← The Josh Hammer Show
Loading summary
Transcript17 lines
- [00:00]
A
What's up baby? It's Bretzky. And I'm here to tell you that spinquest.com is giving out free sweeps coins. All you gotta do is purchase a ten dollar coin pack and guess what? They're gonna give you the coins from a thirty dollar coin pack that lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Wanted, Dead or Wild. And we're talking real cash prizes, baby. Spinquest.com Spin Quest is a free to
- [00:25]
B
play social casino void where prohibited.
- [00:27]
C
Visit spinquest.com for more details. I'm Josh Hammer and this is Josh Hammer show. So welcome back to the program. Congratulations. We're at the top to the Michigan Wolverines on their second college basketball national championship. I think you guys know that I am a big college basketball fan. So congratulations to Michigan, the lesser evil of the two, I will say in last night's national championship game. We have a whole host of other issues to get to on today's show. The remainder of the Passover holiday starts tonight is actually a very interesting lesson here for these final two days, the Passover holiday. He hopes to get to that later in the show. JD Vance Kurum is actually over in Hungary for the forthcoming Hungarian elections. Lots to unpack there as well. But for now, we start with this. I think back often to the 2016 presidential campaign. It was a campaign really like none other. Donald Trump took the Republican primary by storm. He surged ahead of all of the other candidates, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, you name it. And he did so in highly unorthodox fashion. He did so by challenging a lot of the substantive shibboleths when it comes to things like free trade, absolutism when it comes to things like de facto open borders, at least for legal immigration, H1B visas, things of that. And he also challenged stats quo when it came to things like adventurous, swashbuckling, foreign policy, Cold War era multilateralism that had gone stale and hackneyed and things like that. But it was not just the substance that Donald Trump challenged, the status quo. It was also his style. If you don't understand this by now, in the year 2026, 10 years after Donald Trump shocked the political world and dominated the primary and then pulled the upset really arguably in American presidential history by defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton. If you understand by now that Donald Trump's style is part of the appeal, then what are you doing? If you're the kind of person who doesn't really pay attention to the news, you might be forgiven. But if you are part of the blue checked twitterati. And if you are engaged in the political business, if you work in D.C. you work in the Beldue, you work on Capitol Hill, you go on cable news, you do this, you that there and you still don't understand that. Donald Trump, in the immortal words of Selena Zito in 2016, speaks seriously but not literally. If you don't get that, then frankly you are a moron and you have no idea what you are actually doing in this business. So Donald Trump this morning taking the world by storm with this post on Truth Social. This post coming in anticipation of his deadline that is tonight for Iran to open the strait of horror moves or else things will happen. So Trump posting at 8:06am Eastern Time on Truth Social this morning, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. And there's a little bit more to this post. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. So the idiots, the morons are focusing or have been focusing all day thus far, I should say since this post went out on the first two sentences, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. And the idiots think that he's actually literal here, that he's actually going to drop Hiroshima, Nagasaki style nukes, vanquish tens of millions of people in an act of unprecedented historical genocide. And the freaking out is happening really across the political spectrum. It's happening certainly on parts of the left. It's been happening certainly on parts of the idiot. Right as well, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and that whole crowd. We'll get to that a little bit later in the program perhaps as well there. But for now, I want to just show you what this looks like in practice. So this was actually this, this was over the past 24 hours or so on Ms. Now talking about Donald Trump amping up the rhetoric. This was not done directly in response to the Truth Social post there. But this is kind of just a bit of a preview, a bit of a window in a lens into how the left has been reacting to Donald Trump's increasing escalation against Iran. Let's go ahead and play this clip
- [04:57]
D
from Ms. Now, he had another line in the conference about something I think the entire country could be taken out in a single night. A lot of scholars in this area have been a little bit hesitant to just outright say that taking out a Bridge is a war crime, Taking out a power plant as a war crime? Because as I just explained, that isn't always the case. There could be circumstances where they can be legally targetable. When you make statements like we're going to take out the entire country in a single night, that's a per se war crime. And if that is the commander in chief ordering his commanders underneath him in the chain of command to do that, they should understand that that is a blatantly unlawful order. And a lot of what he said today would constitute a blatantly unlawful order that they would be obliged not to follow. So you're right. They can be targetable in the circumstances that the President has laid out. I haven't identified a single reason why
- [05:49]
C
you would obliged not to follow orders. Where have we heard that one before? Again, this is actually said in response to Donald Trump's prior threats when it comes to some of the power plants and the energy infrastructure. Sure enough, actually, overnight this past night, the United States did bomb some of the energy infrastructure over at Kharg island, which is this island where the Iranian regime is able to refine and process much of the petroleum that they then export onto the world, albeit if it is not sanctioned there. These are not war crimes. These are done in the act of war. This is contextual. This is happening in the act of war. These people are throwing around these terms war crimes as if they mean nothing whatsoever there. But the broader point, again, is that if you are taking Donald Trump literally and not just seriously, you are actually a moron. I want to elaborate on that point because it's a very, very, very important point there. But for now, folks, just a quick word from our sponsor for today's show, which is a balance of nature. You know, we talk a lot on the show about getting back to basics f family foundations that actually work. Nutrition should be the same way. But when you look at label stay, it's obvious we've overcomplicated it. If you want to be more mindful of what you eat and how you supplement, look to nature. When you eat whole foods, you're getting their phytonutrients, natural compounds your body uses to adjust, repair and respond every single day. Balance of nature takes real fruits and vegetables and puts them through a tailored vacuum cold process that stabilizes that phytonutrition, their whole health system bundles their fruits and veggies with fiber and spice, giving you 47 whole food ingredients and their phytonutrients in one simple routine. And their brand new freeze dried snacks go through a similar process so even your snacks can actually support your body. Whole food Phytonutrition plus balance of nature helps you fight the good fight. Save over 30% when you subscribe@ balanceofnature.com Join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that's changing the world. Again, folks, that is balanceofnature.com folks. If Donald Trump ends up dropping Hiroshima and Nagasaki style nuclear bombs across Iran and there are tens and tens of millions of people who are dead, I will be the very first to eat my words. That's not going to happen. It is not going to happen. I mentioned this piece that Selena Zito wrote back in September 2016. It was very much part of the zeitgeist of that particular unique moment in American political history. This piece was written around the same time as the famous essay the Flight 22 election published in the Claremont Review of Books. Written synonymously. Now we know it was written by Michael Anton there and it was part of this whole national reckoning with the Trump phenomenon on the precipice, as it turns out, in retrospect of his miraculous victory over Hillary Clinton there. And Selena Zito, who is very much in touch with the grassroots in Pennsylvania there. She was one of the ones who saw Donald Trump's evisceration of the blue wall of those rust belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. She saw her famous column for the Atlantic was taking Trump seriously, not literally. And again, if you are failing to learn this lesson in the year 2026, a few things can be said. One, you should turn in your professional card. If you are actually engaged in calling political shots and offering political commentary and giving your perspective in trying to shape or to mold or to other otherwise influence political events. And you do not understand this basic thing about Donald Trump there. You're just an idiot. An idiot at best. At worst, you're deeply deceitful and disingenuous. Donald Trump says stuff in 2016. He famously once said that his supporters were so loyal that he could just shoot them in the middle of Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan and that they would still support him. Did he ever do that? No. Did he actually think that? No. Like not literally, seriously. He just meant that his supporters were very, very loyal. This is how the man speaks on yesterday's show. We spent a little time talking about that. This is Trump at his core. He's an outer borough guy. So much of the Donald Trump that you have seen for decades, decades is because this is a guy who is from Queens and He speaks like a guy from Queensland and the fact that he acts and speaks like a guy from Queens while having the family name and the global real estate and the branding and the marketing empire that he has there, this is a huge part of his political appeal. It is why, it is why Donald Trump has become the billionaire gilded toilet MAGA populist, because he has this way of connecting to people there. If you were to ask the generic voter in proverbial flyover country who has a properly skeptical view of the world's number one state sponsor of terror, Iran, who probably is not a huge fan frankly of the influence of Islam more generally on Western civilization there, if you were to ask him after he's maybe one or two Coors Lights deep as to what is his stance when it comes to Iran, he would probably something along the lines of bomb the crap out of them, wipe them out or some other answer thereof. Donald Trump is the commander in chief, the president of the United States who is now saying that, albeit even more over the top fashion there putting out there from the platform of his widely followed and heavily disseminated truth social account. And the fact that he is doing that again, this is why he has this connection there, because he just says the things that the elites say you're not allowed to say he's not going to do it. He's not. You know that, I know that. And the fact that we're even forced to have this conversation amidst this meltdown, again, this meltdown is actually not just happening from the left. It's very much happening from parts of the so called right, these subversive fifth column rights as we've been talking about there. They're now saying that this is evil, that he's threatening war crimes there. He's only doing that if you take him literally and not seriously. In order to take Donald Trump literally not seriously, you have to ignore the entire past 10 years. That's not how he negotiates. When he's talking about Greenland threatening NATO there, take him seriously, not literally, you would think that the chattering class would have learned their lesson by now. Unfortunately, if you thought that in many instances at least you would have thought wrong because there are many people spouting their mouths off and they have no idea what time out there. Donald Trump is acting in prudential fashion when it comes to the Iranian threat, as he's been doing for over a month now. Folks, stay with us to a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with more on the other side.
- [12:22]
E
This is the story of the one as a procurement manager for a hospital system. She keeps every facility in her network stocked and ready. That's why she counts on Grainger to be her single source for thousands of products, from disinfectants to lighting, air filters and more. And with fast, dependable delivery, Grainger helps her keep every facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [12:55]
C
Welcome back. So before Donald Trump took the political world and frankly the whole world by storm with his true social post seen around the world this morning, he took the world by a slightly smaller storm, but still by bit of a storm with a lengthy one White House press conference on Monday. And this thing was really sprawling. He was dropping some words that are not necessarily fit here for a feeling friendly show like the Josh Hammer show. BS would be the initials for some of the things that he was saying there. He was talking about how the Iranians have been playing the western world for fools for decades, which they have, in which a lot of fools like Barack Hussein Obama, like John Kerry, like Rob Malley, like Ben Rhodes, like the entire Obama nuclear deal echo chamber like they all fell for. And he was talking a lot about that. He was talking frankly a lot about a lot of things. And again, take us back to a previous conversation. This is why Donald Trump has this connection because he just says is one of the greatest political attributes of Donald Trump. In fact, if I were to name what are the top political attributes of Donald Trump and the reason that he will be remembered as a great man of history and at this point, I think he's well on his way. It's being remembered as one of the most transformative presidents in American history. Whether you love him or you hate him, clearly I think that is going to be the case when all is said and done and all has been written there. If I were to tell you what are the most, the greatest political tributes, the ones that are most directly responsible for his sustained political success, they are as follows. One, perhaps above all is his sense of humor. The fact that Donald Trump is a really, really funny guy there. And yes, can't help at times but just genuinely laugh at him. That is a huge part of his appeal. Two is that he has this incredible skill which we have seen over the past 24, 36 hours with these threats about the energy facilities, the power plants, and then this true social post about wiping out civilization. He has his incredible skill to make his opponents lose their freaking minds. I have never seen A politician in my years of falling politics who has a more instinctual knack for knowing how to twist the screws and to make his political opponents just look like fools. It helps Donald Trump a lot, by the way, that he has a lot of political foes who are just typecast for the role. I mean, Stormy Daniels, the porn star, Michael Cohen, the bumbling idiot. I mean, many of Trump's political enemies, Jim Comey comes to mind. A lot of them have just been totally typecast for the role, but he has that ability as well. The third thing I would say is that Trump also has this incredible instinct when it comes to the art of the 8020 issue. He finds himself able to take advantage, to seize and ultimately to push and to use as a cudgel and a wedge many of these 8020 issues. Things like biological males competing as women in an athletic competition. Things like the deportation of pro Hamas, pro terrorist, vile people, frankly, in our homeland. People like Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia grad student there. He has the art, in other words, of the 8020 issue there. So these are some of Donald Trump's greatest political skills. And a lot, a lot of those skills were on display at this press conference day, but there also was a lot more of, a lot more serious fare there as well. So, for instance, here was Donald Trump talking about how the debate over the Strait of Hormuz actually plays into the epic, the fury endgame. Here he was Trump speaking yesterday at this presser about these rido formus.
- [16:14]
B
That's one thing that's a little different than other things. We can bomb the hell out of him. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with. Because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy, We've knocked out their air force completely, knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mind droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I'm personally. They say there might be eight. I don't know, I don't know. I think there might be none.
- [17:08]
C
So the straightforward moves is an indispensable part of the equation as to what the Iran Operation Epic Fury will look like in the months ahead. It is very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to foresee a situation in which President Trump can meaningfully declare victory in this operation if the Strait is still closed, if nothing else. If nothing else, you know, the mullahs stay in place there, God forbid, even if they keep some arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones. That shouldn't happen. To be clear, it should not happen. But even if that were the case, and even lower baseline would be that Iran cannot hold global energy markets hostage by having drones and mine laying vessels cut off oil into the Arabian Sea and by extension into the Indian Ocean. You can't do that. You simply can't do that there. That's why the United States was involved in bombing Kharg island, the Iranian oil refining facility, this last night there. It's pretty much impossible to see a world in which the United States can declare victory and it actually means the word victory if the trio of Hormuz is actually still closed. Now that does call into Syria's question, what are the role of America's real allies and quote unquote, allies when it comes to opening the 304 moves? So there have been some, some countries, I believe South Korea, a couple of others who have actually been at least somewhat helpful in starting to assist the United States in trying to open the Strait of Hormuz. Again. One of the ironies here, which Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, they've been making this point, among others, is that the United States is actually not, as a nation, hugely dependent on oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Why? Because the United States is actually the world's number one exporter at this point of oil and natural gas. Not number two, three, four, five, number freakin one. It was not always that way. Trump during his first term made America a net exporter of oil, natural gas. The Biden Harris regime unfortunately brought it back to not being a net exporter anymore. And Donald Trump has now made it not just a net exporter, but number freakin one. So one of the ironies of all this is that it is actually, it's actually the European countries, our so called NATO allies, who bear the far bigger brunt of of the choke points. That is the straight Hormuz being closed there. Donald Trump was actually asked by one of one of these reporters about NATO at this press conference. Happened on Monday at the White House. Let's go ahead and watch that clip.
- [19:32]
B
And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, oh, we'll do this, we'll do that. Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, know. But they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to uk. Of all, I would have said they would have been the first because they've been, they're the oldest. And I say, yeah, I'd love to have a little help. He said, no, sir, we'd rather wait till you win. I said, I don't need help. After we win, they have two old broken aircraft carriers, barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows? I called the general, he didn't even want them. He said, we don't really need them. We got, we got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir, we don't need them.
- [20:18]
C
Trump is clearly upset with NATO. We here on the show are very upset with NATO as well. I've explained my stance before when it comes to NATO, but it's probably worth reiterating in light of Trump's recent comments on the matter. NATO has exposed itself as an utterly hollow alliance structure over the course of this war. Now, a lot of NATO's apologists, and I've had many of them, frankly, in my ex mentions in my timeline after I posted my most recent column, which was heavily criticizing NATO, a lot of folks say, oh, Josh, you idiots, you understand that NATO is actually a purely defensive alliance. It has, no offense, capabilities. To which I say, really? Where are you actually getting that from? Now, it's true that part of NATO is defensive. That's a whole notion of Article 5. Article 5, which is the most discussed article of the NATO Charter, requires that a NATO member state be willing and able to go to war to defend, to defend another NATO member state that is actually invaded. That clearly is a defensive purpose. But of course, there are often the capabilities. NATO actually went into Korea during the Korean War. NATO helped go into the Persian Gulf War during the Saddam Hussein nonsense in the early 1990s during the George H.W. bush administration. NATO has absolutely gone to war. NATO actually was really the force that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. After that, highly misguided Barack Obama's man to power led intervention on deeply moralistic humanitarian grounds. So NATO can absolutely go to war if it so chooses. We have ample evidence of that. History is replete with examples over the past 85 years of NATO going to war when it wants to go to war. The problem is that they don't want to go to war right now. They don't want to assist the United States of America, even though they directly benefit from the strait being open, Iran being contained more than others. Iran has even shown, hold oil aside, they've shown they can hit the European homeland when it comes to these missiles there, and that these losers, and yes, they are losers, Emmanuel Macron, loser. Keir Starmer, loser. These losers will not lift a military inch to assist us there. Why are we on the hook for it? Why? Genuinely, I do not know the answer. What I do know is that Trump and Rubio are getting close to the horror matter when they say that after this war is over, it's time to fundamentally reassess what NATO means to us and whether we should be involved in it at all moving forward.
- [22:48]
F
This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance tech at a university, he knows ordering from multiple suppliers takes time away from keeping their arena up and running. That's why he counts on Grainger to get everything he needs, from lighting and H vac parts to plumbing supplies, all in one place. And with fast, dependable delivery, he's stocked and ready for the next tip off. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [23:22]
C
So as the war in Iran continues overseas, there is increased chatter, of course, as to the politics of this on the home front. We're going to bring on my colleague at the Oral 3 project, Mike Davis. Tomorrow will talk about this, among many other topics for sure. But this whole debate is happening as to whether or not Trump is suffering political suicide. Is he a madman? Is he going to drive his party, drive his own side of the aisle, to political ruination in this November's midterm elections? There, the answer might surprise you. So on yesterday's show, we cover this new poll from the pollster commonly known as tip, tipp, that showed actually that a net majority of Americans, by a 46 to 40% margin, albeit a very narrow majority, actually approve, actually approve of the war against the Iranian regime. Now, there's also some other evidence out there as well. So our buddy Harry Enton over at CNN actually has some somewhat surprising data for you when it comes to trying to assess which party is currently more popular and which is less popular and what that potentially means when it comes to the elections this November. Let's go ahead and watch this from Harry enton over at CNN.
- [24:27]
G
Well, I would say this, Mr. Berman, and that is that this lead is historically low for Democrats at this point with a Republican president. Because take a look here. I'm taking a look at the average of all the polls. Gem Dem generic congressional ballot lead at this point in the cycle with the Republican president on average, their leads actually slightly less. It's five points. That's less than it was back in 2018 when it was eight points and way less than it was during the 2006 cycle when it was 11 points. So, yeah, Democrats are ahead, but they're only ahead by five. With a president whose net approval rating is bordering on minus 20 to minus 30, depending on what polls you look at, you'd make the argument Democrats should be way ahead and they're just only sort of slightly ahead.
- [25:09]
C
So the reality is that both political parties are deeply unpopular at this time. There is no doubt about that. But as you just heard there, it's actually Democrats who historically have an uphill battle relative to how they've done, how they either what they've performed achieved in various other midterm elections with Republican presidents in power there. So you Compare it to 2018, the first midterm during Donald Trump's first term. Democrats are currently below where they were actually at that time. If you look at the net favorability rating of the two parties more generally, they're both totally bad. They are in the toilet in both counts there, but Democrats are even worse. The average, again, the polls difference, but the rough pulling average as to the approval rating of the Republican Party right now is roughly in the low 30s, 32% there. Democrats are somewhere in the mid to high 20s. So they're actually even worse. And the upshot here in assessing all of this data and comparing it to previous midterm performances and then looking at the thumbs up, thumbs down as to which party is more popular, less popular there. The upshot essentially is this, is that the Democratic Party brand is frankly just totally in the toilet. It is absolutely, positively in the toilet right now. And there's actually another very interesting example to demonstrate this point as well, which is that we have some new approval ratings for Abigail Spanberger over in Virginia. So Spanberger was just elected as the governor of the Old Dominion there, and her approval rating has absolutely plummeted. It has actually plummeted by a very wide margin just over the first few months of her tenure there. And at this point, at this very early juncture of her gubernatorial tenure, recall that in Virginia you actually have this very bizarre law. I don't like it. I believe it's in the state constitution that the government can only serve for one term. So they're all, they're actually term limited. They only get one four year term, which again I think is really dumb rule. They should probably pass a constitutional amendment to change that. But that's their problem, not mine. I'm a Floridian, not a Virginian. In any event, Spamberger's approval rating at this very early juncture of her four year or tenure is actually even worse than essentially all of her immediate predecessors. So Glenn Youngkin, Ralph Northam, Terry McAuliffe, Bob McDonald, et cetera, et cetera, it's basically below all of them at this very early juncture. And the reason for that, we might speculate, is actually pretty straightforward, was that Spamberger campaigned as something of a, quote unquote moderate and has governed as the furthest thing from that. She has issued orders that will compel Virginia police to not cooperate with federal immigration force. And with ice, she has struck a deeply, deeply anti gun, anti second Amendment tone that is not a particularly popular stance for large swaths of Virginia, which outside of the Arlington and Fairfax county area, much of the commonwealth Virginia is still very rural, still very culturally southern in many ways there. So she's basically taken a woke approach to governing in not necessarily one of the nation's marquee swing states. Virginia is no longer one of the big seven swing states, although neighboring North Carolina is. But she's still getting punished for it. She's still getting punished for it in the polls. And there's a real lesson here, frankly, when it comes to Republicans and their prospects for trying to stymie off electoral losses this November. Indeed, if you look at the current map, and Harry Entom was doing a little bit of this over on CNN as well, if you look at the current map, Republicans have generally favorable terrain when it comes to the Senate. Now, surely you expect the House is likely going to be lost for Mike Johnson and Republicans there. Hopefully it's not. My preference would be the Republicans hold both houses of Congress. Not that they're great at it, but they're certainly better than the alternative. But you assume that with such a narrow margin of just a few seats, and you literally count the margin on one hand, you assume that that's probably going to be lost in the first midterm election year. The U.S. senate is a much more Complicated picture. Now, if you look at the differential between how Democrats are faring now when it comes to voter enthusiasm compared to previous elections there, and you run some numbers, you will look and you will see that a couple of these states with Republican incumbents might be vulnerable. So Susan Collins in Maine, the last of the New England Republicans, she might be vulnerable if current trends hold. Tom Tillis is out in North Carolina there. Michael Whatley, the former RNC head, is running for Senate there. If you are trying to project out based on the approval metrics per Harrington, you think that Michael Watley in North Carolina might lose. Might. But even then you're looking at a 51 to 49 split in terms of John Thune remaining as majority leader if things hold. Recall that technically speaking, because J.D. vance is Vice president, cast these high breaking votes if need be, then you actually only need a 5050 split. But the point is that the Democrat brand is just completely and utterly in the toilet. It is absolutely in the toilet. And look, Republicans are going to have to find a way to transition away from epic fury eventually back to domestic bread and butter issues. I don't pretend like running as a wartime president and trying to wage a 6, 7, 8 month war is necessarily a politically winning strategy, certainly with the oil and energy markets influx as they've been there. But you have to find some sort of stable, substantively victorious, meaningful way to declare victory when victory has been achieved and then pretty rapidly try to transition back to domestic issues. Also, a little bit of a walk and chew gum at the same time sort of thing going on here as well. There's absolutely really no reason why you can't be prosecuting waging this war against the terrorist Iranian regime on the one hand, while simultaneously on the other hand focusing on domestic bread and butter issues. Really, I don't understand why you can't do both at the same time. I'm not saying, to be clear that the administration is not doing that there, but what we've said here on the show, and this remains our stance, is that the White House and their Domestic Policy Council, all the various economic advisors, every day you should wake up in the morning and say, what can I do on this day end DNY to improve the livelihood, the flourishing, the financial and economic security of the American people and to better secure the American way of life. And when you go to sleep at night, you should say, let's assess what did I do this day and how did I do it to help improve the American people's economic and general livelihood fortunes by the way. That is not just a thing that the White House should be doing out of D.C. they should also be talking a lot to the states. Talk to Greg Abbott in Texas, Talk to Ron DeSantis in Florida, talk to Bill Lee in Tennessee and so forth there. Talk to a lot of the leading red states and work with them when it comes to advancing a compelling agenda, an agenda for the party more nationally speaking there. An agenda that will prioritize economic issues, economic security and flourishing, that will try its best to eliminate health care precarity so you feel more secure that your healthcare will not be lost when you lose your job, heaven forbid or something like that. There things that will help when it comes to homeownership, trust me. We just closed on our first home, my wife and I there is very exciting. We have not moved in yet. That will happen probably at some point towards the end of this month. If I had to guess, sometime after the Passover holiday there. Quite a process. Quite a process. And look, we live in South Florida. It's a very hot market there. But more generally speaking, home prices, not cheap, not cheap out there. So these are the things. Iran is very important. It's a 47 year cancer on the world stage and Donald Trump is finally ceasing to kick the can down the road. But don't neglect the domestic agenda. The Democratic brand is so in the toilet, it is so putrid, it is so rancorous and so stinky right now that there is a huge opportunity for Republicans to just go all out on these meaningful quality of life issues, economy, crime, immigration, border, inflation, et cetera, there and there. With that, they will have a real, real meaningful opportunity to hold the United States Senate. The House probably gone, hopefully not, but the Senate can definitely at this point be safe, folks. One final commercial break sales. We'll be right back with more on the other side. Welcome back. So JD Vance actually is in an unexpected place earlier today. He's actually been in Hungary where he is appearing alongside Viktor Orban who is the prime minister of Hungary going on about a decade and a half now. He's been in power for a long time. I've been to Hungary. I have actually met Prime Minister Orban myself a couple times over the past five years, give or take there. JD Vance has been close to Viktor Orban and the broader political project. They are happening in Budapest. Prime Minister Orban, JD Vance have both been involved to varying degrees with the broader global national conservatism movement, which I've been involved with to an extent in the past. Certainly as well there. So here was J.D. vance in Budapest talking alongside Viktor Orban about the importance of the upcoming Hungarian elections there. You might not think this is born there, but I will contend to you on the other side this, that this actually is a very important election. Let's go ahead and watch this from
- [34:14]
H
JD Vance, Foreign election interference that I've ever seen or ever even read about. The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy, independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers, and they've done it all because they hate this guy who's pro or anti Europe. Not who's pro or anti the United States of America, but who is pro you, who is pro the people of Hungary.
- [34:43]
C
Now, the reason that Hungary is more important than you probably think it is to be clear, this is not a particularly large country. They are not exactly an economic powerhouse or a foreign policy powerhouse there. There's lots of reasons to be deeply skeptical as to why Hungary matters. Hungary matters because under Orban's leadership of the country with his party Fidesh, Hungary has been the tip of the spear of pushing back against the European Union, of pushing back against the excesses of 21st century global liberalism, of trying to superimpose a hegemonic agenda, of this supercilious notion of trying to impose one size fits all laws and regulations there, essentially trying to enact a miniature version of John Lennon's deeply dystopian song. Imagine this notion that we can imagine a borderless universe there. Well, that's really coming out of Brussels, out of the European Union, and Budapest, under Orban's leadership in Hungary, has been the number one backlash against it. Now the European Union does not govern, thank God, the United States, and therefore it is less important to us. But my contention, taking us back to our earlier conversation about NATO, which is one of these other outmoded multilateral alliance structures, my broad contention is that less multilateralism, less superstructures in general when it comes to all these 20, 30 country coalitions there and more just direct bilateral trilateral nationalist alliances, that that is the geopolitical paradigm that is already starting to dominate in this 21st century, and that will start to dominate even more now. Orban is not perfect, to be clear. He is far, far from the ludicrous caricature many people make him out to be. Some folks say that he is a tyrant, that he is a Russophile, he's pro Putin. They say he's anti Semitic because he goes against George Soros. Hello. I actually founded a group three years ago called Jews Against Soros. Yeah, that was me. I co found that with my friend Will Scharf, who's now the staff secretary to President Trump in the White House. We found the Jews Against Soros. So it's not anti Semitic to criticize George Soros again. I've been to Hungary, I've eaten at kosher restaurants for God's sake, in Budapest there. Viktor Orban is actually a very, very smart man. He devotes large swaths of his Sunday afternoon to reading, not just current events, but reading like deep political philosophy and studying the art of politics. He is a very well read man and he spent time at Oxford. He's not the dunce, the idiot that the corporate left media makes him out to be. Is he perfect? No, very far from it. There's actually a lot of corruption, frankly in Fidez and in Hungary a lot. Unfortunately, that is par for the course when it comes to Central and Eastern Europe. A lot of these former Warsaw Pact Eastern European countries that were formerly governed by communism there. It takes at least a generation or two after communism, after the fall of the Berlin Wall for the full kleptocratic, corrupt, venal stench of communism to go ahead and wipe out. So I'm certainly rooting for Orban and Fidej to win again. That's not to say that there are not issues there. There are. But those issues frankly pale in comparison to the benefits of having someone, anyone, push back against the hegemonic Brussels liberalism agenda. Now, there was a new controversy involved. I mentioned this earlier in the show. I wanna make sure to get to it. Just yet another new controversy involving a guy who was not a big fan of ours, maybe less so than others, and that would be Tucker Carlson. I don't want to beat a dead horse because we talk about Tucker probably more than is warranted at times on the show there. Long story short, on Sunday morning, so before this truth tells post heard around the world this morning, the one about wiping out civilizations, Donald Trump on Easter morning in the context of this world historical rescue operation that we covered at length on yesterday's show, Trump posted in the context of the story of Hormuz to the Iranian regime. Open the effing straight. And then he said praise be to Allah, which seems to be mocking Islam, which frankly I don't really have a huge issue with when it comes to something like this because again, you take Donald Trump seriously, but not literally. So I mentioned earlier how a lot of folks on the left have been taking Donald Trump literally not seriously. Well, in classic horseshoe fashion, other folks who have been taking Donald Trump literally not seriously are those on the subversive fifth Column. Right. Doug Carlson had this outrageous freakout on his show. You can go ahead and watch yourself. We're not gonna dignify it by playing clip there where he's saying he called it evil. Tucker called Donald Trump mocking Islam by saying, pray to Allah. He said this is evil. That you've desecrated Christianity, desecrate Christianity by going really hard against the Iranian regime and dropping an F bomb on them on Easter. The one who's lost the plot is not Donald Trump. It is Tucker Carlson. We're not going to rehash all of the ways we know that Tucker's lost a plot. There it is, a list far too voluminous to possibly count. But at this point, he is so far gone that it is barely even worth dignifying it by talking about it at this point. Donald Trump actually was asked just this morning by a New York Post reporter by the name of Caitlin Dornboos. So Caitlin Dornbus got an interview with Trump and she asked about Tucker's comments there and Trump apparently said, quote, tucker is a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on. He calls me all the time. I don't respond to his calls. I don't deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools. Pretty strong stuff, to put it mildly. Now, we were talking just a couple minutes ago about how J.D. vance is over in Hungary now campaigning for Viktor Orban. And certainly we are deeply supportive of that. We hope that Orban and Fadesh win despite their problems that pale in comparison to the opposition's problems. JD Vance has a much bigger problem, though, at home. That problem is Tucker Carlson. J.D. vance has been attached at the hip to Tucker for some time. He has repeatedly refused to criticize Tucker. He's refused to say anything bad about him because he still calls him a friend. And as we know, Tucker son works in the office of the Vice President of the United States. This was definitely a problem while Tucker was going down this path of becoming the most dangerous anti Semite in American history. It was definitely a problem when he was going down this path to becoming essentially a shill for Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, various other hostile anti American regimes. It was a problem when he was talking about Sharia law and this. And that is a much more acute problem for the vice President when his pal is actively beefing and in a screaming fighting match with his boss, President Trump So I'm not entirely sure how the vice president gets himself out of this. I will not elaborate other than to say that I have used my own channels and some of my own connections and friendships to send this warning sign for a long time, actually. And to say that Tucker was ultimately going to seriously jeopardize the political career of J.D. vance, we're seeing that play out in real time. I hate to say I was right, but in many ways I was right. I'm not saying how it's going to end. JD could, in theory, still do the right thing, but better late than never, I guess. I will say that finally, I will just end with this. So I will be offline starting tonight through Thursday night for the final two days of the Passover holiday. So the first day and the seventh day are our festivals because of something that is a little beyond the confines of our conversation today, that is extended to two days most times because of what the rabbis did many years ago. Again, that's a little out of bounds for today, but I will just say this. We actually have two shows that are ready to go for you tomorrow and Thursday. So you will not be missing any Josh Hamisher content. But the main theme of the final holy day of the Passover holiday is the actually the climax of the Exodus story. It is the splitting of the Red Sea, or Kiryat Yam Suf, as we would say in the Hebrew. And the first man who just ran into the sea was an Israelite by the name of Naxon Ben Aminadav. And he just ran in because God had told Moses to trust. And Naxon took that at its word and he ran into the sea. And what they say is that when it got up to his nose or his mouth, that's when the sea split. And the lesson here is very simple. In brief, it is when the path opens. Do the right thing. You might not have all the knowledge that it will work out, but when the path opens at that point, that is when you should say, okay, I see the path. God is in control. You might not know exactly what that looks like in practice, but I have a feeling, frankly, you will know it when you see it. Folks, have a great rest of your evening. We'll be right back tomorrow with another episode of Josh Hammer Show. We'll be back.