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 Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale Morning Glory and even Grace America. I'm Whugh Hewittt. Welcome to the Big Weekend Pod. Quite a
week President called into my program on Monday. Talked to him for thirty minutes, most of which was focused on Iran, and he laid it out very very straightforward. There have to be some red lines. Number One, they renounced being in nuclear power, they being Iran. Number Two, all the enriched uranium comes to us to the United States. Well, help theme get it out that it's got to come
to us. Number Three, inspections of their missile programs. Now, the President indicated that hey, they live in a dangerous neighborhood. They might need some, but they don't need everything that they've got. They can't go forest and missiles to protect enrichmentd sites. And then he added in an assign they're going to not have any money to give to the terrorist proxy but implied in that is they can't give
any money to the terrorist proxies. That's four points. I don't know what the fourteen points are, and at the time I'm recording this, I don't know whether or not they're going to respond. But they're firing on our destroyers like constant fire on three guided missile destroyers that went through the Strait of War moves and we blew up a bunch of their small boats, and Marco Ruby have said afterwards, We're not a stupid country. You fired us,
We're going to fire at you. And I believe that we have given assurances to our allies, both the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, that if the Iranians fired them, we will return fire on the Iranians. And so not much progress. I don't expect much progress. I don't believe it's a forever war to take six months to wreck this most malign regime on the planet. I don't think it's a forever war. To stay vigilant and suck it up, even if it means higher gasling prices through the election.
Far more important than the elections is bringing this regime down to its knees, to the recognition that they might stay on into they might stay a terrible place, but
they're never ever going to have nuclear weapons. I talked about all this with our regular lineup, Elilake, Matt Continetti, and of course Ben Dominic and we cover a lot of ground as well, because the Virginia Supreme Court did the right thing, though by a vote of only four to three, struck down those maps because they broke every rule in the book when they got to the initiative
that barely passed. So it was a good week all around. Meanwhile, the Republican states, the red States are busy changing their maps where it is either compelled by virtue of the Supreme Court decision having to do it Louisiana last week, or because they can, as in Tennessee, and they're playing like Massachusetts and Chicago. Republicans are being to play by Democrat rules and we're going to see that all over
the country. States blue states, very few purple states. And when that big sort is over by twenty thirty two, Republicans are going to have a decided advantage because they're the party of common sense. And growth and national security. I think that's what wins elections in the long run. I think that the Virginia Supreme Court also stood up for the rule of law. Applause to the four justices who got it right. Well, that's itt on to the Big Weekend Pod having glory and even greats America. Good
Friday to you. I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead. Eyed do Mother's Day weekend, and we like to celebrate that. And I begin this Friday broadcast with John Allis, editor in chief, founder of News Items, and he always gives you the ten to fifteen items need to know every morning at six am. It's what I begin my day with my news day. And at the end of every week we kind of look back at the week and see what's important. John, welcome you pick for me first,
the situation in Russia. Only minutes ago, President Trump announced a three day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that will extend over Victory Day. That makes Mother's Day a lot less likely to be lethal for both sides, But generally speaking, three days is not a solution, and Russia is starting to wear down. Tell us about it.
Well, you know, a big day in Russia's World War two victory day, when the exact date is May nine, and ordinarily we've all seen the pictures of you know, the rockets and the missiles and tanks and all of the military hardware, and you know, hundreds or thousands of
troops in lockstep marching before the reviewing stand. That has been or that was completely scaled back to a minimal parade in front of the Kremlin because the Russian government couldn't promise the citizens and its people and its government that Ukrainian drones wouldn't come and kill everybody. So, you know, when you have a government that is incapable or doesn't think that it's fully capable of preventing drone attacks on its most important parade, if you will, then you have
a government that's in trouble. And that's been a major theme of the press coverage this week is that you know, Putin is paranoid, he's hunkered down in his bunker, he doesn't trust anybody, and a lot of people that have been very supportive of him, on the military side and the security side, are now talking darkly about a coup or worse. So it's a dramatically when you think about where we were, you know, four and a half years
ago to where we are now. It's just a remarkable change of circumstances.
You know, John, you and I are both old enough to remember that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in the late seventies, it took a decade for far fewer casualties to force the regime to change and to withdraw from Afghanistan and to give up to Do you think everything happens faster? Thesis applies to Russia now as opposed to back then, that maybe they've reached their limit in half as much time.
I think so.
I mean, first of all, the casualties are over a million, right, and the economy, despite the surge and oil prices because of US sanctions and other things, the economy is in dreadful shape. And the mood, you know, four and a half years of this war is ground apparently, ground people down. Support for the regime is you know, falling something precipitously, and you know, can it fall faster?
Yes? Absolutely?
Now. Yesterday, I want to switch a topic too, Ai. Yesterday it was downtown at the DC Convention Center, Eric Schmidt's annual Big Expo on AI was held, and I let a conversation between former Speaker McCarthy former Chairman of the Banking Committee McHenry, and I began by pointing to one of the stories you called out of the New
York Times called out and Thropic experienced extraordinary growth. They went from ten x growth to eighty x growth in the first quarter, and their revenue run rate went from nine billion last year to an expected thirty billion this year. Expansional growth is great when it comes to like railroads in the eighteen fifty, not so great when it comes to the Luftwaffe in the thirties. What is this, Well, you.
Know, it's a remarkable obviously, it's probably the most important technological development, certainly in the last century.
And you know they're building on the.
Success of the prior model seemingly every three months. And as the as a AI gets more sophisticated, more capable, it becomes more problematic because it can be used for many good things, and it can be used for many bad things, and there's tremendous concern that the many.
Bad things may become reality.
Do you expect anything out of the China US g Trump summit that is actually concrete when it comes to AI.
I certainly hope, so I'm not sure. I think for President Trump it's actually it offers the opportunity to begin what would be a major achievement. If the US and the Chinese can reach an agreement on let's call it governance of Ai, that would be an enormous help to the world. Since the US and China are the two leaders in AI. You know, the cat is sort of out of the bag on AI, so it's a very difficult thing to get it back in the bag. But if any two nations can do it, the Chinese and
the US are the only two. And I think that the Chinese understand the AI threat every bit as much as we do, and so I think there's there's possibility there for something constructive.
To come out of it.
And for President Trump, it would be the single most important thing he did during either of his two terms. It would be an enormous benefit to all of us. So I think it's an opportunity, whether.
They sees it. I don't know.
News items covers AI better than anyone else, so that get most of AI information from news items, But I haven't seen a structure that makes sense because there's always going to be someone who's going to sneak out the latest chip and the latest meet those mit thos iteration of clot There's always going to be a leak, right, That's that's part of the problem with AI. It is it's virus like. It's sort of the worst nightmare movie.
Yeah.
No, you need enormous surveillance capabilities, if you will, And eventually I think you have to have a sort of central switching station for all compute so that anything that you do in AI goes through one toll booth, if you will. But the only two nations that can you know, do this to try and put a cap on what is a very very dangerous technology in China and Russia, and you know, and I think g understands that, I
think Trump understands that. And it's a good thing if those if the two countries can come together and try to you know, build the toll booth and and get the cat back in the bag. If we don't get the cat back in the bag, then a bag bad actor with access to these enormously powerful technologies can you know, wreak havoc on the world.
So the time there you said China Russia. I think he meant China US.
China US. Excuse me, sorry.
Now, the Gary Mannering Wars is also on your list, and it came in before the Virginia Supreme Court handed down their four to three decisions striking down as unconstitutional, and it really was. I mean, they ran through all their self erected barriers to Gary Mannering in order to put the ten to one map in place. But that doesn't stop Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio has already done it, California has already done it, Texas already done at Utah
has already done it. When it's all said and done, I just think it's it's a battle that will never end. John, What do you think?
I agree?
I mean, I think the Gerrymander Wars are almost anesthetical to you know, our political system. You know, you're we're looking at a situation where in twenty twenty eight or whatever, twenty thirty, the state of California thoroughly blue control of both houses of the legislature and they'll have the governorship.
Can create a situation where every single district is a Democratic district and the largest collection of Republican voters in the country is in California, so you're essentially they would be essentially disenfranchising, you know, millions and millions and millions of Republican voters. If we take this all the way to its logical conclusion, we'll have no competitive seats number one and number two. We will polarize the country even
more than it is now. So I think the gerryman or wars are really really scary and unhelpful.
And Anthony Kennedy spent a lot of his time on the bench trying to come up with an alternative to what we've got, and he couldn't. And the Court just finally said, the states have got to decide what to do. I think they're going to decide to go with their partisan majority. We shall see, let's finish on it up. Note we got a minute. Coffee is still good for us. This is the good news. Coffee is still good for us.
Yeah, So, of course, the anti coffee lobby, one of the most evil groups of people in the world, have been spreading misinformation and lies about coffee. But science will out and it turns out that coffee is in fact good for you and particularly for gut health. So we hear News Items urge everybody to have an extra cup of.
Coffee at least three cups a morning. John allis always good to see you. Follow him on exit Elis Items. Subscribe to news Items if you want to be up to date on everything by just googling news items and John Ellis and we'll take you there. Well worth the money. It is well worth the price of twenty subscriptions because it condenses everything into one. John, thank you, have a great weekend. I'll go anywhere America. Our friend Eli Lake is next on the you Heal It Check Welcome Back
in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Each week at this time, Eli Lake of the Free Press, the host of Breaking History podcast, joins me from his attic, But he can't get to his attic because he's stuck in traffic, So I'm going to talk to him anyway. Because the new Breaking History is so interesting about artists who hold evil views but their art is good. And that would include Voltaire and Plato and the children's book Off Their Doll we'll talk about that in a second, and Founding fathers
enslave people. You can't get worse than that, Jefferson. We'll talk about that in a moment. But Eli, you're stuck in traffic, you're up to speed on the news. What do you think is going on with Iran in the fourteenth point deal? The President told me on Monday, right on the show there were four red lines. Then we sent them fourteen points. I don't understand.
By the way, that was a superb interview, and I used it was very helpful to me in terms of getting a sense of where the president was. And because of that interview with you, I want to credit you. I did not freak out later in the week when you were concerned about making a bad deal.
I did. I don't want to go backwards.
I liked where he was, yeah, exactly, and I thought, even though he didn't exactly commit, I felt like he was in this place where he was holding really firm on the basics of the nuclear side of it, which was important. I understand what his point was, that you can't just say they can't have any missiles, but he seemed to, I think, indicate that he was not going to take a bad deal. And I was less alarmed than you and John Padaritz, although I was listening to
that conversation later. I've got more alarmed, if you know what I mean, I.
Do, and Mark Tison got more alarmed all the Yeah, Iran Hawks got more alarmed because we don't believe in negotiating with these people. They don't negotiate in good faith.
Yeah, So let me zoom out because my take on this is that I don't think I think that the president's for good reason, doesn't want to commit ground troops, doesn't want to get caught in a quagmire, doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of Iraq, doesn't want a nation build, doesn't want to keep the peace after the regime falls. But I think he also has to understand that the only way out of this is for the regime to topple.
That doesn't necessarily that doesn't mean that he has to then commit the ground troops and do all the things he doesn't want to do. But I think it's very important at this point to say there's a difference between saying that we support the Iranian people and we should support people who are representing the Iranian people in some ways like res apology, and then saying that we're going
to do another Iraq. And I think that the problem that we're in right now is that as long as he is going to say that we're going to get some sort of deal with the remnants of the regime, or that he's going to try to find the right person to negotiate with and then back that person in the regime, that's gonna that's I think a fool's Errand at this point, they understand that they think they have this leverage, they think they won, or the HIGHERGC guys
think they won, and it's very important to make it clear that they have not won, and that I would I want to credit the US military at this point. I mean, everybody's looking at this as like, well, why aren't you calling it a war? Hey, they repelled a significant threat to our destroyers, and they have I think
established a route through the straight of woe moves. Now it's time to act on that, using our military power to begin the escort missions, And if the Iranians want to make war on us, then we have all the capabilities to make war on them, and they're going to be really sorry. And I think that that's the focus right now. Everything else is I think you wait for a deal with it. If the regime emerges and they're
moderate and they want to make a real deal. Great, but I think that we're acting too much like we want at this point. We're falling into the Obama trap, and I'm concerned about that.
I am too. Now. They did keep up. I learned the detail today, continuous fire three of our destroyers as they made their way through the strait. They didn't hit it, but we sunk all their fast boats and we blew up. Maybe we the President may have told a little bit too much about the defensive weaponry on the destroyers. I'll leave that alone, but we add the complete success going through. I wonder we've got an arsenal of moabs and we've
got the one right below that, the deep penetrator. Isn't it about time to tell the Iranian citizenry to move away from the coast the one hundred miles that are the Strait of Horror moves and then just lay havoc to the coastline, like level it out so you can you can put a level using building on it and it won't move. Isn't it time to a demonstration of force at this point for the benefit of everyone.
I think the demonstration of force will be good. I would add to that if we don't want to use American ground troops for all kinds of good, smart, prudent reasons. I think, you know, this is an opportunity for not an Arab Emirates maybe to foot the bill for some mercenaries, because what we really need to do is hold that territory around the coast enough to persuade the insurance companies and persuade the shipping companies that you can that we
will prevent the Iranians from doing harm. The other thing I think to keep in mind is that they did a little bit of laying of minds in the Strait of Her Moves, but they didn't do as much as they could have done. And I think that they understood that if they did that, China would cut them loose,
they would become the enemy of the world. So I think it's also time to maybe call their bluff on that, because there's a huge difference, as we both know, between dropping one thousand minds or five hundred minds in the Strait of Her Moves, which would shut it down for five months or more, versus the threat of these drone attacks, cruise missiles and fast boats.
Now, I had not thought about mercenaries Eli, there's a great novel by Stephen Preshfield about the future of war being fought by mercenaries. I recommend that I want to go to the Breaking History podcast, though, because, as you pointed out, if we didn't allow ourselves to be influenced the art or the thought of people who had moral imperfections, a no one would get that make any art or anything, because we all have moral imperfection. The Plano, Gogan, the
Founder's Voltaire, and then Doll. I mean, I've read the Doll Books to my kids and my grandkids. I had no idea it was an anti semi.
The Raal Doll books are the treasure. I think he's one of the great children's authors of the twentieth century. And I could not imagine, you know, raising my young daughter without you know, Roaldal. She's a little young for
it now, but I can't wait to read her. James and the Giant Teach and Willie Walk on the Chocolate Factory, And I just think that it's important that when the time comes and it shows up, you just sort of say, listen, this is somebody who had horrendous views of Jews and Israel, and it's a problem I mean there were other authors, by the way, that I didn't mention on that podcast. If you look at the politics of two of my favorite spy novelists, John Lecare and Graham Green, you would
be repulsed. During the Cold War, they were pretty much false support of the Soviets. You know, in my opinion, that's an absolute moral stain. But should we not read should we not? Should we not read Laca and Graham? You know, I mean if we do not read The Quiet American, The Quiet American is an is a fascinating and important book. We have to read that book.
So I didn't know Laca was a lefty. He just crushed me. I've read every page of every locare, but probably twice.
Yeah, what's your favorite.
Easily Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy.
That's I was.
That's that's mine too. I was guys gonna say, that's the great, that's the that's it.
That's like at his best.
Yeah, I had little drummer girls great too. I mean, there's there's a I mean, he was at my sixth he left, he left the service, but you know, yeah, that's.
Why I'm amazing, am I Well, I guess we did have Kim Philby. But he wasn't a spy, was he.
No, No, he wasn't a spy. But he was show up at the Soviet backed literary festivals, and he was you know, a major. You know, he was crazy. He was crazy about He would say lunatic things about Reagan. He would, as I said, soft supporter and Graham Green, if I'm not mistaking, I have to check this. But Graham Green wrote the forward to Kim Philby's memoir.
Oh oh my gosh. Well, I'll tell you what. It's a fabulous episode of Breaking History. The Free Press is lead podcast, Eli Lake. Always good to talk to you next week. Lead more time for the drive because we like to see you as well up in your attic h and Eli Lake call him on exit. Eli Lake. Listen to Breaking History wherever podcasts are available. Subscribe to the Free Press, and come right back to Matthew Cottenetty
his next week norcom Back in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt, joined now by Matt cotton Netty, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and The Free Expressions, vertical head of Domestic Policy Study, an American Enterprises too, and all around good guy. Matt you're a dad and a husband. I have to ask you the question that presses on many of us this weekend. Do dads of moms or husbands of moms have any obligations on Mother's Day? Do we have obligations?
We have a list, we have a catalog of things to do. But I have noticed something that as my kids grow older and they're in they're tween years now, the burden on me on Mother's Day has lessened.
I think.
I think dads of newborns and toddlers up to about six seven years old, that day Mother's Day, you are on the job. You're on call because you need to give some relief to your wife. But as they get older, you can, you know, you just have to range for a nice meal, you know, kind of get the kid, encourage the kids to do the breakfast in bed.
So oh my, we have a list. Yeah, Mother's it's always on stee myself for it. It's not my mom My Mom's gone, so it's up to them to do everything. And as a result, the fetching missus hut calls it mother's minute, not Mother's Day. All right, to the serious stuff. What is going on with Iran on Monday, the President told me four red lines, and they were pretty pretty bright red lines. They're not going to have nukes, we get all the enriched uranium missile programs got to be
subject to inspections. And they're not going to have enough money to fund the proxies, which means they're not going to fund the proxies I think. And then we went from four bread lines to fourteen points. What is that?
Well, it's a callback to Wilson, which is never a good sign if you're conducting international diplomacy. But I am having trouble myself figuring out what's going on, Hugh. The way I describe it right now is we're in a shooting seasfire. We're in a ceasefire that's been going on for over a month, and yet the Ranians haven't abided by at all. They've attacked commercial vessels trying to get through the Strait of Hormus. They've attacked American ships, they've
attacked the UAE, and we have responded. In recent days, we've attacked Iran, we have continued to uphold our blockade.
So what is this all about?
What I think my current guess is, Hugh, is this has a lot to do with President Trump's trip to China next week. I think what President Trump wants these negotiations to continue through his visit with Hi Jinping in China, so it's not to cause any diplomatic interruptions or confusion while he's engaged in these talks with Hi Jinping over the economy, over military issues, security issues. So that's where I think we are. I think we have a we
have a time. We have to get through this trip to China with this low level of violence, but then we might actually see what needs to happen, which is a return to military operations, a restoration of operation freedom, to allow safe passage to the Strait, and to finally conclude this war on America's terms.
That is actually a very good theory that would account A good theory has to account for all of the facts, and a low level of reciprocity of violence does not preclude Iran becoming the top item on the agenda when they want to talk I think about AI. So John Ellison and I were talking about the beginning of the show, what do you think is on the agenda? I keep trying to push Jimmy Lai onto the agenda But what do you think is on the agenda with g Well.
I think there's several things. I do think Ai will be a part of the discussions. I think that Jimmy Lai and some of the other political prisoners, especially these Christian pastors like Pastor Jin who have been imprisoned by the Chinese authorities, they should be on the table. I think there's a shot that Jimmy Lai is released, though, as President Trump I think has said, Shijinping is very sensitive about Jimmy Lai, in particular because of his opposition
to the CCP's takeover of Hong Kong. I hope actually nukes are on the table. I think we need to have some type of dialogue on strategic arms with China. I think that's one reason why we can't continue down the Cold War pattern of just simply engaging in arms control with the Russians. In the new world, where China is a rising nuclear power, they have to be included
as well. But then I know that President Trump is going to emphasize the economy, and I think he wants that big trade deal that he's been seeking with China throughout his two terms. And here I think we have to be a little bit wary right now. I think America has a lot of economic leverage over China at the moment. You consider the effect of the tariffs on China. You look at how our economy is doing. We just had a fantastic job report. Great today, we have growth,
while we're also reducing immigration, which is incredible. We can't give up that economic leverage in China just for purchases of soybeans. The Chinese will never make I.
Will be right back with Matt Continetti during the break. It will be on the Big Weekend Pod. We're going to talk about the Virginia re districting decision and Gary mandering generally during the break, and when we come back on the other side, bigger issues, the vote and the president. We don't go anywhere on it. Back now with Matt Continetti.
He liked me a Virginian, he liked me. I'm sure pretty happy with the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to strike down the ten to one Gary mannerd map, which was the right decision because the state constitution put up all sorts of guard rails a few years ago to this happening. But boy, is the left up set Matt because they've been they've been countered in seeing rais and like watching this thing. Paul Newman has all the four ages.
Yeah, it's something to behold. You know, this redistricting war that's been going on since last year has been a roller coaster, and Democrats are really counting on the Supreme Court of Virginia to uphold this new map that was approved by referendum and would give the Democrats a sizable advantage in the Virginia Congressional delegation, going from six to five Democrat to ten to one if this new map
were allowed to take place. But I think the Virginia Supreme Court, in a close decision for to three decision.
Made the right call.
Here for you, it's actually kind of shocking to me when you look at the specifics.
Yep, just how.
In how many ways this referendum had map violated the Virginia Constitution. They needed to have an election in between that didn't happen. They needed to have compact maps. It's in the language, of course, those districts are not compacted. And if there's any benefit, one of the great benefits of this decision is that that awful gerrymannered Lobster District Virginia seven, which like stretches its claws into central Virginia from the north. It's base in Fairfax County. That's ended.
So I think the Virginia Supreme Court made the right call here when they said, look, our commitment is to the rule of law, and the rule of law was violated on a procedural basis here, and that's what all sides, you know, if it had gone the other way. Every side needs to uphold the rule of law because that's what makes America a successful Democratic republic and one that's got to celebrate its two hundred and fiftieth birthday in a couple months.
Now.
I can hold two thoughts. What California did grieves me because it's bad for the state, But it was perfectly constitutional, and they've screwed the Republicans thoroughly. Texas did is fine. What Louisiana has to do has been ordered by the United States Supreme Court. Tennessee's playing hardball. It appears to me that at least one other state, maybe Missouri, is going to play hardball. Georgia's going to take a pass. Indiana took a pass. When it's all done, the smoke
will clear by twenty thirty two. What's the map going to look like, Matt, You've got a crystal ball.
Well, the twenty thirty two map will look different in the twenty twenty six map. I'll start with twenty twenty six. At the end of the day, it looks like Republicans will have netted about four, maybe five seats from the different redistrict things, and that does give them some cushion as we head into this competitive House election where the Democrats need only to net four seats to win the
majority in the House of Representatives. So the Republicans, I think, after this decision by the Virginia Supreme Court, they have won the redistricting war in twenty six. By the time you get to twenty thirty two, other things happened, Hugh. One is the twenty thirty census. One of the biggest stories in American politics over the last decade. There's the
number of Americans, millions of Americans fleeing Blue states. States run on the blue state model, high tax, high spend, high regulation, terrible public schools, lots of public disorder.
Americans coming to hold it right there, Matt, we got to come back on the network Quarterback American. I'm at continent. He is still with me from AEI. He is also a comment for the Wall Street Journal. And we're talking about the great sort when we left off our break between the live segments on the Sale News Channel. And the great sort is the fact that many Americans are
moving in response to state policy. And I think that's going to continue, Matt, and I think it's going to continue, so that the twenty thirty census makes the Republican advantage in the electoral College and the Congress not just minor, but actually significant. You agree with that assessment.
That's exactly right, Hugh, And the smarter Democratics, just like David Pluffs, the former Obama advisor who also helped Kamala Harris, they know it too. And this huge transfer of population and wealth, by the way, from blue states to the red states is really going to, I think, affect our politics in the twenty thirty two presidential election and beyond. So, yeah, Republicans came off pretty well at the end of the day. It was a high risk, high reward enterprise here redistricting.
But when you get to the twenty thirty census, I think Republicans are going to reap even greater advantages. And by the way, you know, it was so interesting to me during the California Democratic gubernatorial debate this week where you have Katie Porter saying, yeah, she knows that California is losing population, and her proposed solution is to offer illegal immigrants free healthcare because the legal immigrants the only way they're gathering, they're gathering grading population. I mean, how
crazy can you be. And by the way, that reinforces the fact that we need some reforms here that illegal immigrants are not counted in the census for congressional apportionment, right because what what the what you're doing is Roden Burroughs, Yeah, I think that's a constitution.
Uh. You know, Dwayne has chosen to Jane Duyne has chosen to remain in California, and it's his own dog on fault if that's the case, because I left, and if Virginia raises Texas do I I'll find another place to live. Because if your mobile, if you're if your business is mobile, if it's a microphone and a camera and some lights, you can go wherever you want. You're stuck here, AEI is downtown. You don't get to go anywhere. But I'm telling you that the people are rational economic actors.
They're going to vote with their feet and they are. Now let me turn to the Pope and the President. Secretary of State Rubio had to do diplomacy with his holiness this week, largely because of the President's ongoing battle, which I may have exacerbated accidentally on Monday. I thought it was a throwaway question. It turned into the Pope wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, which was really kind of a rage. I put it off as being from
Chicago and a boomer president doesn't really understand it. Boomer Pope, what do you make of this? Is it significant that the president and the Pope are tangling?
I think it's always significant when you have the president and take issue with the Pope. Of course, you know, the Catholic Church's stances on issues a kind of defy partisanships. So there's been plenty of Democratic presidents who take issue with Catholic teaching on gender and sexuality, for example, or the life issue. President Trump and that the Pope are fighting over immigration and they're fighting over whether the Iran war is.
A just war.
What I think is this points to Hugh is the growing importance of the Catholic vote in the United States. Trump did very well with Catholics in twenty twenty four, and I think Marco Rubio's mission to the Vatican to see Pope Leo is a sign that Republicans don't want
to lose the Catholic vote ahead of these crucial midterm elections. Now, many conservative Catholics have their own criticisms of what Pope Leo has been saying in terms of foreign policy or in terms of our border, but nonetheless I think this is an acknowledgment that a fight with the Pope could alienate Catholic voters who are going to be very critical in the midterms.
You know, I don't know if you've got a scholar at AEI who focuses on the Catholic population in America. There are three groups. There are boomer Catholics like the Pope and me, who are used to guitars at mass, terrible music, left wing people coming back from South America and having liberation theology. There's the lost generation that stopped going. And then there are younger Catholics who are actually much more traditional, not rad trads. But much more traditional. So
it's not really one Catholic demographic anymore. Does anyone at AEI study that.
Well, you know, AI used to be the home of the great Michael Novak, one of the true brilliant Catholic intellectuals of our time, but we don't really have someone who's so focused on the Catholic community at the moment. But I think your description is absolutely right. And you know, like all religious communities, there are different levels of observance and commitment, and the higher your level of observance and commitment, the more likely you're going to be a conservative and
vote for conservative candidates at the polls. So that I think has helped the Republicans in the past. But a high level fight between the Pope and the president may get some of those kind of you know, low propensity voters or people the boomer Catholics you mentioned certainly lost generation that might alienate them from supporting Republicans.
All right, let me go back and finish where we begin on the Iran war and November. I don't think it's a forever war. No one's defined a forever war. I think a forever war is not six months. If it takes six months to bring Iran to heal. That's a world class achievement by President Trump. I would fight it out in the election. I would argue for it
in the election. But what is it forever war? And how important is the battle with Iran to the November election as compared to the job numbers today which were fabulous, right?
Well, Look, we were in Afghanistan for twenty years, you know, we were in Iraq of the first major deployment. That conflict lasted about eight years, and then of course we went back in in smaller numbers after the rise of ISIS in twenty fourteen. So if you talk forever war, I think you mean two things. You mean a generation, right, and you mean nation building, which was part of both
those efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither condition applies to Operation Epic Fury and to our intervention in Iran or our shooting ceasefire that we have right now. There is no nation building involved. Donald Trump doesn't do nation building.
We know that.
And we're about two months in here, that's not twenty years. And I think there will be a resolution the CIA, which seems to me to be pretty much against Operation Epic Fury.
Oh, and that have leaked to.
Study that's leaked to study that says that the Iranian economy can survive for another three months with the blockade. Now, look, three months is a long time, but three months to end the Iranian regime. I mean that's a pretty good trade off in my view, when you consider the war that the Iranian terrorist regime has been conducting on the United States and our allies for fifty years.
The CIA has been wrong about it.
The CIA predictions, yes are usually are usually dead wrong, So the end might come sooner. The most important point here is that we do not give up the blockade. That is our major leverage. And I think it's important too that we resume Operation Freedom to open up that straight as soon as possible. Those two things happen, and we're in very good position in Iran, and I think Republicans are helped in the term.
I agree Matt Continetty. Always good to talk with you. Follow Matt on exit CONTINENTI read them in the Wall Street Journal, Free Expression vertical and stay right there. I'll be right back on the cucuage. Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget one of our great sponsors is Consumer Sellular one eight hundred four four fifty hundred forty four fifty four. When you call them, and you should, because you should want to save money,
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everybody gets their second month free. When you use my name, Hugh, I means it's time to talk with Ben Dominance. Ben is the opinions editor at The Daily Wire. He is also the host of the Big Ben podcast and a contributor to Fox News. And I hope someday soon I was thinking about this, Ben, I hope you're allowed to guest host. You're not too far from my studio. I don't know if you're free ever from three to six, but it's really not very mechanical, and you don't have.
To be a probably make that happen.
That will be fun. That would be a lot of fun. Now, I want to compliment you on the interview with Kevin McCarthy. It's not on my list of topics, but I used it. Yesterday. I interviewed the former Speaker and former Chair of the Banking Committee, Patrick M. McHenry yesterday at the Big AI Expo downtown, and I began just by quoting your very lengthy interview with him. That was a fine interview. How hard is it to get people to shit down and let you do that?
Well, you know, I thought to myself, you know, who's the right person to sort of have some perspective on this? It needs to be somebody who's won the majority before, and people will listen to and it's like, oh, Kevin, Kevin will probably be honest. And he was, I think, very honest about what he thinks Republicans need to do and what they should have done differently to this point. And you know, I mean, you can have whatever opinion you want of Kevin, but he's somebody who has a
long history in Republican politics. You know, engineered that narrow majority that is still the narrow majority today and got iced only because of the idiocy of Matt Gates and a few people who went along with him. But I think that his perspective on this, which is that you've got you have to earn the voter's respect when it comes to trusting you to get your job back, and
you've only got twenty four months to do it. And so the idea that you're going to take time off or that you're not going to be passing eighty twenty bills on every opportunity to put the Democrats in a tough position, you know, on crime, on energy, on all these other things. You know, that's I think that's a very valid point, and I think coming from him as opposed to just some consultant. I hope that it's something that folks on Capitol Hill pay attention to. What I
may ask. What was Patrick's response. He's a very smart guy.
His response. We mostly talked with him about AI. He did not have a comment on your interview. But those two are very chummy. The only trouble with the speaker is that he's got Frank Lunz disease. He collects political memories, memorabilia, and we were talking about that, and it's very dangerous to get into that because once you get attracted to political memorabilia. He's got a page from Teddy Roosevelt's speech when he was shot in the chest and the speech
saved him. So I look at pictures of that. Those people are crazy, right, that's an addiction.
Well, there's a different so between that and building a model oval office in your own restasement. And has failed to the chief play when when you open the door without you, I want to.
Talk to you next about fraud. I did not know until I was in the Big Ben podcast about the Ohio fraud story. And I'm from Ohio. I know about the California Unemployment Insurance ninety billion dollars ninety with a b billion dollars in fraud during COVID to inmates in the California penal system. But I did not know about the Ohio healthcare program. Tell people about it so they go read about it in the Daily Wire.
Sure so, Luke Rosiak, one of our best investigative reporters at the Daily Wire, did a huge and time bestweming deep dive along with you know, other fellow reporters that looked into this situation with Ohio's home healthcare policy and particularly with the facts that there are numerous places essentially that have claimed to be home healthcare businesses that he then did you know, I mean, Nick surely did it.
First give him credit, but he did the business of going to actually check out what these places look like. Some of them. You know, it's buildings that are clearly absent, you know, mail that's never been picked up, you know,
doors that don't even have doorknobs on them. In a couple of instances, and when he calls and checks in on what they're doing, they you know, basically get skittish, deny everything, and and even in a couple of cases threaten him pretty explicitly including saying they know who his
family is and stuff like that. Basically, what you've got here is just a slew of connected entities that have used Medicaid dollars for home health care, meaning the kind of care that you know, a younger typically family member would offer to take care of an older family member and then go to Medicaid and go to the government and basically say, you know, the apply for for grants that can range. They range into like the forties sixty
thousand dollars kind of range. The problem is that when you add up all that money, it amounts to millions and millions and millions of dollars. I mean, it's still unclear how much is there, but it is a gargantuan system of fraud and it's one that is also I think a perfect example of the fact that people don't
understand this fraud is in your own communities. When the Minnesota story happened, everybody, initially a lot of the combinators, I should say, initially went out and said, oh, this is an indictment of Tim wats is an indictment of Blue policies. It's an indictment of you know, the kind of social welfare that gets endorsed by these folks on the far left, and my initial reaction to it was, you have no idea how much of this is going on in your own community and is under your own nose.
And now maybe you know it's not going to be as bad if you live in a red state and the programs are not quite as generous. But no matter where you live, this is going on. It is not being chased by anybody. And now that we have the information that came out of the Dose program and the ability to analyze it using AI tools and the like, it can flag a lot of the suspicious behavior in ways that a human person who is overloaded by everything that they're you know, confronting when it comes to these
applications and the like, can't necessarily handle it. So I think we're just going to learn this is so much more widespread than Americans have understood. And it's one of the reasons why when it comes to things like you know, Medicaid expansion and all these different programs that many Republicans have even embraced and said, you know, we have to do this in order to win. We can't really fight
these types of things. I think that it raises huge questions about whether these programs can even exist without this level of fraud.
Then there are two reactions that I'm a California I used to be. I left in twenty fifteen, and so I became inured to radical fraud. Right, We've spent billions of dollars on homeless billions of dollars on homelessness, and Spencer Pratts out there pointing it out that for billions, we've housed three hundred people. It's ridiculous. Then you look at the unemployment scandal, which is the biggest scandal of
my life. Ninety billion dollars to incarcerated people are filling out forms and asking for COVID money and they're getting it. And I just kind of I just sort of got inured to it, immunized to the scale. But is there a tip one?
I just want to say, I don't think you're alone to that. I think that there's a lot of people, and you know, there's there's been a lot of criticism.
I would say that it's fair directed at a number of Republican governors and the like who've accepted a lot of these grants and these additional medicaid dollars that they basically say, well, you know, there's going to be a certain amount of fraud, but it's the price of doing business, and we do want to help people, and you know, we do want at least some people who deserve it to get these kinds of funds. On some level, I think that that has to be completely rethought. You know,
I'm not sure people understand. You know, we still think about welfare reform as being the sea change, and it was, but it was about one program. It was about Tannis. It was not something that was widespread in terms of
the way that we wanted it to be. When it came to work requirements in the life where you have to prove that you're doing certain things in order to qualify for this money, and when it comes to the experience that you've had in California, I just think that that's very much the way that a lot of Americans think. They just sort of think, well, it's probably going on,
but it's it's probably not that significant. Maybe it's ten twenty percent of the money, and you know, we want it to go to the eighty percent who need it. I think that the truth is that it's almost flipped it's a situation where the majority of this cash is going to people who don't deserve it, or who don't qualify for it, and who are just lying and not getting checked.
Okay, so the big yesterday or Tuesday won every county in Ohio. He's going to be the next governor. Is it an opportunity for him to go in and say, we're red state, we have fraud. I'm going to triple the number of investigators at the whatever agency investigates, probably the training in general, and we're going to put more police in every state, and we're going to We're just
going to expand our law enforcement and fraud investigation. We're going to become the state that defines honesty in government. I think there's a winning's ambitious. Is that a winning message?
I think it's a huge winning message. And I'll tell you the other thing about this, this is not a conservative issue. It's not actually even a small government issue. It's one that appeals to independence as well. And it's a point that I think people forget about. When you look at the different issues that independents care about, a lot of the time it ends up being about government spending,
fiscal responsibility, debt deficit and alike. It's stuff thats things that kind of actually get pushed to the side a little bit because Republicans lean more into the culture war and so do Democrats and things like that, which is obviously the way to appeal to their basis. But I think that when it comes to this kind of expenditure, it's something that applies to everybody else. And on a certain level, Democrats are in this awkward position where they've
defended these programs for so long. They've defended the idea that these need to just persist in perpetuity without any kind of questioning of whether they ought to exist or whether they're still needed, that they're still acting as if we're living in the pre Great Society kind of existence, that this is a situation where where people are you know, you know, in need of these massive programs to be not just renewed, but expanded on a ready regular basis.
I think you can argue against that from a technocratic perspective. That is very hard for Democrats to argue against. And that is all about saying the taxpayers dollar is being stolen, we are making sure they're keeping more of it, and that it's being spent. It's going to the people who serve it.
Ben Dominich will be back with me during the break and on the other side during the break we'll talk about Virginia Redistrict. King. You can get that on the Big Weekend pod. And when we come back, Iran, of course, don't go anywhere on I am back with Ben Domeneed, she of the Big Ben Podcast, Daily Wire opinion editor and The Foxman's contributor. He and Ilia Shapiro have been putting the penalty box on X for making jokes about the Lobster district. Ilia was worse than yours, he said,
it took a shell acking. What'd you make of the Virginia decision? Ben?
The Virginia decision is interesting for a couple of reasons. First off, Hugh, I would just point out it's the Democrats getting bit by the fact that they have pushed for so much early voting. There were forty five days of early voting in Virginia, okay, and the Supreme Court in Virginia found that those forty five days constitute part of an election. And if you know the way that the Democrats in the General Assembly tried to sneak this in is they waited until October thirty first, when the
vast majority of early voting had already happened. Forty percent of the vote was already in before they showed their hand and did this extreme thing because they wanted to get away with it and also get their politicis and elected.
The upshot of this is that early voting sent Jay Jones, who a lot of Democrats frankly didn't really want to be saddled with, who proceeded to lose this case in front of the Supreme Court the Attorney General because he was arguing, you know, among other things, that this was something that did not count as being part of the election, that there was therefore an intervening election, which is what the Virginia Constitution requires. The court disagreed, and so they
found against it on process reasons. The other thing that's interesting about this, by the way, nobody really seems to read decisions anymore. It's like they just read tweet.
Oh gosh, yes, oh.
Tim Kaine, the Senator from Virginia, immediately orders had said why didn't they rule on this before the vote happened in this referendum, Well, j Jones and his entire team as part of the representation of the Commonwealth argued that the Court couldn't rule on it before this referendum was actually considered because the process of law was currently happening and they had precedent to argue for that. So it's the Democrats themselves who are arguing you can't rule on
this yet. Now the court ruled on it. It's a four to three decision. So anybody who's telling you that like Republicans were geniuses for saving money by spending less to fight in Virginia, they're full of crap, because they are because it was one vote margin. But the argument here is very basic and very clear, and it's consistent with what Ken Coochinelli and Jason rs both former attorney generals now you know, argued beforehand. One thing that I
think is just some damage done to Democrats here. Barack Obama went all in for this. They amen more than seventy million dollars on this, all told, you know, including I mean it's untold amounts from the sources, because they have a network of people. It's estimated to be around twenty million that they just blew on ads and on
I mean, I've gotten the flyers. I'm sure you did too, pushing this and making this argument that also lit the the sort of reputation if she still had any of it, of Abigail Spamberger as a moderate or centrist on fire, you know. And so from my perspective, she went from being somebody who could potentially be a Democrat veep for somebody like Avenue and to being somebody who is absolutely,
you know, completely off the board. But also they spent all of this money in a cycle in which they are already in debt where they could use that money in other places, and House Democrats are furious about it.
Came Jeffries agreed with doing it. Don't go anywhere, Ben, We're coming back on the network. Don't go anywhere America, Northern back America, Ben Dominic. She is still with me, he Hewett. I want to get to it, Ron, but I want to finish the thought on redistricting, Ben. I still think the redistricting was ought to go full forward.
The Indiana rebuke of Republicans was pretty definitive, meaning you cannot refuse to fight when Republicans are getting hammered in California and Illinois and Massachusetts and everywhere.
Do you expect the.
Districting wars to continue for as long as the great sort continues in America.
I think that they absolutely will, especially considering that, you know, just people look around in their communities and they say, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't feel like what actually it would be an accurate representation of the communities that we are in and that we have these very funky districts that are, you know, in many ways vestiges that should be you know, reconsidered, just given the fact that they no longer feel like they are accurately representing what's
going on. Of course, this is a partisan fight. It's always going to be a partisan fight. I do find it very amusing on a certain level that Matt Iglacius and Jammel Bowie are out there finding their inner John C. Calhouns suggesting that, you know, Virginia once again discover the beauties of nullifications. But it's one of these things where I just I think the Democrats have chosen poorly, in part because this is more desperate than I believe people understand.
We've seen this great source that you've mentioned for happening across the country in ways that are going to dramatically increase the populations, the legal American populations to be clear in states across the country because of all the people who have fled these Blue states, and the Blue states are holding on to the numbers that are assigned to them from illegal immigrants, in many cases, people who should not be able to vote, despite the opinions of many
Californians in this week's debates, and people who should not count when it comes to the sending of federal aid dollars to those states. They're holding on to that money and to that power by using people who are not American citizens. And that's something that I think is going to be an increasing problem, only going to expand in all likely that after this forthcoming census, which I think could be significantly damaging to Democrats when it comes to winning the House.
I agree now I want to move to Iran. On Monday, the President called into the program. I felt very good after that call because he had four red lines. They're not going to be a nuclear power. They have to announce it. They don't get to keep any enriched uranium none zero, they have to have caps on their MESSI program and inspections, and don't worry about the proxies. They
won't have any money anyway. And then we get a fourteen point memorandum a lah Woodrow Wilson, and all of a sudden, I'm wondering who's running the bus over there? Are you worried about the ben Dominich? I am.
I'm worried about it. Quite a great deal. And I think you can already see the outside conversation. There's a piece of Fox News, there's Mark des and feats in the Washington Post. There's others as well, basically saying that the president should not just accept a deal because there are people in his ear saying that we need to
move forward, We need to move on. You know, people people who feel like this war, you know, and many of those people, by the way, were critics I think before this war even began, of taking the risk and doing the courageous thing, which I think the President did because he believed it was important, and he's believed for basically his entire life. It's one of those handful of things that we know is the most consistent political opinions that he's had about Iran and about the threat of
them being in nuclear power. Look, the President himself is someone who I had a lot of confidence in on this. He knows what is a bad deal and a good deal, and I don't think that he's going to accept a bad deal. But I do think that there are a lot of people around him who are nervous in the short term. They think of things more in terms of election cycles than in terms of like record and heritage, in the way that you'll be thought about by history.
I have confidence the president because I think that's the way he thinks about things.
I hope that I want. I also they're wrong on the election. I think that if you wage war to win war, it's different than this is not a forever war, that a six month war at max. And if you wage it to win it and you win it, I mean you make them capitulate, and that is easily done after their oil doesn't export anymore and they're broken, there's no food. It's tough, it's hard, but it's a slog that can be done. Don't you think that's winning? In November?
You know, I was rereading Have you ever read the book Men at War? The collection that they were giving to gis in World War Two. It's edited by Ernest Hemingway. No, you had an introduction to that, and I have recommended it over the years to a number of people. It has this normal blunt wit and one of the lines in it is is, once we have a war, there's only one thing to do, and it must be won, for defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in a war. And I think that that is
absolutely true. And so the idea that we are going to accept some half measure here is just it's just not on the table.
You cannot do that.
And for the politicians who think, I mean, this is one of the points that Kevin McCarthy's made in the interview that I had with him. For the politicians who think that they can back away from this, no, you have to defend it. You have to understand how you can defend it. You defend it in the context of the overall foreign policy attenda as president, but you also have to you know, when it comes to the people who are actually prosecuting this, you have to understand that
you need to win this. This can't be a half measure situation, because that is not acceptable, not based on what Secretary of Rubio has said, what Secretary Head Says has said, and not based on what the president has said.
Well, Matt con Netty had the one explanation that accounts for all the facts, which is usually persuasive, which is the President wants to get through the China summit, and therefore he doesn't want a ridiculously wild war without abandon war without limit going on when he's in Beijing, but that when we come back, it's time to restart at all the engines. What do you think.
I think that's definitely possible, And Matt's a well connected guy, so it's certainly something that he could be hearing from his sources inside. Look, the summit with she is something that's been long expected and is very important on a number of different fronts. You know, I'll be paying a lot of attention to it on the Taiwan front. And I think that that there's also potential that there's going
to be something that comes up regarding human rights. We'll see whether that's something that the President wants to bring up or whether it's something he stayed away from. The Other thing that I think we have to keep in mind here, though, is the President is thinking about this in different terms than a lot of the people who are thinking about it in temporary, short term language. He is thinking about this, I believe in legacy space, which is where he's been thinking about a lot of them.
Okay, so let me get a quick question. Ford would not meet with soul Zeniatsen it dogged him. If President Trump brings back Jimmy Lai, that's a win for the ages. Do you think there's any chance he can do that?
Look, if anybody can, it's him. But gosh, that's a reach. I mean, it's it's gonna be really tough, But I mean I think he's I think he you know, the question is if we've gotten them to the point where they're willing to do that in exchange for something else that they want, or you have to get back and forth.
Yeah, we have to give something.
Yeah, I mean it's gonna be it's gonna cost something to get him back. And I think that that's understandable. But I also think, you know, the President has worked deals along those lines before with other nations. It's very possible that he could do something like that in this case. And it's absolutely, of course, as we all know, it's definitely on his radar.
Okay, thirty seconds, Lindsey Graham has gone remarkably quiet. You know him, well, I think that means I'm confident about Iran. Is that how you read it? Yeah?
Probably he does. He does sometimes he goes, He goes five. I thought you were gonna ask me a James Harden question.
No, I'm not no bad on you, bad on you.
It's going to be a four fourth series when we talk now, actually three fourth series with the calves ahead. When we talked to take no.
Calves are going to take a couple of games in Cleveland.
That was harsh. That was really a low hit. Ben Dominas from the Daily Wire Fox and this contributor hosts of the Big Ben Pod. You ought to go and listen to it and stay tuned to the Hugwit Show. I was on with John Roberts earlier today talking about Iran. Here's that segment on Fox, Santa.
Let's take deeper on all of this by bringing in Hugh Hewett Fox and he's contributed host to the Hugh Huge Show. You always good to have you on the program. Good Friday afternoon to you. So you have concerned about this deal that the President is pursuing. You posted this on X You said this would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal would be significantly stricter. No enrichment ever, highly enriched uranium to US, stat no
more proxies turn on the internet. President Trump never gives up leverage. Why would he start now with Iran on the ropes? He wrote that a couple of days ago. How are you feeling today?
I'm feeling better about the president. I've never had fear about the President. John he called my program on Monday. He was very clear about his red lines which he's enforcing. They've got to renounce nuclear weapons. They've got to give us all their enriched uranium, not just the sixty percent HU, but down to the three percent. No enrichment. He said that very very very firmly. He also said they cannot have missiles beyond a certain level, and they've got to
have a very robust inspections regime imposed upon them. And he out they won't have any money to give to the terrorist proxies, adding sort of a fifth part of it. So I've never had any concern about the president. However, a fourteen point memorandum has stuff in it that don On included within those four to five points that the President went over with me, So I don't want them to get mixed signals. I think the President is very firm, and I think Secretary of Rubio is very firm. Today.
We're not a stupid country. Do not send us back anything that suggests you're going to play us. You're not going to play Donald Trump, You're not going to play Marco Rubio, You're not going to play anyone. They can capitulate, they don't have to be humiliated. They can just get out of the nuclear game. They can simply renounce that
and turn everything over, and therefore it will work. But if they send back fourteen points to say, well, we'll give you half now, and we'll give you half in five years, and we will only enrich in fifteen years, that's a major loss. It's a major loss of face for the president. So I'm not worried about that. I am worried about people who think there's a middle course. There isn't. There's either a nuclear Iran or a non nuclear Iran, and the President's on the non nuclear Iran side.
Capitulation will be highly out of character for the Sardian regime. Though I fear to say, you know you and Martisa are very much in the same page when it comes to your concerns. He had this excellent op ed in the Washington Post yesterday titled Trump risks stanching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iran. He goes on to say Trump says he holds all the cards, but Tehran disagrees.
Why is that?
Consider the events of the past few days from Iran's perspective. First, the President launched Project Freedom to guide ships through the Strait of our moves, warned that if Iron dared to fire at American vessels, it would be quote blown off the face of the earth. Iran defied his warning, not only firing out of US warship, but launching twelve ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones at the United Arab Emirates.
In response, the United States did nothing, and that's what really ticked off the Emordis and the Saudis and had the pullback used to their bases. I think that's been fixed now, but there's some mixed signals coming out of this White House.
Well, the UAE has a right to be angry. They struck out a port that was in the Gulf of Oman's side and we didn't do anything, and I don't know that that had been discussed beforehand. And now that the understanding got to be crystal clear that our allies are our allies and we will protect them and we will you know, I amount of time here, John Roberts and Sandra run the best news show in the afternoon.
They really do focus on the important stuff. And John and Sandra know this stuff cold and they read everything like fatis and editorial mar quit very on point. Yesterday in the post stick out put all that in the big weekend pods, which we'll post laated today. I hope you listened to it all in stay tuned with the