Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / A.I. Doomerism, Trump Dividends, and the Bab al-Mandab/Hormuz straits

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A.I. Doomerism, Trump Dividends, and the Bab al-Mandab/Hormuz straits · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there. And of course, to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at hueforhillsdale.com
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning, Gloria. You're
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in Grace, America. Good Monday morning to you. I'm recovering
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: from Ohio State losing and the Browns being as bad
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as the Browns have ever been, which is saying quite
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a lot, actually. It was that bad of a weekend,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so I'm glad to welcome back two old friends of
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  Speaker 1: the radio program, now the radio and television program, Michael
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  Speaker 1: Allen and Jim VandeHei. They launched Politico together on January
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: 23rd of 2007. And the night before, they were with
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  Speaker 1: me at the Heritage Foundation doing a broadcast about Politico.
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  Speaker 1: Down the road, they founded and launched Axios, part of
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  Speaker 1: your day now. Now they have a book, Simplified. Do 50%
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: more with 50% less. Mike and Jim, welcome. Haven't you
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  Speaker 1: guys got enough to do that you need to write
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  Speaker 1: a bestselling book as well? Mike, I'll start with you.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Hugh, thank you for having us.
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  Speaker 3: You're iconic. We appreciate it. But spoiler, it wasn't a
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: much better weekend to be a Packers fan.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'll tell you right now, don't try and go
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  Speaker 1: lower than the Browns. There is not. You'll be in
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  Speaker 1: China if you go that low. Jim, are you a
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  Speaker 1: Commanders fan or are you a Packers fan too?
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  Speaker 4: I'm a massive Packers fan.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm like you.
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  Speaker 4: Like you, I probably assign too much of my life's
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  Speaker 4: value to a football team, which controls my moods, my year,
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  Speaker 4: my outcome on life. So I'm 55. I'm no better
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  Speaker 4: than when I was 10.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I would love? In the book Simplify,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you have the line stop. is the love child of
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  Speaker 1: delete and no. What do you say to the Browns
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  Speaker 1: fans who can't stop? Because I'm a decade and a
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  Speaker 1: half older than both of you guys. There's no stopping.
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  Speaker 1: I got nowhere to go. I just want to go
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  Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl once in my life. What do
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  Speaker 1: you think? You can't delete and stop that.
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  Speaker 2: You couldn't be further from the Super Bowl, buddy.
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  Speaker 5: It's going to be a while.
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  Speaker 1: Back to the first question. Why Simplify? We'll do Mike
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: and then Jim. Mike, why Simplify?
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Hugh, for having us. Simplify will change the
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  Speaker 3: life of your audience. It's a mindset and a set
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  Speaker 3: of power tools to help us with the overwhelming input
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  Speaker 3: that we're all getting. We're all frazzled. We all have
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  Speaker 3: too many choices, options, decisions, distractions, noise.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And the white bulb.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Moment for Jim and me and Roy Schwartz, our co-founder
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  Speaker 3: of Axios, co-author of Smart Brevity, who wrote this book together,
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  Speaker 3: was that if you, in your life or your company,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: and Axios, and thank you, you were there from the beginning,
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  Speaker 3: Axios is a relatively young, relatively small company, but the
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  Speaker 3: habits build up, the meetings build up, the obligations build up,
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  Speaker 3: and if you're not super intentional about it, all of
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  Speaker 3: a sudden, four-fifths of your week is going to stuff
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  Speaker 3: that's not doing you any good. We have the word
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  Speaker 3: in this, this word in the book, work-like activity. We run, run, run,
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  Speaker 3: but where are we getting? And so the big idea
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  Speaker 3: of simplify is do the right work, not more work.
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  Speaker 3: And so we ask you to step back and you,
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  Speaker 3: this is something that you're good at. And I know
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  Speaker 3: that you appreciate it. Sit back, take stock. Like what
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  Speaker 3: are the three things that you want to do to
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  Speaker 3: be either successful in your job or for your life
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  Speaker 3: to be successful? What do you want to be remembered for?
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  Speaker 2: And then what can you cut out?
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  Speaker 3: So we have these, there are three pronged power tool
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  Speaker 3: is one confront, like how, where does our time go?
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  Speaker 3: What are we spending our time on to delete?
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  Speaker 1: You're right.
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  Speaker 3: That's the fun part of what can we cut out?
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  Speaker 2: What can we stop doing?
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  Speaker 3: What can we say no to?
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  Speaker 2: And third, amplify.
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  Speaker 3: That's the reward for doing the hard work of confronting
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  Speaker 3: and deleting. How can we spend more time on what
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  Speaker 3: we're uniquely good at or what brings us joy?
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  Speaker 1: That triptych of advice to confront, delete, and amplify is
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  Speaker 1: really the spinal cord of the book from which all
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  Speaker 1: the other nerves run out. Jim, why did you decide, though,
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  Speaker 1: you wanted to write that down? Axios already does that
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  Speaker 1: for people if they're an Axios consumer. It does. condensed
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  Speaker 1: the morning. There are a couple of competitors with it,
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  Speaker 1: but it got there first, like Politico got there first.
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  Speaker 1: Why add a book to the... It's not easy to
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  Speaker 1: write a book. I don't do it anymore. The ROI
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  Speaker 1: is just not there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and like you, I don't have any ambition to
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  Speaker 4: necessarily write a book. We had taken on this simplified
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  Speaker 4: philosophy at the company about two and a half years ago.
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  Speaker 4: It just saw magical results. Like everyone was more productive, happier,
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  Speaker 4: doing the work that they want to do. And we
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  Speaker 4: realized that most people, I think it's like 99% of people,
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  Speaker 4: don't have a system, don't have the natural discipline to
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  Speaker 4: sit down and figure out all the things that they're doing.
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  Speaker 4: Should I be doing this? Could I stop doing it?
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  Speaker 4: Could someone else do it? And then can I do
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  Speaker 4: the things that actually bring me joy or satisfaction or
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  Speaker 4: benefit to the company or organization that I'm working for?
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  Speaker 4: Because we saw that difference, we put it into words
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  Speaker 4: and put it out as a book.
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  Speaker 5: And again, like.
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  Speaker 4: All of our proceeds go to charity. Like it's not
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  Speaker 4: this isn't about, hey, here's another way to make money.
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  Speaker 4: It's literally the gift that we had sort of been
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  Speaker 4: given by watching other people master. Like, how do you
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  Speaker 4: survive in a world where, like Mike said, you're just
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  Speaker 4: getting clogged? In the book, we talk about the average
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  Speaker 4: person gets 150 emails and 120 texts a day. Just
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  Speaker 4: think about that. Think about what it does to your mind,
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  Speaker 4: your decision-making ability. Then you think about all the meetings
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  Speaker 4: that we think we have to do. And then you
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  Speaker 4: realize that the vast majority of your life, you.
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  Speaker 2: Have no control over. And so the minute that.
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  Speaker 4: We became more methodically about it internally in Axios and
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  Speaker 4: externally in our own life, it was like a light
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  Speaker 4: bulb moment. Work got better. Productivity got higher. Everyone was happier.
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  Speaker 4: Outside of work, we were able to do more, focus
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  Speaker 4: on family, focus on faith, focus on the things that
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  Speaker 4: we actually care about, because we started to say no
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  Speaker 4: to things that we thought we had to do.
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  Speaker 5: But you don't have to do them.
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  Speaker 4: And it's not because people are stupid or lazy.
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  Speaker 5: We're just all inundated.
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  Speaker 4: And most people don't have, Mike's word of a power tool,
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  Speaker 4: just to apply to their life so that they can
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  Speaker 4: get some of those hours back and bring meaning out
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  Speaker 4: of those hours, which is what really matters.
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  Speaker 1: It was amazing. Both of you guys are journalists by training.
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  Speaker 1: Then you became entrepreneurs. Journalists are pleasers. They like to
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  Speaker 1: please people so that those people will talk to them.
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  Speaker 1: When did you ever develop the ability to say no,
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  Speaker 1: Mike Allen? You're not Mr.
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  Speaker 3: No. Hugh, that is a great insight and a great question.
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  Speaker 3: And that's so much of the simplified mindset and methods
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  Speaker 3: flow from what we found out the hard way, both
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  Speaker 3: in our life and work. And you put your finger
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  Speaker 3: on a perfect one, the obligations, the things that someone
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  Speaker 3: like you who's in the public eye and even very
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  Speaker 3: regular people constantly, will you join this?
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  Speaker 2: Will you be part of this? Will you come to this?
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  Speaker 3: And our instinct as nice humans is to say, sure,
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  Speaker 3: or I guess I should. Simplify teaches you that there's
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  Speaker 3: a cost, To that, you're going to pay the check
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  Speaker 3: in what you're not able to do. And so just
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  Speaker 3: say no. And so two words that will change the
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  Speaker 3: life of members of your audience.
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  Speaker 5: I'm booked.
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  Speaker 2: No, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Someone reminded me of David. I love it. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I love a lot that you guys both put early
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  Speaker 1: in the book. The best way to use this book,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: read the intro chapter one, then go to the table
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  Speaker 1: of contents and pick a couple out to use. But
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  Speaker 1: in the course of doing that, Jim, I discovered you're
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  Speaker 1: an introvert who doesn't like to be around people except
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: for your poker game. So was that fair? Did you
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  Speaker 1: write that part or did Roy write that part?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, no, it's very, very fair.
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  Speaker 4: But like you, like you do get, I'm a CEO,
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  Speaker 4: I'm a reporter. Therefore, Jim, don't you have to go
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  Speaker 4: to all these DC events? Don't you have to show
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  Speaker 4: up and represent Axios? And the truth is, no, I don't.
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  Speaker 4: Because every hour I'm spending doing something I feel like
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  Speaker 4: I have to do is an hour I'm not paying
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  Speaker 4: attention to my wife. or paying attention to my kids,
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  Speaker 4: or my parents, or my siblings, or the Packers, or
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  Speaker 4: whatever it is that brings me joy, or in the
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: case of the Packers, frustration. And you have to be
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  Speaker 4: almost that rigorous, almost that maniacal about it with your schedule,
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  Speaker 4: because there's so little of it that you control. Think
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  Speaker 4: about it. You sleep away a third of your life,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: and then at least half of that two-thirds that's left
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  Speaker 4: is going to work, bitching about work, thinking about work, working.
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  Speaker 4: And then you have a tiny bit of your schedule
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  Speaker 4: left that you control. So every hour that you can
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  Speaker 4: claw back is an hour you're going to be a
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  Speaker 4: hell of a lot happier if you're doing something you
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  Speaker 4: want to do, something that brings you benefit and brings
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  Speaker 4: you joy. It doesn't mean you have to be selfish.
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  Speaker 4: I think you can still be very kind. You can
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  Speaker 4: still very politely say, I can't do this. You can
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  Speaker 4: very politely say, No, thank you. But I think every
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  Speaker 4: person needs to do a hell of a lot more
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  Speaker 4: no and a hell of a lot more delete. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 4: you're going to continue to feel like you're just a
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  Speaker 4: prisoner of this moment with the Internet.
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  Speaker 2: With AI, all this stuff that's just.
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  Speaker 4: Clogging our minds, making us feel anxious and making us
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  Speaker 4: feel like we're not getting the most out of these
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  Speaker 4: precious years that we have on earth. And that's the
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  Speaker 4: big reason for writing this is I really do believe
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  Speaker 4: if you take it, you apply it, you'll get extra
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: years back.
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  Speaker 5: You'll be a happier person.
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  Speaker 4: And to me, that's a hell of a gift that
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: we learned the hard way to pass on to other people.
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  Speaker 1: And I can testify to that. Simplifies in bookstores now.
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  Speaker 1: A quick 30-second exit to you, Mike Allen. Are you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: guys still playing poker?
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: I had a friend who taught me to play poker.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: They said, I can teach you well enough to not
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: embarrass yourself but not take my money. Hugh, something that
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  Speaker 3: will change your audience's life.
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  Speaker 4: Two words.
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  Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
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  Speaker 3: If somebody asks you to do something and you're like,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, say no. If your answer is hell yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it's probably worthy of your time. Hugh, thank you for
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  Speaker 3: having us. And when in doubt, simplify.
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  Speaker 1: Simplify and I'm booked. Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei. The book
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: is Simplify. Congratulations. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm playing Hootie and the Blowfish because
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about the Hooties with Dr. Michael Oren,
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  Speaker 1: former ambassador of Israel to the United States. Dr. Oren
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  Speaker 1: is the founder of the Israel Advocacy Group, which you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: can find online, IsraelAdvocacyGroup.com. Dr. Oren, I don't know if
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you have an opinion on Hootie and the Blowfish. Do
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  Speaker 1: you have an opinion on the Hooties, though?
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  Speaker 7: Well, as far as they tend to shoot missiles at
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  Speaker 7: my home, yeah, I've got an opinion about them.
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  Speaker 8: Uh, they're a proxy for Iran. There's an extension of
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: the Iranian regime. Uh, and now they have taken.
• 11:23
  Speaker 7: The coastline along the Bab al-Mandab waterway, uh, which means
• 11:27
  Speaker 7: that Iran is effectively controlling that waterway.
• 11:29
  Speaker 8: It's trying to control the Strait of Hormuz. And from the.
• 11:32
  Speaker 7: Bab al-Mandab, watch this, Iran will now try to control
• 11:35
  Speaker 7: the entrance to the Suez Canal.
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  Speaker 8: Uh, you're going to see, you're going to see those.
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  Speaker 7: Those drones start to fly at ships entering the Suez
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  Speaker 7: Canal or leaving the Suez Canal. It, uh, Iran's going
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: to try to control all three international waterways in and
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  Speaker 7: out of the Middle East. And, you know, the good
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  Speaker 7: news is that if anybody had any doubts that Iran,
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  Speaker 7: its current regime, is an intolerable threat, not just to
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  Speaker 7: the West, but to the entire world order, this should.
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  Speaker 8: Dispel that misconception.
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  Speaker 7: The bad news is that I think you still have
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  Speaker 7: to wait till after November 4th before taking serious, full-scale,
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  Speaker 7: you know, foot down on the gas pedal, military action
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  Speaker 7: against Iran.
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  Speaker 1: Ambassador Oren, Americans don't do geography, as well. You know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: as you were an American for a long time, we're
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: not very good at this. Saudi Arabia is very big.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yemen has always been the afterthought. Robert Kaplan opened a
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: book in Yemen not long after 9-11, and the basic
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: through line of that book was it's ungovernable. As I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: did my research this weekend, the Houthis have 200,000 men
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: under arms. The Saudis and the UAE can't control that?
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  Speaker 2: Nobody has.
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  Speaker 7: Listen, the United States had major operations under the Biden administration.
• 12:55
  Speaker 7: Operation Poseidon's Arch or Spear was huge.
• 12:59
  Speaker 8: Israel bombed Yemen again and again.
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  Speaker 7: They don't care how many people they lose. They don't
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  Speaker 7: care how many civilians die. If they can hold up
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  Speaker 7: in their caves, these leaders, they're just going to keep
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: on fighting.
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  Speaker 8: They're jihadists. They want to die for God, for Allah.
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  Speaker 7: But they're also operating on the behest and with the
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  Speaker 7: open support of Iran.
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  Speaker 8: So they're that proxy.
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  Speaker 7: In order to defeat the Houthis, you do not have
• 13:22
  Speaker 7: to bomb Yemen back to the Stone Age because Yemen's
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: already in the Stone Age.
• 13:26
  Speaker 8: What you have to do is you have to bomb Iran.
• 13:28
  Speaker 7: You've got to cut off, excuse me for using the cliche,
• 13:31
  Speaker 7: the head of the snake or the head of the octopus,
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: whatever poor wildlife example you want.
• 13:36
  Speaker 8: To use here. But that's how you defeat the Houthis.
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: That's how you defeat Hezbollah. That's how you defeat Hamas
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  Speaker 8: in the end.
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  Speaker 7: That's how you defeat these so-called militias in Iraq and Syria,
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  Speaker 7: all of them, all of them supplied, trained, armed, financed
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: by Iran to eliminate this threat to Israel, to international shipping,
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: to the entire Middle East and the world.
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: You have to do away with the Iranian regime.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: So, Michael, the Iranians are beaten up. They don't have
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: any expeditionary forces. They barely have enough missiles to even
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: pretend to launch in America. But the Houthis have got
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: 200,000 jihadis. Can Saudi Arabia and the UAE and their
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Gulf nation allies and, you know, Pakistan and Turkey are
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: supposed to be in a NATO-like deal with Saudi Arabia.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: They've been attacked by the, if it takes ground troops,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: can't the Arabs provide the ground troops? They could.
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: They don't have huge militaries. What they do have are
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: hundreds of, you know, first flight combat jets. Something in the,
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: just UAE and Saudi Arabia together have something in the
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: order of 900 jets.
• 14:38
  Speaker 8: You believe this? And they could do a tremendous amount
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: of damage to Yemen.
• 14:42
  Speaker 7: But can they liberate, quote-unquote, the Bab al-Nandem waterway from
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: Houthi control? Probably not, because the Houthis don't care. They
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: don't care how much they're bombed. Again, the only way
• 14:53
  Speaker 7: you're going to liberate this waterway is by eliminating the
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: Iranian regime or so humbling it that it can no
• 15:02
  Speaker 7: longer support these proxies throughout the Middle East. But, you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: I don't know what point you can reach that with
• 15:06
  Speaker 7: the Iranian regime. Really, at the end of the day,
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: there's no alternative. And, you know, this word has gotten
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: some bad press over the last couple of decades.
• 15:16
  Speaker 8: It's regime change.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Now, the king or the crown prince of Saudi Arabia
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is reported to have asked Prime Minister Netanyahu for help.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Has that story made it into the Israeli media much?
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: No. Okay.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Do you believe it?
• 15:31
  Speaker 8: It just happened.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Sorry. No. Impossible.
• 15:33
  Speaker 8: Impossible. Listen, the precedent was there.
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: Israel extended Iron Dome defense capabilities to the UAE during
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: the war with.
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: Iran, and that was very highly publicized.
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: My guess is that if this is true and if
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: there's a follow-up to it, it will be reported in
• 15:50
  Speaker 7: the press in great detail.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: All right, so I want to close by going back
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to Iran. The United States, that's our problem, a secondary
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: problem for Israel, but they're not firing at you right now.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Isn't the world's problem Yemen? I mean, doesn't everybody in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the world need them to go back to being a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: dysfunctional Stone Age state?
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: But of course, ultimately, listen, it's going to be an
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: intolerable threat to Israel because the Houthis are not going
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: to sit quietly on the shores of the Bab al-Mandab.
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: They will resume rocket and drone fire against Israel at
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: a time when Iran tells them to do that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 8: And that could happen at any time. It could happen tonight.
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: Iran would like to drag Israel into a war just
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: like it would like to drag the United States into
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: a war. so they can continue to drive up oil
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: prices and greatly impede the chances of the Republicans retaining
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: both houses of Congress on November 4th.
• 16:39
  Speaker 8: That's their game plan. That's their long-term game plan.
• 16:42
  Speaker 7: But the fact that the world is not mobilizing to
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: open this Babamand waterway, not open.
• 16:49
  Speaker 8: The Strait of Hormuz, says a lot. It says a
• 16:52
  Speaker 8: lot about the willingness of.
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: The West to defend itself here against a primary target,
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: economic threat, a strategic threat as well.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: In the end, don't they have to put the pipelines
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: into Israel to get to the Mediterranean if they can't
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: use the waterways, meaning the Gulf nation?
• 17:15
  Speaker 8: You and I understand that. Why is it nobody else
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: seems to understand.
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: That in the Gulf? They blew up this pipeline going
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: across the Iraq. The pipeline exists, by the way. The
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: British put it there.
• 17:24
  Speaker 8: It ends up in Haifa. It goes from Iraq to Haifa.
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: Why would you think you can do a major pipeline
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: across Iraq, which is a shit majority country with these
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: militias backed by Iran? Why do you think that they're
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: not going to strike that pipeline? Of course they're going
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: to strike that pipeline. The only secure pipeline is one
• 17:40
  Speaker 7: that runs through Jordan, through Israel, to the Mediterranean, to
• 17:44
  Speaker 7: Europe and the West, period.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: That should be, like, after data centers in the United States,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the number one infrastructure project. You know, the United States
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: has got plenty of oil and gas. Eventually, we'll sequester
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it for ourselves. But the rest of the world has
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: got to start paying attention to this. Dr. Michael Oren
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: already is, not surprisingly. Go look up IsraelAdvocacyGroup.com. That's his.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: He started it. Ambassador Oren, as always, thank you. Follow
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: him on X at Dr. Michael Oren. Follow me in
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the next segment right here on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Good evening, Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: Welcome.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I talked about AI in hour number one. I'm leading off.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Hour number two with Danny Seiden, who is president of
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and an old friend of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: mine and of the program, because Danny cares about data
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: centers and AI, and I am not a Luddite, neither
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: is Danny. We both believe in growth. I want my
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: grandkids to live in a free America that's ahead of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the pack. Danny needs his children to grow up there. Danny,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: how does data center fit into that equation?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: No, Hugh, thanks for having me on. Dream come true
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: to be on the show with you today. But you're
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: absolutely right. You hit the nail on the head. Arizona
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: is at a fork in the road most states would
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: kill to be at. Do we become the state that
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: builds the next critical infrastructure or do we watch it
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: be built in another state or even in another country?
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, we need what the data centers provide. That
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: is infrastructure that goes into every transaction, whether it's our kids'
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: medical records, our financial transactions. All the things that we're building,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: not to mention AI as well. And for everyone who's
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: scared about AI, I know there was a lot of
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: press about that over the weekend. You want the guardrails,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: but you want to be able to set those guardrails.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: So you want it all built here. And we can
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: do it. We can do it with responsible and transparent leadership.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Let's go to that. I do not always think of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the current Arizona Statehouse as responsible government leadership. However, maybe
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it'll come back. What I think of Arizona is as
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a place that everyone from California is moving to because
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: with low on regulation and the land use policies, we're
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: not crazy. Data centers generate revenue for state and local governments.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And our friend, State Senator Bettencourt from Texas told me,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Texas already has 350 of them. And no one said, boo.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: How many does Arizona have and who wants to stop that?
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that Arizona is number two in
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: North America for proposed data center development, and currently Phoenix,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: the metropolitan area, which is our main area here in Arizona,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: is the largest data center market in North America by capacity.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: So we're top two, top five in every one, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: not to mention the wait list that we have to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: get them built. It's worth saying when it comes to
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: responsible policy, you're seeing states like Texas, who you just
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: brought up, go for the total moratorium on them, which
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to me is irresponsible populism, just trying to get to
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: the front of a parade or playing on people's fears.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: In Arizona, we worked with our Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: on just doing a moratorium on the tax breaks that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: data centers were getting over the next three years so
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: we can review them, give them a chance to rebuild
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: their trust with the community as we continue to develop here,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: show that they're paying their own way. That's responsible. So
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Arizona is leading in terms of policy when it comes
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: to this.
• 20:46
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Thomas Malthus, bad economist from hundreds of years ago. The Luddites,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: bad populist from hundreds of years ago. They predicted the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: end of growth and they tried to make the end
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of growth come about. Who is actually powering the anti-data
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: center movement? Because I don't think they're benign actors who
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: are worried about water or electricity. I really don't think that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: No, no, Hugh, that's right. Listen, we hear from neighbors
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: all the time and the arguments have changed that They're
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: concerned about the power that is going to drive up
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: their power costs. They're really concerned about water, right? I'm
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: in Arizona, a very arid state. Water is always in
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: the news here. All data centers are being built now
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: are being built on a closed loop system, so they
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: don't use a lot of water. So we're wondering where
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: this misinformation has come from. And now we're starting to
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: have more and more receipts. The point, too, very deliberate
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: campaigns by foreign actors, particularly in Southeast Asia, looking to
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: use our democracy, our free speech against us, making it
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: harder for us to bring these things to market. Now,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that doesn't make the concerns any less real for people
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: if they believe them. So that's why we encourage our projects.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And we've had success in Arizona. Be transparent. Get in
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: with the communities. You talk about economic impact all the time.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: But we got to get down on the micro level.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: This is what it means for your neighborhood, what it
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: means for your kids, what it means for their schools.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: In Louisiana, a really great example. They took the construction
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: sales tax from a big data center project and gave
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: all the teachers in that district a $ 50, 000 bonus. Those
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: are the kind of things that we can make happen
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: with these projects. And we want them here for everything
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: we're afraid of, all the AI fears that are out there.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You can't keep your kids safe by letting someone else
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: watch them. You want to have it here in your neighborhood,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: in your backyard, so you can keep an eye on
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: it and put those guardrails in.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Now, Danny, I also think, I am hopeful that my
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: home and yours, eventually everyone that's from Ohio, I want
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Northeastern Ohio to have a lot of these because they
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: do throw off a lot of revenue, tax revenue that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: is desperately needed to either maintain or expand first responders,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: police and fire, but maybe rebate property taxes. What is
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Arizona using its revenue increment for? Is that a local
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: government decision or is that a state government decision?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Right now, it's completely statewide, and there are partnerships at
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the local government level, too. It's still kind of being involved.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: You brought up Ohio. We work closely with my counterpart,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Steve Stivers, based back in Ohio. They're seeing the same problems,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the same opposition. that we're seeing here. And again, how
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: we win, we've worked on this blueprint called Better in
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: My Backyard. And in the Better in My Backyard campaign,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: rather than have a secretive code name and operate our NDAs,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: you come in early, you find your partners, you find
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: out what the community really needs. We're working with Signal Polling.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: They're doing a lot of data and research on this
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: right now to show what people are most concerned about.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: And really, through transparency with not just the data centers,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: but also our utilities to show that, hey, we are
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: not driving up electricity rates to fund these utilities. They
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: are paying more than their fair share to keep your
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: rates the same or relatively low. So all that has
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to be transparent. Now, what are the dollars being used
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: for is a great question. In our district so far,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: we've seen them used for schools, for public safety, fire, police,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: things that really matter. I mean, this is one of
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: those instances where you see the chamber and the trade
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: unions on the same page because they want the jobs.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: We want the jobs here as well. So again, this
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: funds real infrastructure, wastewater treatment facilities, you know, transmission of
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: our utilities. Critical infrastructure is being funded by this. And
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: that's why we don't separate data centers from infrastructure. They
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: are infrastructure. They are the digital infrastructure of the future.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Think of them the same way you would of utility workers,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you know, 20 years ago. This is what we need.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: This whole conversation could not happen without them. So that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: why we get frustrated with politicians who try and rush
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: to the front of the populism parade and say, no
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: more data.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Centers, period.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And they often do so, ironically, on Twitter, on their platforms,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: pretending that there's no connection to it. And we're going
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: to start calling them out for it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So walk us through, whether they're in Arizona, Ohio, on
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the East Coast, West Coast, North or South, what is
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the process that a data center normally goes through to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: build one in a community so that people can be
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: alert and involved because they should be involved, but I
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: think they'll end up saying yes if they are involved.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, Hugh, that's absolutely right. The way it's worked,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you the way it was worked and how
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: it's changing. The way traditionally data centers came into a community,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: very strict NDAs, usually tied to a large tech company.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: So if you're Hugh Hewitt living in Ohio, you're going
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to hear that there's something called Project Star City coming
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: in your backyard, and you don't know what it is
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: or where it is, but you see these massive shells
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: of buildings being built. And that's traditionally how it went. Now,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: they would go present to the city council, and the
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: city council couldn't talk about it either. They're under the
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: same NDAs. We've got to do away with those NDAs.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: We've got to make it more transparent so the city
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: council can bring in the neighborhoods. And this has happened.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: You look at what happened in New Mexico. It was
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: kind of the first one to really move forward on
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: this with Oracle's Project Jupiter. There's a lot of money
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: that was passed out to the community in things that
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: they need. I'm not just talking about the scholarships or
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: the community foundation funding, but also direct funding. infrastructure donations
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: from Oracle into that community to fund things for wastewater,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: not even associated with their project. So that's how these
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: deals are going to be moving forward now. You're going
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: to see a lot of early community advocacy. You're going
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: to see every data center announcing who they are, what
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: they're doing, meeting with neighbors one by one, presenting facts.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Facts don't spread themselves to you. And we're in this
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: day and age where everything I say on this show,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: someone's going to go grok or chat GPT or clot
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: it to make sure I wasn't making up or lying.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: So we have to get our facts out there so
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: that people can see what the truth is and in
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: a transparent way so they can know there's nothing to
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: be afraid of. And in reality, they can benefit. You
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: brought up property tax rebates. That's great. We can point
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: to Virginia and Loudoun County, which has been data center
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: alley for years. They have seen a property reduction, property
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: tax reduction annually in that state, in that county. We
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: can have that all here. And if it has to
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: be rebates and we have to cut checks, that's fine
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: as well. It just has to be more transparent. So
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: going forward, A data center is going to come in.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: They're going to work with their local community organizations. They're
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: going to work with their city council. They're going to
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: have neighborhood meetings. And we're going to get this done.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: We're going to beat back the misinformation that's being stirred
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: up by bad actors out there.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: We got two minutes, Danny. About how many more data
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: centers can America expect to be built in the next
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: five years? Where are they going to be built?
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: OK, I mean, that number is in the hundreds and
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: they're going to be built all over the country. I
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: know the wait list. In Arizona, when we put the
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: moratorium on that tax, people rushed to get their applications in.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: That was well over 100 just here in Arizona. So
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that's going to be multiplied around.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing, Hugh. We need them here. We
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: want them here. They are going to be built regardless
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: of whether they happen in the U.S. or somewhere else.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: And you want that money, that revenue, all the economic
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: benefits we've talked about. Here in the U.S., I want
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: it all in Arizona. I want it for my kids.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: But more importantly, I want to be able to have
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: those guardrails. I want to know that our values, American values,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: are what's watching over these data centers, the ones that
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: get into AI. I want to know that my child's
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: medical information is being protected on American soil, preferably in Arizona,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: at a data center there.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And where do people find more information on the Arizona way, Danny?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: They can go to our website at the Arizona Chamber, azchamber.com.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: We have a whole separate page dedicated to Bimby, which
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: is better in my backyard. So people understand this is
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: how you do it. And we have great examples to you.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Our wonderful company, Intel, as you know, I'm an alumni
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: of theirs. They've been building massive fabs inside a Chandler
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: neighborhood in East Arizona for years. And they've done it
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: for decades with no problem because they work really closely
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: with their neighbors. There is a blueprint to follow. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: we're preaching about this right now because America needs it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Arizona needs it. We need it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Azchamber.com.com.com. azchamber.com. Get the bimby. I love that, Danny. Well done.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Well done on that. The bimby. Build in my backyard.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I love that. I wish I'd thought of that. Danny Seiden,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: good to see you, my friend. azchamber.com. I'll be right back.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Update from everywhere, but we've got Senator Tom Cotton joining us.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Senator Cotton, how's it look to you when you look
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: at the Georgia race and the races around the country?
• 29:06
  Speaker 10: Hugh, it's good to be back on with you. I'll
• 29:08
  Speaker 10: tell you, I feel pretty good about all of our
• 29:10
  Speaker 10: races around the country. You know, it's a fact of
• 29:12
  Speaker 10: campaign life today that the Democrats tend to raise more
• 29:15
  Speaker 10: money early from all of their far-left donors using the
• 29:19
  Speaker 10: ActBlue platform. And it's somewhat suspicious techniques that continue to
• 29:24
  Speaker 10: raise questions, whereas our candidates tend to engage a little
• 29:29
  Speaker 10: bit later. And we have a lot of support, too,
• 29:31
  Speaker 10: from our party committees and from the President's Super PAC
• 29:33
  Speaker 10: as well. So what you see probably is many of
• 29:36
  Speaker 10: these races is Democrats trying to pass off a false
• 29:39
  Speaker 10: image of moderation to the voters in their states when
• 29:43
  Speaker 10: they have a long history of radical and extreme statements
• 29:47
  Speaker 10: and policies. So I believe our voters around the country
• 29:50
  Speaker 10: are going to start seeing exactly who these Kims are,
• 29:53
  Speaker 10: people like whether it's incumbent senators like John Ossoff, former
• 29:57
  Speaker 10: senators like Sherrod Brown, or new aspiring senators like James
• 30:01
  Speaker 10: Tallarico in Texas or Troy Jackson.
• 30:04
  Speaker 9: Up in Maine.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm wondering, when you look at polling, Trafalgar, you
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: heard my introduction. Trafalgar just put out the poll, six points.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I thought Georgia was supposed to be like an Ossoff runaway.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: That's not a runaway in September. Six points? That's not.
• 30:19
  Speaker 10: Yeah, no, not at all, Hugh. Many of these races
• 30:21
  Speaker 10: are still competitive. Frankly, I'm not aware of any race
• 30:25
  Speaker 10: that's even remotely close that I would say is put
• 30:26
  Speaker 10: away for either side. I mean, this is going to
• 30:28
  Speaker 10: be a competitive election.
• 30:29
  Speaker 9: We know that.
• 30:30
  Speaker 10: As the president sometimes says, you're running into a history
• 30:34
  Speaker 10: of headwinds in the second midterm. But we think that
• 30:37
  Speaker 10: there's a lot of accomplishments on which we can run
• 30:40
  Speaker 10: from the biggest tax cut in American history and a
• 30:42
  Speaker 10: record record. investments in our military, to a new farm bill,
• 30:46
  Speaker 10: to secure border, and that we can expose the Democrats'
• 30:48
  Speaker 10: radical views, that they want to take away your health
• 30:50
  Speaker 10: insurance on the job, they want to impose national energy tax,
• 30:53
  Speaker 10: drive up the price of electricity and gas, they want
• 30:56
  Speaker 10: to abolish immigration enforcement, and they want to slash our
• 30:59
  Speaker 10: military budget. These are not popular positions. Whatever this or
• 31:03
  Speaker 10: that horse race poll in this or that state may
• 31:05
  Speaker 10: tell you.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Now, Senator, to mix up metaphors, After the Browns' terrible
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: showing yesterday, a fellow fan wrote me, the Browns are
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: like Obamacare. We can't get rid of it, and it
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. Is it true we can't get rid of Obamacare?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Are we stuck with that forever?
• 31:22
  Speaker 10: First off, Hugh, I think that may be unfair to
• 31:26
  Speaker 10: Obamacare after seeing the Browns' performance yesterday. Much as I
• 31:31
  Speaker 10: don't want to defend that law. No, you know, the...
• 31:35
  Speaker 10: Obamacare has two main parts. One is the Medicaid expansion.
• 31:38
  Speaker 10: Two is the health insurance marketplace. What they have in
• 31:43
  Speaker 10: common is throwing more money after a system that doesn't work,
• 31:47
  Speaker 10: especially needlessly complicated bureaucratic coverage rules. People are different life
• 31:52
  Speaker 10: circumstances here. You know, a healthy young 20-something has different
• 31:55
  Speaker 10: needs than.
• 31:59
  Speaker 10: Versus different needs for retirees in their 50s and early 60s.
• 32:03
  Speaker 10: So I think it's important that health care reform focus
• 32:06
  Speaker 10: on the actual needs of individual Americans and gives them
• 32:12
  Speaker 10: a wider berth of choice. Some people want different kinds
• 32:14
  Speaker 10: of coverage. Some people may want, for instance, a high-deductible
• 32:16
  Speaker 10: plan and have an HSA with it. Lots of people
• 32:20
  Speaker 10: don't want to lose their health insurance on the job, which,
• 32:22
  Speaker 10: by the way, the Democrats want to take away. That's
• 32:24
  Speaker 10: when they say Medicare for all, what they mean is
• 32:26
  Speaker 10: private health insurance for none.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: And the unions cannot like that. All right, Senator, I
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: want to finish by asking you, again, aware that you're
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: chair of the Intel Committee and you only use open
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: source intel. The Houthis have done a lot in the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: last week, including get to the islands in the Strait.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: They're on their side of the peninsula. Does the world
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: not care about this? Saudi Arabia alone in this? To
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: fight the Houthis?
• 32:54
  Speaker 10: No, Hugh, not at all. In fact, I've spoken with
• 32:56
  Speaker 10: senior Saudi leaders today about this matter. We can't allow
• 32:59
  Speaker 10: Iran and its terrorist proxies to dictate which countries can
• 33:07
  Speaker 10: use which waterways to ship oil into the global markets.
• 33:12
  Speaker 10: For all your listeners, they should just know when they
• 33:14
  Speaker 10: hear the Houthis in Yemen or they hear militias in Iraq,
• 33:17
  Speaker 10: that's Iran. Those are all Iran's proxies being led and
• 33:21
  Speaker 10: guided by the Revolutionary Guard Corps from Iran that are
• 33:24
  Speaker 10: trying to put pressure on American allies in the region
• 33:28
  Speaker 10: because they're losing so badly facing the blockade of Iranian oil.
• 33:33
  Speaker 10: And I think it's incumbent that we do everything we
• 33:36
  Speaker 10: can to help our friends in the Middle East, like
• 33:39
  Speaker 10: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait and
• 33:42
  Speaker 10: others continue to ship their oil to keep prices of
• 33:45
  Speaker 10: gas and diesel as low as possible for Americans here
• 33:48
  Speaker 10: at home.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Now, the Emiratis were involved in a ground war in
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Yemen for a long time, and then Saudi Arabia asked
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: them to stop. I might be wrong about that, but
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that's what I thought happened, and they withdrew. Are there
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: no ground forces available to our Gulf allies to advance
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: into Yemen?
• 34:07
  Speaker 10: Well, Hugh, I'm not sure they want to advance into Yemen.
• 34:10
  Speaker 10: What they want is the Houthi terrorist group to not...
• 34:15
  Speaker 10: attack their cities, attack their oil fields, their pipelines, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 10: assert control over critical waterways. And that's what we should
• 34:23
  Speaker 10: help them do. I mean, again, we can't allow them
• 34:26
  Speaker 10: to shut down shipping through the Red Sea any more
• 34:29
  Speaker 10: than we can allow Iran to shut down shipping through
• 34:31
  Speaker 10: the Strait of Hormuz.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Well, does that, are you saying, just bomb or use
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: missile technology? I know you're not suggesting boots on the ground.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: You're the last guy in the world to do that.
• 34:44
  Speaker 10: Yeah, certainly not American troops, but we have the ability
• 34:47
  Speaker 10: working with our Arab partners, which, as you say, have
• 34:50
  Speaker 10: in the past. put their own troops in Yemen to
• 34:54
  Speaker 10: protect their own interests, but to work in concert with
• 34:56
  Speaker 10: naval power, air power, and intelligence sharing to drive these
• 35:00
  Speaker 10: terrorist rebels back from the critical pinch point going into
• 35:03
  Speaker 10: the Red Sea to allow shipping to continue through there.
• 35:06
  Speaker 10: We should do that not just because they're allies, but
• 35:09
  Speaker 10: because it's good for the American consumer to keep diesel
• 35:12
  Speaker 10: and gas prices as low as possible.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, last question. Is the terrain of Yemen somehow uniquely
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: difficult to wage war on?
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: Well, you can't generalize about the country as a whole, but, yeah,
• 35:26
  Speaker 10: in the western part of it where a lot of
• 35:28
  Speaker 10: the population is, certainly where a lot of these terrorist
• 35:30
  Speaker 10: rebels are located, it's very mountainous, very remote, very difficult.
• 35:34
  Speaker 10: Always has been that way. Yemen has always been kind
• 35:36
  Speaker 10: of the badlands of the Arabian Peninsula.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And so is it like the Hindu Kush that you
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: just can't win a war there because of the tribes?
• 35:47
  Speaker 10: It is akin to that kind of terrain, obviously not as– extreme,
• 35:51
  Speaker 10: as you see up in northern Afghanistan, but akin to that. And,
• 35:54
  Speaker 10: you know, it's been always and everywhere the case, not
• 35:57
  Speaker 10: just in Yemen or Afghanistan, but in Europe and the Americas,
• 36:00
  Speaker 10: that the mountains are often the refuge of laws and
• 36:04
  Speaker 10: rebels and scoundrels of all types.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Senator Tom Cotton, as always, I appreciate your checking in
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: from the campaign trail in Arkansas. I appreciate it very much, Senator.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Follow him on X at San Tom Cotton, S-E-N Tom Cotton.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, an old friend of
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the program. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota fame. He was
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: governor from 2003 to 2011. Joins me now. Governor, welcome
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Those were good times.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: You made me commissioner of hockey and master of the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: horse in Minnesota. I think those were lifetime titles. And
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: so I'm glad to have you back. But I did
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: not know that you had now taken the helm of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the Solar Energy Industries Association. What is SEIA.org?
• 36:47
  Speaker 11: Well, back then and now, Hugh, part of my job
• 36:49
  Speaker 11: is to clean up, making sure that you're accurate in
• 36:52
  Speaker 11: your information and representation. So when I was governor and
• 36:56
  Speaker 11: appointed you commissioner of hockey, the term that I recall
• 36:59
  Speaker 11: was puck-head-a-saurus-brander.
• 37:04
  Speaker 12: And so I think you've taken some liberties.
• 37:06
  Speaker 11: Now, of course, in your role, you can have creative
• 37:08
  Speaker 11: license and interpretation, but I think you've gone over.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: The line here, over the line.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Well, over the line, as part of my job as
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: commissioner of hockey, talk to me a little bit about
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the SEIA. I had no idea you were doing solar.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 12: Yeah, so I'm the CEO of the Solar Energy Industry Association.
• 37:26
  Speaker 11: It's an association of the nation's companies involved in manufacturing, creation,
• 37:31
  Speaker 11: installation of solar.
• 37:33
  Speaker 12: And it's an increasingly great story. The short version is
• 37:36
  Speaker 12: it's cost competitive now.
• 37:37
  Speaker 11: The technology has improved dramatically. It's quick to deploy, gets
• 37:41
  Speaker 11: in the ground faster than anything else. And by the way,
• 37:43
  Speaker 11: that's really helpful when you have gas plants and nuclear
• 37:45
  Speaker 11: plants that can't get built very quickly. We also have
• 37:48
  Speaker 11: reliability now with these big commercial batteries. So even when
• 37:51
  Speaker 11: the sun isn't shining, we can store energy.
• 37:53
  Speaker 12: And then lastly, it's clean. So we've got a lot
• 37:55
  Speaker 12: going for it.
• 37:55
  Speaker 11: And we're just one important part of an all of
• 37:57
  Speaker 11: the above American energy portfolio. And it's a really growing,
• 38:02
  Speaker 11: booming area of energy policy and energy production going forward.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Well, they picked a good guy to speak on their behalf, Governor.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Is there any federal law that stands in the way
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of solar development, or is it just state-by-state nimbyism that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: prevents it? Because I'm an all-of-the-above guy, too.
• 38:20
  Speaker 11: Yeah, it's really, there's federal and state barriers, but a
• 38:23
  Speaker 11: big one that's really current and really pending right now
• 38:26
  Speaker 11: is on a bipartisan basis, there's actually serious permitting reform
• 38:29
  Speaker 11: that's possible in the United States Congress. And we want
• 38:33
  Speaker 11: everybody to try to support this, but it would help
• 38:35
  Speaker 11: not just our industry, but all of the industries that
• 38:38
  Speaker 11: produce energy to get more energy. Of course, it's a
• 38:41
  Speaker 11: supply and demand equation. If you want to bring down prices,
• 38:43
  Speaker 11: you've got to create more supply. And if you want
• 38:46
  Speaker 11: to have more supply, you've got to have more projects.
• 38:47
  Speaker 11: If you want to have more projects, you've got to
• 38:49
  Speaker 11: have quicker permitting. And we're not talking about cutting corners.
• 38:52
  Speaker 11: We're just saying make it faster and treat everybody with
• 38:55
  Speaker 11: an open hand, evil at level playing field. And so
• 39:00
  Speaker 11: permitting reform is one example of what we need to
• 39:02
  Speaker 11: get done at the federal level.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Is that in the Senate, Governor, or is that in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the House or both?
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Both.
• 39:08
  Speaker 11: And the Senate, by the way, is seriously considering it.
• 39:11
  Speaker 11: And it's not just some talking point. There are serious
• 39:14
  Speaker 11: negotiations in the 11th hour of this. And there's a
• 39:16
  Speaker 11: real possibility that between now and the end of the calendar,
• 39:19
  Speaker 11: your Republicans and Democrats could unite around this. And there's
• 39:22
  Speaker 11: some great work being done. So it's both. But the
• 39:24
  Speaker 11: Senate is taking the lead right now.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Can the solar power industry assist workers? with the data
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: center problem, part of which at least is fears, unfounded,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I think in many cases, of stress on the grid?
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Can solar contribute to that?
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 39:42
  Speaker 11: And if you look at many of these data center projects,
• 39:46
  Speaker 11: they need energy, they need a lot of it and
• 39:48
  Speaker 11: co-located next to them, or at least connected to them virtually,
• 39:52
  Speaker 11: are solar, what we call utility scale solar projects or
• 39:55
  Speaker 11: other solar projects and storage. So the answer to your
• 39:57
  Speaker 11: question is a resounding yes, but that's not all we
• 40:01
  Speaker 11: can help with. We've got solar panels on homes where
• 40:03
  Speaker 11: people can bring down their energy prices. We've got solar
• 40:06
  Speaker 11: panels on the tops of commercial buildings. We've got community
• 40:09
  Speaker 11: solar and utility scale solar that I just mentioned.
• 40:11
  Speaker 12: So We're a major contributor. Listen to this, Hugh.
• 40:15
  Speaker 11: Seventy percent of all the new energy so far this
• 40:18
  Speaker 11: year that went under the grid is from solar and storage.
• 40:20
  Speaker 11: Similar percentage last year and the year before. So it's
• 40:24
  Speaker 11: a huge contributor to this supply-demand problem that we've been
• 40:28
  Speaker 11: talking about.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Over the 27 years of this program, Governor, the biggest
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: objection to solar was you could not store it. You
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: could not rely on it. Earlier in the interview, you
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: said there are commercial batteries available. Now, this is not
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: something I'm familiar with. How big are those batteries? How
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: much can you store in them? Are the traditional objections
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to solar, have they been solved?
• 40:50
  Speaker 11: Well, we're trying to update people's understanding of the industry,
• 40:53
  Speaker 11: which is a big part of our challenge and our opportunity.
• 40:55
  Speaker 11: But the batteries used to be for two hours and
• 40:57
  Speaker 11: four hours, then six hours. Many are now eight and
• 40:59
  Speaker 11: now pretty soon on the market, 10 hours of commercial
• 41:03
  Speaker 11: scale storage. So if you're concerned about what happens when
• 41:06
  Speaker 11: the sun doesn't shine, the answer is you can store
• 41:10
  Speaker 11: a boatload of energy on these batteries. and be more reliable.
• 41:14
  Speaker 11: And also keep in mind the grid is managed as
• 41:16
  Speaker 11: a portfolio. So no one source is trying to contribute
• 41:19
  Speaker 11: everything all at once. These grid managers know how to
• 41:21
  Speaker 11: balance and call from different sources as available and as needed.
• 41:25
  Speaker 11: But we are a growing, important, and increasingly reliable part
• 41:29
  Speaker 11: of that equation because of the batteries.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And does the GOP get on board now? It used
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: to be reflexively too expensive, unreliable, the clouds are going
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: to come. Has that changed within the caucus?
• 41:42
  Speaker 11: Yes, although there is a thing called the energy culture wars,
• 41:44
  Speaker 11: which I won't go into the details of, but support
• 41:47
  Speaker 11: for renewable energy used to be pretty bipartisan.
• 41:49
  Speaker 12: But more recently, it got really blue versus red.
• 41:52
  Speaker 11: And part of my job and opportunity is to try
• 41:55
  Speaker 11: to make it more purple and to try to bring
• 41:57
  Speaker 11: more Republicans and conservatives back into the fold, not talking
• 42:01
  Speaker 11: about anything other than the economy. If you want to
• 42:03
  Speaker 11: have a better economy, we need more energy. It needs
• 42:06
  Speaker 11: to be affordable and it needs to be quick, reliable.
• 42:08
  Speaker 11: And that's an a message that Republicans should be able
• 42:11
  Speaker 11: to support. We've got good facts on our side in
• 42:13
  Speaker 11: that regard, and eventually the politicians catch up to the facts.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: And last question, Governor. Does it save the average consumer money?
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: The number one question of my audience is going to be,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: can I save money with solar? All the tax credits
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: are gone. Does it work anymore?
• 42:30
  Speaker 12: It remains competitive, for sure.
• 42:32
  Speaker 11: And on the commercial side of it, places like Lazard,
• 42:35
  Speaker 11: not a partisan think tank, just an investment banking firm,
• 42:38
  Speaker 11: said we're probably the most cost-effective source of utility-scale energy
• 42:42
  Speaker 11: in the country. And for residential homeowners and smaller-scale users,
• 42:47
  Speaker 11: there's other options available to them, including things called virtual
• 42:50
  Speaker 11: power plants, where the utility or a solar company pays
• 42:55
  Speaker 11: for the solar system to be installed on your house,
• 42:58
  Speaker 11: and hopefully it'll save you some money, but it also
• 43:00
  Speaker 11: has a chance to make you some money as you
• 43:01
  Speaker 11: push back some of that power back onto the grid
• 43:03
  Speaker 11: to be a power supplier on your own home.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Well, despite your attempt to revoke my title as Commissioner
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of Hockey in Minnesota, you are welcome here any time, Governor.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: By the way, you think Michelle Tafoya can win? I do.
• 43:16
  Speaker 11: Well, she's one of the best candidates we've had in
• 43:18
  Speaker 11: Minnesota in a long time. And I think she's got
• 43:21
  Speaker 11: an opponent who probably wasn't the strongest coming out of
• 43:24
  Speaker 11: the Democratic primary.
• 43:25
  Speaker 12: And so I think she's got a shot.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I do, too. And in the meantime, I will encourage everyone,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: go visit SEIA.org. Solar Energy Industries Association, SEIA.org. Find out
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: what Governor Pawlenty is talking about in detail. Governor, good
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: to talk to you, as always. Stay tuned, America. I'll
• 43:43
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• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I'm so pleased to welcome back Rear Admiral Mark C. Montgomery,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: retired United States Navy, now a senior fellow at the
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Admiral, welcome back. If
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I had talked to you two weeks ago, oil was mid-80s,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: maybe even $ 82 a barrel, and it looked like the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: war was over or at least going our way with Iran.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: A week ago, oil was at $ 90, and we had
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: an exchange of fire with Iran, but they hadn't. hit
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: much of us and we hammered a lot of them.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And now today oil's at 102 and the Houthis are
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: terrorizing the second straight, Bab al-Mandeb. What happened? Why were
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: we not awake or were we awake and there wasn't
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: anything we could do about the Houthis?
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: Well, look, I think the Houthis are the explanation for this, right?
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: They are threatening.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: They have basically closed the Bab al-Mandeb to Saudi crude traffic.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: And then more importantly- They threaten the actual east-west pipeline
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: that runs across Saudi Arabia. And that oil could either
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: go down to the Bab al-Mandeb or go up to Suez. Now,
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: if it's going to Europe, that's not a big deal.
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: If it's going to Asia, that's adding a lot to
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: the route, but still doable. You start firing at that pipeline,
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: and I think it has an impact on oil prices.
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: And I think the president's had the right touch for
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: the last three or four weeks on trying to do
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: the economic strangulation, but probably when he said, this is
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: a Saudi problem, not an American problem, I think that
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: was probably the wrong touch.
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: We can help the Saudis with targeting and.
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: Intelligence surveillance reconnaissance on the Houthis, but that is not
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: going to solve the Houthi problem. In the end, I
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: think the United States or maybe the United States plus
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: Israel are going to have to hammer the Houthis like
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: we did last November, December, which really put the Houthis
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: on their back foot prior to the war starting with Iran.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. I remember that well. And the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Lincoln was there for that and then went back for
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the second round. The Washington is there now. Have we
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: got enough planes to do that? We don't need smart,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: precision munitions for the Houthis. We do to defend our ships.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: But do we have enough in the region to do
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: both of those, both Iran containment and Houthi defeat?
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: So, look, while we're doing any position of cost on Houthi,
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: as you say, Houthi defeat, we're still going to have to.
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: Maintain the overhead.
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: Combat air patrol over the Omani sea lane, which we've
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: been doing for months now to give safe passage. And
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: there's other places where we have to fly. The answer
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: to do we have enough is yes, because we have
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: three sources. The first source are the two carrier strike groups,
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: which you implied with George Washington. And I think Bush
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: is the other. Then the second one is the Air
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: Force squadrons that have been positioned. Now they're a little
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: farther back now. Jordan and probably Western Saudi Arabia and
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: maybe Israel, but wherever they are.
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: We have a plus-up in squadrons available.
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: And then most importantly, the ace in the hole, we
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: have a strategic bomber force sitting very comfortably, going home
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: every night, you know, in, you and the Dakotas and
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: Louisiana and Nebraska. Those guys, B-2s, B-1s, B-52s, were probably
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: B-2s initially, can do unlimited strikes with the shorter range
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: precision guided missions, what are called JDAMs or 500, 1,000,
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: 2,000 pound precision guided munitions. And one of them can
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: do about 10 to 12 F-18s worth of damage in
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: a single strike, one of those B-2s. So yes, we
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: have the tools to do this and we can do it.
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: And as you said, most importantly, this is not a munition.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: Short range precision strike munitions is not a munition.
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: At risk right now. We have a lot of them.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: We'll build more, but we already have a lot, more
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: than 100,000.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Admiral, long ago when the war on terror began,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Robert Kaplan, for whom I have a great deal of respect,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: was a guest on the show. He put out one
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: of his many books that opened in Yemen, and it
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: made the case that we needed our special forces there,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and we were there. And Yemen has never been governed.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: It's really just been a long-running tribal warfare. Is there
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: no way for... are Gulf allies to put the boots
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: on the ground in Yemen to push the Houthis back
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: from the strait?
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: So, yes.
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: And I've spent time, you know, I worked in counterterrorism
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: at the National Security Council during the coal incident, which is,
• 50:52
  Speaker 6: you know, took place in Yemen. So I agree with
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: Robert that you need, that our partners have to have
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: boots on the ground.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: I'll be honest with you.
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: The UAE, the United Arab Emirates, provides better boots on
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: the ground than the Saudis.
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: We've seen that in place after place.
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: And the UAE has been driven out of Yemen by
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: the Saudis in a little conflict between Mohammed bin Zayed,
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: Mohammed bin Salman, and Mohammed.
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: Bin Zayed, the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: bin Salman, the leader of Saudi Arabia.
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: That's unfortunate because I tell you something, these militia groups,
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: which are the, quote, army of the government, you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: there's nine, 10 or 11 of them, depending how you
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: count them. They don't get along with each other. A
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: handful of them have like traced their roots to the
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: being in the Houthis previously. I mean, so, you know,
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: this is a complicated area. You're not going to be
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: able to do it with just the government of Yemen's forces.
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: You're going to need the direction of the outsiders and
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: it can't just be air power. So I agree with
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: your supposition there. They're going to need boots on the ground.
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: It would be.
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: Helpful if it was United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: but I suspect it'll just be Saudi Arabia for now.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: So, Admiral, this is a world problem now. And everybody
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: from the CHICOMs to the European Union, everybody's got a
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: problem now. Why is it always up to us to
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: fix this one?
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: Because, look, if there was ever an example of where
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: there's just proof that they don't want to spend the
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: resources or take the risk to be involved in resolving
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: international organizations. The international crisis, you can see that with China,
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: and disappointingly with Europe and Australia. So let's be clear,
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: China should be involved in this, and they're not, and
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: they refuse to, and they never will. They are absolutely
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: happy to let the United States carry the burden and
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: to be uncooperative and unhelpful.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, as we know, they're providing targeting information to
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: the Iranians.
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: If we were to ever find out they're providing targeting
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: information to the Houthis, Katie, bar the door. I mean,
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: I think you stopped summits at that point. But then
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: what really frustrates me is the Europeans. First of all,
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: their complete failure to take a side between the United
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: States and Iran. The two belligerents, let's be clear, one
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: of them is their lifelong 70-year partner who's carried the
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: load for 30 years in Europe. The other is a
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: 47-year authoritarian state that killed 30,000 of its own people
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: in a weekend. and has killed 1,000 Europeans in terrorist
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: activities in Europe and hundreds of European soldiers in Iraq
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: and Afghanistan. And you're confused about who to back, okay?
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: That's terrible.
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: To then do the same thing with the Houthis that
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: are clearly just a terrorist organization threatening international shipping. Shame
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: on the Europeans for not racing to the Bab al-Mandeb
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: to say, we got this.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: If there was one country that we could count on
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: that was neither in the Gulf Cooperation Council nor nor
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: already there, Israel and the United States. Which one would
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: it be? Would it be France?
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: It's the United Kingdom, but they have so, they and
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: the French have both spent about 2% of GDP on
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: defense for 25 years. And both of them had to
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: pay for an expensive nuclear program, nuclear weapons program. So
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: that 2% doesn't go very far. And the service that
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: suffers the most when you fail to invest in your
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: defense for two or three decades is is the high-cost service,
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: the expensive equipment and modernization and maintenance.
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: That's a Navy.
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: So the Brits, at the beginning of the conflict on
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: February 28th, could provide zero or one underway surface combatants.
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: That's destroyers or frigates. Zero or one. That's just an
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: unacceptable number.
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: So the answer should be the United Kingdom, but the
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: reality is they're hurting to provide anything down to the Babelmen, Deb.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: on a permanent basis, certainly not two or three ships
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: like one would expect for the Royal Navy.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Is there anyone at all that can, okay, we'll help
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: you out the United States. We'll send some frigates or
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: we'll send some anybody at all. And by the way,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: we only have a minute. Can the Saudis fly the
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: planes that they have, even if they get together with
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the UAE to even know how to fly them?
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the Saudis can fly their F-15s. They can bomb.
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: They're probably not quite as good as us or the Israelis, clearly.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: But the people who need to really bomb the Houthis
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: are the U.S. and the Israelis. I think eventually it's
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: going to fall on us to do it right.
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: On the navies, look, the French can provide some.
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: Ironically, the Spanish, by.
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: The way, have a very good navy with Aegis destroyers,
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: but they won't show up. Australia has Spanish Aegis destroyers.
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: They could show up with one, possibly.
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: Actually, the Japanese and the Koreans both have excellent Aegis
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: destroyer forces.
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: Now, they are pretty far away. But in theory, they
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: could come down.
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: Now, they're like the Chinese in the idea that they
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: have not generally contributed to these kind of combat deployments. So, look,
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: the answer is not very many. And I think it's
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: going to end up being the U.S. Navy that once
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: again carries the load. We'll have one U.K. ship, one
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: French ship eventually join us, things like that. But we're
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: going to have to carry the load.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Well, then that means, and 30 seconds, Admiral, we've got
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to get that supplemental pass. I mean, don't we? That's
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: not a can have or want. We have to have it.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: We do.
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: We need it for the munitions problem, but also for
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: the readiness. We are really damaging our Navy and Air
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: Force's readiness, both services, not just the Navy.
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: The Air Force needs this.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: From your lips, Admiral Mark Montgomery. Follow him on exit
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Mark C. Montgomery.