SCOTUS and the VRA, Alaska's new oil rush, and the God Squad

Your education is more than a path to a degree. At Regent University, it's an important step in God's plan for your career. It's where you'll be equipped to lead and serve with purpose. It's where 40,000 graduates have prepared to fulfill their callings, and so can you. Choose a top-ranked program from over 150 areas of study on campus or online and watch what God will do. Learn more at regent.edu. That's regent.edu. 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 Hugh for Hillsdale.com, or just Google, Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome to the Wednesday edition of The Hugh Hewitt Show. Let me begin by telling you, I'll get to everything. Two big Supreme Court cases today, Supreme Court finally making some sense out of their redistricting and race decisions. I've been teaching Con Law for almost 30 years, and that area of the law has been a mess. for a long time because Anthony Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to come up with some rule against partisan gerrymandering, and finally they got rid of that when Justice Robert F. Kennedy Jr. retired. Then they had kind of a rule which you could use race, but not too much, but maybe a little bit more. It made no sense at all. It's been a gobbledy goop for decades, and they came out with the decision day in Louisiana versus Kallay, I believe is how you pronounce the second party. It says Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not allow you to use race to draw maps unless there's been actual discriminatory intent in the drawing of maps that preceded the new maps. Then you can use race as a remedy. But you can't use race as a factor in drawing map. You can't do anything else you want. We're back to where we ought to have been all these years. You may not use race to award benefits or to inflict penalties, period. You can't try and help people based on their race. You can't try and hurt people based on their race. That's what the 14th Amendment is about. But if someone has... has used race to draw lines to discriminate against black people, then you can have a minority majority district drawn. It's about that simple now. That's a big win. Also a big win for freedom of association. But the biggest story of the day, one about which President Trump just talked, was in the Wall Street Journal last night. Trump tells AIDS to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran. The President prefers decisive victories, but none of the available options provides him with a swift exit troop. It reads President Trump has instructed AIDS to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, U.S. officials said, targeting the regime's coffers in a high risk. It's not high risk, low risk. High risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation Tehran has long refused. In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing around the economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from ports. He assessed that his other options, resumption of bombing, walking away from the conflict, carried more risks than maintaining the blockade. The regime cannot stay and not swear off nuclear proliferation.

not swear off closing the Strait of Hormuz, not swear off the missile program that they were building, not swear off terror proxies, not swear off massacring 40,000 of their people. Trump has red lines. He's enforcing them. He just gave a gaggle at the White House literally minutes ago after receiving the NASA astronauts from the recent mission. And he talked about Iran. Let's go to the Iran cuts first. Cut number 23. Well, the blockade is genius, okay? The blockade has been 100% foolproof. It shows how good our Navy is, I can tell you that. Nobody's going to play games. We have the greatest military in the world, and I built much of it during my first term, and we've been building it since. And the greatest anywhere in the world, nobody even close. And you see that, whether it's Venezuela. And they have a good military in Venezuela, but it was over in one day. It was actually over in about 48 minutes. Iran, the same thing. I mean, militarily, we've wiped them out. They have no military left. It's all the Navy's at the bottom of the sea. The Air Force is never going to fly again. We've got an amazing military. Now they have to cry uncle. That's all they have to do, just say, we give up. We give up. But their economy is really in trouble. It's a debt economy. It is a debt economy, and it's going to get debtor. It's like the parrot in Monty Python. He also said this on talks with Iran, cut number 24. It depends. We have talks. We're having talks with them now. And we're not flying anymore with 18-hour flights every time we want to see a piece of paper. We're doing it telephonically. And it's very nice. I have my people make a call. And you know the answer. I always like face-to-face. You know, I consider it better. But when you have to fly 18 hours every time you want to have a meeting, and you know what the meeting is all about. And you know they're going to give you a piece of paper that you don't like before you even leave. It's ridiculous. They've come a long way. The question is whether or not they're going to go far enough. So at this moment, there will never be a deal unless they agree that there will be no nuclear weapons. It's clear there's never going to be an deal until they wave off enrichment and give us the helo, the highly enriched uranium. But the president had done a gaggle. He had met with the Artemis 2 astronauts, and then he just took a lot of questions. Very interesting. He got one about his call with Vladimir Putin, cut number 19. He told me he'd like to be involved with the enrichment if he can help us get it. I said I'd much rather have you be involved with ending. the war with Ukraine. To me, that would be more important because we're going to have that. Look, we're not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And we've knocked out their Navy. We've knocked out their Air Force. We've got that part down. He's not going to let them win. Let's go to cut number 20.

That's good. That's the kind of ruling I like. When did that happen? Well, it's a great world rule on in this morning. Really? Is that right? You tell me about the ruling. Well, I have a bunch of the president. On your call with President Vladimir Putin today, do you think the war in Iran ends first or the war in Ukraine? Well, we talked about more about the war in Ukraine, but he would like to be of help. I said, before you help me, I want to end your war. So we had a good talk. I've known him a long time. I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago. I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal, but we talked more about Ukraine. But which war do you think ends first? That's an interesting question. You know, coming from you, that's very interesting. Which war would end first? I don't know. Maybe they're on a similar timetable. I think Ukraine, militarily, they're defeated, okay? You wouldn't know that by reading the fake news, but militarily, look there, Navy. So they had 159 ships. Every ship is right now underwater. Typically, that's pretty good. What do you think, Jared? I mean... It's going to be hard for them to make a naval comeback. Okay, now they have an Air Force. Every one of their planes has been shut down or has been decimated. They have missiles. About 82% are gone, and they have drones, and most of them are gone. Most of the factories are mostly gone. And we have tremendous anti-drone equipment now between lasers and that new, very special machine gun that knocks them out of the air like flies. And we use bullets instead of million-dollar missiles to knock out a $30,000 drone. So I would say Jared would tell me that... With everything you just heard, typically we're in pretty good shape. And in addition, their economy is crashing. As you know, their money, they go out their money, they don't have a name for it. Their money is valueless. They've got inflation that nobody's ever seen before. Other than that, I think they're doing quite well. If you read the New York Times, you'd say... Now, Kaitlan Collins gets a little love from the president. It was a good question, which war ends first? That's a great question. And he answered it. I don't know. But he answered it. But he had asked someone, tell me about the Supreme Court voting rights. You know, he's interested in that. It comes back around, cut 21. you haven't seen it. When did it come up just now? No, it came out this morning, but basically very much narrows the Voting Rights Act. Would you consider to win for a win for Republicans? I love it. But my question... This is a very good... We can end this news conference right now. I want to read it. My question, Mr. President, is that some Republican governors have not responded in terms of what they're going to do. I guess early voting, for example, in Louisiana. Republican governors? What about it? Early voting begins Saturday there, for instance.

Should they redraw the map in the next couple? I would. I mean, it depends. I mean, some states don't need to redraw, and some do. I mean, I know what the concept of the ruling, I just haven't seen the result. Yeah, I would say generally I would think that they would want to do it. Some are greatly helped, and some, you know, it didn't make much difference. Yeah, I would say they would do that. They have time to do it. Well, they should do it. If they've got an unconstitutional... gerrymander because they use too much race as a marker for lines they should redo it immediately then cut number 22 on the united arab emirates leaving opec the president comments this way cut 22 i think it's great i mean i think it's great i know very well mohammed and uh very smart and he probably Maybe he wants to go his own way. That's a good thing. I think ultimately it's a good thing for getting the prices of gas down, getting oil down, getting everything down. They have it all. He's a great leader, actually. So, no, I'm okay. They're having some problems in OPEC. The good news about that is... The United Arab Emirates wants to pump more oil. Right now, I believe, I listen to Iran breakdown the day with Mark Duvitz and a Saudi expert. I believe UAE is pumping about 4 million barrels a year of oil. They want to go to 5 million barrels a year, which would be good for the world oil market, and they don't want to be restrained by OPEC. So they're out. So the big alliance right now is Israel, the United States, UAE, and I hope Saudi comes in. because we need a new quad. The quad in the far east is United States, Japan, Australia, and India. But the new quad's got to be United States, Israel, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. That would be ideal. Stay tuned a lot more, including about eight minutes of Supreme Court argument today. You just got to hear it. Stay tuned.

Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt, inside the relief factors video, joined by Sarah C. Bedford of the Washington Examiner, where I also have a column today, but Sarah is on the news reporting side, not the opinion side. Sarah, what do you hear about the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana versus Clay? The New York Post headline is, Voting Rights Act Supreme Court victory gets GOP Giddy over saving midterms. I don't know if that's true, is it? Are they giddy? Giddy? Getting close to the right word, I think. Republicans were really sweating after the Virginia redistricting referendum. Just like a week ago, it seems like a lifetime ago, but just a week ago there was some real fears that perhaps Trump's redistricting push was going to completely backfire on Republicans. Now there are green shoots everywhere for the GOP. You have a live redistricting effort in Florida that looks likely to succeed. The state legislature advancing a new math today that would net Republicans as many as four seats. And now you have this potentially landmark decision from the Supreme Court saying basically litigants can't bring challenges to just straight up partisan maps under the guise of trying to block a racial gerrymander because too often in courts today, left-wing groups are using this antiquated section of the Voting Rights Act to bring challenges to Republican maps that are really partisan challenges under the guise of racial discrimination challenges. And the Supreme Court is saying, hey, guys, you can't do that anymore because courts have said that partisan maps. They're not for the courts to decide. And so it's a really big deal for Republicans because in the South where they've wanted to do partisan gerrymanders, they've been held back by the threat of litigation that's not there anymore. Now, this is, I want to make sure the audience understand. For years, the Deep South had a race problem. and they drew lines to exclude blacks from natural majority districts. The Voting Rights Act came along in Section 2, empowered black voters to bring challenges to those maps, and they won, and they should have won, because it's unconstitutional to use race to penalize people. But after the 1982 amendments, they continue to bring maps to sort of argue affirmatively. We ought to have more districts than we do, and the Supreme Court has been messing around with this. for 20 years. I don't teach the cases because they're such a mess. Now I'll be able to teach Samuel Alito's case, which basically says, use any algorithm that you want to draw your district. You can have compact districts. You can try and maximize Republicans, maximize Democrat, but you may not put race into your algorithm. That's how I understand it. Is that how you understand it, Sarah? Yes, yes. It's like the Chief Justice John Roberts quote, the best way to stop. racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race. And that's effectively what Samuel Alito was saying here, that you can't sort of shoehorn your partisan challenges into this racial legal framework that, you know, like you said, was drawn with very good reason many decades ago. But Samuel Alito acknowledges in his majority opinion that the social and cultural conditions that necessitated the Voting Rights Act many decades ago no longer exists. And during oral arguments, it was Brett Kavanaugh who was asking these.

sort of pointed questions about, you know, what's the end game here? Like, at no point did Congress or the courts ever believe that these corrective actions that required a little bit of racial discrimination to undo the effects of a lot of racial discrimination? At no point did the lawmakers envision these being permanent, and it's the year of our Lord 2026 at one point, do we say, They've met their goals, and it seems the Supreme Court has said that day could be now. Yeah. The analog, the analogy, is actually school districts that once discriminated on the basis of race, once they've implemented desegregation, and they've used all the tools, and they've reached a desegregated state where races is not a place. If they resegregate because of population shifts, that doesn't reinvent the discrimination lawsuit, the same for voting. Now, I don't know how many states have got time to redistrict. Florida's going to do it. Louisiana's going to do it. That might net Republicans five votes, but they lost four in Virginia. They picked up five in Texas. They lost five in California. Is it going to be a wash at the end of the day absent a wave election? For the midterms, it could end up being awash some of the states in the South, like Alabama or Georgia that potentially could redistrict because of the Voting Rights Act victory here at the Supreme Court. They might not have the time because primaries are coming up in May or in the summer. But for 2028 and beyond, I mean, in the long term for Republicans, this is a huge step to leveling the playing field again where Democrats had really tilted it towards themselves through things like the successful litigation under the Voting Rights Act, shenanigans with the census, all those sorts of things. So long term, 2028 and beyond, this is a really bright spot for Republicans to start to, again, even the playing field for themselves. Now, Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, use the term algorithm. Just put into your algorithm for your districts, anything you want, don't use race. And I think basically with AI, if a one party state comes into play that has not already adopted the Independent Commission, They're going to be able to gerrymander their hearts out, and no one's going to say a word. And who wins under that scenario? Well, Republican, if every single state fired every single bullet in the chamber that they have left when it comes to gerrymandering, Republicans would come out on top because they've just done it less historically than Democrats. Democrats have already really aggressively gerrymandered the states where they control the legislatures and the governorships. If you look at Massachusetts, if you look at Illinois, those states are already insanely gerrymandered. And while they might be able to squeeze out like a seat here or a seat there, it's Republicans. who have a lot more juice in the lemon left, as JD Vance has put it when he's talked about this. So this is not a war that Democrats wanted to get started. And now, thanks to this Voting Rights Act, Republicans have a lot more room to maneuver that just wasn't there before.

Now, the Fed refused a lower rate today. Jerome Powell also announced he's not quitting. He's breaking precedent. Another example of Trump's arrangement syndrome. Usually the Fed chair is replaced, and Mr. Worse is going to replace Mr. Jerome Powell. Usually that outgoing chairman quits because you let the new guy have the run of the building. Jerome Powell's sticking around. Is there any blowback on that? Because it's just another broken precedent. Great. It's really interesting because Jerome Powell had previously indicated that if the Justice Department investigation was wound down, he would leave. He was essentially like holding over Trump's head the idea that he would stay on to try to get the Justice Department investigation to end. But that appears to have wound down. I mean, Trump seems to have agreed to that. And then Jerome Powell didn't really stick by his end of the bargain. So it'll be really... Interesting to see what plays out with that. But, you know, Jerome Powell does undercut his own perception of independence when he does things that could be perceived as intentionally antagonizing Trump. Yeah, well, that's exactly where I was going. Jerome Powell just undercut his whole rationale by breaking the president. He truly does have TDS. I now think. I have to wonder whether they've been slow-locking rate cuts because Jerome Powell doesn't want to help Trump in the midterm. I have to believe that now because he's sticking on the Fed to make sure they don't cut rates like the majority wants to do. Always good to see a Sarah C. Bedford follower at Sarah C. Bedford. Welcome from inside the Beltway. Market closed about 10 minutes ago. It was mixed today. But West Texas crude is at $107 a barrel, and Brent crude is at $119 in change. To talk about that, the war, and much more. I'm joined by the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. Secretary Bergam, welcome back. It's good to see you again. How goes the good fight in D.C.? Well, Hugh, it's fantastic to be with you, and things are going great here, as they are going great for our whole country. All right, let's start with the story in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Trump tells AIDS to prepare for extended blockade of Iran. Has he told you that, Mr. Secretary, have you been in those conversations as chair of the Energy Dominance Council? We've been in a lot of conversations, and, of course, Chris Wright and I have both been intimately involved in this in our roles on the National Energy Dominance Council. So, yeah, there's been a lot of discussion, but I'd just say President Trump doing the right thing, Iran, which basically it's not, we should stop calling it Iran, we should just call it the IRGC. We've got a terrorist organization with an oil field, and they've been militarily defeated, as President Trump describes. But now with Scott Bessent, with economic theory, we have to stop them being able to fund terrorism and fund exporting terrorism around the world. I mean, they were funding as many as 24 different terror groups with oil money. So the blockade is not just a physical blockade. It's also an economic blockade to ensure that they don't have the cash to keep reigning terror and holding the whole world hostage. Now, Mr. Secretary, in my opinion, this is the most important thing the president has done, including...

what he's done for the Supreme Court. This is the most important thing. Has he said to you on anything like, hey, Doug, this is going to take six months. What's oil going to cost after six months? In order to bankrupt and bring down the crazies, the lunatic of Marco Rubio calls him. Has he said anything like that to you, the time range? Nope. He has not talked about that. As you know, President Trump gets lots of inments of lots of people. He's the one that's driving the show and making the... making the decisions here. I think he's indicated to the whole world his willingness to get a deal, but he's got some things that are unlike past president when he's got a red line. If he says they're not going to have a nuclear weapon and they're not going to have the material to build one, he means it. And so there are some things that have to happen. But President Trump has described as recently as last week multiple times that he feels like that he's got... He's got patience is on, is certainly on, he's got the patience, and he's got the time on his side in this negotiation. And so you have no reason the question is resolved. I hope you have no reason the question is resolved, because we've got to win this. We have to win. Yeah. Well, I have none whatsoever. And again, I mean, this is President Trump ultimately is already made the world safer by massively degrading Iran's capability. We saw their true colors when they were attacking their Gulf neighbors. I mean, this is in the middle of this, you know, people, you know, start off a conversation with about gas prices in the U.S., but this is a realignment of geopolitical alliances around the whole world. And the United States is going to come out of this much stronger and align with those. people that share our interests stronger than we went into it. And again, as you know, whether it's Venezuela, the Panama Canal, unleashing our energy in Alaska, President Trump's got a strategy that's Cuba. I mean, he's got a strategy really of reshaping the whole world. And at the end, it's going to make the world safer in America much more prosperous. Let's go to Alaska then, Mr. Secretary. We've got an LNG pipeline that should be opening up there that Europe really needs that LNG. I mean, really needs that LNG. Is it making progress? So you're behind it. Is everyone going to get it done? Yeah, everyone's behind it. It's making progress. But I would say the other thing that's happened in the last eight weeks is the interest in getting Alaska oil going again. At one point, you know, this was a state that was producing almost 2 million barrels a day. Now it's down to less than 500,000 a day. We've got a pipeline with excess capacity. We've got Japan getting 92% of their oil from the Strait of Hormuz. You've got other countries in the Pacific that are allies, places like Korea, South Korea. where we've got 28,000 troops that are dependent on Middle Eastern oil. All of these folks are ready and understand what it would be to get U.S. energy on a path that has no chokeholds. And you're talking eight days from Anchorage to Tokyo versus on a good week. It's 28 days. If there's other conflicts going on in the South China Sea or any of the straits that you have to go through, it could be a 45-day shipment time from.

in the Middle East of Japan. The eagerness to buy more oil and more LNG from Alaska has never been higher. And so, of course, when you got strong demand, you've got a capital that wants to flow into that market. We had a record lease sale on the North Slope. We're back to holding the required lease sales at the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska. We're not talking about a wildlife refuge. We're talking about something is literally named the National Petroleum Reserve that Biden had shut down, now open up again. And we had over a dozen companies competing up there, record revenue coming in that supports the state, the tribe, the federal government, record amount of interest from companies that want to develop there. And we've got the infrastructure on the oil side to support them immediately. So exciting time. President Trump on day one, executive order, unleashing Alaska's enormous potential. And under this administration, that's happening. Mr. Secretary, you're talking to a retired Endangered Species Act lawyer. You convene the God Squad, or somebody did, the seven members' cabinet levels to decide to exempt the rice whale from the ESA's restrictions in the Gulf of Mexico. Bravo. Why don't you do that for like the California Natcatcher and the Vernal Pool shrimp and all the things that are in the way of housing development, driving up the cost of housing everywhere in the United States? Are there more God Squad findings ahead? Well, the first thing I would say is you're spot on, Hugh. Let's just take a step back and look at the ESA in general. You know, this thing was designed over 50 years ago to save species. 97% of the species that have gone on the list have never come off. I would call that a fail in the sense that's like the Hotel California. You can check in. You can't check out. But is the... The point was to save species. We should say we should be celebrating when things come off the list instead of having a culture where we celebrate when they go on the list. Because it turns out if you go on the list, it guarantees that you may never be saved because 97% never come off. But it's 100% that we're going to stop building stuff or raise the cost. And we have to be a nation that is able to build things. And so the weaponization of NEPA and ESA raises the cost of just about... everything. You mentioned housing. It raises the cost to building pipelines or it stops all this. And we're competing in a world where we have to be able to build infrastructure. If the ESA had existed 150 years ago, there wouldn't be a single transcontinental railroad today. If it existed in the 1960s, there wouldn't be an interstate highway system. So we have to balance these things out. We know that we can balance that. We know we can be a country where we can protect wildlife, protect the environment, and build great things. things, but we have to get back to that mentality because so much of the creep that has gone on in these regulations, we looked at the NEPA regulations and interior. 80% of what was in those regulations was not connected to the original law. We've taken 80% out, put it in an appendix. People can look at it if they're interested, but you're not being held to a standard that does not include what Congress, you're only being held to what Congress passed, not to what some other bureaucrat imagined on top of the original legislation. And the exemptions committee was meant to be used. I wish you just schedule one monthly and ask for five files and get the gray wolf off and get the grizzly off. Let me close with this. And to answer that question, to answer that question, the Secretary of War, in the law for the Endangered Species Committee, requested a meeting and requested for national security purposes to hold that meeting. And when that meeting is held, it wasn't optional. In the law, it's a requirement that that committee vote if there's a proof of a national security.

risk. In this case, there certainly was because, you know, 15% of our oil and gas production comes from the Gulf and the idea that somehow one lawsuit could shut down the entire Gulf, that's a national security concern. And for the people that are concerned about the rice whale, All of the environmental protections are still in. The people that have to be observers on boats, the use of the restrictions of speed. If there's whales cited in those areas, those things, no one lifted any environmental regulations. We just lifted the potential of a lawsuit shutting down the entire Gulf. That's the only thing we changed. Everybody's still concerned about protecting the rice whales. Well, I would love Secretary Hedgesat to get it together and invoke for the Desert Tortoise in the Mojave Desert that screws up the training at the fort out there. I can go on and on. I want to get one more question in, Mr. Secretary, about pipelines in the Middle East. UAE and Saudi Arabia have picked up about a third of the oil supply via pipeline. Are they going to build new ones? Well, that's certainly a topic that's under discussion. And when you take a look at the lost revenue versus the cost of building pipelines, you take a look at the ability to circumvent a rogue terrorist group controlling. I mean, the IRGC is basically the Houthis now on the other end of the Middle East in terms of trying to control a choke point. The world shouldn't stand for it. International freedom of movement should be the standard. All of our European allies. and Pacific allies that receive oil from there should all be on our side. But meanwhile, of course, UAE and Saudi can take things into their own hands. They've got the resources to build that infrastructure. We should help them and make sure that we get energy flowing around the world. Secretary Doug Burgum keeps coming back. I didn't even ask you about the Teddy Roosevelt Library. I know it's opening on July 4th in North Dakota. I'll bet you you're going to be there. Come back before then to promote it. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America, from Secretary Bergam. I go to United States Senator Steve Daines from the great state of Montana. Senator, welcome back. I know you're about to go to China. I got a bunch of questions for you. But before I do that, you announced your retirement. You surprised me after you killed it for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Then I got to thinking about it. It said Steve Daines might be running for president. Have you ruled out running for president? I'm not running for President, Hugh. I'm not doing that. Is that a Sherman-esque, not-now, not-ever statement? Yeah, that's a not now, not ever. That's very Sherman-esque. You know, Hugh, and I had a really great long chat with President Trump, with Susie Wiles as I made this decision. And Hugh, when I graduated from college and I had a chemical engineering degree, I worked for Procter & Gamble for 13 years. Six of those years in China, launching American brands to compete against the Chinese brands and dominate that market for a U.S. company. Then I came back to Montana. We wanted to raise our four children in Montana, got involved in a cloud computing startup. We took the company public. We sold the Oracle right there in my hometown of Bozeman. That was 12 years.

And then I came to the U.S. House for two years, and then the Senate for 12, there's 14 years. You can see my life's kind of been in chapters of 12 to 14 year chunks. 14 years has been a wonderful experience. I've so enjoyed public service in serving the people back home in Montana, getting a lot of great things done, changing the Supreme Court, stopping the biggest tax increase in American history, doing wonderful things with President Trump and the Republican team. But... I'm ready for the next chapter. And we now have seven grandchildren. Anybody who's listening who has grandchildren understands we've been from zero to seven grandkids in the last six years, Hugh. And I just want to spend a little more time with those grandkids. But I will tell you this, Hugh, I am not retiring. I'm repurposing. I got a lot of energy. Love working the federal portfolio. Love working the multinational complexities that we face around the world. And so I'm going to take the experience I've had in the private sector and a public service and we'll figure out what to do next. All right. I'm right with you. seven soon to be eight grandchildren, our highest and best use is attending baseball games and swim meets and school plays. That's our highest and best use. So, okay, you're not running for president. You're going to China, though. Are you going to meet with Chairman Xi Jinping? We'll see. We have five U.S. senators headed over there. To put this in perspective, Hugh, from 2010 to 2019, there were 59 congressional visits to China. In the last six years, there have been three. And I was one of them. So there's just been a drought of engagement. And I fully support Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent's 30,000 foot view of China, which is this. We cannot decouple, but we need to de-risk. So isolation and disengagement is not a good strategy. Engagement, talking through our issues, continue to advocate on behalf of American companies. Key, do you realize, Hugh? The S&P 500 had about $1.2 trillion of top line revenue selling into China. You compare that to a $200 billion trade deficit we had last year. It's closed dramatically because of President Trump's leadership and Jameson Greer and Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick and the team. But our revenue surplus... in terms of American companies is six times greater than the trade deficit. So I think it's important we continue to advocate for the Boeing's of the world, the Procter & Gamble, the Microsoft, great U.S. companies that need that market. And you think about the United States and China are 40% of the world's GDP. It's important we stayed engaged and we compete. Now, I am in no way. stepping back from the real challenge we face under the IP thefts, the multiple issues we face right now with China, tariff and non-tariff barriers. But isolation, in my opinion, is not a good strategy. I'm glad to have a bipartisan group of senators heading over to China this weekend. We'll start our meetings on Monday. Senator, I'm no one to ask you for a commitment, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Will you commit to me to ask every Chinese official that you meet with to let Jimmy Lai out of prison and to go to England before he dies? Will you do that? Well, let me tell you something, Hugh. I was just in Hong Kong about three weeks ago, very aware of the Jimmy Lai situation. I've met Jimmy Lai here in my office in Washington. In fact, had dialogue, written dialogue with his daughter. It is a... A right gesture and humanitarian gesture, a gentleman there who is failing in his health will spend his remaining years in prison to let him out. So this is some of the dialogue we have. Let's come on some of the back channel work we do. Let me tell you something. We've got a great ambassador there in China, David Perdue. Yep. My former colleague here in the U.S. Senate, David was in Hong Kong with Sarah Lee and Reebok and Singapore when I was in Guangzhou with Procter & Gamble at the same time back in the early to mid-90s. So there's quiet work going on behind the scenes on behalf of Mr. Lai. Well, President Trump has told me on this show, Senator, that he brought it up with Xi Jinping, didn't get an answer. Marco Rubio says there's ongoing work. I just think that they've got to understand. I'm never going to believe anything they say until Jimmy lies out of jail. It's sort of like Solzhenitsyn Sarkharov and Bukovsky in that era. If they can't let an old Catholic man out before he dies in isolation, why would we ever trust them? Do you think that is persuasive to them? You know, it's a persuasive argument, and it's something that clearly the relationship has been very strained, and trust is the most important currency in any relationship. I don't disagree with your point, Hugh. But having spent six years working in China, I had two children born in Hong Kong back in 1994 and 1996. There are certain ways you engage in work with the Chinese leadership that are much more effective, and they're done oftentimes. behind closed doors. I just will tell you in doing a lot of deals with China and having strong relationships with many of the leaders, there are better ways. If you want to get an outcome, if you just want to get a press release and clicks on social media, there's one way to do it. If you actually want to get an outcome, there are better ways. And I'm choosing the better way path. Who has gone with you, Senator? Who are the other four? So it'll be bipartisan. We've got on the Democrat side, Senator Marie Cantwell. She, of course, will be advocating for Boeing, Microsoft, for the shipbuilding industry, and for her state of Washington. I've got to Deb Fisher, Senator from Nebraska. She herself is a cattle rancher. Her and her husband, Bruce, run a great cattle operation there. The non-tariff barriers on beef are significant. It's the second largest beef export market in the world. I opened that market up to USB producers back in 2017. When I went over there with a group of Republican senators, it'd been shut down for 14 years. We've got to open up again. Now they've allowed some non-tariff barriers to shut it back down again. Very important for U.S. producers. We're also going to have Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, also big aviation kind of interest there in Kansas as well as.

advocating on behalf of wheat and barley and our U.S. ag producers. And then Senator Mike Lee of Utah will also be joining us. So we've got a good delegation and we'll be in China for the balance of the week next week. Well, that's the setup. That's sort of like putting the volleyball up for President Trump to spike it. But I hope if the chairman sits down with you. Are you the leader of the delegate? Are you the senior member in the area? Yeah, I'm leading, actually my seventh congressional visit to China. So I'm leading the delegation. I was over there in March working, in fact, before I went over in March of last year, I met with President Trump in the Oval. We talked about the importance of working on this fentanyl precursor issue, of course, the leading cause of death. of 18 to 45-year-olds in America, continue to put pressure on China to cooperate to shut off those precursors, which the precursors in are shipped to the Mexican cartels, as well, fentanyl is produced, and then shipped into America to kill Americans. Well, good luck to you on your trip. I'll tell you, I know you don't work for press releases, but if Chairman Xi Jinping wants him a headway, he'll send Jimmy Lai home on the plane with the five senators, and maybe Americans will relax a little bit more about his intention. Good, safe travel. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Jim Talent with Senator from Missouri to the United States. Sanity is now a fellow with the Reagan Institute for Peace Through Strength. Senator Talent, Doug Burgum was on at the start of the hour, and I asked him about the Wall Street Journal story today. The headline is, Trump tells AIDS to prepare for extended blockade of Iran. Doug Burgum said he's in it to win it. He's not going to flex. He's not going to fade. How long do you think extended is?

You know, you, I don't think it's going to take very long because they're running out of room to store their oil. And like, I don't want to go through the whole history of it. But the Iranians have really made some bad decisions. They get into war with the two best air forces in the world and a Navy that specializes in precision. bombing, their air defense is destroyed, their leadership killed, their offensive capabilities destroyed, their defense industrial base destroyed. And meanwhile, attacking the neighbors through which they were executing their financial transactions and laundering their money. And then they threatened to straight that they need a lot more than we do. So the point is, I think they're nearing the point where even in the short term, they're going to have two options, either surrender on our terms or collapse. And the president knows that. And so I think he's going to continue the blockade for as long as it takes. But everything I've read suggests that they got a couple weeks left before they're going to have to shut down their oil wells. Senator, I hope he stays the course here. Oil today, West Texas is at 107 and Brent Crude is at 120. and obviously American energy company here making Boku dollars, but the rest of the world is suffering. I kind of view that as the NATO tax. That's a tax on NATO that didn't pay anything for the last 30 years. Now they're going to pay through the nose with the pump. But I hate to see it happen to Japan and our allies in Asia. They've got a full, Doug Burgum said we should stop calling Iran and just call it the IRGC. What's the IORGC got to lose? Can't they bunker down forever? Oh, I think they've got a lot to lose you because they need the revenue in order to pay their own people, much less the proxies. And if they don't have that revenue, how do they bunker down? I mean, you mentioned before about the protest was going to hit the street at a certain point, particularly if the country runs out of gasoline. How are they going to suppress them? So, Jim, look, do you think the besiege? I wonder, do you think the besiege are going to work like the TSA without money? Do you think they're going to show up like our TSA agents and our secret service agent? And the other thing, you is the regime is fracturing. I mean, we should not assume the IRG is a monolith. And we should not assume these civilian leaders who are obviously fighting with the IRG leaders, Vahidi. We shouldn't assume they have no contacts within the IRG. I mean, the reason the protests failed in January was in large part because the regime was united. It's not united anymore. And you, I'll add this. Okay, we have a chance, and you know this better than anybody because you've been following this for the last two months. We have a chance to create a lasting peace in the Middle East that will greatly advance the security of the United States and allow us to focus more on Indopacom. If you're the president, I mean, nobody likes the higher gas prices, but they'll go down. You can't refuse to do something that is so much in the interest of the country because there's some short-term pain.

Call me crazy, Jim. I think if the Republicans put their arm around this and say, we are winning and we are going to win, and we're sorry about the gas prices, but that's what we have to do to keep your children and grandchildren safe from this lunatic regime, I think they will rally to the Republican with that message. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, look, we have such a good, we have such a good platform to run on, all the achievements in foreign policy, as well as regrowing our own defense industrial base, and then crime and immigration and energy. You had Doug Burgum, you've had Chris Wright on. We have a really good platform to run on. And you remember also, when the president says it'll be extended. He's making the point that it's going to be there as long as it's necessary. He's not saying that he thinks it's going to be months. I mean, I don't think he believes that. But I think he's signaling to the Iranians that he's not back and down. Well, I think it's going to be at least June. And I told Guy Benson that when the war started. I said, wait for June, because it's going to take a while for this to bite. And now it's starting to bite. But they're not yet at... I mean, they're filling up the old container ships. I think of a one pump gas station filling up every car in town that's going out. They're trying to, they've got buckets, they just can't put the oil anywhere. And I gather, I'm no petroleum engineer, I gather when you shut down a well, it's not a good thing. Is that your understanding? Well, I think particularly when you have an oil industry like Iran's. I mean, would I trust our producers in Texas, for example, to be able to cap the wells and then start them up later? Sure, because we use the best technology and we know what we're doing. I would not trust that that's the case in Iran. I don't think they've run their oil industry as efficiently as they could have run their oil industry. Let me get a comment from you about Ukraine, Jim. The Ukrainians have blown up the third largest oil refinery in Russia. They're now punching way above their weight. Do you think Vladimir Putin is looking for a way out now? You know, that's a really good question. And this is one area where I think the president miscalculated initially. I mean, he saw what Russia is suffering. He saw the strategic losses because of this. this war. I mean, NATO's spending more money. Finland and Sweden are in NATO. Syria's gone as an ally. They don't even control the Black Sea anymore, you? I mean, they were in control of it before the war, and I think the president assumed that Vladimir Putin would want to stop digging. But I think Vladimir Putin is very concerned that if this war ends, he has to go back and give an accounting to the Russian people, and especially to the super patriotic military bloggers, and he needs those people. who are going to know why Russia suffered over a million casualties and got what? Some additional territory in Ukraine, maybe half the size of West Virginia. So I think Vladimir Putin is figuring, you know what, the war going on is not good, but the war ending ain't so good either. So I think we're going to have to step up the pain. Look at what they're hitting now. The Ukrainians that continue to astonish me. Doesn't Vladimir Putin have to worry about that?

Well, sure. I mean, and the thing that will get him to use an off-ramp is if the pain to him increases. I have been surprised that we have not taken greater steps, for example, sanctioning more of the banks, really cutting off the oil traffic, going after their shadow fleet. And I think we may turn to that after the mid-east is settled. Gosh, I hope you're right. I hope that the practice we're getting with Iranian tankers applies to the Russian Ghost Fleet as well. Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh. And don't forget one of our great sponsors is Consumer Cellular. 1-800-4-1-4-1-4-4-1-44. 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. Good evening, Grace, America. Welcome to Hour 3 of today's Hugh Hewitt Show. I'm joined by Mary Catherine Hamm, co-host of the Getting Hammered podcast, of which I listened to the latest episode on my trundle this morning. Mary Catherine, I know you were at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. I'm glad you're okay. If people want the full story, they've got to go listen to Getting Hammered from this morning. You and Vic talk it through. I got a couple of specific questions for you, all right? Number one, when the The room filled with what we used to call sheep dogs, the big men with big guns coming down trying to get to the front and you know that there's an incident, you go behind a stairwell and you peek. Now, you know about Mumbai, right? And you know that there were second wave attacks. And you know about the second intifada. There were bombs that were always set to go off after the first responders got there. When did you let down your guard? So I wasn't behind a stairwell. I just stayed at my table and I was kind of behind a chair. I would say between, I don't know, like, Really, it wasn't long. It was between like two and three minutes maybe where it seemed as if things were rather calm and that the Secret Service was assessing the room as opposed to reacting to something. Now, you're right about that. My concern was bomb because I know I'm not specifically a target, but there's an indiscriminate attack that can happen at any time. So that was my actual...

foremost concern, because even if you're surrounded by Secret Service officers, that won't help you. But I think just a few minutes in, I was fairly certain that something had happened and we were getting reports that something had happened and been neutralized and that they were there to make sure that this room was safe. See, my foremost concern, as I saw reports about it, was a second wave, was Mumbai, when the jihadis from Pakistan brought the rubber boats into Mumbai, and they sprout out over the city, and they attack the Habad, and they attack the hotel. And, I mean, there probably is no softer target than the Washington Hilton for that sort of an event, is there? I mean, the very scary part is that had he wanted to do damage in a different way while we were all funneling down in escalators, he could have done plenty of damage at that time. He chose to do it once the president was seated, which was a harder thing to do because he wanted to hit the president, right? But there is, yes, in many places in a free country are soft targets, and I think there will be a lot of thinking about whether that Secret Service... perimeter, which did work, should be further out. Although I was asked for a ticket and stopped at a barricade half a block from the hotel. So there was something out there. It's just not mags. Yeah. We are blessed that most of the assassins in the country are not as smart as Thomas Crooks, who did kill Corey Campitori and did wound President Trump. So he was a successful assassin. He just killed the wrong target. And then we got the lunatic in Florida who was in the tree. Then we got the guy who tried to get in a market. There have been four attempts. You reminded me today of the fourth attempt. I'd forgotten the fourth attempt. And so Trump, I don't think I agree with my old radio and television colleague Chuck Todd. I'd never go to an event with Donald Trump again. But I do wonder if the days of soft target events are over. Sort of like outdoor events after Charlie Kirk's murder. That's the thing that I think people are missing. I agree with you that Chuck Todd's response is wrong. I feel like that's a let the terrorists win response. And I would go to a presidential event. But I think that's what a lot of the press is missing about the ballroom discussion, which is, yes, Trump wants to have this discussion. He's always be closing Trump when he's at this press conference. But there is a real concern in this day and age, particularly with this uptick and the many attempts on Trump's life. about how you have a cabinet level or presidential level event at all, and that that might require something very different than it has required in the past. Now, you've been around D.C. long enough that you will remember the Comet ping pong pizza event of December 2015, right? Yes. All right, that lunatic, like the lunatic on, it doesn't mean they're mentally unfit to stand trial, just means they're lost in their head in a drama of their own making. That lunatic from 10 years ago, he swam in a different sewage-infested set of waters. But if you swim in sewage, you're going to get sick. He got sick and believed the whole Pizza Gate stuff. And he got sent away and was sentenced to four years in prison. He didn't hurt anyone. He just shot into the ceiling.

Four years in prison by now Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Do you think four years in prison is an appropriate sentence for him? And what about this guy at the Washington Hilton? Yeah, I assume this guy will get more. These will be federal charges and very serious. I don't know what the proper sentencing should be, but I know on conspiracy theories, one of the issues is there is both a judicial and a social correction for someone who is on the right and a conspiracy theorist. When it comes to conspiracy theories that this guy was swimming in, the blue anon, sort of like this old pedophile Epstein idea and the Russia Gate, for instance, too often the mainstream and in fact elite. speakers in this country are in reinforcing those and are telling people that these things are true. And so I worry about the people who like him and like several others have expressed are swimming in those waters now. I'm glad you and I agree on Nora O'Donnell, and I think the president's response was perfect. He did not lose his cool, which is what they wanted, and her immediate attempt to deflect, oh, do you think they're talking about you? You were appropriately dismissive of that. They had actually walked through that in my view. You've worked with networks. I've worked with networks. You know they rehearsed the questions. You know they rehearsed the answers and the responses. You know that was all rehearsed, right? She thought about that for a long time. Yes. And I would just offer the hypothetical, if a racist gunman tried to kill Barack Obama, would you read to Barack Obama, less than 24 hours later, from that manifesto, kind of saying, does he have a point? No, obviously not. Obviously not. And I think it was designed for clicks and for making him deny on camera something along the lines of when did you stop beating your wife. I agree. And you're giving power to this guy. I don't think it worked. In fact, if anything, I think it hurt 60 minutes, and it gives Bari Weiss a big challenge about what to do with 60 minutes. Because I sure wouldn't let, if I was in the White House, I would not let CBS near me. Even though the president was very gracious to the president of the White House Correspondent Association, they ambush him the day after he gets, you know, another, the fourth attempt on his life. What's wrong with the media? Well, what's wrong with the media is that you've seen this many times over. The congressional baseball shooting is another great example. They're very uncomfortable with anyone right of center being a victim for any period of time. And so what happens is because they might have to reckon with. The fact that people who are Bernie bros who camp out in my Northern Virginia neighborhood for a month tried to kill an entire baseball team worth of Republicans, right? They might have to contend with that. Instead, they want to contend with Trump. Trump is the villain. He can't. Republicans in him cannot be the victim. So they have to switch the story. This story quickly switched a couple of times. Once when they started talking about the ballroom, they were like, ew, that's icky that he's talking about the ballroom. We have to switch away from his assassination. Okay, that was like 20 minutes. Then you got O'Donnell, who's allegedly the victim of his nastiness.

his reply, which, as you say, was an appropriate reply. And then you've got Jimmy Kimmel. So they keep lining up new victims because they will not reckon with the fact that the actual target and the actual important preeminent attack on free speech is the ultimate one where this guy's trying to murder someone to make him stop talking. That's the one. You make this so well in today's episode of Getting Hammered. I hope people listen to it. But a couple of follow-up. Do you agree with me if you swim in sewage, you're going to get sick, whether that sewage is on the right or the left? Yes, in general. And I think a lot of people who propagate these things, whether they're podcasters on the right or mainstream media on the left, where is the part where we do ask ourselves to be responsible citizens, right? I think it can lead, if you just do a numbers game, it can lead to someone. making the wrong call at some point and doing something crazy. However, I do want to be careful about saying rhetoric immediately causes violence because we do have the right to have free-ranging and, in fact, jerky and mean speech at our disposal when we're talking about politics. I personally try to be responsible about it at most times. I would not say I'm perfect, but pretty... You're pretty close to you. You and Vic hit the number all the time. Let me now follow up with the not-so-serious stuff. After the dinner was over, and it was obviously it had to be over because they had breached the security, and people had flooded the room, the president explained that. But you went to a Brazilian restaurant because you understand surge pricing. I laughed, but a lot of people don't understand that. Would you explain that to them? Yes. Well, 2,500, 3,000 people were coming out of that ballroom around the same time in a small area of Washington, D.C. And it was like a little cold and somewhat drizzly. So everybody's going to be looking for a ride. That means demand goes up, which means prices go up, which means the people who care most about getting home quickly, will pay those prices. And I, who didn't want to, could wait with my friends and have dinner at a Brazilian restaurant because I had not been harmed, luckily. And we were protected by many people in that room, making sure we weren't harmed. And I waited about an hour to go home and therefore pay a more normal price outside of the extremes pricing. That's real reporting, Mary Catherine. I just thought that's actually local color. Anyone who leaves an event in Washington, D.C. knows what surge pricing is, which is you're going to get hammered by the Uber or the Lyft driver. That's exactly right. M.K. Ammer on X. Listen to getting hammered with Mary Catherine and Vic Madison. Come right back after the break. Joseph Lacott is here with the war for Middle Earth. Don't go anywhere on Google.

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Once in a while, I indulge my own favorite reading, and I'm doing that with this segment. Joseph LeCont is back. He is with the Heritage Foundation. He is the author of most recently The War for Middle Earth, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis confront the gathering storm, 1933 to 1945. Joe LeCont, welcome back. I haven't talked to you since your first book. about Tolkien and Lewis. This is fabulous. I mean, it's really fabulous. Thank you for coming back. Well. Hugh, thank you so much. I should just say quickly, I'm no longer with the Heritage Foundation, but I'm kind of a free-floating academic right now, but that's all right. Well, that's fine, too, because I want people to go and buy the war for Middle Earth just to learn how people of extraordinary sense anticipate horrible events. And let's talk about Tolkien and Lewis from 1933 to, let's say, 1939, no six years first. How did they see the evil coming? How do they see, how do they have the insight to see the evil coming? It's kind of what you're asking, because they didn't have hindsight. They had insight. And yes, they lived through the First World War. Both of those men fought honorably in World War I and survived. I think, Hugh, part of the way they saw what was happening and how this was a new darkness that had to be reckoned with was. They were rooted in the classical Christian literary tradition. And that gave them, I think, a kind of moral foundation, a spiritual foundation for their lives that gave them perspective. So when the totalitarian states are on the rise in the 1930s, the will to power, this is a big theme in literature, isn't it, Hugh? Oh, my goodness. And what you have done so expertly with this is draw how... The gathering storm impacted their work and their writing. And it went all the way through the end of the war. But expand on that, Joe. Tell people, I want them to go out and read the War for Middle Earth because I learned stuff in it. I'd never known about Tolkien and Lewis. I want people to understand. Well, that's exciting. Thank you, Hugh. Well, think about it. The Tolkien begins writing The Lord of the Rings in late 1937, and he's writing it right through the Second World War. C.S. Lewis writes the screw tape letters. He writes the Great Divorce, the Abolition of Man, the Space Trilogy, and he does the radio broadcast for the BBC that become mere Christianity all through the Second World War. So I am absolutely convinced. The cataclysm of that war is pressing down on their imaginations. And I'll give you one example, Hugh, in 1939, just as the war starts, the Second World War starts, C.S. Lewis is listening to a radio broadcast with his doctor friend, Dr. Haverd. Hitler is on the radio, and it's simultaneously translated into English there from the BBC. And he's absolutely triumphant.

Lewis writes about this to his brother, warning, and says, as long as the speech lasts, it's impossible not to waver just a little. It's C.S. Lewis, impossible not to waver just a little. And then that's on a Friday, on Sunday sitting in church. He gets the idea for the screw tape, the screw tape letters, the diabolical fantasy. And it's not a coincidence, you know, it can't be. No, and I also think the science fiction trilogy is very well explained. Lewis wrote three books. One of my favorite all-time book is the third book in that trilogy. Dr. Arne from Hillsdale and I have spent a lot of time talking about that hideous strength. But all three of them play into the rise of the evil that is Hitler. And, of course, Stalin at the same time, but Hitler is preeminent. However, the bonus in this book, Oxford during the war, I had no idea that they had like fire squads on the top of the university and that their lectures would go on and were packed. I thought sort of Oxford shut down during the war, but it didn't. That's right. It did not. They have the blackouts, the sandbags, the sirens. Lewis and Tolkien both are in the home guard. They're doing their bit for King and Country. So think about the pressures that are on them. They need to teach, need the right lectures, go to faculty meetings. So the question you have to ask yourself, Hugh, is when in the world are they finding the time to write these great imaginative works? Well, they're mortgaging time from other things, evenings, weekends. And what that tells me is, They have to write. And it's very deliberate. They want to push back against the ideological madness that is all around them. They want to offer the world a vision of truth, beauty, virtue, friendship, faith. They're going to push back against the madness. It's very deliberate. So they're meeting together. Every week, as you know, Hugh, not only in the Eagle and Child Pub, but also in Lewis's rooms in Maudlin College, sharing their works in progress every Friday evening right through the Second World War. It's just an incredible story of friendship and imagination in the crisis. It's also, by the way, some things I didn't learn about Tolkien. Samuel Johnson, I think, wrote, nobody but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. He wrote The Hobbit, he made a little bit of money, and then he liked it, and his agent wanted him to write more, but he said, I'm not sure there's a market for more hobbitry, but there turned out to be an amazing market market for it. Yes, he actually initially said was, I have nothing more to say about Hobbits. And C.S. Lewis is the guy who helps to convince him he needs to follow through on this sequel. And, you know, J.R. Tolkien told Walter Hooper, who was C.S. Lewis is a personal secretary at the end of his life. He told him this story that Walter Hooper told to me. Tolkien said, you know, Lewis was such a boy. And he had to have a story.

And that story, the Lord of the Rings, was written to keep him quiet. So he's reading out every chapter, literally every chapter, to C.S. Lewis, as he's writing it. And Lewis and Tolkien teach us, especially in this time that we're in right now, when we're again in a Cold War 2.0 and there are four major alliance of tyrants. Lewis says only the clear sea breeze of the old books can keep your mind straight. And I'm paraphrasing from memory here. But I love the way that he put that, the sea breeze of the old books. And I've been quoting it to people because it's actually an argument for Hillsdale and St. John's and any place that actually teaches the classics. And it's a defense of fantasy. epic fantasy, Joe. Explain why, especially for this time right now. Yeah, I think when you think about the works that were most important to these men, for Tolkien, it's Beowulf, this story of this lone epic hero taking on radical evil. And for Lewis, he said, outside of the Bible, the most important work on his professional life was Virgil's Aeneid. The founding myth of ancient Rome, the great task that Aeneas has to found a new civilization. The point here, I think, Hugh, is devotion to duty, devotion to a noble cause, no matter who else is with you or not with you. So the idea of... of strength and resilience, courage in the face of great evil. Boy, we need that message right now, it seems to me, in the world that we live in, and the emphasis that these men place on the individual. This is where they take those epic ancient stories, the classical medieval stories, but they give it a kind of a modern twist. So they're heroes. They are epic heroes, but not in the classical sense, right? Because who are the heroes in the Lord of the Rings? Well, it's like this little guy called a hobbit. Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam is the hero, right? So they're not these superheroes, mighty muscular people. It's like the little children in the Chronicles of Narnia and a rat named Reepie Chief. That is a modern twist. Well, it's a fabulous book, Joe LaCont. I hope the War for Middle Earth is selling well. I don't know that it got a lot of attention. I didn't know it was that. I stumbled upon it. Did it get a lot of attention when it published in November? Well, we've got a nice review from the Wall Street Journal and also from Christianity Today and other really important outlets. So it's taking off, I hope. I hope it does. It's really a great book for our time. The War for Middle Earth. Tolkien and Lewis confront the gathering storm 1933 to 1945. I listen to it. You might want to listen to it or read it. It's an audio. It's in hardcover. It's at Amazon, wherever fine bookstores are.

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. My guest is Todd Pete Ricketts, entrepreneur, better known perhaps as co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. I've gotten over my grudge against Mr. Pete Ricketts from 2016. I'm from the Cleveland area, Todd Pete Ricketts, so I'm still hurting from the best world series of this millennium. But that aside, you have built a brand new search engine in which I am interested. Tell us about Free Spoke. Well, really, it's pretty simple. What we've built is like the best AI search tool that you can use if you're trying to inform yourself on the issues of the day. And really anything in general, we have a complete search engine. But our idea kind of came for this idea that big tech was not just giving us information when we search for, whether it be on social media platforms or on Google or what have you. They were leading us down a narrative. They were trying to like sell us on an idea, not. give us all the information on us and make up our own minds. And so at Free Spoke, we just kind of went back and went it the other way around and decided to deliver on the promise of the internet, which is to help people inform themselves. And so we stripped out the bias in our AI algorithm and we label content, whether it's left, right, middle. And really, and adjust the facts, ma'am, give people perspectives of both sides of these issues. Last night, I was at a Reagan Foundation event called Common Ground with my old friend, Ruth Marcus, who's a liberal and wrong, and she says I'm a conservative and wrong, but we were together and we were able to agree about facts about the Supreme Court. However, Freepoke is trying to reach common ground for everyone. Is that even possible anymore to find a common understanding of the world around us? It has to be for our future, to be honest with you. I mean, really, the rhetoric has gone a little too far, I think, in the politics in our world, in our country. And really, we need to get back to this idea of debate and understanding each other. And I always feel like, you know, In debate in high school, they always said, you know, the best way to argue against someone is to fully understand their point of view. And that's what we're kind of trying to do is it doesn't matter if you're left or right, Democrat or Republican. You can see your point of view and you can see the other side's point of view and really get your head wrapped around where there's common ground. So how does Free Spoke present the information? If you go to Google, you'll get search results. They can be torched. They are torched. If you use Chrome, the same thing's going to happen. How does Free Spoke present the information that makes it neutral? Well, so what we do is, first of all, we built our own index. Excuse me one second. I've just got to scratch my throat. That's all that's fine. I drink water throughout the program all the time. It's all right. So what we did is we built our own index of the Internet. and really started tagging things slightly differently than Google and Bing we're doing. And so really, we have our own core internet index, which is tagged to be unbiased. And then we layer that algorithm of unbiased on top of it, which really just kind of is trying to show both sides of everything. And really, that's along the short of it.

Okay, Todd Pete Ricketts, why did you do this? That's not cheap. You got a baseball club to run. You got another World Series coming up with the Indians, I hope, Indians, Guardians. Why? You know, really, I just think that it goes back to this idea of the promise of the Internet. When the Internet came along, it was like, oh, there's all this new information that would have been so hard to find that was just at your fingertips. And over time, whether it be for maybe your political leanings or in an effort to make money, these big tech companies have gone astray. And really, Free Spoke is really just kind of take us back to the late 90s, early 2000s when the Internet was new. It was really just trying to inform people. Because the long and the short of it here is that I have a lot of faith in the American people to make up their own mind if they're given good information. And the idea is like, we're going to put it all out there in front of people, let them make up their own mind. Well, Winston Churchill always said, trust the people, and I do. How is free spoke taking off? I mean, is it, are you going to make money on it? Is it an act of generosity on your part? And second question, where did you find the talent to build your proprietary AI model to make free spoke work? Well, there's a couple questions in there. So hopefully Free Spoke will be profitable someday. We're a new startup and we're just growing. We have a few million users, but we could use a few million more. And really with the technology people, there's a lot of, a lot of talent that also sees the same things that I saw inside of big tech. And then they see it, you know, they had a front row seat for all of that stuff. So we've run into a lot of people who really. wanted to get away from that and just, you know, program and create technology that that is not biased or not trying to teach people a narrative. Well, how has it been received by the Wired magazine community, by the tech writers? Do they like free spoke? Do they think it works? Pretty much universally that people I run into who use it give really great feedback. And I think that goes back to we have a very solid product that is built on good technology. And then we've done some things that are a little bit more interesting that others are not doing. For example, we transcribe podcasts. and then reflect them in our search engines because as we talk to our users, we found, you know, they're not going to ABC or CNN or Fox News for their information. They're depending on the podcasters that they listen to, and that's where they're getting a lot of their information. So we've kind of gone through and, like I say, we transcribe all these podcasts, and then those get reflected in your search as well. Oh, well, that is huge. Now, grandparent, I want to, is it safe for people?

Have you put in controls for kids? Because, you know, Google or Chrome or any of them can take you places you don't want your grandkids to go. What's free spoke to do about that? A thousand percent actually from the get-go, and we didn't have a really deep thought on this other than I just said, I don't want to. We don't service any pornography or any adult content on free spoke. And so what we do is our crawler is going through the internet as it identifies adult content. It tags it adult content and puts it in a black box, never to be seen again through our interface. Well, Bravo for you. So I want to recommend to parents at least give free spoke a try. How long has it been rolled out for, Todd Pete Ricketts? You know, we've been working on it for a few years. And I think just in the last year or two, we've really felt like we have a product that we can take to market. And so it's been up, but we haven't really been pushing it so much. And this year was the year we said, you know, we need to get out and tell people that we're here and spread the word a little bit more. Well, I will give it a try. I encourage my entire audience to give Freespoke a try. Is it freespoke a try? Is it freespoke.com? Or you can go to the app store or the Google Play and get anything with regardless of what kind of phone you have. I look forward to giving it a try and having you back in a few months. In the meantime, go Cubs and go Guardians. We need a rematch. Todd Pete Ricketts, thank you so much. Freespoke.com, America. Give it a look and come right back to the Hugh Hewant Show. In a world that screams for your attention, there is a place that invites you to peace. You don't need a building. You don't need a choir. You just need to turn your heart to Air One. Air One. Songs that heal. Lyrics that pray for you when you don't have the words. From Lauren Daigle to Elevation Worship and More. This isn't just radio. It's worship for the every day. Escape the noise and worship now. Download the Air One app. Ask your smart speaker to play Air One or visit Air One.com. Air One. Worship now.