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 dialogues, all of them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Morning Laura and Etan grayce America. The first week of the war is in the books, and the Big Weekend Pod is all about that. John ellis of course with news maybe not related to the war.
There's other news out there, including very bad job numbers today in a very weak market that's worried about the price of oil, a little bit of pants wedding going on around the world because this war is not going to last more than two months. Them are going to talk about the war with Matt Continetti, with Ben Dominic, with Eli Lake, and then of course the Hillsdale Dialogue coming up. But here on the Big Weekend Pod, I don't do the Hillsdale Dialogue. You can find that at
Hugh for Hillsdale dot com. We're focused on the news and just the news on the Big Weekend, so stay tuned and don't go anywhere. Welcome back in America on j Hewett. Matt Continetti has, of course, senior Fellow and Domestic Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He's also the Free Expressions columnist at the Wall Street Journal. In today's column, he writes, at the through line of Donald Trump's foreign policy for forty years as been Iran, Matt, it got
a new iteration day to unconditional surrender. Dwayne did this picture for me because I can't work chet sheetp on the images. But the original unconditional surrender man was Grant and he said it the Fort Donaldson and he he just met walk out and lay everything down. What do you think Trump meets by unconditional surrender, Well, Hugh.
I think he can mean a few things.
The first is that he's going to eliminate Iran's capacity to so mayhem around the region, so decimate the Iranian war machine. They're also going after Iran's apparatus of repression, the institutions like the IRGC and the basiege militia that
slaughtered the thirty thousand Iranians during the recent protests. So unconditional surrender would mean a fundamental change in the Iranian government, either a new form of government, a new leader emerges that says that they are going to act according to Trump's will, that sort of regime coercion that we saw
in Venezuela, or a popular uprising. The Iranian people take to the streets once again at the conclusion of this military campaign and they lay the groundwork for a new post Mulla post Aatola Iran.
Are Americans overconfident at this point? Because one missile at Demona, one attack on a d sal in Saudi Arabia, one mass casually, event an American will be very unhappy.
Will It's hard to know who exactly they'd be unhappy at. I think they'd be unhappy at Iran if Iran was to unleash mass terrorism or asymmetric warfare in response to this conflict. But you're right to suggest that the war is not over, and of course we.
Don't know what lies ahead, but we do know this, Hugh.
I mean, the military effort by our sailors, pilots, soldiers has been absolutely incredible, and the fact that we've seen this rapid decline in Iran's capacity to fire missiles at Israel at the eleven other countries it's fired missiles at since the beginning of operations last week. Is a testament, I think, to the effectiveness of the military campaign so far.
And once you've.
Really defanged Iran's ability to shoot these ballistic missiles at its neighbors and at our forces, then you can move on to the regime targets. And I think we saw that in the IDF strike earlier today on the governance
compound underground. And then it's just a matter of time as you continue to layer on the military pressure, first against their ability to strike back, then against the broader institutions that support the Iranian regime, and we'll just see what happens when the Ranians no longer can control their military response or their own actual governance in this very large country.
Now, it's not a stupid country. And so what I'm calling their Yosemite Sam strategy based upon the Warner Brothers cartoon character who would walk into the saloon and fire in every direction, what do you think was behind that? They're not stupid? What did they think they were going to get from Yosemite Sam in it?
Well, a couple things.
I mean, I think they're clearly wanted to test whether they could break off some of the Golf States from the American Alliance and show that the Iranian military capabilities were such that the Gulf States should pressure the United States to end the campaign and to also Iranian Israel. That has not succeeded, and in fact, the Iran Yosemite Sam strategy has actually created a coalition of the willing
against Iran. All the countries that it has been striking with missiles or drones are now joining to various levels the US Israeli campaign against Iran. But I think the Iranians were also aiming for economic war, and we are seeing that. We are seeing the price of oil increase. We are seeing the stock market take a hit because
of fears of potential energy crunch. Not so much in the United States thanks to Donald Trump's energy policies over the past decade, but it Europe and certainly in the Pacific.
Well, I think that's where we got. Ninety dollars at barrel today is considerably higher than sixty, and so I assume the pump price will go up by a third, don't you.
Yeah, it's right, it's already increasing here. But again I think really the people who'll bear the brunt of it aren't necessarily in the United States, but they're in the Pacific Rim, they're in Europe, so they're gonna do. The Iranians hope exert some pressure on Trump, but what we've seen so far is Trump is not not succumbing to this pressure.
He wants the campaign to succeed. He wants victory.
I'm going to talk Mark Wayne Mullin with Matt during the break, and on the other side, we'll be talking about what the United States has to do to prepare for the grandest strategy implications of the state tuned America. I'm back with Matt Continetti for the big weekend pod. Matt this morning, I was up early for Fox and
Friends and asked about the Mark Wayne Mullen choice. My assessment is that Donald Trump is a ruthless patriot, meaning he's in a war now and he really cannot afford a side show that Christy nomand become, and he's going to be ruthless about, you know, taking out people who are or are detracting from the war effort. Will that continue? Do you think? Because he's generally been very reluctant to exile people.
That's true, and the Gnome to Mullen, the switch would be the first major switch in this cabinet, which is, you know, considering the record in the first term, quite incredible.
I think you know, it's a great question, Hugh.
I was recently reading some of our friends, Victor Davis Hansen's work on war, and he said, you know, a war president needs to be ruthless about the types of leaders that he hires to prosecute a war. And he talked about Lincoln in the generals, and we saw George W.
Bush in the Iraq war.
Wasn't until he made that changed to David Petraeus and that shift in strategy with the surgeon in Iraq that the situation in Iraq began to turn around after several years of insurgency.
So I would hope that.
President Trump would follow in the footsteps of great war leaders and say, look, if you're not implementing the plan, if you were not furthering the cause of victory, then we're going to have to find somebody else.
And it was clear on the home front.
That Secretary Gnome had become a distraction and even a political liability, and that we needed a shift in our tactics on mass deportations away from these very dramatic raids and blue cities to a more focused approach that's been advocated by Tom Holman. So I think this was the correct move by Trump, and I don't anticipate that Mullen will have any difficulty getting confirmed.
Our Democrats in danger if they slow down Mullin. We got sleepers in the United States. The hes be law round up in New Jersey last year. For real. If there's an attack and we haven't got DHS secretary because of the Democrat that's going around or Ran Paul even as chairman, do they pay a price?
Well they should.
You know.
I'm struck as I'm watching this.
Politically from the Iran War, the Republicans are unified. You know, there are some loan dissenters, but for more or less, the polls show, and it's reflected in the Congress, Republicans are unified behind Trump. The Democrats, I think are unserious. It's not only that they're continuing to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security at a time of war, but that they're also voting on the one hand against Trump's powers as commander in chief and on the other
they're admitting that Iran is the world's largest sponsor of terrorism. Well, if you think that the Iran, if you correctly, is the world's largest sponsor terrorism, why would you limit the US Commander in chief's ability to punish Iran, to in fact change the behavior of Ron to end the threat from Iran, as he's doing right now. Meanwhile, you have Gavin Newsom saying Israel's in apartheid state, declaring war on Israel rhetorically at a time when we were fighting Iran.
It is the descent of Democratic Party rhetoric into incoherence. I'll be right back with Matt Continetti. Go nowhere except to X follow Matt on act at Continetti. I'm back with mac Continetti America. Matt, of course is at the Wall Street Journal for Expressions column and AEI. Matt, I have been using my Goldilock strategy. But the argument is premised on nineteen ninety one was too little. We shouldn't have quit after one hundred hours. We should have gone
after said am we had to go back. The too big is two thousand and three. We went, we stayed, We stayed. In fact, we're still there. I want to just write strategy in Iran, but I don't articulate it. What do you think about a Goldilock strategy? What's it look like in the end in five years?
Well, in five years we won in Iran.
That's not a threat to our neighbor, its neighbors, and our allies, and then little least, it's not a threat to Europe or ultimately to the United States because of its missile program. That's not fomenting terrorism around the world and is not repressing its own people. That's the goal, and I think those are achievable goals if you apply the correct means.
You're right.
In nineteen ninety one, we didn't go far enough. We left a week in Saddam in place, and we had a decade where we were trying to contain Saddam ultimately unsuccessfully, and that required Operation Iraqi Freedom in two thousand and three, I think.
I'd like to talk about with the Iraq War.
Though you know, the initial Iraq War was stunning success. Oh yes, Saddam fell within six weeks. The regime ended within six weeks. When people criticized the Forever War in Iraq, it's not the original operation, it's the years we spent combating the insurgency, and there I would say the reason we failed to combat the insurgency effectively for years was we didn't go big enough.
Then.
In fact, we didn't have the number of troops that were necessary. In fact, we had been denied by Turkey.
To have it.
I'm so glad you said it. I was going to bring up and from there that the northern offensive was shut off at the last minute by the Turks. Are not so great allies. We are doing it again, all right.
I mean, it's always important to remember.
So look, I don't think we need a huge ground force right now in Iran.
I don't think we're going to need it. That's not what're happening here.
But what I'm saying is we need to understand how we get to the desired political end state and what that for Iran. What that means is first denying the capability of the regime to retaliate, then to destroy from the air all of the instant tuitions of repression that have kept the Iranian people down, and then third doing what's necessary to allow the Iranian people to encourage them, to give them the means to rise up and take
their country back. From the Mullas. And on that third point, I just want to say our expert here at Ai Fred Kagan, has passionately made the case that we need to be providing communications to the Iranian people, that the Mullas continue to suppress Internet activity in Iran, and so we need to do everything we can to provide starlink to somehow restore avenues of communication so that the Iranian people can communicate with each other and amplify the networks
of descent that will be necessary for them when the time comes to go to the streets and take back their country.
Now, Fred Kagan did an Aaron McClain School of War podcast earlier this week which was truly a lesson in perspective on this, and I would recommend it to everyone. I want to close with grand strategy, Matt, what do you think the Chinese are sinking and seeing right now? Do they think and see we're running low on monitions or do they think and see, Holy smokes, the Israeli American Alliance is a few iterations ahead of us on tech.
Well, I think the first thing they're seeing is that there is only one country in the world that can do what America is doing right now in Iran. There's only one country in the world here that could project this amount of power on the other side of the planet in accordance or in related cooperation with this ally Israel, this small, tiny country that has one of the most capable air forces in the world, as Admiral Cooper stated, the two most powerful air forces in the world combining
forces against the regime in Iran. China is noticing that, and I think recognizing that it still has a ways to go before it can knock the United States out of the number one position. But I also think it is looking at the new way of warfare missiles, AI interceptors, munitions, and will power.
And so as we look ahead.
To future conflicts, rather we look ahead to deter future conflicts, we have to get serious about amassing the deterrent power that we will require to prevent any Chinese invasion of Taiwan. And that means that not only are we going to need a supplemental for this war in Iran, We're going to need to go and truly restock and commit I almost sink to an emergency crash program to get our ammunitions up to snuff.
I'm with you, I think we should do. They could do a reconciliation with a pure majority in six weeks if they got the Budget Committee, Armed Services and Approaches in both houses to say only defense, only munitions, and here's a trust fund of a trillion dollars, build missiles and maybe submarines. I don't think the Chinese missed the submarine sinking Office three Lanka. You know, we don't need a lot of submarines in this war. I think they're
all in the South China Sea. I don't know anything, of course, but that was pretty an impressive display.
Yeah it was.
And you know some of those vessels are intelligence vessels for Iran. So that also denied the Iranians capability. They've tried to slink away to Sri Lanka. It didn't work. We can we can find them. So the Chinese noticed that. There's no question, And again I think that's important for us at home to recognize the kind of awesome power of the United States here and working with Israel to end a threat that has been dogging America for fifty years.
So China, I think we'll look at this and say it has a ways to go.
Which one minute, Matt, which Democrat has been helped them most by the last week. A Democrat who's been helped.
A Democrat who's been helped the most this week.
I think it's John Fetterman, to be honest with you.
I think is one running for president.
I mean, Hugh, I'd be interested to see. I don't think any of them have acted responsibly. I mean we mentioned Newsom calling our ally an apartheid state.
In the middle of this operation.
We have Kamala Harris, who endorsed Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Democratic primary, only to see her lose. I think jos Shapiro may have been helped. He he's kind of ducked out of this. And then I know who you're thinking. You're thinking our buddy Rama Manuel, And you know you know the thing about ram is he is a font of good ideas and common sense.
And there's no way the Democratic Party is good at a.
Way.
It took me so long to get to him.
You John Ellis it said they'll nominate anyone who can beat the son of Trump, not literally, but just anybody. And the person I'm thinking who's most formidable from Emmanuel, Hey, Matt, always great to see you follow him my ax A continenty listen to him on the Wall Street Journal question say to read him rather stays.
On Morning Glory and even Grace America. I'm Hugh HEWITTT. Welcome to The Hewitt Show. I hope you're watching this on Amazon Prime or on Pluto TV World, so now all over the place. But you're listening in your car if you're inside the Beltway driving home and you've been waiting for Big Ben, dominant host of the Big Ben Podcast and now the editor of the Daily Wires brand new opinion page, which I think is a fabulous breakthrough for smart people everywhere. Ben, you are cutting into my
reading time already. I thought you'd take a couple of weeks to kind of lounge around and pretend to be scouting for talent. You're already pumping stuff out.
Well, I'm doing that too. In sure, this is the sky and the something that I will say, Hugh, that I mean, perhaps this is unwise of me, but I did start to do free work prior to coming on, just because the simple fact is things that needed to get commissioned. And so we were very happy with the first week of our tenure and the folks that we've had to writing interesting pieces for us, and I hope that you will be one of them too. I already sent you a suggestion.
So well, you know, you've got a grand canyon sized opportunity there. And it can be the replacement for BookWorld, for the New York Times magazine. It can be everything that's gone away that used to be good.
Yeah. Well, I think that you're recognizing that this is something that has been a real wasteland in the last couple of years. It's gotten worse and worse, and I think that you know, there's still places that can do it well, but we kind of know what they are,
you know. And no offense to our friends all three journal but it's one of these things that I think there's an opportunity here for a variety of opinion, a variety of views, young and older, more experienced and less experienced, and folks fighting it out, duking it out over all sorts of different disagreements that happened within the conservative movement.
And I think that that's something that's very healthy and that I want to feature and promote, and I hope folks will come and check us out at the Daily Wire. It's been a pleasure to join their team, and we're going to have more people joining us.
Now. I believe in the market. So I thank you. And Barry Weiss are in a fight. I mean, you're in a death match. It's a cage match because she goes and grabs people and you go and grab people.
And fine, you should say that, but I can't comment on this.
Okay, stay tuned, right, stay tuned? Are you allowed to put a sports writer in there?
So? Actually, that's interesting because we were having that conversation exactly this week, and that's an area that I want to get into. We actually want to grow into having the kind of Indian pace that features not just opinions about politics, but opinions about other things as well. And sports is definitely one where I am interested in having some strong voices that we that we promote.
Now, I have a specific question followed by a general one. You are a Commander's fan. You are drafting seven.
I'm a redskin, your red skin?
Okay, Well, the Browns still the Browns and we're still drafted in six. Who who if we draft them? Will break your heart?
You know, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm a Jeremiah Love guy.
Oh well, I'm not surprised he could be.
Actually, I think, look, here's the deal. People under rate running backs. I think it's actually it's turned the corner. They were overrated for a while, then they you know, sort of drifted down and now I actually think they're underrated. And I think that if you have a game changing pass catching running back, who is that high up. I
think he has a potential to be Marshall Faulk. I think he has the potential to be somebody who is who is absolutely a game changer for a team that frankly, you know, it's it's an underrated aspect of the terrible season that they had last year, but they lost all their pass catching running backs. They didn't have anybody who could really get out of the backfield and catch the ball. And that I think in this in this modern NFL,
is impossible to have as an offense. You can't just have one, you know, running backs on the field who are assigned to pass, block or run and can't actually break out and get in underneath the linebackers and make make up those yards. And that's something that I think Love would change dramatically, and and you know, especially considering you know, the different things that that UH, the the
team is probably willing to invest in. They've they've got uh, I believe the second highest cap availability right now in here in Washington. I think that they're going to spend that on some things, including probably wide receiver and maybe UH and maybe on the on the lines. But but I really would like to have Love and if he goes before I will be very bad.
He's not. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the NFL mock Draft database, which is my favorite site because they aggregate them all. And they've got Carnel Tate, which I'll be happy with going to the Browns, and they've got Caleb Downs going to the Redskins, and Caleb Downs would be is a Hall of Famer. I think he's going to go to the Hall of Fame. But if you don't need him, you don't need him. And right behind him is Jeremiah Love going to the Saints because he's that good.
I'll tell you Cardil Tate's a great player, and I'm happy with that. Yeah, and a lot of places, you know, you know it's it's a lot of places, have you know him fall in to Washington. I don't know if you what your own preference is. But from my perspective, I think just that this in this day and age,
we are going back to a tenure. And you saw that in the in the surprising market for David Montgomery, by the way, that this is a tenure where if you have a running back who can be a game changer, even if they are going to have a short tenure, that creates a window for you. And we all saw what happened for the Eagles when they pulled off that legendary Saquon trade, and that season is really because of the stupidity of the Giants.
Yeah, we've got Judkins and he's real good. We need receivers and offensive tackles, so we get two first rounders, but we will not be taking Jeremiah up. Let me then turn. That leads me to the demand signal for Bock Drafts tells us that the NFL season is year round, and for the Daily Signal opinion page, it tells me that there's a Dan Jenkins out there, or any fine stain anybody like that for just an occasional great piece on any sport.
I would read it, Well, look, we are going to be adding people. I have the I have at a great colleague in Brent Sure who formerly of the Free Beacon, who brought me on and convinced me to take on this gig. And one of the first things that we spent a lot of time talking about was his long suffering Jets fandom. And so look, if a man can endure that kind of pain over the course of his life, he's absolutely willing to have people who write about.
It dangerous boss. I've told you he's the last man to get the fetching MISSISSI at Tipsy and so I don't trust Brent, but be careful. Now let's get the serious stuff. Dwayn did this for me today's picture of unconditional surrender Donald John Trump. And this picture came up when we got General Grant at Shiloh, and we put Donald Trump's face on him. At least Dwain did what did the president mean by unconditional surrender? Ben?
I think the President is making clear that he did not enter this with any intention of having leftover problems
for future presidents and for the country. I think that Donald Trump used this second term as being one where he is settling all family business, and that means he is going after all the people who he wants to take off the board and doing so with you know, a precipitous nature, but you know, one that I think Republicans have been surprised by, but also one that is intended to achieve a new reality, a new a new world that is dominated by America and that has America's
interests in the decisions that he has made. I don't think he wants anything left over. I don't think he wants to be asked five six years from now, you know, if he's still you know, God be with you know, God bless him, if he's still around, if he is asked the kind of question, why did you leave a rump version of this Iran regime in place to once again threaten you know, your your friends or allies in the Middle East, you know, the people who we care about.
I don't think he wants to have that question. I think he wants to take them off the board permanently. And that's why I think he's saying this unconditional surrender thing. He wants a situation that does We're down to America's interests more than any kind of you know, pie in the sky hope about a you know, a truly you know, free I ran. But I also think that he is not willing to accept what some people have proposed, which is kind of a half measure in terms of the
way things look. They're thinking about domestic politics. They're worried this is going to last too long. I don't think that's something that he's worried about.
I agree. I think he's looking for Goldilocks nineteen ninety one too little, two thousand and three too big. What's in the middle of that? Winning, that's right. Winning is in the middle of that, and then leaving and winning and leaving is not impossible. Here during after the break, I'm going to talk to you about the Democratic Party and their meltdown. During the break, I'm talked about Mark Wayne Mullen. Leading into the break, I want me in
a minute. Are you worried about sleeper cells? Because I am.
I'm less worried about sleeper cells than some people, But that doesn't mean that I'm not worried. It's a real thing. It's not a fantasy, and you shouldn't listen to anybody who says they are. This is a very real possibility. I will I will say though, that you look America's military has been planning for this for a very long time.
We had a great piece this week at The Daily Wire that I recommend to everyone about the Van Riper Millennium Challenge game and what he did and why that helped inform a lot of people about what could go wrong with going after Iran. I think that same type of approach has been used to some degree domestically to pay attention to some of the risk points, et cetera. But I hope that under this administration that everybody's hands
are really on the wheel. And the truth is that after a week in which we've steamed the departure of Christy zero, and after a week in which we've had concerns raised about what's going on at BOJ and the FBI, that's something that I think Americans need to have more confidence.
Though we're going to talk about the fact that President Trump has gone into war, President ruthless mode needs to be inconfident turning to break and after that, when we kind of left it an't go anwhere America's big good. I'm back with Ben Dominich of The Daily Wire. The Big Ben Podcast this week is fabulous. Ben Shapiro, his new colleague is there, Ben, and Ben Talablue, who is with me yesterday, is on for an extended conversation about the Kurds. Again, it's very important. But now let's talk
about this ruthlessness. I think President Trump is a ruthless, tough patriot, in other words, non autocrat. If the Supreme Court says no tariffs, he goes along with it. That's not autocratic behavior. I wish the Democrats would notice that when he loses, he loses, and he grumbles, but he loses. But he's now going to be ruthless because he cannot afford incompetence. Ben, and you just can't if you're running a war.
No, you can't. And I think that you understands that. And I believe that he's been you know, look, he's a he perceives things from the outside of politics, and you know, as was informed by a lot of you know, the things that he watched and learned and read. And I think that one of his takeaways was that time and again, you know, the American warf had their hands tied. It's one of the reasons he made some choices that Washington doesn't like. When it comes to the leadership that
he chose. But also I think it's because he wants to really unleash what America can do. You know, a lot of these plans just because they you know, were put into action or or or were put into the process by Symcom, didn't necessarily have the possibility of going into action under a different president, you know, meaning meaning that you would go for the more conventional or the
more restrained plan. I think that he's shown that's not what he does, you know, when he I mean, there's there's a very I was not quite frankly able to run this down. Others have said that they have, whether you want to believe it or not, that the President insisted when it came to that Maduro raid that they get down to the POSI the probability of not having a single casualty on that raid. Now, that tells you something about his insistence. It tells you something about how
much he pays attention to this. And you know, other presidents I think would have been willing to accept, you know, well, we're going to do this, it's going to be something that works out for us, but we're going to lose fifty guys. And I think that that's not something that is accept told him he has a ruthless behavior toward the enemy, and then he has a very protective enemy,
protective attitude toward the American soldier. That's something that I think is one of the reasons that he is so uniting when it comes to the attitude of his supporters. By the way, Hugh, I think that this is the biggest miss out there that the media has been churning up suggesting that Tucker and Megan and all the other people that they actually speak for some significant president's base. They do not. There is not a look of evidence in any of these polls that is not what's going
on here. He might be losing people who are part of his coalition, but the people he's losing are over economic concerns, price of gas, et cetera. Hispanic voters who feel like he's been a little too aggressive when it comes to the immigration side of things. That's all explainable. There is absolutely no evidence that these people who have been fomenting this idea that he's going to war on behalf of Israel as opposed to America's interest. They have no basis whatsoever to claim that it's.
Wish casting by legacy media. That's it wish casting by legacy Media. I'm coming right back with Ben dominic Don't go anywhere America, don't come back in America. I'm here here with Ben Dominich. Ben. I don't think the late Ayatollah Hamini was a dummy, and so he came up with this, you know, semity Sam strategy where you go into the saloon and you just start shooting everywhere.
And it's a great description. I wish I had come up with I enjy that.
Well to take it, you run with it, because I don't own you know, semity Sam. What were they thinking? What was the thinking behind that?
Which I mean oman like, yeah, we were like it's just catching strays out here. It's just like, I mean, it's Look. Shapiro has a theory about this, which he says on my podcast, which is that they wanted to just bring other people into the war and then have them essentially get in the president's year and say, hey, you got to slow things down or you can't do everything the Israelis want you to do. If that was their strategy, it was a bad strategy and it didn't work.
It's also one that frankly had set up a situation where, you know, we already talked about a week into Ron, their inability to project power after everything that Israel has been able to do to their proxies across the region, and everything that has happened to them economically and internally, that has completely undermined their authority and ability to control their own populace, which of course led to those tens of thousands of people in the streets too, sadly many
of them slaughtered by the regime. This is an incredibly weak moment, and so my attitude is when I see these democrats who were going out there and saying this is there's no imminent threat, there's no you know, something that's going to you know, there's no better time to kick a man than when he's down.
You especially well, Okay, explain to you Gavin Newsom on the Warner Brothers theme, he's Sylvester the Cat. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing. He went on the Pod Bros, which has become like anti semi Central. They should just merge with our.
Right wing frame.
Seriously, they should deem themselves Pod.
Yes, okay, I'll take that one. You can have your Semite, Sam, that's pretty good.
But seriously, the fact that they are at this point, like are you it's but for Ben Rhoads, Like I mean, like, did you use that yet?
You know, I may I may delete this and just steal that and pretend it's mine.
Pod Gosh, that's perfect.
But but this is But the point is just these guys they are so invested, yeah, in an ahistorical revisionist view of the Iran deal that it was some kind of dramatic, amazing, peace loving and achieving, you know, diplomatic deal. They are so invested in that narrative that they can't even see anything that's going on in front of them. It is astounding to me that these people got to the heights of power. They really were right there next to the President of the United States telling him what
words to say. And by the way, Obama has not been any better on this if anything, you know, I think the fact that Donald Trump is cleaning up his mess in so many ways, I'm sure it's frustrating for him. I cannot believe. I mean, I can't even imagine what he's going through, especially considering you know, those.
I can't answer this and you can't answer this, But the pod Bros Plus Ben Roads plus President Obama yesterday, have you ready Gore, who's really I think Israel's emerging public intellectual. We've had doctor Orrin for a years an he had on Micah Goodman, who I do not know, my Monetyese scholar. And they used some names like Comel from Turkey, and then they brought up Katube and Bana, guys that you would know if you read The Looming Tower.
Do you think anyone on the pod Bros Or President Obama have any idea who these people are and how they shape the Middle East in the image of their resistance Islamist philosophy, because it's idiody.
I think that this is I think that this is upon reflection a series of Democrat elites who were credentialed and were so incurious about history that they thought everything was new, They thought everything was bold, They thought everything was some kind of massive achievement that was going to stand the test of time. And the truth is that if you know anything about history, you would be skeptical about that. Even if you thought it was the right decision,
you would be saying, well, what if it's wrong? You know, what, what if we do go in a different way. And one of the things that I think is so important when it comes to evaluating these things is to say, okay, well, let's steal man the other side of the issue. They have never done that. They have only ever plowed through straw man their entire careers. And that's what I think.
That's why I think we ended up with the kind of foreign policy that we had under Barack Obama, with people who had incredibly impressive resumes in terms of their educational experience, but non impressive resumes when it came to actually doing anything, living anything, enacting any policy.
They knew how to seduce legacy journalists. That's what they knew. The echo check Yes. So, which Democrat nominee for twenty twenty eight has been most helped by the last week, Assuming that the trajectory of American success continues.
I think that given the way that things are going, I actually think that this benefits, of all people, AOC. I think that she has actually helped the most by this, and the reason is that she is because she has flubbed so much on the international stage. She is going to focus, i think, entirely on domestic issues, entirely on affordability on all the things that are close to home, et cetera. She's not going to try to win people over again in the way that she did when she
went to Munich et cetera. I think that she's just going to say, I'm just about what's going on in America. Donald Trump has failed to meet the you know, the mission that he had when it came to helping working people, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that that's something that's going to actually work within their party coalition because they're going to want to put their blinkers on. They don't want to actually admit anything about what happened overseas.
How about my my pro rama. Manuel steps out and says, hey, I was there in the first term. Obamacare hasn't worked, as Teddy Kennedy died, we can fix that.
To the heel turn. And then I went to I'm in for this. I am absolutely in for this.
And I went to Japan and I know what China is, and these people over here have never been out of the country and they will not be near my White House. I'm going to go get the old JFK Democrats and bring him in and by the way I drop a lot f bombs and I'm sorry, mom, but that's who I am.
Well and and unlike Gavin news program, that's who it is.
It it really is who he is.
And I will tell you this. I will tell you this you and this is is absolutely God's honest truth. Back when I was, you know, in the in this policy space and centive in the media space, my friends and I admired Rom so much in terms of his approach to the Obama white House. And we always said, if Rom had won out over Valerie Jarrett, this white House would have gone very amen and and that and that is I believe still true to this day. You
would have been a better and more effective president. We would have we would have hated it more because of that effectiveness. It's conservatives, but it's the truth.
And his brother can raise the money, and he knows how to debate. And he's been on this show and Gavin new some who said a thousand times he'd come on this show and he won't show up because he won't take He's gone the other way. Now now he's hired.
Is he has people been pointing this out. You you need to you need to marshal a group of people to start teasing Gavin Newsom on the internet because I have learned from Ted Cruz that that works.
Oh you know, I've always thought it didn't work. But now I'm so frustrated because he said yes, yes, yes, yes yes, And then is he took over and he said yes yes, yes, yes yes, and then he doesn't reply anymore because he's I.
Sit on TV with him multiple times, I've been green rooms with him multiple times. I'm sure that this is the There has got to be a way to get under his skin to the point that he comes on.
Well, he's the first California gave right off the bat.
Right off the bat, You're going to ask him if he read the Looming Cower and then he's going to say that you hate people who are dyslected.
You're right. All he has to do is know the name Katu. He can fake that. Hey, Ben Dominics, thank you for joining me, and congratulations on the Daily Signal. That is terrific. The Daily Wire, not the Daily Signal, the Daily Wire. And on the Big Ben Pod this week, listen to it because Ben and Ben Tellablue and on that too, come my fact any the dealership Blooker back in America. I hope you'll watch Cancel on the Salem News Channel now available on Samsung TV at channel eleven seventy seven,
on Blido TV and now Amazon Prime. Just go to the news menu, drop down find Salem News Channel, or listen to us in the radio and the Salem Radio Network, or of course any of our wonderful affiliates. I'm joined by Eli Lake. He is, of course of the Free Press, the host of Breaking History, and an expert on Iran. Eli were coming to the end of the first week of the war. How do you think it's going.
I think it's going really well. I think there's still we shouldn't get too comfortable. But right now it's hard to say who's in charge. I think their commanding control is severely degraded. And then if you just look at the response, the Iranians have attacked everybody from Azerbaijan to Qatar, and so they've turned fence sitters who are their neighbors into adversaries. And then they're two powerful patrons. Russia and China have not really done much of anything to help them.
They are alone, leaderless, and the strategy, which I think you know, some of the more pessimistic people in the West would talk about is that they want to try to extend it out and continue to sort of drain American resources. They may have hit some of our air defense and missile defense radars systems. That would be a problem. But right now, you know, according to what we're hearing from General Kin and Admiral Cooper, the United States has taken out most of their ability. I mean, the rate
of fire from their missiles has decreased. We're probably going to see more of their drones, but it's going extremely well.
They have adopted what I've been calling and you're old enough to remember this, maybe the Yosemite Sam strategy. Yeah, I remember, I know, you know Yosemite Sam is he would fire off for a different direction. So they've done that. To what end do you think they did that?
Well?
I think that there. I think it was kind of a panic move. I mean, I don't know. I mean, at this point, we have to it's it's just think about this. I was getting I was briefing some very senior Israeli military folks, and what they told me was they couldn't believe they would have the ability to target mobile missile launchers, the way that the US and Israel has in this war so effectively even a few years ago. I mean, think about how hard a problem that is
in a country as large as Iran. Some of that is because Israel has the entire country rewired, but some of it is just because of our technology and our ability to do the kind of instant you know, big data sorting with AI and pinpoint these targets. But that was seen as a kind of you know, impossible problem
with the amount of missiles that they had. And yet here we are, and unlike the Twelve Day War, I think we can safely say at this point that in Ron's sort of defense industrial comprop plex, its ability to eventually kind of renew its military at this point is finished.
Now Trump gave them the three strikes option. Solimani was strike number roun. The Midnight Hammer was strike number two. Now he's gone to unconditional surrender. Dwayne made this for me, a picture of the famous US Grant picture with Donald Trump's face over post. When fort Donaldson, he said, unconditional stender. What does that even mean?
Eli, I think it means that whoever's left in the leadership of Iran will you know, crawl on their knees one hundred yards still they you know. I mean, this is a this goes back to the history of warfare. This is basically, you guys were saying death to America for nearly fifty years. So now what I want is for you to, you know, acknowledge that you lost and you've been defeated.
I think he's.
Speaking a language that the Iranians absolutely understand.
At this point.
Do they get to keep their small arms and their mules like Grant allows the troops to do. I mean, they got to run a country. And we're not going to disband the army again, right the arteche We're not going to do that again. We did that once in Iraq and it was the wrong move.
No, especially, I think that there's more likelihood that you would see the National Army, which was by the way, created by Rezapolovi's grandfather. That was something from the Shah that I think is an institution that can stand. I think that there was a chance you'll see probably I hope leadership defections from there. I would say the Revolutionary Guard Corp that was created by Jolakomani.
I think that's got to go.
And then you know what's interesting is that they've been very strategic this time. I think that Trump learned a lesson from early January when he told Iranians to go into the streets.
They're saying, don't do it.
There's a war going on.
Bombs are dropping, and it's almost as if we're sort of saying we're going to give the order. The other thing to keep in mind is that we saw developments is that it appears that there's an understanding now with Irani encourage there are ten million of them and the US government that there will be air cover if they want to begin fighting the remnants of the regime in the second phase of this. I wouldn't be surprised if
you saw that with other ethnic groups. I think it's very important for these groups to come out and make very clear that they are not interested in creating sort of separatist little statelets.
I've talked to the yesterday. I said that would be a nightmare if the various ethnicity has all said they want the statement.
No, I don't think it's going to happen, and I think that there's an opportunity here for some competent diplomacy to make sure that doesn't happen, and then you know, we'll have to see I have been critical of elements of res apology, but I do think that he does represent something, especially now that we're getting the unconditional surrender, that he could be this option for a transitional leader who has enough recognition and he needs to build support
among more Randians inside the country, though he has some of it. And then I think he has said so many times over the years he's not interested in becoming another Shah, So he would be somebody who I think you could trust to transition round to democracy. But we're not there yet. We're still in the war. But it's telling that only six days into it, we're talking about these things right now because I think they're pressing questions.
What's very telling to me is that the journal story today that UAE continues to allow the Iranian shadow banking to continue. I mean, who does that? Who allows someone who's firing it.
I thought that story was like a signal that they might be ending that practice. I thought that was a sign that this was going to be coming to an end soon. I think certainly. I mean, listen, what's become clear and not just because of the Iranian response when we were getting the signals like in February and late January, the Gulf States are really interested in these negotiations.
That was all a ruse.
They wanted to publicly say that they weren't supporting the war, but they want the regime to go as badly as I think Israel does.
Is it also a signal come get your money and you can have a condo here.
Yes, I think, by the way, that's smart, as much as it in some ways is unfair. Lots of bad people in a Valario. Yeah, it's Macabellian, right, But if you say, all right, you know, and it's what it's what Kareem Sogoborg says, and I think he's right. Eighty percent or corrupt twenty percent drew believers. So if you can get the eighty percent of the corrupt to just you know, not show up to work and take the deal, then I think we have an opportunity to do something
truly historic. And what I don't quite understand at this point is there is such It almost feels like Trump's political opposition has determined that this is going to be a catastrophe and a fiasco without giving it a chance, and I think they're gonna it's gonna lose a lot of credibility if it goes the way I certainly hope it.
That they're not fighting the last war. They're fighting the last Fama and voyants out of the spit.
Yeah.
Eli Lake from the pre Press. Follow him on etchit Eli Lake, readam. He's publishing a lot in the Free Press. We got to be a subscriber. Thank you, Eli, Morning Glory and even Gray. So I'm gonna go Welcome to the big weekend review show, and I'll always begin with John Ellis when we are lucky. He is the founder editor in chief of News Items, your daily compendium of real news, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate the
fake and the false and the disinformation online. John, Just aside from the six items you've sent me, have you noticed that it's almost impossible to go through the posts and figure out what's real and what's not real. During a war, it's difficult. You know.
The fog of war is a true thing, and it's probably foggier than it's ever been.
I think there are lots of people who are eager to pedal narratives, and we're just very afraid of that. However, I want a reverse order of what you sent me and begin with Robin Wright, because she's the opposite of fake news. She's been doing this as long as I've been doing this, and she is writing in The New Yorker this week about the Iranian home front. How would you summarize her report from Tehran and region's nearby, Well.
Just the failure of the regime to adequately you know, service, it's its population. The stunning statistic is that when she first started reporting on Iran, the real was seventy to one hundred on the dollar, so seventy if you had one hundred dollars, you'd get seventy real. And now it's one point seven re all to you know, to one, So you know, the collapse of the currency, the difficulty, you know, the electricity is intermittent, well water is intermittent.
It's just one disaster after another. Uh, and one imagines that the people of Tehran and the people have irun more generally, can hardly wait to get rid of theocracy and the security state underneath it.
John, I understood there we are to be one point seven million to one dollar to one. Okay, that's righteo point one point seven million. That's remarkable. That meant now, wonder the bizaries went out on strike in December. Their life savings are gone.
Yeah, it's wallpaper. I mean, it's it's not a currency, it's wallpaper. So obviously there's a huge underground cash market. But you know, how do you how do you come to the cash market with one point seven real and get a dollar back? It's you know, it's a disaster, and you know, it's it's emblematic of everything else that's wrong with the society and the economy underneath the society.
Now, we can't really point in California to power outages because that's not an infrequent occurrence here on the West coast, but we don't have yet water supply pottable water shortages, And that was in your notes to me. Their water systems are completely broken and if anyone blows up their dams, we're not going to do that America and are not going to blow up their dam. But if we did, they're done. They don't have any water.
Yeah, I mean, the thing that people sort of don't realize about the Middle East is that it's obviously rich in hydrocarbons, but it's desperately short of water, and so Riod the UAE Kuwait depend on desalinization plants for drinking water. So if, for instance, the Iranians decided to do a drone swarm and hit the desalination plant near Riod, then Riod would have to be you know, everyone would have to leave Riod because there would be no water. Same
is true in Tehran. If you blow up the two major dam systems there would you know, there'll be a huge flood obviously, and then there would be no drinking water in Tehran. So you have it in this weird way. We don't think that the Iranians are going to blow up the desalinization plants, and we don't think the US and Israel are going to blow up the dams. But if one or the other does, then the war gets you know, it's just spirals out of control.
Yeah, this is not on your list of news items. Story and John's news items are available. Just Google news items and John Ellison sign up for it. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal story on the UAE being a financial hub. They've taken about two hundred and fifty attacks and they have not yet cut off the shadow Iranian banking system that is in Dubai. How long do they put up with that?
John, Apparently forever. You know, we'll deal with anyone seems to be the to be the modus operendi. And at some point one would think that the US would say knock it off, But so far no.
All right, that's the strangest thing I've learned. Let's move to your second story. It's the David Axelrod theory that you nominate for president whomever is the opposite in personality of whoever is the incumbent. Now you point out it'll probably be a son of Trump and not really a son of Trump, but JD vans for another MAGA anointed candidate, and the Democrats will have to look for the opposite of that. But if you look at their front runners,
they're not really the opposite. Gavin isn't AOC, isn't Ram Emmanuel might be, Josh Shapiro might be, but their front runners aren't that way.
John.
Well, you know, if you look at the candidates, you'll say, Gavin Newsom is better than Pete Butter Judge, and Pete
Butter Judge is better than Elizabeth Warren or whatever. If you look at what the Democratic primary electorate wants in twenty twenty, they wanted someone to who could beat Trump by sixty sixty three thirty seven percent, and so they passed on Bernie Sanders, they passed on Elizabeth barn and they chose Biden, whom they didn't particularly care about, because they thought he had the best chance to beat Trump.
I think it's likely.
That the same dynamic will take place or occur in twenty twenty seven, where after three and a half years of Trump, Democrats will say primary electorate will say, look, we don't need somebody who agrees with us on every issue. We just need somebody who can get these guys out. And so that opens up I think a real opportunity for somebody Electram Emmanuel. If you read the political press, you think it's all about Gavin and this set and
the other thing. But really it's the candidate who has the best chance of defeating Trump or some of Trump that is going to be the nominee.
In my view, and I agree with you, by the way, rama Manuel is formidable because he is the closest thing to Clinton. I mean, he was deputy Chief of staff or something like that in the Clinton White House and then chief of staff for Obama. He's very much in line with sort of center left Democrats and he's a formidable candidate. I've had him on the program. We'll see. Now, let's talk about the AfD and German elections on Sunday.
Germany's divided, like the United States into states. We've got a couple of elections coming up in Germany this weekend. Tells about him. Well.
There are five state elections this year, three in the eastern what used to be East Germany, where the AfD the base if you will, of the AfD, And for simplicity's sake, we'll call the AfD the populist, mega like party. It's often referred to the press as the hard right party, and that's not you know, that's not inaccurate. The key thing that we're looking at is whether the a FD can extend its reach, if you will, into West German states.
And the one that's coming up on Sunday is Baden Wurtenberg, which is the home to Mercedes Benz and Porsche h And it is expected, based on the polling, that the AfD will double its support from the last time. That is that is an indication of the of the party's growing strength, and it is also I think the sort of last straw in preventing the a f D from participating in the federal government.
If it wins, then would you in the state election, would you expect Merts to invite them into the general government.
It's it's unclear, you know, because the Federals are off for ways right, But I think the opportunity, the ability of the German business political establishment to keep the af D out of government diminishes with each election that the AfD does well in. They're likely to finish third, maybe even second in this election, but they will have doubled their support. It seems all but certain they will have
doubled their support. And you know you can't. You can't keep people out of government if they keep doing very well.
In election now, if they mean a majority less than a minute, John, I don't get optimistic about Cuba because I've been optimistic about Quba before. Are you an optimist about Cuba now?
I don't think Cuba has any choice but to make some sort of deal with the United States. Otherwise I think, you know, I mean, they can barely keep the power on. It's it's it's a country in full collapse, and the only way out is to cut a deal with the United States, invite investment, etc. So I think I'm yeah, I'm pretty optimistic.
That would be remarkable. John Ellis of news Items Always good to talk to you. Follow John at Ellis items on X news Items, Google it news Items John Ellis Subscribe you'll be smart. Every morning. By seven am East Coast time, I'll be right back in America's day. Tuned