Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / New steel plant in Iowa announced, The "Hormuz Shuttle" and a look "Inside DOGE" with Tyler Hassen

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New steel plant in Iowa announced, The "Hormuz Shuttle" and a look "Inside DOGE" with Tyler Hassen · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there. And of course, a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: for hillsdale.com or just Google Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Morning
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  Speaker 1: glory and even grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for watching today. Great Monday for me. I mean, it
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was a great weekend. The Guardians won the Central Division.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: The Browns won. They beat the Panthers yesterday. My high
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  Speaker 1: school won, Warren John F. Kennedy High School, and Ohio State,
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  Speaker 1: of course, they always win. They won. So I'm just
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  Speaker 1: feeling great, and I want my first guest to win
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  Speaker 1: in November. Ryan Fazio is the Republican nominee for governor
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  Speaker 1: in Connecticut, and he joins me now from Connecticut, where
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  Speaker 1: a lot of my listeners are located. I've got a
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  Speaker 1: great audience down there. Ryan, welcome. Thanks to my friends
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  Speaker 1: Bob Hamm and Carol Platt-Lebow. They've been telling me about
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  Speaker 1: you for a long time, and I'm glad you're finally
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  Speaker 1: joining me. How goes the campaign to take over the
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  Speaker 1: Nutmeg State?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I'm a
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  Speaker 2: longtime fan, first-time caller, as they say on Sports Talk Radio,
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  Speaker 2: so I'm really excited to be with you. Congrats to
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  Speaker 2: your Guardians and Browns. That's always a confusing thing to say. Listen,
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  Speaker 2: We're underdogs like many of those teams, but we can
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  Speaker 2: win this race because in states like Connecticut, regular residents
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  Speaker 2: see the consequence of one party rule and putting ideology
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  Speaker 2: above common sense in their daily lives. They're paying the
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  Speaker 2: third highest taxes in the country. They've seen almost no
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  Speaker 2: job growth, no income growth. And they live in one
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  Speaker 2: of the most expensive places in the entire country. And
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  Speaker 2: they intuitively understand that they're being failed uniquely by their
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  Speaker 2: state leadership. And so whatever happens on the national level,
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  Speaker 2: whatever happens in other places, people in Connecticut in their
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  Speaker 2: daily lives see the consequence of failed leadership. And I
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  Speaker 2: think they're increasingly ready for change.
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  Speaker 1: So, Ryan Fazio, we are heard from coast to coast,
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  Speaker 1: north to south, east to west. And I want every
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  Speaker 1: person in every state to understand this. what Connecticut shares
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  Speaker 1: in common with Illinois and California. It's like gangrene in
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  Speaker 1: the body politic, unfunded pension liabilities. Before the show, I
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  Speaker 1: went and looked it up. Your little state owes $ 33
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  Speaker 1: billion it hasn't got to retirees. Why isn't everyone pulling
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  Speaker 1: their hair out and impeaching Ned Lamont, the incumbent?
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  Speaker 3: Well, listen, that's what the opportunity we have in November is.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I think you You have to understand
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  Speaker 2: and build in your expectations that Connecticut's a state that
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  Speaker 2: leans blue and other states are states that lean red.
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  Speaker 2: But on the state and local level, voters are going
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  Speaker 2: to be more open to voting for candidates of different
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  Speaker 2: parties when they're examining the issues and specifically how this
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  Speaker 2: leadership from Ned Lamont and one party rule over many
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  Speaker 2: years has affected their daily lives. Listen, there isn't a
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  Speaker 2: Democrat or a Republican around who is happy in Connecticut
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  Speaker 2: that they pay the third highest taxes in the country
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  Speaker 2: or among the highest electric rates in the country and
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  Speaker 2: all the hidden fees and taxes and essentially the Green
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  Speaker 2: New Deal that's embedded in their electric bills currently. They,
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  Speaker 2: in their daily lives, are seeing the failure. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that is increasingly opening them to change. And even in, again,
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  Speaker 2: a difficult environment, a difficult year, we are seeing the
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  Speaker 2: polls closing, gaining ground, a single-digit race with Lamont under 50%.
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  Speaker 2: And for a guy who's inherited all the money in
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  Speaker 2: the world, who can spend endlessly on his own campaign,
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  Speaker 2: for him to still be under 50% approval rating shows
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  Speaker 2: that we have an opening here.
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  Speaker 1: Do people recognize, it happens every few years in Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: they'll throw up Charlie Baker or Mitt Romney, all the
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  Speaker 1: way back to Frank Sargent, a very liberal state, will say,
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  Speaker 1: we need our economic house put in order, and they'll
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  Speaker 1: put a moderate Republican in just to balance the books
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  Speaker 1: and make some... Has that ever happened in Connecticut?
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  Speaker 2: It's happened in Connecticut, but it's also been close to
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  Speaker 2: happening in Connecticut. Up until this last gubernatorial election in 2022,
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  Speaker 2: Republicans have always gotten in within 10% of winning or
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  Speaker 2: won themselves in my lifetime.
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  Speaker 3: There's only been one.
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  Speaker 2: Gubernatorial election in Connecticut in my lifetime where the Democrat
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  Speaker 2: is won by double digits.
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  Speaker 3: And that was the last one given.
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  Speaker 2: But it just shows that in the Northeast, in New
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  Speaker 2: England in particular, there's something in the water where voters
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  Speaker 2: are willing to vote for a Republican governor, especially when
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  Speaker 2: confronted with the failures of one party rule and ideological
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  Speaker 2: radical government where all the decisions are concentrated in the
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  Speaker 2: hands of the state capitol, the bureaucrats, the politicians. They
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  Speaker 2: borrow and promise, especially in defense of their special interest supporters.
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  Speaker 2: And because of that, people cannot afford to pay the
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  Speaker 2: taxes or the electric bills. And listen, those costs are
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  Speaker 2: most painful to the middle class in our state. The
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  Speaker 2: people who do not benefit from the government budget, the
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  Speaker 2: government expenditure in our state capital, they're the ones hurting.
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  Speaker 3: But they're also the people who decide elections.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it's only a matter of When, not if,
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  Speaker 2: we win and change the tides in Connecticut.
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  Speaker 1: Ryan Fazio, before I go forward, a couple more questions here.
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  Speaker 1: Where do people find out about the campaign? Where do
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  Speaker 1: they help you if they want to?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they can follow along on all of our social media.
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  Speaker 2: We're on X, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. And also,
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  Speaker 2: please check out our website. Our email address for our
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  Speaker 2: campaign is info at ryanfazio.com. If you're interested in connecting
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  Speaker 2: with us and volunteering for us and supporting us, we're
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  Speaker 2: making great progress. We feel the energy on the ground
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  Speaker 2: for change. And our ambition is to be the most
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  Speaker 2: substantive gubernatorial campaign in the whole country, which is why
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  Speaker 2: we have our extensive plans for affordability and opportunity and
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  Speaker 2: freedom laid out on our website for anyone to read
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  Speaker 2: and follow.
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  Speaker 1: And I assume that's ryanfazio.com. All right, Ryan, you're a
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  Speaker 1: child of Greenwich. I believe the public schools. I believe
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  Speaker 1: your dad is middle class. Your parents, just a normal
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  Speaker 1: working family in Greenwich. And you went to Northwestern. You're
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  Speaker 1: a wildcat. I think class of 2012. Whatever decided, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: why did you go back? I would not go back
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  Speaker 1: to Connecticut. I just wouldn't because it's such a high-tax,
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  Speaker 1: low-services state, and it doesn't have the climate requirements. like California,
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  Speaker 1: where you play the climate tax out there. Connecticut's not
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  Speaker 1: exactly the most wonderful climate in the world.
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  Speaker 3: It's got the best people. I think it's got great communities.
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  Speaker 3: It's a special place. And guess what?
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  Speaker 2: There's only one place that can truly be home for you.
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  Speaker 2: And for me, that's Connecticut. And I believe that staying
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  Speaker 2: and fighting for your home is a virtue. And I
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  Speaker 2: believe that maybe the most meaningful things in life are
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  Speaker 2: the ones that are the most difficult. And fighting for
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  Speaker 2: this state, winning back this state, bringing opportunity and hope
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  Speaker 2: back to a state that once was a beacon for
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  Speaker 2: economic boom for the middle class in this country, I
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  Speaker 2: think that is a fight worth undertaking, even if it's tough,
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  Speaker 2: maybe especially if it's tough.
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  Speaker 3: I just love this state. This is my home.
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  Speaker 2: It's the only place I've ever called home and could
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  Speaker 2: ever call home. And so for me, that was worth
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  Speaker 2: fighting for.
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  Speaker 1: So if you pull off the upset and you're down
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  Speaker 1: to single digits and you're closing, if you pull off
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  Speaker 1: this upset, what do you do first? Is it income
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  Speaker 1: tax reduction, property tax reduction, doing something about the unfunded
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  Speaker 1: pension liabilities, which is the jaws, white shark that's out
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  Speaker 1: there that's going to swallow Connecticut and Illinois and California eventually?
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  Speaker 1: What do you do?
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot you can do in Connecticut as the
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  Speaker 2: governor without the assent of the state legislature. It's one
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  Speaker 2: of the more powerful governorships constitutionally in the country. That
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  Speaker 2: means you can take out a lot of the waste,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of the ideological spending from the state budget
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  Speaker 2: through a line item veto. That means ending the hundreds
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  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars of taxpayer benefits for people in
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  Speaker 2: the country illegally. That means ending the over budgeting of
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  Speaker 2: our agencies and departments and bureaucracies. That will enable you
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  Speaker 2: by itself to start cutting taxes on the middle class.
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  Speaker 2: I have proposed the largest middle class tax cut in
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  Speaker 2: state history that would reduce income taxes by $ 2, 500 per
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  Speaker 2: family per year in my first term.
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  Speaker 3: And then there's.
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  Speaker 2: Also so many hidden taxes and fees and kind of
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  Speaker 2: government and Green New Deal type programs in our electric
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  Speaker 2: bills that could begin to be eliminated through executive order
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  Speaker 2: as well. Again, that is why in the Northeast or
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  Speaker 2: on the West Coast, our electric bills are more than
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  Speaker 2: twice what many states have.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe we won't have the cheapest electric bills in the country,
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  Speaker 3: but we need affordability.
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  Speaker 2: We need to be able to create a manufacturing and
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  Speaker 2: industrial sector that succeeds. But the Connecticut's of the world,
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  Speaker 2: the California's of the world, the blue states of the world,
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  Speaker 2: for their residents to see manufacturing growth, to see job growth,
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  Speaker 2: it's never going to happen with the And those utilities
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  Speaker 2: are only so high because of all the hidden government
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  Speaker 2: embedded in their electric bills and policies. Well, I'll start
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  Speaker 2: eliminating those fees and taxes on day one.
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  Speaker 1: Last quick question. The other big blue states all have
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  Speaker 1: fraud problems. Does Connecticut?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it does. It does in Bridgeport, Connecticut, particularly.
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  Speaker 2: There have been, I think, five federal indictments in the
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  Speaker 2: last couple of years.
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  Speaker 3: There was a judge who threw out the.
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  Speaker 2: Last Bridgeport Democratic primary for mayor in the city. It's
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  Speaker 2: so bad that it's Democrat on Democrat accusations. The good
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  Speaker 2: news is that we are now seeing a crackdown of
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  Speaker 2: some sorts through the federal government that even started in
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  Speaker 2: the Biden years under the Justice Department, where arrests have
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  Speaker 2: been made. Our campaign will be watching this closely, and
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  Speaker 2: hopefully the disincentive of actual arrests and a crackdown also
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  Speaker 2: disincentivizes the cheating from happening.
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  Speaker 1: Ryan Fazio, great to make your acquaintance. As Carol and
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  Speaker 1: Bob Hamm told me, you've got a real shot, and
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  Speaker 1: I hope people in Connecticut are listening and make up
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  Speaker 1: their mind. They don't have to live that way with
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  Speaker 1: those taxes, the electric bill, that lack of economic growth.
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  Speaker 1: They can go to Vote for Ryan Fazio. Thank you, Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: I'll be right back. Welcome back, America. Foreign Secretary Ed
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  Speaker 1: Miliband had this to say earlier today in England.
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  Speaker 3: Think about our role in the world.
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  Speaker 4: We will never be silent about injustice and suffering.
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  Speaker 5: Let us state the reality about the Middle East.
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  Speaker 2: The only route to peace is two states.
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  Speaker 1: All right, America, that's not reality. And I'm here with
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  Speaker 1: Ambassador Michael Oren, Israel's former ambassador to the United States,
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  Speaker 1: to talk about that. That's not reality, Dr.
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  Speaker 6: Oren.
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  Speaker 1: That's not reality. What did you make of the Miliband speech?
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  Speaker 1: Because it went on from there into even worse and
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  Speaker 1: more sinister suggestions.
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  Speaker 5: Well, Ed Miliband cares great about injustice in the world,
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  Speaker 5: but they don't say a word about the fact that
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  Speaker 5: China's put a million Muslims in concentration camps, doesn't care
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  Speaker 5: whether Turkey illegally occupies half of Cyprus.
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  Speaker 7: It's only the Jewish state he's going to beat up on.
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  Speaker 5: And that, wow, the big British, big, brave British are
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  Speaker 5: going to beat up on the Jewish state because they
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  Speaker 5: care about injustice in the world.
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  Speaker 7: And they don't even care what's happening in their own country.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm going to make an association, which may sound
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  Speaker 5: rather incendiary, Hugh, but, you know, there's a memory from
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  Speaker 5: World War II of Europeans killing Jews even when they
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  Speaker 5: were losing a war.
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  Speaker 7: And it seems to me that there are Europeans.
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  Speaker 5: Who are losing the battle against Islamic extremism, perhaps an
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  Speaker 5: attempted terrorist attack against an RAF base in Britain earlier yesterday,
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  Speaker 5: and they're taking time out to attack Israel. It's amazing
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  Speaker 5: and appalling at the same time. Did you hear what
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  Speaker 5: happened with the Dutch customs officials?
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  Speaker 1: No, I've got the Irish football team, but you go first.
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  Speaker 7: No, this is much, much worse than the Irish football team.
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  Speaker 7: That was symbolic.
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  Speaker 5: The Dutch customs officials took passengers off an El Al
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  Speaker 5: jet and ran them through customs to see whether they
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  Speaker 5: were importing any items that were produced in Judea and Samaria,
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  Speaker 5: the West Bank, or in Jerusalem over the 1967 lines,
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  Speaker 5: where more than half of the Jewish population of Jerusalem lives.
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  Speaker 5: So basically the Dutch, the Dutch who were the most
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  Speaker 5: collaborationist people in occupied Western Europe during World War II,
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  Speaker 5: are doing a selection of Jews going off a plane.
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  Speaker 5: So listen, I'm going to sound very radical here, and
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  Speaker 5: I don't often But I think that Israel should suspend
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  Speaker 5: relations with all these countries. These are actions bordering on
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  Speaker 5: acts of war. They're acts of war, boycotts, and they
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  Speaker 5: could take us down. They're not just a boycott of
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  Speaker 5: what they call settlers. They are creating a situation where
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  Speaker 5: nobody can be able to do business with the Israeli
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  Speaker 5: banking system. How can a banker in Israel give a
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  Speaker 5: mortgage to somebody who's living in one of those Jerusalem
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  Speaker 5: neighborhoods where the majority of Jerusalem Jews live? And they
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  Speaker 5: could be subject to sanctions. So they're basically threatening our
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  Speaker 5: entire economic system.
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  Speaker 7: And this could spread. It spread very fast beyond France, Canada,
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  Speaker 7: now the Netherlands. It is a strategic threat to our country,
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  Speaker 7: and we have to treat it as such.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Dan Senor's new Call Me Back podcast hosts Mark Dubowitz,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and they go through how the BDS system is setting
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: up a sanction system modeled on the one used to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: cripple Iran over 30 years. And they're not worried so
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  Speaker 1: much about today, although the Dutch passenger, the passenger to
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  Speaker 1: the Netherlands worries me. But I will say, It is
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  Speaker 1: a plan, and the United States ought to intervene to
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  Speaker 1: counter-sanction the sanctioners. That's what I think. What do you think?
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  Speaker 7: Absolutely, absolutely.
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  Speaker 5: And there was a plan purportedly devised by Ambassador Huckabee
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: and his staff in Jerusalem to have America take punitive
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  Speaker 5: measures against any country that is boycotting the state of Israel,
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: and apparently the Trump administration has not responded to this
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: report yet. I ardently, ardently hope that they do. This is, again,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: I don't want to belabor the term, but it is
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: a strategic threat to a crucial American ally in the
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: Middle East.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Now, I do want to talk about Ireland a little
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: bit because it got a lot of play. The Irish
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  Speaker 1: national soccer team did everything they could to make it
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: an unpleasant game with Israel. They debated whether or not
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: they were going to play against genocidal Israel. They bowed
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: their heads during the Israeli national anthem. The Israeli players
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: were very, very dignified about it and wouldn't give them
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the time of day. But the irony is not lost
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  Speaker 1: on me. The Irish are allegedly pro-Palestinian because they were
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  Speaker 1: subject to the English occupation of their country for hundreds
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of years, and therefore they're anti-colonial. They don't realize, apparently,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that the British mandate was oppressing them more recently than
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the British were oppressing the Irish. They don't seem to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: know anything about history.
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  Speaker 5: Or that the State of Israel came into being as
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: a result of a successful war against British imperialism.
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  Speaker 7: And that the British Empire closed the.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: Gates to the land of Israel, then known as Palestine
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: in 1939, to Jews trying to flee Nazi Germany, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: that the British government, the British government of Ed Miliband,
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: has the blood of millions of Jews on its hands.
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: The blood. And Britain has to be reminded of that
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  Speaker 7: all the time. And the Irish can be reminded of that, too.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: One of the reasons the Irish are so close to
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: the Palestinian issue is because the PLO and the IRA
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: collaborated over many decades.
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  Speaker 7: And that has, you know, that has... resulted in a profoundly.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Appallingly anti-Israel position by the Irish government.
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  Speaker 8: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Now, let me switch over to the elections, Michael, because
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: there's a story at the Times of Israel today that
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to the UAE to get
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: MBS to say there wasn't a warning. How important is
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that issue to the elections, which ought to be about
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the straight Iran and Israel security?
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  Speaker 7: Well, apparently it's more important than I might have thought
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: a few days ago.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't have thought that many people would wake up
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: in the morning and read these reports that Netanyahu had
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: been warned by the Emiratis and by the Egyptians several
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: times before October 7th that Hamas was going to attack,
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: whether that Israeli would get up in the morning and say, well,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: because Netanyahu didn't listen to these warnings, I'm going to
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: change my vote to somebody like Naftali Bennett or Victor
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: Lieberman or, of course, Gadi Eisenkot. But apparently Netanyahu thinks so.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: And if it's true that he flew to the UAE
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: to convince the Emiratis to come out and say that
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: didn't happen, that conversation never happened, that would tend to
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: reinforce the fact that this was important for Netanyahu. But
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: it's interesting, isn't it, Hugh, that according to all the
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: surveys now, at best, the opposing camp to Netanyahu, what
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: they call the change camp, is neck and neck with
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: the pro-Netanyahu bloc.
• 17:16
  Speaker 7: And some polls put Netanyahu ahead.
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  Speaker 5: So I wonder if it's true that Netanyahu has flown
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: to the UAE in order to get them to deny
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: that these conversations took place, whether Netanyahu is overreacting.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So, last question. Does the Nasa, quote, documentary, close quote,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: still an issue in Israel? We got a minute.
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  Speaker 4: It is.
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  Speaker 7: It is.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: And it's a multi-pronged issue. First of all, it's a
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: strategic issue because it's going to give a tremendous... tailwind
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: to the BDS movement, the boycott and sanctions movement against Israel.
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: But it's also caused rifts within the society.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: Who were these 24 officers from the Intelligence Corps who
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: cooperated with a film that is simply a blood libel
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: against the state of Israel? And I've talked about it
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: in the past how, you know, I've done the research
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: on this. I know exactly how bombings were approved in Gaza.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: This is all one huge, big lie. And so we're
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: asking ourselves, OK, who are these officers and how can
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: they be ferreted out?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Interesting question on election eve. Dr. Michael Oren, follow him
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: on exit, Dr. Michael Oren, founder of the Israel Advocacy Project.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next week for an election update.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Oren, don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. And
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it's a fabulous group of people. Erie's fabulous. Have you
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: ever met Thomas Hagen, who's rebuilding their Millionaire's Row there
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: house by house?
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: It's absolutely wonderful. I love Erie. I have a great
• 19:02
  Speaker 9: fondness for that town. That was like, as to Beulah
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: County for you, to go into the beach as a
• 19:10
  Speaker 9: kid was Erie County to me.
• 19:12
  Speaker 10: And that was our playground. That was our ocean.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So why don't you ever write about Gannon College? Are
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: you mad at them?
• 19:20
  Speaker 9: No, I have written about Gannon College a bunch of times.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: They won their first ever national title in football last year,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: in basketball, I mean, last year. And I heard about it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I said, why didn't Selena write about this? She must
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: have a thing about Gannon. You have written about Mr. Hagan, though,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: because he's quite an amazing American.
• 19:40
  Speaker 10: No, but I should.
• 19:41
  Speaker 9: That's a great idea. I was in Erie last week.
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: How did we not see each other?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not that big of a place.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I went out to dinner. Steve Scully had me in.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And I went out to dinner with Steve Scully a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: couple of times. And I talked to a couple of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: classes in the Jefferson Society. But it was fun being
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in town. Let's get to the subject of the day.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: You have written about shipping Port Pennsylvania in a line
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: data center. Today, the Wall Street Journal writes about Hazel Township.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: where every household's being offered 10 grand to build a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: data center. Why is this hard for people to say yes, Selena?
• 20:21
  Speaker 9: Well, it wasn't hard for Shippingport, and it wasn't hard
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: for Homer City. I got to tell you, I feel
• 20:28
  Speaker 9: the same way that I felt in 2016 when I
• 20:30
  Speaker 9: was reporting about Donald Trump, and I felt like I
• 20:33
  Speaker 9: was straddling two worlds. because I would go on social
• 20:37
  Speaker 9: media and I would read the polls and everybody would say,
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: this is going to happen. But then I would be
• 20:43
  Speaker 9: out in arguably the real world and people would say, no,
• 20:50
  Speaker 9: that's going to happen. Trump's going to happen. And I
• 20:52
  Speaker 9: feel that way about data power centers because where I'm
• 20:56
  Speaker 9: from and where you are from, these are great job creators.
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: They're working with the communities They're offering communities, to your
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: point about the $ 10, 000, but also they're like, we'll rebuild
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: your high school football field, right? And we'll build a
• 21:15
  Speaker 9: community center. We will be good neighbors. We will be
• 21:21
  Speaker 9: part of the community. And people in particular in Appalachian,
• 21:27
  Speaker 9: Rust Belt, where you and I are from, these places
• 21:30
  Speaker 9: are happy. They're a good job.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, you bring one to Trumbull County, and they'll get
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: everyone to come and help grade the field. Oh, yeah.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: They'll say, come on in, and the line out the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: door to work there will be forever. So I just
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: think they're picking the wrong townships.
• 21:50
  Speaker 9: I absolutely do. I think Ohio and Pennsylvania and West
• 21:53
  Speaker 9: Virginia are the places for these data power centers to
• 21:57
  Speaker 9: go and parts of Virginia.
• 21:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 9: I mean, these are just the places to go. There
• 22:02
  Speaker 9: are plenty of brownfields. There's plenty of communities that have
• 22:05
  Speaker 9: been on their knees for over 40 years that would
• 22:09
  Speaker 9: welcome the lower property taxes, the school districts and the
• 22:14
  Speaker 9: roads and the bridges being paid for, and for the
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: ability of multiple generations of their family to stay put
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: and have a career that gives them sort of that
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: wealth that we talk about that has less to do
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: with the big bonus and more to do with being
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: part of your place.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Now, Selena, you and I both have grandchildren, and we
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: know that a $ 40 trillion debt is not good for
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: their future because the interest on that is now a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: trillion and a quarter every year. That's just money we
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: have to pay to service the debt that you and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I spent on various things or our generation did. Do
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you think these data centers ought to be paying into
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a federal pot They are a federal benefit. They depend
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: upon the national defense. They depend upon national highways. They
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: depend upon the national grid. Do you think they ought
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to be taxed for a federal sinking fund to reduce
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the debt?
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: I think it's a really great idea. I wouldn't call
• 23:14
  Speaker 9: it a tax. I would never call it a tax. However,
• 23:17
  Speaker 9: I would call it something that is a set aside,
• 23:22
  Speaker 9: something that sounds aspirational, that they're buying into the future, right?
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: I think that's how you frame it if you are
• 23:31
  Speaker 9: an AI data power center company. You frame it as, look,
• 23:36
  Speaker 9: we are not only investing in your community, we're giving
• 23:40
  Speaker 9: back to your children and your grandchildren by easing the debt.
• 23:43
  Speaker 9: And half a percent or 1% goes into that fund
• 23:47
  Speaker 9: every year.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And when Pitt the Younger, I think it was 1786,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they had a huge war debt from the war with
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: France and the war with the United States. They had
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to retire that. He established a sinking fund, and the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: revenue that went into it never went anywhere. They invested it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: They made money off of it, and they reduced the debt.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: We've got to do something about this now. We're also
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of the same age. We're eligible for benefits. Do you
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: think that the entitlement problem can be dealt with by
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: our generation by telling people 20 years out they're going
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to pay more or wait longer?
• 24:26
  Speaker 9: There are smarter people than me that can figure that out.
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: Tomorrow I turn 67, so I am well into the
• 24:33
  Speaker 9: retirement years. And, you know, every 10 years, every five years,
• 24:39
  Speaker 9: there is this warning thing that goes out and it
• 24:43
  Speaker 9: says we're not going to have Social Security or by
• 24:47
  Speaker 9: the time you retire. So I do think it's a
• 24:49
  Speaker 9: problem that definitely needs to be addressed. I just don't
• 24:53
  Speaker 9: know what the solution is.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Well, you talk to the average Joe. Does the average
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Joe or Josephine talk to you about the debt? Because
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: it really is a menace for our grandkids.
• 25:04
  Speaker 9: Yeah, they talk about it, especially people that have grandchildren.
• 25:08
  Speaker 9: They recognize that there's a problem. They recognized it when
• 25:11
  Speaker 9: they were in their 30s, right? When they were in
• 25:13
  Speaker 9: their 30s, that's when they balanced the budget, right? That
• 25:17
  Speaker 9: would have been, what, 96?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: 1998.
• 25:22
  Speaker 9: That was the budget, and that was something they were
• 25:25
  Speaker 9: very proud of, right? Because it was an effort that
• 25:29
  Speaker 9: crossed all party lines. And it was something they were
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: very proud of, but it's not... I don't know what
• 25:36
  Speaker 9: happened after that. We just went crazy.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Well, we took advantage of being the reserve currency, and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: after the financial crisis of 2008, which came from the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: housing crisis of the 10 years before that, we've just
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: been printing money, and it can't continue. Selena, thank you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: as always. Follow her on X at Selena Zito and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: at Zito Selena on X, Zito Selena. Her website is selenazito.com.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Get everything she writes because she writes about everything you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: ought to know about. Stay tuned, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Hi,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it's Hugh Hewitt for Consumer Cellular. If you've listened to
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• 27:00
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  Speaker 1: Plan at 877-410-4321. That's 877-410-4321, 877-410-4321, or visit usmedicalplan.com. Morning, glory,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and evening, Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome to Hour
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: 3 of the program. Admiral Mark Montgomery joins me, retired
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: United States Navy Rear Admiral, Senior Fellow at the Foundation
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: for the Defense of Democracies. Admiral, good to see you.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: This morning, oil had opened up 3.5% higher because President
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Trump blew off Iran's request for negotiation. Then out came
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: an article by Alexander Stahel, Swiss energy analyst, saying, you know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: oil outflow from the Middle East, from the Gulf, from
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the Strait, is at about 94% of pre-war levels. And
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it went on to detail at length how that's happened.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: He calls it the Hormuz shuttle. And I want to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: quote it to you. Shipowners apply to the United States
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Navy NCAGS Coordination Center, which assigns a route and a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: specific transit window. The ships then run the southern corridor
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: hugging Oman, often AIS dark, while U.S. aircraft and naval
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: assets concentrate air defense over the passage rather than physically
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: escorting every tanker. The Financial Times says the original broad
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: overnight windows have now been tightened to a few specific
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: daily slots. some time starting around 9 p.m., so CENTCOM
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: can mask scarce assets when the tankers actually move. The
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: precise details of the convoy system are obviously classified, but
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: my data shows the system is finally starting to work
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: like a charm, so thank you, CENTCOM and U.S. Navy,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: for your service. What do you think, Admiral?
• 29:35
  Speaker 10: Well, it's good news.
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's what a number of us have been
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: arguing for all along. that this was an absolutely doable thing.
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: I called it NCAGS last time I was on, but
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: that's Naval Control and Guidance of Shipping. This is blocking
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: and tackling of how you escort your stuff through. And
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: then the blockade operations that are going on is the
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: blocking and tackling of how you stop them from doing it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: The president was absolutely right to reject the Iranians. He
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: is gaining leverage every day. He is forcing the Iranians
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: to make hard decisions about their economic straits they're in.
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: We've blocked 90, 95 percent of their fossil fuel exports.
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: They can do a handful of things over land, not much.
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: And they're losing significant export value and their GDP is cratering.
• 30:27
  Speaker 10: And then you add.
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: In Besant's targeted sanctioning so their access to funds they
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: already had starts to become limited. You know, they have
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: a few more barrels of fuel being delivered from pre
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: the you know, that were at anchor off of China
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: or India, mostly China that got through during the during
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: the ceasefire. When that stuff offloads, it's over. There's no
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: money coming in at all. It's already extremely limited. The
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: president is gaining leverage and he's doing it at great
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: risk because obviously this isn't solving, you know, his midterm
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: elections issue, but it's solving America's national security issue.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: You know, Admiral, in my view, I hope we win.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans win. But if we lose, having Iran collapse is
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: much more important than holding the House. I hope we
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: hold the House. I hope we hold the Senate. But
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: having Iran collapse is much more important. Let me talk
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to you about the numbers here. There are these very
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: large crude containers, VLCCs. They originally started with a dozen
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of them by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. They're
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: up to 117 of them now. Are those big targets
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: or is the fact that there are only 117 of
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: them work in all the different countries, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of course, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia? Is
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: that simply not enough traffic for the Iranians to hit
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: in the dark?
• 31:53
  Speaker 10: Yeah, well, a couple of things here.
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: One, I think a lot of the ships going through
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: are smaller, 200,000 to 500,000 barrels. They then top off
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: to the VLCCs, two million barrel VLCs sitting outside.
• 32:05
  Speaker 10: Some two million ones do the run.
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: But, you know, you can reduce your risk by using
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: a smaller ship that shuttles, a series of ships that
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: shuttle out the fuel. You know, you can't do this
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: from liquid natural gas, which is why LNG ships.
• 32:21
  Speaker 10: Are a little more stuck.
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: Inside, and in fact, Kuwait made a pretty big decision
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: on that. Excuse me, Qatar did today, kind of declaring
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: force majeure on some of their contracts.
• 32:34
  Speaker 10: But on that crude, you're absolutely right.
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: Those 2 million barrel VLCCs, very large crude carriers, are
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: high value targets. So I think the best plan is
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: to shuttle ships out. They transfer the fuel. Transferring fuel
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: like that's a 40-pound evolution, not a 4,000 PSI evolution.
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: And so it's much safer and easier, and they're doing that.
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: I suspect a few large ones go through. Those would
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: be prime targets.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Now, Admiral, when he says that U.S. aircraft and naval
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: assets concentrate air defense over the passage, how do you
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: understand that? Is it just F-35s and F-18s, or is
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it also– Hawkeye aircraft from United Arab Emirates. What are
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: we talking about here?
• 33:21
  Speaker 10: So I suspect this is the whole air wing, so
• 33:24
  Speaker 10: to speak.
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: In other words, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, F-35s, the four core
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: fighters that we have between the Air Force and the Navy.
• 33:33
  Speaker 10: They can switch off.
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: In a weird way, the F-35, in terms of targeting
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: some of the drones, is not the best system. I
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: think the F-16 getting in behind them with their advanced
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: precision kill weapon system, sometimes the best thing, but all
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: four of them are great assets for this. They're then
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: supported by E2Ds, um, maybe an E3 that could come
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: down from Jordan or Israel as well, but you know, a, uh,
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: some kind of airborne air control system just to keep
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: everything separated and safe and make sure you're, you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: sharing the targets effectively. If, if there's a mass launch,
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: a wave launch at them. I also think there's small
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: ships that, you know, um, kind of special operator boats
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: that the special operators or Marines may be using to
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: do some support along there. There's also armed helicopters, if necessary,
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: to take care of small boats that might come out. Again,
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: very few of those left that could make the run
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: all the way down to that southern transit lane. This
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: is a brilliant move by Admiral Cooper. He has used
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: effectively for 90-plus days this southern transit lane and slowly
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: built it up. And it's gone in a little bit
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: of a sine wave. I think we're at a good
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: point of it now, as that article laid out today,
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: that we're flowing through the fuel, that he's just slowly
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: but surely creating conditions. Last thing I'll say is every
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: time they do something stupid, Iran, like fire, we don't
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: randomly strike.
• 34:59
  Speaker 10: We strike very specifically.
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: The new radars that are being built, new direction finders
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: are being built, new rocket emplacement sites, so that it's
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: very hard for Iran to effectively target these ships. We've
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: been very selective in our targeting, really in a non-escalatory way,
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: but a way that makes that southern transit scheme safer
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: every time we strike.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Now, a bigger question, Admiral, I'll give you two and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a half, three minutes on this. Impact on the Navy.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: It's the largest blockade they've ever run, most complicated operation.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: There's joint operation every day between Army, Air Force, and Navy,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: but this is a big Navy deal. What's the impact
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: on the Navy? Are the sailors lining up, you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: let me go, let me be a part of this?
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: First of all, my experience in 35 years in the
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: Navy is you generally want to be where the fight is.
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: So I think there's a little bit of that. But
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: also there's a sense of professional accomplishment. They're doing a
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: hard mission. They're doing it well, effectively, with a strong
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: understanding of risk to mission, risk to force. So that's good.
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: There's some there's some challenges to this. The first one
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: just talked about a lot munitions. We don't talk about
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: the standard missile SM, which are the SM twos, SM
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: threes and SM sixes to defend Navy ships. And that
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: the Navy also uses to defend Israel from IRBMs. Those
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: numbers are getting lower than we want for a China
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: operation or a Russia operation. They need to be bought
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: in multi-year buys, like we're doing with Patriot and THAAD
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: and Congress is, is going to need, they've authorized some
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: of that, need to authorize all of it. And then
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: the appropriators need to pay for it so that we
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: can get defense budgets through. The other big issue is readiness.
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: You know, we did a maximum pressure campaign on Iran
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: in 2012, 2013, 2014. The end result, the Navy said, hey,
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: you're breaking us readiness wise. In 2017, January 2017, for
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: the first time in 70 years, no aircraft carrier could
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: get under way for about a month. And then we
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: were at low levels for about a year and a half.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: We risked doing that. If this goes on, the real
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: pain starts about eight or nine months of sustained maximum pressure.
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: We're there right now. And then every three month increment
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: means more pain later. And this pain is going to
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: evidence itself in 2028, 2029, 2030 with less ships available
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: for operations anywhere. But that's the risk. Look, like your
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: election issue, This is an important thing. You know, we
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: need to defeat this nuclear program. And the way you
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: do it is with these ships deployed out here.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: And Admiral, less than a minute. Is it good for
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the Navy to have this experience and China not have
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: this experience, although they're watching us? Does it help the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Navy overall, even though it stresses the Navy?
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: 100 percent.
• 37:54
  Speaker 10: And it's more than the blockade.
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: It's the 800 plus rockets and missiles that have been
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: fired at our Navy ships that With none hitting, by
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: the way, and you knock on wood when you say that,
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: but they've done very well. And it's the operators get trained.
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: You find out the flaws in your systems and your munitions.
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: But most importantly, we've developed this system now at a
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: place called Dahlgren where we're upgrading the software of our
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: agent system and the doctrine development of agent system every
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: two or three days. Yes, we're in a better position
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: than China.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 38:26
  Speaker 11: Wow.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: That's a bit of critical information. I hope you write
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: that up for FTD somewhere, Admiral. Admiral Mark Montgomery, retired
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: United States Navy. Follow him on X at Mark C. Montgomery.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Follow me in the next segment on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Lilacs is here, as
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: in James Lilacs, as in jameslilacs.substack.com. National Review columnist, humorous,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: funny guy. James, you're just back from the United Kingdom,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: am I right?
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: You are correct, sir.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: So, were you anywhere near RAF Fairford Air Base this week?
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was there with a couple of guys. We
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: had a white van, fuel van, and we were just
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: kind of hanging around and doing stuff. I didn't really
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: know what they were all about, but they seemed to
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: be ordinary chaps. Hated the West, hated Christianity, hated... modern
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: secular society. But other than that, you know, they're okay
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: to get along with.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Why do you ask? I ask because the Wall Street
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Journal reports that those guys you're hanging around with that
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: were arrested last night close to the B-1 bombers at
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Fairford RAF base, they've been released.
• 39:38
  Speaker 11: That's what I hear.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: They've been released. Isn't that amazing? That's it.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: That's what I understand. I mean, it's entirely possible that
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: they put AirPod trackers on all of them just to
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: see what they're going to do now. Or these guys
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: were actually honestly, you know, had nothing to do with
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: anything and a big misunderstanding. But it does seem rather curious.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Usually today in modern societies, we're used to these guys
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: getting out after six months or so. We're used to the,
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: you know, the quiet things and it dries down and
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: then off they go and nothing more is heard of it. Well,
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: this seems rather quick to just throw up their hands
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: and say, what are you going to do? The guys
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: are going to blow us up. They didn't actually do it,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: so what are you going to do?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I like the fact that a farmer's wife driving along
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the road found them, and thank goodness for her. But
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: you had already left the country by the time this transpired, correct?
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was already, yes, I have to confess.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with it, nor would I.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Second story of three. Columbia prohibits electronic devices in all literature, humanities,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and contemporary civilization sections. Now, this is the college at
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Columbia University for the undergraduates. And it's not every course.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: It's two required courses in the core curriculum. But they
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: can't bring in a computer. They can't bring in a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: cell phone. No electronics. What does Lilac say?
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's absolutely fantastic. And I don't just say
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: this as an old boomer coot who had to write
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: things out in longhand in his notebooks. I am that.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: But on the other hand, what they're doing is saying, no,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: you're not going to be able to just call up
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: ChatGPT or Grok and get a praises of what the
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: story is about and then just pare it back to
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: us in that response. You actually have to think about it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: You might actually have to write something because the process
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: of getting your words out in your writing... binds it,
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: sears it, burns it into your brain in a way
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: that just looking at a screen and getting the answer doesn't.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: So it's a way of starting, and if they haven't
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: started their critical thinking yet, it's a way of getting
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: it going and then jump-starting it and making it a
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: good habit. I fully support it. I'd kick those things
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: out of every single class in college, period.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Also, get off my lawn. Or you and me both.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: There was one student at the University of Michigan Law
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: School in the early 80s, Steve, who never took a note.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And I just– he was a friend of mine. We
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: played pinball together. But I just couldn't understand it because
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I was a copious note-taker. It's how I remembered. Then
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I outlined the notes, and I outlined the outline of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the notes, and then I outlined the outline of the outline,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and then I could take the test. Were you that
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: kind of a person? That's how you remember stuff.
• 42:04
  Speaker 8: No.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: No, I was a pinball player, yes, but no, I didn't.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: I listened, I thought, I took down notes, but I
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: was an English major, which did not have the same
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: sort of intellectual rigor that law school did, so I
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: could make up stuff more, I could extemporaneously construct my ideas,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: but no, I had to write something down, and there
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: was a pleasure at the end of the quarter at
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: looking at your notebooks and seeing all the things that
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: you'd done and realizing that you remembered at least 17%
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: of all that stuff, so.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: The future was bright.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, third story from Alexander Stahel. He is an energy
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: analyst in Switzerland and a well-respected one. He hit the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: world across the face this morning with his newsletter that begins,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Iran's regime has lost control of the Strait of Hormuz.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Because oil exports in the Middle East are now back
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: to about 94%. This is a moving target, yes, but
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: it is what the data tell us right now. What
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: has begun is what he calls the Hormuz shuttle. First
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the UAE, Kuwait, then Haramco, the Saudi Arabia. They loaded
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: up on the shore in these very large crude containers,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: moved those out to the Gulf of Aden, wherever it is,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: past the Iranian missiles, and then offloaded to little tankers.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: And they've been doing it for months, and it's now
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: working like clockwork. Why don't we know this?
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: Yep. Well, because the media isn't very interested in telling us. Secondly,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: because the visuals probably aren't that good. I think if
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: the Hormel shuttle consisted of them dragging the oil tankers
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: out of the water and putting them on logs or
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: having them carry, you know, like Pharaoh-style things, that'd be fun.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: That'd be a great visual, but it's not that. And
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: also because we don't know very much really about what
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: goes on there specifically when it comes to oil. I mean,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: the fact that Aramco has their own tank fleets and
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: the fact that Aramco can sort of monetize the insurance
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: problems in-house, the fact that Carg Island hasn't sent anything
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: out since August, none of that really conforms to a clear,
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: bright narrative that's binary and easy to understand. But when
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: you put that and general success there and the desire
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: that we hope to stay the course and continue to
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: squeeze Iran out, with the fact that American oil production
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: is surging, and that by 2027 or something like that,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: over 14.5 million barrels a day are going to be
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: pumped out of this country, the future looks bright again.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: And good news, unfortunately, doesn't sell, because you've got to
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: get all spun up and worried about unimportant things, like
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: whether or not the ballroom is going to have sufficient
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: ADA requirements.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Now, I am not myself at peak worry over the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: blue wave, because I think they've crested. And I just
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: talked about the specifics of how the straight operation is
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: going on with Admiral Montgomery, but he's not a political guy.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: You're pretty good on the vibe count, James. You've seen
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the doom saying out there, doom scrolling by Republican consultants
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and Mark Halpern and many others. What say you? I
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: don't think it's that bad.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: I know absolutely no Republicans who do not plan to vote.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: And in the state of Minnesota, that sometimes is, you know,
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: you're just casting your vote to the wind. It's nothing's
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: going to happen because it's DFL run state, but you
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: want to do it anyway. I don't know any of
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: them who would turn on the administration at this point
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: and say, oh, they haven't done everything that I want.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to vote for them. I'm going to
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: stay home. I'm sure that there are people like that.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: But again, in my social circle, broad and deep as
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: it is, there's nobody who's saying I'm sitting this one
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: out or I don't care and I've lost all my
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: spirit and energy for it. There's no demoralization. that I
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: can see. Again, it doesn't mean it's not there, but
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: if the media wanted us to stay home, I imagine
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: that they would say that there are reasons to be
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: disheartened and that Republicans, good ones, ones who really care
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: about the values and the rest of these things, are
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: sitting it out for A, B, or C, or D reason, whatever.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: So no, I'm not against it.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: You're our local guy. Does Michelle Tafoya show up on
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: TV much? Yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she does. The ads do come up from time
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: to time. We're being saturated now. You watch football, and
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: it's her, and it's Amy Klobuchar, and the rest of them.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: So I don't know. I have absolutely no way to
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: gauge the state anymore, because just when you think it's
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: locked into the socialist mandate until the end of the century,
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, boom, it's Jesse Ventura. You know,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: the days of Tim Pawlenty in the past may be gone,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: but the ability of the state, especially given the outstate elements,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: to just throw spanners into the political works should never
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: be underestimated.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Anything for Peggy Flanagan? Has she been campaigning in her
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: job again?
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I haven't seen that, but she shows up
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: with this sort of daffy smile. I did like the
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: fact that she said it would be time to have
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: a Native American woman in the Senate, which sort of
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: belies the assertion that there's already one there now.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, it sure does. Oh, Elizabeth Warren's going to be upset.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I did not know that. Lilacs, as always, a pleasure.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Follow them at lilacs.com. Subscribe to his newsletter, Substack, over
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: there at JamesLilacs.com. www.substack.com. Read them in National Review. Stay tuned.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to come back with a man who is
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: inside Doge. Don't go anywhere.
• 47:19
  Speaker 10: Stay where you are.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I promise to have the program today.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by Tyler Hasson now. Tyler is the author
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of this brand-new book, which is simply entitled Inside Doge.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: It tells you everything you know. Tyler is a veteran
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: of the Doge. And the Doge that he joined, he
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: went to in January 8th of 2025, stayed for six months,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: records it all here. It's fascinating. I make an argument
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: online today. It ought to be an intro to American
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: government required text because it does break it down in
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a hurry. Tyler, where do I find you today?
• 47:54
  Speaker 11: I'm in Houston, Hughes. Thank you so much for having
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: me on. I'm honored.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to have you. And I hope people
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: get Inside Doge. It's available at Amazon, wherever bookstores are. and,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: of course, all the other online bookstores. Tyler, before I
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: get to you, where was your dad from in Ohio?
• 48:11
  Speaker 11: He was from Dayton, Ohio.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, that almost counts. Right, Pat. You've done it right, Pat.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that in his slides. You've got good Buckeye
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: blood in you, and I wanted to suss that out.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: How in the world did you end up at the
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: energy company, Basin Energy, that you were at for 13
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: years before you said yes to Doge?
• 48:32
  Speaker 8: So I was working at Morgan Stanley's Energy Investment Banking
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: Group in London, and I was connected with the founder
• 48:38
  Speaker 8: of Basin in London back in 2008.
• 48:41
  Speaker 11: And I spent, you know, over a decade there. It
• 48:44
  Speaker 11: was a great experience.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then you get recruited to go to Doge
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and you show up in the, quote, penthouse of SpaceX
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: in Washington, D.C. How'd they find you? Did you put
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: up your hand? That's an interesting marriage.
• 49:00
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: So I woke up the day after the election and
• 49:04
  Speaker 8: I just wanted to do something about our debt. And
• 49:07
  Speaker 8: so I sort of manifested it. I reached out to
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: a few people who might know a few people on
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: the transition team. And they put me in touch with
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: a group in Mar-a-Lago. And then I got connected to
• 49:17
  Speaker 8: Elon's team. So I went through six interviews. Along the way,
• 49:20
  Speaker 8: I had no idea if I would actually get the job,
• 49:23
  Speaker 8: but I got it, and my wife was fantastic along
• 49:26
  Speaker 8: the way, just being supportive.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Now, you made the breakout when Brett sat down, Brett Baer.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I'm a Fox News contributor, so I know that segment
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: very well. Sat down with Elon and a bunch of
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the Doge guys and gals. And you all made some comments.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Which one was the one that made you the overnight sensation?
• 49:46
  Speaker 8: About patriotism, because I joined because I'm concerned about our debt.
• 49:50
  Speaker 8: When I graduated college in 2005, there was $ 8 trillion
• 49:54
  Speaker 8: in debt, and now we have over 40. As I
• 49:57
  Speaker 8: was writing the book, I kept having to update it
• 49:58
  Speaker 8: because we went from 36 to 37 to 38, and
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: I worry about my five-year-old daughter, who's I don't want
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: there to be $ 100 trillion of debt when she's 25,
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: and time flies. I just had my 20th reunion not
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: too long ago from college, and before we know it,
• 50:11
  Speaker 8: we're going to be at $ 100 trillion.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in fact, when you did Doge, it was $ 37
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: trillion like you just managed. I checked this morning. It's
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: $ 40. 07 trillion as of today. That's $ 3. 4 billion a day
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in interest, $ 1. 25 trillion in interest payments a year. So
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: did Doge matter against those numbers?
• 50:33
  Speaker 8: Clearly, we didn't make the dent that we wanted to.
• 50:36
  Speaker 8: And so one of the reasons I wrote the book
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: is because I think it's a mistake to just disregard
• 50:42
  Speaker 8: Doge and call it a failure and move on.
• 50:43
  Speaker 11: Instead, we should learn from it.
• 50:45
  Speaker 8: And I think there needs to be a bipartisan approach
• 50:47
  Speaker 8: to what we do going forward. And I'm hopeful that
• 50:50
  Speaker 8: the youth of America will read this book and realize
• 50:52
  Speaker 8: that it's possible to learn about the government and make
• 50:56
  Speaker 8: an impact, even in a small way.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's what I like about it. I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: like that people go into the patent office and they
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: go over and they discover the census overhead. And then
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about the Department of the Interior and Doug
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Burgum in a moment. But I ran OPM in the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Reagan years, and it was vast, sprawling federal government in
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: those years. Now it's incredibly complicated, and I defy anyone
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: to save real money. By real money, I mean $ 5 trillion,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: $ 10 trillion. by going in and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with me on that?
• 51:32
  Speaker 11: I agree.
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: It's very difficult because of how much is in the
• 51:35
  Speaker 8: entitlements and now interest. Just between 2019 and 2024, interest
• 51:40
  Speaker 8: went up $ 600 billion, and it's compounding.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: So, Tyler, I think a Doge 2.0 ought to be
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: focused on entitlements. Do you think anyone has the political
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: will to do the obvious things like, We're going to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: raise the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: by a month a year for the next 40 years.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Some small, gradual stuff like that. It would change everything.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: You think anyone would do it?
• 52:09
  Speaker 11: It's hard to say. I mean, I hope we do something.
• 52:12
  Speaker 8: And, you know, one of the things I talk about
• 52:14
  Speaker 8: in the book is a lot of the fraud happens
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: at the state and the local levels. So in the
• 52:18
  Speaker 8: Department of Interior, a lot of our grants went to states.
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: And then it was hard for me sitting in D.C.
• 52:22
  Speaker 8: to audit that. And so we have people like Nick
• 52:25
  Speaker 8: Shirley and others who are doing a great job of
• 52:27
  Speaker 8: finding that fraud.
• 52:28
  Speaker 11: And so that can certainly help.
• 52:30
  Speaker 8: But to your point, we really need to get together
• 52:32
  Speaker 8: in a bipartisan way if we're really going to do
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: something about the problem.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: I was writing today, I'll let you think about it
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: during the break, that as every data center goes up,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: they ought to get a federal approval. And with that,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a federal excise tax for as long as they operate,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: just to begin a sinking fund on the debt, because
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: it's going to sink us if we don't sink it first.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Tyler Hasson, the book Inside Doge.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: It's a fascinating read. I'll tell you when we get back.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: am joined by Tyler Hasson. Tyler is the author of
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: this brand new book, which I found fabulous, Inside Doge,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: when he Began with Doge. He started at Commerce. He
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: did good work there. And then he was given a
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: series of agencies. He picked the best one, Department of
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the Interior. If you're not going to go to Defense,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: then that will swallow you up. And you got the
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: great secretary, Doug Burgum, a friend of the program, an
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: acquaintance of mine. And you got to go there. And
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's unintentionally humorous that the first place you
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: end up is at the Bureau of Reclamation office in Sacramento.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: working on an overview of the Central Valley Project and
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the Jones pumping station. Can you see how that's kind
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: of unintentionally humorous? You just went from D.C. in the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: headquarters of SpaceX to the Jones pumping station in the
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere.
• 54:01
  Speaker 11: Right. And it took me a week.
• 54:03
  Speaker 8: And that was after this horrible wildfire that had happened
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: in Southern California. And so I was just asking the
• 54:09
  Speaker 8: questions that I think a lot of Americans were asking
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: is what's going on with the water situation and trying
• 54:13
  Speaker 8: to press for more federally pumped water to get down
• 54:16
  Speaker 8: to the people of Southern California.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: And what I found amazing about that little bit, there
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: are six big pumps at the Jones pumping station. One
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: was online at the time of the fire. Doja's attention
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: got two, three, and four back up. They didn't want
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: to bring five up because of fish, even though the
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: president had issued a people over fish executive order, but
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: they wanted to hear it twice. Isn't that crazy? Just
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: emblematic of the federal government, Tyler.
• 54:44
  Speaker 11: It really is.
• 54:45
  Speaker 8: And, you know, some of them were down for routine maintenance. And,
• 54:47
  Speaker 8: you know, and I understood that. But I was pressing
• 54:50
  Speaker 8: that and trying to move the timeline faster. You know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: one of the things I really learned from Elon through
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: this experience is about urgency. I think that's one of
• 54:57
  Speaker 8: the reasons why he's been so successful in all of
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: his businesses is there's this aura of urgency. Let's get
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: things done today. Let's not wait a week. And so
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: that's all I was doing is pressing. But your point
• 55:07
  Speaker 8: about the fish is right. I mean, there's so many
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: complicated regulations that make no sense for the American people.
• 55:13
  Speaker 11: And that was just one of them.
• 55:14
  Speaker 8: I mean, we have different rules for freshwater and saltwater
• 55:18
  Speaker 8: and the amount of fish that need to be there.
• 55:20
  Speaker 8: And sometimes we're pumping freshwater into the Pacific Ocean when
• 55:23
  Speaker 8: it could be helping people in Southern California because of regulations.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to vent on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Service in just a moment because I spent almost three
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: decades wrangling with them as a land use lawyer, Tyler.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But I want to get some other stuff out of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the way first. Wherever you showed up, people did not
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: want you to come in. And I like what you wrote,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: that at 33, you took over a failing generator company.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: You were dropped into an Oklahoma company from New York,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: bankers probably. Quote, when you're handed a team that doesn't
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: want you, the only way forward is to control what
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: you can control and earn their respect, not through charm,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: not through talk, through hard work, empathy, and results. That
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: could be like a management 101 quote. paragraph. Has that
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: proven true everywhere?
• 56:07
  Speaker 8: Yes. I've run businesses in Edmonton, Canada. I've run them
• 56:10
  Speaker 8: in Moore, Oklahoma, in Abu Dhabi, in Villahermosa, Mexico. I've
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: been all around the world. And that's one of the
• 56:16
  Speaker 8: reasons why I put my hand up to tackle the
• 56:19
  Speaker 8: federal government is because I don't think there's been one
• 56:22
  Speaker 8: management position I've ever been in that people really wanted
• 56:25
  Speaker 8: me there because of my age and where I came from.
• 56:29
  Speaker 11: I grew up in New York City, actually. And I
• 56:32
  Speaker 11: worked hard to earn their trust.
• 56:34
  Speaker 8: And I hope I did that with a lot of
• 56:36
  Speaker 8: the people I worked with, both at Doge and within Interior, because,
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: you know, I thought what we did really mattered. And
• 56:42
  Speaker 8: I thought we were really making an impact. And I
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: hope that comes across in the book.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: It does. And there's also a hidden secret. Doug Burgum
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: named you head of policy. So you weren't just the
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Doge man. You had authority. Would you explain why that
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: matters when you're trying to restructure even small parts of
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the federal government? Right.
• 56:58
  Speaker 8: Well, so Secretary Burgum and I hit it off because,
• 57:01
  Speaker 8: you know, there's this misconception that we were just cutting
• 57:04
  Speaker 8: contracts without looking at them and just not thinking about it.
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: Secretary Burgum would come in in jeans and a ball
• 57:10
  Speaker 8: cap on a Saturday and spend five or six hours
• 57:13
  Speaker 8: while I would present contracts and grants that I thought
• 57:16
  Speaker 8: and our team thought did not make sense to him.
• 57:18
  Speaker 11: And we'd talk about it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 8: And, you know, literally he would stay there until he
• 57:22
  Speaker 8: had dinner with his wife or something, some other commitment.
• 57:25
  Speaker 11: I mean, he was just incredible.
• 57:27
  Speaker 8: And so as we built that trust and that working relationship,
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: he promoted me to an acting assistant secretary position, meaning
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: I I wasn't Senate confirmed, but I had the authority
• 57:36
  Speaker 8: on contracts, grants to make decisions. And, you know, again,
• 57:40
  Speaker 8: a lot of it was pretty obvious of the contracts
• 57:42
  Speaker 8: that should be cut. But when they weren't obvious, I
• 57:44
  Speaker 8: would bring it to him and the rest of the
• 57:46
  Speaker 8: team who were great at Interior.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: So you got the best boss. I think Secretary Burgum
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: is the equal of any of the Trump cabinet members.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: And he was willing to trust then 30. Were you
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: 33 then or are you 33 now?
• 58:00
  Speaker 11: I'm 40. I was 42 at the time. So I
• 58:03
  Speaker 11: was 33 when I ran this company.
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: So I spent about 10 years running companies.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: OK, so he took a green guy from outside of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the government and gave him authority. Do you think we
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: could use more of that and more acting people who
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: are there for a year or two years as opposed
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: to people are going to spend 20 years or maybe
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: even six or eight years of a presidency? That urgency
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: comes with the fact that you're on a fuse.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Well, exactly.
• 58:26
  Speaker 8: I mean, part of my message is don't just drain
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: the swamp, flood it with talent. And part of that
• 58:32
  Speaker 8: is because when I came in with fresh eyes, you know,
• 58:35
  Speaker 8: I was looking at things very differently than people that
• 58:37
  Speaker 8: have been there for 20, 30 years, or, you know,
• 58:39
  Speaker 8: have just been in politics for most of their career.
• 58:42
  Speaker 8: And I saw what my Doge colleagues were doing, and
• 58:44
  Speaker 8: they were doing things the same way and from different
• 58:47
  Speaker 8: vantage points. Some people would look at the technology systems
• 58:49
  Speaker 8: and say, wow, we're 20 years behind on this technology,
• 58:53
  Speaker 8: or we're Four years behind with AI. Why are we
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: doing this? Why are we wasting taxpayer dollars? And so
• 58:59
  Speaker 8: I think fresh eyes is critical. And so I think
• 59:01
  Speaker 8: we need more talent, more people willing to serve for
• 59:03
  Speaker 8: six months, 12 months, two years, whatever it is, but
• 59:06
  Speaker 8: people that aren't interested in being in politics for their
• 59:09
  Speaker 8: whole lives.
• 59:10
  Speaker 11: Career.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Well, the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act did not do
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: anyone any favors because it made it very hard to
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: do that. But I'm going to continue talking with Tyler
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: on my podcast for today, and I'll put a show
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: up on my YouTube channel as well, because I got
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: a bone to pick about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: my most hated of all federal And it resides within
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: his ambient. And he was good enough to include it.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I paged through the whole thing, not thinking it had
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: an index, and found that he mentioned it only on
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: three places. But I found those three before I went
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: to the index. So we're going to talk about that.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Had you ever heard of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Service before you showed up at Interior, Tyler? I had not, no.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: When you first saw it, and it had 9,000 people,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: did you have any idea how the Endangered Species Act worked?
• 59:55
  Speaker 11: I did not, no. I learned a lot in a
• 59:57
  Speaker 11: short amount of time.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: And before we go to break, what's your assessment of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: how that agency and that law work?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: Well, basically, it's Hotel California. Once an endangered species goes in,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: it never leaves. And Secretary Burgum talks a lot about
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: that when he goes on talk shows and things like that.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 8: But I saw the same thing. And then we're spending money.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 8: on that, you know, tremendously because of that.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, and the opportunity costs and influx on the country
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: are so extraordinary. I'm going to talk with Tyler about
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: that on the other side. But go out and get
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Inside Doge because it's written for people who aren't government majors,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: who don't live in the swamp, to understand why it
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: is like slaying the hydra. You cut one head off.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: And two more come up.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: But it's a great book, and congratulations to Tyler Hassan
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: for writing Inside Doge. Hi, Hugh Hewitt for Carbon Zero.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Every day there's another headline about artificial intelligence, and it's
• 1:00:51
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• 1:00:54
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• 1:00:57
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• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: I'm back now with Tyler. Tyler, one more story from Doge,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: inside Doge. The United States Geological Service survey for Mauritania.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: That was low-hanging fruit, right? Tell people about it.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 8: So, you know, I'm going through all the contracts and
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 8: I found a contract for $ 4. 2 million to assess the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 8: groundwater of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. And I'm thinking
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 8: to myself, why in the world are we spending $ 4
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 8: million to assess the groundwater in a West African country
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 8: that most people have never heard of? And I found
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 8: a lot of other contracts like that. And, you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 8: one of the things that I try to, you know,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 8: talk about in my book is The average taxpayer family
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 8: pays $ 500, 000 in their lifetime. And so one of the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 8: criticisms is with $ 40 trillion in debt, what does a
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 8: $ 4 million contract matter?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 11: I thought about it differently.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 8: I think about eight families in Texas that don't ever
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 8: have to pay taxes because we cut that contract. And
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 8: so when we cut over $ 4 billion of contracts in
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 8: the Department of Interior alone, I'm very proud of that
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 8: because I feel very strongly that they were wasting taxpayer dollars.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: And I agree with you. I think that if we
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: did Doge every two years, whether it's a Republican or
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: a Democrat, and you gave everyone six months to go
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: in with the charge to simply hack away at the stupid,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: the country would get better. That's pathway evolution. You make
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: an incremental change one way or the other, and the big,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: big aircraft carrier moves in a direction that's fundamentally different.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, we have to tackle that debt.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: And what's on your mind for tackling that debt? I've
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: also proposed taxing data centers when they come online for
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: a federal increment. Have you got any ideas for tackling
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: the debt?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, so I think that we should have
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 8: a permanent institution that's similar to Doge building off of
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 8: it and learning from mistakes and, you know, making it better.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 8: And then also have a liaison in each state because
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 8: a lot of where we found waste and fraud, as
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 8: I mentioned earlier, with grants was at the state and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 8: more local levels. And so there we would have state
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 8: and federal workers who are there for 12 months, two years,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 8: business professionals, entrepreneurs, people who are willing to serve and
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 8: think outside the box and be decisive, frankly, because there's
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 8: a lot of inertia in the government where people are
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 8: afraid to make decisions because it's much easier to not.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: And so I think we need to have that permanent apparatus.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 8: In terms of other taxes, that's an interesting idea about
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 8: data centers. I mean, obviously that would That would, I think,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 8: help with some of the sentiment that we see right now.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 8: But it's a big job to tackle this debt, and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 8: we need more intelligent people thinking about it.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: There's also a very telling moment in Inside Doge. You're
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: not there a day when one of your teammates comes
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: over and says, hey, have you heard about AI? And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: you hadn't. I appreciate the humility. And he taught you
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: how to use it, and it opened a world inside
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: commerce to you. That kind of offer of help B,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: humility on the receiving end, and then C, execution, matters
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a lot. I spent six years in the Fed 35
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: years ago, so it doesn't matter anymore. But I don't
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: see that very much in the federal government. Do you? No.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 8: You know, I did really enjoy working with a lot
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 8: of the career civil servants. A lot of them were
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 8: very well-intentioned, really bright, incredibly hardworking. It's the system that
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 8: I had a much bigger issue with. And, you know,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 8: that point about not knowing A.I., You know, it goes
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 8: against the whole, we're all a bunch of tech pros.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 11: You know, I hadn't even used AI until I entered Doge.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 8: There were a lot of us that were business leaders
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 8: and older and had a lot of management experience. And,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 8: you know, another thing that I think is missed is
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 8: there were 20 women on our team. And those women
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 8: were indispensable and great. And no one really talks about
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 8: that in the mainstream media. And I wanted my book
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 8: to kind of tell the real story about what it
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 8: was like, because it's a lot different than what most
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 8: people perceive.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm torn because Elon with the chainsaw, and I
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: don't know Elon Musk, but Elon with the chainsaw is
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: one image. Your 40-year-old oil and gas executive, that's a
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: different image. The young grinders who are 22 years old
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and don't shower enough, that's a third image. None of
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: them are quite correct, right? It's a quilt of personalities.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: Right, and the chainsaw is one thing. But what I
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 8: saw is quite different. I saw meetings that started at
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 8: 7 or 8 p.m. and lasted until 2 in the morning.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 8: And Elon would go around the room. There would be
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 8: 30 or 40 of us usually. And it would be
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 8: a lead for every department and agency pretty much. There
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 8: were some gaps. But we spent 45 minutes sometimes on
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 8: one department. You know, when he asked me about California Water,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 8: all of a sudden I'm– giving Elon Musk all the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 8: rules of federal waters and what gets pumped and what doesn't.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 8: I mean, you can imagine the anxiety I had when
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 8: I was trying to describe that to him.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 11: But he was locked in to the point that he
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 11: slept in a nearby office.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 8: And so what I saw was dedication to American people
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 8: and a brilliant man who didn't need to be doing
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 8: that and being attacked for it.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 11: So I have the utmost respect for him from everything
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 11: I saw.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if the president and Musk are
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: getting along now. That's above my pay grade. But if
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: they were, would you think Musk running a debt project,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: something focused on the $ 40 trillion, would be useful?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 8: I think him being supportive and involved would be useful.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: Of course, anything that he runs, I think, will ultimately
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: be successful. You know, if we had had more time,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 8: I think we could have done a lot more. I mean,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: a lot of people signed up for five or six months.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 8: You know, I stayed on all the way through 11
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 8: months after Secretary Burgum resigned. He called Susie Wiles and
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 8: got me basically allowed to work a little bit longer. SGE, yeah.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 11: SGE, exactly. I think Elon being involved, I think.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 8: Is critical because he has such a brilliant mind and
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 8: is so well-connected.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: I would go to, I don't know if it's Schumer
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: or Jeffrey. I'd say, give us three of your smartest Democrats,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and we'll give you David Sachs and Elon Musk and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: somebody else. And they're going to come up with entitlement reforms,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: and they're going to agree on which, because it has
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: to be entitlement reformed. Now, before I go, let's go
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: back to the agency I love to hate, EOS Fish
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service. 9,000 people. When it came time to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: keep the employees who were indispensable, you're doing the government shutdown,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: so only critical employees get to stay. How many did
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: you end up keeping of the 9,000 coming to work?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 11: It was in the hundreds. I can't remember the exact number,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 11: but it was amazing.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 8: I mean, a lot of them were biologists and scientists
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 8: and people doing a bunch of studies, which you know,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 8: I'm sure are helpful.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: No, they're not helpful. They're ridiculous. They're bad science. They
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: are based on the expected destruction of critical habitat that
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: may or may not be occupied. They don't save species.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: There are only a handful of species in the United
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: States that are genuinely endangered. They made it up over
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the course of 50 years. It was signed by President
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Nixon in 1973. And Tyler, I had the honor of
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: working for him a couple of times. And we were
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: designing a part of his library about the ESA. I said,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: what were you thinking? He said, well, it seemed like
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: a good idea at the time. They were thinking about
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: polar bears and Eagle. They were not talking about Vernal pool,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: fairy shrimp in the central Valley. It's the dumbest agency.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: And as you point out, it does what Noah does.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 11: Oh, a hundred percent.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 8: There's an office of protected resources in Noah that does
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 8: the exact same thing. And sometimes they have different rules
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 8: for the same topic. And so then you have different
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 8: government agencies saying one thing and the other saying the other.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 8: And all that does is cost taxpayer dollars money, both
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 8: in all the studies and wasted time.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: And then there are state endangered species agencies. In California,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: it's the California Department of Fish and Game. But there
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: are state endangered species act, which sometimes conflict and overlap.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Then there's Army Corps of Engineers. Then there's the Endangered
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Species Act, that intersection with the EPA. It's just ridiculous.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: So my question, I really wanted to end with, as
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: a doge guy and as a businessman, If we close
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tomorrow, I mean shuttered
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: it forever, do you think endangered species would be better
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: or worse off or the same as what we've got
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: right now? Oh, wow.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 11: That's a very tough question.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 8: You know, I think that it's entirely bloated, shutting it
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 8: all the way down. I don't know enough to be
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 8: definitive on that one, but I saw incredible bloat, incredible waste.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 11: So I agree with you. but I don't know it well.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 8: Enough in my 6 to 11 months to make that
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 8: a definitive answer.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Well, my 29 years of doing it, I'm here to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: assure you, it could all go away tomorrow and no
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: one would miss it. Tyler, I want to close by asking,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: what's ahead for you? You've got your kid, you've got
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: your wife, your wonderful wife, Courtney, who supported you through
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: all this. You've got your daughter who's probably getting ready
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: for junior high, if I do my math correctly. What
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: do you want to do with your life?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so I'm running a small public company called Zone
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 8: Frontier focused on AI infrastructure. And so what's interesting with
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 8: some of your earlier remarks is one of the things
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: that we were really focused on is how we can
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: benefit the communities that we're operating in. And we're building
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: some data centers now. And I think that your idea
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: on the federal side is a really good one because
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 8: we need to fix the public sentiment because there are
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 8: a lot of ways in which these data centers can
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 8: really help communities if done the right way.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: You know, it is the equivalent, in my view, of
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the interstate highway system that was begun in 1956 and
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: took 20 years to finish. But the data center system
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: is the electronic highway of the future without which the
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: country can't prosper. It's not really a state and local project.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: It's a federal project. I am surprised. The one thing
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: the federal government ought to be doing, which is laying
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: out the data center grid and telling people where they're
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: going to be built and saying we're going to tax
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: them and get out of the way, state and local governments,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: we need them, will Did that occur to anyone to
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: go and ask Congress for that?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 8: You know, I'm new into this. I've been in it
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 8: for a number of months, but, you know, it's a
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 8: good question. You know, I'm really excited about the business
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 8: because I'm, you know, I'm bringing the same work ethic
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 8: that I brought to Doge into the business, and it's
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 8: fun because we get to build it. But at the
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 8: same time, there are a lot of questions like that
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 8: that we need to answer.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, last question. Are you building mostly in Texas, or
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: are you going to put them wherever people will welcome them?
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 11: Wherever people will welcome them.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: All right, go to Youngstown, Warren, Ohio. Those people will
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: do anything for good jobs at a good wage. They've
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: got power, infrastructure, access to the interstate highway system, and
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: they're not going to be NIMBYs. Tyler Hassett, once again,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Inside Doge, great read. I hope intro to government students
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: get a hold of it because it's accessible and it's fun.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me, Tyler.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 11: Thank you so much, Hugh. It's an honor.