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 listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Joined now by the United States Senator Tom Cotton from the great state of Arkansas. Senator Cotton, thank you for joining me. I hope you have a
happy Easter week with your family. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. First question, I was on Fox earlier today and I cannot believe the Democrats have closed the Department of Homeland Security thirty days into a war. What are they thinking.
You They're scared or they're in league with their radical left wing base. I can tell you last week that on more than one occasion, Chuck Schumer had agreed to a deal that would fund all of Homeland Security aside from ice and border patrol, which we pre funded last year in our big budget ill in which we plan to return and pass a new budget that will fund them even further into future. And they constantly moved the goalposts on those agreements and reneged on them. One key
sticking point he is the issue of masks. I don't think ICE officers want to wear masks to you, but they have to because otherwise the radical left will dox them and then left wing street militias will prize their wives and their kids at their homes. And that's where Chuck Schumer and Democrats have drawn a line in the sand.
We'll obviously, we're obviously never going to agree to that, So we'll continue with the plan we had in place, which is to use the budget reconciliation process to make sure that we fund ICE and border patrol well into the future, probably the TSA now that we know chruction where in the Democrats are willing to inflict long lines on the American flying public and no paychecks on TSA agents.
And then at that point you assume that the Democrats would go into town, because why would they continue to stay hold the Coast Guard and the Secret Service hostage that they have nothing to show for their extremism and obstructionism.
Senator, When I looked into DHS two hundred and forty thousand employees, and there is something called the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as the Coastguard, FEMA, Secret Service, a bunch of other things besides TSA in wartime, isn't everyone basically an essential employee at the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency and they're not getting paid.
He It's an important agency, little known agency, but they do very critical work. And that's again another example of
just how radical and ideological Democrats have become. We're fighting against the enemy that has well known cyber capabilities that have used them against US interests in the past, and they would rather keep the cyber Security Agency inside of DHS unfunded rather than allow the men and women of Ice and Border Patrol to do their jobs to protect our nation from dangerous illegal aliens.
Now. I was on Fox earlier today and Sandra Smith asked me to make sense of this, and I really can't. Forty five days ago, we weren't in a battle, and so maybe there was a political argument. But if anything happens now, and these lines at airports are the softest target in the world, but anything happens anywhere by a Hezbollah or an Iranian proxy, that's on the Democrats. Don't they realize that?
And you just again to stress again. Republicans in the Saria anticipated that the Democrats might full a stunt like this. That's why last summer we pre funded ice and boarder patrol for several years. So the Democrats are getting nothing out of this. Not only are ice and boarder patrol working because they're essential government employees, they are also being paid.
But the Democrats are willing to inflict long lines on the flying public or withholding pay checks to SAAH answer Coast Guard officers or people who are working at the Cybersecurity Agency or at the Secret Service or at FEMA because their radical left hates our immigration police and wants to defund them even though it has no immediate effect on them.
So SATA, how long will this? This is actually a vulnerability with Iran is down to two things, the straight and whatever they can do the terrorists, I guess three things and the internet cyber attacks that's all they've got. Less how long are the Democrats going to leave us naked on this?
I think they're willing to do it in definitely think that's why we've said that we're done with Chuck Shimmer continuing to move the goalposts. We're going to move out on a republican budget reconciliation process that will allow us to fund these critical agencies. You can give the Democrats holding the bag with nothing in return.
All right now, the last time we talked about reconciliation, the gone hat and sent over an official request. Have they done that yet for a supplemental I.
Don't think so yet. To you, it takes some time to make sure all the eyes are dotted and the t'ser cross, not just at the Pentagon, but also with the budget reconciliation process, So we still have some time. I would remind all your listeners to you that we still have two more shots at the reconciliation process as well, so we don't have to include all the needed funds to protect this nation in one single bill. We might
try to move out and do that. It's to be determined on whether or not the Pentagon will be in a position yet to provide us those numbers. But there is the possibility that we could pass two more bills, one for homeland security and one for our military.
All right now, I want to switch to the actual battle. Senator, you're a soldier, you're a vet. You know the costs that's already been born by thirteen families and thirty additional seriously wounded people, and hundreds of people with injuries. And that's just the American side. How much can the United States put up with in terms of months of this kind of conflict? Do you think.
I've set from the beginning that I expected this campaign with the last weeks, not months. Here, four weeks into it. I'll stick to that for now, because whenever I get updates, and I get updates, whether it's in briefings or fearings or phone calls or meetings with administration officials, almost every day, I hear the same consistent message. We are on time or head of schedule on every single line of effort, their missiles, their missile launchers, their drones, their navy, their
manufacturing sites, their commanding control facilities. The military campaign is going exceptionally well. I agreeve, as do all our cantons for those soldiers who we lost and for their families, and for the injuries, for the losses of equipment at hardware.
We may have more losses ahead, but in the long run, it is to our great, great national security advantage that we finally defame in New York, this terroriced revolution regime that has been spreading chaos and violence against the United States and the civilized world for forty seven years.
So last question, Senator, It's crept into some of the discussion from analysts, and none of us know anything because we're not we don't have clearances that we don't we can't dislodge, we can't defeat the IRGC. They are veterans of the eighty three eighty eight long war with Iran in Iraq and that they will never ever surrender. Do you believe that.
They may not ever surrender, Hugh, But we're defeating a lot of them every sale day as we continue to target and kill their leaders. And remember, the Revolutionary Guard boards very different today than it was forty seven years ago, or even thirty seven years ago against the Iran Iraq War, after they still in the flush of revolutionary fervor. It
is now well documented. In fact, I think the Wall Street Journal has a story about to day that much of what holds the Revolutionary Guard core together is not ideology but corruption and get backs and payoffs and bribes. And that's something that once the regime is defamed militarily, once the security services have their wings clipped that the Iranian people, I would imagine, are not going to put up with.
Senator Tom Cotton. Happy Easter to you and your family. Thank you for joining me, and I hope you can get the Democrats to wake up to the fact that we are playing politics at our peril. I appreciate your joining me to take care. Welcome back to Americay, Hugh Hewett inside the Beltwagh joined from Israel by doctor Michael Orn former is really ambassador to the United States Doctor Orran.
I had a four hour drive this morning, so I listened to every podcast that matter, Dan Senor talking with Fred Kagan and Adobt a commentary to Jonathan Schanzer, and the one thing that stuck out, well a lot suck out, but Fred Kagan said, the Iranians have no idea how badly they've been hurt. You know, I got to thinking about that. They don't do they nobody's talking to each other in Iran.
Well, it's possible they're going to wake up in the morning after, if there's a morning after, and.
Find out that they don't have very much.
Again, they have a different cut concept of victory.
Than we have in the West. You know, we count boats sunk and.
Factories destroyed or unfortunately reminds me of a lot of the Body Council of the Vietnam War. They have a different, different definition of victory is that they just want to survive. They're like Hamas and Gaza, and they don't think in terms of you know, days and weeks and months. They think in terms of years and decades. Oh, we'll be rebuilt,
especially we can get sanctions relief, then we'll rebuild. We have to fight two wars that seeks victory by our terms, but also victory by their terms.
So in terms of whether or not a regime is left in place that we can do a deal with, are you optimistic about that at all? In other words, here's our enriched uranium. Here, send your inspectors anywhere they want, and we'll blow up the missiles that you don't want. But we want to stay in power. Is that possible?
Yeah, it's possible if you look at how the Iraq Iran War ended.
When the leaders of the Iran regime said, we know we have to drink from the poison chalice kind of thing. You didn't have a poison chalice moment, but you're still gonna have to verify that poison.
Chalice very compliance with it, very very closely. But it's unlikely.
It's unlikely.
That's all I can say.
And there may be very well at tipping point, a breaking point, whether it's internal or external, people in the street as a breaking point. The major issue here is whether the United States and Israel can continue to stand strong, stand together and see this through to the end, because there is an end.
There is an end of that, I'm certain.
And you know, we've just had two missiles fired at us in the last hour, Hugh, We've got my daughter was under constant fire from his bulla in the north in the Galilee today.
We're tough people, We're resilient. We're willing to see this through the end. Uh. And you know we're asking the United States.
We understand the American people are paying more at their gas pumps.
Through that the prices are going up in many fields that are related to petroleum. We understand that, but we ought to make the case that this is essential for the peace of the United States, the peace of the world, and to the presidents. If he sees this through, he will not go down as one of the great presidents, will go down to one of the great leaders in.
History now, DoD Oran. There are at least thirteen American families who will not have someone coming home from this war, at least twenty in Israel. Our golf allies have twenty five plus. The cause in human loss is extraordinary. That said, how much more can the two countries take in terms of casualties before one of the other blinks?
You mean Israel and the United States, or the two of us in Iran?
No, two of the Israel in the United States. Never forget about Iran. They'll tell their people all day.
I can't speak for the United States. I can speak for the Essays speak for the state of Israel. We know we have no choice. We know if we don't prevail against his bull and Lebanon, and basically his bull is just a branch of Iran, right then we lose the galley, lose part of the country.
And this country's tiny, so it's an existential.
Issue for us.
We understand that it's really military has called up four hundred thousand reservers. That's proportionally significantly more Americans than fought in all of World War Two, and people are leaving their homes, leaving their families and their jobs to go out and fight, pick up a gun and go out and fight because.
They know they have no choice.
We do all do and it, believe me, it's unpleasant to run to this bomb shelter several times a night, but we know, we know that at the end of the day, this is our lives, these are our families, this is our country.
And I don't want to believe the point, but it literally is no choice.
Now, doctor, And you know everyone in the government and outside of the government to what extent is Hezbollah hanging by a thread or are they as resilient as Hamas in the tunnels? Do they have that kind of network to retreat into and hide.
They actually have a deeper network, because Lebanon is signifally deeper, bigger than than Gaza.
But not just that.
They can hide in the cities, They can hide in villages. They can use the entire population of Lebanon as human shields. The major thing with his Bula is can we cut them off from their oxygen? And their oxygen is Iran. Now the Syrians have closed off their border.
I don't know how.
Poorous that border is even when it's closed. But if we can defeat Iran, we will defeat his bula. That is what we call here, cutting off the head of the snake or the head of the octopus, whatever you know, reptilian or.
Marine metaphor you want to use.
And so these fights are all interrelated.
And again we're going to have to keep fighting his bula.
We've made a new defense line along the Tani River.
It's about about ten miles from our border, about ten miles north of our border.
But the fighting there is very intense.
It is very intense, and his Bulla is far from defeated.
Right now, earlier today, maybe in the last hour, the ID they've completed another wave of attacks in Tehran and that they finished their primary target list and they're moving on to economic targets, meaning the industrial base of Iran. Is that consistent with what you've seen on the air.
Yes, definitely, And it's a decision not taking lightly because the last thing you want to do is to hurt the people of Iran. And you heard Secretary of State Rubio said that these are our peace loving people.
For the most part. We want peace with them.
We had peace with them before nineteen seventy nine.
We want to go back to there.
And it is with a great regret that we would cause them any discomfort or worse, but we may have no choice. And again, if Iran keeps on pounding energy sources in the Middle East, and today they shot at both at the Haifa refinery, set one of them ablaze, and you know, we could be sitting in the darky also, so we may have no choice, all.
Right, So closing our in here. When the American people look up and there's been gone for thirty day, I think it's going to go to June. To tell you, that's Hugh Ywittt's opinion based on not knowing anything except talking to smart people. And I'm an American, so I'm not paying anything other than a dollar a gallon of gas ken Israel lasts until June under these circumstances.
Of course, of course we can listen.
We've been in this war for three years with very little let up, by the way, and there have been times in this war where it's actually been much more difficult than it is now. Iran, during the twelve Day Battle last summer, was hitting us more intensely with more missiles every day. During the opening months of the Gaza war and with his bullet in the North October November December twenty twenty three, and then twenty twenty four, far more intense barrages from both the South and the North.
We are a very resilient people.
We will be celebrating Passover this week.
We got through slavery in Egypt. We got through forty years of wandering in the desert. We're going to get through this too.
Well. Get through a commercial break. I have one political question for you, but if you can't, don't worry about it. I know you're a great demand and I appreciate the time. Doctor Michael Lauren, former israily Ambassador of the United States may or may not be back after the break for politics here America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Welcome. I am joined
by John pod Hortz, editor of Commentary Magazine. He is also the host Monday through Friday, most Monday through Fridays of the Commentary Magazine podcast, John, I listened to you today. I listened to have Ready Go talk about Passover with a Rabbi. I listened to Dan Senor and talk with Fred Kagan and with Nadavi Y'all. I listened to Jonathan Sandser to the FDD. So I've had a four and a half hour drive this morning, so I might be a little bit mixed up on where I heard what,
So give me a little grace here. I want to start with the most important question always, Have you seen Operation Mincemeat on Broadway?
I have not, but my wife went to see it last week or the week before, so I consider that I've seen it.
Okay, So the premise of it is the ally spend the w a lot of time cooking up elaborate ruses to fool the enemy. Why should we believe anyone saying anything?
Now, that's very very important, and it is very important to note that one in the tactics of the Trump administration is to throw a lot of lines in the water. We're gonna take card, We're not going to take card. We're negotiating package. There's going to be negotiations in Pakistan. We are not doing regime change because we've already done regime change. Maybe we should go get the the nuclear materials out of the Ifsahon. Maybe we should not do anything.
Maybe we are done. Maybe we're going to land ground troops. So it's not that you shouldn't believe anything. It's that everything is on the table, and therefore you should view this as the United States, having achieved military supremacy in this war, is using its military supremacy in the war to continue to signal to the Iranians that they kind of have one last chance to give up, and giving up would mean a lot of things, including telling us where the nuclear materials are and allowing us to go
get them, among other things. And aside from that, there's nothing to believe or not believe. Nothing is said determtively.
That is, by the way, exactly nodding through the commentary podcast, which is fabulous today. By the way, I'm watching. I sent my wife a tech about Kevin Klein and Laura Lenny, which are two of her favorite people, and said she's on the West coast. Watch this immediately. John doesn't get excited about much television, so watching to me, we'll come back.
That's true. That's a show called American Classic that you were talking about. MGM plus. You have to subscribe through Amazon. Kevin Klin, Laura Lenny Betsico, I'm seen in years. Okay, let's go.
Back to the series. Stuff is the US the United States as a whole better off today than we were thirty one days ago.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think we were at any particular immediate risk thirty one days ago from Iran, and we're better off because now if we had been and we didn't know about it, Iran is obviously in no
position to inflict any harm or damage on us. I do think we need to finish the job, and that what we've done is prepare the way for a huge geopolitical historical triumph if we can just you know, put our noses to the grindstone, and Trump can silence the voices in his ear that are telling him that maybe there's going to be there's a better off ramp and do end this thing with an unambiguous American victory that will reshape the geopolitics of the twenty first century.
I think that could be where we're headed. And I'm glad to hear that you're at least in the realm of possibility with me. There is Israel our ally better off today than it was thirty one days ago.
I mean, unambiguously, although you have to say less serial It hasn't been tough in the sense that you know, for Israeli normal Israeli life in this period has been canceled. You know, people at kids aren't going to school. People, it's very hard for people to go to work. People are going in and out of shelter six or seven times a day. There has been relatively minor damage inside Israel and relatively few deaths related to a gigantic number of barrage of ballistic missiles being fired at it, so
life is harder immediately. The Israelis themselves seem to believe that what is going on is not only righteous but necessary. Support for the mission against Iran runs it around ninety percent. Israel Is also trying to clean up Hesbelah on its north, get rid of Hesbelah, and it's north, so it's no longer threatened there, and so they think that they're better off now.
John, I'm all of you an optimists. So I think we're going to win this decisively. We are winning decisively, but we have not yet won decisively. I think this decisively. Will it be possible to say that ten to seven as awful as it was was Israel in the West Pearl Harbor two point zero?
I think that's I think the analogy is exact. I mean as a surprise sneak attack that shocked the conscience alarmed, made it clear just how dangerous and threatening the world was to the United States, and that this irridentist actor was intending on throwing Israel under the bus, or you know, in the case of Pearl Harbor, of removing us as a player in the Pacific while the Japanese took over, you know, the entirety of the Pacific and even the
South Pacific. Ten seven awakened Israel to the fact that its strategy over the previous ten years had been and had been naive, and that it did not understand the misdirection that Hamas was up to in planning the war that it eventually launched and the tunnel system that it built in order to fight that war. And just similarly, ten to seven then said to Israel, well, May and to Trump, I think, well, the status quo can no longer exist. We need to rewrite the rules for us
to be safe for the next one hundred years. We're going to do that in Gaza. We're going to try to do it against Iran, which is the you know, which is the head of the beast. And then when Trump won, Trump came in as not only a full partner,
but a senior partner in that effort. I think think understanding particularly this year, it's an interesting case about the opportunistic nature of what has gone on this year, which is that it was this war that started on February twenty eighth started on February tari eighth because something started in Iran on December twenty eighth, which is that the people of Iran rose up and revolted because the real had gone to have no value, and they were broke,
and they had no money and they had nothing. And then the regime responded badly, and then they rose even further, and then the regime started showing them in the streets and the idea that the country itself was falling to pieces as a civil society, if it could ever be called that, and that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity with them weekend, with them having no air defenses, and with the with the populace restive and uncomfortable and
clearly wanting something new, and Israel developing the entil diligence that said, if we go on this date, certain we can decapitate the leadership all of those things coming into play. Trump said, it's a gift on a silver platter, like history doesn't provide these very often. It's not like he came into office saying, let's develop the way in which
we can take Iran out. Taking Iran out became something that developed over time in twenty twenty five, in early twenty twenty six, and was a response to real world dynamic changes that we are taking advantage of.
Now I've already written the column, so it's already into Fox. I'mp here tomorrow that begins. If President Trump succeeds in overseeing the toppling of the Iranian regime, it will rank with the greatest achievements of presidents since World War Two if it happens. Do you agree with me on that? Oh?
Yeah, I mean I can't. In fact, oddly enough, it's hard to think of another aside from winning the Cold War that will it will be as geo politically significant as this victory over Iran would be.
No, it's nineteen eighty nine, That's what I keep telling people. Now. I am also on the record with at least Guy Benson saying this is going to take at least until June unless the conditions of regime collapse. We just can't seek because the Internet is down. Does the American public have the patience for a low casually though not no casually. There are thirteen breathing families this Easter passover who have washed it all, and there are others who are wounded.
But do we have the capacity to go to June if it remains a low casualty situation?
I think absolutely, Because the sad part is I don't think the American people care very much. They're very uninvested in this. Unless gas prices go to two hundred and fifty dollars a barrel and suddenly it's costs nine dollars the gallon at the pump, what cost is being inflicted on any individual America can buy this conflict? There is no cost. There is no cost. No one in this country. One out of every three hundred and thirty people has a relative in the military. If that and the military
is a volunteer. And from what we now, the military and people in the military are overwhelmingly in support of the mission, so they're not opposed to it.
Who's opposed to it.
Are democrats and people who think that war doesn't work and We've had a terrible time over the last twenty five years and haven't won anything.
But so I can't.
I don't think Trump is going to get a lot of credit for what's going on. Clearly he isn't, But that doesn't mean that there is going to be overwhelming pressure.
And we come back from break the hardest hit I've been doing this show for twenty five and a half year. The hardest hit are USS Liberty, conspiracy Terrorist. But we'll be back with John pod Howarts. Don't go anywhere in America. I'm uqit, welcome back in America. I'm hue you at John pod Howtz. I'm the editor in chief of Commentary Magazine to the Daily Commentary podcast. I really recommend today, Monday,
March thirtieth, because I had a fascinating conversation. I listened to all of it today driving back from Southern Virginia about American public opinion and what works and what doesn't work. By the way, I think Ame and Eleanna are just wise, wise wise when they judge American public opinion. And I thought you and Christine had a very interesting exchange about what would he say? What would he do? Because in fact about Trump. There are very few people whose minds
are going to change. Isn't that a fact? John? No matter he can win. I mean, we could have a patent movie made about it. It won't matter, and he might lose terribly and his supporters won't care. It's frozen.
Look we're playing. He's playing for history here. This is not about the next six months. It's not even about the rest of his term. What happens here is a world historical moment if he wins, and what happens is the failure of this presidency if he appears to end this on an inconclusive result, which is why he should go for all the marbles and not worried about what
the immediate politics say. Even if, even if we need Republicans in the Senate the House start complaining and saying things are terrible, it doesn't make sense for him not to complete what he started because this is too big too. If you're going to make if you're going to take the risk and reap the reward, you were going to have to play the risk out. So my final point on that podcast, and I'll say today, is we're seeing the poll numbers looking really bad, right, but this is
a very complicated thing. First of all, people say yes or no about things that they don't really care that much about and aren't of that much importance to them. And if they don't like Trump, they don't like the war, and that that's it. That's fine, it's over with. Among people who support Trump and who are Republicans, support for this war has been rising, not falling, and support for the war is at eighty to ninety five depending on
how you calculate it. And that should matter less because you say, oh, well, he only as Republican supporting him, So what Publican and Democratic parties are at parody? They're both around forty two percent. Of course with leaners. If you look at the gallop, the gallop calculations of support for each party made this year so forty two, forty three,
forty four percent. So that's a lot of people. And if ninety percent of forty four percent of the public supports you, the bottom isn't going to fall.
Out for Trump.
And the people who aren't in that forty in that in that number don't like him anyway and hate him and think he's awful and everything he does is monstrous, So he's got no play with them. There's nothing he can do with them. As he once joked, you know if he brought them the risen Christ, they would they would reject it. So I think under those circumstances he just should hold firm because tactically speaking, he's got all the backing that he'll ever be able to get.
And now the only thing that can go wrong John is an HMS Sheffield incident where Iran gets off a lucky ballistic and they hit or a Lincoln or the four that would change American a mass casually disaster, even though in the run up to Normandy, not on Normandy. The run up to Normandy, more than five thousand soldiers, sailors, herman and marine lost their lives practicing for Normandy. We
don't have that capacity anymore. You raise something at the very end, two things actually, One was Ukraine has really stepped up, and I hope American's opinion that changing of Zelenski and it's certainly a changing in the Gulf. And then second, the reality of the Strait of Hormuz is now in front of us. Do you think it's possible that China takes a look at that and thinks, hmmm, we really don't want the Mulas in charge of the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe we don't want them to win.
I don't know if they want them to win or not. I think that they this is their alliance, and it's an anti American or you know, counter American alliance, and it may not be much of an alliance, but it's their alliance. And they don't shift very quickly the Chinese. So I wouldn't count on the Chinese coming in with us or something like that. But the point about horrm Movez that is really important is this. If you hate
this war, fine you. And if you're now using the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is being threatened by Iran, fine, But now that the threat has been raised and you're trying to use the threat to Hormuz as an example of why Trump screwed up by starting the war, also fine. It doesn't mean that you then get to say I'm out of this, because if the Straight of Removes is threatened and the Islamic Republic of Iran remains in power, the Strait of Hormuz will never not be threatened again
until they're gone. They've opened the Pandora's box it's there, it's threatened. They can threaten it at a moment's notice, and as could the people on the other side of the street, who certainly don't want to threaten it, but you know, you know who's on the other side, Dubai like, they could threaten it also, they could They could set a drone to get They don't want to, right, but we know Iran has opened this up as a possibility
as their attempt to blackmail the world. Once they've decided to try to blackle the world this way, they gotta go, what are you going to do if we don't take them out?
You're gonna why what are you going to do?
How do you not have them on August fifteenth to so fire a volley and blow up a tanker somewhere? Just just to make a point, you are a.
Season you're a season Trump watcher, and you're a former White House speech writer. Is there because Christine was talking about making a speech to a sure Americans get the constancy? I don't think it's possible anymore in this media. But if you were going to write him the speech to do that, what would it say? Would it say? Do you know how bad the Iranians are let me tell you what, he's not really that kind of a rhetoricician.
It would probably be in three parts. Okay, the first part would be since nineteen seventy nine. So many of you were not born, so you don't understand what happened in nineteen seventy nine and nineteen seventy nine.
This regime came in.
America weirdly abedded its creation, and then ten months later they took fifty two Americans hostage and held them for four hundred and forty four days until a president came into power who frightened them so much that they relented and let the hostages go. And since then, for forty six years, they have been the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. They have fomented three major terrorist actors in the world,
hesbal Ajamas and the Huthis. They have they started a war that where two million people were killed from nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty nine, and they are developing nuclear weapons which every president has had to deal with. They are bad and they shouldn't exist anymore. But their country's not bad. Their country is tw twenty five hundred years old. It's a great old civilization. This was a construct place there forty seven years ago. If it goes,
we're not taking out the country. We are taking out a regime that is a modern, jury rigged, corrupt, radical, anti American force. And it's only to the good that they're gone and will only be to the good for those people and for the world. And we are showing the world what we are made of, what we can do, and what they should not think they can threaten us with. After this is over, and all for all those three reasons, we're going in and we're taking them out.
I hope he does that, now, that's what I would thirty seconds.
I don't think he's Yeah.
He didn't have that game, but maybe he could get it thirty seconds on a scale of one to ten, with one being I don't know, smooth Holly and ten being Reagan walking on a recovic. What's the JCPOA.
Well, nothing's bad as bad as s. Pauley, right, so the jcpoas well. The win JCPO is three. But if the JCPOA actually can be viewed as the start of the reconstruction the Middle East, as it awakened people to the fact that unless Iran was stopped after this agreement,
everything was going to go to hell. Then the j CPOA will have been, inadvertently, like ten to seven, a world changing moment, although the person who was responsible for it thought it would change the world in an entirely different way.
Best case scenario for President Obama. Right there, John pod Or, it's always good to talk to you. I fall him on action, Jay pot Orritz stay tuned, America. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt and meet Schagahal has been my guest before. He is the lead analyst on Channel twelve in Israel, the author of a fine, splendid book, The call at four am that will, if it's possible, explain is Raley pout to you. It's not really possible because it doesn't make a lot of sense to Americans.
I may welcome back. My first question just ask you. I want to ask you. It's usual better up today than it was thirty one days.
Ago, Absolutely no doubt.
You know, there is you know, this term Sizifian ritual, something that you do all over again and again in vain.
Now, because we're.
In the news industry, we have the feeling that this is an ongoing futile effort. However, every night the Israeli Air Force and the US ell Force shave another layer of this monstrous fundamentalist machine that had been built by
Iranians for the last forty seven years. Even if the war ends today, which I hope it won't, but even if it ends today, Iran will have to buy one hundred new ships, a brand new airport, a force, a brand new a ballistic MISSILEI industry, a brand new steal industry, and of course the diamond the nuclear project, which means that their ability to threaten the world.
And especially Israel and.
The United States has decreased dramatically. Now, I think, while I think it's not enough, I'm still grateful enough.
For prison Trump and for these ready army for doing the deality work.
All right, second question, which is much harder. I want to remind people as well, and Meat is an almost daily correspondent now for the Free Press because they take his It's new an Israel email which I get every morning because it's free, and a me Segal dot net. It shows up at the Free Press, which I subscribe to, so I get it twice. I met. This is much tougher. Is Israel better off today than it was on ten six, twenty three, even though the horror of that day was ahead of it.
I think it's way better.
And you know, it's very hard to say this because it came at a cost, at a monstrous cost, twelve hundred casualties, but it actually quest in while on October seventh actually revealed the plan, the Iranian plan to choke Israel from seven different fronts, all funded and trained by Iran, without Iranian have to spill their blood fighting Israel. And now it's exactly the other way around. We have a border with Iran and they don't have a bottle with us.
I just want to give you what we call proportions.
Prior to Rising Line Operation in June twenty twenty five, the scenario was that eight hundred to four thousand Israelis how to.
Be killed during the war.
It ended with thirty casualties in Israel in twelve days. Now we are involved in a three front war with Iran, Kriz Bala and the Hooties, and yet after a month there are only twenty casualties. Now, while this is tragic and we mourn every victim of the conflict, it's something like less than two.
Percent of the early.
Expectations, which signals you how damage was caused by Israel and the US to the Iranian wall machine.
Now in America, I remind people there are thirteen families who at this Passover Easter will not have someone at their table or know even that they're coming back, because they're dead and they've been killed by the Iranians and or accidents related to the war where they're on. So it's never not extraordinarily costly. But knowing what you know now, are we glad that Sinemore actually jumped the gun because if it had been coordinated, I don't know if Israel could have stood up to that, do you.
It would be way way harder.
I think lead is not the termed because every really knowing person, some of the victims or the half the photo hostages from October seventh. However, having said that, absolutely the entire existence of Israel was hanging by a thread four years, or had been hanging by a thread four years, and we didn't know it. Now, while it was a dramatic strategic failure, it gave Israel the opportunity to take its enemies one enemy at a time, one tentical at the time, and then the head of the octopus and
this is what we see today. This was the big plan to actually eliminate Israel by the twenty thirty and Israel was saved.
From it thanks for this.
Someone defined it in Israel a terrible miracle. I think it's it's it's right to the point.
That is a very app description. I'll be right back with a Meid Chagall. Don't go anywhere, America. Chat over to his website during the break, Amid Chagal that sign up for a daily newsletter, subscribe to the Free Press. He's on it TV every now. I think the Israelians appetite for news is even more satiable than mine. And so he's working around the clock. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back with the meat broking back America. You're here with a Meek Cigale Channel twelve and of the
Free Press. I mean, we are one missile away from a mass casually event to an American ship or a base, or a dreaded mass casualty event in Israel. Could that change everything? One missile getting.
Through in Israel.
No, because the assumption is that Israel would be heat so hard that it would have to stop either by the pressure of the public opinion or by a decision made by taken by a private san Aitanao.
I think either of the neither option is feasible.
The vast majority of the really public is fully aware of the danger from Iran, the threat posed by this fundamentalist regime, and there is a widespread, rare consensus support consensus around the idea that they must be eliminated as a military threat. At the very same time, I have to say that as time passes, Israeli have find it hard to actually function under this annoying sound of sirens going off entirely around the country.
I'll explain.
Okay, there was a fascinating statistics in our whole last week. Those with safe room in their apartment, you know, you don't have to show your pajama to the neighbors. They support the world seventy seven twenty two.
Those who have public shelters, you.
Know they have to to, you know, climb the stir is. At three am, they supported sixty to forty Those without shelters fifty seven percent to twenty two percent against the war, which.
Means that people are exhausted.
But the vastal jority of his radies is still you know, as Britz call it, Steve upper Lip, all.
Right, No, I mean this is a difficult thing in the middle of a war that could still have terrible events happen in it, and no doubt we'll have other lots of life. Prime Minister that yahoo. I can't imagine anyone other than him leading Israel through this. But I'm not in ISRAELI and I don't know that much. Could anyone else have done this? In your view? I mean, you're much younger than he is, but you know everyone in Israel could Could anyone else have done this this way?
I think the the you know, the most important piece in this battle is talking President Trump into attacking Iran. This is Nataniell's main advantage over his rivals. This is his even his most bitter enemies Rifles admits that this.
Is his main achievement and main advantage when it comes to attack you run.
I think you I could think about a few prime ministers would have done it, Benguion, maybe Arian Scheon, perhaps even Idol.
But yes, I mean, this.
Is Nataniao's main achievement in his entire career, and it has been a very long career.
As you know.
Now the budget in Israel passion for the benefit of the American audience. That means the government can go on to at least until October if it wants to. It's got a hold an election in October by law, but it can be pulled forward. The Brits in nineteen hundred, the Tory Party had just thought they had won the Second World War, so they held the Khaki election and
they won overwhelmingly, so they pulled it forward. Do you think that the could coalition might pull the election forward if this war ends soon?
And well, I'm not sure.
You know, the main difference between the Tories in forty five and recording twenty twenty six.
Is that the war hell goes nowhere.
It's still you know, the very complicated security situation.
It's not Europe post World War two.
However, this is a dramatic achievement for Nathaniao because it's going to be the first government to serve a full term since nineteen sixty nine.
Sixty seven years.
Has passed since the last government seld a full term. Now, while you know it shows the strengths, it shows weakness as well, because the reason coalitions usually fall apart is because some parties believe that they can gain ground in the election. The coalition parties are relatively we following October seventh, so they have had no incentive coding up an early election.
Having all that said, I think that is.
More than fifty percent chance of getting re elected.
All right, last question I may in times of crisis, Americans turn on the television. They turn on radio shows like this and television shows like this. They can't, but then their attention dissipates quickly. Can the Israeli possibly watch more news than they have watched consistently for the last ten years? Our ratings up? And what I'm asking?
Oh yes, I'll give you an example. The most popular news the most popular TV show in Israel on a daily basis since the sixties is the eight pm news broadcast. Usually it gets on Channel twelve, where podcast something like fourteen percent, fourteen percent footy points. Nowadays sometimes it yes, but this is doing in ordinary days today nowadays it's nineteen percent.
Twenty percent.
My mid the Press show on Saturday night reached sixteen point six percent.
It's it's it's it's yeah.
It's context. When I don't television. When we got a share at one point we were popping child. Yeah, we were happy as it can be. So nineteen share is remarkable.
No, no, no, no, the share is higher than nineteen.
Nineteen is out of Yes, the share is something like thirty seven percent.
Okay, the point when I when.
I yeah, when I talk about points, I talk about you.
Know, the percentage of a TV is open.
Out of the out of one hundred TV televisions in Israel, how many televisions have opened on channel twelve? Okay, so it's thirty seven percent share and nineteen twenty percent of the entire out number of television.
Can you go in public anywhere or do people yell at you all the time?
Okay?
So now justin Midgin, how how it feels to go at three am with your pajama to a shte and meet all your neighbors.
You need to get a false mustache. I meet Cigal. We're out of time. I appreciate the time. Go to a meet Sigal se g a l a me ami. She Sagal dot net and he works for the Free Press as well. So you can subscribe to the Free Press and get it there every day as well. Thank you, and meat don't go anywhere America. I'm You're right back to wrap up today's You hew A show as we continue to cover a remarkably fast moving or it could change by tomorrow morning. You never really know when this
thing is going to take another dramatic turn. It's watching Carolyn Levitt this afternoon before I got on the show, and she said, based on the latest, we're talking to the real people in Iran, So who knows. By tomorrow could all be different. Stationed, you've heard me talk a lot about Consumer Cellular. Now you can switch your carrier, save money without the sacrifice. That's because Consumer Cellular uses
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eighties about a king talking about Reagan. I'm joined by the originally insured, the people's pundit, Selena Zo from the Washington Post, the Washington Seminer, the New York Posts, the Pittsburgh Post, Caazette syndicated column, and the UUs OW regular Selena Happy Easter in advance to you. I hope you have been planning for a big festive meal at your house.
Oh, yes, yes, yesterday we were making Sicilian doughnuts, which we always have on Palm Sunday, which ever caught in them, and you deep fry them and then you bury them in sugar. Yeah, it's going to be cooking all week. My grandchildren were cooking with me today.
Well, I'm sorry I missed the Sicilian donuts. Do you have to be a made man to get one of those?
I can make you some. I can help you up.
Now.
I want you to know you were quoted today on the commentary podcast your famous line, Trump must be taken seriously, not literally, but people take him literally and not seriously and right, And someone who said that, and John Bodor said, Selina Zito said that, do you think that's the most famous line you've ever been.
Probably? Yeah, But you know, don't you think? I don't know. Maybe it's very obvious to me because I straddle to different worlds.
Right, If I go online and look at the political class, it's the latter. If I'm out with you know, normal humans, which is where I much prefer to be, it is the former. You know, this is Donald Trump is a guy that's been in the American cultural experience since the early eighties, in the late seventies, and he's always been
this way. And people that consumed him on television, on the New York Post and New York Times, they understood that this is the way he talked, and they didn't take it all that.
Literally, know, Alina.
I got old and dear friends whom Trump has completely broken, and I have friends who have divorced me as a friend because you know, he's a president. He's not a preacher or a pastor. And he's doing a very good job of taking down an a consistential threat to Israel in the world and Iran. And I generally approved seventy five percent of what he does, and so I'm pretty happy with him as a president. I do not approve a lot about Donald Trump, but he doesn't approve about
it a lot about me. We're not buddies. But really, what is wrong with the no kingspeople? That's just constitutionally illiterate.
It's so I just look at it and think it's so dumb.
But here's here's a point and a really important point that I want to make. As I looked at two events that happened, one in Pittsburgh and one in my where I used to live in Mount Lebanon, UH and Connor Lamb, who's making no bones about the fact that he wants to primary John Fetterman, is speaking at the one in Mount Lebanon, and I'm looking, I'm watching it live online, and I'm like, oh my god, I know almost everyone there nothing. These people voted the same. There's
no one new in this crowd. They're the same crowd, regurgitated every time. Are the crowd sizeable, yes, but they're not new. Why is it important? It's important because when you want to build a coalition, you need to bring new people into your coalition. There's no one new there. These are the same voters they had in twenty twenty four and they lost with these voters. And so I think that aspect really needs to be driven home, because you have to build, you have to grow. They're white
and my age right, and there's nothing. There's no one new and young. There no, there's no diversity, not just racial diversity, there's no cultural diversity. You don't see any working class people there. You see culture.
Basically old, upper middle class to upper class people. Selena, I agree. But I got to go to the more important thing because you had insured the insur this week. You gave me the perfect insurer story.
The Pittsburgh public schools are closing because of the NFL draft, and I really I had to look twice I couldn't believe it because the kids I am an exactly experienced learning abundance in the last five years.
Right, learning loss is a real deal. And they closed for two days because of the draft.
Oh oh, not two days, four four days?
You know it's not worth the draft. It's even if that was all worth the draft. What's wrong with your school district?
I attended that school district. I am shocked at this school district, but I've been shocked at it for the past thirty years. I had an excellent education there.
David mccaullaugh always said that was a premier education that we received in those schools.
There was nothing better.
And first of football.
Out of this. We're leaving football out of this. Right. But but yes, Pittsburgh got good schools. But yeah, yeah, are they getting criticized by the parents? Are the parents mad?
Oh?
The parents are infuriated there. And the draft is at night. It doesn't impact the schools. And there's only one school that is anywhere near the proximity of where the draft will be held, and that's not even that close.
Has any national network covered this yet, because this is a national scandal. These kids have had learning loss, that's appreciable that everyone is documented and they're taking four days off. I thought it was two four days off for the NFL Draft. Has any national network covered it yet?
No, not at all.
Well, then the Salem News channel is first. I really, have they responded to the criticism or they just hunted down and they're taking their four day vacation.
Oh yeah, this is my favorite criticism. Hey, we gave the parents for a month advanced notice. They should be fine with this. This is my favorite line that the public affairs person said.
You know, I just spent the weekend with my four grandkids. I just spent the weekend with my four grandkids. My son in law is deployed. I cannot believe that. There got to be a lot of people in Pittsburgh who are deployed. So they just said to all those single parents, score you for four days because we want to watch and enjoy the draft. That's really what it is, right, The teachers and the administrator want to go enjoy the draft.
I mean the teachers are mad too. By the way, it's the union and it's the superintendent. It's not the teachers. I talked to plenty of teachers. They're really upset. Most teachers really care about this kid.
Of course they do, but then they would quit the union, or they would or they would start firing the superintendent. Where's the school board? Has anyone returned your call from the school board? Because this is nuts? Nope, Nope, Selena. Happy Easter to you and yours. Follow Selena on ex Zito Selena