← The Josh Hammer Show
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The Global Gaming League is presented by Atlas Earth, the fun cashback app. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6, $7 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com in partnership with Level Up Expo.
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I'm Josh Hammer and this is Josh Hammer show the Academy Awards, AKA the Oscars, were on Sunday evening out in Tinseltown and it's an occasion to think about some of the greatest products that Hollywood has produced for us over the decades. Something of a film buff myself, my personal top two films of all time are the Godfather Part one and the Godfather Part two. And over this weekend, especially on Sunday, watching as things start to escalate when it came to certain swaths of the internecine podcast wars as they refer to within the broader right of center. In that context, I couldn't help but think, with the Oscars coming on Sunday evening, about one of the great lines towards the end of The Godfather Part 1 where Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, famously says that he intends to settle all family business. And in the context of the Godfather, we know how that plays out. But I couldn't help but think about that when it came to Donald Trump and some of what he has done, not just on Sunday evening, but also over the course of this month, increasingly in valuable fashion as well. So in order to make sense of what I just said there, I think it's important to step back a little bit. You likely know, if you are a listener or a viewer of this program, you likely know that the right is not actually as divided as people say it is when it comes to certain substantive issues. The right would have you believe that there is some massive MAGA divide when it comes to things like Operation Epic Fury, the war against the Iranian regime. And in reality there's actually not in reality the Republican Party, Republicans, especially so called mag Republicans, are actually largely unified and to this extent this is very much just a bit of media manufactured nonsense trying to create faux, faux fractures and divides when none actually exist. But in some ways, in some ways there are definitely some real divides seeping at least if not the people out there in the broader movement. At a bare minimum, the podcaster circuit There we've been very outspoken, very outspoken on this show when it comes to some of. Not just the inane, silly things that certain individuals like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have been saying in recent months, but. But oftentimes actually the outright evil things as well. And on one of our shows from a few months ago, as this was really starting to reach a bit of a fever pitch, what we said here very clearly is that the buck ultimately does stop with the President of the United States. Now, the President of the United States really is the one ultimately who decides what is MAGA and what is not maga. He is the one, much like Michael Corleone, AKA Al Pacino in the Godfather, who is capable of settling all family business. Why? Well, the question answers so because MAGA is his family. America first is Donald Trump's family. He started this movement. He defines the contours of it. When you start a movement, folks, it is important to set parameters. It is important to define what that movement is for and just as importantly, what that movement is not for. There are countless individuals throughout history who immediately found initial success when it came to starting movement, then failed to properly define what that movement is. And then it got out of hand and expanded, expanded, expanded, letting a lot of kooks and cranks and crazies and this and that and. And the whole thing implodes. It is a tale quite literally as old as time. Well, fortunately, President Trump is now starting to define the contours of what is and what is not maga, perhaps above all, when it comes to the aforementioned clowns of Tucker Carlson and Min Kelly, AKA Grandma Groiper. So earlier this month, in the month of March, Jonathan Karl of ABC News got quite a scoop. He seems to get some of these scoops when it comes to Trump and his inner circle. So kudos to him for getting another one there. And this came actually on March 5th. So just about a week and a half, not even two weeks ago now. So any lengthy conversation just now, tweeted Jonathan Carl Davis News. On March 5, President Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson. Tucker had called the Iran War absolutely disgusting and evil. Tucker has lost his way. Trump told me. I knew that a long time ago. And he's not maga. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that. Now, in reality, Tucker Carlson has been vociferously criticizing Donald Trump for the better part of a year and a half, two Years now. More on that in just a moment there. But finally, finally, finally, Donald Trump pushed back in earnest earlier this month. It was not necessarily the face down sitting at the Resolute desk, looking solemnly into the camera. It wasn't necessarily that with all the accoutrements of the Oval Office and the prestige and the glitz and the glamour that some of us perhaps envisioned, but it was a very, very powerful statement. Not the first time, incidentally, that Trump has condemned Tucker Carlson as he continues his descent into utter lunacy following his unceremonial firing from Fox News in April of 2023. Trump referred to Tucker Carlson as kooky Tucker Carlson, for instance, in the context of the last Iran operation last June. So that was the context for the big Tucker related event of this weekend. So Tucker releases a video on Saturday where he essentially announces that he found out that allegedly, allegedly, he announces that the CIA has been spying on him and surveilling him and reading his messages and that they are allegedly preparing to recommend charges be filed to the DOJ for prosecution. Here is Tucker Carlson announcing allegedly I can. What has happened to him.
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So the other day I found out that the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed. What's that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war, they read my texts. So the crime under consideration apparently would be the Foreign Agent act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power. And I don't expect this to go anywhere. I'm not too worried about an actual criminal case against me for a bunch of reasons. One, I'm not an agent of a foreign power. Unlike a lot of people commenting on US Politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty, and that's the United States and have never acted against it. Its interests are the only interests I care about because I'm from here and
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I have a lot of kids, so
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that's not a concern. I've also never taken money from, from anybody. Don't need it, don't want it, and that's provable. And moreover, it's my job to talk to everybody all the time and try and figure out what's happening around the world. That's literally what I do for a living, and I'm not gonna stop doing that.
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Okay. So there is a lot to say on this. Suffice to say, I'm not sure that I'm willing to take Tucker Carlson at his word. But before we go ahead and unpack what we just heard. There's just a quick word from our sponsors. So our sponsor for today's show is Balance of Nature. What if the reason that you feel a little off some days has more to do with what's missing than what you're adding? We talk a lot about cutting things out of our diets. Sugar, processed foods, junk. But what about what we're not getting enough of? Whole foods contain phytonutrients, natural plant compounds your body uses every day to function properly. And let's be honest, most of us aren't eating 10 servings of produce a day. I know I'm not. That's why I use Balance of Nature. Their vacuum cold process helps stabilize these phytonutrients. So you're getting the benefits of real fruits and vegetables in capsule form. I also love their whole health system. Fruits and veggies plus fiber and spice. 47 ingredients of whole food nutrition. And their freeze dried snacks are a great option too. If you're ready to fight the good fight, go to balanceofnature.com to subscribe and save today. Join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that's changing the world. Again folks, that is balanceofnature.com so there's a lot to say about this Tucker Carlson video that has really taken the Internet by storm and over the past 48 hours, give or take. The very first thing to know is that I find it hilarious that Tucker seems so confused and bemused. Bemused about what is the Foreign Agent Registration Act. He seems like he's not familiar with the statute, which in case you're not familiar, is the basic statutes part of the U.S. code on the books that prohibits you from unlawfully serving as an agent for a foreign power, AKA country that is not the United States unless you are properly registered. And there is a proper way to register. You have to have public disclosure, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the first thing is that I find it hilarious that Tucker is pretending, yes, he is pretending he is lying to you that he is not familiar with the statute. How do I know? Because as a user on X by the handle of Azemore helpfully reminded us on Sunday evening, Tucker, back when he was hosting his Fox News show, Tucker Carlson Knight talked a lot about Farah. In fact, he actually openly said people like Adam Schiff, Michael Avenatti, Eric Swalwell, are these people possibly violating Fara. He mentioned John Kerry and Iran. Actually, as ironically he brought up John Kerry and Iran as A possible FARA violation back then he actually the clip I watched from this account at Maze Moronx actually earlier this morning was Tucker doing segments on his show on Fox news back in 2018 of talking about how the former head of CNN, according to Tucker, might have been unregistered foreign agent because of CNN's slanted pro turkey news coverage. Utterly hilarious stuff. So there's a lot to unpack here. The very first thing to say is that the CIA does not generally get involved when it comes to surveilling one's text message correspondence. The agency that we know that is more involved with that and you can disagree or agree when it comes to section 702 of the Authorizing statute there. We know this from Edward Snow. In other words, this agency is typically the nsa. The nsa, the National Security Agency is the agency of the intelligent community that is typically involved when it comes to trying to have these wide dragnets and collecting metadata and incoming calls outcoming calls there. And then if they find something suspicious, they can go file a warrant to a FISA court. It's a whole intricate laborantine process where you can ultimately then try to get a warrant and try to actually then get from the metadata to the actual data there if you have the relevant legal standing before the judge. So I'm not sure that I believe that, that the CIA itself is actually getting involved here. Let's say for the sake of argument, let's say for the sake of argument that whether it's the NSA or the CIA, that one of them actually are getting involved here. And as Tucker did imply there in that video, that's because Tucker Carlson has been in touch with people likely very close to or near the top, perhaps even of the Iranian regime. Now, in the lead up to Operation Epic Fury, Donald Trump met at the White House with Tucker Carlson not once actually, but twice. The first time which came in Early January, on January 11, just about a week and a half or so after the operation to extract Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela was actually a meeting of the big oil executives, the oil, natural gas, CEOs, Chevron, ex Mobil, etc. They went to the White House to basically talk about how Venezuela was going to play when it came to this new massive oil field there. And whether or not the new incoming president, Del C. Rodriguez is going to play ball with American petroleum refiners and exporters. Hint, hint. She actually is so good for her, I suppose, to kind of use another godfather. Now by the way, Dulce, Rodriguez knows that there is an offer here frankly, that she can't refuse. We know then at that January 11th meeting that Donald Trump said to Tucker Carlson that you have a problem and people think whether they're right or wrong, and they're right about this, that you are not just viciously anti Israel, but you are really anti Semitic and that you are frankly destroying a coalition. So he gave Tucker some time to, to try to, quote, unquote, fix this problem, which he didn't do there. Then Tucker ends up coming back to the White House. This is the one that I thought was a little odder, a little more confusing in hindsight, Tucker comes back to the White House. Then February, prior to the commencement of Operation Epic Fury, this one in hindsight, was perhaps less of a head scratcher, was perhaps less of a head scratcher than maybe we actually thought it was there. Why is that? Well, perhaps Tucker Carlson was actually getting used by Donald Trump. I will actually explain exactly what I mean by that there on the other side of a very short commercial break, folks. Stay with us. We'll be right back with more of the Josh Hammer show right after this.
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Welcome back. So in hindsight, as I said, many of us perhaps should have been less confused about Tucker Carlson making this second trip to the White House in February prior to the commencement of this joint binational American Israeli military operation against Iran. At the time it seemed like a major WTF moment. What the heck is going on here? Why is this guy of all people getting a face to face sit down with the United States and specifically with the president of the United States there. Now, if Tucker is correct, which again, major caveat here, but if his allegation is correct that the CIA or maybe he's embellishing units, just the nsa, if they were actually surveilling him and if they actually knew that he was in touch with Iranian assets there, and if they actually were thinking he was a possible FARA act violator and possibly recommend charges if all this is true, which I don't personally believe. But if all of it is true, there they consider the possibility that the CIA then got wind of Tucker essentially conducting his own shadow foreign policy. Perhaps they informed President Trump and the May President Trump actually brought in Tucker Carlson to use as essentially an unwitting counterintelligence asset to feed faulty information on purpose to Iran. That's potentially what happened here. If Tucker is actually speaking the truth, which again, I don't necessarily believe there, that's possibly what happened there. Trump essentially brings in Tucker, knows that he's in touch with the Iranians there. Basically they have the big smiles. The Iranians are like, ah, no problem at all. We're all good. There's not gonna be a war. Then the idiots like they are, they all go meet in that big building, including Khamenei, the 37 year old ruling supreme leader Ayatollah, and then the whole building goes boom and they're all dead. So this is one theory of the case, is that Donald Trump actually was playing 4D chess all along and really actually did use Tucker Carlson like this. And by the way, there are other pieces of this that are starting to add up. So after the war began, Tucker Carlson at one point on his show said something utterly just astonishing, which is he made up a claim out of whole cloth. He just made it up in completely preposterous fashion. He said that Mossad, that Israel's spy using Mossad actually sent individuals to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two Arab countries that were getting incoming fire from Iran. Tucker said the Mossad sent people to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to try to carry out attacks there. In reality, the statement was so wildly false that the foreign ministries, the governments of both Saudi Arabia and Qatar said this is not true. These were actually IRGC as long as Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian assets trying to commit terror attacks on our soil. Tucker has demonstrable, very high profile, very public ties to Qatar. So to get the Qatari government to condemn him, you really have to be saying a whole lot of lies. In any event, this is one theory of the case is that Tucker is telling the truth there. Donald Trump actually was really playing 4D chess. Donald Trump really did use Tucker and then Tucker inadvertently in this theory. The case actually really did get his Iranian friends kind of like Khamenei himself killed. Now how does that leak in that case get from the CIA or the NSA over to Tucker Carlson there? Well, my own personal view of this, as I said on X on Sunday evening, my own personal view is that this has a lot to do with 2028 politics the head of the office of DNI, of the office of the Director of National Intelligence is Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii turns now into this, this cabinet member in the Trump administration. Tulsi Gabbard is known for having very traditionally pro Russia, more isolationist leaning views. She is much closer to the, let's call the J.D. vance Wing in the party. You might even call it, frankly, the Tucker Carlson wing of the broader movement. If you think back to Operation Epic Fury, when it began there, Marco Rubio was with Donald Trump there at Mar a Lago in Palm Beach. Then we had what kind of looked, if we're not being charitable and being kind of blunt, it kind of looked like a kiddie table back in the Situation Room in the White House where there was J.D. vance, Tulsi Gabbard, et cetera. So I have it on fairly good authority, and I don't name sources, obviously, but I have it on good authority from people who would know. Tulsi Gabbard harbors her own outside shot ambitions to be President, United States and run in 2028. She apparently views JD Vance as her leading arrival for that lane in the primary when it comes to trying to pick up the hardline isolationist, let's call it the the groiper or the groiper adjacent vote. So if this is all clear, then Tulsi Gabbard has a reason to try to knife JD Vance to clear that lane for herself. Well, what better way to try to knife JD Vance and then to come after his comically compromised friend, Tucker Carlson? So if this theory of the case is correct, then what Tucker is actually doing there is he's essentially getting played by Tulsi Gabbard in an anti J.D. vance operation. That's my reading of the case. The alternative scenario, and this is possibility two, as I put it on X on Sunday evening, there is that Tucker is a psychopathic liar who just made the whole darn thing up, much as he did about his incident, his alleged incident when he was interviewing Mike Huckabee at the airport in Israel a few weeks ago. There, Tucker said that they detained him and seized his passports. It didn't happen. It was literally a lie. The dude just makes things up because there's something actually wrong with him because he is tapped by demons. He's obsessed with these stupid nicotine pouches. Nicotine pouches, which for Mr. Quote Unquote, America first, aren't even made here, they're made in India. Dude is just off his freaking rocker. So in this second scenario about the CIA video, Tucker makes the whole darn thing up and he's actually just doing what personally I've been saying he's doing for two years now, which is that he's waging a shadow war against Donald Trump and against maga, accusing Donald Trump of selling out his America first mission and laying the groundwork even further for his own 2028 presidential run. So really, this is all about 2028. That is my reading of everything that actually has transpired here. I've been saying this about Tucker for a very long time, by the way, again, when it comes to Iran, when it comes to Ukraine, when it comes to Epstein, all this stuff. Tucker has been increasingly, wildly opposed to the Trump administration. Heck, even Nicolas Maduro, even those narco terrorist boat strikes last fall, the Nicolas Maduro extraction, these folks. And Tucker is just the tip of the spear. But a lot of them, Megyn Kelly, we'll get to her in just a second here. Tucker has been the number one opponent of a veritable suite of Trump administration priorities when it comes to Trump's both domestic and foreign policy agenda, perhaps even more so, his foreign policy agenda. So as I wrote an essay for the Free Press as Barry Wise publication, I wrote an essay last July talking about why Tucker Carlson is so obsessed with Jeffrey Epstein. And here was the conclusion to my essay. I wrote, quote, the goal, which seems increasingly obvious, is to fracture the political right into pro Trump MAGA and Trump skeptical or anti Trump, quote, unquote, ultra Maga in order to allow a new presidential lane to emerge in 2028, perhaps within the folds of the Republican Party. Or perhaps it's Elon Musk's New America Party or some other partisan vehicle. And who might be the standard bearer for that new anti Trump, anti American, anti Western civilization movement? Well, one man seems far likelier than anyone else. It's Tucker Carlson himself. As Tucker Carlson's criticism of President Trump grows louder, the probability of Tucker running for president to supplant MAGA approaches 1. In order to get there, they must first discredit Trump as much as possible. So, folks, that is why Tucker has picked this war, has picked this war against Donald Trump. That is my ultimate blunt assessment of the situation. One of the more curious situations or the more curious questions that we must confront is why have some other people joined him on what seems to be a suicidal crusade? If you see the guy who's the president, United States, who was beloved by his party, Donald Trump has some of the highest approval ratings from within his own party. Harry Anton, CNN has crunch numbers. Trump's approval rating within Republicans is astoundingly high. He is at this point, I believe it's the single highest rated within your own political party, president in a second term in the modern history of American political polling. So who in the right mind sees this and sees Donald Trump just at this point shooting down at Tucker, calling him not maga? He's lost his mind, kooky, et cetera, et cetera, who sees this and says, aha, that's the ship that I want to attach myself and to ultimately link my fate to. And unfortunately, that brings us to Megyn Kelly or Grandma Groiper, as I've been calling her, a lady who has been in the news, suffice to say, for a few months now as well, someone who has just completely and utterly sold out in just really tragic fashion, a woman who I once held in pretty, pretty high regard. I was a fairly frequent guest, actually, on the Megyn Kelly show for a little while there. So I wrote this essay back in January for front page magazine, frontpagemag.com youm can go ahead and check it out. Why did Grandma wipe her sell out? You can go ahead and get the get the full picture. Now, among the people that Megyn Kelly has been lashing out at, she's been lashing out a lot of people like me, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss, Mark Levin. Hmm. What do me, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Barry Weiss and Mark Levin all have in common? I will not answer that question. You can answer that question for yourself. So among the folks that Min Kelly has been just really just ripping at, ripping at, of those individuals I just named, probably the most over the past couple weeks is Mark Levin, AKA the great one, as Sean Hannity calls him, and frankly, now as Donald Trump himself calls him as well. We'll get to that in just a minute there. But the question, folks, is why is Megyn Kelly trying to make her bed with this? What is the goal? What do these people actually want to achieve? The tantalizing question again, I have my theory. You might not like it, but I'll tell you what it is. But after a very short commercial break. Stay with us. We will be right back. Welcome back. So we're talking still about Megyn Kelly, for better or for worse. So Megyn Kelly, especially on Sunday, maybe it started on Saturday, I can't remember, decided to go down a rather peculiar hole on social media where she had a certain anatomical fascination, you might call an obsession with a certain part of male genitalia about Mark Levin and about the size of that. I will not elaborate further because this is a family friendly show. But this is, I mean, it makes you just want to just throw your hands up and say, what are you doing? I mean, you were a serious broadcaster, a serious journalist, someone who used to ask serious questions across the political spectrum there. You were a hard hitting interrogator, used a legal prosecutorial background. What are you doing? So Megyn Kelly just goes on this unhinged tirade in the aftermath of Tucker announcing this alleged CIA thing, which again, I, I don't know if I believe, I think it's, I think it's entirely possible that NSA picked up some texts or phone calls with Tucker and the Iranian thing. It's also entirely possible that Tucker just made the whole darn thing up and he's using this to run for 2028, et cetera. So Megan sees this, she has a bit of a meltdown. She's like retweeting all the, all this pro Tucker stuff, protect Tucker at all costs, et cetera, et cetera. And then she starts going after Mark Levin for having a micro, you know what, and does this repeatedly on Sunday. And it was very, very, very, very weird, to put it mildly. And then it ends up coming on Sunday evening with Donald Trump putting out a very, very lengthy post on truth Social, defending, defending my friend Mark Levin. Donald Trump writing something evening on Truth Social. Mark Levin, a truly great American patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less intellect, capability and love for our country. Mark is tough, strong and brilliant, hence the nickname the great One conceived by our MAGA friend, the wonderful Sean Hannity, et cetera, et cetera. When you hear others unfairly attack Mark, remember that they are jealous and angry human beings whose sway is much less than the public understands and will now that they know where I stand, rapidly diminish. So he didn't actually say Megyn Kelly's name, but this is a lengthy post on Donald Trump's true social on Sunday evening about Megyn Kelly. Donald Trump, folks, as we've said at this point, is settling family business. He, much like Michael Corleone, is reasserting himself as the leader of the family, as the leader of the tribe, as the paterfamilias, we might say, to kind of use some Latinate. And he is going after some of these disgraced, discredited ex cable news stars, people who are really probably miss frankly when they had those prime cable news slots. Megyn Kelly probably wishes when she had a prime time slot at Fox News. I'm sure Chuck Carlson misses the same thing there. They no longer have that slot. They no longer have the editorial guardrails that come with their all star editorial teams there. In fact, Miranda Devine, the New York Post columnist, among others who did amazing work with the Hunter Biden laptop story, had this theory that she presented to Dave Rubin, I believe was on Dave's show about Tucker. And she said something that I've been thinking about for years. Well, it's one of her theories as to Tucker's ascent into lunacy is that he doesn't have these editorial guardrails in place there, that he's just surrounded by a lot of yes men who does not along and don't push back. That's probably the same thing for Megyn Kelly as well. So it's a combination of that. It's a combination of sour grapes. But ultimately, in the final conclusion, why are they doing this? Donald Trump could not make it clear that he sides with the forces of sanity within this internecine podcast war fighting there. He's on Mark Levin's side. He's on the side of a Ben Shapiro. He hasn't personally said he's on my side. Guess what? I can read the Tea Lease. I'm pretty sure Donald Trump supports what we say here on this program essentially on a day in, day out basis, certainly when it comes to a lot of these topics that the podcasts are debating there. So the folks that are going all in, that are going all in here for this tiny, tiny slice of the demographic, what exactly are you guys doing? Like really, what exactly are you doing? And by the way, the evidence for this just continues to accumulate. Before we go any further, there was a brand new poll from NBC News that came out, I believe it was just this morning actually. And they essentially are talking specifically here about the Israel question, American views of Israel, how it changed over the past 13 years. I'm not sure why they changed chose that, but they chose 2013. Until now, Republicans have not changed at all. In 2013, 67% of Republicans sided more with Israel over the Palestinians. Only 8% side with the Palestinians. Now in 2026, the ratio is 69% to 13%. It's essentially statistically unchanged. There has been a shift within the independents and Democrats. That's a story for another day. But the point is when it comes to all these various topics, when it comes to Iran polling, when it comes to Israel relations there, when it comes to all this stuff, these people, Tucker, Megan and their ACOLYTES and followers, that idiot so called comedian Dave Smith, who I debated twice last year, all these people are chasing a negligible fraction of the audience market share. So it's a bizarre calculation that after Donald Trump is out of the picture because he is term limited, after he's out of the picture, it's a calculation that what comes next is going to look absolutely freaking nothing like Donald Trump. That's a bold wager. That is a very, very bold strategy. And ironically, I think a lot of these folks think, or at least thought that the likeliest guy to kind of move the White House in that direction would be Donald Trump's vice president, J.D. vance. But we've already seen that when a vice president runs for president, he or she cannot distance himself or herself from that president's policies. This was Kamala Harris's great struggle in the 2024 election. She had that infamous interview on the View where they said, madam Vice President, can you name a single policy where you disagree with the Biden administration, where you wish we had done or you had done something differently? And she couldn't identify a single thing because to do so, we to throw her own boss at the time, Joe Biden, under the bus. So J.D. vance has that issue too, in addition to the fairly glaring Tucker Carlson problem there. Again, if I'm right, potentially Tulsi Gabbard trying to exploit that highly vulnerable J.D. tucker friendship. That's just my speculation. I've known some information there, but certainly my reading of the tea leaves there. But it is a very, very bold wager that whatever comes next is going to look absolutely freaking nothing like what it currently is. And I don't know if they're going to be proven right. I have a sneaky suspicion that they are not going to be proven right there. But for now, for now, I am just loving, loving watching Donald Trump go scorched earth on some of these truly scummy, disgraced, discredited former cable news stars who are now just shrinking violence just sitting there in their post cable news podcasters fears probably having some sort of midlife crisis. Maybe they've overdone it when it comes to the Ozempic or the Botox. In Grandma Groiper's case, I don't know exactly what it is, but whatever it is, Donald Trump is finally settling off all family business and it is really a glorious thing. Speaking of glorious things, the operational success against the Iranian regime in Operation Epic Fury, as the United States calls it, or Operation Roaring lion, as our Israeli allies called the operation continues to go apace. So the most recent major event was that there was an overnight strike this weekend at an airport in Iran where the iaf, the Israeli Air force, has destroyed the aircraft used by Mujaba Khamenei, who is the young successor to Ali Khamenei, a guy who we don't even know fully if he's alive. Actually, there were some rumors over the weekend that Mushaba Khamenei actually was dead. At a bare minimum, we believe that he has had a leg amputated and that he is possibly in a coma. They did this very kind of third world thing where they released a written statement without any visual, any photo, any video of the guy. Last week, the most recent thing, and I couldn't help but just get a laugh out of this, was at the New York Post reporting that Trump was briefed that Moshe Khamenei is probably gay. And okay, I mean, that's interesting, I guess. I think back to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, back when he spoke at Columbia university maybe about 20 years ago or so. I remember Ahmadinejad somewhat infamously said when he was asked about the homosexuality question, he said, ah, there are none of those people in Iran. Well, dude, your new supreme leader is apparently a homosexual. Okay, well, there's that. I guess Donald Trump had a hilarious reaction. He apparently just couldn't contain his surprise, just burst out laughing. According to New York Post, others in the room found it hilarious, joined the president's reaction. One senior intelligence official has not stopped laughing about it for days. This actually comes also on top of separate reporting from the Daily Mail that Mujaba Khamenei sought treatment in the United Kingdom in the UK for impotence. Impotence. Okay. So it's a somewhat phallic news cycle, I guess you might say, between Machaba Khamenei's various issues. Megyn Kelly choosing a rather peculiar line of attack to go after the great one. Mark Levin, but things are not going well for the Islamic Republic of Iran, which I guess means things not going well for Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly either. Things could potentially get a heck of a lot worse for Tuck Carlson if these far charges end up being brought there. I guess we'll see if that transpires, folks. Much more to come. We have a lot more analysis on this and other topics on this side of a short commercial break. Josh Hammer here. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back. The Strait of Hormuz is the number one choke point when it comes to the flow of oil in the Middle East. And the Islamic Republic of Iran has something of a monopoly on the use of force, or at least they did when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. This strait is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point from this tiny tip of the Arabian peninsula, where the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, is 21 miles from that tip to Iran. And Donald Trump is now trying to get together a coalition of countries to. To essentially bring in maritime naval power to actually secure the Strait of Hormuz, to potentially try to offer safe passage for oil tankers and various other ships, both commercial and private, when it comes through that particularly crucial choke point through which roughly 20% of the world's oil supplies ends up flowing. So Donald Trump has talked to various European countries, he's talked to France, the UK he's talked to China, Japan, South Korea, the. Essentially just trying to get them to send an international coalition of countries to. To send maritime vessels to the Gulf to try to secure the Strait of Hormuz. I have not seen necessarily any kind of confirmations that that is actually happening out there, but certainly it is a very good idea at this time. The reality is that the energy markets, which, last I checked were, Were still in the triple digits. Not entirely sure exactly where it will. It will go over the next week or two. But if you really want to try to get that number down to a more sustainable level, something along the lines what Donald Trump's proposing here, I heard people refer to it as Operation Epic Escort. Operation Epic Escort to escort all these tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Something along those lines would be a very, very good idea when it comes to trying to settle the still roiling global energy markets. Meanwhile, the war across the region is still going on. So Dubai International Airport, which is the largest airport in the world, was either partially shut down or fully shut down for a brief period over the past 24 to 36 hours. It is now reopening there. But there were some incoming missile and drones from Iran. Saudi airspace recently reporting some incoming missile and drone fire as well. Meanwhile, the war on Israel's northern border between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah, which is a shell of what it was two years ago because Israel took out really most of the organization in 2024, culminating in the death of the leader of the organization, the arch terrorist Hassan Nasrallah. But Hezbollah still exists in some lesser chastened form. They've been raining down missiles and rockets into northern Israel. The IDF has. Has commenced what they're referring to as a targeted ground operation into South Lebanon. The IDF also using air power to strike terror infrastructure around Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. And speaking of Lebanon, it wasn't that long ago that we were talking here. In fact, it was just on Friday show they were talking about the horrific two terrorist attacks that took place in the United States on Thursday this past week there. So there was this former Army National Guard guy who was convicted of providing material support to ISIS who went up and tried to. Well, he actually tragically did kill one person, a former, a wonderful, wonderful Roti instructor and veteran. He killed him tragically at Odu Aldermanian University in Virginia. And then on the other hand, there was this lone wolf jihadist who decided to try to kill a bunch of Jewish preschoolers in West Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. And at the time I explained to you, we played this clip from the rabbi of this Reform congregation and I explained to you that while the general point that she was making about not trying to bring the Middle east problems here to the Jewish community at home, while the general point makes sense, I objected to what she said at the time about how we bemoan the fact that he had family who lost their lives in Lebanon. Because at the time I said, are we not, are we sure that they're not Hezbollah jihadists? That's probably why they were killed by Israel. Right? And sure enough, we now know. So the idf, these Israel Defense wars confirmed on CERN on Sunday, they literally confirmed that the brother of the lone wolf jihadist from Temple Israel in Michigan this past Thursday, the brother was indeed an anti temple tank operator in one of the militias or brigades for Hezbollah. So he was taken out earlier this month in the month of March by the IDF because he was a Hezbollah militant. So the real question, the actual question, if the media cared to actually ask the real questions here, the real question about the jihadists trying to murder 100 or more Jewish preschoolers in Michigan, the real question is why the heck did the United States bring in on a visa and then grant citizenship to and naturalize a citizen, a Hezbollah family? Why are we naturalizing Hezbos as citizens? You know, I hear all of these, these lefties people from Al Jazeera and all these various idiotic pro Qatar, pro Muslim Brotherhood pro Iran outlets who always say, and they're trying to kind of get at Israel, trying to get at support, why should we bring in the Middle east conflicts here to the United States there, these blood rivalries there. You know what? Guess what? I agree with that. Let's not bring the tribal politics of the Middle east here to the United States. The way to do that, though, is not what the Al Jazeeras say. The way to do that is to stop granting freaking citizenship and stop granting visas to people like Hezbollah family operatives. This has to be that 98.2 issue. Maybe it's 99.9 to 0.1. Who the heck wants to bring in Hezbos? It's absolutely ludicrous. It's just totally, totally insane. By the way, while this is all going on, while we're getting domestic terror threats, there are now been four radical Islamic terrorist attacks here on American soil just since the commencement of Operation of Epic Fury. There was the Austin, Texas shooter, the guy who was born in Senegal, we're in the property of Allah shirts. There was the attempted donation of what is known as the Mother of Satan IED bomb outside Gracie Mansion in New York City. Then there were the two attacks last Thursday that I mentioned there. So at the time that all this is going on there, DHS remains shut down. Lest you have forgotten, DHS is currently still in a state of partial shutdown. So I'm hearing a lot of Democrats who are criticizing President Trump when it comes to the Iran war. They're saying, oh, this could be an interminable conflict. It could be. It could be a forever war. Does this president actually care about homeland security? Does he actually care about national security? Does he actually care about foreign policy? Does he actually care about this, about that there? Who are you guys to take a moral high ground when you can't even fund the Department of Homeland Security to do, oh, I don't know, to try to do homeland security at a time when lone wolf jihadis are on the march and America is at war with the world's number one state sponsored jihad overseas strikes me as a mighty date. Darn good time to fully fund the United States Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, airport lines are increasingly out of control. So TSA employees are now considered essential employees there and they must continue working without a paycheck. But they have now missed their first official paycheck since the partial DHS shutdown. Again, all sorts of data coming in about the average wait times at major airports all across the country. Places like Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas have been hit just extraordinarily hard. I will be flying out myself in just over a week to go to Texas to speak at cpac. I hope that my travel experience is not completely destroyed by this. I guess I will have to get the airport early. Like countless Americans all throughout the country, there's Democrats just playing politics. Not just when it comes to your airport convenience, also when it comes to your security. But on the airport front, the CEOs of a bunch of the nation's top airline companies, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue are now signed, they've signed a joint letter to Congress essentially imploring Congress to restore full funding to the Department of Homeland Security. The the big major domestic issue that the Congress will face this week in addition to DHS funding, is whether or not, whether or not John Thune, the majority leader of Senate, actually decides to try to force Democrats to do this talking filibuster. When it comes to the Save America act, which we discussed at great length on the show last week, this is the pro voter ID proof of citizenship, really a no brainer piece of legislation that Donald Trump is trying to get past. He's saying that it is the number one priority. He will not consider any other legislation unless and until it's passed. There the ball is at this time in John Thune's court and he has run out of excuses. There are two ways, two ways to end or the two ways to get a bill ultimately to a state of final vote to invoke cloture. The first Is to get 60 votes and therefore bypass a procedural filibuster. The other way, which as we explained on the show, goes back to the origins of the United States Senate internal procedure rules. The second way is to simply make the opposition party just talk and just talk and talk and talk their butt off until they can't talk anymore and at some point they give up. That's the other legitimate way and has been for decades to actually get a bill passed. So John Thune has run out of excuses and hopefully this ends up getting past asap. The final thing, and we'll have to continue this on the show this week There big stuff happening in Cuba right across the Strait of Florida, frankly from where I live in South Florida. The Cuban government confirming that they are in very, very beginning talks when it comes to attempts to possibly normalize relations with the United States. They are. Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel as well as Raul Castro, the 94 year old brother of the late horrific tyrant Fidel Castro, have said that they are in early talks with the Trump administration. Really, really, really, really exciting stuff there. We'll see what Donald Trump does on there. He's got a lot going on for now on the world stage elsewhere, ships continuing to go to the Middle east there. How will he address the Cuban situation? Well, that is one of many questions we will spend the rest of our week addressing right here on the Josh Hammer show, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off. We'll be right back to.