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 Reas Amarica. I'm Hugh Hewett on this Wednesday. There's a lot going on. There's really one big story. The big story is let me read it to you.
I Meet Segal posted this earlier on x A Meet of course Channel twelve, leading political analyst in Israel, and it's very wired in Israel. According to Barak revide I Meet begins. The US in Iran are at the closest point to agreement since the war began. The framework includes point one, the US and Iranian naval blockade will be gradually lifted during the detailed negotiation period. Red light, red light. Detailed negotiation period. You don't need a detailed negotiation period.
They need to stop firing at chips and let the ever everybody out in our blockades got to continue. Point number two, the United States will commit in the memorandum of understanding to graduately lift sanctions and release tens of billions of dollars of frozen assets. Bad. That gives Donald Trump the odor of Barack Obama. That's his palets of cash. The regime is on the brink of collapse. They can't
pay their thugs. Don't give them any money ever. Number Three, negotiations are still under way on the duration of the uranium enrichment free what the President told me on Monday on this program, No enrichment, not now, not ever, never, And they're maybe it'll be fifteen years, maybe it'll be at least twelve. No, no enrichment. They don't need it. They're fanatics and lunatics, as Marco Ribio said yesterday, they're insane in the head, as the President said on Monday,
they're lunatics. As Marco Ribio said, they're lunatics. They don't get to enrich period. Then two sources claim that Iran would agree to transfer the highly enriched uranium it possesses out of the country. Okay, that's fine, that'd be step number one. Okay, Iran, you're serious. We got the blockhead going. We're going to send in a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency. They're going to supervise the excavation of Fodor.
They're going to take out whatever remains, and they're going to ship it to the United States, much like we did with Libya, much like we did with Ukraine, much like we did with Kazakhstan, much like we did with South Africa. We know how to do this. That's where we start. We get your six hundred pounds or one thousand pounds of hu. Even if it's dust, as it probably is, you might be able to use that dust.
It's a good faith measure. That's where we begin. Then they say the United States is expected to get Iran's response within forty eight hours. Now I don't know who link this. I can't believe Steve Witkof for Jared Kushner have their name on Munich two point zero. I can't believe the president would agree to this. I really can't. It's time to go back to war with these people. They shot at the UAE yesterday, fifteen missiles, two cruise missiles,
a bunch of drones. They're not serious, they're killers. They're a lunatic. To Mehiti's in charge, it's a hunta time to go back to war in a kinetic fashion until they say, you know what, we can't win this. Meanwhile, I just want the president to know what's coming. Former Secretary of Stain Anthony Blinkin was at the Economic Club of New York. He's still defending the JZPOA today, cut number seven.
You know, this gets to something larger, which is we're living in a time, in a period where that is so binary, where it's impossible it seems for people to hold multiple ideas in their heads at the same time.
And so yes, from I think Steck to.
The United States, in many countries in the region, around the world and clear rent is not a good thing, which is why administration after administration has looked at how do.
We deal with this?
But the conclusions that previous administrations drew were different than
the ones that President Trump drew. When during the Obama administration, when we brought when we got the JCPOA, the around nuclear deal, of course we looked at military options, but we concluded then that if we exercised a military option one, there could be all these second and third or consequences, including straight orf Hord moves, including attacks on our forces and our people, in the region, including attacks on our partners in the region, and to what gain we assessed back then.
It's been publicly reported that in all likelihood, if.
We wanted the program, we might gain a couple of years at best, that Iran would be rebuild and it would rebuild deeper underground. It would be harder to get out, and we'd be right back where we started. On the other hand, doing the hard work of diplomacy getting a deal bought us, in the case of the JCPOA, ten fifteen, twenty years, depending on the different constraints.
It bought you nothing with regards to missiles, remember that it bought you nothing with the big guard to the forest of missiles that they built around Fulldor. Got you nothing about underground pickack from and Fodor. It bought you nothing except lies and death and more terrorism around Israel. It was a complete and abject failure. Don't mister President do what they did because it's already out there. Oh, he's just signing the JCPOA. Why do you tear it
up in the first place. Don't fall for that. Meanwhile, we've got Richard Goldberg, who helps stand up the National Energy Dominance Council. Now with the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy, talk about what is going on in Iran right now, the reason we don't want to step in and save them kind number eight.
Listen, they're looking at the intel right.
We talked a little bit earlier you have in this discussion about the fracture in the regime. President pezeshk In, who's sort of the political person who's managing the government, sees the money running out, doesn't know how he's going to make payroll, is gasoline about to come to a shortage, all of these things that he's dealing with, banks teetering on, the vergic collapse. And then Ahmud Vehidi, who's heading this committee running the country based from the IRGC, who to
keep the war going. And so you know, the president is seeing this food fight going on. Maybe he likes that. Maybe he thinks going back to major military operations coalesces that committee instead of fracturing the committee. So I think
there is this ying and ying here. Now, what would you do at the lowest level of escalation, I would say the Rock Island, which is a little tiny island, to go back to the map that sticks out right there next to the Strait of Horn moves is where the IRGC has run their quote unquote toll booth out of It's where they have a coordination cell.
I mean just take them out at that point.
I mean, if they're firing, that's your moment to respond with self defensive fire on key IRGC based as in command of control. I'd start with the Rock Island to see if you're able to send a message.
They cannot last, all right, they cannot last. They don't have any revenue. There are thugs are leaving, they've got division within the regime. Maybe you push you a little bit harder, like Richard Goldberg suggests, but you don't collapse. Chris Wright check Tery of Energy, made the key point on Fox Business this morning, and Maria Barroomo cut number six.
Yeah, Maria, I think what we saw and certainly what the Iranians saw with Project Freedom is one way or the other, the United States is going to have free flow.
Of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
It can be in an agreement with Iran, or it can be without an agreement with Iran. And I think the fear that the United States's military is going to open the strait, whether Iran wants it or not made them realize if that's true, we've gotten nothing. We have no remaining leverage. Maybe we should get more reasonable and get back to the table with the United States and see what we can get out of this.
We're going to have to give up.
Our new core program.
We're going to have to stop terrorizing the Middle East. Hey, maybe the ninety million people in Iran can find a way to a better life. But the only leverage they have has been impeding flow of traffic through the straits of Hormuz, and Mike Worth is right. They've been successful at that so far. But we can change that if we need to do it unilaterally.
He's right, we can, and we should. Secretary Wright is correct. They've run out of money, they've run out of options, they have no cards left to play. They're counting on American left pressure on other than Trump to warn of a wipeout at the elections in November because of gas prices. I think the argument you make to the American people is, I'm sorry about the pain at the pump. We've got to bring this regime down because they're lunatics and they
cannot have nuclear weapon. One more cut. Marco Rubio at the White House left turn yesterday cut number eleven.
Everyone has shown that it's been able to withstand a lot of pressure, and yesterday President Trump has said that they may run out of oil storage in two weeks. Do you believe that that will be the thing that gets them to the table to give up their nuclear ambitions?
And if not, what will be that thing?
Well, look, they're suffering devastating damage to their economy, you're right, But it's not that they're able to withstand pressures that they don't care that their people are suffering. You understand, right, there's a difference between we can understand pressure and we actually don't care. Now, I think there are people in their system that care more than others.
You know, some of the elected.
People that you see, some of the people you see on television with the suits on. You know, those guys care because they know, at the end of the day they have to live in the reality. And then you have an other element of their government, the clerical, the clerics, the IERGC types, who probably are more immune to that and care less. They're more interested in regime survivor at all costs. But ultimately, the pressure points are what they are.
They add now that they were before, because the administration has said that the Iranian regime is divided, making it very challenging.
Well, it's been challenging to deal with them diplomatically because, for example, an offer will be made and then it takes five or six days to get a response because you have to get it through their whole system.
They have to find the supreme leader wherever he hides.
They got to get.
Him to sign off, and their system has always been multi layered in this way. It's obviously become more complex because of the damage they suffered during the war. But look suffice that to say Iran has to pay a price. They're not going to change their position out of the kindness of their heart. There has to be a pressure point on them that causes them to realize they cannot continue to close the straits or they face crushing economic consequences.
But also you know global diplomatic isolation, which they have proven in the past to be susceptible to. But you're right, they have a high pain threshold, but they don't have an unlimited pain threshold.
Nobody does.
Nobody does. The lunatics on in charge of your own right now they have the highest pain threshold. Maybe you want to kill them, Maybe you want to kill the eighty. I think Harmoni two point zero is already dead. But maybe you want to kill the rest of the Linta, but you don't do a deal with them. I'll be right back when Noah, author of the forthcoming Blood and Progress, don't go anywhere. Norah Rothman his neck on the u U at chet.
With a body gout in silver pain, every heaven place, detail, whatever he wanted you, and he laid it out the waste it is by gods and said the game with no match for the jagab.
Welcome back America. That is a course Dylan from Blood on the Tracks. I use that now as Noah Rothman's intro music because his new book, Blood and Progress comes out soon. You should pre order it now. I just posted the link on my ex account. Noah, welcome back from your European tour. Was that a tour in advance of the publication of Blood in Progress?
It was neither a tour nor European. I took a week with my wife in Jamaica in advance of what I hope will be a very busy book.
Tour, and I thank you for contributing to that. We will make possible here.
We are going to try and make that a number one on the New York Times. In order to get it going. You got some unfortunate help when you were away at the White House Correspondence Association, when you had another leftist with a gun tried to change American history. This is becoming a movie that repeats all too often.
Noah, yeah, no joke. And it's pretty ghost to promote my book about this phenomenon on the back of what could have been epocal violence. But it's nevertheless the fact that we are surrounded by incidents that confirm the thesis of this book.
And it's equally.
Interesting to hear people pivot directly after an incident after incident of left wing violence to the preternaturally violent right and a threat posed to it. This book addresses that, but also that particular shooter was fascinating because of the banality of.
The things that he believed in, just the kind.
Of stuff that passes for casual political discourse on forums like Blue Sky, to the extent that CBS's Norah O'Donnell confronted the president with this guy's ramblings, which should have been discredited by his actions, but the degree to which mainstream reporters, democratic activists, even democratic politicians marinate in this stuff.
False notions about the President being a pedophile, a rapist, a traitor to the United States, this is all just common fair in left wing discourse, and it's radicalizing, and it's the sort of thing that democrats and and progressives need to be aware of because impressionable minds, distorted minds are taking action on the things that they're saying you need to act on.
Yeah, can we pause on that for a moment. I asked the President about Nora O'Donnell on Monday, because I would have gotten up in the left if someone repeated a libel about me, And he said, well, that would have drawn more attention to what do you think about her reading that that was premeditated? She and her producers worked through whatever his response might be. I've done enough network debates. I know how they do this stuff that doesn't that doesn't happen accidentally.
I honestly don't know.
But I would posit the theory that the notion that the president was convicted of something akin to criminal sexual assault in the Eging Caroll case that the Russia probe was more ambiguous than we are led to believe, and that the president has unswortid affairs relating to Jeffrey Epstein on Jeffrey Epstein's Island. These are the sort of things that are factually deficient. You cannot prove them in a court of law, but they are beyond dispute in liberal discourse.
And if you spend a lot of time in liberal discourse, as I'm sure CBS News producers, consumers, and even Nora Donald herself, does you think this is pretty banw Indeed, you probably think that the president should answer for it. And yet it's the sort of thing that animates killers would be killers to who believe themselves to be the instruments of history to go out and execute directives they think are being are imperatives and moral and ethical imperatives.
You keep score. I've read the PDF of Blood in Progress when it was in Galley's, but I don't remember if you kept score to the level of the attempts to kill presidents going all the way back to Truman and the Puerto Ricans outside of Blairhouse? Are they from the left always? Some can be mad like Hinckley and your colleague Charles C. W. Cook says there are people or just lunatach, there are political violence, and there's just
some that's violence. And what category do the attempts to kill the president usually fall.
Well, one thing I don't do is break everything down into statistics and numbers, because they are deliberately misleading in a lot of ways. The first chapter is I think you might remember, goes into the many databases that attempt to identify where these things fall and create some sort of a numerical, quantifiable system around them. And I tell these stories in terms of the human beings around them, because they're all subject to some sort of disordered thinking
first of all. Second of all, those who engage in this. As one document that was presented to the Department of Homeland Security in twenty twenty ten twenty twenty one, I'm sorry, made clear that there are intimidation campaigns against individuals who engage in the study of left wing extremism. Indeed, some of the authors of the studies of left wing extremism
are participants in those movements themselves. According to this document that was within the Hope Department of Homeland Security and the databases themselves are shot through with shoddy research and a lot of assumptions that inform the conclusions. So I don't do any of that, not to say that it's not valuable, but it just gives you an incomplete picture.
And I know this because I was doing statistical analysis for CSIS in two thousand and five, trying to categorize Islamist attacks in a database, and statistically it's helpful, but it also obscures more than it clarifies, because you're reducing very complex events to a series of numerical codes.
And I just don't do the job that you need to do. That's mass shootings stories in isolation.
When you read something about mass shootings, it's never any use to you because it includes drive by shootings over drugs with Columbine. And it makes me crazy because the databases they're wrong. Okay, I'm going to jump on subject. I don't know if you heard my monologue. I'm very exercised about this proposed one page deal. Have you read about it? What do you think about it? Yeah?
Me too, and I share your apprehension.
For the very first time in this war, I am concerned that the president's going weak in the knees. A lot of people have been anticipating that he was going to wiggle out of this war at the nearest possible opportunity, and they have not yet realized. I think it's underrecognized the degree to which he has been committed to his stated objectives from the outset.
But yesterday was super weird, Hugh.
The entire administration was trotted out to outline, roll out, ingranular detail, Project Freedom, the necessity behind it, the strategic and tactical imperatives that were informing it, and the moral and ethical necessity of seeing it through. Marco Rubio when he was on that podium, framed this operation as a humanitarian necessity. This is a criminal enterprise that's holding twenty three South thousand mariners hostage. They need to be rescued, and we are the only navy on the planet Earth
capable of doing that. And then a bunch of hours later the president backs off. And this comes at a time when the Iranian regime and there are some interesting reports around how the IRGC field commanders and IRGC commanders have gone a little bit rogue here when they were attacking ships, attacking that South Korean ships, shooting missiles, drones and other assets at.
The Oman and ua E and that this was against.
What the political class like Perizeshkin want and that's the sort of thing we should be cultivating. But they shot at our partners in the Gulf States. And what was our response to roll back this military operation to forcefully reopen the strait?
No no, no, no.
Tran whatever's left of it seees that is weakness, and then we'll see that as as leverage that they can exploit, exploit.
I spoke to him at length. I had a half hour with the president on Monday. He was very firm. I mean he was no enrichment, not now, not ever. Never we get it all back, they're going to be out of money. But they can't support the terrorists. And there's a fourth one missile missiles have got to be They got to have some missiles because of their neighborhood, but they can't have too many. And we get to inspect pretty pretty dependentative.
And he hasn't really budged off any of that. I mean, there was one weird twenty four hour period where he was talking about a twenty year moratorium, but that came and went, and otherwise what we're hearing are from unnamed sources deep within the administration, have reporters like Barack Revied's ear. So I'm skeptical, but the administration's actions have made me skeptical of the president too. Here for the very first time, and I do see the I mean, I understand what
he's saying. We need to have this handover of this ahu the highly enriched uranium.
But what do they do with that?
It's inaccessible and they lack facilities to enrich.
And or refine them.
What we can't have is an Ranian regime that voluntarily generously gives us the straight up wore moves back that will all but guarantee China will shut down the straight of and do this better than the Iranians if this has to be done by force.
I didn't even top And Joe, if you have more time, I'll keep you for a second segment because I think Israel ow to get involved here. But if you don't, don't worry about it. Plug in progress. It's coming out soon. Go and Pley order it right now. I'm too feel it.
Now there's a wall between us, something.
That's been lost.
I took too much for Breaded.
I got my signals crossed, just could think to all again. On a non eventful mom come in, she said, I'll give you a shelved up front.
I'm back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Another track from Blood on the track Bob Dylan's best album. Noah c. Rothman is still with me. He's the author of the forthcoming book Blood and Progress. So that's his new bump music ending from Blood on the track. Are you even familiar with the album Noah Blood on the Tracks?
Not really. I was never a big Dylan fan. I'm aware of the songs, but the album the.
Greatest album on the ill. Yeah, the greatest album of the seventies. So Noah, I wanted to put a question to you. I'm trying it out on you before I tried it on John pod Or It's Next Hour. Jd Vance told me on this show when he was a senator or running for vice president, I can't remember that nations have their own interests and they have to follow their own interests. We don't control Israel. Israel doesn't control
us at this point. I think it's an Israel's interest to act against en Ron in a way that blows up this deal.
What do you think, Well, yeah, I tend to agree, and I agree on the substance. I think that there's something that those who are in that realist mold that kind of get a little bit wrong about national interest is that they discount values as being interests, and that's
just historically hard to support. Values are interests. Nations act on values, armies move on stories, and values related alliances are more valuable because they're cheaper to maintain than the sort of associations that Russia and China maintain, because their
alliances are coercive, and coercion is expensive. You have to maintain this whole apparatus in order to hold that, you know, you have to manufacture the gun that you're holding to your allies head, which costs money, as opposed to a values related alliance, which is far more easier to maintain and longer lived, as NATO demonstrates, and as are but
an emerging relationship with Israel demonstrates. So a side digression there, But I do believe that Israel has the right and the legitimate interest in seeing the Ranian regime defanged.
I don't think that the.
Israeli government under Benjamin the Yahoo would accept something akin to whatever the terms of this memorandum that are being bandied about are, and Israel would have the latitude to act.
Of it's on its own accord.
There's a lot of people who are afraid that Israel would drag the United States back into another conflict here in the event that we reached the ceasefire that Israel did not observe. But we spent the last three or four years since the October seventh massacre, supporting Israel and its endeavors, but not taking an active role in them. And I don't foresee a condition in which we stop the fighting, but we simply just disengage from the Middle East, and the CIA has no role in a post war Iran.
The United States will be engaged in the region, and Israel maybe will engage, be engaged in a more kinetic fashion, and we may take a support posture there. But it's not like the United States as being terms are being dictated to the United States from Jerusalem. If anything, it's the other way around. And frankly, the Benjamin and Yahoo government is kind of frustrated with it as reporting it.
Is the other way around, and that brings me at this very period in time. I'm reading The Finest Hour with Doctor Larry Or on second volume in Churchill's or memoir. First three chapters are about France enters into a separate piece and Britain says, screw that We're going to fight on a loan. I think Israel has a right to walk away from this if we collapse, and that I don't think they would be without support in the United States. What do you think the reaction would be to that.
I think they would have support from the Trump administration. They wouldn't have any support from the Democratic Party or the left. And Israel lacks some of the capabilities necessary to execute the operations that we took on during the kinetic phase of this conflict.
So Israel would be at a significant deficit, but they wouldn't give up.
Its security priorities it has doctrinally across parties, This is not a partisan issue in Israel. Israel takes its security initiatives into its own hands, and it does not necessarily differ to the West.
Occasionally it does.
Occasionally Washington can make it to what it wants is Reel to do, and some more often than not, the Israeli's chafe under that but they understand that the relationship with Washington is important to preserve, but not at the expense of Israeli national security and certainly not at the expense of Israeli lives. If it looks like Iran is getting close to something like a breakout, it would act.
And not at this moment. At this moment, when Iran is on its back and you can deliver the death blow to the regime that wants to kill you, you get the last minute, you deliver the death blow, then I will take fifty percent.
Yeah, And I don't think I'm not sure, but I don't think the president is holding out for a moment when his critics and adversary is at home or abroad will say we're vanquished, we're undone, we're forever discredited.
You win.
I think a lot of people who are critics of the president think that's what he wants, and they've always said that he would just put his name on something like a acpoa light and walk away, and he's demonstrated time and time again that that's not his objective.
This is why I'm very skeptical of this.
All the reporting around this memorandum of understanding, but only skeptical to a point because the administration is making a lot of sudden movements and loud noises that are making me very nervous.
Hearing me about nous. C Rothman follow him on exit no A. C. Rothman. Thanks for the extra time. Go and order Blood and Progress. Get your copy on the first chance available. Blood and Progress is available Amazon, Farms and nobook bookstores everywhere. Blood and Progress. Stay tuned on keep you.
This is very simple.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon because as tough as they are, we want to keep them alive.
We want to keep all of you alive. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
And they won't add They've agreed to that, among other things.
Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewett. That's President Trump moments ago. I'm joined by Serf C. Bedford, cheap and investigation and reporter at the Washington DC Examiner. Hello, Sarah, I am back and forth on the deal because the reporting is all over. I hate the reporting, but I don't think the president will do it. What do you think?
Well, Trump has really played his cards close to the vest this entire time. He doesn't like to give a lot of visibility into how talks are going, particularly in a foreign policy context, and a lot of times when the media starts to catch on to how negotiations or negotiations are going, he'll say.
Something that kind of throws them off the scent to.
Maintain that strategic confusion. So, you know, it's not clear of whether that's what Trump is doing right now if there is really a lot of sticking points. But the reporting is that Iran and the US are nearing some sort of two page, fourteen point agreement that would end the hostilities. But Trump is starting, Look, not only will hostilities resume if iron doesn't agree to this, but also the bombing will be even more intense then win the
campaign first began. So he's clearly applying maximum pressure to Iran right now to accept whatever's in that deal.
Here is a second comment in the White House on that deal, cut fifteen.
You're facing the pony right now in Iran that has refused to submit. You've seem optimisticchnology maybe closer to a deal. What's different about this moment now than in other moments where a deal has seemed close.
Well, why do you.
Say they're used to submit?
You don't know that, you don't know, what's a firing on a few days ago.
I know, a few days ago.
It's a long time ago, you know, in the world of war a few days ago.
No, they want to make a deal badly, and we'll see if we get there.
If we get there, they can't have nuclear weapons. You know, it's very simple.
But what's not to submit.
So they had a navy with one hundred and fifty nine chips and now every ship is blown to pieces and lying at the bottom of the water. They had an air force, lots of planes, and they don't have any planes. They don't have any anti aircraft, they don't have any radar line, their missiles are mostly decimated. They have something they have probably eighteen nineteen percent, but not allowed by comparison to what they had. And the leaders
are all dead. So I think we won. This is now now it's only a question of Look, if we left right now, we're around and it would take them twenty.
Years to rebuild.
You would call that vy.
We're in good shape, right, We're in good shed and now we're doing well. Now we have to get what we have to get. If we don't do that, we'll have to go a big step further. But with that big set, they want to make a deal. We've had very good talks over the last forty four hours and it's very possible.
That we'll make okay. So, Sarah, how do you read that?
I think it's true that the longer things like the blockade of Iran on the straight up our moose goes on.
You know, that pressure compounds.
It's not just the military pressure that the Trump administration has put on around, it's also the economic pressure, which the effects of that compound every day that does pass. With the successful blockade and Trump paused I think it was called Project Freedom, where the US was going to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. He's pulling every lever that he has to put pressure on Iran
to take this deal. And you know, I guess you do see a little bit of mixed messaging out of the Trump administration though on whether is the conflict over or are we preparing to head into the most intense bombing campaign evern that we've seen so far. Trump is really, I guess, applying as much rhetorical pressure on Iran right now.
While he waits to see whether they accept his deal.
Sarah so, okay, you gave me your comment on that. Let me ask you about what happened in the House last week. All of a sudden, Speaker Johnson passed everything. Did anyone see that coming?
Right there?
Was looking for a while and Democrats in the media were gleefully rubbing their hands together waiting for what was supposed to be a massive Republican failure in the House. But at the last minute, Johnson and the White House were able to cajole people to get this rule over the finish line that sort of procedurally cleared the way for a number of important pieces of legislation to boo forward.
Johnson is a really enormously difficult time getting the DJs funding over the finish line, and also getting the FISA Section seven oh two renewal over the finish line, which is a key surveillance tool that the Trump administration really just wants a clean reauthorization of. It shows you how difficult governing is with his ever slimming majority in the House. But Johnson was able to pull out a win there and lobby some holdouts to get the rule through.
So well as President Trump, to your knowledge, involved in pushing the final football over the final yard because Speaker Johnson never says anything he didn't get excited, which is a very very useful trait in a speaker with a small majority. He never gets angry.
Yeah, and Trump is usually involved in some fashion in getting sticky pieces of legislation in the end zone his legislative team, at least is if Trump himself isn't involved, he famously likes to call holdouts and massage them, especially if you have rank and file members who are for whatever reason opposed to something like parts of the.
Farm Bill or Section seven h two.
So Trump's involvement is usually what gets it over the finish line.
But a lot of times the White House will.
Like to withhold that until sort of the end of the negotiation process, so they don't fire that bullet too early.
They wait until they're almost at the finish line to get Trump involved.
All right, classic problem with legacy media. I haven't been able to find out if the FIJA extension was one year, two years, four year, how long did they extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for I believe.
They were looking at eighteen months.
But it's interesting that you brought up those shifting timelines. The White House's request to Congress shifted what the House Intelligence Committee wanted, shifted what Johnson was willing to back, moved all over the place, and so were the demands from the conservative holdouts who wanted to see reforms.
So that was actually a pretty messy.
Process to get sectioned seven oh two reauthorized.
But ultimately what the White House wanted was.
A clean eighteen month extension so they didn't have to deal with this surveillance power issue for a while.
They got eighteen months. Okay, you're the first person that's been able to answer that for me, not surprisingly. Sarah C. Bedford, Thank you from the Washington Examiner. Follow on exit, Sarah C. Bedford follow me to the next segment of the e hewits Hewett joined now by John pod Horor, It's editor in chief of Commentary magazine, my companion, almost an hour
a day Monday through Friday on the Commentary podcast. Sometimes they take a day off, John, I have spent the first two hour inveighing against the alleged deal that Barack reviewed reported on today. I need a tag team partner to take over. It's a terrible idea. What do you think?
Yeah, so we can we can just close up shop there. It's a terrible idea, and the question is why we're here now. I mean it's fourteen ideas or twelve ideas or something like that. And I don't, frankly, understand what's going on. Because he told you on Monday.
I believe that his.
Bottom line was that the United States needed to secure physical control of the Iranian dust, the uranium. And that does not seem to be what is lined up in this report, which we don't have a piece of paper here, but if the report is to be believed, he's looking for a way to wind down the war with words.
And I don't know what changed between when he spoke to you and when Pete Haggs I spoke yesterday morning, and when Marco Rubio spoke yesterday afternoon, and these two statements yesterday evening and this morning about how he was suspending the escorting of the ships through the horn moves straight called Operation Freedom, and that you know, we were maybe on the way to a deal. So you spoke to him, did seem to you like he was.
Four red lines or three and a half red line. No enrichment ever, not after twelve, not after fifteen, No enrichment. Ever. Number two, we get all the agu we get it. We get I guess we have to go dig it up and the IAEA might help, but we didn't get into that. We get it. Number three, I said, no missiles, and he said, well, it's a tough neighborhood. They might need some missiles, but inspections of those missiles, And then
I brought up to are prox. He said they're out of money anyway, and that that implies no, no finding a turn. So I walked away feld of like, Okay, this is good and we're going to win. It's Munich two point l if the snatcher's defeat from the jaws of victory, isn't it.
I mean, you know, I I said on our podcast, you're you're you're going in these world historical terms, I said, if this happens, and that's one of the reasons why I'm so skeptical of it. I think even he should be in a position to understand that this is the end of his administration as an effective functioning political organization. He's pushed all his chips into the center of the table. Here he will he will be mocked by his enemies.
He will have disappointed his friends. He will cause the people who are his hardest line andubmost diehard supporters to come up with increasingly preposterous explanations for why this suspension is a victory that clearly it wasn't or it won't be, And all of this happening seems to leave him in a worse rather than a better situation. My colleague Gabe Greenwald would tell you, Look, the war was wildly successful.
There is no Iranian nuclear program. Iran will not be able to get a bomb, or create a bomb, or build a bomb, or enrich uranium. Henceforth, its program is rubble. That's more than we could ever have hoped for. And I understand that to be the case. But geopolitically, geo strategically, Iran will have some claim to the idea that it withstood you know, it withstood the Colossus, it withstood Goliath and is now standing. And I don't know what argument there will be against that.
You're a friend than mine, Noah Rothman. Noah Rothman just made the point last hour that if China watches us fold up like a cheap chair, they will immediately assert control over the South China Sea in much the same way Iran does and then settle for half a loaf. My argument to the President on Monday was, and because it's completely sincere from my point of view, this is the most important thing he's done up until now. It
was the Supreme Court. But if the actually crushes the Iranian nuclear threat, that's a world historical achievement that goes into the history books. You can hate them all you want. But if he de bangs Iran and gets rid of their nuclear program, he won big time. This deal is not that, is it, John? A deal is not that.
No, By the way, the other problem that we face is that is that if we start defining the end game of this war as an agreement to reopen the Straits of hor Moves or an agreement to suspend the nuclear program. The problem here is that, say July seventeenth and Israel bombs Tesbola site and the Iranians say, we don't like this, so we're going to close the straight for forty eight hours. What are we going to do then?
I mean, it's always it will always be conditional. And I think the weird part here is if you think through the logic of what I just laid out to you, because Hormuz became the card that they played. He kind of has to go for regime change now because if the thing that has to happen is that Hormuz remains open as a matter of course without anybody worrying that it will be closed, the regime that is standing cannot remain standing because it has closed the straight.
And it now has that as it's trump card, if you will.
So he's actually deepened the necessity for a successful military conclusion to the war that has a regime change effect. That's not where this was six weeks ago.
I don't think I a capitulation is necessary now. And by capitulation there are a lot of ways that can come. A declaration that the ships can move and they don't fire on them, and we get back the HU. We start digging it up right away. But I want to ask important question John. First of all, some good news minutes ago and meets ago reported that Israel killed the head of the Radawan force and his deputy in Lebanon today.
So some good news. Why don't they go kill the Eiti that if you're Israel the question I posed, and no, I want to pose it too. If you're Israel, and you see this deal on the table, don't you just say, we're not going to leave this up to we like Envoy with Coff and Envoy Kushner very well, but this is our country and we're going to go kill Dahiti. Don't you do that right now?
If they can? I mean, you know, look, once you revealed, once you revealed.
The extent of your penetration, as is Reel did with the decapitations on February twenty eighth, once you reveal that countermeasures can be taken, like I maybe they know where he is. Maybe maybe Vahiti is one of their agents. I don't even know, but you know, it could be. We don't know who their agents are. But I do think that the central issue here is he Trump has to like this is a real moment of choosing for him.
He is feeling some.
Internal pressure to find a way out of something that I'm sorry but he started. That is to say, he took what I think was a noble and world historical opportunity to reset the map of the twenty first century.
I'm glad he did.
I think it was a great thing that he did, and he can't go wobbly now. First of all, politically, it makes no sense. He's already weakened. This will weaken him further, both domestically and abroad. And secondly, he will be remembered in the history books to somebody who did not follow through on a great opening military victory to secure the political victory that is the inevitable result of a successful prosecution of a war.
Now, John, I think he takes in a lot of information. Do you think he's hearing this point of view? Because this point of view is if you fold, you never get the stink off. You're not the art of the deal anymore. You're the art of the collapse. And so you can't fold right now. And fourteen points is folding unless they can't capitulate. I mean that is theoretically possible. Capitulation you leave them some dignity, but there's a lot more.
Right So, he said a couple of minutes ago, he said, he's giving them a week to agree to the terms of the deal, whatever they are, and they may not be Barock Revide's deal points, but he's giving them a week.
Now.
If in the course of that week he does not get the signals and signs that he wants he can move toward forcing them to capitulate in the one advantage of this week or a month, or even six weeks or something like that, of not of leaving the status quo as it is is they're going to have to cap their oil wells. They themselves have hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil sitting on chips in the strait
that we are not letting out. So they when you cap an oil well, you are doing yourself immense economic and structural damage. So I don't really know whether you know, A long term play is what he should be making here, But he's gotta like stiff in his spine.
I agree, And I'm gonna come back with John vod Rtz and during the break, I'm gonna ask John to put himself in bb netanyah whose place exactly with elections coming up, with his career on the line, and have him speculate what BIB might do regardless of what President Trump does. Stay tuned. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back in America.
I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm joined by John pod Horriz. Sean is the longtime editor of Commentary Magazine and he is the host every morning Monday through Friday of the Commentary podcast, which is my first listen whenever it posts. John also knows Israelly politics like very few people in America does. And I think, John, I think I've heard you say and I agree with it, that the greatest living politician anywhere in the world is bib Netna. And by politician
we mean people repeatedly have to win election. He just keeps doing it. He just concluded security cabinet. I mean it went on a long period of time. I think it ended. What do you think he does right now if he thinks Donald Trump's about to make a terrible mistake.
So BB's hands have been a little tied in This is.
Not Iran related.
So as the Iran sis started took place, BB turned his attention to his terrorist problem in the north, which is across the Lebanese border. The Iranian proxy has Bolaw, which has been the both a target has been targeting Israel since October seventh, and well before October seventh, with a gigantic cache of ballistic and other kinds of missiles.
And of course Israel has struck back with the famously with the beepers, with the walkie talkies, and decided in the course of this war that it was going to see what could do to solve its Hesbola problem once and for all by pushing has Blah at the very least north of this river called the Latani, which is about twenty miles from the Israeli border, clearing out the area, probably reoccupying it for the for the near future, and striking Hesbla targets in their headquarters in Beyrout. And Trump
asked him at some point to stop hitting Beirout. It's the weirdest ceasefire ever. Israel and Hesbela have a ceasefire that says that Israel can do whatever it wants in the ceasefire. It can strike, it can hit, it can fire, it can respond. But the clear idea was don't go into Beaute. Don't strike in bey route I'm trying to do. I'm playing, I'm playing seventeen cards. That complicates my life too much. Don't strike Bei route. So today they struck Beirute.
The assassination of the head of the Rowan Corps was in Beirut. That says to me that bib now believes whether this is I don't think he would do something. If Trump or Rubio or whatever asked him not to said please don't, it's too.
Complicated for me.
The gloves now maybe off for BB in Lebanon, and the main thing for him in the election that is coming in October is that he needs to fulfill his promise he had. There are three promises. He was going to eliminate Hamas as a threat. He was going to pacify the northern border so that people living in the north of Israel are not living under this constant threat of missile attack which they've been under, and that his life long or his career long obsession with ending the
Iranian nuclear threat would end in success. If he achieves those three aims, or at least substantially achieves those three aims, then his case before the Israeli people is very clear in the coming election, which is I did it. I did what I said I was set out to do. I know you think that I'm partially responsible for October seventh, but I took the bull by the horns. I found this relationship with this American president that has led us
to a new kind of authority, centrality power. We are working together in a way that two countries have not worked together since World War Two, and I am the leader to go forward. He's been prime minister for so long. I mean he's been prime minister basically for twenty years with a gap excuse me, for like seventeen years, with the gap of a year and a half somewhere in the middle. One outright and election after not having won an election for many years, and he's got a really
serious rival risk chain it was rarely. People are tired of him. He's been there too long in many ways, and he needs to make the case that he delivered what he promised. So he and Trump are they're not across purposes because part of what he promised was this relationship with America that has come to this full flower. And israelis loved Trump and believe Trump is their best
friend ever. But he has to make a special plead that he deserves another term at his age after all this time, after the security failures on October seventh meant that you know, they had not been looking in the right way at the threat from Gaza and say, I deserve another chance, or I deserve another term to be the person who can lead us forward, and then I will, then I will retire, but.
He's got two or three.
He's got a major opposition party that is now formed undernough Tally Bennett, the previous the prime his former deputy who became prime minister. He's made a coalition, a weird coalition with a weird politician. It's basically just the Anti It's BB versus the ANTIBB Party, and BB's the threat to BB is that the ANTIBB Party has enough exhaustion, enough people who don't like him, enough exhaustion and this sense that maybe he didn't finally deliver on all of
his promises. That's their hope, that's their aim. So he and he knows this very well. He's under no illusions about what it is. He's not there because of love, and so he has to he has to make good and say, look who do you want? You want these schleppers or do you want me? Look what I've just done. Look how that does changed in space?
Does he have it in him or do you expect that? He will say to himself, I've got a killer ron more than I need to win this election, more than I need to have Donald Trump love me in Israel, and therefore I'm going to blow up this deal the old fashioned way with bombs. You know, I think the United Arab Emirates would would be with him on this. We're not going to let the United States enter into a deal. Jd Vance told me on this show. Nation
states have to act in their own interest. I don't think it's in Israel's interest to allow that fourteenth point deal to go, do you no?
But I don't think that he is going to hit at the fourteen point Deal in order to prevent Trump from signing it.
That's a bridge too far.
He is not going to intervene to save the United States from its own foolishness. That that that I think is a that's a that's would be wishful thinking for hawks, and it would be it would be very foolish for him to do that. If Trump is done, Trump is done, if he's not done, if he can encourage him to continue and say that you know we can win this. You just need to be more you know, you just need to be more stouthearted instead fast and use us however you.
Think we need to use.
He could us also to help you, but to help you achieve this resolution.
We're here to do whatever is necessary to achieve the resolution where where the United States wins this war with Iran.
But I don't think he in the UA will blow it up.
First of all, I don't think they have the means or the I don't think they have. They cannot bring this regime down. They cannot reopen the Straits of Hormuz, they cannot secure naval passage. That one thing Israel cannot do is have material effect on the naval, on the shipping in these areas that are one thousand miles away from it. But it can serve as a partner if Trump wants to go and re establish our military supremacy over Iran from the air and on the ground.
Gosh, I hope Prime who's on the thumb with the President making that argument, because I think he is more precisive than anyone else in the United He does not run us the boy. He can be percisive. John Podhortz, I appreciate the extra time today. I greatly appreciate the commentary podcast every morning. Keep doing it, do it more, do it longer, good faster. Thank you, John. I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned. Welcome back in America.
I'm Hugh Hewett. When I get exercised about something having to do with national security, try and get former United States Senator Jim Talent to join me. He's from the board of Directors of the National Reagan Institute on Keeping America Safe and Secure and Against All Evil or something like that. Senator Talent, welcome. I had lunch day with Roger as a team. So I really can never remember the name of the Institute's board on which you serve.
That's fine, but it's close enough. It's about our purpose. Yeah, keep us safe, justice in the American way, And I love that, and I love Roger. Now tell me, uh, there's a fourteen point plan. There's a ten point plan. What do you make of all this?
Look, I understand people concerned about an American president going wobbly because in the last forty seven years, the only two that haven't dealing with iron ore Reagan and uh and and Trump. But there is absolutely nothing about the life, the experience, the statements of the writings of Donald J. Trump to suggest to me that he's going to split a pot when he holds four races and he thinks he holds four races, and I think he does hold
four races. So look, I'm willing to be convinced if there is a deal and it's a bad deal, you know, I'll say so. But right now I think he's just maneuvering you. And let's we're worried about him going wobbly. Let's not us go wobbly while while we're worried about him, Let's let's give him some running room and see what happens.
Well, I'm going probably because on Monday he was on the program and he was adamant, no enrichment ever, and we get the highly enriched uranium. They may get some missiles, but not that many, and we need to have inspections, and don't worry about the terror proxies. They haven't got any money anyway. That's the summary. And I presented it as this is your greatest achievement ever. And he didn't
disagree with that. H does he? You know real estate guys will cut deals if they get seventy five percent of it, Yeah, he said.
He says in the book he says, I think very big. I push and push and push and push. And he said sometimes I have to settle for less, but usually I get everything I want. Well, you here's what I would say to you. He knew he went on your program, he knows the kind of questions you're going to ask. He knew what he was going to say, and he knew what he did say, and all that to me, to me, is a very good reason to believe that he's not going to do anything he told you he
wasn't going to do. I just like I said, I mean, I'll wait to see, but if I have to choose between trusting how he's handled himself really for the for the first term and now a year and a half into this one, as compared to this reporting, which I don't want to run anybody down, but no, I'm disinclined to believe it. And I'll point out you the plot, the blockade is still in force. The only thing we've done is he's he's.
He did he suspended project.
Yeah, he did.
And I kind of think, and I'm not saying I agree with this, I think I disagree with the tactically from what I know, I don't think Trump's ever been that that frantic to clear the straight I mean, I thought it would happen a couple of weeks ago. I think I said so on the show. I think he feels like it hurts the Iranians a lot. Those whole episode is hurting them and hurting other countries more than it's hurting us. I think eventually we will get the
straight clear. But again that's another point. If you're trying to signal to the other side of negotiation that they don't have you in a you know, an advice, you want to let them know that that what they're trying is actually working.
So look, there was always.
A possibility that that this episode would end with the regime staggering on. If that happens, we have a lot of other tools to continue putting pressure on them, beginning with the economic ones. We have covert tools. We don't know who's being armed in Iran. We have cyber tools. I've been surprised we haven't seen anything cyber and maybe they've been doing it and we just don't know. We now have a new coalition in the Middle East, we
have the UAE. We've shut down their financial transactions. So when the president says he holds all the cards, I think he does. And uh, I don't think we're gonna get a bad deal. I really don't.
And now Jim One of the things he does do he often has done, is appeared to be negotiation when he's not negotiation, because he loves to be known as someone who offered the deal, right. He likes to be known as someone I tried to make peace with him. This could be that, right, Oh sure.
And it could.
It could have something to do with the pakistanis asking him to do something. Maybe the President is a little is a little upset that not more countries stepped up right away to say, yeah, we're going to send ships. So he's figuring, Okay, I just I won't initiate Operation Project Freedom right now. We'll just keep blockading the Iranians and see who calls me up and says, you got to get this straight clear.
I mean, there's so many different variables out there.
You again, I Senator Talents coming back on the other side. Don't go anywhere. He's the upbeat guy. We've had John Podhortz, Nolah Rothman may be the downbeat guys. Jim Talent's the upbeat guy. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm huge Hewett. Inside the Beltway with former Senator Jim Tallan, who sits on the Reagan Institute Board of Directors. Senator, we all have our different red lines. Minor are not regime chain?
Mine are they commit verbally and in writing, no enrichment. Ever, we get the HU and we get an inspections regime that is thorough and it wasn't in the JCPOA of all their facilities and of their missiles, and some kind of a deal on missiles. The President indicated they got to have some defense, and I understand that, but I'm not looking for them to hold elections or give up their money. I don't expect to Syria. What are your red lines?
Well, I guess if I had one.
I mean, if the President called me up and asked my advice, and I don't have a cell phone number, I.
Think I would say, mister President.
The thing I would be very careful about is giving them sanctions relief unless we get everything that we want, and unless we get it up front, and if there's something we want that they can't perform upfront, no sanctions relief.
In other words, I.
Don't want Operation Economic Fury. I'm getting the names mixed up. I don't want Operation Economic Fury stopped. Don't let them up off the mat. That's what they in my opinion, what they really want. And no, I mean if we have to walk away without getting everything we want, but we maintain all the other tools, the economic tools, the covert operation, the cyber the Israelis.
Who are a tool in this.
I mean, at some point we're going to end this, right, we end it with the straight open and if the regime staggers on, we maintain our right to apply all other tools of power to continue constraining them and to continue trying to get them to collapse.
So that would really be my red loaning.
I agree with that, because money keeps them alive, and right now they haven't got any money.
Now, No, we're not helping them get off the map.
Molser comes to him and says, you're going to lose fifty seats in the House, and you're going to lose six seats in the Senate. Do you think he has to care about that? By the way, I don't think that's doable. I don't think that's possible. And I believe you can actually argue that it're on is a good thing electorally if you stay the course. If you fold, it'll kill you.
Yeah, I think the president is very confident that once we get past this and oil prices start going down, with the prospect of them going down further, this will become, if anything, a political winner.
Now, the truth of the matter is that this.
Kind of an exercise, barring an unusual circumstance, is not going to switch a lot of votes in the fall. I mean, I think that's going to be about the other things that he's doing. The crime, the immigration, the energy policy, the fact that the economy is doing well, I mean, all of that. So I know, I don't think this president is number one. I don't think he's
that scared of the midterms. And I think if there is a president who would say this is too important, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing now to make America great again, I think it's this president, all right.
So I want to switch just slightly on you. You ran against fairly mainstream Democrats though they were leftists, but they weren't Graham Platner, L. Saed in Michigan, Flannagan and Minnesota. What's happening over there? What has happened to the Democratic Party that you served with?
Well, I think the hard left has accumulated enough power within the party and I don't you know, I haven't traced all the ways that they've been able to do this. That the Democrats who are more in the center, to include incumbents, just don't feel that they can bucket. I think that they're buck the trend, buck what they want.
And.
You need to get on some really insightful Democrats are political scientists to get the tracing of that, and then they're energized on the left. I think it's going to take another, probably significant electoral defeat in a presidential year for them to moderate. Remember you, we kind of went through this in the seventies. They lost three presidential elections in a row, and then we saw Dick eb Hard and Clinton and the others forget the name of it now.
But they start their more modern thing and they move to the center and we get Clinton, and I think that so this is a periodic thing with them, and I think we're going to have to win another presidential election and then I think they'll moderate because otherwise they know they're going to be cut off from power.
Last question I had to do with the Chinese. If Jijenping got on the phone last night with Donald Trump and said, we're not doing this summit unless this war is over. How does Trump react to that?
I think Trump finds a way to respond by imposing extra costs and consequences on the Chinese that are.
Not directly related to this.
Trump's going to let he he is not going to let Jijenping think that he Trump wants this summit more than Jon Ping wants it. That's another negotiating axiom. You you don't ever let the other guy know what you want and how bad you want it. And frankly, I don't think Trump cares. I mean, I don't think that is a big I he'd probably laugh at it. He'd say, you think you're going to influence me on this? You need this more than I do.
I'm still looking for some reason to turn around. And you did mention or John pod Ortz maybe Pakistan asked him, and he's being nice to Pakistan because he doesn't want a war with India. That president's got a lot of stuff on his desk.
He may look, we don't know what he's hearing from within that regime. And we've talked about this in the show a little bit.
I mean the.
Fact that there is a hard liner who is as a titular matter in charge of the i RG. Doesn't mean that everybody in the i RG isn't cutting deals with Pozaskian or some of the others. I mean, that's what happens here in others. There are going to be factions within the i RG. So we don't know what the president is hearing about the possibility that they will basically agree.
To our terms. So I look, I hope there is a.
Possibility that John Potterwortz and others who are so worried about this, and I understand why, that their concerns end up being vindicated. But remember I listened to I listened to your interview with Noah, and you know what's by the end of it, Noah was saying, you know these reports out there. When I compare that to how trust his Trump has handled himself through this whole thing, I'm kind of not inclined to believe in the reporting.
And that's where I am.
All right, that's very related with Sarah Bedford us to and maybe or maybe I'm I'm talking myself down off of the tree, but I'm still very worried.
That somebody I'm one of these guys invested in the best result possible in Iran.
I have just I'm going back and reread art of the deal.
You and all right, we're in the same place.
I don't know me.
We're both happy with the result. Jim Talent. You can follow him on x at Jim Talent and you can stay with me. I'll be right back on the GUTA Show, Race America, Hewett. Welcome tour three of today's program. As you begin your commute home, I bring you the one in only Mary Katherine Ham. She is the host of the Getting Hammered podcast. She is the host of the Normally podcast. She's a Fox News contributor. She has guest hosted for me in the past and I hope again
in the future. And she's funny. However, we are agreed. Graham Plattner is not funny, Mary Catherine. I listened to your Getting Hammered with Vic Mattis this morning, and yesterday I wrote about Graham Platner for Fox News saying this is not funny, this is not a joke. Tell people what you think about.
Well, I think, first of all, I hate being guess lit about the idea that Nazi tattoos are bad, like that's a we all pretty much agreed on that until they had a Democratic Senate nominee who they wanted to support who has a Nazi tattoo.
And then they're like, oh, wait, well you have to really take it in context.
There is no context.
It's bad.
It is a useful heuristic for somebody being very bad and dumb in the extreme if they have something like that tattooed on their body.
But it's a neat trick.
They're doing where democrats can see white supremacy everywhere except for on the guy with the Nazi tattoo. But look, you don't have to only use the Nazi tattoo. You can ask has this guy lauded Hamas and its tactics before another Jewel annihilating group?
Indeed he has, Like these.
Are there's a lot of things that line up here. Has he appeared on the podcasts of anti Semitic forces in the National Conversation?
He has?
He said he's a big fans, So there's several things you can put together.
But I would say that like.
The doorway being the Nazi tattoo is like a perfectly reasonable way to.
Make your decision about this guy being not good.
It is, and I want to tell you what I object to the most is when Chris van Holland and other people say, and they don't say it out loud exactly like this, give him a break. He has PTS. You know what. A lot of people have PTS and they don't get Nazi tattoos. Moreover, a lot of people without PTS do. Moreover, you remember how we went through that whole phase where everyone in the military was a skinhead and an extremist. Yeah, and it wasn't true. It
wasn't true. It slandered everyone, and that was a left wing talking point. Well, the one guy that turned out to have been that was this guy. And I don't think we ought to overlook that.
No, they've been telling us for six seven, eight years, right, that the military is just crawling with white supremacists an extremists. But the second we find one with actual evidence, and by the way, one of the ways white supremacists identify each other is tattoo art guys, that's how they do it. The second we find an actual person instead of slandering this whole group of service people, they can't manage to decide that that's a problem.
And yet I think they it's really bad form.
In fact, Jon Favreau when we were when he was going back and forth with me about it, implied that I was the problem for not being patriotic enough to support this brave marine who I was sneering by noticing that he has enough to tattoo. And I'm like, sir, no, Like, I'm not the problem for noticing there can be service members who have bad intentions and do bad things. We all know that I objected to the mass smearing of everyone.
And now again, once you have a real person who's running for Senate for whom there is real evidence, they're like.
Moving on it along.
Mary Catherine question patriotism.
Once you make the pod Save America Bro hate lists, you've really made it. I've been on it for years because i think Ben Roads is a moron, and I've been very explicit and explaining the reasons why the other guys don't bother me. They're just talking entertainment. What are the talking points prenident Obama wants us to put out? But Ben Roads thinks he knows something and he doesn't know anything. But once you've made their list, you've really
made it. In the land of conservative commentariat, when you draw the ire of the pod Save America bros. Let me talk a little bit about the other side of that race. It's not just Graham Platner. He wants to her out maybe the most responsible member of the Senate. Now, I'm pretty conservative and Susan Collins and conservative is me. But she represents Maine in a way very few senators
embody their state. She's so thoroughly Maine. She can't walk down the street without ten people saying hello, and she remembers their name. She's from the county Aroosta, I think it's called Aroostak, the one that's up in near camp at the Canadian border. There's nobody up there, like eight people in the hardware store or family runs. She's as main as they get. And they want this guy who went the Hotchkiss and was at the tune in in DC to take her out. That's the dumbest move Main could make.
Yeah, No, I think you're right.
I think that she knows that she's always going to face a fight, right She's in this blue purple state. She knows that somebody's going to come in at her every time. So I think she's very prepared, as is her staff for this idea, and also it just gives the lie to the critique from many.
Who don't like Trump, or who are left.
Center, or who former conservatives even who say like, oh, well, Trump is the actual problem and his sort of way of doing things as the problem.
If you say now that.
Susan Collins is the problem, yeah, perhaps you are just a Democrat like you. You're just four very far left people, and I would appreciate you.
Being honest about that and not claiming that.
There's some other form of Republican which is exactly Susan Collins, which you would be okay with.
Yeah, And I want to go back and ask you about the PTS I'm coming up on. You work with Travis Mannon Foundation. I work with the Fund, so we both deal a lot with veterans who brought back wounds, both visible and invisible, from the war. I really hate when people attribute anything that they don't like to PTS, because people with PTS actually struggle. They work very hard
to make sure it doesn't take over their lives. And I think this is creepy with Chris van Holland saying, oh, this guy has had his bad days because of PTS. I don't like other people making that argument for veterans, do you have an objection to it?
No, Yes, the effects can be very real when you come back from combat.
Of course, he got this while he was in service on leave.
I think this is part of the sort of victim hierarchy of Democrats, like once you have an identified issue, they will just blame everything on that, like you know, the stutter for Biden or dyslexia for Newsom, And it's not fair to use that in that way, and it
actually insults other people who struggle with this. And by the way, if you do have struggles and you have gone through dark parts of your past, you reckon with that and you say like, I got this really awful tattoo, and you don't lie about the fact that you didn't know what it was. Because he's a military history buff.
There are contemporaneous reports from friends that he knew what it was, and his own political director, who took off from the campaign because of this, was like, guys, he knows what it is.
So you have to reckon with the mistakes. If you indeed made mistakes.
In a dark period of your life, you should be able to come back from that. But you have to actually tell us how you repaired.
No, I also have a theory, which I'll test out on you, because you're very sharp on this stuff. The governor got out, and she sited pulling, or other people sited pulling. I think she got out because she didn't want to deal with the left for six months she's been She's seventy nine years old. She'd be the lowest ranking member of the Senator. Jen Mills is the governor right now. She's gonna have a great time in Maine for the rest of her life. May she have a
long and productive one. She doesn't want to deal with the crazies. And I think she took a look at this and said, he's raising a bunch of money from the crazy left. I don't want to deal with Act Blue people for the rest of my life. I'm out. That might make more sense than oh, I can't win.
I think that's a fair theory.
She also got into the race quite a bit later than Platner and then got out early, so maybe her heart just wasn't in this from the beginning. I wouldn't blame her being seventy nine and maybe wanting to take.
A pass on this.
And yes, the left is particularly aggressive about people like her when they want a grand platner in the race instead, and so that that might not be a pleasant trip for her, and she wants to opt out of it.
Now, broadening the scope, we have in Michigan mister l Sayed, who's basically a stand in for Hermas, and we have in Minnesota Peggy Flanagan, who's to the left of Tim Walls by a lot. If you can believe that what's happened to our Democratic friends, because I got lots of Democratic friends that I went to college with. They've been my friends still. They've always been wrong, but they've never been crazy.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's this year, because midterms will be challenging for Republicans regardless, but I hope it's this year that they have to contend with the fact that they are too far left for so so very many people. I was just looking at numbers for union households and how they've gone from a thirty one point advantage for Democrats and presidential elections to.
An eight point one over like you know, thirty years.
These are generational losses of people who were steadfast Democratic voters, and they're going further and further, I mean else, I ed was on the trail with Hassan Piker, who is fanboyd for hamas many times or Hesbela specifically and its flag two weeks after an attempted massacre of Jewish school children by a HESBLA inspired attacker. Like, the idea that that's even happening is crazy, and I would imagine that many normal voters will look ascance at it, or I would hope.
Well, last quick question, there's a deal floating around. I hate it. I hate everything to do with the deal. We have one minute. I don't think Trump is behind it. I don't think he'll agree to it. But what do you think?
Yeah, I'm skeptical of all first reports of these things, so I'll wait for it to shake out a little bit more. Also, any deal that's on the table can be scuttled very quickly in the age of Trump, Like he'll see something that is like allegedly a one page deal and then it'll be gone within two days. So I would not set your sights it as something that is definitely happening.
Just yet from your lips to President Trump's ears, because it's what made the one page that the wall Street Journal loves so much in their reporting is nothing short of Munich to point out. Mary Catherine Ham, host of the Getting Hammered podcast with Vic mattis follower on x at Mkammer and of course at Normally or other podcasts. Don't go anywhere in America. You'll see her on Fox News as well.
Stay tuned.
Philip Belboni is next on They give you a show. Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget. One of our great sponsors is Consumer seulor one eight hundred forty four fifty four. When you call them, and you should because you should want to save money, make sure you use my promo code Q Hugh. You'll get your second month free if and when you switch to Consumer Cellular. Whatever plan you switch with, you'll get your
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for just thirty five dollars a month. That's a single line if you're fifty years and older for with unlimited talk, text and data for just thirty five dollars a month. When you call Consumer Cellular eight hundred and four one one forty four to fifty four and everybody, he can be undred fifty, you can be over fifty. Everybody gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, back with my monthly Yeah. Philip Valboni, founder and editor in chief of
Globalposts dot com. Philip usually brings me bad news, but he brought me good news today because the story we are focused, the lead story and Global Post today about local election in the United Kingdom, which Philip tells me, is going to lead to Kier Starmer getting kicked around a lot. And I don't like Kiir Starmer. So Phil,
you've done me. You made me happy this morning. Before we get there, though, would you tell people about the special because I want them to subscribe to GlobalPost dot com.
Sure, thank you, Hugh.
We're offering fifty percent discount on a subscription to Global Posts.
For all of your listeners and viewers.
So in order to do that, you just go to GlobalPost dot com and in this subscription process, there'll be an opportunity to enter promotion code and that would be Hugh h just your first name in h lower case letters, and that will apply the fifty percent discount. The subscription's only forty six dollars, so they would get it for twenty three dollars for the first.
Year, and it's a good menu will be you'll be smarter than anyone you know about world events because the Globe does what the New York Times and the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal used to do to together cover the world in depth, and they do it with maps and graphics. There's also a free opportunity for teachers and students, which I hope we talk about at the end. But let's talk about kir Starmer and these local elections.
First of all, Phil, I don't understand British Parliament very well. What are the local elections? I'm there're three thousand of them. Who's standing for what?
There's actually fifty five hundred of them, and these.
Are the local councilors. Here it's not parliament.
So the parliamentary election that brought care Starmer to power the Labor Party two years ago is.
A different animal.
And those elections aren't due until twenty twenty nine unless the Prime Minister decides to call them early. So these are local elections across England, Scotland, Wales.
And this is basically like the United States.
It's you know, city councils that are mayors up for reelection or election. So that's what this is about. But it's very important. It's really grassroots British politics. And so I think the headline in our lead story today said it very well. We said a storm is coming for the governing party that would be Labor. Of course, they could lose a significant number of seats that they have the most seats consul seats up for election, more than
twenty one hundred. They could lose a lot, maybe not all, but you know, maybe fifteen hundred eighteen hundred seats.
And then we remember phil when the Conservatives got wiped out in Canada maybe twenty years ago, they were down on like two seats. Waves like that do happen in parliamentary system. Now there are five parties there are the nationalist parties both Wales and Scotland, the Green Party, Labor, Tory, Concernative and now Reform. Who's going to emerge. Who's going to be.
The UK is likely to be the big winner tomorrow. The leader of Reform UK is Nigel Farage, pretty well known guy, certainly in the UK but also in the United States, friend of our president, and he is the best known for really being the spark plug behind taking Britain out of the European Union. So he's doing extremely well. He's likely to come in His party is likely to come in first. Perhaps with the dominant performance. Labor is going to get wiped out, probably the Conservatives will go
down even more. And the Green Party, which is I guess you could say a left party, was pretty much not single issue but very heavily into the environment, but has now broadened their focus to book issues as well, so they are expected to do extremely well. So you know what's interesting here was that, I mean British politics is really now poise to be very different than it had been for shall we say centuries, you know, with two parties dominating.
I mean you have to think about the United.
States here, with our two dominant parties and pretty much nobody else.
Would this ever happen here? Who knows? I mean, but I think it's interesting, Well.
What interests me, phil and I don't know if it works this way. Reform is new and so they don't have much of a bench that I have a lot of backbenchers in parliament to They expect the local elections to produce local candidates who can run in the next parliamentary general election, so that reform. They'll probably do a deal with the Tories to divide up constituencies for first past the post, but they need candidates. Do you think they'll get their candidates out of tomorrow?
I'm sure that.
I mean, there's been a lot of kind of high profile defections from the Tory Party over to reform. If they do extremely well tomorrow, I think, you know, success in the parliamentary elections when they're next held and having the right candidates will follow. I mean, this will be a major signal that the British public, or at least a substantial percentage, is backing the ideas.
A reform is about immigration.
It's about the economy, it's about national pride, it's about we quoted one woman in our lead story today who said I just want my country back. That's kind of as a simplistic way of saying it, but kind of they're not happy with the way things are right now.
I saw that quote and I think she said something like I wanted to be British again. Now. British is actually it's not a particular ethnicity. It's you know, it's four different countries. So being British is not saying I want to be a stuffy Tory from London. It encompasses a lot, but it's it's two thousand years of history. It goes back to even.
And if you're living in Slotland, Wales or the Northern Ireland, you're different people, right. But I mean, if you if you hold enough to remember the past, even like the post World War two, when people felt like one country, right it is the United Kingdom and they remember that and they want.
To feel that again. Is that possible in our crazy world today? I surely don't know.
I cannot wait till Friday and the Global Post because I want to know what the results are. I don't know that anyone's going to cover this. That's why the Global Post exists to cover stuff. Like that. Let's quickly remind people Phil the Global Post does a great work by being a bailable the teachers and students. How do they sign up for free?
Just go to the website GlobalPost dot com, look for Global Education in the navigation, and then you are able to sign up. We have a special link for high school students, college students and teachers entirely free for as long as there are student teachers that are forever free. We have middle school, high school, college, and university. You could be in another country or you could be in
the United States. We have more than sixteen thousand of them, and we just did a survey of all the students who it's wonderfully encouraging.
I've said to this to before, Hugh.
I think it's one of the most important things we do is helping these young people discover the world and be better informed.
You really need to do that.
I think those students who understand the world will be the leaders of our country and maybe those other in which they're getting The Global Post, by the way, the best graphics in the business. Far better graphics than The Post or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. I don't know who doesn't for you. Phil. Sometime we should talk about that. But your graphics are amazing. GlobalPost dot com. If you subscribe, use QH as your code. He's not a sponsor. We just love the Global Post.
Go to QH and you'll get fifty percent off of the Global Post bill balboni. Thank you.