Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale ri and even Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome.
We are five hours away, less than five hours away from the deadline than President Trump has put to the Iranian regime to come to terms that are acceptable to him. In the United States, I begin the program with Congressman Dan Harrigan, representing North Carolina's tenth congressional District. Pat Harrigan excuse me himself a Green Beret, Pat, welcome. You know, I want to remind the audience who's new. You have the distinguished David Dryer share on the UUs show for
twenty five years we had a regular congressman. It was David Dryer, that with Seohn Campbell. That was Tom Cotton, then it was Mike Pompeo. That was Mike Gollagher, then it was Mike Waalts. Now we just got to have a warrior, so you're it. Pat. What did you make of Saturday's rescue?
I thought it was incredible, Hugh. I mean, look, if you had any doubt about the capability of the United States military, whether it was after the Midnight Hammer operation from a year ago highlighting our deep strike, whether it was snatching and grabbing Maduro, the president of Venezuela out of his own country, There's just not much else that I think could really impress you other than the operation that happened on Saturday.
I mean, we spent.
Every resource that we had to spend, an awful lot of money, but we brought that man home, and I think that that's instructive to the rest of the world. Number one, our capabilities. Number two our commitment to our people. We're never ever going to leave you behind.
Pat Harri, you're a Green Beret, so you're part of that community special warfare. I am old enough to remember the disaster in the desert Egle Claw. You weren't even alive, I suspect, and everything changed. Then Jay Sock stood up and you began to operate together. Do you think any part of our special forces was left out of this thing? They're telling you about hundreds of people.
Involved, no likely not at least within the tiers that are expected to operate on this type of an extremist operation. And so I do think that what you're seeing is you're seeing the symphony of the joint Force as it
was intended to be utilized. And that's one of the things that I think President Trump doesn't get enough credit about over the last year is that, look, you know, hey, all these different military adventures that we've had in the last twenty five years that have not paid off for the United States of America at all, It's largely been because we fundamentally use the military in a way it's not designed to be used like we are not a protracted conflict force, which is one of the reasons why
I've been so vocal about making sure that, Okay, whatever we're doing in Iran here, let's make sure we get out as quickly as we possibly can. Because the longer this goes on, the more perilous it becomes for the United States, the more difficult it becomes for us to define success, the easier it becomes for us to shift the mission, which is exactly what happened and led to the failures during the Global War on Terror. We don't want to see that repeated again.
Congressman Pat Harrigan, I want to read to you President Trump's posts from this morning, which has got many people upset. The entirety of it. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have a complete and total regime change where a different, smarter, and less radicalized mind prevails, who knows, maybe something revolutionarily
wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great American people of Iran. Now he's clearly talking about the last forty seven years, not the twenty five hundred years of Persian civilization. But you wouldn't know that from the
online commentary today. Richman, what'd you make of that post and of the President's comments for the last week.
Yeah, Look, it's certainly got a lot of people, you know, they're there, they're feathers or flittering out there. I think that there's a difference between what the President is intending to say and what the words are conveying to some folks, particularly those that don't know him. In no way, shape or form. Do I think that he's talking about the
end of civilization. I think he's talking about the end of a way of life, and whether that was an authoritarian regime that has just doubled and tripled down on terrorism, the exportation of terrorism, choosing chaos over commerce, somebody that just has not been a responsible player in the world and saying, look, yeah, we're going to go after your
power plants, We're going to go after your bridges. I think the President has been really really clear about that, and the way of life that you have today might not be the type of lifestyle that you end up having tomorrow, because those things are all dual use, and we know what that regime has chosen to do with the power that they produce, and the bridge is an infrastructure that they have, which is so the seeds of chaos and death across.
All of the globe.
So no, I think that the President has been clear. I wish he was a little bit more clear with his post earlier today. I think any type of ambiguity that you have at this stage of the game does need to be clarified by the administration. But I think a lot of people are freaking out making too much out out of what was said today purposely.
So I think it's impossible to post something that ends with God bless the great people of Iran and not understand it. Congressman Harrigan, can you remind people where the tenth Congressional district in North Carolina is? I want them to have a good fix on who you represent.
Yeah, Hey, we're in central western North Carolina, just a little bit north of Charlotte, go all the way up to Winston Salem, and then I live out in Hickory out on the western side, which is where I am right now. It is a beautiful, lovely place to visit and live. Encourage everybody to check us out. And I'm very, very proud to represent the vibrant tenth district in North Carolina.
Now, you've got a lot of veterans. North Carolina is a veteran heavy state. Of course, you got a lot of active duty in North Carolina as well. What do they think about the last forty days where they were on.
I think overall people understand that it was likely inevitable that it needed to happen at some point. I think mowing the lawn with Iran is something that has unfortunately just kind of become an expectation of what we're going to have to do to deal with that radical Islamist regime. However, I think that all global War on Terror veterans are very much adamantly against boots on the ground, like I
have been from the very beginning here. I think it's one thing to wage in air war in a campaign to kind of suppress the regime and push them off for another five years or ten years until we got to go mow the lawn again. We certainly do not want them to have a nuclear weapon. That's one of
the non negotiable red lines that exists here. But I think we've accomplished that and so and I think folks that our veterans understand that we have really succeeded in executing and accomplishing the main five objectives that we had from a military perspective. So, you know, I think all of us are.
On the same page.
Let's bank the win and let's get the heck out as quickly as we possibly can. That's in line with America's strategic interest long term.
Now we've got one marine expeditionary unit on site in the Tripoli and another one on its way that we'll be there in another week. To mews, they can do a lot of different things. Do they take and hold one hundred miles of coast along the narrowest portion in the south the strait of hormones? Is that something that would be within their mission set?
It's absolutely something that they're capable of. But capability is different than deciding to do it. And I have been someone that has been very vocal and adamant about not doing that. I think once you put boots on the ground, you have fundamentally changed the missions that we have and that's how you end up getting into the global War on terror right as well, we didn't achieve perfection with
what we set out to achieve. We didn't settle for good enough, and we're now going to kind of create this new mission which creates second and third order consequences that you then have to deal with, and before you know it, you're lodged in a quagmire that does not need to happen in Iran, and I've been very vocal about making sure that we do not go boots on
the ground. I think if boots on the ground are contemplated, it has and I've said this before, it's got to be going after nuclear material with special operations in out missions.
That's it.
Anything more than that.
The President needs to make the case to the American people, and Congress has to be involved. Other than that, this thing's got to wrap up before sixty days and we need to get out here.
All right now, Congressman, I just wanted for the record, the sixty to eight thing is the War Powers Act. I believe that unconstitutional. You and I can argue about that some other time, but I want to thank you for your time today. Congressman Pat Harriet. By the way, did they redraw your district lines in North Carolina? Are they the same ones? No?
We yeah, they did in North Carolina, but they did not touch the Great tenth District in North Carolina. We're very happy about that.
Okay, Good for you, Good for you, Congressman Pat Harrigan, Thank you for joining me. Hey, America, let me start off by doing one of my great endorsers, Consumer Cellular at the very beginning of the show, because it's gonna be tough to do all of my embedded sponsorships in the course of today's show. Consumer Cellular will save you money.
If you call one eight hundred four one forty four fifty four one eight hundred four one forty four fifty four, one eight hundred four to one one forty four to fifty four, or go to consumer cellular dot com slash h you will save money. Remember to use my code q Hugh no matter what age you are, because when you use my code, you get your second month free, no matter what you sign up for. Consumer Cellular is growing fast, and it's grown everywhere. They've even opened up
eighty four stores. What you are now ranked like, Consumer Cellular generally is at the top for customer satisfaction. But I especially want my audience that is fifty and older to know that if you call eight hundred and four four fifty four, use my name you anyway, get that second month free. And you're over fifty, listen to this. You get a single line with unlimited talk texting data for just thirty five dollars a month. You really can't beat that one line unlimited talk textan data thirty five
dollars a month if you're fifty year older. Investigator all at Consumersellular dot com slashu and don't forget my offer the second month free shwe when you call, I'll be right back to stay tuned to the que it's showing the Sale News Channel. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. The Ruthless podcast is, of course one of the most influential inside the Beltway, and I had believed it was
run by good conservative guys. Josh Holmes shared a panel with me last week and clipped me with a reference to the Cleveland Browns being losers. And he was the last person to speak. And as we know in panel etiquette, that's just not done. So there's a penalty. There's a proceeding underway, like an NCAA investigation into the entire franchise over there at Ruthless. But we bring you John Ashbrook, the voice from Ruthless pot What do you think should we penalize the player or the club.
Here's the thing, Hugh.
You know, I'm from the southern part of Ohio, as you know, and I think that the Cleveland Browns are in a rebuilding era, and I feel like Jimmy just wants to get arch Manning in that twenty twenty seven draft, and he's probably going to get him. And you know it's going to be Katie bar the door for the Cleveland Browns as soon as arch Manning is their quarterback.
Well, he could have said that, but your colleague chose not to. I'm just remembering that. Now. I want to go to another voice from the past. Fourteen we're five hours, less than five hours away from a deadline, and we'll
talk about the president's post. In a moment before the president posted that Ben Rhodes, failed novelist, former speechwriter, former deputy National security advisor to President Obama, attendee at Fidel Castro's funeral, and left wing metter neck on ms NOW posted the US government is run by a lunatic who is not in control of events and is resorting to violence, to straw to try Parenz unsuccessfully to impose control. I thought that embodied sunk costs. How do you assess that?
Well, here's the thing, and I just I think that it does a disservice to the Congress of Vienna.
To compare Ben Rhodes to Metterneck. But here's the thing.
You this guy and his ILK spent their entire careers in Washington appeasing the Iranian regime that has instigated so much terrorism across the world and has tried to destroy our country for forty seven years.
And you know they used our own tax dollars.
Everybody remembers the famous air dropping of American cash that was put into that airplane by American taxpayers. We've got April fifteenth coming up. Everybody's familiar with what happens to them on April fifteenth. It was him and his ILK who gave them money that they could put into their missile program, that they could put into development of nuclear weapons. Their approach to Iran made this situation much much worse
and has led us to where we are today. And I don't know what's going to happen at eight pm. We do know that this president Donald Trump is the kind of guy who follows through on threats if he needs to do it. But he's also the kind of guy who is interested in peace. He said he wants to cease fire. He says he just wants them to reopen the straight of Ormus and it seems like the kind of thing the Iranians could do if they wanted.
And I think you maybe mentioned.
That these sorts that be fifty two's are already in the air, and they're maybe six hours away in keeping with that eight pm deadline.
So we're all watching the clock.
We're all curious to what actually will happen. Of course, in President's truth social posts left, you know, a lot of a lot up in the air. Maybe he doesn't even know because it's based on how the Iranians respond to what he's asking for, which is simply reopened the strait.
Let me reread that post for people. Our whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows and caps we will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion,
corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. So if you want to read the first line and stop. You can say the president out of control. If you read the whole thing, you know he's talking about the civilization is the same as the regime in this post, and the regime is evil. That's how I read it, John, Do you read it differently?
No, I read it the exact same way, Hugh. And obviously you know so much more to I mean, your audience is very familiar with your expertise on foreign policy, and it's it's unquestioned.
And I read it the same way. And you know, one of the things.
That I've read that that there's a ten point plan out there and there's there's maybe some sort of a movement toward a CeaseFire's being broken through the pakistanis you know, it's hard to know what to believe and what's being pushed that's maybe not accurate or is accurate. I think the bottom line is that there has been movement if you if you just listen to what the president has said, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
Here and at eight pm there's an agreement.
And you know, Hugh, another guy who I you know, you're in my mind, you really are one of the pre eminent voices in America on foreign policy, and you've you've studied this, you know so much about it. There's another guy I really likes. Name's Brian Hook, and we've had him on our show a couple of times.
On Iran. He was the Iran guy and he won.
He was and you know, one of the things he said is that in Iran, obviously the molas are in charge, but the IRGC controls a lot of the means of production, they control a lot of the commerce. And so he has said on numerous occasions that that if the IRGC is in a position where they feel like their ability to continue their control over commerce in that nation is jeopardized, they will come to a negotiating table.
In a way that the Molas may not. And so that could be the situation we're in right now.
You know, I mean, what the president is, who the President is talking to directly is a little bit of a mystery to us, but it's not a mystery to the experts who are delivering, you know, these these briefings to the president, who've been studying the region and who know the players like the back of their hand. And I just have to have confidence in the professionals who are around him and guiding him at this moment here, just hours before the eight pm.
Deadline, and you'll be covering and I think on tomorrow's program as well. I hope. I do want to bring up two things from today's program. March Madness is almost done. You got to go over to a comfortably smug to his ex account to vote on the final four. And a fine final four they are. I personally think Don
Lemon's going to pull it out, but we'll see. And then I had not read this story about the naked burglar who has been terrorizing northern Virginia, but I hadn't realized that Michael Duncan had been gone the same I noticed you guys put two together today. I just wanted the world to know they should go listen to smuck. I think Duncan might be unhappy with you tomorrow. What do you think?
You know what Duncan was back today? And he assures me that was not him. We're gonna trust wait for We're gonna wait for the ring camera footage to come out, just to be certain.
We do trust, but verify here.
I think he's in the clear this time, but you never know. In the weeks ahead on the Hack Madness, I agree with you. I think Don Lemon could be the guy. If he's not, it might be Abby Phillip.
I just think she gets all this guy jennying backwater very quickly. I don't know if you know Larry O'Connor. Do you know Larry I do? Oh yeah, great, completely insufferable today. Now just stay away, okay, completely insufferable wolverine to stay very far away from him because that March Madness ended up with larryo connor with a head the size of the Hindenburg. John Ashbrook, So the Ruthless Podcast always good to see you. Follow him on exit, John Ashbrook,
listen to the Ruthless Podcast, especially tomorrow. Duncan will be back. We'll hear what he has to say about being being accused kinda of being the naked burglar in northern Virginia, he assures us. But I don't know. Stay tuned.
No man's words.
Welcome back to America, Hugh hewittt we are two and a half hours, three and a half hours away from the deadline that President Trump is given to Ron four and a half hours away from the deadline. I'm going to take this opportunity to let you know about a resurrection many years. The show has been on the air for twenty five in almost three quarters a year our anniversary of July ten, and Dwayne Patterson has been the producer. Well, they're not the producer. He's been around for the whole time.
He hadn't been producing much, but he's been around the whole time. One of the things things he did do is he started an after show after my when it was just radio, when it wasn't television and radio and podcasting. When it's just a radio show, Dwayne would hang around with the drunks that we call the Tribles and they would talk for an hour afterwards a couple times a week. That went away when we added the sale new channel
and turned out Dwayne's Tribles drank him more heavily. So as an act of public health, we have asked Dwayne to come back and bring back Dwayne's World to the universe. So if you join the Universe on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you're going to get extra Dwayne and Dwyane. What were the Dwayne's World in the place of the after show be like going forward?
Well, it will basically be the Dwayne's World podcast that has been pretty widely received in the public sphere.
But one of the things I can do behind the paywall is I can do a lot more music. I can do a lot more movie references. We can be sillier. It's more of a clubhouse environment.
It's a lot telling me and are there drunks coming back?
There is a live element. There's a chat room so that people can have live interaction. I can take calls from time to time on a live show versus versus one that we'd tape twice a week and it appears the next morning.
Now, Plaine, when we started this and you started the after show, marijuana wasn't legal everywhere. Now we're gonna have Major Bob Stone.
Major Bob does a lot of things.
He may have consumed an adult beverage or a thousand in his lifetime, yes, but I.
Don't think he does do I don't think he does dope. And I'll tell you what.
Major Bob is surging with pride because he's retired Air Force, so after the events of last week.
He is just he is just you know, beside himself right.
Now, now, can you take calls in the After Show. By the way, you can join the universe over pretty hard to miss. On the left, you see me and Dwayne. On the right, you see the universe that says joined.
It's like ninety nine cents for the first month, I.
Mean the first month. Give it a shot, and then you're doing this Tuesdays and Thursday nights.
Right Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jim Talent will be here. And the really cool thing about this relaunch today at four pm Pacific, seven pm Eastern is Jim Talent and I who know you for Jim Talent in this show a thousand times as well. He has forgotten more about national security and defense and foreign policy than a lot of people will ever know. And we are going to be on the air behind the paywall for the last hour of what could be the last hour of the Iranian
regime as we know it. If this deadline is what Donald Trump has promised, We're going to be basically counting you down to zero hour. If there is a deal, if they cave, if a white flag emerges from Tayrn, it'll happen during that last hour.
Yeah, plan, I'm a mind about the relaunch of the After Show Flash Dwayne's World.
We're calling that because we're calling Dwayne's World Dwaine's World.
The after Show. I got to tell the Triples they're drunk, you know that. They got to know it's the after show. And and so I want them to understand Dwayne's World is coming back to the universe, and it's three branded and three launched. But already today I had to chisel out of him. He was storing away the good stuff. It was hiding clips in his pocket. I had to go get one of the clips out of Michael. Fake news not fake news. I just want people to know
that's the only downside. But you will love Dwayne's World. Go over to the Universe. Go to huott dot com. The Universe is up on top. It says join you go over there. You pay your ninety nine cents for the first month, listen to a few and everything else. By the way, you get the Huwitt Show commercial free. You get every minute of every hour. Except there's lots. There's lots of music show content. I've got a Dwayne
Fan music channel. There's all sorts of extra bones. And of course I will be co hosting Dwayne's World often.
What are the selling points to Dwayne's World is it's a huge free zone.
That's not true. I have often been on Dwayne's World before.
You have been on a couple of times.
Are you gonna take my suggestion and bring back Lilac's top ten stories list?
We are going to resurrect what's called the Magnificent Seven, which are seven stories I have bet below the fold.
If you will, I am ben at that.
Yes, we're gonna have some fun and lighten up.
And it's and you never know when. I'm just gonna join. But you got to join the universe. If you're gonna get Dwayne's World. We hope you do. AKA the After Show, We hope you do. Don't go anywhere America. I'm coming right back David Drucker's next. As we are on edge inside the Beltway waiting for eight pm tonight. Although Admiral Cooper announced earlier today hundreds of one way drones launched, it targets all across Iran and so and Fridget's blown
up in the airport. Hit. Lots of stuff going on, and we don't quite know about Harmini two point zero worries concerns over his well being with any Iran that are leaking out, stay tuned on Hugh Hewitt. I'm the Hug Hewitt Show. I'm the Salem Radio Networks for Salem News Channel. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett inside the Beltway. David Drucker is on assignment in Indiana. But David, I'm sure you're watching with great interest the approach of
the a PM deadline. I should let you know be fifty two have taken off from Air Force bases that take some time to get to Iran, and Admiral Cooper said hundreds of one way drones have already been dispatched against Iran and targets today doesn't look like the escalation to me. What do you hear? Well?
I mean, I think the question is will the President be pleased enough with the pace of negotiations or will he want to find an off ramp that he can describe as the pace of negotiations are moving satisfactory to what I want out of Iran to forestall whatever this
massive hit will otherwise be. And I and I kind of counch it that way, because you know, I think what we've learned over the years is that the Iranian regime, and I think what's left of it in their own way their true believers, and they're messianic and and you know, I think for them, it's all about maintaining the regime. And the minute you capitulate to the Americans, you're not maintaining the regime.
And the regime is in deep trouble.
And they have shown so far to do They've shown themselves so far to do in a sense, everything that we wouldn't do if we were the right.
You're the chief political correspondent for the Dispatch. Dispatch very talented team. I listened to for example, Sarah is hearing David French talking about the birthright citizenship action at the Supreme Court. You've got Steven Hayes Jonah over There is there ever an editorial call about where everyone gets on and talks about stuff, because I'm just curious what the opinion at the Dispatch is about eight o'clock tonight.
Well, I mean, yeah, we get we actually we have an editorial call every Tuesday, right, and we talk about some of the biggest items in the news, how we may want to approach it, what we're thinking about it, and we're all on standby for this evening at eight pm, and we're just sort of aware that things may happen and we may have something to say about it, something
to write about it. So there's a possibility of a dispatch live, which we you know, stream on the evenings of major events like the State of the Union, and like I think right after the Iran War began in late February, we had a dispatch live.
So we are on standby and we were watching this.
So the President's tweet today again, I want to read it in its entirety. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, we're different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail. Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful. What can happen? Who knows? In caps we will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex
history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. Now, when you read the entire thing, he is not talking about total war. He's talking about destroying the regime. Nevertheless, the reaction, I'm sure you've seen it all day is though he called for war crimes.
Yeah, but he didn't.
Yeah, but that's because of the language he uses, right, I mean, he talks about striking Iran with overwhelming force and destroying the word he uses a civilization.
You know.
I know there's a lot of Trump being Trump. Trump just says these things, but he really means this thing. But I think people reacting to the words he uses, and for any other president, we would be judging him by the words he uses and wouldn't even be having the discussion about, well he means something else. I think for a lot of people he means what he says, and for other people it's you femisms and you know, figures of speech to try and prove a point.
So you know, pick your fourth.
Dath Sarah, which he thinks about this because lawyers read the whole documents, especially originalists, and I can't believe you can read the last line, God bless the great people of Iran and think that he wants a war crime tonight He's going to hit dual use things.
Now, I'm not saying in his mind. I'm not saying in his mind he wants a war crime. But Trump is very good at this. He says five different things that can legitimately be heard five different ways by five different people. And it's not necessarily my job to the least defensive one. It's not necessarily my job to pick the most defensive one.
So you tell me, I read the whole thing, and then I tell people what I think, which is I think he's aiming to destroy the regime. Okay, Barack Revine, Prime Minister of Pakistan Sharif. Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully, with the potential lead to substantive results in the near future to allow to to run its course. I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for
two weeks. Do you think he will?
I think it's very possible he will.
I think Trump likes to use maximalist language to push things along in a way in which he can declare victory even if we don't really have a substantive development. And I think he's done that in a whole host of diplomatic and domestic negotiations, and so it wouldn't surprise me at all if we don't have an announcement that the Irani regime has delivered as the president is ass
but that negotiates our negotiations. Excuse me, our proceeding a pace such that he's going to give this more time to play out.
Now. Pakistan is not among our closest allies. They were never particularly helpful with the Taliban. They allowed the Taliban to cross the border. Are we very trusting of the Pakistani government as a mediator?
Well, I hope, I hope not.
But sometimes in certain situations you use different mediators. I mean, I think all presidents and all administrations have done that, occasionally done the unorthodox. But I agree you don't want to trust Pakistan. They have ulterior motives, but you know they are in the neighborhood and they do have a vested interest in stability in the neighborhood.
All right, Crude oil up to one hundred and thirteen dollars at barrel? What are you paying for it for gas? In Indiana? David Drucker.
Four plus.
I saw it at four to twenty as I was driving between Columbus and Franklin. And we'll see what it looks like tomorrow as I had through Indianapolis and to parts north. I'm paying close to five bucks in DC.
Anybody in California who's right now there, and from San Francisco to La down to San Diego out in the Central Valley, they're all at six and a half to seven dollars a gallon. So they're not feeling for you, David in Indiana. But not a good political situation, last minute for you, right, you got to bring that down before June.
Well, it's helpful because opinions start to solidify around June. That's the old Mitch McConnell rule that I often deploy. But particularly you want things to be relaxed by Labor Day. I've just written about this for Bloomberg Opinion. Gas tends to go up like a rocket and calms down extremely slowly. I think we're going to be dealing with high gas prices into the beginning of the fall, at least late summer. That's according to the experts that I've talked to. That's
going to make things politically difficult. But they're already politically difficult for Republicans in Congress, all right, David M.
Drucker follow him on X read them at the Dispatch the special report Brett Bear America's Ankerman Brett, welcome. I have already played your report of your call with the President this morning from earlier today on the Fox News channel. But give us a little bit of it, more of a blow by blow. Were you at home, were you at the studio already?
I was on my way to the studio and just got the call and chatted for you know, probably the fifteen minutes or so. You know, he's pretty resolute and I took away from the call that you know, he was pretty firm on that deadline.
He had not.
Been aware of the specifics that were moving the needle negotiation wise. Now that said, just in the past few minutes, Jackie Hindrick got off the phone, and there is the Runians have moved a proposal and they are in what the President described as he did negotiations. And that's what he told Jackie just five minutes ago. So you know where this goes ahead of APM Eastern time, I don't know, but the earlier call, he was pretty resolute that it was happening.
Right in the interim from the time he talked to him. B fifty twos have taken off from bases in Europe. Admiral Cooper tells US hundreds of one way drones have been launched the Israelis and bomb railroads. I think it's going to be the most intense night of the war, but there is still intense and devastating. Did the President talk with you about the language of his posts this morning and the blowback that it's caused. I don't think it's deserved, but it's been real blowback.
Yeah, it's real blowback. And you know how it's perceived the fact that a lot of people went all the way to nuclear weapons and you know, a tactical nuke being used. That's not happening. Uh. And you know, I didn't go down that road about the criticism. He was kind of talking about what's what's to come, and you know, I think he's seen the target list and I think, you know, he kind of foreshadowed it at the news conference.
The other day.
It would be devastating and not only to the running regime, but obviously to the running people too, And that's that's where that's where some of the issue is. And you don't want to harm the people that eventually are going to take over that government at some point.
Now, Brett, I'll be on tonight on the panel with you, and we'll know more by that point. But I'm wondering if your sources have developed any kind of sense of the command bunker that the B two's hit in the middle of the extraordinary rescue operation. We still don't have any news on who was in there, if anyone of importance.
No, we don't.
We do know that before that that a key intelligence official was taken out, but there was a meeting at an I urgency command center that was taken out by that moab bomb. And you know that's significant because it can go deep. And so it took out that bunker, and whoever was in there, we're told did not survive. So we don't have a list, but the names keep on ticking up.
So depending on for so long, I'm always more and more impressed by General Kane every time he talked. But you could see him flinch when the President started talking about the details of the raid. He'd rather not talk about anything about.
The raid, and we wanted to keep that secret. And you know, I think they they're really sensitive about some of that stuff. I mean, you know they may have to use those tactics again, God forbid, if another another plane goes down, or if something happens, that search and rescue kind of blueprint is used, and they want to keep tactics in a secret.
So Brett, one question I have coming out of that weekend of miracles, A heat seeking missile hit an F fifteen. I didn't think they had the capacity left. Has anyone answered that to your satisfaction yet? No?
And I don't think they got the question effectively at the White House press conference. You know, they kind of say that they got lucky and that it got sucked up in the in the heat signature of the of the engine, but they still shot it down. And so you know, the obliterated missile system. Either they got lucky or they have a lot more. And I think it's somewhere in between the two.
Okay, now to today's events. Carg Island was hit again today. Apparently only military targets is there? Those are the effect from Jennifer, from anyone that the Iranian i RGC or the arteche is reinforcing CARG.
Yeah, I think that's why they're laying the groundwork for what may come. You know, we saw today out of Irun a lot of human chains around infrastructure. These are regime loyalists and their families with women and children, and signs around electrical facilities, around military bunkers, and there was we're told a resupply of defenses on KRG where they went back. They've already done one round of strikes on that island, which again is ninety percent of Iran's oil capacity through that place.
You know, I'm glad you brought that up because the talk of war crimes today, Hitting a bridge is not a war crime, hitting a power plant is not a wartime. If there's dual use, using civilians to shield military infrastructure is a war crime. Hamasts for a year and a half, I have not heard that commented on yet, but I am correct about that, right, you are correct.
Yeah, And you know they're saying they're surrounding civilian facilities. But obviously there's other you know, uses for a lot of these things, including the nuclear bunkers where we believe that Isbahan is the place that stored the highly enricheranium.
All right to your final questions, was the president's mood a brilliant somber? How would you characterize it.
He's fired up, he seemed energized, he's he was engaged, and you know, not not somber. He knows it's daunting, at least he talks about that, but he believes that this pressure he's hoping is going to lead to a big negotiation. And if not, he seems resolute. So I would say firm, but not not somber.
Now, last question. The president often has sidebars. Did Pam BONDI or the Master? Is there anything else come up?
No? No, it was a pretty you know, strict call. I was trying to get as much information as I could while I had his hear well.
I look forward to seeing you tonight, Brett, and already played your report. I replayed again before we get there. Brett Behar, anchor of Special Report every night at six America's anchorman. Thank you, Brett. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. If you're just joining us on the Salem New Channel, Salem Radio Network, any of our great radio affiliates, be fifty two bombers are in the air, having left Britain. It's a seven hour trip to Iran. They'll arrive there
around eight pm tonight. The president of Pakistan has asked for a two week extension. He's appealed to the president to hold off. I just talked to Brett Bher talked to the president earlier today. Does not seem at all intent on backing up of his deadline. And now I'm joined by Bethany Mandel, Mom Moores co founder. All I have to do is go to themomwars dot substack dot com. Bethany, what do you make of the deadline? Wow?
So I actually was just recording my podcast and did not hear that updates.
That is very interesting.
I think that the president is very good at keeping his word, and that is something that makes him very powerful when he goes into a negotiation, because you know that when he says something, he means and it's you know, you want to rewind to what the Obama administration said with their redline in Syria, you knew that they never meant it. With President Trump, he's just crazy enough that he might be telling the truth always.
Now he posted earlier today, and I'm sure I will hear the commentary. Quintet denounced this tomorrow because it's not in keeping with their vibe. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.
Who knows. We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God, I'd bless the great people of Iran. Now the left is reading the first line and denouncing Trump. I'm reading the whole post and concluding it's aimed at the Iranian government to impress upon them they will be destroyed if they do not concede the major points. How do you react to that post?
I hear Selena Selena Zito's voice in my head. Take him seriously, but not literally. I can't believe she said it ten years ago and we're still learning this lesson.
It's a negotiation tactic. This he does this all the time.
He goes to an eleven always, and then he's negotiated back four steps and he's he's at five. Whereas the Obama ministration would go to A two and they'd negotiate them to a one. This is President Trump won a one. I'm not horrified by it. I'm honestly a little amused by it because it plays the same pattern that we've seen him do over and over and over, and it's effective, and they're going.
To translate it into PARESI and not know what to do. Bethanie I, I really am amazed that people, after eleven years, they still don't get Donald Trump. You just summarized how he does this, and they still don't get it. And I think part of that is aesthetic and part of it is ideological. But it doesn't matter to me. I've been doing this show for twenty six years almost I have been consistently a foe of striking Iranian nuclear undertaking. If Obama had done it wouldn't be that hard right now.
If w had gone from Iraqan to Iran, it wouldn't have been that hard right now. If Clinton hadn't caved in North Korea, you wouldn't have set up this. I think this is at the end of a very long road which expands back to Jimmy Carter and not dealing with this problem, which is metastatic.
Yeah.
And what's funny is so I'm on my computer right now and I see my text messages pop up, and I just saw a message that my friend her neighbors invited her over to a civilization is ending dinner tonight. They're all hysterical, and it's funny to me because they're viewing President Trump as the existential threat to civilization and society.
My doomsday back clock is not ticking any faster today than it was yesterday, but it's they're treating the threat as Trump instead of Iran, which it always has.
Been to they understand. I had Ambassador or on yesterday, and I've been following the times of visual fairly closely. I know you have friends in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv. The barrages have been an ending from Hesbalalah. It's dozens and dozens and dozen, and Ambassadora never complains, but he's weary. He's very as all of Israel must be. And this is the access of resistance. It's not Trump who built the access of resistance.
No, my friends are exhausted to their bones. They have been woken up two or three times a night. It was funny, I texted one of my friends yesterday in Israel. He is in modi En and I texted him and I said, are you awake right now? Because it was one o'clock in the morning his time, and I put in parentheses, maybe the Iranians woke you up? And he responded to me three hours later, Yes they did. It's four am, and I'm up.
What's up?
This is the life they're living and it's not sustainable and the only way to take this out is to take out Iran and take out Hesbla. And they're they're joined.
At the hip.
Now. I have read that the idea FS advanced to the Latani. They have taken the high ground south of the Latani so that the anti tank missiles cannot hit Galilee anymore. Have you seen that confirmed? But I don't know if you have friends in the north, do you.
I don't not that far north, and so many people have left the North that even if they did normally live there. I have friends who lived in that region and they're vacationing right now near Gaza, actually because it's it's calmer and more pleasant near Gaza.
Right now, well, you know.
I think I'll be long retired and maybe in my reward before the idea leaves Lebanon this time, I'm really really sort of resigned to that. Do you agree with my assessment?
Unfortunately, probably unless something drastic happens, which you know has happened every thirty seconds for the last five years. Something drastic happens, so you know, anything's possible.
And I've got check on net and Yahoo and his base. How do you assess it? From here?
I try not to opine on Israeli politics because I don't want to understand it.
They're all so crazy over there.
My read on it is no one seems to like him very much, and that hasn't really changed, but he's still there. He's got the staying power of a cockroach. And I don't say that in a nasty way. I personally don't really care either way, but nothing really is going to get rid of that man.
I agree he is as John pod Or, it's like to say, the preeminent politician of our time, Anthony Mandel. Follow her on exit, Bethany Shandark go to the mom Wars dot substack dot com. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. A couple of updates. The president has told the press through Carolyn Levitt that he's considering the proposal. Via the President of Pakistan and the exile of Crown Prince of Iran raised up Alav has called on the
army to rise up against the IRGC. I'm joined now by Byron Yorky of Fox News, contributor of Fame and lead correspondent for The Washington Examiner. Byron, I know you're not in the prediction business, You're in the analysis business. What'd you make of the President's post this morning and the reaction there too?
Well, I thought it was a pretty stunning post. I have to tell you. Uh it was. You know, I understood the you know a lot of people's objections to the Eastern Morning post was really just on the sort of propriety of it. You know, why would you do this on Eastern Morning?
Uh?
But today, you know, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Don't want it to happen, but it probably will. You know, that was kind of a stunning.
And then it's been going on for forty seven years. God bless the Iranian people. I really like a.
Lawyer, you you know, to say it's been going on forty seven years. The entire presidency of Ronald Reagan passed during this time when Iran was at war with the United States. Okay, the entire presidency with George H. W. Bush, of Bill Clinton, of George W.
Bush.
I mean, all of these presidents past, and they did not go to war over this with Iran. And so I mean to suggest, I think that this is absolutely urgent matter that's been waiting forty seven years and has to happen tonight is probably I.
Don't want to complain to think I'm saying that the post is qualified by the ending, that the beginning of the post is qualified by the ending of the year of the post. He puts forty seven years.
Actually that I don't know. It depends on what you mean by civilization. Maybe right, But you know, you have to remember what was the goal. The goal is to keep or Ran from having a nuclear weapon, and that goal, to my knowledge, has already been achieved for some significant period of time into the future. And I do not believe anything can be done forever.
But I believe that the relevant precedent for US is what happened with North Korea. It was too early, It was too early it was too early. It was too early, and then it was too late because they assembled the necessary conventional forces that could have destroyed Soul, so we could not attack their nuclear weapons program. And so all those presidents you mentioned, they all said Iran couldn't have a nuclear weapon. Well, now we've gone after their nuclear
capacity once one time, one strike, they began to rebuild it. Again, we went after it a second time, and they closed the straight to where moved, so they escalated. We have to control the ladder of escalation. I don't see an alternative.
Well, what happens when you get to the top of the ladder of escalation.
You continue to run what Clinton ran over Iraq for ten years, a no fly zone in which George HW. Bush continued George H. W Bush began and Bill Clinton continued, a ten year no fly zone that strikes everything that could be part of reconstituted. But they've got to open the strait. Now, this can end tonight at seven point thirty. If they say Straight's open, we get they control the ladder of escalation.
Well, the Strait was not an issue prior to this invasion or this attack. The first US Israeli attack, was it?
Yes, it was because they've whatever power that they are now demonstrating, they have always possessed. What they have done is revealed the world what they will do, which is attack fourteen countries in a fanatic, religious, lunatic way. And they were beginning to rebuild what had been obliterated a year ago. What was the president supposed to do? Let them rebuild it?
No, the whole point is to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, correct, which the world has successfully done up to this point and can continue to do up to this point without destroying any civilizations.
Well, we're not going to destroy the Irion civilization. And I don't think it's even possible to read that post and read it as other than intended for the regime to mean. I mean business. I will destroy the bridges and the power plants, which by the way, is not a war crime. Anyone who ever seen the bridges tooko re or the bridge over the river. Bridges are targets, so are power plants. So what do you think he's
going to do. I think he's going to bomb me around tonight unless they open the straight unqualifiedly immediately.
Well, as I said, you know, the post on Sunday power Plant, which specifically talked about bridges and power plants. I think most of the opposition to that was just in terms of the quorum. Yes, but it wasn't, at least mine wasn't the substance of it. I thought it wasn't the greatest Eastern message in the world, but you know, it wasn't the substance of it. What does Trump do?
I mean, you know, we're having another one of these sort of wait for the exciting conclusion of tonight's episode issues where they're talking now about some sort of deal. Could there be some sort of deal? The Pakistani minister has a plan for a ceasefire, and the President says he'll look at it. You know what's going on. So my guess is you don't see an attack tonight. But I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't bet in either way.
You know, if they capitulate, it will be the greatest foreign policy success. The United States is the chief since nineteen eighty nine, and that includes the fall of Saddam because we didn't secure the country afterward, and we will not have done it with boots on the ground. I'm not a big favor of regime democracy planting anymore. But I do believe this is necessari because I cannot imagine my grandchildren living with iron with sixty percent and rich
uranium a week away from breakout. They're crazy. I'll give you the last word.
Buy well here in there are bad regimes in the world. There are crazy regimes in the world. You have to control them. And up until now we have met, even with the terrible mistake, let's call it the mistake of Barack Obama, we have managed to keep the West has managed to keep Iran away from a nuclear missile. The point is to make sure they don't have nuclear weapons. Keep doing that. At the president's press conference yesterday with General Cain and Hegseth and Ratcliff, he said, people.
Keep asking me, why are you going to do this?
Why are you got to do this? And I said Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. That is the fundamental goal here.
And I agree. And he said that many, many, many times. He repeats the manger message again in a and again and again. But now the subsidiary message is stop screwing with your neighbors who are not combatants and open the strait. And they're pirates. They're lunatics, but we will see tonight. Byron York. Always go to talk to you. Fall him on Exit Byron York, read him in the Washington Examiner, and see him on Fox News. Don't go anywhere, America.
I'm coming right back. Lilax is coming up, and then I'm gona just take a break from Iran because we got countdown talk. John Coleman, lead contribute to Harvard Business Review, has written a new book, Good Money, and Good Money is about the right way to approach thinking about money. I thought we'd take a break from Iran all the time around the time, so I will continue to bring you updates as necessary. Don't go anywhere, stay soon. I'll be right back. I'm the hugeish.
Place speaking of foreign land with weapons and every hand.
Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh youwett morning Glory and eating grace. I am playing on for the love of America because it was originally brought to my attention by my guest James Lilacs, probably twenty four years ago, after nine to eleven, maybe twenty three years ago. Is that when you first introduced me to that, James, I think that.
Was about it.
Yes, right after the war we were gearing up. We felt like we were back in a World War two sort of ethos. But we wondered if we had the will of the means, And that song was a reminder of a time when they also wondered if they had the will of the means, but bucked themselves up with good patriotic songs.
So we are three hours away from the deadline, a little bit less than three hours at eight pm. B fifty two's are said to have taken off from England. It's about the flight time would get them there around eight o'clock. I want everyone who didn't hear the first two hours to hear one thing. It is not a war crime to hit bridges or power plants. If those bridges are power plants, support your enemies political regime and
military outfit. But boy at the left lost its mind. James, have you been following this today?
Well?
I have, and I think part of the reason is that that was really an extraordinary tweet. That was a tweet for the ages, and I assume that you've been talking about it for the last couple of hours. A whole civilization will die tonight, that you know, that's that is the meanest I think of the mean tweets for which Donald Trump has been accused of making. I'm not sure what that means. I mean, does he mean the regime? Does he re mean that? Does he mean the civilization
of Islamic oppression over Iran? Because it sounds like, sorry, Persia, ye had a nice long.
Run, but it's over tonight.
I don't know what exactly that means, although I do love that when he says, maybe there'll be something revolutionarily, which is actually a word. See he can make that up. He says, who knows, which is I sort the sort of strategic ambiguity. I think that we enjoy the situations, like.
The exact language because he at the end of it he said, and God bless the Iranian people. It was a classic Trump You know, when he's talking about Iranian civilization, I think he's talking about the IRGC and the artache, not destroying Persia and laying waste to it the way we did to Tokyo or the bridge did to Hamburg and other plays. We're not doing carpet bombing.
We're not doing that.
No, no, we're not. We're not We're not going to reduce Tehran to ashes. I mean, what remains to be hit.
I don't know.
I mean from what I've been hearing and reading, there are all these underground cities we collapsed, the entrances, they get the construction cruise, they open them up again, They haul out three or four missiles, and on and on our dose. I assume that they have a list of targets which will be strategically crucial for anybody to keep going.
Power, of course is handy and necessary.
But what I love when people were saying, well, and of course after Trump made that statement to the Iridians immediately broke off negotiations.
Who do you think, I don't know who we're talking to.
Whether or not we're talking to some political entity that has absolutely no control of the military as well, or whether or not we're talking to it rosa group that would like to slip it and take power when all a said and done.
But the idea somehow that the Iranians are negotiating in.
Good faith at this point, like all the other points, and that they just stormed away from the table because something crazy was said is.
A bit ridiculous. So we read the whole size.
This is the truth. Social notes a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have wait and you've got to go to the end stuff right there?
Okay, all right?
However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? All in cap we will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran.
Revolutionarily Yeah, revolutionarily wonderful sounds like a lyric you would find it, and you know in Seid of the musical seventeen seventy six. But if something, if the civilization is going to die, then that means that it's bad. That that means it's the Iranian regime. But he doesn't want it to happen. Why doesn't he want it to happen? Again, I'm not the most clear concise.
I would have written it differently, but I would have said the regime that has ruined Iran for forty seven years will come to an end tonight and they still have a chance to do this peacefully. But the great people, I would God bless the great people of Iran. I'd leave that last line in. But James, I want to go back to whether or not the talk of war crimes this is absurd. I took international law in nineteen eighty. I've been studying it, teaching parts of it in kam
law for thirty years now. If you target dual use infrastructure, it's not a war crime. We did that in Yugoslavia, we did that in Libya. Why is this all of a sudden a talking.
Point reaching and grasping Ukraine.
I believe blew up a bridge in Russia today or yesterday, and odd no one is talking about that being a war crime. Ukraine did it because the Russians were moving material all across it to go kill more Ukrainians and capture more soil. So Ukraine has nevery right to go and do that, and no one's mentioning that.
Again.
I have to think that a couple of bridges were probably taken out during World War Two.
I don't think that they said.
No, leave that we don't want to be brought up in the dock after the war's over. It's preposterous, it is ridiculous, But again they have to say something because the general overall idea, the course of this is to liberate the Iranian people and make it so that women can walk around with their hair showing without being bitten by sticks, by mino jump out of cars. And since it's hard to get to be against that, they have to find all sorts of alternative means to scream about it.
And there you are, it's the latest thing. Knock the ice right off the table. There for people who were getting upset about it, would seem.
Do you think everyone has forgotten that the regime The president used the number fifty thousand yesterday, the Crown Prince of Iran's on my program. The low end was thirty five thousand murdered in January, So I've been using the thirty five thousand number. What can you say about a regime that murdered thirty five thousand of its own people. They're not good people.
No, absolutely not, and it's completely in keeping with what they have always been. That's why the idea, somehow that we just decided for some strange reason, to go over there and make trouble with her on when Iran has been absolutely at our throats, intellectually, spiritually, militarily, terrorist wise for forty seven years. It's ridiculous, DoD I mean give Trump credit for this. He was talking about the need for regime change a long long time ago.
I mean back when he was doing Oprah shows.
So it's not something that is just suddenly he decided to fixate on to distract attention from Epstein, which is which just what you hear on the left over and over and over again. This is all about a wag my dog to keep people from looking at the Epstein files.
Please.
People have forgotten about the Epstein files. People have forgotten that we sent a rocket.
To the moon.
It's going to be news to a lot of people when that thing splashes down. It's like, what did they go up in seventy one and never come back? I mean, the attention span at this point is short, and the information quantity seems to be.
Well, let me talk about when Artemis is a big story and I'm I'm a big fan of that particular mission, but I am a bigger fan of the rescue mission and the extraordinary mission within a mission, we've sign a bunch of B twos. In the middle of that, forty five hours of getting the two airmen, we sent a bunch of B twos to bomb a command center with the IRGC and once again ill advisedly gathered and we knew about it and we hit that. What did you
make of that rescue. I'm still not over it. I'm still talking about it.
It's extraordinary and it's very much America.
As somebody pointed out on Twitter that in the space of X number of hours we had sent this entire force in there to rescue our people and also just shot a rocket at the moon. That's America. That's the America that we love. That's the America that can do things. It was a remarkable operation and it reminds you again we're not where we were back in the Carter eras when the first Delta Force mission really did not do so well at the whole setting.
Up a base and trying to rescue.
People think we're much better at it, and we're incredible at it, and the world knows it and sees what we do. There were those who were saying, we don't understand why you would expand so much material and so many airframes to rescue a few people.
That's the American difference.
We're not going to leave them on the battlefield like the Russians and have people drag them back with you with chains if they dragged them.
Back at all. No, they're important, they're alive. We're going to go get them.
And the story of one man hold out with a pistol gets rescued on the Easter. It just makes the whole thing make you say, when is the movie coming out?
Because there's going to be a movie.
Right There be many a movie. And I liked your mind. People. We've been doing it this way since we've been flying. George H. W. Bush, President Bush, the first pulled out of the drink twice when he got shot down as a fighter pilot in World War Two. I had a friend Tim Cook. I have a friend Tim Cook who flew over Vietnam repeatedly, always aware that they would try and come and get you, and occasionally they would if you got shot down. But it was tough in the
jungles of Iran. I'm just amazed at how they threw it together in forty five hours. Nothing in America. I don't.
Well, it does if you're motivated, and if he does, if you're these guys, and it does if you have a meritocracy where people are based on skill and rewarded as such, Yes, then it would put these guys in charge of California High Speed Rail and you'd probably have that thing opening within eight months.
Don't give them any ideas, Lilax. Please don't suggest that I don't want it to open in forty five days. But you're right if they'd put a military. When I first built the Nixon Library, I hired a marine retired colonel to make sure that I didn't screw it up too badly. Jim O'Brien, if you're listening still, thank you, Lilax. Thank you. Read him over at James Lylas dot substack
dot com James Lilacs dot substack dot com. We'll just head right over to lilights dot com and get the free version, but the substack is well worth your money. Change Lylens dot substack dot com. Coming back with John Coleman, Good money next on the Uewit Show. My friends, you've probably seen the headlines are worse. Your latest cell bill, big Wirelesses raising rates again that means you can be paying more for the same service, or getting pushed into
a priceier plan that you simply don't need. That's the right. There is a better way, and it's called Consumer Cellular. Millions of Americans have already made this switching For good reason. Consumer Cellular is consistently ranked number one in customer satisfaction because they treat you like a customer, not a number. With Consumer Solular, you get flexible, affordable plans to fit your life, not the other way around. No long term contracts,
no hidden fees. You can keep your phone and use a new one, so don't let big wireless dictate what you pay. Take control today. Visit Consumer Cellular dot com slash Hugh and use the promo code Hugh Hugh for your second month for free, or call eight hundred four one one four fifty four again. Remember my code is Hugh. If you're over fifty listening to this, you can get a single line with unlimited talk, textan data for just thirty five dollars. I'm a Consumer Sellular dot com slash Hugh.
Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. You've met John Coleman. If you're a long time listening to the program. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School, longtime friend of the program. Now he's the author of a brand new book called Good Money. That's right, Good Money, Six Steps to Take to make your financial help. I haven't got the subtitle down, John, welcome, give me the subtitle of the book again.
Yeah, Six Steps to building a financial life with purpose. And thanks so much for having me on here. It's a privilege to be here.
Well, I'm pretty interested in this. I want to give people your background. You're a graduate of Harvard Business School, you're graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School. You're contributing writer to the Harvard Business Review. And I guess they have a program on human flourishing. What is that program about.
John, Yeah, So Harvard has an incredible program on human flourishing, which is actually an academic study center headed by a guy named Tyler Vanderweel and collaboratively with Baylor and Gallup, they now have the largest study of human flourishing in the world.
So they've surveyed a few hundred.
Thousand people about the elements of human flourishing and have really developed one of the most academically rigorous frameworks around it.
And it's something through both my writing and my professional career as an investor that I've dug into with them and am able to reflect in the book now to outline, because if you're going to think about using money to create a good life, you have to start with this idea of what is a good life, and that program helps to answer what components of a good life make it possible.
I also want the audience to know you know which you speak. You came out of HBS. I think you went right to McKenzie, then at Vesco and on and on and on. Now you're running Sovereign's Wealth. Have I got that right?
Yes, Sovereign's Capital. And the book is really the intersection of these two streams that I've had in my life. One for about fifteen years, I've been one of hbr's
principal writers on purpose, human flourishing and meaning. And then on the other, I've spent my life as an investor, building some acumen with investment investment management, obviously, but also dealing with wealthy families and institutions, and so I had noticed there was a gap in the market trying to understand this intersection of purpose, meaning and human flourishing and the way to use money well, which is what I'm surrounded by in my day job. And Sovereign's Capital to
you today is a values oring investment firm. So we actually try and incorporate these principles of human flourishing into the work that we do within the companies that we purchase or invest in.
And so it's a really neat.
Thing to be able to synthesize that in this book and connect those two topics more deeply.
Now, John Coleman, Good Money. Before we get to that, I had Arthur Brookshawn last week talking about how to build your life. Well, Arthur, wasn't there when you were there? Was Clayton Christiansen teaching this stuff? I mean, where did you get the impetus to think this way?
Oh my gosh.
Clay Christensen is just such a marvelous human being and we all miss him very much. And indeed, Clay was one of those formative people I had a number of great professors at Harvard Business School. You know, I've been really concerned with this idea of purpose and meaning and flourishing throughout my life, Hugh, partially because of my faith background,
so I'm a Christian. That's obviously central to the faith that I have, and I've constantly fretted over this idea, how do I create greater flourishing in the life of my family, but also as a mission in life for me?
How do I create.
Opportunities for others and try and enable purpose, meaning and flourishing in their lives. Clay Christiensen has leaned into that, and I was privileged to be able to learn from him. David Gergan, who was at the Kennedy School while I was there, I was someone who was great for that. Arthur Brooks has been a great person to get to know since his AI days before he went to Harvard.
And there's just so much great work going on in the world right now around this topic, and I think it's needed because we see in culture a dearth of purpose, meaning in human flourishing, and that's something I think all of us are trying to speak into more comprehensively.
Well.
Claik Christiansen wrote the book How to Measure a Life, and I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read about performance and metrics that make a lot of sense for one individual's life. Let's turn to good money, and again good money, the subtitle of which is I want to get to write six steps of building a financial life with purpose. All right. Step number one change the way you think about money. That's a pretty big that's a pretty big gulp.
Yes, And you know, essential to that really is this idea of understanding that money is a means, not an end, to human flourishing. And that's the very first mindset I try and address when I talked through the framework from Harvard that I've leaned into. There are five intrinsically meaningful things you can do with your life. Positive relationships, character and virtue, meaning and purpose, happiness and life satisfaction, physical, mental,
and spiritual health. The six category is financial and material stability.
Money. But money is really.
Just a means to achieving those more intrinsically good things. And if you focus on it too much, if you make it and ends, it can actually be in conflict with your ability to build with great relationships or.
Character and virtue.
So I try and anchor people around that, and then also anchor them in this idea of enough. You know, the hardest question to answer in money is how much is enough? It's been perennial. I talk about a Tulsoy short story in the book to demonstrate he was thinking about it. There are some great quotes from John Rockefeller when they asked him at the height of his wealth, how much is enough, John, or how much more do you need? And he said just a little bit more.
And we all think that way. And so I encourage people to reflect on it as a means in and also to put a real framework around how much money is enough for me to achieve these other more intrinsically
meaningful things. And then how do I use any money beyond that to lean into those things through generosity, through business building, through better spending habits, et cetera, rather than just acquiring more and more, which is a cycle we get stuck in called the hedonic treadmill, where we're constantly just chasing more in the work that we do.
And so those are a couple of mindsets I anchor on.
So John, first hard question, You don't know how much you'll need when you start right. You have no idea if there's going to be illnessed or accident or tragedy, or children with special needs. You just don't know. So how do you guide people on the idea that we can figure out how much is enough?
Yeah, that's right, Hugh. And everyone's life situation is different, so there's not a number outlined in the book where I say this is enough for you. People do have different needs. We have a child with special needs, for example, we've got parents who are aging.
All of those things factor into what you need. I think the key.
Discussion that spouse's should be having with each other, with their broader network of friends or a financial advisor is what is the lifestyle that we want to lead and what does that look like, so that you have a concept of that and what you think that network target or income target is to address that, because the trap
that you're trying to avoid is lifestyle escalation. You know, the typical person, when they make a little bit more at a job, their income goes up, but their spending goes up right along with it, right, And that's why it's called the hedonic treadmill, because we get caught kind of chasing escalating lifestyle as our income goes up, even though that escalating lifestyle, especially material things, often doesn't make
you happier. In fact, there's some evidence that acquiring material things can actually be negative for happiness, fulfillment and purpose over time if focused improperly.
And so I get him to think.
About the lifestyle, the type of house, the type of education, the types of expenditures they need to make make that decision for themselves, and then a course of tragedy strikes. If you can encounter a complicated life circumstance, like someone with health problems, you can adjust that over time to reflect your life. But it's really stepping off the treadmill and being more conscious of the material things that you're accumulating and how your lifestyle is escalating.
I'm going to be right back with John Coleman. He's the author of the brand new book Good Money, Six Steps, Six Steps to building a financial life with Purpose. So don't go anywhere except maybe over to Amazon to find good Money six Steps building a I got to get that headline good Money six Steps to building a financial life with Purpose. Just remember good money in John Coleman. That's easiest thing at Amazon. I'll be right back. Welcome back in America. I'm here with John Coleman, author of
the brand new book Good Money. You'll find good Money at Amazon, at Barnes and Noble wherever books are sold. And because it's both a self help book and a finance book, a lot of people are going to wonder about the six steps of building a financial life with purpose, and they want the outline version of it. So I'm going to give you the outline version of it. But first, John, how did you end up you don't know any South in your mouth? How did you end up so deeply
involved in Georgia's stuff? Oh, I was.
Born in Florida, Actually, Hugh, I tell the story bit in a book. My dad was a rodeo cowboy.
When I was born. We lived in a single wide mobile home in Florida.
My mom cut hair and so I don't know how I didn't get an accent. I grew up in Columbus, Georgia. Primarily I joke with my parents. I maybe watch too much TV. But if you met my extended family you definitely hear more of that Georgia and North Florida accent.
For sure.
Dad was a rodeo guy.
Yeah, he wrote bulls in saddle bronc courses. So, Hugh, I've been a perpetual disappointment to my father. There's no way to really live up to that level of adventure and masculinity, you.
Know everything, actually, but my mom is very happy.
It intersects with my worst moment on the radio. But I'll tell you that story. An other time happened at the Rodeo National Finals in Las Vegas, when I was talking to a world champion bull rider. But another time. Prioritize purpose in your working career. Step two. Okay, how is a twenty four year old supposed to do that? Let's say that's the average HBS graduate or if you go back for an executive NBA at thirty five, how do you prioritize purpose? Yeah.
The simple way that I think about this is there is really no success without significance. So in our culture, there's this idea I can just bear down, take a job for the money, become successful, and then I'll figure out how to make my life significant. And I think that mindset is actually behind all the disengagement we see. So if you look at surveys right now, only around twenty percent of people say that they get a significant source of meaning and purpose from their work. In the
United States, which is catastrophic. That's where you spend most of your time forty to fifty sixty hours a week, and so I have this idea that almost any job can be meaningful, but we have to look for the opportunities to really build out those sources of meaning and
purpose in our work. I interviewed a bus driver actually for my last book on Purpose with HBr and he had made this job a bus driver intrinsically meaningful by viewing himself as a caretaker for the kids on his bus, celebrating them, encouraging them, connecting them with one another, helping them build relationships. He wasn't just a driver, he was
a teacher. And I think in each of our jobs, it's incumbent upon us to look for those opportunities to serve others, to build positive relationships, to excel at our craft, and even to tweak our jobs in ways that become
more meaningful. And because earning is the first way in which we encounter money, I thought it important off the bat to help people understand how to build more purpose and meaning in their way were so that they didn't feel they were just working for a paycheck, that they were actually using that time there at were both to earn money, which is important, but also to really live into the mission of their lives and exemplify their values.
Now, John, Over the weekend, we saw the most amazing thing I think I've seen in my life in terms of human activity, which was the rescue of the second pilot from the F fifteen That involved an operation involving thousands of people with a long tail back to a secretary at the Pentagon who is probably staying up late checking the eyes and the t's on the documents that
were authorizing the thing. How do you infuse purpose into an organization like that, because that was obviously quite an amazing purpose driven result, Oh my gosh.
And the US military is one of the best examples of a purpose driven organization. If you talk to marines or Army rangers or Air Force pilots, they put purpose at the center of all they do. They have a very clear mission as an organization, they have very clear values, and I think they start with that so that they're recruiting and identifying people who come because they connect with
that mission. And then everything that they do with internal to the organization is helping the individuals in that organization connect with that both at the umbrella level, like I'm a marine and this is what Marines stand for, but also with the individual members of their unit, with the people that they train with, with those who they're going to deploy with. And so what I think the military
does a great job of. First they have such a wonderful and clear mission at the outset, which is absent from some jobs and you have to work harder at. But they then connect it down to the personal level. They reinforce it in everything that they do. They recognize those whether they're Medal of Honor winners or others who have contributed significantly to that and set that as an
aspiration for others. And they're really one of the best examples in the world right now of a purpose driven organization wherever person is on mission, and that rescue story that you mentioned is such a great example of that, where people are literally putting their lives on the line, not just for the mission of the country, for the values of their service branch, but also to contribute to one another.
Deeply inspired. Really one of the most inspissal things I've seen. I'll be right back with John Coleman, and I've only done two of the six steps in good Money. I'll get through them in the final segment don't go anywhere in America. I'm here HERETT with John Coleman Good Money. It's his new book, blogging back to America. I can talk to John Coleman for a long time because the young man who has done a lot and it's going to do a lot more. But I want you to
look at his book Good Money. Six Steps to building a Financial Life with Purpose steps four five six three four five sticks, spend and consume wisely, use your means to help others, invest for maximum impact, and say for freedom not retirement. Now, John, I'm seventy years old. Hopefully I've done these things. But one of the things I think the fetching missus YOUHWTT and I did early on was learned to spend wisely and just not fall in
love with expensive things. How do you advise people to do that?
Yeah, I mean there's a prudent step, which is just never spend more than you have, don't let your networth go negative, stay out of debt. I think beyond that, most of us end up spending on material things. And if I had a rule of thumb we use around our house, it's experiences not stuff. In general, acquiring material things is both not leading to happiness and purpose, but
it also is what gets you in that trap. What you'd rather spend on are things like experiences which builds relationships, which are durable, health time, and the relationships in your lives, which are more oriented towards human flourishing and really lead
to happiness and purpose. And so I think the first step is for people to get off the material accumulation treadmill, both because that's what can lead you into debt, but also because it doesn't really result in the happiness that people are chasing as much of some of these other categories.
I got a dangerous question for you. The two most expensive hobbies I know of are cars and wine. Now I have no care for cars or wine, but do you have any advice in good money about picking your hobbies wisely, like if you follow the guard again, it's pretty cheap.
You know, those are expensive hobbies. I also don't engage in here. I think people have to be careful about what.
They get into.
And one of the little tidbits I have in the book is something called smash your idols, which is if you realize something is a bad obsession for you because you don't have the money to pursue it, you get caught up in status comparison, whether that be cars or watches or clothes or whatever it is.
To really go cold turkey to smash that I do.
That's a good idea. Yeah, I want to go to use your money to help others. We do a lot of that on the program. We waste a lot of money for a lack cause or like food for the poor. The last couple of weeks. How hard is it to persuade people that the scriptures? I had a lot of good guidance there.
Yeah.
And one of the tragic things right now is that most people are not as generous as we could be. Less than two percent of US GDP, only six and ten people give to charity in any given year, and it's only slightly higher for Christians right now. And yet generosity is proven as one of the two or three most important things to unlocking purpose and human flourishing in
your life. Even as physical health benefits, Generous people have lower incidences of all cause mortality, lower incidences of cardiac disease,
a variety of things physically and psychologically. What I'm trying to help people understand is how to do that more generously and more consistently, and that topics like becoming a percentage giver, doing things you're passionate about, not only giving money, but serving in these organizations so you become more involved in them, and doing it in partnership, particularly with your family, where you can introduce the practice of family giving.
All right, Joe, let me close with invest from maximum impact, say for freedom, not retirement. Now, I'm going to retire in a few more years, and I've done that, but I don't know what you mean by that. I just sort of focused on making sure that I could quit when I wanted to.
Yeah, And I'm kind of on a I don't believe in the conventional American view of retirement, which is withdraw completely from the world, build up a balance sheet enough that you can go play golf the rest of your time. I don't think the scripture tells us that, and I don't think the research tells us that. The Social Security Administration found that there's a twenty four percent decrease in
all cause mortality delaying retirement even one year. And so what I encourage people to do is really lean into using their talents and abilities for the entirety of their life as long as health allows, and instead saving so that they have the freedom and agency to choose what they're working on throughout their lives, so they're not trapped in something that's too busy or that's too fast a pace,
or something they don't enjoy. But building the financial flexibility so that they can use their talents for maximum impact at the pace they want over time, but not withdrawing completely from the workforce, which I also think benefits society because we don't want to lose the talents and experiences of older Americans either. And so I think there's a real shift in mindset for a lot of people about.
Arms, especially as lifespan expands. So, John, good money, it's your sixth book. How many more are you going to do? I did fifteen, and I said, you know, okay, there's no more. I got nothing left to say. How much more have you got left to say?
I got to be careful that my wife is not watching the program, Hugh, because she is probably not ready for.
Me to take on another book right now.
But I think there are a couple more in the tank, even with regards to this, and so I'm already floating a couple of new ideas and I love to write like you do, and so it's a privilege to be able to do so.
I have a suggestion how to teach your children, or just younger people generally, because I think the rising generation doesn't know anything about money, do you No?
And that's the concluding chapter of the book is actually on money in kids, because I thought that was the most.
Important way to wrap it, and so I.
Try and tie all of those six practices into how you can parent your children, because I think we're doing kids a great disservice today both just teaching them fundamental financial literacy and the principles and values behind that to make their lives better. So it's a crucially important point that's under emphasized.
You're involved in schools, maybe de Kalb County, do you insist or do you try and get them to teach financial literacy to kids?
Oh?
My goodness, I think even starting in middle school, we need more financial literacy in the classroom. I'm on the board of a college right now where I'm trying to emphasize that as part of the coursework. I think our educational institution should be starting as young as elementary school, introducing basic financial literacy concepts, and of course there's no substitute for parents picking that up. I mean, really, parents
have to be a critically part of mentoring. We've got a five year old through a twelve year old, four kids, and even our five year old now has a Ledger system. We're teaching the basic principles and we're evolving that to greater maturity with our twelve year old. But we parents have to think about taking ownership of that and encouraging each of our schools to be a compliment to that, a partner in that work.
In the final we got one minute. Debt is a killer, you know. That's my whole financial rule of life. Just don't go into debt. Do you share that?
For the most part, I think there are a couple of forms of debt that are a part of modern society that can be okay. Mostly asset back debt for things like mortgages, right can appropriate market. But I think uncollateralized debt, credit card debt, even student loan debt is something you have to be stupid.
No one should.
Carry credit card debt if they can avoid it, and I think the student loan debt crisis is one where people just aren't weighing the risks and returns.
Not well, John Coleman. Great to talk to you, and the book is Good Money. Good Money is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble bookstores everywhere. Good Money by a good man, John Coleman. Good to see you again.