Iran: Congressional GOP Should Rally Around Victory

0:00Here's something most investors miss. It's not recklessness that costs people money. It's being late. Big shifts start quietly in policy meetings and regulatory rooms long before they hit the headlines. Right now, the AI buildout is driving massive spending and energy, data and infrastructure. There is a way to potentially benefit from that surge, without betting on a single textile. To get the full breakdown, visit planwithoxford.com. Again, that's planwithoxford.com. Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale. Hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, I'll listen to Hillsdale dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale.com or just Google Apple iTunes and Hillsdale. Welcome back, America. I'm QQA joined now by Nebraska Senator, Deb Fisher. Senator Fisher is a member of the United States Senate's Armed Services Committee. Senator, welcome. Give us your assessment of the first 10 days of the battle with Iran. Hi, Hugh. It's just great to be with you. First of all, I support the

1:05President and the administration's actions that they've taken on Iran. This is a state sponsor of terrorism around the world. They are a threat to our country. So I think that the actions are being taken, having good. First of all, we've been given briefings a number of times. We just have another classified briefing this morning on the Armed Services Committee about what's happening, how it's progressing. But the administration's been clear, as I said, on those military objectives. And that's to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon. It's also to destroy their ballistic missile capability. Right now, that short range and medium range capabilities that those ballistic missiles have. But looking forward, it would be a year, maybe two before Iran would have an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile. That can't happen. That would put Europe

2:08in play for them. It would be dangerous. And then it's just not hop-skip and a jump until they would threaten the United States. So we need to take out those capabilities. And then the third one was to be able to destroy their Navy. And we've seen a lot of accomplishment there. Over 30, 40 ships have been taken out of action. And that's important due to the straight support moves. And commerce, we need to make sure that commerce can still travel safely through that area. And by taking out their Navy, taking out their ballistic missiles, that's going to help us to make that a safe passage once again. Senator Fisher, your colleague, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut is a Democrat. He came down to talk to reporters today and said he'd been in a classified briefing. And he believed we were preparing to send ground troops to Iran. I don't know where he got that. Have you heard that?

3:12Senator Blumenthal was in the same briefing that I was in. Now, I don't talk about what we discuss in classified briefings, but I can tell you that was not my understanding. And I was there throughout the major part of the briefing, including Senator Blumenthal's questions that he asked. And I specifically asked some questions related to ground troops as well. As we both know, as your listeners know, the Department of War makes plans for many contingencies that are out there. We want that to happen. We want to be able to have our military look at what the objectives are in any area to achieve and then what steps they would take and then to practice on those. But it's up to the Commander-in-Chief. It's up to President Trump to determine when those plans or if those plans are ever going to be put into practice. We saw that with

4:17Venezuela and learned later that that was a plan that had been in place for for many years, as well as the 12-day war with Iran when we did the bombing of their nuclear facilities. So I think that I would never have phrased that that the way that Senator Blumenthal tried to phrase it with the press. Now, I'd like to move on to the cost. It's obviously large and it's going to be getting larger and perhaps into the hundreds of billions. So usually, in wartime, and in time of a battle or a conflict, the United States Congress would vote a supplemental appropriation. I don't think the Democrats will support that there against this battle. I'm not even sure they want us to win this battle. But what about using reconciliation senator? That would require the budget committees of both houses to agree on a top line, on a DOD line and then come to your committee of authorization and then do appropriation. Is that a simple majority? Is that on the table?

5:20You know, I think we need to look at everything. This is important that we are able to pass additional funding to cover the expenses that we're going to have in protecting our national security by taking out, as I mentioned earlier, a number of the objectives that are listed in a round that we need to take out. We'll see what happens. The Speaker, Speaker Johnson has talked about doing reconciliation in the House. We'll see if they're able to do that. I guess I still have hopes that we can get a supplemental done. I think the more information that the administration can give us here in the Senate, especially when we're trying to work through this and then also in the House, giving us that information so that we can have a better understanding of what they're doing moving forward.

6:26So, I still have some hope for a supplemental. I think there's different ways that we can put one together and maybe address other issues besides just looking at around itself. Last question, Senator. I have not heard one Democrat unequivocally embrace the idea of winning, of having this regime, which is a malign and evil presence and has been for 47 years, fall. Have you heard any Democrat advocate for it? By whatever means it comes about popular revolution, a coup inside the regime itself at cracks, whether or not we kill every mule that ever wants to be the Supreme Leader. I don't know how it is, but does any Democrat speak in terms of winning and what an unqualified good that would be for the world and for the people of Iran? I haven't heard them say that. What I have heard from every Democrat is they always begin by saying, you know, we're glad the Aletola was taken out. He was an evil man. He needed to be gone.

7:34But, and then they go on in not in a supportive way for the actions that this administration has taken in addressing it. You know, we've seen 47 years of Republican and Democrat administrations say that around is a threat to this country. They've killed hundreds of Americans. They sponsor terrorists around the world. We are not safe because of the actions that they have and they were continuing to work on developing and reaching uranium, developing a nuclear weapon, continuing to work on their ballistic missiles and also to get nice CBN. And yet, we don't seem to hear that. I was going to say full-throated support from Democrats, but any any kind of support from Democrats saying, you know, this is this is necessary. This has

8:38to happen. You know, God bless our troops. God bless our commander-in-chief for stepping forward and finally taking action to remove this evil, horrible, threatening world-threatening regime that only wanted to become more and more emboldened so they could blackmail the world. It would be nice to hear one Democrat. I don't understand why they can't do that. If you find one Senator like Diogeny's with a lamp, please let me know and I'll interview them. Just one. Just one Democrat. Senator Deb Fisher from the Great State of Nebraska. Thank you, Senator. I'll be right back, America. Please stay tuned to Salem News Channel, the Salem Radio Network, and our affiliated radio station. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, David M. Drucker, as a senior political writer for The Dispatch in Washington, DC. David, I just spoke with Senator Deb Fisher of Nebraska,

9:40and I asked her if one Democrat, one Democrat had come out and unequivocally called for victory in the battle with Iran so that the Iranian people might be free in the world, the better place and she said not to her knowledge. Have you heard even one Democrat call for victory? I'm trying to think here. I think we may have heard some sentiments like that from possibly Josh Gothheimer in the House, Jared Mosquitz in the House, possibly. Democrats have mostly focused their comments, not just on their opposition to the war generally, but their argument that the administration hasn't laid out a reasoning for why now, even though the Iranian threat they acknowledge exists. You know, after Iran went, you know, Semiti Sam on all of its neighbors on day one of the battle, you would think it would be self-evident, but they're thick, or they are ideologically incapable of fending the hard left of their party. Here's a tougher question.

10:42Should Republicans in the House and the Senate come out and put their arms around this battle, say it was right to have been begun, and we need to win it in a decisive fashion. I don't know what that looks like, but we need to win it in a decisive fashion because they're going to own it, whether or not they want it, it's their party, it's their president, it's our president, actually, it's all Americans president, but it's their nominee who started it, so shouldn't they own it? Well, I, from a political perspective, you're making a really good argument, and I think most of them have been doing that. It's just that, you know, there are, you know, some dissident voices here, right? I mean, you know, as I've reported, and as I've discussed repeatedly over the past 12 days or so, most Republican voters, including self-identified MAGA voters, are supportive of the president's action in Iran. But you do have some loud voices on the right among influencers and podcasters, a few politicians, and some others who are diametrically opposed to what the president's

11:44doing for all sorts of reasons. And so I think some Republicans maybe have treaded cautiously. I think some of them have been trying to figure out what they're wrapping their arms around because the administration hasn't been very forthcoming in its battle plan, broadly speaking, the why now, and what the ultimate goal is. But what I've heard from Republican electives, mostly you, is support, or any, or at the very least open-mindedness, but mostly support. So I think you're getting that, you know, I think, you know, when you look at Democrats just to get back to that point for a minute, they have a fine, they have a tightrope to walk because you don't want to sound like you don't understand the threat from Iran, that Iran has posed over the last nearly 50 years, and with a budding nuclear weapons program, on the other hand, their party, their voters are against the war, and American voters broadly when you look at Democrats and Independents are against the war. So they don't have the same pressures that Republicans might, but your overall point is

12:48an apt one in that. Republicans are going to own this, whether they like it or not. So if they're not on board, unless they have a philosophical opposition to it, a principled opposition, you might as well speak up and speak up and before it. That's my point, Deb Fisher, Nebraska, Tom Cottonark, and so they both been on the last two days. They are very much for winning, and they argue this is a malign regime. The world would be a much better place, and certainly the Iranian people would be better off in the Middle East, more secure and stable. The world would be better off if Iran's regime collapsed tomorrow, or indeed before nightfall today. But Republicans are, I don't know, they're caught up in process arguments. I don't hear it except in individual interviews. And I think maybe Speaker Johnson ought to go out there and say, thump the table a little bit. We're in favor of winning. Yeah, look, again, for a political standpoint, I think you're onto something. I think part of the problem that Republicans may be having, if this is something you're picking up on,

13:50and I think you may be picking up on it more than me, is that they don't really know what the whole point is in terms of the why now. Look, I can make a very good case to you personally, about why now, in my opinion, right? I mean, I'm old enough to have watched Iran, and it's bad regime, and it's bad actors, and all of the state-sponsored terrorism, and everything, right? Just I can make a case that after 50 years, we've tried diplomacy. Every president's tried it. It was an admirable attempt. We've done everything we could. And so maybe you disagree, but there are risks to doing nothing. There are risks to continuing diplomacy, and so this is why now. I will tell you that outside of some occasional statements from Marco Rubio, the administration has not had a uniform, unified, really cogent argument for the why now, and what the ultimate goal is. And it is so much different than the Bush administration leading into Iraq. Now, notwithstanding, most Americans have concluded the Iraq war was a mistake, and we didn't find

14:54weapons of mass destruction. That administration made a unified cogent argument for why they were going in and what the goals were and what they hoped to get out of that. And I think to the extent that you don't hear a sort of unified Republican support for this thing is because they're all trying to figure out what they're supposed to be supporting. I mean, said that, I mean, I've detected a lot of support, but I think they're waiting to echo whatever the administration's rationale is, and they keep hearing different arguments on different days. That's a very well taken point. I think they ought to be supportive extraordinarily of winning. And winning will be defined at a later date, but we'll know it when we see it sort of supreme court test. And it might be, it might not be a white flag, David. It might be Laryzani dad, Hamini 2.0 who's already in a coma dad. It might be the people of Iran back. And I don't know what it's going to look like, but the key is the inability

15:55of Iran to terrorize its neighbors and supply China with oil. And that basically it. Well, that's one version of it, but let me just, you know, play devil's advocate for a minute. We can look back on Iraq 2003 and what ultimately happened at the end of the day after the surge and all the blood and treasure that the US invested in that war and say that we achieved an objective. We got rid of some who's saying we installed at least the quasi-democratic government in there that was no longer a threat to the US or its neighbors. That's all true. And yet most Americans will tell you, generally speaking, that was a mistake we lost. We didn't accomplish anything. I agree, but that's because Obama came in after the collapse. If you can stick that back, that may be true, but my point here is you to play devil's advocate is that I don't think you can say, well, we'll know what winning looks like when we see it, because there could be a lot of follow-on consequences to the war that we've initiated over the past 12 days. I just said, and I believe this, I can make a great case for doing it, what the

16:58ejection should be and can be and why and why now. I'm just saying the administration hasn't done a good job of giving Republicans something to chew on. Total wine and more is one of those places where I always end up finding something I love. I was in my local total wine recently and asked for a recommendation on a bourbon and I ended up loving it. And honestly, the prices make it easy to say yes to grabbing a little extra, like my go-to bottle of Cabernet. If you're not sure what to grab, the team there can really help point you in the right direction. Shop total wine and more, in store or online, and get everything you need at the lowest prices. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina, drink responsibly B-21. I think they may be too afraid of Iraq when, in fact, Iraq was a success, is a success, and thank God today, I'm a thing's not still there. David M. Drucker, follow my neck, bring him at the dispatch. I'll be right back, America. America, I'm QQIT, joined by Brett Bear. He is the host of Special Report. He's America's newsman, actually. It's an anchor, and you can watch him tonight at 6 p.m. on the Fox News

18:01channel. Brett, welcome. I'm trying to remember if you arrived in DC for Fox the week before or the week after 9-11. Was it before after? On 9-11. Okay, so you've been there for 9-11. You've been there for 2003. So two invasions, Afghanistan and they brought. You were there for the Libyan Operation under President Obama. You've covered midnight hammer. You've all the drones and all the Presidents have used, and now you're covering this conflict. Is this the most partisan of all of those? Yes, I'm pretty sure. I'm thinking back in the role of Dex of my brain if there was a as much of a split. No, I think this is the most partisan of all of them. That's my assessment too. I just had on dead fish from Nebraska. She went to the same briefing as Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, and I think both have been on your program. And Senator Blumenthal came out and said I'm afraid we're headed towards ground trips in Iran,

19:02and she came out and said, I didn't hear that at all, but she wouldn't talk about what she did here. Is that just the new normal? Yeah, I think people are hearing different things in the same briefing. We saw that with the drug boats off of Venezuela. We saw that with a number of things where senators from different parties hear completely different things. I don't get a sense at all that there is a massive effort for ground troops in Iran. In fact, I get the sense of exactly the opposite that the president was signaling and trying to tell the markets and the oil companies and the American consumer at the gas pump that there is a light at the end of the tunnel that our objectives are going to be met, and we're going to work with whatever comes out of Iran after that. So, you know, I took that as I'm going on the China trip with President Trump, March 29. I think everything's going to be wrapped up with a bow before them in their eyes

20:09as far as kinetic action. Oh, that's the most aggressive time table. I thought from a political standpoint, the president would have not later than the end of April and May, maybe, but by June, people begin to lock in their political understanding of the war, but you're saying before he says down with G, he wants to have a result that he can retail when he goes to sit down with G. By the way, on that trip, do you expect Jimmy Lyte to come up? I don't know if he's going to come up. You know, I would think that there'll be questions 100 percent, but whether the president brings that up, you don't know behind closed doors. He's got I think there's it's a consequential moment to go to China at this moment in this environment. And I'd be surprised if there wasn't some some big deal announced that we have yet to kind of put her head around. It is indeed that you're focusing on something that I hadn't focused on. I'm

21:12glad you did that. I can think of a lot of summits that have not been consequential, but for a US president and the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party to meet at this moment that Iran is in the balance is significant. And China might need help. I really do think they might need oil. Brett, do you agree with that? I do. I mean, the the tie of Venezuela and taking that avenue off the kind of whatever is going to happen with Iran and its oil, the situation with Russia. I think that there is, you know, probably some kind of deal in the making that the president envisions with all of these things at play. I'm going to put some for gas, excuse me, that in that interim time over the next days, we could see some change in Cuba, that because they're dealing with massive blackouts and and protests almost every night now. As to Cuba, Brian kill me to ask

22:17me this on Sunday night's program, what what I thought was coming. And I think a revolution, counter revolution is coming, but I also think it's not going to be one that we assist, but we will help with food aid because we're not going to let the Cuban people starve. Do you agree with me on that? I do. And I think that if you think of effectiveness embargoes, effectively hurting the regime while letting business kind of bring in some some relief to Cuba, they're they're on the process of doing that. And we haven't covered it as much as I want to because we obviously are dealing with the action in Iran and and other things. But I really think that there is a change that's that's happening. And he the president claims that Cuba's reaching out and talking to Marco Rubio. It's imminent. I think and what year it would be if Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran all flipped from being bad guys to wearing, if not white hats, at least hats that are

23:19somewhere around gray. But I want to go back to the politics. The other thing I haven't seen a lot of, Senator cotton on this program, Senator Fisher on this program, they've been full-throated in favor of winning. And the definition of winning is accordion and can be larger, it can be small, but they want to win. And they're not afraid to say that. Have you had Republicans on your show that we got to win that this regime needs to fall? You know, there's not a ton of people that are ready to say that. Lindsey Graham is obviously a human that says it all the time. But I think that there is a scaling back of objectives as far as what the US wants. What Israel wants is something different. If it happened, I think there would be a lot of the politicians who said they think it's good for the world that that regime changed. But as far as us, the US being the catalyst for that, I think they can help, but not do it. Now, Brett, there's something unusual going on. I've never seen

24:23it been doing this a long time. The president of the United States calls up reporters, like he has a dark board, and he throws a dark, and if it's Brett Barr or you hear it, they'll call him up. And he called up Brian, kill me on Sunday night. What is he doing? It's unusual, it's unprecedented, and I like it. Yeah, I mean, he talked about getting a message out. That's a way to do it. He sees somebody on TV, he sees somebody saying something, and he says, get me that number, and I'm going to call them. I've had, you know, conversations, obviously, President Trump for a number of years off the record. I think he's the cadence in which he's calling reporters and anchors, or they're calling him. A lot of people have his number now, and he's answering. He's answering. Major Gertz and he called him three times, or I get Jonathan Carlson, he's called him three times. Yeah, and I've called him, you know, wanting to know something, he'll pick up in the Oval Office, and he's, I'm sitting here with Secretary Rubio,

25:25Vice President Vance, and, you know, you're thinking you're going to get an answer machine, and maybe somebody will call back, he picks up, and he says, you know, hold on, Vice Presence here, Secretary's here, and you feel like, well, I don't want to interrupt. But he does take up, and he wants to get his message out, and he's doing it a different way. It's unusual. I think it'd be tough to be Caroline Levitt. But yeah. Last question, Senator Cotton gave a speech today about anti-Semitism in the influence or world on the right-wing ecosphere. I don't know that it will get picked up. I think it's extraordinarily significant, not unlike William F. Buckley-Tigney on the McCarthyites in the 50s. What do you think of Senator Cotton's remarks? I think he's laying down a marker. I think it's a concern inside the Republican Party that there is, I mean, obviously, everybody's full of free speech, and everybody's full of expressing yourself, but it does seem to come from a point of view, and some of those folks are, you know,

26:29getting incoming based on some of those influencers, and I think Tom Cotton is expressing the pushback. Yeah, Senator Cotton, good for him. Brett Baer, always good to talk to you. We'll be watching tonight at 6 p.m. on the Fox News Channel, a special report gets going. Always watch it, America's Anchorman. Thank you, Brett. Welcome back, America. Alex Gray is the CEO of American Global Strategies, and termed one of Donald Trump. He was the Chief of Staff at the National Security Council. Alex Gray, welcome back. Can you begin by telling us what you think whoever has your job in Trump too is doing this week because it's got to be wild? Yeah, I can only imagine you in having been there in some wild moments. I think this may top them all. I look the biggest role that the National Security Council plays is making sure that the information from the interagency, from the intelligence community, from allies and partners

27:30gets disseminated through the chain of command to the president in an actionable way that gives him policy options. And you have multiple simultaneous somewhat interconnected crises going on, whether it's Cuba, Venezuela, obviously Iran, but then the ripple on effects with China, the upcoming trip to China, the trade dynamics of that, the Russia Ukraine conflict, and the interconnection with the Iran conflict. So what you're going to be dealing with in that role is this massive amount of incoming somewhat raw information that has to be taken, synthesized, put into some form of useful and actionable information, and then relate to decision-makers up to the president, including Secretary Slash National Security Advisor Rubio, in a way that they can make some sense out of and turn into policy. And that is right now that's going to be one heck of a job. Alex Gray, I'll come back to the battle with Iran in a moment, but you did bring

28:32up the president's scheduled trip to China, where he'll sit down with General Secretary Xi. We've had precedents like that before during the Cold War I, when President Nixon's another would sit down with Brezhnev or Joe Inline Mao, when you had really no idea what the purpose was, what do you think the purpose of this is? Well, look, I think the purpose of this is to give us something approaching an equilibrium. I don't think there's any question that the president identifies China as the pacing threat, as the consequential national security challenge of our time, but I think the president did identify something based on what happened after liberation day. He identified that because of multiple administrations in both parties and their failure to prepare our industrial base and our supply chains and to take the proactive measures necessary, we don't have critical capacity in things like rare earths and critical minerals and other things that will give us the resilience and redundancy to sustain the type of long-term competition we need to have with

29:36China. And I think the president realizes that he has to buy us a little bit of time on the economic front, which obviously has broader strategic implications, but he's got to buy us a little bit of time to get our own house in order. You're seeing him taking really important steps to get those critical minerals and rare earths in fighting shape. But I think part of the purpose of this summit is to come in from a position of strength, which he very much has following Venezuela and Iran. He made a little illusion to that earlier when he noted in a remarks yesterday that, you know, we don't have the dependency on oil from the Middle East that the Chinese do. It was a very clear to me, a very clear jab at Xi Jinping about who has leverage. But at the same time, going into this talk, these talks, the president has, I think, has come to the realization that we have to at least get the U.S.-China relationship in something approaching equilibrium so he can take the time needed to get us prepared for the long-term, which I think we learned over the last year. We don't

30:39have the depth of resilience, particularly in the industrial base, that we need to have for success in the long-term. Well, I agree with that. I would like to see a supplemental that addresses that, or at least a second reconciliation that can pass on a majority vote that addresses funding. And the National Security Council ever get involved with the OMB's discussion about Department of War funding. Alex, is that part of the writ over there? To some extent, you know, when I was there, Ambassador Brian, the National Security Advisor in Russ Vott, then and now Director of OMB, they had a great relationship. They saw eye-to-eye on a lot of the big questions we faced, including rebuilding the Navy and building our space capabilities. I think there's a lot, there should be a lot of interaction where NSC helps set, you take the president's priorities, and then turn with OMB, turn those big strategic priorities into dollars and cents that can go to Congress and turn into resources. Alex Gray, I know in Trump one, the National Security Council helped President Trump put a focus

31:43on and a demand signal out for hypersonic missiles and other weapons of the new war. The war they were watching right now, which is not a ground game. It is a standoff or standover if you're unthreatened. Do you think that the demand signal coming out of this battle is going to be more of that, please? Absolutely. Look, I don't think that we can we can have both of these things be true at the same time. On the one hand, we don't have sufficient munitions for what we need to do in a potential Taiwan straight into a Pacific scenario. That's manifestly true. On the other hand, we can allow ourselves to be hamstrung in other critical theaters just because previous administrations have failed to prepare the inventories and stockpiles that we need. Both of those statements can be true, and I think they are. The president, frankly, the people who are making the argument that we don't have sufficient munitions to do what needs to be done in Iran,

32:44I think they're missing the bigger picture, which is that doing what needs to be done in Iran will finally, if the president is successful, as I believe he will be, will free us up to be able to extricate ourselves from the Middle East finally to eventually do the pivot that Hillary Clinton promised 16 years ago. We will not be able to do that unless we can actually extricate ourselves from the Middle East. This action could let us do that, and it also, Hugh, I think reinforces the need to do a full peacetime mobilization, like it's 1939-1940, to build the munitions and industrial base for an Asia-Pacific scenario now, long before it's actually needed. You mentioned success in this mission. How do you define that, Alex? I think the president has three operational metrics that I think are sound, and frankly, if you listen to General Kane, it sounds like we're very close to meeting those metrics. So it's destruction of the terrorist proxies, the nuclear

33:44program, and the missile program. I think those are three very important operational metrics that we're tracking. I think the strategic question is, can we do something in a modified form analogous to what happened with Delsey Rodriguez and Venezuela, where you can use the operational success to have impact and influence on the next leadership of Iran such that they will change behavior enough to bias the time to finally stop this 25-year whack-a-mole game we play with Iran, where we are constantly going back into the Middle East in some form to deal with their malign behavior. We have to have enough of a change. This doesn't mean we have to choose leadership. We doesn't mean we have to choose the government of Iran, but it means we have to have enough influence and swation over that government so that we can eventually make the full pivot to the Indo-Pacific that I think most of us agree eventually has to be done. Alex Craig, CEO of American

34:46Global Strategy, former Chief of Staff at the National Security Council during the first term of President Trump. Thank you for joining me. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back. I got lots more of the tape. Again, I may play again, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane, summary of the metrics thus far. More than 50 ships of the Iranian Navy are now at the bottom. We're not even getting started on the ships. Stay tuned, America. I'm happy to join you. I'm joined now by Rich Lowry of National Review. Rich, do you think the President or the Republicans are making the case for the battle with Iran in sufficiently moral terms, not strategic and technical, but moral terms? Well, not really. I don't think there's been enough of a case made. It would have been much better if there was a big case made beforehand instead in part because they had the target of opportunity hitting the ice hole right at the outset. There wasn't much of a case made at all, right? It was an afterthought in the state of the union,

35:47maybe a passing reference of many that at 90 or something in part because they wanted to maintain the all-man surprise. But I think there've been behind the eight goal in terms of making the case public case for this hue literally from the beginning. Now, I would like Secretary Rubio to do that because he is a set-piece speaker. The President is better in an exchange. By the way, what do you make? I asked Brett Bay this earlier. I've been in cover in politics for 35 years. I have never seen a chief executive call this many reporters or accept their call, have you? No, it's extraordinary, but this has always been, he's just extremely accessible. He was in the first term, he has been in the second term, and he'll pretty much call anyone who calls anyone back who attempts to call him. I had an incident in the first term where I hadn't talked him, you know, we weren't huge Trump fans, obviously, that primer. He said there's some effort effects of that, and I just called the switchboard one night, the White House switchboard, and he called me back the next day, and I told Lindsey Graham about this, and Graham said,

36:50yeah, he's the most successful person in Washington, and Graham said, when he was having trouble getting Pompeo on the side, he'd call Trump to call Pompeo to get Pompeo to call him back, so this is just as typical as hell. Well, Lindsey Graham is actually, I send her cotton, very consistent. Lindsey Graham is very consistent. They want to win. Today, Senator Cotton and Senator Cruz held an anti-Semitism function in which they invoked your predecessor Bill Buckley as having driven the anti-Semites out of the Republican Party in the 50s. They also drove out the birchers who were more expansive in their hatred than just anti-Semitism. What do you make of that? I think it's long overdue and all honored to Jefferson as Lincoln said, all honored to Cotton and Cruz. Yeah, this is actually an extra due event, you know, as I didn't know that. I didn't know that. That we did. Yeah, that we did this morning in conjunction with the RJC, and they're both banks. Senator Banks was there as well and very good, but Cruz just really has this

37:53bone in his teeth now. He's just not going to let it go. He just said, I'm in direct war with Tucker Carlson. I think he's corrupting our movement and our party, and I'm not going to stand for it. So he really came to play this morning. Well, Cotton came to play, but Cotton lives by the rule I do, which is don't give publicity to people who want publicity. And I've done that for 25 years on this program, and I don't bring up fringe actors. And unfortunately, our anti-Semitic influencers to use Tom Cotton's air quotes already get enough clicks. Rich Lowry, how much of a problem do you think it is really in the Republican party? Because I don't think it's really a problem in the Republican party. Well, it depends on how you define the Republican party. Are there senators and members of Congress who are anti-Semites openly or secretly? No. Oh, wait. There are three. There are three. Well, okay. All right. But is it a huge problem among elected officials? No, but I

38:54think that young Republicans, especially young males, are increasingly swayed this way in the Hatton Institute study last December and the last year indicated this is the case. You hear about it anecdotally all the time. I went to the University of Virginia. I was just talking to a friend the other day, his daughter goes to UVA and she came to him recently and said, I'm not going to a college Republican meeting ever again. He's like, why? You know, colored Republicans, the UVA let me go wrong. She's got to forget what issue was being discussed at a meeting, but the guys in front of her are muttering, that's a juice. It's a juice fall. And I think it is more prevalent than you like among young guys. That alarms me. I've been teaching the law students at Chapman University for 25 years and 30 years actually. I started teaching before I started doing the National Show. I started the National Show in 2000. I started teaching in 95. And I've never met a conservative who was in the United States in the classroom, not once. So I'm alarmed because UVA is high end. Those are smart kids. What do you think the University had to do about that?

40:00Well, I don't think it's the University's purviewed to, they're not teaching anti-stimetic content as far as I know. And they're not you know, they're not Columbia. They're left to center. I think this is being done by conservative right-wing influencers. I'm going to suggest that if I found it on Chapman University and I have not, I would urge everyone there to hold the rally or not the rally the event you did today. How many people spoke today? How many people came? And what was the coverage of it? I was a good crowd. We did the Museum of the Bible. A couple hundred people there. It was just a morning event or about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. but packed with great speakers. The three I mentioned Leo Ferrell, others, David Azarad. I don't know whether you're familiar with him. He's a little

41:02still a little more new right, new right than we are, but brilliant, based case is making the base case for Israel in a really compelling way. Well, the base case for Israel is that they're the most powerful ally we have in the world. It's a nuclear power and not afraid to project force. Got nothing to do with their being Jewish. Tell me Rich, when you do the editors next, will you be talking about this? Because I would love to hear more about this event. Yeah, we just recorded. We did not talk much about this. I mentioned it, but we're focused to first and foremost on Iran for understandable reasons. This is two, you know, it's a different one for Trump. Almost everything else he's done has been a one-off anti-ISIS campaign a little different, but still just an air campaign against the real force. This is much more difficult challenge and it's important that he prevail. And last question, Rich, I want more Republicans to talk in terms of winning a victory. Now, I don't know what victory looks like, whether the regime has to collapse or whether they just have to cry uncle or go del see. And then I want Cuba to fall. But I think they had to talk about winning and changing the world,

42:03because Trump is changing the world. Has anyone besides Cotton Debt Fisher did it on the show today? Anyone else talk about that? We got a minute. No, not as much as they should. I think Walter Russell made a good case in the general this morning that victory is basically, can you open the streets before moves, even when the regime is still hostile, showing that they don't have control of it? Or are they backing you off because you can't reopen it? I think that's a key indicator. Well said, as always, Rich Lowry, host of the editors podcast for National View Editor and Chief of National Review. And the host of the McCarthy Report, don't forget that, because it's always entertaining, except for the New York Facebook bias that is in evidence, and soon will be overwhelming like Kudzu, as the season gets close to beginning. Thank you, Rich. Don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back on the New York Show. Welcome back, America. Bethany Mandel is the co-founder of the Mom Wars, which you can find at the momwars.substact.com co-author of Stolen Youth.

43:06And it's better to be lucky than smart. In the last hour I played Senator Cotton and Senator Cruz talking about anti-Semitism among, quote, influencers on the right, then Rich Lowry in the last segment explained to me that National View had put on this great big show at the Museum of the Bible today about anti-Semitism on the so-called influencers of the right segment. And then Bethany Mandel shows up who was supposed to be on yesterday, but had to come on today, because of me, Bethany, you were there today. Tell us about it. I was there. That's why I'm wearing makeup and a dress. It all worked out for the best. It was a really incredible event. I was really impressed with NR for doing it. The Lieutenant Governor of Texas spoke and I'm forgetting his name because I was on court. Thank you. I was on the radio with Larry O'Connor this morning at 5 am. Sorry. A little rundown fumes this today. And he explained sort of the connection with Buckley standing

44:06a thwart history and saying stop when it came to anti-Semitism at his day. And it felt like that moment today with NR. It was really well timed. It was a beautiful event. And I thought everyone should go listen to Ted Cruz's entire speech. There was a couple funny parts in there that you're going to see a lot of clips, but it's really worth sitting down and spending the 15-20 minutes on listening the whole speech because it was incredible. And it was a really important pivotal moment, I think. Bethany, you and I were at the rally for Israel in the aftermath of 10-7, when hundreds of thousands of people from all over the United States went to the mall. And since that time, Israel's been taking a pounding online. But I never confused the online world with the real world. I don't believe it is a problem among elected Republicans. Anti-Semitism, do you? I don't think it's a problem among elected Republicans. I do think it's a problem among Republicans writ large, including the staff in a lot of these offices, including the interns at a lot of these offices. The kerfuffle that happened at Heritage didn't come out of nowhere.

45:08I think that, I mean, Cruz, I think it was Cruz said, you know, this is a problem in Hill offices with interns. You name it. This is not just an online problem. If you look at polling data about how young evangelicals feel about Israel, it's as bad as black liberals. You know, that is very disconcerting, but I would put this word out to the people who run internships on the Hill, like I have an intern here on the HUHL. And I always have. I've got probably, I mean, interns that we had Dwayne over the course of 25 years, 75. If someone came in here and was anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and certainly anti-Semitic, they would not be here for the next day. They'd be fired. And it would be with reason because it's irrational. And I can't have irrational people. Do you think that word is out? No, I mean, I think I don't think that there should be a litmus test for people being, you know, pro-Israel or whatever. But the problem for anti-Semitism, and a lot of people hide their anti-Semitism with, oh, I'm just an anti-Zionist,

46:09is that they're stupid. And a lot of people are stupid, especially as you go younger and younger. And a lot of them are uneducated, not just stupid, but also uneducated about the tenants of their faith. And so you see a lot of the tradbrows who proclaim that they're Catholic. This is Tucker Carlson's latest guest, the Carrie, the woman from the, sorry, like she's not a Catholic. Can we be as a Roman Catholic, no Catholic? She calls herself a Catholic, but then she doesn't know anything about John Paul II or Benedict, even Francis, who was bad on everything got this sort of right? She's brand new. She's brand new and she doesn't understand anything about Catholicism. My mother was Catholic. I probably understand more about Catholicism than she does. Right. But this is, this is the problem. These are people that walk around saying Christ is king, but don't understand anything that anything that you just spent 30 seconds talking about. It's all, it's all Chinese to them. And so this is a real problem of people just not understanding, what do we believe as conservatives? What do, what do they believe as Catholics? And that ignorance

47:13is manifesting in their anti-Semitism. And I will, I will add to this for my Catholic listener, Cardinal Coupich, if you're listening. I'm on live right now in Chicago. If you're listening, take it back. You don't know anything about Just War doctrine. I doubt you've ever studied it. You may have picked up Augustine Watson, put it right back down, but he's saying this is not a Just War. In fact, it's classic Augustinian Just War doctrine, but we got a Cardinal in Chicago, who's just like an old 70s liberal hippie, my age, and it didn't get it. They're ignorant. It really does upset me when people holding themselves out as authorities on church doctrine, don't even know church doctrine. And coming out of a Catholic family, you know what I'm talking about. In the speakers lineup today, you're at the Museum of the Bible by the way. Can we give a shout out to the MOB for hosting that? 100%. I am a paid member. This is not a plug that I'm not, I'm not an influencer for them. I'm a paid member because I wanted to go to their, their play of Joseph. And it was 15% off if you were a member. And so I finally bit the bullet

48:17and joined. We've been, I don't know, probably half a dozen times. It is spectacular. And speaking specifically to the Jews, it is even though it's built by evangelical Christians, I know the woman that helped supply all of the Jewish artifacts. She is amazing. She works with passages on Christian tours to Israel, but she's Jewish. Her name is Rifka. Amazing. I could not speak more highly of the Museum of the Bible. I can speak about the Greens because I know the Greens and both the Greens senior and the Greens junior who poured all their fortune into the MOB and their fabulous people. And they've had to return some artifacts whenever some artifacts have been determined to have been inappropriately acquired. And they do so willingly and joyously. But it's a great museum. It's near them all, but a lot of people won't find it. And then it'll be a little bit stunned because the Rembrandt Room over at the National Portrait Gallery is free. I mean the National Gallery of Art, you know, you know, and they're in set among the Rembrandts for free and didn't Da Vinci. MOB is not free, but you're saying if you live in the area, join as a member. 100%. They have great homeschool events too. That's another reason we joined. And they also,

49:21I'm, this is actually a road trip that I'm taking with my kids next year. They have the Ark encounter in Kentucky where they built a life size Noah's Ark and we are going to go next year. Good for you. Don't don't miss Dollywood. Let me go back to the war. How do your friends in Israel feel it's going? I think that they feel like it's going well. The exhaustion is on otherworldly. I was actually going to send you an Instagram video that one of my friends made of her making dinner. And she planned on making fajitas that way she could stop and start if she had to run to the into the shelter. Her kids have been home for 10 days straight and they don't want to go outside in case there's a siren and they have to run. It's exhausting. It's really, really deeply exhausting. Is she unoptimized that it will be over soon in terms of the sirens? I don't, I don't think anyone is honestly. And I also wanted to plug. I mentioned you on my Mom Wars podcast. I had Lahav Laharkov from Jewish Insider. And we talked about you. Uh-oh.

50:26Uh-oh. I have to go and listen. I hope it's a nice thing. But the Mom Wars dot sub back. She's a fine reporter. How long has she been doing this? Yes. She's fantastic. I'm probably 20 years. Yeah. She is a very, very fine reporter. And I turned to her as well as a meets the goal of ebredigur. You're going to have to send me your contact information so I can have her on. So Bethany last question. We got less than a minute. Do you think President Trump has been clear enough in deciding in telegraphing what victory looks like? I, I'm not super keen on criticizing him, but no, I don't. I feel like we've heard a lot of different answers about when this war is over and what that metric is. Um, I think that they've been achieved something really incredible with real minimal losses on, on the Americans part. And that being said, I, I wonder what the endgame is here. And I think he hasn't really clearly articulated that. It should be the incapacitation of the regime worth the lives of at least seven Americans, 120 wounded and dead Israelis and our Gulf Arab allies. Uh, the cost must be equal

51:30to the game and the game must be the incapacitation of the regime. Bethany Mandel can be followed on exit Bethany Shandart and you should and the mom wars dot sub back dot com. Stay tuned in there. You've heard me talk a lot about consumer cellular. How you can switch your carrier save money without the sacrifice? That's because consumer cellular uses the same towers as major carriers. Make the switch today and get $25 off at consumer cellular dot com slash you. If you're over 50, get one line of unlimited talk text and data for $35 plus an additional $5 per month off for the first five months when you visit consumer cellular dot com slash you use the promo code, Q 25 consumer cellular ranks number one for network coverage and consumer satisfaction according to ACSL. You'll be working with an actual human being when you switch base right here in the US. So get one line of unlimited talk text and data for only $35 per month plus an additional $5 dollars off per month for the first five months. Think of all the money you will save. Go to

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53:31will be transformed for a year. I hope you act. Text heal it H-E-W-I-T-T. That's heal it H-E-W-I-T-T to 51555. That's heal it to 5155 or visit hueheweth.com right now and click on the blue giving living water banner at the top to provide living water today. And thank you. What does President Trump mean? I'm calling on our telepath James Lilix as in James Lilix.substac.com to to a bit of translation for the Crescan style for those of us old enough to remember cursing. What does he mean, James? Last night the war is almost over. Then last night we got a long way to go and then this morning Pete Exx has a week said what's going on here? Hi. Bad messaging. It's just not consistent messaging. When he says the war is almost over, I don't know exactly what he means because there still is the government in place and the bad guys.

54:36So then you know I'll trust Exxx to say we got a long way to go because that prepares people for the inevitable and prepares people for long sustained campaigns. I mean do you think they've been hammering them now day and night for how long and how much can they have left? Well they, you know, plenty. It's a matter of launchers. I do not read today that they just nailed a launcher and it seemed to be an odd thing to note and hawk because we were told that a lot of the launchers were put out of business early on. I mean so consistent messaging would be better but I'm less concerned about that than more concerned about the efficacy of the entire operation. Aren't you? I'm with you on that. Now what I would really love to see is the Republicans put their arms around winning. How have they done that? Yes. Yeah. No. I don't think so. I don't. I haven't gotten a full-throated push back to what the Democrats are saying. I didn't enjoy Bill Marr pointing out to Campbell who was. Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff. Right. Align about the statements

55:37of the war powers and all the rest of it and Schiff said it was just totally vague, totally vague. Then it turns out it's what Obama said. We all know that the presidents claim these powers for themselves and the war powers is dodgy in the rest of it. But yes, I would like to see a full-throated push back because I don't think the anti-war message is getting traction at this point. I think the only people who are really spun up about it are the ones who've been lined to be spun up about it anyway. But yes, better messaging would be great. But again, you know, messaging is one thing of the actual operation is the other. Yeah, and let's put the war to one side because now that you know or I our experts on what's going on, but I think we know how to communicate. The Republicans speak for yourself. Say, I know, I know. I know. We're actually, we played risk. Now I really do think Republicans are going to get stuck with the war whether or not they wanted the war, so they should put their arms around the war and say we want Iran to be free and it would be a good thing. It would be a great thing for the world if Iran was free. How hard is it to say that?

56:42It isn't, but it's not just it would be a great thing. It will be a great thing. That's the thing. Not say, well, you know, in some ideal world we'd like Iran to be free. No, it will be free to go forward to the positive messages to what this is all about. But again, how many times have we've been told that we don't want forever wars and what nation building and all the rest of it? It's hard to talk about the end point of this, which is Iran welcomed back into the international community without sounding as if you're nation building without sounding as if it's the same regime change thing that we've heard before. And unfortunately in this part, it's true. We do want regime change. We may have to do some nation building in the sense that, you know, a range of, I think Trump said, not a shot. No, it hasn't been there. It's got to be somebody from the inside. I mean, that indicates the sort of thinking and strategy about what happens after we hope the Mueller regime collapses. But yes, get around it, embrace it as a thing that America does and shows two things. One, the power of the American military and two, the fact that we can be a force for good in this country, which according to a survey of the last week, something like 84

57:44percent of Republicans believe that the U.S. is a force for good as other like, I don't know, it's like 36 percent of Democrats believe this. So make that out there, put that out there. People are, you know, amazed by what they've seen, but eventually they get tired of aerial footage of Tom Oax going into windows and want something more behind this. We want the people back out in the streets not getting killed this time. Now, I want to go to next week. I want to anticipate a week from now. Cuba is out of everything. They're more out and of everything than I am after the wife's been gone for two weeks. I got nothing in your in the house if there's, because I don't shop. Cubans can't shop. There's nothing there. So we're going to get demands made on America to feed Cuba. I think we will feed Cuba, but I don't think we out of fuel Cuba. What do you think? Well, are you saying that Mexico hasn't been supplying you with food when your wife goes up for a fortnight? No, it's a risk. I think Mexico, I think Mexican supplies to Cuba have been curtailed. And what I've heard, there are intimations that the U.S. administration will help

58:48Cuba through this difficult patch, which is interesting, because instead of trying to make it brittle and crack and fall, and then you have chaos, it's their tempting to manage a leveraged bio to ease them. Yes. Should we do should we do that? I think we should because if it's all contingent when the end of the cast for a regime and the downfall of communism, because then we will show three different ways in which the new doctrine works. One, the guys go in in the middle of the night with supersonic special weapons and turn everybody into jelly and take the head of state and put them into the country, Venezuela. Two, overwhelming show for Shachanah and Iran. And three, let's all sit down at the table and talk about how you're going to be out of power in a month or so. So yeah, I mean, those are three different approaches to instability and troubles the regimes, but yeah, the time in the U.S. as named Diaz Canal or Canal Diaz, I can't remember. He's just another, he's not named Castro, but there's still a role of still alive. I don't know if he's

59:48right competent. Do we, do we need to escort him off the island along with maybe 30,000 of their ultra security people to whomever will take them? Yes, I would like to do it in two ways. One, a question about the fuel. I don't know if we give them fuel, but for me, a food is a good thing to do. But when it comes to getting them off, I would not put them on a 747 and ship them over here. I would actually just make sure that they got to the coast of Cuba and were required to leave by rickety boats. That would be, that would be poetic justice. What's more, not just rickety boats are 57 mercury, they've somehow managed to float, but know that they will be met on the other side in Florida by the friends and the families of everybody who was dispossessed by the Castro regime. Ideally, that's what I'd like to see happen. No, the three countries. Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. You know, Ukrainian, you know, the big, we have one minute. Which country will recover quickest if it's freed? Hey, interesting. I think I want to say Ukraine because they've got a lot

1:00:51of stuff that people want, which surprises people. It's like what do they got just green? They know that they got lots of stuff. They have neon, they have rare earths in the rest of it. And Ukraine is a smart, capable place that I think could bounce back. And they've been free, for a while. Venezuela has been, like Cuba, has been, there's been slumping into the bourbon, burden of bad governments for a long time, so it may take a while to shake that out of the system. Iran, who knows? That's the big question, isn't it? And we're going to find out. I think it's going to be Cuba only because of the proximity to and the incredible energy. And well, made and accumulated in the United States going back in the Cuba big time, but we'll see. And we'll check in with Lilix. Otherwise, don't trust him next week. Follow him at changelilix.substx.com. The hedge fund guys, Goldman partners and private equity sharks are locked and loaded. They got in early, before you even knew the game had started. SpaceX, Bloomberg is going at the biggest IPO of all time. Now I'm sharing an access code that could let you grab a pre-IPO stake before Elon makes the announcement. The door is open, but not for long. Go to earlybirdipo.com

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