← The Josh Hammer Show
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Foreign. I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. The Viceroy Mike Davis joins us later in the program to talk about the need for justice and accountability. Is justice coming? Lots else to get to. On today's show, the redistricting fallout continues all across the country. Louisiana is going to postpone their primaries. And what other, what other things might happen when it comes to a lot of these districts that the Supreme Court just said might not pass constitutional muster? Plus all sorts of other developments when it comes to the Middle east and a broader conversation playing out when it comes to this bizarre, bizarre pagan alliance that you see creeping up in certain parts of the so called riot. It's a busy day here on the Josh Hammer show, so make sure to buckle in. I want to talk about accountability. This is a topic that we don't typically talk about because it's not often in the news cycle, but it is a very important concept that is always lurking in the background. If you care about justice, if you care about the rule of law, and we on this show care about nothing, if we don't care about justice and the rule of law, then you simply must care about accountability. Frankly, if you subscribe to something even remotely approximating the biblical worldview, if you are a Jew or a Christian, you probably believe in the concept of accountability too. Someone should have to answer for all that he does in this world, whether it is for good or whether it is for bad. Typically when you are not held accountable, when there is not justice that is meted out, when there is not a reward for a good deed, or whether when there's not a punishment for a bad deed, that is typically when a society starts to go off the rails, that is typically when anarchy starts to crop up, the rule of law tends to disintegrate. And perhaps even more relevant for present purposes, that is when public trust in the system, in the government, in the institutions, in the elites starts to crumble. I've been asked many times in recent years why I think it is that we live in such a conspiracy minded age. Why, among other things, has there been such a pronounced increase in the world's most ancient form of bigotry, hatred of the Jewish people. And the reason for that is not necessarily first and foremost due to foreign policy or due to foreign aid or anything like that. Perhaps there was a conversation to be had there. In fact there probably is. But the number one reason, the number one reason that we live in such an age is that there has now been an unmitigated stream of horrific incidents perpetrated against the American people that have left the American people desperately, desperately craving justice and accountability. In short, there have now been a tremendous number of gaslighting operations hoisted upon we the people. And we the people are craving for answers. We are craving to see some bad deeds go punished. In my personal telling of this tale, I actually started as far back as Russiagate, as far back as the 2016 presidential election. Recall what happened back then. The Hillary Clinton campaign worked hand in glove with the a discredited former British spy by the name of Christopher Steele to create the so called Steele dossier. That seal dossier was bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was laundered through the Tony White shoe left wing law firm Perkins Coie in order to get the narrative out there, a narrative that you can still hear today if you tune over to CNN or to Ms. Now or some other left wing network. This notion that Donald Trump is a Manchurian Candidate, that he acts on behalf of Russia, that was a tremendous, tremendous hoax. A hoax that ultimately resulted in in the fabricated intelligence community assessment during the transition period, ultimately getting us the Mueller probe that swallowed up half of the first Trump presidency. How about the year 2020 when it comes to lack of accountability? 2020 was quite a year, wasn't it? 2020 was the year of COVID And the inexplicable reaction to Covid when it came to the masking, when it came to the vaccine mandates, when it came it came to lockdowns, whole children completely deprived of the years of social interactions, years of classroom education. In reality, we will not know the full repercussions of what happened in 2020 for decades. That's not even getting into the weeds here. The notion back then that Jews or Christians congregating for prayer could be a public health hazard. But in the aftermath of the death of St. George Floyd, our martyr, that Black Lives Matter could congregate to the hundreds of thousands and they would be giving a public health exception because they were fighting quote unquote systemic racism. Later that Same year in 2020, we had the election and there was a lot of questions still remaining about that election today. When it comes to the role of big tech, when it comes to the role of the 51 deep state spooks who immediately discredit the Hunter Biden laptop as so called Russian disinformation, guess what? It wasn't. The US Government actually used that laptop as evidence when they prosecuted Hunter Biden two years ago on gun charges. That was the case in Delaware. You could fast forward even even further to the Joe Biden administration where Joe Biden and Merrick Garland and so called special counsel Jack Smith, so called because he was actually illegitimately appointed, how all three of them decided to prosecute, to persecute, to try to incarcerate, to try to bankrupt by any means necessary, the former and at that point, future President Donald J. Trump. These are various scandals and I could go on this list does not end there. These are scandals for which we the people do not have clear answers. And the more that you don't get answers, that you don't get justice, that you don't get accountability, as I already said, things start to go awry. A free people loses their ability to trust anything. And if that continues and it exacerbates and it worsens, you eventually lose any sense of basic objective morality itself. You lose your ability to distinguish right from wrong, fact from fiction, truth from lies, up from down. If you want to understand why we are living in the age that we are in, it is due fundamentally to lack of accountability and lack of justice for various massive gaslighting operations and outright societal scandals that have been perpetrated against a free people. Lawfare, of course, is a big component of this. We're getting to that and much more with Mike Davis, our guest, after a break. But for now, folks, before we talk about some other topics as well, I also want to tell you about our sponsor for today's show, which is Balance of Nature. You know, we talk on the show a lot about getting back to basics, faith, family foundations that actually work. Nutrition should be the same way. But when you look at labels today, it's obvious that we've overcomplicated it. So if you want to be more mindful of what you eat and how you supplement it. What look to nature, when you eat whole foods, you're getting their phytonutrients, natural compounds your body uses to adjust, repair and respond every single day. So Balance of Nature has this whole health system which bundles their fruits and veggies with fiber and spice, giving you 47 whole food ingredients and their phytonutrients in one simple routine. Listen folks, I try to eat relatively healthy. I try to minimize my carbs. It's not always easy. I try to eat my fruits and vegetables there. But we're all very busy people. We all live very hectic lives. It's not always easy to make sure that you are getting all that you need to fully nutritious on a day in, day out basis. That is why I use Balance of Nature. I have seen improvement and I recommend that you try to do the same thing for yourself. So folks, go to balanceofnature.com you can save over 30% when you subscribe@ balanceofnature.com check out their whole health system bundles again. Our sponsor today is balance of nature. Balanceofnature.com now we're going to get back into this conversation about accountability after our upcoming break with Mike Davis. But I also do want to update you on what's happening from a redistricting perspective. So we talked at great length this week about the redistricting wars. My syndicated column actually out this morning. Go ahead and check it out at Newsweek, Real Clear Politics, all sorts of Salem media properties, including Town hall and PJ Media as well. So go ahead and enjoy my call. My column is very much on the redistricting issue and in the aftermath of the Louisiana case at the nation's high score, there are already immediate, immediate repercussions. So Jeff Landry, the governor in Baton Rouge in Louisiana, the governor of that state has already announced the state's upcoming congressional primaries which were said for May 16, that that will actually be delayed. Why? Well, Louisiana was a party to the Supreme Court case and the Supreme Court just said that you that their maps are unconstitutional as we've explained on the show, because they explicitly took race into account and now you know you can't do that. So Louisiana is actually already delaying its maps. These so called majority minority districts which are predominantly, not so easily, but predominantly in the American south, all across south frankly from Louisiana, Mississippi all the way to the Carolinas, these seats have to go. Why? Very simple. Because we don't live any systemically racist country and black people can get elected to Congress without having to carve out a so called majority minority district. In fact, if you look at the black Congressmen in the U.S. house today, the majority of them, not even plurality, a majority of them do not come from these gerrymandered so called majority minority seats. Most of them come from majority white seats. So Louisiana is going to have to redistrict. Will other Southern states have to redistrict ASAP as well? Well, Speaker Mike Johnson was actually asked about this yesterday while he was walking around the Capitol. He said that, yes, some of these other states should actually redraw their maps to be in line with the Supreme Court's opinion before their primaries this year. So be on the lookout for that. For what it's worth, Brian Kemp of Georgia seems not particularly inclined to do that. Not surprising. Guy's a fairly moderate figure there. Other Southern states might follow. I was personally quite surprised indeed. I was actually distraught, frankly, to see one of my senators here in Florida cast some shade, let's say, on Florida's big redistricting, which just passed our legislature and could be signed into law by a governor at frankly, any given moment. Let's go ahead and actually watch this from Senator Rick Scott, who was throwing some shade on Florida's maps with Kaitlan Collins of CNN yesterday. Let's go ahead and watch. We've seen the governor there delaying some of the state's House primaries after the Supreme Court's decision invalidating that congressional map that they have. If you are still governor, would you feel comfortable suspending primaries if people were already voting? Caitlin, I didn't see that. I mean, I don't know enough about exactly what they're doing in Louisiana to. But shoot, I want people to vote. I mean, I want things to be fair. I always told people, I'd love you to vote for me, but go vote. So I mean, all this stuff where the redistricting, where Democrats are great, it's all great if it goes on in Virginia where there's no Republican seats hardly left. But if someplace else they attack it, I mean, I think we ought to say, look, what we don't, what we don't want, we don't want anybody disenfranchised. We want everybody to vote, all right, and let everybody get their message out and stop playing games. Just absolute flaming garbage on air from Rick Scott there. I don't know what he is doing. He's a former guest on the show. I don't want to criticize him too tough there. But frankly, Rick Scott is, is letting his emotions get the better of him. He does not like Ron DeSantis, his successor in Tallahassee. This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous there. Florida's maps will pass. The Supreme Court has essentially already bestowed its legitimacy on Florida's maps. There many Republicans who are willing to get their hands dirty and fight when it comes to redistricting, not those who are going there to go along to get along when it comes to the nation's capital. Well, someone who is definitely not in the nation's capital to go along to get along is our next guest, Mike Davis, who joins us after a short commercial break. Steer this. We'll be right back with Mike Davis. I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetheroadsafely.gov. welcome back. So in our opening minutes of our show today, we're talking about accountability and, frankly, lack thereof, at least when it comes to a lot of pressing issues facing the American people. And there's really no one better to bring on when it comes to the need for accountability and the need for justice more generally than Mike Davis, AKA the Viceroy. You know Mike from his ubiquitous presence all across conservative media. He's also my colleague at Article 3 Product. He's the founder and president of that great organization. Mike Davis joins us now. So, my friends, thank you for joining us as always. I wanna bring you on, Mike, because we teed off today's conversation on the show by really going back at least as far back, frankly, as Russiagate and then through all the COVID garbage and Bob Mueller, the lawfare against Donald Trump, which you, of course, were intimately involved with. I think the more that a lot of these instances go by and there is a lack of accountability, the American people just start to get more wired and wired and it gins up tensions there. It's generally not good. Justice and accountability, I think, is something fundamentally that a free society needs here. So can you assess the state as to how we're doing right now in the second Trump term when it comes to this? Obviously, the recent indictment of Jim Comey, I think, factors into this. How do you see our progress on this front?
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The biggest scandal by the Democrats is when they politicized and weaponized our intel agencies and law enforcement to help Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 and to hurt President Donald Trump's campaign. And when they failed to stop President Trump, Trump and he won a stunning victory in 2016, they hobbled his presidency. They continued to spy on him. They spied on him as a presidential candidate. They spied on him as the President of the United States. They ran an intel op, crossfire hurricane on President Trump where they literally made up the Russian collusion hoax through the Steele dossier at the law firm of Perkins Coie with working with the Hillary campaign. And they use that to get our intel agencies and FBI, federal law enforcement to go after President Trump, his top aides, his allies. They took out General Michael Flynn, President Trump's incoming national security adviser. And this has been unrelenting welfare since then. This is an ongoing criminal conspiracy, Josh, as we've talked about for four years, since the Mar A Lago raid. The whole point of the Mar A Lago raid was for Biden, the Biden FBI, the Biden Justice Department, the Biden intel agencies to go get back the damning crossfire hurricane records that President Trump declassified the day before he left office and never was able to publicly release. And that was, that was the whole point of the Mar A Lago raid. We are going to see accountability. This has been going on for many months behind the scenes. My good friend Jason Redding quinones is the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida. And we just saw the announcement of Joe DiGenova getting hired by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who's an all star and working with Jason Redding Quinones. They opened up the Fort Pierce investigation, they opened up the grand jury investigation according to public reports. And I assure you, and I assure your audience, justice is coming because as you said, Josh, it has to come.
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Mike Davis is the viceroy. Follow him on XRD D MIA And Mike, I obviously could not agree more with all you said there. I frankly had forgotten about the Fort Pierce investigation. So that's actually very promising. Fort Pierce, of course, is where Judge Aileen Cannon has her courthouse. So that's very promising, frankly, on all fronts. Hopefully more good news on that front as well. Just real quick, Mike, how do you assess this new Jim Comeyman diamond? I want to ask you about other topics. I actually want to get into the White House Correspondent's Dinner shooter and the fallout of that there. But sticking with this accountability theme for now, this new Jim Comey indictment. I've heard some folks, even on the right Mike, throw some shade at this and say this. Oh, they say, oh, this is Todd Blanche just trying to keep his job and become the permanent ag. I happen to like Todd a lot, just as I know that you do. I presume that you see this a little differently. This is not just a purely political
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stunt, is it remember President Trump before this threat by James Comey where he put 8,647 seashell picture on his Instagram. Remember there were two assassination attempts against President Trump before that. We've since had a third assassination attempt where this guy's manifesto uses the same language that we see from these Democrat operatives like James Comey. James Comey wrote a book about veiled messages and coded threats. So James Comey is the former FBI director, he's the former deputy Attorney general, He's a former U.S. attorney. He absolutely knew what he was doing there. He it was a threat to assassinate President Trump. That's there's no question. This was after the election. This is after they did everything they could to stop President Trump before he got elected the first time during his presidency. What they did to him after with the lawfare, four indictments for non crimes, trying to bankrupt him for non fraud, trying to throw him off the ballot, intentionally underfunding his Secret Service protection and almost getting him killed twice before the election. James Comey knew exactly what he was doing when he did this. He actually wrote a book on this.
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I mean, I honestly, it's so clear cut, Mike, that Mike. I mean, Jim comey saying that 8647 was just a random bunch of seashells that is literally less persuasive than Jimmy Kimmel saying that the expectant widow quote unquote joke was a comment about Donald Trump's age, not about the fact that they've been trying to kill the guy for years. I mean, literally no one buys this. I have not met a single person who actually believes Jim Comey that these shells all mysteriously appeared. Oh, by the way, now that they're here, I got to snap a photo for Instagram. I mean, dude, literally no one, no one, no one out there is actually buying this. But I'm really happy that you mentioned the White House Correspondents Dinner and the latest attempted assassination. Thank goodness it was foiled, of course, against Donald Trump and frankly, all of his cabinet. Because I want to ask you a little bit about that, Mike, as well. A lot of discussion this week about the Secret Service. There's been a lot of discussion as to whether the Secret Service has actually learned the relevant lessons when it comes after Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024 and then West Palm Beach, Florida just a few months later, how do you assess the Secret Service? Did they do their job sufficiently? And starting Donald Trump says yes, I think that there are a lot of people that, that still have their questions. So how do you assess how it's happening on that front. Are you. Are you satisfied right now?
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Well, here's the problem. When you host events and hotels like this, they're. They're softer targets because you have hotel guests staying in the room, and that's. This assassin checked in to his hotel room several days before the event to scope it out, right? And he came down an elevator. He. We saw the video. He sprinted through a Secret Service checkpoint and they stopped him. So they did do their job. But this is a broader question. This is. It's very clear that these judges need to get the hell out of President Trump's way and let him build a ballroom. And this is exhibit A, why he needs to build this ballroom, because that hosting of major events like this at hotels is dangerous. This is the same hotel where President Reagan got shot. The same hotel. Right. And so that's, number one, is build the damn ballroom. Number two, the Democrats kept dhs, including the Secret Service, unfunded, and these people unpaid for more than 70 days. Of course that's going to affect morale. They need to. They need to stop playing games with our national security and our border. They need to stop playing games with the President's security and his Secret Service protection.
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They need.
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They need to get DHS funded immediately and then they can look at what happens at this event. If there was. If there was a security breakdown, they need to address it and address it very fast. Those good men and women of the Secret Service put their lives on the line every day. They are trained to take a bullet for the President. So I don't want to dump on them. This is a bigger problem than that.
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And you're totally correct to bring up the ballroom as well, which is certainly, I think what ought to be the biggest takeaway from this is that we really ought to get that ballroom built for President Trump and his whole team asap. So, Mike, just real quick before I let you go, just about a minute left here, we had Richard Epstein, my former law school professor, actually on the show earlier this week for a deep, dare I say borderline nerdy session discussing all the intricacies of the fourteenth Amendment and birthright citizenship. Professor Epstein is actually on the correct side of that, to his great credit, has a brand new book on that front. But I think the consensus, Mike, and you and I share this, I know, is that Donald Trump is going to lose this case. He's probably going to lose the Barber case. Is that the end of the line, or is there anything after that potential loss where he can go just about 30 seconds left if you can.
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It's outrageous. There's no chance in hell, if you're a textualist and an originalist, but that you think that the we fought a civil war and enacted the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th amendment to give birthright citizenship to Chinese birth tourists. 1.5 million Chinese birth tourists. If these justices actually rule that way, and it looks like they are, then they, they misrepresented who they were in their audition to be on the Supreme Court.
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And very, very, very well said. I mean, honestly, Mike, the more I've looked at this case, the more open shut I think it is. Unfortunately, as you know, lawyers have a way of overcomplicating things that really ought to be simple. This one, unfortunately, really should not be this complicated, folks. Follow our work@article3project.org Mike Davis is the founder and president of Article3 Project, where he is my colleague. He's also on XRDDMIA. Mike, we always appreciate you stopping by the show. Thanks so much, my friend.
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Thank you, Josh.
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Folks, join us through a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with more on the other side. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. So the shutdown that you probably didn't even realize was still happening is now officially over. So just Yesterday, the the U.S. house approved a bill that was previously passed out of the US Senate that will fund the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security that had not been funded. This ends a 76 day shutdown, a partial shutdown of DHS, which is by far, it's not even close. This is by far the longest shutdown in US Government history. If you're having deja vu, you probably should because we've actually now had multiple of the longest shutdowns in government history just in the second Donald Trump term, the other one happening last year. If you have an inclination, if you're thinking that maybe the people in Washington are not really doing their job when it comes to funding the most basic services, it's not just you that is very much them. Unfortunately, this all happened because Democrats decided to politicize dhs. What could possibly go wrong with politicizing dhs, Department of. Oh, I don't know. Homeland security at a time when America is at war, at a time when there is increased political violence, when there are increased assassination attempts on President Trump, when what could possibly go wrong? Beats me. And frankly, it beats Democrats too, and not that they particularly care, because it now looks like that their candidate up in Maine is going to be himself, arguably, frankly, a threat to homeland Security as well. How do I know that? Oh yeah, because Graham Platner, who is now going to be the, the all but guaranteed the presumptive nominee for Democrats there in the state of Maine, dude has a literal Nazi tattoo on his chest. We've not really talked a whole lot about Graham Plattner on the show. He's a self described socialist communist of sorts. He is a US Military forces veteran who ironically has a literal Nazi symbol. My German is quite bad, but it's typically referred to as the Totenkampf, which is a symbol intimately associated with the Third Reich. He has this tattooed on his chest. Why would someone who identifies as a communist or socialist have a Nazi tattoo on his chest? Well, it's frankly a very good question. You don't really need to be an expert historian to understand that fascism and communism are actually on the opposite sides of World War II. But regardless, what we definitely can tell you is that communism, fascism are definitely not on the side of Team America. Democrats for many years have been trying to knock out Susan Collins in May and trust me, I think Susan Collins stinks. Okay, Collins and Murkowski, Murkowski of Alaska. Collins and Murkowski absolutely stink. Any given conservative piece of legislation. There they are typically the two Republicans who will more often than not, not sign on. Thank goodness, Thom Tillis, North Carolina, who's another one. He looks like he is. I mean, he definitely is. He's not running for reelection, so he'll be out of the Senate there. Frankly, I think Republican voters in Louisiana should be trying to do the exact same thing to Bill Cassidy, the senator there, who is, shall we say, less than fully inspiring. Now how exactly is Grand Platinum or a thing? Well, Grand Platinum is a thing because Democratic Party has a gargantuan, gargantuan problem when it comes to hyper, hyper far left woke progressive extremism. Okay, this is probably not news to you. If you are a listener or viewer of the show, you are aware by now of the Democratic Party's brand and substantive problems when it comes to their far left. Frankly, just going back to this Nazi tattoo on Graham Platner that's not surprising either because this guy was commenting on Reddit forums. I think it was about the Hamas pogrom, the invasion into Israel in October 7, 2023, essentially praising the Hamas combatants. Again, I'm not even taught this from an anti Semitism perspective. HAMAS is a U.S. recognized foreign terrorist organization, has been for three decades, since the second Clinton term. I mean, these people are now running for Congress for the Senate. The mind just reels. I mean, the silver lining here is that Democrats look like they are going to throw away what is otherwise an easily contestable, potentially winnable seat up there in New England. Susan Collins, basically the last Republican standing, and she's a literal rhino, but she is the last Republican standing of any kind. Rhino or not, they are in New England. The additional silver lining for Republicans, despite the fact that Democrats have nominated this nutter you is it looks like as Democrats go further and further to the left, Zoramdani, as we've covered on the show now, he's running out of money. He's begging Kathy Hochul in Albany for a bailout of his overbloated municipal budget. He's going to people's homes like Ken Griffin and saying tax the billionaires there. It's turning into basically a socialist freak show there in the Big Apple, the de facto capital of the Western world there. So as Democrats go further and further left, whether it's Zoram Dani, whether it's Graham Platner, frankly, whether it's a lot of things these days, again, the silver lining for Republicans is that the American people are not tracking further and further left with them. And even though the Trump administration's approval ratings have largely, not entirely, but have largely tended to have a downward trajectory over the past few months, the one thing is that they still hate the Democratic Party more. And an interesting aside that I just saw from our pal Harry Entin over at CNN is that the GOP's inroads with Black voters they secured during the 2024 election, above all, with Donald Trump winning, those inroads have not gone anywhere. Fascinating stuff here from Harry Anton and cnn. Go ahead and watch it.
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Yeah, I think what we're seeing right now in the numbers is President Trump and the Republican Party are chipping away at the long term advantage that Democrats have had with black voters with African Americans. You can see it right here. Look, Trump's approval among African American at this point in term one, he was at 12%. You know, he's been losing ground with a lot of he's gaining, he's gaining ground with African Americans. He's up to 16% at this point. And you say this isn't that big of a shift. But I will tell you, Republicans absolutely love this shift that's going on because Democrats have had such a long term advantage. The fact that he's actually gaining ground versus where he was in term number one. This has major implications, ramifications for elections down the line because Democrats, especially in a lot of these tight races, you talk about places like Georgia, right down in the south, you see this type of movement for Trump actually gaining ground, this could have major ramifications and could help put Republicans over the top in a number of Southern places in the midterm elections.
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So there have been real questions in this second Trump term about the extent to which he is solidifying and securing these gains that he had in 2024 when it came to the Hispanic community, when it came to the black community. And it appears that Donald Trump is really securing those gains. Not just blacks, but there's a lot of, lot of evidence that Hispanic voters are also not turning on the president en masse, quite like a lot of the doomsdayers say they are. It's funny. You show conviction, you show courage, you enforce the rule of law and you're going to get some supporters. Shocking. I know that might be another event that just crossed the transom this morning that I think is worth covering because we covered it previously on this show. Spirit Airlines appears to be just on the precipice of shutting down. So there were all these rumors of a rescue deal. There's going to be a $500 million government bailout where it looked like the United government was potentially going to take an equity stake in Spirit Airlines. Recall that all this happens, frankly, only because the Biden administration, in all of their eternal wisdom, rejected a merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. Now, we are not laissez faire antitrust fundamentals on this show. If anything, I'd take a slightly more populous approach, frankly, to matters of antitrust. But that was dumb. That was really, really dumb. You are not talking about the consolidation of two of the big three American carriers, American United or American United or Delta. No, you're talking about two fairly minor players there. So frankly, some antitrust common sense could have forestalled this. Anyway, the big rumor in recent weeks was that Trump administration might take out a half billion dollar equity stake here when it comes to Spirit Airlines. And we now know that that is not actually going to happen. So Spirit Airlines essentially any day now or frankly, any hour, if it's really that urgent, is going to cease operations. They have quite literally run out of cash. This is due to a number of factors very much including the spike in oil as a result of the Iran military operation and a reduction in passengers traveling as a result of that. This is a good decision. Again, we are two tiers for capitalism, not three tiers of capitalism. People on this show, we take a slightly more nationalist, populist approach at times. Ultimately, markets and economics, markets are of course, far, far, far, far, far, far better, God forbid, than central planning. But markets, like any instrumentality of the state, must ultimately be oriented towards the flourishing and the common good of the society. So we're not absolutists. Having said that, Spirit Airlines should be allowed to fail because fundamentally it's also important not to lose the forest for the trees. Some first principles still do apply. Alan Meltzer, who was a Federal Reserve historian, I believe he primarily affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Many years ago, he said that capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It just doesn't work. Why? Well, take us back to our opening monologue on today's show. You need accountability. A company, just like an individual must be punished for making mistakes or rewarded for doing good. Accountability matters. Incentives matter. Justice matters. So Spirit Airlines, I mean, not exactly a great loss, frankly. The only loss for Spirit Airlines will be these utterly hilarious videos that you see on social media of Spirit Airlines customers because that is typically something of a freak show, frankly, when it comes to the ticket counter. I've experienced that myself and I don't wish that on anyone. So this is, this is a shrewd move from the administration to let this happen. There. That would have been a mistake. There is a role for the government when it comes to truly, truly, truly national security, critical infrastructure, things like semiconductors, computer chips, things like that. Spirit Airlines not one them. Frankly, I think the airline industry will be just fine without Spirit Airlines. Folks, one final break. We'll be right back with more. Welcome back. So, as I mentioned, Spirit Airlines is going under doom, among other factors, to the fact that the price of oil has been at a sustained increased level since the military actions against Iran began on February 28 just over two months ago. Now, we discussed around that time a debate pertaining to the War Powers Resolution. In fact, I think they actually just tried to pass for the sixth time and failed all six times. They just tried again this week, earlier this week in Congress. The War Powers Resolution is a flagrantly unconstitutional piece of legislation that was signed or was actually ratified over a veto, I should more accurately say, during the Nixon administration. And it essentially says that unless Congress gives explicit approval for military action, the President's initiated military action must be wound down after 60 days. So I say all that because we are now at the 60 day mark. And what the Trump administration is now formally saying, their formal legal argument is not that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional, which it is, but that's a bolder stance. You prefer not to take the bolder stance. You can take a lesser stance. What they're actually saying is that the military hostilities have actually already been terminated because of this now ongoing ceasefire. So that's their technical position. It's a little more complicated though, because the US Navy is still engaged in a full blockade of Iran's ports. A blockade is effectively a casus belli, which is an international law term, meaning that it is an act of war. A military blockade is a military action. It's not the kind of thing that you do outside of a military context. So it's this very weird kind of like, are we in ceasefire? Are we not in ceasefire? Are we in war? Are we not in war? It's a little. It's a little chaotic. And I understand what President Trump is weighing here. He is weighing the need. And yes, it is not just the desires, a need to ultimately get back to domestic issues, focus on those pocketbook issues, those core bread and butter day life issues in advance of the midterms. But he also wants to finish what he started. The good news is that as much as the price of oil is now going to result in the termination, it appears, of Spirit airlines, as much as the price of oil still has not going back to reality in general, it's still higher than it should be. The good news that we have increasing data, some of which actually really surprised me, just indicating that the United States is not just the world's number one oil natural gas producer at this point, you might be astonished at just how wide the margin is. So I was looking at this new chart from a company known as Statista, which, as the name would apply, engages in these sorts of statistical analyses. And what it showed is in terms of production of petroleum and natural gas, in terms of millions of barrels per day, the United States accounts for roughly 22% of the world's total. Number two is Saudi Arabia. At half, literally half of us, they're 11%. Russia's third, 10%. Then Canada, China, Iran, the UAE and Iraq. Those are your top oil and natural gas export countries. Now, the UAE actually Interestingly, pulled out of opec, out of the oil cartel earlier this week, which could potentially have ramifications there when it comes to OPEC's ability to set prices. But the reason that the U.S. is relevant here is that the U.S. i mean, forget the UAE. The U.S. is the. Is the big dog. We are the alpha. We control the price of oil, natural gas, more than any other country. Why? Because we have most of it. Because fracking is freaking awesome. Because the shale revolution is freaking awesome. Because cheap energy is the mother's milk of a healthy economy and a healthy and flourishing people. Because cheap energy manifests itself in literally everything. It means the trucker is paying less for gas to get your goods and your services, for that matter. It means that the airlines are paying less for gas, so they're not going bankrupt like Spirit Airlines. Lower gas and lower oil makes the world go round. So I say all that in the context of this War Powers Resolution conversation, because it seems to me that the United States does have the ability to, to go a little longer if they so choose. And actually, just yesterday, on Thursday, Donald Trump met with Brad Cooper, who is the chief of CentCom US Central Command, to essentially review options for what to do when it comes to Operation Epic Fury, slash Operation Economic Fury with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And Brad Cooper has given, Admiral Cooper has given President Trump multiple options, some of which are very short, and fiery strikes there. I'm not saying the war can go on forever. It obviously should not. It cannot, indeed it must not. But is the job actually truly done on our own stipulated terms? We have always defined this operation since day one, Epic theory, that is, as having a goal of the neutralization of, of Iran as a threat to the United States and our interests. They are severely degraded. Have they fully been neutralized as a threat? I'm not entirely sure. The answer is yes. There are still the ballistic missiles, there are still the enriched uranium, there's still the Strait of Hormuz blockage, there's still some funding of terrorism. And yes, of course, the regime is still in power. The lattermost, the regime being in power is not a hard condition for the neutralization requirements we met. But in general, there is still some more work to be done here. And the fact the United States has all this leverage when it comes to the price of oil, natural gas, to me, militates in a direction that should lead Trump to be willing to go a little further, at least a little further, Mr. President, to better secure and realize these goals. Because right now, this is a ceasefire in name only. There's a termination of war hostilities in name only. There's still a blockade. Last I checked, the US Military still had a shoot to kill order on Iranian minelaying vessels. That might be technically and legally a termination of military hostilities for purposes of the War Powers Resolution. Maybe, maybe. But in reality on the ground, that's not a termination. This is going on, and the pressure, frankly, shouldn't just be maintained. It should be amped up from here, both on an economic front and on a conventional military front. Folks, I want to leave you for the weekend with this, which is I read a fascinating article this morning at the Washington Post. And before you say, oh my God, Josh, what could possibly be fascinating about the Washington Post or the Washington Compost, as Mark Levin has long referred to it, well, the Washington Post, like many media companies, has had something of a rebranding in recent years. So Jeff Bezos of Amazon famously bought the Washington Post. I'm not sure he's making a whole lot of money from it, but even if he's losing money, I think that he enjoys running it. And they've revamped their opinion section. This actually happened all across the country. So my weekly syndicated column appears at least twice a month in the Los Angeles Times, which is a very liberal newspaper. But they are now increasingly trying to feature at least some more conservative columnists, including yours truly at Newsweek, which is where this show is based. Of course, Newsweek's op ed section has been airing all sides since I first started managing the op ed section there back in 2020. So the Washington Post is actually very much following in those footsteps. So a new piece out from Matthew Schmitz, who is one of my favorite thinkers. Matthew Schmitz, formerly of First Things. He was then a co founder and he still now is the editor over at Compact Magazine. He has a piece for the Washington Post on what he refers to as the rise of the Islamo Christian rite. And the listeners and viewers of the show likely know where Schmitz goes in this piece based on the title, and likely knows where I'm going to go now in this conversation. To sum up, today's show as well, and it's essentially this. You now have this group of individuals on the right, people like Tucker Carlson, who has praised Sharia law, people like Candace Owens, who was actually seen reading from the Quran on her show. Yes, literally, apparently that's what she did. People like Nick Fuentes, who has been outspoken in decrying anti Muslim sentiment. We actually saw this on the Religious Liberty Commission before Dan Patrick The Lieutenant governor of Texas kicked her off the commission. The addle brained idiot Carrie Regime bowler was accusing other people on the dais there of engaging in anti Muslim bigotry, even though she was a quote unquote traditional Catholic, she called herself. That's obviously, obviously ridiculous. And she was properly thrown off the panel for engaging in all sorts of virulence, horrific Jew hatred. But the Islamo Christian right, which is essentially this information operation which is pushed by people by Tucker Carlson, pushed by people like Andrew Tate, who is just a monster of a human being, a truly, truly, truly, truly horrific person who has done the worst things imaginable to women, who called himself a quote unquote Muslim there. It's essentially just a larp. The kids refer to this as a larp. Larp, a live action roleplay. It basically means that you are essentially taking something and not doing what it actually is, but just kind of playing it out in your mind in real life, taking your bizarre mental thoughts and living it out, not living out a real thing there. Because in reality, and this is where the LARP comes in, in reality, Islam has nothing to do with Western civilization. Nothing. Western civilization is the offshoot of the ecumenical biblical inheritance of the Hebrew Bible, AKA the Old Testament and the New Testament. That's Western Sith. Islam is something quite a bit different as Americans going back to the founding generation understood very, very well. This operation, which is happening and we talk about on the show all the time, it is in part funded, is in part disseminated by foreign actors. Part of it though, definitely is organic. But it is a larp, is the stuff that teenage streamers and twitch people can be thinking about. It is not anything remotely serious and worse than that is corrosive. It is subversive, is a fifth column and it will destroy this country if God forbid, it ever takes off. That's your warning going into this weekend, folks. Enjoy the Kentucky Derby. Enjoy all the other great things you have going on this weekend. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We'll be right back, as always, on Monday.