The Big Weekend Pod

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The Virginia Supreme Court also stood up for the rule of law, applause to the four justices who got it right. With that said, on to the big weekend pod. Good morning, Lori and even great, America. Good Friday to you. I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead. I do. Mother's Day weekend, and we like to celebrate that, and I begin this Friday broadcast with John Ellis, editor-in-chief founder of news items. And he always gives you the 10 to 15 items need to know every morning at 6 a.m. It's what I begin my day with, my newsday. And at the end of every week, we kind of look back at the week and see what's important. John, welcome. You pick for me first, the situation in Russia. Only minutes ago, President Trump announced a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that will extend over Victory Day. That makes Mother's Day a lot less likely to be lethal for both sides. But generally speaking, three days is not a solution, and Russia is starting to wear down. Tell us about it. Well, a big day in Russia is World War II Victory Day when the exact date is May 9. And ordinarily, we've all seen the pictures of, you know, the rockets and the missiles and the tanks and all of the military hardware and, you know, hundreds or thousands of troops in lockstep marching before the reviewing stand. That has been or that was completely scaled back to a minimal. parade in front of the Kremlin because the Russian government couldn't promise the citizens and its people and its government that Ukrainian drones wouldn't come and kill everybody. So, you know, when you have a government that is incapable or doesn't think that it's fully capable of preventing drone attacks on its most important parade, if you will, then you have a government that's in trouble. And that's been a major theme of the press coverage this week is that, you know, Vladimir Putin is paranoid. He's hunkered down in his bunker. He doesn't trust anybody. And a lot of people that have been very supportive of him on the military. side and the security side are now talking darkly about a coup or worse. So it's dramatically, when you think about where we were four and a half years ago to where we are now, it's just a remarkable change of circumstances. You know, John, you and I are both old enough to remember that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in the late 70s, it took a decade. for far fewer casualties to force the regime to change and to withdraw from Afghanistan and to give up. Do you think the everything happens faster thesis applies to Russia now as opposed to back then that maybe they've reached their limit in half as much time?

I think so. I mean, first of all, the casualties are, you know, over a million, right? And the economy, despite the surge in oil prices because of U.S. sanctions and other things, the economy is in dreadful shape. And the mood, you know, four and a half years of this war is ground, apparently, ground people down. Support for the regime is, you know, falling. precipitously. And, you know, can it fall faster? Yes, absolutely. Now, yesterday I want to switch the topic to AI. Yesterday I was downtown at the D.C. Convention Center where Eric Schmidt's annual Big Expo on AI was held. And I led a conversation between former Speaker McCarthy, former chairman of the banking committee, McHenry. And I began by pointing to one of the stories you called out, or the New York Times called out, Anthropic experienced extraordinary growth. They went from 10x growth to 80x growth in the first quarter, and their revenue run rate went from $9 billion last year to an expected $30 billion this year. Expensual growth is great when it comes to like railroads in the 1850, not so great when it comes to the Luftwaffe in the 30s. What is this? Well, it's a remarkable, obviously, it's probably the most important technological development, certainly in the last century. And they're building on the success of the prior model seemingly every three months. And as the AI gets more sophisticated, more capable, it becomes. more problematic because it can be used for many good things and it can be used for many bad things. And there's tremendous concern that the many bad things may become reality. Do you expect anything out of the China-U.S. Xi Jinping Trump summit that is actually concrete when it comes to AI? I certainly hope so. I'm not sure. I think for President Trump, it's actually it offers the opportunity to begin what would be a major achievement if the U.S. and the Chinese can reach an agreement on. let's call it governance of AI. That would be of enormous help to the world. Since the U.S. and China are the two leaders in AI, you know, the cat is sort of out of the bag on AI. So it's a very difficult thing to get it back in the bag. But if any two nations can do it, the Chinese and the U.S. are the only two. And I think that the Chinese understand the AI threat every bit as much as we do. And so I think there's possibility there for something constructive to come out of it. And for President Trump, it would be the single most important thing he did.

did during either of his two terms. It would be an enormous benefit to all of us. So I think it's an opportunity. Whether they seize it, I don't know. News items covers AI better than anyone else. So that get most of my AI information from news items. But I haven't seen a structure that makes sense because there's always going to be someone who's going to sneak out the latest chip and the latest mythos, mythos. iteration of clot. There's always going to be a leak, right? That's part of the problem with AI. It's virus-like. It's sort of the worst nightmare movie. Yeah, no, you need enormous surveillance capabilities, if you will. And eventually, I think you have to have a sort of central switching station for all compute so that anything that you do when AI goes through one toll booth, if you will. But the only two nations that can, you know, do this. to try and put a cap on what is a very, very dangerous technology, China and Russia. And, you know, and I think Xi Jinping understands that. I think Trump understands that. And it's a good thing if the two countries can come together and try to, you know, build the toll booth and get the cat back in the bag. If we don't get the cat back in the bag, then a bad actor with access to these enormously powerful technology. technologies can, you know, wreak havoc on the world. Slipp of the tongue there. You said China, Russia. I think you meant China, U.S. Excuse me, sorry. Now, the gerrymandering wars is also on your list, and it came in before the Virginia Supreme Court. handed down their four three decisions, striking down as unconstitutional. And it really was. I mean, they ran through all their self-erected barriers to gerrymandering in order to put the 10-1 map in place. But that doesn't stop Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio is already done it, California's already done it, Texas is already done it, Utah's already done it. When it's all said and done, I just think it's a battle that will never end, John. What do you think? I agree. I mean, I think the gerrymender wars are almost antithetical to, you know, our political system. You know, we're looking at a situation where in 2028 or whatever, 2030, the state of California thoroughly blew total control of both the houses of the legislature and they'll have the governorship can create a situation where every single... district is a Democratic district. And the largest collection of Republican voters in the country is in California. So you're essentially, they would be essentially disenfranchising, you know, millions and millions and millions of Republican voters. If we take this all the way to its logical conclusion, we'll have no competitive.

seats, number one, and number two, we will polarize the country even more than it is now. So I think the gerrymander wars are really... really scary and unhelpful. Anthony Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent a lot of his time on the bench trying to come up with an alternative to what we've got, and he couldn't. And the court just finally said, the states have got to decide what to do. I think they're going to decide to go with their partisan majority. We shall see. Let's finish on an up note. We've got a minute. Coffee is still good for us. This is the good news. Coffee is still good for us. Yeah, so, of course, the anti-coffee lobby, one of the most evil groups of people in the world, have been spreading misinformation and lies about coffee. But science will out, and it turns out that coffee is, in fact, good for you and particularly for gut health. So we here at news items urge everybody to have an extra cup of coffee. At least three cups a morning. John Ellis, always good to see you. Follow him on exit Ellis items. Subscribe to news items. If you want to be up to date on everything, by just Googling News It will take you there. Well worth the money. It is well worth the price of 20 subscriptions. because it condenses everything into one. John, thank you. Have a great weekend. Don't go anywhere America. Our friend, Eli Lake, is next on the Goosey Show.

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt each week at this time. Eli Lake of the Free Press, the host of Breaking History podcast, joins me from his attic. But he can't get to his attic because he's stuck in traffic. So I'm going to talk to him anyway because the new breaking history is so interesting about artists who hold... evil views, but their art is good. And that would include Voltaire and Plato and the children's book author, Dahl. We'll talk about that in a second. And founding fathers enslaved people. You can't get worse than that, Jefferson. We'll talk about that in a moment. But Eli, they're stuck in traffic. You're up to speed on the news. What do you think is going on with Iran in the 14-point deal? The president told me on Monday, right on this show, there were four red lines. Then we sent them 14 points. I don't understand. By the way, that was a superb interview, and it was very helpful to me in terms of getting a sense of where the president was. And because of that interview, Hugh, I want to credit you. I did not freak out later in the week when you were concerned about taking a bad deal. I did. I don't want to go backwards. I liked where he was. Yeah, exactly. And I thought even though he didn't exactly commit, I felt like he was in this place where he was holding really firm on the basics of the nuclear side of it, which was important. I understand what his point was that you can't just say they can't have any missiles, but he seemed to, I think, indicate that he was not going to take a bad deal. And I was less alarmed than you and John Padarets, although I was listening to that conversation later. I got more alarmed, if you know what I mean. I do, and Mark Teeson got more alarmed. All the Iran Hocs got more alarmed because we don't believe in negotiating with these people. They don't negotiate in good faith. Yeah, so let me zoom out because my take on this is that I don't think, I think that the president for good reason doesn't want to commit ground troops, doesn't want to get caught in a quagmire, doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of Iraq, doesn't want a nation build, doesn't want to keep the peace after the regime falls. But I think he also has to understand that the only way out of this is for the regime to topple. That doesn't mean that he has to then commit the ground troops and do all the things he doesn't want to do. But I think it's very important at this point to say there's a difference between saying that we support the Iranian people and we should support people who are representing the Iranian people in some ways like Rezapalvi. and then saying that we're going to do another Iraq. And I think that the problem that we're in right now is that as long as he is going to say that we're going to get some sort of deal with the remnants of the regime or that he's going to try to find the right person to negotiate with and then back that person in the regime, that's going to, I think a fool's errand at this point. They understand that they think they have this leverage. They think they won, or at least the IRGC guys think they won.

And it's very important to make it clear that they have not won. And that I want to credit the U.S. military at this point. I mean, everybody's looking at this as like, well, why aren't you calling it a war? Hey, they repelled a significant threat to our destroyers. And they have, I think, established a route through the Strait of Formos. Now it's time to act on that, using our military power to begin the escort missions. And if the Iranians want to... make war on us, then we have all the capabilities to make war on them and they're going to be really sorry. And I think that that's the focus right now. Everything else is, I think you wait for a deal with if the regime emerges and they're moderate and they want to make a real deal, great. But I think that we're acting too much like we want at this point. We're falling into the Obama trap. And I'm concerned about that. I am too. Now, they did keep up. I learned the detail today. Continuous fire at three of our destroyers as they made their way through the straight. They didn't hit it. But we sunk all their fast boats and we blew up. Maybe we, the president may have told a little bit too much about the defensive weaponry on the destroyers. I'll leave that alone. But we had the... complete success going through, I wonder, we've got an arsenal of moabs, and we've got the one right below that, the deep penetrator. Isn't it about time to tell the Iranian citizenry to move away from the coast, the 100 miles that are the Strait of Hormuz, and then just lay havoc to the coastline, like level it out so you can put a level used in building on, and it won't move? Isn't it time to, a demonstration of force at this point for the benefit of everyone? I think a demonstration of force would be good. I would add to that if we don't want to use American ground troops for all kinds of good, smart, prudent reasons. I think it, you know, this is an opportunity for the United Arab Emirates maybe to foot the bill for some mercenaries. Because what we really need to do is hold that territory around the coast enough to persuade the insurance companies and persuade the shipping companies that you can, that we will prevent the Iranians from doing harm. The other thing I think to keep in mind is that they did a little bit of laying of mines in the Strait of Ramos, but they didn't do as much as they could have done. And I think that they understood that if they did that, China would cut them loose. they would become the enemy of the world. So I think it's also time to maybe call their bluff on that because there's a huge difference, as we both know, between dropping 1,000 mines or 500 mines in the Strait of Hermuz, which would shut it down for five months or more, versus the threat of these drone attacks, cruise missiles, and fastboats. You know, I had not thought about mercenaries, Eli. There's a great novel by Stephen Pressfield about the future of war being fought by mercenaries. I recommend that. I want to go to the Breaking History podcast, though, because as you pointed out, if we didn't allow ourselves to be influenced by the art.

or the thought of people who had moral imperfections. A, no one would get that make any art or anything, because we all have moral imperfection. But Plato, Gogan, the founders, Voltaire, and then Dahl. I mean, I've read the doll books to my kids and my grandkids. I had no idea it was an anti-Semite. The Rall Dahl books are treasure, I think. He's one of the great children's authors of the 20th century. And I could not imagine, you know, raising my young daughter without, you know, Rol Dahl. She's a little young for it now, but I can't wait to read her James and the Giant Peach and Willie Wonka on the chocolate factory. And I just think that it's important that when the time comes and it shows up, you just sort of say, listen, this is somebody who had horrendous views of Jews and Israel. And it's a problem. I mean, there were other authors, by the way, that I didn't mention on that podcast. If you look at the politics of two of my favorite spy novelists, John Le Carre and Graham Green, you would be repulsed. During the Cold War, they were pretty much soft supporters of the Soviets. You know, in my opinion, that's an absolute moral stain. But should we not read, should we not read La Care and Graham? You know, I mean, if we not read The Quiet American, the Quiet American is a fascinating and important book. We have to read that book. I didn't know La Care was a lefty. You just crushed me. I've read every page of every La Caree book, probably twice. Yeah. What's your favorite? Uh, easily, uh, Tinker Taylor Soldier's spy. That's, I was, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I mean, there's, there's, there's a, there's a, I was, uh, I was, uh, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I, I'm, I, but he wasn't a spy, was he? No, no. He wasn't a spy, but he would show up at the Soviet-backed literary festivals, and he was, you know, a major, you know, he was crazy about, he would say lunatic things about Reagan. He would, as I said, soft supporter. And Graham Green, if I'm not mistaken, I have to check this, but Graham Green wrote the foreword to Kim Filby's memoir. Oh, oh. Oh, my gosh. Well, I'll tell you what, it's a fabulous episode of Breaking History, the Free Press's lead podcast. Eli Lake, always good to talk to you next week. Leave more time for the drive because we like to see you as well up in your attic. And Eli Lake, follow him on Exit, Eli Lake, listen to Breaking History, wherever podcasts are available. Subscribe to the Free Press and come right back. Matthew Cont, Mattie, is next.

Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by Matt Continetti, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the Free Expressions Vertical, head of domestic policy studies at American Enterprise Institute and all-around good guy. Matt, you're a dad and a husband. I have to ask you the question that presses on many of us this weekend. Do dads of moms or husbands of moms have any obligations on Mother's Day? And do we have obligations? We have a list. We have a catalog of things to do. But I have noticed something that as my kids grow older, and they're in the tween, there are tween years now, the burden on me on Mother's Day has lessened. I think dads of newborns and toddlers. up to about six, seven years old, that day, Mother's Day, you're on the job. You're on call because you need to give some relief to your wife. But as they get older, you can, you know, you just have to arrange for a nice meal, you know, kind of get the kid, encourage the kids to do the breakfast in bed. So, oh, my, we have a list. Yeah, Mother's Day. That's always on my calendar. I think to steal myself for it. It's not my mom. My mom's gone, so it's up to them to do everything. And as a result, the fetching Mrs. Hugh calls it Mother's Minute, not Mother's Day. All right, to the serious stuff. What is going on with Iran? On Monday, the president told me four red lines, and they were pretty bright red lines. They're not going to have nukes. We get all the enriched uranium. Missile program's got to be subject to inspections, and they're not going to have enough money to fund the proxies, which means they're not going to fund the proxies, I think. And then we went from four red lines to 14 points. What is that? Well, it's a call back to Wilson, which is never a good sign if you're conducting international diplomacy. But I am having trouble myself figuring out what's going on here. The way I describe it right now is we're in a shooting ceasefire. We're in a ceasefire that's been going on for over a month, and yet the Iranians haven't abided by it at all. They've attacked commercial vessels trying to get through the Strait of Hormuz. They've attacked American ships. They've attacked the UAE. And we have responded in recent days. We've attacked Iran. We have continued to uphold our blockade. So what is this all about? What I think... My current guess is, Hugh, has a lot to do with President Trump's trip to China next week.

I think President Trump wants these negotiations to continue through his visit with Xi Jinping in China, so as not to cause any diplomatic interruptions or confusion while he's engaged in these talks with Xi Jinping over the economy, over military issues, security issues. So that's where I think we are. I think we have a lot, we have to get through this trip of China. with this low level of violence, but then we might actually see what needs to happen, which is a return to military operations, a restoration of operation freedom to allow safe passage to the strait, and to finally conclude this war on America's terms. That is actually a very good theory. That would account. A good theory has to account for all of the facts. And a low level of reciprocity of violence does not preclude Iran becoming the top item on the agenda when they want to talk. I think about AI. That's what John Ellis and I were talking about the beginning of the show. What do you think is on the agenda? I keep trying to push Jimmy Lye onto the agenda. But what do you think is on the agenda with Xi Jinping? Well, I think there are several things. I do think AI will be part of the discussions. I think that Jimmy Lai and some of the other political prisoners, especially these Christian pastors like Pastor Jin, who have been imprisoned by the Chinese authorities, they should be on the table. And I think there's a shot that Jimmy Lai is released, though, as President Trump, I think, has said. Xi Jinping is very sensitive about Jimmy Lai in particular because of his opposition to the CCP's takeover of Hong Kong. I hope actually nukes. are on the table. I think we need to have some type of dialogue on strategic arms with China. I think that's one reason why we can't continue down the Cold War pattern of just simply engaging in arms control with the Russians in the new world where China is a rising nuclear power. They have to be included as well. But then I know that President Trump is going to emphasize the economy. And I think he wants that big trade deal that he's been seeking with China throughout his two terms. And here, you know, I think we have to be a little bit wary right now. I think America has a lot of economic leverage over China at the moment. And you consider the effect of the tariffs on China. You look at how our economy is doing. We just had a fantastic job report. Great. Great.

reducing immigration, which is incredible. We can't give up that economic leverage in China just for purchases of soybeans that the Chinese will never make. I will be right back with Matt Continent. During the break, it will be on the big weekend pod. We're going to talk about the Virginia redistricting decision and gerrymandering generally. during the break and when we come back on the other side, bigger issues, the Pope and the Presidents. We don't go anywhere on. You do it. Back now with Matt Continetti. He, like me, a Virginian. He like me, I'm sure, pretty happy with the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to strike down the 10-1 gerrymandered map, which was the right decision because the state constitution put up all sorts of guardrails a few years ago to this happening. But boy, is the left upset, Matt, because they've been... They've been countered and see and rays and like watching this thing. Paul Newman has all the four aces. Yeah, it's something to behold, you know, this redistricting war that's been going on since last year has been a roller coaster. And Democrats are really counting on the Supreme Court of Virginia to uphold this new map that was approved by referendum and would give the Democrats a sizable advantage in the Virginia congressional delegation going from 6-5 Democrat to 10-1 if this new map were allowed to take place. But I think the Virginia Supreme Court in a close decision, 4-3 decision, made the right call here for you. It's actually kind of shocking to me when you look at the specifics. Just how many ways this referendum and map violated the Virginia Constitution. They needed to have an election in between. That didn't happen. They needed to have compact maps. It's in the language. Of course, those districts are not compact. And if there's any benefit, one of the great benefits of this decision is that that awful gerrymandered lobster district, Virginia 7, which like stretches its claws into central Virginia from the north, its base in Fairfax County, that's ended. So I think the Virginia Supreme Court made the right call here when they said, look, our commitment is to the rule of law. And the rule of law was violated on a procedural basis here. And that's what all sides, you know, if it had gone the other way, every side needs to uphold the rule of law because that's what makes America a successful Democratic republic and one that's about to celebrate its 250th birthday in a couple months. Now, I can hold two thoughts. What California did grieves me because it's bad for the state. but it was perfectly constitutional, and they've screwed the Republicans thoroughly. What Texas did is fine. What Louisiana has to do has been ordered by the United States Supreme Court. Tennessee's playing hard ball. It appears to me that at least one of their state, maybe Missouri is going to play hard ball. Georgia's going to take a pass. Indiana took a pass. When it's all done, the smoke will clear by 2032. What's the map going to look like, Matt? You've got a crystal ball.

Well, the 2032 map will look different from the 2026 map. I'll start with 2026. At the end of the day, it looks like Republicans will have netted about four, maybe five seats from the different redistrictings. And that does give them some cushion as we head into this competitive. House election where, you know, the Democrats need only to net four seats to win the majority in the House of Representatives. So the Republicans, I think, after this decision by the Virginia Supreme Court, they have won the redistricting war in 26. By the time you get to 2032, other things happen, Hugh. One is the 2030 census. And one of the biggest stories in American politics over the last decade, there is the number of Americans, millions of Americans fleeing blue states. States run on the blue state model, high tax, high spend, high regulation, terrible public schools, lots of public disorder. Americans clean those states. Hold it right there, Matt. We've got to come back on the network. Welcome back, America. Matt Contenetti is still with me from AEI. He is also calling for the Wall Street Journal. And we were talking about the Great Sort when we left off our break between the live segments on the Salem News Channel. And the great sort is the fact that many Americans are moving in response to state policy. And I think that's going to continue, Matt. And I think it's going to continue so that the 2030 census makes the Republican advantage in the Electoral College and the Congress. Not just minor, but actually significant. You agree with that assessment? That's exactly right, Hugh. And the smarter democratic strategists like David Pluff, the former Obama advisor, who also helped Kamala Harris, they know it too. And this huge transfer of population and wealth, by the way, from blue states to the red states is really going to. I think, affect our politics in the 2032 presidential election and beyond. So, yeah, Republicans came off pretty well at the end of the day. It was a high risk, high reward enterprise here redistricting. But when you get to the 2030 census, I think Republicans are going to reap even greater advantages. And by the way, you know, it was so interesting to me during the California Democratic. gubernatorial debate this week where you have Katie Porter saying, yeah, she knows that California is losing population and her proposed solution is to offer illegal immigrants free health care. Yep. Because illegal immigrants are the only way they're gathering population. I mean, how crazy can you be? And by the way, that only reinforces the fact that we need some reforms here that illegal immigrants are not counted in the census for congressional apportionment. Right? Because what you're doing is you're creating these rod and burrows. I think that's a constitutional amendment, Matt.

You know, Dwayne has chosen to remain in California, and it's his own doggone fault, if that's the case. Because I left, and if Virginia raises taxes, do I, I'll find another place to live. Because if you're mobile, if your business is mobile, if it's a microphone and a camera and some lights, you can go wherever you want. You're stuck here. AEI is downtown. You don't get to go anywhere. But I'm telling you that the... People are rational economic actors. They're going to vote with their feet, and they are. Now, let me turn to the Pope and the President. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to do diplomacy with His Holiness this week, largely because of the President's ongoing battle, which I may have exacerbated accidentally on Monday. I thought it was a throwaway question. It turned into the Pope once Iran to have nuclear weapons, which was really kind of a rage. I put it off as being from Chicago and a boomer president. doesn't really understand it, Boomer Pope. What do you make of this? Is it significant that the president and the Pope are tangling? I think it's always significant when you have the president and take issue with the Pope. Of course, you know, the Catholic Church's stances on issues kind of defy partisanship. So there have been plenty of Democratic presidents who take issue with Catholic teaching on gender and sexuality, for example, or the life issue. President Trump and the Pope are fighting over immigration and they're fighting over whether the Iran war is a just war. What I think is this points to, Hugh, is the growing importance of the Catholic vote in the United States. Trump did very well with Catholics in 2024. And I think Marco Rubio's mission to the Vatican to see Pope Leo is a sign that. Republicans don't want to lose the Catholic vote ahead of these crucial midterm elections. Now, many conservative Catholics have their own criticisms of what Pope Leo has been saying in terms of foreign policy or in terms of our border. But nonetheless, I think this is an acknowledgement that a fight with the Pope could alienate Catholic voters who are going to be very critical in the midterms. You know, I don't know if you've got a... A scholar at AEI who focuses on the Catholic population in America. There are three groups. There are Boomer Catholics like the Pope and me who are used to guitars at mass, terrible music. left-wing people coming back from South America and having liberation theology. There's the lost generation that stopped going to matter. And then there are younger Catholics who are actually much more traditional, not rad trads, but much more traditional. So it's not really one Catholic demographic anymore. Does anyone at AEI study that?

Well, you know, AIA used to be the home of the great Michael Novak, one of the true, brilliant Catholic intellectuals of our time. But we don't really have someone who's so focused on the Catholic community at the moment. But I think your description is absolutely right. And, you know, like all religious communities, there are different levels of observance and commitment. And the higher your level of observance and commitment, the more likely you're going to be a conservative and vote for conservative candidates at the polls. So that, I think, has helped the Republicans in the past. But a high level fight between the Pope and the president may get some of those kind of low propensity voters or people, the boomer Catholics you mentioned, certainly lost generation that might alienate them from supporting Republicans. All right, let me go back and finish where we begin on the Iran War and November. I don't think it's a forever war. No one's defined a forever war. I think a forever war is not six months. If it takes six months to bring Iran to heal, that's a world-class achievement by President Trump. And I would fight it out in the election. I would argue for it in the election. But what is a forever war and how important is the battle with Iran to the November election as compared to the job numbers today, which were fabulous? Right. Well, look, we were in Afghanistan for 20 years. You know, we were in Iraq of the first major deployment. That conflict lasted about eight years. And then, of course, we went back in in smaller numbers after the rise of ISIS in 2014. So if you talk forever war, I think you mean two things. You mean a generation. Right. And you mean nation building, which was part of both those efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither condition applies to Operation Epic Fury and to our intervention in Iran or our shooting ceasefire that we have right now. There is no nation building involved. Donald Trump doesn't do nation building. We know that. And we're, you know, we're about two months in here. That's not 20 years. And I think there will be a resolution. And the CIA, which seems to me to be pretty much against Operation Epic Fury. Oh, amen. And it leaked a study that says that the Iranian economy can survive for another three months with a blockade. Now, look, three months is a long time. But three months to end the Iranian regime, I mean, that's a pretty good tradeoff in my view when you consider the war that the Iranian terrorist regime has been conducting on the United States and our allies for 50 years. The CIA has been wrong. The CIA's been wrong about Iran before. And CIA predictions, yes, are usually dead wrong. So the end might come sooner. The most important point here is that we do not give up the blockade. That is our major leverage. And I think it's important, too, that we resume Operation Freedom to open up that straight as soon as possible. Those two things happen. And we're in very good position in Iran. And I think Republicans are helped in the term.

I agree. Matt Contennetti, always good to talk with you. Follow Matt on Exiton, X at Continent. Read him in the Wall Street Journal Free Expressions Vertical. And stay right there. I'll be right back on the Cuisher. Thank you for listening, the highly concentrated, Hugh. And don't forget, one of our great sponsors is Consumer Cellular. 1-800-4-1-4-4-1-44. When you call them, and you should, because you should want to save money. Make sure you use my promo code, Hugh Hewitt-U-G-H, you'll get your second month free if and when you switch to consumer cellular. Whatever plan you switch with, you'll get your second month for free. I want you to call and investigate because you're probably paying too much for whatever you're doing right now with consumer cellular. Or you can go online, consumercellular.com slash you. They've got great plans for every kind of person and every kind of data usage. However, they really target people who are 50 years and older. Listen to this. You get a single line with consumer cellular with unlimited talk, text, and data for just $35 a month. That's a single line if you're 50 years and older with unlimited talk, text, and data for just $355 a month when you call consumer cellular, 800, 411, 44, and everybody, it can be under 50, you can be over 50. Everybody gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh. It means it's time to talk with Ben Dominic. Ben is the opinions editor at The Daily Wire. He is also the host of the Big Ben podcast and a contributor to Fox News. And I hope someday soon, I was thinking about this, Ben. I hope you're allowed to guest hosts. You're not too far from my studio. I don't know if you're free ever from three to six, but it's really not very mechanical, and you don't have to be a... I think you could probably make that happen. That would be fun. That would be a lot of fun. Now, I want to compliment you on the interview with Kevin McCarthy. It's not on my list of topics, but I used it yesterday. I interviewed the former speaker and former chair of the banking committee, Patrick McHenry yesterday, at the big AI Expo downtown. And I began just by quoting your very lengthy interview with him. That was a fine interview. How hard is it to get people to sit down and let you do that? Well, you know, I thought to myself, you know, who's the right person to sort of have some perspective on this? It needs to be somebody who's won a majority before and people will listen to. And it's like, oh, Kevin. Kevin will probably be honest. And he was, I think, very honest about what he thinks Republicans need to do and what they should have done differently to this point. And, you know, I mean, you can have whatever opinion you want of Kevin, but he's somebody who has a long history in Republican politics. you know, engineered that narrow majority that is still the narrow majority today and got iced only because of the idiocy of Matt Bill Gates and a few people who went along with him. But I think that his perspective on this, which is that you have to earn the voter's respect when it comes to trusting you to get your job back, and you've only got 24 months to do it. And so the idea that you're going to take time off.

or that you're not going to be passing 80, 20 bills of every opportunity to put the Democrats in a tough position, you know, on crime, on energy, on all these other things. You know, that's, I think that's a very valid point. And I think coming from him as opposed to just some consultant. I hope that it's something that folks on Capitol Hill pay attention to. I may ask, what was Patrick's response? He's a very smart guy. His response. We mostly talked with him about AI. He did not have a comment on your interview, but those two are very chummy. The only trouble with the speaker is that... He's got Frank Lunt's disease. He collects political memorabilia, and we were talking about that. And it's very dangerous to get into that because once you get attracted to political memorabilia, he's got a page from Teddy Roosevelt's speech when he was shot in the chest and the speech saved him. So I look at pictures of that. Those people are crazy, right? That's an addiction. Well, there's a difference, so, between that and building a model oval office in your basement and has tail to the chief. play when you open the door without you. I want to talk to you next about fraud. I did not know until I was in the Big Ben podcast about the Ohio fraud story. And I'm from Ohio. I know about the California unemployment insurance, $90 with a B billion in fraud during COVID to inmates in the California penal system. But I did not know about the Ohio health care program. Tell people about it so they go read about it in their daily wire. Sure, so Luke Roziak, one of our best investigative reporters at the Daily Wire did a huge and time-consuming deep dive along with, you know, other fellow reporters that looked into this situation with Ohio's home health care policy and particularly with the... The fact that there are numerous places, essentially, that have claimed to be home health care businesses, that he then did, you know, I mean, Nick Shirley did it first, give him credit, but he did the business of going to actually check out what these places look like. Some of them, you know, it's buildings that are clearly absent, you know, mail that's never been picked up, you know, doors that don't even have doorknops on them in a couple of instances. And when he calls and checks in on what they're doing, they basically get skittish, deny everything, and even in a couple of cases, threaten him pretty explicitly, including saying they know who his family is and stuff like that. Basically, what you've got here is just a slew of connected entities that have used Medicaid dollars for home health care, meaning the kind of care that... you know, a younger, typically family member would offer to take care of an older family member and then go to Medicaid and go to the government and basically say,

You know, they apply for grants that can range. They range into like the $40,000 and $60,000 kind of range. The problem is that when you add up all that money, it amounts to millions and millions and millions of dollars. I mean, it's still unclear how much is there, but it is a gargantuan system of fraud. And it's one that is also, I think, a perfect example of the fact that people don't understand this fraud is in your own communities. When the Minnesota story happened. Everybody initially, a lot of the commentators, I should say, initially went out and said, oh, this is an indictment of Tim Walz, is an indictment of blue policies. It's an indictment of, you know, the kind of social welfare that gets endorsed by these folks on the far left. And my initial reaction to it was, you have no idea how much of this is going on in your own community and is under your own nose. And now maybe, you know, it's not going to be as bad if you live in a red state and the programs are not quite as generous. But no matter where you live, this is going on. It is not being chased by anybody. And now that we have the information that came out of the Doge program and the ability to analyze it using AI tools and the like, it can flag a lot of the suspicious behavior in ways that a human person who is overloaded by everything that they're confronting when it comes to these applications and the like. can't necessarily handle. And so I think we're just going to learn this is so much more widespread than Americans have understood. And it's one of the reasons why when it comes to things like Medicaid expansion and all these different programs that many Republicans have even embraced and said, you know, we have to do this in order to win. We can't really fight these types of things. I think that it raises huge questions about whether these programs can even exist without this level of fraud. Ben, there are two reactions. I'm a California. I used to be. I left in 2015. And so I became inured to radical fraud. We've spent billions of dollars on homeless. Billions of dollars on homelessness. And Spencer Pratt's out there pointing it out that for... billions we've housed 300 people. It's ridiculous. Then you look at the unemployment scandal, which is the biggest scandal of my life. $90 billion to incarcerated people are filling out forms and asking for COVID money, and they're getting it. And I just kind of, I just sort of got inured to it, immunized to the scale. Is there a tipping point? I just want to say, I don't think you're alone to that. I think that there's a lot of people. And, you know, there's been a lot of criticism, I would say, that is fair, directed at a number of Republican governors and the like who've accepted a lot of these grants and these additional Medicaid dollars, that they basically say, well, you know, there's going to be a certain amount of fraud, but it's the price of doing business, and we do want to help people, and we do want at least some people who deserve it to get these kinds of funds on some level. I think that that has to be completely rethought. You know, I'm not sure. People understand, you know, we still think about welfare reform as being the sea change, and it was. But it was about one program. It was about TANF. It was not something that was widespread in terms of the way that we wanted it to be when it came to work requirements and the like, where you have to prove that you're doing certain things in order to qualify for this money. And when it comes to the experience that you had in California, I just think that that's very much the way that a lot of Americans think.

Well, it's probably going on, but it's probably not that significant. Maybe it's 10%, 20% of the money. And, you know, we want it to go to the 80% who need it. I think that the truth is that it's almost flipped. It's a situation where the majority of this cash is going to people who don't deserve it or who don't qualify for it and who are just lying and not getting checked. Okay, so Vivek Ramaswamy yesterday or Tuesday won every county in Ohio. He's going to be the next governor. Isn't an opportunity for him to go in and say, we're red state, but we have fraud. I'm going to triple the number. of investigators at the whatever agency investigates, probably the Attorney General. And we're going to put more police in every state. We're just going to expand our law enforcement and fraud investigation. We're going to become the state that defines honesty in government. I think there's a winning. He's ambitious. Is that a winning message? I think it's a huge winning message. And I'll tell you the other thing about this. This is not a conservative issue. It's not actually even a small government issue. It's one that appeals to independence as well. And it's a point that I think people forget about. When you look at the different issues that independents care about, a lot of the time, it ends up being about government spending, fiscal responsibility, debt, deficit, and alike. It's stuff that things that kind of actually get pushed to the side a little bit because Republicans lean more into the culture war and so do Democrats and things like that, which is obviously the way to appeal to their bases. But I think that when it comes to this kind of expenditure, it's something that applies to everybody. And on a certain level, Democrats are in this awkward position where they've defended these programs for so long. They've defended the idea that these need to just persist in perpetuity without any kind of questioning of whether they ought to exist or whether they're still needed, that they're still acting as if we're living in the pre-great society kind of existence. that this is a situation where people are in need of these massive programs to be not just renewed but expanded on a regular basis. I think you can argue against that from a technocratic perspective that is very hard for Democrats to argue against, and that is all about saying the taxpayer's dollar is being stolen. We are making sure they're keeping more of it, and if it's being spent, it's going to the people who deserve it. Ben Dominic will be back with me during the break. And on the other side, during the break, we'll talk about Virginia redistricting. You can get that on the Big Weekend pod. And when we come back, Iran, of course, don't go anywhere. I'm here. I am back with Ben Dominic. He of the Big Ben podcast, Daily Wire opinion editor and the Fox News contributor. He and Ilya Josh Shapiro have been putting the penalty box on X for making jokes about the Lobster District. Ilya was worse than yours. He said it took a shell hacking. What'd you make of the Virginia decision, Ben?

in a cycle in which they are already in debt, where they could use that money in other places. And House Democrats are furious about it. And Hakeem Jeffries agreed with doing it. Don't go anywhere, Ben. We're coming back on the network. Don't go anywhere, America. Welcome back, America. Ben Dominic is still with me, Hugh Hewitt. I want to get to Iran, but I want to finish the thought on redistricting, Ben. I still think the redistricting wars ought to go full forward. The Indiana rebuke of Republicans was pretty definitive, meaning you cannot refuse to fight when Republicans are getting hammered in California and Illinois and Massachusetts and everywhere. Do you expect the redistricting wars to continue for as long as the great sort continues in America? I think that they absolutely will, especially considering that, you know, just people look around in their communities and they say, this doesn't feel like what actually would be an accurate representation of the communities that we are in, and that we have these very funky districts that are, you know, in many ways, vestiges that should be, you know, reconsidered just given the... fact that they no longer feel like they are accurately representing what's going on. Of course, this is a partisan fight. It's always going to be a partisan fight. I do find it very amusing on a certain level that Matt Iglesias and Jamel Bowie are out there finding their inner John C. Calhouns suggesting that, you know, Virginia once again discover the beauties of nullification. But it's one of these things where I just, I think the Democrats have chosen poorly in part because This is more desperate than I believe people understand. We've seen this great source that you've mentioned before happening across the country in ways that are going to dramatically increase than the populations, the legal American populations, to be clear. in states across the country because of all the people who have fled these blue states. And the blue states are holding on to the numbers that are assigned to them from illegal immigrants in many cases. People who should not be able to vote, despite the opinions of many Californians in this week's debates, and people who should not count when it comes to the sending of federal aid dollars to those states. They're holding on to that money. end of that power by using people who are not American citizens. And that's something that I think is going to be an increasing problem, and it's only going to expand in all likelihood after this forthcoming census, which I think could be significantly damaging to Democrats when it comes to winning the House. I agree. Now, I want to move to Iran. On Monday, the president called into the program. I felt very good after that call because he had four red lines. They're not going to be a nuclear power. They have to announce it. They don't get to keep any enriched uranium, none, zero. They have to have caps on their missile program and inspections, and don't worry about the proxies. They won't have any money anyway. And then we get a 14-point memorandum a la Woodrow Wilson, and all of a sudden I'm wondering, who's running the bus over there? Are you worried about this, Ben Dominic? I am.

I'm worried about it quite a great deal. And I think you can already see the outside conversation. There's a piece at Fox News. There's Mark Dezen's Feet and the Washington Post. There's others as well. Basically saying the president should not just accept a deal because there are people in his ear saying, that we need to move forward. We need to move on, you know, people who feel like this war. And, you know, and many of those people, by the way, were critics, I think, before this war even began, of taking the risk and doing the courageous thing, which I think the president did because he believed it was important, and he's believed for basically his entire life. It's one of those handful of things that we know is the most consistent political opinions that he's had about Iran and about the threat of them being a nuclear power. Look. The president himself is someone who I have a lot of confidence in on this. He knows what is the bad deal and a good deal. And I don't think that he's going to accept a bad deal, but I do think that there are a lot of people around him who are nervous in the short term. They think of things more in terms of election cycles. than in terms of like record and heritage and the way that you'll be thought about by history. I have confidence in the president because I think that's the way he thinks about things. I also think they're wrong on the election. I think that if you wage war to win war, it's different than, this is not a forever war. There's a six-month war at max. And if you wage it to win it and you win it, I mean, you make them capitulate. And that is easily done after their oil doesn't. export anymore and they're broken. There's no food. It's tough. It's hard, but it's a slog that can be done. Don't you think that's winning in November? You know, I was rereading. Have you ever read the book Men at War, the collection that they were giving to GIs in World War II? It's edited by Ernest Hemingway. No. He has an introduction to that, and I have recommended it over the years to a number of people. It has his normal blunt wit. And one of the lines in it is, once we have a war, there's only one thing to do, and it must be one. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in a war. And I think that that is absolutely true. And so the idea that we are going to accept. some half measure here is just not on the table. You cannot do that. And for the politicians who think, I mean, this is one of the points that Kevin McCarthy made in the interview that I had with him, for the politicians who think that they can back away from this, no, you have to defend it, you have to defend it, you have to defend it in the context of the overall foreign policy agenda of this president, but you also have to, you know, when it comes to the people who are actually prosecuting this.

You have to understand you need to win this. This can't be a half measure situation because that is not acceptable, not based on what Marco Rubio has said, what Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. and not based on what the president said. Well, Matt Contennetti had the one explanation that accounts for all the facts, which is usually persuasive, which is the president wants to get through the China summit, and therefore he doesn't want a ridiculously wild, a war without abandon, war without limit going on when he's in Beijing, but that when we come back, it's time to restart all the engines. What do you think? I think that's definitely possible, and Matt's a well-connected guy, so it's certainly something that he could be hearing from his sources inside. Look, the summit with Xi Jinping is something that's been, you know, long expected and is very important on a number of different fronts. You know, I'll be paying a lot of attention to it on the Taiwan front. And I think that there's also potential that there's going to be something that comes up regarding human rights. We'll see whether that's something that the president wants to bring up or whether it's something he stays away from. The other thing that I think we have to keep in mind here, though, is... The president is thinking about this in different terms than a lot of the people who are thinking about it in temporary short-term language. He is thinking about this, I believe, in legacy space, which is where he's been thinking about a lot of. Okay, so let me get a quick question. Ford would not meet with Solzhenitson. It dogged him. If President Trump brings back Jimmy Lye, that's a win for the ages. Do you think there's any chance he can do that? Look, if anybody can, it's him. But gosh, that's a reach. I mean, it's going to be really tough. But, I mean, I think he, you know, the question is if we've gotten them to the point where they're willing to do that in exchange for something else that they want or back and forth. Yeah, we have to give something. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be, it's going to cost something to get him back. And I think that that's understandable. But I also think, you know, the president has worked deals along those lines before. with other nations, it's very possible that he could do something like that in this case. And it's absolutely, of course, as we all know, it's definitely on his radar. Okay, 30 seconds. Lindsey Graham has gone remarkably quiet. You know him well. I think that means I'm confident about Iran. Is that how you read it?

Yeah, probably. He does, sometimes he goes, he goes, I thought you were going to ask me a James Hardin question. No, I'm not. No, oh, bad on you. Bad on you. It's going to be a 4-4 series when we talked. Actually, a 3-4 series with the Cavs ahead when we talked. No, calves are going to take a couple games in Cleveland. That was harsh. That was really a low hit. Ben Dominic from the Daily Wire, Fox News contributor, host of the Big Ben. Pod, you ought to go and listen to it and stay tuned to the YouTube show. I was on with John Roberts earlier today talking about Iran. Here's that segment on Fox. Senator, let's dig deeper on all of this by bringing in Hugh Hewitt at Fox News contributor and host of the Hugh Hewitt show. Hugh, always good to have you on the program. Good Friday afternoon to you. So you have concerns about this deal that the president is pursuing. You posted this on X. You said, this would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal would be significantly stricter. No enrichment ever. Highly enriched uranium to us stat. No more proxy. Turn on the internet. President Trump never gives up leverage. Why would he start now with Iran on the ropes? You wrote that a couple of days ago? How are you feeling today? I'm feeling better about the president. I've never had fear about the president, John. He called my program on Monday. He was very clear about his red lines, which he's enforcing. They've got to renounce nuclear weapons. They've got to give us all their enriched uranium, not just the 60% H.EU, but down to the 3%. No enrichment. He said that very, very, very firmly. He also said they cannot have missiles beyond a certain level, and they've got to have... a very robust inspections regime imposed upon them. And he doesn't have any money to give to the terrorist proxies, adding sort of a fifth part of it. So I've never had any concern about the president. However, a 14-point memorandum has stuff in it that... not included within those four to five points that the president went over with me. So I don't want them to get mixed signals. I think the president is very firm, and I think Marco Rubio is very firm today. We're not a stupid country. Do not send us back anything that suggests you're going to play us. You're not going to play Donald Trump. You're not going to play Marco Rubio. You're not going to play anyone. They can capitulate. They don't have to be humiliated. They can just get out of the nuclear game. They can simply renounce that and turn everything over. and therefore it'll work. But if they send back 14 points and say, well, we'll give you half now, and we'll give you half in five years, and we will only enrich in 15 years, that's a major loss. It's a major loss of face for the president, so I'm not worried about that. I am worried about people who think there's a middle course. There isn't. There's either a nuclear Iran or a non-nuclear Iran, and the president's on the non-nuclear Iran side.

Uh, capitulation will be highly out of character for this Iranian regime, though, I fear to say. You know, you and Mark Teeson are very much on the same page when it comes to your concerns. He had this excellent op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday titled Trump risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iran. He goes on to say Trump says he holds all the cards, but Tehran disagrees. Why is that? Consider the events of the past few days from Iran's perspective. First, the president launched Project Freedom to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz. warned that if Iran dared to fire at American vessels, it would be, quote, blown off the face of the earth. Iran defied his warning, not only firing on a U.S. warship, but launching 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones at the United Arab Emirates. In response, the United States did nothing. And that's what really ticked off the Emirates and the Saudis and had them pullback use of their bases. I think that's been fixed now. But there's some mixed signals coming out of this White House. Well, the UAE has a right to be angry. They struck at a port that was in the Gulf of Oman's side, and we didn't do anything. And I don't know that that had been discussed beforehand, and now the understanding has to be crystal clear that our allies are our allies, and we will protect them. You know what, I'm out of time here. John Roberts and Sandra run the best new show in the afternoon. They really do focus on the important stuff. And John and Sandra know there's stuff cold. And they read everything like the decent editorial. Mark was very on point yesterday in the Post. I'll put all that in the Big Weekend Pod, which will post later today. I hope you listen to it all and stay tuned to the... Did you know there's an investment account that's been around since 1888, and most people have never heard about it until recently. It's not stocks, it's not crypto. It's a trust that was created over a century ago, and it's been averaging 29% returns for the past 25 years. To put that into perspective, it beat Apple, it beat Amazon, it beat Microsoft over that same period. BlackRock has over $2 billion sparked here. JP Morgan, Bank of America, some of the... Biggest banks in the world have been quietly using this for decades, and they've never mentioned it to regular people. There are no commercials, no billboards, nothing, and literally anyone can start. You just need a few hundred dollars. There's a free video that explains exactly what it is and how to access it, and it's 100% worth your time. Go to My Account29.com to check it out. That's My Account 29.com. com.