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 dialogues, all of them at hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale and I got a big show for
you today coming up. Jonathan Schanzer, Ben and ben Belkablue from the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy, Eleana Johnson from the Washington Freebeacon, Jim tallon Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, so much more, But I start with the indispensable Jim Garrity Washington Post call him as senior political writer for National Review. He writes every morning the morning Joel would shot to
be getting and reading. Chim will cover the breaking news of CHRISTI nom being fired and Mark Wayne Mullen being named after I get your first assessment of how the war with Iron is going, because that is the big story of the day, and we're five days in. By the end of the show, something terrible could happen, but right now such Americans have been killed and Iran's getting a living daylights knocked out of them. What do you think, Hugh.
The last time we talked, the war had not yet begune, and I was reminding your listeners of Trump's truth Social statement that help was on its way. I believe forty six days passed between that statement on truth Social and the actual beginning of bombing. In the interim, a lot of the Iranian regime managed to kill a lot of protesters, and I was frustrated by it. It came late, but
when it came, it came in just phenomenal numbers. And the performance of the military has just been superlative in terms of the precision, in terms of the scale of the scope, the sheer integration with our Israeli allies, and the use of Israeli intelligence has just been fascinating. And you know, today's Morning jult I kind of went through all the numbers. Before the conflict, Iran had the thirteenth largest military.
In the world.
Whether there was a little bit of hyperbole in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsas comments yesterday when he said the Iranian Navy has been destroyed, the Iranian Air Force has been destroyed.
They're a shadow of their former.
Selves and In fact, just this afternoon, another Iranian warship went into port at Sri Lanka and basically said we're out. We're not leaving port for the remainder of the conflict. We have no interest in joining that other ship at the bottom of the ocean. It's been phenomenal, and you know, we've been through at least one eye Atola, possibly two. It's kind of hard to see because they cycle through them so fast. The Iranian regime is never going to be the same from us. I know the job is
not done. I really want to see the Iranian regime utterly complete.
If we end up in a Venezuela type.
Situation where we leave the runner up or the right hand man of the old leader in charge, it's not going to be conducive to our long term interests. But you know, kudos to the President for calling for taking action that really no democratic even those alleged Neocon war bongers Bush and Sheney never did something like this.
Two people coming up, Ben and Ben Talableau of the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, and I often talked to Kareem Sajetpoor when I'm in town, sometimes on the radio. They've both been very public. Don't arm the courage, don't let the country fall into civil war. What's your thought on that, because you know, obviously we would like the regular Iranian army to turn on the IRGC, kill them all and hold elections. But that's ye and I'd also like a
unicorn that's not going to happen. What's the best result right now?
The wariness of arming the Kurds is well placed and justified. It's been a long while since I've been in Turkey, but the RAND has fired just about everything and everybody they have not. There's one missile that got shot down over Turkey. There's debate about whether it was set in towards Julk, but by and large Iran has not fired directly at Turkey. This is because they share a border. Turkey has about a million men men when you throw in the reserves. They have a NATO trained first class
army in very good drones. So if the Iranians were the Uranians have no capacity to pick a fight with the Turks right now. One area, though, that where Iran and Turkey do have shared interests, is the fact that they both have.
Curds on their territory.
Curtis stand if it existed as a country and included the ethnic Kurds would kind of the overlap.
In the borders of both of them.
And neither the Turks nor the Iranians want to see an independent Curtis stan get formed.
The northern third of Iraq is a it's.
Not an independent country, but it's got a great deal of autonomy and how it runs with the RACK, and I believe a little bit of Syria two has.
A bit of the Curds.
I understand the US wants to we're doing everything without a ground force right now, and there's an argument.
We've seen the limits of air power.
You can't remove a regime from power without somebody on the ground fighting there. I do, however, think that this would be opening up a can of worms. This would be opening up all of a sudden. Turkey would no longer be neutral to you know, supportive of our operations.
I think they would be deeply concerned by this.
All right now, I want to hear every other I've gotta have enough time to switch because you are the father of a couple of robot geeks and they're in high school. When I was in high school, Saigon fell in the helicopter leaving the embassy. Happened when I was a freshman in college. When you were in high school, I'll bet you nineteen ninety one happened Desert first Desert, Gulf War, and we were unstoppable. Other people have come
of age during disasters or maybe mixed messages. Your boys are in high school and they're saying this, what do they think.
We'll should point out My older one is in college and apparently when you go to a tech school, nobody pays attention.
To current events.
Well, so like, uh yeah, like this this is not at least as of like this weekend, but.
It's all robots, it's all drunk.
Yeah, in high school.
There's been some talk with my own one, but my sense each year I kind of there's this argument fewer. You know, the number of Americans who serve in the military is very small, the number of Americans who are veterans.
So the number of Americans who can go through their.
Day and don't have a relative, don't have a friend, don't have someone else who's served in the military in some capacity, and we can spend their day thinking about the Kardashians or mister Beast or or something else that's completely alien to you, and I unfortunately this is I don't feel like the country is at war. And some of that is because you know, knocking on wood and you said, by the time people hear this, things can
go wrong. That there was the shooting in Austin and otherwise we have not seen any activated Arabians, sleeper cells, or other acts of terrorism on the US home front.
So that's, you know, that's good news.
But I think it also adds to this sense that this is a war that's happening far away.
Also, very thankfully, we've had a great.
Fear of casualties in a war like this unless I check to you where you still only have six in a perfect world, about six too many, and we're going
to mourn every last one of those heroes. But I think if you don't want to pay attention to this war, you have that option in a way that was not possible certainly like that, not that I remember in the Persian Gulf with during Vietnam, or even post nine to eleven or Iraq, where like that was wall to wall twenty four to seven, every cable channel, this was the story. Now life goes on. I don't grudge people talking about the Texas primaries or other issues or.
Things like that.
But I do kind of feel like it's strangely quiet for us to have begun what it effectively amounts to a regime change war against an enemy in our lives since the Iranian hostage.
From my whole, I don't like I want to finish with this, given how serious the foe is and Iran is the octopus of terror. I am very glad that Mark Wwaynemullin is going to DHS because I think he's a serious man. And I'm not sure that the governor formercy Governor's out the cut had the management chops to run DHS with h two hundred and sixty thousand employees. They haven't even finished the wall yet.
Yeah, So first of all, let's point out that, like you know, when people are looking for potential Iranian sleeper agents, sleeper cells, stuff like that, the FBI and everybody who's under the Department of Justice is getting paid, but anybody.
Who's part of DHS is not getting paid.
And I don't know about you, Hugh, but I really feel like if you're trying to catch terrorists.
I'd like you to get paid.
It seems.
It seems like literally the least we can do is make sure you get paid on time.
Christy Noam.
I wrote The Morning Joel back in January that she was the biggest liability of the Trump administration. I don't think she brought a lot to the table. I think she kept you know, this was after the Minnesota shootings when she went out and gave a briefing that was like full of false information. Apparently it was the ad campaign that Kennedy.
Asked her about.
And I should give a shout out to my colleague Audrey Fahlberg, who first reported that Trump was just fed up with no idea. Tell me again, Christy no My colleague Audrey is a walking.
Podcast. Yeah, stay up on the podcast for her.
She everyone the.
Jay Jones story last fault like she you know, but it's not likely surprising. Christy Doman had knock been out hitting it out.
Of the park.
Uh, you're playing the video and I'm just kind of observing it. Like she always seemed to be in front of a camera. She always seemed to be wearing some uniform or outfit or something. The moment Tom Holman stepped into Minneapolis, you notice things seemed to get better. Cooperation from state and local law enforcement, seemed to improve. She's a governor, she's not in law enforcement. And she always
seemed like a bit of a strange pick. I know the huge people thought Christy Dolan would be this be with this administration until the last dog dies.
But okay, Garity, you had missed your daily your your weekly quotient of bad jokes. It's sort of like a given that there's going to be a bad Garrity joke. Were you bad on your boys? Were you like mister dad joke on the Neighborhood Watch Hugh?
The whole reason I became a father is to tell Dad, good Dad.
Joe, I thought so.
Garity. Read him in the Washington Post, read him in the National Review. Listen to the Three Martini Lunch, listen to the Editors podcast, and get the morning Joelt. I don't what time you get up to write that thing.
I'm in front of my computer about six and forty five am Eastern. I try to send it off to the editors by nine.
Well well done, that something's gone wrong every day. Well done, Thank you, Jim Garretty follow him on exit. Jim Garretty found me the next segment, I'm Hugo walking back America. I'm Huughe Hewett. Every single Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I begin my morning with John and Shenshanzer, who does the FDD morning brief. I always learn how long the war has been going on because Jonathan always begins with how many days it's been since ten to seven? Jonathan, you also
are a numbers guy. How many launchers have been destroyed? What is the estimate of how many are left in the Iranian arsenal?
You know, this is not exactly something that the Iranians are publicizing. What we saw a couple of days ago is that three hundred were destroyed. Right now we're thinking about four hundred. That's probably two thirds of the total launchers. And then on top of that, we're hearing that the total amount of launch is by the Iranian regime I dropped by something like eighty percent. So the dwindling ability
of the regime is what we're looking at. Certainly, I think a lot of that tracks back to the launchers themselves. You can't get those missiles up in the air without the mobile launchers or the static ones, and so what's happening right now is this is just a hunting expedition. The US and the Israelis have complete and total dominance
in the skies over Iran. They have full control over that airspace, and so now they're just going around looking for the next missile that's been pulled out of a silo in the hope of destroying it before it can hit Kuwait, for example, or Ozerbaijan or Turkey.
Jonathan, I'm sure you remember the video that the IRGC released last year of the guy who looked like the old guy from Iraq who said nothing wrong here driving around in a jeep in the missile caves. Can we penetrate those caves? Are they blowing up all over the country?
So right now, yes, First of all, you know, it's hard to forget bag dad Bob as we.
Call them from a rock.
I think the guy's name was Tarakazis if I'm if I'm remembering it correctly. But yeah, the regime tried to, you know, I think, convey last year that they had this impenetrable capability. My understanding is that the United States has actually started to target these with some of the heavier munitions that we have. How many we've struck I don't know, you know, the battle damage Assessment or the BDA, right, we get these on a somewhat regular basis now from
the Pentagon. It's going to take a little bit of time, I think, for all of the information to come out.
But look, I think that.
The core takeaway here is that the military component of this is going incredibly well. Full integration with the Israeli military and the American military, the intelligence sharing, the I mean, you can tell that the leaders of these two countries are are in full sync.
All of that I think is very positive.
The question to my mind right now is, you know, the Arab States, do they get wobbly, you know, because they've started to sustain strikes and it looks like some serious damage.
I think that's a concern.
And then also the unity among the Iranian people, and that's been kind of a black box, right We just don't know what's happening on the ground right now. Are the people of Iran going to pull together and fight this regime?
I think that's something what we.
Be hearing about within the next week or two, as I hope anyway, the kinetic operations start.
To slow, Jonathan, your colleague Ben and Ben in Taliblu will be on Nicked hour and I want him on to talk about the one story out there concerned to me that we are arming the Kurds in order to start an insurrection, which Banam and kareemside, you're poor from Carnegie. They both the two guys who know the most about Iran that I know, other than norm rule. Bad idea. Don't do that. What do you think is that a bad idea?
Look, here's what everybody needs to understand is that you have the kind of the core of Iran. These are the Persian you know, the Persians, right, the Iranians, the non minorities, right. And when you talk about Iran, you're talking about minorities like the Arabs and the baluch and the Uzbeks, And I mean there is a like a patchwork of minorities. The majority of Iranians want to be
able to liberate their country by themselves for themselves. And when you start injecting Kurdish nationalism into the the equation, people.
Start to get nervous.
They start to worry about the Balkanization of Iran. And that's why you're gonna hear Iranian say that it's a bad idea. Now there, I can understand why Americans might like this idea that hey, we're not going to put boots on the ground, We're going to fight by proxy, and we can use people that are interested in doing this and they're not asking for anything in return.
The key is, are they actually really not asking for anything in return?
Or are they going to say, Hey, I thought and now I want a Kurdistan of my own, and that's going to set off the Iranians, It's going to.
Set off the Turks.
This is just this is complexity that we don't necessarily need right now and could be an unforced era on the part of the Trump administration. I hope they're hearing this from Iranians, and I hope they're moving slowly right now.
It's not to say that we can't.
It's just a question of is this advisable at this stage in the operation?
Is this a good thing?
So I'm not surprised to hear some of our Iranian friends warn against it.
Another quite you're font of information. I appreciate it every time you do the Morning Brief. Early on I saw pictures of iron Beam. Now I've come not to believe anything I see because of AI and old videos being repurposed with new sub lower thirds. Has iron Bean been deployed? Is it working?
My understanding is that it is usable, but I don't think that it is reliable. And there's a big difference. Right when you've got a battle ongoing, are you going to use something that is tried and true and tested like Iron Dome for the short range missiles, Arrow three for the long range missiles. These are the Israeli systems that have saved countless lives and so as I understand it, yeh, iron beam, this is the directed laser, directed energy laser. They want to be able to use it, they want
to be able to trot it out. But it's at this point, as I understand it, not ready for prime time, not yet. But stay tuned because if the Israelis continue to make strides in this space, this will be important for the United States too. The Israelis may be breaking ground on the kinds of tech that we're going to need to be able to defend our skies or to defend the skies of other allies.
Absolutely. Walter Russell Meade made the same point today in a podcast with Dan Senor that Israeli a American defense technology and capabilities are unmatched around the world. Last question, people on the Hill listen to FDD. Is FDD urging either a supplemental or a reconciliation or just the normal appropriations to restock the shells which are depleted, and I mean ammunition.
Yeah, And look, the Israelis are going to need whatever they can get. And you just got to understand they have dropped something. I mean, you want to talk about numbers. I believe they have hit fifty five five hundred targets in six days. That it is an enormoust of ordinance that is being dropped right now on this regime. The Israelis are going to need to restock. It looks like they're very likely going to have to have a knockdown, drag out battle with his Belah in Lebanon while also
fighting the regime in Iran. So I'd like to see whatever the US Congress is able to muster for the Israelis. This is not charity, folks, This is the Israelis fighting side by side with the United States trying to make the Middle East a sane place again.
And I think we're on our way.
There's still a lot that can go wrong, but they're gonna need This is how they operate. They operate with American munitions, so if we've got them, we should supply them.
They're working with us and for us.
John and Shann They're always good to talk to you. Again, everyone ought to be listening to the Morning Brief Monday, Wednesday, Friday with Jonathan. I don't know why we don't get Tuesday's Thursdays. I don't know. I should ask Jonathan.
I'm tired.
I know your time here five days a week. Come on, Jonathan, get up and tell me what's going on. Jonan Shands are always good to talk to. The executive director of Foundation for the Defense of Democracy Think tu in America. I'm you doing Welcome Back in America. I'm to do it.
The question before the House is can President Donald J. Trump pull off a Goldielocks war not too little like nineteen ninety one the Iraq invasion, then not too big like the two thousand and three Iraq invasion, but just right with Iran To answer that, have Eleana Y. Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon, where she's editor in chief. How about it, Eliana, are you hoping for the Goldielocks turned out, and what will it look out look like if it happens.
Well, Hugh, I'm hoping for victory. I think that's what all Americans are hoping for. And I would be a fool if I told you I know what that exactly looks like. But when you talk about Goldilocks, I think that is what the p presidents driving for. Where he said this isn't a regime change war, and yet we saw him earlier today way in and say, yes, well, the Iatola's son is not acceptable to me. We want
someone who will bring harmony in peace to Iran. And you know, Iotola two point zero is not what I'm driving at. And I do want to weigh in on who the successor leader of Iran is, and so I think he he is driving it somewhere between the Gulf War leaving Saddam in power. Obviously the Iatola has already are already been killed and having no control over the future of the country.
I don't know if you've seen the picture yet of Doug Bergham with Delsa and Venezuela today. Do you think Don Bergham is gonna end up in Tehran sating next to Ama or An i RGC colonel or an Iranian Army general.
I don't think so. I don't think Iran and Venezuela are the same. But I do think there's a world in which the president would love to be received by cheering crowds in Tehran one day. I think this is a legacy play move to him. It's obviously not pole driven, as the majority of the country is against this now, even though a huge majority of MAGA Republicans are for it. And I think what the President's hoping to do is through action, through victory, change, you know, garner support for this war.
Yeah, Eliana, I listened to commentary every day, and I listened to Ruthie asking you about the polls this morning, and I don't care about the polls until we're at least a month in, because nobody really knows how they feel until if they hit them owner tomorrow. It's a disaster. If we leave the IRGC in command and they mow down fifty thousand Iranians, it's not a good thing. We just don't know, but it looks good for five days.
I agree with you. Youugh things look right now, and I don't want to be governed by a president who's making decisions about national security and where to strike and whether to strike based on scrutinizing poll numbers and looking at the next election. I want a president doing what I think this president is doing right now, which is, you know, I'll distinguish why he did this at all versus why he took this opportunity when he did it.
But he took an opportunity when he had it regardless of what the polls said, and I think that's that's wise.
Let me divert for a moment, Eliana. I do not talk about other podcasters who engage in stuff I don't like because they don't want to draw attention to them. I'm making an exception with you because you may have had Hbad at Yale. I don't know if you did. Habad is a fine organization. It's on most campuses. They were the target of the Mumbai terror attack, they were the target of the Bondai Beach terror attack. They are always a target because Abbad is very public. Where there's
a hubbad house. Tucker went after Hubbad yesterday and I want him to take it down. Are you shocked by that?
I have to say you, I've not listened to this at length. I've seen maybe as you have clips on this episode. I was surprised to see it, and I think it's important for people to know that this is an organization that supports Jews and Jewish life, and so to get the facts out there about it, which is that's the beginning of the end and end of why this organization exists, and that's it.
And they support Jews everywhere around the world, and I just don't want to put a target on their back, and so I hope he takes it down. Let me move back to the war with you.
We're not the other thing you is ahead is that I would add to this is there may be an aspect of this where things need to get worse before they get better, where we will see increasingly unhinged conspiracy theories. I saw Candice Owens weighing in praising that and talking about, you know, Jews trying to have her murdered and so on. Maybe that we need to spin off into those increasingly that increasingly unhinged territory for all of this to get rained back in eventually.
Yeah, it broke my back. I've just ignored this stuff because it's been around forever. It's been in the water forever, and it's by the way.
The President has now weighed in as well, I would note, and his comment to Jonathan Carl of ABC News was that Tucker has lost his way. I knew that a long time ago. He's not Maga, Mega's saving our country. Mega's America first, Tucker's and of those things, Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that. And look, those
two could be friends again in six months. Nothing's permanent with the president, but obviously the President is standing with the State of Israel right now, key partners in this war, and with the Jewish people, as he has since twenty sixteen.
And Tucker come back to normalcy. That's also possible. Let me ask you about whether or not you think that Congress is going to move rapidly or take its time to replenish the munition stock, both for America and Israel. They could do that with a reconciliation in a week. You need Budget Committee and Appropriating Committee and Armed Services Committee and both Senate and House to get together to
do that. But they could move quickly if they want to, or they could wait and do a supplemental which takes longer. They could wait for normal appropriation. I think they had to go fast. What do you think, Eliana?
Of course I agree with you, Hugh, and I think we should hear from the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on this screaming from the rooftops until it gets done, as well as the president top national priority right now. And it's worth noting that it's wonderful to see the new weapons of war used here, powered by artificial intelligence, and both by the US and Israel. Fantastic. It's been hugely successful.
If you're listening to Dan Senior or today Walter Russell Mead says, it's incredible how advanced Israeli An American defense technology and capabilities are. The World's going to want to buy our stuff. That's what it comes down to. They're not gonna want Chinese stuff. They're gonna want our stuff.
Beyond that, what the world is watching visa Russia and China is those two countries stand on the sidelines as their ally in Iran is attacked. Well America and Israel operate together, it makes America an attractive ally, and it makes Russia and Iran unattractive and unreliable partners. I think that's being broadcast to the world right now.
Superb point Eleana y Johnson on X reader at the Free Peacon and of course listening to her on the commentary podcast Morning Thank You, Eliana, Don't Go Anywhere America on Quod, Morning Glory and even Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewett in the Relifact of Studio WET. You're watching on the Sale News Channel, on Trudo, GV and whatever you can find smart TV. I'm joined now by Ben and Ben Talabou, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies.
Whenever Benham comes on anywhere, I stop and listen. Betam, I want to start with the first question. I've heard you raise the alarm about arming the courage now to a dummy like me. It sounded like a good idea at first, but then when you and Kareem Sadia Poor both tell me bad idea, bad idea, I listen because I don't know. Would you explain it to my audience why it's a bad idea to arm a Kurdish insurgency.
Well, it's always a pleasure to be with you, Hugh, and thank you for the very kind note. Listen. I think President Trump has a level of popularity inside Iran that he even may not know. Yes, I think one of those rapid response Twitter pages reposted an Iranian DJ who was heralding the cliff where President Trump was saying that Iran's now former Supreme leader I told Haminae was dead in an air strike. But ultimately, even when you look at US allies in Western Europe or around the world,
Donald Trumph is immensely popular. His Iran policy is immensely popular, and his prosecution of maximum pressure to include military pressure against Tehran's theocrats, is immensely popular, especially on the backdrop of the most violently suppressed free protests in the history of the Islamic Republic. And therefore, to lose that mass support, it's not about minorities or the center versus the periphery. It's to make sure that you have mass support for
the policies that you pursue in that country. And to take note of the fact that a sectarian insurgency in the Middle East hasn't traditionally worked. The curves are immensely brave people. They've been immensely effective against terror organizations like ISIS, but in those states that they've cohabitated in with many of their Arab friends and brethren and compatriots. They haven't
been able to take over the capital. And if that isn't the aim of this sort of an operation, does Iran wants In its history about one hundred and some odd years ago, one hundred and twenty years ago, had various different ethnic groups, but primarily Lures and Bachtiaris from the country south and southwest kind of take over to Tehran, and that was a key part of the constitutional revolution. Arming a sectarian insurgency that isn't popular even in the
regions that it controls. You know, there are terrain wars and family dynastic conflicts between various factions of Iranian curves as well as within Iraqi curves, as well as within several other Kurdish groups. They may have come together in the short term, but that doesn't seem to be the recipe for success, stability, or prosperity in the Middle East, which this president wants, and I would say this president deserves.
So while I understand the need for a ground game in Iran, I would say the ground game shouldn't be should be color blind, if you will, it should be just the masses of the anti regime Irodians, regardless of ethno linguistic background. And here, given the fact that from the Woman Life Freedom protest to the present there have been calls from the center or from the periphery to replace the regime, that should give the Trump administration optimism
that it has large numbers on its side. And if perhaps the idea of a ground game is needed to be entertained, that might be worth thinking how best to actually use military pressure to drive street protests, because I couldn't think of something else that might impede or retard three Protest than Uncle Sam pairing up with an insurgent group and potentially dampening the great amount of good will that the President personally has been able to inculcate in
Iran policy for many years now. So it's more of an alarm, it's more of a warning bell. And also the President has been managing things with NATO ally Turkey,
which is quite challenging and quite precarious. Given the multiple fronts the Syrian Front, Israeli Front, and all the other issues where Turkey is making itself manifest these days, it's likely that Turkey is going to get involved in some way if there's a Kurdish insurgency near its border, given the twenty plus percent of Turkey which is the Kurdish versus the ten to twelve percent of Iran, which is reportedly Kurdish, so things can spiral. And this is the
Middle East. Things can always get worse, not better. It's hard to see how whether you're talking about the fears of Balkanization from Iranian nationalism or anything else, it's hard to see how this makes things easier for the president rather than harder. But I think he does deserve a pathway to victory given the risks he's taken in the Middle East, which no previous president has been willing to take.
Bet that's a word I want the audience to hear, and we'll put it up on YouTube. I hope everyone sees that because initial enthusiasm for having someone on the ground gives way to realism about the nature of the regime, and we want the entire Iranian people on our side. I want to ask you about the Goldilocks result nineteen ninety one. It was too little. George H. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell stopped after one hundred hours. The
Marsha carbs were slaughtered. They didn't go to Bagdad turned out to be too little two thousand and three, too much. We went, we conquered, we stayed. We're still there. There's a civil war. It's a mess. That's been a mess. There weren't any WMD. What's the goldilocks result here? That's just right for a war in the Middle East.
You know what.
You may not know it, sir, but you channeled the quote I think from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who talked about going all in, half in and none in when he compared what the UK was doing in Iraq versus Libya, versus Syria, and he said that the UK had failed everywhere and he was puzzled as to why.
And that's because, with im Men's respect, I think we're focusing on the tool, which is the nature of military power, the nature of the intervention, the type of internationalism on display, whereas really we need to understand the relationship between the tool, military force and the target. It really is about these different kinds of societies. I'm not saying we can't put cases together and learn because fundamentally that is political science
one on one. That is international relations one on one. We can learn from previous campaigns. Not every case is sweet generate, but sometimes we do have to pay attention to the differences, and sometimes we have to tailor the tool to the targets and the kind of If one is willing to entertain the costs and the risks associated with military action, then we're going to have to conceive of this first and foremost with respect as a campaign rather than an operation. And it has to be a
campaign that paves the pathway for Iranian protesters. And this is costly, it is risky, it is more protracted, and it is bloody. But you cannot tell me that the Middle East is anything but those things right now anyway. I mean, the Islamic Republic of Iran is at war with its neighbors, period, regardless of orientation, regardless of background. It is firing at Azerbaijan, it's firing at Turkey, it's firing at Arab countries that have oil VERSUS don't have oil.
It's firing at US bases, US diplomatic facilities, it's firing at Israeli civilian targets. The Islamic Republic is widening the war against everybody. So I think now more than ever it's imperative to have a political theory of victory rather than just a military theory of victory. And this is where you know, the history is instructive because the Middle East, not just America, not just Israel, not just Iron but every actor that has existed in the Middle East has had military victory.
Benham, are you old enough to Are you old enough to remember Yosemite Sam, a Looney Tunes character.
I remember the cartoon.
Yes, yeah, well that's what Iran's gone full Yosemite Sam. They're just shooting at everything, but they're not hitting much. Tell me about the numbers, how many launchers are left, and what do you think is the damage done in percentage terms to their missile arsenal? About what you are the expert.
Well, that's very kind of you. There's a lot of other good experts. But I do my best to keep an open source, you know, tab on this kind of stuff because this is the reason why the Islamica public remains a state threat, and this is the ration now for a defanging mission against the regime. This is the region's biggest ballistic missile power, clearly using them. It's fired. I think over one hundred and twenty odd ballistic missiles at the UAE alone, for example, but up to a thousand.
I want to stress that for the audience up to and over one thousand drones at the UAE loon. I mean, I have to double check their records, but I think the ballistic missile latest tally for March fifth is somewhere between one eighty and one ninety depending on the source you're using to UAE, not one twenty, forgive me, but up to the one thousand plus when it comes to drones.
And this is because the regime is feeling the heat as to the success of Israel and America's defanging strategy against missiles and missile launchers, because it's forcing the regime to take its quantitative advantage, which is the missile arsenal, and funnel it through where it has a quantitative shortcoming,
which is the missile launchers. You can have a million missiles, but if you have only two launchers, you can have most only fire two at a time, and then you would be very risk averse because you might lose one. So the logic is to as the Israeli over the Twelve Day War, go after the arrow versus Sorry, go after the archer versus go after the arrow. Rather than defend and pay for costly missile defense systems, go against
those who are shooting it. America, now that has entered this war, can do that one step better because it has heavy bombers. So if Israel can target the launcher and America can target the launcher, with the introduction of heavy bombers, America can target the subterranean IRGC bases that house both the launcher as well as the missiles. So
think about collapsing the usability of the entire arsenal. And the logic here is to replicate what America did in the Twelve Day War when it had Operation Midnight Hammer. Because it entombed the facile material. It did not destroy the fisile material. It entombed it in the facility that
it destroyed, taking advantage of the natural geography there. So you can make all of those little missile prisms and allow the IRGC not to be able to draw on them to fire at Israel, to fire it in America, to fire at the Arabs, or to fire out who river. So that should be the logic. Reportedly, the regime has upwards of four hundred plus ballistic missile launchers. These are basically large trucks that transport, erect and launch. That's why
they're called tels tel Transporter erector launcher. These various projectiles. We don't have a breakdown as to in which bases they are kept, but Iran has four chains of bases, Western chains that are long the Zagros Mountains, Central chains in the middle of the country south of the capitol, eastern and along the Persian Gulf coastline. And destroying those bases is going to be key to suppressing the fire and defanging the Islamic.
Republic Anham thank you for joining me. Venham Ben Talabou is our number one expert from the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy on the Iran Mitchell prep. I appreciate the time to take turned on you here. Welcome back, and I'm q Hewett. Vic Mattis joins me, co host of the Getting Hammered podcast, a brand new one of which just dropped. It's called Boom. It's about the American war with the Iran. He and Mary Katherine Ham go over every aspect of it. I gotta say it was arresting.
Vic Matis hear you saying we wouldn't have gotten to Morocco in World War two if we had the press corps we have. Now, that's pretty good line.
That's thank you, Hugh.
Yeah, that's true.
I was looking back into it, and that was Operation Torch, and I think in that process of landing in Morocco, now, Jerry, the Americans lost five hundred and fifty six uh and then obviously thousands more who were injured.
This isn't even the Casserine Pass. You know, we were back to Italy. We were all forget about it.
Yeah, no, forget about it, throwing the towel.
It's over, you can have it. Yeah, But what you made me think, Ernie Pyle is not around today. Now, we have some great war correspondence. In two thousand and three, two thousand and one, John Fisher burned of the New York Times, we had Dexter Filkns of the New Yorker. I'm not, hey, we don't have any war correspondence because nobody's in Iran or they're out of their mind. But b they are predisposed to hate this president so much. I wrote a column about this for the Washington Examiner yesterday.
They can't they'd rather America lose than Trump triumph. I really think we're at that place.
Yeah, I think that's right, Hugh. You can't help but think that they're secretly rooting for, you know, setbacks and anytime there's a casualty that's front and center and Trump acknowledged. And you and I both know with an Operation to Scale, you're going to have casualties. Unfortunately, that is the price to pay to eliminate a threat like Iran. This has been again a threat to this country into the West since nineteen seventy nine.
I mean they've already killed you.
Know, hundreds, if not thousands, either directly or through its proxies, you know, going into Iraq. If you think about that, going all the way back to the Marine Barracks bombing, and it had had something had to be done. But as you mentioned, those on the left in the media, they love skewering the Trump and this administration for any small mistakes and errors and setbacks.
And this goes back to even.
Operation Midnight Hammer, where they thought that, oh, you know, we didn't hit the mark and destroying that nuclear facility. Oh that's too bad. Trump is wrong again. And then now that we actually go to war against Iran. They said, I don't know why he's going to war. We successfully destroyed the nuclear facilities, so they they're trying to have.
It both ways.
They're broken, A lot of them are broken. And thought I saw today Barry Wise and now Rank CBS hired Aaron McClain from School of War, which is a fine podcast, and brought him over. And I'm thinking, Barry Weiss is thinking, if I want real talent that hasn't been infected by newsroom itis or TDS, I got to go out and find people from the podcast world who haven't got that. And I don't blame her, no, And I think.
It's great that they picked my good friend Aaron McLain, who I've known for many Oh I didn't know that. Oh yes, he occupies the sometimes he comes by our office and uses the office right behind this wall. So I just saw him this morning and wished him congratulations.
Now that he's a media big shot. But Aaron was in the Marine. Aaron's in the.
Marines, I really, you know, I mean, and he taught at Annapolis. He's one of the smartest people I know. And he's going to make a fantastic war correspondent for CBS, and he's got that great podcast as well as you mentioned School of War. My big question is to Aaron hasn't opened any doors yet restaurants do you get do you still.
Have to make reservations? I'm waiting for that, and then I can you know, make use of Aaron I want to make I want to let you know, Vic the Salem News Channel and the Salem Radio Network, my podcast does not get you anything. I want you to know that doesn't get you a thing. I do want to also ask you that in terms of Iran, they've gone full Yosemite Sam. Now I'm using that on some people who get it and other people who don't. Are you the You're old enough to get that, aren't you? Yeah?
Getting the Looney Tunes a reference to Samity Sam. I was gonna say, you know, even quite positively, the Tasmanian devil.
Oh, I mean, we're going all out, yeah, but there was something endearing about the Tasmanian devil. We didn't likee Sam.
No, that's true, and he's definitely not Pepi Lapuugh.
Let's let me you know.
We know how the French are about this at the moment. No again, as Mark Rubio said, they haven't even felt the full brunt of the US force right now. I do have some concerns obviously about the depletion of munitions, and we need to ramp up the production of missiles and to resupply the aircraft carrier battle groups.
So that's important.
But we just saw this amazing video of the US submarine sinking an Iranian frigate, and people are upset about that because that's in international waters, which reminds me, I'm sure the US did that in World War Two. If there was a U boat on the off the East coast, I'm sure we just let it go.
Yeah, they ought not to have declared war on US in nineteen seventy nine or blown up the Marine Corps barracks in nineteen eighty three. Let me talk to you a little bit VIC about something. It's a complete right turn. It's got nothing to do with anything. I was asked to be on Fox today, so I read up on a story. I could not believe that Fairfax County Prosecutor mister D'scano let go a guy more than thirty times who had stabbed, raped Donald and he murdered a forty
one year old mom at a bus stop. How in the world do they sleep with themselves? How do they get to bed at night when they release violent criminals with detainers? With detainer I mean yeah again, Hugh.
A number of these prosecutors across the country. You mentioned Steve Descano in fairfact, even in Arlington County, uh, prest Gotti Tofty, She's also a Soros funded prosecutor. As you know, Philadelphia is that way, the same way as well. They really believe this stuff and it's disturbing because nothing good can come of this. They're being released back onto the streets.
And for me, the big question, though, Hugh, is is not when will these people realize what they're doing is insane, but when will the voters, let's say, the voters in the state of Virginia, realize that enough is enough.
What is their threshold?
Northern Virginia, as you know, is now heavily democratic, it's heavily blue. You have a lot of federal workers, they're doze, they hate Trump. What is their threshold for allowing murderers and rapists back on the streets to commit What do.
You think does the story does this? Do people know that a guy named Descana let a murderer out thirty times.
Yeah again, I mean we've done some reporting on this, and again kudos to UH.
I believe it's Nick Minok who is done the reporting on this as well. Locally.
I'm only now beginning to see other major networks begin to cover it, namely Fox. I haven't seen whether or not CNN or the other mainstream broadcasts are willing to report on this story because it's definitely disturbing.
We're seeing now.
Multiple warnings from the police to the prosecutor's office saying you cannot do this.
This band has committed.
Multiple crimes on multiple occasions. If you let him out again, he will do something worse and he did. Where's the outrage? And I'd like to know that, particularly in this.
State, so full circle? Do you think this is because they hate Trump that they won't report stories that reflect poorly? This guy was an Obama Department prosecut He went to West Point by the way Descano, so he's a smart guy. He's a military veteran, but he's an idiologue. We don't need proscut Do you think that this story gets suppressed because it might make Trump look Okay?
Yeah, I know.
I mean because it definitely confirms what a lot of people believe, which is they have a lot of concerns when you let in, I don't know, nine ten million illegal immigrants aliens into this country who haven't been vetted, and what is a lot of them have actually committed crimes and they're all beliefs and if they're out there.
You can't mention that because it'll make the president look back. And there was a detainer. Retainers only exist for people who are considered dangerous threats to the community. I don't understand anyone not calling up by some saying take this guy off our hand. Vic Mattis call him at Victorino Madison X. Listens the new getting hammereds. Get ready to get your Morocco map out. Thank you, Vic. I'll be right back in America, State Jumner. Welcome back in America.
I'm joined by Josh Koshauer, editor in chief of Jewish Insider. Josh Iran has fired eight salvos of missiles at Israel today. Hezballah has wounded at least to Israeli soldiers operating in southern Lebanon. As the effect begins, An earnest into Lemanon to eradicate Hesbellah. So we're in the middle of a very serious time and things go wrong in a hurry.
Six American service members have lost their lives. I'm not going to make light of war at all, but i want to ask you about whether or not you think President Trump's Iran war could end up being the goldilocks. For not too little, which was nineteen ninety one, we stopped in Kuwait, we didn't go to Baghdad, not too much treat just two thousand and three we went to Bagdad and we never left. But just right, do you think that's possible a goldilocks result?
Well, I think we have a long way to go to really conclude that answer that question. I think this is the playbook that Trump likes, very decisive strikes, so that take out leaders in Venezuela was Maduro. The first twenty four hours of the Iran operation, it was committely Ayatola.
You know.
And I think the way things are going so far, I think it's pretty safe to say that the threat that Iran is going to put God to pose in the region or through its proxies, is going to be vastly diminished after however, this lasts, uh, after this operation is finished, the bigger question, and the unanswered question, is what is the leadership of Iran going to look like? Is the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard still going to remain in power after this is over? Is there going to
be any any semblance of democracy? You know, Hugh, I'm skeptical that without boots on the ground, without any you know, efforts that there, I say, nation building, it's going to be hard to shape the future Iranian regime and in a more favorable way towards US interests. That said, I don't think you need to get to that point to really achieve a whole lot as part of this military operation.
So I think a lot of known unknowns, as Don Rumsfeld like to say, But I think early indicators are that the US and Israel are both achieving a lot of their main missions.
All right, now, I want to switch subjects on you, Josh. I am loath to talk about fringe commentary have left or right, because it just is fringe. And when you talk about clickbait, you add to the clicks. That's been my theory for thirty five years in this business. Tucker Carlson, however, today attacked Habad. I know Hubbad rabbis. Habbad members are friends of mine. They are a good Jewish group that does good work and support Judaism all over the world.
They've been attacked and Mumbai by terrorists. They've been attacked in as recently as December at Bondai Beach by terrorists by Islamis, and Tucker, whether he knew it or not, put a circle on their back today. What did you think about that? And are you doing a story about Habbad to explain it to Americans.
Yeah, we have a story up at Jewish Insider and looking sadly, Hugh doesn't come as a surprise. Tucker Carlson has been mainlining pretty darn anti medic rhetoric on his show. It's gotten worse and worse over time, and now he's going after a very mainstream Jewish denomination that is full of love and is Anyone who's been to Kabad service or knows you know about emissaries, knows how warm they are and how much they care about you know, Judaism and spreading it to other Jews across the country and
the world. In fact, they have outposts in some of the you know, in capitals of the world where there just aren't many Jews, so Jews when they travel or when they're on the road, they can celebrate their Jewish faith. So the fact that, I mean, it's a very sinister
you know, I don't know what he's getting at. But if you look at what Tucker's rhetoric has been like, and you look at that interview he did with Huckabee and a lot of the stuff that he mainlines on his podcast, it's downright in the sewer and it's kind of the you haven't heard anti semitism like that since Father Coughlin in the nineteen thirties on our radio show. So you know it really it doesn't come as a
surprise to me. And you heard Trump today say I don't know what happened to Tucker Carlslon, But.
Do you think he actually knows that habad it's sort of like Catholic focus. It's a I know for Abad from their university towns. They usually go to university towns and open up a habad house like the Hellel House, and they're in places like Mumbai as it's the craziest thing to put a target on them.
Yeah, it's dangerous too. As you mentioned, Hugh that there was a terrorist attack in Australia in Bandai Beach where a crazed terrorist slaughtered fifteen participants at Ahonica celebration sponsored by Habbad. There's so many crazy people, Hugh, as you know online, and I hate to give them attention to Like these are trolls.
These are people who.
Don't have as much of a constituency as a lot of people think they do. But sometimes perception becomes reality. If if people talk about some of these extremist podcasters, these fringe folks, they end up kind of creating their own constituenc that you're seeing this on the far left, Gavin Newsom and Oh my gosh, podcasts that are you know this, No politician would touch them ten years ago, and now they're going on these podcasts that are I would argue our antisemitic.
Do you don't have to argue it is? Where is? Where is? Ram Emmanuel and Josh Shapiro today hitting Gavin Newsom for calling Israel an apartheid state and that we need to rethink are in the middle of a war where Israel has proven to be the best ally we've had since World War two, in the middle of a war, he suggests we cut off funding Israel. It's ridiculous, it's absurd, and he won't come on this show because he's afraid
of going anywhere where he might get a serious question. Yeah, I mean the scary reality.
I think it's alarming and scary. But the sources by which under thirty five year olds get news, you know, their social media platforms, certain podcasts, but a lot of these, you know, you get fed these ten second memes, the propaganda that's often not even you know, it's coming from outside the United States and sometimes coming from from our our enemies.
Uh.
And that's what a lot of younger people especially are are just gorging. And it's not a coincidence that you see extremist views, anti Semitic views, just you know through the you know, much much.
Much higher than with any other great question. So, do you think it's your job, as the editor of a platform devoted to Jewish news to go find a twenty five to thirty year old, funny, smart, quick person, give them a podcast, and promote the living daylights out of it. Yeah.
Look, I think part of part of our job is to kind of put good information, you could factual journalism, good reporting, and people who can be engaging into the ecosystem. I think that that is really the only thing you can do. Frankly, Hugh, it's a it's sort of like
the Tower of Babbel. People are in their own little universes, speaking their own languages, and some of some of the things that are being said in these mini echo champs are quite quite extreme and would have been you know, the notes that politicians leading candidates for president would have been all these shows and affiliating with these people would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
But that's for the reality. And I'm just I know that Aaron McClain just went to work for CBS. That's good news. I just like Jewish Insider to find a kid who is going to be able to talk to the kids, because why are they getting crapped? Oh, I've got to talk to josh cross Hower. Follow josh on ex to Joshua cross Hower. Follow him a Jewish Insider as well, josh Crossauer, not Joshua Josh cross Ower. Follow me to the next segment of the You hwish all right,
I mean, Grace America. I kicked off this hour with Senator Jim Tallant, formerly Senator from Missouri, currently Senior Fellow at the Reagan Institute for Peace through Strength. Senator Talent, welcome, I've asked this question a number of times. I'm gonna ask it to you. Nineteen ninety one, in my view, was the wrong war too little, and two thousand and three the Iraq War number two was too big. Are we going to hit the goldie blocked warrior just right
given five days of what's just right? Yeah?
I think so.
I think the President and Rubio and Hexith have been very clear.
The point of this war is to.
Defang our ancient adversary, at least five decades worth of adversary, Iran, by taking out their ballistic missiles, their drones and their capacity to produce them. And I'll say also, I think this war is designed to settle forty seven years of accounts. You during what time they've been attacking. They've been attacking Americans, Americans abroad, American diplomats, American servicemen and women, and American shipping. And you know what, you nobody does that to us throughout history.
We've never tolerated it.
And finally, as Tom Cotton said, the butcher's bill is being paid. There's an enormous overmatch there. This is like I said, it's a turkey shoot in Missouri. We might say it's like a duck going after a june bug. I mean, it's not a fair fight. We don't want a fair fight, and we're going to achieve all that now. I don't believe we're going to get directly involved in anything like regime change, but we are going to enjoy
the other benefits of it. The Chinese energy supply line is a lot less secure than it used to be. Hezbollah is a lot less secure in Lebanon than it used to be. Remember, they're tied at the hip with the narco terrorists in the Western hemisphere, and the world is starting to believe that maybe.
The Americans are credible again.
Hey, can I close by reading a headline from the South China Morning Posts, Oh please, which, as you know, is one of the regime's mouthpieces. Here's the headline. Is the US in decline after Iran strikes?
Maybe not?
Chinese analysts say.
All right, let me ask you this. When nineteen ninety one rolled around everyone in the post Soviet world, look at what we did and said, whoa. After two thousand and three, Kadathi called up and said, come take everything I've got, don't invade me. What is the impact of this display? And I mean Israel in the United States together is an intelligent superpower on an exponential basis, and our weaponry I just don't know how much of it
we've got, and they're being very quiet about that. What's the world thinking that we're running out or that they don't want to chance it?
Well, it is true that our military and Israels using our equipment and theirs, is defeating an adversary that's using Russian equipment and Chinese technology, and that can't be a good news any good news for Beijing. You notice that the countries in the region, which have been moving in our direction anyway, are continuing to do that, which gives rise to the possibility of a new equilibrium in the Middle East. We've been talking about that ever since Operation
Midnight Hammer. And you here's the other thing that the Chinese are not going.
To like about this.
If we can create a new balance of power where the Israelis are the ones who are policing the region at the behest and with the cooperation of the Gulf States, Egypt and Jordan. Then we can draw down a lot of our forces in the Middle East. And where do you think we're going to send them. We're going to send them to Indo Pecon.
Yeah.
So no, this is this is not good news for the aggressors in Beijing.
Tactical win, strategic win. Thus far bad things can happen. It's early six service members have already made the ultimate sacrifice. It could be a lot more. And Israelis are dying on the ground in Lebanon today, and Iran continues to say a fuselade against our allies set in a little Sparta Uae. For example, let me ask you about the rebuilt. They've gone Yosemite, Sam, and they fired off everything every which which way to try and draw the air world
into this war and put pressure on them. They're just not very smart in Iran, that's my view, because that nobody likes getting blown up. And they fired off everything, but we fired back a lot. To your former Senator, if we wanted to, can Johnthon go to the Budget Committee and Speaker Johnson go to the Budget Committee and say, pass me a reconciliation that's defense only. We'll take it to the Armed Services Committee in both houses, Committee of Jurisdictions.
Then we'll take it to Appropriation and we'll run it through as a reconciliation and let the Democrats vote against rearming. Yeah.
I could do that, But the basic problem I don't think is money. Remember there's like one hundred and thirty billion dollars in the big beautiful bill for defense, and the Department has a lot of discretion in how they spend it. The problem is capacity, and if there is something that I worry about, it's running out of interceptors. I don't think it's going to happen in this war, but it is reducing our stock pile, and that's a bad thing. So what we have to be to do
is to rebuild our capacity. On the other hand, there's nothing that's going to produce that faster than a backlog of orders, which I think you're going to see after this. I kind of think we'll see if they do a supplemental I don't think it will be by reconciliation. A lot will depend on what the Democrats are willing to do. But if we have to wait for the regular appropriations bill, you I think we can.
Well talk about capacity, Senator, there are states all over the country with defense buildings, and there are a few that have none. Why don't we just subsidize capacity. And I don't know if it's three Unlock Lackeyed or Palmer Lucky whatever he's running, or whatever Peter Thiel's running, or if it's Palaeer, and just give them the money to build the capacity and say we want it in two years. You guys can do this. Why don't we do that?
Well, we are doing this.
I mean this administration is investing in defense production and the defense industrial base to include the maritime industrial base, as you know, you at an unprecedented level.
And two years some of it may be.
I mean the problem is again we have to replace the interceptors in the meantime.
But you're talking several years out.
I mean, intention can change quickly, and we are intending to bring up to build up the defense industrial base, but capability can't. So you can't produce a factory or expand a factory overnight. Well, I just I do think the money is there is the point I was making.
Well, I'm trying to talk about market signaling. There might be a lot of money and it might be going through. But I heard the most interesting conversation about the failure of Pentagon procurement and the fact that for decades this is not a Republican or a Democrat problem. It's a bureaucracy problem. We have not been able to order munitions in anything. Do we need a Minister of Munitions? That took a full year of World War one's chaos and carnage for a great brains to set up a Ministry
of munition. Do we need a munition zar.
Yeah, we kind of have one in the Secretary of Defense or in this administration. The Deputy Secretary is really in charge of that, Deputy Secretary Feinberg, and he's doing a really good job. You're exactly right. The problem here is, I should step back for a second. We at the Reagan Institute have a National Security Innovation Base report card.
We've been putting it out for five years now. I think a former.
Deputy Secretary, Bob Work and I headed a task force about six years ago put out a report and on the basis of that we've been assessing every year. And one of the biggest problems is demand clarity. In other words, a consistent demand signal that the market understands is purposeful and it's going to be there a year after year, and so I think this administration is sending it. I mean, we are buying munitions, but you are right. In the
past they weren't. And a big part of the reason for that is that the service chiefs were saving money on munitions in order to be able to invest it in their core weapons platform programs. And there was not strong enough civilian leadership to frankly, just to make them put the money into two munitions. Now Congress would often plus it up. But see, that's not the kind of certain, clear, consistent demand signal that will get the private sector to invest substantially in new capacity.
I agree, And I wonder your student of history. Every war teaches a new lesson, like World War two taught us battleship's not so good, carrier is very very good. Does this teach us that we need rockets, missiles and anti missiles in a way that we've never fully understood before.
Yes, and drones unmanned. I mean, anybody can see it, just an educated layman and I can see it. And we need sheep drones, which is one of the reasons you this alliance with Israel is so significant. You notice that the Germans. I don't know if they've confirmed this, but I've been reading reports that they have a six billion dollar defense deal with who with the Israelis because they develop an adapt technology for military use better than
anybody on the planet. I mean, Ukraine's are good too now on drones, and so I think this alliance is going to pay off. You talk a lot about Golden Dome. We can't do it. I don't think without the Israelis helping us, and they're going to help us, and we need the alliance that has emerged. Oh yeah, the alliance because we don't because of the bureaucracy and the red tape, and they're doing better now.
We don't move as quickly as we need to move.
You and every Secretary of Defense, every Armed Services Committee going back to when I went into the Congress, has tried to solve it. Well, if we outsource some of this to the Israelis and we get the technology that way, I don't care.
I get the missiles, get the interceptors, get the drawn. Jim Tallon, former Senator from Missouri and from the Reagan Institute, thank you for joining me, Senator I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hughet. I hope you are watching us live on the Sale News channel, unless you're driving home, in which case look at the road, not at the Sale News channel. But we're on Samsung TV Plus down channel eleven seventy seven
and on Pluto TV. I'm joined out by Seth Mandel of commentary magazine. Seth, I've been asking everyone about this war and how does the president stick the dismount here? What's the best result.
The best result is hard to prove, because the best result really is Ron not being able to drag us into conflicts in the Middle East anymore, and a region free of you know, Iranian funded insurgencies and occupations and things like that. But in the near term, I think that you have to look at our golf partners, you know,
our golf partners. The economists just reported today that our golf partners are telling Trump stay the course because if he if he doesn't, then and he leaves the Iranian regime more or less intact, even without common A, then you've got a sort of dangerous cornered animal over there. And it's their corner, right, they'll be left in the neighborhood with them they need at this point because of everything that we've you know, as far as we've come, you need to go all the way. So I think
that we should look to our golf allies. They you know, they they'll they will show when they are in a position that is comfortable with where Iran ends up. And I don't think we should get out before our regional allies, including Israel, by the way, you know, feel like the mission has accomplished what it needs to accomplish and there won't be blowback because we left too much of the Iranian regime intact.
It's interesting thinking about it from the perspective reality. I hadn't thought of that set. I'm thinking it from the perspective of high school students. When I was a freshman in college, the helicopter left the embassy in Segon and it was a disaster when you're too young to remember nineteen ninety one and the absolute devastation wrecked on the Iraqi Arby on the Highway of death. But that was too little, and then Iraq two thousand and three, which
is probably in your wheelhouse. Is a young man that's too that's too big. So the Goldilocks is what I'm looking for, not too little, not too big, not a disaster. This isn't World War two. Any idea what it looks like to our youngsters, to people who are in high school and college today, what a victory would look like.
Well, it shouldn't require anything like Iraq, so you know, that's one thing to void.
But you know, again it's very hard to say what victory looks like.
You have complete capitulation by the Iranians, but that's by the Granian regime. But that's not really happening. Trump wants to be involved in deciding who takes over.
For common a.
I don't know how that's going to go. It depends on the regime that's in power. You know, victory is really the military aspect.
Of this has gone incredibly well.
We expected that it would go well, but it's gone probably even better than expected, more more efficient, more effective. But I think then you have to grade it by whether the regime that is left in power at the end of this is materially different from the one that's there now, and that Iran is set on a visibly different course all.
Right now in the first year Rock War, we ended up establishing no fly zones in the north and the south that we patrolled from Kuwait and reinforced. How about a no launch zone over all the Rock that is patrolled by everyone in the Middle East jointly. Does that look like victory because they can't They can't have these missiles. I don't know why people are so dumb. They cannot have an arsenal of missional to fire off like Yosemite, Sam and everybody that they're mad at today.
Yeah, my sense is that they are uh that the Israelis and the US are just going around and taking out their launchers, their missilestock piles everything they can. And there's been a lot of movement today toward bringing Ukrainian expertise in on drone interceptors, the and the and they you know what happened to the in the war in
Russia's war with Ukraine. Russia took Iranian SA heads right, drones and and and just tried to send swarms of them that Ukrainian and Ukraine had to figure out a cost effective way to intercept.
Them because they can't. You can't.
You will be bled dry if you use updated missile interceptors, and that's you know, the question around the movies. And it looks like Ukraine is coming to the table and they're not asking anything unreasonable, you know, for their own side.
So I think that the what's coming together is a fierce destructive onslaught against missile Iranian missiles, missile producing factories and the batteries, especially the mobile ones, and possibly away for the rest of the region to be able to afford whatever it takes, you know, to get through the rest of this until Iran is defeated.
I announced that the big question. Donald Trump has broken so many people in the ten years that he's risen and taken over the Republican Party that I sometimes wonder if they'd rather we lose this war than Trump gain a big win. And the Democrats seem to have totally lied their way as a pro American victory party. And I don't know why Ram Emmanuel gets it, others get it, but people like Gavin Newsom go on the Podbros And engage in viril and anti Semita. What's wrong with the Democrats?
Eighty years ago they led the country to worldwide victory.
Yeah, what's wrong with them is that.
You know, it's kind of like the tail wagging the dog. They're being led by their base. The progressive base is angry. They're angry about Israel. And you know, Gavin Newsom, he's not a guy who has any real firm beliefs.
He's a weather vane.
If you want to see which way the trends are moving on his side of the aisle, you watch him, and those trends are moving in this direction. He's clearly spooked enough to say something incredibly stupid about our allies on the ground in a war during which we're fighting side by side with them. You know, whatever he might think about Israel otherwise and aid to Israel, the answer
should be, we're not talking about this now. Right now, we're in a war and Israelis are fighting alongside us, and their presence there is, you know, making things safer for us, saving American lives and making it less costly for America to do this, and so now is not when we're going to have the conversation about cutting them off.
But he doesn't.
He's just it's like the war isn't happening to them.
They're just so wearing it.
I need I need an exit question from you, though, Seth, I try not to. For thirty five years, I have not elevated the Alex Joneses and the crazy people of the world, and I don't pay attention to marginal content or left or right. Tucker attacked to BOD today. I know too many bad people. I know how Bod rabbis. They're on college campuses. I think he put a target on the back of an organization that was attacked in Mumbai in two thousand and eight at Bondai Beach in December.
Do you have any experience with Abod? Can you explain to people what Habbad is and why it is not It should not be singled out as a target. And that's what happened today.
It's it's the core of rabbad is joy. It's it's you know, they're a Hasidic movement, but they don't require anybody, They don't really tell anybody what to do, and so they get a lot of people. They go to far flung places where there aren't synagogues and there aren't Jewish schools and institutions and basically set up shop almost as embassies of the Jews in a way, and through them, if you want to get a kosher meal, you can get.
If you want to get, you know, a Friday night, a Shabbat meal, or a place to go for Shabbat, you seek out Rabbad.
They're there just to help, no matter.
What you believe, no matter how religious you are, They're just there to sort of help.
So yes, it's ludicrous, it's.
Ludicrous and it's dangerous. Set Mandel, Thank you. Follow set at set Mandel. Listen to him on the common Joy podcast most days. Follow me in the next segment of today's You Here at show. You've heard me talk a lot about Consumer Seller. I can switch your carrier save money without the sacrifice. That's because Consumer Cellular uses the same towers as major carriers. Make the switch today and get twenty five dollars off at Consumer Cellular dot com
slash shoe. If you're over fifty, get one line of unlimited talk, text and data for thirty five dollars, plus an additional five dollars per month off for the first five months. When you visit Consumer Cellular dot com slash shoe. Use the promo code Q twenty five. Consumer Cellular ranks number one for network coverage and consumer satisfaction. According to ACSL, you'll be working with an actual human being when you
switch base right here in the US. So get one line of unlimited talk, text and data for only thirty five dollars per month, plus an additional five dollars off per month for the first five months. Think of all the money you will save. Go to Consumer Cellular dot Com slash shoe Promo Q twenty five or call one eight hundred and four to one one forty four fifty four Consumer Cellular dot Com slash shoe. Clean water is
not complicated, but it is essential. Without it, public health suffer, education declines, economic stability well it weakens if it doesn't collapse. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, families are facing that reality of unclean water every day. Mothers walk miles for clean water. Children are exposed to preventable diseases because they haven't got it. Communities are held back by the absence of basic clean water access. But strategic compassion changes outcomes.
Through food for the poor, your gift provides safe and living water, improving how strengthening communities, and supporting gospeled centered transformation through trust for local partnerships. This is a measurable impact with lasting results. Your gift to fifty dollars ensures two people have safe and living water, or four one hundred dollars a family of four will be transformed for
a year. I hope you act. Text Hewitt Hgwitt. That's Hewitt, Hwitt to five to one five fifty five, that's Hewett to fifty one five five five, or visit Hughewitt dot com right now and click on the blue giving living water banner at the top to provide living water today and thank you. Welcome back, America. I'm Hewett, joined by Alaska's great Senator Dan Sullivan. Senator Sullivan, welcome back. I'd
like to ask you first a quick procedural question. Do you expect your colleague Mark Wayne Mallin to get confirmed quickly as head of DHS And if so, how soon is soon?
Yes, Hugh, great to be back on the show and the answer is yes. Mark Wain is a great senator and an inspired choice by the President.
He's a really good friend of mine. But here's the thing.
He has great relationships across the aisle with Democrat senators and uh in the House as well, so a super well respected member of the Senate. He's made a huge impact in the Senate. Like I said, I think he's going to get confirmed very quickly. You know, of course they'll have to be a hearing, but I will say he needs to be confirmed quickly. But also the Democrats need to stop shutting down homeland security. I've seen a
lot of government or partial government shutdowns. To you, this is the most stupid, ridiculous and dangerous government shutdown, partial government shutdown I've ever seen. Chuck Schumer's playing games with the safety of the American people. We know there's an increased threat from the Iranians in terms of terrorism, and they've kept DHS shut down. It's ridiculous and it's got to stop.
I want to remind the audience Senator at Sullivan is also a Wawyer. He is a Marine. He's retired now, but Colonel Sullivan is with us, and so I want to ask you guys about the marine as a Senator on Armed Services. Senator of Sullivan, how do you think the war with Iran is going? Nineteen ninety one too little, we left too little after a too little time. Two thousand and three, too big, we stayed too long. Are we going to goldilocks US and get it just right?
I hope so, Hugh, and look first to shout out, of course, to our brave men and women and our military their leaders. I shared a Readiness subcommittee hearing with all the top vice chiefs of all the services yesterday, of course, where our hearts go out to the warriors who have given their lives. But this is all about going after a country that, to be honest, and you know it, you and I have talked about it. They've
been at war with us for almost fifty years. The Iranian terrorists have killed and wounded thousands, thousands of American service members. Heck, just in twenty twenty four, Iran was actively trying to kill then candidate Trump. We were in a hearing on election interference right before the election. I asked the FBI Director appoint blank question, are the Ranians still trying to kill President Trump a month out before for the November twenty twenty four election.
Answer, yes, Senator, they are.
Wow.
So, this terrorist regime has been at war with US for almost fifty years, and as you know, we have needed to bring back to terrens with regard to Iran. During the Biden administration. They could do anything they wanted to our military. As you know, they bomb sent missiles and drones at the USS Carney Destroyer in the Persian Gulf over one hundred Hugh, and Biden never did anything
to retaliate. Those days are over, and I think right now the conflict is going well, but it's early days, and you know there's going to be more challenges.
Certainly, Sartah, you're a Chair of Readiness of Armed Services, so you're the perfect guest to ask this. There's a lot of buzz in the media, uninformed as usual, because I don't know anything. Nobody knows anything you would about our munition stockpiles. Do we need do we need a reconciliation, a supplemental, or a quick appropriation in order to restock what we have expended and to build more of what we are finding to be of particular use in the new era of war.
Look, I'm going to leave that request up to the Department of Defense and the President. If there is we should rapidly move a supplemental with regard to munitions. But Hugh, I've been in three briefings, one classified, two unclassified hearings this past week and I've asked that question every time, and I think the answer, I know the answers. We have enough munitions, certainly to not only prosecute this conflict with Iran, but to be able to defend our interests in other parts.
Of the world and especially into pay COOM, and I've asked that.
I asked that out of the Under Secretary for Policy
Bridge Colby in Armed Services hearing this week. I asked it of all the Vice service chiefs, and what I wanted them to say was, Hey, if you're a country and you think you're reading about munitions being low and you want to do something aggressive and in another part of the world, don't do it, because we do have the capacity, we do have the capability, and we do have the mission of the munitions to defend our interests, including in the Taiwan straight So that's a message for Shijinping.
I asked that directly of some witnesses. So that's the answer. We clearly have the capacity. Do we need to do more in the defense industrial base? Absolutely, And that was a big part of my readiness hearing that I shared yesterday. We had a long way to go. I think we're getting on it. Under President Trump. What I particularly like was what he and Secretary Hegseth noted that they're going to put out in terms of the budget a one point five trillion dollar top line. We talked about that
end up my hearing yesterday. But we have a long way to go on the defense industrial base. But we do have the munitions night right now. And if you're a dictatorship or a country that wants to cause trouble because you think we don't have the capability, don't do it, because you'll be surprised we do, all right.
Last question, Senator, Alaska would be the front edge of Golden Dome. I know that you've used your position, your seniority to advance Golden Dome for Alaska in the country. Are we moving fast enough on that?
You know, Hugh, there's so much going on in Alaska, it's unbelievable. Last night we had another Russian bear bomber incursion into our aid is. You know, this doesn't even make the news anymore. They're being so aggressive up in Alaska. We've had two Russian bear bomber incursions with fighters in the last three weeks. Our military, which they always do, they do a great job of going out. We had F twenty two's F thirty fives a wax tankers going
to intercept these Russians. So once again they did a great job in my state. So we are on the front lines of this new air of authoritarian aggression with Russia and China in the northern part of America, in the Arctic, in the North Pacific, seeing that all the time in Aska. But Alaska you mentioned it, Hugh, were
also the cornerstone of missile defense for the country. All the ground based missile interceptors that we have protecting America, with the exception of four in California, they're all in Alaska. All the big radar systems the track incoming ballistic missiles are in Alaska. So but what the Golden Dome does, it's going to build out that system and it's going to integrate it with a space space system in terms
of tracking in space space interceptors. We had a down payment of twenty five billion dollars for that in the budget reconciliation bill. The President's provided great leadership. Senator Kramer and I got legislation in the NBAA this year to kind of put into law of the Golden Dome initiative, but we need to accelerate it more.
There's a lot more work to do, so to answer your.
Question, a good start, but we need to accelerate it because it's a really important initiative, especially during a dangerous time.
Senator Dan Sullivan, thank you for joining me on the Uhuit Show.