← The Josh Hammer Show
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What's up foos? Main event Jey USO here from the wwe. When it's just me between matches it's day one ish. And that means it's Chumba time. With hundreds of casino style games and new titles arriving weekly, there's always something fresh to try at Chumba Casino. The daily boost make it even more fun and have me bout to get em all during my downtime. Ready for a fun way to chill out and enjoy a few minutes for yourself? Let's Chumba. No purchase necessary VGW Group voidware prohibited by law CTs and Cs 21 sponsored by Chumba Casino the DSA is the beating heart of the Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party itself is going, well, it seems bankrupt. What does that say about the dsa? And most important was to say for all of us in these United States, I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. So for some weeks now we have been pounding this message that the dsa, the Democratic Socials of America, they are having a moment. Heck, they're actually really having a full on campaign season. This goes back at least as far as the Zorin Mamdani endorsed candidates in New York City winning their various Congressional primaries within the Democratic Party, happening in the month of June. And then it was actually not just New York City. We saw another DSA endorsed backed lunatic out in Colorado, formerly a purple ish state. She attained victory in her primary as well. And as of the time that we are now having this conversation, the DSA has reached its apex. It is now reaching a number of 100, 120,000 total members. So the DSA, which in its really really really early incipient fashion first came onto the political scene again. It was just a fart in the middle of the ocean. It was nothing. This happened back in the early 1980s. It really started to galvanize in the post Barack Obama era, ultimately in the post Women's March era of Donald Trump and really really really picking up steam after the death of St. George Floyd, our great martyr in 2020 and the great racial reckoning and all the various woke maladies that continue up to the present day. Mamdani is king of the dsa. There is very little doubt in that mime. But the dsa, we talk about it because these people are freaking nuts. I need you to understand a very simple point. These people don't want to help the United States. They do not swear an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. So help me God. Which is the actual oath that all public officers at a federal and state level alike actually have to put their hand on the Bible and then raise their hand and actually say that they don't want to do that because they want to burn the whole thing down. How any DSA candidate can actually take that oath in good faith, in good conscience actually, frankly, is a bewildering question. I do not know the answer to that rather puzzling riddle. And lest you just take it from me, you had a representative from the Democratic Social of America who just unveiled this new platform a few weeks ago. You had a representative from the DSA who was on TV on Sunday, was joining Shannon Bream on Fox News. So straight from the horse's mouth. Do you believe this? Do you believe that? Do you this, this clips are going viral for very, very good reasons, in case you haven't seen. We're going to play for now, here was Shannon Bream interviewing a representative of the DSA and Fox News on Sunday. Okay, so we're going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate. True. Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them. Yep. Abolish ice. Absolutely. Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US Illegally as a long term plan. Yep. Defund the Pentagon. Absolutely. Abolish prisons, at least in large part. Yeah. Again, as part of a long term program. Yeah.
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So no prisons, government or public ownership of most large corporations. Yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah, Absolutely. We're going to abolish prisons. Oh yeah, Absolutely. We're going to have public ownership of all of America's corporations. What could possibly go wrong? You might want to check out those bread lines in Moscow circa 1963. To have just a faint, faint inkling as what could possibly go wrong with seizing the means of production and central planning for all things economic. No borders. John Lennon. Imagine Pass the peace pipe again if this were confined to the stupid 19 year old college freshman who smoked a little too much weed and was just pontificating to his college dormmates at 3 in the morning. Oh yeah, bro. Karl Marx. Cool. Yeah, burn it down, bro. You know, if that were the level of this conversation was happening, then fine. No one would care. And rightfully so. The key point is this. It is not happening just at that level. The mayor of the nation's largest city is the most emblematic of all of those who are in the dsa. He came up through the ranks of the dsa. He is a product of the post, Donald Trump post Women's March era, 2016 and beyond DSA. Now, one of the things that Shannon Breen didn't mention in that clip, and it's not Shannon's fault, to be clear, you could talk for hours about how crazy these people are. Abolished the Senate, abolished Supreme court, Puerto Rico, D.C. statehood. I mean, abolished the Electoral College. They hate the Constitution. They hate it, they hate it, they hate it. What do they also hate? They hate the Bible, they hate Jews, they hate Christians, and they really, really, really hate Israel. In case that is not just abidingly obvious. Mamzani, of course, again is the singular spokesman for his position. Just last week he had this very eerie video shot, presumably on New York City taxpayers dime. Why New York City taxpayers are paying for a mayor to talk about a foreign policy issue that he has absolutely no jurisdiction or really anything in his job description to even talk about. That's another matter neither here nor there. But as we said in the show last week, Mamdani issued a blood libel in calling Netanyahu a war criminal in a video that due to the obscenely biased X algorithms, was shared hundreds of thousands, millions of times, generated tens and tens and millions, maybe 100 million impressions. Then tragically, there was blood spilled when a mentally deranged man yelled all who Akbar and stabbed two people, one of whom was visibly Jewish on Tishbah, the Jewish day of mourning. So Bibi Netanyahu is actually he flew to the United States today. He's meeting with Donald Trump tomorrow for a meeting and also to attend the funeral for Lindsey Graham, which will be tomorrow in the National Cathedral in the nation's capital. And Netanyahu joined before he took off for the United States. He joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox News on Sunday to talking about Mamdani and the DSA and just the surge of anti Semitism and ultimately really what anti Semitism in this case is a leading indicator of which is anti Americanism and anti Westernism. So here was Maria Barome on Fox News on Sunday. I do think the Jews feel very uncomfortable because I speak to quite a lot of my friends and they say, look, it's like a different world. We were afraid to go into the streets. We certainly do not want to wear yarmulkers or any, any clothing that would give away that we're Jews. But yes, they feel frightened. And I think that's part of this incitement language that is sweeping a Lot of circles with anti Semitism, a lot of circles in the west, in the United States and unbelievably in New York City which has the second largest Jewish population in the world after Israel. And, and I think it's wrong. The whole thing is wrong. The key points zooming out a little bit and getting away from the weeds is this. I think a lot of folks struggle with how to define their politics. Conservative is a term that I happen to like. I very much am a philosophical conservative. I believe what Edmund Burke wrote about and Reflections in Revolution in France when it comes to preserving the good life. And I fundamentally believe that good things are easily broken. The good things are not easily built. Therefore, there is wisdom embodied in tradition and there is the importance for the virtue of gratitude, gratitude and being grateful for the intergenerational transmission of one's inheritance and way of life and belief. I believe all the things, in other words, that conservatives really earnestly, truly believe. However, I think that it is a bit of a, bit of a complex term for some people on the right today. And I'm making a broader point here. The point is this. I think a lot of folks struggle with how to think of themselves and how to think of their politics. I think an easier way to think of your politics if you are on the broader right side, the sane side, is that you are on the side of civilization and not the side of barbarism. Really, that is a much simpler and perhaps even more elegant way to think about this. Listen to what these folks in the DSA are saying. They are on the side of barbarism. This is the column that I wrote on Friday. It's actually appeared in the New York Post earlier today. The DSA stance on abolishing prisons, on abolishing ice, abolishing borders, on standing with criminals over the victims of crime and standing with illegal aliens over all of those who are victimized by illegal alien crime or frankly just by legal aliens more generally. Whether it's even something as seemingly small as being undercounted in the census due to illegal aliens being counted in the census. They stand fundamentally for barbarism over civilization. That's what they're standing for. That is the ultimate divide in our politics today. And there are some folks on the so called right who are essentially making like minded cause with Team Barbarism and find themselves standing, falling over backwards sycophant in themselves. For Russia, for China, for Iran, for all, for all the various horrific actors in Team Barbarism. But civilization is good. Civilization is a good thing. Once upon a time, the Democratic Party pretended to care about civilization. You can go back and look at those, those grainy old speeches. Jfk, the height of the Cold War. John Kennedy, whatever your misgivings may or may not have been about his policies and his personal foibles, his flander and all that, he was someone who fundamentally loved his country. He was. John F. Kennedy loved his country. Democrats of a bygone era loved their country. Can you honestly say the same thing today? The answer is no. It started to change with Barack Obama, as much of our current politics did. He was a game changer in the longer view of American history and American politics. When you fundamentally wish to transform America, as Barack Obama infamously vowed that he would do on the precipice of the election, what you are saying is that you want to transform because it stinks. You seek to incrementally reform that which is still good but can be improved. You don't seek to fundamentally transform that which you think is good. You want to transform that which you hate, that which you think deserves to rot in the ash sheep of history. There's so much room here for politicians, officials on the right to go all in. The Republican National Committee is sitting on a 130 plus million dollar war chest. The NRIC, the NRCC, they're all flowing with cash right now. Make this argument head on. Make the argument for civilization over barbarism. There are no greater stakes in our global politics than that. None. That's the fault line, folks. Nationalism versus globalism. All of these various proxy debates are ultimately, ultimately a substitute for the grand debate of them all. It's civilization versus barbarism that's the debate. Let's have it on those terms. May we please, folks? We go to a quick break. We'll be right back with more.
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Welcome back. So civilization versus barbarism. Those are the stakes as we just outlined. And if you really want to call what's motivating the DSA one thing in addition to barbarism, the term that's being floated around that I happen to like a lot as well is Third Worldism. This is trying to bring all of the downsides of the Third World and trying to mainstream it into the blood veins, inject into the veins, as they say, of the American political and cultural ecosystem. It is flaming garbage and it deserves to go nowhere other than the sewer. Now, I mentioned before the break that the current piggy bank, the current bank account for the Republican National Committee, sits a little north of $130 million. That's a lot of cash. How is the DNC doing? Well, the DNC, as they have their Maoist struggle session trying to deal with the civilizational insurrectionists and national anarchists of the dsa, the DNC is having all sorts of financial woes. Surprise, surprise. Right now, they not only are not sitting on a rainy day fund, they're actually a few million dollars in debt. They're in the red. The New York Times has been reporting on a, quote, severe financial distress and internal chaos at the dnc. This is how bad it is. The Times continues, quote, leaders are delaying vendor bills until after the midterms. And chair Ken Martin, who's the chair of dnc, Ken Martin, he threw a phone at a junior aide in frustration. This is all part of a new New York Times report. Quote, amid weeks from over 24 insiders, the debt ridden DNC cannot provide funds to congressional campaigns. Contrasting sharply with Republicans robust finances, the DNC is facing a financial strain and leadership turmoil, the insider says, beginning to undermine its ability to compete. This is how bad it is. So this is a different report, not just the Times, but the website. Notice, it's kind of like play on scotus stands for News the United States Notice reports. And it's hard not to snicker at this one. The dnc, the Democratic National Committee, put its physical headquarters up for collateral, as collateral to obtain a $15 million line of credit to help invest in off year elections. So they didn't have any other assets, any other collateral to take out this $15 million line of credit with the bank. Therefore they put up their physical headquarters like their actual building, the property in the nation's capital in Washington D.C. this while the chair of the DNC, Ken Martin, who is a generic looking white dude, probably hates the DSA deep down, if I had to guess, he can't say that publicly because that's the party he's throwing foam in a junior aide. It sounds like an absolute disaster. It sounds like an absolute five alarm fire, batcrap, crazy poop show. Because these people, the few remain who have any iota, any morsel of not even decency or morality but just sanity, just non stupidity of basic sanity, who haven't lost their everlasting minds, whose wits are not just melting on the floor in front of them, they're probably freaking out and who can possibly blame them? The polls show that more Democrats by a whopping margin approve of socialism over capitalism. You have people like Abdul El Sayed, who is a Hezbollah sycophant who calls for all the various things the far left calls for when it comes to borders and health care and this and that. There he is in contention to win the Democratic primary for U.S. senate in the state of Michigan. It's currently trailing in the polls, but it's pretty close. Again those who have any wits about them are trying to prevent this. Gretchen Whitmer, who is the incumbent governor of Michigan while she put her thumb on the scale and endorsed Abdul EL Said's rival Haley Stevens, who is the establishment pick now Bernie Sanders. For what it's worth, Bernie Sanders was kind of the, the OG DSA guy before Zormadani really rose to fame, I guess you might say back as Norman Donnie was in diapers or frankly before he was even born. Bernie Sanders reputation has taken a bit of a hit recently for among other reasons that that he was the guy endorsing Graham Platner. Now Graham Platner story we have covered at great length here on the show. We're not going to revisit it. Grant Planner is the most scandal plagued major candidate for high political office in recent American history. A guy who had at least 5 to 10, 15 different reasons that he never should have been the nominee in the first place and then should have bowed out. Democrats should have shunted him aside, kicked him out there. They didn't do any of those things until it was politically convenient to do so. Bernie Sanders was asked over the weekend, he was asked On CBS News, Face the Nation, I believe it was. As to whether or not he has any regrets for standing by Graham Platner to the bitter end. And amazingly, Bernie Sanders said. Now, here was that clip from Sunday. You were an early supporter in Maine of Graham Platner. You helped him rise. Do you regret not acting earlier to call for him to drop out? Given the warning signs, would that have. No. Given you a leg up here with Jackson? No, I don't think so. When we heard the serious allegations made against them, I wanted to get on the phone, I wanted to talk to him. I did. I asked, along with virtually all his supporters are that he should get out of the race. And he did. Okay. So no regrets. No regrets. No regrets about supporting the dude with the Nazi tattoo, no regrets about supporting the guy who called himself an oysterman when it turns out that he was actually just getting oysters off of this private island owned by his friend for a clientele of exactly one restaurant owned by his mommy, his mother, if memory serves. Guy was the biggest fraud of all. Frauds and a loathsome individual. A rapist. Allegedly. Allegedly. But seems like he probably did it. You know, Bernie Sanders is a guy who, at the very height of the Cold War, lest you forget, Bernie Sanders flew behind the Iron Curtain to honeymoon. Honeymoon in the Soviet Union. That's not an exaggeration. Dude literally honeymooned in the Soviet Union at the very height of the Cold War. Back then, Bernie was trying to subvert the west, to subvert America with communism, with the hammer and sickle. And for the most part, he's still doing that today. But apparently he is so thoroughly and comprehensively anti west, anti America, that he will try to subvert it by any ecumenical means necessary, whether that's Communism, whether that's the SS Totenkamp, so it's Nazism, or perhaps whether it's radical Islam. That's why he's shilling for people like Abdul Syed in Michigan. That's why we had on the show last week Joel Rubin, Bernie Sanders 2020 Jewish Campaign Liaison, to say that he's become one of the biggest proponents and disseminators of anti Semitism, because Bernie will do anything whatsoever to try to subvert and to burn down America. Now, amidst all this, the Democrats had to go back the drawing board when it comes to how they plan their nominating calendar. So for really my entire adult's lifetime, for as long as I've been following politics, both parties have had not identical nominating calendar, but a similar nominating calendar. It usually Starts with the Iowa caucuses, then you go to the New Hampshire primary and then South Carolina and Nevada are two of the next two states and ultimately get build up towards Super Tuesday in late February, early March. A lot of Southern states. So that's going to change in 2028. Republicans are set to, for now at least to stick with the current calendar. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, probably the first four. We now have confirmation that Democrats are mixing it up. So the dates for 2020 for the Democratic presidential primary for president, it will be January 22nd. The first nation will be South Carolina. Second will be Nevada third, New Hampshire fourth, New Mexico fifth, Michigan sixth, Virginia, South Carolina, traditionally pro Democrats was the state that chose the nominee after Iowa and New Hampshire split. South Carolina has a very large black population within its registered Democratic voters. So the fact that South Carolina will lead is definitely throwing a stop to black activists within the Democratic Party. State number two was Nevada. That's throwing a SOP to Hispanics. New Hampshire's third. That's a very white state. But historic reasons. New Hampshire is known as the first primary in the country. Michigan's fifth. Well, that's fascinating. That looks like they're throwing a bone to Dearborn, otherwise known as Little Hezbollah, has little Beirut right here in the United States happening in Michigan. So that's number five, Democrats throwing a bone to Michigan. Do you see the trend? All signs pointing towards ever more radicalism from this party. The DSA is not going anywhere. The percentage of registered Democrats who say that they have a favorable impression of the DSA is well north of 50%. It's between 60 and 70% in most public polling. They ask this question than I have seen. So they are commanding majority sentiments, majority sympathy from the broader part of the Democratic Party. The intellectual momentum is a thousand percent on their side when it comes to socialism over capitalism, open borders, Islam over the Judeo Christian biblical tradition, and so forth and so forth. They are picking their lot. The establishments will not be able to stop this tidal wave. Unfortunately for Democrats, the DSA might take down the entire DNC with it. We'll have to see how that goes. We'll go to a quick break folks. We'll be right back with more. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest here. And if you're looking for some serious fun, head over to chumbacasino.com@chumba casino. You can play all your favorite social casino style games for free anytime, anywhere. It's the most fun you can have on your phone or computer. No purchase necessary. BGW Group void. We're prohibited by laws. E terms and conditions. 21. Welcome back. So while the DNC is burning down, and while they are putting up their headquarters as collateral for a debt, and while they are throwing phones at junior aides. Look, I, I should be laughing, but, you know, schadenfreude is a real thing. In case you don't know the German loadworm, schadenfreude basically means that you have pleasure or happiness or joy when others are suffering. It's not a particularly noble or dignified trait, but it is a real thing. It's one of those words that really can only be coined in a different language. In this case, German. That's why we adopted it wholesale. It's hard to not have a little Schoen Freud of the situation in which Democrats find themselves. But here on the home front, Republicans definitely have some of their own problems as well. So first and foremost, when it comes to problems facing the Republican Party, at least from Donald Trump's perspective, is election integrity and is this debate over what to do about the Save America Act. So about a week and a half ago now, I believe it was, Donald Trump had a national address where he declassified for the first time lots of information about the various ways which the Chinese Communist Party has stolen voter data and has tried to interfere. And we don't, we don't even really know the extent to which they have successfully done so in our elections. We also now know, courtesy of the blue state of New Jersey and its Democrat governor, Mikey Sherrill, we now know that there are 6,600 voters illegally on the voter rolls, whether they are illegal aliens or folks here who want a temporary visa, who just shouldn't be there, folks who are there on the voter rolls illegitimately in New Jersey, nearly 7,000 of them, 400 of whom we know have voted. Even Hakeem Jeffries over the weekend actually acknowledged. Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of House Democrats, actually acknowledge that it's not that voter fraud or electoral fraud never happens. Rather, he said it's a, it's, it's, it's a small problem, minor problem. Well, then why did the governor of a fairly major blue state, New Jersey, just talk about it and. Okay, I. But Trump really wants his major voter integrity election integrity bill, the Save America act, to pass. And who can blame him? These are broadly popular issues. Voter id, proof of citizenship. These are popular issues for the American people. Now, just last week, House Republicans got over what is being referred to in Beltway speak as reconciliation 3.0 over to the House. Reconciliation is a mechanism which you likely know if you're a long time listener show, that allows the Senate to pass a bill with a 50 plus 1 majority. In other words, it allows you to get around a filibuster from the minority as long as it has the effect of reducing the budget deficit and manages to get around all the various abstruse in the weeds details, procedural details that are established by the Senate parliamentarian, details of which are a little neither here nor there. We're going to bring on Rachel Bovard, our Senate sage, a little bit later on this week on the show. Perhaps we'll ask Rachel about that. But the the version of reconciliation 3.0 that was sent from the House to the Senate is being referred to as the skinny version because it doesn't really get into a lot of America's culture war debates. For instance, you might not realize this, but your taxpayer dollars are now funding Planned Parenthood again, a major loss for Capitol Hill Republicans. They have not been able to get this stop. So in the one big beautiful bill act that passed last summer, we got a huge victory on that front. We were able to defund Planned Parenthood. And now, unfortunately, that defunding has lapsed. We are now back to funding Planned Parenth started. That's not in Reconciliation 3.0, as is currently facing Jonathan's desk. What is facing Jonathan's desk is a skinny version, so to speak, of reconciliation 3.0 that includes the Save America act and that includes above all the voter ID and the proof of citizenship requirements, respectively. What will he do? Well, Donald Trump just this morning on Truth Social said, quote, john Thune should not allow the United States Senate to leave town until the Save America act passes, or far better still, until he terminates the filibuster where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of. So Trump reiterating it again to pass this bill even over the August recess, if need be, hold the Senate in session and calling, that is Donald Trump, to eliminate the filibuster. I have mixed thoughts on the filibuster. I think a lot of folks probably have mixed thoughts on the filibuster. In theory, the filibuster is a good thing, but that assumes that we have a properly functioning Senate. It assumes we have a properly functioning American political system, that we have properly functioning major political parties. It seems like we are in a race to the bottom, so to speak, when it comes to all of the old norms that seem to hold Washington, D.C. together. And to paraphrase one of my Old favorite terms is really no valor in so called principled loserdom and going down in flames and losing with your principles, holding them as sacrosanct. There's no honor in losing, albeit in quote unquote principled fashion. So if you assume the Democrats will just nuke the filibuster, which I think is a reasonably safe assumption, then the argument for nuking it now starts to really become quite a bit stronger. I'm something of a, a sentimentalist I guess you might say, when it comes to the counter majoritarian, Burkean conservative intellectual basis for the filibuster. So I'm not necessarily gung ho. Let's nuke it. My preference would be to get this bill passed in the reconciliation bill, thereby getting with the 50 plus 1 majority. If the Senate parliamentarian says no, ideally then you just fire the Senate parliamentarian. After all, you can actually just do that. There's nothing preventing this little Senate bureaucrat from just being fired by snapping one's fingers. That's right there in the Senate rules. If all else fails, then yes, I think that nuke and the filibuster very much should be under consideration. But for now, Trump calling for John Thune to pass this bill by any means necessary, including if necessary by just keeping the Senate in session through the, through the August recess. It seems to me that at this point the politics of this are really as much as possible on Republican side. After all you just had. Again, I can't get over this. Mikey Sherrill, a major Democrat state blue state governor, unveiled that hundreds of illegal aliens, 6600 non citizens on the voter rolls, 400 voting in elections. Hakeem Jeffries admitting this, that this is, this is happening. Al B. Says it's a minor deal. It's not the politics look would look pretty good on this. I'm not sure it is. It is the winning issue in the elections this November, but it's definitely a winning issue. Americans support voter ID and they do not support illegal aliens ruining the franchise. I think that really should be pretty obvious by now. Yet again, John Thune, the ball is in your court. As I saw a headline of PJ Media this morning, John Thune has now become the Democrats single greatest actor in Washington D.C. unless until he gets this bill passed, that woeful description will very much stay in place. So we should talk a little bit about the situation in Iran. So last we checked in in our tale, there were essentially two weeks running of strikes by the United States on Iran and they were the United States was taking out all sorts of assets, things from bridges and power plants to infrastructure along the coast, when it comes to missile defense, when it comes to their drone manufacturing, all things of that nature that has now been paused. So there was a meeting that has been hotly disputed. A hotly disputed meeting happened within Trump and his inner circle, his cabinet, his top advisers, happened on Friday. And the result of that meeting is that the United States has called off the strikes for now because we are giving peace another chance. We're giving talks another chance. Oman and Iran are now they control the Strait of Hormuz together. They are now in talks about trying to open back up the Strait of Hormuz. I would like to think that by now we've learned our lesson that you cannot trust these people as far as you can throw them. But apparently we have not actually learned that lesson sufficiently. All sorts of rumors and all sorts of debates about what actually happened at this meeting at the White House on Friday. So cnn, New York Times and Barack Ravid, the best source of liberal journalists in D.C. in Axios, all reporting that at this meeting, Donald Trump's top brass, including Admiral Brad Cooper, who is the commander of CENTCOM Central Command, the reporting is that Brad Cooper and the others said that we are running low on munitions, that we're actually running low on interceptors when it comes to what we shoot in the sky to prevent Iran's stupid weapons from hitting our naval vessels and our sailors, Marines and all of our assets there in the Gulf and the broader region. This was been reported across the board by cnn, the New York Times and Barack Ravid and at Axios. And apparently it was not just Admiral Cooper was also J.D. vance and others who were encouraging Donald Trump to not do this. And ultimately, as I just said, the conclusion of this is that Donald Trump has decided to hit a pause button on the war right now, reporting that his advisor said we're running low on interceptors and that we have reached the end of the effectiveness of our strikes. Therefore, we should hit a pause button. And again, that is where we are at right right now. There is a big debate as to whether or not this actually happened and whether or not these reports are accurate. For instance, Donald Trump has explicitly denied it. So what does that say? What is the purpose of this leak and how do we possibly make sense of any of this? Well, first we're going go to one final break. We'll be right back on the slide to try and make sense of all of that and more. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome Back. So, as I said before the break, Donald Trump has explicitly denied that we are running low on interceptors. So over the weekends, all the media burst out their story. Cnn, New York Times, Axios, the United States running low on interceptors. So, first of all, I think it's worth clarifying that it is explicit United States Naval policy. It is a US Navy policy. It is the law of the land, as they say, that we are literally not allowed to put our sailors and our ships out there in harm's way unless we have sufficient interceptors to protect them. So you would like to think that considering the fact that we have a lot of ships, a lot of maritime assets in the region, that we have enough interceptors. Donald Trump explicitly saying that this is not true. So this raises one of the obvious questions here, which is, who actually is leaking? Who is the one who was leaking some of these details or leaking and possibly twisting some of these details to the media? So one of the excerpts that really kind of leapt off the page to me was, here's the paragraph in question that I just haven't come back to this weekend. Quote, Vice President J.D. vance and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kaine both raised concerns about escalating the war in Iran as President Donald Trump weighed the possibility during a White House meeting. A source familiar told cnn. So Mike Duran of Hudson Institute, who we've had on the show here before, he said this quote, class, let's take a pop quiz. If the US Tells the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that the US does not have sufficient munitions to fight, then the IRGC will respond by A, surrendering, B, cutting a compromise deal with the US on the Strait of Hormuz while delivering all the, quote, nuclear dust, C, compromise on the straight, but hold onto the dust, or D, remain intransigent in all areas. And to answer the question for a quiz, the answer is obviously, D, you're telling the enemy exactly what they want to hear. So in other words, why would you do this unless your goal is for America to look humiliated? You would never leak these details unless your explicit goal is for your own country, to which you presumably swore an oath of office to, to look absolutely humiliated. What person could have that goal? Well, you might have that goal if you are so dedicated to making sure that this Iran operation is remembered as an utter complete catastrophe failure, that we never, ever, ever again strike another jihadi or engage in any kind of defensive action. If you are that, that ideologically driven for no more wars. And I can think of some offices in the United States government that might have such a view, then perhaps you might be engaged in leaking along these lines. But it's not just the fact that it's leaking. Some of this also is just apparently just incorrect information. So something here is just deeply, deeply off. A lot of this leaking, by the way, has happened since the second term came into power. So it's not been remarked upon very frequently. We've touched on a couple of times here in the show. This has been a very, very, very leaky administration, I think back to signal gate, signal gates. There were, there were a lot of leaks that time whether we should engage in strikes on the Houthis. There have been God knows, many leaks about Trump's various meetings with Netanyahu. The meeting again tomorrow, which will be a very leaky meeting tomorrow. This is a very, very leaky White House. Well, I would like to think that Donald Trump would care a little bit more about opsec, about operational security, and therefore clamping down on leaks. You would like to think that, wouldn't you? As Ben Shapiro put it on next this morning, quote, trump must track down and fire the leakers in his administration who continue to undermine his pursuit of America's interests. Even if you're just looking for a better negotiated off ramp here, leaking that America doesn't have the military arsenal to keep up the fight destroys all negotiating position. Fire the leakers. Stay. Anyone who opposes that obvious position gives away the game. It really ought to be obvious, I think. Now what are we doing here? Zooming out when it comes to the conflict? Well, for now, it seems like the game is basically done. I thought that Trump was getting back to being serious. It seemed like there were two weeks of strikes, albeit two weeks of tit for tat strikes. Trump putting on true social. Every time they strike at a ship, we will blow up in a power plant. That's not how you win wars. That's not how you win wars. I mean, has this country fundamentally forgotten, have we on the right fundamentally forgotten? One of the classic lessons from what was a fairly liberal television show for the time, the West Wing. Do you all remember that scene, Martin Sheen as President United States in season one of the West Wing, where he calls for a disproportionate response? You see, a proportionate response is what people do who are playing for a draw, playing for a settlement, playing for a truce, playing for a United nations or some other transnational boondoggle, negotiated mediation or off ramp. But if you actually want to win, if you care about victory, that's not what you do, you go for the disproportionate response. You play to win. That was our mentality in wartime not that long ago. That's what led Truman to drop the bombs on Japan. He was also trying to save American lives and he absolutely did so, unambiguously did so. Those were telling you that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a great moral tragedy. Have no moral compass themselves. Whatso freaking ever. You could interview any one of the American sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marines who would have been called into a land invasion on the Japanese mainland. When Truman called the order for Hiroshima, they probably all broke down crying in tears of joy. Why? Because they knew that they were going to survive. They knew that they were going to come home to their wives and their children. They were going to see their loved ones again. The folks who call themselves America first don't really particularly care, apparently in that case about saving American lives. And here in this case, they don't particularly care, it seems, about saving American credibility and deterrence on the world stage. It's very difficult, frankly to see how we can get it back after this. On the one hand, Khamenei is gone, the tyrant of Tehran, the butcher of Tehran for 47 years and that is a great thing. On the other hand, now, by starting this job and not finishing this job for now at least, things can always change. It is Donald Trump after all. But it looks like the IRGC is now more emboldened than ever. It looks like the regime's most radical factions are now as emboldened as ever. And it's very difficult to see how the long term problems with Iran when it comes to the nuclear issue perhaps above all, it's very difficult to see how that possibly goes away. I wish I could tell you I saw a clear resolution to get Iran to not be a nuclear country. At this point, I do not know the answer. Now, it's true they can't actually enrich right now, but we still have not hit pickaxe mountain. They still have at least half a ton of enriched uranium, highly enriched 60%. And right now, ultimately, America's enemies are emboldened on the world stage because we have by now taken some serious blows against Iran, but are not finishing the job. And by the way, it's not just our enemies, a lot of our allies are terrified as well. I was looking at a post this weekend on X to a Saudi publication from a Saudi official who was speaking anonymously because he doesn't want to ruffle feathers in his own capacity, basically saying that the Arab world is in shock at how this campaign was waged. A lot of fury at the beginning and then just trickling ultimately, ultimately, really to nothing. There are a lot of questions, and it's very, very difficult to make any sense of it right now. Right now. For now, though, I tend to agree with Mike Duran and Ben Shapiro. I think you can crack down on the leakers. If nothing else, find out who is trying to subvert the country from within. I think that'd be a fine place to start. So we'll end our show today, folks. On a lighter note, Donald Trump was at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Friday evening. It was over Shabbat, so I wasn't able to watch, but I caught some of the highlights afterwards. Whoever's writing Donald Trump's jokes for events like this really needs a pay raise because some of this material is absolute gold. Here was Donald Trump making an utterly hilarious joke that I thought was going somewhere and then went in a totally different direction. Let's go ahead and play this cut as well. Press here in one place. I have to say that we're having an amazing load of accomplishments that the media never talks about. For example, under my administration, a once feared and powerful regime that relentlessly attacked America has finally been toppled. Their former leaders have been removed, and they're now being run by a gay dictator facing internal divisions. But I, for one, wish Bari Weiss all the best at CBS News. She's a wonderful woman. Okay, that is really freaking funny. Well done. Again, whoever said that there was a pay raise. So whatever you might think of Iran, whatever, there's still some laughter to be had here, folks. You're going to miss Trump when he's gone. He is a funny, funny man. Whoever plays him RD or whatever will not have that humor. So enjoy it while you can, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off. We'll be right back. As always,