Talks breakdown, hostilities resume in Middle East

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.com, or just Google, Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. I always feel a little uncomfortable saying morning, glory, evening grace, but I will because I respect Hugh, but listen to him for decades and decades. Alex Marlow here, colleagues of Hugh on Salem. He's been such a kind mentor to me and always assures that I get reps whenever I can do in the full three-hour show, which is nice. He's trying to keep an eye on the next generation. He's very, very good about this. This is a real important thing for me. My life always thought I found the best mentors and nice to have Hugh lending me his chair. Though ironically, I'm in Larry Elder's chair. Those of you are watching on the stream. today. This is bizarre because my desk where I do my show is right over there. Because of the nature of the way the board works, apparently I have to sit in Larry's chair, which is inconvenient for Larry. Anyway, we're going to get to the news today. We got a lot to do. Byron York's going to be here. We're going to be talking about Iran. Got up-to-the-minute updates. We've got breaking development on Trump's weaponization board, which is apparently that fund might be, may or may not be going away. More details on that in a little bit. And then we're going to get to the Democrats, Graham Platner, his crazy wife, Jill Biden. All of this is going to come up on today's show. But we'll start in Lebanon, where Israel is trying to make a claim for... More territory encroaching in on Lebanon while Hezbollah has been distracted, I think largely because of the Iranian war where the Iranian regime has been, I think, crippled. They've been decapitated is the way Scott Bessent phrased it to me when I was with him on Friday. I'll talk to you about that interaction a little bit coming up as well. But Hezbollah has tried to make rocket attacks on Israel as well. So now they're going back and forth. It is a rocket campaign going both directions. And this is interesting because I think. Israel, it probably benefits from Hezbollah's attack in a way because I think a lot of people who are allied with President Trump think that what is Israel doing? They've got to knock it off. They've got to stop attacking Hezbollah right now while we're trying to force peace with Iran. Hezbollah, of course, is an Iranian proxy. But now with Hezbollah retaliating, it definitely seems to legitimate Israel going in hard against Lebanon and trying to vanquish that. ancient foe of theirs while Iran, their primary backer, has got bigger fish to fry for themselves. So that's going back and forth. That is not a positive development when it comes to a peace if Iran is going to maintain that a peaceful Lebanon is essential to forging a peace deal. Meanwhile, the Lebanese government led by Joseph Aoun, who's generally sort of a cool customer and all this, he is trying not to...

get involved at all. He's trying to stay out of it, not mediating, not brokering anything. And that's why these complicated territorial disputes in the Middle East are always way more complicated than we want. And thus we are where we're at now, which is Trump saying that all shooting must stop between Israel and Hezbollah and his claim that he's spoken to leaders of both Israel and Hezbollah just in the last couple of hours. He says he had a productive call with Prime Minister B.Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. This is on true social. I'm reading now. There will be no troops going to Beirut and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back. Likewise, through highly placed representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah. So. He didn't have the call, but highly placed representatives spoke to the terrorist regime, Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop. Israel will not attack them and they will not attack Israel. So what's interesting here, you got to read between the lines. Is it Trump wants Israel to knock it off for the time being, you know this because Trump is focused on Iran, which is a much bigger piece of the puzzle than what happens with Hezbollah. Benjamin Netanyahu sees this as a golden opportunity to bomb some of the bad guys while the world is looking in the other direction. And Trump sees it as Benjamin Netanyahu's got to calm down if we're going to get to a peace. So that's where we are. But talks have essentially been suspended as of today. Iran has said they've halted direct negotiations via mediators with the United States, citing Israel's ongoing strikes and operations in Lebanon. This is, of course, complicated for Trump, who it seems like each and every day makes the world feel as though we could be on the brink of peace. We could see peace breaking out anytime soon. Iran state media has reporting all this with warnings that breaches on one front invalidate the truth, the truce over. all, meaning it's not just the United States he's keeping an eye on. He's also keeping an eye on, he's also, he's not just keeping on the United States, he's keeping on Israel. And so this is where these things get very complicated. And Iran has played its biggest card, which is the Stradivormuz blockade. So if we can somehow get through this moment, I do feel like Trump is going to have a clear path to peace and messaging to the rest of the world that he has achieved a historic victory in terms of denuclearizing Iran, decapitating their Navy, decapitating their Air Force, decapitating their top two levels of leadership. I mentioned I spent some time with the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Friday. We were going around my neck of the woods. in L.A. And he was talking a lot about how economic security is national security. And he was really touting the fact that Trump is these military victories over Iran, even though we haven't gotten the nuclear dust yet, we want to have more assurances that Iran will not be doing any more nuclear development for the next 20 years or more. We want all that. But already what they've done is they've made it that the United States is a more dominant pull.

player economically in the region. And I think that this is something that's worth taking in. This came up a little bit in what I think were pretty historic remarks at the Reagan Institute, where the secretary was speaking on Friday. I think laying out what I think is a New thesis that we all, those of us who subscribe to MAGA economics, as I do, I work on a newsletter every day called the Breitbart Business Digest, where we go through magonomics, that national security and foreign policy are directly intertwined and is in fact a fundamental principle of the Treasury Secretary that they have to make sure that we're short up on a national security level because a lot of the war that's being waged against Iran is economic. Cutting them off from economics is one of our most powerful. powerful points of leverage, and it also keeps us out of, keeps our troops out of harm's way. Let's play a little cut of this. Let's play cut three guys. America should never again put itself in a position where its security depends on supply chains. It does not control. Factories it no longer maintains or skilled trades it failed to preserve. That is why the president's agenda matters. Reasonable people can debate the calibration of any particular instrument, but the central strategic insight is undoubtedly sound. Trade policy, industrial capacity, and national security are inseparable. And to allow foreign dependence to degrade any one of these. Yeah, and he goes on. Yeah, and he goes on in the speech to lay out exactly how supply chain vulnerabilities that we've created for ourselves are actually a national security threat. The fact that we had our pharmaceutical reserves depleted and were dependent on China for all those, that's a grave strategic blunder. The fact that we're so reliant on chips from overseas is a grave strategic blunder. The fact that our economy is so tied into China that we're in this spot where we have to sell them so much of our technology that, and of course they're stealing a bunch of... But now, they're in our universities taking our know-how, our intellectual property, bringing it back to China. My good friend Peter Schweitzer, who is a senior contributor for us at Breitbart News, written his book, wrote in his book, The Invisible Coup, how China has birthed tourism, where there are people coming into the United States from China specifically to try to infiltrate our society. They don't best intentions. They're not just trying to make a buck or more freedom. They're there to try to get state secrets from the United States. Intellectual property, know-how, wisdom from the United States. and bring it to the CCP. And China is a communist nation, which means that the government is controlling all of it. There is no private property. It does not exist in the CCP. It is only exist at the extent that it is allowed for by the Communist Party when they choose to do so. It's up to the Politburo in China whether or not you have any property rights whatsoever. Any freedom whatsoever is a gift from them. It doesn't come from God as we believe it does in the United States. So once you understand that, then why are we doing so much commerce with them without assurances that we are people thinking through those realities? And that's what Scott Bessent is doing. When we come back from the break, I'll play even more how this ties in with Iran. But he was touting our Navy, the most active it's been since World War II, he said. He was talking about precision blockades of these ports. And then now Iran basically is down to one client for their oil, which is China.

So they sell a lot to China, but that can only sustain them for so long. Iran, their military is not getting paid, half their troops not getting paid. They were in a position where they had to shut off the internet. All this shows you that even though this war has been messy in many ways, we wish it would be over by now. We wish the gas prices would be coming down. There has been so many victories. And we're going to tout them here on the Hewitt Show. I'm Alex Marlowe, in for Hugh, here for three hours, looking forward to the rest of the show. We'll be right back with more. All right, Alex Marlowe in for Hugh today. Byron York is on with me, Chief Political Correspondent for the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor. He also hosts the Byron New York Show podcast. Byron, great to have you back. I want to talk to you about a number of topics today, but I want to start with getting your overall take on Iran. It feels like every other day. It feels like we're about to get peace. We're deep into war. What do you think are the real sticking points right now? And I heard the president, I played a clip for the audience just before the break, summing up where we're at. And basically, he thinks he's gotten them to commit to no nukes ever. That seems like the biggest ask and they got to open up the straight. But other than that, do we know what's being negotiated at the moment? No, we don't. And that's, I mean, that's the biggest problem. And first of all, we never seem to know whether the negotiations are even going on at all. So, you know, in the last few hours or earlier today, we've had Iran say, no, we're not doing it. And Trump's saying, well, you know, wouldn't be a bad idea to stop. It was getting kind of boring. And then he's saying, no, they're going on. And so it's, you know, it's really, really unclear. And I think a lot of people may have an attitude of kind of, you know, why don't you call me when you get something settled? Right. So part of it is the nature of Iran is notoriously difficult to negotiate with. They're tough negotiators. They've had their top leadership completely wiped out, decapitated. And they also move very slowly. So this is something that is just completely anathema to the way Donald Trump behaves. But overall, we want to wrap this thing up. But do you see any possibility of this happening in short order when Iran knows they're reading American media and they know the longer this thing drags out, the more of a problem that is for President Trump? Yeah, I don't see something really fast happening. I mean, what we were hearing a while back was that there would be this two-step process. in which around would reopen the strait, the United States would dispense with its blockade, and then they would move on and come to a final agreement about the nuclear material, which would involve the physical removal of the enriched uranium. The problem with that was they were claiming, as you remember, it was no dust, no dollars policy that is until Iran actually hands over this stuff, they don't get any sanctions relief, any relief from the United States.

The problem with that is if you do lift the blockade, remember the president has praised the blockade as the Americans basically premier instrument in putting pressure on Iran. He said it was costing Iran $500 million a day. So if you lift the blockade, you're giving them $500 million in relief per day. And I think that enormously reduces the incentive for them. for Iran to then go on to a nuclear agreement. So I still have not seen anything that makes me think Iran is really serious about the kind of nuclear agreement that Trump is demanding. So what do you say to a sort of pro-Trump audience that would like to see this win happen, but no time is of the essence to make sure that we're starting to claw back, anyone who may have left the coalition over this before the midterms? Because, again, we've got to beat the Democrat. You've got to win in the midterms. What's the proper messaging you think out of the White House right now?

Sorry, I don't know. I got to ask the same question last week, and I think I said, I don't know. So we're in the same age. Okay, well, good. We're in agreement here. You know, the president has, from the very first beginning on February 28th, the president said this would be really short, really short. It's going to be very brief. It's going to be very brief. It's going to be predicted, you know, a few weeks. And he's, since his predictions ran out, he's been saying that the talks are moving forward and an agreement is imminent. It's very soon, we're just working out the last stuff. The president has seemed a little desperate to get a settlement here. But I think the one thing to do is to go to stick with the core goal here, the core demand here, which is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All those other stuff is kind of secondary to Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And also, personally, I think, and I've said this since before this started, I don't think there's a forever solution to that problem. I think that you set them back for 10 years, and then you keep an eye on them. Yeah. And then set them back again later on if you have to. But the point is Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. But there is no... forever solution, and I don't think you should make the perfect enemy the good here. If you have set them back a long way, then that's good. All right. So he did say, though, I know he said he's looking desperate, but he did tweet at 1 a.m. or tooth bomb at 1 a.m. Just sit back and relax, and it will all work out in the end. So he's certainly not truthing desperate. All right. I want to change gears. I want to talk about Graham Platner. Tough weekend for Graham Platner. For the sake of time, I won't summarize all the stuff that happened. I'll do that a little bit later in the show. But what is going on in Maine? Well, you know, there was a time he was asked, you know, just make sure there's no skeletons in your closet that they're going to be coming out later in the campaign, are there? He said, oh, no, absolutely not. So now we have these sex text, these sex to some number of women described as several or multiple, depending on what news reports. you're reading. One thing I find very interesting is that despite significant length reporting in Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, I think also in NBC, some of whom I think have seen these texts, we haven't seen any quotes from any of them. What is he been, you know, what is he saying to these women? And if you remember, there have been a number of cases in which People accused Donald Trump of being boorish with women, and we got quotes, and we could kind of evaluate. That was not good. But we haven't here. So I think there's still a lot more to find out. I don't believe Graham Platner has become the official Democratic nominee, and I do think there are Republicans in Maine who wouldn't mind getting past that line.

In other words, when Democrats are officially stuck with Graham Platner, and then dumping, you know, the best oppo that they have on him. But they've made so many excuses for his Nazi tattoo. I just, Barron, I haven't been around. I think you've had a little longer career than I have, but I've been in this game for 18 years. I didn't know you could survive having a Nazi tattoo and go on to serve in the Senate. Well, it does seem to be – I've got to say I would have been surprised, too, but I'm looking right now at the nuclear politics average of polls. Last five polls, they're all blue and flatteners up an average of eight points. Unbelievable. Well, more when we come back, hang with me after the break. I'm going to ask you about the weaponization fund. I'm going to ask you about the America 250. We get a lot more to do in a few more minutes with Fire in New York after this. All right, Byron, you are with me from Washington, Examiner, Fox News, et cetera. Byron, a couple other quick ones I want to get to with you before we run out of time here today. According to Axios, I haven't verified it yet myself, but Mark Caputo usually gets them right, said that the weaponization fund is dying. I think a lot of people were huge victims of weaponization by our government, by our judicial system. But I didn't love the way this was shaping up to me, but what's your take here? Well, I would agree with you with that. I didn't like the way it looked. Now, it's true that the U.S. government has settled many lawsuits and many complaints over the years, and people didn't go crazy about it. So I think perhaps there was a bit too much brouhaha about it. On the other hand, I thought it was, as Trump conceived it, it was far too broad. Yeah, I think so. And so do you have a quick recommendation on what would be a better way to pursue actual justice for some people who were targeted politically, but this just doesn't feel like. Yeah, case by case. I mean, there are some people. Clearly, there are a few J6 defendants who I think were really mistreated by the justice system. Obviously, Trump himself got all these indictments. And the reason he got started when this was his lawsuit over the fact that the Biden administration leaked his federal tax returns, which is a big time crime. So I think a case-by-case basis would be it. All right. Last one. It could be a bigger topic, but you quick thought on the Great American State Fair concept, which is it's not shaping up. I got to say, it's not shaping up. They didn't have great bookings to begin with. And a lot of those have backed out. I won't, I want an endless summer of celebrating our country, Byron. It's not happening as of now. Feels like a miss opportunity so far. Yeah, I think it's been kind of embarrassing. I mean, you think when Millie Vanilli pulls out, you think, oh, my God, what's going on? And it's only one of them. It's just Vanillae, I think. Lots of them are pulled out. So I actually wrote something about this on X over the weekend, which got a lot of response, actually. And basically, I think the whole idea of the Great American Fair, which basically consumes the whole mall. Each state is represented. You see the economies and the local cultures of each state.

I think that's a good idea. I think that they should forget the whole celebrity thing. Republicans have always come out losers in the celebrity battle, and that's been doubly so with Trump. So just forget about trying to get stars. As far as music is concerned, I think you feature U.S. military bands and orchestras. There are a whole bunch of them, and they are very, very good. The one thing you do turbocharge. is the fireworks show on July 4th. And then you have a proud President Trump not playing an upfront role, but as the president... No, he shows up and he applauds. No. Great pride. Yes. Yeah, this is the approach. And I like it. Byron, thanks for the great suggestions. Thanks for the time on the Hewitt Show today. I appreciate you, my friend. Guys, quickly, the Prison Fellowship, Angel Tree Camp, she's been talking about this. This is cool stuff. Angel Tree Camp, operated by the nonprofit prison fellowship gives kids enriching new experiences. They interact with caring camp counselors. Make new friends with other children and parents behind bars. Such a worthy cause. 888206-2764. 888. 206 2764 or go to hughewitt.com. Angel Tree Camp support. It's a great cost.

That explanation from Graham Platner just keeps ringing in my ear of how he represents a realistic form of masculinity. The form of masculinity that has erotic fantasies about the blue liquid in the porta-potties. It's just, I got to say, though, it's certainly quintessentially masculine. I couldn't have one of these conversations with my spouse. I couldn't explain the Nazi tattoo. Couldn't explain the porta-potty fetish. I couldn't explain the sexting of other women. I couldn't explain the predator rap kick where you've got some bit of a profile on there that you haven't deleted. How could just one of those would be devastating? It would haunt me for infinity. And this guy has to do this like every other weekend is another thing with him. But he could be heading in the Senate in Maine if the polls are to be believed. And I'll tell you, maybe there's somebody who doesn't believe the polls. And that's Janet Mills. Bradley, Jay is with me. He's my political editor at Brightport News. Bradley, you teased something pretty spicy before the break. What's going on? Yeah, Janet Mills hasn't made a public statement, at least from her campaign account, since she... I almost had dropped out of the race. She's now saying that that's not true. She only suspended her campaign. But this was in April. All of a sudden, now her campaign account is active again. She's saying that she only suspended her campaign. She told voters that her name is still on the ballot. Could she be preparing to unsuspend and restart that campaign? I certainly hope so. There are a few Democrat activists who I'm sure would be encouraging her to do so, but Graham Platner sure isn't going to roll. over. So we might be seeing an actual primary fight developing just five weeks or so after it looked like Graham Platner and shut it down. Very interesting. Yeah, very interesting indeed. And so let me ask you about some of the polling because a real clear politics, they've got a real clear poll. I guess they're branding it now, which is the they do the poll of polls. I'm looking through this. Barbara New York pouring this out earlier on the show. And not all these are fresh, but it's the only one of these is remotely fresh University of New Hampshire. But platinum is showing unbelievable resilience here in this race. And it is one of these things where does character matter at all anymore in American politics or do we actually see? Or is it that these polls are just way off? Because Graham Platner is up 8% according to this polling average and Susan Collins. Yeah, Maine can be a difficult state to pull. And you always run the risk. Anytime you're like the NRC or some Washington base group, it's so clear that a lot of this opposition.

research is coming from either Republicans or establishment Democrats. You run the risk of maybe turning off some folks and maybe getting his base even more energized behind him. But, I mean, we're so far out. It's, what, the first of June right now? I don't think it's going to hold. And if you look at from everything we're hearing, we're only going to continue to hear more and more stuff about this guy. I mean, every day, multiple times per day, there's been more come out about this guy. So you've got to think that we're going to hear more. And I just don't think that his polling is going to hold. Even if Mills gets in, I certainly think that Susan Collins is excited to run against him after what we've seen. She's excited to run against him in November. This is what's interesting to me because I was thinking about the concept of polling itself because I'm out here in California where everyone's highly anticipating what's going to happen tomorrow in the primary race for L.A. mayor and for the governor because we've got jungle primary systems. So we could have a day where... Perhaps Spencer Pratt or even Steve Hilton, the governor race, both running as Republicans, they could perhaps overperform in the polls. And then we could really feel like we're inspired heading in towards November, which would be great for whatever down ticket races are still reasonable out here in California. But. The question is, are Republicans responding to pollsters in California? I don't know the answer to that. I do want your thought on that, Bradley. And do we feel like what is the culture in terms of participating in those sorts of things throughout the country? Do we have a sense of how to handicap any of these races right now? Well, it's the same conversation that we had in 2016 after Trump won against what all of the polls had showed. Look, there's no second place award in politics. It's either the White House or the outhouse, as they say. However, if you look at how Spencer Pratt's messaging has been embraced or at the very least acknowledged in L.A. in that mayoral race, that certainly is noteworthy. I don't know whether he'll win or not. He's got so much. going up against him in L.A. However, the fact that his campaign has garnered so much attention, I think, is... The Republicans should be enthused about that heading into November. I mean, look, Democrats, we know how Democrats are. If you look at Karen Bass, she talks a lot about pronouns, but never about actual potholes or anything that a mayor should be concerned with. I think that most voters, whether you're Angelinos or wherever you are in the country, most voters want the same thing. They want a safe and secure community for their kids.

They want some financial stability. But that's not what the Democrats are offering them. I mean, if you're Karen Bass, what does it matter if your House is DEI certified if it's been burned to the ground? Yet that's how out of touch these are, these Democrats are. So it's very encouraging, I think, for November, that so many Angelinos have been acknowledging that, you know what? Maybe this isn't working what Karen Bass and Democrats are offering, and they're at least... going to listen to what he's saying. Yeah, it'll be interesting test case, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. But it's not about potholes. The race is actually about bike lanes. Duane, will you play this cut for me, Cup 14, please? This is Nichehraman. I have two little kids. Yeah. They didn't see it, luckily, this morning. But, you know, I'm, I feel badly that. that I'm even subjecting them to that at all. But it, but it has definitely, this has gone far beyond, far beyond what I expected the campaign to be about. I, again, thought it would be about bike lanes and management of the Department of Transportation. The city nearly burned down. There's homeless encampments everywhere. The city's flooded with drugs. It's completely unpleasant. It's filthy. There are just, there's earthmovers idling off the side of every other freeway. The airport is the worst in the country. And yet this was supposed to be about bike lanes. And this is a person who's already on the city council as a communist Democrat. I just feel Bradley, I feel like Republicans have got to be absolutely licking their chops. I don't know if L.A. salvageable, but they've got to be feeling way better than they deserve to feel heading into November. I mean, it's so obvious now that the Democrat Party is increasingly the party of the elites. I mean, how touch can this woman be with everything that's going on in L.A.? It's remarkable how California has squandered manifest destiny in so many ways with all these liberal policies. And yet she and elites like her are just oblivious to it. Hopefully voters. Riley, Jay, stay with me one more segment. I'm going to ask you about the America 250 celebrations and other races you're tracking tomorrow for our Election Day of Brightport News. We'll be right back on The Hewitt Show with Marlow. 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 worth 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.

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Wenton Hall is our social media director at Breitbart News, and he's also the New York Times bestselling author of the book Code Red, the left, the right, China, and the race to control AI. Winton and I've had a number of conversations on my podcast and on the Alex Marlowe show, but I want to introduce him to the Hughitt audience because I think that this is the guy on the right who understands the nuances of the AI revolution and where we all fit into this. Winton, we spent a lot of time complaining about AI, and I'm certainly more nervous about it than not. feels like when we had the advent of the internet seemed like it opened up all sorts of possibilities, but apparently it opened up a lot of us to social media addictions and widespread depression and sort of a lack of meaning in a lot of people's lives and increased godlessness. So it's sort of backfired in a lot of ways. I'm worried AI could be the same thing. But there are some positive stuff that's coming out of it. And I'm just going to start with something that is just a flat out positive. These Spencer Pratt ads in Los Angeles are an absolute delight. We played one last hour. I don't want to take the time to play more now. But they're making these ads overnight that are just hilarious. They look sharp and feels like there's really low barrier of entry to do these things. And it just does neutralize the playing field that equalizes the playing field for people who might not, you know, have a tens of a million dollar war chest at their disposal to do things like that. No, that's exactly right. You know, when you look at the democratization of creativity, that's one of the upshots. This is going to be a huge boon for new candidates and campaigns. And one of the things that you see in this, you're getting really pretty strong production values. Some of these were actually a little sharper than others. Maybe not Spielberg level, but it will be there soon. The worst version of AI is the one you use today. So we're going to see that and it's going to reduce those barriers. to entry in terms of campaigns, their war chest and how much money they're going to have to spend to get their message out. You couple that with a really smart influencer strategy on social, which Pratt has done. You can get your rocket in flight very quickly. Yeah, I think so. And that's a good thing. But does you think it translates to more entertainment value, Wynton, or do we feel like we have any evidence of this could shape a political campaign? Because one of the things that's interesting about the Pratt race in particular is that it's so online. He's not really doing local media. You know, he's doing Bill Maher's podcast. He's doing Gutfeld. I mean, this is a national campaign that we're seeing. And these AI ads, they're not airing on local TV. I don't think. They're mostly just. getting viral online. And the guy's an unbelievable marketer. If you follow his story, he basically came up with the idea for the Hills when he was sitting in the classroom at USC thinking, how can we come up with a way to create some sort of a reality TV show around his friend Brody Jenner, which is the, you know, Caitlin Jenner's son.

That was the whole concept. He was selling crystals for a long time. He's a crystal salesman. That was his, I think he said the most lucrative thing he's done. He doesn't have a major political background. But he's got this message discipline where he tries to make the campaign about competence and not about anything other than just the government should do something productive. Yeah, and I think it's hypervisual storytelling. And obviously with all of the dystopian mistakes that you've seen from Bass and in California and more broadly, there's so many opportunities to ways to visually storytell. And that's what he's done. I think it's really a path-breaking moment, actually, because what's going to happen is the technology is going to continue to increase. And we saw that with multiple models that have come out in the visual space. And the cost to get your message out there will go down. your opportunities for virality are going to go up. I mean, at Breitbart, obviously, we have tons of viral content, spend $0 boosting that. It's all organic. And, you know, you're going to see that with a lot of these upstart candidates. I think it's really important. There will be opportunities for deep fakes right before elections that could give totalize or bunk or misinformation that could protectively in a tight race have an impact before they can be debunked more broadly. broadly. But in, you know, the longer tail like you're seeing right now, it's really why he's got, you know, the traction and momentum and the discussion. You've got to be making that buzz. And, you know, Andrew Breitbart was the one who said it. You know, politics is downstream from culture and, you know, Pratt's happening into the culture. All right. So, Wendy, I got to run here in a little bit and take a break. But what I want to set up for you, and I want the audience to check this out when we come back. I want to talk about a couple of really essential things when it comes to AI and how AI is going to be able to work for us. And I want some recommendations for what people should be doing because I sat on a panel or I moderated panel featuring the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bassam, on Friday. All these small business owners, these small business, people with construction companies, people who are screen printing companies, people who have cleaners, dry cleaners, they're all using AI. So AI is something that people are going to need to make work for them. So it is here is a tool. You can use it and be respectful of the tool. But people also see this as a major threat, as a major threat to their businesses. You'll give them the truth, Wyndon Hall. Author of Code Red when we come back on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Alex Marlow in for Hugh. Winton Hall. My social media director of Bright Bar News is with me. Don't forget to check out the Alex Marlowe show, whether it is live on your radio dial, Salem News channel or podcasts, I'm available for you, creating way too much content. Some of the content I'm creating is at Brightport News. For our premium members, we had one of our Fight Club roundtables. Fight Club is what we call our premium subscription service. And we sat down, we talked. big time about AI with Winston Hall, who's got the New York Times bestselling book Code Red out, as well as Peter Schweitzer and Francis Martell, our world editor. And, Winston, you did something at the end of the roundtable that I think was really interesting. You should have laid out a five-point plan for how to survive the AI apocalypse, for lack of a better expression. And you had pretty much committed to memory at the tip of your fingers. I want to do that here because a lot of people in this audience... I think don't know what to make of this. Are we heading into something that's going to be just a huge boon for humanity? We're just going to get more productive. We're going to get sharper. We're going to get smarter. We're going to have more time to do the things you want to do. Are we going to have so much money? We don't know what to do with it. Or is this going to be one of those things like the Internet where we just create all sorts of new addictions and terrible ways to use our time and just lose touch with our humanity? What is it and how do we avoid the latter scenario? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing to understand is that 99% of us use AI every day. even though 64% of people don't realize that we're using AI because it's baked into the algorithms that power everything from our weather apps to our streaming services and so forth. So if we're already using it, the question is how can we seize the upside, what I like to call the roses of AI, and avert the landmines. And there are many of both. And so I'm not on the side that says that it's all apocalyptic doom by any stretch. But we would be absolutely foolish, particularly conservatives, if we thought that the most powerful information weapon was going to be laid on the battlefield of ideas and that the left wasn't going to politically weaponize that. We know that big tech traditionally has not been a friend of conservatives with the demonetizing, the silencing, the scan and ban technology and the rest. And the fact that political donations, 85% of Silicon Valley traditionally. donations flow to the left side of the political aisle. I think the thing important is five things that you mentioned. Number one, you can learn this. It's not too late. And do not let anybody tell you that it's so black box that you're not going to be able to understand AI. I spent two years working on Code Red really deep diving into this world to try to make it simple without being simplistic. and really did an enormous amount of research to try to give people the lexicon so that they can understand the debate and be able to make their own decisions so they can get those roses and avert the landmines. I think the second thing is to understand that if you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner,

There is enormous upside potential for AI because it's just like we were talking about it with the Pratt campaign. It's lowering the cost of entry for a lot of the kinds of investments you otherwise wouldn't be able to make and you can scale very quickly and seize that upside. I think the third thing, and this is really important because nothing that we care about more than our kids, our grandkids, our nation's children, the world's children. And that is understanding that there are a lot of benefits for things like AI2. if they are non-woke, pedagogically sound, and they're based on the Socratic method, so they don't enable cheating and plagiarism. But you also have to be very, very aware that all LLMs, large language models in every peer-reviewed journal skew left, and so there could be very much an indoctrination play. So we have to be able to use that tool for the educational benefit without the detriment. I think the fourth thing is to really understand where this is going in terms of jobs and also national security. We're hearing all these apocalyptic projections, Dario Amadeh saying that in the next 12 months, Alex, not 12 years, 12 months, you're looking at a wipe out of 50% of white collar entry level jobs. That's our kids. That's our grandkids. Those are the kids that are going out of college. It is very horrifying. And this is a man who has a lot. And that's their training for their next job. Like that's the whole point. When you wipe out the entry level jobs. Maybe your stock goes up a little bit if you are invested in a company that's going to have to not pay as many workers. But, I mean, how is the next generation going to get any job experience whatsoever? Yeah, I mean, you know, there's three ways to respond to these predictions. It's not just REO. It's Mustafa Suleiman at Microsoft AI saying 12 to 18 months being able to replace 100% of white-collar tasks. He's not saying all jobs. He's saying the tasks. And so it will be dependent upon how fast corporations defuse the technology. But even Elon Musk says that, quote, AI is a, quote, supersonic tsunami, end quote, aimed at humanity. There's three ways to respond to this. One, you could say it's all marketing hype. This is a bunch of blather. These are guys that have to raise a ton of CAPEX, capital expenditure and investment. And so they're just trying to hype through technology. The second is to say, no, they're very sincere in wanting to make sure that the world is ready. But there's a third thing. And I think this is the thing for the conservative movement that has to understand. It almost doesn't matter on that point, those first two, whether you think it's hype or real, because the left has been working for years on how to politically weaponize artificial intelligence for a globalist agenda. And I spent a lot of time going through, in their own words, exposing that in Code Red so that we can really be prepared for this 5D chess game. Fifth and final thing, I think you really want to think about the existential questions. And Hugh is always so great on this. and you are as well. People of faith have to understand. Right now there are churches that are experimenting with confessional booths replacing.

the priest that you confess to with AI. There are churches right now being set up to worship AI as a deity. And then the other thing is even at the more basic level, you're seeing sermons being written by AI. And I think, you know, we can replace a lot of things, but our soul is is sacred. And so. Having that awareness of how this is going to impact faith, I think, is a really important piece as well. But we can be prepared. We just have to have the information, and we really don't have a lot of time. This is breaking Moore's law. It's moving faster than any technological expansion we've ever seen. So we've got to get ready and not panic, but lead. So, but Winton, the main question is, is the AI God that we're confessing to is he or she non-binary? Because that's what James Talarico would probably say. Man, scary times is an amazing summary. And that's why I recommend everyone check out Code Red and any of my deeper interviews with Winton are fantastic. He's our social media director of Breitbart News. But Code Red, one of the books of the year, I think, because of the fact that he gets into not just the future, the present. This is happening. And we got to win the AI arms race against China, but we also got to win it with ourselves. We've got to make sure that our military gets the best technology from people who are interested in America winning. And we've got to make sure that our companies are adapting in a way that doesn't eliminate entry-level jobs for our people. So complex. Thanks, Winston, for the introduction. I'm Alex Marlowe. We'll wrap things up after we come back. Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account. While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little-known investment. Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade, it wasn't even insider knowledge. It was an account that's been around since 1888, and over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts, paying less than half a percent, while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early. Banks are great businesses, just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to account 29.com. That's account the numbers 2.9.com. Again, account 29.com.