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I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. Mike Davis, the founder and president of the Article 3 project where he is my colleague. I'm senior Counselor Mike joins us later in the program for a wide ranging conversation about all things legal and judicial branch related. Pam Bondi, Supreme Court and perhaps other issues as well. We will get to all that and more with Mike Davis. For now, I want to just set the tone though, for the conversation that is shortly to follow. Our organization, which I mentioned, the Article III Project, is named after Article 3 of the Constitution. Article 3 is, as the name would imply, the third established prescribed article in the US Constitution. Article 1 establishes the Congress. Article 2 establishes the executive Branch. There's a lot of folks who say that the three branches are separate but equal. This is a term that you might have heard. It's actually, at least when it's phrased as such, it is derived from a very infamous supreme court case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, a deeply racist case that was overturned by Brown versus Board of Education. But some variant of that nomenclature, that the branches are different but co equal tends to pervade throughout much of legal, political, and indeed popular and civic culture. I have always objected to strongly to this notion that the three branches of the federal government are indeed co equal. I have instead argued for many years now that the three branches were actually written, that they were actually codified by the Constitution's Framers in order of intended power. Arguably, arguably, one might say, in order of intended supremacy. Recall that the American founding was in many ways it was novel, it was genuine. It was this incredible not just once generation, once a century, once a millennium, heck, maybe even once in human history. Once in human history. Just unique intellectual medley of all these men from varying walks of life who had all these rich influences and traditions that they brought with them there. Some were deeply inspired. Many in fact, were deeply inspired by the Bible, by Scripture. Some were deeply inspired by the English common law. Some were inspired by the natural law tradition, by the Roman law, continental European philosophy, Greek philosophy, Aristotle, but at a legal and literal basis. Let's not forget that America really was downstream of England of the long standing English legal tradition. Now, again, we broke with them in many crucial ways, but we also adopted the English common law at the time of the American founding. And today the English common law is actually the law of the land, as they say in 49 of the 50 states. When it comes to things like torts and property law and contract law, the common law is still binding in state courts in every state. Other than Louisiana, which is an exception, an outlier. They inherited French legal theory and continental European philosophy. That's neither here nor there for present purposes. The point is that, yes, America was. Was in many ways deeply unique, but in many ways it was deeply inspired by. By England, by. By the common law. And England had a system of parliamentary supremacy for a very long time. So that is sitting there the. In this argument that Article 1, the Congress, United States, was actually intended many ways to be the most powerful branch. And sure enough, the framers, when they were at their best, actually went ahead and really just said it. James Madison, for instance, one of the leading founders and the draftsman of many of the most influential and often quoted Federalist Papers, often says that in lowercase r, Republican affairs. He wrote, the legislature is often. Is apt to dominate, and dominate they often did, perhaps less so after Woodrow Wilson and the advent of the modern executive branch. But nonetheless, the Congress was always intended to be the most powerful. And in many ways, at least in theory, if Congress seeks to exert its muscles and influence, could one day be made great again and become the most powerful branch again, if they so chose. They have not so chosen, at least in over a century, since the Woodrow Wilson presidency in. In the World War I era and the rise of the modern administrative state. Article 3, which is the judiciary, by contrast, is the least dangerous, is the least dangerous of the three branches of the Constitution. Article 3. We know that because, well, among other places, they actually say it. So. Alexander Hamilton, speaking of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton actually wrote, he wrote in federalist number 78, that the judiciary is the least dangerous of the three branches of the federal government because it has neither force nor will, but merely judgment. It must depend upon the efficacy of the executive branch, even for the enforcement of its own judgments or rulings. What he meant by that is that a court can actually only issue an opinion, and it's called an opinion because it's literally an opinion. It is the opinion of the court in all parties other than the named parties to the suit. It is their opinion that this should be the proper interpretation. But strictly speaking, it's not actually binding for anyone other than the named litigants to. To that lawsuit. The power to bind the named parties to a suit is the judicial power of which Article 3 of the Constitution speaks. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, was known and repeatedly publicly did interpret the Constitution in a manner so as to give the other constitutional branches, Article I, the Congress, and Article 2, the executive branch, the equal power to interpret and to enforce the Constitution as appropriate. Within their own legitimate spheres of influence, which when it comes to active case or controversies, would refer to all cases other than ones involving the named litigants to that lawsuit. So I've got a lot more to say on this. I'm going to bring it home for some contemporary affairs here when it comes to birthright citizenship, when it comes to Pan Bondi. But for now, folks, just a quick word from our sponsor, which today is Angel Studios. You know, I recently joined the Angel Guild myself and I watched their amazing documentary Death of Recess. I didn't really know what to expect, honestly, but I watched this and let me tell you, it was a really, really powerful experience. This is a wonderful documentary about how teachers unions, organizations such as the NEA have achieved perhaps even insurmountable power when it comes to the ability to dictate what happens in the classroom and to steer the classroom in a manner that redounds to the interest not of the children themselves, but to the teachers. Trust me, folks, I come from a lineage of teachers. My great grandmother was a teacher, my grandmother's teacher. My mother was a teacher. I would hurt, I would hear my mother complain about this all the time. The teachers unions ultimately must be stopped. But frankly, this current result is what happens when institutions protect themselves instead of children. Exactly why platforms like Angel Studios matter because they're willing to tell stories that others won't. So you can go to angel.com hammer to join the Angel Guild and watch Death of Recess right now, the new Angel Studios documentary. Again, folks, that's Angel.com/Join the Angel Guild, watch Death of Recess. If you care about the future of your children, which you clearly should, then this is absolutely, absolutely essential viewing. So this notion of Article 3, the judicial branch being the least dangerous of the three branches, is not just a theoretical abstraction, is actually deeply relevant. So one thing that we're going to talk about with our guest Mike Davis is the argument that happened at the US Supreme Court just last Wednesday. So you had the Trump versus Barbara litigation. This is litigation pertaining to the proper meaning, which people like me would say means the original meaning, the original public meaning of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, a clause that says that everyone who is born here and is subject to the jurisdiction here is a citizen of the state and a citizen of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. We've done a deep dive legal analysis on the debate surrounding what is specifically subject to the jurisdiction thereof, meaning, and we're not necessarily going to rehash some of the originalist arguments when it comes to the arguments that John Sauer, the Solicitor General of the United States and Trump administration are making when it comes to their correct reading of the Amendment, I think that Mike will be able to do that as well. For now, I want to just establish the following. Judges ought to be humble. Article 3 must be humble. This is implicit in the notion they are the least dangerous of the three branches. It's implicit in the notion that their finest product is not a law that's for Congress or even an executive order or a treaty signed. Things that Article 2, the executive branch deals with. No, the foremost product of Hamilton's Beast Dangerous Branch, aka Article 3, is, as we said, an opinion. They can do no more than fundamentally issue an opinion and when they issue an opinion, as we also already said, only binds the parties to the suit. Now, when it comes to this birthright decision case, there are a lot of folks saying that, oh goodness gracious, the court is bound by their previous decisions on this. They have long decided this answer here. Well, no they actually have not. They actually didn't. In the 1898 case, Wong Kim Ark, the court only ruled. They ruled incorrectly, but they only ruled as to what the fourth Amendment says about birthright citizenship for children of domiciles of permanent residents. People here on green cards, they said nothing. People here on short term visas, tourist visa, student visa, let alone illegal aliens, nothing. They dropped a footnote in 1982 case called Plyler vs Doe, a non binding footnote 84 years later saying oh yeah, that totally applied to the children of illegal aliens to anchor babies. Except it doesn't. It didn't. It's an incorrect interpretation of the law. And the proper humble conception of Article 3 Judicial power should be to recognize that where you did not rule clearly and cleanly, you are not bound. That it is a clean slate and that you can go ahead. Indeed, you must go ahead. Indeed. That oath you took to defending the Constitution. That oath requires you to go ahead with the most authentic reading possible. The reading that will bring the original public meaning and the original understanding of the words that were ratified in the amendment to life. Unfortunately, one of the reasons why this is unlikely to happen is because Republican Party judicial nominations politics have been self defeating for decades and decades and decades. Many of the worst jurists of the past 67 years, people like Harry Blackmun who gave us Roe versus Wade, people like David Souter, infamously from George H.W. bush, too many to count, have been given to us from Republican Presidents. I have spilled countless ink on this topic over the years and spent countless hours talking about. At some point you would like to think that Republicans would start to get a little better when it comes to nominating judges and justices who actually faithfully interpret the Constitution and not care about other concerns about the politics, the optics, the Georgetown cocktail party circuit, things like that. Unfortunately, based on what we heard at ordinance last week, I fear that day is not going to be today. Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account. While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little known investment. Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade.
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It wasn't even insider knowledge.
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It was an account that's been around since 1888. And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts paying less than half a percent while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early banks are great businesses,
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just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some
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investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com that's secretaccount the numbers29.com secretaccount29.com so rejoining the program now to help us unpack all of these thorny legal and judicial issues is none other than the Viceroy himself. That is Mike Davis. Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article 3 project where he is my colleague. Go ahead and check out our work@article3project.org so Mike, really appreciate you making time out of your busy schedule as always to join the Josh Hammer Show. There's a lot to unpack when it comes to Department of Justice, when it comes to the Supreme Court, when it comes to midterm elections, the war in Iran and wanting to I really want to get into all of it, frankly with you, but let's start with a top of mind legal issue. So this is one week today you and I are talking after the Supreme Court oral argument in the birthright citizenship case, Trump versus Barbara. Before I prejudice the conversation further, I kind of want to just get your assessments as to how the oral argument went. This is an issue that Donald Trump cares a lot about. He's been very consistent, very passionate, frankly, on this issue. The notion of trying to limit birth citizenship when it comes to Anchor babies, the children of legal aliens. He cares a lot about this, as he should. It's a very important issue there. What do you make of the argument? How do you think, how do you think it went and how do you think it's going to go?
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This is a very simple legal case. If the Supreme Court justices have the courage to follow the plain text textualism and the original public meaning originalism of the 14th Amendment and they should rule for President Trump if they actually follow the law. Unfortunately, Josh, as we both know, there is this thing called politics. And while these justices have lifetime tenure and they have pay protection to insulate them from the politics, I don't think that's going to happen in this particular case. This case is so easy. After the Civil War, we enacted the 13th amendment to outlaw slavery, the 14th amendment to provide due process and equal protection to the freed slaves, and the 15th Amendment to provide voting rights to the freed male slaves. That was extended to all women with the 19th amendment as part of the 14th amendment. We had the Dred Scott decision after the Civil War where the Supreme Court essentially held that the children of the freed slaves are not American citizens. And, and so the ratifiers, the proponents and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment fix that grave injustice with the birthright citizenship provision, the clause of the 14th Amendment. And what that clause says is that essentially that people both born in the United States and subject to our jurisdiction have birthright citizenship. And it's that latter part subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, which is so critically important. That means under Supreme Court precedents that you have loyalty to the United States. So if you are a foreign ambassador's kid born in the United States, you're born here. So you would satisfy the first prong of the 14th amendment, but you wouldn't satisfy subject to the jurisdiction of because you're not loyal to the United States. So ambassadors kids are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Invading armies are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. American Indians, as we both know, Josh, were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Congress had to change that through statutes. So ask this dispositive question of these people who auditioned as textualist and originalists to get onto the Supreme Court. If American Indians do not have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, how the hell would illegal aliens, how the hell would 1.5 million Chinese birth tourist kids have subject how would they have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment to the United States? And the answer is crystal clear. They don't. And they Don't. If the justice is simply follow the plain text, the original public meaning and the 150 years of precedent since then.
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Mike Davis, aka the Vice work can be followed on XRDdmia. Follow our work on the Internet as well at oracle3project.org Mike is the founder and president. I am senior counsel at that wonderful organization. So, Mike, you know, I've been saying this issue for a very long time, actually. And when I first started looking at this when I was in law school, I thought it was a close call. And as I started to read more and more into my adult years, I guess let's say I became convinced like you, that this is actually not a particularly difficult issue when you actually just look at what was happening around the time of the 14th Amendment's ratification. And you know, one obvious way to indicate this is what you said, which is that American Indians, we know by definition they were not included in the original language. For better or for worse, that is a policy judgment that Congress alone can make. But we know that they were not included because Congress passed a statute during the Calvin Queen Coolidge presidency in 1924. Was that 56 years after the Fourth Amendment was ratified in order to extend this birthright citizenship to the children of American Indians. So to your point, how in the world could the children of illegal aliens, these anchor babies, be included? It makes no sense whatsoever. And I guess that all then takes us to another point here, which is this is as easy as ultimately I believe it is and you believe it is there. What does it say about the state of Republican judicial nominations that it looks like, and we're, I think you and I both predicting that this case is unfortunately going to come out on the wrong side here. I mean, I've been predicting for a long time this is likely a 7:2 decision with Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito. Hopefully it's better than that. There again, I hope I'm wrong very much hope I'm wrong there. But what does it say about how we've been doing when it comes to
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judicial nominations, that we just need to burn down the judiciary and start from scratch politically? Figuratively not actually, but it's just, it's actually shameful if we have Republican appointed Supreme Court justices who think they can hand out citizenship like they are handing out candy at a circus. It's not how our sovereignty works in America. In Great Britain, sovereignty flows from God to the king or queen and then sovereignty is handed out like crumbs to the king or queen subjects through documents like the Magna Carta In America, it is radically different. We the People are the sovereign citizens of America. We're not subjects. Right and sovereignty flows from God to We the people as the sovereign citizens of America. And we loan power to our governments through a loan agreement called the U.S. constitution. And for that U.S. constitution, we divide that power between. We give specific, enumerated, limited power to the federal governments. And then we divide that limited, specific, enumerated power between Congress, which writes the laws, the Executive Branch, which enforces the laws, and the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, which has a modest but crucial role, which is to decide cases and controversies of the parties properly before them with redressible claims, nothing more, nothing less. All of their power belongs to the states and we the people, as confirmed by the 10th amendment. If you look at our immigration laws, those are decided by Congress. And our most crucial sovereign power as we the People is to decide our populace, is to control our borders and decide who comes and goes, who gets to be our fellow citizens. We never gave away that most crucial sovereign power, not at our founding, in the enactment of the fifth Amendment, not after the Civil War with the enactment of the 14th Amendment, certainly not in any Congress since then. If we the People want to give citizenship to 1.5 million Chinese nationals who live in Beijing but happen to be born in America through birth tourism, and we want them to send in votes, mail in votes from Beijing for AOC in our next election, we can decide to do that as we the People. We can give them citizenship just like we gave citizenship to American Indians in 1924. But nine justices on the Supreme Court don't have that power. And we never gave them that power, certainly not after the Civil War when we gave birthright citizenship to the children of the freed slaves, in no way, shape or form did we agree to give away citizenship to illegal aliens, to Chinese birth tourists, to trend to Ms. 13. And if the Justices think they have that power, they are violating we the People's most crucial sovereign power to control our border and our populace. It's unacceptable. It's a red line. And that's what I say. If that happens, we should just burn down our whole system. That is such a betrayal of our sovereign power as we the people.
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Look, the citizenship clause of the fourth Amendment, as you've already explained, was written for one purpose, which is to overturn the Dred Scott case. That was the entire purpose. It was to confirm that black people born here after Civil War were and indeed would be citizens of the United States. The notion of that it could extend to the children of trendy Aragua or the Jalisco cartel or Chinese. Bartaurus is so preposterous that if it was ever raised for consideration in 1868 during the debates over this amendment, Mike, I think you would have been laughed out of the entire ascent chamber. But folks, much more to come. On the other side of a quick commercial break, Mike Davis rejoined us after a short break. Davis, we'll be right back with much more with the Viceroy. You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, you Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com win. Welcome back. And Mike Davis, aka the Viceroy, joins us again as well. Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Oracle 3 project where I am senior counsel. You can follow work@oracle3project.org, follow Mike on XRD DMIA Mike, I want to pick your brain a little bit on another issue that's gone down over the past week, which is the big shape up at the or the shake up, I should say, at the Department of Justice. So Pam Bondi has been let go. I was a defender of Pam Bondi. I was a defender. I know that you were a defender as well. I thought that she got a lot of unnecessary criticism, frankly from a lot of other commentators in the right of center space. I'm not saying she was perfect. I agree that the Epstein files, which frankly I think is something of a tertiary issue. I don't think it's a major day to day concern, but it wasn't the best handled portfolio in the world. But on the actual bread and butter issues that matter from a DOJ perspective, when it comes to crime, when it comes to law enforcement, when it comes to defending the Trump administration's legal arguments in courts and so forth there, I thought Bambani was actually doing a very good job. So I'm kind of just curious for your perspective. You're a bit more of an insider on some of these things perhaps than I am there. Why do you think this happened? And I guess I'll leave it at that. Why did this happen?
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Look, I have said this very publicly. I am and will continue to be one of Pam Bondi's Biggest fans. She is bold. She is fearless. She did more in just over a year for Article 2 for the presidency and the Constitution than all of her Republican male predecessors combined. She fired the bad people. She hired good people. She dropped the politicized cases. She brought the cases on accountability. We are going to bear the fruits of Pam Bondi's labor for many years to come. She won, what was it, 24 times on the emergency docket at the Supreme Court of the United States, where she has monumental victories for the separation of powers, for Article 2 for the presidency. I think she was unfairly tarnished on Epstein. She tried to do the right thing on Epstein and get out the documents, but she couldn't because of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It was a case of no good deeds goes unpunished. And the conservative podcasters who felt like they're. They got burned by that. They, they were just trying to destroy her career after that because their little egos got bruised. They. Pam Bondi is one of the best attorneys general we've had in our history. She. She got a lot done in just over a year. And Todd Blanche, who is her acting replacement right now, I'm a big fan of Todd's as well, and he's going to stand on her shoulders and carry on what Pam Bondi started under that, under her Justice Department during that first year. So a lot of good things are coming out of the Justice Department.
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Look, Todd is fantastic, and I have no doubt that he'll be an excellent ag. I was personally just a little caught off guard, frankly, when I heard that Pam Bondi had been fired. I guess I was a little surprised that the Epstein. Epstein crazies really just took it quite this far and ultimately perhaps even got a pretty large scalp. The Epstein thing, to me, it's just such a distraction. I'm not saying it's not important there. There were horrific deeds done there, but the point is that there are real things called statutes of limitations, and there are real things called rules of evidence, and there are real principles in law, like the notion that grand jury Testimony is just 99.9% of time not going to be unsealed there. So the whole thing just played out in a slightly peculiar fashion. I just want to get your thoughts on one other thing. The other source of speculation that I've heard beyond Epstein was there were some folks saying that they were upset at the fact that Pam Bondi and Lindsey Halligan ultimately were not able to successfully prosecute Jim Comey and or Tish James, I don't personally buy this. For what it's worth, I don't buy that Trump was trying to take out his frustration for the unsuccessful prosecutions, at least thus far, of Jim come your tish James, do you buy that? Does that make any sense at all that Trump would fire her because of those reasons?
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No. And I if you look at what's happening in the news reporting, we saw that Jason Redding Quinones, my friend who I recommended to be the U.S. attorney down the Southern District of Florida back he just got confirmed back in what was it, August? He set up a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida for January. We've seen the news reports that over 100 grand jury subpoenas have gone out. Remember, it took almost two years from the Mar a Lago raid for the Biden Justice Department to indict President Trump. These cases take time. But I promised people for the last almost four years since the Mar a Lago raid that I'm going to make damn sure that these lawfare Democrats are held accountable for the most egregious crime in American history, where they politicized and weaponized our intel agencies and law enforcement to go after Trump as top aides, his allies, parents, Christians. I promise you I will not rest until there are indictments and people are held accountable. And I don't care what it takes. I'm going to do that over. We have three more years left in this administration and I assure people this that justice is coming because I will settle for nothing less.
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And certainly that's where pushing for at Article 3 Project, which again you can check out at article3project.org Mike Davis is my colleague there and also the founder and president of that organization. Mike, one of one of the top deputy attorneys general in the entire DOJ hierarchy is of course the US Solicitor General and that is John Sauer, who argued this birthright decision case at the Supreme Court last Wednesday. I think he's a very effective oral advocate. He's actually on some people's frankly short list when it comes to a possible Supreme Court vacancy there. I want to take us back just to the court for a second. We've had some pretty high profile rulings come out this term already, namely the tariffs case by the biggest also this big free speech gay conversion therapy case out of your adopted home state of Colorado, which came out very much the right way, 8 to 1 ruling. I mean Katanji Brown, Jackson, what can you say about that? Just a ludicrous sole dissent coming out against free speech. Any other big Cases that you're tracking that are still on the docket. There's a few months left in the term. There's certainly this Voting Rights act litigation. Anything else that you're tracking?
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I think the most crucial case is the one we discussed about birthright citizenship. The justices cannot get this wrong. And I think an oral argument, it looked like they were going to get this wrong, but I think we can still right the ship on this. If they actually dig into the briefs, if they actually look at the amicus briefs, if they actually dig into the debates surrounding the 14th Amendments, if they look at the subsequent legislation, there is only one easy right answer here, and that is birthright citizenship does not go to illegal aliens. It does not go to 1.5 million Chinese birth tourists who they're born in America, they go back to Beijing, they never step foot in America again, and they can mail in their votes to elect AOC. I don't think that's what the proponents of the 14th amendments had in mind and I don't think the American people agreed to that, ever. So the birthright citizenship case is case number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. For me, it's the most crucial case.
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Fair enough. No, look, I mean, it is an absolutely important case. And Donald Trump signed this Day one executive order. He's been talking about this issue for a very, very long time. Actually, he's been talking about this in very consistent fashion for a long time. I guess there are two things to kind of say in closing on this particular aspect of our conversation because Mike Davis is going to join us after an upcoming commercial break to wrap up our conversation. All sorts of other issues as well. But I guess I have two final thoughts in closing here, which is one, and you've actually emphasized both of these points. One is that the argument that it's not constitutionally required to bestow automatic birthright citizenship upon the children of those who are here on a short term visa, tourist visa, student visa, or perhaps even anchor babies. If you want to argue that there should be automatic citizenship for the children of anyone physically on our soil, heck, I mean, maybe even ambassadorial children, children there, if you wanna make that argument there, in theory, you can. There's a body for that. It's called the Congress. I think the argument here that John Sauer, this general is making, and that Mike is making, that I've made on this show repeatedly, the argument is not that we can't debate these topics, actually, the argument is that we should debate these topics before the People's Chamber, before the Congress there that it's not required by the text of the Fort Bend there. So that I think is probably the single biggest argument. The second thing that I'll make just in closing this part of the conversation as well is that the fact is even considered as close a call as it is, Mike. As you know, I've been writing about this for so many years now. It's part of this rot within conservative legal culture where they tend to overly intellectualize and make things out to be a little harder than they are. Try to spread a few breadcrumbs. Oh, we're not such big bad racists here. We're not anti homosexual or anti transgender, anti anti. This there. It's garbage, frankly. The law is clear on this. See, ultimately, if they do the right thing. Folks, this through one final commercial break. Mike Davis, AKA the Viceroy, joins us on the outside after this short commercial break. Welcome back. And Mike Davis joins us again as well. Mike is the founder president of the Article 3 project, where I am senior counsel. You can follow our work@article3project.org Mike, I want to switch gears a little bit here. We've been talking a lot of law, scotus, DOJ for the first part of our conversation there. Well, I spend our main time talking about some other issues. So Epic Fury, the war against the Iranian regime, is now over a month. And there are a lot of people out there who are starting to panic, who I think are looking at the approval dispropos, notwithstanding the fact that the polls actually are a mixed bag, frankly, actually saw one poll just on Monday that saw that Epic Fury was actually polling in a net positive direction for the country as a whole. But Donald Trump, to his tremendous credit, I would argue, is showing no signs whatsoever of wavering on this particular mission. Look, you are a friend, obviously, but you're also a man whose voice and word, I think it carries clout in all sorts of MAGA circles of various stripes. What would your message be? To those folks who are deeply panicking about this, whether from a political perspective or possible from a long boots on the ground quagmire perspective, I would say
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that I work for President George W. Bush and I've been one of President Donald Trump's biggest supporters. They're not the same people. They are different people. President Trump knows that Iran has been at war with the United states for over 47 years. Iran has kidnapped, held hostage, tortured, murdered thousands of Americans. They've caused problems for the oil supply chain going through the Strait of Hormuz. They're constantly Attacking our bases, they're constantly attacking our troops, they're constantly exporting their terrorism to America. And this is very much in America's national security interest to destroy this terrorist state. And you can do it in a way where we're not going to try to do democracy building in Iran like we saw George W. Bush tried to do democracy building in Iraq or Afghanistan. President Trump is very smart, he's very strategic, he's very tactical, he plays real politics. He doesn't have an idealistic foreign policy. He knows the art of the deal, he knows how to win, and he's always going to put America first. And so I would say to the people who are worried about this Iran war, number one, maybe stop taking Qatar money. And number two, let's have more faith in President Donald Trump. Trump, he knows what the hell he's doing.
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You know, this argument that people say that Iran is not our problem just absolutely baffles me. I mean, these people have been chanting death to America for 47 years. Their very first act, Mike, their very first act when the revolution started in 1979, was to run to the United States Embassy, you know, not to the embassy of Israel or some other country. They ran to the US Embassy. That was their very first act, was to commence a 444 day hostage crisis. A hostage crisis, by the way, where there's old clips that have recently resurfaced of Donald Trump just blasting Jimmy Carter into the stratosphere over that and saying, why is Jimmy Carter not sending in the US Military to solve this, to nip this in the bud, to end this terrorist cancer? He's literally been more consistent on this, I said in my CPAC speech a couple weeks ago, over the years, than any issue under the sun, I think, other than tariffs themselves, which where he's obviously been very consistent going back a very long time there. So I'm just totally baffled by the folks that say that, oh, this is Donald Trump reneging on his campaign promises. He said, no new forever wars there. That's certainly not how I view. I think this is actually a remarkable act of principle, devotion and consistency. I assume that you probably see it the same way as that.
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Yeah, I think I used to say that President Trump is going to go down among one of the most consequential, one of the best presidents in American history. I think he's already sealed his place at the top because he has done monumental things to secure our border, to protect our sovereignty and to protect our national security and to ensure our long term prosperity. He's made tough decisions that bring him a lot of heat from many different quarters. But he's doing what he thinks is right for the United States, for the American people. History is going to be very good to President Trump. Maybe not in the next 10 or 20 years, but long term, I think President Trump is going to go down as the most consequential, best president in American history.
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A
Mike Davis again, folks, is the founder and President of Article 3 Project. Follow him on xrddmia. Mike, just a few minutes left in our conversation, so I wanna then take it home here to domestic politics and the midterms. I mentioned the price of energy. There are a lot of folks who definitely are worried about the increase thus far. It could definitely come down to be clear of the price and energy there. This whole narrative of an affordability crisis has really sunken in. I'm not downplaying it. Obviously, I understand 2/3 of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I am not downplaying this in the slightest whatsoever there. The economy could always, always, always be better. But we also have had some comments on the show who've explained a lot of this is really just the lingering effects of the Biden Harris regime there. So kind of taking it home and projecting that we're now not that far out. I mean, what are we, we're about, we're about 7 months ish away from the midterm elections this November there. What should the administration be doing on a day in, day out basis in order to try to maximize the returns that we'll get here when it comes to voters turning out to vote for
- [39:25]
B
Republicans this November, President Trump has already brought down prices across the board for real Americans and real America, people who are living paycheck to paycheck, my people, people like in flyover country in Iowa who have real jobs in the real world. And he's going to continue to do that. He's fighting for real Americans and real America every day, frankly. It's why the coastal elite hate him because he's not willing to sell out real Americans and real America to help the coastal elite. And so there's still a lot that needs to be done. And we can't downplay the fact that prices are still too high. It's the lingering effect of Biden inflation when Biden drove up, intentionally drove up the cost of American energy to make us more dependent on foreign energy. And so President Trump is fighting every day to make America more affordable for real Americans in real America. And there's still a lot of work to be done. But you have to understand that if you vote for Democrats in this next election, if you give them the House and the Senate, it's going to be much more difficult to make America affordable because Democrats are, are doing everything they can every day to drive up the cost of American energy and that's the driving force on inflation.
- [40:54]
A
What about immigration? A lot of folks say that the politics of immigration, especially after the Minnesota operation, are starting to turn against Republicans. Whereas they say that immigration was a winning issue in 2024, which it was. I don't personally, Mike, really buy this argument. I don't think that immigration has suddenly become a losing issue from a winning issue overnight there. What do you think about the politics of immigration as we head towards November?
- [41:17]
B
Well, I want Democrats to go out there and defend Trende Aragua and Ms. 13 terrorists who are kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering Americans. I want the Democrats to defend Islamist and Chinese birth tourists who are coming to the United States and breeding like rabbits and so they can vote for for Democrats like AOC in future elections. Look, I think I would say to Republicans, double down on immigration because the swing voters, the people who actually decide elections, don't want Islamist MS.13 and trend Aragua raping and murdering their daughters.
- [42:06]
A
I think that is an eminently reasonable point. And again, this is ultimately why Trump, I mean it's a big reason, frankly, why he won 2024. I mean, of course Kamala Harris was a world historical terrible candidate and the Biden Harris policies and the track record was world historically terrible. But immigration was a massively, massively winning issue for Donald Trump in 2024. And there are a lot of panic ins, if I can use that word. I think we're looking at some of these headlines of Renee Goode in Minneapolis and things like that saying oh my God, we have to stop enforcing immigration law. And I just don't buy it. I do not buy for seconds there. I like what you said frankly, about trying to make Democrats defend the indefensible when it comes to this massive invasion of terrorists and narco terrorists and criminals and all of the above. One final time, folks. Mike Davis is the viceroy. He's also the founder and president of the Article 3 project. You can follow him on X R D M I A. Follow our work@orgo3project.org Mike, really appreciate it my friend. Thanks as always.
- [42:59]
B
Thank you, Josh.
- [43:01]
A
Folks, hope you enjoyed that conversation. You know, we subscribe to our show, the Josh hammer show on YouTube or everywhere you get your podcast to make sure you get more content. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off for now, but we will be, of course, right back as always, tomorrow.