Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / The Texas runoff and Trump's messaging on Iran

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The Texas runoff and Trump's messaging on Iran · 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 dot ed or I encourage you to
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of course I listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale. All right, Even Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewittt.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Tuesday. I hope you had a great Memorial
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  Speaker 1: Day weekend. We begin with a member of the President's cabinet,
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  Speaker 1: Kelly Leffler, who is the administrator at the Small Business Administration.
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  Speaker 1: She's been my guest before. What a wild time to
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  Speaker 1: be in the cabinet administrator. What's it like in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of a war to be in the cabinet with
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Hugh, great to be with you again.
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  Speaker 3: Look, there has never been a more important time for
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  Speaker 3: not just resolving so many national security issues, but economic
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  Speaker 3: security issues in this country. And President Trump is moving
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  Speaker 3: so quickly to do it on so many fronts. It's
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  Speaker 3: a great honor. It's very humbling every day to serve
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  Speaker 3: this great president, to serve our nation, particularly just coming
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  Speaker 3: out of Memorial Day, a tribute to those who gave
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  Speaker 3: the ultimate sacrifice, and to be able to give a
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  Speaker 3: little something back to our great nation is incredibly humbling,
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  Speaker 3: especially for our job creators, many of whom are veterans.
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  Speaker 3: So it's incredible to be part of this administration and
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  Speaker 3: part of the cabinet.
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  Speaker 1: Yesterday I did my Memorial Day show with the Fund
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  Speaker 1: and they have an apprenticeship program to get wounded veterans
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  Speaker 1: into small businesses. And I've been doing that show for
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  Speaker 1: twenty two years. And You're right, Veterans come back after
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  Speaker 1: their service, especially those who are wounded, and they find
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  Speaker 1: their niche, they start their businesses. How many of them
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  Speaker 1: do that with help from the SBA.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Hugh, about ten percent of our loans go to
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  Speaker 3: veterans or are starting out or growing. And I am
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  Speaker 3: the product of a veteran. My dad, the year I
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  Speaker 3: was born, along with our farms, started a small trucking
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  Speaker 3: company based on what he learned in the military. So
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  Speaker 3: I know firsthand what it means to be able to
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  Speaker 3: get that veteran support, financing, access to capital, job training, skills, training.
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  Speaker 2: All that.
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  Speaker 3: It's generational, it's so vital, and it's a great honor,
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  Speaker 3: and we've got some exciting announcements coming up for our
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  Speaker 3: work with veterans.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to go back to last month because
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  Speaker 1: I think Small Business Month or week was last month.
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  Speaker 1: Am I right about that?
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  Speaker 2: That's right? First week of May?
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  Speaker 1: Okay? So what do you do in small business? Look,
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  Speaker 1: the war is sucking up all the oxygen. I'm glad
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  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about this because nine out
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  Speaker 1: of ten people listening to show or in business are
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  Speaker 1: in small business. What do you do during Small Business Week?
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  Speaker 3: Small Business Week has been celebrated since the nineteen sixties,
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  Speaker 3: and we kicked it off with President Trump at the
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  Speaker 3: White House.
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  Speaker 2: We had over one hundred small businesses.
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  Speaker 3: This president knows that small business is big business and
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  Speaker 3: it was such an incredible way to start the week
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  Speaker 3: to celebrate our job creators. Most businesses in America are
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  Speaker 3: small businesses. They work hard, they show up every single day.
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  Speaker 3: They should know that there is the commander in chief,
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  Speaker 3: President Trump. There's no bigger fan of small business and
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  Speaker 3: President Trump. And what I saw is I traveled around
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  Speaker 3: the country that week, which I do every single week.
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  Speaker 3: This week later I'll be in Arizona, New Mexico, what
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  Speaker 3: I saw is what this administration is bringing back, which
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  Speaker 3: is strength to main Street through.
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  Speaker 2: Tax cuts, deregulation, fair trade.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, just look at fair Trade alone is doing
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  Speaker 3: restoring our manufacturing. Most manufacturers in America are small businesses.
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  Speaker 3: You you look at skilled trades. Coming back that Small
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  Speaker 3: Business Week, I met with a welder who now owns
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  Speaker 3: the welding business that he apprenticed at several years ago.
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  Speaker 3: So that is the American dream and we're making sure
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  Speaker 3: it stays alive and well.
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  Speaker 1: So I talked to Doug Bergham in the last couple
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  Speaker 1: of weeks and Chris Wright, a couple of your colleagues
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  Speaker 1: in the cabinet, and they both remark upon the President's
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  Speaker 1: energy and the fact that you have to keep up
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  Speaker 1: with true social pretty closely. Do you begin your morning
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  Speaker 1: by running over what happened overnight on Drew Social.
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  Speaker 3: Well, this is a twenty four to seven administration, So
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  Speaker 3: Dabler's in tonight, and you know, we keep focus on,
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  Speaker 3: you know what President Trump has asked us to do
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  Speaker 3: in our respective agencies, and certainly keep up with current events.
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  Speaker 3: And I also do that by being out on Main
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  Speaker 3: Street every week. I'm not sitting here in Washington, which
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  Speaker 3: I am today getting ready for tomorrow's cabinet meeting, but
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  Speaker 3: importantly listening to those on main Street bringing the ideas
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  Speaker 3: back to Washington. And that's what's great because this president
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  Speaker 3: really cares about what's going on. As you know, he
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  Speaker 3: takes feedback from everyone. I look forward to updating the
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  Speaker 3: president on small business at the cabinet meeting, making sure
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  Speaker 3: that the small business owners and entrepreneurs who are becoming
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  Speaker 3: small business owners in record numbers know that we are
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  Speaker 3: focused on them. And in fact, you I want to mention,
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  Speaker 3: we're at all time highs for small business formation right
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  Speaker 3: now in this country, about half a million small businesses.
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  Speaker 3: Now we've surpassed that mark in a month. And so
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  Speaker 3: what we're seeing is the confidence on main Street knowing
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  Speaker 3: that they have tax cuts, fair trade, deregulation, and the
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  Speaker 3: list goes on.
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  Speaker 1: And now I talk to you about the Vice President's
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  Speaker 1: effort on fraud, But before I do, I'm just curious,
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  Speaker 1: when there's a cabinet meeting coming, he just calls on people, right,
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  Speaker 1: do you know what the order is at all? Do
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  Speaker 1: you get any kind of a rundown like I get
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  Speaker 1: for my show?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look This is the most transparent administration in American history.
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  Speaker 3: The American people get to see cabinet meetings and you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, it rolls out in real time.
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  Speaker 3: So we all have active discussions and the President is
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  Speaker 3: very engaging and conversational. He's listening actively to us, and
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  Speaker 3: so who knows where the conversation is going to go.
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  Speaker 3: We all just come prepared as we do every single
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  Speaker 3: day and excited to share with the president.
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  Speaker 2: In between, though, we're.
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  Speaker 3: In ongoing conversations with the President, so this isn't a
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  Speaker 3: one off moment. This is the continuation of an ongoing conversation.
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  Speaker 1: In the cabinet meeting. It's like a baseball lineup. There's
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  Speaker 1: a leadoff hitter, it's Travis Bizana for the Guardians and
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  Speaker 1: different things. Do you know if you're leading off or
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  Speaker 1: bat in the three hole or down in the seventh hole?
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  Speaker 1: Do you know when you're going to bat?
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  Speaker 3: No, this is this is up to the president. This
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  Speaker 3: is his meeting for the American people, and he keeps
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  Speaker 3: it engaging and spontaneous, and it's great that Americans at
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  Speaker 3: home get to see what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: All right, just be honest with do you want to
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  Speaker 1: go earlier? Late in the cabinet meeting, because I mean,
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  Speaker 1: all these other people are off doing their thing. I
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  Speaker 1: would think I'd want to go first or second. How
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  Speaker 1: about Administrator leftli here?
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  Speaker 3: I will go at any moment the President calls on me,
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  Speaker 3: I am ready to go.
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  Speaker 2: So I don't have the preference.
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  Speaker 3: I'm just excited to share it, to be that voice
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  Speaker 3: for small business.
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  Speaker 1: All right now, I do want to finish by telling
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  Speaker 1: you about the Vice President Advance has started the fraud effort.
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  Speaker 1: SBA has no doubt been I don't know if people
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  Speaker 1: have conned you or not, but you've got to be
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  Speaker 1: a mark for everybody who wants to get money, especially
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  Speaker 1: during the COVID years. How do you combat that and
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  Speaker 1: are you working with the Vice President's Task Force?
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  Speaker 3: Well, here, we've combatd it from day one with zero
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  Speaker 3: tolerance policy, not just on fraud but on waste and abuse,
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  Speaker 3: and our agency. In the last year we've reduced headcount
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  Speaker 3: by fifty three percent while generating record small business loan volume.
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  Speaker 3: That was legitimate because we implemented a fraud risk framework
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  Speaker 3: based on what we saw during COVID.
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  Speaker 2: And you're exactly right, PPP.
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  Speaker 3: We all remember during COVID and the Economic Injury Disaster
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  Speaker 3: loans came out to the tune of one point two
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  Speaker 3: trillion dollars during COVID. The Biden OIG said two hundred
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  Speaker 3: billion of it was fraudulent, and the Biden administration attempted
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  Speaker 3: to forgive all the fraudulent loans and just.
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  Speaker 2: Hide it under the rug.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're a key member of Vice President Vance's task
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  Speaker 3: Force because this is.
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  Speaker 2: Not going to be business as usual.
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  Speaker 3: We are going to make sure there's accountability, that people
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  Speaker 3: are arrested in jail.
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  Speaker 2: We already have that.
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  Speaker 3: You can go to the SBA website and see people
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  Speaker 3: are serving jail terms for this. There's restitution not just
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  Speaker 3: from people, but from banks who knowingly defrauded the federal government.
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  Speaker 3: So thanks to the task Force, we are moving very quickly,
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  Speaker 3: and we just announced twenty two billion in SBA fraudulent
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  Speaker 3: PPP loans are being executed not just through IRS but
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  Speaker 3: through the DOJ. That's five hundred and sixty two thousand
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  Speaker 3: borrowers who are going to have their files turned over
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  Speaker 3: to the Department of Justice for prosecution. That would have
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  Speaker 3: never been possible without this President and Vice President's efforts.
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  Speaker 1: I am going to put a line under that, and
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  Speaker 1: we're going to end there because that's a big number
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  Speaker 1: and that's a headline. Administrator Leffler always got to talk
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  Speaker 1: to you. Come back anytime. Have a good cabinet meeting tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: I'll be watching as I always doing. Saints Ben, I'll
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  Speaker 1: say when you get called, thank you very much for
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: joining me.
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  Speaker 4: Has vanished for sharply dressed podcasters with perfectly parted hair
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  Speaker 4: to the right take.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: On the left.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: We own the Libs and serve justice the way it
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  Speaker 5: should be neat DC.
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  Speaker 6: This is your wake up call.
• 9:46
  Speaker 7: I am that.
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  Speaker 6: Podcast.
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  Speaker 8: Sorry, It's time to see the world again in uflex
• 9:55
  Speaker 8: podcast and streaming wherever.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I saw that this weekend, and I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: heard the Fellows talking about it this morning. I thought
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I would share my audience on the Salem News Channel
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: so they would know what I was talking about. Duncan
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: joins us. Michael Duncan one of the fellas, and I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: want to know, Michael, if you're proud of your work there.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: Uh yeah, I'm proud of it. It's just felt very weird.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: We've worked our whole careers being behind the camera helping
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: politicians make ads, so it's very strange to see an
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: ad featuring yours truly, but we had a lot of
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: fun making and it was it was a blast.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You noted on the show today that Smug appears
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to actually be blind, and he does, and so he does?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Why did he thank?
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: We've heard? Well, it's a running joke on the show.
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: You know, whenever new viewers watch on YouTube, they're like,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: what's what's with the blind guy? Uh? Of course, you know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: the sunglasses are just kind of part of his persona.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: But if you check the end of the ad, he's
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: sort of looking off camera, and so you might actually
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: think the guy's blind. We had a great time on
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: today's podcast.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Oh the Fabulous podcast. I thought it was like the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Daredevil ad for a new trailer for the Daredevils release,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and instead of the d they've got the R up there.
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  Speaker 1: So duncan let's talk a little politics. I'm a John
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  Speaker 1: Corning guy. They're voting in Texas. I want John to win.
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  Speaker 1: He's he's a layup in November prediction.
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  Speaker 5: Uh yeah, I think it's going to be close. You know,
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  Speaker 5: I'd probably give the edge to Paxton considering you know
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  Speaker 5: that that late endorsement from the President, and then you
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  Speaker 5: also got to think about, you know, what is a
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  Speaker 5: runoff electorate look like. You know, we're coming up into
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  Speaker 5: summer here, after a Memorial Day weekend. It's going to
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  Speaker 5: be people who are highly motivated to vote, and so
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  Speaker 5: I think the shape of the electorate is going to
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  Speaker 5: be more fit for you know, Ken Paxton, who's you know,
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  Speaker 5: built a career off of winning these statewide runoffs in
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  Speaker 5: the state of Texas. So I'd have to give them
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  Speaker 5: the edge. I want to count corn and out. I mean,
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  Speaker 5: there are teams preparing for this for over a year.
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  Speaker 5: You got a lot of seasoned hands on that campaign campaign,
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  Speaker 5: and they're going to get out the vote. I do
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  Speaker 5: expect it to be close, but I would give the
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  Speaker 5: edge probably to Paxton as far as like just the
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  Speaker 5: the situation on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: In your day jobs, when you're not playing superheroes and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Fox promos, you're actually campaign consultants. So I'm curious, there's
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  Speaker 1: a primary electorate and then there's a runoff electorate and
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  Speaker 1: it drops. How do you find out who's going to
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  Speaker 1: turn out for a runoff?
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  Speaker 5: Mean, well, you're looking at a number of things. You're
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  Speaker 5: looking at vote history, right, So you're looking for people
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  Speaker 5: who voted in three or four or four or for
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  Speaker 5: the last primaries, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat,
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  Speaker 5: and those are gonna be your highly engaged, high propensity
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  Speaker 5: to vote runoff targets. And so those people are the
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  Speaker 5: people who you really need to persuade and make sure
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  Speaker 5: because you know they're showing up and you want them
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  Speaker 5: to vote for your guy or gal, right, And so
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  Speaker 5: that's going to be a subset of the larger, you know,
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  Speaker 5: primary universe of voters. So they tend to be extremely motivated,
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  Speaker 5: plugged into politics, and so you know, I think that
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  Speaker 5: probably favors Paxton rather than a more casual voter who
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  Speaker 5: has their eyes already on the general election. If you know,
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  Speaker 5: you want Republicans to win, Cornin's probably a safer pick. Obviously,
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  Speaker 5: he's got a lot of money and obviously name id
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: and he's pulling a little bit better in a general
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: election environment. And Ken Paxson's gonna have to raise you know,
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  Speaker 5: one hundred million dollars is gonna be very expensive race,
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  Speaker 5: and money is fungible, right, and if we have to
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: spend more money, is a Republican in Texas. It means
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  Speaker 5: less money from North Carolina, Michigan, May and all of
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  Speaker 5: those places that Republicans are also hoping to win so
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  Speaker 5: they can keep the majority.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I don't want to put you on the spot,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm gonna put you on the spot. If you've
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  Speaker 1: got major markets down there all over the place we're
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: on right now in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, you name it,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: McAllen up in the panandle we're on. When you have
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: to spend money in a lot of in a place
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with that many markets, how do you do it? Is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: just points just wherever they are.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, if you're talking about traditional television, yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I mean you're talking gross ratings points. And you know
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: Houston DMA or the Dallas DMA ain't cheap, you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: we know that, not to mention the other places you
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: were mentioning where you've got some inefficient DMAs. So it's
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: a ton of money for television.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: Obviously, with the advent of digital campaigning, social media and
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: connect the TV and all of those sorts of things,
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: you can be more efficient than buying just lanear television.
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  Speaker 5: But it's still going to be you know, over one
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  Speaker 5: hundred million dollar race.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Right now, I'm gonna switch for the war, but first
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I have to ask you a sports question. You're my
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: resident sports guy. Even though you're from Indiana, you do
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: know something about basketball. Calves get swept by the Knicks
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: four games in a row, blown out, Kenny Atkinson get fired.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's probably time to turn the page.
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: Although the next, you know, you got to hand it
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: to the next. The next are a great team, high
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: scoring team, fun to watch, you know, So I yeah,
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I would think it would be time
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: to turn the page. But you know, the Knicks aren't
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: a slouch.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The reason I think it's a yes is they were
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: twenty two points they had. The Cavaliers were twenty two
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: points ahead in Game one with eight minutes to go.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Win that game, and it's completely different. Fall apart and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: collapse and it's over all right. I want to go
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: to the middle of There is no news. I'm following
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the news. We don't know any What do you think
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: is going on there?
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  Speaker 5: Oh gosh, I wish I knew the answer to that question.
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: I would say it's a little bit of column AY
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  Speaker 5: and a little bit of column B. It's it's we
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  Speaker 5: want peace, but we don't want peace at any cost, right,
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  Speaker 5: And I think at the end of the day, President
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Trump the administration seems to be committed to the thing
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: that we started this conflict with, and that is Iran
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: will never have a nuclear weapon. There's a lot of
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: ways to get to that, and the specifics are important,
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: but I think that is basically our guiding light and
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: all these negotiations.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Now, earlier today there was a report that Operation Freedom
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: had been resumed, and Sencom just put out a press
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: release literally minutes ago, No, it hasn't. So this is
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: an information space where everybody's trying to play with our heads.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: How are you wending your way through that?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's can fusing, right, because you've got negotiations to
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: resolve this conflict. But then you also have Iran, you know,
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: doing things in the Strait of Hormuz that we don't like.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, the United States always reserves
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: at a time and a place that they're choosing to
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: take action if they think they have to, And so
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: I think we're going to continue to see that unless
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: Iran decides they actually want peace. It's always tough to
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: figure out here and Hugh.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: You know this.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: You know we're dealing with the Iranians. Whether it's actually
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: in good faith, you know, time will tell here. But
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: we have to be clear eyed about getting out of
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: this deal what we want.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Amen, Michael Duncan of the Fellaws. When they put that
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: r up in the sky, Duncan scrambles. They all scramble
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to the fella cave. Wherever the fella cave is, they
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: scramble for it. Thank you, mister. They can't still can't
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: pullive that at don't go anywhere, America. If you haven't
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: seen that, you should watch the sale on News channel
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: say too. Welcome back America. So much happened over the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Memorial Day weekend and we got so many guests today.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving it to Lilex to explain to you what
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: happened in the Middle East. James, as in James Lilex
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: do subseac dot com. What was that all about?
• 18:27
  Speaker 8: I have the faintest idea here I sit in the
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: epicenter of World Command in a Dinah, Minnesota, not exactly
• 18:34
  Speaker 8: knowing what you're talking about. If you're talking about the
• 18:36
  Speaker 8: fact that we had made a deal, or did we
• 18:37
  Speaker 8: make a deal and then stuff blew up, and then
• 18:39
  Speaker 8: maybe we didn't make a deal because stuff blew up,
• 18:41
  Speaker 8: And then Abraham McCord's were talked about, and then maybe
• 18:44
  Speaker 8: Saudi Arabia joined, but they actually probably didn't, And now
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: the Mullas are still in charge, but they're not.
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: I don't know. I have never I mean, I don't
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: exactly say that I should.
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: Be knowing everything that's going on, because I assume governments
• 18:56
  Speaker 8: keep things.
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: Close to the best, But the whole fog of war.
• 19:00
  Speaker 8: It's interesting how I've never really been as in a
• 19:03
  Speaker 8: position like this one observing an international conflict where it's
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: just like I'm in the faintest idea, And in a
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: way it's almost liberating. The way the war sort of
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: gradually faded off the front page and out of the
• 19:14
  Speaker 8: national consciousness to the point where you don't even are
• 19:17
  Speaker 8: we having one is something I've never quite experienced before.
• 19:21
  Speaker 8: Usually you get reports from the front, you get battlefeed reports,
• 19:24
  Speaker 8: Oh torpedo was.
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: Shot, a ship was sunk. War, that's how we know it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 8: This just seems to be like some people are arguing
• 19:31
  Speaker 8: backstage while a cherry bomb goes off in a balcony.
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: So don't ask me, I have in the faintest idea.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I already asked you another question.
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: In Minnesota, the guys they got.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: To drive the Iranian speedbouts yesterday and they didn't make
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it back. Do you think they had any idea what
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: they were being asked to? Do you think someone told them, Hey, Joe,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: don't worry, we got to deal with the Americans. You
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: can drop these minds.
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: Really? If so, I don't know who you would take
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: that too.
• 20:04
  Speaker 8: You're superior who would probably say, look, I got my orders,
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: go ahead, It's going to be fine. But then again,
• 20:09
  Speaker 8: aren't we told constantly that martyrdom is the highest thing
• 20:12
  Speaker 8: to which they aspire For all we know, the guys
• 20:15
  Speaker 8: were just pushing each other out of the way, saying, no,
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: it's my turn. I must be the glorious martyr at
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: this point. But some of that doesn't seem to fit
• 20:21
  Speaker 8: the characteristic of these particular guys. Yeah, not a wise ideas.
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: It's been my experience on the lakes in Minnesota that
• 20:28
  Speaker 8: when you get the evan rude and power it up,
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: and you know, out there to trol for some lunkers,
• 20:32
  Speaker 8: that you probably think you're going to come back at
• 20:34
  Speaker 8: the day and not be irrigated one hundred times by
• 20:36
  Speaker 8: some automatic weapon fire.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So you and I have been doing this for twenty
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: five years, and you read James at James Lilac at
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: substat dot com, and that's been three and a half wars,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: maybe four, depends on how you count. Has there ever
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: been a more confused and by the way, the fog
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of war is exactly right, and it's purposeful, I think
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: on our part. Has there ever been this foggy No?
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: Never, so never.
• 21:00
  Speaker 8: So I actually know more about what's going on in Ukraine,
• 21:03
  Speaker 8: I think because I follow a bunch of mill bloggers
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: and Ukrainian bloggers who to recirculate the panic remarks of
• 21:08
  Speaker 8: the Russian mill bloggers and the rest of it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: There are maps, there are arrows. I've got a basic
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: idea of how good the line.
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: Goes, back and forth and back and forth, and if
• 21:16
  Speaker 8: Kiev's going to be hit, what the response is going
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: to be in the fractional, fictional, fractious nature of the
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: Russian government which could topple at any time, which we've
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: been hearing for.
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: Four years now. I got a better idea than that
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: than I do.
• 21:26
  Speaker 8: What's actually the United States is doing what we have
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: in the region, what we're doing. I don't so, but again,
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: I hate to say, I'm content to be ignorant.
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: But if I thought that I knew.
• 21:36
  Speaker 8: Everything, I would be suspicious, because there's absolutely no way
• 21:40
  Speaker 8: that I would.
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: So we'll have to wait for the book to be
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: written der the final deal.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Now, okay, last question to your friend and my acquaintance
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to beg you, how's he taken the war in Ukraine.
• 21:53
  Speaker 8: The crazy uk You mean, well, you know, it's been
• 21:55
  Speaker 8: hard because it's hard for him because he.
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: Knows people there, because he knows he knows the terrain,
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: and the family goes so far back. But he is confident,
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: as a lot of them are.
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: And there are times when we all exchange something that's
• 22:08
  Speaker 8: just happened and clink glasses and you know Slavio Krane.
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: So yeah, he's hopeful.
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: And I hear a lot of people on the Ukrainian
• 22:16
  Speaker 8: side who are increasingly hopeful.
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: This time around.
• 22:19
  Speaker 8: Nobody thought that they would last four days, let alone
• 22:22
  Speaker 8: as long as they have. And I had read the
• 22:24
  Speaker 8: other day about an ingenious device they had where they
• 22:26
  Speaker 8: put up a weather balloon. It floats into Russia and
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: then drops a drone which goes on.
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: That's smart.
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: These guys are adaptable, and so that's why I think
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: in the end Ukraine will not be defeated.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I read this weekend they're going to produce two million
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and yes, you heard that right, America two million drones
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. I don't know how long it would take
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: America to get two million drones bought by the Pentagon,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: but I don't think it would be four years.
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: What do you think, Well, we'll see.
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: I mean, from what I understand, the people that I've
• 22:58
  Speaker 8: talked to and I actually have, we become a lot
• 23:01
  Speaker 8: more flexible and adaptable about scaling up to these things
• 23:03
  Speaker 8: because we realized that what the future requires. But I
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: will tell you this, I woke up this morning and
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: wrote down a dream that I had, a dream where
• 23:10
  Speaker 8: they went to Putin and they said Putin there is
• 23:12
  Speaker 8: a special sacred petrified tree in the Kremlin that is
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: leaking oil. And he says, is that bad? And they say, oh,
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: what's happened before? And when he says, well, when does
• 23:21
  Speaker 8: it happened before, they.
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: Said, oh, nineteen oh five, in nineteen seventeen.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: That was the dream that I had. So I wrote it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 8: Down, and I thought, I hope my dreams were prescient
• 23:30
  Speaker 8: about the strange leaking petrified oil tree in the basement
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: of the Kremlin.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: That is about the stranger's dream and very date specific,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, very bad Pacificus in two thousand and five.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, Lilax, Thank you. Follow them on at
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Ston Lilacs and followhim at Lilacs dot substack dot com.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. That music means. David M. Drucker, chief
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: political writer for The Dispatch, joins us. David, it's election
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: day in Texas. I'm a big John Cornyn fan. I'm
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a big Chip Roy fan. Both of them are underdogs,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: but with a shot to win. How late do you
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: think we're gonna have to wait tonight to get those
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: races called?
• 24:17
  Speaker 9: I just don't anticipate we're gonna have to wait too late.
• 24:20
  Speaker 10: Now, you know, for those of us on the East Coast,
• 24:22
  Speaker 10: it'll be a little bit late, but Texas is only
• 24:24
  Speaker 10: an hour behind, you know.
• 24:26
  Speaker 9: Unless this thing we're gonna go to.
• 24:27
  Speaker 10: A photo finish it is. I haven't seen any data
• 24:32
  Speaker 10: that suggests that, but these runoffs sometimes break late the
• 24:37
  Speaker 10: way primaries can break late.
• 24:38
  Speaker 9: So let's see what happens.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: You know, X is very anti Cornin, and I get
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that the ex activists, but that's not the real world.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: The real world is a primary in which Cornyn won.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: They beat Paxton and Wesley Hunt, with third President endorsed
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: allegedly because he'd seen polling. I'm not sure why corn
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: is a hundred percent with the President, and he made
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: himself some enemies in the Senate and doing so. My
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: argument on Friday, on Saturday on Fox or Sunday Morning
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: on Fox was president might be better off if John
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Cornyn won this thing, because he's got trouble in the Senate,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't he?
• 25:17
  Speaker 9: Yeah, he does, and at Cornyn beyad.
• 25:19
  Speaker 10: I mean, the president would be a whole lot better
• 25:21
  Speaker 10: for a number of reasons.
• 25:23
  Speaker 9: I mean, if you're.
• 25:23
  Speaker 10: Looking at it from from the point of view of
• 25:26
  Speaker 10: both electoral politics and the midium elections in Washington politics, right,
• 25:30
  Speaker 10: I mean, John Cornyn has been a loyal foot soldier
• 25:34
  Speaker 10: for Trump.
• 25:35
  Speaker 9: He's been a loyal Republican.
• 25:38
  Speaker 10: He you know, he's sort of in one of the
• 25:40
  Speaker 10: sins he's been dealing with with voters in Texas is
• 25:43
  Speaker 10: that he's old school. You know, whether you like this
• 25:45
  Speaker 10: or not, he's old school. So he doesn't spend a
• 25:48
  Speaker 10: lot of time on cable news. He governs, and he
• 25:51
  Speaker 10: governs with what's presented to him. If there's a Democratic president,
• 25:54
  Speaker 10: he does the best to achieve legislative outcomes that are
• 25:59
  Speaker 10: possible with that Democrat in the White House. When when
• 26:01
  Speaker 10: there's a Republican in the White House, which has been Trump,
• 26:05
  Speaker 10: you know, to the last three terms, then his accomplishments
• 26:09
  Speaker 10: are a little bit more favorable. You know, the Republican
• 26:12
  Speaker 10: voters said to like that more. But what he does
• 26:14
  Speaker 10: is he governs, then he goes home every six years
• 26:16
  Speaker 10: and he says, here's why you should rehire me. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 10: talked to a lot of Republican voters in Texas who
• 26:20
  Speaker 10: took that as a sign that he wasn't paying attention
• 26:22
  Speaker 10: to them except when he needed to get reelected. And
• 26:25
  Speaker 10: it's just his way of doing things is I'll do
• 26:27
  Speaker 10: the work that I'll come to you when it's time
• 26:29
  Speaker 10: to reinterview.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: What about Chip Roy, who is the opposite? I mean,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Chip Roy is never not on TV. That's he lives
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: on the fiery guy. I've endorsed him. I like chip
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I've known him. Awhile, why is he not favored?
• 26:46
  Speaker 10: I don't totally understand that race huge just because I
• 26:48
  Speaker 10: have not covered it that closely.
• 26:50
  Speaker 9: You know, what I will tell you.
• 26:51
  Speaker 10: Is and this doesn't totally I mean, there's no really
• 26:55
  Speaker 10: clean cut way to understand this. But there's a lot
• 26:57
  Speaker 10: of anti incumbent fervor going on in Republican circles. And
• 27:01
  Speaker 10: you know, that's why John Cornyon, in part why he
• 27:04
  Speaker 10: was having some trouble. Chip Roy could be suffering from
• 27:07
  Speaker 10: some of that. He's had to work hard in his
• 27:09
  Speaker 10: congressional races, and people have been looking for something fresh
• 27:14
  Speaker 10: for the office they're voting for. I mean, Ken Paxton's
• 27:16
  Speaker 10: been in office quite a long time, so it's not
• 27:18
  Speaker 10: like they're replacing you know, they'd be replacing John Corny
• 27:21
  Speaker 10: with a fresh face, but they would be replacing a
• 27:24
  Speaker 10: sitting senator with a news senator. And you know, obviously
• 27:27
  Speaker 10: with the with the Attorney General's race, either of them
• 27:29
  Speaker 10: will be new. But it just could be a case
• 27:32
  Speaker 10: of people that are itchy, trigger fingers, and of course,
• 27:37
  Speaker 10: you know Chip Roy didn't go along with all that
• 27:39
  Speaker 10: stolen election stuff, and that's been difficult for some Republicans
• 27:43
  Speaker 10: to live down in primaries.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Now, Uh, mister tall Rico is weird. I want to
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: quote the President is right, he's weird. But at Blue
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: is going to rage three billion dollars. I don't know
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: what they're going to raise for him. If it's Ken Paxton,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I don't think that I'll try very hard. And it's
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: John Cornyan, but I think they're going to find that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: he's a money machine. What say you on that prediction?
• 28:08
  Speaker 10: Yeah, well, you know, obviously, just like Win Red, Act
• 28:10
  Speaker 10: Blues a fundraising conduit, and I think that James tall
• 28:13
  Speaker 10: Rico is going to excite a lot of small dollar
• 28:17
  Speaker 10: donors on the Democratic side who will give through Act Blue,
• 28:22
  Speaker 10: And particularly if Ken Paxton's the nominee. I don't think
• 28:25
  Speaker 10: that taller Rico will raise as much money if Corn's
• 28:28
  Speaker 10: the nominee, but he'll still raise a lot. But with
• 28:30
  Speaker 10: Paxton's the nominee and the belief that it's possible to
• 28:33
  Speaker 10: defeat a flawed candidate and in otherwise very difficult state
• 28:37
  Speaker 10: for Democrats, he's going to raise money.
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: Hand over fist. That's not going to be an issue.
• 28:41
  Speaker 10: I think the issue the question will be can Ken
• 28:44
  Speaker 10: Paxton do something he's never done before because he's never
• 28:47
  Speaker 10: had to, but he's not been good at it, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 10: that has raised money. He'll get some small doll Trump
• 28:53
  Speaker 10: style donations.
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: For sure.
• 28:55
  Speaker 10: I think the low propensity Trump voter might you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 10: warm to him, and I'm sure the President will.
• 29:00
  Speaker 9: Encouraged donations to at least theoretically.
• 29:02
  Speaker 10: But I do know that a lot of Republican groups
• 29:05
  Speaker 10: that traditionally give in a race like this won't give
• 29:08
  Speaker 10: in a race like this if it's Paxton.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I want to switch now over to Graham Plattner. I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: have never seen a stack of bad stories pile up
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: this question. The Nazi tattoos like a month ago, so
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we've had just day after day of this guy is
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: not merely violent and extreme and bigoted in sexist. He's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: sadistic and he's going after veterans. He's going after Medal
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: of Honor recipients, their loved ones, and they're dead and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: their loved ones are not putting up with it. Does
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: he Do you think there are two Democrats on there?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: The governor didn't drop out. I mean her name's on
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the ballot to David Costello, Graham Plattner might have Bernie
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Sanders on his side, But what about that drip, drip
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: drip of the worst stories I've seen. Really, I don't
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: know how you survived that much lead.
• 30:02
  Speaker 10: Yeah, well, I mean I suppose the same way Ken
• 30:04
  Speaker 10: Paxton's been surviving that much lad, right. I mean this
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: is a little bit of a different thing. But you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 10: Democratic voters are hungry for change. They're hungry for somebody
• 30:12
  Speaker 10: who fights. And a lot of times, the way voters
• 30:15
  Speaker 10: look at these imperfections and flaws and downright bad behavior
• 30:20
  Speaker 10: and and and things of that nature, right, just downright
• 30:24
  Speaker 10: bad not good stuff you is, well, you're a normal
• 30:28
  Speaker 10: person who hasn't lived a perfect life. It's about time
• 30:31
  Speaker 10: we have somebody like you rather than these perfect cookie
• 30:34
  Speaker 10: cutter politicians and.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That prostitutes in South America. Uh stuff, I can't even
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: say in the air about portable toilets. It's the kind
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: of stuff where you wouldn't want the guy live in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: next door to you much. Let's say you're senter.
• 30:50
  Speaker 10: Yeah, well, I mean, look, I'm just pointing this out
• 30:53
  Speaker 10: to say that Democratic voters at major and outer are
• 30:56
  Speaker 10: a lot like Republican voters in that there's a lot
• 30:59
  Speaker 10: they can start if you're the right kind of candidate
• 31:01
  Speaker 10: at the right time.
• 31:03
  Speaker 9: I am not defending Graham Platiner.
• 31:05
  Speaker 10: Everything you've mentioned about him is absolutely true, and I'll
• 31:08
  Speaker 10: be writing about it. And I think Democrats who have
• 31:10
  Speaker 10: been very critical of Republicans and their support for Trump
• 31:13
  Speaker 10: as they see it, have a lot to answer for
• 31:16
  Speaker 10: if they're going to put up a grand Platiner, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 10: so far they are.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Yah. Yeah, it will be an interesting article. I look
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: forward to reading that in the Dispatch. David M. Drucker
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: follow him on X Follow me the next segment. Stay
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: tuned to the Quit Showing or An't even great to America.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewittt joined by the one and only Brett Beherr,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: chief political correspondent for Fox News, host of Special Report,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: which tonight will be airing from the Nixon Library in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: your Melinda, where Brett will be doing a talking book
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: signing about the Case for an America. The Case for
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: America and arguing on behalf of our nation is number
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: one New York Times bestseller. Brett, congratulations on that. Number
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: one is kind of hard to do, so that's a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: nice That's a nice spar.
• 32:01
  Speaker 11: First week out. Yeah, thanks for being a part of it. Obviously,
• 32:05
  Speaker 11: we've used a lot of contemporary voices, including yours, as
• 32:08
  Speaker 11: well as voices of the founders and other presidents. But
• 32:13
  Speaker 11: when History becomes number one in the New York Times
• 32:15
  Speaker 11: bestseller list, I think that's a decent sign as we
• 32:18
  Speaker 11: head to America two fifty, I'm psyched to be here
• 32:20
  Speaker 11: at the Nixon Library and Museum, and I'm actually staged
• 32:25
  Speaker 11: in your old office getting ready for this book event.
• 32:29
  Speaker 11: I'll do the show from out here, and I think
• 32:32
  Speaker 11: I've done pretty much every book to a great, great
• 32:36
  Speaker 11: crowd that fills the East room here at the library and.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: The overflow room. I want people to know, if they're
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: listening in LA right now, you'll be done at four
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: o'clock Pacific coach time. What times the event going to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: get underway tonight?
• 32:52
  Speaker 11: Brett the events at seven Pacific, And you got plenty
• 32:56
  Speaker 11: of time, and we'll do big event in the east room,
• 33:02
  Speaker 11: Q and A about the book, and I'll speak for
• 33:06
  Speaker 11: a little bit, and then we'll do a big signing
• 33:09
  Speaker 11: out front. And so you know, I'll say for sign
• 33:13
  Speaker 11: as many books as I can. It's been much I.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Want people to know it's a great venue and Brett
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: gets right up there close to the people. There are
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: usually seven hundred eight hundred people there for Brett, and
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I think especially this year, the case for America and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: are going on behalf of our nation. You'll get the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: patriots out, You'll get some youngsters out. I hope, and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I hope people don't forget Memorial Day does screw up
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: every schedule in the world. And they're thinking, I'm going
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to go Brett Bearing tomorrow and they think it's Monday,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: but it's Tuesday. It's tonight in your Belinda at seven pm. Brett,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: what do you make of my theory? I think your
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: book is clicking because it's the two hundred and fiftieth.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: You think you're getting back a wind at your back
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: because of that.
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: Yeah, think it is.
• 34:00
  Speaker 11: I mean, I think there is also this hunger to
• 34:03
  Speaker 11: talk about something bigger, you know, thirty thousand feet. A
• 34:07
  Speaker 11: lot of back and forth with politics, but we as
• 34:11
  Speaker 11: a country have a lot of great things that we've
• 34:14
  Speaker 11: only overcome and been past things. We've been in dark
• 34:18
  Speaker 11: places before. But there is a lot to look at
• 34:22
  Speaker 11: and say we are lucky to be here as we
• 34:25
  Speaker 11: get ready for July.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And you're a great supporter of the Presidential Library, not
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: just the Nixon Library, but all of them, and they
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: are all committed to civics. As you know. Jim Byron
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: was back there helping Marco Ribio as the deputy archivist
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: for a year and a half for President Trump and
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: he's back now at the Nixon Library, and all of
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: them are throwing in big time on the Civics thing.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So you'll get the benefit of that as well. And
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I think the Presidential Library survey a great purpose that way.
• 34:52
  Speaker 11: They really do. I mean, there are treasure troves each
• 34:56
  Speaker 11: one of these books that I've done of the sixth presidents,
• 34:59
  Speaker 11: you know, which we've uncovered these nuggets of history, and
• 35:03
  Speaker 11: that made the quilt of the stories that we told
• 35:05
  Speaker 11: in those books. This book combines all of that as
• 35:08
  Speaker 11: well as contemporary voices.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:09
  Speaker 11: I'm here at the library and there's a America two
• 35:12
  Speaker 11: fifty exhibit that I've just been walking around, amazing stuff,
• 35:16
  Speaker 11: including a copy of the Decoration of Independence that was
• 35:19
  Speaker 11: used to send to the colonies as it was done.
• 35:22
  Speaker 11: So I mean it just ties into everything as we
• 35:25
  Speaker 11: get ready for this anniversary.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Well, let's turn to the adlines, Brett, because I know
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you've been covering the war as close as well as
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: well as anyone with sources that are the equal of anyone.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I'm in the fog of war. I have no idea
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: what's going on. What's your assessment of what's going on?
• 35:43
  Speaker 11: Listen. I've talked to the president of a few times.
• 35:46
  Speaker 11: There are some days where he feels optimistic. Other days
• 35:49
  Speaker 11: he feels like he's dealing with negotiators from the mafia.
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: I think that the biggest thing that we know to
• 35:56
  Speaker 11: be true is that the communication and command and control
• 35:59
  Speaker 11: in a row on is haphazard, and it's there is
• 36:04
  Speaker 11: a very public debate between the ERGYC and the President
• 36:08
  Speaker 11: of Iran just yesterday opening up internet access and the
• 36:14
  Speaker 11: IERGYC said he doesn't have the authority to do that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 11: I think that that's what we're seeing, this push and pull,
• 36:20
  Speaker 11: this tug, and you know, if the IERGC wins out,
• 36:26
  Speaker 11: I don't think there's going to be a deal, but
• 36:29
  Speaker 11: you know, Mark Arrubio and others suggests, you know, there's
• 36:32
  Speaker 11: still time and it may take days.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Well, the internet got back up to thirty five percent
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: operability day. I don't know if it's dropped down again
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: in the hours since I began my program, but it
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: got up to thirty five percent of their standard usage,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: so some people are getting on. So we should be
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: able to get some reports about the dire conditions. And
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: here let me ask you about the incident yesterday in
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the middle of the negotiation. The IRGC sends out two boats,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: two speedboats and trying to drop minds and we destroy them.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Then they try and shoot down on whatever airplanes and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: we destroy their missile site. That's not like ideal. That
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: might be the command and control problem you're talking about.
• 37:12
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, if you have some portion of that
• 37:15
  Speaker 11: leadership saying that's to America still stands for US, that's
• 37:19
  Speaker 11: not exactly a negotiating ploy. And I think that there
• 37:24
  Speaker 11: is a definite split here. And you know, I don't know.
• 37:30
  Speaker 11: You know, they called the US military obviously called that
• 37:32
  Speaker 11: a defensive action with the mines and with what happened
• 37:36
  Speaker 11: with the shot at the plane, but they're not. They're
• 37:42
  Speaker 11: only hours away from pulling the trigger on a more
• 37:46
  Speaker 11: offensive operation taking out of other targets. And I think
• 37:50
  Speaker 11: that the real question is will the straight open and
• 37:53
  Speaker 11: what happens with the nuclear material, Those two things are
• 37:57
  Speaker 11: kind of cut and dry.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, to Israel's reporting tonight that the Israeli defense forces
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: have pushed north of their previous boundary, north of the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Lebanon security Zone, Prime Minister Nano saying they are seizing
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: strategic position. But it looks at the casual observer like me, Oh,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: they're going further north than they've gone since the nineteen
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: eighty two war. And that's because of the drones and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the line of sight and all the different things like that.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Do you think those two can be uncoupled in the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: eyes of the radicals in any Iran, the people who
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: are the hardest of the hardcore.
• 38:32
  Speaker 11: I don't actually, And that's another, you know, element of
• 38:35
  Speaker 11: this as these negotiations continue. Clearly Israel has made made
• 38:43
  Speaker 11: it clear. And then maybe Natnao was on the phone
• 38:45
  Speaker 11: with President Trump today and we understand the message was
• 38:50
  Speaker 11: we have to go after has Belah because negotiating with
• 38:53
  Speaker 11: Lebanon is not succeeding in stopping the threat from from Hesbelam.
• 38:58
  Speaker 11: And they had a lot of success obviously with the
• 39:01
  Speaker 11: pagers and everything else, but the threat and the incoming
• 39:05
  Speaker 11: is still coming.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: All right, now I want to switch over to politics, Brett.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I am a big fan of John Cornyn. He's been
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a guest for every year that I've been on the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: air often Supreme Court justice in Texas. Mandal law, very senatorial,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: very very constructive for Texas. And I think Ken Paxson
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: has his work cut out from if he went the nomination.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I think he diet very well lose. It was easy
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: for me. Why is that happening? Do you think?
• 39:32
  Speaker 11: I don't know the answers to that, other than the
• 39:35
  Speaker 11: President made a decision. That's where he was putting his
• 39:39
  Speaker 11: weight on the scale. You know, there were a couple
• 39:42
  Speaker 11: of dust ups with John Cornyn, and you know he's
• 39:46
  Speaker 11: old school Republican, of the of the mold of Mitch McConnell.
• 39:50
  Speaker 11: But he has supported the president a lot. You know,
• 39:54
  Speaker 11: it depends on what percentage you look at on the voting.
• 39:59
  Speaker 11: I think that's is about, you know, appealing to the base,
• 40:03
  Speaker 11: which which feels that Ken Paxson is more in line
• 40:07
  Speaker 11: with where they are. He obviously has vulnerabilities, as we
• 40:10
  Speaker 11: talked about many times, but so does Tall Rico in
• 40:14
  Speaker 11: in Texas, and uh, I don't know why he weighed
• 40:18
  Speaker 11: in the way he did. I haven't asked him specifically
• 40:20
  Speaker 11: about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's, you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 11: a tight race here. Corner has a lot of history
• 40:27
  Speaker 11: in Texas, and you never know.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I'll be watching tonight. I assume there will be election
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: coverage later in the night on Fox. Let me let
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: me finish by talking about Graham Plattner, because I have
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: never seen a series of negative stories, I mean really
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: powerful negative story stack up, beginning with the Nazi tattoo,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: but to this weekend, the portable potty story, the American
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: snipers story, the wounded trying who took to the Internet story,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it's he is a ricochet rabbit, out of control leftist.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's a chance that that maybe Janet
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Mills gets back in she and she's still on the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: on the ballot.
• 41:16
  Speaker 11: It's up to imagine, because you look at the rally
• 41:20
  Speaker 11: that Bernie Sanders had for him just the other day yesterday,
• 41:24
  Speaker 11: and you know there's there's passion on the far left
• 41:27
  Speaker 11: of the party, uh, even after all of this, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 11: you know there are Democrats weighing in about some of
• 41:34
  Speaker 11: those posts, like the he should have died the posts
• 41:37
  Speaker 11: about the veteran and yeah, I think that's that's a problem.
• 41:42
  Speaker 11: It is something Susan Collins is probably going to jump on.
• 41:47
  Speaker 11: And the question is whether the populism on the left
• 41:51
  Speaker 11: can overcome some of that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 7: We will.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: We will find out tonight and Brett there, good luck
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: at the Nixon Library today seven pm Pacific time. If
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you're driving around California, there are still tickets available. Go
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: down to your Belinda, meet Brett, get a book signed.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: You'll enjoy The Case for an America, The Case for America,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: an argument on behalf of our nation. Thank you, Brett.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Watch him as well six pm Eastern on specially Welcome
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: back in America. I'm here. You are joined by Bethany Mandel.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: She the co host or the co author of Themomwars
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: dot substack dot com. Bethany, do I have a book
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: for you? This is called Returning by Nicholas Lehman, and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it is a search for home across three centuries. Nick
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: grew up as a reformed, barely barely Jewish kid the
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: fifth generation. His great great grandfather, Jacob Lehman, came to
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the country in the mid eighteen hundreds. Then Bernard Lemon
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: moved back to New Orleans montefoty eight Lemon, his grandfather
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: was on the Harvard Law Review with Felix Frankfurter. His father,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Thomas Lemon, did everything he could to assimilate in the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, but of course he was always a Jew.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: And then Nick is this great writer for the New
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Yorker and Dean Emeritis at the Columbia. It's a story
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: about American Jewry that I just I know nothing about
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: New Orleans and very little about American jeury. Do you
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: know about the split between German jewy and East German jeury,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: I mean Eastern European jury?
• 43:28
  Speaker 12: I don't think so well.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Apparently the German Jews, like Walter Lippman, really did not
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: like the millions of Eastern European Jews coming and reckoning
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: their good deal, and they were themselves antisemitic. But because
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of the unusual nature of his family, the archive is
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: fabulous and so returning. Here's the sad part. I want
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to know if you agree with me. I think it's
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the best book I've read in many years, without even
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: coming close. I don't think I can't win any awards
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: because he's Jewish. What do you think.
• 44:03
  Speaker 12: No, that's a thing. It's a real thing.
• 44:06
  Speaker 13: It's very hard for authors to get book deals and
• 44:08
  Speaker 13: get on the New York Times bestseller list. But I
• 44:10
  Speaker 13: actually have a bone to pick with you about your
• 44:12
  Speaker 13: book recommendations. Wow, oh, you do this to me with
• 44:15
  Speaker 13: a lot of frequency. You tell me to read a book,
• 44:19
  Speaker 13: and then I go and I read the book. I
• 44:21
  Speaker 13: do my homework. Looming Tower, Rachel Goldberg Poland's book. I
• 44:25
  Speaker 13: sobbed through that book. Try for yourself, expecting you to talk.
• 44:28
  Speaker 12: To me about it the next week.
• 44:30
  Speaker 13: I do my homework and I go and I read
• 44:32
  Speaker 13: the books that you demand, and then you don't quiz
• 44:35
  Speaker 13: me on it afterwards.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know that I could. Okay, I will
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: ask you about Rachel's book. As a mom, how much
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: more significantly difficult is it for you to read it
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: than as a dad or a granddad.
• 44:51
  Speaker 12: It was very painful. I mean, I have four boys.
• 44:54
  Speaker 13: Hirsh was her oldly son who was taken into Gaza
• 44:57
  Speaker 13: and executed a year into his tivity almost but I
• 45:02
  Speaker 13: knew a lot of the people that she was talking about,
• 45:04
  Speaker 13: including John and Rachel themselves, and so it was very
• 45:07
  Speaker 13: painful from a personal perspective, which is why I was
• 45:10
  Speaker 13: mad at you for demanding that I read it, and
• 45:13
  Speaker 13: then you never asked me about it afterwards.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Until I See You Again is one of the most
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: touching books, but it's so sorrow inducing. That's not returning.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Returning is an education. Returning is a fabulous and Jacob,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: you're a convert, right.
• 45:35
  Speaker 12: Kind of? My dad was Jewish.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're a convert, and so his great great grandmother
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: is a convert. And there are other converts in here,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and the whole meshing of the conservative Orthodox Reform. I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know any of this stuff, and
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: it's I think you'll find it fascinating and it will
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: not be sad. It's not sad. It's difficult, but I'll
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: go there. Now. Let me ask you about Graham Platner,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: because I was talking about John Cornan. I love John Cornyn.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I think he's a great I hope everyone in Texas
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: goes out and vote for him. But he's an old
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: school Republican like me. You know, he's been around. He's
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: a Reagan Republican, and so I think sometimes people in
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Texas online are very angry about I don't know what
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: they're mad about because he's a great cenator, But what
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: about Graham Platner. Can you imagine a Democrat voting for
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: him after everything that has come out about him.
• 46:35
  Speaker 12: It's really wild. And it was interesting because.
• 46:37
  Speaker 13: Over the weekend there was there was a Democratic representative
• 46:42
  Speaker 13: who said, like, this should be disqualifying. And you know,
• 46:45
  Speaker 13: a lot of Democrats scolded Republicans about the fact that
• 46:49
  Speaker 13: a lot of us fell in line behind Trump when
• 46:53
  Speaker 13: they felt like we shouldn't. And to them, I say,
• 46:56
  Speaker 13: here's your moment, y'all, with someone way.
• 46:59
  Speaker 12: More problematic than Donald Trump.
• 47:01
  Speaker 13: Graham Platner is an objectively bad person and he has
• 47:06
  Speaker 13: the record to prove it on his Reddit. Like that's
• 47:09
  Speaker 13: all you need is to just go through everything he
• 47:11
  Speaker 13: ever said on Reddit and it's very clear. And so
• 47:15
  Speaker 13: here you go, Democrats, here's your moment to decide if
• 47:19
  Speaker 13: you want to stand behind a guy who knowingly had
• 47:22
  Speaker 13: a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest for eighteen years.
• 47:25
  Speaker 13: And don't give me that I didn't know it, because
• 47:27
  Speaker 13: he was telling people years and years and years before
• 47:30
  Speaker 13: he decided to run for Senate.
• 47:32
  Speaker 12: This is my totten comp that I can tell you
• 47:35
  Speaker 12: with certainty.
• 47:36
  Speaker 13: And so it is very frustrating watching Democrats refuse to
• 47:41
  Speaker 13: distance themselves from someone that should not be a defining
• 47:45
  Speaker 13: person for them and for their philosophy and their beliefs
• 47:49
  Speaker 13: or whatever. But this is the problem with the left.
• 47:52
  Speaker 13: They have decided to go the route of the DSA.
• 47:54
  Speaker 13: And these people are radicals. A man running Adam running
• 48:01
  Speaker 13: for the house seat in New Jersey, who's probably going
• 48:05
  Speaker 13: to win his primary and he's definitely going to win
• 48:07
  Speaker 13: the general. He's friends with the Blind Chic. He was
• 48:10
  Speaker 13: a character witness for the Blind Chiic. This is what
• 48:14
  Speaker 13: the Democratic Party has become.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Any we learned about the Blind Shake and the Looming Tower,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: didn't you?
• 48:20
  Speaker 13: I did which you told me to read, and it
• 48:22
  Speaker 13: was very educational, and then you never asked.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Me in that way. I just did. I just asked
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: you about it, said check that out. So fetching missus
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: SHWTT is reading The Blind Shake and or the Looming
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Tower and she looks at me and says, why do
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I have to do that? And I said, you have
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: to do this because you have to know how crazy
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: these people are. And by these people, I mean the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: radical radicals on both Shia and Sunni extremes. And that's
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: why I don't think the president's going to be able
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to pull off the deal with Iron, do.
• 48:49
  Speaker 12: You No, I don't.
• 48:51
  Speaker 10: I don't.
• 48:52
  Speaker 12: I don't think that there's a deal possible.
• 48:54
  Speaker 13: These are these This is a suicidal regime and run
• 48:58
  Speaker 13: by suicidal mania. And you really get that picture very
• 49:02
  Speaker 13: clearly when you read the Looming Tower. And I'm shocked
• 49:05
  Speaker 13: that someone who lives in your home has not been
• 49:08
  Speaker 13: browbeaten into reading it, because that was the very first
• 49:11
  Speaker 13: question you asked me the very first time we spoke.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Well, I do that with the first time I have
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: guests on and the reason I add a rob beater
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: because I am marry to her and she will browbeat back.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to be browbeaten about vegetables. I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: don't like them. The IDF pushes north of Lebanon security Zone, Natanya,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: who says Israel seizing strategic positions. That's at the top
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of the times of Israel. You know, people who live
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: in the north, they're applauding, are they not.
• 49:39
  Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean I think that they're hoping that this
• 49:43
  Speaker 13: solves the crisis of the fact that drones have been
• 49:45
  Speaker 13: coming over and rockets have been coming over. I used
• 49:48
  Speaker 13: to know people who live in the North. I don't
• 49:50
  Speaker 13: anymore because they moved because it became an untenable place
• 49:53
  Speaker 13: to live.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: So my view is they have to go as far
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: north as it takes to stop the drones. Agree.
• 50:04
  Speaker 13: I mean easy for me to say from here in Maryland,
• 50:07
  Speaker 13: but I mean probably yeah.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Well, if only because he's got to stand for election
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: in three months. He can't stand for election if the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: people in Galilee can't live in Galilee, right.
• 50:21
  Speaker 12: I guess. But I think he's got far bigger problems
• 50:24
  Speaker 12: than that.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Is there a wisham luck? Are you making a prediction
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: of mister Bennett as the next prime minister? Now?
• 50:33
  Speaker 13: I mean there's a lot of anger across the board
• 50:35
  Speaker 13: at Natagna who he is the king of political strategy.
• 50:39
  Speaker 12: I'm not writing them off, but he's got an.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Uphole battle, Okay. Bethany Mandel will continue to talk about that.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Don't forget returning. There'll be a quiz next week in
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: addition to When I See you next from Where I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: See You Again. Thank you, Bethany. Follow on exit. Bethany
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: sean dark reader at the mom Whoars dot substat dot com.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hugh, and I hope you
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: check town Hall every day. If you do, you are
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: up to date on the work of Kyle Olsen, my
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: guest right now. I've been doing quite a lot of
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: eye opening work on what the Department of Homeland Security
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: did and did not do with children and with sex
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: trafficking in Midtown New York. Kyle, I want to start
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: with that latter story. When I go to New York,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I stay on forty fourth Street. That brothel you were
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: covering was two blocks over and nobody knew about it.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: How does that even happen?
• 51:35
  Speaker 14: That's right, Well, that's a very good question. And yes,
• 51:39
  Speaker 14: if you look at the map of.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Midtown Manhattan, it was literally between Fox News Channel and
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: NBC News, two of the largest media networks in the world.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: And also it was right in the Diamond District, which
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: all over the Diamond District it says it's being monitored
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: by the nypdy camera And this was happening right under
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: people's noses. So it's a good question why that was
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: going on.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I walked down forty six a lot because I
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: stay on forty fourth and I've got to cut back
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: and forth between fifth and six, and I read that.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I just said, how in the world. And then they
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: closed up shop before anyone did anything, right, they moved
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the brothel somewhere else with underage kids.
• 52:22
  Speaker 14: Yes. Yeah, So basically what happened was.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: There there were investigators that were watching this cataloging what.
• 52:32
  Speaker 14: Was going on.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: They actually, you can you can find links to the
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: videos in the stories. They were actually cataloging the garbage
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: that was coming out of this building and documenting exactly
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: what was going on. And the federal authorities were alerted
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: and the best they could tell, nothing ever happened.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Noh, Kyle. It will cause people to lose sleep because
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: they want to think about young children being trafficked. But
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: it's happening under our noses across the United States. Good
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: work by you and by town Hall. Now wrap that,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: if you will into Javier Bessara's bid to become governor.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I don't. I can't imagine. Javier Bsara gives empty suits
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: a bad name. Why should he be held accountable for
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: what happened with these missing children?
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: Well, so the big picture here, taking a step back
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: from what happened in Midtown, the big picture here is
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: that during the bind administration, you had hundreds of thousands
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: of unaccompanied alien children coming across the border. Now, obviously
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: you had Mayarchus who was incompetent, and he was allowing
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: these kids to come across the border. But once they
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: came across the border, they were essentially under the protection
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: if you want to call it, that of Health and
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Human Services, which of course was Bisera. And what these
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: videos show, which, as you said, you can find them
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: town hall dot com just search my name Kyle Olsen.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: But what you can see is agency workers, So agencies
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: were getting federal money, but then also individuals that were
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: working for the federal government just saying just plainly that
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: kids were being sold, kids were going to Cartel's, kids
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: were being prostituted, all sorts of horrible things. And the
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: bottom line was the Trump administrator or the Biden administration,
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: whether it was Biden himself, whether it was may Orchis,
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: whether it was Besara, they knew what was going on
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: and they did nothing to stop it.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw the debate or the interview.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: It was actually an interview with Channel nine where Javier
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Massa said, oh, we didn't lose those kids, we knew
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: they went to work in the slaughterhouse, or we knew
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: that they went to work in the twenty four set.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: It was like he really was admitting that they knew
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: that these kids were not being but he failed, He
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: utterly failed. How could anyone possibly imagine he could be
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: the governor of California.
• 55:08
  Speaker 14: Well, that's that's a very good question.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: And they absolutely did fail, because what the people who
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: were caught on camera were saying was kids were coming
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: across the border, and some of them the first thing
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: they did, they didn't go to school, They went to work.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: There was one story of where a child was actually
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: physically living in the factory, working in the factory in
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: order to pay the debt back to the cartel that
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: got through got them through the Mexican desert. And there
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: were just countless stories like this. And so, you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: voters will have to decide what they want to do
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: about Bisera. But if you look at his record when
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: he was at AHHS, it's a disaster. It was a
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: disaster for humanity and for children and for kids that
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: were coming to America. They were completely vulnerable, they were abused,
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: and that happened on his watch. And as you said
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: in that interview, he dodged, he dismissed. He has not
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: been held accountable for what the bind administration did.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: People vote fromhim. They should be a shame. You should
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: be very proud of your work, Kyle. It's a fabulous
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: bit of reporting Over at town Hall. Look up Kyle
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Olson OLSN and you'll find all of his work on
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: midtown sex trafficking, on disappeared children working under terrible condition.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Kyle is an investigative reporter in the truest sense of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: the word. Thank you, Kyle. I'll be right back in America.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Stay too. Well.
• 56:39
  Speaker 15: Look, I think our position is well stated. The President
• 56:41
  Speaker 15: had a very important, i think historic call just a
• 56:43
  Speaker 15: couple of days ago with a number of leaders from
• 56:45
  Speaker 15: the region. I think the strong alignment and agreement on
• 56:48
  Speaker 15: what a preliminary draft should look like, I think like
• 56:52
  Speaker 15: anything with something like this, and it's going to take
• 56:54
  Speaker 15: a couple of days to settle on even down to
• 56:57
  Speaker 15: the disagreements over a word sentence, So we'll have.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: To work through that.
• 57:03
  Speaker 15: If there's going to be a deal, we're going to
• 57:04
  Speaker 15: have to work through that. But this is a you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 15: it's either going to be a good deal, but there
• 57:08
  Speaker 15: isn't going to be one.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: I would add to that, America, I'm you Hewitt that
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: the headline at the Times of Israel's idea pushes north
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: of Lebanon security Zone Netanya, who says Israel seizing strategic
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: positions to explain it all for us or joined by
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Byron York, chief political corresponding for the DC Examiner of
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, and he'll tell us
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: exactly what I cannot figure out after watching everything for
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: seventy two hours. What's going on? Byron?
• 57:37
  Speaker 16: He got me, Hugh, next question?
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: No, it says here you will answer that what's going on?
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Because I don't know?
• 57:45
  Speaker 14: All right?
• 57:46
  Speaker 16: So okay, well, let's let's go through your points of
• 57:48
  Speaker 16: confusion here.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Number one, are we at war with Iran?
• 57:55
  Speaker 16: I think we're in something of the in the middle
• 57:57
  Speaker 16: between war and peace with Iran. Obviously, the seafires lasted
• 58:01
  Speaker 16: long as in the war itself. The president obviously does
• 58:05
  Speaker 16: not want to I mean, we did a little bit
• 58:08
  Speaker 16: just today or yesterday, but the president obviously does not
• 58:12
  Speaker 16: want to resume full scale hostilities. And there continue to
• 58:18
  Speaker 16: be negotiations which I think have some serious laws in them,
• 58:22
  Speaker 16: but there they are.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Do you think that there is much of a chance
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: that Iran will at this point, without further pounding, agree
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: to give us the enriched uranium?
• 58:34
  Speaker 16: Well, I wonder if if Iran, with for further pounding,
• 58:37
  Speaker 16: would agree to give us the enriched uranium. And so
• 58:42
  Speaker 16: I don't I don't know. I mean, obviously, the administration
• 58:47
  Speaker 16: over the weekend, coming up with the no dust, no
• 58:50
  Speaker 16: dollars thing, says that there's not gonna be any settlement
• 58:54
  Speaker 16: at all unless Iron turns over the the enrich uranium.
• 59:01
  Speaker 16: So I don't think we've gotten any indication from the Iranians.
• 59:06
  Speaker 16: I mean, they've always said, well, we don't want to
• 59:08
  Speaker 16: we don't want to have a nuclear program. Okay, we
• 59:10
  Speaker 16: don't believe that. Uh, they've always said we're not doing anything. Well,
• 59:14
  Speaker 16: we don't believe that either, because we have proof that
• 59:15
  Speaker 16: they worked for years on this and so yeah, I
• 59:21
  Speaker 16: think even if they said they were going to hand
• 59:23
  Speaker 16: over this stuff, the idea of actually affecting the handover
• 59:27
  Speaker 16: and make sure making sure it is everything would be
• 59:30
  Speaker 16: an enormously complex understated undertaking.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: They also said they only had missiles that would go
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: two thousand kilometers and then they almost got the Diego Garcia,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: which is twenty five percent further than that. Let me
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: ask you, in terms of the Israelis, they're moving north
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in Lebanon is to me the most significant thing, because
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: that the Iadtola or the IRGC is insisting that they're
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: being a parallel peace process. Let and that ain't happening.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: That's not happening.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 16: Well, I think it was a mistake of the United
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 16: States to enter into a war with a single ally
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 16: that had different interests than ours. So I think this
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 16: Lebanon thing is a very complicating factor. I mean, look,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 16: I think Israel can do what he wants to do
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 16: in Israel in Lebanon, but it's part of since there
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 16: are ally in Iran, it's part of this whole deal.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 16: So I think that's enormously complicated things in a way
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 16: that didn't have to be that complicated.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Now, the most impressive thing I saw and bought. It
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: had set off a bunch of my followers who with TDS.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: The President posted yesterday, by the way, all of our
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: allies have to join the Abraham Accords, and I pointed out,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: that's kind of brilliant. Jiu jitsu for the Gulf states
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: that aren't already in the Abraham Accords to say you
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: want our help, you're going to join the Abraham Accord.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, did that set off the TDS. I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: don't know why, but it did. I thought it was
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: a brilliant stroke.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 16: Well it set it off. Well, it was a brilliant stroke.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 16: It set it off because they thought, well, Trump has
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 16: messed this up. He's dug himself into a hole, and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 16: now he's trying this, this, this, you know, hail Mary
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 16: play to try to get out of his hole, and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 16: we resistance don't want him to get out of this hole.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 16: So I think that's the way they they view this.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 16: Whether this you know, look, if it works with any
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 16: of these countries, then you've increased the number of countries
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 16: in the Abraham of Courts, which is a good thing.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Of the countries that are listed, and that would be
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: the key ones would be cutter, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Those are the big three. Which one do you think
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: he said one of them might have a problem signing
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: on Which one do you think that is?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 16: Gosh, you know, the biggest and most important is Saudi
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 16: Arabia yep. And I almost think that they would be
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 16: I'm not saying any of these would be easy, but
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 16: that they would be the first one to do it.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I hope they are. I don't think they will because
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: they need the most defense. We can defend Kuwait pretty easily,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: at least our base there. I'm not sure if we
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: can defend the oil wells and Cutter. There's no defending Cutter.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Cutter is really screwed. I read today that they're down
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent production after one volley of attacks, and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: they don't have an overland pipeline. Did you know that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: bylin thet they have no alternative?
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 16: I think I did know that there's not a lot
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 16: of overland pipelines. If there were a lot of easy
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 16: access to overland pipelines, that you wouldn't have this problem
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 16: in the pursin Gulf.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: So they're really up against a wall and they're trying
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: to buy Iranian favors. Do you think we allow them
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: to do that that?
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 16: I don't know. You would hope not. Obviously. Obviously we're
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 16: very upset by anybody who simply pays the ransom or
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 16: the sea or the environmental fee to go through the Strait,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 16: So we certainly be upset.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: With that, all right, last question. We saw the White
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: House bark at Mike Pompeo. Then we saw Ted Cruz
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham I say the outlines of the deal. Then
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: we saw Tom Cotton repost Lindsey Graham. I don't think
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of support for anything that approaches a
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: week deal, do you.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 12: Oh?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 16: Yeah, absolutely not. That's why. That's what had happened was
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 16: when the President, I think it was on Saturday, came
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 16: out and said deals very close. It's going to happen
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 16: really soon. And we know now that nothing happens really
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 16: soon in this but that's what he said. The deal's
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 16: really close, just working it out, going to happen very soon.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 16: After that followed a spade of reporting and leaks about
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 16: what was in it, and it made it look like
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 16: it was a week deal, like the United States was
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 16: basically going to end the blockade and start handing over
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 16: money in terms of sanctioned relief and unfrozen assets, start
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 16: handing over money in the billions of dollars to a
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 16: rund before they really do anything. So the administration was,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 16: you know, very very upset about that and on Sunday
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 16: began a heavy, pretty heavy pushback, and so I think
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 16: that they've made it very very clear that they would
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 16: not accept any of those deals.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: If they did, that would crack the base, wouldn't it.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I think it would crack the base. Do you agree? Oh?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 16: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: So it's a lock in a hard place. But I'm
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: counting on Trump's experience to get us through that. As
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: of right now, no new news out of the Middle East.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Cation Hi there, thanks for listening to the Highly Concentrated
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  Speaker 1: at The New Yorker. He's an acquaintance of mine from
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and I was just telling him off air,
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  Speaker 1: this is really a remarkable book for a lot of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: I have seven pages of notes and a two page outline.
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  Speaker 1: I won't get through all of it, but Nick, welcome back.
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  Speaker 1: Of the hundreds of books I've read in the twenty
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: years since we got to know each other, I would
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: say this one brings me as much joy because it
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: brings me so much knowledge that I did not know.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example to start, Walter Lippmann, who
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I've known about for years. Of course, I had no
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: idea that he was generally unsympathetic to Jews and that
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: he never mentioned the Holocaust during his entire the height
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: of his career. And then he said, my sympathies are
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: with the non Jews. There's stuff like this throughout the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: whole book. Was that a surprise to you?
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: Well, some of it I knew, I guess.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 17: Just to start us off, I grew up in a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 17: world that's very much like the world Walter Limann grew
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 17: up in which is. But for a hundred years there
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 17: was a huge division in the Jewish War between the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 17: to use our terminology, the German Jews and the Russian Jews.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 17: We were the German Jews. We came here earlier, we
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 17: were more assimilated. We tried to hold ourselves apart from
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 17: the other Jews and were much resented for that. Walter
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 17: Lehmann was also a German Jew, so I was pretty
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 17: familiar with the way I was raised, which is never
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 17: fading Jewish causes in public. And that's the price you
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 17: will be accepted if you don't advertise the fact that
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 17: you're Jewish. It's like passing for black people.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 7: Used to be. I guess now.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: What I found fascinating is that you can choose an identity,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: and you can choose a secondary identity, but sometimes they
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: can't be merged. And you've kind of changed identity going
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: from being a New Orleans Southerner to being a New
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: York Jew. And it's not an easy transition, and we'll
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: talk about that as we go along. But I have
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: a very odd, but a very odd question to start with.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: I hope I don't offend you. Will you be buried
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: with your parents in New Orleans or in New York.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: You were going right to it.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 17: That is a question I am in What would I say?
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 17: You know, like the Iran piece talks, that's my talks
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 17: with my life about this subject. So let's go back
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 17: to the German Jews. So this is typical of our story.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 17: In New Orleans, there's a high society cemetery called I
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 17: used to be called Metauri Cemetery. Now it's called Lake Lawn,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 17: and there's one little neighborhood that's for the German Jewish elite.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 7: So no, when I said.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 17: Before, no Russian Jews can be buried there, No Christians
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 17: can be buried there, No German Jews can be buried
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 17: outside of the little German Jewish plot. And that sort
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 17: of stands for everything about how I was raised in
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 17: New Orleans. So you know, by Jewish law, I'm not
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 17: supposed to be buried there because it's not a Jewish cemetery.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 17: There's a space being held for me in a Jewish cemetery.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 17: But you know, thirty of my relatives are buried there,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 17: including my parents, going back to the nineteenth century. So
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 17: you went right to a live marital issue.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: For me, Well, it occurred to me, as those of
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: us who get our three score and ten down, we
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: begin to think about things like that, and at the
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: end of year you're talking about where your family is,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and why summer in Cincinnati, and why summer in New Orleans,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and why there might be a random lemon or two
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: in New York. It just occurred to me, You'll have
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: to make that choice. I want to begin in the middle,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: and for the benefit of the audience, we're talking about
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: five generations of Lemons here, Jacob, Benjamin, Montefiori, Mordecai, Thomas,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: and Nick. And I want to begin in the middle
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: with your grandfather Montafori Mordecai born in eighteen eighty four,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: who goes by the name Pop. And I'm going to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: go with Pop because Montefiori is hard for me. As
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: much of it all right, I had, Hey, you've written
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: more about the court packing plan of eighteen nineteen thirty
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: seven to eight then any other book out there. I
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: think court packing is unconstitutional, by the way, And your
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: dad was friends with Felix Frankfurt, and like they were
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: your grandfather, your grandfather, and they were horrified by the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: court court packing plan, thinking it was a gesture worthy
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: of Huey Long, a first step in the direction of dictatorship.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: That's wild. Was that all new to you?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 17: No, that wasn't new to me, because you know, so
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 17: just to sketch it out. My grandfather was lucky enough
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 17: to have been a classmate at Harvard Law School class
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 17: of nineteen o six with Felix Frankfurt, the future Supreme
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 17: Court justice, and they were intimate friends for half a
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 17: century and more after that, living in different cities. So
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 17: they had this huge correspondence going back and forth. So
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 17: if listeners don't know, FDR was very frustrated when he
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 17: was president that the conservative Supreme Court kept batting down
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 17: his legislation and declaring it unconstitutional. So he said, look,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 17: the Constitution doesn't specify how many members the Court should have,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 17: so let's just expand it.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 7: I just want to landslide victory.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 17: I'll throw three or four more justices on there, and
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 17: then I won't keep having my laws slap down. So
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 17: this was the plan that he proposed. Now, Frankfurter, who
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 17: was very very close to Roosevelt and was appointed to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 17: the Court in nineteen thirty nine, desperately wanted to be
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 17: on the Supreme Court. The entire legal establishment, including the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 17: liberal legal establishment, was horrified by the court packing plan.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 17: So Frankfurter had to confront the disapproval of his friends,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 17: who expected him, like them, to oppose the court packing plan. Instead,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 17: he kept his mouth shut and said absolutely nothing about it.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 17: He offered sort of tortured rationales for why he wasn't
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 17: saying anything and having said nothing, and the plan died
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 17: and FDR then appointed him to the Supreme Court. So
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 17: there we go. An interesting irony is Frankfurter was considered
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 17: a radical left appointment to the Court, and now in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 17: the legal academy is considered.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: No, no, he's sort of a right wing He's one
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: of ours, right, Yeah. I got to say, though, your
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: grandfather Pop is such an impressive man. He spoke at
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: Cardozo's memorial service. He was He went to DC in
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen thirty nine to testify before Congress
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: on behalf of an American version of Great Britain's Kinder Transport.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Bravo to him didn't work, and his telegram of congratulations
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: to Frank further on page one nine, I want to
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: read it. I do not know in what capacity. I'm
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: most happy about your nomination as friend, classmate, lawyer, Jew,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: American citizen. But it is great enough to fill me
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: up in every capacity. How proud you should be in
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: your souls. His wife included here, what a record for
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: an immigrant Jew unaided saved by his own extraordinary quality.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: The Senate approved him unanimously. Did you get did you
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: get to know him really well? I mean, did you
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: have my grandfather of him? Yeah? Pop?
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 17: No, Well, he died when I was five, so I
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 17: remember him a little bit, but not very much. But
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 17: you know, when you read that letter, it kind of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 17: choked me up. It's pretty moving that you know that
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 17: would happen. So here's the story. He died, and many
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 17: years later, there's a guy who's a professor at Georgetown
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 17: Law School, Brad Schneider, who wrote a massive and excellent
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 17: biography of Frankfurter.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 7: And I'd known him.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 17: So he got in touch with me and said, you know,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 17: I hear there are these private letters between Frankforter and
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 17: your grandfather. Can you get me access to them? So
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 17: I went to my dad no longer with us, and
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 17: got Brad access, and then afterward Brad came to me
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 17: and said, it's crazy for these letters to be sitting
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 17: in a private law office in New Orleans.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: You have to put them in a library.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 17: So we put them in the library at Tulane, and
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 17: then when I started working on the book, I read
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 17: them all and that's when I really got to know
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 17: my grandfather.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's amazing. It's a good for the professor for
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: encouraging you that, because he's an amazing man. He's a
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: remarkable man. And I want people to understand, Jacob, your
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: great great grandfather came to the United States with nothing
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: and no prospects, and your grandfather ends up being a
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: frank further confidant testifying before Congress. Of course, you're now
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: at the New Yorker. When we come back, we're going
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: to talk about the current and the past. You and
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: your great great grandfather, Jacob, the man who could speak
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: no English until the end of his life, wrote everything
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: in Hebrew and was fully Jewish and practicing. By that
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: I mean practicing, and you who have now fully embraced
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Judaism in a way that is different from your father.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America except maybe over to Amazon to
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: order returning. I'll keep my eye on the news. If
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: anything happens in the Middle East, I will let you know.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about that. Stay tuned. Welcome Back, America, Hewett
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: nick Lemon. His new book is called Returning. It's a
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: fabulous ory. I'm not Jewish. You don't have to be Jewish.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: You might want to live and love American history. Nick
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: I interviewed Justice any Cony Barrett this past summer and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: then again on the radio show. She wrote a book
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: called Listening of the Law. She grew up in New Orleans,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and I asked her, how does it feel to be
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: the first Southern justice in like one hundred years? Said,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not from the South, I'm from New Orleans. And
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: so I kept thinking about there's a book within a
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: book in Returning. It's a book about New Orleans.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 18: Why did your father or I know why, but explain
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 18: to the audience why your father picked New Orleans penniless
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 18: in an immigrant leaving the Rhine Valley where German Jews
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 18: had been sort of unrestricted and almost citizen granted.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 17: Well, okay, so it was my great great grandfather, thank you.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 17: And he was born in eighteen oh nine, same year
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 17: that Abraham Lincoln was born. He left Germany at the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 17: age of twenty seven. He was from a little village
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 17: called Eissenheim, very new the Ryan River, and came alone
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 17: to New Orleans.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 7: So he was part of a little migration.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 17: You know, a lot of German Jewish bachelors came to
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 17: the America, often to the Deep South, and they all
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 17: started the exact same.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 7: Job, which is backpack peddler.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 17: And that's basically what I think my family had been
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 17: doing for centuries in Germany, partly because that was what
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 17: Jews were allowed to do.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 7: It was not the only thing they were allowed to do.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 7: So you know, you kind of walk up.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 17: And down the Rhine River valley and you sell a
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 17: few things, and you buy a few things, and you
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 17: buy a cow and you sell it later and you,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 17: you know, lend people a little money.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 7: That's that's the occupation.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 17: And I think the reason he came was that it
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 17: was a booming area. And the reason it was booming,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 17: one of the big reasons is it was the capital
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 17: of sugarcane plantation. In slavery, the US was becoming what
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 17: it is now, which is a sugar addicted country, and
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 17: the vast majority of American sugar was produced to this
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 17: very small area in Louisiana. And that's where my family settled,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 17: in a town called Donaldsonville, Louisiana, where we're coming up
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 17: on one hundred and ninety years there.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing story of the South, of the sugar industry,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: of the reconstruction South. Indeed, it's kind of interesting during
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: the Civil War what's going on in Donaldsonville as well.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: But I want to ask you about page fifty one.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: Ever since I sat in the Ascension parish Clerk's office
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: looking at these records, I can't get them out of
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: these minds. Those records are the records of your great
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: great grandfather factoring, borrowing against the enslaved, and trading in slaves.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: He's not really a slave owner, he's trading in the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: credit slavery and slave people do. And it hits you
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: like a hammer in the head. And did you think
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: about stopping the project? Evert No?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 7: I mean, look, first of all, I want to say
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 7: there was my.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 17: Family's preferred mythology, which is not untrue. Is this same
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 17: great great grandfather, after the Civil War bought a series
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 17: of small plantations around Donaldsonville for pennies on the dollar
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 17: and you know, at this point, slavery had been abolished,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 17: and so he was paying wages to formally enslaved people.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 17: So you know, by current standards, this is not heroic.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 17: It was you know, overwhelming white supremacy caste system, but
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 17: it was better than slavery. So you know, I went
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 17: to the Essension Parish, Louisiana records and there's this wonderful,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 17: all knowing guy there named Brett Landry, and I said,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 17: I want to look up all the records of everything
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 17: you have without my family going all the way back.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 17: And I arrived and he said, I got a folder
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 17: for you. And the folder was as you described, showing
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 17: my great great grandfather engaging in maybe like a dozen
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 17: transactions in which he was buying and selling human beings
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 17: for short periods of time. So that's something that has
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 17: had a profound effect on me. A lot of this
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 17: research has had a profound effect on me, but that's
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 17: one of.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 7: The things.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 17: Because it really shows, you know, a long ago but
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 17: direct connection to slavery of me.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: And well, let me tell you though, the line that
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: gets me the most in the book quote not so
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: long ago in upstate New York, this is you, Nick
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Lemon writing, I met a Southern ex patriot who, after
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: we were introduced, complained bitterly about his family's beloved plantation
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: having been lost to the Lemons after the war. And
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that as his family handed down
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: the story are being Jews, money lenders rootless would have
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: been omitted close quote your bet it wouldn't have been omitted.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Number one was that at Chautauqua, just by chance, upstate
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: New York. Were you talking at Chautauqua? No, no, it's
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: not number two.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 7: It's different, Okay.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: He was proud of the family that was slave owners
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: and ran sugar plantations, which was hell on earth for
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: the enslaved. He was proud of so, Hugh.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 17: You know, look, you and I grew up in very
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 17: different environments, and I think there's something really useful in
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 17: life about the experience of growing up in a place
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 17: and time where the values have very little overlap with
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 17: the values of the world you live in now. So
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 17: in the world I grew up, and you know, if
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 17: you said my family owned an antebellum plantation with a
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 17: very grand house, you know, I'll django unchained or something
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 17: that would be something you'd be proud of.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 7: You know, that wouldn't be something you'd be ashamed of.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 7: So the men you were, you were an aristocrat or something,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: So you know, I think that was That's a very
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 7: very Southern thing. I'm sure you've seen.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 17: The street car named Desire that yes, see Williams play.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 17: And you remember when Blanche says, I saw the plantation. Still,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 17: you know that was this The ultimate shame for a
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 17: Southerner of a certain class was to lose your family plantation,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 17: not to have a family plantation.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Well, this is all news to me. I've had friends
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: from New Orleans, and I've read about New Orleans and
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: other books, but this is all news to me about
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Louisiana during the war and in the post Civil war.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: You're great grandfather, Benjamin he Bernard. Bernard goes to New
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: York and to Europe during the He negotiated the Civil
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: War pretty deathly, actually, but he ends up going back
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: during the Civil War to Louisiana. He is like the
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: most amazing character in this in terms of his travels
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: and also poignant. He goes to Europe and sees a
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: German Jewish world. That is I think you said at
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the German Renaissance, and he doesn't have
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: fore knowledge. Of course, it would all be we got
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: a minute to the break. That's bracing too.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 7: Yeah, no, it's true.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 17: There's all this stuff I didn't know, so you know,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 17: basically real short version of the family. Jacob moves by
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 17: himself to Louisiana, so you think, okay, he's not going
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 17: to be Jewish anymore. And he marries a teenage Cajun
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 17: girl named Marie Bartel, and there he is. Should I
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 17: wait until after the break to tell you what happened?
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, because people need to hear it to keep it straight.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: And nothing is happening in Iran that makes me have
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: to break in yet. So Returning is the book. It's
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: at Amazon. No matter who you are. The writing is
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: just beautiful, and the story is an epic American story.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: It's really an American story. Stay tuned. I'll be right
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: back with nick Lemon after this. Welcome back America. On you.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: You and Nick Lemon is my guest. His new book
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: is called Returning. It's in bookstores everywhere. It's at Amazon.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: If you can't remember Returning, I don't know how to
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: help you. All right, So Jacob begets Bernard, and Bernard
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: begets Pop, and Pop begets Thomas, and Thomas begets Nick.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: This is very biblical. Tell us, how Bernard? How does
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: Bernard get back and forth to Jacob's done Well? The
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: done in Bradstreet books at the Harvard Business School tell us.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 7: That, yep, yeah.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 17: So what happened is, after about ten or fifteen years
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 17: in America, Jacob had married done Well, and he sent
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 17: his firstborn son, Bernard, my great grandfather, to New York.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 7: Bernard was put.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 17: In a kind of Jewish boarding school that was run
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 17: by a prominent rabbi. So apparently Jacob decided, I want
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 17: to rediscover my Jewishness as I have by the way.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 7: So Bernard goes up there and he lives in New York.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 17: Then his parents relocate to New York and buy a
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 17: house there, and it seems to end.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 7: Marie, my great great.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 17: Grandmother, converts to Judaism and changes her name to Miriam,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 17: and then my great great grandparents are remarried in a
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 17: Jewish ceremony.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 7: The family seems to be all set to be owning.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 17: Property in Louisiana and doing business there, but living in
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 17: New York in a more religious community. And then the
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 17: Civil War comes along. So what they did was they
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 17: first sent their draft age son and said go to Europe,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 17: get out of this country. And then the parents left
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 17: the country and went back to the part of Germany
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 17: they had come from. I think they didn't want to
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 17: take sides in the war, and I think there was
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 17: a kind of business reason for that, which is, if
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 17: they were loyal to the Union, all their property would
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 17: be confiscated by the Confederacy. If they were loyal to
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 17: the Confederacy. They were not dumb, and they knew they
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 17: were going to be on the losing side of the
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 17: war and then all their property would be kind of confiscated.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 17: So they went back to Germany and kind of waited
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 17: it out. Meanwhile, battles were raging in Donaldsonville, where they
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 17: were from, and then as the war was ending, they
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 17: went back to Donaldsonville and started acquiring plantations, as I said,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 17: and reopened a store they had had there, so they
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 17: you know, again, I was talking about what it's like
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 17: to grow up in the South, which you were a
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 17: little astounded by.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 7: I'm sure you've seen gone with the wind.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 17: Right, yes, okay, So you know, the vibe in the
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 17: white South was after the Civil War, a civilization lies
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 17: in ruins.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 7: But apparently for my family.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 17: They looked at this and they said, oh, this is
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 17: a great business opportunity for us. We're moving back and
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 17: acquiring properties for pennies on the dollar. So that's what
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 17: they did, and for about fifty years they had a
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 17: pretty good little empire of plantations and a general store
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 17: in the town of Donaldsonville.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: Well there is I think everyone who reads this is
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: going to wish they had an archive in the family
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: like you have when you write. And when all those
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: years ago, I set my course as a person to
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: investigate things on things that are not immediately visible. That
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: forms an unexcavated structure underlying the life that I live.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: And then you had to start digging. And when you
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: start digging, you find out all sorts of stuff. It's
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: like addictive, almost.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 17: No, it's I mean, the strange thing is, you know,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 17: in journalism terms, I was sitting on a story because
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 17: I knew there was this huge archive of family material
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 17: in the library of Tulane that one of my cousins
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 17: had assembled years ago, that you've referred to several times.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 17: You know, I can tell you what my relatives were
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 17: doing almost daily in the eighteen forties and forward to now.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 17: So why didn't I ever look at this material until
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 17: I was let's say I had my Social Security card,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 17: just to put it mildly, and I think maybe I
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 17: didn't want to know what I would find, like a
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 17: connection to slavery. You know, you get older, and I
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 17: know you're much younger than me, Hugh, but you know
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 17: there's a feeling of it's time to reckon and settle up.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: We were at school at the same time. Nick, you
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: might have a.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 7: Year two years younger than me.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So it's uh, we're going to go to
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: break now, and when we come back, I think the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: most compelling, But they're all compelling. Your father, Thomas really
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: touches me, uh, for reasons i'll talk about after the break.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: I think you've done him great justice and it's a wonderful,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: beautiful picture. And you've done yourself well by playing the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: difficulty in becoming a New Orleans reform Jew. So I
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: don't know if your Orthodox are conservative in New York.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Now I'll ask you that after the Great stay tun
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: in America, it's an American story. It's called returning welcome
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: back in America. I'm going to this my last segment
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: on the air with Nick, but I'm going to keep
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: him for a couple of minutes afterwards. Put that on
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the podcast. There's a little dessert for those of you
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: who listened to this. Father wanted to break into New
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: Orleans high society. There would be no Jewish debutante. New
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Orleans had exiled Jews after embracing the first King of
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: the Crew. The first big guy was a Jew, and
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: then there's never been another one. You were the first
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: Jew to get invited to the Squire's Ball, which, by
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: the way, I never knew about. I didn't know anything
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: about New Orleans except what Justice Amy Cony Barrett told
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: me about. And your father's Yet he was blessed with
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: lucky with friends. Tommy Lehman sounds like a wonderful man.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: But his toast at your father's fiftieth birthday Georgia is
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: the most Christian man I know, and he is a Jew.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: That's a weird toast. How'd that go over with your father?
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 7: He liked it? I mean he My father.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 17: Was very.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 7: He was raised in a form.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 17: Of being American Jewish that no longer exists, and it's
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 17: kind of a distant memory, you know, very very very
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 17: assimilated form of reform Judaism, and he wanted to be
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 17: accepted by the New Orleans social elite that historically had
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 17: excluded Jews, so he, you know, distanced himself.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 7: I guess he never really knew.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 17: People from the majority Jewish American experience, but to the
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 17: extent that he did, he distanced himself from them and
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 17: wanted to sort of ally himself with the non Jewish elite,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 17: which some of whom accepted him and some of whom
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 17: never accepted him. He was kind of in this in
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 17: between place where over to one side or the majority
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 17: of his own group, and he didn't want to be
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 17: associated with them, and then the other side was this
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 17: very small group that he wanted to be a full
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 17: member of, but they were not fully willing to accept him.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 17: So we had this kind of slice that we lived
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 17: in that was quite narrow, and in Jewish America it
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 17: just doesn't really exist anymore.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: I would have loved to have gone to the Christmas
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: party that Corcus next family home is Corcus, and they
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: would throw big Christmas parties that are extraordinary. You describe
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: yourself in those years as an advanced shallow Jew. That's
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: very very funny. But you become emotional at bar Mitzvah's
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: when the Torah is are you now conservative or Orthodox? Nick? Conservative?
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: Okay Sovative? And so when they carry the scrolls around,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: you will tear up. It breaks into a deep part
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: of your soul. And I think that's very touching. I'm curious.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of C. S. Lewis's essay The
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: Inner Ring?
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 17: Yes, but I haven't read it. Unfortunately. I think my
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 17: wife has read it, but I haven't written me.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: I would recommend it to you because it's it's your
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: father's story. I just thought of it over and over.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: It's not about Christians and Jews. It's about always wanting
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: to be on the Inner Ring and always discovering that
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: you don't know if you're in or you're out. Tell
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: people a little bit about your modern journey. When did
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: you begin to go from the reform very assimilated Jew
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: of New Orleans to practicing conservative Jew.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 17: So I had almost no Jewish education. My father was
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 17: so assimilated that he would take us to the temple
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 17: on one day a year, and that was Thanksgiving. So
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 17: we had no celebrations on Jewish holidays. We did celebrate
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 17: Christmas very elaborately in Easter a little bit, and so
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 17: I really didn't know what being Jewish meant. And you know,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 17: around the time that normal Jews would have been bar mitzvah.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 7: My father.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 17: I found this essentially my research I brought home at
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 17: the temple. They sent all the kids home with some
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 17: kind of newsletter, and the newsletter mentioned Israel, and my
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 17: father kind of blew a gasket and said, you know,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 17: Israel must never be mentioned in our temple because that's
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 17: not part of our religion.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 7: So he let me quit my religious education.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 17: So I did nothing Jewish from about the age of
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 17: twelve on and very little before that. And then I
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 17: just felt like there was this huge, rich, meaningful world.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 17: I had no idea then how all the generations before
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 17: my father had been very, very engaged with it, and
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 17: it just seemed to be calling to me, and I
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 17: didn't know how to enter it, you know, because I didn't.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 17: I would go into services sometimes and I didn't know
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 17: what was going on because I'd never been to these services.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 7: So it took me decades.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 17: Really, it's like a forty fifty year journey, and I'm
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 17: still not all the way there.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Well, it's very well subscribed. I kind of mind. I
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: had to think. There's a thick culture in New Orleans,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: very thick, and to get into the deep middle of
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: it you have to do what your father did. And
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: then there's a thick Jewish culture and you're just getting
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: into the middle of it now. Having you can't meld them.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: You can't blend those two cultures. They're unblendable, right.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 17: That's absolutely right, Yeah, you can't blend at all. So
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 17: so that's where I am now. I live in New
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 17: York and I am a you know, loyal and regular
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 17: member of a conservative congregation and involved in various Jewish
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 17: activities here. So that's that's kind of my journey and
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 17: my kids, you know where Mug and Da vide a
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 17: star of David around their neck on.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 7: A necklace, and you know, families change over time.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: The book, there's a line in the book about you
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: were you were sitting in New York and you were
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: a wreck. But I failed to note if that's after
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: Katrina or after ten to seven. I'm going to talk
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: to you about after Katrina. So your hometown is destroyed.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: What was that like? Did you did you go down there?
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: Then it's very no thought about that.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 7: It was, Yeah, it was terrible. You know my dad.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 17: Is you know, was born He was like a typical
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 17: American read He lived to age ninety seven and he
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 17: died in the same hospital. He was born in the
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 17: same hospital. I was born in the same hospital where
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 17: his mother was a nurse. And you know, Katrina came along.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 17: He said, oh, I've been through so many of these hurricanes.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 17: I'm not evacuating. So he didn't evacuate, and so there
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 17: he was. He was stuck, and I was just completely terrified.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 17: And that's why I was sitting on the bench in
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 17: New York, just panicked. And we had this whole drama
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 17: of figuring out how to get him out of town
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 17: because you really had to leave.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's wonderfully told me. That's hard I remember, and
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: the love and the family very thick. For the audience,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to Nick for a five or
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: ten more minutes. It'll be on the YouTube channel as
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: part of the whole interview. I recommend it to you,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: but I really recommend it. No matter who you are,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: what you are, Jewish, non Jewish, Christian idea, you're going
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: to love returning if you're an American and you're going
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: to learn more about the American falcon ever knew? Have
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: you ever known? Stay tuned. I'll come back and finish
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: up today's program. So I'm back with Nick for the
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: bonus a couple of minutes to talk to him. Thank
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: you for a teaching me a lot about the South
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: without being judgmental about people who don't know about I've
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: never I've never heard of the Last Night at BALI
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: who right, I just didn't know anything about it. You
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: explain that, you explain that there are white procheal schools,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: which hit me kind of in the chest. I can't
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: imagine white, all white, segregated parchial schools because I went
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: to prochaial schools. And you talk about having a penny
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: rolled down the day school in New Orleans. So there
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: was some anti semitism when you were growing up. But
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: how real was it? Did you feel it?
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 7: Well?
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 17: Yeah, I definitely could feel it because we knew. You know,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 17: first of all, it's human nature. You know people in
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 17: the whole course of your childhoods, there's six or eight
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 17: incidents time they took up isn't a lot, but they
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 17: really stick with you. And also we knew there were
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 17: a lot of clubs we couldn't join and parties we
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 17: couldn't be invited to, and there was a barrier. And
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 17: when that happens to you, you're aware of it gets
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 17: your attention.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what I wanted to ask you, ten to
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: seven comes along and the phrase ten seven Jews is
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: out there. That's not you, because you're deepening attachment to
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: your Judaism occurs long before that, but along with ten
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: seven comes as explosion of anti Semitism in America and
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: the theme of this book the German Jews. That was
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: never going to happen to the German Jews, and then
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: it happened. Do you worry about that in America?
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 7: I do worry.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 17: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely I guess, let me say
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 17: in a broadway, I've been out touring and talking about
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 17: this book. Right I feel like America's Jewish group therapy
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 17: coach or somethingwish. America is having a big identity crisis
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 17: right now. And a lot of the reason is, you know,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 17: I always grew up thinking, you know, Jews are not
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 17: fully accepted, but my sort of more normal Jewish friends
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 17: people like you would have grown up with in Massachusetts.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 17: I think they grew up thinking that, you know, those
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 17: dramas are over. We are accepted now, and so a
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 17: lot of those people, you know, my generation, generation below me,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 17: generation even below that, are in shock right now because
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 17: suddenly all those assumptions they live by seem to be
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 17: evaporating very rapidly, and being Jewish seems to be a
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 17: much more charged and endangered status than it has been
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 17: for decades, and it's very very upsetting for people.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you joined the Columbia Anti Semitism Committee, which turned
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: out to be I won't call it a joke, but
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: pantomime of a committee. And I'm from Ohio, and so
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: I know Jews from Cleveland and Columbus and Cincinnati. We
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: all came to DC Gentiles too, in to march for
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: Israel after ten to seven.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 7: But let me for a minute, if.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 17: I may go on the website of the Columbia Anti
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 17: Semitism Task Force and read the four long reports that
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 17: we wrote, and then call me back if you really
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 17: want to talk about whether we were a pantomime, because
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 17: we were.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, you weren't. Do you think I walked away from
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: the book thinking maybe you were unhappy with the experience.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 7: I was, but that doesn't mean our work was a pantomime.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's a different story. I will do that.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 17: I did not feel that we were welcomed in the
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 17: community by all elements of the community. So I went
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 17: from feeling like a sort of an insider in my
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 17: university to an outsider. But separately, we produced a lot
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 17: of good work under difficult circumstances.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Then I will go and find that and we're going
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: to leave it there, except that I hope Dan Senor,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: who's an occasional listener to the podcast and the broadcast
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: on radio, is listening because this story ought to be
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: told on Call Me Back with a meet Segal and
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: Nada Viyal and some of his Israeli friends. And I
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: just want to say it's beautifully written. I don't know
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: if you can top that. The tragedy. I'll get your
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: comment and then we'll be done. The tragedy is I
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: think you would win every book award in America except
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: for the fact that you were Jewish.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 17: Has that occurred to you, Oh, Hugh, I only think
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 17: about things that already have happened, not what would have happened.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 7: I'll leave that to you.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: All right. Well that's my opinion. That's how highly I
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: think of returning. Nick. Good to talk to you again
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: after so many years. I look forward to seeing you
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: somewhere down the road. Thank you.