Planned strikes paused as U.S. and Iran agree to MOU, tentative deal

In 2025, Americans lost more than $21 billion to fraud and identity theft. That's why so many people are turning to Aura. Aura helps protect your identity with fraud alerts, dark web monitoring, and up to $5 million in identity theft protection. And if you become a victim, Aura's 24-7 U.S.-based support team is there to help. Don't wait until your identity is stolen. Start your free trial today at Aura.com slash safe. That's Aura.com slash safe. Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And, of course, I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale. Or just Google, iTunes, and Hillsdale. I'm due to it. Live breaking news is always preferable to that, which is being recycled elsewhere. So let me bring you up to speed. on a day full of news. Actually, 24 hours full of news. When I signed off last night, I speculated that planes were in the air over Iran, and in fact they were in the air over Iran. Not only that, not only planes, but more than 40 Tomahawk missiles were fired, and Tomahawk missiles are precise and they're deadly. So we rattled the teeth of the Rump regime in Iran, the remnants of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that it... consists of Vahidi if he's alive. We don't know if he's alive or not. He was pulled out of retirement once Ali Khamenei 1.0 and everybody else in the leadership was killed in the first initial strike on February 28th. So we didn't know what had happened, but last night we were in fact hammering Iran. That was the third Syria of the hammer blows in a week. Israel hit them first after Israel responded to a Hezbollah attack in Iraq. That reached northern Israel. Israel reached into northern Lebanon, hit Beirut. Then Iran struck, this is in the middle of a ceasefire. Then Iran struck Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump talked. President Trump said, do what you have to do. And what Israel did was a big wave of hits over the weekend. Come forward to Monday. President Trump says, we got to get serious. We got to get a deal. What are you going to do, Iran? Iran shoots at an Apache helicopter brings it down. Does not kill an American. That's the best thing that's happened to Iran a long time. But they brought down our Apache. An unmanned drone ship went and got the two pilots. They're fine. The president says enough. We hit them on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Hit them very hard, as I said. 40-plus Tomahawk missiles last night in addition to any other strikes all over Iran, but primarily along the Strait of Hormuz. So this morning begins with Fox and Friends. President Trump calls Fox and Friends to talk through what happened last night. And he says this cut number one. Will it be more bombing tonight? Yeah, there will be more bombing tonight. It'll be a bigger, bigger, more powerful. Don't forget that. That's quite a message. There will be more bombing tonight. It will be bigger. It will be bigger. And then he adds in the conversation with the Fox and Friends trio, cut number seven. Eximated. Just decimated. And they're dying to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly. And they're really.

In submission, they just don't know it yet. Okay, to be honest with you, they just don't know it yet. And we are talking to them and all. But, you know, look, my preference has always been take Carg Island. The president says, we're going to hit him hard tonight, and we're going to take Carg Island, that's my preference. Immediately, everyone thinks, including me. This is what the Iranians have never figured out about Donald Trump. Don't play them. I thought they had missed their off ramp. Speaker Johnson may have been more in the loop than anyone because he was caught coming down the steps of the Capitol and asked about the president's remarks this morning. Here's what Speaker Johnson said. Cut number nine. Negotiation. And I think he's communicating directly with our adversaries over there. I would not. I would not put too much stock in the details of that right now. But he put the true social? Would you have, would Congress have a vote before he does that? Got to take a photo here. So the speaker was saying the President Frederick is directed at Iran, and it got through. About an hour and ten minutes ago, the president posted on true social this. Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought. To the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have as President of the United States canceled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening. Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jim Jordan, Egypt, and others, Trump said. The U.S. naval blockade will remain in full force in effect until this transaction is finalized, time in place of the signing to be announced shortly. Now, not long after the president posted that, denials began to emerge from Iran. FARS News Agency, F-A-R-S, is affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they said, no, we haven't agreed to anything. Out of the Times of Israel comes a senior unnamed Israeli officials saying, we haven't signed a deal. And so I don't know, and you don't know, and nobody knows what's going on. Did the president just do another head fake? What do the markets think? That... It tells us a lot sometimes. The Dow right now is up 1.73%. The S&P is up 1.5%. The NASDAQ is up almost 2%. And the price of oil is now at $87.65. That's down 2 and almost 3 quarters percent. So the market believes the president has achieved some kind of an accord. Now, whenever something like this happens, I check on Lindsey Graham's X account. And the reason I do that is Lindsey Graham, very serious about Iran, Lindsey Graham is never going to fall for the fanatics in Iran promises. And he writes,

that I hope we have in fact, he said this about 50 minutes ago, I hope we have in fact reached a diplomatic solution to end the Iranian conflict that will meet President Trump's red lines and fundamentally, and be fundamentally different from the JCPOA. As in the past, any agreement reached with Iran related to their nuclear program will be presented to Congress for review and approval. I look forward to that process. That's reserved. So I want to remind you about the basic facts, because we don't know anything beyond what the president has said, the fact that we struck them two nights in a row and Israel struck them. Vahidi might be dead. Vahidi was running the regime. Here's what we know for sure. Iran is run by religious fanatics. It's different than any other regime against which we are opposed, like China. like North Korea, like Russia. The alliance of tyrants have a lot in common, but they have a lot that separates them. Iran is run by theocrats, fanatics who believe that violence can bring about conflict, and conflict bring about the end of the world. And it begins by destroying Israel, and it begins by destroying the United States and the West. And that they don't, if they get a nuclear weapon, they would use it. And they've been ruled by two men until February 28. in the 47 years of the Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah Khomeini was killed on February 28th and the strike that decapitated the regime. We're not really sure who is running Iran. Now, maybe... The CIA is. Maybe John Ratcliffe goes in there every day and says to the president, yeah, Hamini is alive and he's breathing, but he's not talking, or Hamini is talking, 2.0, the son of Hamini, the gay Ayatollah. Maybe he is running it. Maybe Vahidi, but there were lots of speculation that Vahidi was in the wrong place at the wrong time over the weekend when Israel sent its... wildly accurate attacks against Iran. Iran fired off 10 ballistic missiles or 12, maybe 14 ballistic missiles at Israel over the weekend. None of them hit anything, didn't do any damage. However, Israel, when it fires off stuff, it doesn't miss. So they had a petrochemical plant. I believe one of the reports says they may have hit a military base in Vahidi may have been there. We don't know. We haven't seen Vahidi. So we don't know who's running Iran. We don't know who's running these negotiations. But the president, you can be assured, is on top of every detail of it and wants a deal that works, that reopens the Strait of Hormuz, and brings down the cost of oil. Cost of oil is down to $88 a barrel. But his number one priority is red line. He said to me on this show, he said it a thousand times. It's not like it's unique to this show. They may not have a nuclear weapon. We have to get there enriched uranium. After that, they have to stop supporting proxies. They have to open up the straight. They've got to bring relief to the Iranian people. If they do that, by the way, the regime will fall because the Iranian people. There are 92 million Iranians. There are a quarter million members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. At least that was the estimate at the beginning of the 40-day war, which began on February 28th. Now we've had a 40-day battle, a two-month ceasefire, a one-week battle, and now a tentative ceasefire and attended deal. Do I think this is actually going to work? No. I don't.

I think the president is once again giving them all the rope they can possibly have to hang themselves with. But you get this close. I mean, Qatar is out there on the ledge. Pakistan has promised to deliver. They've all got promises from Iran. The president posts that. If they embarrass him again, do you think he's going to be willing to do this a third time? Because this is the second time that we've called off strikes, the first time at the end of the 40-day battle. Then we started up. Connecticut conflict this week, and we've stopped it again tonight after the president promising even more massive strikes and Carg Island. And now we're not doing that. Markets are happy. Investors are happy. They would like oil to go down. That's where we set at 316 on a Thursday afternoon in June. Stay tuned. I'll bring you more right after this on The Hugh Hewitt Show. The War of the Red. And we're going to be subject to finalization of documents. We should get done over the next few days. We probably have a signing maybe in Europe. And it's a great thing. Stock market's up a thousand points. That means they like the deal. See, that means they like the market goes down. It means they don't like the deal. But it's been up. Oil's dropped. Oil will start coming down to, I think, even lower than it was before. I said I was in Iowa. It was... One dollar an evening. So welcome back, America. I'm Guilla, President Trump announcing in front of Secretary Bergman and gathering a fisherman in the Oval that the deal will be signed in a few days. The deal with Iran that emerged after the president announced this morning that we would be bombing Iran again tonight, maybe taking Cargile and joining me to discuss that. Eleona Johnson, Eliana is editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon. She is a regular participant in the commentary panel. And maybe she's not as befuddled as I am. I don't know how it could possibly have come together this fast, Eleanor. What do you think about this? Well, I'm with you, Hugh. This sounds a lot like what we've heard from the president for the past, you know, since the ceasefire in April 8th. We've been hearing almost every day that we'll have a deal in the next few days. And so I'm not... convinced this is anything different. I think the most candid thing the president said was two days ago when he said that the Iranians are tapping us along and playing us for suckers by which he would mean that they're tapping him along and playing him for a sucker. And I'm a little bit concerned that that's what's happening with these strikes being called off and I return to the negotiating table. I think the main mistake here is seesawing between negotiations and military activity when you see that the Iranians, they did not cease firing. And they are fighting and negotiating at the same time. And I think that's really what we should be doing if the president does want to be at the negotiating table. So here's the best case take. And I've already laid it out. But the best case take is, Hezbollah, Israel.

over the weekend, Israel responded, and that ceasefire went by the board by striking at Hezbollah positions in Beirut. Iran responded by attacking Israel. They sent, I think, 14 ballistic missiles at Israel. None of them hit. Many of them fell apart and landed. other places. Israel fired back after the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked to President Trump, and Trump said, do what you have to do. And I'm pretty sure that Israel hit what they were aiming at, including a petrochemical, and maybe a military base with Vahidi. Then the Iranians made a mistake, maybe because of the mosaic defense. And they shot down an Apache helicopter, which for the president was a no-no. And we had two waves of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday night. And this morning on Fox, he says, another one's coming tonight. Is it possible that, one, Vahidi was killed and two, someone slightly less fanatical or even a lot less fanatical, decided this is a lose-lose game, let's do a deal? That's the best case, isn't it? That is the best case. A couple of things, Hugh. One, I've long thought, you know, our strategy at the beginning of this war was to degrade the Iranian leadership. It's clear that, you know, we don't know who exactly is in charge, but it is clear that the IRGC is calling the shots and I think continuing to degrade the leadership in Iran until we get somebody at the negotiating table who... will do the kind of a deal the president wants and putting the literal fear of death in these people is the right way to go um and by the way you notice that israel which hit back um despite the president's warnings not to his initial reluctance um have them do so and his buying into the Iranian's framework of tying the Hezbollah and activity in Lebanon into these negotiations. Iran did not hit them again. I think the downing of the Apache helicopter was a wake-up call to the president that this is not actually a ceasefire. It's a ceasefire in name only. And that American lives very much remain at risk in this, you know, in this phony ceasefire. We're still very much at war. We are, and whatever document comes out, Lindsey Graham's already posted. It's got to be presented to the Congress, and we've got to take a hard look at it. I think there are some minimum requirements, but what do you think is the minimum requirement, or the president will get killed, I mean, killed politically if he signs anything that looks, smells, or feels like the JCPOA. So that's the starting point. But what's it? We know what it can't be. It can't be the JCPOA, but what must it be? Well, Hugh, I've heard you talking about the president set a bar at the outset of this conflict that it was about removing the nuclear material from Iran. I'm not exactly sure that needs to happen if we're committed to going in and bombing anytime we see activity. My concern about that is that a future president won't be committed to doing that. I think the minimum right now is the reopening of the straight. And I'd like to see us do that by force, if only to show the Iranians that we're

able to do that and they cannot close it at a moment's notice that we are capable of exerting our will and that they cannot close an international waterway it is not a quiver in their you know it's not a tool in their toolbox Yeah, Mark Dubowitz was here. He'd say, what does the agreement say about Pickax Mountain, which is the next online, the deeper tunnel than Fodor was, or there are other is fashon, all the other facility. Pickax Mountain is supposed to be so deep that not even our mobs can get to it. Do you think we need any time, anywhere, inspections in Iran is part of a deal that is acceptable to Republicans? I do, and I think that's what Lindsey Graham was getting at there. And of course, Hugh, the trouble with the inspections is that they rely on Iranian cooperation to a certain extent of leading us to where this uranium is buried, of allowing inspectors in. And so when the president says, you know, we're just a few days, we're in the fine print. That's always where the trouble comes up with Iran. And I would refer your listeners to Amit Siegel's wonderful newsletter where I learned this morning that... Abbas Araghchi, the lead negotiator for Iran, is actually the author of a book called The Power of Negotiation, in which he writes essentially about the power of stringing along negotiations and exhausting the other partner in negotiations, that this is very much a tactic of Iran, and I hope the president is acutely aware of that. I know Marco Rubio is, so I'm hoping the president hears that. But I would like to see, before he signs anything, I sure hope he floats it. So many bad ideas can be strangled in their cradle if they're a bad idea. But go ahead. I was going to say, I think we're a long way from, you know, getting a written agreement out and having pens on paper. I'm a skeptic that we're anywhere near that. And, you know, I know the president, we heard him in the sound that you played at the top of this saying markets are happy. Prices are going to come down. He's very much thinking of this in political terms. Not a good idea, though. Eliana, always good to see you. Follow her on exit. Eliana Y. Johnson. Stay tuned, America.

Morning glory, Dean and Grace, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt live. President Trump is taking questions on the Oval Office. Let's join that press conference. Wonderful. But you know what? They've got a chance to build a country. Their country is largely demolished. Again, their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone. Everything's gone. Their leadership is gone many times over. Even many people from this leadership is gone, but we found them to be rational. And they're going to make a deal? Mr. President. And I'll tell you what, it's a great deal. You know why it's a great deal? Because they will never have a nuclear weapon. This is a big amount of time that has to pass between this memorandum of understanding and filing the deal being done. Well, we hope it's going to go relatively quickly, but it's not. I mean, the streets are going to open immediately. This is fun signing. Maybe it'll be Saturday, Monday. Where's their deadline, though, to get from this to a final deal? We think it's going to go pretty quick. I don't want to say a deadline, because if I say a deadline, you'll say, oh, he didn't meet the deadline. You know, this is like, it's not going to matter much because it's going to get signed. And the straight is open. But the straits have been open for... a number of months already, and you just didn't know about it. You as reporters weren't able to get it. I just announced yesterday that we brought a lot of ships through nobody knew about it. I guess we did a pretty good job, Peter, right? But we brought many, many ships across, and millions, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil were brought across. And there wasn't a thing that anybody could have done about that. Is the Card Island Corporation off the table? Well, now it would be. If we signed this agreement, it would be. They weren't so thrilled when they heard that that's what I would have done. I just don't think, I like it. Look at Venezuela, how well that's worked out. We paid for that war many times over. And many, many times over. We have millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela going to Houston. And we're working great with the Venezuela and government. It couldn't be better. It's a real good relationship, really good relationship. Venezuela has been amazing. This is a larger situation. Actually, less oil as well as a lot of oil. But we think of it. We spent X dollars. We paid for it many, many times. Long was the last time you're here that many times over we paid for it. Do you ever think you see that in this country? We go to wars, we end up with tories, we end up with just blasting the hell out of people, and we come home. Nothing happens.

Venezuela was amazing, and this is amazing. Mr. President, are you considering using or drafting an executive order to extend by FISA or to continue using sections? Well, Congress wants me to do it, and let's see what happens there right now. The Republican leadership wants you to do it. Put out a statement, sure. It's very important for our military. Mr. President, on the State of America ad, you are now urging Republicans to add back to this third reconciliation bill. What's your perspective on why the election integrity matters so much for national security from your perspective? Well, we need it for our elections. We need to have voter identification, which you don't have right now on a national basis. We need it for, and the voter ID is very important. We need for proof of citizenship. Do you believe it? The Democrats are fighting. They don't want you to prove your citizenship when you vote. You know why they want that? Because they cheat. And we also wanted mail-in voting where you have people that are sent seven, eight ballots, two ballots, four ballots. And a lot of them sign those ballots, mail-in voting. I wouldn't want to be very judicious if you're in the military and you're far away or if you're handicapped or if you're sick or if you're on vacation that you have a, but you're not going to, millions and millions, look at California, they send out millions of ballots, tens of millions, they have no idea what's going on. Those elections are so corrupt. So we have a male in ballot. We have no men and we had two more. No men in women's sports. We're talking about saving America, right? No men in women's sports. Another one, very popular. I think it's 99 to 1. They say it's 80, 20. I think it's 99 to 1. And we have no mutilization of your children for transgender purposes. So let's see transgender mutilization of your children. Does that sound good with you, General Speaker? You're not there to... We've moved off of the deal with Iran. I want to update you on a couple other things. Barack Ravid of Axis reporting that behind the scenes, negotiations continued late into Wednesday night last night. In Tehran, as Qatari Andway Ali Al Thawadi in Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi worked to bridge the remaining gaps. According to three sources briefed on the talks, the Qadari's and the Iranians believed on Wednesday that they had reached an agreement on a text that the U.S. would accept. Now, Amit Segal, moments ago, also posted that... Iranians have agreed to this, that they have been counseled, and Iranian news agency says high chance that the agreement will be approved. Now, that's an Iranian news agency. You assume it's being run by the ARGC. I don't know. Nobody knows.

He gave them money. I had to go get the wall money from the military. I just took it out of the military because that guy wouldn't do anything. He gave it. No, Mitch McConnell's a bad guy. And I thought he was lousy at his job. Lousy at his job. But when they gave him, the only thing, they gave him a lot of credit for judges. But I'm the one that got the judges. You know why? I won the election. If I didn't win the election, he wouldn't have had anything. Let's stop here because I disagree with the president here. Mitch McConnell. was the man who won the presidency with the president by declaring that after Justice Scalia's untimely death, there would be no hearings and no votes. Maybe on the day that Justice Scalia died or the day after, Leader Mitch McConnell stepped up and said there will be here, no hearings and no votes. And that made the Supreme Court the key issue that got Donald Trump. over the finish line in 2016. I know they don't get along. They've never liked each other. That's okay. But he likes John Thune. That's even better. Let's go back to the presser. Just an impediment. But she's there. She probably will be a negative vote. You have a couple of others. I think Rand Paul's come a long way. Let's see what happens. I think Rand Paul likes Save America. Because Rand Paul is usually a negative vote. Talking about the Safe America Act. Okay. The next time I have the President on, we'll have to talk about this, because the Save America Act is not going to pass. We're not going to break the filibuster. The last time he was on, he asked me about the filibuster, and we agree to disagree. I believe in the filibuster. He doesn't. The Senate's not going to abandon the filibuster. John Thune is not going to abandon the filibuster because more than half of the Republican Conference does not want to abandon the filibuster. And the Democrats certainly don't want to abandon the filibuster. And the Save Act is a good piece of legislation. That needs 66 votes. The way to get it is to win Senate seats and to vote time to that. Don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. If the president's still talking, we may talk to him, but I've got to talk to Mick Mattis about what he thinks about the on deal. Stay tuned.

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by Vic Mattis, who is the co-host of the Getting Hammered podcast, the weekend and cultural affairs editor at the Washington Free Beacon. Vic, I greatly enjoy the new edition of Getting Hammered. Congratulations on your son's high school graduation. I can understand being a little bit sad. Thank you very much, Hugh. I want to assure you the sadness passes quickly once they get out of the house, then you're happy with the space. And I just want to assure your wife, Kate, who got a little misty eye, it will pass. You'll be very, very pleased in the end. Yeah, what I'm excited about is more food for me. That's what I look forward to. You know, the extra portions, which I thought, oh, we have a little bit of leftover or I'll just finish it now. And that happened actually last night. We're getting more and more used to my son being out and about and traveling. He's visiting his in-laws right now. And so, you know, I mean, it's kind of an ease into a transition situation. But, I mean, you're right. There's that and there's less cleaning. The family unit. I thought your explanation of it's not nostalgia, it's not sad. The family unit that's gone everywhere and done everything is breaking up at least three quarters of the year. But once it gets together again back next summer or when he comes back from college, you'll begin to wonder, how long is he till he goes back? That's what's going to happen. So I want to ask you, before we get to the peace deal, Giordano's. Okay. I don't like any deep dish pizza ever since Uno closed. And now that I heard about your Uno experience, I don't want to go there. Where is Giordano's? I want to know about Giordano's. I like it. Jordanos is like in the middle of the Penn Quarter, Hugh, right here in downtown D.C. It's just a few blocks up from the Willard Hotel, as a matter of fact. So it's like 14th, I think. And is it up that street? Is it a chain or is it a one-off? Yeah. No, the original is in Chicago. So that's an acceptable chain. And if you don't, you know, I don't know how you feel about deep dish in general. If you don't think about it as competition with actual pizza, but just as this delicious giant cake offering with cheese and tomatoes and things, it's quite lovely. Yeah. One slice should really do it, but honestly, we can do too. I'm an ambivalent deep dish person because in northeastern Ohio with the Italian American community so thick there, we have many fine choices of pizza, including white pizza. I've always thought deep dish to be a kind of American knockoff. Vic, do you believe this deal that the president is talking about? Good idea or bad idea? Could it possibly have come together over last night? I would like to believe that there is some form of a deal in the offing. It would be amazing if any of this were true involving the other states in the region and it sort of expanded Abraham Accords as in return for opening up the strait. We don't know the details right now. I mean, you're hearing from other news sources that the Iranians are saying that they don't have any sense of a deal or they don't know what the president is talking about. My biggest fear, Hugh, is that this is because.

becoming more and more a situation of the boy who cried wolf, that every time the economic situation becomes dire or just even a little bit uncomfortable for the president, he's going to say, we have some deal in the offing. And whenever that happens, you actually do see the price of oil go down and the stock market go up. But I think that you can only do that so many times. On the other hand, somebody told me that there's just as much a possibility that he says there's a deal going on. And then, you know, tonight he takes... care of all family businesses, they say, and the Godfather. I'd like to believe that. But I feel very frustrated right now that we've been in this sort of limbo situation for way too long. And as Mike Pompeo and others have said, there is only one way out of this, and that's to finish the job. So I want to relay what Barique were the just posted nine minutes ago from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. President Trump spoke this evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the emerging memorandum of understanding with Iran for entry in negotiations. So it's not a final deal for entry in negotiations. Although Israel is not a party to the memorandum of understanding, the Prime Minister expressed his appreciation for the President Trump's commitment to the final agreement at the conclusion of negotiations will include the removal of the enriched material, the dismantling of the enrichment infrastructure, the limitation of missile production. and the cessation of Iran's support for its terrorist proxies in the region. So I read that as Benjamin Netanyahu's trying to put on down the red lines he wants, but I'm not sure President Trump agreed to that. Do you think that's right? No, again, I'm skeptical about that. And I know that, you know, there's a temptation to just want to get a deal for the sake of a deal. You know, that sounds very familiar. This happened in a previous administration. And at the same time, Israel has to respond to the rockets being fired by Hezbollah. And Iran is using that as a sort of leverage saying that, well, if you want a deal, you got to tell Israel to tamp it down and just sit there and take it. That's not going to happen either, Hugh. So, again, I'm doubtful about it. that. I think that's too good to be true in order to remove the, you know, the highly enriched uranium, the dust, as the president refers to it. That involves troops on the ground. I can't imagine that the Iranians are going to allow that. Again, it's not a narco state like Venezuela. These people cannot be bought off. I think they really want to go down with that ship. And this is, you know, a regime that welcomes martyrdom, particularly the martyrdom of other people, not themselves personally. in general, a very, very frustrating situation we're in. All right. Reuters' Chief National Security correspondent, Phil Stewart, reports the things the President have said in the last hour. The Strait of our moves will open as soon as we sign. The signing will occur maybe over this weekend. The signing will probably be in Europe, and Vice President JD Vance will probably be there. Again, those are a lot of probabilities, and it's a memorandum of understanding to negotiate. You know, the Iranians, the president himself has said they've never lost a negotiation, they've never won a war. It is best case scenario is what I told Eliana Johnson last hour, is that they were sufficiently busted up by the Israeli strikes over the weekend and our strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday night that they finally said, no mas, no mas. That is possible.

Yeah, I mean, sure. That's definitely possible. But again, this regime... the people you're negotiating with here cannot be trusted. So even if they're going to say, you're right, you know, they've pounded us enough that we're willing to talk. I think, again, there is only one way out of this, at least decisively, and that is to completely topple them. But that's going to take a lot, as you know, Hugh, more than that. It needs more than a proportional response. It needs a highly disproportional response by the United States to show them that we need, we mean business. this here. I mean, this memorandum of understanding, it strikes me as saying we're going to agree to a meeting to agree on something. You know, they're just getting to that point, and in which point the Iranians can stretch this out. I really feel like they've been beaten down the president's right. The military has been destroyed, but at the same time, they still have this ability to shut down the strait, and they know that the president's worried about all that in the economy and the midterm elections. So count Vic Mattis as a skeptic. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, and I hope to be, look. That's right. And I hope to be proven wrong. I mean, if tonight, you know, over in the next few days, this all turns out to be a surprise. And the president, you know, reexerts his, you know, resolve and goes after Iran. Again, I do not doubt he has the courage to attack Iran because he's already done that. But my concern is his ability to finish the job. And I'll be happy to say I was wrong next week. All right. We'll see. Vic Mattis. Thank you. Follow him on exit Victorino Mattis. Listen to him on the Getting Hammered podcast, which you co-hosts with Mary Catherine Hammond. Come right back after the break. Stephen Myers coming back. And stay tuned to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. We keep our eyes on the Middle East, of course, what President Trump is saying on true social. But I do want to cover other news that's out there. Dr. Stephen Meyer is president of the Discovery Institute. I had a great pleasure a few weeks ago at the Museum of the Bible in D.C. to sit down with Stephen and other guests, including my old friend Brian Bird, to talk about the story of everything. An amazing film blew away the audience or about 400 people at the screening. Stephen, welcome back. How is the story of everything done? It was a fathom event, so it just, I have no idea how it rolled out.

Right. We were offered just an opening week, and we were extended because of the really good audience response all around the country, good box office numbers. We were extended into a second week, and then we were extended into a third week, and now this week the film has come out on Amazon Prime for streaming home entertainment release. So we've been very pleased at the success of the film. Oh, congratulations. I know why that is, because I've seen it. it, it breaks down the complicated into the simple, it explains it from the comfort of a living room. I think I told you that night on the set. I thought the choices made by your directorial team were amazing. What kind of response did you get from the average interview walks out not knowing what they were going to go see? Yeah, more important than the box office numbers were the audience response. I'm a scientist, a philosopher of science. I was unfamiliar with the film world, but there's a website called Rotten Tomatoes, which is, I guess, the go-to place to review things. And we've had a 92, 93, 94% rating, popcorn rating, approval rating from people who have watched the films. film with over 500 qualified reviews, so it's just maintained a really strong rating and response from audience members. More importantly, is just some of the reports we've gotten from people. Very often we're getting the report that after the film is over, that people are sitting quietly, reflectively, and then discussions break out all over the theater about really the big issues, the question of, is there a purpose of creator behind the universe? And what does that have to say about whether our lives have... any purpose, ultimate purpose or meaning. In our local theater in the Seattle area where I went, I went a couple nights and answered questions with audience members afterwards. And in both nights, people stayed out in the parking lot talking for hours afterwards. So it's a film that is a very good storytelling. It's not a sermon on tape. It's not a lecture on tape. Very good storytelling. But it does raise these deeper questions. that I think people have found to be personally engaging and enriching to consider. I want people to know. It's a documentary, and that's why it's doubly interesting because you can rely upon what is put up there. It is a history of science documentary. It's actually a history of the argument of design. It's a lot of philosophy, but it's mostly... a scientific look back in terms of what audience reaction over at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't believe you didn't know about Rotten Tomatoes. That's where I go to before I go to a movie, Stephen. Because, you know, audiences are better critics and critics. But I'm a movie guy. My children have told me I need some upgrades in my awareness of popular culture. Yeah, you do. Rotten Tomato, that's a very good score. But in terms of, they also tell you what the critics think over there. Did the critics go at least in terms of the beauty of it and the production values, or were they mad that you're... We've had nine reviews from certified Rotten Tomatoes critics. Eight of them have been off the charts positive. One was from a very committed atheist who said the film was very well done, but he's not going to buy the argument yet. And I guess once we get a 10th one, then we get an official rating.

that averages those scores. So we're waiting for a 10th qualified or certified Rotten Tomatoes reviewer to weigh in. Have you heard from any of the credential anti-designers? Among them, Richard Dawkins. I mean, there are lots of them, but Dawkins and I can never remember the guy who's out there all the time, but Dawkins is the number one. Lawrence Krauss is the other, his American sidekick. You know, really not. I think they've gone kind of sileond on this one. It's interesting that the dynamics of this debate have shifted a lot that the scientific new atheists, as they were called, really were, they had their run of things from about 07 to 2016. I think they've kind of overplayed their hand. There's a renewed interest in the God question in both the UK and the U.S. And I think that there's an awful lot of younger scientists that are coming into our larger network who are very excited about studying life in the universe from the standpoint that it was designed rather than presupposing that it came about by an undirected, unguided natural process. Yeah, I see on the screen the pantheon of new atheistic grates. I'll be right back. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. If you were listening in hour one, Dr. Stephen Meyer, president of Discovery Institute, way out in Seattle, and the prime mover behind the film, the story of everything, join me in the first hour to walk us through how well the film is done. It's now out on Amazon Prime, and it is about the argument from design. It's a history of science film. It's a history of the argument of design. It's not a particular theology. It's only that there must be a creator of the universe. And you can reason from the small to the larger, from the infinite to the beginning, the Big Bang, and you'll get there. Where we left off in hour one, Stephen, was we were talking about the new atheist, the new scientific atheist. The name I couldn't get was Sam Harris. He's the only one I've debated. Yeah, I debated Dawkins on this show. He's not very impressive in this, though I took his natural selection course decades ago in college. Sam Harris just doesn't know much. Have they given up the fight? I don't see them much anymore. Have they given up the fight? I think they have become less relevant. Some of them have just aged out of the debate. Others have just moved on to other topics. There's a wonderful book in the UK called The Surprising Rediscovery of Belief in God, written by Justin Briarly. And he tells the story of the unraveling of the new atheist movement. partly because of infighting within the new atheist camp themselves. Some of them were hyper-woke. Some of them were really anti-woke. And without an agreed framework for making moral decisions that comes from something like theism, they really didn't have a way of adjudicating those discussions. And so there was a lot of infighting and confusion. But beyond that, they never really addressed the most powerful scientific arguments for intelligent design or indeed for God as the designer.

And so a lot of their scientific arguments seem really thin now as a lot of the material from this larger network of scientists who see evidence of design is coming out into peer-reviewed scientific literature and into prominent books and now very publicly in the form of this film that we've been talking about. So back to the film. The film is called The Story of Everything. I'm wondering, is there a story of everything part two? Then we'll take the second step. We persuaded you there's a designer now. The designer usually signs their work. An artist normally puts their mark on it. How do we figure out what the designer wants us to know? Is there a part two coming? Well, there are several sequels. There'll be a part two that addresses the... Darwinian argument for the origin of new forms of life as a result of the process of natural selection acting on random variations. You mentioned that you'd taken Dawkins' course on that. It happens that leading evolutionary biologists are now calling for a new theory of evolution because they know that mutation natural selection mechanism has very limited creative power. It does a nice job of explaining. changes in coloration of peppered maws or changes in the shape or size of finch beaks, it does nothing to explain the origin of birds and mammals or insects or animal forms in the first place. And so this is a very interesting thing that the public doesn't know about, that leading evolutionary biologists are themselves dissatisfied with a standard textbook theory. I attended a conference at the Royal Society 10 years ago where this was all acknowledged. And it's time to put this. theory out of its misery. So we'll have a film coming out on that. But we're also interested in the deeper questions about, well, who is the designer? And to address that, you have to go beyond what's called natural theology and start to look at not general, the general revelation of nature, but what theologians call the special revelation that comes from scripture. And we have a couple of films planned on the historicity of different crucial biblical accounts of God. God's actions in time, space, and history, one on the Exodus account in the Hebrew Bible, and one on the trial of Jesus in the New Testament. So for audience who liked our first film, stay tuned. We'll be getting to those questions, specific questions of, you know, which God are we talking about? And how can you make that decision rationally about which form of theism makes the most sense? Well, apologetics is always interested in me, but you always have to bring along people who aren't interested at one step at a time. The first step is the story of everything. Let's get it down. There is a big bang. There is a design to the cell. There is a magnificence to the architecture that cannot be random. And that's now available at Amazon Prime. But there's a sequence then to follow. for people who have been, unfortunately. I didn't take Dawkins. I just read The Selfish Gene. It was taught by Stephen. I can remember his last name when I was a freshman in 1975. You've got to bring people out of that pit a lot of step in a time, don't you? So are you feeling rejuvenated? Is the Discovery Institute rejuvenated as a result of this? Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, we've had a kind of a big run. I would say, you know, the last 10 years have just been kind of like a flywheel, more and more momentum. We're attracting more and more young talent. There's a historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, who wrote a famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, back in the 60s. And he said, scientific revolutions happen one funeral at a time as the old guard died off. The younger people come. You don't persuade a lot of the oldsters. They just retire out of relevance. And we've got a new idea that comes up with younger people. And we're seeing that happen around the idea. Well, congratulations on that. Don't forget Amazon Prime has got the story of everything from the Discovery Institute and Dr. Stephen Myers. Thank you, Dr. Myers. I'm due to stay too. Now, I want to take a moment to tell you about our great sponsor, Consumer Cellular. They have a brand new offer. So I want you to listen carefully to this. You've probably seen the headlines are worse, your latest sell bill. Big wireless is raising rates again. Well, you can switch to consumer cellular right now and get $200 off your bill by going to consumercellular.com slash hue and use a promo code, Hugh 200. That's right, Hugh Hewitt-UGH 200. And when you switch, you'll get the same coverage as big wireless carriers, just not the coverage that's anything other than high quality. Are you tired of your wireless company telling you have to talk to an AI chat box or even pay 10 bucks to talk to someone when paying your bill? That's happening now, really. With consumer cellular, you'll talk to an actual human being based right here in the United States who will help you every step of the way when you switch. For a limited time, if you're over 50 as well, you can get $200 off your bill when you switch two unlimited lines. That's two lines of unlimited talk, texting data for $60 a month, plus $200 off. Hurry, the extra $200 off your bill will not last long. This offer ends June 14th. Visit consumercellular.com slash you. Use the promo code. Hugh, 200, or call 1-800-4-1-41-44, 1-800-4-1-4-4-454, 1-800-4-1-4-4-4-4-54.

Join now by Josh Croshauer editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider. Josh, there's a best-case scenario and there's a worst-case case. Wait, I don't know what that is. There is a best case and a worst-case scenario, Josh Croshauer. Best case is the strike by Israel over the weekend and the strikes by the United States on Tuesday and Wednesday, including more than 40 tomahawks on Wednesday night. just jammed sense into the Iranians, and they said no moths, and they did the deal last night with the Qatari intermediated. The worst case is President Trump changed his mind, didn't want to do this because markets weren't happy about the threat that he issued this morning on Fox and Friends. What do you think happened? Well, Hugh, having been watching the ups and downs and the roller coaster ride of the period of a ceasefire since April, it does feel like there's a little bit of kabuki theater to these negotiations. Now, this time may well be different because it seems like the president indicated in his remarks just now that the Ayatollah gave sign off to at least some of the ideas as part of the diplomacy. And I think the biggest takeaway from... President Trump's comments is that as part of this deal, the straight of Hormuz would open up immediately. But again, we're not seen anything on the ground. Apparently the Israelis were taken by surprise when Trump posted his truth social earlier today. They since have been in conversation, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. But there's been a lot of talk, Hugh, as you know, about. We're almost on the finish line when it comes to diplomacy, and then it turns out we're a lot further than expected. So I heard a lot of caveats in the president's reflection of what this deal actually does, and I'll be very much looking at the Ronald Reagan mantra, trust but verify, when it comes to looking at what happens. Now, oil is down to $86.34 a barrel at this moment. That can change over the course of an hour, of course. And markets love the announcement because... They prefer Talk Talk to World War, as should anyone. However, it's the Iranians. Now, it is possible that Tahiti is dead, and maybe some regular fanatics took over as opposed to fanatical fanatics. But I'm not really hopeful about the 60 days to negotiate. I mean, we've got a record. I hope we're not going to be John Kerry chasing after the old Zahir, what was his name, the former Foreign Minister of Iran. Sharif, right, the former foreign minister. Yeah, Zarif. The thing that that keeps me pause is that this is one of the many times in the ceasefire period that Trump has basically said we're going to strike Iran if they don't, you know, immediately come to the table. And, you know, again, he kind of backed back away at the last minute. So Iran has been sort of reading the president's intentions. They've been calling his bluff. And they've, and it seems like they've been, at least until this moment, have been. obstinate and not making any concessions. So if they do agree to open up the Strait of Hormuz right away without any, you know, without any gives, sure, that's great. I believe it when I see it. And it doesn't seem like we've made a lot of progress on the nuclear side of things based on what the president had to say. He said there were some conceptual conversations. So I think there's a long. Yep.

We were taking the press conference live, and I got frustrated because there were some idiotic questions from the press in the room. The real question is, if during the 60 days of negotiation that the MLU kicks off, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he's gotten assurances on what they're going to talk about, but if during those 60 days another Apache gets attacked and down, or they fire off missiles at Israel again, what happened? That's the question, isn't it? If they breach the deal... to have a 60-day ceasefire because we had a 40-day war, a two-month negotiation, a four-day battle, and now we have two months of negotiations. What happens if they screw with us again? Well, we already saw a preview of that over the weekend where Iran attacked Israel. Israel responded, but the president wanted Israel to restrain itself. And Iran is making the bad, they seem to think that the domestic political pressures... on President Trump are such that he's actually, they're calling his bluff. They don't think he's actually going to engage in a, you know, really sustained military strikes that we did respond to get tit for tat, proportionally, as Sencom had said, to the Iranian attacks against our bases. So this, this is a, I mean, it brings me memories of Obama. I hate to say this to you, but it brings me memories of when, you know, the Obama administration were talking about proportional responses and not wanting to ratchet, you know, military action up in the Middle East. And Iran can sniff weakness. That's one thing that they're very good at. They know when, you know, the U.S. is not serious about, you know, bringing all it has to both the negotiating table and the military assets it has on the ground there. Last question, Josh. We hit him with 40 tomahawks last night. Forty Tomahawks is not one Apache. Forty tomahawks is not proportionate. Forty tomahawks is a, that's 40 things destroyed. Let's go with the best case for a second. Maybe how many doesn't want to die in Bahiti is dead. How's that as the best case? Yeah, look, I think you laid out the best case scenario, which is that they don't want to test the White House and they're not quite sure what Trump's intentions are and they're going to at least deal with the Strait of Hormuz, even if they won't deal with the nuclear and ballistic missiles. That would be the best case scenario. And if that does transpire, if the, you know, if the Strait of Formuz opens up and Iran doesn't ask for anything more other than the... other than the U.S. not striking Iran, then that would be a good day for the United States. But, again, I'll believe it when I see it, and we'll see what happens. And we'll see what's in the memorandum. Right now, the world's better off than it was on February 27th, but it can backsliding as possible, and you can't trust the Iranians. Josh Kroshauer, thank you. Follow Josh at Josh Kroshauer on X. As promised, Administrator Lee Zeldin joins us. He now is administering the Environmental Protection Agency, my least favorite agency in the federal government, but Lee Zeldin's doing a fabulous job running it. Mr. Administrator, welcome. Do you have any guesses why it's my least favorite agency? Started by Richard Nixon for whom I worked, and I built the library that honors the EPA, but do you have any idea why I hate it?

I'm confident it's based on decisions of the past, but not during this current administration where we have been instituting a zero tolerance policy for any waste and abuse. We did an agency-wide reorganization, and we are showing that you can protect the environment and grow the economy. You can rack up the pro-environmental wins all across America while also applying common sense. following statutory obligations, limiting power to what is specifically outlined in statute. And that's why we've had a deregulatory agenda that we've pursued. That's more deregulation in one year than entire federal governments have done in the past across all agencies of the federal government combined across entire presidencies, protecting the environment and growing in the economy. I want to get into the weeds of that because getting the EPA out of the lives of many Americans, whether they know it or not, will be a great thing. But I want to start with my beef. I left the Reagan administration in 89. I went out to California. I started to practice land use law. And I would make my journeys up to Region 9 in San Francisco. and beg them to please approve the 404 permit that had been approved already by the Army Corps of Engineers. But it had been elevated. Have you changed the rules on elevation, which is this mysterious process where an EPA bureaucrat decides, now we want to take a look at that 404 permit and screws up the thing that you've been working on for years? And the EPA never gives up. Have you changed that? Yeah, absolutely. EPA has the power to slow things down, and EPA has the power to speed things up. And you're referencing a section of the Clean Water Act, both with Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and more. There are these statutory obligations that the agency has where we want to make sure that we are doing our job, we are doing our due diligence, but we are also operating with... Trump speed. And we're trying to allow maximum investment into our community and our country to unleash energy dominance, to be able to build new manufacturing, new facilities to help the auto industry and so much more. So, yeah, a lot is going faster. Listen, something gets elevated when it needs to get elevated to really break through red tape. We don't elevate to slow things down. We would only elevate to speed things up. We delegate when things can be handled correctly, but we want to make sure that we don't delegate certain decisions that... I as EPA administrator or someone who's running a program office can make sure that this agenda is being administered, that it's being administered correctly at the president's priorities are getting done, and our statutory obligations are being fulfilled. We inherited...

Massive backlogs. Pesticide review backlog was over 14,600. Hundreds of state implementation plans backlogged. 175 of the small refinery exemption requests going back several years, a blown renewable volume obligation deadline, and so much more. So by focusing our priorities on our core statutory obligations, we are making sure that we have either eliminated or greatly reduced Each of those backlogs that we inherited, this is all part of our effort to make our agency more transparent and operate in a way that the American public can be proud of. Well, I'm glad you brought up SIPP's state implementation plans. I want to get there as well. My one suggestion, I only make one suggestion to a cabinet member, is before anyone's allowed to elevate a 404 permit, they need your permission or the office of the administrator's permission because it used to be run by bureaucrats. to delay. Now, of course, EPA got the worst that it could get during the Obama years, but the Clinton years were pretty bad, too, because it can stop growth everywhere in America. So I just want to commend you. You've really turned it around, and I'm a retired lawyer now. I don't do that anymore, and I haven't done it for 10 years. But the EPA was a monster regulator. For example, Pete Wilson put me on the Air Quality Management District, and EPA would always threaten our sip, which we got from CARB. It was just like this gigantic regulatory octopus. How long did it take you to master that? Yeah, I mean, we started tackling this instantly. One of the things that helped was we created as part of our reorganization an office of state air partnership and an office that is focused on advancing cooperative federalism to be able to get through this SIP backlog. Now, the message is clear to these states. Don't try to use the power of EPA to help you to shut down base load power in your state. We had to disapprove a part of a SIP for the state of Colorado because they wanted us to help them involuntarily shut down some coal plants. We're not going to play along with that. We had a state implementation plan for California that we had to partially disapprove because of how they wanted to regulate out of state and out of country heavy-duty trucks. But what is happening almost everywhere with these state implementation plans is that we work together and were able to get to yes. One of the other things that I don't want to see happen is for us to be in a position where we can't reach an agreement on the state implementation plan. so that we then have to have some federal implementation plan that's a one-size-fits-all solution cutting out of some agency in Washington, D.C. We believe that state and local governments know their land, air, and water better than agency officials in D.C. But again, don't try to abuse that power by trying to get our agency to help you shut down baseload power in your state. We need more of that, not less. You know, I worked all across the West. I never met. a state agency that cared less about their air, water, or their wildlife than the people that they were representing. And they were always better conservers of their natural resources than the federal government. It just never made sense to me that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service got to regulate huge swath. And I know you and Doug Burgum must get together. Are you on the Energy Dominance Council Administrators Eldon?

Sure, yeah. No, I serve very closely with Doug Burgum or Chris Wright and others. We meet directly with the president. The National Energy Dominance Council will go into a meeting with an agenda where this president is instantly into the weeds. Like if you have an agenda item for an NEDC meeting where the topic is pipelines. The president then will be asking, okay, what's the status of new LNG pipeline in Alaska to run along the Trans-Alaska pipeline, Constitution Pipeline, to deliver natural gas from Pennsylvania through New York into New England. Nessie Pipeline to deliver natural gas from Pennsylvania to downstate New York. Embridge has a project through Great Lakes and Wisconsin. TransWestern has a $5-plus billion dollar. pipeline expansion across the Permian Basin of southwest U.S. from through New Mexico and into Arizona. So the president, while we'll go into a meeting and we'll have these topline topics, the president is instantly in the weeds on them. And the pipelines are just one of many great examples to show that. But yeah, we work really closely with Doug Burgum and the others. So I haven't talked to Secretary about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That's my second most hated agency. Number three is the Army Corps of Engineers. But hopefully you're working well. Let's turn to the Energy Dominance Council. And you mentioned it's on my list. New York State hates pipelines. I'm up in New England right now. These people pay ridiculous amounts for natural gas and electricity in the winter because New York won't approve pipelines. Are you doing something about that? Yeah, absolutely. I was actually just in Binghamton a couple days ago. I had a press conference highlighting the need for New York to get behind Constitution Pipeline to allow this to get built, to deliver natural gas through New York and into New England. There are millions of New Englanders who need it. And New England, as you well know, is relying on, you know, not just out of state sources, but out of country sources. They're seeing the highest. energy increases that you'll find just about anywhere in America. And it just doesn't have to be this way. To be able to deliver natural gas from Pennsylvania and New England would be great. I will say, though, that what makes even more sense would be for New York to reverse its ban on the extraction of natural gas from New York. The fact that New York would be... Banning that statewide doesn't make any sense. They ban a gas hiccups on new construction inside of the state. They're, as you're pointing out, not approving pipelines like Constitution where they should. They've set climate dates that they know that they will not hit. But in the rush to try to hit those dates, they'll cause extreme economic pain to their own New Yorkers who can least afford it. And New England, unfortunately, because of the Constitution pipeline aspect of it, they are suffering as a result of that neighboring state not allowing this pipeline to be built. It's an important priority of the presidents. It's an important priority of the National Energy Dominance Council. Unfortunately, New York has been standing in a way, and they're wrong to do that. Oh, they're so wrong to it. Don't go anywhere, America. Administrator Lee Zeldin will be right back with me.

I'll get his take on the Nix, and then we'll talk about what might be happening tonight as we speak over the skies of Iran and how the energy turbulence that was expected did not actually arrive in the degree that people expected, largely because of the Energy Dominance Council, upon which he sits along with Doug Burgum, Chris, right over at Energy and Interior and Reverse there. So don't go anywhere. Stay tuned. I'll be right back on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt talking with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Lee Zeldin, member of the President's cabinet, member of the U.S. Energy Dominance Council. Administrator Lee Zeldin, President Trump said he was going to be striking Iran tonight this morning on Fox and Friends. About 1 o'clock today, he called it off. And we don't know if it's called off for good, but either way, it creates uncertainty in the energy markets. Do you want to let the audience know what EPA has to do with calming the energy markets and what the Energy Dominance Council is doing? I mean, oil's still under $100 a barrel, which is pretty remarkable given that we're bombing Wednesday and Tuesday. Sure. From one standpoint, there is the regulations on the oil and gas industry. Some of these regulations that were put in a place during the Biden administration, the regulator wasn't meeting with the regulated community and then drafted these rules. Quad OBC is an example of one of the regulations on the oil and gas industry with flaring, with wells, producers. It's an important topic for them. And there was just so many different consequences negatively on our energy economy. So we had been going through the process. We've very finalized rules. We're doing more to be able to fix that mistake. I've signed off on summer waivers as it relates to the sale of E10 and E15. There are decisions that are within EPA's equities. specifically, but then there's also the work of the National Energy Dominance Council. And I think one of the biggest untold stories of the midterm and long-term benefits for the U.S. of what's happening in the Middle East is that you have so many countries that are now looking to the United States for diversifying their supply chain in a way that they had it in the past. We were in Tokyo. in March, right after the conflict first started. We met with 17 Indo-Pacific nations, their energy ministers and others were there. And countries, like, for example, Japan, they were talking about how it takes them 28 days to get their supplies from the Middle East, and they haven't had freedom of navigation, where they've been for many decades also getting energy supplies from Alaska, where it takes just a few days, and they've always had total freedom of navigation. They're looking more to the U.S. In other countries, they're looking more to the U.S. on how can they tap into our supplies? Now, we need to increase our infrastructure inside of the U.S., including our ports on the West Coast to be able to get these supplies exported. Unleashing energy dominance is big, not just for Americans, but also for our economy and our national security.

to be able to export to other countries that are relying on it. On top of it, short term, the president's move with the strategic petroleum reserve, other countries doing their part with releasing supplies, the work to be able to get ships through the strait of Hormuz. There have been a lot of actions that other agencies have been taking, working with President Trump to help the short-term impacts, but long-term... And again, midterm as well, we're seeing more of a demand for American supplies that can be a benefit, not just for years to come, but for decades and generations to come. It's a whole new way of other countries to be able to provide for their own needs to be able to tap into our supplies. I would say, by the way, better for our environment as well, because here in the United States, we tap into these supplies so much better for the environment than so many other countries do elsewhere around the world. So, Lee Zeldin, in the first term of President Trump, Scott Pruitt, Andy Wheeler, they'd come on the program. They had to do rollback. The Obama years were a nightmare at EPA. They grew regulations like vines in a forest, and they were cutting them back. In the intervening time, the Trump Supreme Court appointees added with justices John Roberts and Thomas and Samuel Alito. came up with the major questions doctrine, and then they came up with the end of judicial deference to administrative agency. Has rollback been easier this time around for you than it was for, say, Andy and Scott when they were in your job? Absolutely. There is a single best meaning of federal statute, and we are going to simply follow that single best meaning of federal statute. That's Loperbrite. And we use that, for example, in repealing the 2009 endangerment funding and all the greenhouse gas emission standards on light, medium, and heavy duty vehicles that followed. And the start, stop, off cycle credit, all the off cycle credits, including that. climate participation trophy for manufacturers to make cars diet, stoplights, and red lights, stop signs, and red lights. So, you know, that was just simply... reading Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, which does not give EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to fight global climate change. We're just following the best available reading of the law. And as it relates to the major questions doctrine, I'm glad you pointed it out, we saw it with West Virginia versus EPA and other court cases, no longer can a member of Congress down the street where they're lacking... the votes, the political will, the political courage to change statute, can you just call the head of an agency your friend down the street and say, hey, why don't you just do it anyway?

No longer am I able to, you know, read federal statute and say, well, the statute doesn't say I can't, so I guess, therefore, I can. If the EPA is going to oppose trillions of dollars of regulation, you need to have a debate and a vote, a change of statute authorization from Congress. And for too long, for too often, you had agency heads, like the administrator of EPA. imposing these massive costs on the American public, on the American economy, without there being that debate and that vote in Congress. So these are consequential decisions, landmark decisions of the Supreme Court in recent years. We are following them simply. And by the way, it doesn't just... tie the hands of me as the EPA administrator, but it also ties the hands of whoever follows me. I'm not limiting my power to less than my statutory obligations. I'm limiting my power where I can't do more than what federal statute requires of me, and that's going to be the same requirement on whoever follows me in this seat after me. All right. Let's talk about California then, and in two specific ways. California Air Resources Board attempts to bully the country into ridiculous and crazy regulatory overreach. Is there any way that you can bring them to heal? Because CARB is really driving a lot of the environmental nightmare in the country. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm glad you asked. Last year, we sent three Biden EPA waivers that were previously sent to California that California used for their electric vehicle mandate and more that a whole bunch of other states then signed on to. That Biden EPA waiver was sent to Congress for Congress to review. under the uh... congressional review act so we sent three of those waivers over congress then rejected those waivers pursuant to the congressional review act president trump signed it effectively eliminating the electric vehicle mandate that California had. I mentioned earlier here in this interview where we rejected a part of the state implementation plan proposal for California, where they wanted permission to be able to regulate heavy-duty trucks from state and even out of country. These and more are actions that have been taking. and will be taken in other ways going forward for us to be able to strike that balance of making sure that we don't have one state holding hostage all of national policy, that we are then neutering the entire power of the federal government across all branches by giving a monopoly of power to CARB. We do not believe in that, and we have taken a number of actions and we'll do more.

I have one more segment with the administrator. Don't go anywhere. We're going to talk about rebuilding L.A. because someone's got to do it, and it's not going to be done by Karen Bass or the socialist who wants to replace. They're hard to believe there's someone even more to the left than Karen Bass. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Lee Zeldin was a great congressman. He was a great soldier. He's probably a Knicks fan, so we don't want to bring up basketball right now because they're all a little overly zealous. Are you a Knicks fan, Administrator Zelden? Oh, lifelong. And I'm loving every minute of this finals run. Yeah, the president called me last night at midnight talking Knicks basketball and that game that we watched last night. It was the largest comeback ever in the NBA finals. It was the largest comeback for the New York Knicks of any game that they've ever played down 29. And it's just such an awesome team. They have all the right pieces. We're feeling good that for the first time in 53 years, we're going to be hoisting that Larry O'Brien Trophy. So we're excited. I'm from outside of Cleveland. So the refereeing in the Cavaliers game where they were 22 points ahead. I know the Spurs fan pain. Let me just say that. I have a feeling maybe the NBA wants the Knicks to finally win something, but we'll leave it there. Administrative Lee Zeldin. Let's go out to California. It burned down because of malfeasance on the part of an individual and just complete incredible incompetence on the part of the city of Los Angeles, the county of Los Angeles, the state. I applaud your cleanup. I did not think you'd be able to get that stuff removed in the record fashion that you did. Is there any way you can help them rebuild it? 100%. And at the one-year mark, President Trump, very happy with all of the federal response efforts, said, you know, I wonder if we could do even more to help break through the non-federal log jams that still exist. He asked me to lead this effort. We were able to help get thousands of additional permits then over the finish line. In a way, it was kind of like constituent services from back in my day as a legislator. We were calling individuals who lost their homes and figuring out what kind of help they needed to be able to punch their permits over the finish line. We also were getting feedback about how, while some insurance companies were doing a really good job and paying out their claims. Other insurance companies weren't. They were dragging their customers through the mud, requiring documentation to be provided, even though it was lost in the fire. And at the end of the day, providing it, offering up an underpayment anyway. So we have been engaging with the insurance companies, and we have gotten insurance companies to change their policies to help there. And there's more to be done. Same on the banking front.

We heard from locals where they have a mortgage to pay, but they also now have to pay rent because they're not back in their home where they're still paying on the mortgage. So we engage directly with the banks to get the banks to extend mortgage forbearance. We are, quite frankly, working as close as we possibly can with anyone. I don't care if you're, you know, state government, local government, private sector, your... the builders, the insurance, the banking, the victims, the local communities. We're here to help however we possibly can, and we're happy to do it. This is the most apocalyptic site I've ever seen inside the United States. I was there right after the fires hit, and it's very personal to us. We want to help Los Angeles rebuild. We're proud to do it. And I'll say as far as preventing any type of an instance like this again in the future, It's very important for California to do better as it relates to fire prevention and forest management. There is a state park right next to the Palisades where there should have been brush clearance. You create a buffer to give more time for fire departments to stage, more time for homeowners to be able to flee, but unfortunately that wasn't done. there's a need for more of the water infrastructure. They rely on gravity to get water to go downhill, but when you need to rely on pressure pumps to get water to go uphill... then when everyone turns on their sinks, their sprinklers, their faucets, and even the fire hydrants, and the pressure goes down and you can't get the water uphill, then you're unable to fight the fire. There needs to be more redundancy. So water flow is important as well. So while we're going to do everything in our power, there is so much that other levels of government can do to help, and we just want to assist as much as we can. This is about the people of America. everyone. We want to fight for them. And regardless of whether or not it fits into traditional EPA equities, the president wants us to assist and we're happy to do it. You know, Administrator Zellum, we got one minute left. Have you ever looked into desalization and how EPA could expedite that? I mean, the California Coastal Commission would kill it in a moment, but they're left-wing socialist. But We could use desal on the Gulf. We could use it on the East Coast. Does anyone ever talk to you about, hey, EPA, let's get in the desalization business. That's got to be good for the environment? Yeah, absolutely. As a matter of fact, today there's a meeting with leaders in a whole bunch of different agencies where they're going to be talking about a number of different water topics. And one of the topics that the head of the Office of Water for EPA is planning on bringing up is the topic of desal. It's an important priority. Come back and tell us, update us on that. I think you may be the only hope that most Californians have of ever getting anything rebuilt out there. It's a nightmare. Lee Zeldin, good to talk to even though Nick's supremacist though you might be. Come back and keep us posted on all the good stuff you're up to. In 2025, the FBI reported that Americans lost more than $21 billion to fraud and identity theft. Identity thieves can steal your social security number, open credit accounts in your name.

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