Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Good Friday, too, big weekend show coming up, and I'm pleased and honored to begin with Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergham. Secretary Burgham, Happy new year to
you in advance. I'm so glad you could join us. I've been talking to various people tender your throne, Chris Wright, others about the year in review. You've got one of the biggest agencies and you've had a year. Now, what do you count as the accomplishments at Interior in twenty twenty five?
Well, Hugh, great to be with you, but accomplishments for twenty twenty five is really implementing President Trump's common sense agenda about unleashing American energy and that broadly speaking, I mean we're talking about.
Oil and gas.
A year ago, US was had LNG export restrictions on under the Biden administrations now world's largest exporter.
Of LNG, bigger than number two and number three in the world.
And of course when we're exporting LERG, that's good for Americans here because when we've got foreign purchases or when our allies are buying from US versus our enemies, we're stopping funding wars abroad. And then those purchases here helped pay for the infrastructure, the pipelines, and all the facilities.
Here that help make our nation richer. So that part key.
But when you take a look at this broad swath of all these amazing, incredible, abundant resource filled federal lands, five hundred million acres of surface, seven hundred million acres of subsurface, and three point two billion of offshore, the world's largest balance sheet of any company in the interior.
It wasn't just the energy.
Industries that the Biden administration was trying to shut down. They effectively killed mining, they were killing timber, they were attacking our ranchers with the great on bureau land management. So bringing back, bringing back the balance sheet of America, restoring these assets to being productive assets which produce for the American people, whether it's food, whether it's energy, whether it's.
Timber, all of these things.
One hundred and eighty degree reversal here following the Trump administration, the policies President Trump's lead and so.
Exciting. First year off to a great start.
And I think it's showing up in the economic data as well.
I thank you and Secretary Wright are going to win or lose the twenty twenty six elections because energy drives down prices. Energy is freedom. Without it, we don't get anything done. We need nuclear reactors, we need all this different stuff beyond exports of LNG. Are we increasing production or the leasing of land on which production can occur in the next three years within the United States including the coastal zone.
Yeah, absolutely permits.
The number is there's never been a line on a curve like this, but I think permitting for drilling permits on Bureau land Management.
Is like up fifty.
Five percent over any other period time period. So really getting back into delivering on the drill, baby drill side of this, and of course doing it responsibly and smarter. We do it cleaner, smarter, safer than anywhere else in
the world. People should be celebrating the fact that we're producing more here we did hit record oil production numbers this year and then shows up at the pump with the gas prices, but it doesn't maybe show up in California because you know, it's two forty four in Houston and it's over five bucks in California. And part of that is because we've got a set of policies at the state level which are disrupting the energy in our
United States. We've got parts of our part in the northeast part of our country in New England, led by New York, looks more like the EU. California is in a league by its own sixty three percent of the oil in California now important foreign countries. California, as you know, Hugh, used to be an energy powerhouse.
So I mean back at one.
Hundred years ago, California is producing twenty five percent of the world's oil production, and now it's down to it's barely on the list of states in America, down to one hundred thousand barrels of oil a day, even though California is sitting on this resource.
California used to have forty refineries.
Now it's got eight refineries, and two of the biggest ones, Valero and Chevron have announced they're closing their plans. So under the current leadership of California, not only are we importing oil into the state of California through San Francisco
Bay and through Long Beach for refining. When those refineries shut down, we're going to be importing refined products by ship, often from foreign countries, just to keep the largest fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles of any state in America going in California. So again it's a common sense versus climate elitism, and those two things are colliding, and affordability is going to win that because the Green new Scam, as it's been called, because it was a scam. It
made promises it couldn't deliver on. It's done one thing. It's delivered higher prices. So whether it's electricity or gas prices higher in blue states than they are in red states.
Don't look at the averages. Look at it the state by state.
That's where you can see specifically where President Trump's policies are working, and that's where all the capital is going to flow. It's going to flow the new wave of investment, record investment in our country for capital expenditures in the next generation of AI. It's going to flow towards states with low energy prices, and you're going to see states like California, New York missing out on this next wave of capital investment.
Now, mister Secretary, I don't think it's possible to permit a mind in a year, But are you working on critical minerals rarers minds. We just had this big discovery in Utah. I noted, so that by the end of the term, America will become more self reliant on our own resources in the critical categories of rarrors.
Well, fabulous question and great that you're so astute about this, Hu, But it turns out you can permit a mine in less than a year. We pumited the Resolution mine. They've been working to get a permit for Resolution Mine in Arizona for twenty nine years, and we've got that mine permitted through because we've got again Office of Surface Mining.
If it's on federal land.
Those permits come from the Apartment of Interior, a Bureau of Land Management or the Office of Surface Mining. Four months we got them a permit. In four months, we've permitted uranium. Uranium mine in America, got that restarted again. They were waiting for an eis ES normally takes two years.
We did it in twenty four days.
We've done some EEA, some environmental assessments which take over a year, We've done those in twelve days. And all of this by just focusing on business process improvement.
It wasn't we took and there was no shortcuts.
You know, if a process took two years to deliver a permit, it wasn't two years worth of work.
It might have been twenty four days of work interspersed.
By sitting for twenty nine or thirty days in somebody's inbox as they did the whisper chain of sending the permitting paperwork around.
Having come from a background in.
Tech with business process thing, that's before we've even applied AI to this. This was just strike forces of people saying, you've come to work. All you do is focus on getting this permit out and let's see what the actual amount of work content. I think the product that they put out on these shorter timeframe is actually better than the ones that take one to two years because you have a focused team that's really really literally drilling into
it and getting the work done. So and then yesterday the house of Representatives passed the Speed Act, which is about improving permitting in this country and providing certainty for economic development. That's a great piece of legislation. We'll see what the Senate can make it even better and stronger. But you know, we have to get back as a nation to being able to build great things and build
them quickly. And we have to be able to get back to actually using our resources versus having an entitled and entire armada of NGOs and legal teams who make their living stopping building stuff in America by weaponizing laws supposedly designed to protect the environment. When you kill a mining project in the US, you move it overseas again, they do it over there without the EPA, without child
labor laws, without whatever. I mean again, if you're concerned about the global environment, if you're concerned about the environment, you should want to have all of this, all the critical minerals here. That's before you even get to national security. But for national security, we've got to bring mining back alive in this country.
Have you been able to get your arms I'm throwing a lot at you, bet. I just want people to know, have you been able to get your arms around the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all of these different agencies. The Service is the worst that at a thousand thousand thousand rules, none of which often makes sense, and the employees of which are not exactly the most motivated people I ever worked with.
Well, I'll tell you we've got some great progress there as well. And let me start with the US Fish and Wildlife. We're going through a complete remapping and redo of the Endangered Species Act. That was again a classic thing of it was highly weaponized. You know, they would have training classes, Hugh. If you wanted to stop a pipeline or a transmission line or some energy project, you know, you'd use the NIPA, use the EPA stuff to slow a project down. But if you wanted to kill it,
then you used Environmental Species Act. The ESA became the Hotel California. I asked the question when I got here, Well, shouldn't we be celebrating when things come off the list opposed to going on the list. And because we're you know, we became a nation where people sell rated when things went on the Endangered Species List and what to do when they went on there, then we should be working
to make those things better. Ninety seven percent of the species that have ever entered that list have never come off.
You know.
That's if you're grading that on a scale of A to F, that's like an F minus.
We've got if we're actually in the recovery business, we've got to be able to get things coming off. That means we're succeeding, and we should be able to get things to come off without moving goalposts. So big progress is going to be made on ESA. On the tribal front. It's been one tribe after another in my office saying that during the Biden administration, including the Alaska North Slope of Alaska Natives up there saying we need energy development
for our economic basis, schools, healthcare. Ever so some we have some big wins going on in tribal country as well.
That is a great quick summary, Secretary of Bergham, good luck in twenty twenty six and we'll check in again. That's that's quite a start. Thank you for joining.
One little time.
Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewett, joined by Congressman Michael Lawler. Mike Lawler represents New York's seventeenth congressional district he won in twenty twenty two, he won in twenty twenty four. He's been on the program before. I get along with him really well. I like him a lot, but I think I'm going to have to support his Democratic opponent in twenty twenty six, and I wanted to talk to him about that, and he was kind enough to come on. Congressman,
welcome back. I'm very upset about the discharge petition, and I don't want to talk about the merits. I want to talk about what you did to my party that I've spent my life building, which has put all of your colleagues in a terrible position. Why should I overlook that?
Well, respectfully, Hugh, this is a situation where Democrats shut the government down for forty three days. They made the issue of the enhanced Premium tax credit the quote unquote reason for the shutdown, and as I did during the shutdown, I went and exposed Leader Jeffries hypocrisy on that, showing full well that really was not a the issue and b they had no interest in solving it. When the government reopened, we sat down a bipartisan group of us to actually come.
Up with a plan to reform the system.
It would do a two year extension, but it would actually start to make changes that conservatives have wanted to make to Obamacare for years, income limits, insurance reforms, rooting out fraud in the system, eliminating the zero premium plans, and actually requiring a payment from the individual, PBM reform, HSA expansion. We worked then the group of us that on the Republican side worked with House Republican leadership to
force a vote. We wanted to put the bill on the floor and frankly let the Democrats vote yay or nay. I suspect was going to be that if there was a zero premium plan elimination in there, most of the Democrats would vote know and we worked through this. We tried to get it to the floor. Ultimately, we could not reach an agreement for various reasons. There was disagreement within our conference on a few fronts.
But this is.
Something that I felt very strongly about, both from a political standpoint but also from a policy standpoint.
Doing nothing was not a solution.
The fact is that for the seven percent of people who rely on the enhanced Premium tax credit, they are going to see an exponential spike, and we have been pushing leadership for months to say, Okay, we need a Republican plan. We need to address the issue of healthcare affordability. It's not enough to just say Obamacare bad and we hate Obamacare. We all know Obamacare doesn't work, and certainly not the way Democrats said it would work in terms
of reducing costs. But we are in the majority, and we have a responsibility to govern and to address these issues. What I suspect with the discharge, what's going to happen when we come back in January.
It'll pass the House, It'll go to the Senate.
Stop.
Stop. What will happen is all of the Republicans except the four will vote against that discharge petition because it's bad law. Am I right?
No? I think there will be more than the four voting in favor of moving, not if I've got anything.
To do with it, because it is such a bad idea. God, I just want to stand the discharge petition. I'll debate Obamacare for three hours, but the discharge.
But nobody is defending the three year I said even as recent as yesterday, the three year is not acceptable policy. The problem is we need a VA to actually get reforms done. If when the three year passes, the discharge will be voted on on January sixth. When the three year extension passes the House, the Senate will not pass that.
They've already shown they won't pass that. Okay, Lafon said.
That Congressmen, all due respect, it's not the Senate. We're not going to filibuster. I'm focused on one thing, which is, you threw a hand grenade into my party that I spent my life defending. And two hundred and thirteen or two hundred and twelve of them are going to have to vote against what looks like it's a good idea, and that's going to be an ad against all of them. And if you can't get David Joyce, you can't get the most reasonable guy in the House, and he's my
congressman from Ohio. If I were still living in Ohio. You threw all your guys overboard a minute to the break, and then we'll keep going.
Well, respectfully, many of my colleagues have actually thanked us for doing it, because we need to have a vote and actually advance bipartisan legislation that includes reforms to Obamacare.
So the fact is, Hugh this is my party too.
I've spent my career electing Republicans and Conservatives across this country and in New York. But we have a responsibility to govern and I'm not going to shirk in that responsibility because there's a dispute within the House.
Pause for a moment, we'll go off and then we'll come back on. Stay right there, Congressman. I'm back with michae Lawler. Congressman. I supported you when you use your leverage on the salt deduction. I understand your district. I understand it's difficult. But when you sign a discharge petition and the leadership says don't do it, you are exposing Kay, at least get you to admit it's going to be an ad in every marginal district in twenty twenty six
that they voted against extending Obamacare something. It'll be a lie, but it will be an AD and they'll be voting against them.
Well, the ads were already written about allowing it to expire. And that's that's the fundamental problem. That's why I said this is political malpractice not to have a solution to this issue, coupled with the larger reforms that we passed yesterday in the House that every Democrat voted against. I voted for our Speaker's plan because we do want to address the larger issue of healthcare.
But to just dismiss the seven percent and.
Say, oh, it's okay, their healthcare premiums can go up, I'm not okay with that, and I know many.
Of my colleagues even it is dismissing.
It is you have to have you have to have a plan, and you have to have a plan, and we didn't have one in time with the expiration of these premium tax credits. And by the way, we didn't just raise this issue because Democrats raised it.
Members brought this up earlier this year in.
May when we were negotiating the One Big, Beautiful Bill. We brought it up in September before the shutdown. This was something that's been discussed within our conference for months, and so it's not like people were shocked that this was an issue we had to deal with.
Nobody it's the discharge petition. I'm really being focused here. I'm being focused. I might agree with you. I've been arguing for tax credits that are targeted for people or two hundred percent of the poverty line and are stuck in the state exchanges. There's a big debate to be had. There's plenty of time to do it afterwards. But the three year extension is bad law. It is inflationary law. It will never pass. It's a complete show vote. And
what I'm really concerned, I don't even mind that. I mind the fact that you probably cost seats to the Republican Party because they have to vote on the discharge petition, and it's like voting on an hand grenade.
I disagree with you.
Doing nothing will cost us seats and what we did, and I just have a fundamental difference of opinion on the discharge. And many of my colleagues have signed discharge petitions, especially in recent years, including on conservative issues. The discharge arge petition is a tool of every member. It's not
just a tool of the minority. And sometimes, like we saw back when John Bahner was Speaker and the far right did not want the XM Bank to move forward, John Bahner did the wink in the nod and said, go sign the discharge so we can move the bill.
And I do not.
Object to the discharge, So I object, that's philibout. I object to this one at this time, when the country believes that the Obamacare three year extension has a prayer, and you have already admitted it doesn't have a prayer. It will never pass.
I've said, I've said it will not pass.
But we needed a vehicle, okay, to get an actual bill passed. And so what's going to happen. The three year will pass the House. The Senate will not pass it. They've already voted it down. They did it last week when Chuck Schumer brought it up, and I slam Schumer for just doing a hyper partisan three year bill. I slam Leader Jeffries for just doing the hyper partisan three year bill and not supporting the compromise bill that we negotiated.
But we needed a vehicle that could get.
The compromise bill could actually have I'll come back on the other side. The compromise bill did pass, did it not? I'm sorry, did pass what the compromise bill? The House bill did pass.
It's beginning to go up like Christmas, Welcome back to America.
Friends can disagree, and sometimes they have falling outs, and I'm having them with Michael Lawler because we're talking past each other. Congressman the GOP healthcare plan in the House did pass? Did it not?
Oh?
I'm sorry, Yes, the GOP plan that we put forward.
Yes, So there is a vehicle that we go to the Senate that that vehicle will not get sixty votes. So if there's going to be a resolution, it's going to be done in the Senate, because the House can't do anything, but this can do anything by majority. But it takes sixty votes in the Senate. So you didn't need to sign the discharge bill to get a vehicle. You're making a facetious argument. You did that. I don't know why you did it. I think you're smart, you
know what you're doing. You've used leverage before. Why would you put your members, your colleagues, your friends, the party in the peril that you did, And why shouldn't I be this pissed off?
I disagree with you about us putting our majority in peril, doing nothing on the issue that Democrats weaponized during the shutdown and that the media has tried to explain to voters is the reason their healthcare premiums are going up, when you and I both know Obamacare itself is the reason it has failed to actually reduce cost. But doing nothing on this was the wrong decision, and we had an internal battle over this, and four of us signed
the discharge. But I'm telling you there are a lot more A that we're willing to sign it and B that want something done on this, and so we are going to get a resolution come January and force a vote so that we can actually get a compromise bill.
You could repay. Hey, I want to go through your objection doing nothing. The Republicans didn't do nothing. They passed an alternative, and as we just let the audience know, it passed number two.
That you just pointed out that you just pointed out is not going to become law because it won't get the Democrats.
Like the discharge petition. So we have something to put in the Dessendate's lap so that they can begin the negotiation. That didn't have to be the discharge petition. But as you just pointed out, the media has been framing this
to hurt Republicans because the media is left wing. You fed into that narrative, and no matter how many people came up and wishard, do you will you to go, Mike, four of you signed it, four of you sent it to the floor, and it's going to force a vote where two hundred and fourteen Republicans are going to have to say no. Maybe it'll be two hundred twelve, and that because of the media that we just discussed is
going to be the ad that sinks them. So I don't know how you can walk away from the car crash when you were driving and saying I got nothing to do with that, than what me?
Again, We're just going to disagree because the reality is the ads were already written about the expiration of the tax credit.
We are seeking to do a two pronged solution.
Number one having an answer on the enhanced Premium tax credit with reforms number two addressing the larger issues within the healthcare system, which you and I are in full agreement, is a broken system. Under Obamacare, healthcare premiums have risen ninety six percent and meanwhile insurance profits are up over two thousand percent. Because Obamacare was written by the insurance companies for the insurance companies.
That system needs to be reformed.
And we have a plan that actually will are to reform the system, and that's what we're seeking to get across the finish line.
You have two question making.
I got two questions before I run out of time. One, can you take your name off the discharge petition?
No, it's already active, it's two hundred and eighteen.
Will you you can, however, apologize for it and reconsider and say I made a mistake. Will you think about doing that between now and January so that you vote against the petition you forced onto the floor.
Look, I am comfortable with my decision and the decision I made. I didn't make it lightly, and I made it after exhausting every single option we had before us. Within our House Republican Conference, we worked tirelessly to get a deal with leadership, and unfortunately, as the Speaker said, we just couldn't, you know, solve this Rubik's cube. There were a lot of reasons why, and ultimately this is the decision I made.
So, Congressman, did you or did you not win on the salt cap? You won on the salt cap?
We did.
Yeah, So the party has been good for you. The party did what you needed done. The party broke Mark. Mike Lawler got what he needed. So I'm listening to an ungrateful guy in a marginal district who wants the NRC seat to support him and people like me to do it, and you're ungrateful. I really, I'm just curious that you did this. Do you understand that?
Respectfully? Yeah, respectfully, Hugh, I'm not ungrateful in the least. But I know this.
My seat is one of only three seats in the country that Kamala Harris won that a Republican represents. We're at two hundred and twenty. If we lose those seats, we're out of the majority.
It's that simple.
And I am fighting to represent my district, to represent Mike stituents, and to give us the majority and keep Speaker Johnson in the Speaker's chair and keep the gabbles.
So it's not about being ungrateful, all right.
I've eaten a lot of votes this year on things that I don't necessarily agree with. There's people on the other side of the conference that have eaten votes on salt that they don't necessarily agree with. That's what happens when you have a small majority. Everybody's got a give and take.
Do you listen when you're out in the district. If enough people come up to you and say I heard the Hewitt and Hewitt's right, and you should apologize and vote against your discharge of petition. Will you listen to them? Because I think you're a smart guy who made a mistake and that shouldn't end your career. You should win. But there are people like me who are just going to say you are more trouble than your worth. Will win the majority somewhere else, because if you stab me
in the back, you'll stab me in the front. And this was a real backstab Mike.
Yeah, che Number One, I do listen to my consents. I'm out every single day meeting with constituents. When I'm not in DC, I do dozens of events, you know, every week in my district, So I talk to everybody across the spectrum.
Number two, I'm very blunt and direct. I don't I don't hide.
I don't.
I'm not being don't. I'm not being very subtle here.
Either, but no, but my point is I'm not backstabbing anybody. I was very clear with the speaker what was going to happen if we couldn't figure this out, and so there.
Was no backstabbing. It was straightforward.
And I and I've owned my decision and I've explained it, and people are have every right to disagree with it, but it's not backstabbing.
It's very straightforward.
Okay, I'm going to pray for a Christmas miracle. I know you're Catholic. Maybe on midnight Mass you realize you should apologize for this. I hope so. Mike, by the way, thank you for coming on. You knew it was going to be a rough, rough going. I appreciate that you found the time to do it. I'm Merry Christmas to you, Congressman. Taught to you in New Year is so delightful and
since welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett, joined by Charles C. W. Cook, Senior editor at National Review, host of the Charles cw Podcast, also a frequent contributor to The Editors Podcast. Charles, I've got to press you into servers today because we've got eight gallons to get into a three gallons show. Secretary of Rubio gave a press conference day looking back over the year. So I'm going to play you some clips and have you comment on Secretary of Rubio without benefit of my two cents so
that we can get through them. Here's cut number two of the Secretary of State.
When it comes to the Western Hemisphere.
The single most serious threat to the United States from the Western Hemisphere is from transnational terrorist criminal groups primarily focused on narco trafficking, but they're in all sides businesses as well. So the good news is we have a lot of countries in the region that openly cooperate and work with us to confront these challenges. Mexico, their level of cooperation with US is the highest it's ever been
in their history. Throughout Central America for the most part, except for maybe Nicaragua and to some extent, Honduras, we've had great cooperation from Ecuador, from El Salvador, from Ecuador being in South America, but across the Pacific coast world so undertaking efforts Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama. These are all nations that cooperate with us openly in search of stability in the region. You moved to the Caribbean Basin, in Trinidad, in Guyana, in Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic.
Right is he right to paint sho rosia picture, Charles.
Well?
I think so.
We have a tendency to look beyond our immediate neighborhood. Obviously, that wasn't always the case, the Monroe doctri put that as the number one priority of our foreign policy.
I don't know what he says next. That's the problem.
I mean, if he goes on to say but and then to list all of the problems that we have, then I think it will be balanced. But there is a lot of good.
Yeah, let's go to next cut number five.
So when I say these things about Maduro and his role in narco trafficking, it's not I hear as the reports.
Marco Ruveal says.
That it's not me.
A grand jury in New York, in the Southern District of New York, Okay, a grand jury in the Southern District of New York was presented evidence and came back with an indictment not just against Maduro, by the way, but against a bunch of people in his government for narco trafficking. A bunch he had, you know, his nephews or the nephews of his wife and died it. Convicted
in the United States for narco trafficking. Like this was until President Trump started doing something about these narco trafficking linking links. Nobody disputed that Maduro and his regime was in cahoots with narco traffickers, not to mention the fact that they unleashed trained at Agua gangs on the United States. They've unleashed, you know, a mass migration event, perhaps.
The largest in history.
Eight million people have left Venezuela since twenty fourteen. So also destabilizing all the countries in the region who have had to ass people that are fleeing this this this illegitimate regime. So but nobody disputed the drug links. So that's what the president has been focused on, and that's the problem. That's the problem in Venezuela.
What do you think of that, Charlie Cook?
So, I think everything he said there was correct.
What I have a slight problem with is the jump that is made which turns narco traffickers into narco terrorists or proposes that we are in some sense at war with Venezuela. But it's obviously true, that's a huge problem. That country is unstable, it's not anymore if it ever was a proper democracy, and the export of drugs into the United States is a proper concern of the federal government. So I agree with pretty much everything he said. I'm just sometimes not on board with it, and then's.
The and then in this case is the embargo or quarantine of the ghost fleet. I am one hundred percent in favor of that, are you.
Well, I think we need some congressional authorization for it. I don't object to it, person say, I just think we will to be careful with our terms. As I say, I don't think that the problems that are being posed by Venezuela are terrorism. I think the problem is we have an unstable anti American regime very close to our borders that sends drugs into the United States, which we don't want them to.
So I'm mostly with you, yeah, and I don't think we need congressional authorization. Back to nineteen ninety, we were siving Saddam's tankers after the invasion of Kuwait and there was no AUFM there. Let's go to his statement on Ukraine and Russia Cut number four.
The reason why this war hasn't ended, and that is because there's complex factors at play. I know that sounds like a throwaway line, but it's true what we have tried to do in this entire process. And let's be clear about this. I mean the United States is engaged in this. It's the President says this, and I'll translate what I think you know he's trying to say to you and all of this, and I think he has been pretty clear about it is it's not our war in
another continent. We have equities, we have engagement in this war, but it's not our war per se.
But we have been told by everybody.
I think everybody would agree that there's only one nation on earth. There's only one entity on earth that can actually talk to both sides and figure out whether there's a way to end this war peacefully, and that's the United States. And we've invested a lot of time, a lot of energy at the highest levels of our government. I believe you know, President Trump has had more meetings with foreign leaders and others on the war in Ukraine than on any other subject.
Including wire there. We'll play the rest of the quote during the break, Charles will talk about it. We'll come back after the break and talk about the most controversial thing. Stay tuned in America. I'm quis Fortunes is a huge US show.
Were brought to you in part by conservatives for lower healthcare costs.
All right, let's finish the quote from Marco Rubio, where we pausitive.
Please, Steve and Jared have invested time. I've invested time. The Vice President, the Secretary of War, others, Secretary of Treasury, and more have invested a tremendous amount of time and energy in this. And what we're trying to figure out here is what can Ukraine live.
With and what can Russia live with?
Sort of identify what both sides positions are and see if we can sort of drive them towards each other to some agreement. War's end generally in one of two ways, surrender by one side for another, or a negotiated settlement. We don't see surrender any time in the near future by either side, and so only a negotiated settlement gives us the opportunity to end this war. A negotiated settlement requires two things, both sites to get something out of
it and both sites to give something. And we're trying to figure out what can Russia give and what do they expect to get. What can we Ukraine get and what can Ukraine expect to get. In the end, the decision will be up to Ukraine and up to Russia, will not be up to the United States. So that's the role we are trying to play in this, and that's why you see so many meetings going on. This
is not about imposing a deal on anybody. It is about determining what both sides expect and need to have, and what both sides are prepared to give in return for it, and figuring out whether we can have those two overlap.
And of course that takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work.
It can't generally be done in the media are in press conferences. I think we've made progress, but we have ways to go, and obviously the hardest issues are opened.
Charles, what do you make of that statement? That framing of what has happened over the past year.
So I think Mark Rubia is very impressive. I also am aware that he's the Secretary of State in an administration, is not the President of the United States, and what he's doing there is reciting Donald Trump's position on it, which is more cuivocal than mine would be.
Now, Ukraine is complicated.
I do think there's some oversimplification of the matter, especially among Democrats, but I am still slightly uncomfortable with the way that this has discussed. I do think we have more of a vested interest in this than Rubio suggest did there. I would suggest that Marco Rubiya thinks so
as well. It's not his role to say so. He works for the president, but he is right when he says that if we are not going to take that position, then we're going to end this with a normal political style negotiation and what each side can live with, rather than a more principled position.
In the part that you think is oversimplified, what do you say about the Crimean Peninsula which was traditionally part of Russia. The Crimean War was between Britain and Russia and other people. What do you make about the Crimea in this conversation.
Well, I'm not sure it has to be part of this conversation. I think that the whole question of geography in that ERAa is difficult. But the change here was made in February twenty twenty two when Russia went into Ukraine. The next country over from Ukraine is Poland. Now I'm not of the view that Russia is necessarily going to run across you Kraine into Poland, and I don't think
it can run across Ukraine as we've seen. But to me, the Crimean question is more abstract to the United States than Ukraine is because Ukraine is next to a country that has been the source of a huge amount of conflict that is direct the United States and over the last hundred years. So I don't I'm not suggesting you thing otherwise, but sometimes I hear that a question asked as if it's like, well, that's complicated, then shouldn't Ukraine be complicated?
And I'm just not sure those two things happen.
No, I agree with you completely. If some parts through these are easy, and then you get closer to Poland, it gets very very top and we do not want to give up the fortress barrier that Ukraine has given or obliged them to stand by. We're coming back on the network with one more cut for Charles C. W.
Cook.
Welcome back America. I'm here, Hewett with Charles CW. Cook of National Review and the Charles C. W. Cook Podcast. Charles here. Secretary straight Rubio on Hamash in Israel. Cut number three.
Let me just couch it to you this way. Everyone wants peace. No one wants to return to a war. If Hamas is ever in a position in the future that they can threaten or attack.
Israel, You're not going to have peace.
You're not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen.
In two three years.
So I would just ask everyone to focus on what are the kind of weaponrries and capabilities that Hamas would need in order to threaten or attack Israel as a baseline for what disarmament needs to look like, because you're not going to have peace if two years from now Hamas is launching rockets or killing Israelis, are carrying out God forbid, another seventh of October type terrorist attack and so forth, you're not going to have peace. So who's
going to invest in a peace? Who's going to invest in rebuilding a place is going to get destroyed again in the future war. So that's why disarmament is so critical. Now, what that entails, We're going to leave that to the technical teams to work on. It would have to be something obviously that they're willing to agree to that our partners can push them and pressure them to agree to.
It also has to be something that Israel agrees to.
In order for that to work, both sides have to on it, and we need the space to do it.
But that's the way to think about it.
Okay, you cannot have a Hamas that can threatn Israel in the future.
If they can, you won't have peace.
I think that is well put, perhaps as clearly as anyone has put it.
What do you think, Charles, I think that I was sitting nodding along. You couldn't see it, but I was sitting nodding along. That's exactly what I think as well. I think he put it absolutely perfectly. And I always say to people who ask about this, if the country involved were not Israel and the threat were not from Gaza, if instead the country involved with the United States and the threat we was from Canada, it would be extremely obvious to you why the United States were taking that position.
And I think we.
Underscored that perfectly. You cannot have peace. It is a false piece while that threat hangs over.
So setting aside tear up discussions which are endless on the national view of the editors, because Philip In says that they be brought up as to you, why do you grade the first year?
Well, where I mean, are we doing foreign policy? We're doing a generally do it at all overview? Well, Okay, I think the foreign policy has been largely good. I don't like the way that Trump talks about foreign dictators sometimes, or how he sometimes talks about Vladimir Putin. I don't think he's a Russian asset or only of that nonsense, but I would rather a more forthright defense of the West. But generally speaking, I'll give him a bee there. I
think he has made big mistakes on the economy. He's done some good things. The tax bill is very good, but I think tariffs have overshadowed it, and he hasn't got the cost of living under control, and he's in trouble in the polling because of that, may lose the midterms over it.
So I'm going to give him a c there.
Also, because while the tax bill was good, it largely maintained the status quo. I think I'll give him an a on the border, which he got under control within a couple of months.
Perhaps even quicker people have forgotten this.
This is bad for Trump at one level because now that that issue is solved, people are asking what did you do for me lately? But we shouldn't forget what an undertaking that was. And then when it comes to some of the executive orders, the dismantling of racial preferences, and some of the DEI material that had been invested in the federal government.
I'm thrilled by that. So I'm going to give him an A.
And the latest, of course was the backtracking away from so called disparate impact, so I'll give him an a there as well.
And then on his personal conduct, I'm.
Going to give him a F because I just think that he's his worst own worst enemy, and he is totally out of control sometimes and it just hurts him in the movement.
Well, check in on. That's a pretty good report card, division and I appreciate your running through it. Charles. I will talk to you, if not next week in the new year. Thank you so much for joining me today. I like someone who can go through all those different issues and be coherent. Charles CW. Cook on X follow up, follow me to the next segment, and even Grace America. I'm to Hewett, joined by Ben domin H. Ben is editor at large at The Spectator, Fox News contributor owner
of the transom over at Substack. Ben, I got a big topic for you today, started by the Big Ben podcast this week, which featured Robbie Starbuck. I don't know who he is, and I listened to him and first of all tell us who he is.
Well.
Robbie Starbuck is an interesting cap because it's rare you have somebody who's influential and conservative politics, who also is famous for having directed the music videos of groups like the Smashing Pumpkins, and he has directed in various music videos Natalie Portman and Jamie Fox and people like that.
He became more conservative while he was in California. He's someone who has a Cuban background and as such, you know, was already pretty anti communist and became someone who was essentially the tip of the sphere when it came to
identifying DDI programs within major corporate institutions in America. He drove the likes of JP Morgan and Nike and a number of other institutions absolutely nuts by revealing the internal documents that they had leaked to him by various folks inside these entities that detailed DEI practices that were quite frankly illegal. I mean, you know, things that were most
biased on race. And at the center of this, you know, he became someone who was feared by corporate America at the point that, you know, I literally have had so many people over the past couple of years say do you have an in with Robbie Starbuck. We're worried he's going to come after you know this, that or the other client, And I'm like, go with god, you know, I'm s well.
It was a great conversation, and I was going to add him to my list. I've just posted on x a list of influencers, people to whose influence you ought to be open, not necessary agree. There's some people on there I disagree with, but they make arguments. A couple of reporters, a couple of producers, a couple of people behind the scenes, but mostly people who make arguments. I didn't put them on there for a simple reason. I
want your reaction to this in your conversation. At one point, he went off on a jag denouncing Congress for doing too little, and he didn't appear to me to know that you need sixty votes to move legislation in the Congress in the Senate, and if you don't know that, you're going to have unrealistic expectations about what the Congress can do. Does that not trip your wire?
Well, it trips my wire. A little bit. But I also think that one of the things that we know should be cognitive of is that a lot of times in these conversations, people will will extend out, perhaps beyond what is what is feasible within the reality of the situation, as opposed to what their ambitions would be like one Ted Cruz, so I respect very much ran into that a little bit back when he's started out in the
United States. But one of the things that I think is key to UH to appreciate at this moment is that there actually are a lot of a a I think, an impressive number of younger voices that exist on the American right broadly speaking. And this is one of the reasons why that whole idea that you had to entertain the likes of Nick Fuentez or something like that in order to reach younger people always struck me as ridiculous. It's because we actually have a surplus, if anything, of
younger voices who are very interesting on the right. They don't agree about everything, they have different backgrounds, they have you know, you've got your your homeschoolers, you've got your neocons, you've got your you know, people who were you know, in actual soldiers in the War on Terror. We have differences of opinion on either side of it. You know, you have people who have been through the elite institutions and want to retake them, and you have people who
want to burn them to the ground. And those are all things that I think are healthy to have as a debate within the big tent of the right. And it's something that quite frankly, did not exist at least when I was coming up, as something that was more apparent.
But now you've got a lot of people who are in there there, you know, later twenties to sort of mid forties, who I would say have enough experience to be informed practitioners of the realm of politics and in the realm of policy, and people who actually, you know,
aren't just shooting from the hip. And that's something that I think is very healthy and a very beneficial thing because for a lot of us, you know, who started out on this in the early two thousands, there was far less of a of a gross campaign for younger Americans to get into this system, unless their attitude was more just climbing through the ranks in order to achieve power for power's sake.
Now what I wanted to ask you about is being influenced or being an influencer. That's a new term, right. There are a few grand old voices in the movement. Whenever I'm on a panel with Britt Hume, I just want to look at Brett barn say, I yield my time, mister speaker to Brit Hume. And there's George Will and there are a few people like that. And then the boomers are rolling off. In the next five to ten years, we're all going to be retired. And then we got
a pretty good healthy ranking from fifty to seventy. I mean people will be moving up. There are a lot of good voices, but under forty five it gets weird because they grew up in a different world, ben one where you didn't read a lot of books, where you didn't have to read a Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson to understand the Civil War. You might have an opinion or two, but I mean you had to do a lot of work. Do you think that forty five and under group are going to be ready for
the debates that are coming. I do.
And one of the reasons that I think that is because of the number of organizations that exist. He helped them along. And I don't just mean the ones that are most prominent institutions like Turning Point alike, but there are a number of organizations that I think came out of the benefits of the nineteen eighties and the success of the Reagan Revolution that have led to people having the opportunity to study more if they were interested in.
The fellowships that are on offer are significant. The people who are there and ready to help you along and to give you advice about what to read and look. You are correct, You can get those gigs, You can get that impromature that from you know, a lot of different institutions without having done the necessary work. And I think though, in time, that reveals itself, and it reveals itself in the form of people who you know, are frankly not ready for those types of debates. This is the
other thing that I want you to appreciate. You though, I think we really owe a debt to the Reagan generation of people, and I would include, you know, not just the work of of people who have surrounded you, but you know, I think of someone like Laura Ingram, who I was reading and paying attention to when I was when I was very young, who now, you know? I mean, I was on her show last night and I was talking about Erica Kirk, who's younger than me,
you know, and the leadership that she is representing. There is a continuum here that I think is really important, and it has helped the ideological health of the right and the way that I think the ideological side of
the left has crushed any ability to disagree. The people who are disagreeing on the left, they're doing it from an outside position that is socialist, that really wants to demolish our institutions in a negative way, to views the United States as a sinful, craven, horrible place that needs to be upended, turned around, and turned upside down in order to advance. And the reason that that happened is
because they didn't cultivate any kind of ideological disagreement. They only have the kind of iliberal established and Ezra Klein's Madiclasius, you know, podsave America, bros at the top, and nobody else could really contend with them. And so what happens you have a whole diaspora of people underneath Bernie Sanders who emerge and who frankly, you know, don't share any of the American values that even the left, you know,
has purported to share at various points. If you rewind even as you know, even twenty years ago, you could find a lot of things in common with a lot of mainstream Democrats, even you know, moderate centrist Democrats. And I mean that in a true way, not a fanciful way. And yet today the moderate centrist Democrats are just people who maybe don't talk as much about transitions.
You know, Yeah, it's destroyed. Their party has shifted to the left now in the Reagan years, since you bring them up. I was a kid in the briefcase carrier in the White House Council's office, but they made a conscious effort to credential young people. Do you think that Trump and administration is doing that?
So I believe that one of the big mistakes of the first go rounds with the Trump administration is that they did not do that, that they did not do a good job of cultivating younger people. I think this one second time around is doing a better job, in part because they hired as many gen xers as they did within this cabinet who are mindful of the future and who are trying to bring up young people and
help them get credentials. We do not want a situation where we have people who are thirty years removed from, you know, having been sitting at important desks, you know, back in control again. You want to have a situation where you've cultivated people who've learned both from the good and the bad of bad past decisions, and who can bring that knowledge to bear when it comes to the
challenges of the future. I think, particularly of China and the challenges that it represents, we don't want to have necessarily the same approach that we had, you know, twenty five thirty years ago, with people who have great credentials but also believed that we could bring China via most favored nations that us into the broader world in a way that turned out not to be the case. And so look, I believe we have a great variety of people.
We have more libertarians, we have more populists, we have more people who didn't come up through the traditional era. We have people who love William F. Buckley and people who laugh at the invocation of williamath Buckley. And that's the kind of thing that I think is actually healthy we can have the very debate.
Ben's going to stay here during the break, you'll be back on the other side. We'll talk about tpusay's gathering, Erica Kirks endorsement, and jd Vance and a lot more. Don't go anywhere. I'm here doing back now with Ben Dominic. Ben, I want to play for you what Erica Kirk said today at tpusay's gathering in Phoenix. Cut number one.
We're going to ensure that President Trump has Congress for all four years. We are going to get my husband's friend jd Vance elected for forty eight and the most resounding was possible.
All right now, Ben, I have nothing but admiration for eric at Kirk. I don't know her. I knew Charlie is a colleague and a text friend and a couple of events, but not a good friend. This was a mistake in my view, because.
I'm glad that you said that, because I was sitting live. I was sitting waiting to go live with Laura Ingram last night in a van and I heard her say this, and I creighed a little bit. I'm glad that you agree with me, but I'd love to hear why.
Well, because it's a long time to twenty twenty eight. Many things can happen, and if other people get in, the people who might be thinking about doing running for it against Jade Vans are not going to support TPUSA.
Right.
It's why I never endorse anyone. I want to do the debates. I want to be fair to everyone. And can you actually go to TPUSA. Now, if you're thinking about this and not get submarine?
Why would we adopt a college football playoff attitude when we could have an l playoff attitude. That's my that's my perspective, you you know, Like, look, you know, I love a lot of these teams, but I'd like to see the Packers and the Bears go at it and see who comes back, you know. And so it's the kind of thing where when it comes to JD. Look,
we've talked about how much we respect JD personally. I think he's the best vice president that we've had, you know, the best you know, sort of relationship that he's had with the principle since we saw Richard Nixon under Ike, you know, and and see that kind of relationship with a younger person who's going out there and fighting for the cause.
That's great.
There's going to be other people who run, and it's not just going to be people who are going at him from a more quote unquote centrist position, presumably someone like Len Younkin or somebody like that business lobby perhaps. But this is the kind of thing where I think you're going to get some conservatives who are going to run because the timing is right, because everything is right in their lives, to run, they think that they have
a record or run on, et cetera. I think jd Vance probably emerges as the king of the CA at the end of that just given the skill that he has shown. But having him earn it on the field is something that I think is really important.
That's why Hillary was a terrible candidate. Yeah, Hillary was terrible.
Hillary.
Based the kind of challenges that she had to in order to get that candidacy, she probably would have been a better candidate, and because she didn't, she ended up being a worse one. She wasn't prepared for any of the arguments used against her. And look, I personally think you're going to get at least one person in this race who is going to try to present themselves as the more authentic Maga figure than JD. Vance. And whoever that turns out to be, you know, it's probably going
to be a member of Congress. It's probably going to be somebody who, you know, maybe surprises us by running. But it could be anybody, and they could be framing themselves as to his right, and that's something he's going to have to deal with as well. It's not just going to be someone where he can take up that position. And so because of that, I think an early endorsement
is foolish. And and look, you know, I wish that she had just said it slightly differently, saying, look, you know, if the nominee is jd Vance, of course we're going to fight so hard.
And if my husband's friend and I love him, that would have been fine. I'm coming right back with Ben Dominis because we got to talk about Ben Shapiro and Tucker stay tuned working back America. When I was a kid, Fraser Ali were the three fights that defined the era. I mean there were three knockdown fights that Thrill in Manila and two more and Ali won two and Fraser one one. And at the end Ali was the greatest
champion ever. So Ben Shapiro knocked Tucker around the room at the Heritage Foundation this week, and then they both met up in TPUSA and Tucker gave his thing. Ben gave his thing, and Tucker did not answer the substance. He said, you're attacking jd Vance and that's why you're attacking me. That's a win by default, you think for Ben Shapiro, what do you think?
So Look, I think he had a very challenging position to navigate there, and I think he decided to lean in to the end degree, and I applaud.
Him for it, because Ben Shapiro.
Yeah, I think that you can't be around the bush with this situation anymore for all of us, even those of us who like me. I mean, I feel like I was a Tucker Crosson descender far longer than a lot of people who I know, because I have known him. I literally met him when I was fifteen, and I've always thought him to be one of the most charming, hilarious, entertaining people who I know within this industry, and I have very very little had very little disagreement, i would say,
with him until just the past couple of years. But one of the things I think has been made clear in the time, you know, in recent times is just how much he is animated by a lot of I think personal vindictiveness, which is unfortunate and which has overwhelmed a lot of the values that I thought that he had beforehand. Ben Shapiro, I think, took a bold stand in front of that audience. It could have gone a different way, but it went the way that it did.
And the way that it went is that the people there, particularly the young people in the audience, and I want to point that out to every listener. The young people in the audience were clapping for Ben. They were clapping
loudly for him because they are tired. They are sick and tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes by people who have personal gripes, dendictiveness, spite toward people who are leading other institutions, or who feel like they need to make these wild claims in order to keep people listening to them. And you know, Ben Shapiro has his own tone. Sometimes it turns people off because, hey.
It's way too fast. I've told Ben, if anyone talks faster than me, it's too fast.
I know, I know, but and I'm a Southern pers so it's even worse for me. Yeah, but it's one of these things where I think that he prosecuted that case as well as anyone possibly could. And then I think Tucker got out up there and really was unprepared to deal with it and tried to change the argument. I don't think it worked at all.
And I think that here's what I also want to get in now it should be over. There are some people who do not deserve our attention, and I mean lunatics, and we do not need to deal with them. And there are some people for whom we don't want fights between them to go on. It's a big tent. It's a really big tent. And what Tucker does. He's an elegant writer. He can defend himself. He's got a million followers. He might choose to answer it, but he shouldn't answer
it by saying, you're really attacking JD. Vance, because that's not really what's being attacked. Most of the people that applauded Ben love JD. Vance. It's a false choice. You don't have to like Tucker and jd and or you have to like Ben Shapiro. That's a false choice. It's a question of I it's just about their ideas. Do you think we can get it back to that? Because I have no time for the other of the nutters none. I don't want to talk about the nutters.
The truth is that we have to get back to that.
And the reason we have to get back to that is because the longer we spend getting involved in these personal fights where you have to pick sides and where you know, well, you listen to this person and I listen to this person, and we have to have a dispute about it, it doesn't make any sense, especially at this particular moment, you when it actually is clear that there's so much that can be done and that should be being argued in the public square that people are
being distracted from. Quite frankly, yes, all sorts of ludicrous, you know, conspiracizing and you know, kind of stand in fights for other things, and that's just not there's no point to that. We should be arguing about how to move this country forward and about the best way to do it. The policy is about to be pursued by this Congress and by this Republican majority and by the President. We should be talking about what ought to be done.
As it lates the world at large, and I think that that conversation would be happening in the absence of a lot of this, and unfortunately we've been sucked into it. It's natural because of the power of charismatic people using the sounding board of a massive megaphone online. But we've got to get out of it. And I think, quite frankly, I hope that the Ben Shapiro message is one that helps us get out of it and help.
I think it will, and I generally acknowledge it. I don't want Charlie Kirk's murderer to have successfully destroyed his movement by unleashing one hundred different demons. People in anger and people are aggrieving, and I just don't want that. He built a very good GOOTV. I've always thought turning point at GOOTV. I didn't think of it like the National Review semi every two years they get together and
have an idea summit. That's not what it is. It's a GOOTV effort, and I just wanted to work and keep working, so I do too.
I do too. I think it's possible. I'm hopeful, and I quite frankly believe that this Andora's Box that that this shooter, this assassin opened is one that actually has a lot more hope as it relates to Americans, young Americans in particular, coming back to faith in their own lives, being motivated by the things that motivated Charlie, appreciating those aspects of him beyond just to get out the vogue effort. And that's something that I think is very healthy, beneficial
and good for the country. I just want it to be more centered around that, as opposed to these ridiculous, vindictive and pointless conspiracy theories mounted by people who are only getting the attention in part because it benefits the
left to promote them. It benefits the other side of this argument to promote them and voicing that along on quite frankly, a number of people who I say don't have the necessary defenses against something like that because they have trusted these voices for so long.
Well said. And on that note, we'll talk to you maybe once more before Christmas, if we don't marry Christmas, Ben have a great one. I've been telling you every day about consumer cellular and I want to tell you about it again. The phone number is one eight hundred four to one one forty four fifty four one eight hundred four to one one forty four fifty four, or you can go to Consumer Cellular dot Com slash q. It's Consumer Cellular dot Com slash q. The reason you
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He's the host of the Breaking History podcast. I love. His most recent one ELI today, the Turning Point USA conference, which is for the kids, right for the younger people than you and I. They had Ben Shapiro and they had Tucker Carlson. We'll talk about that in a moment. Erica Kirk made an announcement. I was somewhat surprised, but I want to play it for you and get your reaction.
Cut Number one, we're going to ensure that President Trump has Congress for all four years. We are going to get my husband's friend jd Vance elected for forty eight and the most resoundingly possible.
All right, So, before we moved to the second part, are you surprised that she did that.
No, because Turning Point USA, I think was is always very much of a Vance twenty twenty eight operation. There was a moment after that horrible assassination where I thought there and I still think TPOSA should say is also doing this, But it could have turned into kind of a civic organization that encouraged people to find a church, find religion, go back to God, focus on the lost boys, as Charlie Kirk used to call them, who have found you know, who have sort of sunk into a life
of nihilism online. But I think it's always been TPOSA is an organization that is largely political, and JD Vance was very close with Charlie Kirk, and I think people inside the Republican Party kind of understood this was the grassroots organization for Advance twenty twenty eight. I think that it might be more wide open than that, and this may be it's I think it's maybe too soon to kind of come out and say that, because I think
there's a lot of things that can happen. But I'm not necessarily surprised now.
I was surprised because it's an obstacle to growth. Whenever you're declaring you're excluding, and I thought they were growing, And I think JD. Vance is probably going to be the nominee, and he's a friend of my program, and I'm glad to have them on all the time. But I don't get involved in the presidential primary until the presidential primary is over, so I was surprised.
Now.
Ben Shapiro gave a speech at Heritage this week which was a full frontal attack on Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson responded at TPUSA today in an unusual way. They ended up not debating an argument. Tucker ended up saying I'm being attacked because it's a way of getting JD. Vance that is, I believe wrong. And I think his ideas are being attacked by various people like Ben, like you, like me, on idea by idea basis. Do you think he capitulated today by switching from the idea debate to
the oh, you're really attacking JD. Dance to be.
No.
I think that's part for the course, Unfortunately for Tucker, who I think was at earlier parts of his career a far more thoughtful and serious thinker and writer and broadcaster. I think that Ben Shapiro's speeches at Heritage and at TPUSA will be read in fifty years by young conservatives if they want to understand what was at stake in this moment. After the Charlie Kirk assassination in twenty twenty five,
I thought they were absolutely masterful. Now, yes, the headlines are that he did get personal, not just with Tucker Carlson, but with Megan Kelly, Candice Owens and others. But I think he also laid out important principles that for the most part, people who are on the right, people who are conservatives, have to renew in every generation, and Ben Shapiro, in my view, has done that. I cannot tell you how much respect I have for what he did. I don't think this needs to be personal, and I think
your approach is right. It's not about canceling the person. It's about grappling with the ideas. But a lot of the ideas that we're hearing and the style, the grammar of the political discourse has gone off the rails into
conspiracy theory land. And I know that you don't like to talk about some of these people, and I think that's there's wisdom in that, by the way, but we have to grapple that there are millions of people who tune in online to hear innuendo, garbage, conspiracy, ahistorical stuff that gnaws away at the trust we need to have in basic institutions in order to reform them to save
the country. So I mean, in my view, indulging ideas that you know, the French and the mo Soad and maybe even TPUSA staff may have played a role in the murder.
Is it's just it's so toxic. Well, what I want to get to eli and make sure I get to it. I had a leader thun On this week and I put it to him squarely, is it a requirement to be a member of the Republican Party in ninety nine percent of the time to be a full throated ally of Israel and to recognize that they are America's most important ally? And is the GOP going to stand by Israel? And the leader did not hesitate. He said, absolutely, it is part of our core identity to be an ally
of Israel. So that's not a negative attack on anyone. I said, Look, I know Senator Paul leaves your caucus on that occasionally, and Tom Massey's wigne, but in ninety nine percent of the time, you've got to be with Israel, and I think that's the positive case. You know, here are the things we believe in, which is what Ben did, although he left Israel off I think probably very smartly. But he said you got to have boundaries to have a party, just like you have to have boundaries to
have a country. He did not mention part of my boundaries support for the state of Israel. Do you think that's going to be part of the boundary for the Republican Party going forward?
I would phrase it differently. I think that there is plenty of room, and I've seen many Zionists and pro Israel voices have this conversation. I wrote about this eleven years ago. I should say for The Daily Beast that you can question whether the military subsidy is wise at this point, the aid to Israel, and there are a lot of Israelies, by the way, who would agree that
it's time to phase that out. You can criticize tactics in a very hard war, but when you frame the conflict in Gaza without applying any agency to the party that started the war, and you describe it as a sort of genocide against defenseless people without mentioning the fact that the people who started the war are hiding under tunnels, under mosques and schools and apartment buildings and have a
strategy of using human shields and don't wear uniforms. That's where it gets in my view, where it's a moral question or question of values. There's plenty of room to have people who would like a less robust American foreign policy that believes that when there are choices to be made with limited resources, we should focus more at home. I don't I think you can be part of the right.
I don't think there's any problem with that. The issue is when the criticism curdles into defamation, and that has happened at light speed in certain segments in the online world,
and when it becomes conspiratorial. When you hear people say the Israel lobby is the real government of the United States, which is just you and I both know is absurd to be stupidity, right, right, And when you even say that American citizens, many of whom are not Jewish, who support a strong US Israel alliance, are somehow being disloyal or not as lawyer, or not putting America first. That's where it leads into something which I don't think is acceptable.
But those are again for value reasons. We can have a debate about policy, no problem. People say you can't criticize this realm. Sure you can, but that's not criticism. That is to another remanance, not really about Israel. It's but who we are as a movement on the right and.
As a country and as a party. I'm a Republican. The party has to be for a strong defense, and a strong defense has to support Israel when it needs support. Whether or not that's a military subtry, I don't know. But if they need at thirty five, we sell them at thirty five. If that simple, they are our most important superpower ally, Eli Lake, thank you, my friend Vallmann et Eli Lake. Stay tuned.