U.S. seize two oil tankers fleeing Venezuela

Summary

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The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

Episode: U.S. Seize Two Oil Tankers Fleeing Venezuela
Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Hugh Hewitt (Salem Podcast Network)

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Overview

This episode of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" focuses on several intersecting breaking news stories:

1. The U.S. seizing two Venezuelan oil tankers amid ongoing sanctions and the aftermath of Operation Absolute Resolve (the U.S.-led operation that captured Venezuelan ex-president Maduro).
2. A deadly police-involved shooting of a civilian by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, and the political fallout.
3. Widespread protests in Iran and an update on the crisis in Haiti.
   Discussion features current politicians, legal analysts, think-tank fellows, and journalists, with spirited debate over issues of law enforcement, federalism, crisis management, and American foreign policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Breaking News: ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

Incident Summary (00:00-02:45)

• A 37-year-old woman was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis after reportedly accelerating her vehicle toward officers during an enforcement action.
• Protests and potential unrest are ongoing in response.

Host and Guest Reactions

• Hugh Hewitt: Frames the incident as a tragic but likely justified use of force, pending further investigation. Criticizes Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry for inflammatory rhetoric.
• Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis):
  • Calls for ICE to "ICE out of Minneapolis" after the shooting, suggesting ICE endangers rather than protects the community ([02:03], [21:41]).
  • “People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart... and now somebody is dead. That's on you.” ([02:03])
  • Hewitt and multiple guests deride these statements as reckless and legally baseless.

Perspective from DHS Leadership

• Secretary Noem: Describes the vehicle ramming as a "domestic terrorist act," emphasizes protection of officers, and insists on ongoing cooperation with DOJ ([04:49]).
  • “These vehicle rammings are domestic acts of terrorism. We're working with the Department of Justice to prosecute them as such...” – Secretary Noem ([05:04])

Legal and Policy Context

• Hewitt and guests reiterate the federal status of ICE, criticize the concept of local officials dictating federal operations, and warn mayors against "obstructing" law enforcement ([04:23], [16:27]).

Political Analysis

• Mary Kathryn Ham: Points out the "information war" and how people’s opinions get confirmed by partial video evidence. Warns not to leap to conclusions but notes, “you can't accelerate toward an officer in a vehicle...” ([20:19])
• Noah Rothman: Decries instant politicized judgments, likening commentary to actively inciting public opinion. Points to a history of organized, left-wing violence and historical cycles of unrest ([29:44], [34:27]).
• Sen. John Husted: Lays blame on local political obstruction: “Stop running a sanctuary city. Stop trying to obstruct federal law enforcement officials from doing their jobs.” ([14:29])

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2. U.S. Seizure of Venezuelan Oil Tankers & Operation Absolute Resolve

Developments (06:46-07:39, 10:53, 12:14-13:55)

• U.S. authorities seize two Venezuelan oil tankers—one reflagged as Russian after a dramatic chase.
• New arrangement allows $2B worth of Venezuelan oil to be exported, possibly to offset U.S. operational costs in Venezuela.
• Secretary Marco Rubio and guests describe U.S. sanctions as powerful levers for forcing political reform in Venezuela.

Key Quotes & Insights

• Marco Rubio (Sec. of State):
  • “...They can’t move it unless we allow it to move because we have sanctions... This is tremendous leverage. We are exercising it in a positive way.” ([06:46])
  • On Greenland: “That’s always been the president’s intent... Not only did Truman want to do it, but President Trump’s been talking about this since his first term.” ([07:47])
• Sen. John Husted: Praises the operation to capture Maduro and highlights U.S. military precision: “No American lose their life in that process and not lose a single helicopter or asset.” ([12:14])
• Jim Talent (ex-Senator): Sees a policy pattern: “We’re securing our strategic perimeter. Having secured our national border... Hemispheric stability is now our #1 security priority.” ([66:25])

Possible Broader Geopolitical Effects

• Guests debate whether U.S. influence constitutes running Venezuela ("bankruptcy court" analogy).
• Discussion of potential implications for Cuba, with its regime's reliance on Venezuelan oil. ([72:37])
• Fear of blowback or nation-building, though most feel policy is realpolitik, not occupation ([70:35]).

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3. Political Fallout & Federalism

Local vs. Federal Authority (16:00-17:11)

• Review of federal, state, and local roles; consensus that local officials (e.g., mayors) cannot direct federal law enforcement, using Minneapolis as a case study.

Political Rhetoric & Incitement Debate

• Extended discussion on whether leaders like Mayor Fry and Governor Walz are inciting unrest, paralleling debate over Trump's Jan. 6 speech.
• Noah Rothman: “Responsible political actors don’t inflame—they urge caution and await facts.” ([29:44], [41:19])

Notable Exchange

• Hewitt to Rothman: “Is there a difference in kind here [between Trump’s and Walz’ rhetoric]?” ([42:11])
  • Rothman: Emphasizes both irresponsibility and notes criminal incitement remains hard to prove. ([42:56-43:42])

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4. Welfare Reform: The Upward Mobility Act

Introduction by Sen. Husted ([17:32-19:40])

• New legislation aims to ease people out of the “welfare trap” by gradually tapering benefits—ensuring work always pays more than remaining on government assistance.
• House version introduced by Blake Moore (UT).

Quote:
“We want to put Americans to work... We subsidize people to stay home in America. We need them to go to work and let’s get it done.” – Sen. John Husted ([19:22])

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5. International Crisis Updates

Haiti's Collapse (47:27-55:42)

• Philip Balboni (Global Post): Describes Haiti as "a special kind of hell" with gangs controlling 90% of Port-au-Prince, near-total government collapse, and new (possibly doomed) UN peacekeeping plans.
• The Dominican Republic is overwhelmed and rejects Haitian refugees.
• “All these other efforts have not succeeded... The people there deserve a better life, but… it's not governable.” – Philip Balboni ([51:55])

Iran’s Deadly Protests (00:00)

• Acknowledged as an ongoing crisis, not discussed in-depth but included in the backdrop of global unrest.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart... and now somebody is dead. That's on you.” – Jacob Fry, Mayor of Minneapolis ([02:03])
• “It's absolutely ridiculous. These people [mayors] are violating federal law... That's just like saying you're going to tell the FBI they can't operate in your city.” – Sen. John Husted ([16:27])
• “You can't accelerate toward an officer in a vehicle... even if it was panic, not malice...” – Mary Kathryn Ham ([20:19])
• “These vehicle rammings are domestic acts of terrorism. We're working with the Department of Justice to prosecute them as such...” – Secretary Noem ([05:04])
• “This is tremendous leverage. We are exercising it in a positive way.” – Marco Rubio ([06:46])
• “We subsidize people to stay home in America. We need them to go to work...” – Sen. Husted ([19:22])
• “We’re securing our strategic perimeter. Having secured our national border... Hemispheric stability is now our #1 security priority.” – Jim Talent ([66:25])
• “It really is a special kind of hell.” – Philip Balboni, on Haiti ([47:53], [51:55])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• ICE shooting incident reporting/analysis: [00:00] – [10:53], [20:04] – [29:19]
• Jacob Fry & Tim Walz statements on Minneapolis: [02:03], [21:41], [25:25], [39:11], [40:44]
• Secretary Noem on Minneapolis incident: [04:49]
• Sen. John Husted (Senate, Venezuela, Minneapolis, Upward Mobility): [12:14] – [19:40]
• Sec. Marco Rubio on Venezuela and Greenland: [06:46] – [09:02]
• Noah Rothman analysis (riots, political rhetoric): [29:19], [29:44], [39:11] – [46:43]
• Mary Kathryn Ham on Minneapolis shooting: [20:19] – [25:55]
• Philip Balboni on Haiti crisis: [47:27] – [55:42]
• Jim Talent (foreign policy/Cuba): [64:49] – [74:47]

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Tone & Style

The episode is direct, analytical, and at times caustic, particularly in Hewitt’s criticism of progressive city leadership and defense of law enforcement and federal power. Debate is lively, often referencing recent political history, the U.S. Constitution, and the risks of inflammatory rhetoric. Foreign policy discussions are pragmatic with a definite "America First" perspective, skeptical of nation-building but supportive of leverage and force projection.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode gives listeners an in-depth, viewpoint-driven look at:

• The intersection of law enforcement, politics, and protests in Minneapolis.
• U.S. assertiveness in handling Venezuela and the use of economic power as foreign policy leverage.
• The challenges and nuances of federal vs. local authority on immigration enforcement.
• Broader international crises—from Haiti’s near-total societal collapse to simmering Iranian unrest.

The major through-line: government must enforce the law (domestically and internationally), local attempts to block federal authority are criticized as illegal and dangerous, and current American foreign policy is muscular, practical, and driven by national security interests, not ideology.

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Transcript

[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 [e-mail] or just Google, Apple, itunes and Hillsdale Morning Glory and even Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. On this Wednesday, a lot of breaking news. The United States has seized two Venezuelan tankers with one flying under a Russian flag that has been the subject of a chase for two weeks. One more recently identified, has been seized in the Caribbean. Protests are breaking out all over Iran and they've turned deadly. I'll get you details on that. But the big story at this hour is coming out of the Twin Cities where a protester, what is believed to be a protester, a 37 year old white woman, attempted to drive through an ICE agent after ICE agents were talking to her by the side of the car. We can play the best video of it. As you see, she's dead. The car is a big black sedan. There's an officer, clearly the officer at the side of the window telling her something. And she drives right at the ICE agent who fires. I don't know how many shots. I don't know what was said. I don't know what's going to happen. But if you're watching on the Salem News Channel here in the Relief Factor studio, you can see the slow motion. I've also posted this at the top of my X account. So if you want to see the best video I can identify thus far for demonstrating what happened in Minneapolis, it's the one that I have at the top of my X account and we're showing right now on the Salem News Channel. Mayor Fry of Minneapolis immediately took to a press conference after the shooting and killing of the driver and said this. Cut number two, you have a message.

[Jacob Fry]

For our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE to ICE out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long term, Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized. And now somebody is dead. That's on you. And it's also on you to leave.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Actually, it's not on them. If they acted with legitimate force, and it appears that they did, there'll be an investigation. Of course, Jacob Fry is a moron who thinks he is the President of the United States and controls ice. He doesn't. ICE is a federal agency subject to the Director of Homeland Security, who is subject to the President. And they are there subject to federal law. And they are not to be obstructed or attacked in any way or even driven into. I do not believe the ICE agent who fired the shots was injured. Jacob Fry went on to say this. Cut number three.

[Jacob Fry]

Collectively are going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of this, to get justice and to make sure that there is an investigation that is conducted in full. But what we do know is that a 37 year old woman is dead and that she was shot by I. We've dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis. Not only is this a concern that we've had internally, we've been talking about it. They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart, they're sowing chaos on our streets and in this case, quite literally killing people.

[Hugh Hewitt]

So Jacob Fry is a hard left mayor of a hard left city and he does not want to understand. Perhaps he is ignorant of basic constitutional structure. But ICE does not answer to him. ICE does not go where local mayors want them to go. When they want them to go. They don't leave on the authority of local mayors. Director Noem, Secretary Noem, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security had this today at a Brownsville, Texas presser. Cut number four.

[Sarah Bedford]

You asked about a shooting that we just had in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him. And my understanding is that she was hit and is deceased. We're continuing to gather more information, but this goes to show the assaults that our ICE officers and our law enforcement are under every single day. These vehicle rammings are domestic acts of terrorism. We're working with the Department of Justice to prosecute them. As such, we will continue to protect our ICE officers and in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies as now.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Vice President Vance has given an interview to Jesse Watters, a bit of which has been released. And it does not concern this incident. It was prerecorded before this incident happened. But it's interesting in light of what he has to say. Cut number five. Well, I think Tim Walsh should resign. I almost feel bad for the guy, except for the fact that he should.

[Noah Rothman]

Have seen this and whether there was something criminal, whether he was aware of.

[Hugh Hewitt]

The fraud, which would be criminal, or.

[Noah Rothman]

Whether he simply looked the other way. And it's a massive, massive failure of government.

[Tim Waltz]

The Trump.

[Hugh Hewitt]

The vice president is right about Tim Waltz as a failure. Jacob Fry is a disgrace because he doesn't have any idea what happened here. It's impossible to say with definitive purpose what happened here. He's gone to the left. He's inciting. I hope there's no rioting tonight. He's trying to incite a riot, intentionally or otherwise. It could incite a riot. Meanwhile, on the tanker front, Secretary Rubio, secretary of State, said this about Venezuelan oil today. Cut number six.

[Marco Rubio]

The oil arrangement that we've made with PDVSA on their sanctioned oil that they can't move, Understand, they are not generating any revenue from their oil right now. They can't move it unless we allow it to move because we have sanctions, because we're enforcing those sanctions. This is tremendous leverage. We are exercising it in a positive way. The president described it last night. Secretary Wright will have more to say on it today. Who is involved in running this portfolio. And we feel very positive that not only will that generate revenue that will be used to the benefit of the Venezuelan people, and we're ensured that that's what the case is, but it also gives us an amount of leverage and influence and control over how this process.

[Hugh Hewitt]

They are running Venezuela through, the leverage they have over the only thing that Venezuela has that can make currency for the police state that is largely still in power there. After Maduro was taken to the United States, Secretary Rubio went on to talk about Greenland at length today. Cut number seven.

[Sarah Bedford]

Your comments to lawmakers. Does the US Intend to buy Greenland? Does the US Intend to buy Greenland? Can you clarify your comments to lawmakers this week?

[Marco Rubio]

Well, that's always been the president's intent from the very beginning. He said it very early on. I mean, this is not new. He talked about it in his first term. And he's not the first US President that has examined or looked at how could we acquire Greenland. There's an interest there. But so I just reminded them of the fact that not only did Truman want to do it, but President Trump's been talking about this since his first term.

[Ray Solano]

The White House put out a statement.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Last night saying that the military option, the military option is on the table.

[John Houston]

So is the administration really willing to.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Risk the NATO alliance by potentially moving ahead military operations?

[Marco Rubio]

What I think the White House said yesterday is what I will tell you now. And I've always said the president always retained the option.

[Noah Rothman]

If he.

[Marco Rubio]

Every president, not this president, every president always retains the option. I'm not talking about Greenland. I'm just talking about globally. If the president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every president retains the option to address it through military means. As a diplomat, which is what I am now, and what we work on, we always prefer to settle it in different ways. That included in Venezuela, we tried repeatedly to reach an outcome here that did not involve having to go in and grab an indicted drug trafficker. Those were unsuccessful.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Unfortunately, the people of Venezuela are waking.

[Tim Waltz]

Up to the same regime. Do you not worry about that?

[Marco Rubio]

Well, first of all, the bottom line is that there is a process now in place where we have tremendous control and leverage over what those interim authorities are doing and are able to do. But obviously this will be a process of transition. In the end, it will be up to the Venezuelan people to transform their country. We are prepared under the right conditions using the leverage that we have, which includes the fact that they cannot move any oil unless we allow them to move it. Well, again, I'm not going to give you a timeline on it. We wanted to move as soon as possible, but we didn't expect this would. It's been three days since this happened, four days since this happened. So I understand that in this cycle in society we now live in, everyone wants instant outcomes. They want it to happen overnight. It's not going to work that way, but work. We're already seeing progress with this new deal that's been announced and more deals to follow. You are already seeing how the leverage the United States have over those interim authorities is going to begin to lead the positive outcome.

[Ray Solano]

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[Hugh Hewitt]

Referring to an announcement by President Trump yesterday that $2 billion worth of Venezuelan oil is going to be allowed to be exported from Venezuela to the United States. Unclear to me whether or not Venezuela is going to be paid for that oil or whether that is to defray the Operation Absolute Resolve costs. Don't know. But we will continue to bring you news of that and talk to Secretary Houston right after the break. Find out what was said in the briefing today in the Senate, if he intended, if indeed attended that, and we'll continue to bring updates from Minneapolis. Just understand the video appears to justify the shooting, but we aren't there. You're not there. We don't have all the angles. We don't know what was said to the woman in the car. We don't know who the woman in the car was who is now dead. We do know that Jacob Fry is a moron. And if you're listening on AM 1280, the answer I think he's inciting riots in your city. Don't be surprised if you get them. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by United States Senator John Husted from the great state of Ohio, my home state. Senator Houston, welcome back. Happy 2026 to you. I want to begin by asking, were you in the classified briefing this morning on Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela over the weekend?

[John Houston]

I was. I thought Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth, Attorney General Bondi and General Kaine did an amazing job of explaining what I think was one of the most effective military actions of my lifetime, to go in, arrest Maduro and his wife, have no American lose their life in that process and not lose a single helicopter or asset. And to bring him back to America for trial, an amazing, amazing achievement for our US Military.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Did anything that you can disclose surprise you? A classified briefing is classified for a lot of reasons, some of them just to deny the enemies we have around the world knowledge of how we operate. But is there anything that's unclassified that you can tell us about that amazed you about that operation?

[John Houston]

Well, I can just say this, that if you really fully were in that briefing and you heard the complexity and the Planning that went into this and how. Look, we could have just taken out Maduro if that's. If that's what we wanted to do. But we wanted to execute a legal order to try him in court, and that made this operation so much harder. It was amazingly executed and planned, though. You know, to sit in that room and hear that description, you just have to go. America's military is the greatest military in the history of the world. And I was just. I was just impressed by what I heard.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well, then, Senator, I want to move on. I want to get to your Upward Mobility Act. But first, there's been news this morning out of Minneapolis. Maybe it was afternoon on the east coast, it's the morning on the west coast that occurred of a civilian driver who was driving into an ICE agent who shot her and killed her. Mayor Frye, the left wing guy is running Minneapolis, has called this on ICE to get the blank out of Minneapolis. I think he's inciting a riot. Have you heard about this? Do you have any comment on it?

[John Houston]

Yeah, I do know a little bit about it. I don't want to draw any conclusions based on what I know because we'll get new information. But it appeared that there was an individual who was obstructing an ICE operation. When confronted by ICE ICE agents, she drove off rather quickly in the direction of one of the officers, and then that officer shot and apparently killed the driver. It's a tragic incident. It's why you don't obstruct operations. But look for this mayor. Stop running a sanctuary city. Stop trying to obstruct federal law enforcement officials from doing their jobs. If people are in this country illegally, we have to enforce the rule of law, particularly if those people endanger other Americans. It's a tragedy anytime somebody loses their life. But it appeared from what I saw, that this individual was obstructing ICE agents and a tragic incident resulted as a result of.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Senator Houston, you're one of the few people I know who served in state government as a legislator, as a statewide officer, both as secretary of state, lieutenant governor of Ohio. Now you're a federal officer. I don't know if you were ever on a local government. Were you ever serving in local government capacity anywhere?

[John Houston]

I worked in staff at the local government level, yeah.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Okay. So we all know there are three levels of government. The local government, the mayor or the county commissioner, the state government with a governor and everyone else, Attorney general, secretary of state, lieutenant governor, and then the federal government of which you're a part. Now, the senate, where Do. Where do mayors get the idea, like Jacob Fry, that he's in charge of ICE and can tell ICE to do anything? It's, it's ridiculous. It's lunacy.

[John Houston]

It's, it's, it's absolutely ridiculous. These people are violating federal law. We have federal law enforcement officials that enforce that law. That's just like saying that you're going to tell the FBI they can't operate in your city or any other form of law enforcement, or telling the sheriff's department that they can't operate in your city if you're. It's ridiculous in these. Look, we have to enforce the rule of law. I hate to break the news to mayors, but when you have crime in your city, the law abiding citizens don't like it and it's, you got to get out of the way. You got to enforce the rule of law. When people are in this country illegally, you know, they got to go.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I believe that mayors like this are complicit in tragedies like this because they are encouraging interferences like this. But we'll talk about that another time. I want to know about the Upward Mobility Act, Senator, since you put your name to it, what do you. What does it purport to want to accomplish and how does it do. So have you got co signers? How does it look in the Senate?

[John Houston]

Yeah, well, we just introduced it yesterday. And what does it do? It gets people out of the welfare trap. We trap people on government assistance in this country. How does that happen? Let's say you're using your food assistance, your housing assistance, you get a job, but all of a sudden, if you work more than 20 hours or earn more than a certain amount of pay, then you just lose all your benefits. And we call that falling off the benefits cliff. So anybody living in poverty knows exactly how much money they can earn before they lose their benefits. In many cases, the, the amount of money that they earn more when they get a raise or work more hours isn't enough to make up for what they lose. So we want to end that. We want to say, hey, let's let, let's put people to work. Let's reinstate the American work ethic. Let's gradually reduce people's benefits as they earn and get them out of government assistance, off of government assistance, and into the middle class, into self sufficiency. This, this is an entrapment. Our poverty system is. We need to end it. The Upward Mobility act will do that. And I think we're going to have a lot of People, we're going to have a House version that's being introduced today, and we hopefully we'll get it accomplished.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Who is your colleague in the House who's introducing the House version? Center Houston.

[John Houston]

We have Blake, Blake Moore from Utah. You asked me too quickly. And Utah does an amazing job at doing work there with their welfare reform efforts and poverty assistance programs, trying to get people to work. And look, we need it, Hugh, if we're going to, if we're going to say we're going to send people out of this country, we're not going to have as much immigration, we're going to have to have a workforce.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Right.

[John Houston]

And we want to put Americans to work. You'll appreciate this. I had somebody say, hey, the Chinese government subsidizes people to go to work in China. I said, well, that's great. It's better than what we do. We subsidize people to stay home in America.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well said.

[John Houston]

We need them to go to work and let's get it done.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Senator John Houston of Ohio, always good to talk to you. We'll talk to you again, Senator. I appreciate the candor on Minneapolis and the briefing this morning, as well as the briefing on the Upward Mobility Act. Thank you, Senator. Come right back. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by the one and only Mary Kathryn Ham. She's back with Getting Hammered, the podcast with Victor Mattarino Mattis, who is, I call him Victor Reno Mattis sometimes. I get it.

[John Houston]

Right.

[Hugh Hewitt]

But Mary Kathryn Ham's easy for me to remember. Happy New Year to you, MK And I have to cut to the chase because breaking news. Your reaction to the incident in Minneapolis.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, look, we don't want an incident to end this way. And the world we live in now is that there's like an information war as soon as it happens. And so you want to be careful about how you're characterizing things. But there are several angles of this interaction between ICE officers and this civilian vehicle. And from at least two of them, it seems quite clear to me that either contact is made or she's explained accelerating toward an officer. And many people are letting their priors be confirmed by whatever video they see. There will be an investigation. But I'm sort of mystified by people saying there's nothing, like she did nothing wrong here. Like, even if it was an act of panic, not malice, which it certainly could be, you can't accelerate toward an officer in a vehicle when there's another.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Officer talking to you through the window in Fact, we had an unfortunate acceleration on the third street promenade in Santa Monica, California a few years ago by an elderly person who was not prosecuted or jailed although he negligently murdered a bunch of people. He just hit the wrong pedal and went into a crowd. That's not this. There are reports that she backed up and then drove off into this guy. Let me play for you a couple of Jacob Fry, Mayor of Minneapolis clips. Mary Kathryn Cut number two is his first statement.

[Jacob Fry]

You have a message for our community, for our city and I have a message for ICE to ICE out of Minneapolis.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Stop. That is to get the blank out of Minneapolis. It's the F bomb. Then let's go to cut number three.

[Jacob Fry]

Collectively are going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of this, to get justice and to make sure that there is an investigation that is conducted in full. But what we do know is that a 37 year old woman is dead and that she was shot by ice. We've dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis. Not only is this a concern that we've had internally, we've been to talking about it. They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Stop. Mary Kathryn, if you're watching this picture and if we could put that film back up there for the benefit of the Salem News Channel audience from the Relief Factor studio, there's an officer dressed in gray to his left. There is an officer dressed in white to his right. Then there are two, they appear to be black gentlemen. One is wearing a cap and sort of a winter coat. The other guy's got a beard and a jacket on. But not. They're not law enforcement. And then an interpreter. Who are these people? What are they doing there?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, I don't know. And like I wish that Frey would be at first blush more responsible about the way he's talking about this. It's certainly not going to help get to the bottom of things for him to immediately deem the facts on the ground, whatever he feels that they are or whatever he thought he had predicted. And also just federal law enforcement is allowed to be in American cities and they are allowed to be lawfully executing the laws of the United States which they weren't doing on immigration for so many years. And we got this huge backlog and a large problem that is very tricky to solve. And I want them to be be doing it while respecting Americans rights.

[Ray Solano]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

That's what we want. We don't law enforcement do that. But it's a very hard job. And then you've got a bunch of protesters in liberal cities who have learned that blocking traffic, that driving into people is something that happens without consequence. And it's not something that happens without consequence. It does not constitute speech when that's how you're protesting. It simply is not the same thing.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Now, let me tell you what I'm worried about. Keith Ellison is the Attorney General in Minneapolis. He's a radical. And now I don't know if he's going to run for governor. Tim Waltz has stepped outside of it, but he's a radical. So the Department of Justice, I think, is going to take a look at that video and decline to prosecute and in fact, exonerate the officer who shot. And then Keith Ellison is going to try and prosecute him. And so if there aren't riots tonight, which Jacob Fry might very well be setting off, I am afraid of a circus. Am I overreacting to the fact that Keith Ellison's a moron?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I don't think you're overreacting. That seems like a very likely chain of events. And I hope that it won't come to pass that there are riots, protests, of course, totally fine. But again, the left is not great at observing the difference between a protest and an act of violence, and that we don't know motives yet or exactly what came before this incident, but it looks like that may have been sort of what happened here, is that a protest turned into an act of violence, and those are not covered by the same protections.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yeah. Let me play for you, Jacob Fry, from three days ago. Okay, so this is three days ago. Cut number one. Mayor Fry.

[Jacob Fry]

I am increasingly concerned because of the chaos that is being caused by these ICE agents, that somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed. Somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed. And whether that is an ICE agent or a community member, we all know the tinderbox that could explode because of it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Mary Catherine, helping things or just being a prophet there?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, well, that's. That's the question. Are you predicting or are you sort of willing into existence what's going to happen here? Look, I think chaos has come for a long time from lack of governance and lack of abiding by the law or enforcing the law in liberal cities. And that is one of the reasons that federal law enforcement is in those cities. In some of those cities, local law enforcement is not allowed or refuses, thanks to liberal mayors, to help with the calm enforcement of the law. And then officers end up in more dangerous positions than civilians do as well than they would otherwise be in. I think this is a really sad outcome and I fear that it will get worse in the coverage thereof and in the prosecution if Ellison decides to do that thereof. But I don't usually take a super clear position on these when I first see them. But there are three to four angles of this video that it seems clear that this person was intent on driving toward the officer and made contact with him. That's a big deal.

[Hugh Hewitt]

It is a big deal. The question will be whether or not the firing of the shot is an appropriate response to that, and I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect the answer is yes, especially if she backed up and then accelerated forward and he thought he was in danger of his life. But we don't know yet. I just know Jacob Fry's a moron who's going to try and get Minneapolis burned down. Mary Kathryn Ham, I cannot wait to hear you and Vic talk about this on the next Getting Hammered podcast. Make sure you like and subscribe to it and see Mary Catherine along with me often on the Fox News Channel. Stay tuned, America, Morning Glory and Evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt in the Relief Factory Studio West. I am joined in this day of breaking news by Noah C. Rothman, Senior Editor at National Review. Noah is also of course the participant frequently in the Commentary podcast as well as occasionally on the I've Got this Reversed, the National Review podcast and occasionally on the podcast for commentary. Noah, welcome. Big breaking news day. Let's start with Minneapolis. President Trump has just posted a Truth Social post. I want to read it to you. I've just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left, Capital R Capital is threatening, assaulting and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of making America safe, all in caps. We need to stand by and protect our law enforcement officers from the radical left movement of violence and hate. Now Noah, before we get to your reaction, tell people what the new title of Your forthcoming book is.

[Noah Rothman]

It's called Blood and A Century of Left Wing Violence in America. It's coming out on May 19th. I hope you'll consider pre ordering it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I hope everyone will. And Dwayne and I were talking with you off air. You may have to add another chapter. If what happens in Minneapolis tonight happens in Minneapolis, I think Jacob Fry's comments are gonna lead to a riot. Your assessment of this entire situation.

[Noah Rothman]

Yeah. First, the inciting incident. I've watched about three or four videos of it and I've seen enough to get a general shape of the event, but not nearly enough to render a verdict on it. And I'm shocked at the extent to which so many in the commentary class and political professionals and elected officials are rendering judgments on this event as practically as it's happening in real time to a degree that seems designed to inflame public opinion. The precise opposite of what responsible communicators and responsible political actors should be doing in these moments. I've seen Jacob Fry's reactions. I've seen Governor Walz reactions. Who's preemptively activating the National Guard?

[Hugh Hewitt]

Wait, I don't know about this. What's walls doing? That's news to me.

[Noah Rothman]

Preemptively activating the National Guard or issuing a warning. I'm sorry, an order. A warning order to the Minnesota National Guard in anticipation of civil unrest. And it seems very much like the civil unrest is the sort of thing that they anticipate, if not invite. A hard thing for me to say.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Let me have the extent to which they're.

[Noah Rothman]

They're agitating. Makes me. Makes it hard for me to think. Anything else.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yeah, let me. Let me have the audience listen to Mayor Jacob Fry. Cut number two.

[Jacob Fry]

You have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE to ICE out of Minneapolis.

[Hugh Hewitt]

We bleeped out the F bomb. Noah, for the benefit of you. We are an FCC regulated broadcast station on television and radio, so we can't use the F bomb even when the mayor of Minnesota does. Minneapolis. Here's his second comment. Cut number three. The audio's off. Harley.

[Jacob Fry]

Of this to get justice and to make sure that there is an investigation that is conducted in full. But what we do know is that a 37 year old woman is dead and that she was shot by ice. We've dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis. Not only is this a concern that we've had internally, we've been talking about it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

So can I want to freeze The. Hold the screen on there. Can you put the clip back up there, Harley, and freeze it? No, there's a police officer to his left. There's police officer to his right. There's an interpreter. Then there are these two guys standing there. Who are they? What are they doing there?

[Noah Rothman]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, stakeholders in Minneapolis at this point and certainly stakeholders in the career of Mayor Fry and Governor Walz, given the corruption scandals swirling around them. That's. That's such a profoundly irresponsible statement. We don't have the body cam footage. We don't know if a jury presented with all the facts will determine that the woman who engaged the vehicle prior to these shots being fired will determine that the driver was going at the police or away from the police. All that matters in a courtroom. But we're adjudicating this now in the court of public opinion, which is a terrible place for these facts to be assessed. And I think that's in part because they want that to be the case. These political officials in Minneapolis want, in Minnesota want us to be chewing over a narrative, not facts, a narrative in order to inflame. And the passions are alive on social media right now. And it's the sort of passions we should be very afraid of. Over the course of the last year, there were multiple attacks on ICE officers, on CBP officers, deadly attacks designed to murder them, including a small cell terrorist action in Texas involving 10 individuals who used sophisticated strategies in order to lure out their targets and attack them from multiple fire positions, multiple angles. It was a terrorist assault, one of several. And the increasing attacks on American law enforcement are just to bring it back a little bit back to my book. Are indicative of waves of terroristic violence of the sort left wing terroristic violence of the sort we've seen throughout the 20th century, in the 1910s and the 1920s, 1960s, 1970s, early 1980s, and now these waves happen. They come in cascades and they crest in ways that are particularly bloody. We haven't even begun to see what that bloodshed will look like if we have a wave of violence akin to the one that overtook the 1960s and 70s and the 1910s and 1920s. And that's what I try to warn about. But these warnings are going unheeded. There is so much temptation out there in the. In the zeitgeist for something like an existential, violent conflict with their political opponents. I don't even know if it can be stopped at this point.

[Hugh Hewitt]

No, I got to go back in time to 1992. It was my second month on television as one of the co anchors of the local PBS affiliate nightly news and public affairs show Life and Times. And I'd been on the air two months when L. A went up in flames in the 1992 riots. Many, many people were killed, many people were injured. It followed the acquittal of the police officers charged in the first trial, falling from the Rodney King beating. And I believe Daryl Gates said something that was, if not inflammatory, it was almost a stand down order. Then we had the truck driver, Reginald Denny beaten at the corner of Florence and Normandy and nothing happened. It was like beaming an alert signal to every bad guy in the city who then went out and rioted. I would not be surprised if Minneapolis is at the scene of violence tonight, would you be?

[Noah Rothman]

Well, you had said something at the end of the last hour, which is a hopeful mitigating circumstances. It's cold.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yep.

[Noah Rothman]

If it was the summertime, it would be almost a certainty that we would at least see agitated demonstrations and isolated incidents of riotous violence. You can't rule it out though, because a lot of the violence, mob violence that we saw in 2020, 2021, was not organic, was not spontaneous. It was coordinated and planned. You don't take my word for it. Take the word of New York City's police officials who identified out of state actors who were working in concert with other actors across the country in order to foment that kind of riotous violence. This sort of thing is organized, and to the extent that it's organized, it can materialize even in the absence of the kind of organic circumstances in which people just languidly mill about until there's some sort of an incident which, you know, snaps the reptilian part of your brain into action and you just join in with the mob. That's not what we would be talking about. We would be talking about organized insurrectionary activity. And we cannot rule that out.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Let me move from this to Operation Absolute Resolve. Do you believe the demonstrators urging the release of Maduro in Brooklyn or New York, wherever he was held, Manhattan or Brooklyn, that that was organically organized, that the pro Maduro, the Chavistas in New York just showed up on behalf of Nicolas Maduro?

[Noah Rothman]

Maybe some, because it was, it was really only a handful. It wasn't, you know, a mass demonstration, but I would imagine there's a list served somewhere that appeals to the fellow travelers out there. I don't think of them were paid to show up, for example. There really are a bunch of people who are just mindless progressive buffoons who really believe in the utopia that Hugo Chavez established in Caracas. They're just, you can't, you can't say that, you know, it's Hanlon's razor. You can't attribute necessarily to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity. So I'm willing to, to lean into stupidity there. But certainly there's, there are organized organizations that foment that kind of hostility and say, this is where we're going to meet and you guys should all show up. But I don't know if there's an organized effort akin to what we were talking about when it comes to the violence of 2020 and the riots and the degree to which those were organized and coordinated.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Now, can I keep you for another segment, Noah? Have you got time?

[Noah Rothman]

Sure.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Okay. I want to comment to you on what the web has done and I'm going to use a very unusual way of leading into this. Last year or the year before that, a revival of sorts began at Asbury College in Kentucky. And because of the web, it became a national incident. And people attracted to, in quotes, revivals flooded the town and the college and they were overwhelmed. I do believe the Internet allows people to get, you know, turn their car around and head for Minneapolis right now. And after the break, I'm going to talk with Noah if he thinks that might happen tonight in Minneapolis. I'll go check the weather during the break as well. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by our friend Noah Rothman of National Review. Noah is the author of the forthcoming book Blood and. What do we call it, Noah? Blood and what?

[Noah Rothman]

Blood and Progress. A Century of Left Wing Violence in America.

[Hugh Hewitt]

You are going to need another chapter, Noah. It is 41 degrees in Minneapolis right now. Snow, it's not going to get that cold tonight. It's going to get down to 30 degrees. And tomorrow about 2pm Minnesota time, it's going to rain or snow a little bit, but it's for Minnesota that's balmy. There are crowds already chasing cops out. We have some video of that. So let me play the Tim Walls clip that we just got so that the audience can hear what, you know, Rothsman have already heard cut number 13.

[Tim Waltz]

I don't know, I hope maybe we're at the McCarthy moment. Do you have no decency? Do you have no decency? We have someone dead in their car for no reason whatsoever. And, and I, I don't, I don't want to be right about this, but I said, if they do this, they're going to create a chaotic situation where someone innocent is going to get killed.

[Hugh Hewitt]

And so, no, for no reason. What do you make of that commentary? For no reason.

[Noah Rothman]

I mean, a couple of things. First, and it's a relatively cheap shot, but the quote is not. Do you have no decency? The Joe Welsh quote, which is famous, is, have you no decency, sir? That has the advantage of being grammatically correct. And I can't understand why he said it twice. Actually, I can. It's because he has absolutely no concern for how he comes off. The man is a buffoon. He's a boob. He cannot meet the measure of any moment, much less.

[Hugh Hewitt]

No need to indulge in compliments, Noah. You don't have to build it up.

[Noah Rothman]

His inclination here is so reckless, so grotesque it is to indict the federal government and law enforcement officers having absolutely no basis to render that judgment. He does not have the evidentiary threshold to render that judgment. So rather than be responsible and hold back and allow cooler heads to prevail, he's instigating. He's telling them that this person was killed, was murdered, perhaps.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Let me add number 15, which is where you say X hoping not X happens. Cut number 15.

[Tim Waltz]

Sultans. Don't take the bait. Do not take the bait. Do not allow them to deploy federal troops into here. Do not allow them to invoke the Insurrection Act. Do not allow them to declare martial law. Do not allow them to lie about the security and the decency of this state. And let's let this investigation play itself. Out. Out. Let's make sure we protect our neighbors. I encourage you to use your First Amendment rights and all of your constitutional rights, but do so in a peaceful manner. We'll gather back with you as soon as we gather more information that needs to be put out. But again, Stacey, what do you think of that?

[Noah Rothman]

Noah, I'm glad you said do so in a peaceful manner, but that is the sort of thing you say to indemnify yourself after you've expressed 14 other sentences which are instigatory, which are the sort of thing that would inspire people to get out in the streets under the impression that they are acting righteously and judiciously because the federal government is lawless and is indeed engaged in a violent attack on the. On citizens of Minnesota. He had said previously, we have never been at war with the federal government. He said that word. He said those words as though we are. Now, what's the implication there? Why would you even say such a thing unless you were saying that in order to identify the delineate the time, the before and after. Before it was peaceful. Now it is a state of conflict. This is all very reckless. Now I want to go back playing with fire. Then they don't understand it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I want to go back five years in a day to Donald Trump addressing a crowd near the Lincoln Memorial on the Ellipse when he said, now go march to the Capitol peacefully and demonstrate. And Jack Smith said that was enough to charge him with the incent to riot and he thought hold him responsible for the capitol riot of January 6th. Is there a difference in kind here? Because I think actually Walsh is inciting and I don't think President Trump was because of the distance that had to be covered under the Brandenburg test in the Supreme Court lore. But I don't think think Waltz will be guilty of anything either if people riot tonight, do you?

[Noah Rothman]

No, because. No, because the Brandenburg test is not the right thing to apply here. We're not talking about criminal charges. We're not talking about the charge of incitement to violence, which is notoriously difficult to prove. This is not a legal issue. This is about being a responsible political actor. And responsible political actors say, yeah, you know, this isn't, this is an assault on your rights. We're at war with the federal government. They're coming to murder you. They want to invade this state, they want to occupy this state, they want to take away your rights, but be peaceful. That doesn't invalidate the last 14 sentences you said. And I would say the same thing about Donald Trump. Indeed I have, in a 2,500 word piece published today about the January Six revisionism that was published to the White House's website, which I find absolutely obnoxious. So I've got credibility on both ends of the spectrum here.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well, I haven't talked about. I've always had one rule, which is Jack Smith was out of control because you might condemn whatever happened on the Mall. And certainly I condemn what happened at the Capitol. But it wasn't criminal what Donald Trump said and Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. It wasn't Brandenburg incitement. And neither Jacob Fry nor Tim Waltz are engaged in Brandenburg incitement because you must have the present ability and intent to cause violence when you urge people to cause violence. And they don't have that. But they are remarkably indifferent to the history of Minneapolis. Right.

[Noah Rothman]

This is blase to a degree that is really irresponsible. And I don't think you can Divorce the scandal that is engulfing Minneapolis?

[Hugh Hewitt]

I don't think so. I was getting there. Go ahead, expand. Because the guys in the picture, I don't know that they are Somali Americans. I don't know that they're not. I suspect that they are, but I don't know. Do you think they are?

[Noah Rothman]

I don't know either, but that's a really reasonable suspicion. Yes, based on the extent to which this diaspora has a outsize influence, given the size of the population, outsize influence over the politics of Minnesota, Minneapolis in particular, in Minnesota, too. And we've seen the degree to which they can bilk the state out of untold billions of dollars with very little oversight. Indeed, we have records that indicate that in at least the case of the Minneapolis Education Department, they were scared to death of this community merely because they could be accused by it of being racist for looking too hard at their graft and corruption. And they won that argument with an ultimatum alone. So, yes, it's important for us to say that because of your own admissions, we can assess that you do not have the wherewithal to confront this community, to police this community. And because it has become such a scandal in Minnesota, it's blowing up in Minnesota. Minnesota, it's not so much a national scandal anymore. Minnesota has been consumed with this for months, at least since the piece in the New York Times that came out just before Thanksgiving. And that's the sort of thing that you might want to get off the front pages, especially since Tim Waltz's career.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Last question. If you were a fraudster in Minneapolis, if you actually know that you're guilty, but you haven't been convicted yet or charged, would you want a riot tonight?

[Noah Rothman]

That's a good question. Why, in your estimation, just to turn.

[Hugh Hewitt]

The page, change the subject, get, get, get away. I mean, it would change the subject with federal resources. It would.

[Noah Rothman]

It would. I don't think it would save you from being indicted or prosecuted. So the individual who makes that calculation is probably miscalculating. But from a political perspective, for individuals who have presided over this scandal, who aren't going to face criminal charges for it, but are facing consequences in their arena of public opinion for it, yeah, you absolutely would want to turn the page on this. And even domestic violence, as awful as that was, it really didn't turn out so terribly for Tim Walls and Jacob Fry. They survived it. So that's their experience. That's how they approach this scenario. Why wouldn't they think they'll survive this?

[Hugh Hewitt]

That's an excellent point, Noah. Muscle memory is be on the side of the rioters. I was reelected. That's muscle memory. There are no riots right now. There are some crowds that have gathered in Minneapolis. They've chased some police away in various neighborhoods, but there are no riots, no violence yet other than the killing of the 37 year old driver who appears to have backed up and then accelerated into an ICE agent. No C. Rothman on X. Thank you. No. I'll be right back. America. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm joined by Philip Balboni, CEO and lead at the Global Post. Global Post.com covers the world every single morning in your inbox. Philip, happy New Year to you. How are you?

[Philip Balboni]

Happy New Year, Hugh.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I'm great.

[Philip Balboni]

I'm great. It's very good to see you.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well, thank you. Very well. We're going to talk, we're going to divert from Minnesota for a moment and from Venezuela and from Iran because I read your lead story this morning on Haiti. Now Haiti comes in and out of the American news cycle and it's never good news. I didn't realize it had gotten this bad. Why don't you fill the audience in on the 11 million Haitians and what they're living through right now?

[Philip Balboni]

Sure. Well, first I want to say you in a world filled with grave problems which you and all your listeners and viewers know, Haiti is a special kind of hell. It really is. It's a very sad place. You know, as our lead story this morning pointed out, you know, it's a country devastated by gang warfare. I mean, gangs control 90% of the capital city of Port au Prince, 10% of the population of 11 million, as you mentioned, Hugh, have been displaced, basically homeless. 15,000 people have been killed by the gangs in the last four years. There's basically no government. There is a, a transitional council which has been in place for a couple of years. Their mandate runs out in February next month and then there will be no government at all. So it's a dire situation that despite the efforts of the international community over decades really has not improved. If anything, it has gotten worse.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I want to remind people the United States has invaded Haiti at least three times, most recently in 1994 when President Clinton sent American Marines in in an attempt to bring calm. The UN has had a multinational force there which failed to bring order. And now there is talk of a different UN force. It's going to be the same thing, isn't it? Papa Doc and Baby Doc were dictators, but people didn't die every day by gang Warfare.

[Philip Balboni]

Right, you're right. There is the UN Security Council with the support of the United States, Russia and China abstained from the vote, but it did pass. 5,500 new police and troops from somewhere not known yet will go and they will try their hand at bringing some degree of order. It's called the Gang Suppression Force, aptly named. Will this make a difference? I surely can't say. It's fair to note that as you have, I think already that all these other efforts have not succeeded. You know, the Kenya sent almost a thousand troops to Haiti in the hope of bringing some peace. They've been able to achieve little to nothing.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yeah, I've only been to the Dominican Republic, which is on Hispaniola, the island that was discovered by Columbus in 1492. And the doctor is a relatively stable place. And Haiti refugees are not welcome there. If they get there, they end up living in the most impoverished areas, the very mountaintops of the slums, because they have no money and no resources. But the Doctor, they're sent back. Yeah, the Doctor does not want Haiti. Right. They won't let them cross their border.

[Philip Balboni]

No, no. I mean the Dominican Republic has a thriving tourist industry and obviously there are many. Dominicans are very well known for baseball. We had one here in Boston, as you may remember. Big Poppy, very beloved figure here in Red Sox baseball.

[Hugh Hewitt]

What's interesting to me, Philip Balboni, is that nobody wants to go in, in the United States. Am I correct in observing there isn't a left wing Democrat or a right wing Republican or anybody in between. Nobody wants to take on Haiti. It is the Rubik's Cube of the world. It's worse than Gaza, it's worse than the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's not governable.

[Philip Balboni]

It's not. I mean, and you know, this is a country that is close to us, closer even than Venezuela. The people there deserve a good life, a better life. You know, not to overdo it, but as I said, it is a special kind of hell. I don't know why the good Lord has, has done this to the people of Haiti. Somehow, some way, maybe there'll be a miracle for them. I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could help myself.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Well, I appreciate that. By the way, my brother's in laws operated an orphanage in Haiti for years. They gave up. I mean, they were great Christian people. They tried for years and years and years, as did many missionaries, a variety, both Catholic and Protestant. Most have pulled out because it's too dangerous. It's just too dangerous.

[Philip Balboni]

Too dangerous.

[Hugh Hewitt]

So, Philip, I've got new affiliates at the start of the new year. I want to tell them about the Global Post. I would not have known about the Haiti story and the gang suppression initiative, doomed though it might be. Maybe it won't be doomed, but for The Global Post. Globalpost.com and what I want to emphasize to our new listener, if they're a student or a teacher, it's free and it's very, very economical. If you're not a student or a teacher, why don't you tell them what the Global Post is all about?

[Tim Waltz]

Sure.

[Philip Balboni]

Our mission is to help people know the world better.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Hugh.

[Philip Balboni]

It's as simple as that. You know, all of us have been focused on what's happening in Venezuela, the challenges facing the world. People need to know more. It's very hard to get trustworthy global news. This is what we do. We're nonpartisan. We have a pretty large audience, thank goodness. And we're here to help people stay better connected with the world, be better informed. And the price is only $46 a year. We arrive in your inbox at 6am every Monday through Friday and we would welcome your listeners and viewers, students and teachers, high school, college. It's free to them for their entire time of their education. So we love doing that work. We have students all over the world now and teachers reading Global Post every morning. It's a wonderful thing. I know it means a lot to you too. Young people as much as anyone need to be better informed about the world. They are going to be the ones who are taking over leadership and business world and they need to understand now more than ever.

[Ray Solano]

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[Hugh Hewitt]

He used to joke about people they couldn't find X, Y and Z on a map. Now people can't find anything on a map. And so one of the things I like Global Post is they provide you the maps, they provide you the background, and they bring stories to your attention. It's a genuine crisis in Haiti. I had no idea it had dissolved into this level of complete chaos. It's a talk about a failed state. It reminds me of Mogadishu during Black Hawk down days. But if you didn't expect Venezuela, Philip Balboni has been covering it for months. I know I'll be covering the Iranian revolution as well as that continues to descend into chaos. Philip, good to see you. Follow Philip on X at pbalboni. And to get the Global Post, whether for free or via subscription, head to globalpost.com globalpost.com, be informed about the world even if your local media outlets aren't. Stay tuned, America. I'll be back with the latest from St. Paul and Minneapolis as unrest appears to grow there. At this hour, I'll bring you up to speed when I'm back on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewlett joined by Sarah Bedford. Happy New Year to the Washington examiner senior political correspondent. How are you, Sarah?

[Sarah Bedford]

I'm great. Happy New Year, Hugh.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Thank you. I began the program with Senator Houston, who briefed us about what he could brief us about, about the Senate classified briefing on Operation Absolute Resolve. What's the reaction three days out to the extraordinary maneuver of the United States military in Venezuela over the weekend?

[Sarah Bedford]

You still have Democrats expressing outrage over what happened, skepticism about the plans for the future of Venezuela, the control of the country, the plan to continue selling Venezuelan oil and potentially control the revenues from that by the Trump administration. You also had some frustration from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I thought was interesting because Chuck Grassley, the chairman, very rarely criticized the Trump administration. But there was frustration having been left out of those initial briefings because the administration is building this as a law enforcement operation simply supported by the military. But overall, you're really seeing the reactions continue to break down on party lines.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Senator Tom Cotton, who chairman of the Intel Committee in the Senate and a member of the Group of Eight, was my guest two days ago. He was not upset that the notice he received was after the mission was over at 3:30 in the morning when Secretary Rubio called him. Secretary Rubio, of course, formerly in the Group of Eight because he had formerly been head of Senate intel. It seems to me he is very much, perhaps more than any Secretary of state in our lifetime aware of the nuances of south and Central America, because he's from Florida and is of Cuban descent. And we seized two Venezuelan oil tankers today at the same time President Trump agreed to let oil from Venezuela into the United States.

[Sarah Bedford]

I think you're right about Marco Rubio. I mean, his influence is clearly enormous here. He's in the right place at the right time for this sort of operation, having such a deep well of knowledge. And this is something that he's advocated for in the past. So he's really perfectly positioned to have a big impact here. But it all really depends if this is part of Rubio's legacy, on what the future of this is. If you're talking about through a domestic political lens, Trump's supporters, a lot of them feel, you know, they didn't vote for foreign policy adventurism. The nexus to sort of America first interest isn't immediately clear for a lot of MAGA America first people. And so the risk for Rubio and to Donald Trump is that this devolves into some sort of nation building exercise, which is the precise thing that Donald Trump did run against. Whatever you think of the merits of the operation Venezuela, that's absolutely not something that was part of Trump's pitch to boom.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Now, I saw Harry Anton yesterday say that 80% of people who voted for Trump approve of the Venezuelan operation. 86% is a lot. And so there is 14% who either don't know or oppose it. So there is that element, but I don't think it's nation building. I do think it's Reagan big stick, Teddy Roosevelt big stick, quote, diplomacy, and that we are running the country because we're not letting them move their oil without a say. So do you think there's a happy medium between isolationism and nation building? Because I do. And I think Trump's hitting it.

[Sarah Bedford]

I think so. And you've seen him try to strike that balance previously. I mean, we've had limited military engagements in Iran, for example, when he went after some of their nuclear capabilities. You remember back in the first term when he dropped the Moab. He's certainly not afraid to use the big stick. And I think the real question is what happens from here?

[Noah Rothman]

Right.

[Sarah Bedford]

It's objectively awesome, the military stuff that Delta Force did, snatching Maduro from his safe house in Caracas. So there's obviously pretty high support for it now. But how this plays out in the future and the level of American involvement and if it becomes necessary to have military involvement in Venezuela, that will determine ultimately how this fits into Rubio and Trump's legacy.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Now, I have a proposition. As we talk, rioters are sailing the federal building in Minneapolis. ICE out. ICE out. After the woman was killed. I will bet you right now that ICE and Minneapolis matter more in November elections than does Maduro in Venezuela. Do you agree with me or disagree with me?

[Sarah Bedford]

I agree with you on that one.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

So not a good bet.

[Sarah Bedford]

I think it'll be much more determinative. People rarely vote on foreign policy, especially not in midterm elections. And what we're seeing in Minneapolis is really tragic. But public opinion doesn't tend to be on Democrat side when it comes to immigration and when it comes to their rhetoric towards immigration officers. And so that sort of reaction, it's not representative of what, you know, the median voter thinks.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I agree. I think Jacob Fry and Tim Walz are setting fire to their city and I think they're setting fire to their party by siding with people who obstruct and attempt to injure ICE agents and don't immediately come to the defense of ICE agents and instead condemn them. I really do. I think they're, they're burning down their own house in it. I hope it does. I hope that remains figurative and not literal. Tonight, Sarah C. Bedford of the examiner. D.C. examiner, thank you. I've got a column in the examiner today. I recommend everyone go to dcexaminer.com to read it and follow Sarah on exit. SARAH C. Bedford X at Sarah C. Bedford. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. It's Christmas shopping time. Are you feeling a little bit, 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 last blank of the contract before you get locked into what could be a thousand dollar mistake. Right now, for limited time only, you get the second month of service with Consumer Cellular for free. When you use my promo code, Hugh H U G H or visit consumercellular.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 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.

[Tim Waltz]

Hugh.

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[Hugh Hewitt]

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. So glad that former Senator Jim Talent of Missouri is here to talk with us about Operations Absolute Resolve. Senator Talon, I've been focused a lot today on the shooting in Minnesota, but I want to veer back to the capture of Maduro and his rendition to New York. Your assessment of the operation and what it means when President Trump says we are running Venezuela, we are in charge.

[Tim Waltz]

Well, I'll give you my assessment, but maybe, maybe you'll allow me to read three sentences from the National Security Strategy which I read last night on the podcast.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, okay.

[Tim Waltz]

So if you go to page. Yeah, if you go to page five of the National Security Strategy, they lay out the vital strategic goals of the United States, which, you know, you kind of do in a strategy. Well, here's the first one. These are described as the vital core interests of the United States. We want to ensure that the Western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States. We want a hemisphere where governments cooperate with us against narco terrorists, cartels and other transnational criminal organizations. We want a hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets. Well, it was not. Yes, that is defined. It's right on, you know, people ought to read the National Security Strategy. That's the number one goal. We are securing our strategic perimeter. Having secured our national border, do you.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Think we should send that, should we send that to Denmark and our NATO allies who've got their shorts in a twist over Donald Trump by Greenland?

[Tim Waltz]

Well, the Greenland exercise or the Greenland impulse is part of this. Yes, we are. We are expelling foreign adversaries. And as you know, Venezuela is the poster child both for narco terrorism and also for incursion of foreign adversaries. Are you familiar with Margarita Island? You.

[Hugh Hewitt]

No, I confuse it with a different one that belongs to Colombia, but there are a lot of islands off the shore of both countries.

[Tim Waltz]

Right. And it's basically run by Hezbollah. There's a 20 year relationship between Venezuela, the Chavistas and Iran and Iran's proxy groups. So they train their, they have business facilities there, they launder passports there. And when I think of what's on the menu for the administration to continue applying pressure, I'm wondering if Margarita island might be on that menu.

[Hugh Hewitt]

That's the point.

[Tim Waltz]

So, so when we talk about running Venezuela, what we're saying is the, the elements of the regime that remain are going to have to play ball with us in terms of our national interests. If they do, we're going to accommodate them, at least transitionally. Rubio has been very clear about this. This is not building democracy in Venezuela. It is protecting the strategic perimeter of the United States and more power to them.

[Hugh Hewitt]

You. Now, today, two tankers were taken, one in the Caribbean, relatively close to Venezuela, full of hot oil. And the one that got away and got a Russian sub in front of it, and then reflagged themselves as a Russian boat, which they weren't. That's a transparent pirate tactic. And Russia warned us away, but we took it as well. What is your assessment of those operations?

[Tim Waltz]

Well, as you know, there are shadow fleets that engage in this flag hopping. In other words, they're constant, they're going radio silent, they hide their GPS coordinates, they try to change flags and they carry illicit sanctioned cargo. They are all subject to seizures, including this one. Now, I'm wondering what else besides oil is at stake here, because this is pretty interesting that we would track it. I wonder what kind of personnel are on there. I wonder what we're going to find out in the next couple of days. But the broader strategy here you is to apply pressure both to the Venezuelan government and for example, to Cuba and to our other adversaries by cutting off a source of revenue from them, which is what. What Venezuelan oil has meant to them. And I. I think this is going to continue. Yeah. I mean, sink the drug boats, seize the tankers, arrest the president, but at the same time, classic Trump strategy, offering negotiations with a deal on our terms, but a deal that ought to be acceptable to regime elements that don't want to end up in jail or dead.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Now, Senator Lasso, I had an exchange with a New York Times reporter on X, Lulu Navarro, who had said, oh, journalists are being arrested. Chavista gangs are roaming the street. The United States owns this. And I said, no, we don't. We are not in charge of the regime. We are running quarantine. And Marco Rubio has explained this. And the president went at length to explain this on Air Force One on Sunday night, done it again since, and we went back and forth. I have a column coming out tomorrow in five. We might be running the country via indirect leverage, the way a bankruptcy court controls. A company in bankruptcy, doesn't hire the secretaries or fire the salesmen. It approves the final liquidation or the reorganization plan. That's what I understand us to be doing. We're not going to have a viceroy there like Ambassador Paul Bremer. Do you agree with me on this?

[Tim Waltz]

No, I guess I do, because the point here is to protect and advance the clearly identified American interests. This is basically defense of the homeland and eliminating risk in the perimeter surrounding the homeland. And so now it is given the Venezuelan people the best chance they have to regain their freedom and rebuild their country that they've had in, what, close to 25 years? I mean, it's. And we will certainly cooperate with that insofar as it's consistent with our vital national objectives. You, Dwayne, and I talked last night about the similarities, and there are differences, but the similarities between how Trump approaches foreign policy and how Reagan did. Yes, it is, at heart, a realist foreign policy done in the belief that a strong, secure and prosperous United States is, of course, needed for the American people, but is also the best hope for freedom and democracy in the world.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Senator Talen, if I can get you to stay over for one segment, I'm going to give you two minutes to think about this. What's it mean for Cuba? I think Raul Castro is alive, but maybe not Campos Mentis. But there's a new dictator down there. It's an old police state. They have been a thorn in our side since 1959. It's a failed state. The poor Cuban people are impoverished. You're like Final Jeopardy. We're going to play the dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun. And then I need an answer from you as to what's going to, what the fallout is for Cuba on the other side of this. Don't go anywhere, America, because Senator Talent is going to predict the future of Cuba. Next on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I gave Jim Tallant, senior fellow at the Reagan Institute center for Peace Through Strength and former Senator from Missouri 2 1/2 minutes to figure out what's going to happen to Cuba now because they don't have any way to buy anything. All they can sell was a security service which failed badly. Right.

[Tim Waltz]

Yeah, we saw what that was worth and what the Russian S3 hundreds were worth. And I bet the Chinese are wondering how they're going to get their, how they're going to get their loans paid back. You bet right now Venezuela is not looking like a real good proposition. By the way, do I have to phrase my answer in the form of a question?

[Hugh Hewitt]

No, no, it's not that. It's just beginning. It's only double jeopardy.

[Tim Waltz]

It's not that final. Okay. Well, Mr. Diaz Canal, I imagine is pretty worried now by a number of things. And you mentioned the big one, which is they were really heavily dependent on Venezuelan, on revenue from Venezuelan oil. I mean, that was the deal. They sent in the security forces, they got to help loot Venezuela. In return, they got a big cut of the, what is it, half a million barrels a day. They're able to ship down like 80% from what they used to be able to do. And the other thing that Mr. Diaz Canel's got to worry about is if, if there is a regime our Secretary of State would like to see changed or overthrown, it's in Cuba.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yep.

[Tim Waltz]

For personal as well as official reasons. So I don't imagine he's resting too, too comfortably right now. But what I will say is, I mean they're going to, they're going to do one out adversarial outpost, I think, at a time. Right. And Venezuela, if, if, if we can accomplish what we want to accomplish in Venezuela, that's going to open up possibilities in a whole lot of other places to include Cuba, but also Iran.

[Hugh Hewitt]

That's falling apart in real time. I haven't even brought it up yet, but the foundation for the Defense of Democracies is running a real time update. Hundreds of demonstrators have been killed and there have been hundreds of demonstrations, many of them violent because the country's out of money. And again, it always comes Back to the Soviet Union falling apart in front of our eyes. When a country runs out of money, desperate people take out the government. No matter how many Stasi agents or KGB agents or Cuban security agents or Chavistas, when they get desperate, they rise up.

[Tim Waltz]

You know, I watched Dan Seynour's latest podcast. I know how much you like Dan.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yes.

[Tim Waltz]

And he and his guests were discussing and they used, they used a metaphor for the Islamic republic that I thought was really good. And this time when I use it, I'm going to give them attributes in the future. I may not, but they said it's, it's a zombie regime. It's ideologically dead and it's financially dying, but it's still capable of staggering around and killing people until somebody puts, you know, an arrow through its head. And that's, that's really where I think Iran is now. I think the fall of the regime is probably inevitable, but I still am skeptical that it's imminent. Well, because there's a lot of, I.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Mean, from your lips to God's ears. Because Mark Dubovitz and a few other Iranians specialist think it's closer than I thought it was. So hopefully they're right and we're wrong because I still think it's going to be years before Khamenei. I think Hamain's got to die. But we'll see. Jim, Talent can be followed on Xim Talent. You can follow me to tomorrow. Thank you, Harley. Thank you, Adam. Thank you. Generally, she want to thank all of you for listening or watching. I'll see you tomorrow in the next you Hewitt show.