two answers, not about that one. But let's turn
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: our focus on Michigan. You're Jewish. Michigan has between 1%
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and 1.5% of its population is Jewish. Between 2% and 3%
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: is Arab American. I think– I don't know. I'm not Jewish.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I can't say. I think I would think of El-Sayed
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: as a threat to my family, an actual breathing threat
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to my family if he got in the Senate.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Because of what he would encourage and what he would ignore.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 50:11
  Speaker 10: That is absolutely true. I've spoken to a lot of
• 50:13
  Speaker 10: folks in Michigan who have said, you know, people in
• 50:17
  Speaker 10: their Jewish congregation have never voted for a Republican, never
• 50:20
  Speaker 10: pictured voting for a Republican, but the enthusiasm to make
• 50:23
  Speaker 10: sure he is not their senator is so, so high.
• 50:27
  Speaker 10: I think that this is a watershed moment in American
• 50:31
  Speaker 10: history where if this kind of candidate is acceptable to
• 50:34
  Speaker 10: any party, We're in really deep trouble here.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: By this kind of candidate, I don't mean that he's
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a Muslim. I have many friends who are Muslim. I've
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: worked with Muslims my entire life. I don't know if
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I've ever voted for one. I've had other Muslims on
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: the program who are conservative Muslim. This fellow is a radical.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I just don't know. And he's also angry, deceptive. He deflects.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: He gets in people's faces when they challenge him on
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: simple things like Why in the world did you sign
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: a letter on behalf of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: president of Egypt who had to be removed in a coup?
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Is there any argument for him on the Democratic side,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: other than he's as radical as.
• 51:13
  Speaker 10: Radical can be? I mean, that's it, though. He's as
• 51:16
  Speaker 10: radical as radical can be. He has ties to the
• 51:18
  Speaker 10: Muslim Brotherhood. And for me, I've never understood this, and
• 51:21
  Speaker 10: I feel like I'm going to say it until I'm
• 51:23
  Speaker 10: blue in the face. This is not a progressive. This
• 51:25
  Speaker 10: is not someone who will fight for the right's for
• 51:29
  Speaker 10: your girlfriend's right to have an abortion or your guy
• 51:33
  Speaker 10: friend's right to fly a pride flag. This is not
• 51:37
  Speaker 10: a candidate who aligns with liberal values. And I don't
• 51:40
  Speaker 10: understand why they've decided to make this red-green alliance and
• 51:44
  Speaker 10: align themselves with Islamists because at the end of the day,
• 51:47
  Speaker 10: the first people getting thrown off the top of the
• 51:49
  Speaker 10: building are the homosexuals.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Sorry. It seems to me so unusual. The red-green alliance
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: seems so unusual. They tried it in 1979 in Iran.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: And Khomeini had them all hanged as soon as the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: revolution was over. By they, all them, I mean all
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the red parts. Bethany Mandel, author and provider of TheMomWars.substack.com.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Follower at Bethany. Sean Dark on X. Thank you, Bethany.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back with the aforementioned Gowdy Cub after this.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Stay with us. Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt, joined now
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: from Israel by Gaudi Taub, who is a longtime Israeli journalist, historian, author,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: observer of all things political. And of course, we're a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: week away, actually 10 days away from the Jewish states voting.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted to check in with Gaudi. Welcome back, Gaudi.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: What's your thinking in the horse race side first? Does
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: anyone get a majority that's going to be clear in
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: your view?
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. On the right, optimism is on
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: the rise. Because, first of all, there was a Trump endorsement,
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: which plays in a very important way in Israeli politics.
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: The ups and downs of the Netanyahu polling depend often
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: on his image and his actual skill in playing politics
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: on the world stage, along with the president of the biggest...
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: superpower in the world. So we are a very small country,
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: and this is very important, especially in light of the
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: joint effort to cartel Iran's effort to get a bomb.
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: Aside of this, it's a very strange election, you know,
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: because after October 7th generally moved the Israeli public to
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: the right. And so what happened is that the center
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: and the moderate left are pretending to be right. We
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: actually have it on tape where Gadi Eisenkot's campaign chief
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: is saying to an American advisor, what should we say
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: in order to make people think that.
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: We are on the right?
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: It's actually on tape. We saw it on television and
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: we know that Gadi Eisenkot is far to the left.
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: So the Netanyahu line of campaigning says, you either vote
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: for Likud and its partners or you vote for a
• 54:28
  Speaker 6: Palestinian state, because the only coalition that the left can
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: scrape together is dependent on the anti-Zionist Arab parties.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Well, let's unpack that a bit for the American audience.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I often have Israeli journalists on, yourself, Amit Sehgal, Nadav Eyal,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Haviv Redigur is probably on more than anyone else, and
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: they all say, don't count Netanyahu out, but boy, the
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: math looks tough for him to get to 68. which
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: is a majority in the Knesset, and therefore he's going
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: to have to have a partner across the aisle. Would
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Lieberman change this time and come back into a Netanyahu government?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Do you expect any of the other parties to be
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: willing that are not part of his current coalition to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: join him as he assembles 61?
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: Lieberman is swearing that he will never sit with Netanyahu.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: And he also now unveiled a trick that he has
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: under his sleeve. If the left, including the Arabs, has
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: even a slight majority, they can overtake the speakership of
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: the House. And then they can take over the committees
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: and they plan or he says they plan a. a
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: fast-track legislation to forbid anyone standing trial from becoming prime minister.
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: This is like an impeachment. They're trying to pull something
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: that Americans would recognize as a lightning-speed impeachment, and then
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: they plan to take Likud apart. Now, you, in the
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: last four rounds of elections that we had, in the
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: middle of it all, There was a guy called Naftali
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: Bennett who used to have a right-wing party who, with
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: a very small party, managed... managed to take for himself
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: the premiership with six parliamentary seats, because our parliamentary system
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: is not in good order. And so if you hold
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: a few seats, but you can tilt the election to
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: one side or the other, you can extort almost anything
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: you want. Lieberman has eyed this. He has declared he
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: wants to be the prime minister. And so he thinks
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: that even with nine or ten members of Knesset, if
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: he is the party needed for any side to have
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: a majority, then he will demand the prime ministership for himself.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: We've got a minute to the break, and we'll come
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: back and talk about Iran on the other side. Is
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: there an easy way? For Netanyahu, with the Trump endorsement
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to win, I mean, is there any way for the
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: current coalition to actually hold together and get more than
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: 61 votes? In your opinion, we've got 45 seconds to
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the break, Adi.
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, my opinion is that there is such a possibility,
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: and I'll tell you, Likud has internal polling that gives
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: it far better chances than the polls that we see
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: on the press. So on Netanyahu's camp, there's great optimism.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll be right back with Gaudi Taub. He
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: is a longtime veteran Israeli journalist, political observer, analyst on all,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know which channel he's on, but he writes
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: for every outlet that one can want to read in
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: the Israeli press in English. Don't go anywhere because I
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: want to ask him, October surprise vis-a-vis Iran or not?
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back on The.
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: Hugh Hewitt Show.
• 57:57
  Speaker 11: The Hugh Hewitt Show.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. Israel goes to vote in 10 days.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by veteran Israeli journalist, political analyst Gaudi Taub.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: He's been on many, many different programs. He's back on
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: mine again. Gaudi, much speculation in the United States that
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: there will be an October surprise, that there'll be a
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: joint mission between the United States and Israel to hammer
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: either Pickaxe Mountain or the remaining missile force inside of Iran.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think is most likely in the next
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: 10 days? Anything major?
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: Well, Iran is in a bit of a bind because
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: if it will try to provoke an attack in order
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: to foil Trump's chances in the midterms, she will give
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: Netanyahu an easy victory. If in the last stretch leading
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: up to the election, Israel is again engaged in military action,
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: the public in greater numbers will rally around the chief
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: that has led this war. And I think on the
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: Israeli scene, what is most important and I think will
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: be decisive when people actually place their ballots in the
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: ballot box is that all along the war, Netanyahu is
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: the only national leader who insisted on continuing the war.
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: All the opposition parties kept saying, we need to finish
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: this thing before it changes, before it seeps into other theaters,
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: before it turns into a regional war. And Netanyahu has
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: planned a regional.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: War all along.
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: By regional, I mean he planned to take the war
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria and to Iran. And
• 59:52
  Speaker 6: the public supported that effort almost immediately. if not unanimously,
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: then I'd say it crossed the aisle into two-thirds of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: the Israeli public who understood that Iran is a mortal threat. Now,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: I hope Americans understand that Iran is a mortal threat
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: to the American-led international order. It's not just a threat
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: to Israel. It's not a coincidence that they call us
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: the little Satan and America the big Satan. However, I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: don't see Trump initiating any large-scale military action, any meaningful
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: escalation before the midterms? Because insofar as I understand American politics,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: viewing them from across the ocean, I don't think that
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: a president on the eve of the midterms will escalate
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: an unpopular war.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Now, Gaudi, I understood in Israel that President Trump was
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: very popular right up until the MOU. And maybe his
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: popularity is rising right now. But what I hear you
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: saying is the endorsement of Netanyahu by Trump is actually
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: material to some Israeli voters' decisions. Is that correct?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: I think it is because we are– Israel is a
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: very small country. It punches way above its weight, but
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: it's surrounded by enemies with huge populations, some of them
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: very rich. And we need to maneuver very carefully in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: this hostile and dangerous neighborhood. In this constellation, we see
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: ourselves as loyal partisans of the American-led international order. And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: for an Israeli politician, it is always a difficult game.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: And I think Netanyahu clearly played it better than anyone
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: else because the left in Israel has said to the Americans,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: no surprises, which means we will not do anything without
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: your permission. That's not a way to survive in the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: Middle East. If you portray yourself as a vassal state
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: of the United States, then nobody will take you into account.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: Anybody that has any dealings with Israel will go straight
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: to daddy in Washington and just ignore you. So you
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: always also have to keep your distance. And people in
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: Israel remember that in the difficult days for us of
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: the Obama administration, when the administration tried to force our
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: hand to acquiesce to a Palestinian state, Netanyahu stood firm.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: Netanyahu stood firm also when he... So in those difficult days,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: Netanyahu defied the president and stood up to Obama, gave
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: a speech that irritated the president a great deal to
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: the joint session of the two houses of Congress about
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: the terrible JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. So People here
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: appreciate the friendship with Trump. They understand that the fact
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: that Israel went to war alongside the United States is unprecedented.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: They also trust Netanyahu that the close relation with Trump
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: would not mean that Israel would be America's supplicant, that
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: we have a prime minister who will also be able
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: to to stand up and protect our own interests, as
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: he did, by the way, with Biden, who threatened the embargo.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: And Netanyahu said, we will fight this with our nails
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: if we have to. That was when Israel entered Rafah
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 6: and over and against the objection of both the president
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: and the vice president.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: We've got two minutes. I just want your assessment. I
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: think Iran is staggered and close to crumbling, that they're
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: out of money, they're out of assets, they have some missiles.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with me or do you think that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: they're going to be around five years from now?
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 6: I don't think they'll be around five years from now.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: And I think President Trump is doing exactly the right thing,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: all things considered, is suffocating them slowly economically and separating
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: them from their lifeline of through Russia and China. I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: think this policy will eventually bear fruit. But let me
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: remind ourselves, you, that when President Truman decided on the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: policy of containment, it bore final fruit only under George W.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Bush.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: So it took a long time. These policies need patience.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: I don't think five years. I think their leash on
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 6: life is over. far, far shorter, but we also cannot
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: expect it to happen in a week or two. So,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: you know, there's always a problem in democracies that the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: election cycle is short and policy has to take the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: long view. I think that what Trump and Netanyahu are
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: now doing is wise, moderate, and may cost them public support,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: but in view of the long-term interests... I think they
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 6: are acting responsibly.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Gaudi, it's so good to talk to you. Follow him
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: on Exit Gaudi Taub, spelled G-A-D-I-T-A-U-B. And I look forward
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: to having you back after the elections to sort through
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: whatever maneuverings there are. Gaudi, thank you. Don't go anywhere, Merrick.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: I'll be back to wrap up today's Hugh Hewitt Show.