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play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Redistricting continues all across the south and all across America. The left is still saying all these years later that America is systemically racist. Is that the case? Well, you know, the answer is no. And we actually have a huge milestone this week to prove to you that the answer is no. I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer show. So much much do you have to do when it comes to the continued fallout of the Voting Rights act case. This redistricting battle is happening all across the country. But for now, just a brief update for you on any non Voting Rights act non racial gerrymandering related update. I speak of course about what is happening in Virginia. So we had on Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia recently to talk about how this was a really legally problematic thing that Democrats, led by the governor there, Abigail Spamberger, did in the Old Dominion trying to get this referendum in front of the voters of Virginia. And he warned right here on the show at the time that the Supreme Court, Virginia was likely to hold that this referendum was unconstitutional on strictly procedural grounds. In other words, they literally did not follow the proper procedure as outlined in the Virginia State Constitution as to how to actually get this referendum. Sure enough, earlier Today, in a 4 to 3 split decision, the Supreme Court of Virginia did indeed halt, did indeed hold that the legislative process employed to advance the referendum violated the Virginia State Constitution, Article 12, Section 1, if you're keeping score at home, a huge, huge win for Republicans, all but guaranteeing, all but guaranteeing that in the summit, in the sum, in the grand scheme of things, Republicans will indeed go ahead and actually win this redistricting battle royale. But the redistricting battle royale is happening not just in Virginia. That was just a straight partisan gerrymander. But there's been a lot of, a lot of fallout since the Voting Rights act case when it comes to not necessarily just straight Parsons partisan gerrymandering by trying to comply with the Supreme Court and trying to get rid of these overtly race conscious congressional maps, these maps that were drawn under the old prevailing Voting Rights act regime, this notion that you actually could use race in order to not discriminate on basis of race in order to carve out these majority minority districts. And that created some pretty hilarious situations, actually, this week, because you had a situation as we covered yesterday, where in Tennessee, which actually redrew their maps. Just yesterday, in a highly contentious session, you had a situation where Tennessee has now got a new map in place that's set to be signed by the governor, Bill Lee, and it'll be probably enacted asap, post haste. And they got rid of their only majority Democrat district in the state. And of course, Hakeem Jeffries and all the major Democrat leaders saying, oh, this is racist there. But as we covered, the congressman who's about to get redistricted out of seat is literally Steve Cohen, who again, looks like me. He is just like a white looking Jewish guy. He is not exactly a black member, which shows that this whole thing is all just about pure, pure power. But there was a whole, whole ruckus yesterday in Nashville at the state legislature. Justin Jones, who was trying to make a name for himself as he's trying to basically become the Jasmine Crockett or the Ayanna Pressley of Tennessee, just a total, total radical. He was seen marching around the state Capitol. Again, Justin Jones is actually in the legislature. He is literally a state senator. And he was actually marching around the Capitol while burning, burning an old Confederate flag, trying to get the message across that we are not actually going to go back. We are never going to go back. And obviously we're not going to go back. Obviously we're not going to go back. I mean, the fact that you feel the need to say this, there is just pure performative, pure, pure symbolism from Justin Jones, who, I'm mistaken, was actually a. He's actually a representative, not a senator there. But regardless, this guy in the legislature marching around there burning this Confederate flag, it's all just. It is pure, unadulterated virtue signaling. You had all the people there up in the peanut gallery saying, oh, this is racism. This is. This is that. Again, it's Steve fricking Cohen who's gonna lose his congressional seat. Okay? It's not Justin Jones. It's not any other black person there. The very notion that complying with the Supreme Court is inherently racist and that it is inherently racist to get rid of these majority minority, artificially contrived, artificially delineate districts. The notion that that is racist is, frankly, an insult to black people. Again, the majority of elected blacks In Congress, in the US Congress come from white majority districts, including Tim Scott, for what it's worth, the senator, actually U.S. senator from South Carolina. Nonetheless, Democrats are just going nuts over the fact that these various Southern states are complying with the Supreme Court and the Louisiana case. Antonio Parkinson is one of Justin Jones colleagues there in the Democratic Caucus of the Tennessee State House. He is calling for Memphis to secede from the state of Tennessee over this registering. Let's go ahead and play this clip.
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And if that is the case, let me make it easier for you. Let Memphis secede from the state of Tennessee. You don't have to redraw maps when you let us out. Let my people go.
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Okay, let me get this straight. Your colleague, Justin Jones was burning a Confederate flag, which is the literal embodiment of secession. So your colleague is burning the Confederate flag and you are there saying, secede, secession. The mind just wants to explode at the intellectual inconsistency here. Stacey Abrams, remember her? Stacey Abrams, who still believes probably she is the governor of Georgia. Stacey Abrams, who I'm genuinely not sure, has conceded the gubernatorial election to Brian Kemp, who was actually about to be done as governor. That's how long ago that election was. Stacey Abrams, who I frankly don't even know what she's doing with her life these days, but she's still just saying a lot of crazy crap there. She was on Ms. Now talking about how, from her perspective, what's happening in complying with the Supreme Court's order in the Louisiana case is nothing short of authoritarianism. Let's go ahead and play this clip as well.
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And what we have to understand is that there are no longer blue states and red states. There are authoritarian states and democracy states. There are states that do not believe in the right of the people to have a say, who want to aggregate power and foment corruption. And there are states that want to guarantee that in this country we have free and fair elections, we have access to the remedies that democracy is supposed to deliver, and that no matter what goes wrong in one part of the country, that the quality of your citizenship does not depend on your zip code and your geography.
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Okay, so the actual reality, very far from what Stacey Abrams said, is that Democrats have already gerrymandered the crap out of their states for a very, very long time. There was a great tweet this morning from someone by the name of Daniel Friedman who tweeted the following quote, massachusetts has a larger share of Republicans than Tennessee does Democrats. And Massachusetts has not had a Republican in Congress. In decades. There is not a moral or just reason to require Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina to carve out special racially balkanized Democratic congressional districts while blue states are allowed to gerrymander to prevent Republicans from ever having representation. This is of course correct. Alabama, by the way, which has seven congressional seats, they are going to have to do the same thing that Tennessee just did and South Carolina is doing today. Actually, Alabama's gonna have to redraw their maps as well. They're looking at potentially going from a 5:2 Republican split to a 6:1 split. Why settle for less than 7:0? You know, while we're in this race, call it a race at the bottom if you want to. I don't really care. You can make up your own mind on that. But while you're doing this, Tennessee is gonna be an all Republican congressional delegation. Why the heck would Alabama not do the same there? So the pressure there on Governor Ivey in Alabama to do the right thing. So is America actually what Stacey Abrams says? Is it a systemically rac to this day? Well, we have some thoughts on that, as you can imagine. But for now, folks, just a brief word from our sponsor for today's show, which is Angel Studios. You know, I recently joined the Angel Guild and I watched their brand new documentary, Death of Recess and let me tell you, I was not expecting this. It is a fantastic documentary all about institutional control and ideological corruption and co option in this case, I'm talking about the teachers unions and how they have just totally taken the educational process and they have twisted it, distorted and perverted it in order to redound to their own parochial and institutional interests as opposed to the very real, pressing and dire interests of children. Folks, I come from a lot of teachers. My mother, grandmother, great grandmother were all teachers. I used to hear my mother complain about this all the time. This is a massive, massive problem there. And it's all told in this brand new documentary from Angel Studios, Death of Recess. This is fundamentally what happens when institutions protect themselves instead of children. And ultimately it's really why platforms like Angel Studios matter, because you will not get this sort of storytelling in any of the major Hollywood studios. So folks, go to angel.com hammer to join the Angel Guild and watch Death of Recess right now. If you care about kids, this really is essential viewing. Again, Angel Studios is our sponsor of today's show, angel.com hammer so is America systemically racist as many of the Democrats are saying, in light of all of this redistricting and the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Louisiana case. Well, the answer, as you know by now, is obviously not now. As we've alluded to multiple times on the show this week, this is the week where Justice Clarence Thomas has become the second longest serving justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court. His entire life story, frankly, is an utter repudiation of the notion that America is systemically racist. If America was systemically racist, Clarence Thomas, who grew up dirt poor in the Jim Crow south, not even speaking English, frankly, as his first language, there is no world in which that man would have ended up going to Yale Law School, which has been the number one ranked law school for decades, let alone ending up on the United States Supreme Court, let alone serving there for three and a half decades, let alone having his view of constitutional interpretation win out. As Elena Kagan famously said, and I'm paraphrasing here, in her own Supreme Court confirmation hearing back during the Obama regime, Elena Kagan said, quote, we're all originalists now. The Scalia Thomas vision for constitutional interpretation has won, I think often about Clarence Thomas concurrence from the affirmative action case. This is the case that came out three years ago now, Harvard versus Students for Fair Admission. And Thomas had one of arguably, I think really my single favorite opinion he's ever written. Actually just a sweeping, sweeping condemnation of Patanji Brown Jackson's idiotic race centric worldview. And I want to just read a brief snippet for you here from Clarence Thomas, and he says here, Nor do Justice Jackson's statistics regarding a correlation between the levels of health, wealth and well being between selected racial groups prove anything. Of course, none of those statistics are capable of drawing a direct causal link between race rather than socioeconomic status or any other factor in individual outcomes. So Justice Jackson supplies the link herself, the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth. This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational. It is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood. If an applicant has less financial means because of generational inheritance or otherwise, then surely a university may take that into account. If an applicant has medical struggles or a family member with medical concerns, a university may consider that too. What it cannot do is use the applicant's skin color as a heuristic, assuming that because the applicant checks the box for black, he therefore conforms to the university's monolithic and reductionist view of an abstract average black person. Accordingly, Justice Jackson's race infused worldview falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And the race is not to blame for everything, good or bad, that happens in their lives. A contrary myopic worldview based on individual skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism. Wow, is that powerful stuff. And we got a lot to talk about when it comes to that and much more after a quick commercial break, folks. Stay with us. We'll be right back here on the Josh Hammer show. Welcome back. So before the break, I was reading what has to be one of my all time favorite passages that one of, if not the greatest justice in Supreme Court history, Clarence Thomas, has written, and this is from the affirmative action case three years ago, talking about how racial determinism is utterly anathema to Americanism. How do I know that? Because our entire national history, which we celebrate this July 4th, the 250th anniversary of our entire national history, albeit an imperfect one, as Marco Rubio said while he was guest hosting and cosplaying as Caroline Levitt from the White House press secretary, left turn earlier this week, as Rubio admitted, our history is not a perfect one, but has been striving continually striving towards an ever more perfect union, towards better fulfilling our founding ideals, as codified in the Declaration, that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. This notion of racial determinism, that you are predetermined in Calvinistic like fashion, that you are predetermined to either succeed or to fail based on your skin color, based on your religion or your sex or any other factor. There is not at all what this country is founded on. And is it the direct opposite of what this country was founded on. It's also the direct opposite, I would argue, frankly, of the biblical worldview. We speak often on the show about how Genesis 1:27, B' sellem elikim in the original Hebrew, which is the divine image imperative, the notion that man is made in God's image. These are the most important words ever written, ever written, world transforming stuff right there, Genesis 1:27. If you truly believe that there, then you have to reject all sorts of racial or sexual or ethnic determinism because we all are children of God. We all are able to achieve on our own merits. And again, as I was saying before the break, Clarence Thomas is the literal embodiment of this. He has actually literally done it. He has achieved the greatest heights in the history of his profession, now the second longest serving justice in America's least dangerous branch, the United States Supreme Court. And even more than that, his view of constitutional interpretation, which was long derided, long derided, long excoriated as being hidebound and ultra conservative and far right and this and that, his view has won out. If you're not starting as Thomas does with the text and the history, then you're not doing law at this point. Scalia and Thomas were really the pioneers here. So all of this is just an emphatic rejection to the notion that America remains a quote, unquote, institutional den of racism or a systemically racist country. It is a living, real time, empirical rebuke to that slander of what America is with Democrats like Justin Jones, like Antonio Parkinson, like Stacey Abrams. What they're actually upset about and what Ketanji Brown Jackson was actually upset about when Clarence Thomas felt the need to respond to her as such. What they're actually upset about is that they're losing influence and they're losing power. That's really what this comes down to. That's why you saw Congresswoman Sewell in Alabama after the Louisiana case, who freaked out at the podium about how the Supreme Court is racist there. No, it's actually just become. You come. It's because, Madam Congresswoman, you come from a racially gerrymandered district and you're about to lose your seat. That's literally all this is about. It is a pure unmitigated power grab, which is a thing the Democrats like to do, in case you haven't noticed there. That's actually exactly what happened in Virginia, by the way, when it came to this referendum, which the Supreme Court, Virginia, as we noted at the outset, has now found to be unconstitutional. There is nothing at all racist about complying with the equal protection clause of the fourth Amendment. There's nothing at all racist with saying and legislating and affirming that all men are created equal. It's our founding creed. It is our lodestar and always has been there it is a bitter, bitter irony of history that today's Democrats, today's leftists, everyone from these people in Tennessee to Justice Jackson on the Supreme Court to Stacey Abrams there on the Ms. Now commentariat, the punditry chattering class. It is a great, bitter irony of American history that these people are taking these same evil, yes, it is evil racially deterministic worldview that John C. Calhoun took during the antebellum debates. Back then, John C. Calhoun said that if you were a black person, then you were eternally damned. If you were a white person, you were good. That is how he got to his morally repugnant and abhorrent and evil theory that slavery is a, quote, unquote, positive good. It is an irony that today's leftists, some of whom, such as Justice Jackson, such as Representative Parkinson there in Tennessee, Representative Jones, some of whom happen to be black, it is a great irony that they are taking that exact same John C. Calhoun racial predeterminism worldview and just flipping it on its head. It is awful, awful, awful stuff. So overseas, I don't actually really know what is happening in Iran, and I say that to be fully transparent with you because it is very much something of a seesaw and it's more than a little bit schizophrenic, frankly, if we are just being candid about the situation. So just over the past day or two, just over the past day or two, there were three US Naval destroyers that were trying to traverse through these three or four moves and were actively fired upon by the Iranians. Now, the American destroyers, Donald Trump, our commander in chief, says were not damaged. But Trump reports on Truth Social, quote, great damage was done to the Iranian attackers. On the other hand, the US Then did retaliate. They struck Iran's Bandar Abbas and Qeshim Island. Bandar Abbas is a city there on the Gulf. Keshim island is an oil refinement facility there off the coast of Iran, there sitting in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline. This response seemingly happening not necessarily because the United States was irritated or peaked. Donald Trump, actually, I don't know how he did this, but he apparently referred to the Iranian shots fired at our three naval destroyers as a love tap, which is a little odd, to be honest with you. That's not the language that I would use when a state sponsored terrorism, the world's number one state sponsor, is sparring at my military assets. I find that a little bizarre, to be honest. But the fact that the US Struck back out at this Iranian coastal city and at an oil refinement facility is apparently attributable to the fact we believe, and this is all that I can tell, and based on what I've talked to sources, et cetera, that is because Trump is now trying to stand up for the Gulf allies. So earlier this week, around the time that Donald Trump did an abrupt 180 on Project Freedom, Project Freedom was perhaps is this wholly defensive military objective and mission whereby we are just trying to escort ships and vessels safely through the street of Hormuz. Trump abruptly called that off. And around the time that he abruptly called that off was also around the same time that Iran fired over a dozen cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at a very prominent Emirati oil exporting facility there. It's actually the only UAE facility that exports oil that is actually south and east of the Strait of Hormuz. If you look on a map, it makes a lot more sense. Long story short, our Gulf allies were really, really, really ticked off when Trump pulled a 180 on Project Freedom. So quickly after. After this very valuable Emirati oil facility was struck by Iran. So apparently the Saudis actually briefly closed down their airspace to the United States to use on behalf of any operations, frankly, whether they are offensive or defensive in nature. The Emiratis were none too. Please. The Kuwaitis were none too pleased. So it seems that the United States is now striking back at various Iranian facilities as we head into this weekend, essentially to try to mollify and essentially trying to appease our Gulf ally. So basically, we're just crying foul and saying, what the heck is this? We've supported you, we want you to do this the area, but don't sell us out. And this is the problem, as I see it. Donald Trump seems extremely eager to get a deal with Iran. A deal is obviously preferable to not having a deal. But as we've explained here on the show, a deal is just a means, is an instrumentality. It is not an end unto itself. If a deal is possible, and I don't really know how that would be possible, honestly, with the people that you're dealing with, with these kind of people who have been engaging in civilizational jihad through the Sharia concept of Taqiyyah for 47 years. If any deal is possible, that fulfills our four criteria of what a deal must constitute. Stroh form was open, no financing for terror proxies, ballistic missiles, done. Enriched uranium, done. If a deal is possible, then sure, go for it. Otherwise the kinetic activity has to start again because this will just string out forever. And I'm sorry to say, but this is not a ceasefire. We can lie through our teeth and say that there's still a ceasefire. It's literally not. They're lobbing missiles at our destroyers and we're striking their port cities. In what world is this a ceasefire? In what world? Where the English language means what it says and words have meaning, in what world is this a ceasefire? Whether we want to acknowledge or not, this is Absolutely. The slow reprisal of epic theory. Look, there were good arguments on the other side of commencing this operation in the first place. But once you start the operation, you can't just end it halfway through. Once you start, you gotta finish. Mr. President, I say finish the job in Iran, folks. Stay with us through a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with much more after this. Welcome back. So gas prices have clearly been rising as a result of the war in Iran. That should not be a surprise to anyone. Anyone who claims that he is surprised by the rise in gas prices due to the hostilities in the Middle east, frankly, knows nothing about economics, knows nothing about foreign policy, knows nothing about anything under the sun, probably for that matter, whatso freakin ever. This was the most easily foreseeable thing in the world. All of that to say that when the decision was made, when President Trump as a commander in chief ultimately made a decision, upon talking to all of his advisers and all and everyone who was involved in that decision, when he decided to commence hostilities against Iran back on February 28th earlier this year, he was already factoring in a spike in gas prices. Now America does have more tools in our arsenal when it comes to trying to bring those gas prices down. Frankly, I'm actually a little bit surprised that not all of them have been fully tapped into. We of course have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been in effect more or less since the 1970s era Arab oil embargo, all sorts of other things that we can be doing as well, potentially including this new Venezuelan gold mine, actually this new situation down in Venezuela, which is one of the largest petroleum exporting countries in the entire Western Hemisphere, by which Exxon and Chevron and various other American oil and natural gas multinationals can essentially have free rein, just carte blondes to do not everything they want, but at least a lot of what they want when it comes to Venezuela. All this is happening in the broader context of President Trump suffering a fall in most of his approval ratings. Not all of them. That's not how polling works. But you look for the trends. And the trend line when it comes to Donald Trump's approval rating has been mostly, mostly negative overall with the voters for the past few months. This is obviously what Donald Trump is thinking. It's not hard to figure out what he's thinking there. I totally get it. I obviously, obviously get him. Just this morning, actually on Friday, POLITICO's Playbook, which is maybe the most widely read of the morning daily newsletters for all the inside the beltway and the congressional staffers, whatever. The lead story this morning playbook was a lot of Republicans freaking out that they're not getting any marching orders from this White House when it comes to what to focus on and the message to communicate on the campaign trail and in advertising, emails and flyers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, in advance of the midterms this November. And the tension is as follows. The tension is that the focus right now when it comes to our new cycle is with the situation in Iran. Because this is a war. We can call it a ceasefire, but it's a war. This is absolutely a war. And it is a war of serious repercussions. Not just when it comes to the US And Iran, but frankly, when it comes to the world at large. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, Trump knows, and Susie Wiles knows, and everyone knows there that this November's election will ultimately be decided on the economy. How do I know that? Because every election in American politics, ever, period, full stop, end of story, is on the economy. Now, listen, I saw the oversold that bad goods, I'll put a little asterisk there. There are some caveats. For instance, the 2002 midterm elections, which were the first elections held after 9 11, just about a year after that there, that was a national security election. That's actually why that was a very rare election where the incumbent presidential party actually did not lose seats in the Congress in the first midterm. Why? Because Republicans under Bush at that time are viewed as being superior when it comes to the keeping the homeland safe. So there are some exceptions there. But short of a 911 style massive catastrophe, terror attack, et cetera, short of that, the economy and economic issues, inflation, cost of living, prices in general, jobs, wages, these sorts of things tend to be the big issues that Americans vote on. So that is clearly what Trump's trying to do. This talk of a deal, this talk that we're still in a ceasefire, he's trying to pivot, he's trying to get out of this, of this Iran situation there. And I totally, totally get the instinct. But what we've been saying here on the show for months now is that this is the United freaking States of America. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can absolutely wage the war until the job is done, or else why would you have started in the first place while simultaneously trying to provide real, immediate relief to the American people? When it comes to the economy, for instance, perhaps we can get something out of this reconciliation 2.0 bill that might happen this summer. Right now they're talking about this skinny version of the reconciliation bill, which won't really have a whole lot there. But why not? Why can't we try to get some sort of immediate tax relief, some sort of measure when it comes to health care or mortgage prices, something that I have personally experienced recently when it comes to getting a mortgage and purchasing our first home, which we actually just did recently, these are the kind of things that they should be focused on the administration on a domestic front, to an extent they are for sure. But one does not necessarily come at the expense of the other. That's, I think, the key insight here. For what it's worth, Actually, there are some economic wins at Donald Trump's sales. Just this morning on Friday, May 8, there was a new labor report from BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The United States added 115,000 jobs in April that surpassed most economists expectations. And the March number from March was actually Revised higher to 185,000. That's actually a very, very, very strong number. So combined you're looking at 300,000 jobs just from March and April. That's pretty good. Now, having said that, the unemployment rate stayed constant at 4.3%, which is really not terrible at all, frankly. It's not in the threes, which is where I guess you really want to be, but it's pretty good overall. The bad news, reports Heather Long of Navy Credit Union. The bad news, she reports, is that inflation is about to eat up. Wage wage growth was 3.6% in the past year. That will likely be enough from the April inflation number, which came in at 4%. Now, inflation is always a very moving target. You measure it when it comes to core goods, do you include volatile prices like food and energy? It reminds me of the famous quote from Mark Twain that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. So inflation is kind of a moving target. It kind of ultimately depends how you want to define it. But clearly price stability, inflation continues to be something of a problem when it comes to at least the perception there is. So, yes, focus on that. Yes. As we've said here on the show each and every day, there should be people in the administration, perhaps on the Domestic Policy Council, perhaps people working under Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller is basically the de facto head of domestic policy working there as deputy chief of staff under Susie Wiles there, people working for Stephen Miller and people working on the Domestic Policy Council. These are the kind of folks who should be working day in, day out when it comes to coordinating with congressional Republicans, with John Thune in the Senate, with Mike Johnson in the House, with leaders in the various states, whether that's Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott Lee in the big three red states now of Florida, Texas and Tennessee, trying to coordinate on what an affirmative positive agenda looks like there. Because again, I was skipping this newsletter this morning, this Politico Playbook newsletter, and there was an official quote from a White House source to Politico. I think it was just an unnamed White House spokesperson. And what the spokesperson basically said is that the message from the White House this fall is that with Republicans, you will get a more secure border, lower taxes, lower prices and more secure worlds, et cetera, et cetera, relative to Democrats. All of that is true. I have no doubt that that is true. Really no doubt at all. But the proof is ultimately in the pudding. And you have to have, you have to have results in order then to show to the people. Now, the results when it comes to some of these things are extraordinary. The results when it comes to the southern border are simply extraordinary. Border crossing is going down by well over 90%, close to 100%, frankly, 95 plus percent at times. It has been a decline in border crossings relative to the peak of the Biden Harris regime, which was the worst border crisis in the entire history, frankly, of the Union. So that is going extraordinarily well. Donald Trump's foreign policy, I believe, is also going extraordinarily well. He has taken a huge, huge sledgehammer to the China, Russia axis by removing Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. And Venezuela right now is being run as something of an American puppet state where again, our oil companies have seemingly carte blanche to really do what they want to do. Donald Trump has been very successful as well when it comes to trying to get peace around the world, whether it's India and Pakistan or Thailand and Cambodia or Armenia and Azerbaijan. And yes, his war against Iran is, as we have argued for months now, it is just as righteous. And frankly, it is overdue because Iran declared war on the United States 47 years ago. Donald Trump is not starting a new forever war. He is the first president who is simply trying to end the forever war started by the clerical theocratic lunatics in the Islamist regime in Tehran 47 years ago, where they literally commenced the regime by storming the US embassy there and commencing a 444 day hostage crisis that ultimately ended the Jimmy Carter presidency and brought us Morning in America with Ronald Reagan in January of 1981. So the way I view it, is that Donald Trump's term thus far has really been quite successful. Washington, D.C. has the lowest violent crime rate in decades in close to a century. Homicides across the country more generally, violent crime and homicides across the country nationally are down to their lowest figures since the William McKinley administration, literally since 1900, give or take. Astonishing stuff. So just focus on the economy, really. And the key thing, folks, you can do that while also focusing on foreign policy. These are not mutually exclusive propositions. Again, we are the United States. We are the big dogs. We are the alpha. We can lead our axis and our sphere around the world and deal a blow to the number one state sponsor of jihad and terrorism while simultaneously trying to lift all boats here on the domestic front. That should be the mentality. It's not one or the other. It very much ought to be exactly both. Two for two, not one for two or God forbid, zero for two, folks. One final commercial break. We'll be right back with more after this. Welcome back. So speaking of the economy, the ruling party not in the United States, but in the United Kingdom, in Britain, just took an absolute beating. Yes, Britons all across the United Kingdom went to the polls, went to the polls on Thursday, and they were apparently really, really slow at tallying votes in the UK that is actually in contrast to continental Europe. The Europeans don't do a whole lot of things right. One thing that they typically do right, at least on the continent, is they actually are able to tally up votes quite quickly. You typically know who won an election fairly early on in the other countries there, places like France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, et cetera. Apparently, the UK does not work like that because they are still tallying votes, which I find extraordinary. But it looks like we have more than enough data to say that Nigel Farage is the big, big freaking winner. So to clarify, this was not a general election. This was not a race for parliament, which, of course, is the British legislature. The next general election for now, for now is scheduled for 2029 over in the UK that could change. That's just the nature of a parliamentary system. There are not fixed elections like we have here in the United States. There. If there is a collapse in Keir Starmer's coalition there, in his parliamentary coalition, there absolutely could be an election soon that. But for now, the next general election for Parliament is in 2029. So these were actually local elections. These were elections for local councils all throughout England, Wales, Scotland and so forth there. And again, the massive winner in England because Scotland and Wales, as of now, are still tallying Votes. England saw a huge, huge victory for Reform uk, which is the nationalist populist party of Nigel Farage, who was the lead visionary and the lead executor as well of Brexit, the referendum back in 2016 by which the UK extricated itself from the soft tyranny of the European Union, formally dissolving its bonds with Brussels and the EU. So on Thursday, Reform gained 614 local English council seats. They had two, they had two, so they gained 614 to get to 616. Now they're a pretty new party, so it's not shocking that they were only up 2, but wow. So they are now the biggest. They are the single biggest party in all of England. On the local councils throughout the entirety of England. When it comes to 616seats. The Labour Party, which is Keir Starmer's hyper left wing party, they're even further left than the Democrats. Typically. Democrats are five to ten years behind Labor. Labour is just a catastrophic political party at this point there. Keir Starmer, a catastrophic Prime Minister. Labour lost 431 seats. They're now down to 330. The Tories, the Conservatives, also took a beating. They lost 275 seats. They still have more than labor. There are 338 on the English council. But Reform are the big winner, unfortunately, also the Green Party, which are these absolute lunatics, climate fanatics, socialists, essentially just communists. They more than doubled their representation as well. They gained 76 seats. They now have 131 all across English councils. But Reform is the single biggest party and it's an astonishing result for a brand new political party such as Reform. And it really does raise the ever enticing and ever delectable possibility that Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage, who we used to publish at Newsweek all the time back when, back when he was editor at large of the debates part of our opinion section there. I used to work with Nigel to publish his op EDS there. I've met Nigel numerous times. I think very, very highly of the man there. He absolutely could be the next Prime Minister of the uk, the man who was probably Donald Trump's greatest friend in all of the uk, man who is the leading nationalist, populist, the leading national conservative there in all of the uk. There. He absolutely could be the next PM here, actually, was Nigel Farage talking about Reform's big evening on Thursday nights. We'll check in with our folks over at Sky News for this.
- [35:55]
E
Good morning, everybody. I am delighted to be here in the sunshine outside Havering Town hall, which I can now say is under new management. And it's significant. It's our first win of a borough in London. And that in some ways goes against the trend, because the pattern that's emerging over the country is that Labour are being wiped out by reform in many of their most traditional areas. And what you're going to see later on today is the Conservative Party being wiped out in their heartlands like Essex. So London goes a bit against the trend in that the Conservatives and Labour have held up in some of the other boroughs. But I think overall what's happened is a truly historic shift in British politics
- [36:47]
B
and that it is. The Tories are a dying political party. They are. They are the Rhinos, they are the Conservative establishments. They are not particularly concerned. Now, there are some Tories within the party who actually are much better than others. They still exist, but for the most part the party is a dying breed. Reform is very much on the up and up. And, boy, I cannot think of a better possible thing that could possibly happen for 21st century US UK relations than to have our own 21st century version of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, by which I of course mean Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Just unbelievable stuff. The UK has been heading in the wrong direction for decades and decades and decades there. Once upon a time, America had a special relationship relationship with the uk, going back at least as far as FDR and Churchill in World War II, up through Reagan and Thatcher and onwards there. That relationship, put mildly, has been frayed in recent decades and especially in recent years as the UK has veered ever further and further to the left and they have allowed themselves to be conquered by the tides of Third Worldism. It will take a man like Nigel Farage really, to go ahead and restore order in the uk. It's a message also to everyone else in Europe. Look at this. This is a tremendous result for national populism. If you are one of the vestigial establishment Conservative parties in a country like France or Germany. I saw a poll actually just this morning that in one of these states in Germany, AfD, which is the quote unquote, far right party, the Nationalist Populist party in Germany, they're actually winning right now, leading the polls in a state they could control a state government for the first time. Actually, the more establishing Conservative Party, the Christian Democrat Union, not so much. So it's a real message for them as well, is to get your house in order and focus on the issues that matter when it comes to immigration, to mass migration, the economy, all the issues that Farage and Reform are counting on and frankly, just campaigning on. So congratulations again to Nigel Farage for a tremendous, tremendous result. Tremendous result. Awesome, awesome stuff there when it comes to reform in the British elections just on Thursday again, we're still waiting some full results from Scotland and Wales, but we have some results from now from England. I want to talk a little bit about AAOC as well. AOC is often the news, typically for saying utterly insane stuff. I want to play a clip for you and then explain why I think this really, really has a lot to do with her worldview. Let's go ahead and play this clip from Alexandria. Ocasio Cortez talking about how Jews are allegedly half the US Population.
- [39:10]
F
You know, I grew up on Long Island, Suffolk County, North Shore. Jewish, obviously, but not among Jews. Among Italian and Irish, you know, whatever.
- [39:18]
G
Same, same in Westchester. I was like the only Puerto Rican girl. The whole town is like, like all Irish, Italian and Jewish people.
- [39:25]
B
Yeah.
- [39:25]
F
Westchester has Jews.
- [39:26]
G
Yeah. Growing up, I thought, I thought Jews were like half the population.
- [39:30]
F
I know this is, this is New York. One of my friends who grew up around Albany felt the same way. I was like, no, no, baby.
- [39:36]
G
I thought there were like three ethnicities of white people.
- [39:39]
F
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:40]
G
And it was Irish, Italian and Jews. And the idea of a non ethnic white person, like a, like a WASP was like Yorktown was like the, this more working class, upwardly mobile town. And so like the WASPS were like elsewhere.
- [39:56]
F
Yeah.
- [39:57]
B
So I grew up in Westchester. That's my home county. It's roughly 10% Jewish. Last I chatted, Jews are not half the population in Westchester. They're not half the population in any place in America. It's actually Rockland County, New York, which has the largest Jewish population by percentage, and that is between 30 and 40%. There is not a single county in America, let alone whole country, where there was a Jewish majority, or frankly even a plurality for that matter. This says a lot about, about AOC's worldview, though, that she tends to embellish the role of the Jews. This is how you start to go down a very slippery rabbit hole, isn't it, when you say that there is this, this shadowy fifth column group and they're big, and they're big and they're big. They're huge. No, they're really not huge. The Jews are a tiny percentage of American America's population, which is why I'm so baffled by the conspiracists. But, but they are a bigger contributor when it comes to America's heritage. And I speak, of course, about the Hebrew Bible, the actual Bible itself. So actually, this week in synagogues all across the world, we are going to finish our annual reading of the book of Leviticus. We will start the Book of Numbers, the fourth of the five books of Moses next week. For now, we are finishing the two books, the two final chapters, I should say, of the book of Leviticus. And one of the verses that we will all read this Saturday is speaking of the 50 year annual Jubilee. And it says as follows, quote, and you shall sanctify the 50th year and proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live on it. Does that verse sound familiar? You shall proclaim freedom or liberty throughout the land for all who live on it. You should, because that's what's inscribed on the Liberty Bell. It's just a visceral reminder that leaps off the text. That leaps off the text of the Bible, of the Torah, as the case may be for us in synagogue this weekend there, that this country was really founded on biblical values. And crucially, those biblical values are the shared inheritance of Jews and Christians alike. A crucial, crucial lesson and a total rebuke to the Tuckers and Candaces of the world, folks. Have a great weekend. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We'll be right back. As always, on Monday.