Oh Virginia, what have you done?

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I am not an optimist about that either. I hate to report to you from the newly Maryland-California-Ized Virginia. I did predict that the no side would lose this by an annoyingly small margin, which seems to be what happened. Because people did get a little riled up. I do think a more consistent and funded early persuasion campaign. probably could have done a lot of good. But honestly, in the state, I encountered almost nothing on the no side. I know money was spent, but I'm talking two YouTube ads and a handful of mailers is what I saw. And I heard Barack Obama on the yes side four times daily. Oh, every day. Every podcast. He was on your podcast. He was on my podcast. Yep. They bought everything. I tried to get him off of there. No, Glenn Youngkin did yeoman's work. Glenn Youngkin came here. He went there. He did everywhere that he was asked to go. But there's only one Glenn Youngkin, and there aren't any other Republicans left after the wipeout last year. So now we have a 10-1 thing. I made the argument, Mary Kat. It's just so stupid to have done. Because the state needs Republicans for the military. It needs Republicans for funding at Newport News. It needs Republicans for business. What's the message this sends to every business thinking about locating to Virginia? Don't. Look, I... I think we're on a downward spiral. I mean, if you look around at Fairfax County, Fairfax County was a gym of the nation when it came to public schools, when it came to quality of life, when it came to public facilities and services. And yes, the cost of living was medium high, but it has skyrocketed while all of those services have gone on, as has safety. Because, of course, our county won't prosecute criminals and it won't deal with illegal immigrants. And when you combine the two, they really love to keep those guys around. got a lot of people committing murders and committing rapes and sexual assault and various violent crimes that do not get dealt with. And I just think, like, the enrollments going down in public schools precipitously. And eventually you... Like, people will just begin to go elsewhere. They can do that, and they have done that in the past. The federal workforce has gotten somewhat smaller under Trump. And frankly, I think that's why a lot of Northern Virginia went really hard left on this one is because they are mad about that. And they were mad about it before the 2025 election, which is part of why Abigail Spanberger was elected by such a large margin. I do think she's done her reputation a lot of damage, not that... I'm not sure she cares. Perhaps it was worth it for this win, this squeaker, but...

We're in not a great way because you can't trust these folks to keep the Virginia way, which used to be... She lied to everyone. She's a liar. And the Virginia Way used to be moderate business-friendly Democrat because they used to exist and moderate business-friendly Republican, and they would just switch off. And now you can't come here and assure that that's going to be the environment or assure that you have safety or good schools, even in affluent areas like this one. And Tennessee has no income tax, and North Carolina has 2.5% income tax. If you're in the Beltway, you're in the Beltway. You can't run away. There's only Maryland, and nobody wants to drive all the way from West Virginia. A few people do, but not many people do. But I'm already looking around because I can do this from anywhere. And if that legislature goes nuts. It goes nuts. Let me ask you about what follows next. Florida is going to hold a special session session. First, we've got to get the Supreme Court to answer the constitutional question about whether Section 5 of the voting rights. I did not ask the justice about that. That would get me disqualified from interviewing justices forever. But they've got this big case about whether or not to strike down Section 5. If they do... We've got to redistrict all over the south, then we've got to do some in a hurry. So the buzz is maybe the lefties are slow walking this. So we get it on July 1. I still think people will redistrict. I think they will because of this. And Florida has a choice from, do you want Florida to go ahead or do you want the redistricting wars to end for a while? Well, look, Indiana already tried an olive branch, right? Republicans Indiana de-escalated, and the answer was Virginia. Right? So I am very sympathetic to people who look to Florida and go, well, why don't you guys go ahead? By the way, Mark Caputo notes, Florida has a surprisingly clear constitutional amendment passed in 2010 by 63% that prohibits redistricting with the intent to favor or disfavor incumbents or political parties. Hard to get around that. Well, Mark, wait until you hear what happened in Virginia. Yeah. We passed an amendment. in 2020 to deal with this, which is another reason why unilaterally disarming as a Republican on redistricting is a bad idea because in California where they had an independent commission, they worked the thing and worked the refs until it wasn't an independent commission anymore. In New York, they've been trying to get all their advantages out of that for Democrats, despite the fact that voters wanted to bipartisan commission. In Virginia, as soon as Democrats get a trifecta, what do they do? They knock out the gerrymandering ban. So do I trust you guys? If you told me there's a national gerrymandering ban, I don't even know if that's constitutional, but you're going to knock it out the second it's convenient for you. Well, this is why I got a column coming out in Fox tomorrow, why the Republicans have to stand by the filibuster, because it's the first hurdle to expanding the Supreme Court to 14 and destroying the rule of law in America. And whatever one party does, the other party does. So I'm hoping Florida goes forward. Now, it is, in fact, useful if the court strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as a prod to moving that forward with the gerrymandering.

But I've been very consistent from the beginning. Constitution says nothing about gerrymandering. It's up to the states to gerrymander. They rolled over provisions in the Virginia state law about when to schedule the election. But the Virginia Supreme Court, primarily Democrats, are going to take a look at this and say, we're not going to disturb the will of the people. And what they wanted, I think you said it on getting hammered today. They were really hoping it would be mooted. They were really hoping to lose and they wouldn't have to decide. Now they have to decide and they have to destroy the reputation to the justices. Yeah, I think it was a bad move on their part not to take this and fast track it before the election because all this money was spent. All these people used their energy and time. And frankly, the Democrats violated about three different kinds of statutes and constitutional requirements to get the thing on the ballot. The law reflects that it was done illegally, but I'm not sure they're willing to strike that down post-voting. So this leads us to the bigger question. We're into an era of hardball politics, but politics has never been being bagged. John Thune said this on Fox News today, cut number 13. Ensure that through the end of the Trump presidency, if they're funded. Because I don't see any scenario where Democrats ultimately are going to say, we are going to fund these agencies. They can't do it. And it's the same thing I mentioned earlier. It's their far-left base that is, you know, running the show around here and forcing these Democrats into positions where they can't even do basic things like fund government. So Mary Catherine, 32nd. Far left base is running the Democrats. They're running the party. The party has gone over the edge. And I don't think anyone doesn't know that. Am I being optimistic about that? I think everybody knows they've lost their collective mind and gone to the left. I think most people know that. The problem is, are they going to just be like, well, I'd like an alternative, even if they're a little crazy, right? But I do think, I don't know, like promoting Hezbollah fans is not the way to go. And people have experienced them going crazy in the past. So they've seen this before. But you've got to get the word out. Well, we will continue to do that as you did so admirably with Vic Maddox today on Getting Hammered. We Virginians, we few, we happy few who got screwed. We'll stick together. I'm Eric Catherine Hamm, thank you. Follow on Axit M.K. Hammer. Listen to Getting Hammer and come right back to today's Uguid show.

Welcome back, America. I'm Q. Hewitt on this Wednesday, joined by Bethany Mandel. Bethany is one of the founders of the momwores.substack.com, the momwors.substack.com. And Bethany, welcome. I wonder have you read Rachel Goldberg-Polland's new book yet when we see you again? Have you had a chance? I haven't. Actually, after our last conversation, I pre-ordered it and it's running late. So as soon as it comes, I'm here, but I've watched every single one of the interviews that she's done. They've been a lot of them. It seems like it must be an excruciating book tour, but it's been really captivating to watch. You know, I got to pre-tape mine with her, and it dropped yesterday, but it was the first one, and she wasn't worn down, but I said it's going to be just awful doing this, and I salute you for it, and she's really a profile and courage for doing it, but it's a magnificent study. So I will come back and ask you the next time. Now, did you listen to the commentary podcast yesterday? Part of it. Okay. So Seth did the reporting, your husband Seth did the reporting on the Michigan Convention that turned virulently anti-Semitic. And the commentary gang have decided to call the Democrats anti-Zionist or anti-Israel. In fact, the Democratic Party is anti-Semitic. It's just factual. It is not debatable. It is anti-Semitic. Do you agree with me? I do. Yeah. And I wish I didn't. I wish I could push back on you and say, no, you know, there's a few bad actors. I wish I could say that. I think that would be better for me as an American Jew to have two parties that, you know, imperfect but, you know, friendly to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel. But I don't think we have that anymore. I don't think that we have that from the Democrats. And we had a handful of Republican-identified podcasters like Candice Owen and a few others who were anti-Semitic. And they're out. And they were never that big to begin with, but they're out. The Republican Party is now, whether or not American Jews want to be Republicans, it's really their only choice. Do you think that message is getting through? I don't know if I disagree. I don't know if I agree with you on that one, actually. If you look at sort of the popularity and the listenership numbers, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, and I'm at the point where I'm putting Megyn Kelly in the same list. their list in our numbers are huge. They're not inconsequential. Representative Elise Stefanik went on the Free Press podcast a few days ago, and she said basically, like, these people are not elected. They're not, they're not, you know, terribly consequential. But that doesn't mean they're not influential. So, you know, while it's not the Republican Party platform to have these people be sort of the spokespeople for it, they are incredibly, incredibly influential.

I mean, I guess I just have to be more careful about sarcasm on Twitter. Do you think it was sarcasm, Bethany, when he wrote awesome that Iranian ships were getting past the blockade? I don't think that they have, but that's what he said. The problem for Twitter with a lot of these public figures and politicians is that they don't have their staff. mitigating their mouths. And so he meant what he said, and I think now he regrets it because it was anti-American, and he's basically rooting against our country because he's decided that that's the best way to getcha, to gotcha Donald Trump. But this, I mean, this was a problem for James Comey also. There's so many people in the public eye that we've really gotten a disturbing look into the insides under the hood when they've had Twitter in their pockets because they can open their phone and just say. what they think without a filter. And Chris Murphy is apparently one of those people that deeply needs a filter. He used to be the kind of guy I thought who might be a good majority leader, minority leader someday. Now I think he's just got Israel on the brain. Let me close by asking you, what is your opinion that President Trump's extending the ceasefire for a period of time to see if the Iranians can get an offer together? I'm a little confused by it, honestly. There's no real endgame insight. I'm sort of like in Trump, I trust. There's been so many instances when it comes to foreign policy where what he's done didn't make sense. And then afterwards, when something happens, when he does something, you're like, ah, now it all does. I'm hoping this is one of those moments. But to me, it feels like he's allowing the Iranians to do what they do best, which is run out the clock and keep their accountability at bay. Well, yesterday the United States Navy did grab a tanker that the Iranians had in their shadow fleet with 2 million barrels of oil on it. Moreover, no oil is getting out, and they're about to top off their tanks and their whole system gets screwed up. I think he's counting on the economics of the situation and become unendurable. At least that's what I hope for. Bethany Mandel, good to see you. The momwors.substack.com. The momwors.substack.com. Follow Bethany on X as well. At Bethany Shondark. That's at Bethany Shondark. And come right back on the Hugh Hewitt. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Sarah Bedford is with the Washington Examiner, where she heads up their investigations. And is there senior editor, Sarah. What is going on in the House and the Senate about the reconciliation process? Well, right now, things are getting started in the Senate. Leader John Thune wants to do what Republicans are calling a skinny reconciliation bill, right? They just want a long-term funding deal for the parts of ICE and CBP that do immigration enforcement. That's the part of DHS that's still shut down. That is the sticking point in the back and forth with Democrats. The problem for John Thune is that he has Republican members. of his conference who want to add stuff to that reconciliation bill.

I think correctly sensing that this is potentially the only vehicle that is guaranteed to get through both chambers of Congress, there is no guarantee that a second or third reconciliation bill will come down the line. So you have Ted Cruz, for example, wanting things like potentially tax cuts included in the vehicle. You have Senator Tommy Tuberville who wants to see supplemental funding for the Iran War in that vehicle. You have other members who want to see parts of the SAVE Act stuck onto it. And so for John Thune, the challenge. will be to just unify the conference around this idea that getting ICE funded right now is the most important thing and assuring them and having people trust him that another reconciliation vehicle will be coming. No, I'm of the opinion. We're not going to get a second bite at the apple and that if they want to get anything done, especially on military spending, they've got to do it now. Who? I mean, where is the balance of power lay on this? They've got to get every vote in the House, basically. They've got a momentarily passing extra vote because of the resignation yesterday. But they've got to get everyone. They lose Thomas Massie, so they've got to keep everyone. Would everyone support defense spending? I think defense spending is not what's going to be controversial here. What's going to be controversial, I think, is what's not going to end up in the reconciliation bill, which is parts of the SAVE Act, which is trying to get more legislative wins for conservatives into that reconciliation bill with the recognition that this could be the only chance to notch legislative wins before the midterms for Republicans. And given everything that went down in Virginia last night with the redistricting, the writing is on the wall. The House is gone. for Republicans come November. And so they are running out of chances to do something. So you're going to see the pressure turned up, especially for conservatives who want to see some of those wins. And you ask where the balance of power is. I do think it's with some of those hardline conservative members who want to see stuff added to the reconciliation bill. The White House wants to see a so-called skinny reconciliation bill. Leadership wants to see that. But with the margin so small, those conservative lawmakers do have more leverage to push to try to get. things added to the bill. At the end of the day, though, they either get something or they get nothing, and I hope they would go for the defense spending. Let me turn to redistricting. I'm looking at the Hill right now. Funny headline, Republicans warned Desances Florida redistricting push fought with peril. I actually don't know any Republican who is warning about that. I know every Republican, actually every Republican I talked to wants Florida to go ahead after last night's vote in Virginia. What are you hearing? Yeah, the same as you. There's not a lot of reluctance now for Florida to go ahead. There's a reason that Ron DeSantis delayed this. You know, it was said that it was to give his team more time to draw maps. I think it was probably because the Florida Republicans wanted to just hold out and see how Virginia went before they pulled the trigger on this. But seeing what happened in Virginia, what happened in California and how easy it has been for Democrats to escalate the redistricting war, it should be politically more palatable. for Republicans in Florida to move ahead with this. You saw some hesitation last year when it was Indiana's turn and the Indiana state legislature bulked at doing it. But that was a different time. The stakes were lower. The Virginia redistricting situation, which now makes Virginia one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country. That hadn't happened yet. And so now the calculus has probably changed for Republicans.

What's left to lose for Republicans in redistricting Florida? I don't think there's a lot of risk there, but there's a lot of upshot for sure for Republicans. Now, this is a complicated question. If I were the governor, I would want to wait to see what the Supreme Court says about the Voting Rights Act, Section 5 case out of Louisiana, Calais, I believe it's called. If they strike down Section 5, there's a good reason to have to redistrict every single state. that has a max black district that is put in there by virtue of the operation of Section 5. I think Section 5 is unconstitutional since it was passed, but maybe they'll get around to that. Do you think they'll wait for the court because the court's got liberal justices who are dragging their feet on their dissents because they don't want the decision to get out there, just like Dobbs? Right, and time is running out. I mean, they have at the latest till the end of June, but that is really cutting it close for drawing these districts that members would then have five months to run in and without knowing the boundaries. That's just not really workable. There's partisan redistricting that can still be done regardless of whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act gets struck down. Then you might be able to go even further in states like Georgia and Florida because of the racial redistricting requirements being lifted. But even without a favorable outcome in that case, there is still room in Florida and other Republican-led states to draw maps just based on partisanship. And they could go even further if they do get that favorable VRA Act. But there's really no incentive to wait at this point. Now, it is also my belief that the title charts of American politics flow heavily against the end party in the sixth year of a presidency, the six year of Donald Trump's presidency, almost inevitably in the city. six here, you lose seats. If you lose any seats, the House flips over to the Democrats. Is that what you see happening? If that happens, how certain is an impeachment two or three likely to occur? It was likely that the House was going to flip to Democrats before. any of the redistricting wars happened just because historically the party in power does tend to suffer in the midterms and because there was almost no padding for Republicans. I mean, their majority was just so small that even the slightest political breeze would have tipped it to Democrats and it's not shaping up to be a favorable year for Republicans. So you were probably going to have headwinds that were stronger than a breeze. That being said, it still looks likely or at least possible that Republicans could retain the Senate. But impeachments are absolutely. on the table. You already have Democrats, like Graham Platner, who is going to be the likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, saying that's one of his top priorities if he gets to Washington is to investigate potentially impeach Trump and even conservative. Sorry, a quick question. Graham Platner is nuts. I mean, he's crazy. Do you think you can actually win? I don't mean that he's a left winger. I mean, he's nuts. Do you think he can win? In a favorable year for Democrats, yeah, I think he's got a shot. All right. Even I separate on that. I think St. Susan Collins, and she'll run a good race. She always does. She'll raise a lot of money. But Graham Platner is just nuts. And Maine cares about lobster regulations and appropriations. They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot. Stay tuned to America. Thank you, Sarah Bedford. Follow her on Exeteracy, Bedford. I'll be right back on the Tuesday Show.

We normally just talk war in peace, but I want to ask you a political question before we go to Iran, Jim Talent. Virginia screwed Republicans last night. We're going to go from 6D and 5R to 10D and 1R under the new maps. And now Florida has to decide what to do. There are 20 Republicans, eight Democrats. Why not just put all your chips in the middle and get for 28 Republicans? Because if we lose the House, you know, we lost the House until 2030, why not go about trying to win? Well, I don't see any reason not to, especially since redistricting is an inherently political and partisan process. And anybody who's pretended it was anything but that doesn't know what they're talking about. Now, what I would say you is for the sake of good government. I would not draw district lines that make it impossible to represent a district. I mean, I looked at the Virginia map. You're driving all the way across the state of Virginia to get from one end to the district to another with 20 or 30 different counties, 40 or 50 different municipalities. I wouldn't go that far, but I'd go ahead and forward. Oh, Jim. I go for broke. I don't care if they have to drive on the 95 or the 5 or whatever that is. I would make them drive a thousand miles if they had to in Florida to connect up a Democrat. Well, I guess I want to win. My view is the view of a guy who had to do it for eight years, so maybe that's where I'm coming from. That's why I never, ever wanted to run. That's why John Campbell got out. Now, Congressman, Senator Talent, Iran. is either run by five guys or one guy or 20 guys. We don't know. Our intelligence agency might know something. I know we're grabbing their ships on the ocean. We picked up two. One by blue on out. We captured an oil tanker yesterday. They got no income coming in. This is an untenable situation for them. Does the president just wait or does he turn the bombers back on? Well, my read is the same as yours. I was glad he extended the ceasefire. It gives the blockade more time to work. Well, again, you look at the context. So the political object of this from the beginning was to force them in a position where they had two options. Either they basically essentially surrender on our terms or the regime collapses. So first, we used the military tool very, very effectively. as the 150 ships of their Navy in the bottom of the Persian Gulf can testify, now we're squeezing economically, and they open the door to that because they threatened the straits. So then we turned around, said, we'll blockade, and we're combining that with the diplomatic tool, not just at the negotiating table, but indeed throughout the whole region. So the president wants to see if they're willing to cry uncle, yeah. If they don't, yeah, I think we'll probably go back to the military tool. And I think I said to you before, I'm still waiting to see cyber. They've probably been doing some things, but I'm still waiting to see the visible use of the cyber tool, see what we can do with that. You know, I think we have it in our ability to shut down the banking system. I think we can make ATM stop. And at some point, we don't want to hurt the people of Iran.

But at some point, chaos becomes our friend inside of Iran. I read, again, it's the Post-It-on-X, so take it for what it's worth, that 100 members of the besiege were poisoned today in Tehran, one of whom died. This sort of stuff is going to keep going on. That regime must be close to cracking wide open, don't you think? Yeah, well, they are cracking. You remember you when the protesters were out in January, you had some great interviews, and people said, well, there's a lot of the factors that lead to regime overthrow there, but what did they say was missing? They said regime fracture, right? Right. So we obviously have regime fracture, and I listen to people I respect. but like Neil Ferguson and others say, well, now we have this hardliner in charge of, and he's in charge of the IRG. How do we know he's in charge of the whole IRG? You think these civilians, like the Speaker of the Parliament and the Finance Minister, you think they don't have contacts with local IRG leaders, you know, captains, majors, and the rest of it, do you think they aren't offering deals? You know, I hear Sir Ferguson on the Goodfellas. I listen to him. And I just want to reach through the microphone and say, what do you call a group of people that gunned down 35,000 people in January? Are they soft? Or are they hardliners? How much more hardline could the regime be than it was in January? Yeah, I thought Mark Dubowitz had a good response on Twitter. It's amazing how you read columns on Twitter now, but that's me. I'm an old guy yelling at the clouds. You and me, too. I read it too. Yeah, this is moving through the very – what you are seeing is the coordinated use of different tools of power, military, economic. You know, we're also tightening the sanctions. You've heard what Scott Bessent said. And by the way, I don't think they're processing their financial transactions through the banks in Dubai as well as they were before they bombed all their neighbors. Yep. So what the president is doing is he's squeezing. and seeing what happens. And he knows what he's going to do next. I, you went, you did not serve with Chris Murphy from Connecticut. He's to, uh, he's too, uh, two days ago somebody posted, uh, 20 ships got through the blockade. And on top of that, Chris Murphy wrote, awesome, exclamation point, which was interpreted broadly as being rooting for the enemy. And he explained today that it was sarcasm. Do you believe him?

Well, it did sound a little bit like something a desperate comms person might tell you you could say to pivot away from the question. I bet he regrets having sent it. I think he's been bit by the presidential bugs, so I tend to give him a little bit of a pass and all that. But look, and you've been talking a lot today about the elections. This is just an example. I mean, Democrats are taking a lot of positions publicly that I myself would not want to run on. You know, one of them is sounding sympathetic to Iran. You bet. But there's others as well. I'm glad you noticed that. I've noticed that. Did you ever run against the Democratic that said good things about terrorists? No, no, I wish I had an opponent like that. I might still be in the Senate. I mean, look, and everybody's talking about the elections. There's a target-rich environment out there, especially, I mean, for Republicans. And, you know, I'm cautioning everybody. Let's wait to see until we actually get in the campaign. Okay. Now, yeah, I want to get the oil. I want to get the gas prices back to what they were. I'm not an oil man. I got to believe. When this is resolved, then it's going to be resolved one way or another pretty soon. They'll settle back down, and then we can run on the things that have been accomplished over the last 15 months. And I think you can run on defeating the leading state sponsor of terror in the world as well. I think that's a Colin Card Reagan would have liked. Mike Summers, by the way, President of American Petroleum Institute is on next hour. Jim Talent can be followed on X at Jim Talent. We can follow me in the next segment. Stay tuned on the Salem News Channel, the Hugh Hewitt Show, the Salem Radio Network, and all our wonderful radio affiliate. Thank you for listening to Highly Concentrated, Hugh. And don't forget, one of our great sponsors is Consumer Cellular. 1-800-4-1-41-44-44. 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 hue. 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, 4454, and everybody, it can be under 50, you can be over 50. Everybody gets their second month free. when you use my name, Hugh.

Purple State is fabulous, and this has not got Hugh Hewitt's demographic written all over it, but I'm here to tell you it is entertaining as can be, even for an old guy. And Dana, welcome. Congratulations. Your first novel, right? Yes, yes. My first, I loved it. I love how it turned out. And I'm really grateful to be on your show because it might not be your demographic when you look at it. But I do think people from all walks of life seem to like it. Oh, I tell everyone it's a rom-com that meets the books of my youth, Dark Horse by Fletcher Nebel or Advise and Consent by Alan Drury. You're too young to remember those. But there's enough real... I remember advice and consent. Yeah, there's enough real politics in here along with the fun stuff that I'll come to that in a moment. But my very first question, this has got to be a major motion picture. This has got to be option because you've got three young women roles. You've got three young men roles. You've got some great older character actors who would want to be in this. Has it already been picked up? No, no. I mean, that's a dream. Maybe it happens. I don't know. But when somebody asked me, like, who would play these young characters in the movie? Hugh. I don't know the young actresses and actors anymore. But I did think that Rob Lowe could play the farmer, Mr. Taylor. I think he'd be perfect. Yeah, and I just want to explain to people. We have three New York City girls. They are the blue girls. And we have got three potential Wisconsin men. They're the red men. And a cop, a bartender. And Danny, who is going to be the hero of the movie, I think. Now, Dan, I should tell you, I did not finish the book because I never finished a novel, whether it's Danny Silva or Brad Thorke because I don't want to give it away. But I did get far enough into it to take the Wisconsin quiz with the fetching Mrs. Hewitt, who's been trying to grab it from me for two weeks that I've had it. And before I go to the Wisconsin quiz, how in the world? You're a Wyoming girl, New York girl, D.C. girl, and you've been all over the world. How did you learn about Wisconsin? So it's a great question. In 2024, you were at the RNC convention, right? Yep. So we were in Milwaukee. And I asked, I paid this young woman who used to work for Mike Gallagher. to take me around the state for 48 hours after the convention finished. So we went from Milwaukee to Oconomowoc, up to Green Bay, down back through Lake Winnebago. We went to Pulaski Days, Polka thing. And the last place we went, we arrived and she said, I think this is going to be the place that you set the book in. And it was called Cedarburg, Wisconsin. It's a northwestern, not quite a suburb, but it's just northwest of Milwaukee.

So I spent 48 hours there. That was the place. Cedar Falls is the name of the town. It's really based on Cedarburg. And then I went back in September. And I went back one more time at Christmas time so I could get a feel for the place. And it's idyllic. I really love the town. And I've always... I've always loved the people that I meet from Wisconsin. They're wonderful people. Oh, except for Gallagher. I saw Gallagher last week. He's very obnoxious about the Packers, as is everyone from Wisconsin is obnoxious about the Packers. So I will tell Gallagher, his staffer is responsible for a fabulous book. All right. Now, I asked my producer, Dwayne, to be standing by because I wanted him to take the Wisconsin quiz. I gave this to the fetching Mrs. Hewlett. As I was reading her book, it's on page 107, and she failed miserably. She was 0 for four. So I thought we would use Dwayne on the Wisconsin quick. Dwayne, name the cheese that was invented in Wisconsin, but sounds like a European country. That sounds like a European country. Gouda. Too late, Swiss. Number two, that was the easy one, by the way. In what Wisconsin City was splinter-free toilet paper first made? Cheboygan. No, wrong, Green Bay. Okay. These dolls became collectibles and have nothing to do with cabbage patches. Too late. Hummles. American Girl dolls. And then finally. The final question. Name the circus that launched in the Badger State. Ooh. It's not Circus Soleil. Maybe it is Circus. Salé. No, it's not. You're over for like the fetching Mrs. Hewitt, Ringling Brothers. Has anyone passed the quiz yet, Dana Perino? I don't think Wisconsin people would test. No, it's kind of a tough quiz, especially if you're not from Wisconsin. Yeah. But the splinter-free toilet paper, that one caught my attention. I was like, wow, that's a great invention, actually. Well, everybody knows stuff about their home state. And you got me thinking, in fact, that someone's got to do a podcast on hometowns because everybody knows their hometown better than anything. Let's go with the premise so that people understand what the hook is. We have three young ladies who are all working in New York. We've got Mary, the lawyer, Harper's the lawyer. Mary is the teacher, and Dot is in advertising. You want to give a little explanation about me? Actually, you had it right the first time. Mary's the lawyer. Harper's the teacher. Okay. Give them a little bit of a run of each of the characters. Dot's the big one. Okay. I think of Dot Clark probably the most like me. She starts off her career in public relations, and she chose high-tech PR because she thought she could shoot up the ladder that way. That's where all the money was, and she wanted to be a part of a big PR firm. She starts working there, and it's not great.

and she's also in a relationship that she doesn't really want to be in, and he's about to propose. Then her good friend Mary Russo, she's from Staten Island, surprised everyone. She went to law school, and now she's working in corporate law, and she's thinking, is this all there is? I'm just like working here to make money, to help other people make money. And then Harper is very much a reader, a dreamer. And she follows a influencer to Africa. She thought she would live this amazing international life. She gets dumped. And now they're all in this quarter life crisis. And Dot gets an opportunity to do something she thought she might want to do all along, which is politics. And she convinces the two to go with her, where a super PAC is paying for Democrats to go to all of these purple states to try to flip them so that they could finally win the electoral college. And that's when romance ensues. By the way, it is a completely believable premise. That's what I thought the book makes so much sense because the super PACs are growing. They do try and plant volunteers in the seven swing states. Wisconsin is among the swingiest. And getting people to go to Wisconsin may be the most difficult. Michigan might be harder. But, I mean, they got to go to the far north. They got to get acclimated. The good news about this book, the main characters, the trio of girls, they're way too young to be my daughter, and they're way too old to be my granddaughter. So I'm not emotionally invested in this and the lifestyle that they lead. How did you investigate the lifestyle of the 25-year-old New York Manhattan girl, although there's Staten Island and Queens thrown in here, but they're Manhattan girls? Well, so I've lived in New York for 15 years. I was in D.C. before that. I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado. So the subplot about saving the family farm, that meant a lot to me. But Hugh, if I didn't have my two shows, I could literally spend my entire day mentoring young women of this age. either ones that work here at Fox News or around News Corp or my friend's daughters, their nieces, their granddaughters, all day long I could do it. So when I wrote Everything Will Be Okay, which you were generous enough to have me on to talk about, that was all my mentoring advice in one place. When I told my editor about Purple State, I said, think of everything will be okay in a fictionalized version. And that's where I'm trying to show young women. First of all, you're born in America. You won Life's Great Lottery. everybody would want to trade places with you if they weren't born in America. Number two, you're educated, you're loved by your families. So all you have to decide is what do you want to do, and you can't afford to take risks. But the most important thing is to realize that you wrote out a plan for your life. If it's not happening, that means that you have to let go, not hold on to it tighter. Trust in God, trust in yourself. And open your eyes and your ears and your heart because the ultimate lesson in this book to me is...

a lesson in good decision-making, and that choosing to be loved is not a career-limiting decision. It can make all the difference for your happiness, as it is for me. Well, there's a life lesson right at the beginning, which is if you have doubts and you see the guy go into Tiffany's run, and it's not going to work out well, and good to have girls like that. By the way, Harper, the teacher at the elite school, who gets propositioned by that. That's really the only one who's kind of a mess up. The other two have got it together. But Harper's kind of betwixt in between, right? How many young ladies do you run into like that in Manhattan? Not that, not that meant. We obviously here working at Fox and not that many. But I have a lot of friends. They have friends. And also it is fiction. I kind of make them up. But the stories about. private schools here in New York and the things that go on there, that's very realistic. Oh. Like when the parents are complaining to her because their son got a B and they say, well, the helicopter got stuck in the Hamptons, but you actually hear things like that in this crazy place. There are also things in the book about debates. There's a candidate debate early on, maybe about Pigs 100, which is just on the nose. I will come back and talk to you about Kitty, who's also on the nose. It's a wonderful read, Purple State by Dana Prino. I'll be right back with Dana. Don't Go Anywhere, America.

Welcome back, America. That's Sabrina Carpenter, who's in the Purple State book by my guest, Dana Prino, which is really a fun read. Let's get to Kitty. Kitty runs for the win, which, by the way, is a great name for a super PAC if it isn't taken out there, for the win. She will get a bonus if they win with short of Shock Stott. And I thought to myself at that point, Dan Sullivan looked in the curtain a little bit here on politics. Do you think many people know about that? I don't. And actually, you mentioned Purple States, Dark Money and everything. Think of what just happened in Virginia yesterday where the Democrats were able to pull off the big redistricting caper. 99 of the $100 million that was spent was from Dark Money. That means that you don't have to disclose where it's from. And these win bonuses are very real. And I don't think a lot of people realize that. So you wonder why there's a super PAC for everything now? One, it's dark money. And two, there's a financial incentive if you win. And there's a lot of money sloshing around. Let me quickly run through. It's a presidential cycle. There's a debate. One of the first debates is being held in Cedar Falls. We've got Virgil Penfield is good for comic relief. Cal Ashby. It's Gavin Newsom. We've got the vegan mayor from Newark, Isaiah Grant. That's actually going to be Pete Buttigieg, I guess. Senator Tess Danforth. Cory Booker. Cory Booker. Oh, Cory Booker. Okay. Well, I was the vegan mayor, so I was thinking maybe South Bend. He's vegan. Oh, okay, okay. I didn't know Corey was being. Test Stanford, is that Elizabeth Warren, stuck in the teens, not going anywhere? The Rocket Guide, Theo Batics. No, I thought of Tina Smith. Oh, okay. She's so boring. And then we got Lucy Lopez, who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but from Texas and dressed up a little bit. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-ish. When Kitty stands up, this is the best part of the book, in my opinion, Kitty stands up to give the bus, which has been organized for volunteers. And there's so much about real campaigns in here that if you don't know anything about campaigns, you'll learn in Purple State. She's going to give everyone insider knowledge, and I quote Dana Prina. Everyone loves to feel like they know something more than their friends and their neighbors. Now, I don't know if you've ever read The Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis, Dana, or that hideous strength by C.S. Lewis. It's all about the fact that there is no secret knowledge, but everybody likes to think they're on the inside, right? So that's what Kitty's selling. Right. And if you think of some of the podcasts on the far left and the far right, that is what they're trying to do. Like they know something nobody else knows. So yes, there's currency and information. And I do love that bus ride, especially when they say, you know, I really liked the aging senator from Vermont. I vote for him every time. And someone at the front of the bus says, oh, you're the one.

Yeah. But in a way, what I'm also trying to show people is you can wear your politics a little bit more lightly. Still enjoy it. Be involved. Participate. But it doesn't have to become your life. But the bus ride is fabulous. In fact, it might be my favorite scene because it is something that a campaign would do. I don't know if you remember Iowa in 2008, John McCain, Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney rented all the buses in Iowa. There were no buses in Iowa to rent. And it was a pretty good trick, but it didn't work in the final analysis. Let's talk about Danny Dawson, though. You really set this up. He walks into a bookstore. He had sad but beautiful dark brown eyes. A spark went up dot spying when she smotted at him. Sunglasses on the top of his black hair, car hot coat, workman's boots, jeans. He buys a book of poetry for the nurse who took care of his mom who died of breast cancer when he was a junior in college. He was a badger football player, his girlfriend. who was pregnant at the time they're going to get married, was killed by a drunk driver. I mean, come on, Dana, we're going to root for this guy all through the book, aren't we? And you know the other thing I did in the book that is it's a little subtle? But when Dot asked about the person who was in the, that caused the car accident, the drunk driver, if he's in jail for murder, and they say for two life sentences, why? Because she was pregnant and that was two lives. Yeah. That's not the case in every state, but in Wisconsin it is true. And I think it should be true everywhere. There's a little bit of politics and my point of view sprinkled in here and there. Well, I thought of the movie Welcome to Mooseport, which I doubt you've ever seen. It's an old Gene Hackman movie. No, it sounds good, though. Oh, it's wonderful. Gene Hackman's a former president who runs for mayor in Mooseport. And Harper at one point asks, well, let me ask you about the... The terrible hotels they stay in. Not terrible. I went and looked up in Cedar Falls, whether there was actually, or in Madison, whether there was actually a hotel by the name of Maple and Maine. And there isn't. There is the Madison Concourse and Governors Club, though. Did you make up Maple and Maine? Is that just out of nowhere? I did. And in fact, throughout the book, all through Cedarburg, one of my favorite things was coming up with the great small business names. For example, Mimi's Bakery is called Flower Power. I think of the Thai restaurant, the Titanic. I can't remember off the top of my head what I called the nail salon and the hair salon. But all of those types of small businesses in Cedarburg, Wisconsin,

There is a beautiful Main Street. It's not Main Street. It's called Washington Avenue. But there are no national chains on that street. And it's just a little bit of Americana, a little bit Mayberry, but in a modern way. And I love this town. In fact, I'll be going there and throwing the town a party as we celebrate the debut of Purple League. I was wondering if you're going to go do the book launch there. I got to tell the audience that they've got to beware on page 108 for the one insider wink, wink. Bill Hammer from Fox. He's my mom's favorite, page 108. Did Hammer know that was in there? No, no, I waited to see if he would find his little Easter egg shout out. You know, I had a reporter the other day ask me because, well, the next line is, your parents still watch Fox News? She says 24-7. And a reporter said, did you write that as a little dig at Fox News? And I said, no, it's just reality. We hear it all the time. My dad's your biggest fan. My grandmother never turns it off. It's not like my nephew's your biggest fan. That never happens. All right. So I want to ask you the hardest question. I'm not a novelist. I've never even tried. Dialogue would defeat me, but I've written 14 books. You're a very good book writer. You write these books up. Why in the world do something completely new and radical? It's going to work. It's going to be a bestseller because it's fun and it appeals to a lot of different demographics. And like I said, the fetching Mrs. Hugh is dying to read it. Now I'm done talking to you. Why did you decide to do this? A lifelong dream. I never really thought that I could. I never, you know, you know when people think that you have to take, go to the Iowa and to Iowa and it was Iowa University? The writing program at the University of Iowa. Yeah. And I've never done any of that. I read novels voraciously. I love them. And I just admire the craft so much. And it was a young man named Andrew Graff. He's a wonderful author. He wrote a book called Raft of Stars that I adored. And when his second book came out called True North, I invited him to come to the independent bookstore that I support in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. And he said, you said he had an idea for a book. And I said, I'm sure everyone tells you that. Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about something else. And he said, well, how long is this walk we're going on? I said, it's about three miles. He said, start talking. And I told him my big grand idea was that it was like a show where you had the DNC put volunteers all over the country. And it was just too big of a story. And he said, wait, what if it all came down to this one gerrymandered district in Wisconsin? And for some reason, it felt doable, and I loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Purple State is for everyone who enjoys a good read, a lot of laughs, some great characters, old, young, and in between. Dana Prino, congratulations on Deep Purple. Thank you. Good luck on the book tour. Be right back, America State. Thank you for listening to Highly Concentrated Hugh. And don't forget one of our great sponsors is Consumer Cellular.

1-800-4-1-4-4-1-8-4-1-4-1-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4. 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'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, you 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. You at crude oil is at 93 and change this hour. I'm talking with Mike Summers. He's president of the American Petroleum Institute. API is where you go, CEO and president, I should say, of the American Petroleum Institute, which is where you go when you want to find out about oil in the future. Mike, thank you for joining me. It was fun meeting you in the green room last week. I'm a lot easier interview than anybody else who you spoke to. I really just want to know. what America should do right now to increase production and move it faster to market? Hugh, great to be with you. And I do think it's important to remember how influential the president's energy dominance agenda has been over the course of the last year. This president came in as a key supporter of oil and gas, and he immediately put into place policies to increase production here in the United States. That has meant, more leasing on federal lands and in federal waters, in particular, the Gulf of America. It has meant a regulatory agenda that has actually enhanced production here in the United States. And it has meant a tax agenda that makes sense for American consumers and the American oil and gas industry. So the president really has put in a foundation of... energy dominance with his agenda that he has pursued since he came back into office for the second time. And that has provided this country an incredible insurance policy. When we went into Venezuela, when we went into Iran, prices here in the United States haven't gone up nearly as much as they have had as they have in the rest of the world. And that is good news for American consumers, but of course there's more to do. Let's focus on the more to do for a moment, although there's the stuff we would have done anyway and then there's stuff on top of it. If we look at 12 months, do you expect American production, both onshore and offshore to increase over the next 12 months? Absolutely. In fact, what you've seen already is when we've had these lease sales, particularly in the state of Alaska, which really became a wasteland during the Biden administration where there were no lease sales. They actually canceled our ability to produce in the Anwar, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. And they fought the Conoco Phillips Company who wanted to produce in the National Petroleum Reserve. I mean, think about that for a minute. It was called the National petroleum reserve in Alaska and they fought. the Willow Project from ConocoPhill's Tooth and Nail, and finally Conoco was able to get this done, and they're working on getting oil produced there right now. We're seeing increased lease sales in the Gulf of America, where under the Biden administration, there wasn't one lease sale in the Gulf of America in four years under the Biden administration. So we are seeing increased production already. In addition to that, the CEO of Halliburton just yesterday,

on his earnings call, said that they're starting to see more production coming online. So I do think from where we are today to compare to where we will be a year from now, you're going to see increased production in the United States. It certainly hasn't hurt also that prices are going up. And when you have prices going up, you're going to have, you see more of an incentive to produce here at home. You know, I asked your number two last week. A couple of questions. I want to see if it's changed much. It's been two weeks now. When the oil goes up from 60 to 90 like it has and hovers somewhere, sometimes in the 80s, sometimes in the 90s, briefly over 100, are there wells that suddenly become uncapped? Or is that a myth? They say other oil comes online, but I don't know how quickly you can actually do that, even if you expect the prices to stay high for three, four, or six months. Yeah, so right now, there are what we call drilled but uncompleted wells. In the industry parlance, they're called ducks. So the truth is, is that right now we don't have a lot of drilled but uncompleted wells. That means when they're completed, that's when they're actually producing oil and natural gas. So right now, we don't have a huge inventory of these ducks in the United States. So it is going to require us a little bit more time to actually get back. into production mode. But there is significant incentive to do that now. Better tax rates, better regulatory environment, and, of course, higher prices are going to induce producers to produce more here in the United States at this time. And I do think, you know, we have to remember that we're going to be dealing with elevated prices for a while. You've essentially taken off about 15% of world demand right now because of what's going on in the strait of Hormuz. And when you take off that... much production and that much supply, you're going to have elevated prices for a short while. And I do think that that is going to induce more production here in the United States of America. Well, don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back with Mike Summers. You want to know what it's going to cost to take the family across the country in the station wagon. If families actually do that anymore, I don't know. But we all go driving in the summer, and I'm going to ask him about the summer gas prediction. I also want to know about the Venezuela oil. I want to know about the oil that the United States seizes at sea. And I want to know, are we building the pipelines we need to build? And is the permitting bill going to get through? Don't go anywhere. Mike Summers will be right back with me, Hugh Hewitt, on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Mike Summers is the president's CEO, the American Petroleum Institute. And API really is the go-to source for information on the entire American oil industry. But I also wonder, Mike, about what we're doing in Venezuela and whether any American companies are investing down there, or is it still too unstable to say, yeah, we're going to make big bets in Venezuela. What do you know? So when we went in to get Maduro on January 3rd, the United States was only importing about 150,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude. We're happy to report that that number has gone up to over 400,000 barrels of import into the United States. That is good news. And it's also evidence that the work that the president has done from tax to regulatory to even these foreign actions are benefiting American consumers at the pump. So imagine if we didn't have that kind of oil coming in today, you would be dealing with higher prices at the pump that would be affecting the summer driving season. Prices are still too dark. darn high, but the fact that we're importing more from Venezuela is good news. You put on top of that increased American production that we can see in the next few months or year. I think that will eventually work its way to American consumers and lower those prices as we enter into the summer driving season. So, Mike, I lived in California from 1989 to 2016 when I moved back to the Beltway. And I was always used to higher prices out there because of the screwy things we've done. Now the Valera's refinery is closing. What is California going to be like this summer? They've lost another refinery, and I don't think anyone wants to build a refinery in California anytime soon. You know, Hugh, this is an absolute disaster for California consumers. The truth of the matter is that the United States only imports about 8% of the oil that we use from the Middle East. But in California, it's 30%. So they're highly dependent on Middle Eastern oil for their supply. to those refineries that continue to operate in the state. In the last three years, they've already lost free refineries with the Valero refinery going offline sometime at the end of April. And why are those refineries going out of business? It's not because there's not the demand for gasoline or jet fuel in the state of California. It's because of a regulatory environment in California that is making it impossible for those refineries to make any money. So this is a real concern, I think, for California consumers. But a bigger concern I think that all of America should have is that it's a huge national security concern. We have a lot of bases, military bases in the state of California. And imagine a scenario where there was a disruption in Asia. And we weren't able to get the fuel that we need in the western United States because of these refineries going offline.

has the potential to be a national security disaster for the United States, in addition to being an economic disaster for California consumers. So we have to do something about refining capacity in California and fast. So before I get to price, I want to talk to you about pipelines and permitting. We could sell a lot more natural gas if we had a lot more permits. And to get those permits to build the pipelines. requires some congressional action. Where are we on that? Well, let's go back just 15 years ago when the United States was actually a net importer of natural gas. We thought we'd run out of natural gas in this country. But what happened? In 2008, hydraulic fracturing, so-called fracking really took place in this country, really took hold within this industry. And as a consequence of that, we discovered more natural gas than we even know what to do with. I mean, the illiquified natural gas industry basically created here in the United States. We've expanded it significantly so that we can support our trade partners and our allies overseas, supplying them with the natural gas that they need to power their economies. We virtually replaced all of the natural gas that Europe was getting through pipes from Russia with liquefied natural gas from the United States when Russia invaded Ukraine. This is an American success story, and we have more and more natural gas that we find every single. single day. It can support the American economy. It can support the world economy as well. You think about just from a price perspective, Hugh, in other countries, other international countries, the price of natural gas has gone up, rocketed up almost $10. In the United States, it's gone up 10 cents because of the conflict in the Middle East. That is because of American ingenuity and something that we should be proud of. The only thing holding back natural gas in this country The only thing is that we can't build pipelines in this country because of an anachronistic permitting system that needs to be reformed at the federal level. So we're working on that now. We're hoping we can get a bill done in the next couple of months so that we can actually unlock this energy potential. And as you know... Energy demand is going up rapidly. And if we don't have that natural gas to supply American consumers and American manufacturers, we're going to be left behind in the race against China for AI dominance. You know, all my lefty friends in Connecticut and Massachusetts and Maine and my conservative friends in New Hampshire, they pay ridiculous amounts for their natural gas because they can't get there. Why don't we have permitting from Pennsylvania to Maine with, you know, side stops wherever they need natural gas? It's absurd for them to pay this much.

It is absurd. And the simple fact is you can't get a pipeline built in New York State to connect the most prolific gas field in the world, the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, which by the way doesn't end in Pennsylvania. It extends into New York, but they have a fracking ban in the state of New York. So you can't build a pipeline. You can't drill for natural gas in New York State. And thus the people in the Northeast are stranded. They're really in an energy desert as a consequence. You have to import natural gas. into New England because of this, or you have to stick with heating oil, which, as you know, does not have the same environmental benefits. So the fact that they are standing in the way of this pipeline is actually doing worse things for the environment if they just built a pipeline through New York State to serve New England consumers. I'm in the last question. Last question, Mike. We're almost out of time. In the middle of June, when people start taking their vacations, what's the average price of gas going to be not counting California, which is nuts? You know, it is, that's a hard thing to predict right now because we just don't know how long this situation in the street is going to go on. Remember, we're about 700 million barrels of oil short right now in the world because of this conflict. We've got to get this trade opened up and fast. I look forward to talking to you again. API, American Petroleum Institute is where you go to get the actual facts about oil and gas in America and Mike Summers is the guy to ask. Thank you, Mike. 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.