Latest / Salem Podcast Network / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated - The Oil is Flowing, AES on Fox News again, and the Cornell 7

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The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated - The Oil is Flowing, AES on Fox News again, and the Cornell 7 · Salem Podcast Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the many free online courses there. And of course, to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at hueforhillsdale.com
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning, glory and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: even grace, America. Good Monday to you. I hope you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: had a wonderful weekend. I had a sort of great weekend.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The But they get game two at Progressive Field at
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the corner of Ontario and Carnegie tonight at 5. Nobody,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: no spoilers. I'm in her medically sealed studio. Dwayne has
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: promised not to tell me anything. I've got it on record,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and I'll be able to catch up after 6 p.m.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: tonight and see what's going on. But no spoilers allowed.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't believe you anyway. A little advanced programming note.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I have one more test to take tomorrow. And then
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the years, when you hit the 7-0, you got to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: do all these different tests. And my last one is tomorrow.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So Mr. Colonel Kurt Schlichter will be in for me.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I'll be back on Wednesday. Everything is fine. Nevertheless, one
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: must do what the doctor tells you to do. And
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so I get to do this tomorrow. And then I'll
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: be done for the year, for 2026. And I'm looking
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: forward to that. Let me begin by showing everyone who's
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: watching on Fast TV, Salem News Channel, available in every
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: house in the union. If you have Roku or Amazon
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: or Pluto TV or Samsung, you can look up Salem
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: News Channel. I want to start with Steve Hilton, who's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: running for governor in California. Cut number one of him
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: at Huntington Beach over the weekend. He gets himself a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise lookalike dressed up as Maverick and a lookalike
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to play Google air show footage. and enough earned media
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to double his budget. Now, California, you can have fun
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: for the next four years, or you can be governed
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: by Chancellor Gardner. Javier Becerra, there is nothing, nobody's at home.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You know it, and I know it, and everybody knows
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it who has known anything about Javier Becerra. Machine Paul
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: grew up through the East Los Angeles Machine Paul world,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: into the State Assembly, into Congress, into the Attorney General,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: into the HHS Department. No footprints in the sand anywhere
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  Speaker 1: he's been. A record of, and he would not be
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the nominee, except we had Eric Swalwell and Fang Fang
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: blow up on us, and Eric Swalwell got taken out,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and Katie Porter dumped a bowl of spaghetti or something
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like that on her husband, and that blew her up.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: So we're down to like the third choice, but in California,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it's a big democratic machine, so it's going to take
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a lot for you to free yourself, but There's no
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: reason that you can't. You can, in fact, for yourself.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is go and vote for
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that man, Steve Hilton, and he earned a lot of media.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Other thing I want to make sure you hear is
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that Treasury Secretary Scott Besant sat down with Mike Allen
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of Axios this weekend, and let's begin with the Iran crisis. Oil,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: by the way, below $ 90 a barrel right now at
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: $ 89 and falling as the word spread and traders begin
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to realize they're screwed if they bought long contracts at
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: 90 and above. They're absolutely screwed, and they're unloading that stuff,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and therefore the price of oil is under pressure. Here's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Scott Besson talking about managing the Iran crisis with Mike
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Allen and Axios, cut number five.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: In the economic face of the war with economic fury,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: as you branded, and Operation Economic Outcast, that has made
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: your job a lot harder and made the chessboard you
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: operate with much more difficult.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: So Secretary Mnuchin and I went to school together. We've
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: known each other since we were 17. He kindly invited
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: me out before I took this job. And he said,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: what is going to surprise you the most is the
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: amount of national security in the job.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: And it did.
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  Speaker 3: But now with the Iranian operation, it's really expanded. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you that what we've had is incredible. a
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: very strong sequencing in this Iran conflict. So six weeks
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: of kinetic conflict, and none would have been possible without
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: the other.
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  Speaker 5: But you were hoping you would have victory right here,
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: a shorter sequence.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not a chess player. With chess, everything's on
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: the board, and you can mostly predict.
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  Speaker 5: You have a lot more sequences than you'd like to have.
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  Speaker 3: No, I got called in at the end, and I'm
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: quite optimistic about what I see. But, you know, I
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: play backgammon, I play cards, and you've got to deal
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: with what you're dealt.
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  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: While we're on cards.
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  Speaker 3: But what I want to say is that we had kinetic.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: We destroyed their Navy, their Air Force, substantially depleted their
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: drone and missile capability, destroyed their chances.
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  Speaker 4: Of rebuilding that.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Then we went to what the president calls the iron
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: wall and the blockade, which we'd never done before. And
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: now we have Operation Economic Outcast, and we are isolating
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: them economically like it's never happened before. Right now, the
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: score turns the barrels out of the street. U.S., about
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: $ 1. 1 billion, Iran's zero. For the first time in history,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: since they started pumping oil, they will have no oil on.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: The water this week.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: They will have no revenues.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: What people need to understand, there's a long story in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the New York Times this morning. They are not able
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to pay not just their military. They can't pay their
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: medical facilities. They can't pay their nurses. They can't pay
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: their ETRs. The fact is that they're broken. They're broken down.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: They're completely clogged up. And we have no incentive to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: help them unless and until they take actual concrete action.
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  Speaker 1: For example, the easiest thing for them to do I
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: think if I were on the negotiation team, I would
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: simply write down, we get to flood the zone with
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: IAEA inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. They're not Americans.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: They're neutrals. They come from Geneva. We want them to
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  Speaker 1: visit all the known sites where nuclear research was occurring
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and Pickaxe Mountain. And then after they're back and we
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: have their reports, we'll talk to you. The sooner you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: get them into the facilities, the sooner we can talk
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to you about what comes next. But we're not going
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to guess. We're done with guessing because we don't have
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to guess about how much money you have. The answer
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to that is none. Let's go to Scott Besant next.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It was a very interesting interview on how he handles confrontation.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Cut number two.
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  Speaker 3: I would say that I stand my ground like Alexander Hamilton.
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  Speaker 4: Fired if fired upon.
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  Speaker 2: In talking to administration officials for this interview, two themes
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: kept coming up.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: One is they said you're the most competent cabinet member.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Other people said you're the most volatile cabinet member.
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  Speaker 5: What kind of person sets you off?
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Well, let's go back. First of all, I think we
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: have a great cabinet. And I think the president's assembled
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: a different kind of cabinet. When I have a question
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: on the energy to be able to talk to Secretary Burgum,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Secretary Wright, both was substantial experiences. And look, I don't
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: think I'm the most, believe me, I'm far from the most.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Well, you've joked that dueling among treasurer secretaries goes back
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: to Alexander Hamilton.
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  Speaker 5: You have had some heated confrontations.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that I stand my ground like
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Alexander Hamilton, fired if fired upon. And I always point out,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: did not end well for treasuring. the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Byrd duel.
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  Speaker 3: So my goal is not to duel, but it is
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  Speaker 3: to stand my ground. And look, if I think somebody,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: if I think someone is not following what the president wants,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: because I am here to do what the president of
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  Speaker 3: the United States wants and is not trying to do
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  Speaker 3: what is best for the American people.
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  Speaker 5: So fired when fired upon. Touche, a warning there.
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  Speaker 7: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Let's go to the next cut. Cut number three.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: They're talking about Melania's friends who think Scott Besson would
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: be fun to date.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Leslie said you wanted to go to the Naval Academy.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: You actually got an appointment. One of the reasons you've
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: talked about the fact that one of the reasons you
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: didn't go was because you're gay.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: And did that hold you back earlier in your career?
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it did it did at all. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it's very difficult to talk about the counterfactual. But I
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: don't think going to Yale held me back. Maybe some
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: people who went to other Ivy League schools would think
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: it might. But I think that it makes you aware.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: And I've openly spoken about it before, too, is I
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: think maybe some of my career choices. Great thing about
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: money management is there's a scorecard. It's not maybe in sales,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: maybe in trading, maybe. In relationship management, you know, there's
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: a lot of subjectivity that money management, there's a scorecard.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And you said President Trump chose me because he believes
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I'm the best candidate, not because of my sexual preference
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  Speaker 2: or your green eyes.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So I am.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the reasons we have
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: such a great team that the president makes his decisions
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: all the time. You know, he'll occasionally tell you, tell me,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: you're breaking Melania's friend's hearts. They see you on TV
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: and they want an intro and we have to break
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: the news to them.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You see, self-effacement is the most winsome quality in a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: television personality, even if you're an appointed or a political
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: person or elected. Self-effacement works. Scott Besson just showed that off.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I got more Scott Besson. I got a lot of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Chris Wright. I got Marco Rubio. I got all sorts
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of audio and video. We got some Donald Trump from
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Dayton on Friday night. So don't go anywhere, America. I'll
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: catch up on the weekend. Just do not tell me
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: anything after 5 o'clock today. About the Guardian's White Sox. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. We are
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: three weeks away from the elections in Israel. Israel is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: our most important strategic ally. And Dr. Michael Oren, founder
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of the Israel Strategy Group, Advocacy Group, joins me. Dr. Oren,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I've got the Times of Israel scorecard right in front
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of me. And you've got 13 parties, two of them,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yashar and Likud. run by Azenkot and Bibi, respectively, are
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: tied at 21. No one's close to 60. What was
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the impact of the Fly Dubai miracle on the election?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And can anything really move in three weeks in Israel?
• 11:25
  Speaker 8: Well, that's about four different questions. Let's begin.
• 11:29
  Speaker 9: The Fly Dubai incident miracle, at first, redounded to Netanyahu's benefit.
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: He was at the airport.
• 11:36
  Speaker 9: He greeted The passengers, he praised the heroes and hugged them,
• 11:40
  Speaker 9: and great optics for a while.
• 11:42
  Speaker 8: But then people started to ask questions.
• 11:44
  Speaker 9: How is it that nobody in the Israeli government was
• 11:48
  Speaker 9: responsible for vetting who was flying this airplane? And it
• 11:52
  Speaker 9: turns out that the people who were responsible were in
• 11:56
  Speaker 9: the Ministry of Transportation, two individuals in particular.
• 12:00
  Speaker 8: Were designated. Turns out that they had not checked any
• 12:03
  Speaker 8: pilot in the last two years. And actually, they found
• 12:05
  Speaker 8: out they.
• 12:05
  Speaker 9: Were moonlighting illegally with other jobs.
• 12:09
  Speaker 8: And all of this really played very poorly for Netanyahu.
• 12:12
  Speaker 9: Now, whether this impacted tonight's poll, it's too soon probably
• 12:17
  Speaker 9: to tell.
• 12:17
  Speaker 8: But the fact of the matter is that neither bloc.
• 12:19
  Speaker 9: Can put together the 61 minimum majority you need for
• 12:23
  Speaker 9: a stable government in Israel. And by the way, 61
• 12:25
  Speaker 9: is not particularly stable. I was in a 61 majority government,
• 12:28
  Speaker 9: and it's not good. A one seat majority. And but
• 12:33
  Speaker 9: so far, the change camp, which is another way of
• 12:36
  Speaker 9: saying let's get rid of Netanyahu camp, has the better
• 12:39
  Speaker 9: chance of putting together a government.
• 12:41
  Speaker 8: The greatest possibility, the greatest.
• 12:42
  Speaker 9: Possibility here will be that there'll be no definitive winner,
• 12:47
  Speaker 9: no absolute winner in this election.
• 12:49
  Speaker 8: And guess what? We go to another election. So my
• 12:52
  Speaker 8: goal is some horse trading puts together.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: That's why I want to go to President Herzog. Bibi
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: wants a pardon. He's wanted a pardon for a long time.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Herzog can give it to him. Do you see the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: president of Israel, who's head of state, not head of government,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: knitting together a coalition government with a rotating prime minister
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: that he says to Netanyahu, you get the first year
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and a pardon, Eisenhower gets years two and three, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: then you get year four. I mean, is something like
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that doable? Because really, four elections in a row is
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: not really a pleasant thing to think about.
• 13:27
  Speaker 9: It's doable, but with a long string of buts attached
• 13:31
  Speaker 9: to it. But number one, nobody in the change camp
• 13:35
  Speaker 9: trusts Netanyahu to actually live up to an agreement of rotation,
• 13:39
  Speaker 9: because the last time he had a rotation with Benny Gantz,
• 13:41
  Speaker 9: he didn't live up to that agreement and brought down
• 13:43
  Speaker 9: the government before Benny Gantz could assume his turn in
• 13:46
  Speaker 9: the rotation.
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: So that's one but.
• 13:48
  Speaker 9: Second but is how do you manage to get a
• 13:52
  Speaker 9: pardon when the conditions for pardons in the state of
• 13:55
  Speaker 9: Israel is, one, you have to admit guilt.
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: Which Prime Minister Netanyahu does not want to do at all.
• 14:01
  Speaker 9: And secondly, you have to commit not to run for
• 14:03
  Speaker 9: public office for seven years. Prime Minister Netanyahu, at 76
• 14:07
  Speaker 9: years old, may be thinking, that's a long time, a
• 14:11
  Speaker 9: long time for anybody in any time of life, but
• 14:13
  Speaker 9: it's his time of life that's very, very long indeed.
• 14:15
  Speaker 8: So I don't know if somehow they can fudge those conditions.
• 14:19
  Speaker 9: A Maybe the people in Israel would want, you know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 9: some kind of stability, some kind of government that would
• 14:27
  Speaker 9: take over. After so many years of upheaval now, three years,
• 14:30
  Speaker 9: we're coming up the anniversary of October 7th.
• 14:33
  Speaker 8: I don't know. If Netanyahu were to somehow exit, there'd
• 14:36
  Speaker 8: be no problem.
• 14:36
  Speaker 9: You would have a united Zionist government without the ultra-Orthodox
• 14:41
  Speaker 9: parties and without the Arab parties. And the major sticking
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: point here is always, and has been for much of
• 14:48
  Speaker 9: the last 25 years, the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Can he move the numbers at all by announcing it's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: his last campaign?
• 14:58
  Speaker 9: Well, I always say it's premature to predict Benjamin Netanyahu's
• 15:04
  Speaker 9: political demise. And he always has the rabbit, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 9: pulling that rabbit out of the hat. I've seen him
• 15:09
  Speaker 9: do it again and again and again. We don't know
• 15:11
  Speaker 9: what that rabbit looks like right now. And for a while,
• 15:15
  Speaker 9: it literally seemed like this fly Dubai miracle was going
• 15:19
  Speaker 9: to play down in his benefit.
• 15:22
  Speaker 8: But it hasn't.
• 15:23
  Speaker 9: So we have to see. Listen, it's over 20 days
• 15:26
  Speaker 9: to this election. 20 days is an eon in politics.
• 15:29
  Speaker 9: And many, many things can happen.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So, Michael, if you had your druthers and you could
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: pick a national unity government versus either one from the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: change or the anti-change, the BB block, the anti-BB block,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: would you prefer a national government?
• 15:45
  Speaker 8: Of course.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 15:47
  Speaker 8: We are facing.
• 15:48
  Speaker 9: just immeasurable challenges in our foreign policies and domestic issues.
• 15:52
  Speaker 9: We have to overcome the issue of ultra-Orthodox service in
• 15:55
  Speaker 9: the military. We have to investigate in a fair way
• 15:59
  Speaker 9: the failures of October 7th. The challenges here are legion,
• 16:03
  Speaker 9: and you can't expect a narrow government of 61 members
• 16:07
  Speaker 9: of Knesset to even make an effect.
• 16:09
  Speaker 8: What that means, and this is difficult for Americans to understand,
• 16:12
  Speaker 8: is that if there's a 61, if.
• 16:13
  Speaker 9: There's a vote in Knesset and one member of the
• 16:16
  Speaker 9: coalition is missing then the government can fall.
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: Which means you don't go to the bathroom. They will
• 16:22
  Speaker 8: yank you out.
• 16:23
  Speaker 9: I had a friend in Knesset who was yanked out
• 16:25
  Speaker 9: of his wife's funeral to vote, unless the government fell.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: All right, so the big question, Dr. Michael Oren, is
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Israel better off than it was four years ago? And
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I'm very aware that 10-7 happened in that four-year period,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: but so did the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of Hezbollah, 90% of its capacity destroyed. Hamas is a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: shadow of itself. Is Israel better off than it was
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: four years ago?
• 16:52
  Speaker 8: I think the answer can't be, you know, it can't
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: be black and white.
• 16:55
  Speaker 9: And that is that strategically, Israel is better off than
• 16:59
  Speaker 9: it was. I guess Hamas has been gravely degraded. Hezbollah
• 17:02
  Speaker 9: has been degraded. Iran is nowhere near the threat it
• 17:05
  Speaker 9: was on October 6, 2023. Syria is no threat to
• 17:09
  Speaker 9: us whatsoever. And I think that Israel's position in the
• 17:12
  Speaker 9: Middle East itself has been greatly enhanced by the display
• 17:15
  Speaker 9: of military prowess on the part of the IDF. All
• 17:19
  Speaker 9: that saying that, our situation in the world is far
• 17:23
  Speaker 9: worse than it was three, four years ago. Our relationship
• 17:27
  Speaker 9: with Europe, now tonight with Great Britain, threatening to expel
• 17:29
  Speaker 9: 27 of our diplomats from Great Britain, France, Canada, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: the Netherlands, poised to impose boycotts on the state of Israel,
• 17:39
  Speaker 9: the Democratic Party. Do I have to go any further
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: on that one? And so it's not Manichean. It's a
• 17:46
  Speaker 9: mixed bag. But if I had my choice between facing
• 17:50
  Speaker 9: an Iranian nuclear-armed Iran and facing all the strategic and
• 17:54
  Speaker 9: political diplomatic challenges we take, of course I'd take those
• 17:58
  Speaker 9: diplomatic challenges over nuclear-armed Iran.
• 18:00
  Speaker 8: So, at the end of the day.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: It may not end up being anyone's decision factor, but
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: it just seems to me that as a national security issue.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Israel has to be in a better position today than
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: it was four years ago. Follow Michael Oren on Exit, Dr.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Michael Oren, Dr. Michael Oren, Dr. Michael Oren, and support
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the Israel Advocacy Group. They do great work on behalf
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the Jewish state. Thank you, Dr. Oren. I'll be
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: right back, America. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. Headline in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the Mercury News. Troy Jackson is scrambling to defeat Maine
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Senator Susan Collins. Time is not on his side. I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: bring it up because my guest, Selena Zito, is following
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the Senate races very, very closely. Selena, if you're a
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: month out and your own governor hasn't endorsed you and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: you're being overwhelmed by spending and you wear black socks
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and shorts everywhere, what do you think are Troy Jackson's chances?
• 18:54
  Speaker 10: I think of all the really contested races right now,
• 18:57
  Speaker 10: Troy Jackson's the one that Democrats biggest problem. You know,
• 19:03
  Speaker 10: Susan Collins doesn't really and hasn't really ever shown strength
• 19:09
  Speaker 10: in polls, but she does show strength when it comes
• 19:13
  Speaker 10: to voters turning out and voters believing that she has
• 19:17
  Speaker 10: their best interest. And voters are always looking for someone
• 19:21
  Speaker 10: who is just like them. Black socks and shorts, not
• 19:25
  Speaker 10: just like them.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Not just like them. How about next? quick around the horn.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: You're next door to Ohio. John Husted is running against
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: an obviously infirm Sherrod Brown. How do you feel about
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that race?
• 19:39
  Speaker 10: Well, up until about two weeks ago, it didn't feel
• 19:42
  Speaker 10: really good for the Republicans. But I spent the day
• 19:45
  Speaker 10: in Warren and throughout the Mahoning Valley. This is the
• 19:51
  Speaker 10: key area that Republicans really need to get that voter
• 20:00
  Speaker 10: that changed from Democrat voting straight up and down Democrat for.
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: 100 years to.
• 20:08
  Speaker 10: But that all began to change in 2016, 2018 became
• 20:11
  Speaker 10: very significant. And 2020, when the change was complete, 2022
• 20:18
  Speaker 10: and 2024 looked very, very good for anyone that was
• 20:21
  Speaker 10: a Republican. These voters are a little bit sitting on
• 20:24
  Speaker 10: their hands, but I also think that they are probably
• 20:31
  Speaker 10: going to come around to Republicans, but I'm not ready
• 20:34
  Speaker 10: to say that entirely.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I know how you feel, but I feel better than
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you feel about Ohio, and I'm very confident about Iowa.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I'm even wondering, last political question, I'm wondering if Flanagan's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: in trouble in Minnesota because people have just had it with, oh,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I'll put on a burqa to identify with the Somali community,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: no matter how nice you might think about the Somali community.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm tired of the fraud, and she had the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: right hand of Governor Walz. So do you think she's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: in trouble? Because I think maybe Michelle Tafoya... as we're
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: on the run?
• 21:09
  Speaker 10: I think in Minnesota, this is a state where Democrats
• 21:12
  Speaker 10: are definitely in trouble. And I don't think Republicans should
• 21:16
  Speaker 10: think that the people of Minnesota love them. However, they
• 21:21
  Speaker 10: have an opportunity to take advantage of that thing that
• 21:26
  Speaker 10: happens in midterms where voters say, I'm not really this
• 21:31
  Speaker 10: party or I'm not really that party, but this other
• 21:34
  Speaker 10: party is maybe so mad. and disappointed me so much
• 21:39
  Speaker 10: that I'm voting for the opposition party. Republicans saw that
• 21:43
  Speaker 10: happen to them in droves in 2006, and that could
• 21:47
  Speaker 10: very much possibly be what is happening in Minnesota right now.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: All right, now I'm going to switch completely.
• 21:53
  Speaker 10: Favoring Republicans, favoring Republicans.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk next hour with James Lilacs and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: with probably Bethany Mandel about the Cornell story. And I
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: want to approach the Cornell story paired. You covered Chautauqua
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: this summer. I went back and grabbed your piece. Chautauqua,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you went up and did the Conservatives for Balance at Chautauqua,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: something I've done before. Chautauqua left the rails. It lost
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: its way. It stopped being a neutral organization. It stopped
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: being about faith and following people. It became a left-wing place.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And now the Conservatives have to bring in people like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Selena and Hugh on the side. Now Cornell is off
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the rails completely with this terrible escapade, horrible situation in
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the fraternity house two years ago. When an institution, these
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: are both in New York, Chautauqua's at one end of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the state, Cornell's in the middle. When they lose their
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: way this badly, can they get back on the tracks?
• 22:52
  Speaker 10: Well, I think it always takes something very shocking to
• 22:55
  Speaker 10: put something back.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: On its tracks.
• 22:58
  Speaker 10: And even then, It's a slow slog to getting back
• 23:02
  Speaker 10: just to the middle, just to a place of neutrality.
• 23:06
  Speaker 10: But I think Cornell is forced to become that because
• 23:12
  Speaker 10: of just the whole way that this whole thing has
• 23:15
  Speaker 10: been handled. And what Cornell had become ahead of this
• 23:21
  Speaker 10: incident happening is just a perfect example of the way
• 23:26
  Speaker 10: that academia has gotten off the rails, has become completely
• 23:32
  Speaker 10: a political wing of a party as opposed to an
• 23:36
  Speaker 10: institution of higher learning where you're supposed to be challenged
• 23:41
  Speaker 10: on your thoughts and you're supposed to be challenged on
• 23:43
  Speaker 10: ideas on both sides. And instead, it's indoctrinating young people.
• 23:49
  Speaker 10: And I think that's what we've seen with Cornell as well.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Did you think Chautauqua can make it back to the middle?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about becoming conservative bastions. I just mean
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: like maybe invite Sebastian Lee to talk about his dad.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe do something that simple at the main stage. Do
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you think they'll ever get back to being normal?
• 24:09
  Speaker 10: There really was an earnest push by the members of
• 24:15
  Speaker 10: Chautauqua for that to happen. There were hundreds of people
• 24:20
  Speaker 10: that came to see me that are not to the right,
• 24:26
  Speaker 10: not even center right. But we're really interested in understanding
• 24:32
  Speaker 10: all of the sentiments that are throughout the country. I mean,
• 24:36
  Speaker 10: Chautauqua's in the middle of Appalachia, right? I mean, it's
• 24:41
  Speaker 10: not like it's in New York City, right? And yet
• 24:45
  Speaker 10: it puts itself within this bubble that even the people
• 24:50
  Speaker 10: that are center left are really disappointed because they have
• 24:56
  Speaker 10: this expectation of robust discussions, even with people that they
• 25:01
  Speaker 10: disagree with, so that they understand and maybe learn something
• 25:06
  Speaker 10: new about people who see the world differently.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: You know, we've always said culture is upstream from politics. Boy,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is it true in New York. It's true at the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Cornell campus. It's true at the Chautauqua campus. And you've
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: got to change the culture of a play. They really
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: need to go out and hire some football coaches who
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: can turn this around. Quick exit question. Would you close
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the fraternities at Cornell?
• 25:30
  Speaker 10: I never believe in taking extreme measures for one bad actor.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: There were seven.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 10: There were sevens. You know, it never turns out right
• 25:44
  Speaker 10: when we just close things down rather than approach it
• 25:47
  Speaker 10: with reform.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: All right. I'm looking forward to your visit to the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: campus of Cornell, Selena Zito. Follow her on X at
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Zito Selena. Read everything she writes by signing up for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: it at selenazito.com. Stay tuned. I'll be right back, America.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Hugh Hewitt Show. Hi, it's Hugh Hewitt. When
• 26:05
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• 26:53
  Speaker 1: That's 877-410-4321. Or visit usmedicalplan.com. That's usmedicalplan.com. Hi, it's Hugh
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• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Use humans.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: Satan would love Christians to just be a spectator, not engage,
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: not participate.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Is there something he's trying to say? Can you hear
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: me now?
• 28:21
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• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Morning, glory, and evening grace, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: starting off the hour with Lilacs, as in James Lilacs,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: as in jameslilacs.subspac.com, national review writer. He's also got lilacs.com,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: his website, which is epical. It's grown so big it's
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: like a jungle in the Amazon. But, James, I'm going
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to give you the hardest question of the week. I'll
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: ask Bethany Mandel later. I've been waiting to ask you.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Would you please tell me what you know about the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Cornell story and what it says to you and why
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: it's everywhere?
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: What I know about the Cornell story is that, A,
• 29:01
  Speaker 7: people have completely just made up their minds on what happened.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: What people believe.
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: Happened was that a woman was abused and assaulted and
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: taken advantage of by some men in a dorm, that
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: the dorm itself indicates the prevalence of toxic masculinity and
• 29:16
  Speaker 7: patriarchy on the campus, that the woman is blameless in
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: all of this, and that finally this has to be
• 29:21
  Speaker 7: surfaced again in order so we can have a national
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: conversation about about sexual abuse on campus. That's what most
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: people seem to be thinking and saying, and that's what
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: the New York courts seem to have decided in advance.
• 29:32
  Speaker 7: I think it's a little bit more complex than that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 7: I think there are many interesting racial and socioeconomic angles
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: that are at play here, and I believe that there's
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: all a question that we should have about hookup culture.
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: and sort of the willingness of some people to just
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: spend a night willingly doing some things that are probably
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: not of the moral and ethical sort that you would
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: want your daughter to do. This is not to blame
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: the victim. It's just to say that we have human beings, sexuality,
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: and youth, and hormones involved, which means there's a whole
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: stew of things here that doesn't come down to a
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: tidy narrative. So I'm going to wait and see exactly
• 30:08
  Speaker 7: what comes out of this. But I think we're going
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: to have that national conversation again, aren't we?
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: Oh, also, this is being.
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: Laid at the front at the feet of Trump, apparently,
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: who has caused this coarsening of the national discourse and behavior,
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: even though.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: This happened during the Biden administration. And so, yeah.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so did you ever meet Tom Wolfe?
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: Yes, I did.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, I interviewed him before a
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: show that he did here. He was wearing his white coat.
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: He was the most civilized, intelligent, kind man that it's
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: ever been my pleasure to do.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: And I think he may have been touring behind the
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Charlotte book. I'm not sure.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Well, he wrote a book about hookup culture. Maybe his
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: last novel. I never read it. Did you read his
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: last novel?
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: No, I think Back to Blood was the last one.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: But anyway, go on.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So has that culture gotten worse or has it just
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: stayed the same? Because this is Correct me if my
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: memory is fading. This is the first one of these
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: that we've seen since Duke Lacrosse, right?
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Right, right. Has the culture changed?
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: No, there has been no reason for the culture to
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: change because there doesn't seem to be any opprobrium levied
• 31:19
  Speaker 7: at people who behave in this fashion. It becomes a
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: national cause celeb for a while, and then people just
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: go back to acting like stupid children. And, you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: part of it is the college's disinclination to be in
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: loco parentis, it seems.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Part of it is a culture that sort of.
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: Values these shallow hookups and valorizes them as a form
• 31:38
  Speaker 7: of empowerment, I guess. I mean, it's been literally half
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: a century since I've walked into.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: A college door. But it was not.
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: That different when I first went to college in as
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: much as you throw a bunch of utes together and
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: you're going to get some things happening in the dorms
• 31:56
  Speaker 7: and the front rooms. So what maybe has changed is
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: the idea that there is something empowering about going to
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: this if you really want to. What's maybe changed is
• 32:07
  Speaker 7: the idea of shame is no longer as prevalent as
• 32:10
  Speaker 7: it was, although I can't say anybody in 1976 particularly
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: believed in shame. when there'd be a fire alarm at
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: the girls' dormitory. And the girls' only dorm, by the way,
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: was named Comstock, which is just hilarious. You might find
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: a couple of guys standing out there at 2 or
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: 3 in the morning, but that was generally frowned upon.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: It wasn't the norm, and they looked abashed as well
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: they should. So how much is it?
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Is it more of a problem now from your perception?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: We're both the same age, so we're a long way
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: away from college. Is it different now than it was
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago when Tom Wolfe wrote that novel? and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: 40 years ago when we may have last graced any
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: campus whatsoever?
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: It may be worse in the sense that I don't
• 32:51
  Speaker 7: remember ketamine or any other industrial tranquilizers being on the scene.
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: It probably is worse in as much as a half
• 32:59
  Speaker 7: century or 40 years or 20 years of sort of
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: casual degradation of what were regarded as the old standards.
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: And if the standards were not adhered to, at least
• 33:10
  Speaker 7: there was the hypocritic bowing and paying obeisance to the
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: old standards, 20 years of erosion of that, of course,
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: is going to.
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: Create a situation that is worse, unless you go to Hillsdale.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Unless you go to Hillsdale, or you happen to be
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in Paris. Did you note the Pope's reception in Paris?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It just seems to me that these two stories are
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: so jaggedly in Congress. A million people, many of them
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: are young, showing up for the Pope in Paris, and
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: then decadence and depravity at Cornell.
• 33:39
  Speaker 7: Right. and you'll have decadence and depravity in France as well,
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: and you will have a resurgence of traditional Catholic beliefs
• 33:44
  Speaker 7: among the youth here in America as well. It's a
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: bifurcation that the West has been going through for some
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: time that seems to be accelerating now. Now, we think
• 33:52
  Speaker 7: it's accelerating because we're all hooked into X, because the
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: news is coming at us like a fire hose, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 7: in likelihood, I don't think it's going to accelerate into
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: anything that is cathartic, that all of a sudden changes
• 34:03
  Speaker 7: the tenor of our times. Unfortunately, I think we're going
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: to muddle along in the same way we have for
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: a few years.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: But for.
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: France, which is culturally Catholic, but has a strong, long,
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: anti-clerical tradition that goes back to their horrible revolution, to.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: See this sort of resurgence in the youth is great.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: You have to ask, well, what caused it?
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: It's because they feel that the culture that they were
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: coasting on and the culture that they had just sort
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: of sneeringly, amusingly degraded and derided because it's the West
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: and the West is lame, all of a sudden seems
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: to be a little bit more precious to them when
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: they see that there are alternatives to the culture that
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: are gaining strength, and they don't like it, and.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: They feel they're losing their country.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So joining those two storylines together again, is there any
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: world religion or any denomination within Christianity that would not
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: look askance at what happened at Cornell and condemn it
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: as sin?
• 34:58
  Speaker 7: Absolutely would. And I tend to believe that your branches
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: of Islam would.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: Not be happy with it either.
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: So no, it's out of touch with the stated morality,
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: the culture, the Christian culture of the country. But this
• 35:17
  Speaker 7: is not to say that there hasn't always been something
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: that goes against that strength. The question is, As I
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: said before, hypocrisy is what the vice pays to virtue,
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: or the other way around, something like that. The idea
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: that we no longer have a strong culture that would
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: disabuse people of the wisdom of participating in these things,
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: that has accelerated.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: And I don't think you have to sound like an
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: old fuddy-duddy to say.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I'm not spending too much
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: time on this because I am the old fuddy-duddy. But
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I do think secondary schools and junior highs have a
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: lot to do with moral formation of the individuals who
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: then go off to college and that they've abdicated. They
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: just abdicated. They're out of the business. Did you get
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: anyone giving you like morality 101? You're a public school kid.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: No, we didn't get it because we didn't have to
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: get it for two reasons. One, most everybody went to church.
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: And again, even if your parents weren't particularly devout, you
• 36:15
  Speaker 7: sat there, you got the lessons. And secondly, it was
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: just part of the water in which we swam. It
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: was the culture of the 60s and 70s, less so
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: in the 70s, but it was part of the general culture.
• 36:27
  Speaker 7: The morals came to you by, not by having them
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: drilled into you.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: But by.
• 36:33
  Speaker 7: encountering them in church and encountering them in public discourse
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: and just sort of, that was the general glue that
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: seemed to hold everything together, the ideas that everybody seemed
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: to believe in, more or less. And not particularly profoundly, perhaps,
• 36:46
  Speaker 7: and not to the sense where they could articulate the
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: reasons for them as civilizational pillars, but that was just
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: the way the culture was. And so nobody had to
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: drill it into me, but at the same time today,
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: in secondary and high school classes, when you have more
• 36:58
  Speaker 7: of an emphasis on identity, in particular on sexual identity,
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: you bring in a whole different cast of, you know,
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: a sort of conversation that we never used to have
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: in schools. The idea of talking about identities of these
• 37:10
  Speaker 7: such sexualizes a young education in a way that was
• 37:13
  Speaker 7: completely absent when I was a kid.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And so the last question, the idea, and again, parents,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: if you've got parents, if you've got kids in the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: back of the car, I'm giving you another five second warning. James,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think threesomes, foursomes, whatever they want to call it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think that happened in the 70s or the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: 80s with any kind of regularity. Do you?
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: Well, just from my own experience and those of my
• 37:39
  Speaker 7: peers and what I heard, no.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: No.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: At the same time, no.
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: But you also didn't have an epidemic of choking your
• 37:47
  Speaker 7: sexual partners. which is also something that's quite prevalent. And
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: where does this stuff come from? It comes from the
• 37:53
  Speaker 7: portification of daily life and the injection of what used
• 37:57
  Speaker 7: to be sort of ultra ideas out there that you
• 37:59
  Speaker 7: had to brown bag it and go to a place
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: in Times Square and sit next to Travis Bickle to watch.
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: to the point where it's now on your phone, it's anywhere,
• 38:07
  Speaker 7: and it's accessible to anybody. So I'm not saying these
• 38:10
  Speaker 7: ideas never occurred to anybody, but the idea of threesomes, foursomes,
• 38:14
  Speaker 7: and choking, the rest of it has been normalized, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: exposure to it has numbed people to the fact that
• 38:19
  Speaker 7: they are still ultra-ideas when compared to the normal culture
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: that we had before.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm about to talk with Spencer Clavin about East
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: of Eden, so I'm going to go from low culture
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: to high culture in 10 seconds. Any chance that culture... What?
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Well, yes.
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: Which is making us sympathize with the evil character Kathy
• 38:39
  Speaker 7: in the thing. Yes!
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: That's just a sign.
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: It's going to take an awful lot to move the
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: culture back. Whether or not it's a cataclysmic event that
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: does it or a general agreement of people that has.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: To be done, we will see. We'll muddle through.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I can't even believe you knew where we're going with
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the next segment. Yes, Kathy is the victim now. It's unbelievable.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: James Lilacs, as in jameslilacs.substack.com. Thank you. I'll be right back. America,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Jim Hewitt, a new
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: regular guest on the program. Spencer Claven joins me. Spencer's
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: with the Claremont Institute. He's the host of the Young
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Heretics podcast. He's also teaching this semester at the University
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: of Austin. And he's writing this week about East of Eden.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: And Spencer, that caught my eye. I'm glad you're here.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: First off, What do you make of Steinbeck generally before
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we get to the new Netflix? series?
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: Well, it's great to be back, Hugh. Good to see you.
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: I have to say, I love East of Eden. With
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: a deep love. I think it's in the running to
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: be the great American novel. And it's interesting because in general,
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: I'm not the biggest Steinbeck fan. I don't hate him
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: or have anything negative to say about him, really. But
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: The Grapes of Wrath, which is the book we all
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: kind of read in school, didn't really capture me in
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: the same way. East of Eden, I think, is a
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: profound biblical allegory and really deserves a place up there
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: among the greats. I don't know about you.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I didn't actually ever read it. I listened to
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: it during COVID when the Fetching Mrs. Hewitt and I
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: would each pick long books that we would walk together
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and listen to and talk to about. I found East
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: of Eden to be a fabulous listen. And I imagine
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: if it's a fabulous listen, it's a great. Lee is
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: one of the remarkable characters. I still don't know. What
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: do you put him down to? What's his job?
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: I think the summary I've typically seen is manservant, which
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: makes it sound a little more abased, low down than
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: it actually is. He really becomes a surrogate father to
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: the two boys at the center of the story. I
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: would say that he's almost like, if you've ever read
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: the Jeeves books, the Woodhouse stories about the butler Jeeves,
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: where technically Jeeves is the servant, but in Martin In
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: many ways, he's kind of running life over there at
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: the estate. And I kind of feel the same way
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: about Lee. He's obviously the wise man of the family.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: There are very few people to admire in East of Eden,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and he is one of them about whom there is
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: no qualification. So tell me how you think this will
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: play out in a Netflix series, which I think debuts
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: this month.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: It debuted at the beginning of October. I think October
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: 1st is when it came out. And it's written by
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: Zoe Kazan, starring Florence Pugh, a terrific actress, in my opinion.
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: But both she and Kazan have been doing these interviews
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: where they complain about the portrayal of the character Kathy Ames,
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: who's at the center of the adaptation. And she's one
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: of Steinbeck's immortal creations.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Haunting.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: Everyone who comes away from this book. Absolutely. It's a
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: good word for it. Terrifying, powerful, transfixing and evil. This
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: is sort of the essence of her role in the story.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Steinbeck's.
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: Actually saying some profound things about what we might call sociopathy,
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: you know, the idea that somebody could be born lacking
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: a moral core or deformed in some moral way. And
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: for Zoe Kazan and Florence Pugh, this is too simplistic.
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: It's maybe a little bit misogynist. They think that Steinbeck
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: is playing, Kazan said, with tropes of the evil woman.
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: And there's, if you squint, there's a way in which
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: that's true. And in the sense that Steinbeck is is
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: clearly kind of Eve figure. She's the source of a
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: lot of the novel's trouble, morally speaking. And I'm putting
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: that nicely.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: Somebody who commits murders, who lies remorselessly.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: You're looking really black.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: She's without redeeming quality. But let me go back further
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit. The very first character we meet is
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the dad. Who's the original Stolen Valor guy, right? He
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: was at every battle in the Civil War, except he
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't at any of them, except one where he got
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: wounded by accident. And I thought when I was listening
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to this, he's sort of an archetype for so many
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: people in modern media claiming to be what they are
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: not and making a living off of it. Does that
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: ever strike that he's really the most modern of these characters?
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: No.
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Steinbeck's definitely seeing something, foreseeing something there. And it's
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: a good reminder, too, that although there is corrupted femininity
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: in Cathy at the heart of the novel, there's also
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: corrupted masculinity, and they take different forms. But for Adam,
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: there's a kind of passivity there, the dad of the
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: two boys, right? He's so... broken by Kathy's betrayal, that
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: he basically nopes out, as the kids say, right? He
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: just removes himself. And that's why Lee has to step
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: in to the center of the family. And he kind
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: of becomes a little bit like the virtuous servant who's
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: really the man of the house, you know, like Eumaeus
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: in The Odyssey, somebody that steps into a void while
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: the father is away. And so, yeah, a kind of
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: passivity and a failure to take responsibility is the man
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: of the house, is also part of what these two
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: boys have to surmount and go beyond, which, of course,
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: is what Steinbeck's all about, is can you rise above
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: your circumstances and still choose virtue?
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: When you decided to tackle writing about the adaptation, why
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: did that attract you? I mean, you're not going to
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: do The Young Heretics on East of Eden, or maybe
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: you are. Are you going to do The Young Heretics
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: on East of Eden?
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: Someday, I hope so, but not immediately, because, as you know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: we're in the middle of Dante.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, Dante's going on for a while and that's
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: OK by me. I'm just curious, why did it what
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: drew your attention to it? Why did you decide to
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: write about it?
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: You know, it's part of a trend that I've been
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: writing about for a while, which I think of as
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: the misunderstood villain trope. Or if I'm being a little
• 45:09
  Speaker 6: bit snarkier, it's the wicked fallacy, because this is the
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: musical Wicked, right? Based on a novel about how the
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: is really just misunderstood. And we've basically gotten addicted to
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: this idea, I think, in the culture. It's become a
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: really repetitive and I think kind of boring but fake
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: way to be edgy and daring. If you contemplate, there's
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: one on Netflix coming out about how the evil stepsister
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: in Cinderella isn't really evil. And there's Wicked, of course.
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: Now there's this one. We've seen a bunch of these.
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: And for me, they're actually not all that bad. clever
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: because they take out from these stories the idea that
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: there are moral actions that are good and evil. And
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: once you take that away, there's really nothing left to
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: storytelling at all. So you have to invent some other
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: villain or you have to come up with the poor,
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: unfortunate circumstances in which these nice kind witches and orcs
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: and demons grew up, right? There's an ancient version of
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: this called Gnosticism in which, you know, God is just
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: a mean, bad father figure and the rebel angels are
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: really the good guys. And I think that at the
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: heart of it is this impulse to kind of wish
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: away the existence of evil.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: I wish that people would not do evil. I think
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the victim is villain.
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: The villain is a victim. And I'm tired of that.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I got to get a quick exit question. It was
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: announced recently that Meryl Streep will be the voice of
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Aslan in The Magician's Nephew. Your reaction to that?
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: We got a minute.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: I wrote about this, too. I think it's setting up
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: Meryl Streep for failure, which is very hard to do
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: because Streep's a terrific actress. But this Greta Gerwig decision is.
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: fundamentally misunderstands how the character Aslan operates.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: C.S. Lewis is really clear about this.
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: This is a God figure. And for him, of course,
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: God is above male and female in some essential way.
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: But in the world of Narnia and in our world
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: of the Bible, he is male. And I think this
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: is going to really cause problems for unless Gerwig's got
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: something up for sleeve that I can't imagine is going
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: to really cause problems for that adaptation.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I agree with you on both counts. Spencer, good to
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: talk to you. Follow Spencer Clavin at The Young Heretics.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: That is his weekly podcast. They are deep into Divine
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Comedy right now, but he also has covered many other things.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: And read about him at his Substack. Go Google Spencer
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Clavin and Substack. You'll find it. Spencer, thank you. I'll
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: be right back, America. Welcome back, America. I have been
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: talking about it today off and on only because I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: thought I would do it all in one day. and
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: do it with some smart people like Lilacs and my
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: next guest, Bethany Mandel, because I find the subject so distasteful,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to punt it to Bethany. Bethany, any idea
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: what I'm going to punt to you? Cornell? Cornell! You
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: got it! Cornell. Yay!
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: What do I win? Assume that nobody knows what we're
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: talking about, all right? And they've just tuned in, and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: they just heard Cornell. Tell them what we're talking about,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: and tell them what you think about it.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: Okay. Okay.
• 48:23
  Speaker 12: So there in 2024, there was an incident on campus
• 48:27
  Speaker 12: where there was an encounter of a certain nature. I
• 48:31
  Speaker 12: did that for all of you parents who are driving
• 48:32
  Speaker 12: your children home from school right now.
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: You're welcome.
• 48:35
  Speaker 12: Between seven young men who were students at Cornell and
• 48:38
  Speaker 12: one young woman. The woman initially said it was consensual
• 48:45
  Speaker 12: at the time and then later on changed her mind.
• 48:48
  Speaker 12: There was a lengthy investigation done by Cornell and by
• 48:52
  Speaker 12: the district attorney where Cornell is in New York State.
• 48:56
  Speaker 12: They decided not to prosecute this as as a forcible interaction.
• 49:02
  Speaker 12: But now sort of politics have have gotten in the
• 49:04
  Speaker 12: way of that. And it looks like there's going to
• 49:07
  Speaker 12: be Leticia James, who's the attorney general in New York,
• 49:11
  Speaker 12: will be taking over for the local prosecutor. And there
• 49:14
  Speaker 12: may be charges filed.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: And what is your reaction to the coverage of the story?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: beginning with Sonny Hostin on The View right up to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: this weekend? It's now launched a thousand ships. This case
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: has launched a thousand ships, and it was dead and
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: buried until last week.
• 49:32
  Speaker 12: So this is not a sentence I typically utter, but
• 49:34
  Speaker 12: Sonny on The View did an excellent job breaking down
• 49:38
  Speaker 12: the case. Um, because there's two, there's two questions here.
• 49:42
  Speaker 12: Was this legal and was it moral? And on the
• 49:46
  Speaker 12: legal front, I, I don't, I think that it was,
• 49:51
  Speaker 12: it was yucky. The reason I say it like that,
• 49:52
  Speaker 12: because it was a yucky, terrible, immoral thing that happened.
• 49:56
  Speaker 12: Everyone involved behaved immorally. Um, they sort of, the young
• 50:01
  Speaker 12: men texted each other at the time, like There's there's
• 50:04
  Speaker 12: something available in this room if anyone wants to come
• 50:08
  Speaker 12: in and just take a run for it. Like it
• 50:10
  Speaker 12: was extremely disturbing whether it was legal or not. I
• 50:14
  Speaker 12: have a piece that's coming out probably in tomorrow's New
• 50:16
  Speaker 12: York Post about the fact that this is fueled by
• 50:18
  Speaker 12: the availability of really violent content that has proliferated online
• 50:24
  Speaker 12: when it comes to the interactions between men and women online.
• 50:29
  Speaker 12: And it is, you know, legal or not, this is
• 50:32
  Speaker 12: a warning cry that I think parents need to be
• 50:35
  Speaker 12: paying attention to that the content that both young men
• 50:39
  Speaker 12: and young women are consuming online about the interactions between them.
• 50:45
  Speaker 8: Is diseased and broken.
• 50:46
  Speaker 12: And it's changed the way that they think about the
• 50:50
  Speaker 12: interpersonal relationships that happen between men and women.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm so far removed from college campus. I stepped
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: on a college campus in 1974 and I left in
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: 1983 when I left law school. None of this would
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: have been remotely possible, in my view, at either institution
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: that I attended. But that's 45 years ago. When you
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: went to school at Rutgers, was this something that could
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: remotely happen?
• 51:20
  Speaker 12: I think so, but I had a personal policy that
• 51:23
  Speaker 12: I didn't, first of all, I'd never done drugs, but
• 51:25
  Speaker 12: I had a policy that I would never become too
• 51:27
  Speaker 12: inebriated at a college party. I never went to a
• 51:31
  Speaker 12: frat party because I don't trust college men. I didn't
• 51:35
  Speaker 12: trust them when I was a college-age student. And so
• 51:39
  Speaker 12: what I think is interesting about the lawsuit, the civil
• 51:42
  Speaker 12: lawsuit that Jane Doe has filed is that she's blaming
• 51:46
  Speaker 12: everyone but herself. She's even blaming the bar for over-serving
• 51:49
  Speaker 12: her on beverages that she ordered herself. So there's a
• 51:55
  Speaker 12: real lack of personal responsibility being taken here. You shouldn't
• 52:00
  Speaker 12: snort ketamine off of someone else's body. I didn't think
• 52:03
  Speaker 12: that that was something that needed to be taught at Cornell,
• 52:06
  Speaker 12: but apparently it is.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Well, this is what comes down to the big question.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Have universities completely abdicated the idea of being the parent
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: in place at the time? Have they just given up
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: on that?
• 52:20
  Speaker 12: I don't think that that's their role, actually. But I
• 52:22
  Speaker 12: think that universities have abdicated their responsibility of being places
• 52:25
  Speaker 12: of higher learning and achievement. And so it's just viewed
• 52:29
  Speaker 12: as a party place for four years. And it's a
• 52:31
  Speaker 12: very expensive party at that. It's you know, I think
• 52:33
  Speaker 12: Cornell is like, what, thirty five, forty thousand dollars a year.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 52:36
  Speaker 12: That's a very expensive party. So I think that schools
• 52:39
  Speaker 12: have abdicated their responsibility as providing a place of rigor
• 52:44
  Speaker 12: and learning. And I think parents have abdicated their responsibility
• 52:48
  Speaker 12: in teaching their kids very basic morality and not letting
• 52:52
  Speaker 12: pornography basically provide sexual education for their children.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: How about secondary schools, both public and private? Have they collapsed?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Because I went to Catholic schools. You had an hour
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: of religion a day. the natural law was not exactly
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: a surprise to anyone who comes out of 12 years
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: of Catholic education. You know what's right and you know
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: what's wrong. And I'm guessing these boys knew it was
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: wrong and this girl knew it was wrong, but they
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: did it anyway. Do you think secondary schools have just fumbled?
• 53:22
  Speaker 12: I guess, but I blame that on the parents, much
• 53:25
  Speaker 12: more so than the schools. I think schools have responsibility
• 53:27
  Speaker 12: to teach the basics of sexual education. A lot of
• 53:31
  Speaker 12: schools have replaced... you know, the sex ed that I
• 53:34
  Speaker 12: think is helpful to get when you just, you know,
• 53:37
  Speaker 12: you're learning the biology of this is how babies are
• 53:39
  Speaker 12: made and this is how it works. They've replaced that
• 53:41
  Speaker 12: with like consent is the most important thing and nothing
• 53:45
  Speaker 12: else matters. If that's the case, then like you wouldn't
• 53:49
  Speaker 12: walk out of this encounter feeling disgusting afterwards, which I
• 53:52
  Speaker 12: think Jane Doe did feel. So I think, you know,
• 53:58
  Speaker 12: schools have an opportunity to teach, you know, more than consent.
• 54:02
  Speaker 12: But I put this on parents. Parents really need to
• 54:05
  Speaker 12: be the ones that are raising their children morally and ethically.
• 54:09
  Speaker 12: And I think that at least seven parents at Cornell
• 54:11
  Speaker 12: did not do so.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: And so your piece in the Post tomorrow, are you
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: laying the blame on everybody or nobody or one person
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: or institution in particular?
• 54:22
  Speaker 12: So I talk a lot about the influence of pornography
• 54:25
  Speaker 12: in sort of how this came to be. I just
• 54:27
  Speaker 12: read a fantastic book called Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sachs.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: He's fantastic.
• 54:33
  Speaker 12: And he actually re-released Boys Adrift. He published it, I think,
• 54:37
  Speaker 12: 20 years ago, and he re-released it because there was
• 54:39
  Speaker 12: just so much out there when it comes to the
• 54:43
  Speaker 12: impact of pornography and AI on young men that he
• 54:46
  Speaker 12: felt like he needed to re-release an entire book to
• 54:49
  Speaker 12: cover that. And his findings were really shocking. The number
• 54:53
  Speaker 12: of young men who need to partake in Viagra in
• 54:57
  Speaker 12: order to feel stimulated because they've set the bar so
• 55:01
  Speaker 12: high on stimulation because of pornography.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So we will look for that. Boys Adrift. And we
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: will look for Bethany Mandel's column tomorrow in the New
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: York Post. Follow on X at Bethany Shondark. Bethany, thank
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: you for handling the curveball. I always throw them at
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: you and Lilacs when I have nobody else to talk
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: to about these things. Thank you, Bethany Mandel. Don't go anywhere, America.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: I'm huge.