The Big Weekend Pod

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Doesn't the FDA have a role in this? I mean, or is it like dope? Dope is illegal on the federal controlled substances, but every state that wants to legalize it. Is that where we're headed? I think that's the latter. Yes, I do. And I think that's where we're headed. I think because so much work is being done that points to breakthrough therapies and breakthrough pharmaceutical. breakthroughs. You know, the demand for it is simply going to overwhelm opposition to it. And states like Montana, which are notoriously libertarian, can make a good deal of tax money out of it. So we'll see. But I think it's like gambling. You know, gambling started small and it's now it's everywhere. The libertarian streak in America is deep. Let's move to point number two about Democratic voters and whether they're likely to vote for the person who can be Trump or the mainstream Republican or whether they're going to go left. What's your data show you? Well, in 2019, Gallup took a poll, and they said, for whom will you vote in the Democratic primaries in 2020? Somebody whose views align with yours or somebody who can beat Trump. And the result was two to one beat Trump. And thus, Joe Biden was the nominee, even though, you know, he had been defeated in primary and caucus in the early going. This time, the Washington Post and AP, excuse me, the Washington Post and Ipsos have taken a poll, and they've asked, are you open to voting for a Democratic socialist candidate for president in 2008? And the answer to that question from Democratic primary voters was 75% yes. That is a, I understand that two questions are not exactly parallel, but that's an enormous change. You know, in the last two weeks, Mr. Abdul El-Sayed, Dr. El Sayette in Michigan, has surged passed Haley Stevens in the most recent polls by double digit. It's astonishing to me that Abdul El-Sayed can win in Michigan, even in a Democratic primary. Are you surprised by that? I've been very surprised. I mean, I wasn't surprised by Zohran Mamdani because, you know, it's New York City and, you know, 14% of the electorate votes. And so, yes, it was going to go left. But the fact that, you know, Sayyat is doing well in Michigan and Hong is doing well in Wisconsin and these... congressional primaries that have produced Democratic Socialist victories points to a real problem for the Democratic Party because 55% of the elector generally won't consider a socialist candidate for presidents. So that's bad math for the Democrats. And it's also Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota is a hard left.

Yeah. I like to say socialists in their mouth, Marxists in their mind, and communist in their heart. Troy Jackson in Maine, who replaced the kicked out Graham Platner, he's just as wildly left. I think James Talarico and Texas is, but he's polling better than I thought as well. Tell us about Texas. Well, Texas, you know, is a good barometer of whether there's going to be a blue wave or whether there's going to be a mini blue wave or whether there's going to be, you know, no blue wave. And a blue wave would point to a James Talarico victory in the Senate race and a very close gubernatorial race with Governor Greg Abbott probably pulling it out. So the most recent polling shows James Talarico ahead by five percentage points. The new Fox News poll shows. up by three percentage points, given the difficulty of polling, you know, statistically it's probably a tie or with the slightest edge at this point to James Talarico. But the thing that really interested me was the gubernatorial race where Greg Abbott and the Democratic Challenger are tied statistically. And, you know, if you looked at Texas and you just looked at the map and said, what did the gubernatorial races look like? You would say, well, Texas, you know, that'll be R. That's safe. Apparently not, according to the Fox News poll. So the big new thing for me, John Ellis, and I've seen a little bit of this in news items every day, is volatility. Some of these races just changed in two weeks' time. Have you, do you recall anything as volatile as 2026? Well, I think 2022 was surprising in that two and a half weeks out, the Republicans were headed to a red wave, if you will, and it didn't materialize. That was surprising. I don't think, you know, in Iowa, Ohio, the race I look at are Iowa, Ohio, Michigan. and Alaska. I'm really interested in Alaska. But if you just look at Iowa and Ohio, the Democrats are a little bit ahead in both races, and they have been since the beginning of the year. So that points to somewhere between a wave and a big wave. But that's before the Republicans have really, you know, campaigned as hard as they can campaign and spend as much money as they can spend. And they have an arsenal of money that I wish we had matched in our interceptors' munitions file. All right, let's finish with Annie Jacobson's book, which you tell me is about bio-warfare. And I haven't read this. Is it going to keep me up at night? Yeah, you don't want to read it. You'll jump out the window. No. So I hurt your readers. I heard your listeners not to read it. But there was a book published years ago by Richard Preston called Demon in the Freezer, which was sort of the best book at the time about biological warfare. And it was a terrifying read. Annie Jacobson, who wrote a very good book about nuclear war, which was published, I think, two or three years ago and was equally terrifying, has now published this book, Biological War, which is...

is the most terrifying thing you'll ever read. So I urge your listeners not to buy the book. Well, does she imagine a widely distributed capability to produce these agents? My brother's a PhD toxicologist. You've been telling me for years. Don't worry about nukes. Worry about the fact that people can do cook-up bugs in their basement. Is that where she's going? Well, the big thing is obviously the change that's taken place is the advance of artificial intelligence to, you know, we're fairly close now to artificial superintelligence. So if you have that tool and you have some basic knowledge of how germs work, you can genetically modify those germs into a weapon. And given that open models are all around the world and given that artificial intelligence models will be inevitably in the possession of places like North Korea. It's a terrifying prospect and one that I think you have to make massive preparations for. Well warned. Annie Jacobson, Biological Award. John Ellis, editor-in-chief of news items. Thank you, John. People should be reading news items every day. You can subscribe it, Substack. Just Google news items. John Ellis, you'll go there. Let me remind everyone, it's the last day I'm asking you to support food for the poor. The last day that we're having our handout and asking with our sponsor Food for the Poor, that you remember the children of Central America, the Caribbean. Northern South America that depend upon food for the poor to eat every day. You can call in a contribution at 855-359-456-73. It's tax-deductible. It's the slow season, but it doesn't mean they're less hungry. They need people like you with $80. For example, we'll feed two children for an entire year. You can call 855-359-4673. 855-359-4673. Or go to my website, Hugh Hewitt. At the very top, there is a banner, give food. And I really, everyone at Salem joins everyone at Food for the Poor in thanking you for thinking of others in the summer season. I'll be right back. Back on. Well, I think we just want to win. We're doing very well. We're trying to be nice, as nice as you can be in a situation like that. But, you know, they're being decimated. They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no anti-aircraft. Doesn't mean they don't have any capability. They have some, but very little. We just want to win. We don't want to have them. It's very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Welcome back, America. President Trump today at Camp David. I'm joined by Eli Lake from the free press. He is also the host of breaking history. We just want to win, Eli. What does that mean to you? Well, on the one hand, you can kind of claim victory because I don't think that Iran is anywhere. I mean, I would put it like this. 13, 14 months ago, Iran was almost a breakout nuclear power.

Now it's nuclear program, which is, you know, they have been best. And for decades at incredible cost diplomatically and also obviously financially and everything else is pretty much in ruins. I mean, there is Pickax Mountain, but I tend to think that it's nothing compared to what they had. It's unclear whether they could really start up again. So he's saved the world in terms of Iran is no longer going to be a breakout nuclear power. What it is now is a desperate regime that has figured out. that right now the math between missile defense and missile offense favors them. So they have a dwindling supply of ballistic missiles, and they can do quite a bit of damage, and they're kind of doing quite a bit of damage, not just to our bases, but to the oil refineries of the Gulf and our allies, desalination plants, and you know the rest. And it also has a kind of de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz. I think these are temporary situations and, you know, and there are things that we can do to try to mitigate the Strait of Hermoos, like going back to the freedom of navigation and military escorts trying to find that route, reassuring allies, although it doesn't take much because this latest round of tit for tat, you saw that not just Saudi is getting hit, but the Saudi is striking back. And then we have to kind of play a smart game here. And I think one thing that error that I would identify, I mean, there's obviously the error of not having enough missile defense systems and not maybe preparing for the straight of her moves. But a big one is... We don't need a nuclear agreement right now with Iran. We don't want the people who would sign the nuclear agreement to be in power. And I don't think we need them. I mean, why do we want them to sign something and say, well, never enrich Iranian for 15 years? A, we don't believe them. And B, they don't have the capability right now. And if they tried to rebuild it. Israel and the United States has already proven that we can take it away fairly quickly. I think what we need to do is to figure out the long, hard work of trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. I think the president's done an admirable job in calming the oil market, so it hasn't been the kind of disaster that a lot of experts predicted it might be. So that's how I would approach it at this point. It's not a clean victory. Clean victory would be regime change. But, you know, let's not... It's not nothing that they don't have much of a nuclear program anymore. It's a lot. But what I think the president means when he says we'd like to win, he'd like capitulation of the IRGC to the reality of the power dynamic. And that can come one of two ways. Admiral Cooper, according to Wall Street Journal, has a two-week plan to destroy every asset the IRGC has, including their construction companies, their shipping companies, just impoverished them for generations.

And then there's the keep the blockade on and try and keep the ships moving. But I just don't understand why we're talking to them. So option A is fine. Option B is fine. Military professionals can advise on that. Why would we talk to them at this point? Well, I think my theory of it is that we talk to them in order to calm the oil markets. So, you know, if every time there has been an announcement that talks are beginning or something like that, you know, you notice that the price of oil goes down. And that's really the main thing that Trump is looking at, particularly before the midterms. You know, but I also think that, you know, I would agree with your next guest, Darren McLean, that... It's a really bad thing to have the precedent that, you know, we are giving up on the freedom of navigation for now. But I think it's a temporary situation, which is the Strait of Permoos will be a depreciating asset for the Iranians themselves as the rest of the world figures out alternative routes, which it's not, you know, it's not great. But in the end, Hugh, in the end, we got to get back to what Trump was saying in the beginning of January and the end of December. I mean, this is a regime that has to go. Ultimately, it's going to be for the Iranian people. There are a lot of things we can do to help the Iranian people, and it's not going to be right away, and we can't predict exactly when. But that's the ultimate goal. I don't want to deal. I mean, you know, I don't trust the Mullah's one bit. And the reason, by the way, we probably haven't done the Brad Cooper plan is that. they still have enough ballistic missiles to cause quite a bit of damage. And until we can, you know, find the interceptors that we would need to defend against that, then that's a major risk. And it's not worth probably taking the interceptors out of the Pacific. You know, we need those just for deterrence in many ways against China when it comes to the Strait of Taiwan. So. We're stuck right now, and it's not ideal. But again, if I was Trump, I would be emphasizing the damage done to the nuclear program, unless he has information about, like, Pickax Mountain or something. Let me switch to a bigger subject. I think Anthony Fauci ties into the Iran more because we listen to experts on everything. We listen to experts on the military situation, on interceptors, on oil, as opposed to facts of market prices. Has Anthony Fauci destroyed... expertise, I mean, does it destroy the Woodrow Wilson project that there's a group of people over here who know how to run things? Have we done away with that now? Well, I wouldn't put it all on Anthony Fauci, but he's a big part of it. And a lot of it, I think, was that he often believed that he could be the arbiter of, you know, he couldn't trust the American people with sort of uncertainties. Like, hey, I don't know what the, we don't know, experts don't know what the origin of coronavirus is yet. We can't really rule it out. And instead it became, it's a conspiracy theory to say that it resulted from a lab leak. And, you know, as a result now, I think Senator Tom Cotton.

you know, looks prescient, of course. But at the time, he was pilloried by, and, but it's not just Anthony Fauci. It's the New York Times. I'm sorry to say. It's the Washington Post. It's CNN. It's the mediators, the old elite media. They have, they, they, they, they went out of it wasn't just COVID. It was Russiagate. It was a series of things. It was the laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden and the fact that no, you know, that and that. particular scandal, even though there are corruption scandals on the other side right now. But the point is that there are a series of things that the people, the expert class, if you will, was entrusted to get it straight and to at least when they got it wrong, take responsibility and punish the malefactors. That didn't happen. The New York Times hasn't returned their Pulitzer Prize that they got for Russiagate reporting. So that's when you don't, when you have institutions that can't self-correct that way. That's when you really run into trouble. And right now, our politics is broken because there's no reason why the Democrats shouldn't look at the facts that we have right now and say, Anthony Fauci told us things that were not true. He said he was stirring about things when there was uncertainty, and we can't stand for that. Instead, they're, you know, they're lining up behind him and, you know, trying to say that, you know, Rand Paul's the new Joe McCarthy. Yeah, credibility will not be returning to the left for legacy media until candor precedes it. Eli Lake, follow him on Exit, Eli Lake, and listen to the Breaking History podcast. Thank you, Eli.

Welcome back, America. I'm Guicu, a special guest for this weekend because it could be a very, very kinetic weekend over the skies of Iran and possibly Yemen. Aaron B. McLean is the host of the School of War podcast, which should be on your like and subscribe, download it, listen every episode to School of War. He's also a national security correspondent for the CBS Evening News and a Marine. Aaron, welcome. I've been eating up the School of War, and I wanted to ask you to join us. for the benefit of civilians like me, and I want to put up a couple of maps for you to kind of explain people. I keep looking at the Middle East and where the Strait of Hermose is, where the Bandel Mandab Strait is in the Red Sea. This is all very close. How hard can it be to dominate this space for a superpower? Why is it taking so long? Hey, Hugh, thank you so much for having me. I love your show. I love the music on your show, by the way, and I love your guests. I was listening with great interest to Eli Lake, my free press colleague just before. As to your question, how hard is it to dominate? Well, look, the standard that has to be met, right, is for commercial shipping to feel... safe enough to go through these choke points that are threatened by organizations like the IRGC for the Strait of Hormuz or the Houthis for the Red Sea in order for us to get the amount of oil and other energy resources through that we need to support the global economy. And so unfortunately, the standard for Iran and the Houthis is not that they stop all traffic going through the strait. The standard is they get just enough shots through here and there that they generate. unease amongst commercial shippers and make it less likely for them to try. That's really their game. And so getting it to the point where you're reducing the number of incoming shots to a low and completely interceptable number is actually a pretty tall order that involves a lot of resources and a lot of investment. We are making those investments in the Strait of Hormuz right now, and I think very quietly for the last really couple months, you've seen Central Command escorting with aviation assets, ships through that strait. In the Red Sea, which is a more recent development, we don't have that effort up and running right now. These things are resource intensive, and you see the Saudis trying to organize an international coalition to do it there. But, you know, to get out of that region, your energy resources basically need to move out of the Persian Gulf, likely through the strait or out of the Red Sea, either southwards through the Babel Mendeb or the Houthis are blocking or northwards through Egypt, where we just saw that strike a couple days ago. Those are your three exit points, really. the bad guys are causing problems at all three. Well, let's talk about the three bad guys in reverse order, the Houthis. There was a long-running war there where both UAE and Saudi Arabia were involved, and we may have had something going on there as well. The UAE was forced out by world opinion, basically, and the Saudis asked him to leave, and I think the UAE are sitting it out this time. How hard is it to roust the Houthis? They are a... rag-tag band of terrorists, maybe they're in the tens of thousands, but is the Saudi military simply that not competent enough to get them?

Well, they may be a rag-tag bunch of people, but they are fanatics, and they do have resources. A lot of those resources from Iran, the terrain in Yemen is pretty unforgiving. There is, depending on where you are in Yemen, you know, there are varying degrees of popular support for them. And, yeah, not to... not to be too blunt about some of our allies, but let's just say allied military capacity varies. And while the Saudis are certainly capable of some things, you saw them participate in these airstrikes successfully in Iraq here in the last few days, you know, the kind of sustained ground action that would be required to really seize back those occupied parts of Yemen from the Houthis. Well, you know, you saw attempts at that in recent years and they weren't successful. I think the question, though, really, is will the Saudis be capable with American... cooperation and support, because I think CENTCOM is going to be very involved in this, will they be capable of organizing a maritime coalition to keep traffic moving through the strait and to deter attacks on their own energy infrastructure? Like, that's really the task at hand. This Saudi-Houthi war has been running, you know, with varying periods of intensity or sort of more, you know, low-burn Cold War scenarios for years now, and it runs in parallel with the U.S.-Uran conflict. Iran and the Houthis are partners. We are obviously aligned with the Saudis. but they really are two independent wars. It just so happens that both the Houthis and the Iranians want to damage energy infrastructure in the region, and both those efforts caused problems for us. Two years ago, the Houthis were shooting fairly heavily at our carrier group in the Indian Ocean, and Biden didn't do much, but then Trump just hammered them, and they haven't bothered us since. Do we need to do that again?

It's certainly possible. I mean, you know, it's an option, as is an option to escalate against Iran as they continue to make trouble in the straight and, you know, in terms of their targeting of our forces and our partners in the region. It does come down to a question sometimes of resources, though. I mean, how much are we willing to spend? How much are we willing to ask our partners to spend to get these jobs done? I'll be right back with Aaron McLean on the other side to talk about Iran in the part in between, which will be on the big weekend's hot. We're going to talk about NATO and something that Rear Admiral Montgomery told him on the School of War, most recent episode, which you really ought to listen to. Stay tuned. I'm back now with Aaron McLean, military strategist, host of the School of War, free press column of CBS Evening News, National Security correspondent. Aaron, I was arrested by... Rearadwell Montgomery's comment to you, and he's retired for the benefit of the audience. When you asked him about who can help in the Babel Mandab Strait, he said, well, if there's any game left in Europe, and that's a big if. He said the Royal Navy's got two destroyers. France maybe has two. The Spaniards probably have two, but they've got problems of their own right now, and they're not coming. That kind of made it very clear to me. Is NATO a spent force except for the frontline countries? Well, you said it. Those countries that are closest to Russia, the polls are really the biggest success story here, but the Nordic states have been doing a lot of impressive work. The Baltic states, they're smaller, but in terms of what they can do compared to their populations and economies, also impressive efforts, the further west you go, the further south you go. The less impressive it is, which you see, some of the countries, militarily speaking, are not only a spent force. Unfortunately, they don't seem serious at all about attempting to address the situation. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom is probably top of the list for a description like that. But look, they absolutely have an interest in the global energy markets, just like we do here in the United States. You could argue they have more of an interest because they have less indigenous production of these resources than we do here in the United States. You know who else has a real interest in the southern end of the red? sea, the Bab el-Mandeb, are the Asians. Because if you think about it, and you had that map up there a moment ago, Hugh, if the Strait of Hormuz has got blockages, you have trouble getting your stuff out of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the ways that the Saudis and others have been trying to circumvent this is to send oil west across Saudi Arabia on a pipeline that lets out on the Red Sea, sort of halfway up and down the coast of the Red Sea for them there. That oil can then go south to go to Asia, and it can go north to go up to Suez and to points westward, including Europe. But if you're having trouble getting it south and the Strait of Hormuzes closed, those two things compound each other. And so Asian oil markets or just energy markets, because we're talking about gas here too, they're really the ones that face the biggest risk from this Houthi pressure point at the Babelmandah. And so if NATO doesn't help, what's the point of NATO? Well, the point of NATO, you know, first and foremost, is to deter Russia. That's, you know, if you think back to the founding days of NATO, the sort of tripartite justification for the alliances existence, was to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in, if you recall. And I think today we can, we can, you know, I like to give the Germans a hard time, but really you could take that part of it seriously as saying, you know, keep intra-European.

political conflict to a minimum while we focus outboard on our shared enemies. But look, President Trump's been very frustrated at the lack of NATO assistance in the Strait of Hormuz. And I think Admiral Montgomery's point about the Red Sea was a very important one that is frustrated as the Europeans occasionally may be with the Trump administration's diplomacy. The Trump administration's diplomacy did not cause the Houthis to decide to go back to war with the Saudis, essentially, and attempt to close off the Red Sea to Saudi energy traffic. It is a major pressing international concern to restore traffic through that checkpoint, as it is in the Strait of Hormuz. And yes, their help would be very welcome, and yes, the effort is very resource-attensive. It's a real credibility test for old Europe, and we will see if they pass it. I'm coming back with Aaron McLean. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. Aaron McLean is still with me, and he is, of course, the host of School of War. He's a free press columnist. He's also a national security correspondent for CBS News. Two nights ago, the Wall Street Journal published a story that made me sit up. It said that Admiral Cooper, head of Central Command, has a plan. He's talked to the president about it, but he doesn't see the president very much. And it calls for two weeks of massive bombing, like our B-2s and our B-1s at full deployment strength, and aimed at the IRGC's military assets and their hidden economy. And he believes that they can... that campaign can crush them. What, as a military analyst, do you think about that journal story and do you think we ought to at least try that? Well, it's clear we've had plans for escalation for some time now. I mean, it was clear back at the end of March, the beginning of April, you recall President Trump at one point said, you know, that a whole civilization will end tonight if the Iranians don't make a deal. Obviously, we backed off of that. We entered that period of the ceasefire, which became the period of the MOU, and sort of led us to the point that we're at right now. But that option of turning up another gear has always been there. Admiral Cooper, the reporting indicates, is an advocate for this option. There are others in the administration who prefer where we are, which is to say we're in a situation where there's a sort of low and fluctuating level of confrontation, armed confrontation, but economic warfare. You know, we have this blockade. against Iranian ports right now. We're pursuing other economic measures against them. That is painful for the Iranians, but it will take time, I think, potentially a lot of time to bring them to the table. So that's option two, and then option three is obviously some kind of deal, but if you want to deal in the short run, unfortunately, I don't think you're getting a good deal from the Iranians. So option three turns out to look a lot more like surrender. So let's act as though only options one and two are real. Option one, escalation, option two, prolonged economic warfare. Escalation, you know, the theory of the case there, one, is that you can deal with the threat of the incoming missile fire and drone fire by really attritting the Iranians' ability to shoot that stuff, by going back after their missile cities, by burying that stuff, by attacking the infrastructure that allows the IRGC to function as a military organization. But then it's about going after their cash. You know, I think the president is frustrated with the Iranians that they don't want to make a deal in the way that he likes to make deals because they're not primarily motivated by...

material goals. They are, in fact, revolutionary, you know, radical Islamists, radical Shia Islamists. They are exactly what they appear to be. But even radical ideologues need cash to run a country or to dominate a country, as indeed they do in Iran. And so if you go after the IRC's military capacity and then you go after how they make their money, The idea would be is that you're going to reduce them either to the point where they're willing to make a deal or to the point where they're vulnerable to their own people. That's the theory. Now, you're a good student in military history, and I want you to let your intermarine out right now. Americans prefer sharp, sharp, and decisive battles. They like taking over Afghanistan in a month. They love the march to Baghdad. They don't like what follows after it. The blockade makes a lot of sense, but only if we've tried everything else first. What would you prefer? If you get five minutes with President Trump, what do you advise him to do, Aaron McLean? Well, the issue with the escalation, Hugh, is we were at a very intense level of bombing back in March and April, and it didn't get the results that we wanted. And, you know, if you're going to push this regime to the point of regime change, which is really what we're talking about here, whether you're actually achieving regime change or the damage is so severe that they just don't have a choice. They have to come to an accommodation or it becomes essentially suicidal for them. You know, how close do we get to that in March and April and it didn't come off? Now, the best argument I think you could make for the escalatory approach. is that we really have never gone on directly after the Iranian economy. President Trump's Bridge and Power Plant's Day, which he's talked about frequently. We've hit a few bridges here and there. We apparently hit several around Bandar Abbas recently, but that's all sort of tied to this question of the control of the strait in the military campaign in and around the Persian Gulf. It has its appeal. It has its appeal taking one last big swing. But, Hugh, the risk of that is you take that big swing. They're still standing there. All they feel they have to do is survive. So one way or the other, you don't deliver the death blow. And then you're back where we are right now, choosing between prolonged economic warfare and walking away. The one thing I know is that we can't just walk away. We cannot, having started this, surrender to control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran. That's simply unacceptable to the effect of defeat. In my lifetime, and I'm 70, America has never, quote, won a war when they've allowed the enemy to have a reserve from which they may operate with impunity, whether it's Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam, whether it's the Pakistan ungoverned region, whether it was Iran during the Iraq War and Syria during the Iraq War. Right now, we're doing that again. It just drives me crazy. Am I wrong to note that pattern? You're not wrong. You're absolutely right to note that the prospect of prolonged economic warfare is painful. It's painful economically. It's painful politically. It does seem to be the course that we're on. And the promise of a faster victory through escalation has its attraction. Again, I mean, I think to really decide which...

course of action was better, we would have to see the planning, we would have to see how real the prospect of cutting off the cash for the IRGC and Iran's leaders is. If I, as the President of the United States, had confidence that two weeks of going after the Iranian economy would mean that they can't pay the salaries of IRGC fighters, I would go for it. I would go for it under those conditions. I will leave it there. Aaron McLean, thank you so much. Follow Aaron on exit. Aaron B. McLean. Listen to the School of War. Read them in the free press, which you should subscribe to, and, of course, see them on CBS News. Aaron, have a great, great weekend. Thank you. 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 you 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. Remember, their numbers, $800411, 414454, 800411 44, 800411 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 consumer cellular.com slash hue and use promo code Q50. Or call 1-800-41144 and use promo code Q50. What happens when citizens begin to fear the very agencies created to protect them? This weekend, the America 250 film series presents Police State. Dinesh D'Souza examines intelligence, law enforcement, and the warning signs of government power turned inward. Watch Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern on Salem News Channel.

Morning, Lori, meaning grace, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Time for the weekend review with Ben Dominant. She is the opinion editor at The Daily Wire. He's the host of the indispensable Big Ben podcast. And he's getting into a scuffle over at X with people who say he doesn't know what he's talking about in Texas when, in fact, he does know what he's talking about in Texas. Ben, welcome. Before we get the Texas... Before we get started, I just want to tell you, I hope that money that I sent to you in Nigeria really helped you out of that jam that you were in. You know, it's always tough to need money when you're overseas. I got to tell people who were not paying attention. You did DM me, by the way. He did DM me. I got spoofed, and I got hacked, and I got a DM deluge on friends like Ben. And almost everyone knew it was fake. I won't tell you who fell for it. Oh, no. Oh, someone did? Oh, gosh. Some people fell for it. And however, however, X's fixed it in 24 hours, which is pretty impressive. I thought it would be two weeks. That is actually very impressive. And I saw one of my favorite people on X-Data Republican came to your aid very quickly. She did. And she tracked the guy. Tonight, Jerry, I'm assuming it's a guy. as friends, and I mean actually useful nerds as opposed to people like me who have, you know, a knowledge of quotes from movies long ago. So, no, it's useful to have, and I'm glad that they got sorted for you. Data Republican is really, you know, let me begin. I'm going to reverse my order. Let's compare Data Republican with Anthony Fauci. Data Republican earned her esteem day by day over the course of three years by people who followed her work. Anthony Fauci didn't earn anything, and he let us down a dark road. Does that not tell us something about the new era? You know, it does. And in fact, tomorrow at the Daily Wire, I have an interview with another person who sort of did this similarly. Matthias Josh Shapiro, Matt Schro, who's a guy probably not known maybe to you, but he's polymath on X. And he was one of the early participants in the COVID data project, the people who were tracking kind of the different things that were happening all across the country. And he's always had a fascinating experience to me because he's one of these guys who comes from the tech world, the data world, focused on the facts, focused on, you know, the analysis there works alongside a lot of people who are left to center. And what he very quickly came to realize was that there was just a complete gap between what they were seeing in the measurable data and what was being reported by...

hair-on-fire journalists and what was unfortunately being caused or parroted or encouraged by Anthony Fauci on a national level, which was incredibly infuriating to him because he was looking at data that was basically saying, look, there's an outbreak in this part of Georgia. It's going to move. You know, it's going to have this geographic, you know, sort of track that we are now familiar with with the way that this goes. But what they're going to do is they're going to overhype the... the outbreak that's going to happen in schools that are in conservative districts where masking is lax and where all these different things aren't being undertaken. And then they're going to completely nuke any kind of conversation about it when it moves downtown to the inner city and pretend like this is not something that behaves the way that it actually does. And that was an infuriating experience for him. And I think that many Americans, even those who were not totally in the data paying attention to this. on a day-by-day basis at the time, they know that on an instinctive level. And what we've seen from Anthony Fauci, I mean, look, I don't know what you think of the hearing. I haven't had a chance this week to listen to your take on it. But to me, it was both... It was both good to see because I think that, you know, particularly Josh Hawley, but Rand Paul and others as well, I think, you know, really took it to him in terms of the criticisms that ought to be leveled against Anthony Fauci. But it was also so deeply unsatisfying on a level because I think that the response from the Democrats, if you actually care about public health, and I say this as someone who was an HHS staffer, you should want to take lessons from the experience. Even if you are going to go into your partisan hole and say, I'm going to defend Anthony Fauci because now the right hates him or something like that. just at least say, we should learn from this. We should learn from what went wrong, from the decisions that were made wrongly, from the lies that were told to the American people, so that we don't make the same mistake the next time that we have to deal with something on this scale. Let's hope that that never happens in our lifetimes, but it's the kind of thing where if we do, shouldn't we learn from that experience? And the fact that everybody on the Democratic side just wanted to say, no, there's nothing to see here. He's a wonderful... public servant, you are, you know, maligning him, you are raising all these things in this, you know, terrible witch hunt, you know, and how dare you? To me, it's like, no, if Democrats, if you care about the power of government, if you are in the party that basically says invest all this power in these bureaus them, they are the experts, which is what they basically are right now, why don't you just say? Shouldn't there be questions that we should have answered? Shouldn't we be able to ask those questions as oversight officials? It just discussed me that that's something that they can't even do anymore. It struck me, Ben, that it was a sentencing hearing for a convicted criminal who showed no remorse. And the victims got to have their day in court and let loose on him. But because the Democrats kept up their bodyguard, we're going to be talking about Anthony Fauci forever.

Look, on the Republican side, Democrats are crazy, okay? The left and the socialist agenda, it doesn't work. They're radicals. Culturally, they're out of step with the country. All of those things are true. On the other side, the thing that they have in their hand is, you know, the war is unpopular. Prices are not going in the way that people want them to go. People don't feel good about the enforcement of ICE and the actual dealing with the immigration problem that we have with the country. People do not like the president, and the right track, wrong track thing is completely upside out. So what do you have there? You have somebody who's playing three cards that matter on their poker hand versus somebody who's playing with five cards that matter. That's a problem for the Republicans. And there's one more aspect of it that I think that is really being underrated as the real problem. Hold it for the break because I've got to go to a break right here, Ben, and we'll come back part two, and then we'll come back after the break and talk a little bit about the war. Don't go anywhere, America. Stay tuned right here. I'm talking with Ben Dominic, host of the Big Ben podcast, which you should like and subscribe, download in your subscription feed. He's also the opinion editor at The Daily Wire. I'm going to look for the interview of the week on Saturday's Daily Wire. I'll be right back with Ben during the break and on the other side on the Q. Hughitt Show. So I'm back with Ben Dominic, Ben. I want to know if we get to draw the two cards that we haven't got, because if we do, I nationalize these elections and I drive home the fact. that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just the beginning these people this is the worst i've ever seen the democratic party and i remember george mcgovern you know the thing that i say uh when i the things that i say when i go on television hugh and i'm sure you probably have a similar approach to me um I have facts to back them up. I have poll numbers. I look at this data before I make, you know, outlandish claims. Actually make your job harder. It's a lot easier to do the opposite. But the thing that I would say, if I didn't have to back that up, 75%, maybe three, I mean, something like that of this Democratic Party. is anti-Israel and potentially anti-Jew. And I don't say that lightly. I think it's something that has happened to their coalition in a very aggressive way, in part because of the shift of what union representation is and the lack of representation of Judeo-Christian people within their coalition. I think there's a number of different factors that go into it. But that's... the underlying element of all of this i don't buy for a second that this is about affordability this is about something far crazier and then when it comes to the the situation that we have uh... you know in front of the republicans in congress i think a big part of their problem is

They have assumed for so long that Donald Trump would save them. And he's been an excellent savior. He's been someone who has, you know, he has stormed around the country. He has raised up big crowds. He's done his best to try to get people elected. Raised money. He's raised money. They have tons of money. The president doesn't really care about that anymore. He's focused on all these other things that he's building. He's focused on foreign policy. I don't, I mean, I don't judge him for that. But I think that Republicans are acting like he's going to like swoop in and save them from all the different polling factors that they have where they're currently, and I would say this as of today, they would be losing in Ohio. They would be losing in Iowa. We are not like, forget, you know, talking about Michigan, forget talking about Georgia. You know, they're losing North Carolina. You know, I mean, they're probably hanging on in Maine, and I actually think they will eventually. By the way, do you think Troy Jackson's relationship with his second cousin matters? I think it's a problem for him. And I think that, you know, replacing someone who had a lot of problems with another person who had a lot of problems. It's never a wise idea. I think Susan Collins maybe cut some deal with, you know, the Lord of Darkness at some point in the past to get this kind of fortune. I mean, it's just amazing the kind of fortune that she has. I think she's going to pull it out. But the point is just... Republicans are losing in places they should not be losing. And that is the problem that should be scaring them, and it has them scared, and senators are scared. I talk to them at Lindsay's funeral this week. They are worried about this. They think that they are currently losing, and I think, unfortunately, that they are right. And when we come back from break, we're going to talk about one thing that could turn it all around, which is the Iran War, Ben Dominance, will be right back. Stay tuned.

Well, I think we just want to win. You know, we just want to win. We're doing very well. We're trying to be nice as nice as you can be in a situation like that. But, you know, they're being decimated. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft. Doesn't mean they don't have any capability. They have some, but very little. We just want to win. We don't want to have them. It's very simple. They can not have. Welcome back, America. President Trump this afternoon at Camp David, the Wall Street Journal, reporting that he is committed to maximizing force beginning this weekend. Ben Dominic, this is the wild card. If President Trump wins, forces the capitulation of Iran, and I mean forces it, I think Republicans do well because we like winners. If he just... tap tap taps along with this pattern of the last four months, I think we're going to get hammered. What do you think? Tap tap. I mean, that's what he's been doing. Tap, tap, tap. I agree with you, which I'm sure is not a surprise, but it's one of these things where, look, you at this point. Is there a reason why you just don't drop a moab on IRC targets all across Iran? I mean, what is the reason that we're holding back at this point? There is no reason. to have any kind of conversation. And quite frankly, I think that people who tried to make a pause in this, they did it too early, and they did it wrong-headedly, and they did it without an understanding of the nature of the Iranian regime, which those of us who paid attention to the way that they behave for a long time understand. I look, you know, I was not bold about this whole, you know, approach from the get-go. I thought it was, you know, risky. As I think I said, the first time that I came on in the program after this, I thought it was, you know, a real roll of the dice by the president. But I also have known that the president is one of these people who has no any kind of, you know, sort of, he is not someone who holds back when he goes into something. He goes in full bore. And he's understood this for decades. You can go back to the way that he's talking about this when it comes to North Korea. and the bomb. You can go back to the way that he was talking about this well before he was ever in politics. He understands the risks involved when it comes to this kind of thing. It's one of his most consistent attributes. So why he even sort of entertained that pause, I realized why it happened, I realized there were people in his ear around and saying, and there were people from Capitol Hill saying, hey, if we just kind of, you know, find a deal here, maybe it'll save a bunch of Senate seats and that kind of thing. Who cares? You know, that's not important. In the history of this, you're going to be judged by whether you actually decimated this regime to a point where we don't have to worry about this for a decade or maybe more, or you're going to be someone who basically went on this jaunt without actually achieving anything. I don't think that's what the president wanted to do. I don't think that's what he wanted to do now. I think he's pissed off at a lot of people who thought that there would be different situations right now. And I hope that his reaction to this is to say,

Just, you know, you've got the targets. Coup, go for it. Last question. There is no Delcy. I think he really was hoping that there would be a Delci Rodriguez to emerge from the rubble. And then instead he got Bahidi, who was retired because he was bad and extreme. So at this point, I want everybody, I want Saudi Arabia and Israel and Kuwait and the UAE, everybody in on this. And he looks him in the eye and says, you're coming along for the ride here. And they just pound the daylights out of the IRGC. They have to. I mean, this is the best opportunity they've had to do this. And if they don't do it, you are going to be dealing with the ramifications of this very quickly. Like they've already shown how quickly they can rebuild, how quickly they can use money flows to do exactly what they said. We would say we said they would do with money flows, which is to say they will rebuild, they will attack, they will support. their proxies all around the region, and it will be hell for all of these different people. So you better get on the same page. So I hope by next Friday, Ben, we can agree that that's, in fact, what he decided to do, and we are midway through the two-week campaign that Admiral Cooper said he's got on the shelf. Ben Dominic. One last thing. Hugh, I just want to say this. I know you've got to go a break. It is not a war-mongering thing in any way to say we need to deny the Iranian regime a nuclear weapon for a generation. That is peace. That is not war-mongering. That is how we achieve peace and fewer deaths and less human sacrifice in that region. And that is 100% true. And it's BS that people say otherwise. I agree, and I think his ears are closed to those people. I think he's put wax in his ears to those people who say it's warmongering. And by the way, completely independent. It's good politics, too, right now to win the war, not to tap, tap, tap along. Ben Dominic can be followed on exit. Be Dominic. You can listen to Big Ben Podcast. And, of course, read him at the Daily Wire every weekend, the big weekend interview at the Daily Wire. Finally, I want to say, it's my last day asking you to please help out our sponsor food for the poor. They take care of kids throughout Central America and the Caribbean. The power of a meal, a daily meal, especially breakfast, is everything for these children. And they depend upon food for the poor in 17 different Caribbean and Latin American country. Food itself is scarce. Drinking water is sometimes just terrible to look at. Food for the Poor has been doing this for decades. They are not-for-profit. They started as a Catholic organization. They became non-denominational. They worked through the local church throughout those 17 countries in the Caribbean. $80. We'll feed two children for a year. So before you go on your summer vacation, if you got August plan here on the last day of July, maybe send $80. There are a few ways to do it. You can call 855-359-46-73, 8-5-359-46-73. You can text my name, Hewitt, H-E-W-I-T-T, so 51-55-5-5. That's Hewitt to 51-55-55.

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