POTUS at World Cup final, Andy Burnham becomes 7th prime minister in a decade

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And when we discuss this, I'm going to ask them what they think is the future of Iran if we are able to. facilitate some sort of a regime change. And I'm not necessarily talking about American boots on the ground and Americans going in there and dismantling physically what is left of the Iranian regime, which may be necessary. It may be the right move. I'm open-minded at this point. But I want to know what takes its place. I want to know what's coming next. And I want to know if they're convinced the Iranian people are ready to step up. And if so, what's the process to getting them in a place where they can actually do that? I feel very, very skeptical, though there'll be some sort of an organized groundswell of grassroots effort by the Iranian people to come in and establish some sort of a legitimate government. I think it's going to be hard to do, but I would love to see it, and I would love to chart a path. But so long as Iran is playing games with the Strait of Ormuz, it needs to be open for commerce. It just needs to. That is one of the absolute standards that President Trump must have in order to see this as a victory. It cannot just be that they do not get nuclear weapons, which of course is fantastic. We need to have that as a goal. That is a shared goal. And if you do not have that goal, you and I just have completely different priorities with how you want to spend your time with your life and what you think the purpose of the American government and military is for. I think denuclearizing Iran is essential the number one priority of any sort of administration that wants to keep its people safe. So. all good on that front. But then what do we do to make sure that straight stays open? And that will be a question that I'll have for Senator Cotton. I'm also going to ask about the filibuster, see if there's hope there. And this is another one where I'm curious from Hughes audience in particular. Aloha to Alex Marlow.com. If you got a response to this, I'm sure all of you watched the Trump speech or at least caught clips of Trump speech where he laid out election interference claims, particularly that a lot of America's election data was compromised. by the Chinese and they got access to all sorts of information. But he stopped far short of suggesting that the election was rigged by China or some other foreign entity. He just did something that I think was fairly clever, which is he established flat out that our data is vulnerable and that our elections are vulnerable. And there's a certain level of cheating that takes place. And once you accept there's a certain level of cheating that takes place, it's incumbent upon us as people who want to preserve our democracy, which is, of course, really a... constitutional federalist republic, but who want to preserve our democracy. It's imperative upon us that we do our best to make sure that every opportunity to cheat is eradicated. And you saw the hysterical response from so many people in the Democrat side of the aisle suggesting that this is. Too far revealed. This is impeachable. 25th Amendment. Trump has gone crazy. These are all lies. Even the great CBS news, which we were concerned, might be becoming right wing. Even they got a bunch of stuff wrong if they covered it at all. Fox was reluctant to cover a lot of this stuff. And I think this revealed something that's very important here, which is that the president.

I think is drawing people out to see who is actually serious about election integrity. And one thing that I'm curious about is that people who have a more religious... attachment to the filibuster in the Senate, then making sure that we get the Save America act through and people have to bring ID to the polls. And it's a really tough question for a lot of Republicans, Republicans who grew up thinking that the filibuster was a, is something that needed to be cherished, need to be coddled, we need to treat it like a wounded dove and just nurse it back to health. The filibuster is so vital and delicate that we need to protect it at all costs. And then you're confronted with this thing that, well, if we do that, If we choose the filibuster, then we're choosing it over getting a photo ID and national citizenship verification in order to vote in our federal elections. And so for me, from my vantage point, I live in Los Angeles. And in California, we get about 10% of the ballots that are sent out. And we proactively have vote by mail for everyone. Why is that? Why would California have vote by mail pretty much as the default setting instead of having an election day? Obviously, we know the answer. So there's cheating. So that's why we do it. And as many as 10% people estimate of the ballots that are sent out proactively to Californians. are to people who are ineligible to vote. We proactively send out ballots to people who are ineligible to vote. I'll tell you, there's a great shout to Hugh, because I've been listening to Hugh for over 20 years. He was the first guy who said the vote-by-mail reality is here, and Republicans need to win at it. And you need to make sure you vote. Vote by mail. You vote early. You make sure your ballot gets in. So then you don't have to go about weather. You don't have to worry about your kid getting a cut on his eyebrow and has to go to the ER, get some stitches. You get your vote in. He was with the first guys to do that. We have to figure out how to win elections or else all the great ideology that we bring about. None of it's going to make a difference. And so that is a big question. I'm going to ask that to some of the guys later on in the show. We'll also get into some politics. It looks like what's happening in Maine with the just delicious grand platinum race, which I don't know of all of you got to catch clips from the debate featuring the great Ashley. I think your last name was Webb, who is a man who looks like Meatloaf, the rock star, maybe even a linebacker, and impersonates a woman. And actually said, and this is a earmuffs, we've got children in the car. This is a person who actually is a male but claim to menstruate out of his rectum. This is not a joke. This is exactly what was said by Axi Webb, one of the Democrat candidates, who is running in Maine to replace Graham Platner. It looks like Mr. Webb.

who acts like a woman will not make it across the finish line. And someone named Troy Jackson has unofficially locked up the campaign. This is very Kamala Harris-esque. It's very much the Democrat establishment has consolidated around one person. He's a longtime Democrat. He's someone who's been in the state Senate there and is familiar to Mainers who are dialed in in Democrat politics, but does not seem to have a ton in particular to offer. He is framing it as working people of Maine. A lot of people are framing This is from our revolution. Working people of Maine took the nomination in their own hands, a grassroots movement of first-time delegates packed all 16 county meetings. So basically, this is a community organizing effort to try to get a guy that was grassroots, but is really being propped up. And this is trying to eliminate more of the perception that Democrats are in disarray. They are going through a civil war right now. I will have clips to support that. They have a lot of tests to try to rein in their party from insanity, which is what we're witnessing. And this guy, Troy Jackson, apparently has some very suspect mortgage issues that are going to come up on the campaign trail. So maybe the fact of the matter is, maybe Graham Platner with his Nazi tattoo and his level of oysters maybe was their best candidate. Amazing stuff. Alex Marlow, I'm in for Hugh Hewitt.

I'm really pleased to be joined by Dr. Michael Oren right now, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and the president of the Israel Advocacy. Group. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining me on the Hugh Hewitt Show today. I want to start with the Iran War, and I want to look at what a victory could actually look like for the United States. I was someone who was optimistic that perhaps the president was able to come up with something with his memorandum of understanding. And I do think that those, like my colleague, Hugh, their takes are aging pretty well, that it was always sort of impossible to come up with an MOU with a country like Iran. Those takes are aging well. But we do want to win this thing, and we want it to end eventually. What does that look like from your vantage point? Are you winning it? You achieve the five goals, Alex, that the United States and Israel set out at the beginning of this war, which was ending Iran's nuclear program, shipping abroad, the nuclear stockpile of highly enriched uranium, ending Iran's intercontinental ballistic program, ending Iranian support for terror around the Middle East and across the globe. And then as the war progressed, really additional demand was an end to Iranian attempts to control or even block shipping of energy cargoes through the Strait of Hermuz. That's it. That's what winning looks like. Anything short of that, maybe partial victory. For example, having Iran give up its nuclear program. I don't think Iran's going to do that. It's not going to go quietly into that dark night. That would certainly be a constitutive victory for the United States. The victory for Israel would involve also cutting off Iran's support for Hamas and Hezbollah, which are threatening us on our borders or the hooty rebels in Yemen who are once again closing off their strategic waterway through the Red Sea and also firing missiles at us at various intramils. So there's a big laundry list of goals that have to be achieved in order to the United States to surely, you know, convincingly declare victory. One of the things that has happened that's been a disappointment, though, in retrospect, should not have been unexpected, is that Iran was not going to go quietly. And I feel like there's two components to this. There's the one that we could see coming, which is that they're ideologically deeply committed to the destruction of the U.S. and Israel, and they're not going to take a loss easily. That's one that we saw. But the thing that was kind of new was understanding how, with very little effort, they'll they're able to muddy up the straight to make it that commerce can't go through there. And they are people who pay close attention to American media. And they see the way any sort of disruption in the straight is portrayed as a negative for President Trump. So what do we do to keep the straight moving? Because that's the main thing here that's fresh and new that I think people are just considering for the first time recently. I think the United States is doing exactly what it's doing tonight. And one is to degrade Iran's military ability to interfere with shipping through the strait, certainly, to keep up pressure, military pressure on Iran by striking strategically important targets in Iran itself, and most importantly, maintaining that naval blockade. That naval blockade is costing Iran 10 and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a day. Eventually, eventually the Iranian regime will run out of money, wouldn't even be able to pay the salary of its besieged thugs or...

the IRGC soldiers. And it will come back to negotiating table. They're making intimations tonight, Alex, if they're willing to come back to the negotiating table. And I understand them because they're backs up against the wall. They can declare victory all they want. But when people don't have food, when they don't have electricity, that's when the Iranian regime gets really, really sweaty around the collar. So one of the things that I think is tempting for people who think that... a massive regime change is not going to take place, is that it doesn't seem like there's necessarily an organized resistance to Iran amongst the people. We know that there are many wonderful Iranian people who would like to see the regime toppled, but it is a big process to get them armed and have the willpower to overthrow a regime. What does a regime change potentially look like in Iran? Because I know that's all of our hope. I think some of us would be willing to put boots in the ground to do it. Others would not. There's a lot of political implications because we are in a democratic system here in the United States. But do you feel like there is a organized resistance in Iran that could potentially step up and take the place of the mullahs? Well, there may be organized resistances in Iran. Certainly the Kurds are an organized resistance. We've seen, we've known about terrorist attacks, about attacks, not terrorist attacks, that have been affected against members of the RGC who have been assassinated. Who's doing this? Nobody knows just yet. But it is difficult because you have a regime. that has proven its willingness and ability within a matter of hours to kill 30,000 civilians. It's quite extraordinary when you think about it, within hours. And people are, I think, quite justifiably afraid. And if they feel that the United States is not four square behind them, that the United States is going to at some point basically cry uncle and come back to a negotiating table, then they think it's too risky. They're not going to risk their lives or the lives of their children to go out into the street. I cannot rule out the possibility, Alex, that the regime is going to die of its wounds. It has sustained very serious, potentially mortal wounds in this war. And it may take a month. It may take a year or two. But the regime may fall as a result of the damage it has sustained in this campaign. Yeah, and I feel like I've read many smart people suggest it could be a two-year process. And that's something that will take a lot of political willpower. I think President Trump has proven that he's willing to go against the grain in this regard. And even if he feels like it's an unpopular war, if he feels like it's justified, I think he would stay the course. But that's a long battle in terms of PR. So what is your hope for the Trump administration? What do you believe is the best policy going forward? Well, to reiterate, I think the best policy is the one they're pursuing right now.

Many other senators are opposed to it as well from the states you would expect, frankly, in both parties. This is one of those issues that is more of a regional issue than it is a partisan issue. I'm totally on the same page with you on that, and maybe I'll share some of my personal thoughts with the audience after you're off the air with me, Senator. But what happens to the bill now? What do you think is the future of it? Because you not share the same rationale, but what about it getting through? I don't expect it to pass the dissentment, Alex. And again, I think this is one of those issues that seems... attractive at first glance, and sometimes a House acts at first glance. And with a sober second thought and considering all the implications, as happened to the entire country in 1974, you realize that what appealed at first glance is not that appealing on second thought. So I don't expect it to pass the Senate. All right. I want to move to the Iran War. You've said that the Trump is right to unleash hell on the killers. And I think we're all... in agreement on that that Iran is very bad. But the path forward seems kind of bleak. It seems like maybe the best path forward could take years, perhaps, to execute. Give me your perspective on the state of the war itself at the moment, and what are the various avenues that could be pursued? Well, Alex, I don't think we're looking at years. It has taken longer than was initially hoped in March. That's in part because... We had pause in April, and we had a ceasefire that lasted for about three months. You know, the intensive negotiations happened over the... Last couple weeks of June, first week of July, after the vice president and Jared Kushner and Stephen Whitcock had negotiated the memorandum of understanding. But Iran obviously blew that up. They blew it up while trying to blow up ships in the straight of her moves and attacking our troops throughout the region, indicating, as the president said that they have no interest in even a short-term interim deal, much less a comprehensive deal, denuclearize as well. So I think we should probably go back to where we were in early April when the first ceasefire started. and just allow our Central Command Forces to finish their operational plans. At the time they were forecasting three or four more weeks to lay waste to the rest of Iran's military and to knock the Revolutionary Guard Corps back even further. And at that point, I think we keep the blockade in place that deprives Iran of almost a half billion dollars a day. And we say that the strait is going to be open under our supervision. And really, we were doing that a lot in May and June. It just wasn't widely known or announced until the president made it known last month. We were getting several million barrels of oil out to the southern Omani side of the strait each night. We can keep doing that.

Iran has the ability to harass shipping, but not to stop shipping. I think those are the steps forward, Alex, and I think that would be good for our national security. It would be good for Americans, so they're not paying a lot for gas or diesel at the pump. And it would give a chance of things to kind of simmer inside of Iran. Because one thing we know is that this regime is probably unpopular. Millions of people took the streets in January, and now with the death of the Supreme Leader at the start of this, campaign. The regime doesn't even have a thin veneer or a religious authority either. So I think we should... finish our operational plans, keep the blockade in place, keep the straight open, and then kind of let things play out over the next two and a half years. Do you've hoped that the Iranian people will be able to step up and replace the Mullahs at some point? Because it's another one from my perspective where I'm trying to find some sort of a middle ground. It just seems it's so hard with the Iranians to find any sort of a middle ground. But I'm not optimistic that there is a robust movement to replace the Mullahs once we achieve victory here. Well, Alex, these things often seem impossible and can quickly become inevitable. Now, I'm not predicting or forecasting that, but I will tell you, I will tell you a story, and this is not from the annals history, this is less than two years ago. When we left town for Thanksgiving in 2024, we had no idea that when we got back after Thanksgiving, Bashar al-Assad would be sitting in a luxury condo in Moscow. And that's not even to fault our intelligence agencies for failing to see what would happen over the span of 10 days. Just saying sometimes the things are very hard. And these organic movements can spring up, and it's very hard to detect them. You saw that at the end of the Cold War as well. So, again, I'm not predicting or forecasting it. I'm just saying that it's happened enough throughout history to include recent history, but I don't think we can rule it else when a government is as unpopular as a rugs is with its own people. And those people are struggling as badly. as the Iranian people are because of the gross mismanagement, greed, and corruption of Iran's rulers over the last 47 years. Senator, the president gave a speech from the White House last week, and it was really a challenge to the Senate. It was basically choose between standing by the filibuster the way it is now or passing the Save America Act, which I believe would take great strides towards protecting American election in integrity. Give me your perspective on the filibuster and why it seems like you as well as your colleagues are... pre-inclined to keep it in place versus getting the Save America act through. And give me some nuance and some detail on your thinking on this, please. Yeah, so Alex, on the filibuster, the reality of it is that we just, we don't have the votes to eliminate it. We're not going to have the votes to eliminate it. You know, I've got to work with the reality of the matter. And there's nothing we can do to make senators vote a certain way. And I don't think most of.

The audience would want their senators to be made to vote in ways that didn't represent their states. And we do have a lot of senators who come from states that do rely on mail-in balloting. Arkansas doesn't. I don't think we should. I don't like it. But a lot of Republicans do represent states that have mail-in-balloting, and their Republican parties have worked that process hard. In some cases, their campaigns have worked it hard as well. I do think we would have a majority and perhaps a filibuster-proof majority to pass a voter ID law. And I think that would also go a long way towards solving some of the problems with mel-in-balloting. So, for instance, in Arkansas, if you... If you want to vote as an excused absentee ballot, you also have to include a photocopy of your photo identification. So I think that's one thing that we could pursue, and I hope we do. The alternative route is doing what Speaker Johnson is doing this week. Hopefully he can pass back. Senator, unfortunately, I've got to leave it there. I've managed the clock poorly, but I apologize. And I thank you for being here. Thank you, Senator Cotton. We'll be right back. My friends, you've probably seen the headlines are worse. Your latest bill. Big wireless is raising rates again. That means you could be paying more for the same service. or getting pushed into a price here plan you simply do not need. That's not right. You can switch to consumer cellular right now and save an additional $50 when you go to consumer cellular.com slash hue and use the promo code Hugh 50. And if you happen to be over the age of 50, listen to this. You can get a single line with unlimited talk, text, and data for just $355 a month. Remember, their numbers, $800, 411, 4454. 800 411 4454, 800 411 44. Consumer cellular ranks number one for network coverage and for customer satisfaction according to ACSI. And when you switch, you'll talk to an actual human being based right here in the United States. No long-term contracts, no hidden fees. You can keep your phone or choose a new one. Get an additional $50 off when you switch today using promo code Hugh 50. And do not forget if you are over 50. You get a single line, unlimited, talk, text, and data for $35 a month. Visit consumercellular.com slash hue and use promo code Hugh 50 or call 1-800-41144 and use promo code Hugh 50. The images coming out of Venezuela are heartbreaking. Powerful earthquakes have left entire community in rubble. Families are already struggling. Suddenly lost their homes, apartments, even access to clean water, the necessities needed to survive. Right now, children are sleeping in makeshift shelters. Parents are searching for food, clean water, basic safety for their family. That's why food for the poor is responding immediately, working through trusted local partners already serving these communities. They're providing emergency food, drinking water, hygiene supplies, other life-saving assistance. Relief can't wait. Every hour matters. The people of Venezuela need our prayers, and they also need our help. From your mobile phone, text Hewitt, H-U-I-T-T, to 5-1-555. Again, text Hewitt, H-E-W-I-T-T to 5155. If you send a text, you'll receive a reply with a secure link where you can make your emergency gift to help the people who have been as a whale. Together, we can be the hands and feet of Christ, bring hope, relief, God's love to families who have lost so much. I'm Hughitt, and I thank you. Every generation must decide whether it will recognize deceit before it becomes normal.

This weekend, Salem News Channel's America 250 film series presents The Fall of Deceit, a sobering documentary on government overreach, faith under pressure, and the cost of abandoning truth. Watch Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern on Salem News Channel. Our London editor at Breitbart News, Oliver Lane, does some of the best reporting in all of Europe in my view. And I'm somewhat biased, but he does a terrific job. And Oliver, you're the perfect guy to talk to about Andy Burnham. Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Why does he look like that? Maybe we'll focus on that later. And why is he taking drive-by? So Margaret Thatcher, he's been the job for four minutes and not having been elected. All of that to come in the next couple of segments here. But let's start with who is this person. Yeah, Andy Burnham, a former government minister back in the Tony Blair Gordon Brown era. That's really reaching back. He had 10 years out to Westminster politics, went to be the mayor of Manchester, some call it Britain's second city. It's certainly in the running for that. And that, in a way, as far as the Labour Party is concerned, makes him the perfect person to take over, as he has done today. Because, of course... So many people in labour are tainted with failure, a tainted with association with the past two years, the Keir Starmer years. They haven't been great for the party. So to get somebody with some governing experience from what they think of probably as happier early days, the Blair Brown years, not very happy for the rest of us, but I think Labour people look upon it well. So as I say, who has that governing experience from back then, but has been out of the milieu for a while. I'm sure to them, to the leading people in Labour, he is the perfect guy. And they've certainly treated it that way. As you say, no national election, no party. party platform, no pitches to the public. This was a bloodless coup. This was a coronation. And now he's our prime minister. So let's talk about the fact that he's unelected, which means his platform has not been tested. I want to get into the attributes of the platform of Nigel Farage, who is wading in the wings, licking his chops, for lack of a better expression, immediately pounced on that. Yeah, absolutely. And rightly so. And you say... His platform hasn't been tested. We don't know what that is. The fact is, if you take a look at what the legacy media is saying, let's... Let's be honest, this guy is a legacy political character. Maybe it's worth listening to what the legacy media have to say. And one of the takeaways is that he changes his mind a lot. He's not been a solid guy on any wing of the Labour Party for the past 20, 30 years, however long it's been. So we're kind of getting an unknown entity, like who's been whispering in his ear recently, where is his head at? He gave a speech today on the steps of Downing Street as a tradition, and he laid out...

a bunch of stuff. And it was broad strokes. There wasn't a lot of detail. There was certainly no detail on how these polities are going to get paid for. But it's kind of like Labor best hit stuff. I'm not seeing a lot of really astonishing new ideas. But as you say, he's kind of playing this Back to the Future retro playbook. He wants to make this all about this David and Goliath's struggle against the ghost of Thatcherism. And of course, you know, God bless her immortal memory. Baroness Thatcher has been dead for... for these 10 years, 15 years or more. She's been out of power for 35 years. And still, that's what he's making, his leadership all about. Quite extraordinary. And this is direct, and I alluded to this. He calls out Thatcher in the opening speech. What do you say? And also, what's the logic here? Because of the problems facing the UK right now, absolutely zero of them have to do with Margaret Thatcher? Well, it's an interesting one. So you're widely doing this. I think it plays very well for him with traditional Labour heartlands that Labour, let's be honest, have been doing really badly with in the past few years, and Nigel Farage has been doing very well there. And I think it's also worth considering that until relatively recently, it's probably fair to say that Nigel Farage himself was like the last living true proponent of Thatcherism. So it's easy, I think, an easy message for Burnham to take. these northern post-working class, if you want to put it that way, seats and say, Fatcher was the devil, she still is the devil, Nigel Farage wants to bring that devil back, and I'm going to stop him. The problem is this is really totally unreasonable. As I say, Fatryism is long gone. This is no longer a factor in British politics. And Nigel Farage himself, as I say, like the last night riding to that banner told Breitbart News years ago now that he considers it. The answers for the past. The issues that Thatcherism dealt with, that was a problem for the 1970s. She dealt with that in the 80s. And the actual problems facing normal people in Britain now, it's not about capitalism versus socialism. It's about the people versus corporatism. Big business. And I think he's absolutely right to do that. So I think... If we talk about where politics in Britain goes now, let's say over the next five years, next two and a half years to the next general election, I think there's going to be an almost a propaganda battle between Nigel Farage and Andy Burnham for who is going to seem the most legitimate, the most real, the most down to earth with those, as I say, post-working class voters in post-industrial towns to say, you know, we... can re-industrialize, we can bring these areas back, we can take back control. And these opening moves today that you've alluded to with these like kind of weird out-of-time references to Thatcher, that's Burnham building that up. So, Oliver, when we come back from the break, what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to have you get into me, get into with me what President Trump said to the incoming prime minister. I think he wants them to maybe drill baby drill, perhaps. I'm going to get a sense of, is there a path for Nigel Farage to become the next prime minister? And whether or not this guy's going to be rehabilitating the left with a bunch of NGO funding, all that to come on the Hsuited show with me, Alex Marlow.

Back to business on the Hugh Hewitt show. Alex Marlowe here, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News and host of the Alex Marlowe show. Usually wherever you hear, Hugh, just about all the same stations, almost a exact overlap in the Venn diagrams. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks to Hugh, as always, for allowing me into the captain's chair. London Bureau Chief for Brightport News. Oliver Lane is with me for another segment. And Oliver, I want to get into what we know about Andy Burnham, the new prime minister. And first of all, his platform, I'm just going to do some spoilers here. Didn't look like he's talking about immigration at all, maybe the number one problem facing the UK right now. Their energy crisis that they're in seems like he's a guy who's reliant on wind, focus on net zero. He wants to deal with homelessness. Okay, great, but what's the plan? Get into what we know about his agenda thus far. Yeah, I have to emphasise we know so little, but you have picked up on basically the best places to start. You've started with immigration, the mass migration problem that the UK faces. Just like so many European countries, I was crunching some figures earlier today, getting preparation for this. And I find it incredible that the population of the United Kingdom has increased by something like 10 million since the 1980s. But the white British population of the United Kingdom is actually less now than it was in 1981. Now, the important thing about that is it shows a degree to which mass migration is driving population growth, and what does that drive? It drives property prices, because, of course, there's a finite number of houses in this country. We aren't building very money, and with more and more people. people, there's more and more demand. And that goes the same. Nigel Farage talks about this all the time. Demand on roads, schools, hospitals, every single conceivable public service. It is under greater strain. There's higher costs. And this is driving a part of our cost of living crisis, is what we call it over here. So this is a very important subject matter. And all that rolls into is how important is to British people. If you look at the polling, you know. People being asked this country, like twice a week, what are the most important political areas to you? Migration is number one, number two, number three, every month going back for 15 years. This is no small thing. And did Andy Burnham talk about it today? No, not a word. Reform UK have picked up on that right to do so. Some interesting developments there, though. I mean, this is happening as we're talking now, and we're going to get more on this through the night. Burnham is now selecting his cabinet ministers, those people who are going to hold those office. within the government. And he's chosen as Home Secretary. And guess what? It's the same one as the last government. So he's keeping Keir Starmer's Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. And that is a signal. Because Shabana Mahmood, within Labor, and I have to clarify, this is as far as left-wing people are concerned. She's a migration hardliner. To you and me, it's a laughable thought to think of her as a migration hardliner. But as far as the left-wing government goes, she's possibly the most hardline. interior minister, home secretary we could possibly hope for. So there's something there. There's at least a hope. So there's already talk about dealing with homelessness, which again, we all want to deal with homelessness. But this ends up being at least in my neck of the woods out in Los Angeles, California. Whenever we talk homelessness, we end up talking a bunch of money going out the door from taxpayers to left-wing NGOs with zero results and zero accountability. What's your expectation here?

Yeah, this is such a difficult topic to talk about because, you know, we want homelessness to be solved. We want there to be answers to this. And it seems like there are only two answers and neither of them are actually very good. And you and I were talking about this earlier. There's the Paris Olympics approach where you send in the police and put homeless people on the backs of lorries and move them to camps outside the city. I don't like the sound of that very much. That seems a bit authoritarian. And then there's the left wing, throw money at the problem, you know, feed those NGOs, make them more powerful and richer. seem to fix anything but I guess it makes you feel better about yourself so it's interesting that Andy Burnham again no party policy platform no manifesto surprises us almost with when he stands before Downing Street the executive mansion if you can call it that this afternoon he says the first thing I do when I walk in that door is I'm going to fix homelessness like he can click his finger and make it go away we're not aware he has any policy for that so How's he going to make it work? Yeah, but it's good campaigning. It's just announcing platitudes. It's always worked for liberal people. Okay, so the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, he has a couple things on his mind that we know about. He wants the UK to ramp up defense spending, and he wants them to work on their energy crisis and to stop focusing on wind and net zero and start getting some of the rich energy resources underneath their feet, which they do not tap, get that going because that does, again, it does one of those things where if there is more abundant flow. of energy around the world. It helps American energy prices, which is on his mind for obvious reasons. Do you see any potential for that for more defense spending and more tapping of natural resources? It's amazing that's like basic economics 101 increase the supply and the price of the demand will fall. Look, I learned economics at Berkeley and they still managed to teach that. They're one of the ones where even though it's at Berkeley. Even at Berkeley. So this is something that President Trump has been hitting the UK with for a long time because it's so incredibly obvious. He is so very obviously right. But British government after British government has been incredibly resilient to it. Now, I'm just going to mention here that there was a call between the new Prime Minister of Burnham and President Trump this afternoon. First telephone call that Burnham made in office, so that's always a good sign. And he has said that he wants to support the transatlantic relationship and the usual platitudes. So that's good. Out of the door, it doesn't seem like a total leftist nutcase. So we don't know what was talked about in that. We haven't had the readouts yet. But as you allude to, there have been other messages going to and from between Washington and London. Over the weekend, we had this. I think pretty extraordinary intervention from President Trump. We're right there just before Burnham gets his foot in the door to say, by the way, and there's that word again, you have a cost of living crisis. And part of that's not just mass migration. Part of it is energy is really, really expensive in the United Kingdom. We have some of the most expensive energy on earth. And we have, as you say, Alex, all of this wonderful gas and oil underneath our feet. My goodness, we even have coal. We can frack if we wanted to. And the problem is the government we've had under secure Keir Starmer hitherto to this point has been absolutely dedicated to net zero, this idea that we should decarbonize, we should leave it all under our feet. This leaves us in this weird paradoxical situation where we're having this like...

transition allegedly between carbon fuel and green energy, you know, solar panels and wind turbines, that sort of thing. And we're not drilling for what's under our feet, but we are importing it from Norway, our next door neighbours, who get it from exactly the same place that we would underneath the North Sea. It's completely mad. Donald Trump can see the insanity and he's been saying very clearly, stop being so stupid. Just drill. Oliver, I got 45 seconds. What is the path forward for Nigel Farage? Hopefully the next prime minister, how do we pull it off? This is the moment of maximum danger, because I think British people in general, even people who aren't that into politics, are very fair-minded. And I think... We'll have what we had with Sarkir Keir Starmer, a terrible Prime Minister, let's be clear. But he had a little bump in the polls after he became PM. I think people said to him, we want to give you a go. I think they're going to do it the same now to Burnham, even if they don't know who he is. If he calls a snap election, it could be a dicey moment for Nigel Farage. He would otherwise be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Last word from me, he looks like he is out of central casting for a British Prime Minister. That's one of Trump's lines he likes to use. And central casting, I learned is a real thing. Alverland, Amazing Soft, read everything he writes at Brightbart, London. I'm Alex Marlowe, and we'll be right back. In a world that screams for your attention, there is a place that invites you to peace. You don't need a building. You don't need a choir. You just need to turn your heart to Air One. Air One. Songs that heal. Lyrics that pray for you when you don't have the words. From Lauren Daigle to elevation worship and more. This isn't just radio. It's worship for the everyday. Escape the noise and worship now. Download the Air One app. Ask your smart speaker to play Air One or visit Air One.com. Air One. Worship. Now.