← The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
Is it a “hinge moment” for Iran and the Middle East?
01:14:37
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- [00:00]
Hugh Hewitt
Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things hillsdale@ hillsdale.edu. i encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, a listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them@q4hillsdale.com or just Google, Apple, itunes and Hillsdale Morning Glory and Evening Grace in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt in the relief actor Studio West. Earlier today, President Trump posted on Truth Social and I want to read it to you before we get to our guest, Aviv Reddy Gore. Iranian patriots now all in caps. Keep protesting. Take over your institutions. 3 exclamation points. Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. All in caps. And then all in cap help is on its way, period. Miga, miga make IRAN Great again. Three exclamation point President Donald J. Trump that posted at 9:43am East Coast Time. I'm joined now by Aviv Ratigore. We is a senior analyst for the Times of Israel. He's also podcaster. The Ask Haviv Anything podcast comes in long form and in short form. I listened to today's on the two intifadas which gave me names and dates that I didn't know. Haviv, happy New Year to you. Welcome back.
- [01:19]
Aviv Radegur
Thank you, Hugh. Good to be here. And also just the Free Press. I'm also with the Free Press. As a Middle east analyst, I've always.
- [01:25]
Hugh Hewitt
Got to say that to you. Times of Israel, the Free Press. And then we need to tell people you're also on Patreon, which is the only Patreon I belong to because it's the only one I get real value. I subscribe to the Free Press, but I get real value from your Patreon. How do people find that Just Patreon and haviv ready Gore?
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Aviv Radegur
Yeah, or Ask Haviv anything on Patreon. Thanks so much for the plug. I really appreciate it.
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Hugh Hewitt
Well, it's only five bucks a month and it's really very much worth it. Like Dan Senor's special edition as well. I've gone into into funnels, silos for my news to go deep. Havi, before I go any further, what do you make of what I think is a hinge moment in Iran, especially in light of what President Trump posted this morning?
- [02:09]
Aviv Radegur
At this very moment there are reports that phone lines can now call out of Iran. Again, some of the some of the digital blackout is appears to be lifting or was Broken, or maybe hackers did it, we don't quite know. There was a news from CBS News that they got initial reports that the, the reports about 12,000 dead in the last just two, three days that Iran International ran, it might be much higher than that. People in Iran are talking about something very big, very dramatic. These are, you know, early days. We don't have a lot of information, a whole country taken off the Internet. But the regime crackdown has gotten lethal. The president, regime itself has admitted 2000 dead. So everything is escalating. All the gloves are off. The regime is terrified. And into that, into that context that, those signals that we can get out of Iran. President Trump's statement probably echoes very, very loudly what he said on your podcast, what was it three days ago, where he just said, you know, they know that a lot, that they're going to pay a price. And he urged people to take the names of officers and officials involved in the repression. That's actually really fascinating because we've already seen that, you know, there was this, what they called a Tiananmen Square moment where one protester was, was sitting down on the street in front of the police trying to clear out the protests, and that protester would go on to get beaten by those cops. And what's really fascinating is within a few hours, the names of the, of the agents of the regime who beat the protester were publicized on Iranian Internet. And so it's a new day. It's a new moment. Iranians are no longer willing to play the regime's game in huge, huge numbers. We don't yet know how it's going to go. It's important to say 20% of this country is deeply Islamist and believes in the regime's ideology and will die for the regime. We, not literally 20% of the population will die, but 20% of the population will fight. And the entire Basij militia is hundreds of thousands of people with many more who could volunteer. So it's, it's almost a kind of mini civil war when you have a revolution against this regime. But nevertheless, it has never gone this far. And the rage and the lack of any willingness to tolerate the regime pretending like everything's okay or can never go back to normal. That's all new. And so it is a. It is a new moment. It could fail, but it's never gone this far before.
- [04:37]
Hugh Hewitt
So Aviv, I had done an entire outline because we scheduled this six weeks, two months in advance to get a hold of Avivi's in demand everywhere in the world. And so I'M happy to talk to him every month or so. And we had scheduled this weeks ago, and I have a whole long list of questions are going to get pushed to the back about the Haridam and the legal. Legal reform and the elections. That's next time. This just came up. Not long ago you had Barry Strauss on your program. He wrote the new book last year, Jews versus Rome. Fascinating book. I had listened to it on tape. After I listened to your interview, I went back and bought it because the names are hard to get when you're listening. I mean, I know Pompey the Great and I get Tiberius, and I know this proconsul and Cestius and all these very things. But I need to get the chronology in black and white. So I really want to kind of do the same thing with you throughout that book, which is the history of the great revolt 66 AD to 70, and of the Diaspora revolt and of the Bar Koba revolt in about 130ad. I want to go back then because Iran is all through that book under the name of Parthia. And so Iran, modern day Iran, was part of ancient Parthian Empire, the only empire that kind of got to a standoff with Rome prior to the revolution in 1979. How did Israel and Iran get along?
- [06:03]
Aviv Radegur
They were quite good friends. They. They were. I don't want to exaggerate it, they weren't, you know, bosom buddies, but they had a real relationship, an alliance. They shared enemies. And sharing enemies is a very powerful incentive in the Middle east to be close. And more than that, the Iran of the Shah, okay, the Shah had a repressive regime. It was a deeply problematic regime. It killed people. It was nothing compared to what the Ayatollahs would go on and build after the revolution to topple the Shah. But nevertheless, the Shah was not a democrat. But the Iran of the Shah was a modern country. It was a country where women walked around in, you know, with their hair out and. And universities were real universities. And one of the tragedies of the last 47 years of Ayatollah's rule, and there are many tragedies. Iran is a gutted country. It's an economy in ruins. It doesn't have electricity. It doesn't have, you know, it's one of the wealthiest in terms of hydrocarbon reserves, countries on Earth. And people live with less electricity than in most of much of the Third World. I mean, it's just, it's. It's a country that has been demolished by this regime. And the Iran before This regime of the Shah was a country that was modernizing with modern universities and modern, you know, a modern economy and was looking for ways to have investment and development. Incidentally, last time you interviewed President Trump, President Trump noted that he had had friends back in the 70s who were real estate developers in New York who were looking at Iran to build and had built buildings in Iran. And investing in Iran was a smart move because of those hydrocarbon reserves, because it was an economy that could have turned the place into, you know, some mix of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. There's nothing preventing that from happening, except that the Islamist section of Iran, of Iranian society, took over the country and ruined it. Israel saw a friend. Israel saw a modern nation. And Israel saw basically just the modern commercial world that everybody wants to live in. In other words, a world that's not taken over by crazy ideologues demolishing their own country just to. Just to retain power. So Iran was that. It was a friend. It was what the Middle east should always have been and would have been, but for some very bad ideology.
- [08:24]
Hugh Hewitt
When you say it could have been a mix of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, I think it could have been another Israel because they had the wealth and they had the university and a tremendous base in 1979 of an educated elite who could have been at the vanguard of the technology revolution of the last 50 years. Instead, they went backwards. And you're probably not old enough to remember this, but I remember it well. In 1979, I was working for then exiled President Nixon in San Clemente and Ray Price and I. And he would sit on a couch and watch this. And the whole world thought Khomeini was going to be a good force. Did the Israelis get tricked by that, too? The whole world, Not Nixon. Nixon said this is a disaster. But did Israel think Khomeini would bring anything better than the Shah?
- [09:10]
Aviv Radegur
I can't speak for every analyst, and, you know, it's a big country with a lot of people who have very strong views and not necessarily a lot of knowledge. So, you know, speaking as a media pundit, right. No, for Israel, this was a disaster. And it was very clearly a disaster. And in fact, Khamenei made a point of building his coalition with the communists and building his coalition with the Third World, as we might call them today, with all of these anti Western powers that were secular, that were progressive in Iran. I'm not speaking now about college campuses in America. I'm talking about, you know, Iran in the 70s. He actually built his coalition that was able to topple the shah with these other powers. One of the main things they shared of all the topics on earth, they didn't agree on religion. They didn't agree on the economy. They didn't agree on who should actually run the place after the revolution. They all agreed that the Jews of Israel were an evil crime against history and had to be removed, whether for progressive secular reasons or for Islamic reasons.
- [10:09]
Hugh Hewitt
Stand by, America. I gotta take a break and go off air. I'll be right back after the break. You're listening to the Hugh Hewitt show on the Salem Radio Network. Watching it on the Salem News Channel. And this will be part of the podcast today as well. Don't go anywhere. Stay tuned. Aviv Radegur can be followed on X at Aviv Retiguor. He is with the Free Press. He is with senior analysts at the Times of Israel. His Patreon Ask Haviv anything. Stay tuned to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. My guest is Aviv Ratted Gore. You can find Ask Aviv anywhere. Ask Habib anything anywhere on the podcast world. Ask Aviv anything. Havib. The reason I brought up in the first segment, Barry Strauss, is it seems to me that an ancient civilization like Persia, which was part of the Parthian Empire, has beneath it, just beneath the surface of this Islamist radicalism, extremism, another civilization used to study history. Israel's an ancient civilization. Do they lay dormant forever? Or is there reason to give hope that maybe the 80% of Iranians who want to connect with their Persian roots can overwhelm the regime?
- [11:28]
Aviv Radegur
This is an extraordinary nation, and it has faced really a gutting kind of brain drain. Probably hundreds of thousands, I mean, hundreds of thousands of scholars and scientists and mathematicians are contributing to every country in the world except Iran because they can't do their work. And Iran under this region, it is an extraordinary civilization. It is ancient. It has. But one of the, one of the cynical elements is that every time there's a protest, every time there's one of these, you know, uprisings against the regime and it feels a little threatened, it starts to talk about Persian history, about the Persian civilization, about the great ancient Iranian people. And as soon as everything stabilizes, this is something that Royan, an Iranian American writer, said beautifully, as soon as the regime stabilizes, it goes back to being Islamist and in part having this ideology of erasing that Iranian past in favor of this puritanical Islam. So there is absolutely a cultural contest, a culture war, but a deeper sense, not culture war. You know, Republicans, Democrats, like an ordinary Western culture war. In a democracy, there's a culture war between the two cultures of Iran. The Islamic version, you know, pushed by Khamenei, not sort of a peaceful, ordinary Islam, but this militant, revolutionary on the march, demolishing countries version and everything that Iran and Persia. And you mentioned Aparthia, as you said, all this ancient story of this ancient storied people are extraordinarily talented and extraordinarily wise, I should say. Persian Jews led Iran in the vast, vast majority. Less than 20% remains in the country and they're under constant regime surveillance. And they can't leave the country without forfeiting their every last asset. And even then, 80% chose to leave. And they are a huge power, you know, strong, wealthy, successful community, both in Israel, in California, anywhere where they step. So, yeah, this, this is an absolutely extra. You start measuring, finding metrics of achievement of Iranians. It's amazing. And their country is totally gutted and their economy looks like. You know, I don't know what the bottom billion of this world. I mean, you know, the failures of the UN Human Development Report, and there's no reason for it except this regime. By the way.
- [13:56]
Hugh Hewitt
Go ahead, go ahead. Aviv, you were going to say, by the way.
- [14:04]
Aviv Radegur
In that sense, where you had one of the wealthiest countries of South America, successful, democratic, and then a bad ideology takes over and a third of the country turns into refugees and people can't eat. And that's the story. That's the story of this regime. People should look up the literal water shortages that have gutted Iranian agriculture. They should look up, you know, the scale of the hydrocarbon reserves. They should look up the incompetence, the 12 day war, you know, with President Trump's decision to help the Israelis with Midnight Hammer, because he has said for literally two decades, Iran can't get a bomb. All of that stuff is what everyone's talked about. But just for a second, let's take a step back and just look at Iran. This regime for 47 years has told its people they need to sit quiet and suffer because the regime is doing some great important thing for Islam. What is that great important thing? Preparing the destruction of Zionism. And never mind if that's a good or bad thing. I happen to like my people in my country and my nation and my children. But even if you don't like my people, 47 years of preparation and Israel cleaned their clock in 12 days. An Iranian general used to be able to walk around the streets of Tehran and, and command some respect. An Iranian general who walks the streets of Tehran today, guy the Israelis didn't bother killing is the only reason he's alive if you're in the irgc. So there's, there's just why, again, leave the morality aside. Just look at the competence.
- [15:35]
Hugh Hewitt
You also mentioned in your first, in the first segment we talked about, you mentioned the fact that they have been brutalized by their currency collapse. I think one of the reasons that this is a hinge moment is the rial is worthless. So everybody's life savings, including those of the besieged, those of the irgc, everyone except the very top elite who managed to, you know, turn it into gold or jewels, they've been wiped out in the last six months or since Operation Midnight Hammer and the Israeli 12 Day War. Do you think that is a driver here? Because, by the way, coverage of Iran in the United States is awful. I have to go to the Times of Israel to learn anything about what's going on in Iran because the American press doesn't care or doesn't have the expertise. So do you think that the collapse of the rial gives this one more energy than the women's movement in 22 or the green movement in 2009?
- [16:33]
Aviv Radegur
Absolutely. We've already had revolutions or protests, uprisings of the students, of the liberal activists. We've seen that. And they were easily crushed. Didn't help that President Obama wouldn't support them. And then we saw, you know, the, the woman, the woman life.
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Hugh Hewitt
Women Freedom Life.
- [16:51]
Aviv Radegur
Yeah, Women Freedom Life movement, which was a whole new thing because it was specifically about the religious restrictions and about the religious regime. And ever since that, by the way, it was crushed, and it was crushed brutally. 20,000 people were arrested and thrown in prison. But the regime has started to get a little more lax in enforcing the hijab rules, for example. And so we know that they got scared. Now we're seeing something completely different. Over the last year and even more than a year, you've had these, because you have these electricity shortages, because you had these running, you know, water shortages. You had different groups protesting. You had the truckers union protesting. You had agriculturalists, farmers and various kinds of people working in agriculture starting to mount serious protests. You have a lot of disquiet among the Arabs in the south. You have a lot of movement in all kinds of different sections. And then the rial plunges and just implodes. And then you get the bazaaris. The bazaar is the small shopkeepers or right up to, you know, significant importers, the business people of Iran, the people on whom the economy stands the people. The regime has to keep happy. They didn't join this uprising. They are this uprising. Everybody else, the students, the farmers, everybody joined them. So we suddenly have a cross section of Iranian society, of people who have never protested, wouldn't have protested, but they can't live anymore. This regime has gutted everything. And one of the points that, that I made before about the, about the currency, the real collapsed. If you're not close to the regime, if you are close to the regime, the government actually enforces a separate currency exchange rate for you. So you can afford to live, feed your family, buy iPhones. Everyone else in the country can't afford water and electricity. And so the, this regime has driven more and more sections of Iranian society to rise up against it. And this might be that typical. It might not, but it might be that.
- [18:53]
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- [19:52]
Hugh Hewitt
Reminds me of Poland in 85 and then the east bloc in 87 to 89 and then the Soviet Union in 89 to 91. They're all gone now. I'll be right back with Gore. Follow him on Axe at Habib. Ready Gore? Ask Habib Anything is on any podcast network and at Patreon. Stay tuned. I'm Hewitt. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt with Haviv retted Gore. Whether you're listening in your car on Salem Radio Network or affiliates, watching on the Salem News Channel or catching up on the podcast, Habib's podcast is Ask Habib anything Haviv. Israel got 10 million people. Iran's got 90 million people. On October 7th, Israel suffered 1200 murders and the numbers coming out of Iran are not yet. Well, I guess the high estimates would be roughly proportional. The High estimates are 12,000 that have been phoned into CBS News have been butchered by the mullahs. What kind of effect do you think that will have, that kind of a massacre? Because you've lived it, you've lived it for two and a half years. What do you think the average Iranian emotional state is? Because everyone's going to know someone when 12,000 people get mowed down.
- [21:07]
Aviv Radegur
Yeah. Let me just say Iranians have suffered a lot more than Israelis. My own government didn't do it to me and I don't live in an oppressive state. And I, you know, the ordinary Iran, 92 million people in Iran don't have a vote and don't decide the most fundamental things and have been essentially forced to live in poverty for the regime's revolution. And so this regime, massacring people is a whole, it's a whole different story. You know, if the United States government, because of some cultural war, Vietnam protest, hit somebody, then, then all of America talks about it. And, and it's different from a brutal, oppressive five decade regime that forces women to cover their hair everywhere, suddenly murdering many, many thousands of people who are demanding things like the right to vote. So Iranians are suffering profoundly. Their families are struggling literally to get by to eat. And this regime is willing to murder huge swaths of its people. One really dangerous statement came out of Khamenei himself who said we lost hundreds of thousands of people to make the revolution happen. He's not talking about the revolution, the topple of the Shah. He's probably, I don't know what, talking about the Iran Iraq war.
- [22:28]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah, that's what I thought.
- [22:31]
Aviv Radegur
We're willing to kill hundreds of thousands to. We've, that's the bar for protecting this revolution. He's threatening to kill in the six figures. And that's the thing that everybody has to watch out for right now, how this regime suddenly ups the ante. You don't shut off the entire country's Internet. You don't, if you're not trying to hide something.
- [22:49]
Hugh Hewitt
Now, if he sums up the Iraq Iran war, I read a book by a fellow by the name of Ashan Ostevar called Vanguard of the Imam. And he said that their strength, the regime's strength was rooted in the veterans of that war, the Iraq Iran war, which ran for 10 years and about which I think Donald Rumsfeld famously said, can't they both lose? But the question that generation of veterans, they're dead or they're very old men now. Do they still have a grip on the imagination of the country?
- [23:22]
Aviv Radegur
They have nothing. They have nothing. They have no grip. There's that again. There's a 20% of Iran's population. You hear this from academics in the west, from Iranians. You hear this from Israeli intelligence, which, as we learned back in June, have a pretty good sense of what's happening in Iran. There is 20% of the Iranian population that is utterly, totally committed to this regime. Ideologically, it's having the same economic troubles everybody else is having. We're not seeing them come out quite in the same numbers in the past, even though the danger is greater. I don't know what that means. I don't know if that just means that they're going to come out next week. I don't know what that means. You know, I don't know to say everything is moving and we're getting these very sort of minor, small signals and we're trying to interpret the larger picture. But the 80% who aren't in that deep Islamist, true believer section of Iranian society have no respect for this regime at all and view this regime correctly as just the mafia. It's just a mafia. There's no, they don't even believe in the things that they say. You know, the, the, the regime generals, their families, more and more of their families live abroad, live in the United States, live in Britain, live in places where they don't have to suffer with the people that their own family members in the, in the IRGC are forcing to suffer. And so there is this deep disconnect. This stuff makes its way through Iranian social media. Everybody knows it. They're, they're a mafia that pretends to be a religious movement. It hasn't been a religious movement for decades. And that's basically the story here.
- [24:58]
Hugh Hewitt
So I would encourage everyone to go over to the Commentary podcast, because Eli Lake was the guest on Commentary Podcast today, and he made the point Havib just averred to which is that a lot of the Iranian elite are abroad, their children are abroad, and that one of the things the United States and England and other people ought to consider is sending them home is saying you got to go live with the disaster that is the country that your parents have made and they've sent you to school. And he mentioned that the daughter of the Iranian prime minister, I think that's what he said, or the Iranian president is a nursing student at Emory. Now. Don't give her a hard time. It's not her fault what her parents have built and her father has built. But Aviv makes an important point. When we come back, Israel's role in whatever the United States is going to come up with, which could be unfolding tonight, we don't know, could be underway right now. Stay tuned, America. I'm Hugh. HUGH welcome back, America. I'm Hugh. Hugh Hewitt with Havi Reddy Gore. I do believe we're at one of those hinge moments in history where what happens in Iran is going to drive a lot of the next 30 to 50 years. Aviv I've got Bernard Lewis books by the Shelf Load. I've read about the Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. You and I have talked about Hamas and Wahhabism and radical Sunni Islam, radical Shia Islam I don't get at all, other than they're waiting for the hidden imam to come out of the well. Why, why in the world do they support Hamas? And why are the Jews so central to their theology? Do you have any idea?
- [26:38]
Aviv Radegur
It's extraordinary. It's an extraordinary thing in Sunni Islam, any Muslims listening to us will know this, or if they don't, they should look it up because they should know this and anyone else, please, fact check it. In Sunni Islam, the most widespread tradition is that Al Aqsa on the which translates to the thing at the edge in Hebrew, the place Muhammad goes to at the end of his life and ascends to heaven. That place is Jerusalem. That is a widespread Sunni tradition, not the only Sunni tradition, but nevertheless widespread in Shia Islam. Al Aqsa is not in Jerusalem. It is simply not. There is no Shia tradition of that. It is in Iraq. And the whole idea that this regime has, has, has sort of latched onto this Sunni vision. It's an attempt to create a political argument for Iranian leadership of the Muslim world. And Iran's leadership also saw its, its own attempt to destroy Israel and, and building out these proxies with tens of billions of dollars over 40 years that Iran's Iranians didn't have. But the spending on Hezbollah and the proxies in Iraq and Syria and the Houthis of Yemen and every, and Hamas and huge spending on Hamas, hundreds of millions of dollars at least. All of this investment in this proxy system to destroy Israel was essentially a Shia argument in the Muslim world. You Sunnis have failed to destroy Israel for a century. You have, you know, embarrassed Islam in that sense. We will succeed and that will be evidence that Shia Islam is correct. That's the kind of stuff you actually get when you drill down into it, when you actually Listen to an interview on Al Jazeera or whatever with an Iranian ayatollah and you actually try and get into, why do you want to destroy Israel? I'm not saying why you don't like Israel. You don't like Israel. You know what? You cannot like France too. Who cares? Like, not why don't you like Israel? Why are you invested to the point of gutting your own economy with this obsession of the destruction of a country you have no border with and no interests in? What is that? And you very quickly discover it isn't actually Shia Islam. It is Islam. It's an Islamic veneer on an imperialist project that's meant to force the Sunnis to rally behind the Iranians. Oh, that's it. It's a regional control that Shamani developed back in the 70s and 60s.
- [29:04]
Hugh Hewitt
Oh, that makes. See, you just gave me at least a narrative to understand because I can go find a Sunni extremist imam preaching on the Internet, the destruction of Israel in about 10 minutes. And whether it's ISIS or whether it is Al Qaeda, whether it's any of their offshoot groups around the world, but I can't find Shia imams. They're supposed to be almost as peaceful as another branch of Islam. The third branch, which is eluding me right now, the one that's very, very peaceful. When did thatwhy don't we know that? Is there no effort to expose what the Shia pretenders are that Israel and the United States are undertaking? Is there any effort to put that message out there to delegitimize the regime?
- [30:00]
Aviv Radegur
Shia have, in the Muslim world a long tradition of being oppressed by the Sunnis. And so the Shia have developed a much less. It's weird for me to, like, you know, fly the flag of the Shia right now. I mean, the greatest force trying to annihilate my people at this moment is the Shia political force. But nevertheless, the Shia have been less aggressive, less conquering, belligerent, you know, colonialist and imperialist than sunnis overall over 14 centuries. I'm not singling out any particular people or group or time, but in general, the Shia have been the oppressed and are much more, much less committed to a kind of conquering vision of Islam than the Sunnis. So the Muslim Brotherhood vision of the takeover, of getting back to the takeover of the world, that's a Sunni project and doesn't really make sense in Shiism until, really, Khomeini. Khomeini, who founded this Iranian version of Shiism, this political Shiism, So just in general, if you go to the Shia of Lebanon, until they were radicalized by vast Iranian money through Hezbollah, Iranian Shia, excuse me, Lebanese Shia were a quiet group. They were not on the war path. They did not conduct, you know, conquest and massacres. It's similar for the Alawites of Syria. I was thinking of the Sufis.
- [31:22]
Hugh Hewitt
I couldn't, I couldn't come up with the name of the Sufis.
- [31:24]
Pharmacist Ray Solano
The.
- [31:24]
Hugh Hewitt
They're the very pacifist branch of Islam, if I am remembering my Lewis correctly. But Shia was not, was not Wahhabist.
- [31:36]
Aviv Radegur
Yeah, Shia have never been Wahhabist. All the Wahhabism, all of the Muslim Brotherhood stuff, all the stuff you get out of, you know, the Al Qaeda stuff, the, the Sayyid Qutib and, and all of that stuff all happened in Sunnism. All this radicalizing of, of Islam in the modern age happened in Sunnism. And the Shia were very late to the game. And Khomeini basically brought in a lot of these ideas and a lot of these, these ways of thinking and talking and gave it a Shia veneer and Shia vocabulary. But he basically did that as a power play to take over Iran. That, that was, that was the idea. There's, it's, it's, it's. It's hard to understand this regime in Iran as a religious movement just because it refuses to act as one. It really is just about oppression and power. And when you actually go to meet the Shia and talk to Shia in Iraq, for example, you get a very ambiguous kind of relationship with this Shiism of Iran as this thing that isn't what Shiism always was. Even, by the way, if Iran will support them in their great internal sectarian wars in Iraq against the Sunnis and the brutality of the Sunnis during Saddam's time and all of that, you can sometimes get an appreciation for this ally in Shia Iran, but you still don't see an Iraqi Shia in Lebanese Shia in Syrian Shia. And frankly, until the Houthis in Yemeni Shia, you don't see that kind of aggression that the Iranians introduced into Shia politics. And so the Iranians took over and kind of reframed Shia politics in the Middle east in a way that has demolished, frankly, every Shia polity or every polity that has a large population of Shia Iran has been a disastrous curse on the Shia Sunnis of the Arab world and Persia itself.
- [33:21]
Hugh Hewitt
I'm going to talk to Aviv a little bit off air. I'll add it to the podcast today. But please don't go anywhere. Stay on the radio station or on the television station. But I will add the last bit of Eve to the podcast. You can find it on my YouTube and at my podcast on YouTube. So I'm back on the podcast now with Aviv Reddy, Gore and Aviv on Commentary today. John Potter, Its exit question was on a scale after President Trump put up his post this morning, on a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think the United States will do with 1 being nothing and 10 being anything necessary to Maduro Khamenei? Go in and grab him and kill the imams and get him. And four out of five people said a six with some fireworks spectacular that we can see. John Potter said it 8. He thought we're going all in because they're as weak as they've ever been. But it occurred to me as I listened to the Commentary podcast and Eli Lake knows his Iran history, it occurs to me that really depends upon the people of Iran and how they react to being shot down. I mean, it really is merciless. So we saw in Israel on 10, 7 the Israelis fight back with their bare hands, rocks and whatever they could. They kept throwing grenades out of their bomb shelters. And then they went to war. And the war is not over yet. What do you think the average Iranian in the 80% does now? I'm asking you to be a prophet and I know it's unfair, but you've studied what happens when people are they have no hope, they have no money, they have no water. What do they do?
- [34:52]
Aviv Radegur
This regime has done nothing for 47 years but demolished other power center in Iran. It allied with the communists and after the Iran Iraq war, it massacred the communists. It has systematically gone through Iranian society and degraded and demolished anyone who could replace them so that even if a revolution does come, there's nobody to lead it. And there's no power center, single power center that can actually see it through. That's what makes this moment so dangerous to the regime that the bazaaris are such a power. If the interests of the basic, you know, economic backbone of the capital and of the major cities of Iran are the uprising, then the Iranian regime has a problem because there is a kind of power base. It still doesn't have a clear leadership. It's still not clear who actually makes the decision steps in. This regime has a lot of bodies it's willing to go through. I mean, in the hundreds of thousands, as we said before, it falls. So I would say two things. One, it looks like Iranians don't think anything will ever get better. It Looks like the regime has managed to convince most Iranians of that. And that's very dangerous for the regime because people have to have a reason. They have to have something to lose. It doesn't look like they think that they have something to lose. And I'll say a huge compliment to President Trump in that regard. I have no idea what President Trump is going to do. He bombed Iran while pretending to be considering not bombing Iran by landing the planes. Everybody in Venezuela didn't predict it. Not only didn't predict it, the signals were going in all different directions. In the last three days, President Trump has said he's going into negotiation and also not going to negotiation. That is exactly how you should behave if you're about to demolish something, if you're about to take them down, and also just if you're terrifying them into overreacting, which itself could be the destabilizing factor that throws them out of power. So President Trump, in as much as an American president, can affect this and there's quite a bit he can do, but you know, it's not his decision. In the end, he's not the factor, but he's basically done everything right so far. And saying both sides of the thing saying something and then the opposite thing is a fantastic strategy with this regime, especially after Maduro, especially after Midnight Hammer. So I think America is in the right place, basically positioned to help without being the leadership of this thing. The Iranian people will bleed a lot more before this regime dies. If this is suppressed, there'll be a bigger and worse one because there's nothing in this regime that's capable of turning Iran around and setting it on a better path.
- [37:26]
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- [38:25]
Hugh Hewitt
So very last question, we saw what the IDF and Mossad can do. Now I'm not one of those Americans that think Mossad is 30 stories tall, but I was pretty impressed by the beeper operation take out of the people in Qatar and the people in Tehran. Obviously Israel has got operatives on the ground in Iran, but there aren't enough Israelis, even if they do, to actually take them out. Do you think they will follow the American lead here, act independent of it? And the key question, if Iran gets scared, they're going to throw ballistic missiles at your country. That's what they did. They've done that four times now, once against America and three times against you. What do you think Israel's reaction? I don't think, I personally don't think Israel will hold back this time. What do you think.
- [39:18]
Aviv Radegur
If Iran forces, you know, revisiting of the 12 Day War? I don't think Israel will be able to contain. I think, I think this will be the end. I think first of all, Iran will be, will need there to be a serious war with Israel as a distraction, as an excuse to crack down more viciously internally and as a stabilizing force. And I think the Israelis will have to deny them both those things. They'll have to have a war where the regime really is destabilized. I'd be very surprised if Khomeini survives or if his son, who is sort of being groomed to replace him, survives. This will be something that really does, does cause terrible damage to the Iranian regime. But the Israelis would be wise to respond in a way that looks visibly like it's trying to avoid hurting the people of Iran. And so, you know, it's quite likely that Iran will drag us all into a rerun of that war essentially. At the same time, it needs to be handled very wisely because it really is the Iranian people who can topple this regime and it has to look like it's then toppling the regime and that allows us all kind of post revolution stability. If they can't just, if it doesn't appear to be some American or Israeli project, the regime will claim that anyway. The toll is on the Islamist factions will claim that anyway. But most Iranians have to know that it's not what's happening and then it can actually happen.
- [40:41]
Hugh Hewitt
Well said as always, Aviv. I thank you for the extra time today Again, find Ask Haviv anything wherever podcasts are, support him on Patreon read him in the Free Press raise a senior analyst and occasionally at the Times of Israel. Haviv, thank you. Talk to you in a few weeks or months. I appreciate the time.
- [40:59]
Aviv Radegur
Thank you.
- [41:03]
Hugh Hewitt
Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by United States Senator Joni Ernst. Senator Ernst, welcome back. How are you in this new year?
- [41:11]
Senator Joni Ernst
Oh, I'm great, Hugh. Thanks so much. Thank you for having me.
- [41:14]
Hugh Hewitt
I want to begin by asking you, as a veteran of the Armed Services Committee and in the Senate for so long, what do you think about the situation in Iran And President Trump's post this morning reiterated in a speech that help is on the way from the United States?
- [41:29]
Senator Joni Ernst
Well, I think it is important that we are encouraging the people of Iran. We see them rising up in protest. We think it's important to continue to encourage them to do so. We do want to see them take over their own institutions. They want to be free of this awful regime that has really come down on them when it comes to issues of civil rights. They really have seen some such poverty and devastation across that nation. And when you think back many decades, this used to be a very progressive country, progressive in a way that it was more modern and westward leaning. And it has backtracked so significantly when it comes to human rights and prosperity. We want to see them do better. They are a huge threat to the United States and Israel as they stand. Should this regime fall, the world will be a much safer place.
- [42:26]
Hugh Hewitt
Now, I don't know if you will have better sources than anyone else at this point. I don't know if you've got a briefing, but the numbers that the regime have killed in just the last five days vary from a minimum of 2,000, the regime admits that, up to 12,000. That'sthat is a level of violence we've never seen from them before.
- [42:47]
Senator Joni Ernst
Yes, absolutely, Hugh. And those are the same numbers that I have seen as well. So we quite a range there. But what we do know is that of course, the regime is trying to block any information that will flow out of Iran to the rest of the world. And so it could be those numbers of a higher scale, which is really, really very scary to those families that left Iran many years ago and are wondering, are their loved ones impacted by this? How many more will be killed in these uprisings? So again, I think the president is doing the right thing by encouraging the citizenry to stand strong against the regime. But it does come at a human toll for the Iranians, which is unfortunate because oftentimes we will take a look at the leadership, and we'll just assume that all Iranians are bad like the regime. And that simply is not true.
- [43:42]
Hugh Hewitt
So no one in the Senate's gotten any special briefing on this yet. I find it extraordinary in 2026 that the Western media doesn't have any visibility into Iran.
- [43:54]
Senator Joni Ernst
Well, I'm sure that we do have operatives that are keeping an eye on the situation. Most certainly that would be true. And the Intelligence Committee may have more information than the Armed Services Committee does at this point in time. But again, it's similar to circumstances. I say use an extreme example, like North Korea, where there is very little intelligence that flows in or out. And I think the regime, because of the uprisings right now, is really putting forward a concerted effort to make sure that information is not flowing to Western media outlets.
- [44:31]
Aviv Radegur
Right.
- [44:32]
Hugh Hewitt
Senator, if we can turn our attention back home. I heard Senator Murphy yesterday. I was doing a hit on Fox and they played some tape of your colleague from Connecticut urging another shutdown of the government over the deployment of ice to Minnesota. First, do you expect a shutdown? And second, what do you think of the merits of his argument?
- [44:53]
Senator Joni Ernst
There are no merits to this argument. We should not be shutting the federal government down. We know that when we're looking for winners and losers and government shutdowns, the only losers are the American people, those that are relying on federal government services, those that are working and not receiving paychecks through government shutdowns. The national security, you know, is always impacted as well during government shutdowns. So I think that he needs to rethink his words and he needs to bring ideas and thoughts to the table. That's what we should be doing in the United States Senate. I'm very hopeful that we get this appropriations package done and the, the follow on packages that Senator Susan Collins of Maine has been working on with Tom Cole over in the House. They have spearheaded some incredible discussions. We've got a large consensus both in the House and the Senate. And let's get this done. Let's not shut the federal government down. It does nobody any good.
- [45:57]
Hugh Hewitt
Senators, last week President Trump was my guest and he said he's going to request a trillion and a half dollars as the defense budget next year. That would be up from about 9.3 trillion, I think. Excuse me, 930 billion this year. What do you make of that kind of a hike?
- [46:16]
Senator Joni Ernst
Well, holy cow, that is a huge hike. However, what the President is taking into consideration is advanced adversaries around the globe and how we need to stay cutting edge or better we must maintain that qualitative military edge when it comes to our adversaries. If you look at protection of the homeland with our golden dome, that will require a huge amount of funding to get up and going. So he is looking very broadly at how do we protect our homeland and if necessary, project, project strength and power abroad. I think it's the right thing to do. Now, whether it happens at that scale or level of funding is yet to be seen. Certainly I would love to see an increase. However, chairing the Senate Doge Caucus and always doing my squeal awards as well, there are areas that we know we can cut back on. In the Department of War, Department of Defense, we can find savings and we need to use technology like artificial intelligence to help us fill the gaps where necessary and make sure that that the cost is staying ahead or pared to that benefit. So I look forward to it. While he's doing it.
- [47:39]
Hugh Hewitt
You mentioned Doge. We've all watched somewhat astonished as the Minnesota scale of fraud has been unveiled. It began in 2022, got bigger in 2024. This year it's just exploded. Of course, in California we had Covid fraud in the billions of dollars as well. What does every state have a Minnesota problem, do you think? Or is it just Minnesota?
- [48:02]
Senator Joni Ernst
I think there are many states that have this problem and we have highlighted a number of the issues that we have seen, whether it's through the Small Business Administration and the paycheck protection program or the economic injury disaster loans. We know that there were so many cases of fraud through those specific programs. And here yet again, we see additional fraud when it comes to fronting small businesses that are parading around as child care centers or what have you. I caught an earmark that Ilhan Omar in Minnesota was doing for a supposed East African substance abuse treatment center which happened to be co located with a Somali restaurant and run by three individuals that shared the same residential address. So big red flags. I called it out and thankfully then the House did pull that earmark out of their funding bill. But this fraud is running rampant. For those of us that have been crying, crying out for attention over the past many years, finally we are getting traction and I'm glad that we see the level of attention that Minnesota is getting. But Hugh, absolutely, there are other states as well where fraud is rampant.
- [49:24]
Hugh Hewitt
I hope we continue the effort to get to the bottom of all of that. Senator Jenny Ernst has been a big path leader in finding that way forward and will continue to do so. Thank you, Senator Ernst. I'll be right back America, stay tuned. On the Salem News Channel, the Salem Radio Network and all of our wonderful affiliates. It's on huge.
- [49:42]
Aviv Radegur
This morning that help.
- [49:43]
Senator Joni Ernst
Is on the way for protesters.
- [49:46]
David M. Drucker
What did you mean by that?
- [49:47]
Aviv Radegur
What kind of help?
- [49:47]
Hugh Hewitt
You're going to have to figure that one out. I'm sorry.
- [49:49]
Bret Baier
So many people have been killed in.
- [49:51]
Pharmacist Ray Solano
Iran.
- [49:53]
Hugh Hewitt
Nobody'S been able to give me an accurate number. I have heard numbers from everything's a lot. One is a lot. But I've heard numbers much lower and I've heard numbers much higher. We'll be knowing we'll probably going to find out over the next 24 hours. I think it's a lot. Welcome back, America. That was President Trump in Dearborn, Michigan, this morning. When asked what does it mean that help is on the way, he said to the reporter, you're going to have to figure that out. So I'm going to ask David M. Drucker, chief political correspondent for the Dispatch and dapperly dressed as always, what does how do you think we're supposed to figure it out, David?
- [50:31]
David M. Drucker
I guess we'll just have to wait for report of something. Look, I wouldn't expect the president, any president, to foreshadow what it is they were going to do. You don't want to let the, you don't want to let the Iranian regime know what's coming, know what you have planned and you want, you want maximum benefit. You want to weaken, if not decapitate the.
- [50:54]
Hugh Hewitt
I think we lost David there. That's unfortunate. He's frozen. So we're going to wait for David to come back. Yeah, go ahead, David.
- [51:05]
David M. Drucker
I would say it's look, you're never going to have a president who foreshadows something like this. And occasionally presidents will tell us what they're not going to do, which is also a mistake. So I think this is a case where the president's vagueness is an asset and what we should be hearing from him, which means we're just going to have to wait and see, like you said.
- [51:27]
Hugh Hewitt
Well, when he says you're going to have to figure that out, the one thing that no journalist could figure out is a cyber attack on the regime's internal operations. Do you agree with me on that? That's an assumption on my part is we would not know if their internal operations of repression had been dislocated by cyberattack, would we?
- [51:53]
David M. Drucker
I think you're right about that, actually. So I will say that your assumption there or your hypothesis could be correct and is very viable.
- [52:03]
Hugh Hewitt
So my way of thinking is I got to admit to lifting this from the commentary podcast today. President Trump doesn't go in for quiet. He likes boom and therefore something's going to go boom in Iran. That's my working assumption assessment.
- [52:21]
David M. Drucker
Well, I think that's a viable theory and I think he's proven that he does like a big spectacle when he takes action. I think he's also proven at times to be cautious and has chosen not to take action. I think sometimes he's been compelled to take action even if he was initially hesitant. So I will just say that I could, I could imagine a range of, of outcomes here in terms of how the US Is going to act in regard to what is happening in Iran. None of these would surprise me.
- [52:53]
Hugh Hewitt
None of them would also involve boots on the ground. That's my theory. But I guess we had boots on the ground in Venezuela for an hour and a half. So I guess that's a separate category. Boots on the ground very briefly, I don't see that happening because we haven't got an armada off the coast of Iran. David Drucker so, yeah, well, listen, it.
- [53:11]
David M. Drucker
Depends on how you look at boots on the ground too. I mean, you know, if you're talking about a light footprint with Special Forces, I don't look at that as boots on the ground in terms of a large scale military operation.
- [53:22]
Hugh Hewitt
And I don't think that's on the table. Now I want to move to the other big story of the day because nobody knows nothing except the president has set the table for something. The Supreme Court arguments in the two cases, West Virginia versus BPJ and Idaho versus Hickox. Have you listened to any of that yet?
- [53:40]
David M. Drucker
I listened to one clip and I was busy today and I haven't had a chance to catch up on this. Check out our SCOTUS blog coverage over at the Dispatch. But Hugh, I will say as a matter of politics here, you know, this is an argument that the left lost in 2024 and even now still can't win. There are a lot of arguments they're winning in at the beginning of 2026 that they weren't in 2024. This, this isn't one of them. So it'll be interesting to see how the court rules. But, but the politics of this is still settled in my view.
- [54:13]
Hugh Hewitt
I think the court's going to rule at least 7 to 2 upholding Idaho and West Vir right to ban biological boys playing in girls sports. But we'll see. David it's my belief that the political cycle will be fixed by the end of June. When the Supreme Court hands this down, it might be the last event that will make a difference. Right now the Republicans are underwater. Do they have enough time to turn that around?
- [54:38]
David M. Drucker
Well, we'll see. You're right about the general calendar of when voters minds get, get fixed. At the very least, Senator Mitch McConnell will agree with you because he's always argued and he's pretty good at assessing political atmospherics that you have six months into the election year at best to turn the battleship if it needs to be turned. There's always time and nothing certain and history isn't always proof of what's coming next. But it's going to be tough and we'll just have to see what happens.
- [55:14]
Hugh Hewitt
So in terms of what's impacting those numbers and the Democrats have a five point lead on the generic ballot. Not the worst lead ever, not the greatest lead ever, but not bad either. I think the price of gas will matter. I believe that redistricting will matter. I don't think that the ICE raids will matter. Do you disagree with me?
- [55:35]
David M. Drucker
Well, I don't know. Let me just say I don't know if I agree. We, let me, let me tell you what I think. You can decide whether I agree or disagree because you made a couple of different points. I think it's possible the ICE raids will matter because they're getting such broad political, broad news coverage and people are going to have opinions on them. I think affordability broadly matters and not just one metric of affordability, whether it's gas prices or something else. And right now the polling on that is just horrible, horrible for Republicans. I think redistrict, redistricting is going to end up being a wash, therefore not matter. And I think this is about how Americans feel and not about whatever the broad macro indicators tell us about an economy that remains very resilient.
- [56:22]
Hugh Hewitt
David, I believe in being consistent myself and I said going into 2024, what are you paying for your groceries? Matters the most. Gas number two. I still believe that. And groceries aren't coming down even though gas is. Do you agree with that assessment about priority? What does it cost to eat?
- [56:41]
David M. Drucker
I think this problem is bigger. So I don't disagree with the way you've laid that out. But I think the problem is, and the reason I have been using the word affordability going back, you know, almost a year is because when I'm talking to people who talk to voters and when I talk to voters, this isn't just about particular items on, on, you know, the bills they're paying. This is about this idea that they're stretched in every direction, housing to food to paying for their kids education and everything else different than the usual inflation, anxiety.
- [57:12]
Hugh Hewitt
Affordability is an accordion word and it's a good one for us journalists to use. David M. Drucker, Fallen on axes with the Dispatch Stay tuned, America. Do you do it in the refactor Studio West? I'm joined by Brett Baer, who is host of Special Report. Brett, we got a lot of news to cover, but I want to start with a little bit of sports. Mike Tomlin retired today. He lasted 19 years as a head coach. Now you've been the anchor, I think a special report for 17. And I've been doing this for 26 years, 25 and a half. I can't imagine being an NFL head coach for 19 years, can you?
- [57:49]
Aviv Radegur
No.
- [57:50]
Bret Baier
That's pretty long tenure. Good afternoon. Yeah, I think he had a hell of a run. But the not winning the playoff game, you know, that hangs over your head for a long time in a football town like Pittsburgh just happens. That's a long tenure.
- [58:09]
Hugh Hewitt
He's never had a losing season either. That's what's remarkable about that's like year over year growth every year in the broadcast business. I'm just amazed that he's calling it in. All right, Brett, today the president posted this morning, help is on the way to the Iranian people. There will be no more negotiations. I think that's a throwdown and I don't think Donald Trump backs away from things like that. What do you think?
- [58:33]
Byron York
I agree.
- [58:33]
Bret Baier
And I think having talked to a lot of people, that there's a sense that something, something is happening, whether it is a green light for the Israelis, whether it is some kind of attack by US Forces to assist the protesters in some way, shape or form in Iran. I think that there is this sense that in the next hours or days that there may be some kind of action.
- [59:01]
Hugh Hewitt
So I agree. But I also think most American news coverage is inverted. We're focused on a suburb or a close in burb of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where the killing took place of the woman demonstrator. Legal observer is the term of art that's being thrown around and Iran is convulsing and maybe as many as 12,000 people are dead. Are we not covering Iran as much because we can't or because we don't want to?
- [59:29]
Bret Baier
Well, I don't know. I don't speak for other networks. We're covering it a lot. It may be our lead tonight. We have the exiled Iranian crown prince on oh, you do, Reza and we've got, you know, reporting from the ground, from talking to people through Starlink. And yeah, we're full court press on it. We're obviously covering all that's happening in Minnesota. We're obviously covering the president's talk about the economy in Michigan, and we're walking and chewing gum at the same time. But we believe I believe, as executive editor, Special Report, that potentially that's one of the biggest stories that we could be covering this year in the early months, you know, what happens in Venezuela is another one. But I think it really is consequential, and if it is, as a lot of the observers think, a different scenario this time, you're talking about something that could change the world.
- [60:28]
Hugh Hewitt
It's a hinge moment. In 1979 when the Shah was forced to flee, that was a hinge moment, and we've lived with the consequences of that for 47 years. If the crown prince comes backand I don't know what you're going to get to. I want to ask you how you prepare for that, because I reallyi've only seen one interview with the crown prince. It was done by Mark Dubovitz early this year or late last year, in 2024. I have no idea how you prepare for it, but he has been more above the horizon in the last two weeks than he has been in 25 years, I think. BRETT so where did you find him? Can you discuss that?
- [61:07]
Bret Baier
Yeah, he did. I think he did one interview with Maria, but he is in town here in D.C. and he is meeting on Capitol Hill. He's had several meetings with senators and House members. I'm not sure he's been to the White House, but I know he had some administration meetings. And, you know, I think that the scenario is is that he wants to get back to Iran to be some kind of interim leader eventually, if the regime does, in fact, fall and then get to an election. At least that's what he's talked about. But getting from point A to point B is really interesting. I prepare for it in that I've studied, you know, what he said before. And also we want to get his sense of talking to people on the ground to give some ground perspective about what's really happening in Tehran and other cities.
- [62:05]
Hugh Hewitt
That's tonight on Special Report. Crown Prince Pahlavi with Bret Baier. BRETT last week I talked to the president. I asked him if he would meet with the crown prince. He said, I didn't think that would be appropriate. Now, the president is not above throwing smoke in my eyes, so I don't know if that means he's not going to do it or not. Did you get anything out of him or do you. Will you get anything out of him about meeting with Trump?
- [62:27]
Bret Baier
I'm going to ask. Definitely. I don't think he has. I don't think he's met with them yet. And I say yet because, you know, I think that there is some sense of this is a tipping point moment and some planning towards what would happen if the regime collapsed and what that looks like. You know, the protesters, a lot of them are calling his name because they think it can be a transition figure to get them to, from point A to point B. But, you know, he doesn't have an army and he's, you know, he would need some serious help to get back in power.
- [63:09]
Hugh Hewitt
You know what I haven't been able to figure out, Brett, Maybe your resources can. When the real goes to zero value, except for members of the regime, I don't know what other choice people have. Their life savings have been wiped out. The bizaris, the people who are the merchant class, the middle class, they're all wiped out. And what Haviv Reddy Goraj told me, I'm playing it next. 80% of the regime, 80% of the 90 million Iranian hate the regime. 20% have nothing. But the regime. That breaks down with your understanding of it generally.
- [63:44]
Bret Baier
Yeah, and it's, it's smaller and smaller. Is that latter figure. And that provides, you know, the tipping point moment. I had a couple of experts on Norm Rule used to be the.
- [63:55]
Hugh Hewitt
Oh, yeah, CIA.
- [63:56]
Bret Baier
He's great. And then Kareem.
- [63:59]
Hugh Hewitt
Bingo.
- [63:59]
Bret Baier
The two big, the two biggest names. The other day, on analyzing this, I thought they were really spot on. You know, there are essentially a list of things that you would need for the Iran regime to collapse. And this time, more than any time, they've clicked all five of those pillars.
- [64:21]
Hugh Hewitt
Now, Karim Sadhgurpur is with Carnegie Norm. I don't know who Norm's with. He might be still working for Langley. Is he an optimist?
- [64:30]
Bret Baier
He's an optimist, actually. I mean, he's a realist. It's going to be tough, but he is. He's very aggressive as far as this being the hinge moment. So we see this as just everybody we're talking to being much bigger than anybody is making of it.
- [64:48]
Hugh Hewitt
All right, my last question is really in the tall grass. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Vice President Vance and other White House Aides were trying to talk the president in a negotiation, not the use of force. Late last night, the vice president spoke team began to push back hard on that. His head of comms posted it on that's nonsense today. He's right behind the president. And I'm sure they've reached out to everyone at Fox as well as me. That's just not true. Who do you think is pushing the narrative that J.D. vance is an isolationist? Because it ain't J.D. vance.
- [65:21]
Bret Baier
Yeah, there's an interesting political dynamic outside of the foreign policy, things that are happening inside the White House. And, you know, it all has to do with 2028. It all has to do with positioning and, you know, Marco Rubio's ascendancy and spotlight on him and the attention post Venezuela and some of the questions that you're getting now, where is it coming from? I don't know. It's. It's not Rubio's people, I don't think. But I think that there are some political swings that are trying to position this moment ahead of 2028.
- [66:01]
Hugh Hewitt
All right, now, last question. Brett, your old colleague Pete Hegseth is in all the pictures, but no one mentions them when they talk about 2028. Do you think he might think he would fit behind the Oval Office desk pretty well?
- [66:16]
Bret Baier
Well, I think every defense secretary and secretary of state probably looks in the mirror and sees a president. But I'm not sure that Pete's Pizza in that camp, I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it.
- [66:28]
Byron York
And I don't know.
- [66:30]
Bret Baier
You know, obviously we're no longer in the Pentagon and we've asked for interviews nonstop with the Secretary of War and haven't gotten one. So we aspire to. And that'd be a question I'd ask.
- [66:43]
Hugh Hewitt
That's probably why he knows that. Brett Bear I'm going to be watching tonight. Reza Shah, Pablo left behind a crown prince. And that is going to be Brett's guest tonight at 6:00pm America's Anchorman, Bret Baer. Thank you, Brett. I appreciate the time. Don't go anywhere. America coming back with lilacs. I am going to cover Minnesota. I am going to go back to the Supreme Court case. I'm going to do all of that. And then Aviv Radekor of the Free Press and the Times of Israel is going to be here for hour three on the Iranian paradox, which is how could a country that was on the cusp of actually being the dominant power in the Middle east in 1979 when the Shah was There they could be as technologically advanced as Silicon Valley as Israel. They could be as high tech as anywhere in the world. And they're a backwater where the electricity doesn't work and the water is polluted. And they are a shadow of their former selves. Militarily, all they can do is send guns and money to terrorists. How did that happen? Aviv Ready Guru will be here an hour or three to talk about that. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, a little bit pinched. Well, if you make a switch to Consumer Cellular, you may add some stretch to your budget. Consumer cellular.com/you 1-800-411-4454 now listen, do not fall for the phone on us big wireless offer. That phone is not free. Typically the most expensive phone you ever buy is the free phone that you get with Big Cellular. Look at the actual cost of that plan, the length of the contract before you get locked into what could be a thousand dollar mistake. Right now, for a limited time only, you get the second month of service with Consumer Cellular for free when you use my promo code, hugh or visit consumercellular.com hugh It'll be automatic, but if you call 1-800-411-4454 and mentioned Hue, you get that second month free. And here's something my listeners who are 50 and older will love. Two unlimited lines of data. Two for just $60. That's only $30 per line. Unlimited data. It's an easy way to manage your cost of living. It is the best deal out there. Call 1-800-411-4454. Be sure to use my promo code, Hugh.
- [69:03]
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- [70:03]
Hugh Hewitt
Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Byron York is a Fox News contributor, as am I. He is also the senior political correspondent for the Washington Examiner. I write a column or two for the examiner as well. And Byron is the perfect guest today because, Byron, yesterday the Wall Street Journal was fed a story that was not true. The story they were fed was that Vice President Vance was urging President Trump not to take kinetic action against Iraq, pushing diplomacy, etc. The Vice President's office went to great lengths today to let the world know that that was not true. I asked Brett about it and he said there's a lot going on inside of the White House. But he didn't know who would be out to damage the vice president that way because it makes him sound to be like an isolationist. What do you think is going on there?
- [70:51]
Byron York
Well, we've long had reports sort of inside and out about conflicts between the vice president's office, the shop and the larger administration. And that is to paint Vance as not on board against some of the foreign interventions and foreign policy.
- [71:16]
Hugh Hewitt
Can I interrupt you for a second? That's news to me. I'm in fairly regular contact with the office. He's been on the program. I've been interviewing him for five years, back all the way to when his book came out. I can't imagine he's not a backstabber. That's just not who J.D. vance is.
- [71:33]
Byron York
Well, yeah, but that's him. I mean, there are lots of other people sort of involved.
- [71:38]
Hugh Hewitt
Okay.
- [71:39]
Byron York
And I mean, you have to remember, I mean, when you hear news that's sort of out of the White House or out of a criminal investigation or out of something, you know, it could come from the person who's right in the center of everything or it could come from somebody out on the periphery who is heard about stuff. So clearly there are, I mean, obviously there is a fight inside MAGA about isolationism, foreign interventions, endless wars, all of this stuff. And the president has proved much more interventionist than I think most people would have predicted from the campaign. And that doesn't sit well with some people who, who are in his coalition.
- [72:21]
Hugh Hewitt
Well, the vice president is himself a veteran of the Iraq War, a Marine. And Iraq syndrome is when people think every kinetic action is going to turn into a decade long commitment of troops or in the case of Afghanistan, a two decade long commitment of troops. And so Iraq syndrome is sort of like Vietnam syndrome upside down or a new version of Vietnam syndrome. I don't think the vice President's got that. I don't know anyone in the White House who does. Do you talk to any of the neo isolationists or the restrainers as they're sometimes called?
- [72:55]
Byron York
I mean, it's unfortunate that after Vietnam Syndrome finally died, we got a new syndrome roughly similar. But look, I do think the Vice President saw a lot of what happened in Iraq as a futile intervention that shouldn't have been made. That the United States goes to war for reasons that turn out to be, you know, not true, as President Bush actually conceded. And then the war bogs down into, you know, basically Americans driving around and being attacked and then finally there is a surge. They get, you know, stabilize and leave. But I don't think the Vice President has a positive feeling or positive assessment of how the Iraq War went. So I mean, I think Iraq War Syndrome is actually valid. So the question is, do you view every foreign intervention as necessarily ending up like Iraq? And clearly, I think, you know, maybe the, the worst example of this is Tucker Carlson saying that if the United States bombed the Iranian nuclear program, then it would lead to war and tens of thousands of casualties and all of this stuff that didn't happen.
- [74:19]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah, we know that now. President Nixon in his retirement wrote a book called no more Vietnams. He did not mean by that no more kinetic action, no more strikes. He meant by that no more getting a half million troops bogged down in an endless conflict with no, with no plan to win and with a self imposed refusal to go to the north or do anything except bomb the North. It was a crazy war. It was run by the McNamara kids and Johnson and it went very, very badly. And Nixon got it ended and he said never do that again. And I think we kind of did that again in Iraq at 2/3 speed or 1/3 speed. I'm not for that either. Ronald Reagan was never for that either. He was for peace through strength, but, but he used force when necessary. So did George H.W. bush.
- [75:07]
Bret Baier
You know, I think if Donald Trump.
- [75:09]
Byron York
Has a doctrine about foreign interventions, it would be do it fast, do it with overwhelming force, get the job done, it's over. And that works. I mean, you know, that absolutely works. And I think the Iran bombing is an example of that because I mean, I personally think did not think we needed to bomb Iran because I think that Israel was actually getting this job done in the course of its. And it was going to get the job done in the course of its war with Iran, but we did it anyway and it was really, it was extremely effective and it didn't lead to any of the immediate consequences, at least that the.
- [75:51]
Hugh Hewitt
So what do you think is on the menu now? Because the president double, he told me last week, we're going to hit them hard if they kill people. He told Sean Hannity that he put it on Truth Social a couple times today in Dearborn. He said it again, help is on the way. What's that mean to you? BYRON York?
- [76:08]
Byron York
I don't know. It looks like they've killed a lot of people.
- [76:10]
Hugh Hewitt
Oh, boy, have they ever.
- [76:12]
Byron York
So what are we gonna do? I don't know. When the president said that originally, like the first time he said it, I thought to myself, why are we doing that? I mean, there are lots of really bad regimes in the world and they will kill people who try to, you know, rise up in favor of democracy. This just didn't seem like a good idea to me. But so far the president hasn't done anything but on. But as far as if you're a foreign actor is concerned and the president threatens some sort of action, you probably ought to take him seriously because at some point he's going to do it.
- [76:47]
Hugh Hewitt
The thing that Iran has done that no one else has done is try to kill Donald Trump. So that kind of a category of one.
- [76:57]
Byron York
That's a good point. And it's never a good idea because, you know, there was a lot of talk back in the Iraq war that George W. Bush, you know, remembered that Iraq had tried to kill George H.W.
- [77:11]
Aviv Radegur
Bush.
- [77:11]
Byron York
He tried to kill my father. And Bush would mention that in discussions about the war in Iraq.
- [77:18]
Hugh Hewitt
Deterrence is a is a dish best served consistently, not cold or hot, just consistently. I think Donald Trump is rebuilding American deterrence. Byron York, Follow my next Byron York. See him on the FOX News Channel. Read him at the Washington examiner every morning. Thank you, Byron. I'll be right back. America. Stay tuned.