Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / Fauci's Fifth Symphony
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things
- 0:03Speaker 1: hilldalet Hillsdale dot ed or. I encourage you to take
- 0:06Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
- 0:08Speaker 1: course I'll listener to the Hilldale dialogues, all of them
- 0:11Speaker 1: at q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
- 0:14Speaker 1: iTunes and Hilldale. Good morning, Laurie, I mean Race America.
- 0:19Speaker 1: I'm Joe Hewitt, Thank you for listening. I'm joined at
- 0:22Speaker 1: the top of the program by former United States Senator
- 0:25Speaker 1: Jim Talent, member the Reagan Foundations Institute for the Study
- 0:29Speaker 1: of War, and I want to know, Jim, off the top,
- 0:32Speaker 1: what do you expect to happen tonight after Iran try
- 0:35Speaker 1: to sneak attack on our trips in Jordan last night.
- 0:38Speaker 2: Well, I expect we're going to punish them again, you,
- 0:42Speaker 2: I mean, look, the purpose of the mission was to
- 0:45Speaker 2: destroy their power as a nation state to dominate the region,
- 0:49Speaker 2: and we did that. I mean, their military powers broken,
- 0:51Speaker 2: their economy is on its knees. What they have is
- 0:56Speaker 2: essentially the power of a subnational movement to threaten coast shipping.
- 1:00Speaker 2: So we have a problem we have to manage. The
- 1:03Speaker 2: President is managing by tightening the economic screws with the
- 1:06Speaker 2: blockade and by disproportionately punishing them whenever they attack, while
- 1:11Speaker 2: also saying, look, we're willing to talk if you guys
- 1:13Speaker 2: want to be serious. And I think we're going to
- 1:15Speaker 2: see that strategy continue, and I think it's a good one.
- 1:20Speaker 2: They're just digging the hole in deeper. You're doing more
- 1:22Speaker 2: and more damage to themselves.
- 1:24Speaker 1: The President called Trey y inks that Fox is this morning,
- 1:28Speaker 1: and then Trey immediately went on Fox and Friends. Here's
- 1:30Speaker 1: a bit of that report. Cut number one.
- 1:33Speaker 3: Yeah, guys, good morning, President Trump. Reacting to that Iranian
- 1:36Speaker 3: attack on US forces overnight and Jordan, President Trump tells
- 1:40Speaker 3: Fox News about Iran, we are going to beat the
- 1:43Speaker 3: effing s out of them.
- 1:45Speaker 1: He went on potent talent that that's the essence there.
- 1:50Speaker 1: How long do you think the beating will go on for?
- 1:54Speaker 4: I guess until morale improves.
- 1:56Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:56Speaker 2: In other words, you know, I think it's they're trying
- 2:02Speaker 2: to continue to be relevant in the region. And of
- 2:05Speaker 2: course they're relevant on a low level now, but remember
- 2:08Speaker 2: six months ago they were feared throughout the region. So
- 2:14Speaker 2: they're trying to be relevant and they're trying to leave
- 2:16Speaker 2: her enough money out of US and out of the
- 2:18Speaker 2: West to begin to rebuild. Well, they're not going to
- 2:21Speaker 2: get the ladder. And what they're doing is they're engaging
- 2:25Speaker 2: on the wrong side of an equation, if you will.
- 2:27Speaker 2: In other words, they're being hit disproportionately compared to the
- 2:30Speaker 2: damage that they're doing to us. I think the President
- 2:33Speaker 2: understands that, and so I think he will continue this
- 2:36Speaker 2: tactic until they decide for the sake of the regime.
- 2:40Speaker 2: You and this, I'll digress on that a moment. I
- 2:43Speaker 2: think what the President is is figuring is that this
- 2:47Speaker 2: is irrational even on their own terms. In other words,
- 2:50Speaker 2: what they should be looking for on their terms is
- 2:53Speaker 2: to stabilize the regime, and they need to be able
- 2:55Speaker 2: to sell oil at a minimum in order to do that.
- 2:58Speaker 4: I suspect he would.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Probably still give them that deal in the short term,
- 3:02Speaker 2: lifting the sanctions if they actually allow us straight to
- 3:05Speaker 2: go unimpeded, and then we would deal with the rest
- 3:08Speaker 2: of the problem after November.
- 3:09Speaker 4: So let's see if they wake up to that.
- 3:12Speaker 1: Two more data points. A drone hit a US gas
- 3:16Speaker 1: storage tanker at the Egyptian port. I can't remember the
- 3:20Speaker 1: name of the port in a possible expansion of the war.
- 3:23Speaker 1: That's from the time of Israel. And here is Secretary
- 3:25Speaker 1: of War hag Seth earlier today cut number two.
- 3:31Speaker 6: Good afternoon, everybody.
- 3:32Speaker 7: It's good to be here at US Central Command. Edwald Cooper,
- 3:35Speaker 7: the commander of Syncom, was.
- 3:37Speaker 6: Going to be here with me. We just got done
- 3:40Speaker 6: with detailed briefings.
- 3:41Speaker 4: But of course he is busy.
- 3:44Speaker 7: Because Sentcom Central Command will be busy tonight because President
- 3:48Speaker 7: Trump said, we will be hitting Iran hard, and we
- 3:50Speaker 7: will be because Iran has a chance to make a
- 3:54Speaker 7: good deal, a great deal, to codify what they said
- 3:58Speaker 7: they've been willing to do, and they.
- 3:59Speaker 6: Haven't been to do it.
- 4:00Speaker 7: So, as President Trump said, they've been tap tac tap it.
- 4:04Speaker 7: You can see when someone's trying to tap tac tap
- 4:06Speaker 7: on a deal. Instead, they're going to have tap tap
- 4:09Speaker 7: tap bombs dropping on key facilities in Iran from.
- 4:12Speaker 4: The United States of America.
- 4:13Speaker 7: And that's not because we want to restart anything.
- 4:16Speaker 4: We don't have to restart.
- 4:17Speaker 7: It's because we are The War Department is prepared to
- 4:20Speaker 7: set the terms to ensure that we get the kind
- 4:23Speaker 7: of deal President Trump expects.
- 4:26Speaker 1: So Jim Tallan that I'm uneasy with that because I'd
- 4:30Speaker 1: like to go back to a three or four week
- 4:33Speaker 1: campaign to hit every asset the IRGC has. Admiral Montgomery says,
- 4:37Speaker 1: they own construction companies and energy companies. I'd like to
- 4:41Speaker 1: blow up their pipelines that they are selling some oil through.
- 4:45Speaker 1: I'd like to hit some power stations serving IRGC facilities,
- 4:50Speaker 1: and of course Pickaxe Mountain with every MOA B we have.
- 4:55Speaker 1: That's my target list, Admiral Montgomery, it's basically his. I
- 4:58Speaker 1: just stole it from him. Do you think we'll go
- 5:00Speaker 1: that far and do this more than one night?
- 5:03Speaker 4: Well, look, I tend to agree with you.
- 5:05Speaker 2: The only distinction I would make is to the extent
- 5:08Speaker 2: we can, I would try and distinguish between targets that
- 5:12Speaker 2: primarily serve the people of Iran and targets that are
- 5:17Speaker 2: tied into the IRCG network.
- 5:20Speaker 4: Now that's.
- 5:23Speaker 2: That's difficult because they have their tentacles all throughout the
- 5:26Speaker 2: Iranian economy. But I think at some point we're going
- 5:29Speaker 2: to have to play that card, and I think the
- 5:31Speaker 2: time is approaching. I tend to agree with you on it,
- 5:34Speaker 2: and because we have a bunch of other options also,
- 5:38Speaker 2: you know, for one thing, you notice they have not
- 5:40Speaker 2: struck the Israelis.
- 5:41Speaker 4: That tells you something, doesn't it. It shows that they're afraid
- 5:44Speaker 4: of the Israelis.
- 5:45Speaker 2: And my guess is that the Israelis would be willing
- 5:48Speaker 2: to join in on this if we ask them, and
- 5:50Speaker 2: I think the other states in the region are getting
- 5:52Speaker 2: to the point where they wouldn't mind that. So we
- 5:55Speaker 2: have other options. We could go on escort duty. You
- 6:00Speaker 2: know the difficulty there. We can do it. It's going
- 6:02Speaker 2: to take a lot of destroyers to do that. And
- 6:04Speaker 2: as you and I have talked about for a long
- 6:07Speaker 2: time now, you it would really be nice if we
- 6:09Speaker 2: had a bigger navy so we didn't have to stress
- 6:12Speaker 2: readiness in situations like this.
- 6:14Speaker 4: But at some point.
- 6:16Speaker 2: We're going to have to move to other options, and
- 6:18Speaker 2: I suspect the first one is to attack the infrastructure
- 6:22Speaker 2: in the way you suggest.
- 6:23Speaker 1: On School of Ward today with Aaron McLain, Admiral Montgomery
- 6:26Speaker 1: said it will take twenty six destroyers to actually run
- 6:29Speaker 1: escort missions through the straight and through the red scene,
- 6:34Speaker 1: narrows band, whatever it is. He also said about the latter,
- 6:38Speaker 1: if there's any game left in NATO, they should be there. Now,
- 6:42Speaker 1: there's not much game left there, he said, maybe one
- 6:45Speaker 1: or two destroyers in Great Britain, one or two in France.
- 6:48Speaker 1: Spain's got some, but they're not playing it along. I
- 6:51Speaker 1: was kind of shocked at how calcified NATO's navy has become.
- 6:57Speaker 1: It doesn't exist.
- 7:01Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the British have.
- 7:02Speaker 2: The last time I checked, I think they list like
- 7:06Speaker 2: sixty sixty five ships in their navy. They had almost
- 7:09Speaker 2: three times that when they fought the Falklands War, and
- 7:13Speaker 2: most of those ships are patrol craft. They don't have
- 7:17Speaker 2: even the shadow of an expeditionary navy, and they were
- 7:21Speaker 2: the ally that we could always count on in situations
- 7:23Speaker 2: like this. So this points out another problem. We have
- 7:26Speaker 2: too small a navy and our European allies basically don't
- 7:30Speaker 2: have a navy. So yeah, they have been helpful, like
- 7:33Speaker 2: in helping the Ukraines, but basically you it's almost not
- 7:38Speaker 2: worth it.
- 7:39Speaker 4: And you're right.
- 7:40Speaker 2: I mean I would never contest what Mark Montgomery says anyway.
- 7:44Speaker 4: So we need a couple dozen destroyers there.
- 7:46Speaker 2: We only have about eighty three, and we never built
- 7:49Speaker 2: the frigates that I wanted to build ten years ago.
- 7:54Speaker 2: But we're doing it now. I just did a column
- 7:57Speaker 2: on the maritime plans of the administration, and it was
- 8:00Speaker 2: in National Review, the comprehensive Plan to rebuild the maritime industry,
- 8:05Speaker 2: which is what we have to do in order to
- 8:07Speaker 2: rebuild the navy, and the administration's taking it on. I'm
- 8:10Speaker 2: very impressed. I'm cheerleading. It's not going to be easy.
- 8:15Speaker 2: The plan isn't perfect, but they've actually recognized the problem
- 8:18Speaker 2: and they're trying to do something about it.
- 8:19Speaker 4: So we get more shipyards. We're going to have more ships.
- 8:23Speaker 1: Well, let's close by going back to Iran. I think
- 8:26Speaker 1: they've done a big miscalculation and opened the door for
- 8:30Speaker 1: us to invite Israel back in. And they're not going
- 8:33Speaker 1: to open that door very often. But it would be
- 8:36Speaker 1: wonderful to see Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uae, and Bahrain
- 8:40Speaker 1: all join in tonight. What are the odds of that.
- 8:46Speaker 2: Well, they've each struck Iran, or most of them have
- 8:49Speaker 2: struck Iran separately. The diplomacy is underway. We see this
- 8:55Speaker 2: nuclear agreement with the Saudis. The whole region is moving
- 8:58Speaker 2: in the direction of an equilibrium led by the United
- 9:02Speaker 2: States and where most of the coercive forces is applied
- 9:06Speaker 2: by the Israelis going forward, so it would be very
- 9:09Speaker 2: much of a piece with that. And I think the
- 9:12Speaker 2: region's getting to the point with Iran that they got
- 9:15Speaker 2: with Hamas, which is how we got that agreement and
- 9:18Speaker 2: how we got the hostages returned. Basically, they all said,
- 9:22Speaker 2: we've had it with you. We want to develop this region.
- 9:25Speaker 2: We need stability, we want decent relationships with the Israelis
- 9:30Speaker 2: and among the different countries, and you're the big problem.
- 9:32Speaker 2: And I think they're reaching that conclusion where Iran is concerned.
- 9:36Speaker 2: So you can see that Iran is digging the hole
- 9:39Speaker 2: deeper and deeper and deeper, and they can't get out
- 9:42Speaker 2: of the one that they're in now.
- 9:44Speaker 1: And it's a great opportunity to actually have the de
- 9:47Speaker 1: facto alliance operate together. And I don't know if yes
- 9:51Speaker 1: are open to that, but if they did that, that
- 9:53Speaker 1: would be a turning point in the region. I'm sort
- 9:56Speaker 1: of optimistic. I don't know what to think. Last quick,
- 9:59Speaker 1: did you you today? Poor guy?
- 10:03Speaker 4: I saw some clips.
- 10:04Speaker 2: Yeah, he was he was wrong about everything, and now
- 10:08Speaker 2: we know why he was wrong about everything. It was
- 10:10Speaker 2: because he was more worried about his press than he
- 10:13Speaker 2: was actually learning the science or listening to the scientists
- 10:17Speaker 2: who are trying.
- 10:18Speaker 4: To tell him. You know you. I don't want to
- 10:20Speaker 4: criminally prosecute.
- 10:21Speaker 2: The guy, he's to five years old, but I do
- 10:24Speaker 2: think I do think we're entitled to the truth.
- 10:27Speaker 4: That's what I want from him, and.
- 10:29Speaker 1: I denize them in the world him. Yeah, immunize them
- 10:32Speaker 1: up to the president and it can get done. Jim
- 10:35Speaker 1: Talent can be followed on Twitter at x at Jim
- 10:39Speaker 1: Talent and not to recommend and follow. Thank you, Jim.
- 10:42Speaker 1: Coming right back with Noah Rothman from National Review. Stay tuned,
- 10:48Speaker 1: buga back America. I'm you Hewitt, and I'm joined now
- 10:53Speaker 1: by Noah Rothman, senior writer for National Review. Noah, of course,
- 10:57Speaker 1: is sometimes the host of the Review podcast, often a
- 11:01Speaker 1: guest on the Commentary podcast, and he was listening to
- 11:04Speaker 1: the conversation with Jim Talent that we just had. So Noah,
- 11:07Speaker 1: your reaction to our conversation with Jim.
- 11:12Speaker 8: I don't think I can improve on what Jim said.
- 11:15Speaker 8: I share just about every one of his assessments and
- 11:18Speaker 8: his caution about the prospect of opening up the targeting,
- 11:22Speaker 8: the number of targets to include civilian purely civilian infrastructure,
- 11:27Speaker 8: although as he's noted correctly, it's hard to separate that
- 11:32Speaker 8: which is purely civilian from that which supports defense industries
- 11:37Speaker 8: as well as industries that the IRGC generates revenue from
- 11:39Speaker 8: and profit from that are civilian but nevertheless support the regime.
- 11:44Speaker 8: This surprise attack that we saw yesterday, the assessment in
- 11:49Speaker 8: Western press is that it is purely aimed at the
- 11:51Speaker 8: United States, and I'm not so sure. I really think
- 11:54Speaker 8: there's a domestic audience for this sort of thing, especially
- 11:57Speaker 8: in keeping with what we've heard of these reports that
- 12:00Speaker 8: the IURGC put the kaibosh on this Omani produced proposal
- 12:05Speaker 8: to settle this strait of Hormus with some Marianean control,
- 12:09Speaker 8: but not nearly as much as they want. The IRGC
- 12:11Speaker 8: reportedly intervened in that process, and we don't know how
- 12:14Speaker 8: close it got. There's opacity here, but for the IURGC
- 12:17Speaker 8: to execute this attack in order to probably restart hostilities
- 12:21Speaker 8: which appear eminent. You know, it makes you wonder whether
- 12:23Speaker 8: they believe returning to hostilities is advantageous for them, in
- 12:28Speaker 8: part because so many elements of the civilian leadership inside
- 12:31Speaker 8: Iran are now saying what Western analysts have been saying
- 12:33Speaker 8: for a long time, that the value of this strait
- 12:35Speaker 8: diminishes every single day that we keep it closed. Paradoxically,
- 12:39Speaker 8: we need to increase traffic through the strait if we
- 12:41Speaker 8: want to maintain control over it, and that's not what's happening.
- 12:44Speaker 8: So the divisions between civilian leadership and the ERGCRE is
- 12:47Speaker 8: spilling out into the streets in ways that have become
- 12:49Speaker 8: more public than they previously were, and I feel like
- 12:52Speaker 8: you can't separate this attack from that dynamic.
- 12:54Speaker 1: There are two other data points, so I have becomment
- 12:56Speaker 1: on immediately after the surprise attack or a couple hours after,
- 13:01Speaker 1: Iergyz put out a statement saying we're willing to stop
- 13:04Speaker 1: firing right now, let's go back to the negotiating table.
- 13:08Speaker 1: So there may be some idiot in the IERGT who
- 13:11Speaker 1: thinks they can get away at embarrassing Trump during Lindsay's
- 13:14Speaker 1: funeral when Neno and Velenski is in town and not
- 13:19Speaker 1: have him notice, and then drone hit the US storage
- 13:23Speaker 1: tanker in the Egyptian point Port. Today, I don't know
- 13:27Speaker 1: that the Mosaic Defense hasn't deprived them of command and
- 13:30Speaker 1: control of everything, so that it's really the least common
- 13:34Speaker 1: denominator of nutterery that's driving Iran right now. Either way,
- 13:37Speaker 1: I think we've got to hammer them, and hammer them
- 13:39Speaker 1: a lot.
- 13:40Speaker 8: Yeah, I agree, and I don't know who knows.
- 13:43Speaker 4: You might be right.
- 13:44Speaker 8: We were concerns back in April that the mosaic strategy
- 13:47Speaker 8: would prevent something like a period on this campaign because
- 13:51Speaker 8: there would be elements with command and control on the
- 13:54Speaker 8: field level that have autonomy to execute a tax at
- 13:57Speaker 8: their will. And that may still be true true, but
- 14:00Speaker 8: you got to think.
- 14:01Speaker 4: It's backfiring at this point.
- 14:02Speaker 8: You noted when your conversation with mister Talent that the
- 14:06Speaker 8: Golf States are increasingly engaged in this campaign and increasingly
- 14:10Speaker 8: open about being engaged in this campaign. It's still taboo
- 14:13Speaker 8: for the UAE or at Bahrain, for example, to admit
- 14:16Speaker 8: that they're executing strikes on Iranian targets inside Irana, though
- 14:19Speaker 8: they are, but it's no longer taboo for Saudi Arabia,
- 14:22Speaker 8: for example, to announce that it's participating in this campaign
- 14:24Speaker 8: by proxy, not only against the Huthis in Yemen, which
- 14:27Speaker 8: they began engaging with about a week and a half ago.
- 14:30Speaker 8: But now overnight attacks on Iranian proxy forces inside Iraq
- 14:35Speaker 8: by the United States and Saudi Arabia acknowledged openly.
- 14:39Speaker 4: That's a big development.
- 14:40Speaker 8: That's not something that would have happened a month ago,
- 14:43Speaker 8: and it's the sort of thing that accretes around all
- 14:45Speaker 8: all the problems that Iran is experiencing are coming together.
- 14:48Speaker 8: The Strait is losing value, capital is fleeing to the
- 14:51Speaker 8: path of least resistance to diminish the utility of the Strait,
- 14:55Speaker 8: and the Golf States are not responding as Iran would
- 14:58Speaker 8: have hoped by hedging their and not necessarily aligning with
- 15:01Speaker 8: the United States and making accommodations with Iranian power in
- 15:04Speaker 8: the region. They're actively opposing it. All of this is
- 15:07Speaker 8: combining to create a lot more pressure on the regime
- 15:10Speaker 8: then you hear about in the Western press. To read
- 15:12Speaker 8: the Western press, time is on Iran side. I don't
- 15:15Speaker 8: know if the Iranians agree.
- 15:17Speaker 1: So there are a couple options here to the president.
- 15:20Speaker 1: One he could do one big night, which is the
- 15:24Speaker 1: minimum I think that's going to happen with many targets hit.
- 15:28Speaker 1: Or he could say we're doing this for thirty days,
- 15:31Speaker 1: We're going to take out basically Admiral Montgomery's target list,
- 15:36Speaker 1: which is extensive and detailed and very thoughtful because the
- 15:40Speaker 1: man has run convoy operation through the Strait of Horror
- 15:43Speaker 1: moves and has a long naval career and ended up
- 15:45Speaker 1: as a two star, So we can go anywhere on
- 15:48Speaker 1: that line. If the President announces it and explains it
- 15:52Speaker 1: to the country, does it hurt him politically? Does it
- 15:55Speaker 1: matter at all what he does?
- 15:58Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 15:59Speaker 8: That's a great question. I think whether it matters or not,
- 16:01Speaker 8: he should. He should announce to the nation what he's doing,
- 16:05Speaker 8: what is expected of the American people, what burdens they
- 16:08Speaker 8: are expected to bear, and what benefits we will accrue
- 16:11Speaker 8: from this campaign at very degrees of success. He should
- 16:15Speaker 8: be honest with the American people. I think there's a
- 16:17Speaker 8: real trust deficit here. I don't think the President has
- 16:19Speaker 8: trusted the American public enough to level with them about
- 16:21Speaker 8: what this campaign was going to entail. And I think
- 16:23Speaker 8: the American public have repaid that lack of trust in kind.
- 16:27Speaker 8: So yeah, I think it would benefit the President to
- 16:29Speaker 8: be open and forthright about what he's planning to do.
- 16:32Speaker 8: To the extent he knows what he's planning to do
- 16:35Speaker 8: you know there's opacity here in many different directions, one
- 16:37Speaker 8: of them being we know that there are shortages of
- 16:40Speaker 8: defensive ordinance American defensive ordinance, and maybe we're calibrating our
- 16:44Speaker 8: attacks and signaling in much the same way that I ran.
- 16:46Speaker 8: By the way, is calibrating its attacks and signaling so
- 16:49Speaker 8: that we don't restart a full scale exchange a volley
- 16:53Speaker 8: of ballistic missiles that would overwhelm regional defenses and our
- 16:56Speaker 8: own defenses. Maybe that's part of the calculation. I can't
- 16:59Speaker 8: say for I think it's quite likely.
- 17:01Speaker 1: Yeah, when I heard that these missiles, you remember Churchill's
- 17:06Speaker 1: famous quote that in wartime truth is so precious it
- 17:10Speaker 1: must be surrounded by a bodyguardable lies. So I really
- 17:13Speaker 1: don't believe anything about anyone saying what we have gotten
- 17:15Speaker 1: a stockpile because it's classified. So I just don't believe it.
- 17:19Speaker 1: I am not opposed though to I heard Mark Montgomery
- 17:23Speaker 1: say today he is certainly've got more than one hundred
- 17:26Speaker 1: thousand jay dams. That's a lot of bombs, a lot
- 17:30Speaker 1: of bombs that can go down.
- 17:32Speaker 8: We don't use any problem with offensive weapons. Yeah, our
- 17:35Speaker 8: offensive ordinance, standoff munitions, cruise missiles for example, that might
- 17:40Speaker 8: be a big problem.
- 17:40Speaker 4: Who knows.
- 17:41Speaker 8: I mean, we've heard some leaks about that, so I
- 17:43Speaker 8: don't have enough information to say one way or the other.
- 17:46Speaker 8: But I know we don't have any problem with gravity.
- 17:49Speaker 8: Bombs like that are fitted with Jadam kits. We have
- 17:52Speaker 8: plenty of those, and over the top munitions is the
- 17:54Speaker 8: sort of thing that we can deliver once we've depleted
- 17:56Speaker 8: their air defenses, which we know how to do, have
- 17:58Speaker 8: done and can do again. Likewise, I don't know how
- 18:01Speaker 8: many missile out defensive ordinance we have, how many interceptors
- 18:03Speaker 8: we have. But there was some talk a while ago
- 18:06Speaker 8: about how Iran has still has seventy percent of its
- 18:08Speaker 8: ballistic missile capabilities. Well, yeah, they had one hundred percent
- 18:11Speaker 8: of their ballistic missile capabilities at the outset of Epic Fury,
- 18:14Speaker 8: and those missiles launches slowed to a trickle because we
- 18:17Speaker 8: were interdicting the launches. We were locking those missiles up
- 18:20Speaker 8: in their bases, closing off the way for them to
- 18:22Speaker 8: get out, or hitting the launchers when they launched one launch.
- 18:25Speaker 4: And that was all you got out of it.
- 18:26Speaker 8: We can do that again, but it would be a
- 18:28Speaker 8: sustained campaign. And I don't know if the President has
- 18:31Speaker 8: the stomach for it or not, but if he does,
- 18:33Speaker 8: then he should come to the American people and explain
- 18:35Speaker 8: what's going to happen, why, and what they're going to
- 18:38Speaker 8: be get out of it, but also what they're going
- 18:40Speaker 8: to endure in the interim.
- 18:42Speaker 1: Great advice, Noh C. Rothman, good to talk to you
- 18:45Speaker 1: is always thank you for joining me. Follow Noah on exit,
- 18:47Speaker 1: Noac Rothman, and of course listen to the Editors podcast,
- 18:52Speaker 1: on which no appears frequently, and follow me to the
- 18:54Speaker 1: next segment. Don't Go Anywhere, America. We've got lots coming up,
- 18:58Speaker 1: including Sarace Bedford, Victor Davids Hanson, Mary Katherine Ham, Senator Fisher,
- 19:04Speaker 1: Senator Houstaid. Big day here on the Hugh Hewitt Shows,
- 19:07Speaker 1: and Don't Go Anywhere, Stay tuned right where you are.
- 19:09Speaker 1: I'll be right back. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh hewittt.
- 19:14Speaker 1: Sara C. Bedford is with the Washington Examiner. Sarah, what'd
- 19:17Speaker 1: you make of the Rand Paul hearing with doctor Fauci today?
- 19:24Speaker 9: It was kind of surreal after spending so many years
- 19:26Speaker 9: listening to Fauci go on and on speak endlessly in
- 19:29Speaker 9: front of any camera that would have him. To hear
- 19:32Speaker 9: him shut down like that, It's not surprising, giving what
- 19:35Speaker 9: we've learned from his diary and the type of exposure
- 19:38Speaker 9: that he might have had if he did attempt to
- 19:40Speaker 9: answer the questions, but it was nonetheless jarring to see
- 19:43Speaker 9: him clamp down like that.
- 19:46Speaker 1: So was it at all sympathy inducing for him?
- 19:52Speaker 10: I certainly don't think so.
- 19:53Speaker 9: I mean, he's the furthest thing from a sympathetic character
- 19:57Speaker 9: if you just look at the way he comes across
- 19:59Speaker 9: in his die, right. This is not someone who was
- 20:01Speaker 9: motivated by public service. This is not someone who even
- 20:05Speaker 9: seemed to be primarily motivated by science.
- 20:08Speaker 10: It was someone who was motivated by fame and.
- 20:12Speaker 9: Appearing before the largest number of audiences possible, and consumed
- 20:16Speaker 9: by his personal grievances with other.
- 20:18Speaker 10: People in the government.
- 20:19Speaker 9: I mean, he comes off like a meglomaniac in his diary,
- 20:22Speaker 9: and so, you know, I think optically it looked really
- 20:26Speaker 9: bad for him to plead the fifth that way, even
- 20:28Speaker 9: though you know, courts don't take that as an admission
- 20:30Speaker 9: of guilt. To the average American, it doesn't look good
- 20:33Speaker 9: for someone under scrutiny, especially someone who was revealed to
- 20:36Speaker 9: be as self centered as Fauci to plead the fifth
- 20:40Speaker 9: that many.
- 20:40Speaker 1: Times well, something that Senator Holly referenced is said a lot.
- 20:45Speaker 1: I don't expect people to know that who aren't in
- 20:48Speaker 1: the business. But if you've been pardoned with a comprehensive pardon,
- 20:53Speaker 1: you can't actually get in trouble for talking about what
- 20:58Speaker 1: you did. Although I'm unclear whether or not if you
- 21:01Speaker 1: tell a falsehood about what you did, whether or not
- 21:05Speaker 1: you'd violate eighteen USC. One thousand and one. I understand
- 21:09Speaker 1: the fifth for everything that's happened since his pardon to today,
- 21:13Speaker 1: because that isn't covered by the pardon in eighteen USC.
- 21:16Speaker 1: One thousand and one False Statement Act under oath or
- 21:19Speaker 1: to any federal official appropriately involved in investigation. You don't
- 21:23Speaker 1: want to go in arms way, But do you think
- 21:25Speaker 1: that's the last we see? If Tony THOUGHTSI on the Hill?
- 21:30Speaker 9: On the Hill, possibly, but it's certainly not the last
- 21:33Speaker 9: that you'll hear about all of this.
- 21:34Speaker 10: And over at the Washington Examiner, I just edited a
- 21:37Speaker 10: wonderful legal explainer by my.
- 21:38Speaker 9: Colleague Caaylindice that gets into some of those questions you
- 21:41Speaker 9: just raised about pleading the fifth He absolutely would have
- 21:43Speaker 9: exposure for any kind of perjury that he or to
- 21:46Speaker 9: have committed today had he answered untruthfully about his past conduct.
- 21:50Speaker 9: You just can't be prosecuted for the conduct for which
- 21:53Speaker 9: he was pardoned. But this doesn't seem to be the
- 21:55Speaker 9: end of it for Rand Paul. I mean, he's been
- 21:57Speaker 9: really laser focused on this for years. Apparently he always
- 22:01Speaker 9: knew there was a there there.
- 22:02Speaker 10: We certainly seemed to see that from the emails.
- 22:04Speaker 9: Another really interesting element to that that Howley pulled on
- 22:08Speaker 9: was the fact that Fauci was having scientists nominate him
- 22:12Speaker 9: for these high dollar academic prizes, and then those scientists
- 22:15Speaker 9: were going on to win funding from nih which really
- 22:19Speaker 9: seems like a conflict of interest in a paid a
- 22:22Speaker 9: play scheme in the very cozy, small world of elite
- 22:25Speaker 9: public health scientists. So there was a lot that we've
- 22:28Speaker 9: learned about Fauci over the past week, and it's certainly
- 22:30Speaker 9: not the last we're going to hear about it.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Yeah, there are two years of diary entries, and I
- 22:33Speaker 1: can't imagine anyone's going to read them all. I read
- 22:36Speaker 1: the ones that involved me after I interviewed him. And
- 22:39Speaker 1: their eye opening and they make me think, gosh, this
- 22:42Speaker 1: guy's trouble. He's got TDS. The last one, he was
- 22:45Speaker 1: really on a rant about Donald Trump after his on
- 22:48Speaker 1: the show, and I suggested he retire because people didn't
- 22:52Speaker 1: like him, and then he admitted to it in the
- 22:54Speaker 1: diary entry, but in September of twenty twenty one. So
- 22:57Speaker 1: I don't expect anyone to get that far. Have you
- 23:00Speaker 1: read more than just a couple of clips, because it's
- 23:03Speaker 1: pretty gut wrenching, actually.
- 23:07Speaker 10: It is.
- 23:07Speaker 9: I saw that you are very reasonable, albeit very conservative.
- 23:11Speaker 9: This was our definitely neutral head of COVID, who thinks
- 23:14Speaker 9: that being conservative is actually your worst quality. But when
- 23:18Speaker 9: you do read just pages on pages of these diary entries,
- 23:21Speaker 9: and I did read a good bit of it, you
- 23:23Speaker 9: see that his fixation was on getting to be on TV,
- 23:27Speaker 9: getting to go in front of cameras.
- 23:29Speaker 10: He was actually emotional.
- 23:31Speaker 9: When White House aids were blocking him from going on
- 23:33Speaker 9: TV because at a certain point he really was undermining
- 23:36Speaker 9: the message that the administration was trying to.
- 23:38Speaker 10: Put out there.
- 23:39Speaker 9: And he wasn't the only policy maker that had any
- 23:42Speaker 9: sort of credibility on the issue of COVID, but he
- 23:44Speaker 9: acted like he was, and to see that this was
- 23:47Speaker 9: a person who was motivated primarily by bolstering his own image,
- 23:51Speaker 9: and that obviously creates incentives that are completely at odds
- 23:54Speaker 9: with protecting people from the pandemic. It really frightens you
- 23:57Speaker 9: that this guy had so much power for so many years.
- 24:01Speaker 1: Now I do worry about boomerang effect. He's been discredited.
- 24:05Speaker 1: It's very embarrassing. It's mortally embarrassing, and to his family
- 24:09Speaker 1: and to his friends. It also embarrasses many many people
- 24:13Speaker 1: in the media who were feeding him questions before you
- 24:15Speaker 1: he came on their shows. Do you think we should
- 24:19Speaker 1: let it lie now?
- 24:22Speaker 10: No, absolutely not.
- 24:23Speaker 9: I think this push to let everything that happened during
- 24:26Speaker 9: the pandemic lie is corrosive to politics. I mean, there
- 24:30Speaker 9: are bureaucrats like Fauci and others who usurped an enormous
- 24:35Speaker 9: amount of power over people's everyday lives, over their constitutional rights,
- 24:40Speaker 9: in the name of a pandemic that they pretty quickly
- 24:42Speaker 9: learned wasn't all that dangerous and didn't affect most normal,
- 24:46Speaker 9: healthy people, and certainly didn't affect children.
- 24:48Speaker 10: But you had school closures, you had vaccine mandates.
- 24:51Speaker 9: I don't think enough government officials have been held accountable
- 24:54Speaker 9: for that, and until you really reckon with what was done,
- 24:58Speaker 9: you can't really safeguard against those sorts of violations happening
- 25:02Speaker 9: in the future.
- 25:02Speaker 10: And I'm surprised the speed at which Republicans.
- 25:06Speaker 11: Dropped that, and all but a select few such as
- 25:09Speaker 11: Rand Paul have lost interest in pursuing accountability for that,
- 25:12Speaker 11: because it is really so important in a bipartisan like
- 25:15Speaker 11: good for the country sense that there be a reckoning
- 25:18Speaker 11: with covid era.
- 25:19Speaker 1: Policy, especially with regards to the school closures. That is
- 25:22Speaker 1: the one area I want to get into because that
- 25:24Speaker 1: should never happen again. Sarace Bedford, follower on Exit Sarasee Bedford,
- 25:29Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me. Let me tell
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- 26:50Speaker 1: I'll be right back space, Welcome back in America. I'm
- 27:01Speaker 1: Hugh Hewett. Mary Catherine ham joined May. She is the
- 27:03Speaker 1: host of the Getting Hammered podcast, my colleague at Fox
- 27:06Speaker 1: News or She is a contributor. So did you watch
- 27:10Speaker 1: Doctor Fauci today, Mary Catherine?
- 27:14Speaker 12: I can't say that I got a ton out of it.
- 27:16Speaker 12: It's I guess it's refreshing to see him have nothing
- 27:19Speaker 12: to say for once in his life.
- 27:21Speaker 13: I wish he had shut.
- 27:22Speaker 5: Up long ago.
- 27:23Speaker 1: Do you think it will elicit sympathy for him?
- 27:28Speaker 12: I think that he is such a tribal test and
- 27:32Speaker 12: that people are so stuck on what they first believed
- 27:35Speaker 12: about Anthony Fauci that there most people who are into
- 27:38Speaker 12: him are having trouble getting out of it. Look, they
- 27:40Speaker 12: have candles and throw pillows like there's a sunk cost
- 27:43Speaker 12: issue here that they can't get past. And I think
- 27:46Speaker 12: a lot of them still believe him, even though as
- 27:48Speaker 12: the pandemic was happening, he kept admitting that he had
- 27:52Speaker 12: lied to us. Now granted, those lies he thought were noble.
- 27:56Speaker 12: He was trying to get us to do the right things, Hugh,
- 27:59Speaker 12: and so he lied to us about certain things. These
- 28:02Speaker 12: email or this diary shows bad faith more than I
- 28:06Speaker 12: think anything I've seen from him in the past. And
- 28:09Speaker 12: if you look close enough, you see that. But a
- 28:11Speaker 12: lot of people don't want to look too close.
- 28:13Speaker 1: I look very close because I interviewed him three times
- 28:15Speaker 1: Mary Catherine, and so I looked at and the last
- 28:18Speaker 1: time I asked him to resign September twenty ninth, twenty
- 28:21Speaker 1: twenty one, because he was in the way of public health,
- 28:23Speaker 1: and he dear diaried me. And then he went on
- 28:27Speaker 1: to say the following. The opposition to me is part
- 28:31Speaker 1: of the big lie locker up. Trump won the election
- 28:34Speaker 1: January sixth was really a friendly visit to the Capitol.
- 28:37Speaker 1: The China virus and Trump was correct. Fire Fauci since
- 28:40Speaker 1: he was wrong all along, and let's discredit him and
- 28:43Speaker 1: so on. Quite frankly, I'm finally coming to the realization
- 28:46Speaker 1: that our democracy is truly threatened and is not possible,
- 28:49Speaker 1: and that it is possible, even likely, that our democracy
- 28:53Speaker 1: will crumble with the twenty twenty four election. If Trump wins,
- 28:56Speaker 1: we are finished. If Trump loses, his far right lunatics
- 29:00Speaker 1: likely try and overthrow the election, and with the attempts
- 29:03Speaker 1: to have state legislators Republicans validate the electoral votes, I
- 29:06Speaker 1: am really afraid they might be successful. Having said all
- 29:10Speaker 1: of this, there's no way I'm going to retire before
- 29:12Speaker 1: this outbreak is under control. What's that tell you about him,
- 29:16Speaker 1: Mary Catherine.
- 29:19Speaker 12: But he's tribal, and then he's also emo, like I
- 29:22Speaker 12: don't need a public health guide to be this emotional
- 29:25Speaker 12: and hysterical. And I think that was part of the problem,
- 29:28Speaker 12: is that he was really enjoying the press he was getting.
- 29:32Speaker 12: The more panic there was, and the more serious he
- 29:35Speaker 12: could make things and the more controlled he could make things,
- 29:38Speaker 12: the better his press got because everyone in the press
- 29:40Speaker 12: agreed with him, And that kind of reaction I think
- 29:44Speaker 12: is not the measured, smart, intellectual take I would like
- 29:48Speaker 12: to have from a public health official who might actually
- 29:51Speaker 12: weigh different sides of an equation and know people outside
- 29:54Speaker 12: of his circle and be able to have some input
- 29:57Speaker 12: from that into his decision making process.
- 30:00Speaker 1: But I think it shows he had TDS and that
- 30:03Speaker 1: we don't want public health officials to ever be tribaled
- 30:07Speaker 1: or have TDS. Do you think we've immunized ourselves against
- 30:12Speaker 1: public health officials assuming the role playing tonight the role
- 30:16Speaker 1: of God will be doctor so and so. Are we
- 30:19Speaker 1: over that right?
- 30:20Speaker 12: I think to some extent we are, because there's a
- 30:23Speaker 12: large portion of the population that just simply won't accept
- 30:25Speaker 12: that next time, and maybe to our detriment, they won't
- 30:28Speaker 12: accept good advice from public health officials because of the
- 30:31Speaker 12: trust that was that was just frittered away under Fauci. Right,
- 30:35Speaker 12: there is a risk of that, but I think we
- 30:38Speaker 12: have to some degree gotten past the idea that this
- 30:41Speaker 12: guy that we had just hand over the wheel of
- 30:43Speaker 12: all rational risk analysis and all of our civil liberties
- 30:47Speaker 12: to one dude who has been at a government funded
- 30:52Speaker 12: science foundation for his whole life.
- 30:55Speaker 13: It was not smart to begin with.
- 30:56Speaker 12: It was myopic, it was stupid, and I hope many
- 30:59Speaker 12: have changed the ideas about whether they do that in
- 31:01Speaker 12: the future, although the people in my Twitter replies suggest
- 31:04Speaker 12: that many of them are still into it.
- 31:06Speaker 1: Oh, oh, very much so because they love the control.
- 31:09Speaker 1: Boy did some people love having control? Now you're wearing red,
- 31:12Speaker 1: So I'm going to bring up the Red Team. In
- 31:14Speaker 1: the days of the Cold War, when the CIA had
- 31:16Speaker 1: a big report, they always had a Red team in
- 31:18Speaker 1: as well to challenge it, and the Red team had
- 31:21Speaker 1: equal status and authority. I think we need red teams
- 31:24Speaker 1: on everything that matters. Mary Catherine, what do you think.
- 31:28Speaker 13: Yes, that's how you learn to think.
- 31:31Speaker 12: You have to have your ideas questioned, and like, look,
- 31:35Speaker 12: Fauci was so high on himself. He's in meetings at
- 31:38Speaker 12: the time, according to his diary, with folks from the
- 31:40Speaker 12: CIA who are like, we have some intelligence that tells
- 31:44Speaker 12: us that perhaps the Lab leak is possible. And even
- 31:47Speaker 12: though he knew it was like a totally reasonable position
- 31:50Speaker 12: to take, he trashes the people at the CIA, like, they.
- 31:53Speaker 13: Don't know about science.
- 31:54Speaker 12: Well, they might know about intel, and perhaps you could
- 31:57Speaker 12: share those ideas and come up with a instead of
- 32:01Speaker 12: a conspiracy theory to block the theory that was totally reasonable.
- 32:06Speaker 1: Now you know what Iron Dome is, and you know
- 32:08Speaker 1: what Golden Dome is. I wrote a piege for Fox
- 32:11Speaker 1: Tomorrow and the Democrat Dome that covers the Manhattan Beltway
- 32:15Speaker 1: media elite that capes bad stories away, stories that are
- 32:18Speaker 1: bad for Democrats. Hilary's Server, Hunter's Laptop, Russia, Russia, Russia,
- 32:24Speaker 1: Tony Fauci Diaries. I think it's going to work on
- 32:27Speaker 1: the Diaries. I think it'll be a non story in
- 32:30Speaker 1: two days. What do you think.
- 32:33Speaker 12: I think you're correct to the extent that this is
- 32:35Speaker 12: a powerful story. It's mostly for vindication for those of
- 32:38Speaker 12: us who have paid attention to Fauci throughout I do
- 32:41Speaker 12: hope it it escapes containment.
- 32:44Speaker 13: No pun intended to some extent.
- 32:46Speaker 12: Because that would be healthy for inoculating the public against
- 32:50Speaker 12: this kind of thing in the future. But I do
- 32:52Speaker 12: think people are pretty dug in about this, and I
- 32:55Speaker 12: doubt that those many of those who played a part
- 32:57Speaker 12: in these diaries, by the way, workshopping question with Fauci
- 33:00Speaker 12: for Fauci uh not pushing back up on him.
- 33:04Speaker 1: Pose you mentioned that on getting hammered today and I
- 33:07Speaker 1: haven't seen that yet. They workshop question, isn't that a
- 33:10Speaker 1: fireable offense? It isn't my world.
- 33:13Speaker 12: I mean it should it should be, right, what's more
- 33:19Speaker 12: of a fireable offense? Like beyond that, By the way,
- 33:21Speaker 12: it's just the entire philosophy with Fauci, which was that
- 33:24Speaker 12: this incredibly powerful bureaucrat who was unelected, any even tough
- 33:29Speaker 12: question to him was some kind of violation of our
- 33:34Speaker 12: societal code, when in fact that was their whole jobs.
- 33:37Speaker 12: Like why isn't he getting pushed back against? I talked
- 33:39Speaker 12: about this on CNN at the time and got many
- 33:42Speaker 12: funny looks about great quarry. You guys should get tough questions.
- 33:46Speaker 1: I want people to listen to the getting hammered for
- 33:48Speaker 1: that clip. I want to close. We got thirty seconds,
- 33:50Speaker 1: Mary Catherine, I'm expecting a major escalation tonight over Iran,
- 33:54Speaker 1: are you and do you welcome it?
- 33:58Speaker 12: I do, and I welcome it because I don't think
- 34:00Speaker 12: there's a way out of this without forcing them to reevaluate.
- 34:04Speaker 12: The straight of horm Mews a calculation, and I think
- 34:06Speaker 12: a bunch of people are shifting resources as we speak,
- 34:09Speaker 12: trying to find solutions to that.
- 34:11Speaker 13: But the more economic and military pressure on them, the better.
- 34:14Speaker 1: Yep. I hope they capitulate, and sooner rather than later.
- 34:17Speaker 1: Would you warn the people of Tehran to get out
- 34:19Speaker 1: of town? I think that's the one thing we might
- 34:21Speaker 1: want to do.
- 34:23Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean it sounds like something Trump might want
- 34:25Speaker 12: to do because he's expressed.
- 34:26Speaker 4: That in the past.
- 34:27Speaker 1: So yeah, he done more hurt civilians and he doesn't
- 34:30Speaker 1: like our troop in a hard way. But boil boy.
- 34:33Speaker 1: I think he's mad. Mary Catherine ham from getting hammered.
- 34:36Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me. Don't go anywhere
- 34:38Speaker 1: America except over to our Huewitt dot com. The food
- 34:43Speaker 1: for the Poor banner is at the top. It says
- 34:44Speaker 1: give food. Thousands of you have stepped up to do
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- 35:17Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by
- 35:32Speaker 1: former Congressman Garrett Graves. Hello, Garrett, how are you? Welcome
- 35:35Speaker 1: to the Hugh Hewitt Show.
- 35:38Speaker 6: Hey? Thanks? You all doing great? How about you?
- 35:40Speaker 1: I am good. I want to know why you want
- 35:42Speaker 1: us to go to open primaries because I've always been
- 35:45Speaker 1: sort of an opponent of open primaries. Let me know
- 35:48Speaker 1: your thinking so I can chew on it.
- 35:52Speaker 6: First of all, I grew up in South Louisiana.
- 35:54Speaker 14: We had open primaries my whole life, so I didn't
- 35:56Speaker 14: know any different, But after serving in Congress for a day,
- 36:01Speaker 14: I realized how much power has been given to political primaries,
- 36:06Speaker 14: to parties. Look, the reason we declared our independence and
- 36:09Speaker 14: flipped over this whole model of government is because we
- 36:11Speaker 14: wanted people to be empowered, not having a central government empowered.
- 36:16Speaker 14: And the open primary system preserves that whole philosophy of
- 36:21Speaker 14: allowing an individual to be empowered. Do you think about
- 36:24Speaker 14: these wildly partisan districts where you have only the party
- 36:29Speaker 14: primary that really matters. If it's a Republican district, whoever
- 36:33Speaker 14: wins in the Republican primary wins, you're isolating in some
- 36:36Speaker 14: cases a third or forty percent of the electorate, not
- 36:39Speaker 14: even giving them a chance to vote effectively. So I'll
- 36:42Speaker 14: say it again, this just comes back to power being transcendent,
- 36:46Speaker 14: being within the individual, and it represents that respects that
- 36:50Speaker 14: very philosophy.
- 36:52Speaker 1: Now, if you go to open primaries, though, let's make
- 36:55Speaker 1: sure our definition agreed. Anyone can vote in either primary
- 36:58Speaker 1: Republic under a Democrat.
- 37:01Speaker 14: No, No, what would happen is everyone's on the ballot
- 37:05Speaker 14: and anybody gets to vote for them. So there's no
- 37:08Speaker 14: party primary. Look, you still have parties. They can still endorse,
- 37:11Speaker 14: they can still raise money. But you're in a situation
- 37:14Speaker 14: where you're not blocking people from voting or forcing them
- 37:18Speaker 14: to vote on just one ballot. Everyone's on the ballot.
- 37:21Speaker 14: You can vote however you want, for whoever you want.
- 37:24Speaker 14: You can vote for a Republican here, an independent there,
- 37:27Speaker 14: do however you think the best candidates will represent you
- 37:31Speaker 14: or lead your government.
- 37:32Speaker 1: That's what California as I live there from nineteen ninety
- 37:36Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and they moved to a jungle primary. It
- 37:39Speaker 1: destroyed the Republican party. Garrett absolutely destroyed it. We will
- 37:43Speaker 1: often end up with two Republicans running against the republic
- 37:46Speaker 1: for a district are the most vast majority Democrats because
- 37:50Speaker 1: redistrict thing just pushes all the Republicans given a supermajority,
- 37:54Speaker 1: that it's going to be extinct because of the jungle primary.
- 37:58Speaker 1: And I think it also happened in Washington's eight.
- 38:02Speaker 14: What what destroyed the Republicans in California is the Democrats,
- 38:07Speaker 14: meaning Democrat governance has chased Republicans out of the state,
- 38:11Speaker 14: looking for states that that that are governed by by
- 38:14Speaker 14: more rational thought. That that's not what That's not what
- 38:18Speaker 14: destroyed the Republican party anywhere. What this simply does is
- 38:22Speaker 14: that it allows for people to vote for whoever they
- 38:25Speaker 14: want who in the world empowered a political party or
- 38:28Speaker 14: even a party convention that says, Jane Doe is going
- 38:31Speaker 14: to be our singular candidate, and that's the person you
- 38:34Speaker 14: can vote for if you're a Democrat, and John Doe
- 38:37Speaker 14: is going to be the singular Republican candy, that's anti
- 38:40Speaker 14: republic it's it's it's contrary to the very concept of
- 38:44Speaker 14: of how our government or why our government.
- 38:46Speaker 6: Was formed in the United States.
- 38:49Speaker 1: We have to continue this another time. But jungle primaries
- 38:53Speaker 1: were put pushed by billionaires from Silicon Valley. They thought
- 38:57Speaker 1: it was a good government thing, and it ended up
- 39:00Speaker 1: empowering the teachers' unions to destroy Republican I live there
- 39:03Speaker 1: for twenty seven years in.
- 39:07Speaker 6: California. Is an anomaly.
- 39:09Speaker 14: You have the Speaker of the House and the majority leader,
- 39:11Speaker 14: both Republicans elected in Louisiana under an open primary system.
- 39:14Speaker 1: Well, I just know my own experience where the teachers'
- 39:18Speaker 1: unions and the tribes and the state employee unions not
- 39:21Speaker 1: named teachers are in control of the money. They gary
- 39:25Speaker 1: mander and destroy and the jungle primary means that there
- 39:29Speaker 1: won't be a statewide Republican elected there probably for the
- 39:33Speaker 1: next twenty five years until everybody leaves and the state collapses.
- 39:36Speaker 1: Same thing happened in Washington State. So maybe Louisiana is
- 39:39Speaker 1: the outlier and not California. The last word to you, Garrett.
- 39:44Speaker 6: Look, that's not how I'll see it. I'll say it again.
- 39:46Speaker 14: The problem in California is you have liberals that are
- 39:48Speaker 14: leading that place. You've had the Conservatives that have left
- 39:51Speaker 14: and gone to states like Texas, Louisiana and others that
- 39:53Speaker 14: are governed by more rational thought. That doesn't have anything
- 39:57Speaker 14: to do with the open or closed primary. It has
- 39:59Speaker 14: to do with poor leadership.
- 40:00Speaker 1: Well, Garrett, why did you get into it? I'm just
- 40:03Speaker 1: curious what ticks you off here because you were twenty
- 40:06Speaker 1: years of republics.
- 40:08Speaker 6: Sure, sure, I'll tell you why.
- 40:10Speaker 14: Because when I have to take the oath of office,
- 40:12Speaker 14: have to take the oath to everyone, why in the
- 40:14Speaker 14: world would you set up a system to where you're
- 40:16Speaker 14: out there only trying to attract a certain ideology for
- 40:20Speaker 14: half of the election cycle. Whenever you take the oath
- 40:23Speaker 14: of office to everyone, it's a flawed system that distorts
- 40:26Speaker 14: outcomes of elections. Why do you think you have these
- 40:28Speaker 14: DSA candidates winning in New York. It's because the closed
- 40:32Speaker 14: primary delivering them, because you're getting the fringe candidates under
- 40:35Speaker 14: that system. It's not allowing for the full electorate to participate.
- 40:40Speaker 6: I'll say it again. That's why we declare their independence.
- 40:42Speaker 6: To flip this podel over.
- 40:45Speaker 1: Okay, we are going to respectfully disagree, Garrett, but we'll
- 40:48Speaker 1: continue the conversation down the road and I'm going to
- 40:50Speaker 1: bring you the retreats in California. Thank you, my friend,
- 40:53Speaker 1: Garrett Gray from Louisiana. Always good to see you. Don't
- 40:56Speaker 1: go anywhere America. I'll be right back. Welcome back in America.
- 41:08Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt, one of our favorite senator of dead.
- 41:10Speaker 1: Fisher of Nebraska joins me now center Fisher, good to
- 41:13Speaker 1: have you back. I got to say your colleagues are
- 41:16Speaker 1: putting up with a lot of nonsense. Pete Ricketts, your
- 41:19Speaker 1: seat mate from Nebraska, as to run against the guy
- 41:21Speaker 1: who hopes he thinks the guy you beat hope they
- 41:23Speaker 1: think he's a football coach. Dan Sullivan, your colleague on
- 41:27Speaker 1: Armed Services, has to run against a fake Dan Sullivan
- 41:30Speaker 1: and Susan Collins, your colleague on Appropriations in Armed Services,
- 41:34Speaker 1: has to run against a new person that they just
- 41:36Speaker 1: swapped out. Are the Democrats that desperate?
- 41:41Speaker 5: Well, I think the Democrats, you know, they're trying to
- 41:43Speaker 5: fool the American people. They're not going to be able
- 41:46Speaker 5: to fool Nebraskans. And I hope the same will apply
- 41:50Speaker 5: in these different races. You know, if you are a Democrat,
- 41:54Speaker 5: run as a Democrat. What we've seen in Nebraska, they
- 41:58Speaker 5: put up a Democrat for this Senate, she made it
- 42:01Speaker 5: through the primary and now she's pulled her name off
- 42:04Speaker 5: the ballot. So the same guy that ran against me,
- 42:07Speaker 5: he's running against Pete is an independent. Gives him a
- 42:11Speaker 5: clear path to be able to challenge Pete. But it's
- 42:16Speaker 5: so disingenuous, you know, it's just not being honest to
- 42:19Speaker 5: the voters of these states.
- 42:21Speaker 1: It just it's like Alaska where they got a Dan
- 42:23Speaker 1: Sullivan to sign up to try and confuse voter. It
- 42:25Speaker 1: makes me creepy.
- 42:26Speaker 5: I mean, they try anything, They try anything.
- 42:29Speaker 1: Let's get to the serious stuff first. Let's start with Iran.
- 42:32Speaker 1: I expect a massive response. President promised that tonight, but
- 42:37Speaker 1: I want it to go on for a while. What's
- 42:39Speaker 1: your take on the sort of response that ought to
- 42:41Speaker 1: follow and how long it ought to go on for.
- 42:45Speaker 5: Well, the President has to be able to show this
- 42:48Speaker 5: strength we've seen I run continue to attack and attack
- 42:55Speaker 5: American military at bases now and allow that to happen.
- 43:01Speaker 5: We have to protect our troops. There's supposed to be
- 43:04Speaker 5: a ceasefire that hasn't held at all. I am very
- 43:07Speaker 5: supportive of the President stepping forward and doing what he
- 43:10Speaker 5: has to do to make sure that this stops, and
- 43:13Speaker 5: that Iran quits with their nuclear ambitions and comes to
- 43:19Speaker 5: the table and answers.
- 43:22Speaker 1: Well, I hope that you get an NDAA, a National
- 43:24Speaker 1: Defense Authorization Act. I just broke my own rule about
- 43:27Speaker 1: no acronyms. I hope you get an NDAA through. I
- 43:30Speaker 1: am sort of astonished that in the middle of a
- 43:32Speaker 1: battle with Iran, the United States Senate Democrats are blocking
- 43:36Speaker 1: an NDAA. Has that ever happened before?
- 43:40Speaker 5: I don't remember that happening in my time here, Hugh,
- 43:45Speaker 5: And it was very very disappointing in committee, where we've
- 43:50Speaker 5: worked so hard, as we usually do in a very
- 43:52Speaker 5: bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats on the Armed Services Committee
- 43:57Speaker 5: here in the Senate, we came together, we have a
- 44:01Speaker 5: really good product that we were able to vote on.
- 44:06Speaker 5: But what we saw even in the committee at the markup,
- 44:10Speaker 5: it ended up we only had four Democrats vote yes
- 44:14Speaker 5: on the NDAA that we had worked with them on
- 44:18Speaker 5: to put their priorities in their ideas, the things that
- 44:23Speaker 5: they had studied that our military men and women need.
- 44:27Speaker 5: We agreed on that. Nine of them voted no. Usually
- 44:31Speaker 5: we only get one no vote, you know, and that's
- 44:34Speaker 5: Elizabeth Warren. But this time we had nine. And then
- 44:37Speaker 5: when it came to the floor, not one Democrat would
- 44:41Speaker 5: vote to move the NDAA for forward so we could
- 44:45Speaker 5: handle and be able to process a manager's package amendments,
- 44:51Speaker 5: which Republicans and Democrats have their priorities in these amendments
- 44:56Speaker 5: that they want in as well. But they all thought,
- 45:00Speaker 5: followed Chuck Schumer Schumer, they would not advance the NDAA.
- 45:05Speaker 5: And I think that shows the American people just how little,
- 45:12Speaker 5: how little value they're putting in the resources that our
- 45:18Speaker 5: military men and women need to be able to complete
- 45:21Speaker 5: their missions. Very upsetting, very disappointing.
- 45:25Speaker 1: I believe that that like Senator Collins, you're also in appropriations.
- 45:29Speaker 1: Are they cooperating on appropriations because the Ron battle costs
- 45:33Speaker 1: a lot of money and we have to resupplier ammunitions.
- 45:36Speaker 1: Are they any better over there, Susan.
- 45:40Speaker 5: Collins, if anybody can pull this together, she will be
- 45:43Speaker 5: the one that does it. And she has been saying
- 45:48Speaker 5: that lately. Patty Murray has stepped forward. But we've heard
- 45:51Speaker 5: that before and right now, I have not seen the
- 45:57Speaker 5: evidence that we are moving forward to be able to
- 46:00Speaker 5: get appropriations done. And here again, Hugh, the American people
- 46:04Speaker 5: need to know that this is something we have worked
- 46:07Speaker 5: on in a bipartisan way with Republicans and Democrats, working
- 46:13Speaker 5: in a transparent way. We hold hearings, we do markups publicly.
- 46:19Speaker 5: But yet the Democrats are sticking together behind Chuck Schumer
- 46:23Speaker 5: who wants to close down the government. He wants to
- 46:26Speaker 5: shut it down. And that again, it's just our responsibilities
- 46:33Speaker 5: to provide for this nation, provide for our military.
- 46:38Speaker 1: Well, let's close on an upbeat note. I'm glad that
- 46:41Speaker 1: the Russia sanctions bill passed yesterday. Does it get through
- 46:44Speaker 1: the House and what will it do for the Ukrainian cause?
- 46:48Speaker 1: We got two minutes center.
- 46:52Speaker 5: Well, these sanctions I think are extremely important. And as
- 46:55Speaker 5: you know, Lindsey Graham worked on this the day before
- 47:00Speaker 5: that he passed. And to be able to have a
- 47:02Speaker 5: good strong vote here in the Senate with the believe
- 47:05Speaker 5: it was over eighty votes. To have that strong vote
- 47:08Speaker 5: here in the Senate, that's sending a message that this
- 47:11Speaker 5: is something we agree on. We know that having sanctions
- 47:16Speaker 5: on the personal wealth of some of these oligarchs in Russia,
- 47:20Speaker 5: to have it on their financial institutions, to have sanctions
- 47:24Speaker 5: on their energy sector, that's what's going to, I think
- 47:29Speaker 5: be the sledgehammer. Sledgehammer that we need to bring putin
- 47:34Speaker 5: to the table and his invasion into Ukraine. They have
- 47:42Speaker 5: put up a good fight, a strong fight. They have
- 47:45Speaker 5: made tremendous progress in the last few months. We had
- 47:50Speaker 5: Zelensky here yesterday with a meeting with all senators, Republicans
- 47:55Speaker 5: and Democrats, and it was I think important for us
- 47:59Speaker 5: to hear his views on the war, what he needed,
- 48:02Speaker 5: what his hopes were that the United States would would
- 48:06Speaker 5: be able to help them with, and sanctions was at
- 48:09Speaker 5: the top of that list. And so I was very
- 48:11Speaker 5: pleased that we could do it. Hope the House gets
- 48:14Speaker 5: it dev fast.
- 48:15Speaker 1: Great honor A great way to honor Lindsey Graham. Senator
- 48:19Speaker 1: Deb Fisher of Nebraska. Always good to talk to you.
- 48:21Speaker 1: Thanks for your work on armed services and appropriations and
- 48:25Speaker 1: for everyone in Nebraska and everyone in the country, especially
- 48:27Speaker 1: our men and women in uniform. Thank you, Senator Fisher.
- 48:30Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. State Grace America, and
- 48:33Speaker 1: welcome to our three of today's you he would show,
- 48:35Speaker 1: and I'm starting with United States Senator John Houston from
- 48:38Speaker 1: my home state, the great state of Ohio. Senator, welcome back.
- 48:42Speaker 1: We got lots to talk about today. I want to
- 48:45Speaker 1: begin with your bill that you put in about chatbots,
- 48:49Speaker 1: because I just welcome my eighth grandchild this week and
- 48:52Speaker 1: I really do worry about all of them and the
- 48:55Speaker 1: new technology, especially the chatbots. What does the bill do
- 49:00Speaker 1: so how big is the problem? In addresses?
- 49:03Speaker 15: Well, we would require parental notification. We want to make
- 49:08Speaker 15: sure the bill that chatbots don't expose young people to
- 49:14Speaker 15: inappropriate information, whether that's about things related to sexual orientation.
- 49:19Speaker 15: It's also about we don't want them impersonating children so
- 49:22Speaker 15: that people can do ugly, nefarious things imitating children. There's
- 49:27Speaker 15: a long list of things that we're trying to do
- 49:30Speaker 15: to protect children. We've learned our lesson, i hope from
- 49:33Speaker 15: social media. We know that the algorithms addicted children to
- 49:36Speaker 15: those platforms, that they sent out things that were harmful
- 49:40Speaker 15: for them, like suicidal ideation, transgender information, all those kinds
- 49:44Speaker 15: of things. We want to stop that with chatbots. And
- 49:47Speaker 15: this is really just the next generation of trying to
- 49:51Speaker 15: prestract our kids in the digital world the way that
- 49:53Speaker 15: we protect them in the physical world.
- 49:55Speaker 1: So Senator Congress has tried a few times in the past,
- 50:00Speaker 1: hought these cases in corn law for a long time
- 50:02Speaker 1: to regulate the Internet, and they've run a file at
- 50:04Speaker 1: First Amendment protection. How closely are you working with staff
- 50:08Speaker 1: and Committee council to make sure that you thread the
- 50:11Speaker 1: needle that the Supreme Court will say, yes, this is appropriate.
- 50:17Speaker 15: Well, we are working closely, and I have some experience
- 50:20Speaker 15: on this because I had legislation that I worked on
- 50:24Speaker 15: when I was Lieutenant Governor of Ohio that would require
- 50:27Speaker 15: parental notification.
- 50:29Speaker 4: Again, we're just.
- 50:30Speaker 15: Trying to treat kids in the digital world same way
- 50:34Speaker 15: to do in the physical world. You can't go in
- 50:36Speaker 15: and buy cigarettes or pornography or things like that until
- 50:39Speaker 15: you're of a certain age, and there's a way you
- 50:41Speaker 15: can check for that. You can do that in the
- 50:43Speaker 15: digital world as well, and we know that because Instagram
- 50:48Speaker 15: and other places are creating teen accounts, we know that
- 50:50Speaker 15: they have the ability to determine these things, and we
- 50:53Speaker 15: know that it's possible. And actually, the Sixth Circuit upheld
- 50:57Speaker 15: after the District Court shot down, are our first try
- 51:02Speaker 15: at this. The Sixth Circuit upheld it, we may end
- 51:04Speaker 15: up getting that Ohio law as it relates to social
- 51:08Speaker 15: media and prenal notification before the Supreme Court. So I
- 51:13Speaker 15: think the courts are a much more friendly when it
- 51:16Speaker 15: comes to children on these matters because we're talking about
- 51:20Speaker 15: kids in the digital world rather than in the physical world.
- 51:23Speaker 15: And I see the courts coming our way on these issues.
- 51:27Speaker 1: Well, I compliment you on getting a state law through
- 51:30Speaker 1: because that does pave the way for model legislation. If
- 51:33Speaker 1: it's been upheld by the Sixth Circuit, I hope it
- 51:35Speaker 1: does get this COTUS. Let's move to the Save America Act.
- 51:40Speaker 1: We need voter ID and California was trying to get
- 51:44Speaker 1: it is on the ballot finally in California this year
- 51:47Speaker 1: and the Attorney General out there, changed the name to
- 51:49Speaker 1: try and confuse voters because it's overwhelmingly popular. Save America
- 51:54Speaker 1: Action Pass. Now, I am a believer in the filibuster.
- 51:57Speaker 1: Is there any hope that the Democrats will under the
- 52:00Speaker 1: eighty twenty issue that this is.
- 52:04Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 52:04Speaker 15: Well, I've voted for the Save of America Act six times,
- 52:08Speaker 15: and I've led the photo ID provision of it because
- 52:11Speaker 15: as a former Ohio Secretary of State who oversaw elections,
- 52:14Speaker 15: we have a photo ID law that works great in
- 52:16Speaker 15: our state. I just wanted to take that to the
- 52:19Speaker 15: whole country. But we and we got fifty three Republican votes.
- 52:23Speaker 15: So every Republican senator voted for my photo ID bill,
- 52:26Speaker 15: which is goodich is part of Save America, but not
- 52:31Speaker 15: one Democrat did. Chuck Schumer went out and stood before
- 52:34Speaker 15: the media and said, well, we don't oppose photo ID,
- 52:36Speaker 15: it's just the rest of the stuff.
- 52:38Speaker 4: We don't like.
- 52:38Speaker 15: So I said, okay, I'll give you a straight photo
- 52:41Speaker 15: ID bill. Chuck Schumer stood up on the floor and
- 52:43Speaker 15: opposed my bill. The Democrats, under no circumstances are going
- 52:48Speaker 15: to vote for Save America or photo ID because they're
- 52:51Speaker 15: held hostage by the radical left that doesn't want that
- 52:55Speaker 15: policy in place, even though over eighty percent of Americans
- 52:58Speaker 15: support it.
- 53:00Speaker 1: Secretary of State in Ohio and I can't remember if
- 53:02Speaker 1: you did one term or two terms there, Center of Houston.
- 53:05Speaker 1: I went.
- 53:06Speaker 15: I oversaw two presidential elections to to gubernatorial elections. I
- 53:11Speaker 15: had a case that went all the way to the
- 53:13Speaker 15: Supreme Court to make sure that we were keeping the
- 53:16Speaker 15: voter rules secure.
- 53:18Speaker 1: It was a wonderfully efficient system compared to California and Virginia,
- 53:24Speaker 1: both places where I live. Has that has that become
- 53:27Speaker 1: a model for other states because it did work. It's
- 53:30Speaker 1: like Florida, Ohiolan and Florida kind of set the standard
- 53:33Speaker 1: when it comes to voting rooms.
- 53:35Speaker 15: Yeah, well, Ohiland Florida got punched in the nose in
- 53:38Speaker 15: the early two thousands because we were swing states, right,
- 53:41Speaker 15: and so we were getting sued all the time. So
- 53:43Speaker 15: both of us were tried and tested and built good
- 53:45Speaker 15: election systems. I'm going to make a case to you,
- 53:48Speaker 15: not just for election security for voter ID but election administration.
- 53:53Speaker 15: In California, they want to turn election workers into signature
- 53:57Speaker 15: handwriting experts to make sure one signature matches the other.
- 54:01Speaker 15: And that's the method that they use to count ballots,
- 54:03Speaker 15: and what do we see happens with that? It takes
- 54:05Speaker 15: them weeks to get this done. It's a simple process.
- 54:09Speaker 15: If you have a photo ID, you just show the
- 54:11Speaker 15: photo ID, you validate the voter, you count the ballot.
- 54:17Speaker 15: You would improve the way you administer elections as well
- 54:20Speaker 15: as improve the security of them if you use this technology.
- 54:23Speaker 6: They're using eighteenth.
- 54:25Speaker 15: Century technology, like come in and make your mark and
- 54:27Speaker 15: let us decide that the mark you made forty years
- 54:30Speaker 15: ago when you registered to vote looks like the same
- 54:32Speaker 15: signature that you have today. That's an absurd way to
- 54:36Speaker 15: conduct an.
- 54:37Speaker 1: Elect Democrats have absolutely no leg to stand on this,
- 54:41Speaker 1: and I hope you campaign on this. I hope everyone
- 54:43Speaker 1: campaigns on this across the country. Well, let me, by
- 54:46Speaker 1: the way, brag on the Buckeye State from number thirty
- 54:48Speaker 1: four to number one in business climate. How did that happen?
- 54:53Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a long climb.
- 54:55Speaker 15: I've been involved in all of it, as in my
- 54:58Speaker 15: different roles. In Ohio, we were a dying state, as
- 55:01Speaker 15: you know, Hugh. At one point in time, businesses were closing,
- 55:05Speaker 15: people were leaving.
- 55:06Speaker 6: We started to do things.
- 55:08Speaker 15: Like tax reform, cut the income tax, over time from
- 55:11Speaker 15: seven point twenty five percent to two point seventy five percent,
- 55:14Speaker 15: eliminated three business taxes. We have lowest corporate rates in
- 55:18Speaker 15: the country, eliminated the death tax, invested in workforce development,
- 55:23Speaker 15: and in our infrastructure, and CNBC took us from the
- 55:26Speaker 15: over time from the thirty fourth worst state to do
- 55:29Speaker 15: business to the best state to do business. Now we
- 55:31Speaker 15: have this works. We have more jobs than any time
- 55:34Speaker 15: in our state's history, one of the lowest unemployment rates
- 55:36Speaker 15: we've ever had in our state's history. And so when
- 55:40Speaker 15: you create a great environment, imagine this, people invest there,
- 55:44Speaker 15: they move there. And guess what when you don't California, Illinois,
- 55:47Speaker 15: New York, people leave and move somewhere else. That's why
- 55:51Speaker 15: our great experiment of fifty states doing fifty different things
- 55:55Speaker 15: as wonderful for America, because we compete and we're happy
- 55:57Speaker 15: that Ohio is now number one.
- 55:59Speaker 1: Ye Bacaulia last week in Florida at the ALEC conference,
- 56:02Speaker 1: and he was pretty happy. He watched your old job
- 56:05Speaker 1: to be lieutenant governor. I hope he wins.
- 56:06Speaker 6: I know, I hope he gets it. I hope he
- 56:08Speaker 6: and I and Vivek get that job all right.
- 56:10Speaker 1: Last thing, perfect way to honor Lindsey Graham. The bill
- 56:14Speaker 1: you helped co sponsor with him, the Russia Sanctioned Bill
- 56:17Speaker 1: passed yesterday. I can't believe anyone voted against that, but
- 56:21Speaker 1: good on you. Ukraine needed the help and Russia needed
- 56:24Speaker 1: the punchdown. Any anything that needs explaining about that bill
- 56:29Speaker 1: of the audience, Senator of Houston.
- 56:32Speaker 15: Well, I would just say that the short of military action,
- 56:36Speaker 15: financial the financial pain that you can cause is the
- 56:38Speaker 15: most effective tool we have. We've seen it work very
- 56:42Speaker 15: effectively against Russia in the past and Iran in the past. Look,
- 56:46Speaker 15: our military strikes are harming Iran, but.
- 56:48Speaker 5: Our our our.
- 56:51Speaker 15: Efforts to cut off their oil supply and their revenue
- 56:54Speaker 15: are maybe having an even bigger impact on them from
- 56:58Speaker 15: from that standpoint. So the the ability to sanction countries
- 57:01Speaker 15: is a very powerful tool.
- 57:04Speaker 4: And changing behavior.
- 57:05Speaker 15: This is a good thing. We had Zelensky in to
- 57:09Speaker 15: visit with us yesterday and other European leaders. They made
- 57:12Speaker 15: the strong case that with the exception of the of
- 57:15Speaker 15: the ballistic missiles getting through and needing some basically a
- 57:19Speaker 15: defense system for that, that they're winning the war against Russia.
- 57:22Speaker 15: The number of casualties and deaths that they're imposing on
- 57:27Speaker 15: Russia versus what Russia is getting to them is really
- 57:30Speaker 15: a pretty remarkable turnaround. It's using those technologies to do it.
- 57:34Speaker 15: But the sanctions, the sanctions can change behavior. Those are
- 57:37Speaker 15: things that can cripple economies and countries and bring them
- 57:40Speaker 15: to heal and hopefully get peace.
- 57:43Speaker 1: Did you enjoy getting to know Lindsay? Over two years
- 57:46Speaker 1: he was a regular on the program, and it always
- 57:48Speaker 1: made us laugh.
- 57:50Speaker 6: He's so funny. He's so funny.
- 57:53Speaker 15: I enjoyed getting to know him in my brief time.
- 57:55Speaker 15: The very first time I ever spoke to Lindsay Hugh,
- 57:58Speaker 15: he saw me in the cloak room when I was
- 58:00Speaker 15: a news center. I had been there a couple of days,
- 58:02Speaker 15: and he comes up to me and he says, he says, hey,
- 58:04Speaker 15: I want to talk to you. He says, I got
- 58:06Speaker 15: this Russia sanctions bill. I want to get you on
- 58:08Speaker 15: my bill, and and he spends he spends a couple
- 58:10Speaker 15: of minutes talking to me about and then he pauses
- 58:13Speaker 15: and he goes, hey, wait a minute, what's your name again?
- 58:17Speaker 1: Always be closing.
- 58:19Speaker 15: He was always in stelling mode, even before he remember
- 58:23Speaker 15: who I was. So I became friends with over the
- 58:26Speaker 15: past year and a half and and I'm going to
- 58:29Speaker 15: miss him a lot.
- 58:30Speaker 1: Great story, John Houston, thank you for joining me. Senator,
- 58:33Speaker 1: congratulations on the sanctions bill, and I hope you get
- 58:36Speaker 1: the AI chatbot bill through just as quickly. Thank you,
- 58:40Speaker 1: John Houston. Go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. I'm
- 58:43Speaker 1: going to be joined by Danny Platka from AI talking
- 58:46Speaker 1: about what ought to happen tonight in Iran. Next on
- 58:50Speaker 1: the View Hewet Show, Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewett,
- 58:55Speaker 1: Danny Platka. Shane, your fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
- 58:58Speaker 1: joins me. Danny, it's a very important day. As we talk,
- 59:03Speaker 1: we learned that drones from Iran have hit a gas
- 59:07Speaker 1: storage facility in our port and in Egypt, and of
- 59:11Speaker 1: course a surprise attack on our Jordan base last night.
- 59:15Speaker 1: Present very emphatic on Fox News this morning talking to
- 59:19Speaker 1: Trey Yink saying we're going to blanking blank the beatout
- 59:22Speaker 1: beat that blanking blank out of them. What do you
- 59:25Speaker 1: think that means? What do you think it should mean?
- 59:31Speaker 16: Well, let me start with what I think it should mean.
- 59:33Speaker 16: Not that I haven't said this before to you, because
- 59:36Speaker 16: I have. We need to go in there. We need
- 59:41Speaker 16: to finish the job. What to finish the job mean.
- 59:44Speaker 16: It means no more sort of tactical smack here, smack there,
- 59:49Speaker 16: retaliatory strikes. It means systematically go in use the intelligence
- 59:55Speaker 16: that our forces have gathered over the ceasefire that took place,
- 1:00:00Speaker 16: the several ceasefires that have taken place, take out their
- 1:00:04Speaker 16: remaining missile Arsenal Prime Minister NATANIELO says, one to two
- 1:00:09Speaker 16: thousand remaining missiles, take out whatever infrastructure they have for
- 1:00:16Speaker 16: their nuclear weapons program, whatever remains, take out whatever bad guys.
- 1:00:22Speaker 16: And if it were me and I were King of
- 1:00:24Speaker 16: the world, help the Iranians help themselves. Would that last part?
- 1:00:30Speaker 16: I'm not sure as part of the plan, but I
- 1:00:32Speaker 16: think that it ought to be.
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: Well, let's start with the target list and get specific.
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: I hope that we drop as many moabs as are
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: necessary on Pickaxe Mountain, just to take that off the table. Regardless,
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: the Israelis think it's dangerous, so I think it's dangerous. Then.
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: Admiral Montgomery has suggested all of the dual use power
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: central stations and all of the dual use facilities we
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: can find, plus IRGC assets. They're in the construction business,
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: they built ships, they make a lot of money from
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: a variety of businesses. He wants that taken out. That's
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: a big bombing campaign, not just missiles, but a big
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: you know, RB two, s RB twenty nine our b ones.
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
- 1:01:16Speaker 16: I completely agree with it. Look, you know, it's important
- 1:01:19Speaker 16: to understand that part of what Iran describes as its
- 1:01:23Speaker 16: quote unquote resistance economy is built on the idea that
- 1:01:28Speaker 16: all outsiders are shut out of the Iranian economy, so
- 1:01:33Speaker 16: that the IOGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard course hataml Ambia.
- 1:01:39Speaker 16: It's like, imagine to yourself that the Army Corps of
- 1:01:41Speaker 16: engineers with a business. These are the guys who built
- 1:01:44Speaker 16: the metro in Tehran. Okay, no bid contracts. They're in
- 1:01:49Speaker 16: the business of absolutely everything. They're all rich. And I
- 1:01:54Speaker 16: couldn't agree more that even that conglomerate itself is a
- 1:02:00Speaker 16: dual use. The profits fuel terrorism and Iranian efforts to
- 1:02:05Speaker 16: dominate the Middle East hit them hard.
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: Okay, Now, would you also give the people of Tehran
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: a couple of days to get out of town so
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: that Look, there are hospitals that will lose power. There
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: are people that need power. There are a lot of
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: ninety one million innocent Iranians and a quarter million I
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: are GC people. It's an Israeli tactic that they perfected
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: in Gaza, but it's still level Gaza. I don't want
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: to destroy Tehran, but should we get people out or
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: give them the opportunity to get out?
- 1:02:37Speaker 16: Look, I think the problem that we face you is
- 1:02:41Speaker 16: one that will be very familiar to you. Spend a
- 1:02:43Speaker 16: lot of time talking about what the Israeli strategy was
- 1:02:46Speaker 16: in Gaza. It was to deny the kills of Palestinians
- 1:02:52Speaker 16: that Hamas wanted, and you can bet these are the
- 1:02:55Speaker 16: same people. Yes, of course, the Iranian leadership or Shia Hamasa,
- 1:03:00Speaker 16: but these are at the end of the day, is
- 1:03:02Speaker 16: longest extremists. They don't care how many Iranians die. It
- 1:03:08Speaker 16: wasn't just they killed forty two thousand back in January.
- 1:03:11Speaker 16: They would love us to kill more. So, yes, I
- 1:03:14Speaker 16: would like us to give them the time, but I
- 1:03:17Speaker 16: recognize that Iranians who seek to flee will also be
- 1:03:21Speaker 16: in the gun sights of the regime.
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: Right now, I also hope this is Hugh Hewett. No
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: one has said that that Israel is flying wing to
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: wing with us tonight and what is supposed to be
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: a massive response. Would you also like to see would
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: you like to see the Israelis and our golf allies
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: in this overnight and perhaps for many days campaign.
- 1:03:45Speaker 16: So we already flew with the Saudis to strike targets
- 1:03:49Speaker 16: inside Iraq that were being directed by the IRGC to
- 1:03:53Speaker 16: hit at the golf and to hit at the Saudis.
- 1:03:56Speaker 16: I obviously like it better when our allies have skinned
- 1:04:00Speaker 16: in the game. I think that the concern for the
- 1:04:03Speaker 16: Israelis is that the President is not serious that we
- 1:04:08Speaker 16: may go in. We may take a couple of pot shots,
- 1:04:11Speaker 16: maybe we'll even hit them hard, but it won't be
- 1:04:14Speaker 16: the necessary strikes, and all it will do is anger
- 1:04:18Speaker 16: the snake. All it will do is bring down the
- 1:04:21Speaker 16: wrath of the Iranians on Israel without the necessary payoff
- 1:04:26Speaker 16: of incapacitating them as much as the Israelis and the
- 1:04:29Speaker 16: Americans together there could if the leash was taken off.
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: Well, let's assume for a moment that the Israelis say,
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: thank you very much, we're going in and we're going
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: to stay in. I don't think the President win interfare
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: with them, at least publicly.
- 1:04:45Speaker 16: Do you you know that I admire a lot of
- 1:04:52Speaker 16: what President Trump has done in a lot of ways.
- 1:04:55Speaker 16: But I think that the Israelis very much year that
- 1:05:01Speaker 16: there are a bunch of different games going on. And
- 1:05:05Speaker 16: what they saw was that when we started the last
- 1:05:08Speaker 16: cease fire, when we signed the Memorandum of Understanding which
- 1:05:11Speaker 16: you and I talked about, for that, there were very
- 1:05:14Speaker 16: serious efforts from some inside the White House, not Donald
- 1:05:18Speaker 16: Trump but others to blame the Israelis for the entire war.
- 1:05:22Speaker 16: And so for them, they're going to come in, especially
- 1:05:25Speaker 16: because they've got an election this fall, They're going to
- 1:05:28Speaker 16: come in very cautiously. And that's everything that I've heard
- 1:05:31Speaker 16: from the Prime Minister's office is, Look, there's no one
- 1:05:34Speaker 16: who wants to take out this regime more than the Israelis,
- 1:05:38Speaker 16: even more than we do. But they want to do
- 1:05:41Speaker 16: it seriously, and they want to finish it up. And
- 1:05:44Speaker 16: one thing they don't want is to become a political
- 1:05:47Speaker 16: football in internescent right wing wars in America.
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: So our last question, Danny Podca, I want to make
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: sure everyone hears you clearly, we should begin a huge
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: opinion maximum combat operations that we have in the area
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: and keep it up until they either cry uncle or
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: the regime collapses. That's my view, because we can't deal
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: with them. What's your view?
- 1:06:13Speaker 16: My view is exactly the same. Look. At the end
- 1:06:16Speaker 16: of the day, we've got to recognize that the regime
- 1:06:20Speaker 16: is the problem. We can hit them, we can take
- 1:06:22Speaker 16: away their capabilities, but they are going to be committed
- 1:06:26Speaker 16: to reconstituting them. They will have Chinese help, North Korean help,
- 1:06:30Speaker 16: and Russian help. They are the cancer that has destroyed
- 1:06:34Speaker 16: the Middle East, and at least part of our thinking
- 1:06:38Speaker 16: needs to be to help the Iranian people free themselves
- 1:06:42Speaker 16: and help the region free itself of this regime. It
- 1:06:45Speaker 16: has to be in the back of our minds because that,
- 1:06:48Speaker 16: at the end of the day, is what is going
- 1:06:50Speaker 16: to close this sad chapter.
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: I agree. And setting up an opposition government and funding
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: it is a good way to do that from the outside.
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: Danny Plutka from AEI, all right, thank you. D Plutka
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: on X. D Pludka on X.
- 1:07:05Speaker 17: What happens when citizens begin to fear the very agencies
- 1:07:09Speaker 17: created to protect them. This weekend, the America two fifty
- 1:07:14Speaker 17: film series presents police State. Dinesh Desuza examines intelligence, law enforcement,
- 1:07:21Speaker 17: and the warning signs of government power. Turned Inward launched
- 1:07:26Speaker 17: Saturday and Sunday at seven pm Eastern on Salem News Channel.
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: Welcome back to America. I'm keth Hewitt ab Greenwald, Executive
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: editor of Commentary Magazine. This very morning, I was listening
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: to Commentary Debate with Matt Continetti. They taped it yesterday.
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: Gott to drop this morning about what ought to be done.
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: That was before President Trump. Abe went on talk to
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: Trey Inks today and said, we're going to blanking blank
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: the blank out of them. Can't say any of those
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: words because I'm an FCC compliant broadcast. What does that
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: mean to you? What do you want it to turn
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: out to be?
- 1:08:10Speaker 18: Well, at this point, it's very hard to say what
- 1:08:13Speaker 18: that means, because he's the president, has said many similar
- 1:08:17Speaker 18: things before. Sometimes they have preceded some pretty ferocious kinetic
- 1:08:25Speaker 18: operations against Iran. Sometimes they've preceded some tit for tat,
- 1:08:30Speaker 18: and sometimes they've preceded another round of negotiations. So it's
- 1:08:34Speaker 18: very hard to say what they would mean. What I'd
- 1:08:39Speaker 18: like to see is, at the very least our commitment
- 1:08:44Speaker 18: to keeping up the blockade and to targeting the regime's
- 1:08:54Speaker 18: ability to work their will on the straight to the
- 1:08:59Speaker 18: best of our ability, given the potential problems that we're
- 1:09:06Speaker 18: having with defensive munitions, and additionally, we've got to take
- 1:09:11Speaker 18: care of Pickax Mountain sometime.
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: Well, let me cite all my agreements with you. Pickax Mountain.
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: Number one, every moab that we've got as far down
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: as they can go, and the entrances and everybody around it.
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: Number two, I would darken Tehran. I might give Tehran
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: one day to empty out, two days tempty out, to
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: tell the people, we don't want to hurt anyone that's innocent,
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: but you're not going to have power for a few weeks,
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: so go somewhere else in the country. Admiral Montgomery, retired,
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: now over at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, has suggested
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: every IRGC connected business, they're in shipbuilding, they're a construction.
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: They make money that way below that sky. I and
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: then I just pound everything that moves abe and I
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: wouldn't stop for forty days. And I would ask the Israelis,
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: the Saudi, the Kuwaitis, everybody to come in. They hit
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: us in Egypt today so they're not. They're not in
- 1:10:08Speaker 1: any way, shape or form dealing with us right now,
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: and so I don't I don't see any use to
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: trying to get them back to the bargaining table there.
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: To quote the President, there'scam and to quote Secretary of Ruby,
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: though they're they're crazy.
- 1:10:22Speaker 18: I I actually agree with you on all points. My
- 1:10:25Speaker 18: The the only thing that may have sound sounded like
- 1:10:29Speaker 18: restraint in what I was saying is that I'm cognizant
- 1:10:35Speaker 18: of all these stories about hur our problem with that
- 1:10:41Speaker 18: we're running low on defensive munitions, and I don't know
- 1:10:45Speaker 18: what kind of Iranian response the regime is still capable
- 1:10:50Speaker 18: of to the kind of attack you're talking about. That
- 1:10:53Speaker 18: would be my only reservation about carrying out the kind
- 1:10:57Speaker 18: of attack you're talking about.
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: Now, would you The X level that I haven't talked
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: about because I've heard both arguments is the oil supply infrastructure.
- 1:11:06Speaker 1: And there are two parts of that where it's stored
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: and where it's pumped. And I have no compunction about
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: taking out every pipeline that there is and every bridge
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: that helps them get resupplied. I just think they've shown
- 1:11:21Speaker 1: their hand last night with Zelenski and the country, that
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: yahoo in the country the Lindsay Graham funeral. They chose
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: that night to try a sneak attack on our base
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: in Jordan. These are not people that you can deal with.
- 1:11:35Speaker 4: Amen. They're in fact escalating.
- 1:11:39Speaker 6: They're very clearly escalating.
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: So that's not the US escalating.
- 1:11:46Speaker 6: I think we should.
- 1:11:47Speaker 18: I agree with you, and yeah, I have no problem
- 1:11:50Speaker 18: with taking with going after every bit of oil infrastructure
- 1:11:54Speaker 18: we can get at. You know, it was many months
- 1:11:57Speaker 18: ago that we started hearing well they may have to
- 1:11:59Speaker 18: cap the Wells soon, and then then that'll be disastrous
- 1:12:02Speaker 18: for them. I'm no longer waiting for this floating date
- 1:12:08Speaker 18: in front of us, when when Ron will have to
- 1:12:10Speaker 18: captain Wells and go broke.
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: I'm all for going straight at it now. The last
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: big question a impact on the elections. I actually think
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: it will help the President and the Republican Party if
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: he demonstrates commitment and strength here because and I might
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: even put the resolution on the floor if Leader Thune
- 1:12:33Speaker 1: is listening, put the resolution on the floor authorizing the
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: president of conduct. They are clearly an enemy of civilization
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: and they're part of the Alliance of authoritarians, the Alliance
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: retiremants the axis of aggressors. Call him what you want.
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: They're clearly part of the bad guys. Maybe and we
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: should ask Israeli in too last couple of minutes to you.
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: Oh, I think this look.
- 1:13:00Speaker 18: I think a decisive, strong show of force against Iran
- 1:13:05Speaker 18: here would definitely help him, because where he's at now
- 1:13:08Speaker 18: is he's not doing himself any favors just in terms
- 1:13:11Speaker 18: of the pure politics of it, let alone the sort
- 1:13:14Speaker 18: of world changing effects. But this he's someone the administration
- 1:13:21Speaker 18: has to figure out how to do what you're talking
- 1:13:24Speaker 18: about and address the munition's shortage, either by saying it's
- 1:13:30Speaker 18: not true, by saying we have such and such a
- 1:13:33Speaker 18: plan to be in such and such shape by a
- 1:13:37Speaker 18: certain date, or I don't know what, but it's now
- 1:13:41Speaker 18: become a very strong counter narrative that is chipping away
- 1:13:47Speaker 18: at any potential.
- 1:13:49Speaker 4: Advance in our effort there.
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: Hey, thank you. I hope you guys Kate pushing those
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: great podcasts out. You're on a funny schedule this week,
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: so you screwed up my trundle this morning. But I
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: appreciate the effort you guys are putting into it. Abe
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: Greenwald follow him on x at Abe Greenwald and listen
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: to the commentary podcast Every single day, smartest podcast in
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: America period. Thank you, Abe,