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. Hi it to you. Hi, Welcome to the Big Weekend Pod. A great, great show today. I'm down my leadoff hitter with John Ellis. He's out, but I will be joined by Eli Lake, who will bat
both first and second. Then Matt Connetty will come along second and third, and Big Ben domination in the cleanup spot as usual. And we're gonna add just in case you missed it, Havevive Reddy Gore from yesterday. That's an additional fifty minutes. If it looks like it's very long. You may have already heard uh havev talking to you on yesterday's podcast, but if you didn't, you definitely want to hear what he had to say to me on Thursday.
But for the Big Weekend Pod, Havevive is making an extra special appearance, so don't miss a minute of today's big weekend Pod. I'm Hewett inside the Beltway bringing you the Friday week in Review edition. Now jarn ellis is missing, so batting leadoff and in the two hole today, Eli Lake Eli is with the Free Press. He's the host of breaking histories, a man of extraordinary accomplishments, including, as you will hear in the next segment, a facility with
ai and music. But Eli, let's begin with the war that's been suspended while the President has been in China, because that's what I think happened. The ceasefire that is in the ceasefire was kept at a low level of violence. But the big new development today Michael Waltz of the UN and posted, and I just reposted on X pictures of eighty thousand barrels of oil that Iran is just dumping into the Persian Gulf because they've gotten nowhere to put it. We've gotten to mac storage and Iran faster
than we had. Nevertheless, I am hoping that when the President touched it down, kinetic actions combat operations resume immediately against Iran. What say you?
The most important thing is that we continue the freedom of navigation operations and we defend vessels. I think we've already cleared a path that is mind free, and we have to establish that, and there will be kinetic action as part of it, because the Iranians have attacked US
destroyers and they've attacked other ships. But it should be the main the main focus, I think should be at least that, and then if there are as we've been led to believe, although it's it's very interesting, I don't know, I'm did you catch Admiral Brad Cooper's testimony on the Hill yesterday?
Yesterday? Yes?
Yeah, right, So he was he made a pretty he sort of said these estimates that we didn't hit anything, or that you know, we we still have they still have something like ninety percent of their missiles. Not true. We've destroyed their ability to make missiles. And he went through all of the kind of military success countering leaks in the Washington Post and the New York Times. So if but I'm glad to believe that there are still
other conventional military targets. So that would be nice to sort of take off the board as well if hostilities resume. But the main thing is demonstrating that theed that the US Navy, hopefully with allies, can bring international shipping through the straight of hor moves without being harassed and hit by the Iranian the IRGC.
Navy, Eli, your fabulous colleague at the Free Press. Aaron McClain was on with Mark Dubovitz on the FBD Iran Breakdown podcast. Rarely do I listen to podcasts twice. I listened to this twice in one day because there are two guys who actually know what they're talking about in great detail. Yep, the freedom of navigation, the opening of the battle of our moves via a variety of techniques.
They discussed that in detail. They did not discuss adding down to Iran from the air with a new targeting assessment that the Israelis in the United States will have developed and going back after the leadership, don't you think we in for a dollar in for everything?
I think so. I think that it would be it would send an important message that you're still not safe. The idea that if you I mean, I reject the argument that we heard for a lot of the war critics that you got rid of Haminae and you got an even more hardline regime. It's ridiculous to me, it's ridiculous. I mean, you know, under Kamenee and Larajani, they murdered maybe up to forty two thousand. That's the number present.
It's crime in the century and maybe to two centuries. Stalin killed a lot more, Mouth killed a lot more. But in thirty six hours, it's tough to beat that.
Number, right in terms of right per per minute, per per hour.
Right.
So in that respect, I just you know, would say, if you feel that Vahiti, who is the commander currently of the IRGC, is an obstacle, well then take him out and you know, cause more fracturing. He has to finish the job, and I think in the end, you know, hopefully it leads to the collapse of the regime. But at the very least he's got to open up the straits and prove to everybody that this is that that that the that the bully is newter, so to speak. And that's I think the key thing.
President Jump did say at one point I'm going to take out every bridge and power plant. Any backed away from that, there is an argument to be made that we've got to cripple the regime. If we can't dislodge the top five hundred people, I'm sorry, people of Iran.
If you ever want to be free, we have to cripple your regime, and that means your oil facilities and power plants to serve any part of the IRGC ought we to go back with a bombing plan to do that, even though it will take thirty years or rebuild, not three.
In my if you taking out power plants would be a mistake because the people would pay much greater price, I think than anybody in the regime. I think you can make a very good argument for beginning to go after the oil facilities, and even though there's take a lot longer, and if you think about it, the damage done by excess capacity on the wells is also something that will take a long time to rebuild as well. So in that respect, I don't really have a problem
going after sources of revenue for the regime. My issue is that if you take out a power plant for a major city, and there are quite a few in Iran, then you really are are adding an incredible burden to just the Iranian people that hopefully, in the end of the day will take to the streets to reclaim their country, which I think is the sort of endpoint that I still think is both possible and most desirable.
That's the optim ending and I'm thinking about plunging them
into darkness. Maybe you do it by cyber Okay Topic number two eli Nick Kristaff, Hugh Ewit's theory is anti Semitism, writ large, begins in the heart to spiritual disease, and it metastasizes to the head, to the brain, and the brain can offolk often covered up with anti Israeli stuff, But anti israel disease begins in the head and it metastasizes into the heart, or you become an anti semi With Nick Christop, I think it began in the head and traveled to the heart. Because I've known him as
a radio person for years. I'm still stunned by this what happened to him.
I mean, listen, I don't want to get it. I can't get into his mind. But in my view, we're seeing this. I would look at this as the latest example of how anti Zionism, hating Israel is the price of admission to get into the progressive club. The left's this is the new litmus test. And I think that Nick Christoph, you know, is many things. I think he's
a bit of a bleeding heart. But the bottom at the end of the day, he is a liberal and he doesn't want to be left behind, and that so that I just think it's just he's going along to get along. The other thing is is that I mean the credulity that it takes to print the canine element of that story, but also to use an organization like Euromed. And I would even go so far as to say
but Selim, which is an Israeli group. They get a lot of foreign funding, but they have had they have transformed over twenty five years from an organization that used to be kind of a good faith check on Israel that every you know, open society should have and every you know, republic should democratic republic should have, you know, human rights groups and critics of the government. But they have been they have joined a kind of you know,
they've joined a chorus from within Israel. So I just think that, you know, he's there's a huge infrastructure queue of you know NGOs that you know, basically there are there to create pages and pages of reports that very few people read, and then they're used then again as references in UN reports, and it creates a kind of paper trail to make Israel seem like a monstrous country. But when you start going through the individual examples and so forth, what you find is is that these are
not credible accounts. They get certain things wrong, they're terribly one sided, and they basically exist to try to push the information or the soft power of war that is supposed to end the destruction of the only Jewish state of the world.
And that's that begins through the eyes, the ears, and the and the sens and ends up being anti Semitism in the heart. You become diseased by the way. That's also Husay Monsieur's theory that he related to the Ready Gore that you can't get into the elite of the progressive movement unless you are anti ziotist.
And I would just point something else also about the New York Times. When The New York Times wrote Screams without Words, there was a huge staff rebellion. There was an effort to try to get in some ways the paper to retract that story. They did not submit that story for certain journalism prizes because of all of this pressure. Nothing. You know, if you compare those two accounts for Nick Christoff to the scream of that words scream of out words is far more rigorous, it's far better source. It's
a much better example of journalism. And you compare that to Christoph which I think that just from a journalistic perspective, you're getting allegations. You're not getting names of the of the victims. Okay, sometimes you have to do that, but you're not getting the dates and the times and the circumstances. You're not getting a serious response from the IDF for somebody to sort of explain it. So basic stuff that
you would expect in any good, serious investigation. This journalistic investigation was lacking from it, let alone, the implausible claim about dogs and give up just horrible.
It is horrible. Eli is going to be with me during the break when we talk about Barack Obama and the JGTOA on the other side Beijing, So don't go anywhere, stay tuned to the UA hip Welcome Back America. Former President of Barack Obama feels so threatened by the way things have gone with his JGPOA Long Dad, that he went on with lame Duck Late Night failed comedian Stephen Colbert and said this cut number one.
We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium up. They were able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program.
For energy, and so you think it was working.
Cool.
Not only did I think it was working, even Israeli intelligence and thought it was working. Even our intelligence services thought it was working. So there's no dispute that it worked and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the straight of hormones.
All right, So there's the defense eli your response, it's deeply dishonest accounting of what the JCPIA was.
The JCPIA was working because the Iranians had a glide path to eventually produce as much low enriched uranium as they pleased, and they got to keep what was an illicit, industrial sized nuclear program. Not only did they get to keep that program, they got to produce centrifuges, and they got designs for much more efficient centrifuges. So what they were able to do was, in exchange for a promise that they would not use their new lay program for fuel that is suitable for a weapon, they get to
keep the ability to make that fuel. That is a deal that the United States would not have signed with any other country. What was known as the gold standard was or these water called one two three agreements with countries like the United Arab Emirates, was that we or some you do not get to process and enrich your
own uranium. We will give you that the nuclear fuels suitable for reactors, but you do not get to have that capability in your own country because you can turn that on very easily once you've mastered the fuel cycle into being able to make fuel suitable for a bomb. That was always the sort of deep flaw in the JCPA, in addition to having so many of its limitations expire over time. They would be expiring right around now now.
I may I mentioned there were no restrictions on missiles and their length. There were absolutely the ability they could travel. There was absolutely know anytime anywhere inspection. Large military bases were absolutely forbidden from people going to inspect them, and of course by twenty thirty two they could do whatever they wanted. Why did he pick Colbert? I think he did because Colbert doesn't know anything. Is that it?
I think it's also yeah, Colbert is also on site. He's as much of a political figure as a figure of comedy. In fact, I don't think he's really in the comedy lane anymore, and hasn't been for some time. I mean, he's like, you know, he's a sort of an influencer for the Democratic Party on network television.
Is how I last question during it there's no rehabbing the JCPOA the room about it in the ugly Obama library. That disaster we have thirty Will there be any way to make it not a disaster?
No? No, I mean, And also to compare whatever deal if Trump does get a deal with this rougine, which I don't think he will, to the ju it doesn't make any sense because Trump has destroyed the nuclear program, which the JCPU a legitimized.
So that's the We'll be right back with Beijing, and Eli like stand by.
We hold this truth to please self evidence. We got the raditudes our own president.
You hold your stuns to stop the king need and your text out get back, Welcome back America.
Enough.
What you're listening to is not Hamilton. It's Eli Lake about to become Lynn Manuel Miranda. Because he uses AI to create music and this was very good. He sent this to me last night.
Thank you very much like good. I mean, I got a lot of the lyrics by playing around with the actual declaration itself. And I've been thinking a lot about the declaration recently, and you know, it's incredible what AI can do. I mean, there's obviously a downside to it, but I love it and uh, it's it's it's a great outlet for me. I write a lot of I like writing the lyrics. I have some musical capabilities, but nothing like what the computers can now do.
Well, Eli, I was I was talking with a friend of my daughter and I have a theater kid, grandkid, and I have told my theater kid, grandkid, it's a wonderful hobby. Don't plan on making a livelihood. And it said, Bobby, you've crushed my dream and I said no really, And the third party says, you know, creatives are the only ones who won't be replaced by AI, and I said, no. You talked to Elia. How much are you doing of this? Elia?
Well, I write, I write the lyrics, and if you ask the machine to write it, they're not as good. And I've done this actually with other AI programs like Rock, where I've just said, can you write a column in Eli Lake style, and I started doing this like a year ago. They're getting better, but it's not. It doesn't compare. You should try it here. That's pretty easy to do because I'll spit it out in like five seconds. It can't it can't do that. It can't write like a
good column. It can't write a feature. Yeah, but it's learning. And what it can certainly do is if I ask one of the five best books on a particular as I start my research for a particular breaking history episode, it usually gives me five. And they really are the best books I've found. I mean, I don't ask the machine too. That's crazy because.
I hadn't thought of that. That's being a great book. I am reading Nick Lehman's new memoir, returning on the basis of the commentary recommends it's fabulous, which raised in my head. He runs in the same circles as Christoff. If you're a Jew and you're working with Nick Christoph, what do you do on a theoretical base, I'm not advising you to advise Brett Stevens to quit, but what do you do about that? Just ignore it? Well?
I mean I think you, I mean, I don't know why I don't quite know what to do, because to me, the malice of that peace was the sort of mission statement that the Israelis were raped on October seventh, and every day Palestinians are raped, and so I guess it all evens out. And and to me it's like, Okay, would I be surprised if there were some horrible things that happened in some of those prisons, given you know
the numbers and everything, No, I wouldn't. In fact, I'm sure there are terrible things, and there should be a process that is not interfered with by political side. And Israel has been through this before every country. We've been through it with Abu Grave most recently, but certainly in Vietnam we had a kind of process and that's what
happens in war. And that's but but this you have to understand, and it's it's ironic that Christop's column comes out the same day that Israel that the Civil Commission releases what is the most comprehensive report on what happened on October seventh. What you find is that you know, they were given instructions on how to say in Hebrew to take off your pants and take off your underpants things like that, which is that this was a deliberate plan.
It was literally using rape as a weapon of war, and the people who did it are still celebrated, not just by Palestinians but increasingly. And this is what kind of gives me chills. You find members of the left right now in the West, in America and Canada and Europe that think that Hamas are the good guys.
Yeah, the thirty months since ten seven is a sort of rolling drafish affair. I suggested to you. I hope Breaking History explained what that was. It was the uncorking of anti tematism in Europe in the little late nineteenth century.
Now, and you've been great this week on the Dreypest stuff. I mean, I just I've been listening to every I mean, this week has been really terrific.
Well, it's because it's horrific. It's terrific. If it's terrific, it's because it's terrific. Let's finish in Beijing in the era of and Brezhnev, that was after Stalin, you could move towards Reagan and Garbageev and eventually to the fall of the Wall. G is not any of those guys he's maybe Ondropov, but he's really Stalin. Does it make sense to meet with him four times in a year. I'm skeptical. Well, let's see what we can get out of it.
I mean, I think when you talk to people who tried to look at what a war with China would look like, it's something that I think we should try to avoid if we can. If there is a way to reach the sort of accommodation, what I find interesting, and I'm working on this, but when I've talked to Pentagon people, what they tell me is that China did the bare minimum to support Irad in this war. And so if Trump can use diplomacy in this way, even though I agree with you that g is, you know,
he's a tyrant, he's Stalin. But if he's Stalin, right, But if you can kind of get.
G to.
Maybe put some constructive pressure on Iran, if you can get g Uh, you know, to play more fair in terms of its exports and and currency manipulation. In my view, if you can get something out of it, then I don't think the diplomacy necessarily hurts. The problem is is if if Trump is enticed into a kind of deal where we don't give Taiwan all of the military it needs to defend itself. That's in the event sitting.
Down with the President tonight, I'm going to watch it all before being on a special report. I'm going to be leaning in what did you say about Taiwan? Because the ultimate deal is you help us everywhere you get the South China Sea, and we'll we'll close our eyes on Taiwan. That's a disaster. That's a disaster. Caning around that we can.
But the reason why, in some ways Iran is important for that equation is that if we might I mean, the calculations from China might be I don't know if it's worth the candle. Everybody just assumes that the Iranians are going to come out better. I don't think that's true at all. I think that maybe the Chinese didn't help as much because they looked around and they said, this is a regime that's wobbling. I'm not sure they're going to survive six months after this war. I mean,
that's that's important too. So if you can manage to get something better in Iran, then that puts that that means you need China less and it gives us more leverage. I think to focus on Taiwan. I would be surprised if Trump would have given up entirely on Taiwan at this point, but I think it is something to worry about.
In terms of cultural exchanges. Importing ev I want none of it. They're a surveillance state. I joke with people and longshots at that yesterday, and we have a minute and so everything he here is being watched by the Chicoms because Mike Gallagher is there and it is that they are everywhere. Do you think the American people understand that Eli thirty seconds to the end of the No.
They don't. And I've been writing about this now for nearly twenty years. It goes back to Huawei. I mean, we had Huawei circuits and chips in military stuff fifteen years ago. Our government is finally waking up to this kind of stuff, but I think the American people still don't quite realize what's going on there.
So it's important to get that message out teeth Kruck and the clean Technology initiative of Trump one. I hope what's going on now Eli Lake can be followed at Eli Lake. Your name came up at Hudson yesterday asked me for the young journalists who I think are important here. One of them, as is Aaron McLain. Thank you, Eli for doing two segments today, and thank you for this wonderful song. Okay tuned in America, Matt continent. He has met working back America Matthew Kuhn, and he joins me
on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Now. Matt is the free expression, the vertical calumnist for the Wall Street Journal. He's also the head of domestic policy at American Enterprise Institute. Take a moment to find the Wall Street Journal column today on AOC because he makes the central point. In fact, let's begin there, Matt. I love the fact you finally put on the table. She's got a lot of sparkle. She's got gifts. One of those is not knowledge of America.
It's founding principles or what it's all about. She's not very well read. I don't want to say she's stupid, but she is ignorant of America. Is that a good summary of your column?
I think so, Hugh.
I think my column goes out to show that Alexandria Okazio Cortez is both an economic and a historical illiterate. You know, she doesn't give many interviews, and I think we learned why in the past few days.
In the first the interview, she said.
That, you know, no one can earn a billion dollars, stating that essentially all billionaires somehow are thieves, that they earned they won their fortune through ill godden gains. And then in a subsequent interview to defend her the economic obliviousness, and by the way, she's an economics double major, she
said that the American Revolution was fought against billionaires. And this to me is in some ways even worse than her economic sins, because she is a United States congresswoman who clearly has no grasp of why the American Revolution was fought. It was not fought because King George the Third had a piet tear in Manhattan. It was fought because the King in Parliament had denied the colonists for
decades their natural and civil rights as Englishmen. And to not grasp that, I think, is to lose the plot about America itself. And I'm disturbed that this new Democratic Socialist Party is beginning to recast the American Revolution as just a kind of another peasants revolt. Another kind of exercise in the rule of the mob, like we saw in the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, or the Chinese Civil war and revolution. That's not a path America wants to go down.
AOC had she recast her marks as the original billionaires for the Nabobs who bought back the wealth of India to the United Kingdom and exploited it, including the colonization of America, it would have at least had a patina of intellectual rigor. But she'd not well learned. Now, Matt, they do have these honorary degrees that they give out at commencement time. You think BU is tempted to take hers back.
Well, she's a graduate of BU double major.
Like I said, economics and international relations, another field where she has no expertise. Remember the last face plant AOC had was when she went to the Munich Security Conference earlier this year and she was asked a fairly simple question on foreign policy and she gave a word salad that you would put Kamala Harris to shame. So I think that there's a level of ignorance.
Here, Hugh.
And it's not just aoc I, unfortunately, it's large swaths of our society. They don't understand not just economics, the laws of supply and demand, savings and investment, why inflation is bad, government spending diverting resources from the private economy. But they don't understand why America was founded.
What we're about. We're about the natural rights.
Of individuals created equal before God, and we've been playing out this experiment in self government for two hundred and fifty years.
Come July fourth.
That's what we need to understand, because once you get that, you kind of realize the value of limited government, of personal freedoms, of property rights, all the things that AOC and her squad want to attack and destroy.
I matt on to Iran. The President will be back on you soil soon. I would like combat operations to commends immediately there afterwards where they Iran and the seagefire that isn't a seagefire that was paused for the summit, because we've got to bring this regime to its knees, if not down, what do you think.
Something needs to give you?
And I think that this cannot go on much further one for Iran because the pressure is real and the economic devastation there is for sure. But also for President Trump, because we can't let ourselves get into a corner where Iran is effectively calling the shots in the Strait of Hormones. So I think what President Trump needs to do is restart Project Freedom. He needs to open a the Strait
of Hormuz. And in order to do that, it means rezooming military operations for some period of time so that we can take out those drone and missile teams along the coasts. We can take out all the harbors and ports where the Mosquito fleet of ships that harass the tankers come to port, drop that anchor. So there's needs to be a resumption of the military campaign for some time and to kind of lay the ground or the sea for the resumption of Project Freedom and opening up that straight.
All of the above in my view. Matt will be with me during the break. It'll be on the One Big Weekend Pod, and then they'll be back after the break to talk about China. Don't go anywhere America. I who do it? I'm back with Matt CONTINENTI Matt. Over the last two days, President former President Obama sat down with lame duck failed Late Night Committee and Stephen Colbert interviewed, as you know, kind of paint a rosy picture about
the JCPOA. Here's what the former president said to Stephen Colbert.
We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium out. They were able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program.
For energy, and so you think it was working.
Cool.
Not only did I think it was working, even Israeli intelligence thought it was working. Even our intelligence services thought it was working. So there's no dispute that it worked and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the straight of horm Moose.
So, Matt Connetty, it's obviously a lie because there is it is speed about whether it worked, but it didn't work. Can you explain to the audience why it didn't work?
Well?
Why was the JCPOA, the Obama nuclear deal such a travesty? Whereas President Trump calls it the worst deal ever. Obama talked about what the Iranians said they were doing, that is lowering the enrichment standards. What he didn't say is what Obama gave the Iranians billions and billions of dollars, including pallets of cash, which the Iranians then turned around
to spread chaos throughout the region, to foment terror. So the JCPOA didn't address the missiles, which is one of the reasons we had Operation Epic Fury, and didn't address the proxies. And moreover, it was sunseted, as you know, Hugh, which that at the end of the period of the JCPOA, Iran would have been free to do anything it wanted. And because as Obama pointed out, it still maintained the nuclear infrastructure to take off the second that the JCPOA
was sunseted, so it was left. Iran was left richer, It maintained its nuclear infrastructure, and it was allowed to build up its conventional weaponry to to protect that nuclear program and to so chaos throughout the region. Obama is completely wrong. And I think it's very interesting here. Why
is Obama resurfacing these days? He's everywhere. He's withs Or on Mamdani, he's with James Tallerico in Texas, he's getting ready to open up his ugly library, and in Chicago he's given interviews to The New Yorker, and now this interview to Stephen Colbert. Why because he understands that when this war is won, when Iran is militarily decimated, and eventually when that regime falls and the Strait of Hormuz
is open, Obama's legacy will be gone, zeroed out. And so that's what he's trying to do and what his aids are trying to do now. They are trying to keep his legacy alive, but it is dying.
It's going to be interesting. It will be the first legacy to be completely erased and failed by the time the library opens. Obamacare is a disaster of the JCPO. And you didn't even mention inspection a joke. It was like the Clusseau inspection regime. They could declare entire military bases off limit, they could go anywhere at any time. Never it was a joke. He's a joke. The library's a joke. These interviews are a joke. I'm coming back
with the non joke. Matt Continetti, Stay tuned, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Matt Continetti, Wall Street Journal columnist and head of domestic policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute is still with me. Matt apropos of our earlier conversation about AOC not knowing anything. Ap story this morning quote. Kids in Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania get iPads starting in kindergarten, switch to chromebooks in second grade,
get their own MacBooks in eighth grade. One hundred of parents sign a petition asking to preserve their ability to opt their children out of using digital devices during the school day. The school district pushed back, saying it's not feasible to let hundreds of students opt out of technology that is essential to the quick. My theory, the reason American kids are ignorant is that they do not know how to read books and they don't have the discipline
to finish arguments. What do you think you've got, Smalls, Well.
It's a great theory.
You know.
This decline, it seems, began right before the pandemic, around twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, and then of course the school lockdowns enclosures accelerated this learning loss to a very detrimental effect for American society for generations.
Now, what I would.
Point out, exactly as you say, around twenty fourteen fifteen, is when a lot of this what's called ed tech, that the tablets, the reliance on YouTube videos, the phones being allowed in the classroom beginning around that time, that's when it was becoming introduced. At the same time, you had a nationwide, especially in the Blue States, retreat from testing and accountability. All of the reforms that were part of the push in George W. Bush and Barack Obama's
presidency that the education departed. Obama is one of the one things that worked to kind of make sure that schools were performing and to measure how students were doing. All of those reforms began to fade away in the second half of Obama's presidency. And this, of course is the states at work too, the Blue States in particular. And so we're left right now, Hugh is in this very upsetting situation. On the one hand, we are having these parent driven movements to get the phones out of
the schools. That's very important to lock those phones away at least during school hours. But the next battlefield is going to have to be this ed tech, these tablets, these you know, we know that there are school systems in Virginia where the teacher just puts on a YouTube video. Yep, they think that's what they think that's education. That's not education,
and it's hurting our children. On the other hand, though, especially in red states, we have a return to basic phonics in order to encourage red and reading.
This is the Mississippi Miracle.
We have charter schools, we have this new tax credit program as part of the Working Family's tax Credit to encourage school choice. So there are real opportunities here, but it's only the conservatives who are talking about them. And we've lost the sense where democrats and of course the teachers unions feel as though they need to be invested in accountability and testing to get our children back to
where they're learning as opposed to right now. It seems almost as a national amnesia is in the midst of taking place.
Notice that the people that push back in the AP story I read the school district No. One in particular, that represents some costs of bureaucracy, spending a lot of money and developing a lot of curriculum and a lot of hours and a lot of workloads based upon technology. They don't want to change. They like it. That's the problem.
I want to switch back to Christoff. I talked to you earlier this week, but I've been thinking about very little NonStop, because I actually know the guy from the radio, and I'm so astonished I've come up with this theory anti Zionism, anti Israel. That's an intellectual choice that people make, and then it bleeds into your heart or it becomes
and metastasizes into anti Semitism. Anti Semitism is a disease of the heart Soulzannietschman said, where good and he will reside, and it metastasizes to the brain, where it's disguised into anti Zionism or anti Israel. I think Christop has it from the brain to the heart, but he's got it. What do you make of my theory that he just kind of red himself into the anti Semitic movement accidentally because he wanted to be anti Israel.
Well, I think that's a key part of it.
In the New York Times, you're almost reflexively anti Israel. And if you write about Israel and you say something bad about Israel, there will be no scrutiny to what you claim. And we know that for a fact. I think there's also a measure of sheer laziness on the part of Chris stuff. We know that in the past he's fallen for frauds and articles have been apologized for or even retracted. In the case of this Cambodian anti prostitution activist, he kind of fell for earlier in this century.
And we see here from the people with researched the article, Hugh, as you know, is that it seems that a lot of these unverified, anonymous sources making these scurrilous and ridiculous claims can be traced back to an NGO non governmental organization which is known to be a Hamas front. And so if you're a columnist who has an incentive to write negatively about Israel because you know it's going to please your subscriber base, you know what's your editors are
going to love it. Long comes its NGO and says, hey, wait until you check out this information or not check it, but look away, we have for you. We can tee up your column or your essay right away. Well, you might be inclined to do that and have no heed of what the consequences might be in the real world for the people who will take these slanders and use them as justification for violence against Jews around the world.
You just gave berta thought. NGO is a term that almost adds dignity to beggars. NGOs are beggars. NGOs are non productivity measured organization where losers and people who can't make a living go NGOs. Do we add to their dignity by referring to them as NGOs in some way associating them with government by saying they're non government organizations, but they're likely government. They're just beggars.
It's kind of I'm hesitating because there's a chance that American enterprises considered an NGO.
I don't want. It's not saying all NGOs here. It's a very capacious term, as we know.
But in specifically, what we're talking about are these NGOs that are part of this self designated human rights community. They don't stand for human rights. They stand to delegitimize, demonize, and apply double standards to the state of Israel as part of a global movement to end the Jewish state, the only state where the Jewish people have a home.
Out of all the hundreds of countries.
In the world, Why is it that there is a global movement to destroy one of them? And that, I think is the question that's being asked. But you won't find that question being asked in the New York Times.
Dehumanized, delegitimize, imposed a double standard. That was some very rapid work with the alliteration. Matt Continetti and my hat is tipped to you. Have a great weekend. Thank you again for joining me. Follow Matt at the Wall Street Journal, Go rid it's coming on AOC today. It's fabulous and fell him on x at Continetti. I'll be right back in America. I'm cute. Thank you for listening to highly
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he can be under fifty and be over fifty. Everybody gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh, I'm Hewett. For regular listeners to this program, you know, for the big weekend pod. I's been most of Friday talking the same people. On last Friday we went out with a rim shot when Ben Dominicic landed a low blow with a James Harden smear. I never forget, I never forget. And they were zero and two when he hit me.
Below the bell. You did you not hear the last thing that I said? I said that they'd take I said that they'd steal some at home and look at now, look.
At at three and two going into seven o'clock tonight. But I want to say, you are a conspiracy theorist. And one thing only Ben Dominic the NBA. So they had the lottery this week.
And who won the NBA lottery but Ben Dominic's team, the Washington Wizards. So was that fixed?
I think it was. I actually think it was, and I think that I think that. One of the things to notice, of course, about this is that everyone in Utah wants wants Aja to stay there. And for listeners who don't know, uh, you know, I want the top There's basically two clear top players in basketball to be drafted this year, and Utah got the second pick. So what do you have now? You have drama? Should they trade the pick to Utah? Should they swap and do like you gin up and you get attention for it?
Adam Silver doing what he does?
You know, who do you want the Wizards to take? You've got everybody on injured reserve for like three months taking a vacation on the message table.
Anthony Davis is probably never going to see the court anyway. But yes, I hey, when Harden wants to play in the playoffs, he's a good player. When he doesn't want to play. You notice, Well.
I'm just kiddous. Who do you want the Wizards to say? If you're actually a Wizards fan. Fred Barnes was forever right, I and Morton would go together. Who's who do you want?
I will just say the number of times that they played against each other. You know, I actually I think Peterson is actually the better pick. But I also think that given the fact that this is a franchise that you can't trust because they've never I mean, you need to keep in mind since since the three point shot was invented, Okay, these Wizards have not won fifty games, So that that is the way to think about this franchise.
It is a loser franchise. It is very bad. They won championship, and they won the championship, and then the next year they had the three point line and then they just dropped like a rock. And it's look, I was there during the Jordan latter years, and I was there and I've been there. I was there during the Laboula years of of that, and and of course I was very disappointed with the way that the Gilbert Arenas
situation turned out. And John Wall was there to make a pick, so he was there a good luck charm.
But well, I'm telling you, as a Browns fan, I feel you're pain to be cursed with a terrible franchise is a bad thing. Let's get to the news. President will touchdown in DC as soon as he does. I want combat operation to begin again against Ron because of the ceasefire isn't a ceasefire. And now we have Evan's, courtesy of Ambassador Walt's, a massive environmental degradation as they're spilling oil into the strait of hormones because they haven't
got any place to put it. They're already at max capacity eighty thousand barrels of washed up on carg Island. What do you think is going to happen? What ought to happen?
I think that what you I think that what you
laid out there is exactly what ought to happen. I don't know if the President is going to want to get back and pull the trigger as quickly as that, but I mean, you know, you heard his attitude talking about the last deal he reject did after the first sentence, uh and you know he didn't say what the sentence was, but he said there was, you know, just unacceptable on its face, and I think that his patience has completely run out for this type of situation that is, as
you say, a non cease fire, seasefire. He's not going to stand for that, and it's not something that he would rather be, you know, pursuing. I think this in ways that send the message this is going to get over quickly, and if it doesn't, we're going to hit
you hard and we're going to hit you again. And looks as much as the depictions that you see or that you read in the New York Times, you know, frame this as being a situation where the Iranians are coming off better when it comes to, you know, their whole military situation. The presentations that we've seen put forward by our War Department officials have been I mean, it's
devastating what they've actually done to their military capabilities. And I think that that's something the President can hold his head high about. But he's not going to He's not going to keep having this situation where it's it's just a tug of war back and forth, and where they don't they don't seem to be negotiating in any time of good says.
So there are levels of force and I think there's maximum level of force, which is ground troops. The eighty second Airborne is over there. I listened today to Aaron McClain and Mark dublo it's twice on the new Iran breakdown. Twice because they are smart guys, and Aaron McClain's marine and Mark duvids it does nothing but Iran. There are lots of military options, but the eighty second Airborne is part of one hundred and eighteenth Air Corps. They know
how to do this. They're not a shutdown entire airspaces and do we turn them loose and just say do what you got to do to end this regime's military power.
I think that the problem that you're going to run into there, of course, is the president's level of tolerance for loss of American life. He cited to Brett Behar in the interview that's going to run this evening. You know the fact that you know from his perspective, he's lost thirteen Americans in two wars. That's you know, a number clearly that is front of mind for him. The fact that he is thinking about this in those terms
is something that is going to give him pause. And the unfortunate reality though, Hugh is that that's probably what it's going to take to devastate this regime to the point that most people think it needs to be, and that was always going to be a problem. The geography, the terrain is a problem. Everything that you know is challenging about Iran has been something that they have used to great effect to protect this regime for so long, though, and at some point you have to decide what are
we going to finish this thing or not. Rick Scott wrote a piece for us at The Daily Wire this week saying, you know that there was nothing acceptable other than victory here, and that that means, you know, not accepting some end of the war that people domestically are arguing for because of concerns about the midterms or something of that nature. That you've got to take it all the way. And I think that that's an indication that the present and we'll get support if he makes that choice.
All Right, you brought up the Daily Wire, and I didn't introduce you as the opinion editor at the Daily Wire as well as the Fox News contributor and host of the Big Ben podcast. So now that I have, let me bring up the fact the New Yorker maggot, not the New Yorker. What do we call that? New York mag decided to go after Ben Shapiro and it's been unbound. John Chape is one of the weirdest guys in the business. I mean, it is weird and it's
a weird magazine. What I got against Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire and why does anyone believe their lies?
Well, it's not just them, Hugh. I would say that this is a pretty coordinated series of attacks. I mean it's you know, the Washington Post ran a piece. You know, they've been There have been multiple podcasters who've gone after it, who've suggested that there's something I would recommend to everyone the opening of Ben Shapiro Show today, which is entitled all the Haters Can Kiss My Ass. I hope that doesn't get you a violation.
I've known Ben for twenty years. Good for Ben, so but but the.
Truth is this. The Daily Wire is an institution. I've only been there for two and a half months. It has a huge staff, it has enormous you know projects that they do, Uh, they do things that nobody else
is doing. And what is really happening here is that a bunch of bitter podcasters who are anti what the Daily Wire and Ben and everybody else who's built that place represent, which is a traditional lane of conservatism, who want to see it instead ripped down, torn down to the to the the every bolt, you know, everything down to the foundation, and then break that foundation open in order to rebuild a crank filled right wing that is bad on Israel, is bad on our on foreign policy,
is bad on national security, is bad on Jews generally, and that is fueled by a number of people, including you know, the fact that the fact that you are turning to Tucker and Candae and Nick Flint is as your sources on the fact that the Daily Wire is going down, that should tell you everything about what's going on here, Hugh. It is that they are they are giving you know, quotes to these places saying you know, oh, you know, my opponent is going down, and it's simply
not true at all. And it's one of these things where I frankly think the fact that you can have people who have tiny little staffs, who you know, podcasts trump their basement live streams and things like that go out and say, you know, I've beaten this institution, I'm taking over the new Right, et cetera. Is something that is a very convenient narrative if you are someone in the legacy media.
On the left, to be a displacement engine like the Daily Wire. There are the free pressures displacing the New York Times, it's taking on CBS, it's actually absorbing CBS. But the Daily Wire displacing a lot of conservative media, not all of it not normal concern to media, but it's displacing a lot of the eyeball because you can't read two things at once, and if you're reading the Daily Wire, you're not reading something else. And if you're a conservative, the Daily Wire threatens to kill a bunch
of people who make their living. And that the problem. It's killing people off from their their disintermediated from their money.
I think it's also the fact that you have people who very much are Yes, there's an aspect of this that's jealousy of success, but I think there are people who very much want to see their horseshoe theory come to fruition where you've got Graham Platner and Nick Flint days and that's somehow the right, and that's not.
Your dream I'm coming back with Ben during the break. You'll be back on the other side. They'll go anywhere America. I'm qq welcome back. I'm with Ben Dominich on the Big Weekend Pod. Ben Barack Obama sat down with Lame Duck and failed Late Night quote comedian Stephen Colbert to defend his record. Everyone would immediately go to him, obviously, to defend your record on the JCPOA, here's how the exchange began.
We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium up. They were able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program for energy.
And so you think it was working.
Well, not only did I think it was working, even Israeli intelligence thought it was working. Even our intelligence services thought it was working. So there's no dispute that it worked and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down a straight or hor mooz.
Now, some things are self evident, Ben, you and I are about to dispute that it works. So it's a lie that no one is disputing that it works. In fact, the vast majority of smart people know it didn't work, it had massive holes in it. Why is he trying to do this and why is he picking Cobert about whom no one cares to do it with.
Well, first off, I would just say that a president, a former president doing this while America is at war, like, I mean, I'm sorry, pick your moment, guy, Like if you want to come back and make the case for this in the future in a book, you know, and something like that. But America is currently in a war with Iran, and for him to go and sit down with Colbert, who he knows. While while Colbert is a smart person, he plays this idiotic character on TV, I
think on purpose. He plays completely dumb. Whenever he has a democratic guest on he never says anything critical. You know, he's completely abandoned any pretense of that. He used to be smart enough, by the way to lampoon the right in such a way that even the right could laugh, and now he's just completely lost that. He's just a total partisan hack. And it's really I mean, for someone who actually liked Colbert when he was much when he was younger, when he was doing I mean the Dana Carvey Show.
I enjoyed being on a show. I enjoyed being his guest.
Ye.
Yeah.
But the thing is that the former president would sit down and defend this when everyone who knows this story knows that that is just not true. Is an indication of his hubris. The fact that he thinks that he is above being questioned. It's the same kind of attitude that he had when he rolled into Virginia and said that you know that our current setup was too racist and that we needed to do this emergency Jerry Mander that then got thrown out by the courts. Some constitutional
scholar he is. And this is the thing that I think is so maddening about him. He will never question himself. We've talked about George W. Bush before. I think he questioned his decisions to this day that he made as president because he's someone who looks inward. Barack Obama does not have that capacity. He still views himself as I am the one you were waiting for, and that is that is still I think the way that he's going to think about himself still the end.
Of the days, verging on tragic figure because, as Nema says, his ego Yeah.
I say, I mean, if you could lampoon him, and I do think that it is possible to lampoon him. That is exactly the type of character you would create. It is just this utter, this complete, eat out, out of control ego that thinks that he essentially could never do anything wrong, and that everyone who is his critic has some moral defect That is really at the heart of why they're criticizing him. But that's just the way I think that he thinks about himself.
I'm coming back with Ben Dominic. Stay tuned, WROG. I'm back in America. I'm here here at Ben. My vulnerability is I believe I can discern people's character and they're whether or not they're right or wrong politically, they're good faith. I have been proven wrong on Nick Kristock, and I'm bothered by it. I had him on the show many many times, and I thought, good guy, he's wrong about Someltics, but a path opens. He cares about the halt of poor,
the blind, the lame, and he's a good guy. Now he's written this horrible piece, and so I've been thinking about it NonStop since he wrote this piece, and I decided there there's a there's everyone has a brain in the heart. Anti Semitism begins in the heart. It's evil, and it fantastasizes to the brain, which camouflages it, and it comes out as anti Zionism, anti Israelism, and then intellectually some people are become anti Zionist or anti Israel
for reasons unrelated to being Jewish. But it moves and it fantastasizes to the heart and you become anti Semitic. That's my theory that I think it with Christop it was the latter. He had to be anti Israel because that's where the in crowd was, Tom Wolf, Maumowing and the flat catchers and ended up being anti Semitic. What do you think happened to him?
I do not know him well enough to have I think I've been on a panel with him once or twice maybe, and don't know enough to analyze the reason that he wrote what he did. I assume you have related it to your listeners so that they have.
Something Yeah, okay, all right.
What has to be going on in your brain as a writer in order to accept that story on its face as having any merit whatsoever? Betrays a virulent strain of anti Semitism running underneath it, That is in the top one percent. I mean, we're talking it is it is you have to be so antisemitic to believe something like that, to take it as being true at all, and certainly to run with this kind of unquestioning attitude of well, you know, you know, certainly this is something
that could be possible. You know, you see things that feel viral. Perhaps you don't, perhaps you don't you know, see these things in your feeds, But you see things that go viral that you know immediately are false if you have a good radar for it, you know, and I think that I do. You know, you spot stuff and you say, Okay, that's fake, that's AI, that's fake,
this is going to be you know. And then what you frequently see is people community and community noting it into oblivion on X. But other people, I think they just don't have that questioning attitude, and so they're told a narrative that seems astounding on its face and they
and they run with it. And in this case, my question is less about Nick Christoft, because you do have a you know, a personal connection there you about it and you and I can understand your feeling because I've experienced stuff like that before in my life where you you misjudge a person. You know, I'm sorry, I thought you were a better person. That's on me. But here's the thing, when when you look at that story, why did no one at the New York Times have the
ability to just say, pump the brakes on this? Are we sure this is something that's even possible? Have we talked to any experts about these animals? Could they be trained to do this? Even it is astounding to me?
How do they keep it secret? No one participates in the training of the dog. It's like Dr Evil. It's a ridiculous cartoon. So but I don't know if you've ever.
Want Hermi anyone question this like today, you apparently not.
It's opinion page. Do you remember Herman Woke?
I don't know.
If you read the late Great Herman Woke's Winds of War and Warner Remembrance. His central character is Aaron Jastrow professor who said about Santaiana, I could smell he was an anti Semite when he walked into the room. I have that gift. You know. I'm Irish Catholic, but I can smell and anti semit when they walk into the room. Nick was not that he talked himself into it. I don't know how it happened.
Something changed and you look, I will say there is there is some inherent appeal in going along with what you see the cool kids doing, a quote unquote meaning it is. This is something that has become a general attitude dude on the left, to a much greater degree
than I think anybody has really understood. And this attitude of you know, of colonization and of of you know, deep seated theft and everything else like that is so present, ever present, particularly among young leftists, that it's possible that that was the lure involved here. All I can say is the New York Times has a much bigger problem than I thought in terms of vetting these types of things.
I've written for the New York Times opinion page, by the way, and you have to go through chapter and verse. I grant you the talk, Yeah, but chapter and verse on every single thing. You even have to send like multiple references because they'll often not have read the things that you're referring to. And so it's like, okay, let me take a picture of this page of this book and send it to this editory and that kind of thing, and so the fact that this didn't go through that process.
It is astoundingly embarrassing. And instead the time it seems to be sort of trying to just, you know, post their way through it or something.
Oh now Christoff is trying to post his way through it. He's just posting up. Well, I'm going to ignore it. Not gonna work. He's self emilated. He's self emilated. He's like the Buddhist monk in Vietnam. He's done. Let me finish with gee. Nixon will go back and forth with brenh neb and then Reagan will meet with garbagechev But she isn't those guys. She isn't even on drop up. She is stalin. Is there any point to this?
So this turned out pretty much like I thought it would, where I just went into it thinking, I think a lot less is gonna happen here than people think will happen, that they had been kind of built up beyond what was possible. I view this as being largely a waste of time. I just don't think that there's going to be much that comes out of it. But I also think that it was important for the president to go over there and not make any significant sacrifices of American interest,
and I think that that did succeed. I think that he did get out of there without sort of giving up anything that we're going to be all that worried about though. The details are still going to come forward and we'll see what happens. But one thing that I do want to note, and I we have a weekend
interview series. It's starting tomorrow at o'deely wire. I have Michael Soolikan I know you've had you've talked to him before, I believe, who is a China expert, to talk all about the meeting, what came out about Taiwan, et cetera, et cetera. I hope people will check it out tomorrow morning.
But the thing that is really I think important about this is that you could have had a situation where she offered or dangled the possibility of you could fly back home with this person or that person and get a victory from that in exchange for something dramatic that's way more important to she than holding on to a prisoner.
End of the United States.
Yeah, exactly, And that is something that I think was always a risky potential about this meeting and the president if that was offered. I don't know if there was didn't take it. So I look at this as being something where the press built this up as being very important. It's going to be viewed as less important. Uh and in the larger scheme of things, is probably not going to change.
He made a play for Jimmy Lyi. He said on A four. When he's not getting Jimmy lis getting the Christian pastorate, probably it's up to Popo Leo. Now Pope Leo has to go get his Catholic And he asked a way the Vatican has battalions that are unsane, and the Pope has to go get the Catholic man. That's what I think. You agree with that.
I think you're right. I agree completely, and I think that I think it's going to be something that is, you know, it's a test for a you know, new pope relatively, But it's one of these situations where I just don't think there was going to be there was too much that President Trump was going to have to give up in that situation, I think.
And so so, the most prominent Catholic martyr in the world, the most visible one, is Jimmy Lai. She is killing him, and Leo has said nothing the So the President made a push, but he can't give up the American national interests. Well, said Ben Domitic, I'll look for the new feature tomorrow. The Daily Wire ought to be a subscription for all of you because the left and the far right hate it,
so you should love it. And you can believe Ben Shapiro's not for turning Ben Dominic, follow him on Exit b Dominis, listen to Big Ben Pod, see him on Fox, and come right back on the u Uit Show.