Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at h for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hwet. Senator Tom Cotton represents the state of arkansass member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator, welcome back. Our negotiating team has how to do Islamabad. I am curious about the metrics by which we judge any quote deal. First of all, is any limit on enrichment acceptable to you? Or should the deal be no enrichment?
Well, here, I support what the President has said all along, and I mean that goes back ten years. So he goes back more than ten years. It goes back when he was playing into boxing friends in the morning. You that's no enrichmond and no enrichmentth means no enrichment. Iron has no reason to enrich uranium and certainly don't have a right.
There are many countries.
Around the world with peaceful civilian nuclear power programs that don't enrich uranium. They say they need it for medical research, but he when was the last time you saw an Iranian doctor standing up on the Nobel Prices stand collecting his prize for medical research. All of this just flimsy excuse for the nuclear infrastructure needed for nuclear weoms. That's why the President has been clear for more than a decade Iran cannot enrich uranium.
It should not be a twenty year or a fifteen year deal, should be forever. How about do we need do we have to get back the HU highly enriched uranium in your view for it to be a successful negotiation.
I think that's certainly the best case outcome here is we've discussed in the past that enriched uranium currently buried in the ruins of Iran's nuclear bunkers is not particularly dangerous or valuable without that infrastructure, without the centrifuges enrich it further. But of course it'd be better if we had it, And for that matter, it would show that Aron means business is genuinely trying to turn over a new leaf and meet the United States's demands.
If they were to turn it over willingly.
And again there's many models of that throughout the nuclear age from countries who had enriched uranium, either because they started a nuclear program or they had it on there so well when the Soviet Union disintegrated and they'd turned it over freely and voluntarily.
Now onto the straight, Senator, we know what an open strait is. It is not what Arachi announced on Saturday and then they fired on two Indian flag tankers. What's an open straight mean to you?
An open straight to you means what it means anywhere in the world, which is international waterways are free to be traversed by anyone without paying a toll or without fear of being hit by a missile or a drone or anything else. Ball traffic goes through the straight up her moves, without hindrance or without payment to run all.
Right, now, the ballistic missile program. In the old days of arm control, people like Ken Adelman and others would negotiate forever on the Salt one salt to the start talks. Do we need verifiable limits on what they do in their missile programs? And does that not mean inspections on any time, anywhere basis which we're not in the JCPO. Indeed, entire military bases were off limits to the JCPOA inspectors.
Yeah, and Hughett to go. Let me just go back to those examples.
Decided about nuclear arms control agreements with Soviet Russia. As Ronald Reagan once said, we don't mistrust each other because we have these weapons. We have these weapons because we mistrust each other yep. And that mistrust was earned over decades by Soviet Russia, just like our mistrust of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been earned by the IOTEL was over decades. So of course we need verification mechanisms. But the real problem here is always has been the revolutionary regime in Tehran.
If they didn't give.
The civilized world constant reason to mistrust them and think they were trying to do things like develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could hit anyone in the world, then we wouldn't have to worry about such verification systems.
Let's talk then, about the proxies. I have read that Hamash is effectively cut off from Iran and Iran won't even return their phone calls. Not true about Hesbalah. What do you look for out of an Islam, a boat agreement about Hesbala specifically.
Well, a clear commitment that they will no longer support a terror group in Lebanon which is not just terrorized as relief for decades, but terrorize the people of Lebanon as well, and prevented them from having a stable and and durable governments, having peace in their country, and being able to have a normal country that has a prosperous
economy in a civil society. Again, like, what business is it of Iran who governs Lebanon on the Mediterranean shores, you know, a thousand miles away from its territory, which is a different ethnic group and has a different history altogether. Their only interest is settling up a terror proxy on Israel's border, which we can't live with because has the less killed lots of Americans and Israel certainly.
Can't live with.
So the last item I've seen on people's checklist is something for the Iranian people, like the return of the internet or promises not to murder tens of thousands. I've seen the silly discussion. Oh hardliners are now in You can't get more hardline than murdering tens of thousands of your people often negotiators to insist on anything visa me, the Iranian population in your opinion center of Cotton.
I've heard those suggestions. Well, I think it would be very welcome to turn the Internet back on. It's one of those things that a Ronald Publick have to do eventually,
because the modern society can't prosper without internet service. But I think it's perfectly appropriate to raise this point, and I think it's also appropriate to say, like, look, the people who machine gun tens of thousands of your own citizens in January are not largely dead because of it, and all of their trucks and mounted machine guns and their headquarters.
Are now largely destroyed. So you better not.
Do that again, or we might have to come back and finish the job on you, just like we've done on them.
Judging from Open Sources Center, do you think there's a conflict within the Iranian regime because they are saying contradictory things and there are allegedly are GC people upset with the elected people or the foreign minister. How do you read it?
Well?
Yeah, you I mean like you don't have to discuss classified information here. You see what the Iranian leadership is saying you got guys running around and suits and tie saying, oh, the strait is open, We're sending delegations to negotiate, and you got the guys and guns at the Revolutionary Guard corpse saying no, I don't think so.
That itself is.
A remarkable change from years and years of governance inside Iran in which the Supreme Leader's word was final. You know, I'm sure they had disagreements inside the government. You know, human affairs always yield disagreements, but you didn't have this kind of open fracture between high ranking officials.
And I think that itself just goes to show.
How badly Iran's government has been knocked onto its back foot.
Yeah, last question, Senator Cenator Graham has been pushing pretty vocally online that the president be tough tough time. Do you think Republicans will break with him if they sense that the deal, if there is a deal in Islamabad, is weak.
You I have no reason to think there would be a weak deal. I mean, when has President Trump, you know, gone soft on a run net JCPO with JCPO withdrawal, maximum pressure campaign, the Sulemani strike, mid not hammer now epic fury. I'd say at every turn to you, Donald Trump has been probably the most assertive and maximist member of his own administration, and he's led the way for Republicans. So I expect if there is any deal, I think
the odds are long. As President has said that, you can count on it to be a very strong one.
I hope you're right. I do not want He did mention Nevill Chamberlain last week blasting UK, so he knows about appeasement. I don't think he wants that label attached to him. I hope you are right, Senator Tom Cotton follow him my exit send Tom Cotton. Thank you, senator for being there. As always, I'll be right back in America. Go nowhere. It's the Hugh Hewitt Show. I'm Hugh Hewitt. The war where they were on remains center stage on
this program. Though there is a ceasefire, there's another ceasefire as well. Our ally, Israel has been fighting at two front war. We've been fight in one front war. Their second front is in Lebanon. The guns have fallen silent there. Although Hezbillah has broken the truth a few times and the IDF has responded I'm joined now by doctor Michael Orn, former Israelian ambassador the United States, founder of the Israeli
Israel Advocacy Group. Doctor Orrin, what do you make of what's going on in Lebanon and generally of the situation as our team heads to Islamabad and I hope not to Munich two point zero.
Good to be with you, Hugh. Let me just mentioned that tonight is Israeli Memorial Day.
It's a very solemn and sad day in this country, the whole country. Your plummets into literally a paroxysm of mourning. I can't stress this enough. Hence my dress today tomorrow will be at military cemeteries and various ceremonies throughout the.
Country, and so it's it's a poignant moment for us.
And let me say generally that there's a tendency to distinguish between the Lebanese front and the Iranian front, what's going on and say the Latani River and what's going on the Straits of Removes, But in fact it's all one battle, and the main battle actually is in Islamabad. And I think that that tremendous credit goes to President Allen of Lebanon. It takes true guts to do what he's doing. Two of his predecessors tried to do this
and they were assassinated. He risks a civil war over making peace with Israel, and I think the man, in my eyes, he's a hero. Let's see if you can deliver. But if he does deliver, the Lebanese army is still incapable of taking on his Beulah. His beulah the largest, still the largest non state military force, not just in the Middle East, but probably anywhere in the world.
It's huge, and we're finding at that out.
We thought we had degraded them a tremendous amount, and it turns out we hadn't degraded them as much as we thought. So tremendous threat. There's only one way you can defeat his Bullah. It's not by Israel occupying Lebanon. We tried that in nineteen eighty two. I know I was there not a good idea. We can only do it by drawing up the supply of weapons and funds from Iran. That's what brings us back to the Straits of Hermus, and that's what's brings us back to Islam.
About so We're all following very carefully the president as he makes various statements, the Iranians that make various statements.
And here's the good news and perhaps the bad news, I don't know.
The good news is that the president seems to be very serious about having that military option on the table and being ready to use it, and that he is very adamant about ending Iran's certainly getting that ninety nine hundred pounds of enricheranium out of Iran and delaying Iran's ability to enricheranium. He says for twenty years, we would
hope for fifty. But the major issue there is sanctions relief and support for terror, which we remember support for ending Iran support Fortendo was one of the original objectives.
Of the war.
I haven't heard about it in a couple of days, perhaps you have h And then the question is what is the quid pro quo.
That the Iranians will ask for.
And the fear here that at the last four sanctions relief and sanctions relief be basically a lifeline to the regime, enabling it to keep on oppressing its own people, to supporting terrorist groups around the region, and ultimately to rebuilding those military capabilities that have been so vastly destroyed.
So those are our concerns tonight.
You so doct ron as we end. We recognize you're in black, and all of Israel stops from Memorial Day, and as it should because of the sacrifices made from nineteen forty eight forward. But let me talk about the sixth judgments that I have to make. I don't want any enrichment, not for fifteen years, not for twenty, not for twenty, but not for fifteen. No enrichment. They don't need enrichment. Number Two, we get the hu back, whether it's dust, is still solid. Number Three, the trait is open,
and no more screwing around. Number four, restraint on ballistic missiles like the start stock talks of old that people always know. We can put restraints on missiles. We just have to be able to inspect on an instant basis, anywhere, anytime inspection. No more proxies. And of course something for the Iranian people. Something is basic, as like turn on the internet. If we don't get all six things, have we.
Lost, well, I think you've lost in terms in the Middle Eastern terms.
It depends again, you're always gonna it sounds like picky you in here. How you define victory, you will set back Iran.
You set back your room. You know, several years will take them. I don't know how long to rebuild their economy. If they can rebuild their economies, it depends again on the sanctioned relief and degree to which the United States will back is real to keep combating Kamas and his bullock. Keep in mind you said two front wars. There are a couple other fronts going on here. We've had fighting around the Gaza Strip as well.
So many unknowns.
But you know, there's a Western definition of victory, which is how many boats are sunk and how many missile launchers you blew up or factories you're destroyed. There's the Middle Eastern definition is you know, you come out of a hole or a tunnel and you flash the V sign and you've won. Especially if you're thinking, you know, here, they don't think in terms of of weeks and months.
I think in terms of years and.
Decades, and so if you were to you know, delay Iran's ability to be richeranium for twenty years for them, that's next week.
Yeah. Well, I don't believe in any I believe in making sure that the regime becomes just a military hunter that does not have ambitions beyond getting rich from the corrupt practices of a hunter, a like in Millmar. There are hunters around the world that don't threaten people, right, can Iran become one of those? Well?
That was that was our big philosophical difference with the Aboma administration.
For five years, I sat.
In the in the most you know, intimate discussions with our American allies about Iran, and we looked at the exact same aerial photographs of the same intelligence information we knew exactly a complete agreement on the status of the Iranian nuclear program.
Where we disagreed deeply.
Philosophically, it was we thought, you know, Iran is a Jihattist, Islamicist, expansionist or basically mafia that seeks to dominate the Middle East then expand that hegemony beyond the Middle East to the world and didn't care who they killed in the process or how Whereas the Abom administration thought that these people operate on a cost benefit analysis, they're rational and that quote unquote Iran could become a responsible regional actor.
Are also regional power quote unquote. You know, I think it's clear who was right in this debate.
And there's a deep American and Western need to feel that human beings are basically just like us. They love their kids, they want the best for their children. You know, we're not dealing with that. We're dealing with the country that puts plastic keys around the next of tens of thousands of children and sends them out to clear mindfields. It is profoundly and utterly different, a completely alien universe.
And is there a mob work. We've all seen the Godfather and we all know what it means to go to the mattresses? Have they gone to the mattresses in Iran? Do you think you see Iran regime fracture underway?
Well, there's the first sign was to happen this week.
When the Foreign Ministry said that the straits were open and the military says.
No, it's not open, and you wonder, like who's calling the shots there?
You know, it reminded me, if you have time, that's a great scene in the Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen jumps into the foxhole and there's two.
Soldiers there and say, you know, he says, who's in command? Here and they say, aren't you.
At this point there are three commanders over in Iran, and that's what's the problem. Doctor Michael or in a timber Memorial Day to you and all our friends in Israel, thank you for joining me fiction in America inside the Beltway. Joined for the very first time on the U Hewitt Show by Aaron B. McLain. Now you've heard me talk about Aaron because he runs the School of War podcast, which is indispensable. He's also a commis for the Free Press.
Recently he became the CBS National Security Correspondent and you can follow him on exit. Aaron two as B is in Bumblebee. Aaron B. McClain, m ac l e a N. Aaron, You've got one of the hardest names to ever remember for an ex posting because they've got two a's of B and mac as opposed to a mic. And I'm welcome one thing as a professional of thirty five years to someone who's only been known it for a couple of years. You got to tell people more about yourself.
You have all these amazing credentials and you don't ever mention it on School of War. If you don't tell people about yourself, nobody will.
Well, it's a real honor to be on your show with you. I've been a fan of yours for many, many years, and I can't thank you enough for all the kind words you've got about about the School War podcast. So it's a real pleasure to talk around with you today. Well, tell me tell the audience for it. You are a major in the United States Marine Corps. How did you end up doing that? Where are you from? And how did you end up in the Marines.
Sure, yeah, I was a captain.
I think I got promoted to major in the Individual Ready Reserve after I left. But I don't stand on ceremony, Hugh. But I was a captain in the infantry deployed to Afghanistan. You know, my dad was a career army guy. And if you'd asked me, Hugh, when I was growing up, what are you going to do with your life? The one thing I could have told you with great certainty was I was never ever going to join the military.
But then, for like a lot of guys my age nine to eleven, happens that changed my view and I ended up in the Marines as the black Sheep in an otherwise Army family came to Washington not long after that, knocked around different roles to include some time as a fellow at the Hudson Institute. And I started this podcast on a lark, just because I was curious about military
history and figured others would be too. And just in the last few years it's been really gratifying to see it take off and develop a bit of an audience.
Well, I've said this a couple of times today and I've only been able to say it twice in my life. I was at the CIA yesterday and it was the unveiling of a director Pompale's portrait, and I told him he had been the subject of an Aaron McClain podcast because you were talking with Ronan about the YOC Mike Pompeo meeting that set in motion maximum Pressure. And I think your episodes are fabulous. I recommend it to everyone. Aaron, here my question. There are six objectives in the Islamabad
two point zero. I am personally afraid of Munich two point zero happening. Here are the objectives. No enrichment, not now, not ever, and never get the HU back, whether it's dust or whether it's in some kind of usable open the straight of course, limits on missiles, ballistic missiles, maybe no ballistic missile, the end of proxies, and Internet for the people. What's a win from those six objectives?
Well, I think that's a very reasonable set of objectives you just articulated, Hugh. It concerns me some of the you know, it's hard to verify these reports, but some of the reports you see circulating about what actually the working terms of a potential deal are fall pretty far short of what you're describing.
I'm also concerned.
You see the re emergencies language are sort of moderates and hardline in Iran, and there does I mean, to be fair, there does seem to be this divergence between a group of Iranians at the top who would be comfortable with some kind of deal, and a group of Iranians who are opposed to any kind of deal. But you have to keep in mind even the ones that are pro deal in some fashion, they're going to drive a pretty hard bargain.
It's just what they do.
They're pretty good at this, and so it's hard to imagine, for example, them simply relinquishing control over the Strait of Warmous completely. That's their major leverage over the United States and over the world. It's hard to imagine them simply agreeing to zero enrichment and complete dismantlement, which is certainly on the zero and rushment front, a goal that President Trump has articulated repeatedly, not just in the last few weeks, but really since he's returned to office since spring of
last year. Really, so, I think there's some pretty rough waters ahead, and the major leverage they have is the straight and I continue to be I suppose a bit perplexed at why this administration has not been more proactive and it's planning for an execution for getting friendly shipping up and running excuse me through the Strait again.
They did run a couple of Haarley Burke destroyers through the Strait early in the announcement before the IRGC renegged. Let me talk to you a bit about the hardliners moderates. If you hung with the regime after they murdered tens of thousands of their people, you don't get to call yourself a moderate. That's they're all hard liners, but some of them have guns. It's the hardliners with guns who are running things. Is that a better way of saying it.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. So it's true that there are divisions. Iran has the politics, but it's a politics amongst radicals. It's just different gradations of radicals and different approaches.
To relative pragmatism amongst.
Them, but all in service of radical revolutionary aims and ultimately with the goal of preserving this revolutionary regime. They just disagree about how best to go about it. The relatively more pragmatic ones want to come to some kind of accommodation in.
String the United States along.
Basically the more radical ones think that they're actually winning and that they can somehow defeat the United States, which I think is a pretty dangerous game to be playing with the Trump administration.
Now. In terms of the two mews, I'm sure you've been on a mew during your career in the Marines. If it last, if you got up to captain, you must have floated around somewhere. Sometimes they don't do anything on a mew. What do you think they're there for. I know they took control marines of some sort, took control of the cargo ship that we were towing somewhere, But what do you think the mews are there for?
Well, the MEWS or tailor made for the kinds of mission sets that they're doing right now. So supporting a blockade with these visit board, search and c's missions, MUS can absolutely do that. Those marines can go in from the air, they can go in on small boats, whatever really is required. I will say you I was in the Marines at the sort of peak post nine to eleven period, so my seven years were two thousand and
seven to twenty fourteen. I was on a boat for exactly four hours during that time for a tour during the basic school. It was all it was all desert time for me, either training or Afghanistan. But plenty of my friends served on MUS. These are very capable task forces. They're kind of small. I think people don't realize that you're really only talking about one thousand plus, you know, ground combat marines, but heavily plussed up by you know,
this aviation element, all kinds of enablers. They're very very capable, also capable if the planners believe that there needs to be some kind of ground element and reopening traffic in the strait. The MEW is also tailor made for seizing and operating on the kinds of small pieces of terrain that are out there in and around the Strait of Hour moves to facilitate something like that. I saw, as you did, he those two Navy ships go through at
the start of at the start of the blockade. And I've seen reports that we're using drones essentially drone U submersibles to clear the mind to clear the straight of minds. I think those are very positive reports. I would like to see more of that. It reminds me a bit of the hostages in Gaza. When the Trump administration succeeded in getting the hostages out of Gaza, all of a sudden, there was so much more latitude and so much freedom
to operate with the Hamas problem. If we could get the straight up home moves open again, there'd just be so much more latitude and freedom to operate visa vi ir in.
So. I listened to Jack Keane a lot on Fox Aaron, and he is the hawks hawk. He does not want to let take the boot off their neck at all. He wants to if anything stuck with both feet on it. Where are you on the Jack Keane approach to this thing? Is there, in fact a real possibility of negotiating with a terror regime that has lied to us for forty seven years. In the CIA Museum, by the way, they have a picture of the embassy blown up and the bet barricks blown up. Yeah.
Well, I'm the Camp Lajoon Marine, so those guys from eight Marines are always close to our hearts, though.
I was in six Marines. Look, I'm skeptical.
I'm skeptical that even the so called moderates or wherever we want to frame it, would offer anything like an acceptable deal that comes close to the objectives you outlined at the start of our conversation. I also think the odds are pretty high that, you know, for example, the IRGC would veto anything that even came close in that direction, like we saw on Friday when the Iranian Foreign Minister announced that the Strait was open, which, by the way,
that wasn't entirely right. He said it was open if you follow our shipping lanes, which is a is not good enough, and that's a complicated topic we could get into. But he said it was more open than it had been, and he saw the IRGC immediately veto that and start shooting at ships and announcing the ships in the Strait they had to turn around and go back. We could easily see behavior like that after some sort of agreement
had been reached. So I do think the odds of a return to some kind of combat operations here are pretty high. And for all that, you know, it's possible to talk about some of the strategic problems that we face right now. The truth is the Iranians that the regime is in terrible shape. They were in terrible shape before this war started. You do need cash to run a regime. You do need electrical power to run a regime.
You do need access to maritime trade if you're Iran, and we have the power to basically deny them all of those things, at which point it's going to.
Be pretty hard to run a Bananastand.
Yeah, Aaron, I remember General Madis's wonderful memoir call Signed Chaos. He read it with bang West, and in that he describes how they did a mew from the middle. You know, Afghanistan's got no coach line, but they jumped over everyone and they landed the Marines in the middle of the desert, and they caught the Taliban in a pincer. So the Marines can pretty much go anywhere they want. My question is we got one minute. How did they get him out of there once they deploy a mew.
Yeah.
So you know, some of these deployments that I was referencing a minute two ago in and around the Strait up Ourmuz, you know, would be sort of on the periphery of Iran, so probably a little bit less exposed to some of the problems you cite. But you see some of these operations mooted, you know, for example, an operation to seize or Aanian nuclear materials in the face of enemy opposition. Excuse me, I don't think that would
necessarily be the Marines. I think you're more likely to see the US Army Special Operations Forces in so Calm and Jaysock do that kind of thing, and that is, you know, an extremely risky operation. But I could see the President ordering if he felt that was the only way to get the highly enricheranium.
Aaron B. McClain follow him on Etsit. Aaron B. McClain like and follows school of War, Read him in the Free Press, see him on CBS, Evenian News where he's the National Security correspondent. Now, thank you, Aeron. Look forward to having you back, They'll go anywhere America. Noah Rothman is next. Welcome Back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt inside the Relief Factors studio. Noah C. Rothman, senior writer with National Review, frequent contributor to the Editor's podcast on the National Review,
occasionally sits in on the commentary podcast. He's always the hawks hawk, which is what I like. No and I agree on pretty much everything. Noah, I got a pit in my stomach feeling about the Islamabad two point zero. I'm afraid it's Munich two point oh. What do you think?
I don't know yet. What we had over the weekend was a lot of ephemeral noise about the prospects of a negotiation under the terms that were being negotiated. It was all very vague, and I didn't think very much of it held up over the course of the weekend. What did hold up was a lot of movement in the strait of war moves, much of it very desirable from my perspective.
The seizure of.
The to Tauska, or this dual use tanker, which had possible materials that can be used for military capabilities, demonstrated that the United States has teeth associated with this blockade, and it's not just talking about interdicting ships or forcing those that are compliant to engage and respect the terms of the blockade. It's enforcing those militarily and succeeding in
doing so. And then we had the statement from Chi Chimping today, who this blockade I think is aimed at influencing, saying, you know, we not naming the United States or Iran as being the primary reason for the blockade in the first place. So the problem with you know, commercial traffic not being able to leave the straight, and he's just saying, well, international law contends that we should opened the straight, or as straight should be open to commercial trapping.
Point blank. That's desirable.
From my perspective, I think China was the reason why we had Islam about one point zero in the first place, so we want them to exert more pressure on this regime.
And the regime is clearly at war with itself.
The RGC is going after got belief and a ragachi, the political officials saying outright that they have no idea what they're talking about, and they can't really speak for the regime. So we're starting to see the conditions that we want. I don't know why we would prematurely interrupt the conditions that we've the evolution of the conditions that we've midwiped into existence here. They're all desirable from our perspective.
It's just that we're up against the artificial timeline when the ceasefire collapses tomorrow night, and we're not quite where we want to be yet.
But the Readian regime certainly isn't either.
Well let me spike. Let me tell you what would lead me to spike the football. Noah, we would. They get no enrichment ever, not now, not ever, never, not in fifteen, not in twenty. They don't get enrichment. Number two, so we get the nuclear desk, the highly enriched uranium. I don't know how we do it. They can work that out, but they commit to us doing it and we can enforce it later. Straight has to be open. Those are the big three. Now. The second three is
no more support for your proxies. That means from usis stranded, has belives stranded. Bhuti's getting nothing more. Number four is number five is something for the Iranian people. I don't know what is. Maybe it's turning on the internet. Maybe it's even an acknowledgment that they killed twenty five thirty forty thousand people and we won't do it again. And then finally, and this is the hardest one, to describe some sort of control on their missile program that is
subject to inspection anywhere anytime. What do you make of my list?
I mean it is the maximalist list. I share all those objectives. I think a lot of them. The Arenia regime could not agree to without essentially concurring that the
Uranian regime should not exist. The Ernie regime defines itself in opposition to the States in Israel militarily, and to sever its relationship with its terarrist proxies has Bulo, most significantly, I think, would be tantamount to it admitting that the Islamic Republic's modus for endi it's raizondetra is just no longer operative, and that would functionally mean regime change, and the regime officials would probably fear for their lives and
act accordingly. Everything else sounds not too horribly unreasonable, even the missile protections. If this regime was very serious about getting to terms that would be a durable peace settlement with the United States and israel I just don't think that it has that interest. It needs to be forced into capitulation, and it's not quite there yet. But yeah, I agree that the surrendering of the highly enrich uranium
should be a huge undertaking. If it is, as we believe, under several thousand tons of lightly irradiated rubble at these nuclear sites, that wouldn't be something that we could just go in and do. If the United States were to be in charge of that operation, we'd be erecting a small city around these places and kurd conducting excavation operations as a sitting target.
It's not something that I think the United States would want to do.
So this is an Iranian project or an international project under the IAEA, but it's not.
Something that the area.
It's unreasonable to ask, nor is it unreasonable to demand that there be limits on the Iranian ballistic missile program.
The Ranians fired off a two stage.
Ballistic missile at the Diego Garcia, well beyond what they said they had and well beyond what ey country needs. Unless it's developing a non conventional deterrent, you don't need a two stage missile that can travel four thousand kilometers to develop a con to deliver a conventional warhead anywhere on the planet Earth.
It's just not necessary.
You can't muster enough force to make that cost benefit necessary unless there's a conventional warhead on the top of that thing.
No, I don't often get to say this. This is the second time I've been able to say it in my life. I was at the CIA yesterday in Langley, and it was because of the portrait hanging in Mike Bompeo. It's not like it was. I was there for a briefing, but I was talking to a pretty smart character, and the pretty smart character said, we can establish a perimeter that opens up so much around the site that our
A tens can destroy anyone who approaches it. If we want to go get the hgu they have to agree to give us a perimeter that gives us enough time to respond if any hostiles approach. In other words, given the thumb sign to demand the uranium and go dig it out yourself, don't let them do it, and they just agree to stay away from if Shahan or food or wherever we think it is. If they agree to, if they're collapsing, if the hunt that just wants to survive. They'll agree to anything, right, But.
That's what it would mean. I'm not saying that we couldn't do it.
When we had this rescue operation for this F fifteen E pilot, we established a small air base inside a run thirty miles from Issahan.
That's something we can do.
It's not desirable and it's certainly not something the Ranian regime would agree to unless it we're in the throes of something like a collapse. If not a radical behavior changed, that basically functionally tantamount to regime change.
So I mean, we're talking.
About a big chance, a big shift of the character of this regime across the board from just about all those asks, especially if we were to talk about some sort of beneficence to the Iranian people, like turning the
Internet back on. And the foremost concern of this regime is that its own people are going to come to get them, as they have with pretty metronomic regularity over the course of the last few years, and then the next time they do so, they will not be confronted with the terror apparatus that the Iranian regime had in its control previously. So there's a lot of more, there's more pressure to be brought to bear into this regime.
But if it wants to survive, you know, there's certain elements that it just in its conception, cannot agree to.
It cannot give what's the and I'd love to see all of those.
All what's the minimum that we come back And it's not Munich two point zero.
It has to be the set the agreed upon with a with a means to get there, and not just in principle a set of means to a mechanism to enforce this. That's the surrender of the highly enriched uranium and all enriched uranium in Uran's custody. Its capacity to develop, to spin up these centrifuges and enrich uranium further is pretty well degraded. So I'm coomfortable with that. But that's you know, that's not a permanent solution. So surrendering of
the uranium of the uranium is goal number one. Number two is the free open maritime navigation of the Strait of.
Hormuz to all commercial traffic.
That's just something that should be a baseline condition for negotiations, much.
Less a durable peace settlement.
And you know, anything else after that is, in my view, pretty much gravy. We went into this saying that we were going to strip them of their ability to develop a nuclear weapon, delivering a nuclear weapon, funding terrorism. That's all really bad, but it's perhaps outside the scope of a negotiated piece, which is not the.
End of our dealings with Iran.
The next stage is fomenting insurrectionary rebellion inside the Islamic.
Republic, said as always nos c Rosman, Bamjacs at NOSC Rosman read him in the National View and of course with Sensorium on the editors, I'll be right now. Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh. And don't forget one of our great sponsors is Consumer Sellular one eight hundred four forty four fifty four hundred forty four fifty four. When you call them, and you should because you should want to save money, make sure you use my promo
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use my name, Hugh. Selena Zeito is President Trump's favorite journalist. You can also read her in The Washington Post and The Washington Examiner, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the New York Post. Wherever fine writing is featured, you'll find Selena Selena. I was on Fox and Friends on Saturday morning talking about the Democrats going left, and I brought up Peggy flanagain, who's likely to be their Senate candidate Minnesota hard left. I brought up Graham Platner in Maine, he's crazy left.
I brought up Abdul l Sayeed in Michigan, he's a crazy radical. And then you did a big profile of John Fetterman for the Washington Post. What is it about Fetterman that may make him not like the other three? One of those four doesn't belong there, and his name is Fetterman, Betterman.
What makes him different for them is that he is willing when he believes that it reflects what the state, the positions that the people in.
The statehold, to vote in that way rather than the way that the party expects.
Him to vote, and making a mistake. Ninety one percent of the time he votes with Democrats.
He is a Democrat.
However, his party is demanding purity and it has become the cult that they say that Republicans are. But the truth be told, the cult is within the Democratic Party.
And I took the time.
Not only I spent a lot of time with John, I've recovered him since two thousand and five. And I also interviewed Hunter Lamb, who he defeated by thirty percentage to points, winning all sixty seven counties.
In that primary.
Along with Brendan Boyle, who's a Democrat from Philadelphia, and Chris Deluzio, who's a Western Pennsylvania Democrat.
All members of the House or former members of the House. None of them would commit to say that they were running.
And I suspect at the end of the day that maybe none of them run, that it's just smack talking to build up their street cred.
But they may not challenge him at all despite all the whining and moaning. Look, the party leadership.
Understands that if he runs for reelection in two thousand and eight in a general election, he will win in the same way that he won in twenty twenty two, and in the same way that Josh Shapiro wins, because they are deliberate with their votes, as opposed to liners with their party.
In your conversations with either Senator Fennerman or the former congressman who think about challenging him, did the national party come up? Because the problem really isn't Pennsylvania politics. It's still kind of a normal democratic state. It's liberal, it's left of center, it's not radical, it's not grand Platner. I don't know if you followed his campaign in Maine. It's not Abdul al say yet in Michigan he is really out there, and it's not Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota,
who may be the most liberal of all three. Actually, Platner is just nuts, So I'm not sure I actually can plot him on an X Y axis. Do you talk about the National Party with Fetterman?
Yeah, I mean, look, what is driving all three of those.
Other men to knit at him is definitely the National Party.
The National Party wants them to go after him.
Because they are demanding a p surety from him. And I would argue that neither Boyle or or Delusio are hard left. I would call them center left, and which is why when they first started doing this. Although Deluzio has never personally attacked him, he and he and Betterman have a pretty good relationship.
They just differ on Iran. I mean, some of these attacks that that Boyle and land you.
Are really personal and pretty nasty, and which which is why I.
Thought what Patrick Murphy said was so important.
The former congressman from Bucks County, first Iraq war veteran to serve in the House. He said, look, we come from the Pennsylvania corner, right. Jack Murtha is the guy who set the tone.
There and you don't go after fellow Democrats.
Now you might do it in the private room, but you don't do that in public in any way, shape or form. And Patrick said after that of Martha passed away, but that that compartment continued. And so if he's really disappointed to see this behavior.
By all of them.
Now the governor Whites attack baby Net in Yahoo, but he doesn't attack Israel. I don't know what he said, if anything about aid to Israel. Did the philibuster come up when you talk with John Fetterman, because I think he stands with the filibuster, which is where I am and most Republicans.
No, it did not come up. But you're right, that's exactly where he stands.
And what about the other three who might be challenging him, because it's the talking point among Democratic left wingers that they want to blow up the filibuster and pack the court and ruin the rule of law, which will be devastating for the country.
Right now, I didn't get into that with them. I stuck with basically, are you going to run or not?
You know you're out there yapping. What does that mean? Is there any meat behind the bone or on the bone on this.
It's a long way till Fetterman has to come up again. It's at least two years. But let me close by asking you the last week you mentioned that the church of your youth and your parents and your grandparents was closing. Got questioned after that. Was there objections from within the diocese, because sometimes when the diocese has to make a tough call, the locals rise up. Are there any locals yet left who rose up? Or is it a done deal?
This is the fifth time they've tried to close it, and people are exhausted.
It wasn't going to happen this time. No one was going to save at this time. People trust me.
This thing this church has been saying is in like it's ninth afterlife, right, there was no more.
People were just ex.
Austed by constantly having to fight to save their church.
What is the what happens next to the church? I mean, do they sell it?
They haven't said.
So.
They have They have sold seventy They've closed seventy eight churches in the past years in the pittsburghs.
And you know, young, young America is becoming more and more Catholic. I think it may be premature. We will we will see. It doesn't cost anything. You can all board it up and wait and see Selena Zito all of your pleasure to talk to you. Follow her at Zelena at Zito, Selena online, Zito Selena online. Wait at act Zito Selena. If you want everything that she writes, go to Selenazito dot com. There, I got it right. Stay tuned, America. I'll be right back. Welcome back to America.
I'm here to do it. As you're driving home, I want you they keep in mind the date of April thirtieth, and then for the week thereafter in theaters across the United States, The Story of Everything. Now, a movie that promised you the Story of Everything has got to deliver. And so I've asked doctor Stephen Meyer, old friends of the program, you've heard heard him on my show for many many years from the Discovery Institute up in Seattle, to join me. Hello, doctor Meyer, welcome back. Tell us
what the Story of Everything is about? And people can find out more Story of Everything dot film. But what's it all about? Yeah?
Thanks Hu. Yeah, you could think that the Story of Everything is a pretentious title, but it's actually about the story of everything, the story of the origin of the universe and the origin of the life thank excuse me, the origin of life inside the universe, and especially it's the story of the scientific discoveries that are changing scientist's mind about the old materialistic, scientific atheist story that says that everything came about by undirected, unguided processes, and instead,
three major discovers are described in the film that tell us that point to a designing mind behind the universe.
You and the scientists at the Discovery Institute have been working on this for many, many years. What is it that makes this film different from the apologetics work and the intelligent design work and all the various arguments we've heard from Robert Jastrow in the early day through Francis Collins before he went to NIH, A lot of scientists have tried to argue about the coefficient of the universe. Why is the story of everything different?
It's different in a couple of respects. First of all, it tells the story. It tells the story of the discoveries that have changed scientists minds, and it tells the
stories of those scientists. So it's very viewable and engaging, but it's also very comprehensive, and it draws these different threads of evidence together to show that we don't just have evidence of a designing intelligence of some unspecified kind, but rather, what we're seeing is evidence of a designing intelligence that has the attributes that traditional theists, Jews, and Christians have long ascribed to God. There's evidence of a
transcendent intelligence who is also active in the creation. And we see that in the evidence of the beginning of the universe, the creation event itself, and we see it in the evidence for the fine tuning of the basic parameters of physics. And we see it especially in the interior workings of the Living Cell, where we have an exquisite realm of digital nanotechnology, and this film brings it to life. The producers have done a fantastic job, four
hundred visual effects, beautiful cinematography, a gorgeous score. So it's not only intellectually satisfying intellectually engaging, it's also esthetically very very compelling.
Now you're a very good public intellectual. I don't know that you're a filmmaker. Who did you hire to do this? Because I can't make them I watch.
Them, Yeah, I can't either. We work with a group called Cipher Films, They've had two very successful previous theatrical release documentaries. They always they always pay their investors back with the premium. Their last one was called After Death, which was all about near death experiences, which is still the highest grossing faith based documentary to be released in theaters.
So very skilled filmmakers, fantastic production values. We had a tremendous review of the film in the Wall Street Journal last Friday with Peter Robinson of mister Gorbachev Tear Down this Wall of Fame, the old speech writer for Ronald Reagan, and he gave it very high marks for the production values as well as the persuasive content of the film itself.
Now, Peter is a Hoover Institution fellow, so you've got to say very sure intellect at work there. Dolby's guy, any camera. Is it going to be on the biggest of screens.
It's on the big screen. It was made for the big screen. So there will be a digital release, but I'd really encourage people to get out and see it in theaters because the theatrical experience, the cinematic experience, as one reviewer said, is just spectacular. You go all the way back to the to the origin of the universe, way out in space and then deep into the cell. And then it's a very interesting device that the producers used. They didn't have a narrator, they didn't have a host.
They allowed the scientists themselves, with their testimony intercut one after another, to tell the story, and it creates a very powerful pacing of in the narrative.
All kay, what is the run time? Steven? I'm always people always want to know how long am I going to be in the theater.
It's an hour and thirty five minutes. So it's a perfect length for a theatrical theatrical documentary, not too long, not too short, just right. It's physicists say.
One hundred and thirty five minutes is just perfect. That was fer too much to cut. We we had to go to two and a half hours. I said, oh dear, one hundred and thirty five minutes, it's just perfect. We come back from break. We're going to talk about some mundane things like the score. I also want because I want to sell you on going to the theater. You
can get your tickets in advance. By the way, the story of everything dot film, The story of everything dot film, not just for believers, but for those in fact who don't believe. It's for everyone who wants understand science and the universe and the marvelous, marvelous apologetic contained within our physics and our map. Don't go anywhere, Doctor Mirrow will be right back from the Discovery Institute and the story of Everything in movie theaters April thirtieth. Thank you for
listening to highly concentrated Hugh. And don't forget one of our great sponsors as Consumer Sailor one eight hundred four fifty four hundred forty four fifty four when you call them, and you should, because you should want to save money, make sure you use my promo code, Hugh Hugh, you'll get your second month free if and when you switch to Consumer Cellular, whatever plan you switch with, you'll get
your second month for free. I want you to call and investigate because you're probably paying too much for whatever you're doing right now with Consumer Cellular. When you can go online Consumer Cellular dot com slash hue. They've got great plans for every kind of person and every kind of data usage. However, they really target people who are fifty years and older. Listen to this. You get a single line with Consumer Cellular with unlimited talk, text and
data for just thirty five dollars a month. That's a single line. If you're fifty years and older for with unlimited talk, text and data for just thirty five dollars a month. When you call Consumer Cellular eight hundred and four to one one forty four to fifty four and everybody he can be under fifty, you can be over fifty. Everybody gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh Welcome back to America. Doctor Stephen Meyer is back.
He is a force behind the story of everything. The movie that we'll be in theaters on April thirtieth through May sixth, and that's just the first week. If it does as well as we think it will do, I'm sure you'll extend the run. Stephen, tell me a little bit about how this came to be. You guys have been working away for years persuading people of the science. Why do you decide to go big screen?
Well, a little bit of it is my own story. I've been thinking about the theistic implications of modern scientific discoveries since I went off to do my PhD work at the University of Cambridge in the late nineteen eighties, I produced a book about the origin of life and the evidence for design in the interior workings of the cell, called Signature in the Cell. A second book, also looking at the informational requirements for building living systems, called Darwin's Doubt.
You kindly had me on for an interview about that. And then my third book in the trilogy is actually called The Return of the God hypothesis, where that we're not just looking at evidence for a designing intelligence of some unspecified kind, but again a designing intelligence that has the attributes that traditional theists have long ascribed to God. And that book took me three and a half years to write. I finished it in twenty twenty one, and
very soon Effort was published. I was approached by the Cipher film team team and they said, we'd like to adapt your book into a cinematic experience, is the way they put it. And it's with some delays from COVID and not being able to get to some of our key interview subjects, we finally finished that film earlier this year. It was a five year odyssey. We have scientists from all over the world, from Australia, from Britain, from France, and of course the United States.
So a.
Very fine cast. It's divided into separate acts that are very digestible and understandable. The filmmakers use the device of a kind of chapter divisions that help people to stay with the science. But the storytelling is really strong, and so I think people will find it very, very easy to follow and will open up a whole new world to people that maybe never really thought much about what science has to tell us about God.
Now, Steven, it's undeniable that a score either exponentially expands the impact of a movie or detracts from the quality of the content. Who scored the film and why did you pick him or her? It was her?
Her name is Hannah and she just did a fantastic job.
We got it.
The score itself was performed by a symphony in Eastern Europe and they did just a fantastic job. We all got to listen on headphones as they were doing it. So it's just very beautiful. And we also have a super trailer coming out with a score that was done by my son who's a young composer, and so music has been a big part of this.
In fact, the.
Final scene in the film discusses the whole problem, the problem but the mystery of beauty, that our universe and life itself is much more beautiful than anything that is required for mere Darwinian survival. So the problem of gratuitous beauty is a note we end on, and of course the film capturing that beauty gives the film both an intellectual and an aesthetic experience.
Now, how did you pick the six hundred theater? It's everywhere, but some people won't be able to get it. I'm not sure if the list is going to be at the Story of Everything dot film. Tickets are at the Story of Everything dot film. How did you pick your distribution list? That's a good distribution.
I think it's Yeah, it's good distribution. And as we're acquiring, as our pre sales are boosting this even this last week, new theaters are being added. So if people go to the Story of Everything dot film or to the Fathom website, they can get more information and even put in requests for additional theaters to be added in their area.
Now, the final question is you and I have worked for twenty five years through the old atheists, the new atheists, the old New atheists, et cetera. There are always say arguments, did you bother to refute them in the film? Because I hope you didn't waste your time, but maybe you thought you had to.
No, the old the new atheism is spent for uce. It was never new. That's the kind of strange thing about it. It was the recycled village atheism of the late nineteenth century. What the film focuses on is are the new discoveries in cosmology, physics, and especially in biology and molecular biology that point to the reality of a
designing intelligence behind life in the universe. We do introduce some of those figures early on to contrast the story we're going to tell, because the story contrast too, or rather the film contrast two stories, the story of the terry Lists story of undirected processes making everything we see, and the new story of science, which is really a reprise of the great story of science that started with Newton and Boyle, Kepler and the great founders of modern science,
and that is that behind the universe there's evidence for a super intellect. As one of the physicists who changed his mind, Sir Fred Hoyle put.
It, well, what I like to tell people. Is every work of art, at least every great work of art, is almost inevitably signed by the creator, and you can figure out who the creator is if only by matching great works of art with other ones. Do you feel at the end, what's the objective to make the non believer hesitate, to make the believer be confirmed? What is it?
I want to put a little spring in the step of especially young believers, who feel so intellectually insecure and defensive because of the hostile atheist professors they often encounter. And for the rest of us, of all ages, if people already believe in God, they will find not only confirmation of that, but I think almost an impulse to worship because the evidence and the beauty of nature are
so powerfully pointing to the reality of our creator. And it's also a film for people who are believers that you can take your skeptical friends to. It doesn't have a cringe factor. It's very very in fact, the argument is somewhat understated, but it's very powerful and it gives people a lot to think about. In the screenings we've had, people have wanted to go out immediately and have long discussions.
So I think it's the kind of film that will create constructive discussions across the worldview divides that are fracturing our culture, and we hope we bring a lot of people together around a common interest in the big questions.
Now, I got to ask before we run out of time, my old friend Brian Burgs involved, what was his hand in this?
Oh, he's spectacular. He's the old hand who's done. He's had thirty year career in Hollywood. He's the genius behind When Calls the Heart, which is the long running Hallmark Channel thing. But he's got credits, you know, so many credits touched by an angel forever and he just kept us on track with the wisdom of a seasoned producer.
I'm so glad to see the name on there. I just when you're and for you to say we knew about the cringe factor. We didn't want to do that. Hats off to Steven. The Story of Everything in theaters on April thy It's through many shaped Buy your tickets now. It's the Story of Everything. Dot Film