Eric Swalwell’s Hypocritical Implosion

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heart of our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., backed by the trusted voices of Team Fox, a clear, fresh voice cutting through the noise to tell the truth. It's Guy Benson with Guy Benson. It is Monday, April 13th, 2026. I'm Guy Benson. Welcome everyone to a brand new broadcast week here on Guy Benson. I'm so happy to have each and every one of you with us for the next three hours between 3 and 6 p.m. Eastern and then around the clock for free on our podcast at Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can reach us here at the show, GBS. At Fox.com, you can also follow us at Guy Benson on social media. I'm at Guy Benson on many of those same platforms. I'm a political analyst at Fox News. You can catch me tonight on special report. I'll be on Brett Bayer's panel. We have a vice presidential interview that we'll be reacting to in real time this evening coming up again on the Fox News channel. I'm also a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner where my work appears regularly. On the show today, we will get to our first guest momentarily. Later on in the next hour, General Jack Keane, retired four-star general. He will break down what the United States military is up to in the Strait of Hormuz and this blockade. That is now the policy of the United States. What does that look like? Why are we doing it? What are the goals to be achieved? Are we likely to achieve them? Lots of questions for General Keene coming up when we speak to him about an hour from right now. We will also welcome back to the program. Congresswoman Elise DeFonic, a New York Republican. She's out with a brand new book tomorrow called Poisoned Kay Ivey's about... elite institutions of higher learning in this country and what we've learned about them, some very concerning things, to put it mildly. In recent years, she's done a deep dive, of course, she was a big part in the accountability process on Capitol Hill on this exact front. She's written the book about it, and we will ask her lots of related questions when she joins us just after 4.30 Eastern. And then Mary Catherine Hamm, best friend of the program, she will be here to round things out guest-wise just after 5 p.m. Eastern during our happy hour. That is all ahead. But we begin the show today with the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. He's kind enough to join us. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for your time. Great to be with you, Guy. All right, I want to start with Iran because it is such a huge story, and we now have this blockade underway. There are certain countries who are joining with the United States and being of great assistance, others not so much. Of course, Israel has been the indispensable ally during this conflict.

working hand and glove with the United States. As you look at this from an Israeli perspective, and there are maybe some Americans listening to us right now who could say, right, I understand why this war is in Israel's interest. It's an existential war for them. The regime wants to wipe them off the map, et cetera. Why is it also in the short, medium, long-term, vital national interests of the United States of America? I've addressed a lot of that on my show in the recent weeks, but I wonder from your perspective, how would you answer that question? It's so funny. We hear that question over here. We kind of scratch our heads. We can't understand why it's even a question. There you have the Iranian regime. Since the first day it took into power back in 1979, it has declared war against the United States. and has never missed a day of declaring war against the United States. And not just declared war against the United States, but made war against the United States, killing hundreds of Americans, servicemen, diplomats, others. Just in the last two and a half years of the war since October 7, 2023, Iranian militias have fired at American bases in the release close to 200 times. taking American chips, plotting assassination attempts, including assassination attempts against the president of the United States. I mean, what other reasons would you have? And by the way, an ambush, Iranian proxies just ambushed U.S. diplomats, I believe, in Iraq, in the last couple of days during this supposed ceasefire, just another act of war. You can fill a book with it. And I'm not exaggerating. You can fill a book with it. By the way, when I was ambassador in Washington, they tried to assassinate me in downtown Washington, together with a Saudi ambassador. So in the capital of the United States, the list of acts of war under any definition. When people say this in a legal war, I don't know what law books are looking at and what moral universe they inhabit. It is a mystery. So that's one reason. The other reason is that this is a regime, which is even worse than the North Korean regime. North Korean has nuclear weapons because it wants food. The Iranian regime is a jihadist regime that seeks to dominate the Middle East and then expand its rule to include the entire planet. And so the acquisition of strategic weapons with a delivery system which right now we know can reach Central Europe is not designed to take over the Middle East alone. And, you know, they're taking over the Straits of Hermuz now with what they had. Matt if they had nuclear weapons in a full ballistic arsenal. And so right now there's an immediate need to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons to stop Iran's support for terror, to stop Iran from getting these missiles. By the way, they lied about the range of the missiles. They thought, oh, they can only go, you know, 2,000 kilometers. It turns out they go 4,000 kilometers. What else are they lying about? They lied about everything. And, but it's a way that, you know, I think President Trump and the United States government contribute to future generations of America. They're basically saying that, you know, Americans today, your children and grandchildren are not going to have to deal with this. And I always ask a question of people who are against the war and say, you know, you asked Bill Clinton if he had a chance to go back today and use military an option to prevent North Korea from getting a nuclear weapon, would he do it? And the answer is, of course, yes.

And you don't want to get to a situation, you know, 20 years from now, and it probably probably is much shorter, where, you know, American media's would say, if only, if only we had acted earlier. And now it's too late. You know, I saw some criticism online because there was a quote that I saw. I think it was from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talking about his frequent conversations with President Trump. And. Some of the critics, usual suspects, were saying, wow, President Trump is talking to Benjamin Netanyahu all the time like he's taking orders from the prime minister, which it's just like it's so bizarre to me and historically illiterate. In fact, I was just telling the audience last week I was in London, I had the opportunity to go down into Churchill's war rooms underneath. one of the main buildings in White Hall where a lot of the wartime planning took place. And there was one of the exhibits down there, which is still preserved as it was, was this special line between London and Washington. So that Churchill could speak routinely with President Roosevelt and then Truman because these were close allies fighting a war together. Of course the leaders would be talking. Again, it just seems like this conspiratorial allegation that this is somehow out of the ordinary or Trump's being led around by the nose by these cunning Israelis, wink. Like very strange. Who's convinced by this sort of thing? Well, if they want to be convinced, they'll be convinced. It is an ancient anti-Semitic trope, you know, the cunning Jew who, you know, wraps the unwitting Gentile around his finger and gets him to do, you know, horrible things. It's a classic anti-Semitic trope. But it's also deeply, deeply insulting to the president that he can't, you know, somehow that the head of a country of 330 million people gets around by the nose by the leader of a country of 10 million, the size of the state of New Jersey. But that doesn't, you know, you can't take away from the fact that right now, The United States has won, and I stress one, dependable military ally in the world. We just saw on the news tonight how Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France, Britain and France, have said that they are willing to act to open the straits of her moves once the war is over. Yes, when the fighting's done. Yeah, it's okay. I mean, you cannot always say that with a straight face. I'm sorry, you really. That's sad. It really is sad. There's one ally that's willing to fight. And willing to fight it, by the way, as a full partner. And not as an ancillary, not as a secondary partner. And all of this rhetoric against Israel, it cannot in any way belie that reality, just a reality in any American leader. I don't care if it's, you know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, excuse me, all right?

If he cares about American security, you cannot afford in any way not to have an intensely close relationship with the state of Israel. Yeah, I think that's right. And we're also seeing this growing relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab nations and their leaders. And we're also seeing that and those ties and those binds strengthening between your country. And these Arab countries that for many decades have been sworn enemies, not so much anymore. We've seen, of course, the Abraham Accords and a lot of peace deals fairly recently, some going back many years, others potentially right on the horizon. It feels like the people in that neighborhood really are heavily invested in getting this done. Right. And you might call it strange bedfellows, maybe in the not so distant past, but not anymore, right? This is sort of this reshaped coalition, and it feels like some of our other allies, and I don't want to take too many shots at them while I'm chatting with you, but, you know, in Europe, it's like they're missing the boat here almost entirely on this realignment in the Middle East that is strengthening. the alliance between the United States, Israel, and many of these Muslim-majority Arab countries. Well, I think that they want to survive. And we're in a tough neighborhood. And they're going to put whatever ideological requirements they may have aside, they want to survive. And we are the people going to get it. We can best guarantee that. We are their allies. We're not their enemies. And we hope we can convince the Lebanese of that, too. The problem is the Lebanese lack the strength, you know, to take over Hezbollah. So I hope we can make peace with Lebanon. I don't necessarily think that's going to bring peace to our northern border. I want to come back to Lebanon in just a moment, but quickly, do you believe, and I know this has been rumored for a while, and I know it's been one of the goals for our president in his second term here since he got this ball rolling in his first term, do you believe that it is realistic in the fairly near future that the Abraham Accords could be expanded and that normalization of relations between Israel and more Arab or Muslim majority countries could be? on the horizon, maybe not in such a distant way. I know that the Iranians and Hamas green-lit October 7th and perpetrated October 7th, at least in part to try to prevent this from happening. But now I'm starting to hear growing rumors again or whispers that this could be in the offing. Is that what you're hearing? It is, but it is contingent. And I better be very frank with this. I'm contingent on America making a strong stand against Iran. You know, and they say in the Arab world, we always prefer the strong horse to the weak horse. And if America comes out as the, you know, the unassailable strong horse in this region, then the Arab Gulf countries will ally with the United States. And if President Trump says, join the Abraham Accords, I think they're going to take it very, very seriously. Okay. Then there's this.

This fight, this battle on your northern border against Hezbollah, which has been... terrorizing not just your country, but Lebanon in a lot of ways now for years, one of the top proxy groups for Iran. So much attention has been paid to Gaza, and I know that there's ceasefire there and a process moving forward that we hope is successful after the protracted war down there after October 7th. This is on the northern front for you guys, and I was up there actually when I was last in Israel, abandoned neighborhoods, abandoned schools, families who weren't able to live there because of this constant rocket threat. That was tamped down. Now it's flaring back up again. Of course, the negative press is flowing in as it always does for Israel, and they're making it seem like everything is disproportionate, and Israel's just killing a bunch of Lebanese for no reason, leaving out, I think, a lot of... context, what can you tell us about that piece of the conflict, which the Iranian regime, by the way, just sort of tried to shoehorn into their ceasefire, sort of out of nowhere a few days ago, almost finally belatedly admitting, oh, actually, yeah, Hezbollah is our proxy and very valuable to us, so lay off. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm into a next interview already. I really want to answer that question. Can I call you back? Well, why don't you go ahead and take that call, and we will continue this conversation next time because the Lebanon piece of it is very important. And I know that you want to talk about it, but it seems like there's been a slight double booking. So we'll let whoever it is have the honor of chatting with you, and we will save the Lebanon piece for an interview hopefully very soon to come. Former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, here on Guy Benson. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much. We are just getting started on this Monday. So much to get to. We will be right back. Miss a minute. Miss a lot. Guy Benson. With the all-new dynasty blueprint in EA Sports College Football 27, you can build your program by earning dynasty points to spend on NIL, staff, and more. But the fun doesn't end at graduation. With the EA Sports MVP bundle, get College Football 27, mad at NFL 27, plus deluxe edition rewards in both games. Make your rise with the MVP bundle, available now at eA.com. Rated E for everyone with mild lyrics, user interact, and in-game purchases includes random items, conditions, and restrictions apply. See the link for more info.

I'm Guy Benson. We are back. Little political stunt. Little PR moment. by Congressman Ro Khanna of California, a Democrat, where he was trying to tie higher gas prices to the war to criticize President Trump. Here he was in cut 36. Listen. I'm here at a gas station in Santa Clara right outside our office where we often fill up. As you can see, gas is nearly six bucks a gallon. It used to be $4 something before the illegal, immoral war in Iran. What do we need to do now? One, we need to stop the war. Two, we need to stop exporting our crude oil to bring down prices. And three, we need to have a windfall profits tax on these big oil companies and give a rebate to hardworking Americans. Okay, so just really a brain dead photo op there at the local gas station. And he's talking about how gas is nearly six bucks a gallon, which is high. And he blames the, quote, illegal, immoral war in Iran. It is not illegal. It is, I'd say, actually, deeply moral to prevent that regime from getting nuclear weapons and a missile umbrella to protect a nuclear weapons program that they refuse to give up. All we're asking them to do is behave like a normal country and give up their terrorism and their nukes and their missiles, and they say no. They'd rather be destroyed and have one leader after another killed than do that. That is how fanatical they are. That is intolerable for the United States. So it's not immoral at all to pursue those objectives militarily, which is what we're doing. And I just think it is wrong as a matter of law to call it illegal. And deeply off, right, I think your weather vein is deeply off. If you look at the war and you view... us and our actions as what's immoral in all of this. But as several other people pointed out, whether you agree or not on the war, people were posting photographs of gas station prices in California when Joe Biden was president, where it was north of $6 a gallon, north of $7 a gallon. Trump wasn't president. There was no Iran war for you to blame. And you didn't see people like Ro Khanna dragging his intern out with a camera to try to point at the whatever mobile station placard saying, look at this, blaming his preferred scapegoat and demanding his preferred policies. His preferred policies, the Democrats' policies in California, are the ones responsible for why the gas prices are so high in California. CBS News, we talked about this last week, did a whole months-long investigation into this. And the scapegoating of big oil and the windfall profits and gouging and all of that. And CBS found that 55% of each gallon of gas includes California-specific costs.

It's their own policies that have caused the pain at the pump for California and Californians for years. They've chosen to do this. But Ro Khanna wants people to believe, oh, it's actually Trump's fault and the war. Nope. The truth speaks for itself. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by San Pellegrino Chau. A gift from Italy to your home. San Pellegrino Chau is a flavored sparkling water made with real fruit juice, finished with a pinch of Sicilian salt for a perfectly balanced taste. So which flavor will you choose? Peach, lime, blood orange, cherry, or maybe the all-new limoncello. Crafted in Italy with zero grams of added sugar, San Pellegrino Chow. Buy it now. Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. Back here together on Guy Benson. So it's been a rough little patch here for one Eric Swalwell, Congressman for now from California, who has all these allegations against him. There were rumors that it was just days ago that maybe like a dozen women were going to come out with complaints about sexual harassment, impropriety. and assault. There had been, I guess, some allegations swirling around him for years, but it never really broke out into the open for various reasons. Then, on top of all of that, our colleague Bill Malugian reporting over the weekend that the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that Eric Swalwell is being investigated for allegations that he hired. a foreign national as a nanny who does not have work authorization in the United States. That has been referred to DHS for criminal prosecution. And if, in fact, he had done that, that would be a violation of a federal law. And no one, as they like to say, is above the law. So with the storm clouds gathering. Many Democrats started calling for Eric Swalwell to drop out of the gubernatorial race in California, where he was, according to some of the polls, the leading Democrat. And those calls got louder and louder. And yesterday, Eric Swalwell put out a statement on social media, quote, I am suspending my campaign for governor. To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I've made in my past. I will fight these serious false allegations that have been made, but that's my fight, not a campaign. And I think he was at this point looking around, seeing a party and media that had protected him for a very long time, even after whatever that business was with... The Chinese spy, what was her name, Fang Fang, something like that, and the suggestion that he had some sort of relationship with her, they circled the wagons for Eric Swalwell. But no more. At least...

No more when it comes to his gubernatorial statewide ambitions. Here's part of a little montage of what seemed to be the party line that congealed in recent days, cut 20. If any of these allegations are true, he should no longer be a candidate, at least candidate for governor. What he did is sick and disgusting. There need to be consequences to that. And I have said that not only does he need to step aside, but there needs to be House ethics investigation and law enforcement investigation. This is clearly a pattern. I've already called for Congressman Eric Swalwell to drop out of the gubernatorial race. And I think we have to hold everybody accountable. Right. So those are three Democrats on Capitol Hill. I saw that there was a statement from Hakeem Jeffries. the Democratic leader in the House, who is also echoing this refrain that it's time for Eric Swalwell to step down, step aside from his pursuit of the governor's mansion in California. What I'm trying to figure out, and I'm not sure if people can help me on this one, and there have been a handful of Democrats who have been better on this, but the overall party line was... The seriousness of the allegations and the number of allegations and the supposed or alleged evidence against him, it's all so disturbing and so concerning and so disqualifying that he must abandon his governor's campaign. And if that's the case, which they almost unanimously have said, what's the argument for keeping him in Congress? If this is disqualifying behavior, potentially according to some of the allegations, criminal behavior. And it's such a serious string of allegations against him that, of course, he shouldn't even consider a political campaign to attain higher office anymore. Shouldn't they also be saying he should resign from Congress post-haste? Or is it such a thin margin in Congress where every vote counts where they don't want a vacant seat even for a little while? And so the political interests of the left and the Democratic Party moved, shifted from protecting Eric Swalwell to throwing him overboard on the governor's race because that would really potentially be a problem for their party. So, okay, never mind on that, cancel that, acts that. But is it still within their political interest to keep him, even as a persona non grata, as a member of Congress, rather than giving him the boot? There are some reports out there that there are a couple Republicans, I think two on each side of the aisle, who, in fact, it's a Democrat from Florida and a Democrat from California, and then a Republican from Florida and a Republican from Texas, they might just... give all four of them walking papers and expel all four members. So there wouldn't be a partisan advantage for either side because it would be two and two or at least one for one. We'll see how that all plays out. But on the actual allegations themselves, I'm not a fan of Eric Swalwell. I'm sure that comes as a shock to many of you. I think he's been just a preening, posturing, blowhard partisan.

for as long as I've been familiar with him. Very ambitious. Of course, this guy ran for president. He was the first one who actually took the age shot in a major way at Joe Biden back in 2019. But he's had his sights set high and higher still for many years. And now you have multiple women saying that there was a pattern of abuse and misconduct and harassment and, at least in one case, a criminal assault against women in his employ, women in his office, interns even. And now he's saying, okay, he's basically copping to... the affairs and all the sexual activity and the things that he's done on that front but where he's drawing the line is saying i did not do anything that was non-consensual the assault allegations is what he's now fighting in fact he had he had said it that he's made mistakes in the past He said those mistakes are between me and my wife. To her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. He said the sexual assault allegations are flat false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened. I will fight them with everything that I have. Meanwhile, a campaign spokesperson, he no longer has a campaign, but a few days ago he did, lashed out at the critics saying it was a false, outrageous rumor spread days before an election, begins by flailing opponents who have sadly teamed up with MAGA conspiracy theorists. So this is, I mean, they can't even attack their fellow Democrats. I think in this case, totally in a futile way, without trying to tie it into MAGA or Donald Trump in some way. But that is apparently the battle line that they're drawing. Now he's out of the governor's race. He's still in Congress at the moment. But he's saying, yep, I did a bunch of these things. Very, very sorry. But I did not commit assault. That's false and I'm going to fight it with everything that I have. And look, I don't know if he's telling the truth or not. And I've seen some of the rather sorted claims that are being made against him and some of those details from interactions that apparently happened relatively recently. And I don't know what's true. There does seem to be something of a pattern here that is very troubling. I do think that evidence, especially if we're talking about ending someone's career, ruining their life, or putting them in prison, right? Evidence matters a lot. And I think as we get more of it, we can draw our own conclusions. I think it's clear that he has done things that have now earned him the ire of even his own political party, so his career is probably over.

But the next level up in terms of seriousness, to me, no matter how much I dislike someone, and again, I have great disdain for Eric Swalwell, we have to go and adjudicate these things based on consistent standards of evidence and reason. And you know who I bet wishes that had been his own longstanding position right now? I wrote about this today at the Washington Examiner in a piece entitled Eric Swalwell is guilty, according to the Eric Swalwell standard. So during the Me Too moment, which lasted quite a while, and especially when it came to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation circus, Eric Swalwell was one of the braying hyenas against Brett Kavanaugh. He tweeted, in 2018, back at the peak of all this during that very heated debate, Eric Swalwell tweeted 100% hashtag believe survivors. And I think, by the way, referring to accusers as survivors sort of bakes in the assumption that they are telling the truth and they have survived whatever they've alleged. And that's true for many of them, but not for all of them, right? This whole thing, believe all women or believe all survivors, I think you should take serious allegations seriously. They should be investigated thoroughly. They should be tested by evidence. But some of the sloganeering, just this broad, I would say, morally simple, but actually In some cases, quite damaging. It was kind of like this superficial sloganeering. Believe all survivors. Well, I think that is different than saying investigate claims and test them with evidence. But those dogmas and some of the specious mottos that were ubiquitous. They were being spouted by people like and specifically by himself, Eric Swalwell. By the way, as an aside, I feel obligated here since I brought up the Brett Kavanaugh episode. People can go read my piece today at the Washington Examiner. I encourage you to do that. I link to a piece that I'd written years ago at townhall.com where I went through the major high-profile allegations against Brett Kavanaugh at the time. Of which, zero of them are corroborated. None are corroborated by evidence. And several of them are outright dispelled by evidence. Debunked. And you go through the one at Yale was just crumbled. A woman who, it turned out actually, and even the New York Times has reported this, couldn't really remember if the thing had happened and if it had happened. Had it been Brett Kavanaugh who did it and she was calling people up trying to crowdsource a memory in order to accuse him being egged on by left-wing lawyers who were trying to take down Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. That was one of them. There was the truly psychotic Julie Swetnik gang rape ring claim.

That was just completely outrageous and absurd on its face, disgusting. She made it all up. That was the one, by the way, that every Senate Democrat on the Judiciary Committee glommed on to, along with Chuck Schumer, they took it seriously. They believed that so-called survivor, total liar, lunatic. She said, oh, yeah, Brett Kavanaugh was doing these gang rapes all the time in Maryland as a kid, as a teenager. And they said, okay, that's what we're going to now latch on to and call for him to withdraw. Just an outrageous thing that they did. And they looked ridiculous as that untrue claim fell apart. There was another one, woman from Colorado, where someone else reported that he had been abusive in some way toward her. Then the woman herself came out and said, yes, that's me. They're talking about me. This did not happen ever. And then there was, last but not least, the original major allegation, Christine Blasey Ford. And you can go through and all of her inconsistencies, all of the changes in story, the inability really for anyone to try to disprove proactively, something that allegedly happened decades prior. Brett Kavanaugh kind of did so in some ways with those calendars he still had in his possession. But even the accuser's father and best friend slash star witness didn't believe her. And it turned out that the star witness, a girl who was allegedly at this party where the interaction had taken place, the alleged assault, she then said, no, I don't remember any such party. I don't remember any of this happening at the time. And then the people around the accuser, the anti-Cavanaugh cabal, started threatening her and bullying her to lie on their behalf against Brett Kavanaugh. So that actually was a partisan witch hunt. With one goal, it was very radicalizing for me personally. I wrote about it a lot, and you can go and read some of that. So I'm not saying that Eric Swalwell is similarly innocent. I'm just saying Eric Swalwell's standard for Brett Kavanaugh was believe all survivors. 100%. When, in fact, the... allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were not credible, corroborated, or in at least three of the cases, true at all. Eric Swalwell at the time, though, was out doing his thing on cable television. Here's part of what he said during that imbroglio. in cut 15 on MSNBC at the time. I saw continued demeaning of victims of sexual assault, people who deserve to be heard, who deserve for their allegations to be investigated. For Brett Kavanaugh's sake, if he is innocent, I hope tomorrow he opens his statement and says, you know what, bring in all the victims, allow them to be heard, allow them to be questioned.

That will clear his name if he's indeed innocent. And if he's not for the sake of the credibility of the court, I hope that the senators would vote against him. Well, you should bring in all the victims and let them be questioned. Eric Swalwell's attorney, meanwhile, just recently fired off a cease and desist letter on Friday, including a defamation lawsuit threat against one of these quote-unquote survivors. Again, very different, quite a gap between Eric Swalwell's rhetoric and standard for other people for political reasons versus what he and his attorney are doing for him. Isn't that interesting? I think we should approach all of these things with some consistency and integrity, which may be foreign concepts to the likes of Congressman Eric Swalwell. By the way, last little note here, I've seen a number of journalists and other people saying, actually this was an open secret about Eric Swalwell for years. One California journalist, Stephen Tavares, said, I've covered Eric Swalwell since he was a member of the Dublin City Council. Shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013, his behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Democratic Party. Open secret, apparently, for well over a decade, that this was the type of predations that Eric Swalwell allegedly was involved in. Apparently a bunch of Jernos knew about it, a bunch of women knew about it, and they're saying, okay, now that the cat's out of the bag, here's my story. If this was known, first of all, why were journalists not covering it, if not to give him cover because he's on their team politically? I mean, that's the obvious explanation. But why would you let this continue if he's going to keep victimizing people if this is the pattern of behavior? What an awful look for the protectors as well. So I suspect that part of the story may not be over. Guy Benson continues after this break. Don't go anywhere. New talk for a new generation, Guy Benson. Need a laptop that's built or perform and designed to last all day? Select Windows 11 PCs starting at 49999 are now at Best Buy. Learn more at Best Buy.com. Best Buy. Imagine that.

As for, you know, the aspirations, Americans broadly support them. 87% say straight of Hormuz needs to be reopened. 81% want to ensure freedom for the Iranian people. 76% want to permanently stop Iran's nuclear program. 55% want the current leaders ousted before we end the war. Back on Guy Benson, that was CBS Face the Nation. There's a lot of negativity, especially in the press, around the operations in Iran. But a lot of the major goals, as you just heard, there are supported by the American people. Are we making progress in the Strait of Hormuz? General Jack Keene, with expert insight into that as soon as we come back in a brand new hour next. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market's summer fruit fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt. Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto, and artisanal cheese. Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever proteins and fresh produce. Savor the season. Shop summer fruit fest at Whole Foods Market. A new generation of conservative talk. Right here, right now. Fair, fun, and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of Fox News. Fox News. You're listening to Guy Benson. And now here's your host, Guy Benson.

It is a new hour here on Guy Benson. I'm Guy Benson. We're so happy that you're with us. Guy Benson.com is our website. The podcast is free every day on demand when the program is over. We're done right around 6 p.m. Eastern and then subsequent to that in the 6 Eastern hour, I'll be on the panel. Brett Bayer and Company Special Report Fox News Channel. Hope you will tune in for that. Fox News alert as we hit the middle hour. The Dow surging 302 points at the close today, finishing in the green and up at 48,219. Well, over the weekend, we had the talks collapse between the U.S. and the Iranians in Pakistan and Islamabad. And we heard from U.S. officials that the U.S. leader of the delegation, Vice President JD Vance, he had made a final offer that was delivered to the regime. And the red lines... There were six of them that we had demanded. One, this is according to our colleague Lucas Tomlinson. One, Iran had to end all uranium enrichment. By the way, we've offered them for years. nuclear material, nuclear capabilities for non-military purposes. We would just give it to them. They've refused because they want nuclear weapons, clearly. So that was one. And all enrichment. Two, dismantle all major nuclear enrichment facilities. Three, the retrieval of highly enriched uranium. They've enriched a lot of uranium way past the point of civilian purposes. So we'd want to take that out of the country. Four, except a broader piece. with security and de-escalation framework that includes regional allies, five, end their funding for terrorism proxies like Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthis, and six, fully opened the Strait of Hormuz, charging no tolls for passage. And they said no to all of that, and their own red lines were completely preposterous. And so here we are. where now there's a new U.S. policy as ordered by President Trump. That is now in effect. And joining us to explain it and to break it down is General Jack Keene, retired four-star general, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and Fox News, senior strategic analyst. General, welcome back. Yeah, it's delighted to be here, guy, with you and your audience. All right. So I think people may have seen headlines here there about a blockade. The U.S. is now going to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, and people might wonder, well, why are we doing that? If the Iranians were closing, it didn't we want it open? Can you give us the nuance of what our actual policy is now there? Yes, certainly. Well, the quarantine or blockade, as the name applies.

is going to stop any transit of ships that are heading towards an Iranian port. In other words, entering the Straits of Amoos and going to Iranian ports to pick up tanker oil or any that are already up in the Straits of the Moos north of there, and they're already there, and they're going to come south. with tanker all regardless of what flag they're carrying those ships will be stopped iran distributes mainly to china india pakistan and turkey among some others but those are the principal ones and the the halting of the ships will be done in the gulf of amman that's the first body of water south of the straits And that body of water is bordered on the east side by Iran and Pakistan and on the west side by the UAE and color, et cetera. And it expands into a much larger body of water called the Arabian Sea. So that is a good place to do it. There's ample space to do it there, and those ships will be held. They'll communicate on a designated channel that CENTCOM has told all the ships in the area, and they will respond to their guidance and tell them where to go and what to do. If they test us and do not respond... to that verbal guidance, then it's likely the Marines, either by helicopter or seaborne, will man that tanker and take charge of it, obviously with people who understand what to tell the captain of the ship. So that's kind of the initial plan. It is the right policy decision, in my view, Iran clearly, When they shut down the straits of Hamoos themselves, they had two objectives in mind. One is to communicate that they were still very much in control of the straits. And two, they wanted to stop the war. And they accomplished stopping the war for sure, which led to negotiations. But now this has demonstrated a complete switching momentum by the Trump administration. The way I call it, using a football analogy, they forced to fumble. And the Trump team has taken over. And it has a second piece to it that really hasn't been discussed that much. Based on the success of the first piece, which is the quarantine naval blockade, and to see how eventually all the ships that are not going through the Iranian ports entering or egressing from those ports are free to go through the straits. But if the non-Iranian ships carrying oil from all the other countries still are, don't desire to go through the straits because of the threat of Iran's intimidation and coercion here.

then the other operation will be put in play. And that is one to clear channels through the straits and remotes. And you saw do destroyers do that this weekend. And we now have undersea drones looking for mines that are that are in the straits. And some of them which are not. tied to any specific location. In other words, they're moving around, and that's a dangerous situation. And then the straits would be secure, part two of that. Part three would be the transit vessels through the Straits of the Moons. So that operation... remains to be seen whether it will be executed or not. I suspect it likely will. And the president has ordered the execution of the first one and has told the Central Command Commander Admiral Bradley Cooper be prepared to execute the second one. And this clearly establishes the United States taking domination here over the Iranians who, you know, quite... appallingly took charge of the Straits of the Moons by intimidation and coercion, and we're not going to let that stand. I saw that Senator Tim Sheehe of Montana said that closing the strait when Iran did it was not a power play. It was their only play, he wrote. They have no other options. It's also one that harms China more than it harms the U.S., managing the collapse of a regime. isn't winning no matter how loudly people say it is. So that was his perspective, and there was a long analysis that he was linking to about how this was sort of an act of desperation by the regime to close down the strait, which we're now doing, we're not, we're actually reopening it except if you want to come into or out of Iranian ports. So this is the blockade, really, of Iranian ports. What just, just in simple terms, what is the purpose? What is the objective? that we're trying to achieve with this. And I saw that you called the timing of this blockade exquisite. Why does the timing matter in your mind? And why is it beneficial now? Well, it came in conjunction with the negotiations that are taking place and actually the breakdown of those negotiations. And the United States just stepped up. you know, after a breakdown of negotiations, what's next? Well, we just saw what's next. The United States fully intends to take control of the straits of the moves. I disagree a little bit with the Senator, you know, who have great regard for, and so many for his past military service, but also with service now as a senator. But the Iranian does have military capabilities left. And they have some options here. It remains to be seeing what they're going to do. First of all, they can just stalemate and wait it out, thinking that the United States will be squeezed more economically than they will in their minds now. This is their perception. And that President Trump at some point would back off.

taking control of the straits of the moves because of economic and political pressure. Or number two, they contest it, as I mentioned, and I told you what the response would be there. That would fail. And I think the Iranians would want to avoid the humiliation of... Marines seizing one of their tankers, not necessarily flagged by them, by the tankers shipping their oil, and so vividly stopping them in their tracks. And then the third is they have kinetic retaliation. And that is that they could go after the ports that the other countries provide oil from. So our audience understands in addition to obviously... Iran having fuel ports there. So does Kuwait. So does Iraq. So does Saudi Arabia. So does also the UAE. And Qatar has a huge natural gas field as well. And they are threatening to respond at that. And they do have the capability. There is still just dealing with missiles alone. I'm not even talking about drones. We still have work to be done, so our audience understands. When the operation was stopped at the 38th day of the war, we had accomplished a staggering amount of destruction of Iranian capability. And we listed and heard the Secretary of War and the chairman list some of that out for us to understand how significant it was. But it wasn't complete because we still had close to two weeks. left on the central command side, that is Admiral Bradley Cooper, U.S., and also on the IDF side, to complete the assigned missions. As an example, to illustrate it, there's somewhere in a neighborhood north of 100 launchers that the Iranians have. They've been hiding them, so they can retaliate. and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000-plus ballistic missiles. So that still gives them an opportunity, you know, for some kind of sizable retaliation. The Israelis believe they've been saving this, and some of that would be directed at them, although the Iranians would say, as a result of the straits of the move, something the Israelis are not involved in, they would focus on the Arab states and likely U.S. bases. So there is some capability there where they could fire salvos and do some potential damage. We have huge defensive capability there, believe me. And that defensive capability has been quite successful in only allowing a small penetration less than 10% and in some cases considerably less than that, you know, of those missiles and drones. So that's kind of what the picture looks like. in the straits of the moves unfolding in front of our eyes. In other words, there's some time here that's going to be committed to address both of those issues, the blockade and also...

clearing, securing, and transiting through escorts, ships through the Straits of the Moose. We have about three minutes left here, General. And I just want to ask about oil. I've seen that there's now a pipeline flowing across Saudi Arabia. I know there's tons of oil tankers and vessels coming to and now out of the United States. So sort of like going around that. choke point. I just wonder if you can speak to that strategically and what that means for that region and maybe even for China. And then if the blockade is successful against Iran's ports, wouldn't that squeeze the life out of them sort of economically even more so than they've already experienced? Because I feel like that that's another one of the big internal pressures inside Iran. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. It would be staggering for the Iranians, the blockade itself, and it would have huge economic impact on them. And any length of time, you would start moving that regime towards economic collapse. Not immediately, but it would be on a path towards it. And, you know, one of the things where China is that... China is receiving significant amount of oil for the Persian Gulf and also from Iran. And in a sense, when we've always looked at this, China is essentially financing Iran because the quantity is so large. They're the largest consumer of Iranian oil is indeed China. So this would have, they have a huge strategic reserve that President Xi Jinping has built up in the event he had to go into conflict operations with the United States. Also, maybe a little bit more than our audience was thinking about. If we did get into a war with China, suddenly one of the options the United States has is to shut down oil that's going to China, just, I mean, 100% coming out of the Persian Gulf. We have the means to do that. China would certainly want to retaliate against something like that. But that's certainly one of our plans. And I think it's the reason why they have built up a sizable strategic reserve. But no doubt, this has serious impact on them, also on India, Turkey, and Pakistan, all of which I would imagine would be putting pressure on Iran. Right. To make a serious deal. It's actually a great... those bullet points that Vice President JD Vance relayed that they rejected. It's like, hey, guys, it's time to say yes to these things if you want to survive because now you're causing big problems for us. That's part of this squeeze operation that we're seeing now from the United States. And we just wanted to talk to you about it because obviously this is news that is breaking and it's a new element now. A new phase of this operation. General Jack Keene, retired four-star general here on Guy Benson. Chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, they put out excellent analyses on this conflict and others as well. He's also Fox News, senior strategic analyst. General, thank you so much for your time. Yeah, always great talking to you, Guy, and your audience as well. Thanks a lot. You bet. And again, we're very appreciative. We will step aside and come right back after this very short break.

Great to be with you, Guy. I know this is a topic that you covered extensively, particularly because you're an alumni of Northwestern. Yes, and it was something that I have cared about quite a lot. And there have been, thank goodness, I think some proactive, if belated, changes at Northwestern that I'm at least somewhat optimistic about. But there are deep-seated problems. And I think it's really important to note in the subtitle of this book, Poisoned Kay Ivey's. It is crucial to note it's not just the moral rot. And I'm glad that you've focused on both. The moral rot, I think, has come to the fore and reared its head in a way that I think a lot of people have been repulsed by and maybe shocked at how bad it's gotten. But it's not just like everything is still on the up and up academically while the morality goes down the tubes. There has been a real... downward spiral on the academic prowess at these elite places as well in recent years. Why don't we start there? Well, you're exactly right, Guy, and that's why I, in the subtitle, said the inside account of the academic and moral wrath at America's elite universities. This, of course, is my first book poisoned ivies. It gives a behind-the-scenes look with really blockbuster moments of that hearing, heard, and scene around the world with university presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT, and of course, subsequently with university presidents. of Columbia Northwestern and so many more. And what the American people and really the world saw was that not only did they give a morally bankrupt answer, but academically, it was academically lazy and they trotted out overly-lawyered talking points and verbatim answered the question in the same way. And the question was a very direct one. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university's code of conduct? And they each said essentially it depends on the context. Over a billion people watched that hearing or there was over one billion views. And it led to an earthquake in higher education that we are still in the midst of today. If you consider the Department of Justice lawsuit against Harvard, if you consider some of the changes that were made. But the academic piece is important here. In my book, I delve how we got to this point. I talk about the broken tenure system for professors. I talk about the lack of focus on academic excellence. I talk about the downward spiral when it comes to the core curriculum. at these colleges and universities. I mean, the great inflation, right? The great inflation is a piece of it as well, the lack of connectivity to jobs in the real world of what people study at these schools. And just look at the coursework in some of these Middle Eastern studies programs or in some of the humanities programs in general, where they're focusing on, you know, Taylor Swift lyrics rather than Homer and Virgil and Aristotle and Plato. Those days are long gone in our universities and they fundamentally lost their way. On the moment that you were describing where you asked that simple question and you got that sort of horrifying, embarrassing answer from those university presidents, quite a few of them, by the way, who were dragged up in front of Congress, subsequently lost their jobs or are no longer in those positions. Now, some of that is like, are they just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic type thing, or are they making real changes? Was there a moment when you personally realized, Congresswoman,

how dark things had gotten because, you know, for years, for decades, conservatives had lamented sort of campus nonsense and the activists that dominate these types of places and the faculties are always disproportionately left wing. None of that was new. I feel like post-October 7th. there was maybe a pulling back of the curtain or an uprooting of this sort of this seedy underbelly for everyone to look at and realize, oh my goodness, it is so much worse than we knew. Was there a moment for you where it clicked? Well, you're exactly right, guy. First of all, it was a watershed moment in the higher education reform movement because it was not just a... unveiling the anti-Semitism at these campuses. The anti-Semitism was really the canary in the coal mine for broader, deep-seated rot in these institutions. For me, the moment in the hearing, I mean, I sat through the entirety of the hearing, which went all day. I had gone rounds and rounds of questions, particularly with the Harvard president. It was that final question where I asked, just, you know, very straightforward moral question. And it wasn't even prepared prior to the hearing. I thought they will say yes to this. And I would follow up and ask about disciplinary action. enforcement on those that violated the rules. Turns out I didn't even have to follow up because the answer was so abysmal. But what was... They treated it. Sorry to interrupt, but just a quick observation thinking back on it. They treated the straightforward question that you expected them to answer in the affirmative, thus then triggering additional follow-up questions. They treated that simple moral test like a trick question. Exactly. And you ask an everyday American that question. They know how to answer that question. And that's what I would think about is my constituents know how to answer that question, that yes, it is wrong. It violates the rules. And the fact that the university presidents have arguably at the time, the most prestigious universities in the world morally equivocated and couldn't answer that, something was deeply, deeply wrong. But what was even more eerie and concerning was that was the last question of the hearing. They stood up and they didn't think anything was wrong. It was me. I literally called back to my congressional. office and said hey did you guys see that clip i think that's going to be an important moment in this hearing. And we didn't even put the clip out before it went viral from just the C-SPAN footage. And the interesting thing, Guy, is there was not really media left in the room at that moment because the hearing had gone all day. And it turned out, as I said, to lead to multiple reverberations, multiple resignations, preemptive resignations of other university presidents before they were hauled in because they didn't want to testify to Congress. You've had seismic shifts in terms of matriculation rates, admissions. rate, you've had institutions who are moving in the right direction like Vanderbilt, like University of Florida, like University at Austin, University of Chicago, who are doing things the right way. And people are voting with their feet in their wallets and leaving these elite schools, quote unquote elite, who have been poisoned and going elsewhere. So you're seeing a lot of...

parents making decisions along with their kids to say, you know what, we're actually going to redefine what elite means and what a college experience ought to look like and what we want, which is why you're seeing this southward shift. Exactly. Right, down, down south, out to the Midwest, in the middle of the country, because some of these, especially coastal places have been just awful. Yes. And you can look just at the admissions cycle this past year. Vanderbilt was more competitive than many of the Kay Ivey League colleges for admissions because they have shown strong moral and academic leadership and the other schools have not. And Northwestern, you know, I do a deep dive not only in the Kay Ivey League, but also other elite universities that mishandled this. And Northwestern was really the poster child for these negotiation tactics that the school administrations would go into with the pro-hammed. and campers. They would legitimize these pro Hamas, frankly, criminals and rioters raising them up, entering into negotiations with them. And that unfortunately set the tone for what happened at other universities as well. Yeah, giving them concessions, some of which were arguably illegal. And a lot of the people responsible for that, certainly at the very top, are now gone. But the question is, do you actually reform? and see clearly what needs to be done differently. Before we shift topics, I just want to make sure that when we're talking about this book that comes out tomorrow, Poisoned Kay Ivey's. Obviously, there's a lot. It's like a buffet where you go down. You can gorge yourself on the terrible horror stories and the appalling examples and the abuses and, as you call it, the moral rot. That could be the whole book. But it's not just trying to chronicle what's wrong. It's also trying to give a roadmap to better. And I know that you've done that. You've now name-checked a few of the schools that have gotten it right. When you're thinking about concrete solutions and positive examples, what's the message there? The message there is, first of all, this didn't happen overnight, and we have to be very vigilant and disciplined of digging our way out of this. So number one, you have to use the leverage of U.S. taxpayer dollars to force these schools to abide by the law. Many of these schools did not comply with civil rights protections for Jewish students. They need to do so. That's why these lawsuits and the tool of using taxpayer funding is very important because the schools aren't going to fix themselves. You have to get at the foreign funding issue. Many of these schools where you had signature. significant pro-Hamas encampments also get significant foreign dollars from Qatar. You have the case of communist China giving significant funds to schools. Why are these very wealthy U.S. institutions relying upon foreign dollars that needs to stop, and that's a piece of this as well. You have to reform the tenure program for professors because they're increasingly further and further to the left in the self-selection tenure process. You also have to reform the board structure. Many of these schools, the board members, were woefully... prepared to deal with the fundamental failure of leadership at the university presidents and dean's level of these schools. The board members didn't function like fiduciaries for the universities. That needs to be strengthened in terms of the governance process. And then.

You know, we need to take a good, hard look at focusing on academic excellence, at returning to the founding missions, which are very strong founding missions, particularly in these schools that were part of the founding of our country that predated the Revolutionary War and are focused on American values. These are American institutions, not global institutions propping up anti-American values. And then the examples I go into, I wanted to highlight not just the bad actors, but the good actors as well. What do those schools have in common? They have strong leaders who don't equivocate. They enforce the rules. They focus on academic excellence. They eliminate the DEI regime that has taken over many of these universities. And you have innovative institutions like the University at Austin, which was founded in 2021. That's an example of they have a huge waiting list for applicants at that school focusing on rigor, on critical thinking in the classroom, rather than critical race theory. that leftists are pushing yeah and i think you're right it's not just getting the policies right that's very important but getting the policies right and then demonstrating leadership in enforcing them and not allowing these these bullies to carry on and run the show. Like you need the adults to step up and say the inmates are not running the asylum. Right. We are running this place. These are the rules. And if you don't like it, there will be consequences for you or you can go elsewhere. And the leaders who have actually stuck to that, I think, have done not just themselves. morally a good or great service, but they've done their institutions. And the students a good service. And they've done the students a good service because the, you know, people shouldn't be pursuing these college education for political indoctrination. It should be focused on academic excellence and sort of learning, challenging yourself, learning in the classroom, not protesting, not encampments, not taking them outside of the classroom. Let's turn from this subject matter, Congresswoman, to the state that you hail from, New York, a lot going on there that's been in the news. I want to get some of your reactions after this short break on Guy Benson. In the swamp, not of the swamp. Guy Benson.

We are back. It's Guy Benson. Thank you for being here with us. Still with us, and we're grateful for her time, is Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York. Out with a new book tomorrow, Poisoned Kay Ivey's. Congresswoman, I want to talk about your state, New York. Yes. And the governor of your state, Kathy Hochul, who famously... Four years ago told Republicans like her then opponent Lee Zeldin and his supporters and others like him to get out of town, to move down to Florida where you belong. You're not New Yorkers. She really went off on these people. And many, many New Yorkers have taken her up on that offer and have left. And New York has millions fewer residents than Florida does, for example, but has double the budget that Florida has without the success in... Government services and just basic functionality in government, where Florida is running on a much tighter ship, a tighter budget, and serving its people much better and attracting a lot of incoming movement and mobility, the opposite happening in New York. And Governor Hokel has now famously changed her tune. She just gave an interview a few weeks ago, basically begging people to come back. from places like Florida or at least cut her a check up in New York so they can spend all this money on the generous services that she aspires to. And she's saying, gosh, it's just like, wow, we don't have these people captive in our state anymore because of remote learning and because of remote working. I think that's partially true, but part of it also is just the policies implemented Congresswoman are so deleterious, are so harmful that even if there was not a revolution in, working from home. I think a lot of people were already heading for the exits and that trend would have accelerated. What do you make of the governor kind of asking people to come back and to people to step up and do their patriotic duty and spend a lot of tax dollars back in New York? Well, first of all, they're not coming back. And the reason they're not coming back is we have single party Democrat rule in the state of New York. And they're not leaving guy because of the weather or the work from home. They're leaving because the tax and spend fail policies coupled with the crime crime. and the prioritization of illegals and violent criminals over law-abiding New Yorkers who are hardworking taxpayers. You pointed out the state of Florida, which has a larger population, has a much smaller budget and is run much more effectively. The state of New York has the most mismanaged budget in the entire country. If you look at our Medicaid program, which is a huge percentage of our state's budget, more than the entire budget of the state of Florida, it is ripe with... waste, fraud, and abuse. It is a state that's run into the ground. And you have a governor who is held hostage, frankly, by the socialists who have taken over the New York Democrat Party. And of course, that is encapsulated by the mayor of New York City, which, by the way, relates to the book, Poisoned Ibees, because you don't get a Mayor Zohran Mamdani without what happened at Columbia, literally. And Professor Zohran Mamdani, his father. Of course. I mean, yes. Zohran Mamdani's ideology is literally from the petri dish of the anti-Americanism. and anti-Semitism in higher ed, specifically at Columbia, because he said his parents, you know, were deeply important to his ideological worldview. But then literally the people that organized the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia that led to riots and destruction of property, Mahmood Khalil, for example, who needs to be deported, he literally was one of the key advocates for Zohran Mamdani's campaign. These were the boots on the ground for the socialist takeover in New York City. And then, of course, he was just hosted at Gracie Mansion. So this is related.

to what is happening in the state of New York in New York City and in today's Democrat Party. Yeah, and Zohran Mamdani just announcing recently the city is beyond broke and he is trying to figure out what to do with it because he's realizing, oh gosh, I've got to cut a lot of things, but I've promised all of this new stuff that we can't afford. I did see a New York Post headline today. Cops who stopped Grand Central Station stabber were working OT via program Zohran Mamdani is gutting. It's one headline after another, kind of like that, Congresswoman, in New York City. It is. And it's, again, this is the defund the police, anti-Semitic. tax, you know, increased tax party, which is now the Democrat Party, not just in the state of New York, but frankly nationally guy. So when Kathy Hochul tries to beg people to come back to New York, they're not coming back until the policies change. And New York, unfortunately, is going to continue digging itself into the ground with single party Democrat rule. This book I wrote, it was a three-year process, but this encapsulates so much of what... our next generation of leaders have been exposed to at these universities, and this is why we have to get higher education right and reset the course of that ship. Yeah, and it's not just higher education. It's all the way down in education, I think, is also part of the story. You're focusing specifically on higher education, and you're right. It's not just that this wave... of students and it's like the more quote unquote elite the school in many cases the worst it was they weren't just exposed to this madness they were marinating in it it was suffocating a lot of these campuses for a month after month after month and i think it ruined a lot of people's academic experiences it's poisoning in many ways a generation of leadership in the United States in a way that is not acceptable, should not be tolerable to Americans, which is why I think this book and this subject is really, really important moving forward. It is out tomorrow, the book, Poisoned Kay Ivey's, the inside account of the academic and moral rot at America's elite universities. The author is Congresswoman Elise Tophonic of New York, our guest, who's joining us from our New York headquarters here on Guy Benson. Congresswoman, congratulations on the book. Launch day tomorrow. We'll talk soon. Thank you so much, Guy. Guy Benson is on deck. Mary Catherine Hamm is here on an array of subjects, really looking forward to that interview. Up next. Raise your glass. To Guy Benson Happy Hour. Brought to you by the Finnish Long Drink. Finland's most popular alcoholic beverage is taking America by storm. Visit thelongdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson.

Happy hour time here on Guy Benson on this Monday. Really grateful that you're listening. Guy Benson.com as ever is our website. Podcast is free right there, along with other goodies and content. That's Guy Benson.com. Or if you're looking for the podcast, you can go to foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Catch me tonight on special report. I'll be on the panel. Brett Bayer has an exclusive with the Vice President. We'll be reacting to that and more in the 6 p.m. hour, the next hour on Fox News Channel. This radio hour, sponsored by the Finnish Long Drink. We are fans of it here. Many of you are as well. Always drink responsibly, please, the long drink.com. Email us, GBS at Fox.com. Follow us on social Guy Benson's show. You can follow me as well. Guy Benson. I'll give you one extra reason to do so later on this hour during the home stretch. With us now, Mary Catherine Ham, Fox News contributor, Outkick columnist, co-author of our book together, End of Discussion, at M.K. Hammer on social. Mary Catherine, always good to have you. Hello, glad to be here. I want to talk briefly about... Some nostalgia involving sports. I know that you tweeted about this, and you had written a number of years ago about the tradition at your house, a tradition unlike any other, you might even say, about you watching the Masters with your dad specifically. I'm not a big golf guy. I did watch some of the Masters. I see Rory won it again, an incredible feat for him. But I know that that event has a special meaning and place in your household. My dad grew up in Augusta, Georgia, in part. He was a military brat, so he was all over. But Augusta Georgia and South Georgia was kind of home. We have a five-generation old pimento cheese recipe in my family. He grew up really close to Augusta National, obviously a different income sector than the Augusta National frequenters. But he was nearby because it is like sort of a middle class and lower middle class neighborhood near there or was back then. So you could actually hear cheering from over there. So it was always very special to him. Golf lore was very special in my house. We would learn about all the old golfers and all the things they had done. And I found it so peaceful to watch in the spring with my dad. Now, weirdly, again, I'm not a golfer because when I had the time to golf before kids, I didn't have any money. And now that I have more money to golf, I have no time because I have all these kids. And I'm running out of money. So I've never put together a period of my life where I could play golf, but I love watching it, and particularly the Masters, because it reminds me of Georgia, reminds me of home, sweet tea and some pimento cheese and a breeze coming in the window and my dad cutting the grass outside. And it's just a really special right of spring. So a couple things here. Your love of pimento cheese is something that I was introduced to years ago. I did not recognize that the origin of that was the Masters and that nostalgia. Is that basically what I was missing? Yeah, I mean, like, every Southern family just loves pimento cheese, period. But yes, it has an added layer for us. Because they have, what, the cheese sandwiches, pimento cheese sandwiches on, I think white bread is what they're famous for at the Masters? Yes. Have you been to one? Have you been to the Masters? I have never been to the Masters. It is on my bucket list.

Yeah. Can we, like, shamelessly beg someone who might be listening right now with a hookup to reach out to us? We could do that if we were that type of people, you know? Yeah, let's not do that. Let's not say that the website here, Guy Benson.com, offers various ways of getting in touch, including GBS at fox.com, our email address, that's GBS at fox.com. You can also send perhaps a DM on social media at Guy Benson or at Guy Benson or at M.K. Hammer. That's what we would say if we were more shameless. classic so we're not going to do that we would we would just say it's no small thing to make a dream come true you know it's a big deal if i were to say something about it well because you you famously also once did this in column 100 did right because you had never been to a duke unc basketball game you said you know what screw this i'm writing a column about it hopefully someone will see the column and you kind of just Put it out there. Please get in contact with me. And someone did make your dream come true. And you've never lost sight of that moment, have you? No, it's so wonderful. A former Duke player, actually, read the piece and was like, you should come with us. And I made friends with this group of folks who went to Duke in the late 70s and early 80s. And I sent them, have remained friends with them, and in fact have run the Hood to Coast relay in Oregon with several of them many times now. So hang on, Mary Catherine, are you telling me that if someone in this audience were to help make our dream come true at the masters at some point in the near future, there's a chance that person would remain lifelong friends with at least one of us? I mean, it works the first time. That's all I'm saying. Very good. One more thing I want to say about this is, as I'm not a huge golf person, but I appreciate the tradition and the culture and all of it. What I especially love about the masters, and I know that this is not an original thought. Many people have made this observation. I'm just going to add a plus one to this. I love the televised coverage and the photos out of Augusta. They confiscate everyone's phone. And people are just living in the moment, watching what is happening with their own two eyes without the screens out. And for example, and I'll talk more about our trip to Scotland in the home stretch later on this hour, but there's a tradition at this castle where they fire a cannon. at one o'clock in the afternoon, and the crowd really gathers, and there were several hundred people there, and we were among them. And I looked around as the moment was arriving, and I would say 90% of people just had their phones out filming the exact same thing together. I made it a point not to do it just because I'm trying to be better about it. They enforce it at the masters. And so the crowd reaction shots are not a bunch of people looking up at their phone to make sure they're getting it in frame properly. It's people emoting and reacting the way that humans did for all of history and it's i miss it yeah and those kinds of events are going to i think the pendulum is swinging a bit but the reason that the masters continues to matter is partly because it embraces that old style of just living you you go to augustin national you experience it and you do not spend your day in your phone and it's a beautiful thing and it used to be like we used to do all of life like that crazy i know imagine that

One related thing, I'm not sure if you saw this. Were you, when you grew up, I know you're a huge sports fan we both are. Did you watch, as many sports fans of our relative age demographic did, watch fairly regularly SportsCenter on ESPN? Yes, I did. So Rich Eisen, who was for years one of the anchors in the glory days of SportsCenter, he is now back at ESPN, and he hosted, I believe, last evening. For the first time in decades, he... was at the helm of SportsCenter, which used to be a huge deal. I know they still have some personalities that come out of it. I really like Scott Van Pelt, but they did because Rich Eisen was back. They did a throwback episode with the desk, with the graphics, with the music, with the whole intro sort of montage leading up to the hello. And I'm not sure if you've seen the clip, Mary Catherine, but I almost got goosebumps watching it on social last night. Talk about nostalgia and sports. Cut 42. Time to bust off the wuppet stick with sports ever next.

Who says you can't go home again? 23 years after the last time I was fortunate to say this from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. Welcome to Sports Center. I am Rich Eisen. Oh, just the saxophone music, the whole thing, Mary Catherine, and I was one of many commenters saying, please just bring this show back in this form. It will take off again. Is that just me being of a certain age and looking back and wanting... sentimentality and something that's familiar or was there something to the format that they've modernized in a way that's actually not helpful well that that's the question right is that do i want to sit down in a pizza hut because the product is good or do i want to sit into the pizza hut because i did when i was eight uh i think the product actually was fun and good it was as with sports center and it feels so much more fragmented now and uh and we don't have those experiences that we do together anymore, which is part of what SportsCenter was. That was the only place you were seeing highlights. That's why we all did it together. And so I think some of that can't be recaptured as illustrated by the fact that I definitely would only see that clip on the internet and not watching TV. I think that's probably true, but might I be more inclined to watch SportsCenter if it were like that? Maybe chicken and an egg. But on shared culture, shared moments, togetherness, we did get another... Really delightful morsel of that late Friday over the weekend, Artemis II, the splashdown. What a moment, what an achievement, what unity. I could go on, but let's take a break and get your reaction, Mary Catherine Hamm, as soon as we come back. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson.

on Guy Benson. It's the happy hour. Mary Catherine Hem is our guest. Right before the break, I mentioned Artemis II and the return of that crew to Earth over the weekend. That moment that many millions were watching all across the world. And I saw almost universal cell. There were a few sad, sad people who will find reasons to be upset about literally anything. But overall, this was just this warm, positive experience, especially among... Americans of all ages and political backgrounds. And it just felt like something that was celebratory and impressive and incredible and somehow just shorn of politics and ideology and influencers and stupid nonsense. Did you get that distilled feeling of something that we've lost maybe back with Artemis II? Yes, it felt really good, and it felt really good partly because I think the four crew members seem like genuinely amazing, good people. Totally. And it's nice to watch amazing, obviously good people who have worked really hard, come together as a team and accomplish something and be rewarded so richly for it in attention because the attention economy often gives attention to people who do not deserve it and who don't have any of those characteristics. And so to see success paired. So obviously with people who deserve it and who don't turn it into their own personal platform, who don't turn it into an attack on anyone else, it was just lovely. What they often turned it into was just a reflection on humanity and life and death and their face. And it was really beautiful. And there's also just the sheer scope of the achievement and the courage and the scientific feat of pulling that off. It is, again, this isn't someone just like golf. It's not something that I am personally very passionate about in a way that many, many, many others are, space stuff or golf. But in the moment, in this important form, It was very much stirring to me. And we've actually played a little bit of this guy on the show before, one of the astronauts, Victor Glover. What a man. He was welcomed home in his neighborhood to cheers and applause from his literal neighbors. And so many people gathered to welcome him home. And he had this little imprompt to hello and some words of wisdom to the gathered crowd outside his home. Here is what he said, cut 31. Some of us have never met before. And you know whose fault that is? Ours. So let's choose to do this. Let's be this more. Let's be neighbors. I don't know if you heard me say it. But God told us to love him with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves. That's right. Mary Catherine, I can barely summon the words. to capture the admiration that I have for this guy in particular, who's been put on the spot on a few occasions, on faith, on identity, on community, and he's just not put one foot out of place, and that is remarkable.

No, he has a real knack for being the public face of this, and all of them have been great. But he in particular has been very moving. And I think it's because he is not embracing, like I said, his personal agenda or political agenda or any of this. It's just it's about humanity and it's about his faith. And it's about his family often, too. And I also want to commend Reed Wiseman, who I believe lost his spouse, you know, a couple years ago and then did this amazing accomplishment. He raised his two daughters. He overcame grief. Like these are... Truly impressive people. And I think this moment gives me a feeling of what it must have been like to watch the Mercury 7, the original astronauts come up. It's sort of like. level of celebrity, level of poise and expertise and true heroism that you don't get to see in a lot of places. I mean, making it to the moon as a very small group of people and the people who had the gumption to try to pull it off. It's just very impressive and it's fun to be exposed to it in any way. And then given the accomplishment and given these viral clips. Victor Glover, I would love to be his speaking agent because that man is going to get paid for a very long time because people are going to want to hear him talk in longer formats. I guarantee you that. I did see Mary Catherine that there were a few big left-wing accounts that were trying to make a political point out of this mission. And they noted that one of the pilots, Victor Glover, is black. And one of the other astronauts is Christina Hammond, a woman. And they're saying, see, this is an achievement of DEI, like deal with that MAGA, sort of trying to dunk on conservatives who have been critical of DEI, saying this is a success story of DEI. And I think a lot of people then push back saying, no, actually, DEI and the problem that people have with DEI is the replacement of. credentials and worthiness and experience with other considerations that does not apply to Mr. Glover or Ms. Hammond. No, it does not. It does not. And particularly with his, like, I don't know, record number of hours in a record number of aircraft as a test pilot over the years. I mean, he's just, like, beyond. And so the ability to embrace that in whatever person it comes in is a beautiful thing. As I've always talked about in the past, the great thing about being conservative is you can have some uncomplicated thoughts about things like this. Like, that's awesome. I don't care what the guy looks like. That's awesome. We have had the privilege, Mary Catherine, of getting to know a little bit, Senator Ben Sass, who's dying of cancer. I was immensely grateful to have been invited a few weeks ago to a dinner where he was present for a while, and I got to give him a hug, and that's something that I'll really treasure for a long time. He's still ticking, thank God, and he is still talking, thank God. And he's giving interviews, and he's writing, and he's thinking about the process of dying and looking back on life and things that he's learned and things that he regrets. And I know some of his big regrets were not spending even more time with his family.

spending too much time on the road, not taking Sundays the Sabbath completely off, and I think there's a lot to be learned. and gleaned from some of those lessons. I'm just blown away by the good cheer, the humor, the dignity with which this man is going through really a horrible ordeal, but it's like he's teaching all of us, not just something, but several things, really importantly and movingly, in his last chapter of life. And I'm just wondering, as you're watching this as I am, sort of from the sidelines, what you make of it. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing to watch him. Mortality is universal and universally rough to deal with, having had my own run-ins with it myself, and it's hard to talk about. Sometimes people are very uncomfortable talking about it. He is by virtue of talking about it and talking about his faith in Jesus as his guiding light during this process. I think it's probably opening a lot of hearts and minds to a testimony that is so... strong and so good-humored and so connected to his family. By the way, I want to also be thankful to his family for being generous with his time in this time. Yes. Because in order to reach other people, he is taking time away from them to do interviews and stuff. And I think they probably see it as a bigger picture thing just as he does. And it's been very moving to watch him. And I feel lucky to have known him while he's here. Well, he even launched a podcast with some gallows humor entitled Not Dead Yet, I believe is the name of the podcast. And then I saw he's still clapping back in very amusing ways at his haters who still exist. Because you have some people way out on the left saying, oh, just because the guy's dying doesn't mean we should forget that he's a horrible human being who voted the terrible ways. So one of those tweets was out there. And he quote tweeted it. He just responded on next saying, love your passion, which is just like it's a throwback. is totally him as well. And his skin is literally deteriorating. And yet he is completely comfortable in it because of what's inside his heart. And it is just an amazing, inspiring thing to watch. And if on the off chance that he is listening to this show, non-zero chance, but slim, but non-zero. We will just say... publicly what we also say privately. We love this guy, and we are wishing him the very best and praying for him and for his family. Mary Catherine Hamm, a rather sentimental, emotional, nostalgic happy hour here in this interview that we've done. We always appreciate it. Thank you so much for making some time. Thank you, having me. Appreciate it. We'll take a break and come back with more on the other side.

Talking about the issues you care about. Guy Benson. Earlier in the show today, General Jack Kean retired four-star general, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and Fox News, senior strategic analysts on the very latest out of Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. strategic moves in the last 24 hours. Here's part of that conversation with General Keene. What just in simple terms, what is the purpose? What is the objective? that we're trying to achieve with this. And I saw that you called the timing of this blockade exquisite. Why does the timing matter in your mind? And why is it beneficial now? Well, it came in conjunction with the negotiations that are taking place and actually the breakdown of those negotiations. And the United States just stepped up. you know, after a breakdown of negotiations, what's next? Well, we just saw what's next. The United States fully intends to take control of the straits of the moves. I disagree a little bit with the senator, you know, who have great regard for, and shown me for his past military service, but also with service now as a senator. But the Iranian does have military capabilities left. And they have some options here. It remains to be seeing what they're going to do. First of all, they can just stalemate and wait it out, thinking that the United States will be squeezed more economically than they will in their minds now. This is their perception. And that President Trump at some point would back off. taking control of the straits of the moves because of economic and political pressure. Or number two, they contest it, as I mentioned, and I told you what the response would be there. That would fail. And I think the Iranians would want to avoid the humiliation of... Marines seizing one of their tankers, not necessarily flagged by them, by the tankers shipping their oil, and so vividly stopping them in their tracks. And then the third is they have kinetic retaliation, and that is that they could go after the ports that the other countries providing oil from. So our audience understands, in addition to obviously... Iran having fuel ports there. So does Kuwait. So does Iraq. So does Saudi Arabia. So does also the UAE. And Qatar has a huge natural gas field as well. And they are threatening to respond at that. And they do have the capability. There is still just dealing with missiles alone. I'm not even talking about drones. We still have work to be done, so our audience understands. When the operation was stopped at the 38th day of the war, we had accomplished a staggering amount of destruction of Iranian capability. And we listed and heard the Secretary of War and the chairman list some of that out for us to understand how significant it was. But it wasn't complete because we still had close to two weeks.

left on the central command side, that is Admiral Bradley Cooper, U.S., and also on the IDF side, to complete the assigned missions. As an example that to illustrate it, there's somewhere in the neighborhood north of 100 launchers that the Iranians have. They've been hiding them. So they can retaliate. And somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand plus ballistic missiles. So that still gives them an opportunity, you know, for some kind of sizable retaliation. The Israelis believe they've been saving this. And some of that would be directed at them, although the Iranians would say as a result of the straits of the move, something of Israelis are not involved in. My full interview with retired four-star general Jack Keene, available online at Guy Benson.com. Part of the free podcast every day on demand, no charge at all, Guy Benson's show.com, Fox Newspodcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back to the home stretch, a chance encounter on the street. on the other side of the ocean, still has me buzzing. I can't believe it. I'll tell you this story coming up. America is listening to Guy Benson.

And now it's time for your favorite segment of the day. Home Stretch. It's basically the only segment I'm on, so I've declared it the audience's favorite segment. Guy Benson. Home Stretch on Guy Benson on this Monday, back from a trip. You know that I was over. across the pond early last week in London doing the show from London in the UK, Monday and Tuesday. Then I had an event in the UK on Wednesday, then took the train up to Edinburgh, Scotland, Thursday. And I was there through the long weekend, got back yesterday. And the purpose of the back end of the trip was to celebrate the 40th birthday of my cousin, Chris. I've been very close with Chris for a long time. We've traveled the world together. In fact, during my quasi toast to him, I think that we've hit four continents together over the course of our friendship. And he actually used to live here at the house with us for a couple of years when we first moved in, lived up on the third floor. Really great guy. And so this was something that was planned in his honor months ago. and Adam and I were very excited to head over to Scotland. I'd been there once before about a decade ago, just after Brexit, actually. So it'd been a while, and we just had a really, really fun time. And the reason I mentioned that is not just to give a tip of the cap to Chris ahead of his 40th birthday and all the celebrations, but the theme of this celebratory weekend. was based around a TV show called The Traders, which I have mentioned, I think, once in passing before. It's on Peacock. It actually started as a British show, if I'm not mistaken. And it's also now been taken up here in the United States. It is quite popular. And it's one of these competition slash reality shows. I was recommended the traders by a few different people. I never really got around to watching it until I got the invitation for this weekend, which we were told was going to be at least somewhat traders themed. So I decided to do a little bit of research to prepare myself to at least have the gist of what we were getting ourselves into. And then I kind of got hooked on the show. And I have binge watched some pieces of it, both of the UK version and the American version. And basically the best way I can describe it briefly is did you ever at sleepaway camp play a game called Mafia? It's like a classic camp game where you're in your cabin, maybe two cabins, maybe there's 20 kids, and everyone goes to sleep at night and you cover your face and you look down and the counselors would assign. The mafia members and the police, and everyone else is just the innocent townspeople. And then everyone wakes up. The mafia people have looked up and silently chosen pointing in agreement at who they want to, quote, unquote, murder at night. You wake up, the counselor says, so-and-so is killed, and then the discussion begins, and there's allegations. Who do you think the mafia members are? The police can then confer. It's just a camp game that I used to play.

If you know what I'm talking about. then the traders will make more sense to you. If not, then you're probably doubly lost, and I apologize. The way that the show works is there are 20 or so contestants at the beginning. They convene in a castle, in Scotland, this very elaborate castle up in the Highlands. And there are a small handful of these people who are selected by the producers and therefore by the host as traitors. They convene in the castle turret every night and decide who they're going to murder. So someone does not wake up the next day as far as the game is concerned. And that murder is revealed to everyone else. Everyone who's not a traitor is called the faithful. So that's the faithful versus the traders. And then over the course of the day, they do some sort of competition game, usually quite elaborate where they're trying to bank a lot of money into a prize pot that someone wins at the very end of the game in episode 10 or 12 or whatever it is. And while the traitors meet at night to murder, everyone meets in the early evening to banish someone that they decide they think is one of the traders. And they give their evidence and it sometimes gets very heated. It's often quite ridiculous and they dress in these elaborate outfits and all of that. But that's the roundtable where the accusations and defenses and banishments occur. And so... We were convening this group of friends in Scotland, not at a castle, not in the Highlands, but close enough. And there was one major event that was planned. There were a few different things on the itinerary, a tour of a castle. There was a hike at a mountain. There were a few different bar nights and pub crawls and all that sort of thing. But the main event was Friday night a dinner for Chris for his birthday, which was in a private room at this ornate, elaborate, beautiful old restaurant. which had a round table with candelabras and chandeliers and flowing booze and four courses. It was really, really nice. And we all dressed up to the nines sort of in the theme of the traders. So I had a big lapel pen that I bought. which was like a Scottish sword with a lion on it. I wore that on my lapel. I also bought, I have to say, some very striking tartan trousers going with the whole Scottish theme. So that was my contribution to the dressing up extravaganza. And over the course of the meal, we at some point held a fake roundtable to basically banish Chris.

Not him, but his youth. We're banishing his youth from the game. And this was an opportunity to go around, and when they do the banishments and they do their votes at the roundtable in the show, you scrawl the person's name that you're voting for on a little chalkboard, then you reveal who that person is. Chris, I'm voting for you. You give your reasons why. Often they misspell. the person's name that they're throwing out for some reason the contestants seem to be terrible at spelling on this show so we all went out of our way to misspell chris's name in hilarious different ways and almost all of us voted to banish chris's youth and these little mini speeches about why justifying our votes turned into tributes toasts roasts of chris which was very very fun earlier that day That's the backdrop to what I tease before the break. Earlier that day, and I should note that in the UK version of the show, there's a woman who I guess is very famous over there, Claudia something, who's the host. For the American version, again on Peacock, it's actor Alan Cumming, whose work I was somewhat familiar with, he's fairly famous, he's Scottish, so it makes sense. Scottish guy at the Scottish castle, very flamboyant in his sartorial choices. And his outfits are really something on that show. He's got a great accent. He's a good, inspired choice to host the show. And here we are on this traders-themed long weekend for this milestone birthday, and we had been with a few of our friends, including our buddy John here in D.C., getting a bite to eat, doing a few things, walking around. And then I've been recommended this sort of off-the-beaten path Schwarma store, like some Middle Eastern fast food, basically, to grab a quick wrap to go. So Adam and I were going to go and walk a bit out of our way to go get that because someone had recommended it to us. And we asked our friend John, do you want to come with us? He said, you know what? No, you go your own way. I'll see you later at dinner. So we are walking, Adam and I, to this little hole in the wall. And I'm not paying that much attention. I'm actually on hyper alert about crossing the street because they drive on the wrong side over there. So I'm always paranoid. No matter how often I go there, I'm always like looking both ways, very reticent to step out off the curb if there's not a green pedestrian sign. But Adam has his head on a swivel. And all of a sudden, he starts hitting me on the side and whispering loudly. That's Alan. That's Alan. I look up, I turn around, sure enough, Alan coming, the host of the traders, is walking right past us with two friends in the other direction on the sidewalk. And it took me a second to really register, oh yes, that is truly him. And I was just blown away.

Like, what are the chances of this? And he might live in Edinburgh. As I mentioned, he's Scottish. Maybe he was staying in Edinburgh on his way up to film a new season. I have no idea what his social and professional calendar looks like. But to be on that sidewalk and cross that person on that weekend when we were gathered there for that themed birthday, it just, I couldn't believe it. But I thought to myself quickly, yes or no, do I go and ask for a selfie? And I decided I would regret it too much if I didn't do it. So we like heel turn started walking back in his direction. As I mentioned, he had two friends with him. And I called out Alan and he didn't turn. Maybe he heard me. Maybe he didn't. Then I called out again and he did turn. And I said, I'm so sorry. Can we possibly get a photo? And here's what I'm going to tell you about Alan coming. This man is a celebrity. He is famous. He gets asked for photos all the time, I'm sure. He was exactly flawless in his execution. He has a plan for this. He has a system clearly. He was not overly warm or effusive, but he was not nasty or dismissive. He said, yes, he said quickly because he wanted to get on with his day. And also, once you stop and start taking selfies, people start to maybe look, who are they taking a photo with? Oh, my God, it's Alan coming. And then it kind of spirals, right? Or cascades. He didn't want that. So quickly, he said, I'll take it on one of your phones. So he grabbed my phone. One shot, done, handed it back. Thank you so much. And we were. off in our separate directions. The entire encounter may have taken 15 seconds. I give him full marks. Because people were like, oh, did you tell him about the birthday weekend? Did you invite him to come to the dinner? I said, we did not want to impose any more than we already were. He was very cool about it, very quick. Again, 10 out of 10, I would say, in terms of the system that he has and his implementation. He executed perfectly. We then, with no context, sent this photo that we had just, that he had just taken, Alan Cumming of the three of us, to the group chat where all of us were present over the course of this weekend, and people's heads were exploding. They just couldn't believe that this had happened. So this just added a delicious, traitorous wrinkle to the weekend. Very quickly as a post script. Our friend John was kicking himself hard. He said, I will never regret not saying yes to a Schwarma this much ever for the rest of my life. So the next night, late, we'd been out, we'd been having dinner and drinks and that sort of thing. And we asked John, hey, some of us are getting a nightcap over at this other hotel at the bar. Do you want to come with us? And he decided, you know what, I'm closer to my hotel, I'm going to pass. And there was a bridge, a very famous bridge between his hotel and our hotel.

Adam and I are walking across the bridge, having just said goodbye to John, back to our hotel to meet the rest of the group for one last drink, and walking towards us with his little dog in a very traitor's style hat, actually, was yet again, Alan coming. We did not say anything. We did not talk to him. We didn't ask for another photo. The first one was great. But we immediately called John. It's like, you keep making the wrong choice, man. You could have seen Alan coming twice. You're O for two. And it just became this legendary weekend because of these chance encounters that I'm still not over. I think it's so cool. If you want to see the photo, I posted a bunch of picks from the long weekend in Edinburgh. You can check them out. They are posted on my Instagram, Guy Benson. And so the rest of you can discuss this amongst yourselves until we're back here tomorrow at the same time and the same place. I will encourage you to do so. In fact, as my parting words, I will offer you this. Players, the floor is yours. Guy Benson's show. Back on Tuesday, we'll talk to you then.

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