Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things hillsdalet Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at Q for Hillsdale dot com or just google, Apple iTunes and Hillsdale.
Morning Glory and even Grace America. And a happy New Year to you.
It is the first Big Weekend Pod of twenty twenty six. I'm back behind the microphone after moving west for a couple of months and getting the flu and doing so so that's why I was off the air thanks to Kurt Schlickter, who filled in for me. The Big Weekend Pod today is pretty much a couple of monologues by me, Matt Continetti, Eli Lake and that's it now the monologue You are interesting because CBS Evening News has made a
promise that I talked about in the opening monologue. Second monologue beginning of the month, beginning of a new year, station switch around stations are added. I got to do the who I am and why am I doing this first broadcast of the month business, And so if you're new to this, you'll hear that, and if you don't like it, just fast forward through it to get the continenty and Eli Lake and all I can tell you is it was a a great time being having the flu.
There's no better place to have the flu than in California because you realize that it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter that it's raining. And it just rained for a week, so I didn't miss anything because California was miserable, and I got up the implacable hill this morning, so that's good too. I want you to make sure that you like and subscribe to this podcast so that you can get it sent to you Monday through Friday.
But the Big Weekend Pod purposely intended for you people who are doing your gym routine or your exercise on the weekend. If you're new to this, usually cover the
weekend review news. But it's the first weege of theyar there isn't much news except in Iran, so expect the heavy focus on Iran, maybe a little bit of catch up on the Somali land recognition, talk, a little bit about the Minnesota fraud's story, but there really hadn't been any news for three weeks, except the biggest story of twenty twenty six might be unfolding as we speak in Iran, where up to seven people have been murdered by the regime as protests spread throughout the country.
This is their fourth revolution.
Their first one was in nineteen seventy nine of the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shop. I watched it on a couch basically with former President Richard Nixon and Ray Price. The three of us every day would be in the former President's office in San Clementy watching then network television of the massive demonstration that forced the shot of Flea. In early nineteen seventy nine saw the return to Iran
of the Iatola Homini, who was the first Ayatola. They've had for forty seven years, right, they started in nineteen seventy nine, so it's been forty seven years.
They have had two guys.
Running the country, the Itola Homine followed by the Atola. And they're both theocratic, fanatical Shia.
Dictators.
And it's a brutal, repressive regime, the leading exporter of terror in the world. There are some good resources on it. Our friends over at the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy did a long podcast series last year on Iran by Mark Dubitz. Dubovitz and I would recommend that to you. Look up Foundation for the Defensive Democracies and Iran and Mark Dubovitz, and you can find I think it's a
twelve parter. It takes it through the near a half century of the Islamic Revolution and the tyranny and the oppression and the murder and the export of terrorism associated with it, and then the great book Vanguard of the mm I put a couple of people over there. But the most recent thing, have you read it? Gurn No surprise there tracked down a leading Iranian dissident in the United States and interviewed her for almost an hour on Friday, and you should listen to that. The link is over
at my ex account. Hugh Hewett and Aviv just basically let her fill us in. There's no intervention here that the United States should be considering. I know the President said he would protect the protesters. I'm not sure what that means if they're mowed down in the streets and Israel's standing back and saying this is an US, yea, this is organic. It's the fourth one nineteen seventy nine, followed by a late nineteen nineties attempt to throw off
the regime that was crushed brutally. Unfortunately Bill Clinton was in power. We didn't do anything help them. Then the Green movement, some people are onsly call it the Green Revolution. One revolution was a movement. It was a very peaceful, massive protest that was crushed and Barack Obama was the new president, didn't know what he was doing, said nothing about it, and instead ended up in the JCPOA which
was a nightmare. And then there was another attempt at uprising with the murder of a young woman in twenty twenty two. The infirm Joe Biden, his appeasement oriented foreign policy team did nothing to help Iran in twenty twenty two.
The people of Iran.
So this is the first time that Iran has had one of these convulsions. It's the fifth convulsion that there's actually a group of serious people running American foreign policies. I'm looking to the President, Secretary Rubio, un Ambassador Waltz to do the one thing the United States can do, which is focus attention on and condemn violence by the
regime against innocent protesters. The recipient cause of this is that the real their currency is plummeted in value, and I learned there are four different exchange rates, and the exchange rate for the ordinary person is just it's like a million and a half realls.
For a dollar an American dollar.
So people have been impoverished, their life savisty have been wiped out, and that will radicalize you in a hurry. Then on top of that, there's just dysfunction at every level because the corruption is endemic and systemic throughout Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary guardcore which props up the regime.
It's different from the Iranian military, but as Aviv said on his podcast, highly unlikely to that the Iranian military is going to be the step in and stop the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which there's sort of a shadow paramilitary police that's the name of the besiege. They're killers and they will kill. So it takes extraordinary courage on behalf of the people of Iran to step up and step into the streets right now.
But they are desperate.
Nothing works, there are blackouts everywhere, the water supply is fragile, and.
People have just had it.
So it's the fourth time in less than fifty years that the country has convulsed. Maybe this time it'll be like one of the color revolutions or like the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At least the dissident that Aviv talked to was optimistic, but she also was very adamant Israeli United States people stay out of this. Let the
Iranian people decide. So I'm all for that. With that, let's turn our attention to CBS News and the promise that was made by Tony Ducoppole on Thursday, New Year's Day, posted his promise about the new CBS Evening News which begins on Monday night, and I played it for you in the first segment of the New Year on The Hugh Hewitt Show, and my commentary is attached.
Don't go anywhere, enjoy the big weekend pot.
Good morning, glory and even grace in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, Welcome, Happy New Year. This is my first broadcast of twenty twenty six. I want to thank Kurt Schlickter, who sat in for me on December twenty sixth and every show thereafter. As I moved out to the West Coast for a few weeks and also got the flu, which is inevitable if you fly cross country this time of the year. But thank you, Kurt did a fabulous bang up job. As usual, I have new stations and station changes all
across the Salem Radio Network. Salem News Channel is still the same, and I will cover all that who I am, what I do in hour two today, and I hope
you'll subscribe and like the podcast highly concentrated Hugh. If you can't catch the program when it's live in your car three to six in the East, noon to three in the West, and different times in between, different stations carried at different time, the podcasts always a good way to start the morning and get all the news that you need and the analysis that you want, and the consistent delivery of clear, concise facts, my take the great
guests that we've been doing on this program since two thousand. I've been in the business since nineteen ninety, both radio and television. And whether you're listening on the Sale Radio Network, watching on the Sale News Channel, picking up a YouTube clip, or listening to the podcast Welcome, you should also know I'm about to talk about the news, and you've got to adjustment that I am a Fox News contributor I think Brett Barr is the best newsman in the business.
I don't think anyone can ever measure up this Special Report. But everything we do here we do with six people.
Right.
It's me and Dwayne Adam, three of us have been together for twenty five years, plus Harley, Danielle, Diana and Ben.
That's it. Six people.
We do this whole thing, and we are I think the very best at news and analysis and great guests and commentary of anyone in broadcast in any format. And I think you find it right here. If you want a nightly news program backed up by bureaus and analysts and people reporting from around the world, that would be Fox News Special Report with Brett phre But Yesterday, CBS Evening News soon to be anchor Tony de Kopple laid out a video that I want you to hear, and
I'm going to talk with you about it. Barry Weiss, of course, became the head of CBS News division late last year when a sale of the network occurred and she was hired by the new bosses. She founded the Free Press, New York Times Editorial Board, Wall Street JOURNALI Editorial Board. I've only talked to her once. I've never met her. Barry Weiss, I think is a center left person, sort of a classic liberal left person, but I don't know we're well enough to say that with great conviction.
But she, of course, compared to most of the major news outlets in the United States, considered a conservative, she's not. She's not a conservative, but she's fair and she's trying
to rebuild the brand. And to that end, Tony Dekoople, he promises, and I want to make sure that I give you the money clip I report for you, he tells the American public via the video available at CBS Evening News on x which means, I tell you what I know, when I know it, and how I know it, and when I get it wrong, I'll tell you that too. That's the heart of it, and I think that's good.
I'm not going to stop watching Brett Baer and Special Report because it's the best news program out there, but I'll at least give Tony and the gang at CBS Evening News a chance to show me that they've come back in from It's not left field. To use a baseball analogy for the bettersit of the Steelers fans, center field is where Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite and Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings played forever. They were in center field, and I play in right field, and most
of legacy media is in left field. But unfortunately the television networks, including most of CNN, went into the left field bleachers over the last thirty to forty years. And I've stayed the same. I'm a center right guy. I've
stayed the same for the whole time. And as a result, with a bunch of other factors, including the availability of media streaming services, lots of choices, people on their devices not glued to the television set for their streaming platform, not watching the evening news, it used to be at the height of CBS, Walter Cronkite had a seven share, all right, So that was it was enormous for that
period of time, the late sixties, early seventies. Last month, ABC World News Tonight six thirty pm with David Muir averages about seven point one to nine million viewers, NBC Nightly News averaged about five point six three million viewers, CBS Evening News about three point five to five million viewers,
and our friend Brett and Special Report. They're always about three million, and some days they beat all three of the networks when there's big news, when people are going there, when breaking news is happening, like arguably right now what happened in those years. By contrast, by the way, got a couple of metrics for you, So seven million over at ABC, five point six at NBC, three point five
to five at CBS. They do have to shake things up at CBS because they're dying what happened to Compare NBC Sunday Night football in December Vikings Cowboys nineteen point six one million viewers.
So it's not just CBS, it's just the news division.
CBS had a late night National Football League game on Sunday at twenty four and a half million viewers. Fox News and sanh it's just not even in the game. They're so broken. I didn't even bother with that. The weekend, the weeknight edition of CBS, ABC and NBC airs at six thirty pm. Bread starts at six pms ago a little bit of advantaging goes for an hour, and they go for a half hour now cronkite CBS Evening News at its peak had between twenty seven and twenty nine
million viewers every night. That was when the population of the country was two hundred million. It's three hundred and forty.
Million now, and what needs to happen is quite obvious. You just got to tell the truth. Let's try Tony again. Here's his claim.
A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair. But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it's not just us, it's all legacy media.
And I get it.
I get it because I've been hearing about it from just about everybody for more than twenty years, as I've traveled to America on this assignment, or that my mom's neighbors in West Virginia, my own neighbors in New York City, thousands and thousands of conversations in between. Sometimes people want to talk to me about our coverage of NAFTA or
the Iraq War. Other times it's all about Hillary Clinton's emails or Russia Gate, or more recently, COVID lockdowns, Hunter Biden's laptop, or the President's.
Fitness for office.
The point is, on too many stories, the press has missed the story because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American, or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites and not enough on you. And I know this because at certain points.
I have been you. I have felt this way too. I felt like what I.
Was seeing and hearing on the news didn't reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life, and that the most urgent questions simply weren't being asked. So here's my promise to you today and every time you see me in this chair, you come first, not advertisers, not politicians, not corporate interests, and yes that does include the corporate owners of CBS. I report for you, which means I tell you what I know, when I know it, and how I know it, and when I get.
It wrong, I'll tell you that too.
It also means I'm going to talk to everybody and hold everyone in public life to the very same standard.
After all, I became a journalist to talk to people.
I love talking to people about what works in this country, what doesn't, and not only what should change, but the good idea is that should never change.
I think telling the truth is one of them.
I'm Tony Dakoppel, the anchor of the CBS Evening News.
That will start on Monday night. It's a good mission statement. I hope he makes it. I want to correct him. I was not late on COVID, I was not late on the laptop. I was not late on Joe Biden's infirmity. I was early, if not first, on all those stories. But I want to tell you what the difference is between that and now. Nineteen seventy seven, between my junior and senior year in college, in the summer, five other guys and I would watch sixty minutes every Sunday night.
Back then, it had an audience of about twenty five million people. Now it's down to ten million people, and not many young men are watching it.
Why.
It's more often than not, just bad television and it's not reliable.
And I like Ed Whitaker.
I met him recently. I think he's pretty smart. But all of news depends not just on anchors and faces, but on the head of the news division, the producers of the segments in the day parts, the journalists, the writers, and then the editors and then the anchor. So a lot's got to change at CBS News but I'm willing to give them a chance. I'm willing to see if they can in fact fix having gone into the left field bleachers. I'm Hugh Hewett, and I'll continue to tell you that station.
Morny Loren Evening Grace in America.
I'm Hugh Hewett inside the Relief Factor studio out West, where I am for a few weeks. If you marry a Californian girl, and I did, I got lucky. I met a beautiful Californian girl in nineteen seventy eight and she said, yes, we got married in nineteen eighty two. You can't spend the winter in the East. They're just
not cut out for it. And so most years I'm teaching at chap In Law School, but I'm taking this year off and it's an election year, and I usually do because there are demands on my time and from Fox News, etc.
Things like that.
But I'm out of here for a few weeks, and thanks to my former producer Dwayne, I'm able to talk to you today, Harley and Adam. Of course some of you are hearing me for the very first time because at the beginning of a year, or it might be Monday, this is the first broadcast day of the month. A lot of stations change formats, change owners, pick up new shows,
drop old shows. Some of you find the podcast Highly Concentrated Hugh, which is available wherever podcasts are, Salem Podcast Network, iTunes, Spotify, wherever like and subscribe. Tens of thousands of you begin your morning with the UWIT Show from the day before, which is heard live three to six pm in the East, and so it's got all to day's news to the extent that there is news, and a lot of you just begin your day with it the next morning. That's
why I would say morning, Glory, evening grace. But it is my practice and has been since Dwayne Adam and I got started in two thousand, to always give a little bit of the backdrop to who I am, so you know whether or not you want to listen to me or trust me. And it's all very simple. I am a son and a grandson of Ohio. All four of my grandparents born, raised, lived, died buried in Nashtabille, Ohio. My mom and dad we got married after the war. Dad was youngest of three boys. He got to the
war in time to occupy Japan. He said, The most dangerous thing he did was transit ships to the Philippines and then floating offside of Japan before Truman dropped the atomic bombs when they were Japanese submarines left and kamakazis. So he really was not in the war, but he was part of it. Brother flew over the Hump, another
brother through in Europe in the b twenty nines. So the greatest generation raised us and I grew up in Warren, Ohio, steel Town, Cartown at that time seventy five thousand people. I'm born in nineteen fifty six. I turned seventeen a month and Cartown, steel Town very very prosperous in the fifties and the sixties, not so much in the seventies, and the plummeting began in the eighties and the nineties, and maybe it will rekindle now. The one thing Ohio as is water, but it maybe. Who I am, I'm
Roman Catholic. I'm actually an evangelical Roman Catholic Presbyterian because my wonderful wife, the fetching missus Hewett's a Presbyterian. I'm a cradle Catholic, so I usually go to Mass on Saturday and to the Presbyterian Church on Sunday, double dipper, one river, two banks were good, and I spent twelve years in Catholic education and then got into Harvard under the Ohio lottery and good test scores back in the days when they basically let in people who did well
in the national merit scholarship business. So I went there studied government. Wish I was smart enough to be Estrousian. Took all their the classes I could from Harvey Mansfield and Nathan Tarkov and a bunch of other people.
But I wasn't smart enough to be a PhD.
So I applied to and did not get into law school har or Michigan, where I wanted to go. So I went instead via The most important words in the English language is I know a guy? And have you ever considered well Ed Mansfield Harvey's son saw me sitting on the steps one day, said what are you doing next year? When I was a senior in college, said I have no idea. I didn't get into Harvard or Michigan. I don't want to go to the University of Chicago.
Nobody wants to go to the University of Chicago. It's where fun goes to die. And I didn't know that the University of Virginia was as beautiful as it was, and so I just I don't know. I didn't have a job. Then he said, well, you ought to call a guy. I know a guy that here's per Cup and it was I got am Ray Price down in DC and he had taught at Harvard a year before. He was looking for a research assistant on a book
on the media. So I called him up. He said, why don't you fly on down and we'll talk about it. So I got on an airplane. Was not much of a flyer. I would drive from Ohio to Boston to Cambridge. And I put on my only suitent and flew down to DC and knocked on Rape House in Georgetown on Prospect and he answered the door and said, yes.
Can I help you?
He said, well, I'm Hugh you we have an interview and he hit his head, you know, oh, dear, and that's never a good sign. He had forgotten the interview, and he explained he had to go out to San Clementy to work with Richard Nixon on a book that was passed deadline after the memoir.
It's called The Real War and then he probably said have you.
Ever considered which are the second foremost important word, have you ever considered moving to California. He wasn't offering me a job, but David Eisenhower needed a research assistant, so I said, I hadn't thought about it, but be glad to next thing I know, Julie Nixon. Ieen hours on the phone at my dorm and David gets on the phone. I agree to go do the TikTok for Eisenhower at War. The TikTok's day by day chronology of what Ike was
doing during World War Two. It's a great book on every book a word out there War by David Eisenhower. And after three months, which I guess was a sort of a tryout, Urn offered me a job on his writing staff, which consisted of our and Ray Price, a fellow in DC whose name was Todd I can't remember his last name. And then me and I became a ghostwriter, editorial assistant, researcher to the former president in exile in
San Clementy. That was great fun until he moved to New York in nineteen eighty and I lasted about six months there. Said to the boss I'm going to go to law school. I had reapplied and gotten into Michigan, not Arbor. We got into Michigan in the second time. He said, go with God. No one going to be in the city unless you've got a lot of money or none at all. And I left and went to ann Arbor. Got married during the course of law school to the vetching Missus Stuett, and then did a clerkship
on the d C Circuit. Unusual clerkship. Judge Roger rob hired me. Then he got sick, so I worked for Judge Bork, Judge Galia, Judge Ginsburg, Judge Kelly Wright, Judge Spots Robinson, and then George McKinnon came back from Minnesota, and I just went full time with George mckinn until Roger rob came back. It was a fabulous year. And then I was going to go to work at done in Kutscher, but then I got a phone call, have
you ever considered coming to the Department of Justice. My friend Terry Eastland was working over there for William French Smith as a speech rights that I have ever considered. We were in a Bible study together at National Presbyterian Church and I said, sure, I'd love to do that.
And I went over to the Attorney General's office as a special assistant for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants and a few other things, And so I reviewed all the FIZA applications for warrants from the bureau.
There was no National Security Division in nineteen eighty four.
Then I went to the White House Counsel's office with ricarda who now runs a hot dog stand in a driving range in Miami and actually makes his retirement by hustling. He's a hustler on the golf course. Do not give him strokes. Ricardo's Cuban hot dogs are fine, the driving range is fine. Don't play golf with the man. And Fred Vailing. Then I went into the agencies. Then finally, after all that time, ended up running OM because if you hang around an administration at the end, they would
promote people who anyone who's around. I got picked a run OPM, got through the Senate, got confirmed. OPM's the OPPS personal management. Then we finally went to California because Richard Nixon called and the dime dropped. They'd been good to me, will you build the library? I came out to San Clementy again, and this time I didn't move to San Clementy, but I moved closer to where the library is in ne Orba. Linda and I started a law practice, and I got the Nixon Library built and open.
And then I got a call from KFI Radio.
Have you ever.
Considered during weekend raise it? Does it pay anything? I'm poor? I said, yeah, five hundred bucks a weekend. So I did six hours of radio for KFI on the weekends for a few years. Then I got a call, if you are considered doing TV. This is nineteen ninety two for casey Et and I did ten years anchoring the nightly news with Pat Morrison, Rubin Martinez, Kirmin Maddox on Life and Times. Then Salem called and this Motley crew got together and we launched this show on July ten, two thousand.
I'm still practicing law.
In between, I started teaching constitutional law at Chapman Law School. I'm better than your average con law professor, not as good as some, better than most. And I've been teaching at Chapman con Law since nineteen ninety six. Began in nineteen ninety five teaching torts. Those poor kids what I know about torts I learned the night before that year, but I know con law and practicing administrative law. And
then we started the show in two thousand. Then I got asked to do the debates in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, which we partnered Salem with CNN. I was the Salem guy and did four presidential debates, got offers from the networks. Then went to work for NBC for four years and MSNBC. So I've been before the mass I did in my years.
In big media. Then the Washington Post offered me a calm. I wrote that.
Then I left NBC Michel agreement. We just did not get along. Then I quit the Washington Post. Most of the people there were wonderful, but there.
Was a problem. And then I went to work for Fox News.
I keep doing the show and we're on the Salem News Channel now and I've written a dozen books, and I write columns twice a week for Fox News. I write for The Washington Examiner, and I'm a talking head. I think I'm on handity tonight. I doubt that Shawn's back from vacation. I'll bet you it's Kelly Ann normally asked for me to be on the panel when she's in,
I'll be on Fox and Friends in the morning. I'm a Fox News contributor, but I'm a Salem guy, and what we do is bring you the news, the news you need, the analysis you've come to trust, and great guests.
We are center right and proud of it.
Fact base, serious fun, and I keep you up to date on the Cleveland Browns, the Cleveland Guardians, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Ohio State University Buckeyes, who may not win back to back championships, but are a good bet in twenty twenty seven, don't go anywhere, America.
Welcome back to me here at first broadcast of the new year.
For me as it is first time I've talked to Matt Continetti of the Wall Street Journal in the American Enterprise Institute in twenty twenty six.
Happy new Year, Matt. I hope it's off to a good start for you.
Happy new year, Hugh.
Let's begin with the biggest story in the world, Iran. Not a lot of Americans know what's going on there because it's not being covered very well by our media. How important is this series of developments in protesting your view.
Well, I think that's important.
Iron goes through this every few years, it seems widespread public protests, regime crackdown. I think this particular outbreak is important for a few reasons, Hugh. The first is, after Operation Midnight Hammer, our strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities, the commentariat all pronounced that this would strengthen the regime,
that Iranians would rally to the regime. In fact, the exact opposite has happened, and the Iranian people are showing their frustration with their government, which has been unable to provide them basic utilities such as water or energy. Of course, inflation is out of control. Economic and political breakdown in
the months since Operation Midnight Hammer, so that's important. The second reason it's important is there seems to be a split within the regime, with some political elements saying that they understand what the protesters are complaining about, that they
want to even take action to mollify them. And that suggests that we could have a difference here between earlier widespread protests like the Green Revolutions, say in two thousand and nine, where the government itself begins to fracture that could lead to regime collapse and then the third reason why this protest is different is we have an American president who has situated himself on the side of the protesters, and President Trumps from remarkable post on social media this
morning where he said that America is ready to protect the protesters if the Iranian government opens fire on them, is a true remarkable stance for an American president to take. It's the first time, whether these protests happened under Obama, or they happened under Trump, or they happened under Biden, that the American president has said that he stands alongside
the protesters. So for those three reasons, I'd say this has the potential to be much more than a typical flare up against the regime.
Typical flare ups, by my calculation, in nineteen seventy nine, the Iranian Revolution, Jimmy Carter's president the late nineteen nineties is the first attempt to throw up the regime. Bill Clinton his president, the Green Movement in two thousand and nine, President Obama his president, and then the young woman was murdered in twenty twenty two in the protests there that were ignored by.
The Biden administration.
Those four seminal moments current under democratic presidents who were weak on national security and with an administration that was averse to any kind of vocal support. Do you think we'll see Secretary of Rubio and UN Ambassador Waltz in the game talking about Iran this week.
I think I've already seen Ambassador Waltz make some statements. I'm sure we'll see Secretary Rubio follow through. And you know, you you bring to mind this idea of maximum pressure that was always kind of the motto of the Trump administration's approach to Iran. It began in the first term where the Trump administration applied economic pressure, really squeezing the regime, withdrew from the nuclear agreement that Obama had made, took
out Solamani, the head of the IRGC. And now we have this second term where Trump has took out the Ford how nuclear facility, you know, building on on Israel's achievements in taking out other nuclear and missile production sites during the war.
Earlier this rather last year.
Now we have additional maximum pressure, and we have Trump on the side of the protesters. So there's a moment of opportunity here I think where we could really score victory for freedom. If the Iranians do take that next step to bring down the Mullas.
Now Donald Trump has used military power against Venezuela. I'm not sure it makes sense to use any military power in.
Iran right now.
Unless it is absolute chaos and American interests and people are threatened.
What I read in that.
Through social post this morning was the kind of vocal focus and support that was lacking under President's Biden, Obama, Clinton, and of course Jimmy Carter. Do you actually expect any more than that? I mean, four and Oh was great. Operation of Night Hammer was great, But I don't expect anything more than that.
In the near future. Probably not. I mean, it depends on what the regime does. Of course meant let's forget, let's not forget. Rather that just last week when Prime Minister net and Yah who visited Trump and mar A Lago. What we got out of that meeting was President Trump saying, look, if the Iranians moved to restore the nuclear program, Israel has a green light, and America we'll take action too.
So I don't think we're done with Iran quite yet.
I hope not.
That I'm treating that in a separate category. Don't go anywhere in America. I'm with Matt. During the break, we'll be back on the other side talk about CBS. But during the break, Joseph Epstein state ten, I'm back with Matt Continey of The Wall Street Journal and Ai.
Matt.
The last book I read in twenty twenty five, and I finished it yesterday is Joseph Epstein's twenty twenty four memoir Never say You've had a lucky life, especially if you've had a lucky life. Actually brilliant?
Have you read it?
Not only did I read it, I reviewed it for The Wall Street Journal, Hugh.
Oh where I stumped you? I stumped you.
And you beat me. Tell people have.
Heard me talk about Joseph Epstein for years. Bring me the Brain of Joseph Epstein. He has repeatedly politely turned down the invitation to be on the program. He doesn't like this format or whatever. But I think he is our most brilliant essay is Is there anyone else in his league?
Oh?
No, I'm certainly not living any longer. Joe is one of the last great literary journalists, a great literary intellectual. I've often recommended his books to young people as a form of graduate school. I mean certainly they amount to earning a master's even a PhD in literary and cultural history.
I own all of his books. I returned to them again and again.
He's a brilliant, brilliant writer, whether he he's writing on sports or culture, or movies or books. Though, I think I like his literary biography the best when he kind of locates an author and just writes a very long essay talking about the author's life and work.
That those are my favorite Epstein.
I do love all that. I also have not all of his books.
I don't have his book on divorce, for example, but I've got probably ninety percent of them, and they're well thumbed. How do you get that smart? Because you know, he's very self effacing in this autobiography. He's in Little Rock, Arkansas, to was married to his first wife, with two boys that were not his own, end up with. There's tragedy his life. They're sadness. There's great, they're brilliant writing. But how do you learn all this stuff? He didn't do
any work until he was twenty five. I mean work being educational, hard work.
Well, the University of Chicago helps. There's no doubt about that, and the curriculum there, especially when Epstein went there, is pretty demanding and wide ranging. It still is to I think a large extent. And then, of course, in some of his essays, Epstein points out other places where you acquire culture libraries, use bookstores, and he's a haunt. He haunts the use bookstores, going through them and picking up volumes that he reads and learns from. And you know,
another way you acquire this learning is through time. You know, Epstein has been at it for a long time, He's in his ninth decade now or approaching it very soon.
And that work builds up, and that store of cultural knowledge builds up over time to the point where, you know, in the last ten years or so, Joe has been writing mainly about classical authors, the Greeks and Romans, figures, figures that you know, he didn't really pay much attention to for most of his career, but now he's been writing eloquently and learnedly about them as well.
I just want to warn the audience when you get never say you've had a lucky life. Especially if you've had a lucky life, you'll just feel so dumb, but persevere.
He'll help you out of that.
Even if you don't, even if you have to look up things as I had to do repeatedly, don't go anywhere. I'm coming right back with Matt Contney. We'll talk about CBS Welcome Back America. I'm gonna deal it with Matt Khnenny of The Wall Street Journal, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Domestic Policy Study. Matt, have you followed Did you watch the Tony Decopple video about his promise about how he's going to approach anchoring duties at CBS Evening News.
I did.
I thought it was a breath of fresh air.
And it's amazing that this counts as novelty in the world of corporate media. But I'm happy that Tony gave the message, and you know what, I think he and CBS News are going to try hard to deliver on it.
Now the second quest, and I'll come back to Tony, Nick Shirley and Minnesota. Do you count that as journalism?
I do? I do.
It's reporting, it's investigating, it's talking to people, it's going to places, it's recording what you see and hear. It's reporting your conclusions. So it is journalism. Yes, it is, and I think it's highly influential journalism, considering that Nick Shirley has kind of amplified this ongoing welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota to the next level where not just conservatives are talking about it, but Americans of all persuasions doing so.
What Nick Sureley has, I'm not sure Tony had Dacoppel and CBS has yet. Isn't a unique experience he was. I don't know if you read up on him. He was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Chile for two years.
Were you aware of that?
No, it wasn't.
Well, that means you knock on thousands of doors of strangers and sometimes they might shoot at you or set a dog on you. Sometimes they might invite you in to have dinner, but you do it for two years. I always call on my LDS law students on the first day of class becuse they're asolutely fearless if they've been missionaries. I think a lot of that came through and I had the echo of it in old journalm show up and ask a question or two.
That's all it really is.
The late Michael Kelly used to say on this program, journalism is a craft, not a profession, and I think he was right. Now Tony Dekoppel sits a top, not a throne of skulls, but a vast newsroom that the pipeline of people with pre existing conditions.
When it comes to the media that feed him.
The anchors really don't often write the news, Brett, does it? Do you think it matters who the anchor is at a place like CBS with its legacy journalists there in the newsroom.
Well, I do think anchors matter because they might not do the reporting, they may not even do the writing, but an active anchor will put his or her personality in how they present the information, which stories they highlight, They will change the script. We know that our friend Brettbear takes a very active role on the CNN side.
Jake Tapper will take an active role.
You can have, of course, you know, as someone who's not quite an anchor but a CBS personality.
Mike Wallace.
You knew what you were getting from Mike Wallace, he had a hand in it, and from his son Chris Wallace as well. So I do think the personality of the anchor matters quite a bit, and that's why I was happy to see this message from Tony Dokoupool over the weekend.
Now, I told my sister in law yesterday at a birthday party slash New Year's Day gathering that very wise I've only spoken to once and only ever worked on one thing together and end up not getting printed because we just couldn't.
Get tough the editorial pressers together.
When she was with the journal I told her I thought Barry Weiss was a center left journalist and.
That she should trust her. Do you agree with that assessment center left?
I would say she's center.
She certainly has, you know, liberal instincts, but it's it's an older liberalism than what we think of when we hear the word today. I mean, she believes in equality, she believes in freedom, she believes in merit, she believes in America's alliance with the state of Israel.
All of those values.
Were part of the liberal side for many decades on the American left.
They are less so today.
So she, you know, she may distance herself from some aspects of conservatism, certainly trump Ism, and that definitely puts her on the center.
I don't know if it quite puts her on the center left.
Well, I've always used the baseball analogy when it comes to newspeople. They play center field, they play right field like I do, or they play left field in the way that for example, New York actually New York Times in the left field bleachers, that the Washington.
Out of the stadium.
Yeah, Ruth Marcus, all right, Ruth Marcus is a classic left center left person. And there are a bunch of them out there, and they're fair minded, and they know what they're talking about, and they know the other side. We may not agree, but you're going to get fairness out of them. What worries me is that I looked up the numbers. CBS is way behind ABC World News seven point one nine million in October, NBC Nightly News five point sixty three million in October, CBS three point
five to five million in October. How long will it take to actually regain trust of the sort? I told Elia like this in the last segment, when I was twenty one, about to begin my last year in college. Six guys in the summer, after he played golf, went to the Indians game or.
Screwed around whatever.
We'd always watch sixty minutes same six guys drinking beers and watching that's gone.
That demo's gone. Now, how in the world do you get it back? Map?
Oh, I think that's the big question, you know. I think it attaches to individuals more than more than to networks, say, or The way to build a great network is to have a stable of individual anchors and reporters that audiences trust and want to watch, want a key into. And so I think that's why this appointment of the new anchor and the messages he's sending is a good sign.
We want to see what happens next with Barry Weiss her hires, you know, can she come up with individuals that audiences really respond to, because you know, I think the Nick Shirley example is very important in this In this context too, is that here you have one person, he's got maybe some friends holding the camera, you know, driving him around different places. Is a very small light unit, and yet he had a major effect on his reporting.
It's a lesson that we took to when we were founding the Washington Free Beacon, and that Eleanna Johnson still applies with the journalism of the Washington Free Beacon. Is that with just a few people asking the right questions and looking in places where others aren't looking. You can have a major impact on events in politics and society.
So it's a question of finding the right people. And if there's one thing I know about Barry Weiss, having worked for her for a little bit last year, she knows people and she's a great talent spotter.
We all said that's what they need.
Matt Continetti, follow him on Extra Continenty, read him in the Journal, read him at AAI, and here are most fridays right here on the Uhwit Show.
Don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett.
Eli Lake as the host of the Breaking History podcast. He's a contributor to the Free Press, frequently heard on Commentaries podcast as well. And we caught Eli unaware, so we've got a T shirt on is he's still celebrating.
My holidays are over, Eli, The hollidays are over.
You know, I filed a very good column on Iran, by the way, I just didn't realize that was going to be on air.
Well, I want to talk to you about Iran, but before that, I want to talk to you about CBS Evening News and Tony de Kopple's thing yesterday.
Did you watch his video yesterday?
I saw the message about how the CBS is now going to be trying to cover more stories that are relevant to all of America, and I applauded one hundred percent. I think he's he's going to do great.
So do I.
Now.
I've been in the news business since nineteen ninety, so I'm an old guy, and I've been doing this forever on radio and television for network and for PBS and for NBC and Fox, and on the radio for forever. You've been in the print business for a long time.
Right, yeah, since the mid nineties.
All right, so we're roughly we are contemporaries. I'm older than you are. What do you think went wrong with television news specifically?
I just gave my opinions. I'm wondering what yours are.
I think with elite like sort of the mainstream the top television news we're talking about, you know, CBS, like sixty minutes New York, but also the New York Times and things like that, I think it really happened. There was always a bit of a liberal bias, but there was also a commitment to the editorial process. I think after Trump wins in twenty sixteen, the elite sense makers in the news business, and I mean television news as well, kind of became part of like a big bord like
structure that we might call like resistance. And once you become a kind of political it's very difficult to then also be the chronicler of our times, the newsperson. I just wrote a review of a new documentary on Seemur Hirsh, and I think that's kind of what happened to sy Hirsch. Sy Hirsch began breaking really important and big stories about the overreach and abuses of our national security state, but over time he also became a kind of advocate.
And I think something like that.
Happened in places like CBS News and ABC News and so forth, which is that once you sort of stop doing the process and trying to get fair comment and trying to sort of say we're going to do stories that are relevant to our readers, then at that point on our viewers, and at that point it becomes more a part of advocacy and less a.
Part of journalism.
I think that's pretty much what I believe agenda driven journalism isn't journalism. It is an agenda being driven by the vehicles that used to be journalism. Now, when I say journalism, you mentioned sixteen minutes. I was a sixteen minutes addict. I just think it broke when it came to quality and quantity. It just didn't deliver the goods. And there are a lot of options now on Sunday night.
I began the program by saying, when I was twenty one, and you know, the summer between my junior and junior year in college, a half dozen guys would get together on Sunday night to watch sixty minutes and have a couple of beers because football is over, and you know, we were young men. That demo's gone now from television, isn't it.
I mean, it's a totally different media world right now, and everybody can kind of all heart their menu of what they want to watch. So the idea that everyone's gathering in a dorm room to watch a presidential debate or sixty minutes or something like that, I mean those
days are over. I think that we have that semi sort of version of that experience on social media when we talk about big news events, but it's not the same as it used to be, where we were sort of all watching it together at the same time, which which.
Brings me to the test case.
The buest news event in the world right now is Iran by I have magnitude of ten, maybe one hundred, Bigger than Minnesota fraud, bigger than what they're doing at CBS. It's their fourth revolution, the original seventy nine revolution, the nineteen nineties, late nineteen nineties, then we had the Green Movement, and then we had twenty twenty two. Unfortunately for the Iranian people, weak democratic presidents and administrations were in power,
and each of those four moments. This time is different, and all I want the American government to do is pay attention and publicize what's going. I don't want intervention, I don't want military action. I want a lot of focus and condemnation on violence. Do you think we'll get it right this time?
Biggest crossed. I think that Trump's truth social post. He has a flare for the language, and it evokes potential, like Americas will come to their rescue, we are locked and loaded. That evokes military, but it doesn't explicitly say military. I don't think think there is really a military option right now, as much as I want to see the Iranian people succeed, but there are lots of things and I just did a ton of reporting on this, and you're catching me at the right time. There are a
lot of things that we can do. We can do cyber things where we helped blind the security services against the demonstrators. We can publicize you're absolutely right, people who have been abducted and things like that. We can publicize the names of people who shoot others, and we've already started to see that among the Iranians themselves. And what I would say, and what surprised me is I've been reporting the story, Hugh, is that the State Department under
Marco Rubio has been there already. So you can find statements from Marco Rubio from before when these protests started December twelfth, saying, yeah, we're really concerned about how the regime treats its own people. You can also find if you look at the rate at the Far Sea account of the State Department, really specific posts for the last six months about demonstrations that didn't get in much attention
individual activists. I spoke to people who are in the US government who are kind of anonymous sources saying that they have been tracking at a very high level of detail the people who are emerging as a kind of you know, leaders of a leader list movement that's very desperate right now. So I think there's a lot that
can be done, and American people can show solidarity. You can raise money and figure out ways to raise money for secure communications, things that Elon Muskin do in terms of starlink, and try to make it so that Iranian cell phones can connect without a base station, which are you going to get you in a lot of trouble with the security services right now. And finally, like raising money for things like a strike fund. We're not seeing a general strike, which is what preceded the nineteen seventy
nine revolution. But I think the fact that this one started with the merchant class, by the way the merchant class started the original nineteen oh five Constitutional Revolution, the merchant class a huge part of the reason why the Homini seventy nine revolution. The fact that it started with the merchant class this time around is very significant.
So I'm you know, I don't want to make.
Any predictions, but the Iranian people continue to tell us loud and clear they do not want to be ruled by the mullas.
So Eli Javi Reddy Gur made all of American media to this story. He had an hour long conversation with the Iranian diition. It was great Roya Hakami on this morning and I listened to it and I.
Say, where are people? Do you think?
This is a test for CBS Evening News and a test for every network to cover this because there are a lot of diaspra Iranians out there who speak very well at length about I didn't realize how broken Iran is. The reservoirs are dry, the electricity of intermittent. Where do we go to get more stuff?
All right, well, you're gonna get me in trouble with my boss and my dear friend Barry wife. So I don't want to, but I will say this. I mean, I have not had any conversations obviously with her. I'm on the free press side, but I would imagine that this is going to be a story.
Hopefully the CBS News.
Is going to cover, and frankly it's be some of the CNN covers. Everybody should be covering. This is the biggest story in the world right now. I one hundred percent agree the implications. If you think about it, We've got two kind of moves that Trump's doing right now. He is expressing solidarity one hundred percent with the Iranian people in Iran, there are domino effects in the Middle East,
and then Venezuela. Keep your eye on Venezuela. If that, if the Madora regime goes down, I think Cube is in a lot of trouble too.
Eli Lake, follow him on an x at Eli Lake, read him in the pre Press, and do not miss an episode of Breaking History. I'll be right back in America at the podcast at ELI producers.
Stay tuned. Welcome back to Myica.
I'm Hugh hewittt Douglne Marie is one of the hosts of The Bill and Doug Show, which you can always get everything on it at Billandugoisue dot substack dot com and the free podcast at the Bill and Doug Show. They are experts in Ohio State and Big two in college football. I think it's the best college football show in America.
Doug.
Since New Year's Eve, with about a minute and a half left in the game, I have felt awful, and it's because I don't know these kids.
I ain't call them kids. They're young men nineteen to twenty two.
But I like Sunny Styles and tegra and Carnel Tait and Jeremiah Smith and Julian San And I think Ryan Day is good and I like Brian Hartline.
I don't know them, though, but I feel awful for them. You know them, so you must feel really crappy.
Well, you know, I've been interacting with a lot of fans since then. I kind of feel worse for the fans because they take this to heart. I will say it is a little mitigated, Hugh. They won the national title a year ago. Yes, So those guys that you're talking about there, they still have rings, they still have memories, they still have felt the confetti fall on their heads.
They were trying to accomplish something that had never been done in Ohio state history, which is go back to back as national champions, and they had talked about that, Ryan Day said going in to the game against Miami. You know that'd been on their minds for ten months. So there was an opportunity there. Especially when you go through the regular season twelve and oho and you beat
Michigan and you're number one in the country. There is an opportunity to make history, to go down as potentially the greatest team ever at one of the greatest programs ever. So that is very difficult. It reminds me a little bit here to like twenty thirteen. The build up the highest State was it was twelve to oh and twenty thirteen lost in the Big Ten championship game in Michigan.
State lost their bowl game to Clemson, and it's that they were so good along the way and you started thinking historic things that made it worse when they fell short at the end.
So, Doug, how do you cover this in the aftermath? Obviously you got to cover the playoffs, and we'll talk about that next Friday, But how do you talk to say a Sunny Styles who's a graduating senior or Carnell taking away hope ends up wearing a Browns uniform next year. Do they make themselves available or are they basically grieving away from people?
And this goes for Ryan Day and the coaching staff as well.
Yeah, it's they do make themselves available.
They bring three people into the postgame news conference that was Caleb Downs and Julian say And as players, and Ryan Day's a head coach that wasn't super long. They had interviews on the side with some other players, Sonny Styles who seemed very composed, Carson Hinzman, Kaden Curry, and the locker room was open, so my partner Bill Landis was in there talking to some people. So, like, you do have to face the music to some degree, right,
That's kind of part of it. And I think that's okay in sports when you're celebrated in victory, I think it's okay to answer questions in defeat. You know, it was interesting. Some people have brought up, some of our Ohio State fans who follow us have brought up the idea that, like you, like Kirby Smart stuffered a really tough loss George against Old Miss last night, and like Kirby Smart after the game was kind of like not bubbly, but it was just like, you know, hey, that's a
great game, and like what are you gonna do? And like Ohio State, they really took it hard. So I do think it's interesting. I think you can set the tone for your fan base and sort of how you deal with the loss. At Ohio State, they took it hard, you know, I mean, everybody loses sometimes, and.
They're the defending national champs.
But they did take this thing hard, I think because they know there was something there that fell just outside their grasp.
Well put, these seniors do out a national championship, and they did beat the team up north in twenty twenty five. Yep, and they are all coming back except for well, there's some big name you mentioned Caleb Downs and Sunny Style. They're not coming back. Colonel Tate's not coming back. But Ryan Day strikes me as a pretty emotional guy that he keeps it bottled up, and like Urban Meyer and maybe not Jim Trussels so much is he more emotional than the other head coaches in college football.
He takes losses heart, and I think he did. Urban took law is hard, right, and it's interesting to me. I want to write about this. I want to talk about this with our audience. Can they set its hon because Ohio State fans take a loss hard, because I think the standard at Ohio State is higher than anywhere else in the country, and there's a lot.
Of great things that come with that.
Holding yourself to a high standard everyone around due to a high standard, you know, sets up opportunities for success. And they have been the most consistently successful college football program since what he has got here in nineteen fifty one. So that's what they are, and so in some way,
no loss is ever acceptable. But you know, Miami's good, and it was a tough matchup, and you know, there was an interception return for a touchdown that flipped the game, and Ohio State missed a field goal that might have helped, and so you know, they didn't get blown off the field. There were some things they couldn't stop from Miami's pass rush in the first half.
But I think it can be difficult, Hugh. It's the opposite of being a Browns fan. It is so crazy, someone like.
You who is both an Ohio State and a Browns fan, and it's one hundred and eighty degrees. Almost every little morsel of success for the Browns is worth a chick or tape parade, because you assume losing for Ohio State, you assume victory, and then every loss is devastating. So High State went twelve and two. The Browns are going to win four games this year. But Ohio State fans like you and and thousands millions of others are devastated right now because Ohio State is so good?
What is what is your in the substact chat room, Bill Anddougowisu dot subject dot com.
What is the general I haven't listened to a minute. I can't bear it yet. I'll wait a while and then I'll listen to it. But what's the general? Immediate? Are they mad? Are they sad? Are they AnGR? What is it? The fans?
So it's two things.
One is one is sort of this deficiency about there in a ability to block Miami? Does it show something with the offensive line, with the offensive line coaching, with the offensive game planning. Was there a hole there that they didn't recognize during the season And is there a deficiency there that should have been figured out covered.
Up some other way?
And then the other is this and I've been writing about this and talking about this at the Substact Hugh that Indiana, Old Miss and Miami are three teams, and Oregon to some degree. They all have a lot of transfers on their teams, and we've all gotten used to the transfer world in college football. Alabama, Georgia and Ohio
State have far fewer. They are teams that are blue bloods that are built on recruiting and right now a lot of Ohio State fans are asking does a team like Ohio State, which recruits at a very high level, need to do more getting transfers.
Indiana and Old Miss.
In Miami they had to get transfers because they didn't recruit like Ohio State. But here they are. They're still alive in Ohio State's not. This shifting sport is very interesting, but it's making some Ohio State wonder does their strategy of getting players have to change a little bit?
Very interesting. I will buck up.
I will listen to every minute of every Bill and Doug show that's been done since the loss over the weekend. I look forward to doing the Friday Football Forecast a week from today.
Doug lay Marie follow him on Exit Doug lay Marie. Subscribe to Bill and Doug OSU.
Dot substack dot com for the best football college football coverage in America.
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