Has politics changed forever as left-wing violence becomes “normalized”?

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 ringed 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 Q for Hillsdale.com, or just Google, Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Welcome back, America. I've changed Matt Contonetti's thump music. Matt is the head of domestic studies at AEI. He is also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Free Expressions page. But he really belongs to the city, being the city of the District of Columbia and the Beltway. He's really Mr. Beltway. I think he was at the White House Correspondents Association dinner at junior high. Am I right about that, Matt? Did you go when you were like in sixth grade? No, though I did used to go to the Capitol building when I played hooky from high school to show you what a political nerd I am, Hugh. You are. That was when you could go and you could sit in the gallery and even take the Capitol Hill subway without having a pass. Those were the glory days, the 90s. I'm glad you were married before that came out on national television and radio, Matt. You wouldn't have been able to put that on your dating profile on the app. What's done is done. I have no shame. All right, Matt, you remember 10 years ago, I'm sure you do, the comet ping pong pizzeria shooter. in to free the kids because he'd been deep into the inner tubes and he'd become persuaded that there was a pedophilia ring that kept children hostage in the basement of Comet Pizza. Do you remember that? I remember it well. It was on all the news, and Democrats denounced it and offered entreaties for everyone to tone down the rhetoric as a result. It was 10 years ago and three miles away from the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Now, the lunatic, and President Trump called him crazy and unbalanced and troubled on Sunday night. That lunatic. swam in waters similar to the unbalanced man who shot up Comet Pizza. Do you think the reaction to the waters of the 10-year-ago guy? That's 4chan and Qanon, will be the same as the reaction to the waters in which this guy swam, which is basically blue sky and Jimmy Kimmel.

Well, I don't think the response from Democrats is the same, Hugh. I think that plenty of Democrats condemn political violence in the abstract in the aftermath of this attempted assassination of President Trump and his cabinet at the White House correspondent's dinner. But very few have affirmatively stated that President Trump is not. any of the horrible things that the assassin claimed he was and that Nora O'Donnell repeated to the president's face less than 24 hours after the assassination attempt on 60 minutes Sunday night. So that's what I'm looking for. I would ask the Democratic leaders to go out there and say, for starters, that Trump is not Hitler, that Trump is not a dictator. He's not a king. He is a populist politician. He has his flaws. There are ways to criticize him. Democrats can have a different view of where the country is going or should go. But they need to really pull back on the depiction of Trump as some type of fascist leader. Because what that does is it lowers the bar for people who think that they are going to save the country by going after this president in a violent way. Now, I began the program with Aaron McLean, who has put out the School of War podcast today with Douglas Murray. And that's two of the leading public intellectuals like you. They're going to be around for decades. And they ended up talking about the meaning crisis, which is too many people of both the far left and the far right lack meaning. And so they attach on to this crazy stuff. But also education in America has failed, both in the numeracy and literacy, but also into basic civic. education. What do we do about that, Matt? That's not an unsolvable problem. Well, these are big issues. And you know, my hero Charles Cranham would like to say that politics matters most because if you get the politics right, then everything else will follow. But if you screw up your politics, then all you're going to reap is misery. And I think that beyond these kind of metaphysical questions you discussed in your previous interview, Hugh, we need to think about the politics here. And our political system is kind of off-kilter. And the fact that the primaries now matter more than the general election. The fact that the type of hateful rhetoric is normalized online and appropriated by elected officials, that is, you know, that's been a feature, intemperate rhetoric has been a feature of American politics. But it's certainly producing, I think, viral effects now with the new landscape of social media, where you have three assassination attempts on Donald Trump in less than two years. You have the high profile shooting of. Charlie Kirk, a conservative leader. You have the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO and then the lionization of his murderer. There's something going wrong with our political system. And I think it starts with just across the board, denunciations of these acts, full stop, and denunciations of people who would justify them.

like the Democrats' newest heartthrob, this Hasan Piker guy, who was featured in the New York Times, justifying murder just a few days before this assassination attempt on President Trump. Well, it is an extension of the, from the river to the sea rhetoric. It's an extension of the takeover of your alma mater of campus by radicals. And Murray talks about that. They, all those young activists from high schools around the United States arrived at Columbia, expecting to meet climate activists, and they became Hamas activists, and they've been, they've been bent. And I really think we've got to go back deeper than college can't save this. Now, Matt, this goes back into your high school. Did you have a sane teacher for American government? Did you have a great, inspiring teacher anywhere that said, read these books over here? I had several great teachers at public schools in Northern Virginia, Hugh, that I'm forever grateful for. My AP U.S. history teacher in particular, Kevin Kelly, fantastic teacher. He assigned Richard Hofstetter's American political tradition as a senior. high school, I'm sorry, a junior in high school. I read that book and it really kind of opened my eyes. And I think there are great teachers out there. But I'll say that one thing that's going wrong with our political system is this desire for absolutist solutions. You mentioned the climate hysteria there. The idea that we're going to rid the world of fossil fuels. in order to prevent this apocalypse. That's sort of apocalyptic thinking that Donald Trump is a fascist tyrant who is going to end democracy in America. What that does is it inspires people to take apocalyptic actions. And so this is where we have to move away from in our politics. We have to start getting back to kind of serious concrete discussions of the issues. Israel Palestine is a great example of this. This idea that from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. The idea of you're going to end the country, the state of Israel, the only homeland, national homeland for the Jewish people, you're just going to end it and not think about the consequences. That's really, I think, where we've gone wrong. And the Democratic Party in particular needs to understand that it is becoming captured by it. radical elements in our society. And that's a danger because to have one of our major parties go completely off the rails can cause a great deal of damage in the short run. You know what happened in the 2020 primary, Matt, is that the Democrats had a series of debates with friendly moderators.

None of whom asked them, for example, if climate change is really your number one agenda, why are you concerned about the blockade of Iranian oil? Why do you think the president? I mean, there's easy questions to ask that are not confrontational, but just generally the logic of the left doesn't add up. But they didn't get anything except underhand pitching. Will they get other than underhand pitching in their selection process this time around? I really, I'm afraid they won't, Hugh. I really think it will be up to some of the candidates. You know, I mean, there's one, there will be something important, I think, happening if Rahm Emanuel gets on that debate stage for the Democratic primary in 2028. Now, Rahm Emanuel is a liberal Democrat. I don't agree with him on much. You're way too polite, Matt. He's way too polite. No, but, you know, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. You say it and you know the real ROM. He will be scrappy and he will mix it up, I think, and introduce some sharp distinctions in the debates if he gets on stage. I think that will be critical because otherwise the voices of dissent in the Democratic Party, the voices like Emmanuel then Senator John Fetterman, my favorite Democrat. who's different from Emmanuel in a lot of ways, but is courageous in standing up for what he sees as traditional liberal beliefs in the Democratic Party. They're going to be shut out. And it's just going to be a conversation of the left, among the left, and for the left. And by the way, Hugh. You know, all this glorification of the left and the celebration of these, I think, very toxic voices like Pikers that are rising within the Democratic Party. The media loves it, right? But they forget that it was less than two years ago that Donald Trump was reelected, right? In the face of all this opposition. Yeah, after being consigned to the political wilderness. So this is still a country that I think is willing to reject the left and the Democrats are tempting faith if they go down this radical course. Oh, goodness, I hope you are right. Matt Contonetti from the Wall Street Journal of the American Enterprise Institute. Follow him on X at Continent. Read them in the journal, Free Expressions, Vertical, and stay tuned, America. I'm Hugh, on the Salem News Channel, the Salem Radio Network, and all of our terrific affiliates, North-South, East and West.

Welcome back to America. I'm joined now by Eli Lake of the Free Press, host of Breaking History. He was at the White House correspondence dinner on Saturday night. I listened to his recounting of it on the commentary podcast yesterday. Eli, I was not there. I was actually at a school play hours away. I've only gone once because I hate those things. Good for you. I know. I really, really hate those things. part introversion, part shine as part, I don't do small talk very well with people, but some people like it and I'm not condemning it. I am just curious in the aftermath of the comet ping pong pizza shooting, which happened in December 2015, it was about three miles away from the Washington Hilton, suddenly, and I knew nothing about Pizza Gate lunacy, but once I learned about it, Q Chan suffered, we had 4chan, QAnon, 4chan. Anyone who dealt in that particular weird very, very odd left-wing conspiracies world. They were shunned. Do you expect the same shunning... Well, Pete's the game was more on the right, was more on the right, you mean? Now, do you expect the same shunning on the left of the water in which this killer would be statement assassin swam, which is the no king's water? That's really what it is. It's the no king's water. Will it, will no kings go away? No, I don't think no kings will go away. What I do think, though, is that it is kind of forcing a new conversation among Democrats. And what I mean by that is that if you just look at the sequence of events in the last few weeks, the entire news cycle about Hasan Piker, who, you know, your last guest, Mike Rogers, kind of went into chapter and verse, you know, thinks America deserved 9-11, praises the communist regime in China. supports, thinks Hamas is morally superior to Israel, go through it. These are fringe opinions. They're radical opinions and they're anti-American opinions. And there was a column by Ezra Klein, who's very bright, New York Times guy, and is something of a gatekeeper for American liberals. And he is the original... title of that column was Hasan Piker is not the enemy. They changed the headline. And then Hasan Piker goes on a bunch of other kind of liberal podcasts. You know, he goes on crooked media, the Potsave America guys. And he's asked about some of his past statements regarding to Hamas. And he does not. use the opportunity to sort of say my quote was taken out of context. This is what I really believe. He kind of doubles down. And then, you know, we see what he does in another New York Times kind of really softball interview, extraordinary, where, you know, he, he would like to see, you know, more crimes like art theft and, you know, making, you know, stealing and shoplifting is micro-eluding. And, you know, he understands why a lot of Americans supported the,

But that's what's needed. And, you know, what I would say is that the right has done a pretty good job in my view of producing younger conservatives at this point, that obviously a lot of them right now, because that's where the party is, they like Trump, but they haven't, you know, I look at a guy like Josh Hammer, and that guy's terrific. He has not gone along with the elements of the right. that have decided to obsess over Israel and sort of go in a populist direction that I think you and I would agree is not that great. They need to find their young leaders who are going to stand up to a Hasan Piker on his own terms. They have to find their own streamers that define their own podcasters. Maybe that's going to be the work over a few years. Maybe you can't do it right away. But because, I mean, you know, Iglesias and Marshall, they're around my age. It's not really for that generation. It's for the younger people to sort of meet the Hasan Piker where they are and say, no, no, no, not another step forward. We don't want this. Meanwhile, if I'm the state. Democratic Party of South Carolina or New York City or whatever, I would make sure that if you are a DSA person, you don't get to run in my primary. Full stop. That's the other thing. You got to end their entry as strategy, which has been going on now for a few years at this point. No, I got to go back to the generational thing. The conservative has done a pretty good job, and we have one minute, Eli, so I might keep you four. I can't keep you. Who follows the Mary Catherine Ham, Guy Benson, Seth Mandel's? We got a lot of those, Ben Shapiro, we got a lot of 40-somethings. Do we have any 25-year-old people? Well, you know, I paint into Israel Shabbas Keston, Bob, I was a pretty young guy. I think he's pretty good. And you'd have to get, I got to think of it in terms of the right. But I think that, yeah, you can find those people. In fact, I would say the rebels on campus right now, if I'm thinking about this kind of as a generational strategy on the right, the people who are chafing under wokeness at elite universities, those are the future leaders of the conservative movement as I see it. I hope you are right. Eli Lake can be followed at Breaking History. He's a correspondent for the free press. Follow him on X at Eli Lake. Thank you, Eli. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. The shooting on Saturday night because it's a big story and we're beginning to get our arms around it. And I begin with Aaron B. McLean. Aaron is the host of the School of War podcast. He's also a contributor to the free press. He is also a CBS national security analyst. And I discovered today that after his undergraduate years at St. John's, he did what everyone would do. He got a master's in medieval Arabic from Oxford. That's kind of what everyone does, right? Aaron.

It made sense at the time, Hugh. It made sense at the time. You know, was it before or after the Marine Corps? That was before. That was before. And, you know, one of its main consequences was, it led me to believe when I was joining the Marine Corps that I was obviously going to go to Iraq because my Arabic was decent in those days. Seven years in the Marine Corps never set foot in an Arabic-speaking country. Not a layover at an airport. Went to Afghanistan instead, which was, you know, very operationally exciting. But no one speaks a look of Arabic there. You know, I've got a retired Marine Corps Major General Buddy Mel Spees, and he was in charge of all of Marine Corps education. And he said the 16 weeks. I don't know if is OCS 16 weeks or is the basic school 16 weeks? The basic school is longer than OCS, so it's probably up there in the 16-week neighborhood. My OCS class was 10 weeks. Okay. So he said about the basic school, we cram eight weeks of education into 16 weeks because a lot of our young Marines arrive without a moral compass. In other words, they've got to put judgment and values in as well as skills training. You and Douglas Murray, in one of the best hours of podcasting I've heard in a long time, ended up talking about the collapse of American education and allowing people like the would-be shooter on Saturday night to emerge, twisted, ill-informed, illogical, lost in the diaspora of idiocy. What do we do about that? You guys didn't talk about what do we do about that? Well, that's because it's an enormous problem, and it's hard to even analyze the problem. So you're right, we didn't get to solutions. Just to restate my theory just briefly for your audience, you know, clearly this shooter who appears to be very likely mentally unwell, seized with conspiratorial theories about pedophilia and sex crimes in the White House and things like that, this is somebody who is getting his information. from a fractured media landscape, from an educational system that fails young people, in particular fails young men, in terms of directing sort of the natural male desire to be heroic, to do something brave, to do something bold. There are healthy ways that a society can channel that. They can channel young men into the military. They can encourage young men to build families, to do things that are productive for society. But if young people, and I keep lingering on them, Men because the men are most of the shooters. They do the very best things and the very worst things in society, typically. If those desires aren't properly channeled, and furthermore, these young people are seized with a sense that society is somehow corrupt, either because they're seized by left-wing revolutionary conceptions or right-wing conceptions of a fallen, radical progressive society. And they come to hate their society, don't be surprised when they try to do their acts of zany heroism in ways that are deeply, deeply anti-social. Aaron, I don't know how long you've been in the Beltway. Ten years ago, you might have been in Afghanistan ten years ago, in December of 2016, a lunatic from the right walked into the comet ping pong pizzeria, three miles from the Washington Hilton, fired a...

weapon into the ceiling, it was AR-15, I think, and was there to free the children who had been kidnapped by a pedophilia ring. He had fallen into the Q&N-O-Chan world of weirdness, and immediately, roundly condemned by everyone, and 4chan and Q&N became appropriately radioactive. I'd never heard them before, but they just became very radioactive. Will the same radioactivity attached to the ecosystem in which the would-be statement shooter on Saturday night, live, breathe, swam existed. I wish I could give you a happier answer, Hugh, but I think the answer is obviously not. Epsteinism, just to give it a name, I'm not sure what we should call it, but this sense that the terrible crimes and miserable record of Jeffrey Epstein and some of his associates actually is more than what it seems. It is, in fact, a kind of all-explanatory story about American elites, global elites. This is widespread to include amongst you know, respectable people, Hugh, that you and I know and can talk about and who are not, I think, particularly. particularly loony, but they embrace it enough that I think it's here to stay on the left, and it's a useful cudgel against the president. So there's a reason for it. And, you know, you asked me for solutions earlier. I do worry about education in this country. I do worry about whether education gives young people the right moral compass, but, you know, especially with the advances such as they are, the digital revolution, kids constantly on screens, kids constantly on social media. the introduction of AI into educational processes, which really frightens me. All of that counts as education. Like the culture really is education. You're educated by your parents. You're educated by your school, but you're also educated by the culture. And that landscape is just so fragmented at best and often toxic. And we don't have the school. We don't take schooling seriously in a class. I'm a fan of classical schooling. I went to St. John. So classical school is probably the shorthand answer, but a little hard to impose that as a matter of national policy. There is a new book out on Tolkien and Lewis during the 1933 to 1945 period. And they diagnosed early the malevolence growing in Germany and they put a name on it. And C.S. Lewis suggested the only answer to evil ideology is the fresh, clean sea breeze of old books. And I think that's still true. I don't think they're very popular. Even Wilford McClay's Land of Hope, that's the alternative to Howard Zinn, it's not nearly wherever it should be. Is that doable as a national project replacing a progressive curriculum with a traditional civics curriculum that's patriotic?

It's certainly possible on a school-by-school basis. So then it's incumbent upon, you know, I mean, and look, there are plenty of private schools in particular across the land that do this. And it's not just about, it is about old books, but the old books do a few different things for students, don't they? They expose you to excellence. You know, there should be some language learning, some serious mathematics. along that to make your mind agile. But the way in which you construct the curriculum should build a common identity, an identity of obviously patriotism and commitment to your community and commitment to what's needed to make that community thrive. But also, you know, religious schools are sometimes quite good at this, also to your faith tradition. Jewish schools often are some of the best at what I'm describing and end up, you know, resulting in really strong communities as a consequence. You know, this question of the community, the culture, school, it's all linked. And I think when we talk about schooling, sometimes we're focused on all the wrong things. And, you know, we shouldn't be surprised when we see some of the terrible chaos and conspiratorialism that we see out about in the land. All right now, a very serendipitous thing to come out of the near tragedy of Saturday night. You and Douglas Murray were both at the dinner. People can listen to your experiences on the School of War podcast today. Then you sat down and did a podcast. I said, you ought to do this a lot. You and he. are a very good team. You both work for the free press. He worked for the Post. You worked for CBS. Did that thought cross your mind that there was a lot of chemistry there? Well, I love talking to Douglas. He's, you know, he's one of the smartest people I know. And he always has something interesting to say. But, you know, it came about very organically. As you say, we were both at the dinner. I think I had greeted him briefly. We were sitting at different tables on the way in. And then, of course, the incident happened. It was very chaotic. People were taking cover. I was sitting with the secretary of Warped Pete Hegseth. Also with Dana White, who might, you know, the head of the UFC, who might have a favorite. Oh, Mr. Composure, the Buddha. Yeah. Not just composure. His whole body language, Hugh, he was just straining to be in the fight. He clearly, none of us really knew what was going on. He didn't know what was going on. But if there had been action nearby, you can bet he would 100% have been in it. I probably would have too, but more out of a sense of responsibility. He seemed genuinely frustrated that the action was not happening right in front of him. But my point is, you know, we were all sitting there. It all happened. And then afterwards, it was sort of milling around waiting for word. Like we didn't really know. We thought the shooter was dead outside. told to stay in the room. And I saw Douglas across the room. And so we went over and poured ourselves a couple glasses of champagne and just actually had a version of the conversation that we then had on the podcast. I had a quick exit question. Do you think the days of dinners like the White House Correspondent Association, when so many targets are gathered together in an age of drones and attacks on gatherings of leaders is something we invented with Iran and Israel invented with Hezbollah? Do you think those are over? You can secure a dinner like that. Just this dinner wasn't particularly well secured. There are facilities. There are ways to build perimeters. There are ways to be more serious about security. So no, I don't think the days of it are over, but this was not a well-secured event, in my opinion. I could not agree with it. I've only been once, and I was struck at the time. It was kind of chaotic. Aaron B. McLean, follow him on X. Go and listen to the School of War today, where he and Douglas Murray talk about the meaning crisis, education, young men.

and the response at the dinner during the chaos, it's really kind of a must listen to podcast. Aaron, thank you for joining me. Follow him on exit. Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, B, McLean, M-A-C-L-E-A-N. I'll be right back on The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. After the White House Correspondents Association, melee and chaos, we saw Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook strumming in the background. Where have all the flowers gone? They kept their composure. They were heroes. Duncan, good that you're not in any way insured. Did you take the bottles off the table? Did you and Ashbrook loot the wine? No, we didn't, Hugh. Thanks for having me. No, I texted my wife, who wasn't in attendance, and I got out of there as soon as they lifted lockdown because I didn't want to hear about lingering with the journals and drinking all night. I got home as soon as I can. In fact, I ate a lean cuisine at my kitchen table in my full tuxedo and regalia. I felt like the monopoly man after he was down on his luck. All right. Now, you're old enough, maybe old enough to remember 10 years ago. I'm going to ask all my guests about this today because it seems to me so parallel. Ten years ago, a lunatic from the right who'd been swimming in QAnon and 4chan walked into the pizza ping pong pizzeria three miles away from the Washington Hilton up Connecticut Avenue and fired his AR 17 or 15 into the roof. and came to rescue the children and held people hostage. He thought a pedophilia ring was operating. He'd been swimming in the dark recesses of the web. The aftermath of that was immediate and widespread condemnation of the crazies. The shutdown of QAnon and the ridicule of QAnon, the basic, they became lepers. Forchan may have suffered a dent. Do you think there will be a similar reaction to the... forms in which the shooter on the would-be statement assassin, the forms in which he swam, is that forthcoming? Is a blowback against them forthcoming? No, I don't think so, Hugh. In fact, most of the mainstream media and Democratic leaders are willing to amplify everything that was in this lunatic's manifesto. You know, you look at that interview that Trump did with Nora O'Donnell, and she's reading from the thing. I remember a time when we didn't release manifestos because they would be too dangerous. But now when they're slandering the president of the United States, she's more than happy to read it to him like those words care any weight. And we've seen that same message being amplified by Democratic leaders because they think they can win cheap political points by doing so. So I don't anticipate they're going to change any of their behavior at all. You remind me, I talked about this yesterday. In 2007, the Virginia Tech Killer, who murdered 37 kids on the campus and wounded a dozen more, he had made a videotape, and he had sent it to NBC. And they rushed it on the air. I went ballistic on this show, as did many other people, because you don't give them what you want. Nora O'Donnell gave the guy what he wanted.

Now, you and I know how they run these things. They have production meetings. They go through the questions. The talent doesn't show up and just start firing questions. So I'm not ready to just blame Nora O'Donnell. Somebody sent her in to do that. Can 60 minutes be fixed? You know, I have a hard time seeing how, Hugh, and it's a real shame because it's been a sort of a flagship program for a long time, but they've clearly lost their way. I think they were looking for a cheap reaction from the president by reading that manifesto, and they're going to do anything they can to try to get their ratings back. And I think that's what Nora O'Donnell was doing there. I think it was shameful. And she stepped on a rake because the president kept his composure completely and said, you're horrible people, plural, not just you nor, he knows how it's done, horrible. You shouldn't be reading that. He gave her a lecture and a scolding. Do you think anyone's going to hear that other than Barry? Bari Weiss? No, I would imagine she's probably getting backslaps at the cocktail party in Georgetown next time she shows up because she stuck it to Donald Trump. A lot of these questions are really driven by producers and people like Nora O'Donnell who run in circles in liberal media where they're really catering to each other rather than the audiences they pretend to care about, which is the most frustrating thing in all of this is like, I don't think Donald Trump should have done the interview. I mean, come on the Ruthless Variety Program. Come talk to Hugh Hewitt. You know, if you want to give a recap of your thoughts on this shooter, because every time he shows up at one of these mainstream outlets, They try to pull something like this. It's crazy. Maybe it's a last round, Michael. I thought, wow, well, presidential. He's going to use the biggest venue available to him to reassure the world that the country is fine, just like after Reagan got shot. Al Haig blew it, but then Reagan showed up on the balcony and waved as soon as he could, and George H.W. got back. But you assure the Iranians that there's not been a coup, and you assure the Iranians we're going to keep the straight closed. And Nora O'Donah could have asked about the Iran war. I really could not believe the malpractice involved in that interview. But I digress. I want to ask you about the problem. What do we do about American education that is producing losers? And although this guy went to Caltech and got a master's, he was a part-time SAT tutor. And he was at the no-king's rally. He's a loser. How do we stop that? I think there's a hopelessness that people feel young people in America right now. And I think a lot of it is driven by social media and they see what people are posting on Instagram all day and they're seeing the best aspects of every person's lives. And they feel like they're hopeless and they're not going anywhere. And so they're looking to find purpose and people find purpose in the strangest places. Sometimes it's on, you know, 4chan or message boards where they feel like they can be a hero behind a keyboard. And then they do create. things like this. It's an unfortunate part of our culture today. I think it's going to take a generation or two to change it, unfortunately. Left field question for you. I'd love to hear the ruthless fellows answer this. Did you have a great teacher or teachers in high school?

A great one. I had great teachers in high school, particularly, you know, in subjects I really enjoyed. Teachers I didn't necessarily agree with on everything, but challenged me in ways that allowed me to think critically for, you know, the first time about new subjects. And the teachers were always respectful. You know, I think a lot of parents really woke up during COVID and they saw the way that teaching was done in America today. It really opened their eyes that things have changed since when I was a kid. And it's unfortunate. Yeah, I had a couple of guys, Ron Kieranbauer and Fred Hoover. Ron was a right-wing Latin teacher. Fred was a central left English teacher. Did not bring their politics with him. But boy, they could teach. It was Catholic school, so they weren't getting paid either. Do you think those people still exist who want to teach, not for tenure, but for the joy of teaching? Yeah, I think absolutely. They definitely exist. I mean, shout out to Dr. Kivola. Shout out to Margo McLeer. I had some great to. teachers, particularly in history when I was in high school. And in college, you know, I found that the best teachers in college were, you know, the professors who came in after getting some real life experience working in the field in which they were teaching. And they could give you fantastic stories and anecdotes that applied to the field you hope to one day be working in. But I find in college especially, those are few and far between. I would love to reverse engineer this shooter's educational experience and find out where he went off the rails. It's not, he just didn't dive into blue sky and become crazy. Something happened along the way. Good to talk to you, my friend, Michael Duncan, the old man from the Ruthless podcast. Thank you, Michael. Make sure you listen to Ruthless today because they were talking about this dinner, and it was fascinating. Stay tuned, America. I'll be right back on the UU.S. show. Welcome back, America. That music means David M. Drucker is with us. He is the chief political correspondent for the dispatch. Drucker, were you at the correspondence dinner on Saturday night? I don't think you're that kind of guy. I've been before, Hugh, multiple times. I haven't been in a couple of years, did not go this year. It did hit an after party, but it was not at the dinner. You know, they're not my idea of a good time, and I've only done it once in that time. It was Sarah Mike Huckabee Bernie Sanders getting chewed up by a comedian, and I just decided this is ridiculous. All right. The key question is, does it change anything? The would-be statement assassin is, you know, he's a lefty. Okay, tell me why not. Well, look, I mean, I should caveat that I always like to wait a few weeks for the dust to settle and look at fresh polling. But I just think this country right now is very sort of divided in an entrenched way. We're very polarized. After a decade, everybody has very fixed, defined opinions about President Trump.

And he, you know, for better or worse, and some people love it and some people don't. But he never changes. His posture, his behavior, his rhetoric never changes. And so especially judging by, you know, the aftermath of the attempted assassination in Butler and other events, I just don't see this changing the atmosphere politically in this country. All right. Now, David, I want to take you back 10 years. I'm asking every guest there's today who might remember it. Ten years ago, Comet, ping pong pizzeria, three miles up Connecticut Avenue from the Washington Hilton. A guy walks in with an AR-17 or 15 and shoots up the ceiling. and wants to free the children who he knows are in the basement in a pedophilia ring. And turns out he's a lunatic unbalanced man who's been deep in the web at 4chan and Q&N special. And immediately what that does is make radioactive the water in which he swam. People want nothing to do with Q&N. Not that they wanted to do anything with 4chan or Q&N to begin with, but he comes widely known that these are disease sites. Now, this guy, Saturday night, lived on blue sky and obviously watched Jimmy Kimmel. What do we think? Do any of those sites, do the No Kings rally begin to police themselves of the kill-Trump rhetoric? Well, I mean, first, let's see what happens. I mean, second of all, you know, I'm the first person to say that the lunatic fringe exists on the left as well as, you know, on the right, right? I mean, Steve's police was shot practicing for the congressional baseball game. Him and other Republicans were targeted by a supporter of Bernie Sanders, what, 10 years ago now? President Trump was targeted. Then on the other side, Governor Josh Shapiro was targeted, some state legislators that are Democrats in Minnesota were targeted. And so then we have to look at where this guy sort of lived, right? I don't think anybody's ever looked at these social media sites, whether Twitter now X or Blue Sky as radicalizing platforms, but we could talk about it. I'm really interested to see if this guy was involved in some other fringe groups. I've seen some of these No King's protesters. A lot of them, most of them that I've seen are normal run-of-the-mill American protesters. There is some rhetoric. I've got friends who go to us. I've seen. I've got friends. But should you go to rallies with Trump as Hitler signs? Should you just associate your... Well, I don't think there, I don't think there should ever be Trump as Hitler signs because nobody's Hitler but Hitler. And I think that... And I think this, although, you know, as my boss, Jonah Goldberg likes to say, it's not necessarily symmetrical, but I think this is a both sides problem. And I think both sides should be policing themselves. I think that Democrats on the left could do a lot more to police their side in this regard. I think the same can be said of Republicans and their side. This is a case of a guy that appears to be, well, not appears to be, that is acknowledged to be a left-wing.

thinker, activist, political thinker of some kind who did not like President Trump or Republicans or his administration. So let's deal with that and say it is what it is. But, you know, I was trying to respond to your broader question. Yeah, you go to a rally like this and you see a sign or rhetoric like that. You should tell people to cut it out. My point was to say is that these protests, as I've seen and I've covered some of them, have not been dominated by that. I have seen some fringe elements of that, but it hasn't been dominating. And on the right, I have said this for years, you see a few fringe actors, and most of these people are doing, you know, it's the American way to go protest your government. Yeah, the Tea Party of which I would give a few speeches, they were usually old people and they were reading the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. They're not the anti-ice people with sex toys beating up on reporters, and they certainly aren't. Well, so Hugh, that is very true. I'm just trying to get my time in here because usually we have a hard out. You know, I could show you some of the email I get from people who describe themselves as supporters of President Trump and Republicans. with very violent offensive, sometimes anti-Semitic rhetoric. These are people on the fringe. I don't consider them a part of the right, broadly speaking. My point is you can find this sort of thing. on both sides at different times and different places. David, you ought to try and screen the calls to this show sometimes when we get the Bilderberger people. And, you know, we're very aware of the lunatic fringe in America. However, we do police ourselves and we don't let them on the air or we dump them. This is what the left. You've always been very good about that. Yeah, I don't know that Joan is right. It's. It's very asymmetrical right now. The legislator in Minnesota was murdered in cold blood by a lunatic. That lunatic had been an evangelical pastor in Africa. I read the backstores. What I am looking for, and maybe you've seen it, is an in-depth study into every violent actor of the last, since Columbine, to find what the crossover, you know, like what are they doing at Quantico at the FBI Academy? Have you ever seen a study on that? No, I have not, and I think that that would be very valuable. You know, I've read some people that speculate that usually whether these people are, you know, right-leaning or left-leaning. that a lot of times these people are people that are alone, right? You know, my colleague Kevin Williams was saying in our recent dispatch podcast, you never find out that the shooter was a guy who's been married for 20 years, you know, just celebrated his 20th anniversary in Hawaii and has four beautiful children, right? There's a deacon at the church and teaching Sunday school. Absolutely not. Correct, right? And I wonder if that's the through line. I mean, we've seen that with school shooters. These are people that.

commit evil acts that in some cases are evil people, no doubt. But these are people that, you know, felt alone, were alone, felt marginalized. I don't think it was anybody's fault that they felt that way, but this seems to be the through line. Give a listen to the Aaron McLean, Douglas Murray podcast. I want to listen to you and Jonah talk about this. But give a listen to Aaron McLean and Douglas Murray on the School of War podcast today because they talk about... American education and it's failing, and I think that is the patient queue or whatever we call it on this problem. David M. Drucker on accident at the dispatch. Thank you, David. 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. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm a little bit older than Mr. Lilix, James Lylix, as in Jameslylilix.substack.com. James, however, may have distant memories of the late 60s. And he may remember the SDS blowing up townhouses in Greenwich Village and bank buildings and ROTC buildings and math labs across the country. Are we headed back to the 60s, James? Yes and no. I don't remember those, but I do remember the 70s. I remember Patty Hurst, of course, Tanya, the revolutionary fervor standing in front of an SLA flag and all the madness of that stuff, of the move in Philadelphia, the rest of it. So I remember that. I don't remember the bombing. But I don't think we are necessarily going to go to a wave of bombing next like we had in the 60s or like they had before the Palmer riots and the rest of it. For some reason, that just doesn't seem to be what the new guys are all about. I could be entirely wrong, but, you know, somebody should be going on Reddit and seeing exactly... how detailed the bomb-making instruction community has become, because if it has, since Reddit seems to be the wellspring of so many of these things, and I'd say that as somebody who's on Reddit for a variety of useful purposes, it shouldn't be too easy to spot a coming bombing wave because they'll be talking about it in subredits endlessly. Sub-reddit's called, Where Do I bomb the fascist state next, you know? Okay, I got a question for you. You remember 10 years ago, I brought this up to a lot of guests today. In Washington, D.C., three miles away.

away from the White House Correspondence dinner, there was 10 years ago a lunatic who walked into the comet ping pong pizzeria shot up the roof and was there to free the kids who were trapped in the basement for a pedophilia ring that didn't exist. He had gone deep into the waters of the lunatic internet and he had drunk deep deep of the craziness like this guy did. But in the immediate aftermath of that, of course he was widely condemned and rightly so. But so were 4chan? and QAnon. So in the aftermath of this, are we going to see Blue Sky and Jimmy Kimmel and the No Kings people condemned? Condemned? Only by the sources that are inclined to say that the incitement to the comments the laughter are wrong. I remember the Comet pizza thing. Actually, Comet was the liquor store in my neighborhood in Adams Morgan. The guys bought the sign, moved it over there. And what was interesting about that was the Q on the face of it was nuts. Q was crazy. Q was deep and conspiratorial and had all of these timetables and revelations, and there was a master guy who was releasing all the information. You really had to marinate in the crazy to get the Q stuff. What we have now is not Q-level craziness. It is... It is... not conspiratorial in the Q sense of dark forces. It's just more... I don't know how else to put it. It's not the sort of scriptural textual stuff that they had. It's just guys on Reddit saying Trump is a fascist. It's just guys on Reddit and the rest of it saying it goes without saying that Trump is a fascist and a pedophile and a rapist and the rest of it. And then they get hit up, they get head up, I think, not by additional information like in Q, but just by repetition of this thing. It becomes, you know, it rewires their brainwages until that's all that's all they can think about. So condemnation. No, because a lot of what they are saying is not out of the mainstream about what have a lot of people on the left and the progressive side and say. Take, for example, the number of people today who lost their jobs because they went on TikTok and said, oh, isn't that too bad? I thought today was going to be the morning where we got that news. And these are nurses. These are elementary school teachers. I mean, I remember my elementary school pretty well, and I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Powers in fourth grade did not conclude the class by saying, oh, and let us all hope that JFK is shot tomorrow. It just didn't come up. You might have thought about it, but it just wasn't part of the sort of elementary school curriculum. But now they go on TikTok before they go to class and teach the ABCs and talk about how disappointed they are that this guy didn't shoot the president. So it's not as far out of the mainstream and weird and common. unvaluted as the Q stuff was. It's just what simply a lot of people believe.

Well, now at the Aaron McLean and Douglas Murray podcast this morning, School of War podcast, I recommend it to you. I talk to Aaron at the start of the show. They talk about extremism in America, and they end up squarely on public education. They end up on the education of young Americans. What went wrong, James? Many things have gone wrong, but what's number one? I would say, well, I mean, you can point to any number of theories of learning. that came through that decreased the ability to read. You can talk about the, you know, the long march through the institutions in which people who were just sort of generally granola and the rest of it went into teaching and therefore decided that Howard Zinn is the Bible to which I almost believe. I mean, if you have a lot of people who came out of the 60s or share 60s-type philosophies, then yes, they're going to use that to color and sort the way they teach American history. So we got away from civics. You don't teach civics anymore. You got away from history as it used to be taught because It centers the West, and you can't have that, because it centers America and finds it's exceptional, and you can't have that. And the whole Howard Zinn narrative of the West and America being uniquely evil just sort of becomes the default position for these people. When they teach. So it's that. It's the lessening of standards. It's the number of kids who can't read very well. It's the kids who, in the later years, have had their attention span completely rotted because they infinitely scroll and doom scroll and can't even get their brain to focus on an idea, except for a TikTok-sized bite about what's wrong with the country and why Trump is an evil man. So education, yes. Universities first, and then I think it's deep down to the middle, to the junior and to the elementary as we see. The one answer is tenure, that when and it became a public education teacher union objected to get tenure and then to add benefits and early retirement. But tenure is the root of all evil in elementary education. I agree or disagree? I don't think so. I disagree. I mean, it's important. It is. It be great to be able to fire teachers who are bad teachers, but you can't fire a teacher for being a bad teacher simply because they present a view of history with which you do not agree. There are many competing schools. I think that the answer is to eliminate public education as the default, give every parent vouchers that they can use to go to the school or they choose. Are some of them going to take them to schools that we don't think are particularly good or perhaps make the Howard Zinn curriculum look like Margaret Thatcher's biography? Possibly so. But those parents who want their kids to learn, to get a good education, to be steeped in American history, can find schools. And just separate it from property taxes, from civic taxes, the rest of it, go to a voucher system. And I think those who can prosper and do well in that environment will and will have a better class of people.

I think you are right, and we will close on that note. Lilix, as in James lilacs.substack.com for humor. He's actually a humorist. He can be very funny as well, very insightful. Or follow him on X at Lilix with the little electric man light bulb, which is also kind of amusing. Don't go anywhere, America. Stay tuned. Morning, Gloria, and evening, Grace, America. Byron Newark joins me a little earlier than he normally does. He is, of course, with the Washington Examiner, Chief Political Correspondent. Fox News contributor extraordinaire. Byron, did you happen to be at the White House Correspondents Association dinner? I was not. I was at a junior high school student play. I was not. The last one I went to. was 2017, which is the first one that Trump wasn't there. And I thought that would be newsworthy, and it was. And I kind of kicked myself for not going to this one because it was newsworthy too. I believe the first one I went to was the same one, but that was when the so-called comedian was so awful to Sarah Mike Huckabee Bernie Sanders that I said, I don't need to ever do this again. And it's not my kind of an event. I kind of hate those events. Well, you know, Trump had a chance to, I wouldn't say just put an end to the dinner. But it was pretty close because, you know, you could see in 2017 when Trump wasn't there, you could see how dependent the entire dinner is on the presence of the president of the United States. Even if it's one they all hate. But having the president there just makes the event. And when the president is not there, they might as well be having a First Amendment brunch somewhere. And that was really fascinating. And, of course, Trump skipped it all four years of his first term and the first year of this term. And it's still not totally clear to me why he agreed to do it this time. Well, the good thing about the 2017 dinner is that they invited Hall of Famers from the Baseball Hall of Fame. And I walked in and a guy jumps up and says, Hugh Hewitt, I love what you do. And it's Dennis Eckersley. Who was a childhood hero of mine he threw for the Indians? And I went, abadab, dapper, dapper, dapper, dapper, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Because I, you know, Dennis Eckersley. So I was stunned for the first half of the dinner. And then the comedian came on and was just so slanderous. It was not my thing. All right. You remember, don't you? The comet ping pong pizzeria shootout. That was 10 years ago in December. That shooter was a victim of internet-fueled conspiracies having to do with child rape and...

hostage-taking, and he went crazy. He was a lunatic. He was sentenced to four years by now Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. What is the difference between this guy on Saturday night and that guy 10 years ago? The guy on Saturday night has a lot more people who agree with him in his crazy ideas. Yes. If you read the Cole Allen's manifesto, The key part of it, I mean, first of all, it's an oddly kind of... good-natured manifesto. He expected to be killed in this. It was almost kind of cheerful. If you look at the key allegation here, he calls Trump a pedophile, a rapist, and a traitor. Now, if you go to any one of a bunch of anti-Trump media outlets or social media platforms, especially, you'll see that stuff all over the place. They call him that. all over the place. And then, I believe it was just today, Andrew Kaczynski, the guy at CNN, said he went through 4,700 of Cole Allen's social media posts. and found that Alan, one, compared Trump to Hitler, you've seen that a lot, two, urged Trump haters to buy guns, three, wanted to nullify the 2024 presidential election result, if you talk about that, and four, he suggested that the Butler assassination attempt on Trump had been faked. You've seen that a lot. So Cole Allen, which is kind of like a sponge, for every crazy thing. that is said on social media platforms. And the scary thing, of course, is that there are a lot of other people like that. Now, I want to go back to my parallel event, the common... Ping-pong pizza issued out. In the immediate aftermath of that, even people like me who had never heard of Pizza Gate, immediately realized, oh, that's a 4chan QAnon crazy person. And although 4chan and QAnon were already sort of... diseased and radioactive, they became completely unacceptable. The parallels to 4chan and QAnon from 10 years ago right now are Blue Sky and Jimmy Kimmel. Will they suffer the same kind of repulsion and revulsion that haunted Ford Chan and QAnon after that incident? I think the answer is going to be no. I don't think they will, especially just because there's so much

And I do remember feeling almost sorry for this guy who went and he fired his rifle one time inside Comet Pizza. Into the roof, yeah. He was going to rescue the children who were allegedly being abused by like Hillary Clinton and John Podesta or some of the thing. It was just a... It was completely detached from... Lunacy. Lunacy. But what you say about Blue Sky and Kimmel and other platforms is absolutely true. This kind of stuff gets said all the time. Now, I'm going to say a controversial thing. If you went to a no-king's rally, that does not make you complicit in this... uh statement would be assassins manifesto but if you went to a no king's rally you saw a lot of signs and if you went to a no king's rally some of those signs encouraged violence almost certainly what's your obligation if you go to an event where there is violence being called for byron uh you mean just as a participant i don't think it's a moral test if you're if you're at a yeah should you leave No, I actually covered the No King's Rally in Boston this year. It was pretty big, and there were lots of signs like that. I don't think one had a moral obligation to leave. So no, I don't think so. Now, we disagree on that. I think if this is a problem, if there's a current running through the left, and by the way, we have our nuts on the right, and they're lunatics, and they have their own conspiracy theories. And Pizza Bill Gates is not dead yet, by the way. I've been told by people that it still lives in the darkest corners and recesses of the Internet. I do think you have to distance yourself from this stuff, or you get mud splattered on you. Not complicit, just... You're really hanging out with these people? Do you want to hang out with these people? Do you want them in your party? And now the Democrats, I'll talk with people can go look on my YouTube, and I'll talk later with Mike Rogers of Michigan. His party, the Democrats in Michigan have lost their minds. Well, you're absolutely right about this. And shaming is perfectly... is perfectly acceptable in these situations. However, just like in other political situations, I think a lot of this is, you know, constitutionally protected speech in the sense of a no-king's rally. But I think it's important to say here that when we talk about these crazy beliefs, I do think millions of Americans have them, and at the same time, would never think of getting a gun and going to try to kill the president. I think, obviously, Cole Allen was somebody who did, and there have been two other attempts where people with guns either shot the president, as happened in Butler, or got very close to doing it as happened in Palm Beach. So I think the...

The fact that Trump is such a target for so many people has got to mean that the presidential security system works differently for the duration of his time in office. There have been too many close calls. And if it means that the president is more distanced physically from the American people, I think that that just has to happen. Now, Byron, we're pretty comfortable as a nation that no country can do to us what we in Israel did to the Iranian leadership and what Israel did to the Hezbollah leadership, which has dropped successive bombs on a gathering of the most important people. But do you think the White House Correspondent Association dinner is doomed in the era of drones that it's just the softest of targets? It really is. I mean, you can go to Union Station. You can go to where networks gather. You can go to all sorts of. But the softest of targets is the Washington Hilton. Luckily, it's a one-person lunatic and not an Iranian death squad, right? Yeah, I was surprised when I saw that virtually the entire U.S. presidential line of succession was in that room. I mean, it's just astonishing. I think people were looking around and saying, well, it's a good thing Chuck Grassley is not here. Chuck Grassley, who is close, I guess, 90 years old now, is the president pro temp of the Senate, and thus is in line for the presidency before he start getting the cabinet members. But, I mean, virtually the entire line of succession was there. So that was a bad idea. Bad idea. Although Chuck Grassley's president wouldn't be bad. We'd have ethanol and everything, but it wouldn't be bad, right? And the History Channel would come back to being the History Channel. Byron York, always go to talk to Falamont X at Byron York, and stay tuned. My friends, I've got Bethany Mandel next on the Hugh. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, the all-time ode to Lonely People is back. Because lonely people are shooting up White House Correspondent Association dinners. I'm joined by Bethany Mandel. She's the co-founder of the momwors.substack.com, prolific writer as well for The New York Post and other places. Bethany, before I go down my question hole, my list, what did you make of the WHCA event? It was interesting, certainly interesting. I was not there. I'm glad for it for many reasons. But the drama I've seen from a lot of people that were there is a tad over the top. It's a tad dramatic. But it was a very interesting event, it seems. Now, we have a problem to my questions. We have a problem that goes way back. Ten years ago, in December of 2015, a lunatic from the right who had lived on the far corners of Ford Chan and QAnon, walked into Comet, ping pong pizza in Washington, D.C. and fired his rifle into the ceiling. He was there to rescue the children who were being held by a pedophilia ring in the basement. There is no pedophilia ring. It was all made up.

but he swam in those waters so long that it turned him. This is the mirror image, but the aftermath of Pizza Gate was that everyone who was associated with Pizza Gate was exiled rightly. For Chan's reputation, if it had one, got worse, and QAnon, if it had any kind of public ID, was immediately identified as something you wanted nothing to do with. Will the same repulsiveness attach to the waters in which the W.HCA would be statement assassin swam? Will they get hit by the same blowback? No, I mean, we really have to sort of dig back into history to find the right-wing equivalent of political violence apologists and those who utilize it. But on the left, this has become a chain between... the baseball shooting and the previous assassination attempts on President Trump on the Supreme Court justices. I was talking to a member of Congress recently. Lee, who told me that there was someone on their property. Like, this is, this is a problem that is widespread. And when we see Hakeem Jeffries a day and a half later saying, you know, Trump is an existential threat to America and Katie Porter, who's running for governor of California is sending fundraising emails with the subject line F Trump, where do you go from there? The left is not raining this in. Well, I think they'll pay a price politically, but I would like it to begin with. This fellow lived on blue sky. This fellow went to no king's rally. If you go to a no king's rally and you see Trump as Hitler signs, should you leave? That's a moral question. This is in a political way. It's a moral question. Yeah, absolutely. But the problem is, and I sort of hypothesized that maybe this guy could have been autistic because there's an understanding among most people when they say, you know, Trump is a fascist, Trump is Hitler. They don't actually believe it because if you believed it, you would do what this guy did. No one, very few people actually believe it or they would act on it. But there are some people who actually take all of this rhetoric at face value. And one of those people was Cole Allen who went to the White House correspondence there on Saturday night. Now, the would be, the person who shot Trump and killed Corey Campitori.

had a 1600 SAT, according to the president in the 16 Minutes interview, and had a schizophrenic break. I don't know what we'll find out about this guy on Saturday night. But it's a weird resume. Caltech, a master's in computer science, and he's a part-time tutor at the SAT place. That's not normal. That's not human development, is it? No, no, it's not normal. I mean, one has to, he was living with his parents. He was obviously failure to launch situation. But the scary thing about a lot of these people is they are just on the line of like weird on the left. But that line is getting blurred so much that, you know, it's normal to still live with your parents. It's normal to failure to launch and not date and all these things. He is actually very ordinary on the left. And that's what's scary about it. So the answer is, I listen and I recommend to you, by the way, Douglas Murray talking today with Aaron McLean on School of War. There are two of the younger public intellectuals in the class with you and Seth Mandel and Mary Catherine Hamm and Matt Contonetti and Guy Benson. We got a bunch of them who are 45 and younger that will call out wacky right-wingers. I mean, you will. Does the left have a counterpart? Are they all the pod bros and nutters? Because people like Joshua Michael Marshall and Maddie Iglesias, they've aged out and they don't have any influence. They lost the tug of war with the crazies. The pod bros have lost the tug of war with the crazy. They are themselves becoming crazier. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, the only way to gain attraction on the left, and you're showing on Salem TV, you're showing pictures of Hasan Piker, the only way to gain. credibility and notoriety and fame and all of these things on the left is to keep on inching farther and farther to the margins. And so, you know, if you don't have Hasan Piker on your show, well, what's wrong with you? Why are you so closed off even the New York Times? Now you're showing the New York Times opinion page interview with Hasan Piker. They are whitewashing. personalities like his because they see him, and I think rightfully so, as the future of the left. That is a real problem. There's a problem with the fact that Senator John Fetterman is so far gone for Democrats that he's practically a Republican at this point. That is mind-blowing and not right. It's also mind-blower. Hasan Piker is not stupid, but he's ignorant. I have not yet hear him say anything that would suggest he's read a book in 10 years. I mean, it's cliche after cliche. A lot of the left is just cliche after cliche. As opposed to, I'll just take randomly, Continetti, who's coming up next hour, I think the guy reads three books a day. And Pod Horace is just the library. It's, it is an inward thing. I live with Seth, and I don't know how he reads so much. I know. It's ridiculous. It makes me mad. But I nevertheless, I wonder, do you think that the public will really understand?

The Democrats have lost the way. They've lost the thread. They're not the center left party anymore. They're radical. I think in some ways, yes. But I think that the vast majority of Americans don't pay attention to this day-by-day sort of football stuff. They tune in when it's nearer to an election and they have to sort of pay attention and figure out what's going on. And the ads that the Trump campaign ran, he's with they, them, not you. Like that message really resonated and really landed. And so. Unfortunately, I think it's a waiting game until the elections get closer. And then you kind of have to refresh people's memories and run some ads and say, this happened on Saturday night. And this is what Hakeem Jeffries said on Monday morning. That's what it's going to have to take because I don't think right now the majority of Americans are paying attention. Quick exit question. If you're a parent and you want to try and do your best to defense your kid against this, you homeschooled. I believe in Catholic schools or Jewish schools. But what if people can't afford them? What do they do? People have to talk to their kids. You have to have these conversations. When I wrote my book Stolen Youth with Carol Markowitz, we both talked to a lot of parents. And a lot of the parents that we spoke to had regrets because they felt like they lost their kids, not just to the left. They didn't just become progressive, but they really lost their minds. And these parents were evaluating, what did I do wrong? And they didn't affirmatively tell their kids, this is what we believe. They kind of left it up to the schools and fate, and that's not the answer. That's not the way to go. Bethany Mandel can be followed at Bethany Shandark on X. The Mom Wars.substack.com mandatory reading for these times. You're right back. America. Stay tuned to the huge-hoots show on the Salem, New Channel, Salem Radio Network, and our great radio affiliate. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt after the incident on Saturday night at the Washington Hilton. I thought I would make the rounds of people who are running for office like Mike Rogers, who's formerly been a member of the House, former FBI agent, former director or chairman of the House Intel Committee, and ask them if it gives them pause. Mike, you've been around politics for a long time. You've been in law enforcement for a long time. You're not old enough to have been around for the 60s like I was. But it is kind of a weird situation out there. How do you feel it on the trail?

You know, what worries me most, Hugh, is just the level of rhetoric and hate, you know, trying to identify the president with Hitler and fascism. Remember, there's a reason they do that. And it's because we went to war over Hitler. We went to war over fascism. They want that level of angst. And when you add in their social media and Internet interactions, And then you add in there this higher level of mental instability when it comes around the fringes. Boy, that is just a recipe for disaster. And you're encouraging people like you just saw for three times in less than two years to try to assassinate the press in the United States. That really needs to end. And we certainly have seen it with my opponents who really haven't come out and talked about this at all. They didn't even feel it was important enough to condemn it. And that's worrisome. Well, you had one of your opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, who I, it leads in some polls and other polls. I mean, there's not much difference between the three blind mice on the Democratic side. But Abdul El-Sayed, hosted Hasan Piker, who is Mr. Social Murder Now, that infamous clip from last week. I'm curious, what do you expect them to say when they've thrown in with the hard left's wild rhetoric? Well, they just keep finding excuses why it's kind of okay. Matter of fact, their own rhetoric has been pretty awful. I mean, Abdul El-Sayed talked about putting people in the mud and choking them out. And McMorrow talked about throwing beers at judges. And Stevens, you know, talked about after the Charlie Kirk assassination went into viral, this, you know, here's all the terrible things he has said. you know, give an excuse or pause at least to the folks who have done, you know, horrific crime. So they're all part of this new Democrat Party. Bernie Sanders is coming to Michigan on Sunday with Abdul. That is the energy of the party. It is the left now that's running the Democrat Party. This is not your grandmother's Democrat Party anymore. They are more radical. They are more a leftist. They are more extremist. And that rhetoric that they are using in places like no kings, matter of fact, they even had at the convention, the Democrat convention that was an absolute dumpster fire for Democrats, effigies of Donald Trump, where they were hanging him. I mean, it's just crossed a line that in a fervor that worries me about the safety and security, but also the rhetoric of the future of the country. We are not a leftist country. We are not a country that believes that Zohran Mamdani is going to save all of us by having more government involvement in your life and running your grocery store and telling people what kind of home they can buy, if they can buy one or car they can drive. All of that is on the agenda for the left right now. And the way that they get there is by this increased, I would argue, more violent rhetoric that we've seen not only here in Michigan, but around the country. I don't know if you remember. Ten years ago, a lunatic walked into the comet ping pong pizzeria on Connecticut Avenue and shot the place up, claiming he was there to save the kids from a pedophile ring. And that was lunacy. I was unaware of the whole lunatic conspiracy, but pretty quickly thereafter, everyone just distanced themselves from QAnon.

and from Pizza Gate and from Ford Chan, they wanted nothing to do with the nutters. Now we've got Four Kings adjacent Nutter. Do you think people will distance themselves from the waters in which he was swimming? I hope. I hope that they do that. I don't believe that they will. Look at the pattern over time here and look at the really the aggressive behavior we've seen, you know, attacking police officers, talking about defunding the police. All of those things just a few short years ago would have been absolute dismissal to run for office. Now it's part of their platform. Open borders kind of part of their platform. let people in and don't require them to drive, show a driver's license to vote. I mean, where they're going is in such a terrible place. I'd like to think that they'd come back to normal and say enough is enough. But the Democrat Party has to police themselves. And we have just witnessed in the last, certainly here in Michigan with, again, this convention that was just awful, very openly anti-Semitic, if not worse, by the way. And you see the rhetoric, you see at these No Kings protests paid for. by the way, according to online reports by the George Soros organization, these are by design. They're working toward this kind of chaos in American streets and in American politics. And Democrats today, in order to make it through their primaries, are becoming more radical and more leftists. And I argue a little more dangerous. That Hasan Piker, the guy who came to Michigan, went to two universities. Literally thousands of young students showed up and regular Democrats, even elected Democrats, supporting all of this. who said America deserved 9-11. You know, I mean, he's so off the charts. Now, I've got to ask you, over the course of a decade, first Missouri went from blue to purple to red, then Ohio went from blue to purple to red. Is Michigan doing the same thing so that Mike Rogers and give us your campaign website might have a little wind at its back as sort of common sense Midwesterners say we don't want any part of the hard left? So true. And people forget, Michigan is in a change election cycle. This is not, you know, like the rest of the country where they're defending a midterm. Democrats have been in charge in Lansing for 10 years. And, you know, they gave us the highest auto insurance rates in the country. They gave us highest energy rates in the Midwest. We went from top 10 in education to 44. We lost 30,000 manufacturing jobs. And at the national level, they've held these Senate seats for 30 years. We've lost our defense industrial-based manufacturing and all the things I just talked about. So people are ready for a change. And when they see this nuttiness, remember, these are folks that get up every day and they go to work. They got benefit three million families from that no tax on overtime that all of them opposed for their big government agenda.

I do believe that there's some wind at our back. And in the last election, 300,000 more Republican votes than any other statewide Republican in the history of the state that I got tells me that we're moving in the right direction. And people understand, when you go to work every day, you get it. We're working on all the problems that they face. And they're ready for a change here, and we're going to be that change that we need in Michigan. And you can go to rogersforsenet.com. Rogersforsenet.com. Or follow Mike on at Mike Rogers for Michigan. Mike Rogers for MI. Thank you, Mike. I'll be right back, America. Take care. 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 everyday. 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.