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The Big Weekend Pod · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there. And of course, to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at hueforhillsdale.com
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning, glory, and
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  Speaker 1: evening grace, America. Welcome to the Big Weekend Pod. And
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  Speaker 1: what a week it's been. I think finally we have
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  Speaker 1: consensus that the United States has won the battle of
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  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz. does not mean, as I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to be talking about with my guests throughout today's podcast,
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  Speaker 1: that no more combat, no more conflict. I personally am worried,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll be talking with Eli Lake and Matt Continetti
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  Speaker 1: and Ben Dominich and Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for
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  Speaker 1: the Defense of Democracies, about whether or not they're going
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  Speaker 1: to try a battle of the balls kind of throw
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  Speaker 1: everything they've got left into one big assault on American bases,
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  Speaker 1: American forces. Maybe even Israel, if they got a death wish,
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  Speaker 1: but they've stayed away from Israel because they know Netanyahu
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  Speaker 1: would like nothing more than to pound them into the
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  Speaker 1: ground one more time before the vote in Israel in
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  Speaker 1: late October. But we've got great guests, and of course,
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  Speaker 1: John Ellis starting us off. It's been a big week
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  Speaker 1: of news, and I'm not talking about the AI summit,
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  Speaker 1: mostly the implications of what looks like the American victory
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  Speaker 1: in the Battle of Hormuz. And we've got politics galore.
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  Speaker 1: with El Sayed in Michigan and Tallarico in Texas. The
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  Speaker 1: focus is on those two races. If the Republicans can
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  Speaker 1: win one or both of them, game over. They'll continue
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  Speaker 1: the control of the Senate. So settle back and enjoy.
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  Speaker 1: We've got a great weekend pod coming your way right now. Morning,
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  Speaker 1: Gloria and even Grace America. Welcome to the weekend, and
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  Speaker 1: what a good weekend it's going to be because the
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  Speaker 1: Browns have already beaten the Steelers and the Guardians are playing...
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  Speaker 1: The White Sox in the American League Division Championship. So
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  Speaker 1: it's going to be a great weekend. Ohio State should
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  Speaker 1: crush Iowa. But we've got to do some news before
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  Speaker 1: we get there. And we begin as we do most
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  Speaker 1: of our weekend shows with John Ellis, Editor-in-Chief of News Items.
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  Speaker 1: I get my news items every morning and along with
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  Speaker 1: 46,000 other people get way ahead of the pack because
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  Speaker 1: I read it first thing in the morning. Today, however, though,
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  Speaker 1: John Ellis, would you explain to people why we are
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  Speaker 1: concerned and News Items is concerned with President Xi Jinping's
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  Speaker 1: putting the focus on the 21st Communist Party Congress, which
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  Speaker 1: is next October or November? Why are we looking that
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  Speaker 1: far out when we've got a war in elections on
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  Speaker 1: our hands?
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  Speaker 2: I thought it was the most unusual story of the
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  Speaker 2: year because you had President Xi sending down this directive
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  Speaker 2: saying that China had to be a safer place. And
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  Speaker 2: you think, well, it's a police state. How unsafe could
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  Speaker 2: it be? And then you get into the guts of it.
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  Speaker 2: And the directive, it's going to be met. This directive,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, goes all the way down to the
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  Speaker 2: local level.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And and the metrics are that the country be more secure.
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  Speaker 4: I'm reading them now.
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  Speaker 2: That society be more orderly, that governance be more effective,
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  Speaker 2: and that people be more satisfied. That sounds to me
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  Speaker 2: like a population that is unhappy with the way things
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  Speaker 2: are going in China. And you and I both know
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  Speaker 2: that those metrics came from extensive public opinion pollings. So
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  Speaker 2: if they are that concerned about safety and security and
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  Speaker 2: indeed the hold of the Chinese government on the Chinese people,
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  Speaker 2: it struck me as just an amazing story. And it
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  Speaker 2: got very little coverage. There's a woman named Li Wan
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  Speaker 2: who covers China for The New York Times. She's been
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  Speaker 2: reporting on this dissatisfaction, disenchantment, despair. of the Chinese people,
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  Speaker 2: and particularly with its governance. So she's been on it
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  Speaker 2: for a long time. But this story really jumped off
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  Speaker 2: the page to me.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it got my attention, too, because this is the
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  Speaker 1: every five years where they shuffle the leadership. So it's
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  Speaker 1: sort of a pointer at watch this space. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think it makes hostility with Taiwan less likely, or is
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  Speaker 1: it a head fake that they're more likely? What's John Ellis' thing?
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  Speaker 4: I think it's less likely.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think China would like to take Taiwan without
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  Speaker 2: a fight, right? And things are going, you know, slowly
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  Speaker 2: but surely in that direction. But if you're worried about
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  Speaker 2: the safety and security of your society, and you're putting
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  Speaker 2: that out there a year before the 21st Party Congress, that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, you have bigger, you know, Taiwan comes second.
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  Speaker 4: You've got to do this first.
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  Speaker 1: I agree. I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I was amazed by it.
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  Speaker 1: I hadn't seen it until I read news items, so
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  Speaker 1: that's why you ought to read news items, people. Second story.
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  Speaker 1: Russia is going to go for the kill in the
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  Speaker 1: course of the next six months. Now, I put that
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  Speaker 1: together with the story this week, John, that Ukraine has
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  Speaker 1: developed a ballistic missile that has a bigger payload, and
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  Speaker 1: they're starting to turn them off. Is Putin running out
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  Speaker 1: of just room and bodies and weaponry? Does he have
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  Speaker 1: to win?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think his choices are total victory or endless war.
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  Speaker 2: They can produce, Russia can produce, you know, drones by
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  Speaker 2: the hundreds of thousands. These new missiles are, you know,
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  Speaker 2: really deadly. And Ukraine has essentially lost its air defense systems.
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  Speaker 2: So the country is now horribly vulnerable. And Russia isn't
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  Speaker 2: abiding by any rules of warfare. They're going at civilian targets, infrastructure,
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  Speaker 2: energy infrastructure, internet, data centers, all of that. And they're
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  Speaker 2: blocking Ukraine's agricultural exports through the Black Sea. So that's
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  Speaker 2: a huge business for Ukraine. They depend on that income.
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  Speaker 2: And the thing that I think most people don't understand
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  Speaker 2: is is that Ukraine is broke. They don't have any money.
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  Speaker 2: And so unless there is some mechanism that gets them
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  Speaker 2: the frozen assets from Russia, I don't think Germany, I
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  Speaker 2: don't think France, I don't think Italy, I don't think
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  Speaker 2: Poland will come to the rescue.
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  Speaker 4: So I think the situation there is very dark.
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  Speaker 1: Very dire. All right, let's turn then to Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: James Blair is was the president's deputy chief of staff.
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  Speaker 1: He went off to run the midterms with Chris LaCivita.
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  Speaker 1: And so I'm calling it not the Blair Witch Project,
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  Speaker 1: but the Blair Switch Project to try and switch the
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  Speaker 1: elections from a referendum on Trump to a choice between
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  Speaker 1: Trump and the crazy Democrats. Has it worked, John Ellis?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think they're getting started. I mean, midterm elections
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  Speaker 2: are turnout elections, right? If your side turns out greater
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  Speaker 2: numbers on their side.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the country's roughly 50-50.
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  Speaker 2: These Senate races, you know, that will decide who controls
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  Speaker 2: the Senate are, you know, 52-48 one way or another.
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  Speaker 2: So the key thing is to get all of the
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  Speaker 2: MAGA base to vote. And that's the reason Trump has
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  Speaker 2: put him, you know, said, you know, vote as if
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  Speaker 2: I'm on the ballot, because they desperately need the MAGA
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  Speaker 2: faithful to vote.
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  Speaker 4: In large numbers.
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  Speaker 2: The non-mega Republicans will end up voting the way they
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  Speaker 2: always do, and they will come home at the end.
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  Speaker 2: So the key variable is whether the mega folk get out.
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  Speaker 2: The message obviously is, I mean, they don't say this
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  Speaker 2: out loud, but we've lost the House, let's not lose
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  Speaker 2: the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: And so.
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  Speaker 4: If you want to hedge your bet.
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  Speaker 2: On Democrats taking both houses, then you've got to support
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  Speaker 2: the Republican candidates for Senate.
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  Speaker 4: People forget these races.
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  Speaker 2: There are nine of them that I count that are
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  Speaker 2: within the margin of error. In 2022, Republicans regained the House,
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  Speaker 2: but But they kept control of the Senate. And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: this election could be a lot like that.
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  Speaker 1: Now, John, most people think that people's voting preference is
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  Speaker 1: going to lock in June or July. I think this
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  Speaker 1: year it's exceptionally fluid, more fluid than I've seen before.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I do think people vote, you know, 45-45, basically.
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  Speaker 2: And so you have this 10, 8, 12 percent, depending
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  Speaker 2: on what state it is, that are, quote, persuadable, end quote.
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  Speaker 2: Right now, that group is probably more anti-Trump than not.
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  Speaker 2: But if they can be convinced that the Republicans holding
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  Speaker 2: the Senate is a good hedge against a Democratic House vote,
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  Speaker 2: then you know as i say these are these are
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  Speaker 2: marginal variations so very few votes are going to decide
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  Speaker 2: the outcome in i don't know six seven eight states
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  Speaker 2: yep um and by very few i mean less than
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  Speaker 2: a hundred thousand so it it matters you know the
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  Speaker 2: the there's Little things matter a lot.
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  Speaker 4: It's the butterfly wing effect.
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  Speaker 1: Let's close with the AI Megaplex meeting. I read all
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  Speaker 1: of my news items, newsletters each week. day. I thought
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  Speaker 1: there was more and more AI every day. It's like
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  Speaker 1: the story is a spout or a fire hydrant that's
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  Speaker 1: been hit by the truck, and it just keeps coming out.
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  Speaker 1: What is the big takeaway of a week full of
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  Speaker 1: AISI stories?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there are a number of big takeaways, but
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  Speaker 2: the one that really strikes me was the hack of
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  Speaker 2: the FBI. And I think the mistake that President Trump
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  Speaker 2: made when he said you guys need to self-police is
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  Speaker 2: that he didn't get a commitment from them to contribute, say,
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  Speaker 2: two or three or four or five billion dollars to
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  Speaker 2: a cybersecurity enterprise. that would protect us all, because it's
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  Speaker 2: clear that AI is going to be able to hack,
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  Speaker 2: you know, pretty much everything. So having a very strong
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  Speaker 2: defense against that is absolutely necessary. And I thought it
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  Speaker 2: was an opportunity since the president gave, essentially gave the
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  Speaker 2: AI companies the green light to keep developing what they're doing.
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  Speaker 2: I thought he could have gotten in return a commitment
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  Speaker 2: from them to do everything they possibly could on the
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  Speaker 2: side of cybersecurity.
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  Speaker 1: He did mention DOJ and a closing interpretation of that.
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  Speaker 1: Did he mean to say you will go to jail
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  Speaker 1: if you don't stop your machines from hacking people? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he did.
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  Speaker 2: But in the event, it's not just us, right? It's China,
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  Speaker 2: it's Russia. So it's not, you know, you could say
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  Speaker 2: none of the U.S. companies are going to do anything
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  Speaker 2: wrong But there's a whole world out there that wants
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  Speaker 2: to wreak havoc on us. So getting as much money
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  Speaker 2: to build a defense against cyber attacks, it seems to
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  Speaker 2: me this was an opportunity for Trump to say, good,
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  Speaker 2: I gave you the green light, but pay up, essentially.
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  Speaker 1: Follow John at Ellis Items. Subscribe to News Items by
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: simply going to newsitems.substack.com. There's also a political item, Substack,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: for the junkies out there like me who've got to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: have that. But the News Items, 46,000 very smart people
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  Speaker 1: read it every morning because they want to be ahead
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  Speaker 1: of the game. John Ellis, thank you. I'll be right back. America,
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  Speaker 1: stay tuned. Welcome back. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Hope your weekend
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  Speaker 1: is looking great. Mine is. Because the Browns beat the
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  Speaker 1: Steelers on Thursday night. The Guardians are going to beat
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  Speaker 1: the White Sox tomorrow. Ohio State's going to. Everything is great.
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  Speaker 1: And Eli Lake is getting close to dropping his six-parter
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  Speaker 1: at Breaking History on George H.W. Bush and the Bush legacy.
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  Speaker 1: When can people expect that, Eli Lake?
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  Speaker 5: In November, we're going to drop the six-parter. And it's
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  Speaker 5: on the Bush election. We go from Samuel P. Bush
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  Speaker 5: to George W.
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  Speaker 1: And Jeb Bush. Oh, my goodness. Okay, I'm looking forward
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  Speaker 1: to that. Now, talk to me a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the big question of the week. This is the week
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  Speaker 1: in which the consensus in the foreign policy establishment moved
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  Speaker 1: from we're in a quagmire to, oh, my goodness, I
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  Speaker 1: think we won the battle for the Strait of Hormuz.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe the regime will collapse. I think the regime is
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  Speaker 1: going to collapse. What do you think, Eli?
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  Speaker 5: I hope this regime will collapse, but it's not just
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  Speaker 5: because it's a good idea. You have to have serious
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  Speaker 5: work being done, which I hope is being done right now,
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  Speaker 5: because we should know about it when it's being done
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  Speaker 5: by the CIA and the Mossad. There's also stuff that
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  Speaker 5: I think the State Department can do. You can start
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  Speaker 5: organizing and helping to organize the Iranian diaspora, working maybe
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  Speaker 5: with Reza Pahlavi and others to come up with something
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  Speaker 5: that would look like a kind of government in exile
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  Speaker 5: that could be able to take things These are the
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  Speaker 5: sorts of moves that we would have done in earlier generations.
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  Speaker 5: As you probably remember, we did something like this with
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  Speaker 5: the Contras. We helped to organize them. People think the
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  Speaker 5: Contras were just one group.
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  Speaker 1: They weren't.
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  Speaker 5: They were a coalition that included lots of people, like
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  Speaker 5: Mosquito Indians in Nicaragua. We did this with the Iraqi
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  Speaker 5: National Congress at one point before Operation Iraqi Freedom. So
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  Speaker 5: there is a lot we could be doing right now
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  Speaker 5: in terms of organizing and revitalizing the Iranian opposition. It
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  Speaker 5: is in the world's interest to do that. And that's
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  Speaker 5: the one thing I would hope to see more on.
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  Speaker 5: That was something Pompeo did in the first Trump administration
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  Speaker 5: when he was Secretary of State. And, you know, I
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  Speaker 5: don't want to give any advice, but maybe it would
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  Speaker 5: be a good idea to bring a guy like Pompeo,
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  Speaker 5: make him special envoy to the Iranian opposition in Because
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: you do need a full-time, it's a full-time job. You
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  Speaker 5: need to really begin to organize, you know, bolster. Every
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  Speaker 5: story on Iran should have a voice from an Iranian
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  Speaker 5: opposition that will give the kind of real story there.
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  Speaker 1: You've been focused in on H.W.
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  Speaker 6: Bush.
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  Speaker 1: And during his presidency, a lot of dictatorships went belly
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  Speaker 1: up in a hurry. It's like bankruptcy, the old saying,
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  Speaker 1: it happens very slowly and all at once. Do you
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  Speaker 1: see any similar signs? I do. They're out of money.
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  Speaker 1: That's number one. When you run out of money, and
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  Speaker 1: I mean really run out of money, things happen in
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  Speaker 1: a hurry, and they've run out of money in Iran.
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  Speaker 5: Well, the other big thing is that I think what
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  Speaker 5: the Iranian regime was hoping for was that they would
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  Speaker 5: terrify the Gulf states to such a point that they
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  Speaker 5: would be able to kind of cow them, and you
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  Speaker 5: would see What we began to see a couple months ago,
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  Speaker 5: which was Saudi announcing some alleged new alliance with Turkey
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  Speaker 5: and Pakistan and Qatar. But right now, the Saudis are
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  Speaker 5: dealing with the Houthis, which are a kind of proxy
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  Speaker 5: of Iran. And the Emiratis have stood firm. And I
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  Speaker 5: think what we're seeing is the Gulf states understand that
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  Speaker 5: the only way out is through. And that, I think,
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  Speaker 5: further isolates Iran. Unfortunately, we really don't have much of
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  Speaker 5: a sense because they know they had such a The
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  Speaker 5: slaughter of 40,000 innocent protesters in January did have a
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  Speaker 5: kind of chilling effect.
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  Speaker 1: And what's more, we.
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  Speaker 5: Can't trust anything coming out of Iran right now. I
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  Speaker 5: think there still is such.
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  Speaker 1: Tight Internet control. But that's the thing.
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  Speaker 5: I think if we can break that, then I think
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  Speaker 5: there's a real good chance they already had faced a
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  Speaker 5: real legitimation crisis, so to speak.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Eli, you just heard this sound. I was
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: looking for the title of The Cauldron, The Making of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the Middle East by Simon Montefiore. It's a fabulous book.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I've been listening to it. I'm reading it right now.
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  Speaker 1: It's so good. Isn't it great? However, I love it.
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  Speaker 1: It overwhelms me with details. And here's the detail I've
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: got for you. It's not a stable region. Moderns tend
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: to think of the lines on the map are going
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: to be the lines on the map. The lines have
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: never been the lines on the map in the Middle East.
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  Speaker 1: So there's no reason to think the Islamic Revolution gets
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  Speaker 1: permanence when no one else does, right? Correct.
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  Speaker 7: Correct.
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  Speaker 5: Especially since what we can now say with empirical experience
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  Speaker 5: is that the Islamic Revolution has utterly failed. The country
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  Speaker 5: is far worse off than it was in 1978, the
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  Speaker 5: last year of the Pahlavi dynasty. So the reason that
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: you saw so many Iranians saying the name a year
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: ago in the streets of Reza Pahlavi is because their
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: parents remembered that life was much better in Iran than
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  Speaker 5: it was under this fanatical regime. And at this point,
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  Speaker 5: you know, the evidence is everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Banks are failing.
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  Speaker 5: They have a potable drinking water crisis. They cannot save
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  Speaker 5: their economy at this point. And their ace in the hole,
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  Speaker 5: which was going to be the Strait of Hormuz, At
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  Speaker 5: this point, we've taken that away from them. So they
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  Speaker 5: don't have that pressure anymore on the world oil markets
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  Speaker 5: that they did before. I think their last gasp is
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  Speaker 5: we're going to see more terrorist attempts from the Iranians.
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  Speaker 5: They're going to go back to their oldest playbook. But
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  Speaker 5: that's not going to get anybody anywhere, and it's not
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  Speaker 5: going to address any of these kind of structural problems
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  Speaker 5: that they have.
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  Speaker 1: Eli, if you have a moment, my producer, Duane, who
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you speak with every week, has written extensively over at
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Hot Air– on sources that he spends a lot of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: time finding about the Houthi-Saudi conflict. That's not going as
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  Speaker 1: bad for the Saudis as I thought it was after
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  Speaker 1: I read Duane's work. It's over in hot air. My
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  Speaker 1: big concern is that the IRGC decides we've got to
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  Speaker 1: try and go out with a bang and with martyrdom,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and we've got, let's say, 1,000 missiles and 5,000 drones.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to send them all everywhere at once and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: see what that does. Do you worry about that? Sure.
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  Speaker 5: I think that's quite possible at this point. I think they're,
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  Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, that is a regime that
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: is driven by a fundamentalist and kind of fanatic understanding
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: of Shia Islam. So one could absolutely see that, you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: that kind of desperation that murders suicide, if you will.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And if that happens, what do we do? What does
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: President Trump do if they fire off everything they've got
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and they hit a ship, they kill some Americans, they
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: destroy some pipelines? Does he come in at 10x or
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: 100x of anything he's done before?
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: Well, at that point, you know, they've depleted their stocks of,
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: you know, that's their last card in a lot of ways.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: So they are defenseless. So at that point, you know,
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: all bets are off. I don't necessarily know that you
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: need to blow up infrastructure at that point, which is
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: kind of what he was threatening before. I think, by
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: the way, the strategy that we have now, which is
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: the embargo, is working just fine. So, you know, keep
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: this up. And, you know, if they did that, by
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: the way, they'd also lose any support they have from
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: the Chinese.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It's a fanatic's play.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Have you seen any high-profile person yet disappear who may
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: have defected with their money? Because that's the other tell
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for. Someone running for the gates with their
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: bags full of reals or whatever is worth something. Well,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that's a good question.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you what I'm interested in. What happened to
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Ah!
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: The former president who apparently had been meeting with the Israelis.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: Had been opposed to the... So what happened to him?
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he turned up dead.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: But if he's still alive and there are people who
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: are protecting him, that's interesting.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: He is the Jimmy Hoffa of Iran, I think, Eli.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to find him in a
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: stadium somewhere. Eli Lake, follow him at the Free Press.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Read him on X at Eli Lake and get ready
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: for a banger of a series on the Bush dynasty.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: coming in November when we're all sick of elections and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: going through the results. Thank you, Eli. I'll be right
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: back with Matt Continetti. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: joined by Matt Continetti. Matt is a columnist for the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and the Free Expressions Vertical. He's the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: head of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He's a regular on the commentary podcast. Usually on Thursdays,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he threw a curveball and showed up on Wednesdays. He's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: here once or twice a week. He's also on Special
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Report often. But he's in my doghouse. Matt, you're in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: my doghouse. You wrote a column in praise of editors today. Now,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: editors are my bane because I can't spell and I'm repetitious.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Michael Duffy said, I love your columns here. You say
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the same thing twice in every one. I just have
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to cut them in half. So I have had so
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: many editors over the year at The Post, The Weekly Standard,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Fox News. Why do you want editors?
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: I mean.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it's, it's the writers don't like editors.
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: Well, some writers don't like editors, Hugh. I, I happen
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: to like editor.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: I'm also an editor as well as a writer.
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: So I've been on both sides of the red pen. I,
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: my column this week in free expression is specifically.
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: About book editing. And I read a lot of books.
• 22:16
  Speaker 8: And what I've found is that more and more, the
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: books that come across my desk just haven't been edited
• 22:21
  Speaker 8: very well. The, The stories repeat themselves. There are these
• 22:25
  Speaker 8: long diversions from what the writer is trying to say
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: that don't really add anything to the text. And I
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: just think that we need to have a steady hand
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: at the editorial wheel and make sure that the best
• 22:40
  Speaker 8: editors help the writers make their points as directly and
• 22:44
  Speaker 8: clearly as possible.
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: And I think we could all use some more of that.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Matt, when I got out of college, there was a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: time when a cohort went to medical school, a cohort
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: went to law school, a cohort did funny things, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a cohort went to New York to work for a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: publishing house because they wanted to be book editors. Does
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: that desire glow brightly in many young hearts now to
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: be a book editor in the way like Max Perkins was?
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: Well, I think first, young people would have to know
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: what a book is.
• 23:13
  Speaker 8: I saw that an influencer recently, I think it was
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: Alex Earle, the influencer recently bragged that she's never read
• 23:21
  Speaker 8: a book in her 25 or so years on planet Earth.
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: That's just sad.
• 23:26
  Speaker 8: And we're talking a lot now about the death of reading,
• 23:29
  Speaker 8: and that's really also what inspired my column. And you
• 23:32
  Speaker 8: see it in school curricula. Whole texts are not assigned.
• 23:36
  Speaker 8: It's just extracts. One college professor I hear is actually
• 23:40
  Speaker 8: assigning videos rather than books because at least he thinks
• 23:44
  Speaker 8: that the students might watch the video where they wouldn't
• 23:46
  Speaker 8: read the book. But my point is, if you want
• 23:48
  Speaker 8: to encourage reading, well, what we have to offer has
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: to be good, too, and that would involve a collaborative
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: effort between writer and editor. So I'm sure there are
• 23:58
  Speaker 8: some people who go, you know, they have dreams of
• 24:00
  Speaker 8: finding the next great romanticist hit, and so they go
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: to New York to work for a publisher. But I
• 24:06
  Speaker 8: think that we're far from the halcyon days, Hugh, of
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: when your friends are going off to be the next
• 24:13
  Speaker 8: Max Perkins.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you, are you currently or have you
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: already read The Cauldron by Simon Montefiore?
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: I have it on my desk.
• 24:23
  Speaker 8: I've paged through the first introductionary chapters, and that looks
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: to be edited from what I can tell so far,
• 24:31
  Speaker 8: but I haven't read the whole thing yet.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to it, and it's so much information. I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: may have to go and buy it and do end notes.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: There's some books that simply can't be listened to because
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: while they're a narrative, there's just too– It's so full
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of stuff, which brings me to my first question before
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: our first break. That makes clear, the cauldron makes clear,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: lines in the Middle East are made up and they
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: move every 50 years or so. Do you think we're
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: close to the collapse of the regime in Iran?
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: I think we're closer than we've been in the past.
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: I think it lacks any public legitimacy. I think that
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: its main economic lifeline has been cut off, oil. I
• 25:15
  Speaker 8: think that the project by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Economic Outcast,
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: is succeeding in separating Iran from the global financial system.
• 25:26
  Speaker 8: Air traffic is basically stopped because no one will accept
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: Iranian flights. And so that's going to inevitably lead you,
• 25:34
  Speaker 8: I think, to splits within the regime and more protests
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: in the street. And America and our allies need to
• 25:41
  Speaker 8: be ready for that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Will Trump get credit? If that happens either before or
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: shortly thereafter the election, do you think that the American
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: people will actually hear that was the Trump plan all along?
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: Well, he'll get credit from me, and I know he'll
• 25:59
  Speaker 8: get credit from a few others, but he won't get
• 26:03
  Speaker 8: credit from the media, which was a complaint he made
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: in his interview with Time magazine this week.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: And I think it's a fair complaint on his part.
• 26:10
  Speaker 8: You know, he joked to the Time magazine reporters, If
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: the Trump administration finds a cure for cancer, the response
• 26:17
  Speaker 8: from the media will be.
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: What took you so long?
• 26:20
  Speaker 8: And so this is a president who, you know, he's
• 26:23
  Speaker 8: kind of the cowboy who comes in, cleans up the town, leaves,
• 26:27
  Speaker 8: and no one ever gives him any credit.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is unfortunately the way it is with
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: many world historical figures. Churchill got voted out of office
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: after beating Germany. I'll be right back with Matt Continetti
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: during the break, and on the other side, don't go anywhere.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I'm back now with Matt Continetti, who is at AEI,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: where he probably worked with or alongside of Arthur Brooks.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Did your time overlap that with Arthur Brooks, Matt?
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: Not at AEI, but I've known Arthur for many years,
• 26:57
  Speaker 8: and he's a friend and an inspiration.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So I noted this week that he had left Harvard
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and has gone to Vanderbilt. If I got the news
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: flash right, he's left Harvard and has gone to Vanderbilt,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: which is a big loss to Harvard Business School. And
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know why he left. I have no idea.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: But it made me think about the Ivies losing talent
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: as opposed to attracting talent. You're a Columbia guy, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I have no idea the answer to this. Maybe I'll
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: be surprised. Have you ever been invited by Columbia to
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: come up and open an institute of politics there or
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to become a lecturer or to have any role whatsoever
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: at Columbia?
• 27:35
  Speaker 8: No, not by the university. I've been invited by a
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: student group. That was in 2019, I believe. That was
• 27:42
  Speaker 8: my last official visit to Columbia.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: All right. I find this to be the pattern with
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: most public intellectuals who are from an institution that's pretty high,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: is that they're never welcomed back or that the conservatives
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: who are there leave. Is that reversible? Because the great
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: universities of America are going to die quickly if they
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: don't get off this train to the leftward destruction. And
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the Cornell sex case and the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: rape case. I'm talking about just who wants to go
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: there if it's a thought police reeducation camp.
• 28:18
  Speaker 8: Well, I think most things in human affairs are reversible, Hugh.
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: All it would take is a decision on the part
• 28:25
  Speaker 8: of the people in charge of the institution and the
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: willpower to face down any resistance to it, to invite
• 28:32
  Speaker 8: conservatives back onto campus. I was cheered by Sheriff Gurgis's
• 28:36
  Speaker 8: appointment at Harvard Law School recently. He is a protege
• 28:41
  Speaker 8: of Robbie George at Princeton. He's a very sharp legal thinker,
• 28:45
  Speaker 8: a social conservative. So that was an interesting move. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: understand that Harvard's also looking to find someone to fill
• 28:52
  Speaker 8: in for Harvey Mansfield. No one can replace Harvey Mansfield,
• 28:55
  Speaker 8: the great professor of politics and government at Harvard who
• 28:57
  Speaker 8: recently retired. So that's an encouraging sign, but it's nowhere
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: near enough that needs to be done to actually have
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: a fair representation of America's political landscape on our most
• 29:12
  Speaker 8: prestigious college campuses.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Well, their Institute of Politics is a complete fiasco, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: their Kennedy School of Government is completely off the left
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: side of the board. Does Columbia have an Institute of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Politics like David Axelrod, who stood up a pretty good one,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: by the way, at the University of Chicago? It's fair.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Does Columbia have anything like that?
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: Not that I know of. Now, I do think it's interesting.
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: There are many more conservative students at Columbia these days
• 29:39
  Speaker 8: than there were certainly when I was a student over
• 29:42
  Speaker 8: 20 years ago. And that in itself, I think, is
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: a sign of changing currents in American life. You used
• 29:52
  Speaker 8: to have the radical professors and kind of the radical
• 29:54
  Speaker 8: students or apathetic students. Now I'm just seeing from my
• 29:58
  Speaker 8: position that There are a lot of younger conservatives on
• 30:02
  Speaker 8: Columbia's campus, not known for its conservatism ever.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I hope they prosper. I'm coming right back with Matt
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: on the other side. Don't go anywhere, America. Welcome back, America.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt with Matt Continetti of The Wall Street
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Journal and AEI. Matt, James Blair was until recently the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: deputy chief of staff at the White House. He is
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: now in charge of Campaign 2026 along with Chris LaCivita.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm calling James Blair's effort the Blair Switch Project,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: not the Witch Project, the Switch Project. He's trying to
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: get people to switch from voting up or down on
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Trump to voting in a comparison election, the Republicans versus
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the Democrats. Is it working?
• 30:43
  Speaker 8: Well, I don't know if we're going to see if
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: it works until Election Day. I do know that the
• 30:49
  Speaker 8: Senate races are all mixed up. Normally, you'd expect Republicans
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: to be doing very well in the South, Hugh, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: less well in the North.
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: But in fact, it's the reverse.
• 31:00
  Speaker 8: The Republican Senate candidates in the North actually have the
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: closer races, according to public polling, than the Republicans in
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: the South. And I think that's just one of the
• 31:10
  Speaker 8: many ways this election is very unusual. I mean, the
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: landscape is very different as well. You know, the gerrymandering,
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: has that insulated the House for Republicans? We really won't
• 31:21
  Speaker 8: know the answer. The money advantage that Republicans have, are
• 31:24
  Speaker 8: they going to be spending and are they going to
• 31:27
  Speaker 8: spend effectively in showing the contrast that you mentioned? That's
• 31:31
  Speaker 8: another thing I'll be looking for as we now have
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: about a month to go before the election.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: It becomes obvious to me. I was listening to the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Ruthless podcast today, and I'm pretty confident you listen to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the fellows at least occasionally. And they spent most of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: their time on a Friday program on James Tallarico. In fact,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: they brought us three clips, which I want to share
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: with you for your reaction. Here's James Tallarico, courtesy of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Ruthless Podcast this morning, cut number six.
• 31:57
  Speaker 8: The way I.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Fought for trans kids in the legislature is how I
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: will fight for the U.S.
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: Senate.
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: And my position hasn't changed.
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: I still think these should be local decisions.
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: Sport by sport, athlete by athlete, and I think I
• 32:24
  Speaker 9: have the most inclusive policy of any candidate who's running.
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: I know things are getting clipped and stuff, but my views,
• 32:30
  Speaker 9: my position hasn't changed, and I'm going to have your.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Loved ones back. All right, so that's not getting clipped.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: That's the whole clip. Does it help him or hurt him,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Matt Continetti?
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: I think it hurts him in Texas.
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: I think that the Paxson campaign or independent entities, if
• 32:47
  Speaker 8: they put that ad up, saying that despite what any
• 32:50
  Speaker 8: dodges or evasions Tallarico may have been saying publicly, he's
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: telling this voter his position hasn't changed.
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: Texas is a Republican state.
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: And so it's views like that, I think, that are
• 33:02
  Speaker 8: going to hurt Tallarico in the end.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: All right. Cut number two from Tallarico, again, courtesy of
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Ruthless Podcast today. Cut number seven. That's right.
• 33:11
  Speaker 10: And I oppose trans athletes playing in girls sports.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: If it endangers them.
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: Safety or fairness.
• 33:18
  Speaker 10: Every sport has to be safe and fair. As a
• 33:20
  Speaker 10: former public school teacher, I care a lot about our
• 33:23
  Speaker 10: student athletes.
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: I care a lot about our students.
• 33:25
  Speaker 10: And so I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls
• 33:29
  Speaker 10: sports if it risks safety or fairness.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Now, that seems to be directly contradictory to what he
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: said yesterday on tape to a hidden microphone. What do
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, that's the other half of the attack ad.
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: You play that clip first, and then you go to
• 33:47
  Speaker 8: him telling this voter that his position hasn't changed. And look,
• 33:50
  Speaker 8: you know, it's not just the far left policies. You
• 33:53
  Speaker 8: then have the additional attack that he's disingenuous, that he's
• 33:58
  Speaker 8: not telling voters what he really believes. And voters don't
• 34:01
  Speaker 8: like that. Voters want to have someone be very direct
• 34:03
  Speaker 8: with them. So this is an obvious line of attack
• 34:06
  Speaker 8: for the Paxton campaign. They just need to make it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Third time's a charm. James Tallarico, in January of this year,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: there is a trans flag draped over the crucifix behind
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: him or the cross behind him. He mentions his favorite
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: poet is a fellow named Hafiz, who's Muslim. Cut number eight.
• 34:28
  Speaker 11: In one of my favorite poems, the Islamic mystic Hafiz
• 34:33
  Speaker 11: says that we are all invited to join that dance.
• 34:37
  Speaker 11: He says, every child has known God. Not the God
• 34:41
  Speaker 11: of names, not the God of don'ts, but the God
• 34:46
  Speaker 11: who only knows four words and keeps repeating them, saying,
• 34:51
  Speaker 11: come dance with me.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, Matt, come dance with me. How's that going to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: go in Texas?
• 34:59
  Speaker 8: Well, I don't know what Hafiz's views on trans rights were,
• 35:03
  Speaker 8: but that's sort of bizarre. bizarre scene you just played
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: for me, Hugh, with the flag in the background and Tallarico's,
• 35:10
  Speaker 8: you know, kind of divinity student delivery there and just
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: talking kind of gobbledygook as far as I'm concerned. Again,
• 35:18
  Speaker 8: this is a candidate, you know, he's had such favorable media.
• 35:21
  Speaker 8: The media is so in love with Texas going blue.
• 35:26
  Speaker 8: And so people need to take an actual look at
• 35:29
  Speaker 8: his positions, but also his qualifications, right? I mean, And
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: there's also the fact that Paxton, for all of his
• 35:36
  Speaker 8: weaknesses as a candidate, he has been elected statewide before.
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: People know him. He has a devoted base of support.
• 35:42
  Speaker 8: Victory for Paxton is going to be mobilizing that base
• 35:47
  Speaker 8: and then drawing the contrast with Tallarico that puts people
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: in the middle to say, yeah, you know what?
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: This guy is just too left for Texas?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Well, the problem is establishment Republicans like me. John Cornyn's
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine. I endorsed him in the race.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I was disappointed when he didn't win, and I thought
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: it was crazy that we're in this position. But I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: would absolutely vote for Ken Paxton in about five seconds.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Are there really that many Republicans who view it in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: personal terms as opposed to the Senate? We've got to
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: have a couple of extra votes to spare if a
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court vacancy comes open or we'll end up with
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the least originalist originalist in America.
• 36:26
  Speaker 8: Or no originalist at all. If the Democrats control the Senate.
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: I mean, I think that's what people have to understand
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: about these Senate races in 2026. These senators aren't going
• 36:36
  Speaker 8: to be up for reelection until 2032. They're there for
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: six years. That's a long time. So that means they're
• 36:42
  Speaker 8: going to be playing a role in all the battles
• 36:45
  Speaker 8: in 2018. and then all the battles after we elect
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: the next president for the first two years of that
• 36:50
  Speaker 8: next president's term. So this is why these Senate races
• 36:54
  Speaker 8: are so important, because once a senator gets in, it's
• 37:00
  Speaker 8: very hard to dislodge them. Look at what happened to
• 37:02
  Speaker 8: the two Democrats in Georgia. They were elected essentially in
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: special election and runoff flukes after the 2020 mess, and
• 37:10
  Speaker 8: yet they're still there, and one of them is now
• 37:12
  Speaker 8: a frontrunner on the Democratic side for president.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: They are the accidental senators who are now on the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: short list for nomination. You're absolutely right. Matt Continetti, have
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a great weekend. Follow Matt on at Continetti. Read him
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal. His praise of editors today
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: and their necessity, notwithstanding the fact that I've wrangled with
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: them for 40 years. Read his work at the American
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute where he helms domestic policy studies. Thank you, Matt.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. Hi, it's Hugh
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• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Morning Glory, naming grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. It's Friday.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: We are joined by Ben Dominic. He is the opinion
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: editor at the Daily Wire. He's a Fox News contributor.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: He's over on Fox Business doing sort of pugilistic things
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: with an occasional guest, which I just figured out as well.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I've got to find out if that's a regular thing. But, Ben,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I want to start by saying it is my intuition
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: based on your post that you may gamble a little bit.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Am I right about that?
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: I partake occasionally.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: You? Yes, on occasion. I have two very specific questions.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: But first, what is your general view of the envelopment
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: of the culture by gambling?
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: So my general view is actually that that envelopment has
• 41:00
  Speaker 7: been largely exaggerated in terms of the way that it's
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: depicted publicly. A lot of it is reacting publicly. to
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: the nature of public advertising around gambling. Gambling has come
• 41:14
  Speaker 7: out of the shadows, effectively. The vast majority of gambling,
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: by the way, of course, that occurs across the country,
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: and as it has for years, is people who play
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: the lottery and similar games. It's overwhelming in terms of
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: a percentage. And in terms of sports gambling, sports gambling
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: has been going on for forever. I've been gambling on
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: sports since 25 years ago. And And the truth is
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: that people just have only become aware of it because
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: it's now more public-facing and legal, and so people are
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: aware of it. I do think that there are problems
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: associated with it, but I think that they are largely
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: overblown as long as things are properly regulated and laws
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: and rules are followed.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: All right. Now, I make one bet a year, exactly one.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I bet $ 500 on the Browns winning the American Football Conference.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: To go to the Super Bowl. And that's just my,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: it's my insurance policy against having to buy Super Bowl
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: tickets at market without having one of Bonanza. What do
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: you make of my strategery?
• 42:16
  Speaker 7: I think your strategery is sound. And I strongly, I
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: think that that's a perfect example of someone who does
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: not have any problems gambling. It is both logical, it
• 42:29
  Speaker 7: gives you investment in your team, which I certainly prove of,
• 42:33
  Speaker 7: and it also gives you hope. There is some, this
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: aspect of hope that now exists, you know, that for
• 42:39
  Speaker 7: many Cleveland fans over the years, you know, might have
• 42:41
  Speaker 7: been lost more quickly.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Well, last night they beat the Steelers. Let's rub it in.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: We're on in Steelers right now. Sorry, WPIT. We're going
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to slow down for your benefit. The Browns beat the
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Steelers for the fifth consecutive time on Thursday night football.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: We own them on Thursday night for some reason. Did
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: you watch the game? Yes.
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: I did not watch the full game, but I watched
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: the second half, and I think that this is demonstrably–
• 43:14
  Speaker 7: I mean, look, more power to you, Hugh, in the last–
• 43:18
  Speaker 7: week or so of Cleveland sports that you have had
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: enormous success thrown upon you unexpectedly.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Unexpectedly.
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: But hey, the clock turns to October. Those great orange
• 43:33
  Speaker 7: and brown colors, they start looking great. People travel all
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: over the place to see them in the trees. And look,
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: the Browns are a very good team. They're not a
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: great team, but they are a very good team.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: You know your football, so I'm going to push you.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Would you trade for Deshaun Watson for the Commanders for
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: a fourth rounder?
• 43:55
  Speaker 7: No, I wouldn't, only because I still have faith in Jaden,
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: and I don't have faith in this season for the Commanders,
• 44:02
  Speaker 7: which is the kind of move that I think is,
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: you know, you'd have to be a team that's closer
• 44:06
  Speaker 7: to it.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: I think no one had this story written. Nobody had
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: this idea that this team could actually be just a
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: few pieces away from being really good. And I think
• 44:18
  Speaker 7: I've said on your program before, the thing about the
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: Brown situation is that they've drafted really well. And so
• 44:24
  Speaker 7: it was always kind of a situation where if they
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: can get this quarterback situation working, then it would actually
• 44:29
  Speaker 7: be a really good place to be. Well, it turns out,
• 44:31
  Speaker 7: of all things, you know, this guy who has been
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: cast off and written off and basically said, you know,
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: he's just a bad guy, we're not going to– there's
• 44:39
  Speaker 7: no future with him. It actually turns out he still
• 44:42
  Speaker 7: can play quarterback. And not just that, I think that
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: you actually– This was almost an exorcism. I know that
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: you've beaten the Steelers before on Thursday nights. Thursday's very
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: good for the Browns historically on betting, and that's something
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: that I'm certainly aware of. But it's also something that
• 45:00
  Speaker 7: I think in this context, you are exercising some demons here.
• 45:05
  Speaker 7: This is you basically reasserting yourself.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, hitting the field goal. I didn't give us a 10%
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: chance of hitting that field goal, but we did. So
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: it was good. So this leads me to the biggest
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: question of all since we're talking about betting. What's the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: over-under on date for the collapse of the Iranian regime?
• 45:29
  Speaker 7: That is a loaded question. I think that the– well,
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: how much do you think that the midterms will factor
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: into what Donald Trump does next?
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: A lot.
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: A lot. That is actually what helps determine what that
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: over-under looks like. If these midterms go badly, and look, Hugh,
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: I know that you have different people on who have
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: different perspectives on how pessimistic they are. But from my perspective,
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: the president is not going to respond to a negative
• 46:03
  Speaker 7: midterm outcome by pulling back on the- I agree.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Who could think he would react that way?
• 46:11
  Speaker 7: It's irrationally out of character. So I think that the
• 46:14
  Speaker 7: truth is because I think these midterms are going to
• 46:18
  Speaker 7: go badly, I actually think that the regime could be
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: in very real trouble. I think that this is a
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: situation where he might respond to this by truly doubling down, saying, hey,
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: we should have done this beforehand. Maybe some of you
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: said that timing-wise it would have been too risky to do,
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: too close to the election. But we all know that
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: he's been teasing this stuff for a long time. And ultimately,
• 46:43
  Speaker 7: when he has been teasing things like this, he likes
• 46:46
  Speaker 7: to deliver on it. And I think that in the
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: context post-election, he's very likely to.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Do that now.
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: That would be a very different reaction than I think
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: some of the people, even in his own party, would
• 46:58
  Speaker 7: necessarily want him to try to do. But I think
• 47:02
  Speaker 7: it's where his head is, and every indication that he
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: has said publicly seems to bolster that.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Now, Ben, there is a particular perspective I got, which
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: is the presidential library perspective. which is all presidents begin
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to think about their presidential library just about now, and
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: they're wondering about the main exhibit. I've not been to
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: W's in Dallas. It's my wife's favorite. She cries because
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: it's 9-11, opens it up. Nixon's got China. JFK's got
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Ichbein in Berliner. Unfortunately, Obama's got nothing except an ugly
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: building because he didn't get anything done. But if Trump
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: wants a big exhibit, it's the freedom for Iran, right?
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: That's what it would be.
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: I think it would be... Iran would be part of
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: an overall exhibit about America's standing restored within the world.
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: And I think that includes everything, basically. It includes Venezuela.
• 47:58
  Speaker 7: It includes basically undoing so much when it came to
• 48:04
  Speaker 7: a porous border, etc. The immigration stuff, that's going to
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: be further in. But that opening exhibit is about... made
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: America strong again, made America green.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: NATO, Greenland, do they fit in there?
• 48:14
  Speaker 7: Greenland, absolutely. I mean, all of those things fall in this.
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: And I think that the Iran portion of it is
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: there as well. Look, the spin, we can already see
• 48:24
  Speaker 7: the spin happening, you know, and you're well aware of this.
• 48:28
  Speaker 7: When the perspectives are this is going to be about Iran.
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: And I think the more broader perspective is this is
• 48:36
  Speaker 7: about affordability within this economy, which is connected to Iran
• 48:40
  Speaker 7: and connected to gas prices particularly. And then there's another
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: sort of subsidiary one, which has percolated up, I think,
• 48:49
  Speaker 7: in the last month or so, which is this is
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: about the president going too hard on the immigration issue.
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: And that's the one that I think is the most
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: foolish and the most short-sighted in terms of the way
• 49:01
  Speaker 7: that it accepts a media narrative. But I just don't
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: believe it's true. That basically says, you know, when people
• 49:07
  Speaker 7: voted for the president, they weren't actually expecting him to
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: do what he promised. I think that they absolutely were.
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: And I think that, you know, perhaps some people who
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: were in different Hispanic communities across the country were not
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: expecting that to happen or, have fallen away in terms
• 49:20
  Speaker 7: of their... But a lot of those same people are
• 49:23
  Speaker 7: the people who came out and voted for a Republican
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: for the first time when it came to 2024. And
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: I think that that is a cohort that Republican candidates
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: can't necessarily count on, especially to be there in the midterm. So, look,
• 49:35
  Speaker 7: this is a situation where I think a lot of
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: people are going to have different spins on this, and
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: you have to be ready for pushing back against a
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: lot of different narratives the media is going to try
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: to run with, which, one way or another, are going
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: to be designed to serve the interests of Democrats.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with Ben during the break about
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the House and the Senate with some granularity, but we've
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: got 30 seconds, Ben. Has the United States won the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: battle for the Strait of Hormuz?
• 50:01
  Speaker 7: From my perspective, it absolutely has. But I also think
• 50:04
  Speaker 7: that that's something that, you know, unfortunately is coming late
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: enough in the game that a lot of Americans are
• 50:10
  Speaker 7: not going to see the ramifications of it in time
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: for it to affect the way that they view things
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: on Election Day. And that's going to leave a lot
• 50:16
  Speaker 7: of Republicans short.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. I'm going to be right back with Ben during
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the break. You have to listen to the Big Weekend
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Pod to catch that. But don't go anywhere, America. Rich Goldberg,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: after the break, to talk to us about the battle
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: of the Hormuz Strait as well. Stay tuned. Ben will
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: be talking with me on his House and Senate predictions
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: right after this. I'm back with Ben Dominich. Ben, I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: feel pretty good about the Senate because Troy Jackson, I'm
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: in Maine for two more weeks. He's just a dope.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: He's the worst candidate ever. So Susan Collins is going
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: to win that. El-Sayed's a toss-up, and it all comes
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: to Texas. I want to play for you three clips
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: from the Ruthless podcast, the Friday edition, this week. all
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: of Tallarico, and then get your reaction. Cut number six.
• 51:00
  Speaker 10: The way I fought for trans kids in the legislature
• 51:03
  Speaker 10: is how I will fight for them.
• 51:05
  Speaker 13: In the U.S.
• 51:06
  Speaker 8: Senate.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: And my position hasn't changed.
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: I still think these should be local decisions.
• 51:23
  Speaker 9: Sport by sport, athlete by athlete, and I think I
• 51:26
  Speaker 9: have the most inclusive policy of any candidate who's running.
• 51:30
  Speaker 9: I know things are getting clipped and stuff, but my views,
• 51:33
  Speaker 9: my position hasn't changed, and I'm going to have your
• 51:36
  Speaker 9: loved ones back.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Well, then his position did change. Cut number seven.
• 51:41
  Speaker 10: That's right, and I oppose trans athletes playing in girls'
• 51:45
  Speaker 10: sports if it endangers safety or fairness. Every sport has
• 51:49
  Speaker 10: to be safe and fair. As a former public school teacher,
• 51:52
  Speaker 10: I care a lot about our student athletes. I care
• 51:54
  Speaker 10: a lot about our students.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: And so I.
• 51:56
  Speaker 10: Will oppose trans athletes playing in girls' sports if it
• 52:01
  Speaker 10: risks safety or fairness.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, and finally, here is James Tallarico in January at
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: a church with a trans flag right behind him. Cut
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: number eight.
• 52:09
  Speaker 11: The Islamic mystic Hafiz says that we are all invited
• 52:13
  Speaker 11: to join that dance. He says every child has known God.
• 52:19
  Speaker 11: Not the God of names. Not the God of don'ts,
• 52:24
  Speaker 11: but the God who only knows four words and keeps
• 52:27
  Speaker 11: repeating them, saying, come dance with me.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: All right, Ben Domenech. Can that man win in Texas?
• 52:37
  Speaker 7: The only reason that he even has a shot at
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: winning in Texas, Hugh, is that unfortunately Republicans chose a
• 52:44
  Speaker 7: candidate who doesn't seem all that interested in campaigning, and
• 52:46
  Speaker 7: they're having to spend a ridiculous amount of money to
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: make up for that fact. And I think that that's
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: a real problem for them. Do I think that they're
• 52:54
  Speaker 7: going to be able to pull this out? Yes, I do.
• 52:57
  Speaker 7: I've been consistent on that point. But I also think
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: that this is needlessly close. And part of that has
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: to do with the fact that, you know, as much
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: as Tallarico holds positions that are strongly objectionable to a
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: lot of people out there, you know, Ken Paxton does
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: not have necessarily the same kind of coalition that has
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: won Republicans statewide in the past. Ted Cruz performed excellently
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: among Hispanic voters, OK? He had them at his back
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: when he was fighting off, you know, a lot of
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: the different Democrats there. I'm not sure they're going to
• 53:29
  Speaker 7: be there for Ken Paxton. I think he has to
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: make up a good deal of ground in some populations
• 53:35
  Speaker 7: that he hasn't won before. And Tallarico is spending a
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: lot of time campaigning in black communities and being pretty effective,
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: if you look at the internal numbers, in terms of
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: his outreach there. That is very dangerous for Republicans. They
• 53:48
  Speaker 7: need to turn things around.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Ben Domenech, follow him on X at B. Domenech, listen
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: to him whenever he's appearing on like a thousand different podcasts.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: What's the new one that the Daily Wire is doing?
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: The District Club, which comes out every Sunday and has
• 54:02
  Speaker 7: a great conversation. We have a great guest back this week,
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: Amisha Cross, and it'll be pretty fiery. What's the name
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: of it? The District Club.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: The District Club. Thank you, Ben. Check it out. Be well.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. As promised, I'm joined now by Senior
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Advisor to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, Rich Goldberg.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Rich has been everywhere since the war with Iran began,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and he's been right wherever he's gone. And he's not
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: being overt about taking a victory lap, but he should be.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: He ought to be running around every stadium track saying,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I told you so, I told you so. Rich, what
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: will this week be remembered for in terms of legacy
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: media waking up to something?
• 54:48
  Speaker 14: This is the week that people realize we have won
• 54:51
  Speaker 14: the Battle of Hormuz. The president, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright,
• 54:56
  Speaker 14: Secretary of the Interior and Chairman of the Energy Dominance
• 54:59
  Speaker 14: Council Doug Burgum, other senior members of the administration have
• 55:02
  Speaker 14: been saying over and over again in media, on TV, hey,
• 55:06
  Speaker 14: we got 15 million barrels out last night. Hey, we
• 55:10
  Speaker 14: have another 12 out. Hey, we had an 18 million
• 55:12
  Speaker 14: barrel night last night. And you had all these analysts
• 55:16
  Speaker 14: and subscription services and street notes in Wall Street saying,
• 55:20
  Speaker 14: we don't see it. That's not there. Our service told
• 55:23
  Speaker 14: us that we only had five or six million barrels
• 55:26
  Speaker 14: come out. And, you know, to break through the noise,
• 55:29
  Speaker 14: you go right to the sources and you say, where
• 55:32
  Speaker 14: are you getting these numbers? And they will tell you
• 55:35
  Speaker 14: if you ask. And they said, we're getting it from
• 55:37
  Speaker 14: the U.S. Navy, from Central Command. There's a lieutenant or
• 55:41
  Speaker 14: a commander there. sitting there taking notes from every ship
• 55:44
  Speaker 14: captain who is signing up for an escort mission, telling
• 55:48
  Speaker 14: the United States military, I want to come through tonight.
• 55:51
  Speaker 14: Tell me how to do it. Here's how much oil
• 55:53
  Speaker 14: I have. Here's how much gas I have. And they
• 55:55
  Speaker 14: send it up the chain all the way until the
• 55:57
  Speaker 14: president knows exactly how much comes out every night. Well, finally,
• 56:01
  Speaker 14: they've had to go back and say, what are we
• 56:03
  Speaker 14: missing here? How are we not analyzing this? It's obviously
• 56:06
  Speaker 14: a covert operation that the military is running of how
• 56:09
  Speaker 14: they're actually getting the oil out. And finally, the subscription
• 56:13
  Speaker 14: services have started to update their processes. They're seeing the loadings.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: They're seeing the oil move.
• 56:20
  Speaker 14: They're all acknowledging and the press is now acknowledging that
• 56:23
  Speaker 14: the tide has turned. Iran does not control the Strait
• 56:26
  Speaker 14: of Hormuz. When the president declared and everybody yelled, oh,
• 56:29
  Speaker 14: it's not true.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: It's terrible.
• 56:31
  Speaker 14: What is he saying? When the president said we control
• 56:33
  Speaker 14: the Strait of Hormuz, that has been confirmed this week.
• 56:35
  Speaker 14: We control the Strait of Hormuz, not Iran.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: At the time we talk, oil is at $ 91.
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: 21.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: That's West Texas crude, $ 91 and change. Do you expect
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: it to continue to go down absent an attempt by Iran?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: And we'll come to this to try their version of
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: the Battle of the Bulge.
• 56:53
  Speaker 14: I think as you see Saudi come back on, having
• 56:57
  Speaker 14: moved as fast as possible to repair the east-west Saudi pipeline,
• 57:02
  Speaker 14: If you continue to see loadings into the Red Sea,
• 57:05
  Speaker 14: if you continue to see shipping going through the Bab
• 57:07
  Speaker 14: al-Mandeb and the Suez Canal without the Houthis successful in
• 57:11
  Speaker 14: interfering with that. And for now, the president, through diplomacy,
• 57:15
  Speaker 14: has handled that to keep their attention only on the Saudis.
• 57:19
  Speaker 14: And if the pipeline infrastructure continues to go up to
• 57:21
  Speaker 14: maximum capacity and we continue doing what we're doing in
• 57:24
  Speaker 14: the Strait of Hormuz, yes, I would expect a downward
• 57:27
  Speaker 14: pressure on the prices. And of course, The president himself
• 57:32
  Speaker 14: continues to have the bully pulpit. So when he says,
• 57:35
  Speaker 14: I expect something to change dramatically, I expect this to
• 57:38
  Speaker 14: come to an end because they can't hold out much longer.
• 57:41
  Speaker 14: They're just waiting for the midterm election. Somebody in Tehran,
• 57:45
  Speaker 14: I mean, understand this. Somebody in Tehran has convinced themselves
• 57:48
  Speaker 14: that if Democrats take control of the Congress, that that
• 57:51
  Speaker 14: will cripple the president. He can't conduct the war anymore.
• 57:54
  Speaker 14: He's going to have to sue for peace. And so
• 57:56
  Speaker 14: even though they can't pay people and they're running out
• 57:58
  Speaker 14: of money, and they might be out of money in
• 58:00
  Speaker 14: the next few days, according to Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary,
• 58:04
  Speaker 14: they're pleading with everybody, just hold on. Don't get paid
• 58:06
  Speaker 14: for a few more weeks. The election is coming and
• 58:08
  Speaker 14: Trump will be destroyed and we will win. And I
• 58:12
  Speaker 14: think what President Trump is acknowledging is saying, you're going
• 58:15
  Speaker 14: to wake up that morning after the election day in
• 58:18
  Speaker 14: America and you're going to realize, I'm still the president.
• 58:21
  Speaker 14: I still control foreign policy. I still control the military.
• 58:24
  Speaker 14: You still have no money left. and I'm going to
• 58:26
  Speaker 14: continue making it worse. Oh, by the way, the election
• 58:28
  Speaker 14: is behind us, and I have a lot of other options.
• 58:30
  Speaker 14: So I think the market has to hedge that oil
• 58:33
  Speaker 14: prices will come down after the election because the Iranians
• 58:37
  Speaker 14: cannot hold out much longer.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Now, Rich Goldberg, Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter, a
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: famous letter to the Iranian government when the JCPOA was
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: on the table saying, this is how our government works,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: so don't put a lot of stock in the JCPOA.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Do they not have any idea about the foreign affairs
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: power of the president? Have they talked themselves into the
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: idea that he can't do things that he wants to
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: do because they're D's and the majority leader in the
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: speaker's name?
• 59:07
  Speaker 14: I think that there are people in and around. the
• 59:10
  Speaker 14: Democratic Party. There are people who have served in government before.
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: Let's name names.
• 59:15
  Speaker 14: Somebody like a Rob Malley, right? He was Joe Biden's
• 59:18
  Speaker 14: special envoy for Iran. We know he talks to the Iranians.
• 59:22
  Speaker 14: He's been friendly with Iranian leaders like Javad Zarif and
• 59:25
  Speaker 14: others for a long, long time. They all send messages.
• 59:28
  Speaker 14: They have other people in the ecosystem, like a Trita
• 59:30
  Speaker 14: Parsi who talks to the Iranians. And so, yeah, they're
• 59:34
  Speaker 14: all in a meeting with Democrats and strategists and saying, OK,
• 59:38
  Speaker 14: we're going to cut off appropriations. We're going to have amendments.
• 59:41
  Speaker 14: We're going to have oversight hearings. We're going to put
• 59:43
  Speaker 14: the pressure on. You saw Senate Democrats unveiling very publicly
• 59:47
  Speaker 14: they intend to make moves to try to cripple the president.
• 59:50
  Speaker 14: They're going to Try anything they can in the appropriations process.
• 59:53
  Speaker 14: It's like 20 years ago with Nancy Pelosi during the
• 59:56
  Speaker 14: Bush administration in Iraq. They have dreams of doing all
• 59:59
  Speaker 14: these things as if there's a comparison between what's going
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 14: on right now and what was going on in Iraq
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 14: 20 years ago on the ground with the bloodshed and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 14: the losses every day. I mean, it's just amazing that
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 14: they can even think in their brains there's anything like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 14: this going on. But the Iranians read our press because
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 14: the press covers what the Senate Democrats say. And then
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 14: they hear from the Trita Parsons, the Rob Malley's, other
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 14: people saying, Oh, this could work.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: This could work. You'll see. Just hold on.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 14: You know, this could happen. And so it reinforces their
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 14: thinking here. And so I think that's why the president
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 14: and Secretary Marco Rubio have gone very public in saying,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 14: we know you're thinking this. You should be, you know,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 14: get it out of your head. It's not going to matter.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 14: We have the cards and we'll be here two more
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 14: years no matter what.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I wish they would say, just read the Foundation for
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the Defense of Democracies. Read Goldberg and Cliff May and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: read Dubowitz and read Mark Montgomery and read Benham, and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: then you'll know what's really going on.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 14: Or just watch Hugh Hewitt. How about just watch Hugh Hewitt?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Long enough. Long enough. I have to go to politics
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: as well. Here, I got two minutes left. I have
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: one fear, Rich. Tell me what you think about this,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: which is the Battle of the Bulge. They're desperate. They
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: got nothing left, but they've got a couple of hundred
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: missiles that they can pop off at once, and they
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: throw everything they can in an attempt to shock the system.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: They might even attack Israel. How do you rate the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: probability of a Battle of the Bulge scenario from Iran?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 14: Yeah, I think to sum this up, the Iranians know
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 14: that if they attack directly the energy infrastructure of the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 14: Arab Gulf, they will get hit back. If they attack
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 14: Israel directly, they will get hit back. So they have
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 14: not done that. They have tried to get Iraqi militias.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 14: They tried to get the Houthis. And when they use
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 14: their missiles, they attack U.S. military bases. And the president
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 14: wants to keep the status quo for the time being
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 14: in place. That means they only have a couple options.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 14: It's either through perhaps the invisible hand of the U.S.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 14: and Israel covertly helping the people foment something on the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 14: ground that could be already bubbling up. It could be
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 14: just financial collapse. It could be capitulation on our terms.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Or you're right.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 14: You go off like Thelma and Louise off the cliff
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 14: in a blaze of glory, knowing that it's all going
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 14: to come back on you. In any of those circumstances,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 14: those are bad options for the regime because it's going
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 14: to end poorly in each of those cases for the regime.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Poorly enough, 30 seconds, Rich, that the regime might collapse
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: before the end of the year.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 14: I would rate that with a non-existent percentage above 25%.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 14: I would hope 50%. But financially speaking, I really, you know,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 14: I don't have the intelligence. I can't see how much
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 14: money they have. I really can't understand how they could
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 14: last to the end of the year having no money.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I agree with Rich Goldberg. Everyone should be following Rich
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: on X, Rich underscore Goldberg. Go to the Foundation for
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the Defense of Democracies. Follow all of their people. They've
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: been right. For eight months on everything nobody else has,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: so start reading the people who are right, like Rich Goldberg. Rich,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: thank you. Have a good weekend. I'll be right back, America.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by Jonathan Williams.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Jonathan is the president and chief economist at the American
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Legislative Exchange Council, great sponsor of my program, ALEC, A-L-E-C
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: dot org slash Hugh. Jonathan, probably the state in which
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: I have the greatest share of audience is California, because
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: we go from Eureka to San Diego, every major market.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: They have to vote on Prop 40. So this is
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to tell them why they should
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: not vote on Prop 40. Explain what that is to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: people and why it's such a nightmare.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 15: Well, I mean, just from a policy perspective, Hugh, I mean,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 15: this is one of the most– would have been most
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 15: self-owned goals in the history of state policy if it
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 15: passes in California.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 13: It's the one-time wealth tax on billionaires, and I guess
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 13: it's supposedly one-time.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 15: We'll see if If revenue needs, according to the governing
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 15: class in Sacramento, are too great, I imagine they might
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 15: come back for another bite at the apple in future years.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 13: But there's a lot of concerns.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 15: That, you know, this is going to drive away even
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 15: more residents from California.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 13: And they're not even just concerns that are hypothetical.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 15: I mean, we've already seen many billionaires decide to pick
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 15: up and leave the state because, as you know, Hugh,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 15: this proposition, if passed by California voters this fall, is
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 15: retroactive to those residents.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 13: Of the state as of January 1st.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 15: Now, it tells you something, Hugh, that if even Gavin
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 15: Newsom opposes this proposal as something that's dangerous for the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 15: state of California, that should send shivers down the spine
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 15: of every taxpayer, because obviously it directly impacts the billionaires,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 15: but it's going to have a huge adverse impact on
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 15: California's success in the years ahead.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Jonathan, what do people not understand about capital being mobile?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: It can move. It does move. It doesn't like to
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: be taxed. It will leave the state. How hard is
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: that for Democrats or proponents of this tax to get?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: It's not like high science.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 13: Well, as President Reagan would always say, it's not that
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 13: they're ignorant.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 15: It's just that they know so much that isn't so. But,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 15: you know, one of the great speakers over the years,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 15: the late, great Jack Kemp, you know, always talked about
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 15: states and the way you raise revenue, whether it's states
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 15: or federal or local unit of government. You don't raise
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 15: more revenue over the long term by raising rates and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 15: things like these propositions. You raise revenue by increasing the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 15: amount of taxpayers in your state. And that is obviously
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 15: the thing that California has lost so much of in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 15: recent years because they keep making these unforced errors on
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 15: tax policy. And this would be a nail in the coffin,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 15: I think, for the future of California if it does
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 15: indeed pass this fall.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: You have other states listed in my notes, Jonathan. Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: New York, and Washington that are considering a new bracket
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: for millionaires. I'm in Maine right now. I was talking
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: last night with someone who will not move here because
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: of the tax structure of Maine. Don't Democrats understand that
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: they're never going to get out of the bottom of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the rich states, poor states ranking if they keep doing
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: stuff like this?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 15: Well, and it's just a travesty what they've done to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 15: some of these just incredibly beautiful states. As you know, Hugh,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 15: I lived in Maine for a while earlier on in
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 15: my life and just such an amazing place. And to
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 15: see the progressives now look to really tax those that
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 15: really have made Maine great for so many years and in.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 13: Places even like Hawaii.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 15: But, you know, another one that's very concerning, Hugh, is
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 15: what is being proposed right now in Colorado as well.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 15: That would nearly double the state's income tax and take
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 15: it from a flat rate income tax. It has been
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 15: such a great thing for Colorado over the years to
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 15: a progressive income tax and take that bracket up to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 15: over 8%, which, you know, that would put Colorado in
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 15: with the likes of those states that you just mentioned.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 13: It'd be, you know, California of the Rocky Mountain West.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 15: The only problem for Colorado is it's sitting right on
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 15: the doorstep of Wyoming and no income tax state. In
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 15: the Four Corners region, it has Arizona at a 2.5%
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 15: flat tax. And it's got Utah, the number one state
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 15: in America for all 19 years in rich states, poor states.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 15: So to talk about a really unforced economic error for
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 15: Colorado would be to eliminate the flat tax and go
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 15: to a progressive income tax as well.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: But Jonathan Williams, not all news is bad news. North
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Carolina has a measure to cap the state's income tax
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: at 3.5%. Does it look good? Have you seen polling
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: on this?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 15: I haven't seen polling recently on it, Hugh, but as
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 15: you know this North Carolina story well, it has been
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 15: one of the great success stories in the last decade.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 13: With tax cuts.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 15: And it's been something that they have a current cap
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 15: in the Constitution, and this would lower that cap to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 15: three and a half percent. You know, they realize what's
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 15: happening all around them. South Carolina, as we've talked about
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 15: on the show, passed a monumental tax reform this year
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 15: and have a pathway to get to zero on the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 15: income tax. And, you know, the politics are going to
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 15: be interesting in North Carolina this fall. But I think
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 15: the The conservatives there that are looking to pass this
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 15: measure are thinking ahead to say we want to preserve
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 15: this advantage that we've created based on the great tax
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 15: reform of the last decade in North Carolina.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: You know, Jonathan, before the election, we have to do
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: an extended segment or two on every ballot measure of
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: consequence in the states. I know you follow them all
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: over at ALEC. Let's just let the national audience know
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: about them. In the meantime, get Rich States, Poor States.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: It's free, richstatespoorstates.com. Find out where yours is. And roll
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: into ALEC, A-L-E-C dot org slash U. If you're a
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: state legislator adjacent to them or just concerned about the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: future of your state, it's the best publication and organization
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: out there, ALEC dot org slash U.