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Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. i encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, a listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them@q4hillsdale.com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Literally two minutes ago, President Trump announced in the Oval Office prior to signing the whole Milk for Healthy Kids act, the first statute of the year. He said that the killing had stopped in Iran and that the executions that had been scheduled had been put off had been stopped and that he would alert people if that changed. This runs contrary to everything he said over the last week, including last night when he arrived at Andrews. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran signaled today was preparing to conduct swift trials and the execution of anti government protesters, defying President Trump as it intensifies its crackdown on nationwide demonstrations. Now, either or both President Trump and the Iranian government spokespeople may be blowing smoke in our eyes. Either or both of them might be saying A and when it's not A or B, when it's not B or not B, when it is B or not A, when it is A. That's part of the great game, the wilderness of Mirs. That's where we are right now. And the key is to keep the demonstrations going and stop the killing of the demonstrators or provide them with the ability to strike back. Now, that's what the President just said. The killings have stopped and it's nighttime. Now. In Iran, they're always about. It's about midnight and very little information has come out. I follow everything I can. I try and talk to everyone I can. So I really don't have any updates for you that you don't already know from this morning. But I did want to play for you a couple of things the President had to say last night when he landed Andrews back from Detroit. Cut number one to all Iranian patriots. Keep protesting, take over your institutions if possible, and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you. You're being very badly abused if the numbers are right. Now I hear five different sets of numbers. I hear numbers, look, one death is too much, but I hear much lower numbers. And then I hear much higher numbers. But I say save their names because they'll pay a very big price. Then I've canceled all meetings with the Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. And all I say to them is help is on its way. You saw that I put tariffs on anybody doing business with Iran just went into effect today. And I say make Iran great again. You know, it's a great country. Until these monsters came in and took. That was yesterday. Cut number two, also from yesterday, you have a message for the leaders currently of Iran. Yeah, the message is they've got to show humanity. They've got a big problem. And I hope they're not going to be killing people. And I'm going to have a report very soon. It would seem to me that they have been badly misbehaving, but that is not confirmed. Okay, cut number three. We had great numbers introduced today. We had a wonderful speech in front of great people in Detroit, mostly in the car business, and we're setting records in manufacturing. It's going very well. I think people appreciated what I had to say in terms of the numbers. So we're very happy about that. I'm going back to the White House now. We're going to look at the whole situation that's going on in Iran. It's really bad stuff. Minnesota is going to have to take care of itself for a little while. We have tremendous theft and fraud going on in that state because you have an incompetent governor, grossly incompetent governor, and a corrupt governor, but we'll straighten that out. But Iran is on my mind when I see the kind of death that is happening over there. We think so. We're going to get some accurate numbers. I'll have about 20 minutes. We'll get some accurate numbers as to what's happening with regard to the killing. The killing looks like it's significant, but we don't know yet for certain. I'll know within 20 minutes. So I'm sanctuary. And then the next cut. Americans woke up this morning and they saw that you said help is on the way. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well, there's a lot of help on the way and in different forms, including economic help from our standpoint and not going to help Iran very much. And, you know, we put Iran out of business with their nuclear capacity. And now, depending on what's actually happening, nobody's been able to give us accurate numbers of about how many people they've killed. Well, on that point, looks like it could be a pretty substantial number. And that's. That's the interview with Tony Dekopil from last night. Pull aside in Detroit. Now, after that happened, the crown prince of Iran was on Special Report with Bret Baier. His take on the numbers killed to date by the Iranian security forces. Cut number six. Zabel, the night before last to have a FaceTime moment with a few of the people who came right off the street to tell us how the situation was on the ground. I mean, awe and admiration in the courage that they have displayed. But the sad news is that we have had more casualties in the last two days. Four times the number of people who were dead as a result of the 911 terrorist attack. We're trying to get our head around that. What is the number? About 12,000 plus 12. So that. That is the high end. That's been repeated in a lot of places, but again, we don't have access to that. And again, the president just said moments ago the killing has stopped in Iran and scheduled executions are not going to happen. The Crown Prince went on to say this. Cut number seven. You've been on record before opposing US Military intervention in Iran. Are your views different today when you have civilians being murdered? I guess our tape is corrupted there. All right. So he went on to say to Bret Baer that when you have thousands of people being murdered, US Intervention becomes a necessary thing. And I was watching it live and was struck. He doesn't normally want anyone to intervene in his country. For many, many years, whenever the Crown Princes popped up and said something. The diaspora is divided among many different groups of anti Iranian regime. But people have realized he's a focal point as a transitional figure. I'll talk with Rich Lowry about that a little bit later. But have we been able to find the tape of the president in the Oval yet? This. Not yet. He did say this is. This is consistent with everything Donald Trump has done in his first year back and second year. He says both things at the same time, sometimes back to back. Here's what he said minutes ago. We have been notified and pretty strongly, but we'll find out what that all means. But we were told that the killing in Iran is stopping, stopped stopping. And there's no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So I've been told that a good authority. We'll find out about it. I'm sure if happens, we'll all be very upset, including you will be very upset. But that's just gotten to me some information that the killing has stopped, that the executions have stopped. They're not going to have an execution, which a lot of people were talking about for the last couple of days. Today was going to be the day of execution. I heard Tony Decopol say that to him yesterday. I have not seen that anywhere. What I have seen at the Wall Street Journal is that we are evacuating personnel from our airbase in Qatar. The Israelis are ramped up and ready for what they expect would be a second strike on them if a first strike happens. So if a first strike comes from the United States against Iran or any of its assets, it is the expectation in Israel, according to the Times of Israel, with good sources in the Prime Minister's office, that Israel will be on the receiving end of Iranian counterstrike. And at that point, it's going to be all over for Iran. If Israel starts another war with Iran, they're going to finish the regime. That's what the Times of Israel is reporting. I don't know what the case is, but here is Michael Duran of the Hudson Institute, one of the actual people who know something about Iran yesterday. Cut number five. No matter what happens, they're not getting out of this year with the power that they have now intact. They are getting progressively weaker. They don't have the tools, Gotti because their economy is such a mess by Western standards. Their economy has collapsed. All of their foreign currency is outside of the country. They sell oil to China and they keep the foreign currency outside of China. It doesn't come back to Iran. They don't have any capacity to bring that, to repatriate that money and put it to work for the Iranian people in any way. They don't have control over their own currency. Why not? Why not? Why don't they have the means to do that? Because of the sanctions. They created this shadow banking system. They sell the oil to China and then they have all of these shadow companies, these front companies all around the world in which they hide their money. They transfer some of it to their proxies, buy. They. They buy things that they need for their drones and missiles and, and so on. But this is not a normal. It's not a normal economy. It's not a normal anything. I'll continue to bring you updates on what the President says. There'll be a gaggle in the Oval after the signing ceremony and we'll see if anyone follows up. The President might be saying the killing has stopped, knowing full well the killing hasn't stopped. Trying to signal to Iran he's not going to hit when he is going to hit. He's become kind of a master of this game over the past. So I, I'm just gonna report what we know. I'm not gonna speculate right now. We know nothing. Nothing new. Stay tuned to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. For those of you longtime listeners of the show, you know, I lived in California from 1989 to 2016. That's when I moved back to the Beltway. But I come back to California for a few weeks every year and sometimes I teach back at Chapman Law School. I'm not teaching this year because I married a Californian, the fetching Mrs. Hewitt. And I've been living I've watched closely the decline of California into a chaotic place. But there are still some Republicans. Steve Hilton was on earlier this week. And now I want to introduce you to Tim Shaw. Tim is a friend of mine who is running for the 4th district supervisorial seat in Orange County. Now, Orange county used to be ruby red, red everywhere. There weren't any Democrats except Richard o'. Neill. I couldn't find a Democrat. Now, Tim Shah, how many Republicans are left in your fourth supervisorial district? Well, the district does lean Democrat. There are more Democrats. I do believe it's a winnable district. It's technically nonpartisan and I've been winning a lot in that area as a trustee on the Orange County Board of Education. So, Tim, I do think it's winnable for describe to the national audience where the 4th district of Orange County, California is. They only know Orange county from Orange County Housewives. Right? That's what they know. And surfing movie what's in the fourth District? Sure. It's so Orange county lies between Los Angeles and San Diego counties, you know, Hugh. And the fourth District is the northern part of that area, kind of a budding LA county. So I was the mayor of La Habra, which is a city that abuts Los Angeles County. And I have West Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park, Brea, Placentia and Stanton in the district. So my question is, why does anyone want to be on the board anymore with the state collapsing around our ears, the billionaire tax is driving the wealthiest people out of the state. You know, I left 10 years ago, but now it's driving out Silicon Valley. Why do you want the job, Tim Shaw? Well, the way it's shaping up right now, Hugh, you know, as you mentioned, Orange county is a purple county. We do have three Democrats, two Republicans on our Board of Supervisors. One of those Democrats is the one representing me, and he's termed out. So it is a seat that's up for grabs. Should I prevail, we would flip our Board of Supervisors to back to a Republican majority, which would be very significant. I mean, Orange county is the third largest county in California, the sixth largest county in the United States with over 3 million residents. So I feel like I was well Positioned having run a lot of races in this area, and I am the only Republican candidate running. So my candidacy could be very significant for us here in Orange County. The website for his campaign, by the way, is Tim, the number 4oC. Timthenumber4oc.com Tim, why does a board of Supervisors matter to California? I know why California matters to the country. It's the economy, stupid. But why does Orange county matter to California? Well, the overall budget, hugh, is over $10 billion a year. So it's not small. And, you know, we get to implement a lot of different policies, everything from transportation to health care to public safety. You know, we're approving budgets for the district attorney and the sheriff and others. So, you know, as California goes, so goes the country. But here in Orange county, we have a big impact on how California goes as well. So your local government. Do you think Orange county has a fraud problem like Hennepin county in Minnesota and the Twin Cities has? You think that's a problem here? I'm afraid every level of government view has fraud. I mean, we've had such an eye opening with what's happened in Minnesota that we really have to look at every level of government. And, you know, all those contracts that went out during COVID is the government was spending, you know, trillions of dollars going out the door. I'm sure there was fraud at virtually every level. So in the campaign, is it shaping up how many people want to be supervisor? When is the election and is it first past the post, or is it you need a majority of votes cast to win in using a majority. So there's myself and three other candidates so far, it'll be on June 2nd. If any candidate were to get over 50% here in June, they win it outright. If that doesn't happen, only the top two would advance to November to run all over again, and then we'll get a winner in November. Now, Tim Shaw, I think you'll at least be in the top two. But I'm always curious is the loony Democrat is the looniest Democrat ahead in whatever polling you've done? Because that's usually what happens in a primary. I don't have any scientific polling done. I would suspect, frankly, no. Right now, the three candidates that are besides myself that are running are city council members. And to be perfectly honest with you, Hugh, I'm going to guess they're only known within their one city. You know, there's seven cities in the district. I've been on the ballot in all seven of those cities, many Times in the last few years as a trustee on the Orange County Board of Education getting elected there. My guess is right now, if you did a poll, those, those candidates are only going to have a little name ID in their own city, but zero outside of that. Now, the secret sauce of California elections, which a lot of people don't know don't live in the Golden State, is your ballot designation. And people play around with it all the time. They try and put as much as they can and leave out as much as they don't want from their ballot. What is your ballot design? Orange County Board of Education Trustee. That's good. So I. That's very like that because you know, in a race for Orange county supervisor, having the words Orange county in your ballot title has got to be pretty good. And I'll be the only one with that, I believe. So, Tim, last question. What is the demographic breakdown of the district? I'm particularly looking for Persians. What, what percentage of the diaspora do you have in north Orange County? I simply unaware. I know we have a big Vietnamese population there, but what about the other ethnicities? We have about 20% that are Asian. There's a pretty significant Korean population up there. All Asians combined is about 20%. And there's, you're right, Hu. In the southern part of our district. We do get into a lot of the Vietnamese community, but, you know, there's a decent amount of Chinese as well, a lot of, you know, Hispanics. I did a Spanish speaking mission from my church, so I do fully intend on trying to reach out to those who speak Spanish as well. What's it cost to run for a supervisor in California, Tim? It's probably going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know, that's always an interesting question because you don't know for sure how much your opponents may or may not have. But you know, it's probably for sure a couple hundred thousand dollars. Tim Shaw, good to talk to you again. Tim's an old friend of mine. I wish him well. He's done a great job on the Orange County Board of Education, which is charter school friendly in Orange county, which is why I keep my eye on it. And when I this week he was running for supervisor, I wanted to bring him on and at least give people a little local flavor that there is a little bit of hope in California. His name is Tim Shaw in Orange County's 4th district supervisorial seat. And Steve Hilton running for governor with his running mate Gloria Romero there. There are bright spots. It's not all dark in California. Thank you. My friend Tim4oc. I said that wrong. It's shaw4oc shaw the number4oc.com shaw4oc.com I'm Hugh Hewitt in the Relief Factor studio out west for a few weeks. I'm joined by Mike Rogers, Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan. Mike, good to see you again. How are things in Michigan? You know, we are doing great here, Hugh. Thanks for asking. This is what, your second home, right? I hope I got away 10 years ago. Yeah, I ran away 10 years ago. Guess what, I'm going to be elected senator. So you can come back. You'll have a very friendly place here. Well, we're going great. So you know what, having reshoring opportunities here. So better jobs are coming back at higher wages. That's pretty exciting for us. We have 3 million families that are going to benefit from this. No tax on overtime. 3 million families. It's going to be unbelievable. Hundreds of thousands of tip workers are going to get the benefit of no tax on tips. You add that to no tax on Social Security and the child tax credit. Michigan is going to be in the driver's seat here coming up and we're putting pressure on prices so that, you know, at least the Republicans in Washington are doing that. So that's a good thing. You know, we're, I expect a good thing to happen this year and I think people are going to be pretty fired up come about may understanding. Mike, I am giving a talk tonight to a group of Republicans of significant assets and they are in Orange County, California and they support campaigns. And my message is we're playing defense in Maine and in North Carolina and Ohio, but we're looking to flip seats in Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota. You're one of the three opportunities we have to pick up a seat. What is the early fundraising for Rogers from Michigan looking like? And what's the website, by the way, that people can go to to get more information, Chip in a little bit? Yeah, we'd love that. Rogersforsenate.com and listen, the Democrats will pour endless amounts of money into a state like this. So come to rogersforsenate.com check us out. Hopefully you can get to that donation page and every little bit helps. But I will tell you this, the aggregate polling view, this is very unusual for Michigan. If you look at all the competitive states around, we're the only race in the country that's been leading all three of the Democrats who have a primary. We don't really have a primary. So that's huge. For Michigan to be up this early and that means we are absolutely poised to win this seat going in and we're doing exceptionally well amongst independents. And so that tells you a really strong story for hey, this is the place to invest. We put our ground game together. We have our organization down. Our coalitions are starting to grow. We're doing all the real hard work and raising money is a big part of that. We're going to report here very soon. We've got about three and a half million dollars cash on hand which will be higher than any other candidate in this race. And I'm talking about the Democrats. There's no other Republican. And so we are in prime position. It does does mean we've got a lot of work to do. It's still Michigan at the end of the day, but if we're ahead this far out, man, all we need is the resources to get our message out and we're going to win this thing. So Mike Rogers, on the on the issues priority list, you talked about affordability issues right off of the top. And I'm sure that's what's going to drive November. How much does stability in Venezuela and an end of the regime in Iran mean to the people of Michigan? So it's not huge. It's not on the top of the list. People will weigh in on it. We have, you know, a small community here of Jewish population. We have a larger Muslim population here who by the way, thinks this is a good idea. They know that Iran has been the cause of most of the problems across the Middle east and the most destabilizing factor there. But I wouldn't say it comes to the top of the list, honestly. Listen, we're a working state. People like to call us the Rust Belt. I prefer that we are the work belt state in the union. And people are worried about what their cost of groceries are. Can they afford their kids education, can they get a new car when their car breaks down? What if they have an emergency in their household? Those things are going to be the most important. But that also includes we used to be the Democrats have taken us from top tier education to number 44 in the country. They've lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs, highest auto insurance in the in the country, really high electricity rates here. People know that Democrat policies aren't working when it comes to affordability and job opportunity for them and their families. So that's the one that people are going to walk in and pull the lever on. And I think we're in the right spot to have that conversation. And we've got some really unique ideas about how we can get people interested in home ownership, improving the education system, and more jobs here. So we're pretty fired up about it because we're offering real solutions and people are reacting. So in terms of the issue set, again, that's affordability. That makes sense to me. We'll probably talk about that a lot between now and November. Where would you prefer the issue to be framed? As immigration control and border security or as ICE pulling people out of cars? There's a narrative struggle underway right now. Are we talking about immigration control or are we talking about ICE using too much force? How do you see it? You're former law enforcement yourself. Yeah. And we just went down to the border and have a hard conversation. It is about secure borders. If we cannot secure our southern border, I, as an FBI agent who is a street agent in Chicago, working organized crime and chase drug dealers and fugitives. If we can't control that border, guess where that ends up. It ends up in your community, in a state near you. All 50 states were impacted by the millions and millions of people coming over the border. So we talk about in terms of secure borders and safer streets, and you can see the correlation, Hugh, of the drugs availability is coming down. We're seeing murder rates come down. And this is not by accident. You secure that border and you go after criminals, rapists, murderers, child molesters, drug dealers who are here illegally. That has an impact on crime in all of our communities. And so that's the way we talk about it. And that's why it's so important to make sure you don't give up on a secure border. You saw how easy it was for the Democrats when they got in charge. They just flipped the switch and said, y' all come in now. And guess what? That didn't work for America. It was dangerous for America. We paid a heavy price for it. And now what you see ISIS doing is they need to go after these criminals who are causing problems in communities and making our communities less safe. So how does it play on the trail? Because I'm going to talk to Comfortably Smug of the Ruthless podcast after this. I'm sure you know Ruthless, and they talk about all the. It's being framed badly by some Republicans, being framed well by other Republicans. Democrats want to make ICE out to be terrible people. Republicans want to make sanctuary cities into the villain. How are you approaching. It's a complicated bit of political speech to communicate on this issue. Yeah. So here's what I do to you. I Talk about the secure border. And as a guy who saw the impact of crime, including illegal immigrants who are in our country committing crime, when I was an FBI agent, I talk about those stories. They're real. That impact is real. And the crime that they commit and the victims that they create for a lifetime are real. I do say this once. We continue to get this border secure, one of the few times we have as a president who will have credibility on securing the border, having a conversation about a working functioning worker visa program. And it can't really, you can't have that without securing the border. You cannot. And so the just really nothing short of miraculous results of allowing border agents to do their work. And by the way, their morale is off the chart. Good. Because they're allowed to do the job they were hired to do then. Now we can start having a conversation about what a working worker visa program looks like. So all the things you hear about ICE going after a criminal element and they also pick up, you know, some other folks that are here illegally but haven't committed crimes, well, guess what? A lot of that can go away as long as we have a true functioning worker visa program and we get that fixed. Guess what? We're going to have our business community, our economy is going to benefit. We're not asking business people to lie, you know, lie and cheat about who they hire. And by the way, we secure the border. And it's something that works for America and economy, works for Americans, works for really everybody. So, Mike, last week President Trump was a guest and I put to him, he wants insurance reform. He wants to give direct cash payments to people who buy their insurance. I suggested that would be easier done if it was paired up with really bipartisan issue like the dreamers, like the AM radio and every car act like a few that have got supermajorities, stuff like that. He wasn't thinking in that term how important is the health insurance and does it in fact have to stand alone in your campaign? Well, listen, I don't ever think it needs to stand alone. If you can accomplish a few good things all at the same time, I would take that deal all day long. And what we just have to be careful of. Listen, again, we're a working state, Hugh. The government has told these folks wrongly, I think, that we're going to subsidize a very broken health care system because we don't want to have to fix it. And so now they're stuck. Right. The Democrats created this system. They've doubled the rate of denials by insurance companies, they have nearly doubled the amount of instances. You have to ask the insurance company first after your doctor says you need something to see if it's covered. They've narrowed what you can do to get a doctor. I mean, all this is terrible. Oh, and by the way, premiums twice as fast as the rate in inflation. That's Obamacare. And so what you don't want to do is punish people who are struggling every month to make their bill payments. So my argument is we, you got to swap this thing out. You can't just cut it off and then hope for a fix in the future. You got to make sure that those people don't get punched in the face with really bad Democrat policies that cost them their house or car or whatever. And so I think you can get there. I would package the deal better. And I would also make sure that these folks aren't just absolutely slapped in the face for something they didn't do. They're follow the rule. Rogersforsenate.com Rogers R O G E R S F O R senate.com rogersforsenate.com Touch again soon. Mike Rogers don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back. What's better than receiving rent on the first? Not having to ask for it? Stop wasting your time and let software handle rent collection for you. It's easy, free, and you don't have to be the bad guy. Get started@turbotenant.com welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Daniel Darling is the leader of the Land center at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary. The Land center is involved with cultural engagement. Daniel is also a prolific author. He's been a pastor before. His most recent book, in Defense of Christian Patriotism, came out late last year. I had read it. My gosh, it's got to be nine months ago now. Daniel, I was very impressed with it. Welcome. How are you and how is the book doing? Well, thank you, Hugh, for having me on. I really appreciate it and glad to be with you. And the book is doing very well, getting a pretty good reception as we celebrate America's 250th birthday. That's what it's time for, obviously, is that between now and July 4th, a lot of people are going to be reflecting on the American experiment. But at the same time, you note up front a lot of people are warning about Christian nationalism. I always kind of view that as silly. But it's not silly if the non believing community hears it and believes it. Is that why you wrote the book? In part, yeah. I Wrote the book for a few reasons. Number one, I've always been deeply patriotic ever since my, my parents took a trip from where we lived in Chicago to Washington D.C. in the, in the 80s when I was a kid to Washington D.C. and I was just awestruck. But number two, there is increasing pressure on particularly conservative Christians to hide their patriotism or not express it because of this really overwrought fear of Christian nationalism, mostly by a media that really, for the last several decades has sought to push Christianity out of the public square. There are some folks, a small pocket of folks who don't like the constitutional order and like to have a, you know, sort of a, you know, a state church, but that's a very small number of folks. Most Christians love the constitutional order, but they don't want to check their faith at the door. They want to be involved in the political process. And I think that's part of the American heritage and tradition that Christians have been engaged since the very beginning. Now, your book, and again, the title for the audience is In Defense of Christian Patriotism by Daniel Darling. In Defense of Christian Patriotism, the old Luntz Law. You got to say the title seven times, if anyone's going to remember. In Defense of Christian Patriotism came at the end of a series of books about Christian nationalism, the most prominent of which were, I believe by John Ward, and one was by Tim Alberta. And they, you can cherry pick America. You can go find some goofy congregations that are way out there preaching a theology that is alien to Protestants and Catholics alike. You can find those people, and they're not hard to find. What's hard to calculate is what percentage of the American religious does it represent? What do you think in your head, what percent of American Christianity is Christian nationalists, in the way that you and I understand it, which is a rejection of the constitutional order? Well, that's exactly right, Hugh, that most American Christians, evangelicals, I'm Southern Baptist, we're the largest Protestant denomination. Most American evangelical Christians want to be involved in public policy. They want to bring their faith to the public square, which I think is important for the American experiment. But very few want what, you know, a Christian state or a theocracy. There are some. Right. It's a small number of people. But if you look at surveys, we did a survey here a couple years ago and found that most Southern Baptists, a high percentage, want religious liberty for everybody. But they do want Christianity in the public square. And really, if you look back to the founding hu, the founders understood they didn't want to stay church. They saw how that went poorly for the state and the church, but they understood that this experiment would not endure without a thick religion, virtue. And they'd argue Christianity in America. John Adams famously said this. This experiment will only work for a moral and religious people. Even Thomas Jefferson, who may be the most secular of the founders, understood the importance of virtue and religion. And so I think a lot of the hand wringing on from the media on the left is really misguided, and I think it seeks to push Christians away from being involved in the country that they love. I also think it is a convenient Trojan horse for getting in an attack on Trump. And President Trump divides the room. A lot of pastors will talk about the president. I've never been in favor of politics from the pulpit, especially explicit presidential politics, but nevertheless, a few will do. So if you grab onto that, or if you grab onto a congregation that is particularly, I'll use the term maga, even though it's like Christian nationalism. It's an accordion term. It can expand or contract as you want. I think they'll be able to find a few pastors like that, but I don't think it's a trend. I really don't. Do you? It's not. It's really not. Hugh, you're exactly right. I'm in a lot of churches all across the country, Southern Baptist evangelical churches, and very few churches talk about politics in the pulpit. Now, they may inform their congregation, particularly on the sanctity of life and marriage and things like that, and urge the congregation to vote. But you're very rarely going to get a political message if you walk into a average evangelical church. In fact, you're more likely to get a political message if you go to a progressive church. Hugh, I mean, we have, you know, people like Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in pulpits preaching partisan messages. I mean, Schumer on Easter Sunday once compared the appointment of Justice Jackson to the resurrection of Christ. And yet there's no moral hand wringing from the media when that happens. But whenever there's any kind of incidental contact between Christians and politics on the right, it's, you know, a theocracy. I mean, consider this. When George Bush said that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ in the primary in 2000, the media went crazy and said he's going to establish a theocracy. This is terrible. When Mike Johnson talked about it was God's providence that put him in the speaker's chair, something that American politicians have been saying forever. The media Went crazy. Oh, he's going to usher in Christian nationalism. And I just think there's an ignorance of American history of the way that Christians interact with a republic and I think it's unfortunate. In defense of Christian patriotism also points out that we are not, we can't be captured by a single Polaroid snapshot of any moment. I do believe there's a consensus that a clericy rule ruled by clerics like we have in Iran and like we're watching even right now, brutally suppressing non adherence to their faith has never existed and can never exist provided that the Constitution is applied. That that's what I. The Constitution is very strong. I've been teaching it for 30 years. The establishment clause as it's originally understood and the free exercise clause coexist very, very easily with each other. And it simply means we're not going to run things according to doctrine, we're going to run things according to politics. That's exactly right. There's, you know, the founders, they didn't want a state church. They saw how that worked throughout history. They didn't want theocracy. But I don't think they can envision the secularism we see now, Hugh, where Christianity has been pushed out of the public square, particularly in the last several decades, middle of the 20th century onward. Thankfully, you know, in the last few decades, the Supreme Court has alleviated some of those barriers to where Christians can participate like everyone else in the public square. And so I think people think there's a false choice. Either have to have a theocracy or are Christians totally disengaged? And we don't want that. You know, as a Baptist, I don't want the government telling the church what to do. I don't want the government, you know, deciding between right and wrong belief. As a limited government guy, I think the government can barely run a post office, much less make theological decisions. Right. And so I think what the founders envision and where we've settled is really, to me, one of the great ways to do human government. I think the greatest experiment in human government that, that the world's ever seen. The home team has first and 10 in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. Tired of missing the game because of your tenants? Let Turbo Tenant simplify rental management for you. It's free, easy to set up, and you don't have to worry about missing out on the big moments. Get started for free@turbotenant.com still going. Brought down at the 51. More case from the court on how robust the free exercise clause is. And we will be back to where the framers intended the correct balance. Daniel Darling, congratulations on the new book In Defense of Christian Patriotism. Daniel's at the Land center for Cultural Engagement at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Houston. And my gosh, he's prolific. You might want to start following him on X at Daniel Darling and follow me in the next segment of today's Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I hope you are a listener to the Ruthless podcast which is out every Monday, Tuesday or Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Fun Friday is the best. One of the fellows, the four Horsemen of the potocolates, is comfortably smug who joins me from Ruthless World Headquarters right now. Smug. I have not spent much time on the Minnesota Ice stuff. I've been watching Iran, so I don't know if the fellows have been talking about it, but I know you are incarceration inclined. You almost always want to lock him up. So do you think ICE is doing enough of lock him up in order to deter the idiocy that's going on? I think ICE has been doing a heroic job of trying to do the job that they've been given. They have been charged by the laws that we have on the books with arresting people inside the United States who are here illegally. It seems very straightforward. Unfortunately, there are many states which have turned into quote, sanctuaries for criminals, illegal aliens. And those states who are trying to fight the laws on the books that are trying to fight the federal government are creating a need for ICE to have to go in and conduct these raids in states that are normal, where they do follow the laws. You don't see these kind of images of mayhem and protesters and all of this nonsense because law enforcement and the local authorities work with the federal ICE officials and they just hand over the legals. You never even see it on the news because it's very simple. If they're caught by police, they're put in jail. ICE comes and picks them up. That's the way the system is supposed to work. So President Trump yesterday announced he's cutting off all federal funding to so called sanctuary states and sanctuary cities. I don't know how he does it, but I hope he can do it. Are you in favor of that? 100%. I think also that folks should realize that this is the moderate option. When you had Governor Walz in Minnesota say that he's going to activate the National Guard and he feels that he's at war with, you know, the federal government and that he's not going to follow the directives of the federal government. Abraham Lincoln had an approach that he took when he had to deal with a situation like that. And I think Democrats are finding themselves in a similar position where once again they're trying to support their cheap labor by any means necessary. If that means taking up arms against the government. Trump cutting off the money is the moderate approach and I fully support it. So smug. The thousand dollar question is it's an election year, people lock in. You work with political pros, I think they will agree with this. You have to debate it sometime. I think decisions on voting are locked in by the end of June. Do you think the videos of ICE taking legal observers, a term they invented, legal observers, into custody, pull them out of their car, do they help or do they hurt going into the midterms? I think that the problem is this issue has of corruption in Minnesota, of Minnesota being a sanctuary state that allows for these criminal illegal aliens to commit crimes relentlessly without anyone trying to stop them. That's the discussion that needs to happen. I think the Democrats are trying to muddy the waters and they want everyone talking about, oh, look at this angle from the video. It looks like you can see this. Or they don't want to have the debate at the surface of why is Minnesota not following the laws? Why is Minnesota not following the will of the voters in 2024 when they wanted to get criminal illegal aliens out of the country? So they're trying to muddy the waters and make it about a videotape or images of did ICE use too much force? Did ICE use not enough force? What would you have done? Couldn't the officer just like do a backflip and shoot the tire out on a car? So they want to muddy the waters. And when the waters are muddied like that, that's when they don't have to stand for their crazy beliefs that voters hate, that voters do not agree with. So they want those images. I think what we need to do is have the debate and say, listen, this is a law and order issue. This is what the American people voted for. What I want smugging, and this is the exit. I want the DHS to post the name and background of everyone they arrest and deport so that we canit might be it's tens of thousands of people, but those they detain and those that they have either a deportation order for or who have been escorted out of the country, tell us about them in detail. Because bad news drives out good news, real news drives out bad news. I want more, not less from DHS what do you want? I completely agree. A couple days ago, Bill Milugian, a reporter over at fox, got a list from ICE of the folks that they had arrested that day. And it was the most horrific criminal act that you could conceive of happening. And when they put that out, I think that lets the public know, okay, these are the worst of the worst. These are terrible people. I want them out of my community. I fully support President Trump and ICE in doing this. So I agree. Putting that information out is how you help common people who aren't as tuned in minute to minute of how necessary this action is. Yeah. Around the clock every day, DHS ought to be producing a list of the people they've apprehended and those that they have sent out of the country for the reasons Smug just said. Catch the Ruthless podcast with the fellas every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, Fun Friday. Not to be missed. Wherever you get your podcast, the Ruthless Podcast. Thank you, Smug. I'll be right back. America. Stay tuned. Morning Glory. Evening, great America. I'm Hugh Hewitt in the Relief Factor Studio West. Pleased to welcome back first time in the new year, Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, also host of the Editors podcast, which I listened to this morning from yesterday, which began with a roundtable of Noah Rothman, Jim Geraghty and Charles C.W. cook and Rich talking about Iran. Since then, Rich, the news has been breaking quite fast and furious on nothing has happened. But the president in the Oval said, well, they said they're going to stop killing and there aren't going to give any executions. Then Iran throws up a picture on Iran state TV of the assassination of President Trump and says this time we'll get him. That's on Iran state tv. And then Bret Baier does an interview with the Iranian foreign minister. I want to play it, going to play at six o' clock tonight Eastern time. Here is the only clip Fox has released. There are reports, sir, that anywhere from 2,500 to more than 12,000 protesters in various cities have been killed by the regime. How many people have been killed? I have to say you, I have to tell you the story. When terrorist elements led from outside, you know, entered this, you know, protests and started to shoot, to shoot, you know, police forces, police officers and security forces. And there were terrorist cells. They came in, they used Daesh style terrorist, you know, operations. They got police officers, burned them alive, they beheaded them and they started shooting at police officers and also to the people. So as a result, for three days we had in fact fighting against terrorists and not you know, with the protesters, it was completely a different story. The reason I have to explain, and this is important, why they started to shoot at people for one reason, they wanted to increase the number of deaths. Why? Because President Trump has said that if there are killings, he would intervene. And they wanted to drag him into this conflict. And that was exactly an Israeli plot. All right, Rich Lowry, we now know it's the Jews. What do you make of that? I hope Candace Owens doesn't see that clip. I'm sure she will. Look, all these regimes, they're liars. This is particularly bad lying. This is Baghdad Bob level of advocacy for what they're doing. And this regime is on the ropes. I don't know whether they're going to fall. I don't know whether Trump's going to act. I kind of think he is. But it is in major peril. The most it's been in since 1979. Now, Rich, I want to play for you. The president had a presser earlier today, couple of the polls from that which I played for the audience in the first hour, but they may not have heard it. Let's go to cut number, cut number over the last 11 days. And we have been notified and pretty strongly, but we'll find out what that all means. But. But we were told that the killing in Iran is stopping and stopped and stopping, and there's no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So I've been told that on good authority we'll find out about it. I'm sure if happens, we'll all be very upset, including you. We'll be very upset. But that's just gotten to me from information that the killing has stopped, that the execution have stopped. They're not going to have an execution, which a lot of people were talking about for the last couple of days. Today was going to be the day of execution. So what do you make of the Trump shuffle, Rich Lowry? It's very typical, right? This is where he always is on this sort of stuff. One day, it sounds like he's going to make friends with you and he accepts what you're doing and everything's better. Other days he threatens you and he maintains maximum maneuverability. I would think if the killings have stopped, there's only one reason they would stop, Right. They think they've crushed the potential rebellion. And I don't know why we'd make executions are hideous when carried out by a regime like this. I don't know why we'd make that. In particular, the red line. I saw the interview With Tony Decopol of CBS Evening News. Last night, the pull aside in Detroit and he popped off with, and I hadn't seen this anywhere, but Tony's good news man said there are going to be hangings tomorrow. And I've subsequently seen that confirmed they were going to hang a young 26 year old single man who runs a clothing store. And that was announced. So the president was visibly shocked by that. He's a very visual person. Right. That's why he hit Syria in the first term. If they hang people or if any video gets out of massacres, this game's over, do you think? I don't know whether the game's over, but it wouldn't help their cause. Neither does it help their cause to post about assassinating the president. And I think, Hugh, also a key thing about Trump, right, He, he in many ways is a guy of the 1970s. You know, Jimmy the Greek was a great guy. He said that back in 2015 or 2016. Most of us don't know who Jimmy the Greek is anymore. He does. And any American of that era, that generation, you are just, it's in your DNA to hate and distrust this regime because you felt that humiliation so starkly throughout 1979 and 1980. And that's where Trump's coming from. Barack Obama did not feel that way, but Trump does. So I tend to think he's going to hit him, but who knows? I'm with you, Rich. Now, yesterday after the program, I listened to a podcast called For Heaven's Sake, which is hosted by Daniel Hartman of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and Yossi Klein Olavi, who along with Michael Oren had been writing about the Iranian threat for 30 years. And they said woe to Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes and John Kerry because they bought the whole moderate thing in Iran. And I think the Foreign Ministry is not a moderate, but he's from the fanatic side of the aisle that doesn't want to get killed. So I do believe there could be a division within the regime among people who want to poke the beast and those who don't want to poke the beast. Yeah, well, poking the beast, though, is in their DNA, right? They started out poking the beast for that tremendous national humiliation we suffered when they took over the embassy and held our people for more than 400 days. So this is what they're about, right? It's about radical Islam, theocratic governance, hating Israel and hating America. Those are the core tenets of the regime. So they're not going to give them up until the very end. And that obviously is a key thing to watch you is whether there's any split in the security services. I've been reading about 1978, 79, the revolution. And the problem the Shah had. It wasn't necessarily that Carter dumped him. He was incompetent, he was indecisive. And by the end, even if he wanted to order an all out massacre to try to hold on to power, it's not clear who would have carried out the order because all the army guys were just deserting, they were leaving. So that'd be the key indicator to look for cracks in the security services guys begin to switch sides and we haven't seen any of that yet. Rich, I've told the audience a couple of times over the last three or four days. I watched that revolution in real time on a couch in San Clemente, California with Ray Price and Richard Nixon. It was on television every night and it went on for six months before the Shah left and the Iranian army would not back him. That's why he left. Now the Crown Prince has made an explicit appeal to the Iranian army which is not the irgc, is not the Basij, it's itself. That's what I would look for. Is that what you would look for? Because the people don't have guns in Iran. There's no Red dawn movie coming here. Yeah, that would be huge if that, that happens. We haven't seen any sign of it but that's, that's what to. What to look for. And just this would be such a historic reversal. Right. You the 79 humiliation of the United States. Sign of a hollow military, the desert one debacle, sign of American retreat around the world. Feckless president overcome by events. And if this, if this happens, this revolution, a new revolution, it'd be all that in reverse, right? Every single one of those dynamics in the opposite direction. It would be the biggest thing since the dissolution of the civil Soviet Union, which we did not think possible until it happened. Now Rich, I'm going to ask Mike Duran on Monday and there are a few people I would trust on this Karim Sadjapur, Noram rule. There are very few really Iranian specialists. Kharg island is where their oil comes out of that they send to China. Why wouldn't we hit Karg Island? I mean it's pretty discreet. You're not going to endanger civilians. It would cripple their already crippled economy. Why wouldn't we hit that? Yeah, well if you're going to do it, that would be a good target. You'd want to hit things that make sense on their own. Right. So even if your revolution doesn't happen, you still set back the regime yet more. And I think that would be high on the list. The downsides here, Hugh, you know, if you take military action and the regime suppresses the revolt and you kind of credibility is hurt and it kind of magnifies the victory of the regime holding on, that would be one downside. And then also you just never know when a government falls what's going to take its place. Right. It could be irgc, a regime that maybe is more competent and therefore more threatening to us. Could be civil war, which I don't think would threaten us necessarily, but would be terrible for Iran and for the region. But this, this regime is so bad, it's so hostile, has so much American blood in their hands. This is one where we really want to say, all right, let's see what's behind door number three, almost no matter what. Let me pull a page from the Rich Lowry book for exit question. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being absolute, certainly the Zionists will strike and 0 being Israel will stay out of it. If the United States hits Iran, what's the likelihood of Israel being drawn into the conflict? Ordinarily, I'd say it's quite high. But as you highlighted on X this afternoon, there are reports that if Israel gets hit by Iran in this context, it's going to go all in and is not going to stop to the regime's gone. So I think that might stay Iran's hands. I'll put about a put at a cop out. Five. All right, five it is. Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review. Follow him on exit. Rich lowry, Listen to the editors. It's always informative, it's always entertaining, available wherever podcasts are come back. We're going local and we're going to our 250th birthday celebration. Should it be on August 2nd? Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. As many of you in the audience know, I've been teaching con law for 30 years. And on the first day of class, I let them know there are three dates they need to know about the Constitution. The date it was adopted, which is September 17th of 1787. The date it was ratified, which is June 21st, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to adopt, and the day it became effective, which was March 4, 1789. Three dates. Now, my friend David Zavagno, who's the spokesman for the Lake Erie foundation, joins me because Dave, we've got three dates about our Declaration of Independence. Would you set the record straight and how Ohio is going to make sure the third date is not forgotten? So on July 2, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on Independence, and then it was adopted further on July 4th. But he was, you know, it went off to the printer. And it wasn't until everyone was gathered on August 2 that the majority of delegates signed on. And I think we have 56 signees for the Declaration of Independence. And it's our goal to make that date historically significant and have the recreation of the signing of the Declaration in Ohio on August 2nd of 2026. It's going to be at the Battle of Lake Erie Memorial you organized the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie, which was quite the spectacular. Are you going to do something on that order again, Dave Zavagno? Because that was. Oh, we got to do it better. We have to do it better. We have the Ohio State band returning. We've got several tall ships coming in. We actually have a number of the descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We've bringing in the navy, the local Coast Guard as well as the the army group. So I think that it'll be a spectacular celebration. As you remember, the fireworks were, I don't know, we didn't crack the rock, but we tried. What I tell people about the recreation of the Battle of Lake Erie that the Lake Erie foundation put on and Dave Zavagno headed is that not only did they recreate the Battle of Lake Erie, they recreated Dunkirk. Because out of every port and harbor around the Great Lakes, from Michigan and Ohio and Canada, came small boats. There were like 4,000 small boats surrounding these 13 tall ships. Are you expecting that again? Well, we're expecting close to 50,000 people to come to the area for the weekend. We're hopeful that most people will be centered in the importance of the Declaration of Independence and what it means for everybody. And we try to make it a living event for this year as it relates to the words and the verbiage and the intent of the likes of Jefferson and our Founding Fathers. So I think it's going to be an absolutely wonderful weekend for people to come to Ohio to visit with us at Put In Bay as we re sign the Declaration of Independence. And as you probably know, it's just a little bit better bill than what has been recently signed by the majority of Congressmen. The Declaration is a beautiful document. As Abraham Lincoln said, it's the apple of gold protected by the frame of silver. He borrowed that, I believe, from Proverbs when he's talking about the Declaration of the apple of Gold, the frame of silver being the Constitution. But Daves of Agnew, I actually did not know August 2nd is when Penn went to paper. But as the background notes from the Lake Erie foundation point out, foreign governments did not recognize voice votes. Right. They weren't in the business of telephone tech or there weren't any telephones. And the ships were slow. They needed a document. They needed an actual document to be signed. And I believe there are a few copies of it as well. Have you got any of those close by Ohio? You know, we've reached out to get one of the existing original copies of the Declaration to be on site for this Declaration. As you probably know, it's. It's like an act of Congress to try to get one. So we're hopeful that if JD Signs on to, to be there for this weekend, as well as potentially President Trump as well as the Congress, we're inviting every congressional member from both the Senate and the House. We've got quite a few people that have already signed on to be there. So we, we haven't secured the document. We're trying desperately, and I think if you volunteer to write the insurance policy, it might happen. Well, Jim Byron is helping Marco Rubio run the archives, so I'll find out how many we've got. I know one of them is in the Oval, and you're not going to get that one because it's on the wall of the Oval, but maybe one of the other ones. Dave Zavagno, I honestly did not know, though, about August 2nd. And how did you figure this out? That we needed to add that we need to extend the celebration, which is underway and it's building. And we've been talking about 250th birthday. Everyone remembers the bicentennial who was around for 1976. But I don't remember August 2, 1976, being a big day. Was it? Did anyone mark it then? You know, I don't know what the celebration was at that point, but when we started investigating this, Hugh, and we tried to figure out, well, what's the relevance of the state of Ohio as it relates to the Declaration of Independence? We weren't one of the original 13 colonies, so what was our place on the map? What we come to find from the research was, you know, we declared our independence in 1776, but the British never gave up. And the second war of independence was the war of 1812. And as you probably remember the Battle of Lake Erie was one of the turning points. So in many respects, you know, we declared our independence in 1776, and then we defended it again in 1812. So when you look back at history, it came to be that when you saw July 4th and the adoption by Congress, the first thing they did was send it off to the printer. And so a gentleman ran off and he spent about a month getting it printed up. He brought it to August 2, where most of the signatures were there. 56 people signed on at that time. And as you probably know, there's people who wouldn't sign it because it was basically a mutinous document. And this now was going to be sent out, as you know from being a lawyer, that it's now, you know, you've, you've inscribed your name. And I think if you go back to the telling words of Ben Franklin and what he said, as you probably remember, this was very, you know, it was very difficult for these people. I think nine or 10 of them were killed within a year or so. I mean, the British had them on their scope. And so it took a lot of courage to sign on to the Declaration. And 13 colonies, there was, I think, five or six representatives from each. So it was a very important moment in our history. I think August 2nd is something that most people don't know about, but as you know, being a lawyer, I mean, a document that's not signed is probably not much of a document. No, it does not even get the attention of anyone in Parliament. I think it's a great idea. What is the website, Dave Zavagna, where people can track the festivities in the buckeye state on Aug. 2 this summer. So it's under Lake Erie Heritage Foundation. So if you just type in Lake Erie Heritage foundation, it'll come up. It'll be simple to see. We're hopeful, though, like I said, to attract the same number of people we had Hugh for the bicentennial. And I think it's going to be a wonderful event for the area. I think it's be highly educational, it'll be well attended and I welcome everyone from across the country to come. It's already done. You've already done more. July 2, voice vote on the declaration. July 4, changes made, final adoption. That is the day it's voice voted. And then August 2nd, it's signed. We should be celebrating every day in America because the Declaration lives on every day. David Zavagno, thanks. One more time. What's the, what's the website? Lake Erie. Lake Erie. Lake Erie. Heritage Foundation, Lake Erie Heritage Foundation. All right. Yes, David Wagner, thank you, my friend. We'll talk again as we get closer. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm going to check in with Sarah Bedford. I also have speaking of declaration of independence, the ambassador to the United States from Ukraine coming up. And any breaking news about Iran as it occurs, I'll bring it to you right here on the Hugh Hewitt show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. In about a half hour, the foreign minister of Iran sits down or the table play of the minister's interview with Bret Baer on Special report. I'm joined now by Sarah Bedford of the Washington Examiner. Sarah, I want to play for you the clip that Fox has released from that interview and get your reaction to it. Here is the clip. There are reports, sir, that anywhere from 2,500 to more than 12,000 protesters in various cities have been killed by the regime. How many people have been killed? I have to say you, I have to tell you the story. When terrorist elements led from outside, you know, entered this, you know, protests and started to shoot, to shoot, you know, police forces, police officers and security forces. And there were terrorist cells. They came in, they used Daesh style terrorist, you know, operations. They got police officers, burned them alive, they beheaded them and they started shooting at police officers and also to the people. So as a result, for three days we had, in fact, fighting against terrorists and not, you know, with the protesters. It was completely a different story. The reason I have to explain, and this is important, why they started to shoot at people for one reason, they wanted to increase the number of deaths. Why? Because President Trump has said that if there are killings, he would intervene. And they wanted to drag him into this conflict. And that was exactly an Israeli plot. They wanted to drag the president of the United States in this conflict. So they started to increase the number of deaths by killing ordinary people, by killing police officers, by starting a kind of, you know, fighting inside the different cities. What do you make of that, SARAH Bedford? I think the Iranian government obviously doesn't have a lot of credibility on this front. There are reports that the deaths of protesters is far higher than the official number released by the Iranian government. And, and that is already a shockingly high number. Earlier this week, it was as high as 2,2000 people. So that's not totally credible there. But it's interesting that that Iranian authority invoked President Trump and sort of in an indirect way tried to blame Donald Trump for some of the carnage that we've seen. And then to hear that today, President Trump sort of changed his tune about the killing of protesters and said he heard that Iran wasn't going to do that anymore. It's interesting. It's not totally clear what President Trump's strategy is there, but that the Iran government is trying to to pin all of this on Donald Trump shows they might be quite nervous about what the Trump administration is about to do. Donald Trump and the Jews, they did stick in the Israelis there in the course of that quote. We'll have to watch the entire interview, but I think this fits the pattern of the Donald Trump shuffle. He says A on days with an even number and he said not A on days with an odd number. And the result is confusion, which serves strategic surprise. Do you think that's what's underway? Here's here. Very possibly he's done this with regards to Iran before, where he sort of vaguely mentions, he likes to say he'll make a decision on a certain action within two weeks. That's his go to timeframe. But you never really know what he's thinking because like you mentioned, there's a strategic element to why he maintains uncertainty around what he's going to do next. We saw that play out with Venezuela as well, where for a while there it looks like President Donald Trump was imminently going to order some sort of invasion of Venezuela and then he rhetorically backed off and then all of a sudden the US Nabs Maduro in the middle of the night. So it's, I think, a fool's errand to read too much into what Donald Trump is saying because he tends to play this stuff very, very close to the best. So given that we don't know what's going on and Iran is a closed country and the Internet is still off after five days, what do you rely on? I rely on Karim Sadhgpur Norm Rule Michael Duran There are a handful of people in Iran, in the capitol, in the Beltway, who actually know what they're talking about, who don't violate their clearances by talking about it. Who do you look to? Sarah C. Bedford. Well, X is such a fantastic platform for this sort of thing. Now you don't have censorship at the state level anymore. And so that sort of information can spread really quickly. Videos from protesters in a way that might not have been if we were still in the pre Elon Musk era on Twitter. So it's been a really valuable resource to the the extent that videos and anecdotes are able to get out of Iran. But you're right, there's a real information blackout on what's going on with these protests. And you're right about X 2.0 being the place to go. And there are things like Open intel and OSIT Defender. There are a lot of accounts maintained by people who've got a lot of credibility that I just tuned to. And that clip, did you see the Iranian TV running the ad about we'll get him next time, Donald Trump with a picture of him being shot in Butler? I didn't, but that's disturbing. Go look at Mark Levin's feed or my feed. I've reposted it. It's astonishing what is happening. Sarah C. Bedford from the Washington Examiner, Always good to check in with you. Coming up, the new ambassador from Ukraine to the United States joins me for the first time. Stay tuned. Bit pinched. Well, if you make a switch to Consumer Cellular, you may add some stretch to your budget. ConsumerCellular.com Hue 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 limited time only, you get the a second month of service with Consumer Cellular for free. When you use my promo code, Hugh H.G. or visit consumer cellular.com/hugh. It'll be automatic. But if you call 1-800-411-4454 and mention Hugh, 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 dollars 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. The home team has first and 10 in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. Tired of missing the game because of your tenants? Let Turbo Tenant simplify rental management for you. It's free, easy to set up and you don't have to worry about missing out on the get started for free@turbotenant.com still going, brought down at the 50. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. All eyes are on Iran, but meanwhile the war rages in Central Europe and I am pleased to welcome the United States Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine, Ambassador Olga Stefanoshina. Welcome, Madam Ambassador. Good to have you on The Hugh Hewitt Show. Thank you so much for welcoming me. It's very important to us. What I would like to ask you, I saw yesterday at the Mark Ruta, the Secretary General of NATO said Russia is losing between 20 and 25,000 troops a month along the Ukraine front. Can you confirm that for us? Well, what I can confirm that these numbers are even larger. These are the numbers of people they are losing just even on a small parts of the front line. In reality these numbers are even bigger. And the equally big amount of heavy military equipment they are losing through successful drone attacks we are implementing on the ground. And what sort of casualty rate is Ukraine suffering? Madam Ambassador? This is a totally uncomparable numbers. Because we are defending ourselves, we are in defense. And because we developed a strong defense innovational base, we're able to defend ourselves through our new technology, through the drones. That's why the losses are absolutely uncomparable. How far into Russia is Ukraine using their drones now? Is it a matter of kilometers or is it thousands of miles? Well, the, one of the very unprecedented elements of this war is that everything is happening online. So all of this information is is public. We conduct the deep strike operations as part of a self defense, mostly as a humanitarian mission, deterring Russians from the ability to attack our cities and to kill our people. These are the strikes which are targeted deeply within the territory of Russia, aiming at military objects but also targeting the energy infrastructure which is the fuel of war and the instrument of geopolitical influence. So we are pretty successful in that and we keep on helping our people to survive through the winter by this means. Now President Zelensky sounded fairly optimistic in the last interview I read about a ceasefire coming into being. Has anything changed that is public in those discussions? Are we closer to a ceasefire this week than we were last week? Well, just in one month we will approach the fourth year since the beginning of the full scale aggression which started in 2014. And probably I can mark the year 2025 as the year in a period where we went to the closest possible line just having finally being in a situation when it's the last mile literally to end the war. Combined efforts of President of Ukraine and President Trump and the teams has brought us to understanding that we are not only targeting to help Ukraine to survive, but also combining our efforts to end the war. And it's not yet there. It's far from having a very solid decision on the horizon. We do not see Russia showing any intention to commit to ending the war or ceasefire. But we are solid that we have all efforts targeted there and we are pretty solid in understanding that we have the major players on board on that. All right now, Madam Ambassador, I want to ask you to go back to the beginning of the second invasion. At that point Ukraine lost a lot of its connectivity and Starlink was provided by Mr. Musk to reconnect Starlink terminals in Ukraine, to reconnect Ukraine to the world. It was very vital. Starlink though, I don't think is working in Iran because you need receivers and you can't shoot the people who've got receivers. Is that why it worked in Ukraine and why it's not working in Iran? Well, I'm definitely not an expert on this topic, but I know that one of the things you have to know about my country, that since the beginning of the full scale invasion and knowing that the tactics of war is cut Ukraine off from availability, from connectivity, from ability to connect between the cities, nothing in Ukraine stopped working. So if you want something to work in, in Ukraine, it works. And I also want to bring your attention that today parliament voted for a new Defense Minister of Ukraine with my highlight further, who was in contact with Elon Musk in the first months of war. And there are two guys who knows the best how to answer these questions. Tell us a little bit, Madam Ambassador, about the new Defense Minister. The background. So Mihailov joined the government of Ukraine just shortly after President Zelensky was was elected as a minister. He's like one of the brightest representatives of the young generation of Ukrainians who were born not far from Ukraine's independence. And he is one of the most effective ministers. He was leading the digital efforts of Ukraine, but also he was behind the whole state policy on the drones and drones innovations. So he is probably the guy you can name when you think about Ukraine's incredible defense capability and ability to scale up even smallest innovation which are being evolved in the front. So there are like a lot of hopes on what he can do and what he can scale up. And you know, he had the overwhelming support not only of Ukrainian parliament, but of Ukrainian people as well. So to close, Madam Ambassador, the most surprising thing of the war for I think most people in America is that Ukraine is not only still standing, that it's fought to a draw. And the second most amazing thing is that Ukraine is an engine of technological innovation that other countries are now studying. Were you aware of this at the start of the second part of the war, you know, 2014 and then 2022? Were you aware that Ukraine had this capacity to innovate well, apart of all the other things that the whole world has learned, I personally learned two things about myself and the country. First, we are far more stronger than we think of ourselves and we are far less vulnerable that Russians were trying to present to the whole world. So this knowledge has only solidified through the full scale invasion. And that's why, you know, it's not possible to win over Ukraine. It's possible to cause us even more suffering, to cut us from lights and electricity. But with this solid understanding and a solid resilience, it's nearly impossible to put more pressure on us and keep us less resilient than we are. Ambassador Olga Stefanoshinena, thank you so much for joining me. It's been my practice to have the ambassador every few months. I hope you'll come back. And I appreciate the update, especially about the new defense minister, about which I had not heard until I spoke with you.