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- [00:00]
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- [00:37]
Josh Hammer
I'm Josh Hammer, and this is the Josh Hammer Show. Well, is this the end of the war or the ceasefire, as the case may be? For now with Iran? Is this the beginning of the end of the big 2026 United States war against the Iranian regime? There is a lot unfolding in real time. We've got all the analysis for you on also, the DOJ suing a major, major American city for an infringement on a core Second Amendment right. Finally. Also, Donald Trump is calling for a national day of resting. He's calling for Americans to honor the Sabbath for an upcoming day of rest. It's a beautiful, beautiful tribute from our 45th and 47 president. All that and more on today's show. But for now, we begin with this. And we begin by talking about a president who is not so beautiful when it comes to his memory, and that is Barack Obama. Barack Obama is the thorn in the side of the American people and the American republic who simply will not go away. And that is the first thing to note about Barack Obama is that he just does not go away. Barack Obama is the first president since Woodrow Wilson himself over 100 years ago, who refused to physically leave the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. after his terms expired in office. Now, Woodrow Wilson harbored all these delusions of grandeur when it came to his dictatorial status. Woodrow Wilson was deeply inspired by continental European, mostly Germanic political theorists and philosophers. And that's why he devised the administrative state and the modern, unelected fourth branch of government. He was inspired by German thinkers like Hegel. He was a tyrant. That is, in other words, in waiting. Also, a vehement racist who famously aired a Ku Klux Klan propaganda film at the White House. We'll hold that for another time. Barack Obama is maybe not an anti black racist like Woodrow Wilson was. In fact, I think he's probably not. But he definitely harbors similar delusions of grandeur. His physical home actually in Washington, D.C. is somewhere in the Kalorama neighborhood. I actually was looking this up earlier today in Kalorama for Those of you who know Washington, D.C. geography pretty well, it's really not that far from the White House. Dude exited the White House in January 2017. So that is over nine years ago now and to this day still has a home about a mile and a half, give or take, from the White House. But it's actually a lot worse than that. It's not just Barack Obama's physical home. Barack Obama is still polluting our politics. This is a man who has done more than any other individual in my entire lifetime to poison the well of American politics and American political discourse and helping to usher in this horrific new, utterly toxic era where no one seemingly can talk to anyone. On the other side of our ever roiling American political divide. Barack Obama is more responsible than anyone else for bringing us to this point. He was the man who, on the precipice of the 2008 presidential election, famously said that we are about to fundamentally transform America. And one does not fundamentally transform that which he already loves. It's the same Barack Obama who famously said that his political opposition was filled with these bitter clinkers who cling to their guns and their religion. How terrible is this? And sure enough, in office, he acted that way. There was that infamous presidential conference in the first year or two of his presidency, back when he was trying to sell Obamacare, his quasi universal health care taker, or back when he was trying to sell that to the American people. And there was this one incredible demonstration where he's physically elevated, looking down physically to Eric Cantor, the then House Majority leader, and to then Paul Ryan. So these are two of the House Republican leaders. Obama looks down on them and says, guess what, guys, I won. He did more and more and more to poison the well here. I haven't even gotten to a racial discourse. The Trayvon Martin incident there. If I had a son, he would look a lot like Trayvon Martin there. The point though, folks, is that Barack Obama is still doing it. So Obama was on the Late show last night, Stephen Colbert, maybe the least funny person on television, at least not named Jimmy Kimmel. And Barack Obama was on with Stephen Colbert and just goes on and on and on. Dude just doesn't get it. He was chiming in on the Virginia redistricting, saying, oh, it's an imperative to pass Abigail Spamberger's map. This 10 to 1 highly partisan. Matt there, you gotta do it. Oh, but simultaneously there, oh, Supreme Court. How terrible are you for throwing out the Voting Rights Act? Not, they threw it out there. That's what he said. There Anyway, he was on the Late show with Stephen Colbert there. And boy, did this guy just go off opining on seemingly every issue under the sun. Because Barack Obama thinks that he knows better than you. And even here in the year 2026, he is not afraid to say, let's go ahead and play clip one of Barack Obama last night.
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Barack Obama
You're right, the Presidential center is nonpartisan. And the reason I want to mention that is because I'm worried about the Republican Party, not just the Democratic Party. When I was president, people would ask me, what change would you like to see in Washington? I'd say, I'd love a loyal opposition. I'd love a Republican Party that was conservative in some ways that, you know, didn't agree with me on a whole bunch of stuff, but believed in rule of law and judicial independence and empirical, empirical evidence and science and wasn't constantly tapping into our worst impulses. And there has been a Republican Party like that in the past. And I want to see that returned because I think you have to have two, two healthy parties.
- [06:29]
Josh Hammer
This guy is so high on his own supply that he could fill up entire hot air balloons with that Highness, really the rule of law, dude. Barack Obama is the one who infamously said that he doesn't need any allies in Congress to get his executive amnesties done. There was DACA in 2012, then DAPA in 2014. He infamously said, just give me a pen and a phone. All I need, he said, is a pen and a phone to enact by sweeping agenda to fundamentally transform America. That's not much for the rule of law. He's talking there. Also in the clip you just saw about an independent Supreme Court. Oh really? Well, back around the time of the Sebelius decision, NFIB v. Sebelius, otherwise known as the Obamacare case. This was the constitutionality over the mandate. The mandate that we now know that John Roberts, the Chief justice infamously rewrote as a tax in order to save it. Barack Obama gave an infamous, infamous Rose Garden address at the White House saying that the Justices will not do the extraordinary thing of overturning my law. Dude, you're literally talking about judicial review. That is actually what the courts do, is they review statutes to discern whether they comply with the Constitution. In fact, the Wall Street Journal's right leaning editorial board, I will never forget this, had an editorial at that time titled Barack Obama vs. Marbury vs. Madison. Marbury was the 1803 case that famously said judicial review is a thing. This is what the courts do. So the chutzpah, the sheer chutzpah, the lack of self awareness, the glaring astronomical hypocrisy for Barack Obama in the year 2026 to excoriate his political opposition from for lack of respect for judicial independence. Are you freaking kidding me? In fact, it was that exact Barack Obama rose garn address that laid the foundation for years and years and years of Democratic Party bullying and hectoring of America's least dangerous branch, Article 3 of the Judiciary. Who can forget how in 2020, you had Chuck Schumer go to the steps of the Supreme Court while the court was considering they hadn't ruled yet on an abortion case. Not Dobbs, which overturned Roe, but a different abortion case, one out of Louisiana. I will never forget that Chuck Schumer went to those steps and said, if you rule the wrong way, I'll show you Gorsuch. I'll show you Kavanaugh. You know, shaken, like the, like the, like the elder statesman who really should retire that he is. That was what Chuck Schumer was doing back in 2020. It was galling stuff. Barack Obama really laid the foundation for all of this. So I find this just nuts. Just absolutely, completely insane, frankly, that Barack Obama has either the lack of self awareness or the sheer incredible, extraordinary hubris and arrogance to lecture his political opponents. He really ought to again, just go the heck away. Like, dude, don't you have something better to do with your time? Barack and Michel got this really spicy Netflix deal. They got the house in Martha's Vineyard. I know exactly where it is, actually, because I've actually bicycled right by it. You can't really see anything. It's very hidden, but I know exactly where it is. It's a big, beautiful house. Go spend time there. Dude, it's May. What? The water is still too cold for you on the Vineyard. Why do this? What are you trying to do, really? George W. Bush, after he was president, went back to Texas and started painting a lot. And now he sells his paintings. He goes to some SMU basketball games there in Dallas, Texas. Can you do that, Mr. President? Barack Obama. Barack Obama, though, had more to say to Stephen Colbert. Let's go ahead and play clip two as well. Now that you're no longer in office, what powers do you believe the President should not have?
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Barack Obama
Well, there are a couple that I followed even though they weren't law, and I want us. We're going to have to do some work to return to this basic norm. And we probably now have to codify it. The White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever the President wants prosecute, because
- [10:49]
Josh Hammer
technically, it's under the executive branch. The norm is that it's independent.
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Barack Obama
The norm. The idea is that the Attorney General is the people's lawyer. It's not the President's consigliere.
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Marco Rubio
Right.
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Josh Hammer
Even when it's Bobby Kennedy.
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Barack Obama
Bobby Kennedy. And so two of the core principles of a democracy, we can survive a lot bad policy, funky elections. There's a bunch of stuff that, you know, we can overcome. We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justices.
- [11:27]
Josh Hammer
Okay, first of all, Barack Obama allegedly, I'm told, taught constitutional law actually at my former law school in the University of Chicago. Dude doesn't know a darn thing, it seems, about constitutional structure. The executive branch, that's Article two very clearly has a structural feature whereby the President and the President alone wields the executive power. That means that literally every other person, the Vice President, the Attorney General, the coffee boy, the secretary, they are all subordinates. One man holds the executive power. The Attorney General doesn't wield any independent authority. None. None whatsoever. So, yes, the Attorney General actually is the President's legal attack dog. You don't like that, you've got a political remedy. Throw the bums out. That is the eternal political remedy there. So he's wrong on the continental merits. He is also, again, just extraordinarily hypocritical here. Did you not pay attention to the Merrick Garland stuff? Really, really. So much more on this to unpack. And of course, we have lots of updates for you when it comes to the war in Iran and much more as well. Folks, a quick merch break. We'll be right back with much more after this. Welcome back. So I really want to get into this Iran deal. Is it really in the offing? And we're going to get into that here momentarily. But for now, just a final thought on this outrageous interview that Barack Obama gave with Stephen Colbert, again coming right on the heels of his propaganda style campaigning for Abigail Spanberg in Virgin. The dude just won't go away. Okay, so before the break, we're talking about how he's just wrong on Constitutional Law 101 when it comes to the notion that the Attorney General, he says, is basically independent of the President. Well, no, he's freaking not. No, he is absolutely freaking not. He actually works directly subordinate in a chain of command to the President of the United States. And the President can indeed he should, to the extent that he wishes to do. So should direct his attorney general to execute the executive power. But the even bigger issue here is he seems to have a purported issue with the notion of politicized justice and a weaponized justice system. Where have you been for the past three to four years? Was Barack Obama anywhere to be seen anywhere when the raid at Mar A Lago happened in August 2022? Was he anywhere to be seen when Alvin Bragg, the Soros funded prosecutorial hack in New York City when he indicted and subsequently prosecuted and ultimately tragically convicted Donald Trump on what fraudulent bookkeeping charges over an alleged hush money payment? Was Barack Obama outspoken then? Was Barack Obama outspoken about Fani Willis, the deeply ethically, morally and legally corrupt prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, the one who was prosecuting Donald Trump as a mob boss on a RICO charge? Was Barack Obama anywhere to be found when Joe Biden's henchmen of henchman Merrick Garland, when Merrick Garland oversaw and then had his own subordinate henchmen, so called special counsel Jack Smith, so called because he was not a legitimate special counsel according to the authorizing statute. Was Barack Obama anywhere? We've seen when any of these people, Biden's former Vice president Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, Jack Smith, the alleged special counsel with Barack Obama saying anything about their own prosecution, Donald Trump, both in Florida for the classified documents in Mar a Lago on the Espionage Act, a World War I era statute that once upon a time the ACLU and all sorts of other civil liberties groups said this entire statute's unconstitutional. Barack Obama probably believed that at one point when he purported to hold a single sincere belief. Did he say anything then about Mar A Lago? Did he say anything about Washington D.C. and that other prosecution, the crown jewel of the Democrat law? No, of course not. He didn't say a darn thing. But again, in closing here, the single biggest takeaway is this. He's comically wrong and he is comically hypocritical. Really, I don't think I've actually seen hypocrisy like this in all of my lifetime following politics. And that is a strong statement. Because if there's one thing politicians are, they are hypocritical. This is galling hypocrisy. The biggest takeaway is this. Go the heck away. Bye. See ya. Bye. Peace out. Sell the place in Kalorama, go spend time in the Vineyard. Just go somewhere else. You want to get a house in Malibu, be neighbors of Kamala Harris who just bought a eight plus million dollar home there in Malibu outside Los Angeles, Go Bye. See ya. Want to go really escape. Want to go to Hawaii or something? Bye. Bye. Sayonara. No one wants this. And frankly, I don't even know how much Democrats actually want this because interestingly, actually, if you go back and look to the post Joe Biden coup, so the post July 2024 Biden coup where they substituted Biden for Harris, you want to look at those final few months of the presidential campaign. Barack Obama actually became Kamala Harris and the Harris Waltz ticket, Barack Obama became really their number one campaign surrogate. Barack Obama was going all around the country to the swing states, campaigning his rear endoff for Kamala Harris and all the swing states. What did that do for Kamala Harris? Nothing. She lost all seven swing states, the four Sunbelt states and the three Rust Belt states. So you might argue that although Kamala Harris and Tim Walls were emphatically rejected at the ballot in November 2024, which they were, you might argue that Obama ism is really what was defeated in 2024. I was making a bit of a mini comeback in some super far left jurisdictions like New York City. That's how you get Zoramdani there. But in a jurisdiction that's even remotely resembling anything that is not super far left, Obama ism as an ideological and political matter is deader than dead. Barack Obama doesn't have common sense, so he doesn't actually understand that point either. Folks, I want to talk also about this deal that is potentially starting to emerge when it comes to Iran. So it's a little bit complicated and it's very much a fluid situation. So earlier this week we were talking at length about Project Freedom, which is Donald Trump or was perhaps Donald Trump's new post Epic Fury thing that he is doing this operation that the United States military is doing there in the Persian Gulf in the Stroh Hormuz. And the long and short of it is that unlike Epic Fury, which was an offensive minded military campaign trying to weaken the Iranian conventional military targets, really doing a bang up job of taking out their, their army, their navy and a lot of their other infrastructure there, Project Freedom was a more defensive measure. And just a couple days ago, earlier this week you had Pete Hegseth and Dan Cain who were defending it in very well spoken terms, I might add, at the Pentagon. So it seems like Project Freedom is actually done for now. So in a true social post that happened on Tuesday evening, Donald Trump putting out there that based on the request of Pakistan, which for unclear reasons has really been able to exert a lot of geopolitical and diplomatic capital. By putting itself at the center of a lot of these negotiations between the United States and Iran, Pakistan and other countries have requested that Trump says that Project Freedom be paused for now. And so it is. It will be paused for a short period. Notably, the blockade will remain in effect. So simultaneously to Project Freedom, Project Freedom was this maritime escorting of vessels. So the US Navy and the Marine Corps and whoever else the military was, has been escorting some commercial vessels, oil tankers, recreational vessels, if there really are any who are in the strait. There probably are. Not a whole lot, to be honest with you, but they've been escorting a lot of these vessels through the strait, which Iran really, for the past two plus months now, has been exercising control over, which is part of the reason why energy prices are what they are. So Trump is now saying that military escorting is not gonna happen. Not the best signal to send, frankly, I would add, especially in the aftermath of what was reported earlier this week as Iranian fast boats, these little speedboats that were sending a lot of missiles and drones at American military vessels, including U.S. navy boats. So not the best message. But simultaneously, Trump is saying that the blockade will remain. So the US Is simultaneously still, still blockading all of the Iranian ports. That blockade, by the way, has been really, really, really successful. I was just reading an article that was. That was estimated that the blockade is costing Iran $400 million a day in lost oil revenue. So that is a lot. That is a lot of money. Recall that Iran is on its economic knees right now. This is Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bess and his whole economic fury operation. Iran is on their economic knees, not just their military needs, because Iran is an economy that's overwhelmingly reliant on their heavily sanctioned petroleum exports. But, however, if they can't export it because the ports are blockaded, then they just have barrels and barrels and barrels just piling up in the warehouses, in the storage facilities, and eventually you run out of room. So they've been debating, do we start closing these wells here? We can't actually ship them. What do we do? Well, China's been facilitating a lot of that there, and that is partially why we have gotten to this particular juncture, is because China seems to be actually flexing a lot of muscle here on the geopolitical stage. You see, the reason that Pakistan is. Has been hosting these mediation talks in the first place, because Pakistan is part of the Chinese sphere of influence. So China has this thing called the Belt and Road Initiative. They've been doing it now for over a decade. When it was first devised by Xi Jinping. This is the Chinese Communist Party's grand strategy, their grand vision for the 21st century. It takes its name, the Belt and Road, from Marco Polo. Marco Polo, excuse me, excuse me, era traversing of East Asia to Europe there. And they're essentially trying to build a Chinese sphere of influence, whether it's a literal physical corridor, whether it's train tracks or roads or physical infrastructure, but mostly just intellectual and geopolitical infrastructure. So Pakistan is a key part of Belt and Road and is very much an Iranian satrapy. Recall also that on yesterday's show we noted how Donald Trump is flying, is supposed to fly, at least for now, to Beijing next week to meet with Xi Jinping in person. And sure enough, we actually just learned just this morning that China and Iran, their foreign ministers, were on the phone together actually this morning. China is calling a lot of the shots here. I think the question right now facing the administration is are you going to stand up to China or are you going to let China continue to call more shots when it comes to Iran? I'll explain a lot more on that front after a short commercial break. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back. So to briefly recap, the current state of play when it comes to Iran is the following. Project Freedom, which is this defensive vessel escorting project that the US Military and above all the Navy has been engaging in for this week thus far, was called to a very abrupt pause by a Donald Trump true social post on Tuesday evening. Simultaneously, the blockade, though, still continues. So why, you ask, if Project Freedom was going well, and it seemed like it was, why has been put on pause? And the answer takes us back to China insofar as China is exerting all of the political and geopolitical political capital it has right now to try to get the United States to the negotiating table so that Donald Trump and the United States look weak before Donald Trump symbolically takes the trip, well, physically too, before he takes the symbolic trip all the way to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping next week. So China is really pushing really, really hard for some sort of, in my judgment, premature diplomatic off ramp here in the Iran theater. Nonetheless, nonetheless, because Pakistan, which again is basically an Iranian satrapy, part of the Belt and Road initiative, because Pakistan, which really means China, are pushing for this and China is directly pushing for it there. So we have this now double pause, a pause upon a pause. And it seems potentially, potentially not guaranteed, but potentially imminent that the United States and Iran might agree to some sort of mou some sort of memorandum of understanding to, to bring this conflict to a close in earnest. Now, according to Barack Ravid of Axios, who is a man of the left and I'm not a big fan of his, but he definitely has lots of sources in this administration. I have lots of thoughts on who those sources are. Barack Ravid has been reporting and Amit Sehgal, who is one of Israel's best reporters, has also echoed this same reporting. They're reporting that the framework for the potential US Iran deal looks like this. One, the naval blockade will be gradually lifted during the negotiation period. Two, the United States will commit in the MOU in this memorandum of understanding to gradually lift sanctions, I guess, on petroleum and oil and also release tens of billions of dollars from frozen assets. Okay. Three, negotiations are still underway on the duration of the uranium enrichment freeze. Three sources said the freeze would last at least 12 years and one source estimated the final outcome would be 15 years. The US also wants to include a clause saying that any Iranian violation regarding enriched uranium will extend the freeze period. Here's the big part. Point four, two sources claim that Iran would agree to transfer the highly enriched uranium it possesses out of the country. So it's that last point that makes this potentially palatable. Potentially. That's a, that's a really, really, really big deal. If you actually get this. Roughly half a ton, roughly 1,000 pounds of 60% enriched uranium uranium. By the way, which President Trump on Hugh Hewitt show or CM colleague Hugh Hewitt Trump on Hugh Hewitt's show earlier this week said they can have it, period, full stop, end of story. Marco Rubio reiterating that Marco Rubio actually was playing the role of Caroline Levitt yesterday. It was quite humorous. As if Rubio does not currently have enough roles. Dude is literally Secretary of State. He is National Security Advisor. He is our de facto point person when it comes to Cuba. There's a lot of back channel negotiations happening there. And among other things, apparently he is actually interim press secretary, which is really just hilarious. Here actually was Rubio saying very clearly to Iran that if you don't meet us on our own terms, this operation will pick up. But let's go ahead and play clip two.
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Marco Rubio
The last point I would make, and it really is important for them to understand this, is they really shouldn't test the will of the United States, at least not under President Donald Trump. Trump, he has proven time and again that he will back up what he says. And if they test him, ultimately they will lose the hard way, the easy way, the long way. The short way, they will lose.
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Josh Hammer
So I don't doubt for a second that Trump and Rubio mean what they say when it comes to Iran meeting their terms. Trump has shown time and time again that he means what he says in this context. I guess my point is the following. Is this deal good enough? In other words, it's only if Iran doesn't do what you say that they violated and then the operation continues there. But what if the deal as proposed, whether it's by C. Wyckoff or Jared Kushner or frankly by Iran, whether we might accept it, Is the deal on its own terms good enough? Well, as I said, the enriched uranium thing is a really, really big deal. The problem, of course, is that these people are inveterate liars. They could say that, though. Come on, grab all of our uranium here. And then, who knows, is actually then another. Another warehouse, another storage facility buried like 500ft under some mountain in the middle of the country. Oh, sorry, didn't tell you about that. It slipped our minds. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. There's Taqiyah again, that very stubborn Sharia law concept that we've discussed at great length previously on this show. So I tend to be very skeptical about such matters because Iran has been playing the Western world like a fiddle for 47 years. But if you actually get all of the enriched uranium out, and that's a massive, massive. If you, then this potentially, potentially is palatable. Notably, I mentioned our CM colleague, Hugh Hewitt, who interviewed Trump on air earlier this week. He is not a fan of this at all, actually. Hewitt, our colleague, putting up on X this morning, quote, this would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal will be significantly stricter. No enrichment ever. No more proxies. Turn on the Internet. And fair enough. I don't necessarily disagree with that. All I'm saying is that it's potentially palatable. It is potentially palatable if you get all that enriched uranium. But short of that, short of that, it is really, really, really quite difficult to see how you go ahead and say that this is a victory on its own terms. Again, real, real quick here. Our four criteria for victory in the Iran operation here on the Josh Hammerick show are the following. One, straight up, Hormuz, fully open to all maritime transit. Two, zero funding of Iran to its proxies to the region. That's what Hugh was talking about in that tweet that I just read. Point three, no ballistic missiles, no drones. Seemingly. That's not really being addressed, to be honest with you. But in the current deal, it might be a little opaque. Maybe we're missing something. I didn't see it in any of the things that I saw. Okay. The problem is that that's what happened in the Barack Obama 2015 deal. They didn't address the missile program. And now you see Iran lobbying missiles 2 1/2 thousand miles away, putting large swaths of the European continent in place. You gotta get the missiles and the drones. Then point four is the big kahuna. That's the enriched uranium. So it seems like point four is at least on the minds of Trump and Rubio and Wyckoff and Kushner. That is definitely good insofar as it goes there. I have some serious questions, though, about this deal as a whole. Notably also the Wall Street Journal had a fascinating article I thought on Tuesday evening titled, quote, gulf states fear an embolden Iran is taking advantage of a hesitant US. So basically happened here was that, was that sources, mostly on background, because they don't want to go on the record as criticizing the commander in chief. Although some people did go on record. A lot of Emiratis, above all, a lot of people in the uae, which really the most moderate Western minded of all of America's Sunni Arab allies, the Emiratis, seemingly are terrified that Iran is going to get a deal that it should not get. And there's a few response to that. One would be, okay, where have you guys been on the actual military hostilities? The uae, the Saudis. None of these guys have actually contributed when it comes to the actual war. That's basically just been two countries, the United States and Israel. So that's one response. But the other response is, you know what? They're on something. They're onto something. They are, because this would leave not just the regime in place, it would leave them with missiles and drones, albeit fewer. Again, it's these two things can be true at once, guys. America has achieved a lot and it's amazing. It's freaking awesome. Iran is definitely less of a threat, substantially so. Substantially so, than they were two and a half months ago prior to epic fury. But is the job over on its own terms again? The answer continues to be no. Well, the job is over on its own terms for the most part when it comes to Donald Trump's efforts to seek retribution for Rhinos in the Hoosier State. What I mean by that is that America actually went to the polls in certain states on Tuesday evening. So Ohio and Indiana were the two biggest states. There were some other elections in other states as well. Vivek Ramaswamy is now going to be the nominee for governor of Ohio, for better or for worse. I have mixed thoughts on Mr. Ramaswamy, but he is going to be the nominee for governor of Ohio. Indiana was the state that most Americans were watching closely. So Indiana, we've covered at great length all of America's back and forth redistricting battles. Indiana was a state that chose not to go along with redistricting. Donald Trump worked really, really hard actually to push for mass redistricting. They are in the Hoosier state. And he had some stubborn RINOs in the Senate who basically said, no, we're not doing it. So Donald Trump went on the offensive. He endorsed a lot of primary challengers to the state senators and there were seven challengers specifically who were endorsed by Donald Trump in these elections on Tuesday evening. Long story short, looks like five and potentially six. One one incumbent did prevail. And as the time of me talking right now, the seventh race is like a low single digit margin. It's like shockingly close. They're probably going to do a hand recount, litigation, whatever. So we don't know. But at least five to seven, possibly six. Seven has a seated. That is a big, big statement. What does it say about Donald Trump's popularity within the Republican Party as we head towards November? Well, potentially, actually some very good news. We've got the full analysis on that and many other topics for you when we come back after a short commercial break. One more break, folks. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back. So there's been a lot of back and forth as to how popular Donald Trump remains in the Republican Party. Now there's some polling that shows that Donald Trump's overall approval rating is slipping. And indeed, if you look at the real Clear Politics average, which is the tracker of these things there, his general approval rating definitely is slipping. Furthermore, there actually is something to be said about his standing with Republican leaning independence, which has slipped by probably between 20 and 30 points depending on the poll. Not great. But how about his standing with Republicans themselves with above all really self identifying MAGA voters? Well, there was a, there was another poll earlier this week that showed that Trump's approval rating among self identified Republicans was actually going down a little bit. 75% approval, 18% disapproval, which sounds lopsided, but these are Republicans. Again, this was a poll from Issues and Insights and tip cipp, pretty well known American pollster. But it's hard to know how seriously to take the polls when Trump is just cleaning up with these State Senate elections in Indiana. Now, Indiana is a bright red state. Take it for what it's worth. Indiana. Take us back to our early conversation. Indiana shockingly went for Barack Obama in 2008. They unfortunately fell to the whole hope and change garbage. But overall, very red state. So Trump's standing with strong conservatives seems still to be very, very high. And this manufactured narrative about how Trump is losing people because of the Iran war there is generally garbage. It's generally garbage peddled by Tucker and Megan and Candace, people like that there. They're trying to make you think that Trump's Iran operation has been less popular with Republicans than we all know that it is. But keep your eye on this because this is. There is some polling indicating that he's losing a little stand there. But for now I'm not buying the polling. This is a big, big victory for Trump in Indiana. Big victory on Tuesday evening, by the way. If the Indiana State Senate had actually gone along and had redrawn Indiana's congressional maps, imagine what that would mean for this fall. You're already looking at Republicans winning the redistricting iterative back and forth. They are going to come out ahead for a host of reasons because of Florida and Texas and the legal dubiousness of the Virginia referendum along with the Voting Rights act decision there and Louisiana be forced to redraw their maps, et cetera, et cetera. So Republicans are going to win there. But if Indiana had only done its darn job, they would come out even further ahead this fall. But for now, at least in the short term, Donald Trump getting his retribution in large measurements. On Tuesday evening in the Hoosier State, I saw another fascinating development that is on issue that I care a great deal about. And that issue is the second Amendment and the issue of gun rights. The Toblanche led DOJ has filed suit against a city that I used to live in, actually the city of Denver, Colorado. And the DOJ is basically saying that Denver is unconstitutionally banning certain semi automatic rifles, certain so called assault weapons, which by the way is a legally fictitious category. When you hear assault weapons, you immediately should raise an eyebrow. It basically means just a rifle, typically a black rifle that Democrats think looks scary. Really? That's the definition of an assault weapon? There's no other way to define it because it's a fake term. It does not exist. Anyway, Denver, like a lot of these other blue jurisdictions has tried to ban certain types of firearms there. So the DOJ is actually, is actually suing. Todd Blanche is saying in a statement, quote, the Constitution is Not a suggestion. And the Second Amendment is not a second class right. That verbiage there of calling the Second Amendment a second class right is perfect language. It actually is exactly what Clarence Thomas has said. He has used that exact same term, second class rights in some of his Second Amendment opinions over the years where he typically excoriates his liberal colleagues and the lower courts and liberals in general for treating the Second Amendments as a second class right. So good stuff for Todd Blanche there and kind of, I think, probably deliberately aping and mimicking this language from Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas. By the way, celebrating today is actually his formal day. Literally, today actually, Clarence Thomas is becoming the second longest serving justice in the history of the U.S. supreme Court. We mentioned it briefly on yesterday's show. Today is actually the formal day where he has now surpassed John Paul Stevens. He is now trailing only Justice William Douglas. If Clarence Thomas hangs on for another 2ish years, he will actually become the longest serving justice ever, which is just extraordinary. We'll cross that bridge, of course, if we get to it. For now though, again, folks, just another plug. There was just an amazing, amazing documentary came out a few years ago called Created Equal. Clarence Thomas in his Own Words. You really learn a lot about this man and how he has become the single greatest living American. Say, in my own estimation, he's just an inspiring figure there and I just can't say enough about him. So congratulations once again to Justice Clarence Thomas. So again, take us back to this DOJ suit. So the DOJ is suing Denver for violating the Second Amendment. And it's pretty straightforward argument. If you go Back to the 2008 case, which is D.C. versus Heller, it's the big landmark guns case, one where Anthony Scalia writes for a 5, 4 court, famously saying that the Second Amendment actually means what it says, that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That actually is not a collective right. It's not the right of the militia. It's your right, it's my right. It's an individual right. Just like any other amendment in the Bill of Rights that refers to the quote, unquote, right of people. Any other one. Now, the test in the DC vs Heller case in 2008 as to define what is a constitutionally protected firearm. And it's admittedly not the greatest test, in my opinion, because it's a little bit of circular logic, to be honest with you, but the test that Scalia says is whether the firearm is, quote, in common use. Now, the argument that Todd Blanche is using in this DOJ suit against Denver and that many of us have been making for years is that when it comes to these so called assault weapons, AKA these black rifles, Democrats look scary. They are very much in common use. Very, very much. In fact, the AR15 platform and for the semi automatic rifle platform chambered in 5, 5, 6, 2, 23 or 300 blackout. This is, this is the best selling rifle in America. Number one numero uno. In what world is that not income in use per DC versus Heller. If you want me technical here, the definition of arm in the rights keeping bear arms arm really refers to a shoulder mounted weapon. That's really what they meant by arm. Of course I'm not actively saying that you should have the constitutional right to a surface to air missile that can take down a 747, but certainly at a bare minimum, a modern semiautomatic rifle is well, well within the confines of what the framers meant when they said the right scheme bear arms. If you don't like the amendment folks, there's a process here. You can amend the Constitution to take out an amendment. We've done this before. The 18th Amendment famously gave us Prohibition. It took another amendment, the 21st Amendment, to get rid of it. You really, really hate this amendment that much. Go ahead and try to pass an amendment to take it out that is much more intellectually honest than pretending that it says what it clearly does not say, or miraculously does not say what it clearly says. Finally, I want to end with this. I was really, really pleased to see this official White House proclamation from President Trump that came out earlier this week on Monday, but I did not actually catch it until yesterday evening. So I guess this month of May is Jewish American Heritage Month. To be honest with you, I don't really care for such heritage months because I just think it's stupid identity politics. I just don't care, to be honest with you, even though I am of course Jewish myself, I just don't really give a crap, to be honest. But the more interesting part is this. Donald Trump is calling, is calling on American Jews and really, I guess anyone who wants to, of course to observe the Sabbath, he's calling for at least Jews nationally to observe Sabbath that we call Shabbat coming on not this weekend, but the next weekend. So May 15th through the 16th. By extension, of course, anyone who wants to join is not just free to, but is strongly encouraged to. It's a really, really, really beautiful thing actually, because I've been thinking a little bit about this actually. So July 4, 2026, which is, of course the 250th anniversary of the nation founding, is actually going to be on a Saturday. It's actually going to be on Shabbat on the Jewish Sabbath. So I will not be able to watch as much as the of the daytime festivities as I would like come nighttime for the fireworks. It will be over by then there. But what better way for Jews to solemnize and affirm their role as part of this great experiment than to keep the Sabbath? It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I've actually been reading my late friend Charlie Kirk's posthumous book on the Sabbath. Charlie wrote this book he dedicated to the memory of Dennis Prager. It's beautiful. It's called Stop in the Name of God. I just started. I'm only a few chapters in. It's an extraordinary book. Charlie, of course, was an evangelical Christian, but he turned his phone off for roughly 24, 25 hours, around the same time that Orthodox Jews like myself turn our phone off. There is something inherently beautiful about orienting your life around God's own creation of the world. After all, God created the heaven and the earth in six days. And on day seven, he rested. We should be orienting ourselves toward his schedule, not the other way around. So I was just, really just struck by Donald Trump's proclamation there. Beautiful, beautiful stuff there. I hope that many who do not normally keep the Sabbath will choose to do so and follow Donald Trump's lead. Not this weekend again, but the next weekend, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We'll be right back. As always,
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