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

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
0:03
Speaker 1: Hillsdale Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take
0:06
Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
0:08
Speaker 1: course I'll listen to the Hilldale dialogues, all of them
0:11
Speaker 1: at q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple
0:14
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hilldale Morning Laura and even Grace America. Welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: to the Big Weekend Pod. On Thursday, President Trump issued
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Speaker 1: a memorandum rebuilding the United States Navy and America's shipbuilding
0:27
Speaker 1: industrial base pretty dance, and it's very important. Hasn't been
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Speaker 1: covered much outside of navalist literature like the United States
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Speaker 1: Naval Institute Press and things like that, but it ought
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Speaker 1: to be covered everywhere and in depth because it has
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Speaker 1: major changes to our carrier fleet. It's got major changes
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Speaker 1: to where we buy our ships, and it's got a
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Speaker 1: new model, the quote Finland model, which I approve of.
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Speaker 1: And I'm very aware of what I don't know in
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Speaker 1: this area, and I don't know whether the change order
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Speaker 1: for the carriers is a good idea or a bad idea.
1:00
Speaker 1: We'll be talking about it on today's program. As one
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Speaker 1: of the issues for John ellis founder of News Items,
1:06
Speaker 1: which I read first thing every single morning. Also be
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Speaker 1: talking with Eli Lake of The Free Press, Matt Conney,
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Speaker 1: the Wall Street journel also over head of Domestic Studies
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Speaker 1: at the American Enterprise Institute, Ben Dominich, shall be along,
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Speaker 1: and I'm going to throw in some questions about the
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Speaker 1: vacancy at the front of the White House press room
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Speaker 1: and the people that are in front of that lectern
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Speaker 1: as well, because I don't think it's me. I just
1:30
Speaker 1: think they're getting dumber, and every dumb reporter who takes
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Speaker 1: up space and as stupid questions is doing a disservice
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Speaker 1: to their platform and to the American people. So I
1:40
Speaker 1: think it's about time we have some barriers to entry
1:42
Speaker 1: to getting a press pass, so I'll be talking about that,
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Speaker 1: and of course we're getting close to football. There's gotta
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Speaker 1: be a little football today too, because it can't be
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Speaker 1: all vegetables. We need some dessert. A little football today
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Speaker 1: on the agenda as well. Don't go anywhere, Stay tuned.
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Speaker 1: A great big weekend pod is at the h Hewitt Show,
2:01
Speaker 1: and I regular weekend starting lineup is with us coming up.
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Speaker 1: Eli Lake in the Free Press, Matt Continetti, of the
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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and Ben Dominich of the Daily Wire.
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Speaker 1: We got a lot of head and we begin as
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Speaker 1: we always do him. We're lucky with John Ellis, founder
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Speaker 1: and editor in chief of News Items, my Morning Read
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Speaker 1: six days a week and Political Items fills in a
2:22
Speaker 1: couple of times. If you're not a subscriber to News Items,
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Speaker 1: you ought to be. Look up Elis and News Items
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Speaker 1: and you'll find it. John, you sent me word that's
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Speaker 1: got best announced yesterday we are going to really turn
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Speaker 1: the screws on Iran next week. On the banking side.
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Speaker 1: What can we do that we haven't done? And what
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Speaker 1: did he promise that we would do?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's unclear because he didn't want to reveal what
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Speaker 2: exactly you know, he was going to execute that would
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Speaker 2: bring more strangulation than already exists. But one assumes that
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Speaker 2: it just you know, it makes it much more to
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Speaker 2: difficult for a Ran to conduct any kind of international business,
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Speaker 2: and uh, you know, obviously the blockade would continue as well.
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Speaker 2: I think it's a funny thing because I think, you know,
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Speaker 2: it's been a lot of a lot of difficulty in
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Speaker 2: getting to where we are now, but where we are
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Speaker 2: now is actually not a bad place. We set, you know,
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Speaker 2: percent as articulated a policy of economic strangulation. The blockade
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Speaker 2: is in place. The Uranians have two points of leverage.
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Speaker 2: One is control of the strait. The other is what
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Speaker 2: they believe. You know, they believe the calendar works to
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Speaker 2: their advantage. But if President Trump is willing to forget
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Speaker 2: the calendar, then you know, day by day economic strangulation
3:50
Speaker 2: gets worse and worse and worse. And you know, the
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Speaker 2: Iranian economy is a disaster as it is, and if
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Speaker 2: it gets worse and worse and worse, then they are
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Speaker 2: the ones that are going to have to come to
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Speaker 2: the table. So through all these twists and turns, I
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Speaker 2: think we're actually in a fairly good place as long
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Speaker 2: as President Trump is willing.
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Speaker 3: To be patient.
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Speaker 1: I saw Richard Goldberg at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies
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Speaker 1: and a veteran of the Treasure Department Sanctioned Division, making
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Speaker 1: this argument Bill Hammer this morning that in fact, we're
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Speaker 1: doing quite well visa b Iran. But I got two questions,
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Speaker 1: and maybe you can remember the answer to Warner book,
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Speaker 1: there is a banking system which we shut North Korea
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Speaker 1: off from once and wrecked havoc even on the Hermit Kingdom.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what he's plotting. Do you
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Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about? Does that ring a bell? Yeah?
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Speaker 3: It's the Swift It's the Swift system.
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Speaker 2: I mean it's basically international transactions are shut they're shut
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Speaker 2: out of the whole financial infrastructure that enables you know,
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Speaker 2: somebody from Moran to buy treasuries that were to execute
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Speaker 2: a trade with I don't know, you know, pick your country.
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Speaker 2: So that's that system is there. And then there's obviously
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Speaker 2: the US has a lot of allies, they have a
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Speaker 2: lot of leverage with a lot of countries. We can
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Speaker 2: say to them, look, you can't you can't do any
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Speaker 2: business at all with Iran. Obviously Iran can do business
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Speaker 2: with Russia, it can do business, you know, with China.
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Speaker 2: But even there, you know, with President Trump getting ready
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Speaker 2: to meet with President G, a favor that G can
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Speaker 2: do for him without you know, without you know, breaking
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Speaker 2: a sweat is shutting down economic support for Ran. So
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Speaker 2: I think that's what pissonna is talking about is just
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Speaker 2: every you know, piece of pipe and the plumbing that
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Speaker 2: can be shut off, the US will shut off. And
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Speaker 2: because the Iranian economy, I mean, the currency is wallpaper, right,
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Speaker 2: I mean, it's just unbelievable. The inflation is insane, and
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Speaker 2: you know, the notion that they can survive this, you
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Speaker 2: know forever, that the population is infinitely patient with the
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Speaker 2: leadership that it doesn't like seems to me.
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Speaker 3: Not accurate.
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Speaker 1: Well, the second question I had, I was trying to remember,
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Speaker 1: and this goes back to my college days. So that's
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Speaker 1: a long time ago. South Africa eventually capitulated and they
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Speaker 1: were ringed with sanctions of all sorts, and they eventually
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Speaker 1: brought Mandela out freedom and they turned over their nukes
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Speaker 1: and they just capitulated. I can't remember how long that took,
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Speaker 1: do you.
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Speaker 3: I think it was like twenty years.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it switched, you know, it smitched with administrations with
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Speaker 2: President Rake, Presidents Reagan and Bush. It came to pass
6:53
Speaker 2: and President Bush senior was an important part of that.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, take these things take a long time. In
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Speaker 2: this case, however, the Iranian economy is a disaster. And
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Speaker 2: if it gets you know, if it gets strangled more
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Speaker 2: it you know, things that can't be sustained don't aren't sustained.
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Speaker 1: If you can't. So I feel in people's cars they
7:21
Speaker 1: notice second issue about the Strait oil spills in the
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Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz.
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Speaker 2: Tell us about that, Well, there's a guy named Javier Blass.
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Speaker 2: He writes a column, probably the best column columnists at Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: And you know, the question has been, why is the
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Speaker 2: price of oil the commodity itself, uh not, you know,
7:44
Speaker 2: risen dramatically?
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Speaker 3: Why isn't it doubled? Why isn't it tripled?
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Speaker 2: And he's pointed out, and I think this is accurate
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Speaker 2: that more obviously, China demand has has dropped significantly, so
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Speaker 2: that's probably the biggest reason that the price of oil
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Speaker 2: has not gone up as much as everybody thought it would.
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Speaker 2: But the second thing that he's arguing now is that
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Speaker 2: more tankers are getting through the straits than the reporting
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Speaker 2: on it. That it's not six or twenty or thirty three,
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Speaker 2: it's probably one third. And he bases that on the
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Speaker 2: fact that there are oil spills all over the strait,
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Speaker 2: which indicates that the Iranians are hitting some, but the
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Speaker 2: fact that they're hitting some is an indication and that
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Speaker 2: a lot more are getting through.
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Speaker 3: It's a very good column. People can find it at Bloomberg.
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Speaker 1: All Right. A third story and I found this both
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Speaker 1: alarming and also somewhat inspiring. The United States Army faced
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Speaker 1: off in a war game with Ukrainian drone operators and
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Speaker 1: lost decisively at Fort Hood or not fort Hood in Germany.
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Speaker 1: So tell me about that, because the lesson I drop
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Speaker 1: from that is every superpower ought to take a big,
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Speaker 1: deep breath before they engage in conflict.
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Speaker 2: What do you think, Yeah, I mean, you know the
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Speaker 2: classic wargame US Army which the troops came from Fort Hood,
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Speaker 2: they were up against drone operators from Ukraine, and in
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Speaker 2: the war you know, in the wargame, the Ukrainians won.
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Speaker 2: This fits into the LS theory of the Pentagon, which
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Speaker 2: is we should buy essentially the Iranian Defense Department or
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Speaker 2: take a forty nine percent stake in it, and begin
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Speaker 2: the process of building Pentagon two point zero, which would be,
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Speaker 2: you know, we would follow the example of the Ukrainians
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Speaker 2: or in fact by the Ukrainian drones capability, but also
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Speaker 2: bring in all these new technologies that are going to
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Speaker 2: be the ones that we fight future wars. In the
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Speaker 2: current Pentagon is you know, it's tangled up. It's a
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Speaker 2: congressional military is you know, corporate maze it's very difficult
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Speaker 2: for it too. It's very difficult to turn the battleship around,
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Speaker 2: so to speak. But if we if we just set
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Speaker 2: aside and say, Okay, this is Pentagon two point zero
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Speaker 2: and we're gonna, you know, build out all of the
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Speaker 2: tools necessary to fight warfare in the future, that would be,
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Speaker 2: in my view, a good idea.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with Matt Connelly about the memo
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Speaker 1: the President put out yesterday about shipbuilding, because that's right
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Speaker 1: down that alley. But before we get to that, in
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Speaker 1: our last moment, I talked to State Center Betton Court
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Speaker 1: from Texas two weeks ago. Tom Me, Texas already has
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Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty data centers AI centers, and one
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Speaker 1: of them in one county more than double their revenue
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Speaker 1: in property Texas. Uh so, yeah, they may have some
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Speaker 1: negative externality, but they bring in a lot of revenue.
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Speaker 1: How loud are they?
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Speaker 2: John, Well, there's a I did a podcast with a
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Speaker 2: guy named Alan to Upson, who sort of is the
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Speaker 2: guy who measures the march to artificial superintelligence, and everybody
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Speaker 2: in the business and the AI business reads his memo
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Speaker 2: and he had a little sidebar, which was that the
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Speaker 2: data center. If you have X number of racks of
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Speaker 2: Navidia machinery, the decibel level is one oh one, which
11:27
Speaker 2: is essentially the same as standing next to a helicopter,
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Speaker 2: and that if you lose and if you use evermore right,
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Speaker 2: if you use a larger group of racks of Navidia equipment,
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Speaker 2: the decibel level goes to one hundred and thirteen. One
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Speaker 2: of the big complaints that people have who live near
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Speaker 2: data centers is noise, because they don't It's not like
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Speaker 2: they run from nine to five, they run twenty four
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Speaker 2: to seven.
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Speaker 1: That is bad. That's why I do live under a
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Speaker 1: flight path in the Beltway, and that's not pleasant. I
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Speaker 1: can't imagine lesaring next to one hundred and ten decibels.
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Speaker 1: John Ellis from news Items, Thank you. If you want
12:09
Speaker 1: to subscribe to news items, be smarter than the average
12:12
Speaker 1: fair and most of the Beltleigh every morning by seven am,
12:16
Speaker 1: go to news Items on substack or Google news items
12:20
Speaker 1: and John Ellen's subscribe and you will be taking care
12:23
Speaker 1: of John. Thank you so much of me. Right back
12:25
Speaker 1: with Eli Lank of the Free Press, stay tuned to
12:28
Speaker 1: the QQ at show Bernard or and I mean Grace
12:40
Speaker 1: America again. Eli Lake is back with us. He is
12:43
Speaker 1: with the Free Press. He's as the host of the
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Speaker 1: Getting of the Breaking History podcast we ought to be
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Speaker 1: Getting History ELI. Earlier today, I posted on x a
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Speaker 1: list of books that I think anyone who gets a
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Speaker 1: White House press pass ought to have read, because I
12:56
Speaker 1: think the questions being asked of the press Secretary of
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Speaker 1: the President are going down the drain and levels of
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Speaker 1: acuity and literacy. Do you agree with me? And number two?
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Speaker 1: If so, what books would you think someone would have
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Speaker 1: to read?
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Speaker 4: It's a great question, Hugh, I generally agree that. I mean,
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Speaker 4: my view is that the briefings are like kind of
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Speaker 4: a spectacle anyway I understand, but it feels more like
13:25
Speaker 4: a pageant, less like a news kind of breaking thing.
13:29
Speaker 4: I think that I wouldn't mind if they basically called
13:32
Speaker 4: it off and they only had these kind of press
13:33
Speaker 4: conferences when there was a national emergency or they had
13:36
Speaker 4: to roll out of policy. Books that I think that
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Speaker 4: political reporters should read. I'm going to give you some
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Speaker 4: one just off the top of my head. It's a
13:43
Speaker 4: good question. Have you ever heard of the book Plunket
13:46
Speaker 4: of Tammany Hall, which exploded politics? That's a good one
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Speaker 4: for any kind of political reporter to understand it.
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Speaker 1: Another one.
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Speaker 4: And I'm just thinking now in terms of political books
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Speaker 4: that I really like What It Takes.
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Speaker 1: Book of the Decade Century YEP of.
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Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty eight. That is the best book I've ever
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Speaker 4: read about what it means to run in a presidential campaign.
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Speaker 4: The level of detail is just a masterful. I think
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Speaker 4: you should read that. Then I would say I'm going
14:21
Speaker 4: to do two by one author, or two series of
14:24
Speaker 4: books really one author, and it's you know, read Robert
14:26
Speaker 4: Carrow on the Lynnon Johnson biographies, because you're not you're
14:34
Speaker 4: getting more than the Lyndon Johnson and that you're getting
14:35
Speaker 4: a history of the Senate, You're getting a history of
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Speaker 4: Texas politics. And then read his book on Robert Moses
14:42
Speaker 4: to understand how local power, particularly New York works. So
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Speaker 4: those are some Those are some good ones. I'm sure
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Speaker 4: I'm missing stuff right now.
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Speaker 1: An good one I went in the direction that you
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Speaker 1: should be literate in Western civilization before you Oh yeah, yes,
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Speaker 1: And so I listed the Lonely Tower because that's the
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Speaker 1: enemy of the West. Yes, Israeli by Lord Blake Napoleon
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Speaker 1: and Salisbury by Andrew Roberts I listed to provide and
15:10
Speaker 1: maintained by Henry Hendrick since he's in charge of shipbuilding
15:13
Speaker 1: over at omb, but to rule the ways by Arthur
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Speaker 1: Herman Jews versus Rome, Barry Strauss American Caesar. But stuff
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Speaker 1: like that, I just don't think they know much. I
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Speaker 1: listened to Hassan Piker. This all got started because of
15:27
Speaker 1: two things, Hassan Piker rising up to my level of
15:30
Speaker 1: consciousness and Carol Lovett leaving. And I'm beginning to what
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Speaker 1: Hassan Piker just doesn't know anything. I think he's just
15:37
Speaker 1: flat out stupid.
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Speaker 4: You're putting him on the spot, But I mean, he
15:45
Speaker 4: has a gift for shocking people, I suppose, transgressive and
15:49
Speaker 4: babbling for hours on end on his twitch stream, but
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Speaker 4: there's no wisdom there. He's a poser when it comes
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Speaker 4: to dealing.
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Speaker 1: When he's I think he's trying.
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Speaker 4: He's like a shock jock, so he's trying. He knows
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Speaker 4: that he knows that there are lots of people who
16:06
Speaker 4: understand the evils of Mause Tongue or Joseph Stalin and
16:12
Speaker 4: what he and he's gonna say he likes them or
16:14
Speaker 4: that they were there were and you know, listen, there
16:17
Speaker 4: are professors, there are people who are experts and historians
16:21
Speaker 4: who can make arguments that I would disagree with about
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Speaker 4: how bad things were before now, and you know, the
16:28
Speaker 4: conditions that led to the revolution. But he's not doing that.
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Speaker 4: He's skipping all over that. He's what he's trying to
16:34
Speaker 4: do is just provoke a reaction but also kind of
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Speaker 4: reveal a preference for what I've called the anti American
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Speaker 4: or anti patriotic I mean that is the anti patriotic left.
16:46
Speaker 4: They've been going strong cute now for some time, for
16:49
Speaker 4: about half a century. It's this view that America is
16:53
Speaker 4: irredeemably evil, and so therefore you are no longer if
16:59
Speaker 4: you're progressive trying to perfect the union, but you're you know,
17:04
Speaker 4: you're trying to tear it apart. So and that is
17:07
Speaker 4: where I would put intellectuals that are much more serious
17:09
Speaker 4: than Piker, like a Howard Zinn. I would put him
17:12
Speaker 4: in that category nom Chromsky to a certain extent. But
17:16
Speaker 4: those of you know this is like, you know, he's
17:18
Speaker 4: standing on this. He's a midget standing on the shoulders
17:21
Speaker 4: of those anti American giants.
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Speaker 1: Short short historian, Eli, you do breaking history, I would
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Speaker 1: like to know what broke in Columbia, which once had
17:30
Speaker 1: the most revered Western civilization undergraduate education in the country,
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Speaker 1: and now I don't know if they read anything. I
17:39
Speaker 1: had to read stuff that I didn't want to read.
17:40
Speaker 1: And by the way, I've got Believer by David Axelrod
17:42
Speaker 1: on my list and the Right by Matt Continetti. I
17:45
Speaker 1: don't want people to be blind to one side or
17:47
Speaker 1: the other. But David Axelrod is a very smart guy,
17:50
Speaker 1: and there are very smart people on the left. I
17:53
Speaker 1: just wonder did they teach the West at all anymore
17:56
Speaker 1: in the university system.
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Speaker 4: Well, this is a good question for your next guest,
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Speaker 4: Matthew Counnon, who's a graduate of Columbia. But I can
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Speaker 4: tell you in my own kind of research. I did
18:05
Speaker 4: an episode about this a little over a year ago.
18:08
Speaker 4: I think that you know the introduction of Edward Said,
18:13
Speaker 4: and you know the fact that he was so revered
18:18
Speaker 4: and you know, emulated throughout the academy, but he was
18:21
Speaker 4: based at Columbia. That to me is kind of the
18:24
Speaker 4: beginning of the end, because one of his conceits is
18:28
Speaker 4: that if you are a scholar, if you're a historian,
18:33
Speaker 4: or if you are an analyst. If you're in the
18:34
Speaker 4: academic disciplines, you have to have to be an activist
18:37
Speaker 4: for justice and for the you know, for him it
18:40
Speaker 4: was the Palaesidian cause. But it really does. It requires
18:46
Speaker 4: people to in the to sort of take a stand
18:49
Speaker 4: and to try to make the world a better place.
18:53
Speaker 4: And in the process, I think what it does is
18:54
Speaker 4: it blinds them to the alternative view, and that is
18:59
Speaker 4: an anti intellectual position, and that is I think what
19:02
Speaker 4: gets Columbia into so much trouble to now where you know,
19:07
Speaker 4: I agree with you that it looks like most of
19:10
Speaker 4: the most important kind of treasures of Western civilization are
19:13
Speaker 4: not are no longer kind of mandatory. They've been replaced
19:16
Speaker 4: with a lot of gobblygooks, Like everybody seems to have
19:19
Speaker 4: read bell Hooks and no one seems to have read Tacitus.
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Speaker 1: And I'm not even asking for great books in Hillsdale.
19:26
Speaker 1: I'm just asking for a basic outline of Western civilization.
19:30
Speaker 1: I begin every con law class with the Greeks, the Jews,
19:33
Speaker 1: the Romans, the Brits, and the Americans. That's how we
19:36
Speaker 1: ended up in the law school classroom in twenty twenty
19:39
Speaker 1: seven or whatever year, I'm going back in the in
19:41
Speaker 1: the spring of this next year and I begin same
19:44
Speaker 1: way for thirty years, the Jews, the Great the Romans,
19:48
Speaker 1: the Brits, and the American Eli. Did you have a chance,
19:53
Speaker 1: and we may go in the break on this if
19:54
Speaker 1: you meany more time to read the President's memorandum on
19:57
Speaker 1: shipbuilding he issued yesterday.
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Speaker 4: I have not yet had a chance to read it.
20:01
Speaker 4: I know that it's a very important thing. I mean,
20:03
Speaker 4: I'm hoping it's it's what I hear it is, but no,
20:06
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
20:07
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we'll come back around to it next week.
20:09
Speaker 1: What is the next breaking history going to be?
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Speaker 4: I am working on a big are kind of a
20:16
Speaker 4: series that is going to be coming on the fall
20:18
Speaker 4: on the narrative side right now, and it is going
20:21
Speaker 4: to be looking at sort of the order that Trump destroyed,
20:27
Speaker 4: a look at the Bush dynasty, a second look if
20:30
Speaker 4: you will, at the Bush dynasty, which I have to
20:32
Speaker 4: say has been a real joy kind of reading about
20:35
Speaker 4: what an extraordinary family and their ability to kind of,
20:39
Speaker 4: you know, produce really if you think about it, three
20:43
Speaker 4: generations of national leaders, starting with Prescott, that I think
20:49
Speaker 4: had a sense of civic duty and Republican virtue that's
20:52
Speaker 4: very much missing today, not just in the Republican Party
20:55
Speaker 4: but our politics overall.
20:57
Speaker 1: That I look forward to that will be very well received.
21:00
Speaker 1: And I think if Baxrod's theory on electing personalities that
21:06
Speaker 1: differ Bush hw personality would be very much welcome post Trump,
21:13
Speaker 1: not partisans, just in terms of gravitas, experience in the
21:18
Speaker 1: public sector, public sector, public minument you, I thank you,
21:22
Speaker 1: I'm you right back to America with Matt Contenetti. Stay tuned,
21:34
Speaker 1: walking back on to Hewett. Matt Contnetti is a charge
21:37
Speaker 1: of Domestic policy over at the American Enterprise Institute. He's
21:41
Speaker 1: also the Wall Street Journal Free Expressions columnist and Matt Connetti,
21:45
Speaker 1: I hope you have thrown yourself into shipbuilding in the
21:49
Speaker 1: President's memorandum of yesterday. Am I lucky there? Have you
21:52
Speaker 1: read it yesterday? Yet?
21:54
Speaker 5: I dove in, Hugh. As soon as I heard that
21:56
Speaker 5: this was of interest to you, I dove in. I
21:59
Speaker 5: started studying the US Code, and I'm ready to go.
22:02
Speaker 1: All right, So let's start with the President's section one
22:06
Speaker 1: his purpose, which is the United States Navy has been
22:09
Speaker 1: screwing up for decades. Agree or disagree.
22:13
Speaker 6: Agree.
22:14
Speaker 5: And you know, I think this also speaks to a
22:16
Speaker 5: broader program with the prime defense contractors. I know that
22:21
Speaker 5: the Department of War Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is
22:24
Speaker 5: incredibly frustrated with the major weapons manufacturers that we depend on.
22:30
Speaker 5: They're not producing what we need at the speed with
22:34
Speaker 5: which we need it. And that's clearly the case with
22:36
Speaker 5: the shipbuilders as well.
22:37
Speaker 1: All Right, So that takes us section two, and this
22:40
Speaker 1: is the one about which I am an agnostic. Restoring
22:43
Speaker 1: steam and hydraulic systems to carriers. Now the Ford has
22:48
Speaker 1: a magnet to catapult our fighter planes into the sky.
22:53
Speaker 1: Everything before the Ford used catapults, and the President's memorandum says,
22:58
Speaker 1: go back to catapults. Got brief last night by people
23:01
Speaker 1: who know this stuff, and I said, look, the problem
23:03
Speaker 1: is the Ford took twelve years to build. Nimtz takes
23:06
Speaker 1: four years to build, and we can't We're going to
23:09
Speaker 1: be down to six or seven carriers when it's mandated
23:12
Speaker 1: by law to have twelve at this rate. What do
23:15
Speaker 1: you think of a go back to get faster mode.
23:19
Speaker 5: Well, I know that it's a priority for President Trump, Hugh.
23:22
Speaker 5: This is something that he raised repeatedly during his first
23:25
Speaker 5: term in office, and now it seems that he's using
23:29
Speaker 5: the executive order to actually get some results. My operating
23:34
Speaker 5: philosophy is, if it was good enough for top Gun,
23:36
Speaker 5: then it's good enough for our carriers. But whatever makes
23:40
Speaker 5: the most sense in getting these ships operational and you know,
23:44
Speaker 5: on on station as quickly as possible, that's what I
23:47
Speaker 5: would pursue.
23:49
Speaker 1: So the big debate is our carriers, the battleships of
23:53
Speaker 1: this century. In other words, Pearl Harbor came along and
23:55
Speaker 1: we realized, oh, those big battleships are nice, but you
23:58
Speaker 1: can't really use them except for bombardment the Nazi fortifications
24:03
Speaker 1: or the islands. The Marines are taking the Pacific. It's
24:05
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers that have we gone a generation forward. And
24:10
Speaker 1: I'm a civilian. I don't know. You're a civilian, You
24:13
Speaker 1: probably don't know. But do you get the sense that
24:15
Speaker 1: maybe aircraft carriers are going away of the battleship.
24:19
Speaker 5: It's a definite possibility when you consider that we're in
24:21
Speaker 5: this new age of missile and drone warfare, and we
24:26
Speaker 5: know that our carriers in the Persian Gulf have to
24:29
Speaker 5: be at a certain remove in order to prevent them
24:33
Speaker 5: from coming under attack by Iranian missiles. And so I
24:38
Speaker 5: think we need to think new about all of our
24:42
Speaker 5: weapons platforms. And I do believe this has been a
24:44
Speaker 5: priority of the President and of Pete Hegseth, is to
24:48
Speaker 5: get the new platforms for this new age, that is
24:52
Speaker 5: the autonomous platforms, that is the missiles, the interceptors, the
24:56
Speaker 5: undersea submersible, autonomous on surface, autonomous weapons like we saw
25:03
Speaker 5: with the rescue of our down pilots last month or
25:07
Speaker 5: so in the Persian Gulf. We need to get those
25:10
Speaker 5: on ready and ready to fight, ready to go in
25:13
Speaker 5: theater as soon as we can.
25:16
Speaker 1: So Part three, and we'll take this into the break
25:18
Speaker 1: and come back and talk about something else. We're going
25:21
Speaker 1: to go with the Finland model which we use for icebreakers,
25:23
Speaker 1: which is they build a lot them in Finland. We're
25:25
Speaker 1: going to buy two off the Finish assembly line, provided
25:29
Speaker 1: that that shipbuilder produces a shipyard in the United States
25:32
Speaker 1: that builds the same ship here using Americans. We're going
25:37
Speaker 1: to open that up to the South Koreans and the
25:39
Speaker 1: Japanese for other ship lines like frigates, maybe destroyers, I
25:43
Speaker 1: doubt destroyers, but frigates and maybe some other support ships.
25:47
Speaker 1: What do you think of the Finland model?
25:50
Speaker 5: Oh, this's a great idea. I think it's absolutely overdue.
25:53
Speaker 5: My friends who study this subject for a living have
25:57
Speaker 5: been talking about partnerships along the Finland model for for
26:02
Speaker 5: a long time now. I think Korea and Japan in
26:06
Speaker 5: particular can help us. There are allies. That's the way
26:09
Speaker 5: that we should be using our alliances as one of
26:11
Speaker 5: our many superpowers. So I'm in a firm firm support
26:16
Speaker 5: with this part of the executive order.
26:18
Speaker 1: And then the last part is a fifth public Navy shipyard.
26:21
Speaker 1: Whoever gets this, and this is a throw a dart
26:24
Speaker 1: will be an enormous benefit to the state wherein it
26:27
Speaker 1: is located. If you had to guess where it's going,
26:30
Speaker 1: where do you think it's going to go?
26:31
Speaker 6: Matt Contnetty, I don't know.
26:34
Speaker 5: Somewhere near the Gulf of America is what I would say.
26:36
Speaker 5: That's what I was on one of the states, one
26:39
Speaker 5: of the states bordering the Gulf of America. But you know,
26:42
Speaker 5: Q this I think it's absolutely crucial as well. But
26:45
Speaker 5: it does introduce Congress, and when I look at this
26:47
Speaker 5: executive order, I support it, but I need Congress to
26:51
Speaker 5: pass that defense budget to appropriate these resources, and I
26:55
Speaker 5: have to say I've been slightly disappointed in Congress this summer.
26:58
Speaker 5: They haven't moved with the speed they need to resupply
27:02
Speaker 5: our armed forces in a time of low intensity conflict.
27:06
Speaker 3: Would be wrong.
27:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with Matt Connenny about that very
27:09
Speaker 1: subject during the break and be back on the other side.
27:12
Speaker 1: We talk about the next White House Press Secretary and
27:15
Speaker 1: the people who want to be allowed into the press
27:17
Speaker 1: from stay tuned. I'm going to do it, so I'm
27:19
Speaker 1: back with Matt Connenny. Matt, the President requested a trillion
27:22
Speaker 1: and a half dollars. I'm all for it, a huge
27:24
Speaker 1: amount of spending Golden Fleet, Golden Dome, and other long
27:29
Speaker 1: neglected parts of the defense supply chain. The Republicans did
27:33
Speaker 1: not use reconciliation three Senator Collins to Charity Appropriations Committee
27:37
Speaker 1: wanted to go through appropriation. Democrats said no. They passed
27:41
Speaker 1: a sear to December. Do you think if it's a
27:44
Speaker 1: lame duck session they can do a reconciliation three point
27:49
Speaker 1: zero in the lame duck? No.
27:51
Speaker 5: I think it becomes much harder hu in the lame duck.
27:54
Speaker 5: I really do, because you don't. The Republicans may be demoralized.
27:58
Speaker 5: Democrats may be in a position to say, look, we
28:01
Speaker 5: don't want to do anything until we take over the
28:03
Speaker 5: House or even the Senate. I think the time for
28:06
Speaker 5: reconciliation is overdue, and I'm with Senator Kennedy on this.
28:11
Speaker 5: I think that we need to move to another reconciliation bill,
28:15
Speaker 5: not only on the economic priorities, but on defense, because
28:18
Speaker 5: it's an emergency. When you read these headlines about the munitions, Look,
28:24
Speaker 5: I don't know the reality. I don't think anyone who
28:27
Speaker 5: doesn't have a top secret clearance knows the reality about
28:29
Speaker 5: our munition stockpiles.
28:31
Speaker 6: But we need more.
28:32
Speaker 5: We need more, whatever the level is, we need more,
28:35
Speaker 5: and we need it now.
28:37
Speaker 1: Do you read news items in the morning by John
28:39
Speaker 1: Ellis Because he had a news item this week that
28:42
Speaker 1: we had a wargame in Germany between the United States
28:45
Speaker 1: Army and the Ukrainian Army and we got smoked. The
28:48
Speaker 1: Ukrainian smoked us because they sniffed out all of our tanks.
28:53
Speaker 1: That's very alarming. We can fix that, but it's very alarming.
28:58
Speaker 5: It's an incredibly important story. I believe leave Wall Street Journal,
29:01
Speaker 5: my paper broke it. John Alis publicized it in his
29:05
Speaker 5: excellent newsletter. But it shows you this new reality. We've
29:08
Speaker 5: confronted this new reality with Iran, where the short range
29:12
Speaker 5: missiles can really constrain the behavior of the American armed forces,
29:19
Speaker 5: the greatest military in the world. It certainly constrain our
29:22
Speaker 5: political leadership. And we see it in Ukraine every day
29:26
Speaker 5: where the Ukrainian drone efforts, their drone warfare has pinned
29:31
Speaker 5: the Russian advanced to a standstill, kills tens of thousands
29:37
Speaker 5: of Russians a month. And then also now the long
29:40
Speaker 5: range drones are wrecking economic havoc on Russia. That is
29:45
Speaker 5: the new reality, and we need to change our thinking,
29:48
Speaker 5: and we need to change the way in which we
29:50
Speaker 5: supply and build our armed forces in a response. Otherwise,
29:56
Speaker 5: I think we're going to be caught off guard, just
29:58
Speaker 5: as we seem to have been in that exercise the
30:01
Speaker 5: Journal reported on, and.
30:02
Speaker 1: The Black Sea is now could be denied completely. We
30:06
Speaker 1: actually asked the Ukrainians to stop bombarding Russian cargo because
30:11
Speaker 1: it was driving up the cost of oil nation worldwide.
30:16
Speaker 1: Do you think we've absorbed the vulnerability at every littoral
30:20
Speaker 1: area and indeed far out to sea. Do you think
30:23
Speaker 1: that's been internalized.
30:25
Speaker 5: No, I don't think it's been internalized human And you know,
30:27
Speaker 5: it's funny, I was thinking about it this just the
30:30
Speaker 5: other day, is that I've been reading about the you know,
30:33
Speaker 5: the weapons build up, the missile build up, this new
30:37
Speaker 5: strategy of anti access area denial for years, and then
30:41
Speaker 5: all of a sudden it becomes a reality. It's a
30:44
Speaker 5: reality in Ukraine, it's a reality in the Black Sea,
30:47
Speaker 5: It's a reality in the Persian Gulf and Iran. It
30:50
Speaker 5: could well be a reality in Taiwan. And so we
30:54
Speaker 5: need to be able to have a proactive posture here.
30:58
Speaker 5: And like I've been said saying, I think that secretary.
31:03
Speaker 1: On the network will come right back, brought them back America.
31:15
Speaker 1: You are talking, is Matt Totten Many about what is
31:17
Speaker 1: really a Tom Clancy novel. The world has changed so
31:20
Speaker 1: rapidly when it comes to warfare that that Matt and
31:23
Speaker 1: I both agree that the United States public, I think
31:27
Speaker 1: the military studying it, but I don't think we're equipped
31:30
Speaker 1: for it. I think actually all of war has changed
31:33
Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye.
31:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:37
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And you know we kind of saw it. I
31:40
Speaker 5: think even before Ukraine We kind of saw it in
31:42
Speaker 5: the war against Israel in the sense that for many
31:45
Speaker 5: years Israeli's had to live under the daily threat of
31:48
Speaker 5: Hummas rockets, the short range rockets, and then of course
31:51
Speaker 5: that led to Iron Dome and all now that the
31:54
Speaker 5: even more sophisticated Israeli technologies to knock out missiles and
32:01
Speaker 5: to intercept drones before they hit the target. And then
32:04
Speaker 5: we see it in Ukraine where the Ukrainian innovation on
32:09
Speaker 5: drones has changed not just the Ukraine Russia war, but
32:13
Speaker 5: war in general, and like I've been seeing it in
32:17
Speaker 5: Iran as well, where it seems as though this new
32:20
Speaker 5: reality of missiles and drones you gives an edge to
32:25
Speaker 5: the defense because they are able to pin down maneuver,
32:29
Speaker 5: They're able to deny their enemy the maneuver capability. And
32:34
Speaker 5: this is something that we really need to reckon with.
32:36
Speaker 5: I know, smart people are thinking about it all the time,
32:38
Speaker 5: but they also now have to add in the additional
32:41
Speaker 5: dimensions of artificial intelligence and robotics. And when you put
32:46
Speaker 5: those three things together, robots, AI, drones and missiles, I mean,
32:52
Speaker 5: we're talking science fiction stuff here, but yet it's coming,
32:56
Speaker 5: and part of.
32:57
Speaker 1: It's already here. Goodness, the China people have to do
33:00
Speaker 1: the same thing. They built a new navy, they built
33:02
Speaker 1: a bluewater navy, but all of a sudden they've got
33:04
Speaker 1: a new reality to deal with as well, provided we
33:08
Speaker 1: make them realize aggression.
33:10
Speaker 5: Well, I think that that's exactly it. We need to
33:13
Speaker 5: make this new reality work for us. And you can
33:16
Speaker 5: see how the Ukrainians have done it. You can see
33:18
Speaker 5: how Israel has used it defensively. America needs to think,
33:24
Speaker 5: how are we going to be able to use these
33:25
Speaker 5: new technologies to give us the edge in the Indo Pacific?
33:30
Speaker 1: All right, now, I want to change over to the
33:31
Speaker 1: fact that Carolyn Lovett, a very fine press secretary, is retiring,
33:35
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of speculation about who ow
33:38
Speaker 1: to do it. I don't know if your phone's been ringing,
33:40
Speaker 1: Matt or Ben Dominich's. I think both of you would
33:42
Speaker 1: be great. But I don't think the issue really is
33:45
Speaker 1: who's at the front of the electn I think it's
33:47
Speaker 1: who's in front of the electron And generally speaking, I'm
33:51
Speaker 1: beginning to wonder. I think Peter Baker is a fine reporter.
33:54
Speaker 1: Steve Holland is a fine reporter. I think a lot
33:57
Speaker 1: of these reporters read, read, read, and they're well versed
34:00
Speaker 1: in Western civilization. I'm not so sure about the youngs.
34:05
Speaker 1: Do you think the youngs are well read in Western
34:07
Speaker 1: civilization and American political history?
34:13
Speaker 5: Not at large, I would say, I mean, I would
34:15
Speaker 5: say my friend and colleague Phil Wegman is, and he's
34:19
Speaker 5: very good, and he covers the White House, and so
34:21
Speaker 5: you'll find you find stars like that who know history,
34:25
Speaker 5: who know kind of the political tradition of the United States.
34:28
Speaker 5: They can ask informed questions, tell interesting stories. But I
34:31
Speaker 5: think in general your point stands you, which is, no
34:35
Speaker 5: one reads anymore, no one really has much of a
34:39
Speaker 5: historical memory beyond what happened the other week, or certainly
34:44
Speaker 5: beyond the Trump era, which is now, of course, ten
34:46
Speaker 5: years old. And so you want to have a White
34:50
Speaker 5: House press corps that actually knows something about Washington and
34:54
Speaker 5: knows something about the presidency, and knows something about world affairs,
34:57
Speaker 5: so that they can ask intelligent questions. I don't see
35:02
Speaker 5: us having that, not to the degree that maybe we
35:05
Speaker 5: once did.
35:06
Speaker 1: Well. The reason this came up is I listened. I
35:08
Speaker 1: actually was obliged by the events in Michigan to listen
35:12
Speaker 1: to some Hassan Piker. That man doesn't know anything. And
35:15
Speaker 1: I don't know that Abdi Lsie knows anything. I know
35:18
Speaker 1: Graham Platner didn't. I'm not too sure about a lot
35:21
Speaker 1: of the nominees across the board, say, compared with Susan Collins,
35:25
Speaker 1: who I think is very well read. But if I
35:27
Speaker 1: ran down my books blooming Tower, Disraeli, Salisbury, Napoleon Diplomacy,
35:31
Speaker 1: I've got them all lined out. I even included The
35:33
Speaker 1: Right by You and Believer by David Axrod. Do you
35:36
Speaker 1: think the White House Press Corps would score very well
35:38
Speaker 1: on like a basic reading list that Columbia might have
35:41
Speaker 1: used when what they still believed in Western civilization there?
35:46
Speaker 5: I think maybe on the Hugh Hewitt Reading List, the
35:48
Speaker 5: average would be kind of a C. And that's you know,
35:51
Speaker 5: if we don't grade on a curve like most schools
35:54
Speaker 5: do on the Great Books List, I say it'd be
35:59
Speaker 5: a D. Don't unless you go to a Great Book school.
36:02
Speaker 5: I think it's very hard to encounter the Great Books
36:05
Speaker 5: through through your college education. Hillsdale grat like Jack Biden Hillsdale, Right, yeah,
36:13
Speaker 5: hills Now he's at the Journal, and so that's why
36:15
Speaker 5: he was on my list, Well, well.
36:18
Speaker 1: Would you, if you were actually pick on a White
36:20
Speaker 1: House reporter, give them some kind of probing, a series
36:25
Speaker 1: of questions to find out whether or not they knew
36:28
Speaker 1: that Jews, the Greats, the Romans, the Brits, and the
36:31
Speaker 1: American experience because that's basically Western sid isn't that what
36:34
Speaker 1: you learned at Columbia before the Columbia Western Civilization course collapsed?
36:40
Speaker 1: It is, you know.
36:41
Speaker 5: Rather than ask the questions to which I would be
36:44
Speaker 5: disappointed with the answers, I might give them a copy
36:46
Speaker 5: of Russell Kirk's The Roots of American Order, which goes
36:49
Speaker 5: through precisely that history you talk about. I think it's
36:52
Speaker 5: a very firm grounding. I might give them the book
36:55
Speaker 5: What It Takes by Richard ben Kramer, just fantastic book
36:59
Speaker 5: about the nineteen eighty eight presidential elections. Think yeah, And
37:05
Speaker 5: I was looking at your list and I thought, you know,
37:06
Speaker 5: you have Believer on there by David Axelrod, which.
37:08
Speaker 1: Is a good book.
37:09
Speaker 5: I'd also include Courage and Consequence by Karl Rove Oh,
37:13
Speaker 5: a memoir of his his life in politics and the
37:16
Speaker 5: Bush presidency. I learned a lot about from that book.
37:19
Speaker 5: When it came out, and I think it would hold
37:22
Speaker 5: up for reporters today.
37:24
Speaker 1: And did you read one damn thing after another by
37:26
Speaker 1: Bill Barr Oh?
37:28
Speaker 6: I loved it.
37:29
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe the best classic, the best political
37:32
Speaker 1: memoir in since Axel Rods and Carl's was before that,
37:38
Speaker 1: But it was also a primer and con Law, I mean,
37:41
Speaker 1: that guy's a smart fellow. He's also funny.
37:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and you learn a lot about how the
37:46
Speaker 5: government works. I think that's what's missing is we used
37:50
Speaker 5: to have a lot of veteran reporters who have been
37:53
Speaker 5: doing covering this beat for so long, they really knew
37:57
Speaker 5: how Washington and the government worked. Now, because of the
38:00
Speaker 5: changing economics of media, we have a lot of young people.
38:03
Speaker 5: They don't really know much about what works, what doesn't,
38:07
Speaker 5: what has happened, what is actually new, and so giving
38:12
Speaker 5: these young people some grounding is very important, and I
38:17
Speaker 5: do believe books are really the only way we can
38:19
Speaker 5: do that today.
38:20
Speaker 1: You know, if we had analytics for the press the
38:22
Speaker 1: way that they do for baseball, Steve Holland would be
38:25
Speaker 1: the first guy that Brad Pitt would draft in the
38:28
Speaker 1: movie for the watch Out Quite Outs Press Corps Matt Cottnetty.
38:31
Speaker 1: You'd score pretty eye on that too. Thank you for
38:33
Speaker 1: spending time with the follow Matt at Continetti. Read them
38:36
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal twice a week. Follow him
38:39
Speaker 1: over at the American Enterprise Institute and at Continetti follow
38:42
Speaker 1: me in the next segment right here on the viewers.
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40:16
Speaker 1: Morning Laura and Even Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Welcome
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Speaker 8: The greatest show on television today in America is College
40:45
Speaker 8: Game Day. Great show starts around ten or eleven, and
40:48
Speaker 8: that leads you to noon and then the noon game,
40:50
Speaker 8: and then there's a three thirty game, and then there's
40:52
Speaker 8: a so I messed, and then the idea like this
40:55
Speaker 8: is a crazy weekend.
40:55
Speaker 1: It would never happen.
40:56
Speaker 3: So I'm just putting this out there.
40:58
Speaker 8: But you could start at ten am on Saturday, you know,
41:01
Speaker 8: run the whole college football day, sleep for a few hours,
41:03
Speaker 8: then you wake up, and then you're in the NFL
41:05
Speaker 8: game Day. Then you've got the one o'clock game, the
41:07
Speaker 8: four o'clock game, the NBC game that night. That is
41:12
Speaker 8: an incredible weekend in my opinion.
41:13
Speaker 1: Now, Ben Dominic shirts that apparently is a very very
41:17
Speaker 1: mainstream opinion. However, it's actually anti Big ten and pro
41:21
Speaker 1: sec because we all know Big New kickoff with Urban
41:25
Speaker 1: Meyer is better. Is much better than say it.
41:29
Speaker 6: It's much better. Actually, yes, and I actually don't think
41:32
Speaker 6: it's close, though I will point out, you know, I mean,
41:35
Speaker 6: come on, we know Marcos allegiance is here. Yes, so
41:40
Speaker 6: you know, but look, I think I can't think of
41:44
Speaker 6: a more human like comment in that. Also, I think
41:49
Speaker 6: that he is implying heavily that like, this is what
41:52
Speaker 6: I want for my birthday present.
41:54
Speaker 1: Yes, my father's day, but it doesn't work on July,
41:57
Speaker 1: works in the fall.
41:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know what his birthday is, but yes.
42:02
Speaker 1: In the sending order of importance, the President issued a
42:06
Speaker 1: executive order a memorandum on shipbuilding yesterday. Carriers are going
42:10
Speaker 1: back to same catapults. We're going to go the Finland
42:12
Speaker 1: model and buy ships and pairs of two from South
42:15
Speaker 1: three and Japan provided to build a shipyard here and
42:17
Speaker 1: start making the real thing here. And we're going to
42:20
Speaker 1: have a fifth public shipyard. This is enormously important. I
42:23
Speaker 1: haven't seen it covered anywhere. Have you had a chance
42:26
Speaker 1: to read it yet.
42:27
Speaker 6: And I have not had a chance to read it yet,
42:29
Speaker 6: but I have to say that it is enormously important.
42:31
Speaker 6: It's been something that we you know, and obviously it
42:34
Speaker 6: popped up on my feet. I, you know, think that
42:37
Speaker 6: this is one of those things that you know is
42:39
Speaker 6: long overdue and that we need we need to go
42:41
Speaker 6: back to this quite frankly years ago, and in terms
42:44
Speaker 6: of the approach that we've had to this process and
42:46
Speaker 6: too into shipbuilding generally has been just so lax, especially
42:51
Speaker 6: considering what the conflicts of the next decades look like.
42:55
Speaker 6: And so it's it's well overdue and I'm glad the
42:57
Speaker 6: President is taking action on it.
42:59
Speaker 1: All right now, I want to turned to the White
43:00
Speaker 1: House Press secretary. Keron Levitt did a great job, and
43:03
Speaker 1: we've been blessed on the Republican side by a lot
43:06
Speaker 1: of good ones. A couple of steps, but data Perno
43:09
Speaker 1: and Tony Snow and you go back to Ery Fleischer,
43:13
Speaker 1: and you go back all the way to to HW's
43:18
Speaker 1: team and to Reagan's team, Merlon Fitzwater. We had great
43:21
Speaker 1: press secretary. But I think the press corps in the
43:23
Speaker 1: White House is getting dumber. I just don't think they
43:26
Speaker 1: read much. Ben and I posted my list of what
43:29
Speaker 1: I would require the press to be credentialed to have read.
43:33
Speaker 1: Do you think they're getting dumber?
43:36
Speaker 6: Well, I think that in terms of the press corps,
43:38
Speaker 6: they are absolutely getting dumber. They're also getting much more forgetful.
43:42
Speaker 6: They don't they don't have any sense of history. They
43:46
Speaker 6: don't really I don't think that they actually, I mean,
43:49
Speaker 6: you just rattled off a list of some of the
43:51
Speaker 6: most prominent you know, press secretaries and comms directors who
43:56
Speaker 6: have been you know, in the White House over the
43:59
Speaker 6: last a couple of decades, and you know, and most
44:02
Speaker 6: of my lifetime, you know, I was you know, had
44:05
Speaker 6: the pleasure of being able to work in the w
44:08
Speaker 6: administration and meet not just Dana but but Tony snow
44:12
Speaker 6: before he passed, and and get to know the team
44:16
Speaker 6: that was there, that was obviously expert and knew how
44:19
Speaker 6: to handle things. And it's really really shocking to me
44:22
Speaker 6: that you could run through a list like that. And
44:24
Speaker 6: I wonder how many of the people who are currently
44:26
Speaker 6: in the press corps today could run through that list
44:29
Speaker 6: and would be able to tell you who work for who,
44:31
Speaker 6: who was a Republican.
44:32
Speaker 1: Well, I can also do Marlon Fitze. I mean, I
44:34
Speaker 1: can do Mike Murphy for Clinton. I can go back
44:36
Speaker 1: and do.
44:36
Speaker 6: Crazy Murphy was great. Murphy was the one. He was
44:39
Speaker 6: great when I first started paying attention to and you know,
44:42
Speaker 6: and the way that he handled that room, especially with
44:44
Speaker 6: the level of difficulty that the Clinton administration presented in
44:47
Speaker 6: terms of representing them every day. You know that that
44:51
Speaker 6: was impressive. You know, I got to meet him as well.
44:53
Speaker 6: I got you know, I've met most of these folks
44:55
Speaker 6: that you've mentioned. The thing, the thing that is you know,
44:58
Speaker 6: striking about them is they have to learn to speak,
45:01
Speaker 6: you know, for the president, but also not to nail
45:04
Speaker 6: something down that is not nailed down by the president,
45:07
Speaker 6: which is a very unique position to be in. It's
45:09
Speaker 6: not the same as being a speech writer, where when
45:12
Speaker 6: you run a speech through you you are doing something
45:15
Speaker 6: that is getting approved and so there is a betting process.
45:18
Speaker 6: There is a you know, we are going to take
45:20
Speaker 6: this line and we are going to make sure that
45:22
Speaker 6: we stick it in there because we want to send
45:24
Speaker 6: a message to whichever country needs to listen. That's not
45:27
Speaker 6: the same as having to do this stuff on the fly.
45:29
Speaker 6: And I think that you know, everyone who has who
45:32
Speaker 6: has done this job, you know, for Donald Trump, has
45:34
Speaker 6: had a particularly unique challenge in doing that because, of course,
45:38
Speaker 6: the president changes his mind a lot. And look, I
45:41
Speaker 6: think that quite frankly that the the the job that
45:44
Speaker 6: Caroline Lovett has done is enormously impressive. It's going to
45:47
Speaker 6: be hard, hard to follow up that act with anything
45:51
Speaker 6: that approaches the level of skill that she presented in
45:53
Speaker 6: that job, which by the way, people thought she was
45:56
Speaker 6: capable of.
45:57
Speaker 1: You better have good humor. So here's that what led
45:59
Speaker 1: to this line of questioning Hassan Piker, I was obliged
46:03
Speaker 1: to dig into over the last couple of weeks, and
46:05
Speaker 1: I'd never really care to him, and I am sorry,
46:09
Speaker 1: I don't think he knows anything. I've listened to him
46:12
Speaker 1: rattle off like critical legal studies, jargon, crits, jargon about
46:18
Speaker 1: all sorts of just the language deconstructionists, and it's nonsense.
46:24
Speaker 1: Do you think like this generation, generally, if they're not
46:28
Speaker 1: a Hillsdale graduate, will know anything about the Greeks, the Jews,
46:32
Speaker 1: the Romans did break you.
46:34
Speaker 6: If you look. You know, I know that. I know
46:39
Speaker 6: this is kind of a dated reference because it's it's
46:42
Speaker 6: it's a movie that doesn't get as much praise this
46:45
Speaker 6: at the time. But you know, one of the points
46:47
Speaker 6: about Goodwill Hunting that is correct is that you can
46:49
Speaker 6: get a better education with a library card. And that's
46:52
Speaker 6: the truth about like one of the one of the
46:55
Speaker 6: things that we see going on this generation. You know,
46:57
Speaker 6: there they are going to schools where if they actually
47:00
Speaker 6: went to a public library and did the right reading list,
47:04
Speaker 6: they would have a better education than the one that
47:06
Speaker 6: they're paying tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of
47:09
Speaker 6: dollars for. And I think that that's pathetic and sad.
47:13
Speaker 6: But as someone who was an absolute nerd, spent a
47:16
Speaker 6: lot of time the library, was was literally a library
47:20
Speaker 6: volunteer for many years growing up. Let me tell you
47:23
Speaker 6: it was very useful and has proven you.
47:28
Speaker 7: Were nerd.
47:28
Speaker 6: That is thief, that is I'm telling you man, I
47:31
Speaker 6: had a lot of I had a lot of I
47:32
Speaker 6: had a lot of friends.
47:33
Speaker 1: They were so let me let me ask you about
47:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to just pull the name ount of Rent
47:37
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. Michael Knowles I've met twice and I had
47:41
Speaker 1: on the radio once. I just don't know. Michael seems
47:44
Speaker 1: to me to have read everything, like literally everything. And
47:47
Speaker 1: there are some people out there with whom I didn't
47:49
Speaker 1: agree who have read everything like Sorouh and others. I
47:52
Speaker 1: just don't agree with them, but they're they're very well. Rent.
47:55
Speaker 1: Why is the left turning up such dummies? I'll say
47:59
Speaker 1: it is all.
48:00
Speaker 6: First all agree with you about Michael. He is one
48:03
Speaker 6: of the very rare humans, and I would include ross
48:06
Speaker 6: Stout that this number, and you know a couple of
48:08
Speaker 6: other folks, including yourself, by the way, who can make
48:11
Speaker 6: references that I don't get. And that's and that's not
48:16
Speaker 6: a not a long list because again, but it's one
48:19
Speaker 6: of these things where when he does that, it makes
48:22
Speaker 6: me curious and I say, hey, wait a minute, that's
48:23
Speaker 6: what is that from? I haven't you know that I've
48:27
Speaker 6: read that author, but not that book, that kind of thing.
48:29
Speaker 6: Spencer Clayven and his father are another of them. But look,
48:33
Speaker 6: it's it is really, I think an indictment of the
48:38
Speaker 6: nature of our current politics that we have people who
48:41
Speaker 6: are being very successful in it, who who don't really
48:45
Speaker 6: have any knowledge of the philosophical basis for even the
48:47
Speaker 6: positions that they hold. Like now, on a certain level,
48:51
Speaker 6: is that a good thing? You know, would I rather
48:53
Speaker 6: have a dumb version of a son biker than a
48:55
Speaker 6: smart version because you know that's going to be something
48:58
Speaker 6: that's harder to debate, harder to win. On a certain level, Yes.
49:02
Speaker 6: On the another level, it's like he's catering to the
49:04
Speaker 6: TikTok morons, the you know, the twitch Trotskyites who want
49:10
Speaker 6: to you know, completely upend everything that makes America great
49:15
Speaker 6: without actually understanding what they're going to replace it with
49:18
Speaker 6: or how that will hurt them. I had a conversation
49:22
Speaker 6: with a casual friend of mine the other day who
49:25
Speaker 6: is someone who is entirely in favor of socialism of
49:28
Speaker 6: the Mom Donnie style, and she is very much of
49:31
Speaker 6: the opinion why isn't everybody against this? It's just the
49:34
Speaker 6: most basic thing. You know, It's gonna be great, it's
49:37
Speaker 6: gonna work, and we're going to have healthcare for everybody
49:40
Speaker 6: and things like that. And it's how do you even
49:42
Speaker 6: have a conversation with that when you're starting from such
49:45
Speaker 6: a difference of opinion about the history of socialism, about
49:49
Speaker 6: what this communist movement represents.
49:52
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And by the way, I don't
49:54
Speaker 1: know Spencer Claven Andrew Clavin. I know, I don't know Spencer.
49:58
Speaker 1: How old is he is? He like Michael Moll.
50:00
Speaker 6: Smart yes and uh and he's he's very smart and
50:04
Speaker 6: you should check out his stuff. He writes a lot
50:06
Speaker 6: for us about at the Baily Wire, about classics, uh
50:09
Speaker 6: and and things of that nature. He's very much He's
50:12
Speaker 6: one of these guys who can talk about, you know,
50:15
Speaker 6: the Plato, Aristotle, and Ai all in the same piece.
50:19
Speaker 6: And that's the kind of skill that I appreciate.
50:21
Speaker 1: And time to book, Spencer Claven Ben Dominic, enjoy your vacation.
50:26
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending time with me.