Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things Hillsdale 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 que for Hillsdale dot com or just google, Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Great America.
I'm qu Quille.
It's ash Wednesday. I hope you are observing today. If you are Christian, if you're a Catholic, go get your ashes, go to mass. I have a word of advice from my friends in the priesthood, letting masses need to be short. They don't need music. People have to go to work, they don't need sermons. They just need to happen.
Now.
There are ASH Wednesday services late in the day after work that are fine, that can go longer and can have music, but really, the morning Mask, the noon Mass, they need to be thirty five minutes. We don't need music. People want to go to Mass and lent. Just let them go to Mass. It's not it's not Sunday. And I understand a lot of people are in the liturgical music business and they want to perform for the Lord and for the congregation.
But that's not the way to do Lent.
You know, the very best descriptions that led I'm gonna come to the war in a second I've ever read was in Wolf's Hall, which was an upside down novel that made Thomas Moore the bad guy, and that was bad.
But they did talk about.
Lent in the era of Henry the eighth, and they really went all in back then. Now it's like Lent light even for Catholics. I do is fast and abstained on ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and then abstain from meat on Friday and any other any other devotions or sacrifices you want to make in order to sort of observe the season of penance and repentance. The Pope went way out on a limb yesterday and asked every cathol
like to please not use harsh words about their neighbor. Now, that's not good for my business, but I'll try and go along with that. But I still got to play you the news. And I'm sure not going to be rooting for the Ayatola and the fanatics in Iran because we're on the brink of war. All of the bulletins coming from Israel are that they've gone into their defensive crouch.
They've alerted everyone to be ready for conflict. We've got the biggest mass forces that we've had anywhere in the world since prior to the Iraq invasion in two thousand and three. And it doesn't look like Iran wants to actually capitulate on the things that needs to capitulate on. Stop killing your people, Stop supporting Hamas Hezbalah and the UTIs, Stop building missiles and infect, disarm, and abandon attempts to
enrich and rebuild your obliterated nuclear program. Four asks don't have to destroy you that people might rise up against you. You've murdered thirty five thousand people. And I don't think Donald Trump is Barack Obama right on schedule. By the way, Ben Rhodes, the Metternich of ms NOW in the Architect of the Echo Chamber, posted eighteen minutes ago, no legal basis and no debate in Congress about what could be a major war with no clear sense of what the objective is or what comes next.
Huh. Kind of like Libya in twenty eleven.
Do you remember that the NATO operation that went on months and months, took out Kadaffi.
Though Kadaffi was.
Not making war on his neighbors, he was a repressive dictator.
He was bad for the world, and NATO went in didn't have a plan.
There's still a civil war going on there, but there was no congressional authorization or maybe Bill Clinton supporting the war in Serbia with General Wes Clark in charge of it in nineteen ninety nine that went on for seventy eight days air campaign. So look, there's one standard which the president gets to ordered if he wants to, and Congress can cut off the money if they want to. Congress isn't going to cut off the money Congress want,
says to happen. Left wing nutters who envisioned some kind of nirvana with Iran.
The Rhodes people, they've been wrong.
They've been wrong since President Obama came up with It would have been great if he'd been asked that on Friday night, but he wasn't, and he's not getting tough questions.
I JD.
Evance did on Monday from Martha McCollum. Here is the Vice President talking to Martha on yesterday, actually Tuesday, cut number.
One well, I'm obviously not going to make an announcements today. I think the President has a lot of options. We do have a very powerful military. The President's shown a willingness to use it. He also has a remarkable diplomatic team. He shown a willingness to use that too, And so what the President has been very clear with the Iranians, and actually I just talked to Steve Wook Golf and Jared Kushner this morning about some of their negotiations is
the United States has certain red lines. Our primary interest here is we don't want a Ran to get a nuclear weapon. We don't want nuclear proliferation if it Ran gets a nuclear weapon. There are a lot of othermes, some friendly, some not so friendly, who would get nuclear weapons after them. That would be a disaster for the American people because then you have these crazy regimes all over the world with the most dangerous weapons in the world. And that's one of the things the President has said
he's going to prevent. Now, we would very much like, as.
The President has said, to resolve.
This through a conversation and a diplomatic negotiation. But the President has all options on the table. And you know, one thing about the negotiation. I will say this morning, is you know, in some ways it went well, they agreed to meet afterwards. But in other way is it was very clear that the President has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through. So we're going to keep on
working it. But of course the President reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end. We hope it will get to that point, but if we do, that'll be the president's call.
He also talked about the difference between his speech at Munich and the speech that Marco Ribio gave this weekend. His speech was last year cut number three.
Rubio, Secretary State, was there. Gave a speech that had a lot of similar underpinnings to it. But they were applauding and they thought it was great.
So what happened with that?
Why is that the outcool?
Well I heard somebody say that I was the bad cop,
so that Marco could be a good cop. I mean, he gave a great speech, but he drove home I think a very important point that the Europeans have largely forgotten, or at least had largely forgotten over the past year, is that the reason why the President or Marco or me talk about borders, the reason why we talk about them spending more on their own security, the reason that we talk about them more becoming a vibrant economy again, is that we want Europe to thrive and we want
Europe to succeed. The problem that we have with Europe is not that we don't like Europe, even though you hear that from the European press.
It's not that we don't respect our allies. It's that they.
Are doing a lot of things to sabotage themselves. We would like that to stop. We would like them to be an ally in the true sense of the word.
And here's what the Vice President had to say about Aosa distinguishing herself and Munich Cut number four.
Martha, you bring me on your show.
You show me the most uncomfortable twenty seconds of television I've ever seen.
I take away from them there, what do you think?
Well, I think it's a person who doesn't know what she actually thinks. And I've seen this way too much in Washington with politicians, where they are given lines and when you ask them to go outside the lines, they were given. They completely fall apart because look, does AOC. Does anybody really believe that AOC has very thoughtful ideas about.
The mister vice president? But you're getting close to the Pope's landline, so we'll leave it there, and then the vice president, I'm the former President Obama cut number five.
Well, I think the president will do what he thinks isn't the best interest in the American people. I think he's shown very clearly that he has not Broughck Obama. He takes a much different approach to America's national security, and he's much more willing to act aggressively to defend America's national security. But the President of the United States is very much trying to find a solution here, whether it's through diplomatic op or through another option. That means
that the Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon. That has always been the main focus. If you go back to the campaign that you ran in twenty fifteen, the Republican primary campaign that he won, he said Iran cannot have.
A nuclear weapon.
I think it's very important for the American people to appreciate it's one of the most hostile and also one of the most irrational regimes in the world.
You can't have people.
Like that have the most dangerous weapon known to man. It would be awful for our security, would be awful for the future of our children. That is the goal of the President the United States, and he's got a lot of options and a lot of tools to make sure that doesn't happen.
As well.
After an interview and after the alert in Israel, crude oil is up by four point six percent today is sixty five dollars a barrel.
And I expect that we'll get higher and higher and higher.
Especially it'll pick spike when the war begins, and I think the war is going to begin. However, the ten year treasury is getting close to going below four percent, which is not your interest rate on a thirty year mortgage. A thirty year mortgage, you's got to tack on a point and a half to two points, so it's probably around six percent right now. Find out from Andrew and toodd dot com. Triple A Triple eight eleven seventy two.
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come right back. Noah Rothman of National Review is next. Welcome back America. I'm Hew Hewett. Noah Rothman, senior writer for National Review, joins us, Noah, is the war going to start soon?
Soon?
I assure your assessment that it's all but inevitable, but I couldn't put a timeline on it. I don't think the diplomatic track, as the president says, as a president describes it is completely exhausted. I think there will need to be some more deliberations over how fast we can
get the response from the Ranians. We're expecting a written response having to do with the asks that you outlined in the last segment, and if that is delayed or if they're unsatisfactory, I think you'll have the predicate that the White House needs to say that the diplomatic process is exhausted.
Both for a domestic American audience and for.
The audience in the Middle East that I think mostly this process has been for now.
No, you've got to help me out.
Pope Leo has told Catholic that this Lent, we can't say bad things about people. We have to be nice. And so Ben Rhoads posted, and so I'm going to have you respond. Ben Roads posted no legal basis and no debate in Congress about what could be a major war, with no clear sense of what the objective is.
What comes next? That was twenty five minutes ago. What do you think?
All right, I'm going to take some runway here.
I'm under no theological obligation to avoid criticizing mister Rhodes, and I will do so. The President, President Barack Obama said in twenty twenty two, in the midst of some really rare self criticism, that one of his bigger regrets as president was ignoring the two thousand and nine Green Revolution revolts in Iran. He said, in retrospect that was
a mistake. I haven't heard the president say anything he did during his presidency was a mistake, but that was, and that was Ben Rhodes brainchild, and it was part of a much broader strategy. The President Barack Obama entered
office determined to get Americans out of Iraq. He did so, but he did so recklessly and by empowering the Saite militias under Iran's thumb, under the assumption that they would bolster Iraqi security as well as create a more durable balance of power in the region between Iran and its scha Eyde elements and its orbit and the Sunni kingdoms that freaked out the Sunni states Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE Jordan.
They started developing relationships with Israel over the process, over the course of their fear that Iran was getting more power than they could deter its its aggression against and so they developed those links. When Donald Trump came in, He cultivated them. They flowered into the Abraham Accords. All the while the President executed strikes on those Schiite militias
that Barack Obama refused to strike. He even stopped strikes on ISIS targets and to create at one point when he realized that there were IRGC personnel on the ground directing those strikes very deferential to Iran, President Trump abandoned all of that. He struck the Shiite militias, He struck Saudi or the Syrian regime in Bashar al Asad's chemical
weapons contributing to its fatal decline. He struck Stelmani, and he observed restraint over the course of all of this could have exacted a much bigger price from Iran, for example, for the attacks on oil tankers, for the brazen drone strike on the Saudi petroleum processing facility at a Ramco in twenty nineteen, he didn't.
But when they went back.
Into office, he pursued that very same maximum pressure campaign with economic as well as diplomatic leverage, but also a military component. And by that point Israel had already wiped out Iran's decimated at least Iran's proxy militaries as a response to what the Wall Street Journal reports was Iran's green lighting, at least in some operational capacity of the October seventh massacre.
And we thought around could not be more weak.
After the Midnight Hammer operation that decimated the nuclear facilities, But we found out it could be made weaker still by its own people. The revolt in December and January, while crushed ruthlessly, has sacrificed whatever legitimacy is left in the Iranian regime. Ben Rhodes's project is in tatters. Ben Rhodes, as Barack Obama said repeatedly, tried to usher this country into the Community of Nations, to make it a responsible steward of its region and to create something like a
balance of power. The idea being that we should pursue something like Detant Nixon style the tent with Iran. The Trump administration came in and like Reagan said, no, no, no, what if we don't have to live with Iran anymore? What if it didn't have to exist at all. That's been a very consistent through life.
Yeah, they're always had the fatal flaw. Iran is run by religious zealots. The Soviet Union was run by atheists that don't have a next life to live for right, they're not millennialists. They just wanted the Kingdom on Earth to be paradise. Mister Rhodes makes the point that there's
no congressional debate, no resolution in that regard. It's like the nineteen ninety nine US participation in the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia against Serbia and Montenegro and the twenty eleven Barack Obama bombing campaign in which we participated leading from behind. I think was the famous phrase to bring down Kadafi. I'm just wondering, he is there a good way to say that those were okay? And the United States acting now is not because I don't see it.
I don't see it either.
You and I have had disagreements over the necessity of new AUMFS Authorizations for the use of military force, which is the functional declaration of war that Congress has the constitutional authority to issue when it comes to Venezuela.
We've been at odds over that. I am not.
Concerned when it comes to strikes in Iran. I think the Iranian regime is it's not a tortured reading of the two thousand and one AUMF to suggest that the regime in Iran is captured by that AUMF, and we.
Acted on it.
In fact, in two thousand and six two thousand and five, during the time in which Iran was actively facilitating the killing of US soldiers in Iraq, we estimate that roughly six hundred or more US soldiers are We're dead, not wounded, killed as a result of Iranian.
Action in Iraq.
I think the AUMF captures that would it would be sufficient to legally justify an attack on the Iranian regime designed to topple the Iranian regime.
Okay, one last question. I think I'm under an injunction from the pontiff. Not to be mean, but I just want to be accurator. We gave them a billion and a half dollars on pallets, and we each sanctions during President Obama's tenure, but it was obamacarey ben roads A toen them a billion and a half in Is it fair to say they bought the bullets that killed the thirty five thousand people or.
The shaped chart the shaped charges that were imported and delivered into the hands of insurgents that were used to attack US soldiers and Ied attacks yeah. I think that's absolutely fair because money is fungible. The Iranian regime uses the funds that it gets not for hospitals necessarily, but for terrorist attacks, and you can't tell where the money is going once you give it to them.
I will give Ben Rhodes this.
I think the president President Donald Trump should come to the American people sooner rather than later. The campaign that he's envisioning is a week's long campaign.
It will be a fraught project.
The Iranians might face a situation where it's not like the Twelve Day War, where it's.
A use it or lose it kind of situation for them, and.
They might fire off all all the Bliss missiles that they have in their capacity and use some asymmetric capabilities to try to target American troops American naval assets. We should be prepared for that and prepare for the prospect that it could be a war that involves casualties.
U right.
I think thousands of Americans could die. It's unlikely, but it's possible. Our allies could be injured. Israeli could die by the tens of thousands if they get a good hit off. And I don't think anyone has really been preparing for that in the way that before two thousand and three, and I want to give you the last word, W did and before nineteen ninety one, HW did. I don't think anyone's talking about the threat to Americans.
No, no, And I worry that the White House is afraid of articulating to the American people what the worst case scenario could be, because.
It is really scary.
But this is a national project that deserves to be pursued. And the argument for taking out this regime the most malignant force on the planet Earth, which has been at war with the United States for fifty years, which has killed in Americans and will continue to kill Americans, and it's possessed of a suicidally millenarian outlook in which it's the members of this regime, the claresy, do not care if they invite something like a Gotterdam of room and
are a real catastrophic conflict with the West. This is a necessary project. It's necessary for Donald Trump to pursue what he started in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen.
And I think the American people would be on board with him.
But Donald Trump has to ask the American public to join him in this project.
Because we have said Noah Rothman and I thank you for keeping me inside my lent in red lines.
Thank you very much.
I'll be right back in America. State Tum, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm joined now by Mary Katherine Ham, host of Getting Hammered, with her co host Victoria Victor Reno Mattis.
I listened to it today.
But before we get into that, Mary Catherine, would you update people on what you're doing for America two fifty.
Yes.
I am doing daily or near daily readings of primary documents from or by to or from founders so that I can sort of keep tabs on the whole year of seventeen seventy six, So I'm lining them up with each date and doing a reading on the Getting Hammered feeds. You can subscribe for all of that there. Because I didn't want to get to the end of the year and realize I hadn't done anything special to honor this
year outside of July fourth or whatever holiday. So I'm learning a little bit every day because it's always helpful to brush up, and it's always helpful to hear the founders in their own words. So that's what I'm working on.
I think George Washington's letters fabulous. You've used Abigail Adams, You've used John Adams. How are you finding Is there a reader out there that you're just borrowing from or you out there doing a regional research.
I'm doing research, but the Library of Congress is extremely helpful.
That John Adams paper is extremely helpful.
And I'm going to look at talking to the Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpellier folks and seeing if I can get access to some of these documents as I moved through the year, because there are some really fantastic ones.
What I want everyone to do is to rewatch Adams HBO, the first two episodes which lead up to the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Abigail Adams. So that is Paul Giamadi as Adam, maybe the equal mini television never made. Mary Catherine. I want to turn now first to the funny part of today's getting hammered. Who do you look like? You know when you walk up to you? Did anyone ever tell you look like X? That's happened to me
a couple of times. The first time was at the two thousand and seven Game four, when the Indians went up three to one against the Red Sox in Cleveland. I was there with my brother Pat Wilson and Rob Ganary and a guy comes up and he says, are you Stephen King?
And that was actually horrible, you know, I think that was terrible.
But then, of course I've had a long running gag with Peter Kinder, former lieutenant governor of Missouri, because what do you think does Peter Kinner do it?
I mean, I can see it a little.
So who do you get compared to?
Oh?
My, this is the thing.
You have to go super flattering, and when people talk to me, they go super flattering, and it's but then you're stuck on the other side, which is people go, wait, you're totally not as hot as Jessica Biel.
Who is who I get hair to sometimes? Nev Campbell another one.
Oh, I've got one for you body. I look up her name because I can't remember it. It's an old movie star who I love a lot, and it's Oh, come on, Audrey Heppern Tiffany. So do you ever get that?
I don't.
But that's far too kind as well, and I will take it.
No take that.
I think you look like Audrey Heppern. You have to change your hair a little bit more than you have now. Talking about hair, my dad used to cut our hair three boys. Took about fifteen minutes total. He had a clipper. We were buzzed. Why doesn't husband just go and buzz the little boy?
Okay, So I gave my son his first haircut. He's three years old. It was getting a little out of control. The reason is because I like to cut hair. I think it's a fun.
Thing to learn, and my children are my guinea pigs.
I will also tell you that as a child, we didn't have a lot of money, and so my dad cut all of our hair. My dad cut his own hair and then he cut all three kids. I was the only girl, so guess what. And my mom had short hair.
We all had the same haircut.
I had short hair till I was like eight or nine, and I finally was like, I think I'm going to grow it out a little.
So that's where the tomboys side of me probably came from.
You know, when you were.
Telling you about cutting your son's hair, you were like the fetching missus Hue at thirty five years ago. She did not want to cut our oldest son's hair. I think he was like a hippie until the age of three, but he had curls, and she keepts.
I can't.
I can't take the curls. And you know her little Prince Edward's stuff. I hated it. But moms are in charge right when it comes to haircuts.
Yeah, and the curl the curls are irresistible.
And you know, if you have a little boy, sometimes that might be the only time in their life that they'll have those little curls in that long hair.
You get a little leeway at the beginning, so you take it.
I do want to we'll come back and talk about the war on the serious side with Mary Catherine after this, But I do want to ask you the peaking Duck place. Isn't it peaking duck or is it peaking gourmet that you guys were talking about.
It's peaking gourmee. But we were specifically referencing the duck, which is fantastic.
You know, it was not fair about that episode.
It's ash Wednesday, Mary Catherine, So listening to you two talk about Chinese food, it's not even fair. And you taped it on Fat Tuesday, but it drops on ash Wednesday, So you guys could go get your chicom food last night and we can't do it till tomorrow.
It's not really very nice.
That's a very smart programming note.
I'm going to put that down for future Fat Tuesday programming that we need to make sure we're on schedule.
Do you do do the Protestants do anything on ash Wednesday like the Catholics do?
Not really, but I do sometimes observe went because I think it's healthy to meditate and to pray about what Easter means.
As it's upcoming. So I will do some special Bible studies and work.
Well. When we come back, I'll tell you how the Pope is screwed up my lent already. Don't go anywhere America. Mary Catherine will be back for a second segment, except go like and follow getting Hammered with Vic and Mary Katherine, and you'll get the America to fifty bit bits from Mary Katherine as well.
Stay tuned.
Welking back Mary Katherine Ham. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Don't go anywhere America because she is back. Mary Catherine the Pope yesterday posted this to Catholics around the world. I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently underappreciated form of abstinence, that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor. That's very, very untimely for me because Ben Rhodes has entered the room and is tutting us about not having national authorization for striking Iran.
So what's response to mister.
Rhodes given the twenty eleven war against Libya that had no authorization, the nineteen ninety nine war against Jegoslavia Serbia that had no authorization, and a number of US I mean, how.
Do you answer, Ben? He's the matter nick of ns Now.
He's also just not a reliable narrator.
This is the architect of tricking US and the whole media and enlisting them to lie about the JCPOA.
For all these years.
Sure he wants another JCPOA, even though it doesn't do what it was advertised as doing when he was running his communications strategy about that with the American media.
Although I could give you my AOC answer, which is, you.
Know, I think that this is such a you know, I think that this is a long time policy of the US.
That's my other answer.
I'm not allowed to say that the Pope told me. I'm not That would be mean to AOC. How am I going to do this job for forty days?
I don't know, I see. I feel like you want to just narrow that funnel to hurtful words. Is just like cuss words.
But it just might mean my actual physical neighbors, right, I always.
Wave with there you go.
It could be that. Let's go to the question, the very serious question. I think we're on the cusp of a very big battle, if not a war. Do you agree with me?
It feels that way for sure, And like you and I have talked about, I think Trump would like to preserve his threat credibility, which I think he, you know, told everyone that there was going to be something happening here.
I have no doubt that we're doing something behind the scenes as well.
My only hesitation to say that the things are well underway is that they've been very very secret about things that have happened in the past with Maduro and with the B two bomber strikes on on a run in the past, and this one seems a little louder and a little bit more noticeable what they're up to.
So I'm I'm not sure if we're being tricked a little bit.
Well, the dimaggiadis out there. That means people who live and do a long, long stretch of you, Hughit shows we'll remember when Mary Catherine and Guy Benson used to sit in for me when I went on vacation. And I'm going on vacation next week, celebrating my seventieth birthday with the fetching missus Schwett taking a week off, and it's inevitable in my view that it will happen next week because news always happened when you and Guy were in for me.
Am I not right. News always happened.
That is true. That is true. We did encounter large news stories when you were gone.
So it's like clockwork.
I think it's going to go off on Sunday night when I get up into the air and can't turn around Mary Catherine.
If it does last. We did have the.
Serbian air campaign seventy eight days nineteen ninety nine. We had the Libyan air campaign months and months till Kadafi fell in twenty eleven. Do you have any idea in your mind what you think is acceptable to the American people for an air campaign, provided that there is no mass casualty event with the American troops.
I think it has to be relatively short, and it has to be well explained what is happening.
If you don't make a sustained.
Comm's campaign for the thing that you're doing, I think people can get antsy pretty quickly within a week or two, I would say, And that will change if you show leadership and you tell them why you're doing what you're doing. But I think they have a lot of concerns on the ground about their own lives, and if you're not making clear why risks are being taken and why things are happening and why we're using force, then they will not accept that for very long.
My beauty of.
Them to the bombing and Iran and in two thousand and three and after nine to eleven, w stepped up. But he had a lot of good communicators. He had Secretary Rumsfeld almost every day at the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Meers, under chairman or deputy Chairman Peter Pace. They had a lot of good people talking around the like Dick Cheney did some interviews. Who's going to be that President Trump is not great on long form addresses
explaining stuff the vice president is. Do you expect Jad to take the lead on this.
I think he will do some of it, but honestly, I would imagine that Rubio is doing a lot of it as well, and the two of them can be very clear about what's happening, and I hope they are speaking frequently about it, because that is what's required when you are putting forces in some harm's way, even if it's minimal, and you have to make your pitch to the American people so that they stay behind you on it.
So I want to close by talking about the talking filibuster and Merrick Katherine. I don't want you to be drawn into this unnecessarily, but Kim Strassel and I think it's the worst idea ever because we know something about the Senate rules. Mike Lee says, no, no, no, we're not going to We're not going to do the nuclear option.
This can be done on existing precedent. If that's the case, then Kim Strassel laid out how it becomes a nightmare and a quagmire for the Republican Are you on either side of this debate.
Yet I am on the more cautious side of the debate. I get worried very much about taking out these pillars that sort of allow things to be more deliberative, because the second that things are not deliberative, and I know that the Senate can be a pain, but the second that it's not a pain anymore and things are sailing through there, I'm.
Not going to be happy. I don't want a bunch of things passed very quickly.
You see.
That is the essence of being a conservative. Government cannot do a lot of good. All they can really do is defend the country and build highways. That's all they can effectively do. Everything else ought to be just money to the states and let the states do it. I don't want the Senate reforming everything that it wants to reform. And there might be some rules for federal elections, but this one is probably not even constitutional.
Have you studied the same Act?
Yeah, and I have concerns about it as well. Even though the goal of it sounds great, but I am unsure of the mechanism and the way of doing that from the federal government down. And even though it's a very popular idea.
Okay, last question, because you have the crystal ball for the Getting Hammered podcast, is Justice Alito going to retire?
Oh, let's just say yes.
All right, that's what the little Black Epe ball. Because I'm with you, I think he's going to step down. How about Justice Thomas.
I don't think Thomas.
We are in agreement.
That's why Mary Catherine with a great guest host in the days when she could guest host with Guy Benson and it would provoke news. Next week it's Kurt Schlickter. At least you have a colonel who can explain what
they're doing. MK Hammer on X follow and like Getting Hammered, make sure that you follow Getting Hammered, because you'll also get not only Vic and Mary Catherine, you will get the America to fifty series from Mary Catherine as she reads from the Framers and the Founder's important fits of American history two hundred and fifty years down the road. Stay tuned America on Juju Hewett. Welcome to this Wednesday
edition of The Huge Hewitt Shack. I have been following Robert Greenway for a long time, though he's never been on the program before. Long and distinguished career in Special Forces, long and distinguished career at the National Security Council to Defense Intelligence Agency. He now directs the Allison Center on National Security at the Heritage Foundation. Robert Greenway, welcome the program. I'm honored to have you on, sir. Thank you for joining me.
It's a great pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Now, every first time guest get the same two questions. Robert was algierhis a communist spy. I'd have to say, yes, good, good, right answer. Have you read the Looming Tower?
Yes, but it's been a few years.
All right, that's okay, we're on the same page. That puts you in like one tenth of one percent of my guests. They don't know about HISS. They're too they're too young. But you're old enough and you know your history, Robert. I need to know what you think is going to happen in Iran, the order of battles, so to speak. Not whether we're going to have a conflict. They think we're going to have a conflict, and boy, if you
disagree with may tell me. But I want to know what you'd think unfolds in terms of step one, two, three, four, five.
Sure, happy to do it.
I think the sequence of events has been something that most of the public has now seen displayed relative to Iran. The Twelve Day War was the last time in which
we were able to see it unfold. I think the president now as marshaled sufficient force the theater is what military experts would consider set or prepared to exercise the options presented to the president, which encompasses the strikes he may direct, but also more importantly is deterrence and response should the Iranians retell you with what is left what
I think is likely to happen. Normally in this series of events, you'd see the first step is to blind your adversary, basically to administer anesthesia so that you can operate with impunity.
But the Twelve Day War and.
Israel's actions in US support has allowed that to occur. So air defenses are largely gone over the horizon, radar detection sites are destroyed and have been restored, and their ability to do command control communications for or an integrated air defense and coordinated response to any strike has also been radically altered. The only leaders left in the country are the ones that were determined to be best suited.
In other words, the least competent to withstand direct attack and respond accordingly, and so I think we're in good position to see decisive action taken against their critical targets, which are probably regime leadership, potentially nuclear infrastructure to further degrade beyond what Midnight Hammer was able to do, and
then most importantly, the retaliatory capacity of Iran. Principally it's ballistic this will program, but also its ability to disrupt global trade and energy markets by closing the strain of our moves, and so naval and maritime ability to mine the straight would also be potentially within view.
Lastly, i'd say their energy infrastructure.
If the President decided he could prevent them from being an oil exporter for the foreseeable future.
All those targets are extremely vulnerable.
There are repercussions, of course, but those certainly could also be part of it. The last series of targets that could be hit are those which allow the regime it's population and control both their telecommunications infrastructure and also the besiege and element of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that suppresses the population most brutally and of course administers the executions that they said they would not do, but of course they have.
Now, Robert Greenway, that target list that you just laid out, how many different missions do you think that requires by either our aircraft, our allies aircraft, or special forces on the ground about which we know nothing.
Well, I'd say, since we can skip the first three steps, this patient has already been an esthetized, it doesn't have the ability to see or respond to an initial attack, we can jump right into decisive strike. And I think there are more than enough assets both in the region and certainly that are Konus based, like we saw in Midnight Hammer, that can execute strikes against command, controlling their communications infrastructure, their retaliatory capacity, and most importantly, further degrade
the nuclear program. So I think all of that could happen within a forty eight to seventy two hours cycle longer if we need to restrike a target for any reason.
Now the Wall Street Journal today posting an article that had in it the Iranian leadership has adopted a quote mosaic strategy, pushing command and control over their troops down the ladder so that the Supreme Leader doesn't have to get involved, the IERGC command structure doesn't have to get involved. I thought to myself, that's a good way for a colonel to decide to turn his weapons on the regime. What do you think about that?
Well, I think it's an interesting idea, but I don't think it works in their system. It's not built to do it, and I don't think anyone in their system feels the ability or latitude to take decisions. But most importantly, they don't have the capacity to do it, with the exception of the ballistic missile program, and to a slighter extent, for closer targets in the region, their UAV and drone program,
so that's the iergc's aerospace force. They might alone have the ability to launch a retaliatory strike of any consequence, but I'm not sure any of them have the latitude to do it. And again, most of their competent leaders were killed during the Twelve Day One, including.
Their head, a man by the name of Ali Hassan Johnny.
So I think we're in good shape there, and I don't think the Mosaic Plan constitutes a threat to the United States.
But by pushing it down, I'll make a second run at this. I wasn't good at explaining what I was thinking. Do you remember when the private army turned on Moscow and began marching towards Moscow and he's now dead, but he didn't carry through with it. By the mosaic strategy, are they empowering their local leaders to possibly turn on the Ayatolas?
Well, I think it's certainly a possibility. I also think that the stress that the regime is under, and certainly the protests we've seen from the Iranian citizens responding to forty plus years of repression has created I think a situation where local forces have to make a decision. Unfortunately, the preponderance of power is held within the Islamic Refuse Late Guard Corps, not the armed forces itself. I think they are very unlikely to turn on the regime in
its current form. They might substitute the current leader for someone more ap pliable and someone more hard line than comm and eye is believe it or not, but I don't think the possibility of the broader armed forces turning against the regime is either likely or necessarily consequential. The most likely scenarios involved removing the capacity of the IRGC to repress the population.
That may be among the strikes the United States takes.
Yeah, Robert Greenway. Our allies are very nervous, not just Israel, but our Gulf allies, especially Cutter. They're the closest and the short range missile of Fuselid canreak them. Would the Iranians be that stupid because that's a regional war that bring in everyone against the one.
Well, they're not famous for the best decisions, so I don't know that we can count on I don't know we can count on rationality. They're afraid, I think, but perhaps less so because again during the Twelve Day War, there was sufficient deterrence capacity in the United States, and certainly President Trump has demonstrated the will it had been previously lacking in other US administrations. I think it's unlikely the Iranians are going to escalate to that point. However,
it is possible for them to do so. It's also why we've seen a massive flow of air defense assets into the region to add what was already there. So I think our defensive capacity is sufficient. I think the Iranians are less likely to escalate because it would be complete annihilation, and I think the assets are in place to defend appropriately. I think our allies are a little less concerned they might have been, say, six months ago.
Now the nineteen ninety nine campaign against Serbia or Yugoslavia and Mononegro with seventy eight days of bombing before Serbia threw in the cards. It took months in twenty eleven to get Kadafi to collapse.
How are we looking for regime collapse? Here? Are we on that scale of an attack?
Well, I think it would take a lot less to bring this regime to collapse, because it is, as we've exposed in the last year or so in Israel, certainly is exposed. It is a house of cards, it is economies and tatters. Its internal infrastructure is absolutely negligible, Its military capacity was a paper tiger, and all of that was proven and demonstrated, and so there's very little, I think effort required to get them to the point of
internal instability. So I think the president's options encompass a broad range of targets that could really relinquish the capacity of the Supreme Leader and those loyal to him to repress the population. The question, of course, then becomes is what is what is the substitute if they do in fact collapse. Knowing that it wouldn't take much to bring them to that point, and that, of course is the question that everyone asks and no one, frankly can answer.
But I do think that their ability to threaten the neighborhood, to threaten in the United States is radically diminished, and if they were to have new leadership, it would be substantially diminished beyond that. And I think that opens a broad basted on horizon for a really a new Middle East we've not seen in generations.
Do you worry about their ability to attack US naval assets or a stationary basis or even something like Alisade which they hit after Solimani was killed. Did fire ballistic missiles which did hit the base we had evacuated, but it has a GPS so they were able to hit it. Are you worried about that?
It's always a concern.
They've got somewhere between two and three thousand ballistic missiles medium range and longer that could range our infrastructure in the region, and certainly they can range Israel and our partners in allies, so it is a concern. However, I would say that their capacity is significantly limited. Our ability to detect and intercept is exceptional, and our capacity has been significantly increased by the flow of forces into the
region to get the theater set. And I think our capacity to destroy the remaining infrastructure with Israel support and assistance, I think is equally high. So I think, sequenced properly, I think we can diminish the threat to the point where it no longer constitutes a grave risk to our infrastructure.
Don't go anywhere, America. Robert Greenway's coming back. We're going to talk about I know all of you always ask me after I do one of these, what about the Iranian submarines? I'll ask him, what about the Straits of Hormons. I'll ask him. I'll ask him about the Shi militias in Iraq as well, which answer to iron, We'll talk about the Hotees. We'll talk about Hezbalah. He knows it all. This guy's actually go read as I posted his resume.
Mister Greenway has been around. He knows of which he speaks. And you don't want to listen to people online like Ben Roads. And I'll bring up Ben Roads's post to Robert Greenway as well when we go come back. In the meantimes, don't go anywhere and stay tune of the Salem News Channel. I'll be right back on the.
U Hewitt Show.
Welcome Back in America, Hewitt Robert Greenway as the director of the Herish Heritage Foundations Allison Center for National Security. Robert, I'm not sure if you were on the NSC under my friend Robert O'Brien, or if you were there with h. R. McMaster or with John Bolton, but you know who Ben Rhodes is. He was also on the National Security Council. He's a speech writer that ended up over there. I don't know how he ended up over there, but he
became the brain of Obama. And he has posted today no legal basis and no debating Congress about what could be a major war, with no clear sense of what the objective is or what comes next. What's your response is another NSCLM to that.
Well, first, I did have the pleasure of serving under all three National Security Advisors that you mentioned, and it was a privileged.
To do it.
My response to I mean, Ben Rhodes, I think is the only broken clock that is not right twelve day, which I guess serves a purpose and in this case again completely wrong, and that I think the President has made it abundantly clear and in fact, he's done what President Obama Ben's boss did not do, and that's document
what his objectives are. And so you can see remarkable clarity in the first Trump administration with NSBM eleven and the same directive, the same guidance and policy objective was promulgated in the first week of the second Trump administration, and it is exactly the same policy objective.
So he could be more wrong.
And of course he's probably not paying close attention to what's happening. I think he just doesn't like seeing President Trump succeed where his boss fail.
I agree with that. I also believe it. And tell me if you think this is unfair, I want to be fair to him. The palettes of cash that went over in the JCPOA they paid for something. Might they have paid for the bullets that mowed down thirty five thousand Iranians.
Well, as Secretary of State Kerry admitted under congressional testimony, funds are fungible. Money is fungible, and so any assets provided to the Islamic Republic undoubtedly go to killing Americans, our partners and allies. That is their only export other than oil, and it's what they do with the oil
proceeds as well. So there's no question that that money, that money was used in order to threaten the United States, Israel, our partners and allies in the region, and our European partners and allies as well.
Yeah, I want to go through the issues I mentioned before the break. I often get questions because people read about the fact that Iran has five submarines. Do they have five submarines? Do we have to worry about them?
They do have five submarines, three or Russian Kilo casts submarines they bought between nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety six. I believe there might be a more dangerous place to be than serving on an Iranian submarine.
I just don't know what.
It is, and I don't think that we have anything to worry about from the submarines or the Iranian navy. So I would discard that as a viable threat. It doesn't constitute one, and I wouldn't count so anyone to be concerned.
All right, let's talk about the Shad militias inside of Iraq, and there may be some left in Syria.
I don't know, do you.
Yes, they have two different groups, the Zenabayun and the Fatamiun both recruited outside of Syria to be employed there and work with Lebani, says Bellah, who did a lot of the heavy lifting for the Islamic Republic in Syria
and elsewhere. And I think there are residual elements that are there, but I don't know how grave a threat they constitute now in terms of the hostile Shabi or the private military corporation essentially that exists inside of alb Iraq, that is, the large Shiat militia now in the region
and in the Islamic Republic's greatest threat to the United States. However, their inability to provide consistent resources and their diminished role in the region has made them a little bit more autonomous, still a grave threat, but probably less likely to respond to demands. They also, though, have been providing manpower to suppress the internal population and protests inside of Iran to
a certain extent, so they do have loyal followers. It is the largest armed group inside of Iraq, exceeding the regular military by a significant margin, and a threat certainly to our infrastructure, even though President Trump has reduced our presence in the region and limited our exposure.
Do you worry about American troops based in Iraq to the extent that they were vulnerable in twenty twenty when Solimani was killed. They got off of the base, they scattered into the desert, but some were nevertheless injured by those ballistic missiles. Do we have to worry about the Shaited.
Militias and the ballistic missiles in Iraq? We do.
I think both are a concern, But as I said before, I think our ability to detect and respond to the missile threat and to retaliate and in fact to degrade it before they can employ it, I think is pretty significant.
The militias, on the other hand, are a little bit more of a challenge.
However, I think under the circumstances, they don't judge that Iran will come to their aid and assistance as they once did, and I think they're very unlikely to poke a fight with the United States, and the country itself and its leadership ultimately is completely dependent upon the United States still receives US dollars almost monthly in order to keep the economy aflat and if that were suspended or withdrawn the country we would be in a virtual collapse.
So I don't think anyone wants that to happen.
So I suspect they'll be measured in their response and less likely to respond on behalf of Tehran.
So Robert Greenway, what is the ladder of escalation available to Israel? Should they repeat the twelve day war experience, but this time hit a city block with one of their heavy ICBMs or Demona or something else that's sensitive. What's Israel's ladder of escalation beyond hitting them again the way they hit them, I assume the first day of the war.
That's a great question and an important one because I think that the possibility that that will occur is pretty significant. I do think that they have the capacity to inflict damage, even though Israel and the United States have proven that a theater integrated air defense system has been more than up to the task. However, no system is perfect, and
so occasionally in Irani a missile can break through. And so I think the Israeli response escalation ladder is pretty significant in that they have demonstrated the ability to respond to any target inside Iran, including its leadership. They eliminated most of its senior military commanders, the head of the IRGC, the head of the armed Forces, general staff, many of its intelligence officials and nuclear scientists in the Twelve Day War. They could do it again, and they also have the
ability to hit again. Iran around's nuclear infrastructure, but also its economy. The oil exports that come through the Gulf ultimately are vulnerable to attack.
Israel could hit all of it.
So we could remove its leadership, remove its retaliatory capacity, it's nuclear program, and its economy, and probably do it in a matter of days.
Other experts have told me we don't want to blow up Kars Island or the other two oil terminals because if there is regime collapse in a new regime, they're going to need the oil revenue. But I have to think if they killed the significant number of Israelis, those islands are no more.
Do you agree?
Yeah? And I think there's a surgical way to do it.
You can knock out the point of sale, the point in which the facility itself provides export oil and petrochemicals and gas to vessels themselves, without destroying the infrastructure, all of which is decrepit. It probably needs to be replaced, but the point is valid, and that if there is a change in leadership, you'd want the ability to pay for it by exporting oil and controlling it, and so you don't want to do too much damage to the infrastructure.
You also don't want to destabilize energy markets. Although President Trump deserves a lot more credit for stableing it and getting prices down, which is an enormous benefit to Americans, but it also gives them flexibility in situations like this, and so I think that the Israelis have the option to do it. I think it could be surgical and how they do it, and I don't think it's necessarily going to be debilitating to a future.
Iran oil is up about five percent today, Robert, and we have one more segment I want to talk to you about after the conflict in Iran when we come back, how high would oil go and how long would it go up for. I think they'd be an oil shock, but they don't think it would last very long. Do you agree with me on that.
I think that's right because the market's exceptionally well supplied, which is why I think prices are down.
I think the anticipation of a potential act.
Is likely irresponsible for the increase we've seen, of course, but I agree with you in that I don't think it'd be sustained. I don't think it'll really get anywhere near seventy five hours of barrel depending on the scope and scale. Strikes like Iran's just not capable of entering into a conflict, they're just being able to do it.
So I don't think it'll be pull off.
When I come back with Robert Greenway, our final segment will be on what could come in Iran and after strike, the good and the bad, and the Agli State Churner. Welcome back in America. I'm you Hewett Robert Greenway. He is the director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation. Veteran of DIA, veteran of National Security Council, veteran of Special Forces. I didn't ask you, Robert, because I doubt you would tell me if you knew.
But do you think special forces will be involved in this in any way, either for the Israeli side or for our side?
Well, I think it's possible in a couple different roles. I don't know that i'd say that it's necessary for it to happen. You'd only really want to put people on the ground and accept that risk. If there was something that you wanted extracted of high value, or if you wanted to control beyond the normal circumstances. Again, I don't know that the necessity is there in either case.
Although it was alleged, of course that the Israeli forces special forces did put personnel on the ground during the Twelfth Day War, I don't know that that's in fact true. And again I think the argument is pretty small.
Let's go then to the landscape in Iran after the conflict, and I will assume for the sake of that that there's a shake up in their leadership and massive damage to their missile deterrence and to the IRGC means of repression. But they're not gone. Does there exist enough will, in your view, for the people to do again what they did in January and December of this year and last year.
It is a great question.
I think the problem has always been that the population in Iran has not been willing to lay down their lives at scale. They certainly have in the same way that the regime suppressive capacity will.
In other words, the IERGC are perfectly willing.
To lay down their lives and to take lives in order to retain power. And that dynamic has given them a tremendous support. A lack of international support for the Iranian population has also been determinive, which is why it's refreshing to see President Trump be so vocal and supportive of those that have really suffered more than anyone else at the hands of this particular regime.
I do think the capacity remains.
I think they're looking for the opportunity to do it, and again, I think it would take more than just rhetorical, perhaps material support to get them to that point.
Is there any way to get weaponry into the hands of either the courage in Iran or other ethnic groups in Western Iran, or even into Terehran.
I don't know how we do it.
Well.
My experience in this part of the world is that it's not difficult to get someone to shoot someone else, and it's also not difficult for arms and material to be provided. In fact, the region's got all too much of both, so I don't think necessarily either are a problem, but it would take support and assistance for it to occur.
But there's more than enough material to go around, and I don't think it would be terribly problematic for that to occur, But I do think it's also vital that we eliminate the regime's capacity to monitor internal and external communications, and all coordinated activity require both, and in fact, our ability to predict what goes on and what is occurring on the ground is predicated on free communications, which right now the regime with Chinese support, has prevented.
Last question has to do with what President Trump has called frequently the discombobulator that was used in Venezuela. I've asked experts. They said it wasn't an emp to the extent you know what it is. Can we use it in Iran?
Oh?
I don't see any reason why any of the capabilities we developed cannot be employed. I don't know that we'd have to use that particular capability similar to it in the circumstance, because again, I don't see us going in and grabbing the Supreme Leader and bringing them to the Southern District of New York, as interesting as that might be. And so I'm not sure that the exact capabilities to be required. But our scope and capacity and inventory far exceeds the Islamic republics, that's for sure.
Robert Greenway, do you think there's stuff that we don't even know about that we might use. I know, I would guess that the Ohio class tom Hawk carrying big subs are out there, the boomers. But is there something we just don't know about.
I would hope.
So we're spending now upwards of a trillion dollars a year on our defense inventory and capacity, and we spent a lot and invested a lot for decades, and so certainly there are and must always be I think options that are available to the president across the spectrum from the cyber to the kinetic, and I think those are available. I don't know that we'll need those kinds of niche capacities in order to do what's required in Iran, but certainly they're available to the president.
And last question, how long will it take us to restock Michelles with what we use if we use it for a week to a month in Iran?
Yeah, that is a really great question.
We just finished a year long simulation calculating a culmination point for the US and China to protracted conflict, and munition stockpiles was a critical part of that, and the story is bleak that corrective actions being taken but insufficient right now, and all the turntimes on long range precision munitions are twelve plus months one year. That's changing far too slowly. So I hope that we're surgical in our use. I hope that we don't have to respond and defend
ourselves against the barrage of Iranian missiles. I hope we can defeat them on the ground. It's much more effective to do so, but it will take considerable time to restock if we have a protracted campaign, which I think again disincentivizes us from doing it.
I also don't know that it's required.
Robert Greenway, thank you for an abundance of time today. Always useful to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about, and that would be you, and I appreciate the time as us the audience. Thank you very much. Come back again soon. Everyone can follow Robert on X at Capital Our Capital C Underscore Greenway RC Underscore Greenway on AX will post this, of course on my YouTube.
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God Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh hewittt joined up by shah See Bedford to The Washington Examiner, Sarah, you're a young Catholic. I'm an old Catholic. So I go to the morning Mass on Ash Wednesday, and I've been vetching a little bit about the fact it was an hour and seventy and fifteen minutes with all the music and the bells and whistles as well as the ashes. What do you expect the Lent Mass to be.
Well, especially one in the middle of the day, a little bit shorter?
You know, it's it's not a celebration on Ash Wednesday. It's a solemn thing.
It's getting the ashes is not a sacrament. So there's there are reasons to suspect that perhaps a weekday after Wednesday, Mass should be a little bit shorter.
Now, how about weekday masses during Lent? I think they ought to be thirty five minutes and no music.
What do you think.
Some of them are?
But yeah, typically, you know, some of the weekday masses are just as longer or longer.
I've been on Sunday.
But yeah, if that's like your penance to go to Mass every weekday, you'd want those to be shorter, for sure.
I want people to go to Mass. I just think it becomes an impediment to people working, people who can't be there for an hour and fifteen minutes because the boss might give you a pass on ash Wednesday because you're wearing the ashes. But it's not going to happen every day, is it?
No?
Probably not.
And my other grive by the way, is that my church didn't offer any masses between noon and five. There was like a five hour stretch that would have been great to have a mass, time to sneak it in before school pickups.
You know, Catholics want to go to church. They got to make it easier to go to church. In the confession, let me ask you something, Sarah about the war. What is your feeling based upon all your conversations about if and when it's going to start.
There's a sense that it could be imminent, right.
You've seen all the images of US military resources moving into the area of Donald Trump's strategic sil which I think we've talked about before. He doesn't like to tip his hand about any sort of military action he might take.
That is leaving people nervous.
I mean, I think people on Capitol Hill don't seem to have a sense of the timing or exact types of plans that Donald Trump might have, and it means that Trump is not out there making the case to the public about why the US should have a military engagement because.
He doesn't want to tip his hand to the Iranians.
But the result, at least in the short term, is a really striking silence, given the gravity of.
What it feels like is about to happen.
Are there any Republican senators on the record who opposed military action right now, because I'm unaware of them, though I assume Rand Paul is opposed to military action.
Yeah, I think you've got Rand Paul. You have others who have been a little bit nervous.
Saying, you know, they understand that the president needs to have, you know, the ability to strike you unilaterally in these sorts of situations, but any sort of sustained military campaign is something that might make them, I'm a little bit nervous, and they'd want to understand better about the rationale for this sort of thing because the White House has been playing its cards so close to the vest, though there's not a lot of insight on Capitol Hill about what
the tactics might look like and what specific end game, you know, each military move might have.
So you do have a lot of Republican lawmakers.
We're giving Trump a lot of leeway right now, but would probably have a lot of questions if this looked like a sort of sustained military engagement.
Now, Sarah, I don't want to alarm you, but I want to talk about the Senate rules. And it's a horrifically boring topic, I realize, but it's an important one because the Senate is anti majoritarian. I want to keep it that way. I love the filibuster. I don't want to break it and any carry. Reid made a terrible mistake that backfired on him, and I don't want the
Republicans to make a terrible mistake. Centertvely assures me online that is talking filibuster gig gambit does not involve changing the Senate rule or overruling the Senate parliamentarian or the share on any question.
And therefore, the talking filibuster.
That Mike Lee is proposing would have to proceed the way Kim Strassell planted it. It would be endless. It would be the giant time waste of all time. Am I missing something?
Well?
You know that you have the conservatives who say that it is sort of a cost free way of getting this legislation over the finish line, I guess as the only the price of doing business that way would be time. It would lock up the Senate floor for a significant period of time. But I think, you know, Kim straswell and the Wall Street Journal laid out, you know, the case against the talking filibuster. But to me, her most compelling point was either you have protections for the Senate.
Minority or you don't.
You can't sort of waive some sort of procedural magic wand that would kind of take the filibuster off the table just for the Save Act, but definitely preserve it for all, you know, future pieces of legislature.
I mean, let's say that it all unfolds exactly like Mike Lee suggests.
It would that it would force Democrats to come out against an eighty twenty issue. It would be unpopular for them, and eventually, through patients, Republicans would get what they want.
But what does that do to the filibuster in the first place?
It would effectively neutralize it, right for anything that Democrats think they could just outlast Republicans on if.
They're in the majority.
So it is a risk of undermining the protections of the filibuster. If you think you can sort of get away with it this one time.
It won't work.
It will also just not work because of the amendment, the open amendment thing that Kim describe. They'd have to change the rules to stop amendments if it was going to work. If they change the rules, the filibuster is dead. And I I just want people to be honest about this. You're going to even have a Senate that protects the minority rights and makes it very difficult to pass legislation. Accept in reconciliation or you can not have that.
And I like that.
I think it stopped a lot more bad idea than ever. What the why hasn't If Mike Ley's idea is so great? How many Republicans support him? I saw Ted Kruz, does anybody else?
You have a lot of reluctance for Republicans for endorsing this idea, including from food. I mean, this is a huge can of worms that they'd be opening even if it was successful in getting the Save Act passed. And even the White House is not really putting its full weight behind the Save Acts.
You don't hear a lot about the White.
House pushing for this, in fact, to the extent that Trump talks about his legislative agenda, it's sort of backwards looking like, oh, thank god, we got everything done.
That we needed to, because you never know. In November, you don't hear a lot.
Of forward looking expectation that the Save Act will pass. There's a whole separate conversation to be why that is. Because it's a piece of legislation that the vast majority of Americans, even a lot of Democrats support, and it makes a lot of sense. But even so it doesn't seem that high on the GOP agenda.
Yeah, it's because they the eighty twenty issues that are out there, they lack salience means the intensity with which people want it brought to the floor. Everybody nots like I'd vote for the Save Act. If I was in the Senate or the House, I'd vote for it, But it's not something I'd spend my career on because it's probably unconstitutional. With the citizenship requirement for state elections, it's up to the.
States, right, and so I mean, this is a Republicans happened, going state by state and trying to get election changes that way. It's the most straightforward way of doing it. And so you know, I think to the extent that there's one maybe argument in favor of the talking filibuster. It's this idea that you should put Democrats on the record to say why they oppose a common sense piece of legislation that their own constituents want. But surely there's other ways Republicans could accomplish that.
They'll have a vote rama next year sometime, and if we get the reconciliation, they'll be There are a lot of people. The Democrats don't want the Citizenship Act, they don't want the Save Act. Everybody knows it. It's just not it's not worth all this time, especially on the brink of war.
Sarah Bedford, I hope your.
Masses shorter than mine was, but I'm glad that you'll get your ashes tonight, and I appreciate you joining me this afternoon.
Don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back.
Mike. Catherineham joined me in our number one. I'm going to replay it in our three here so that all of you hear about her.
America.
In two fifty, we are celebrating our two undred and fiftieth birthday. Mkh and en gang over at getting hammered or doing something special. I want you to hear about it till Stay tuned to The Hut Show