← The Josh Hammer Show
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When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Four years ago today, Roe versus Wade was sent to the eternal ass sheep of history. Tragically, there are now more abortions in America than there were before Roe versus Wade. Let's be happy that Roe is done, but let's not rest on our laurels. We have a long way to go in the pro life fight. I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. So it's hard to believe, but the Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health case came out four years ago today. I remember it like it was yesterday. You probably do as well. It was the case that overturned after nearly a half century of the bloodiest abortion regime in modern history, overturning Roe vs. Wade, the case of 1973 that infamously concocted a so called constitutional right to abort, AKA to terminate your unborn child in your womb. It was a 7 to 2 opinion that despite the more lobster numerical majority, was immediately excoriated. At the time. John Hart Eli, who was a very liberal constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School at the time, someone who was a personal supporter of abortion, nonetheless said that Roe vs. Wade, the actual opinion was not law and barely even gave the pretense of pretending to be law. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself, the trailblazing ACLU attorney and the staunch staunch advocate for abortion and third wave feminism and all the above. Even she said that the Court went way too far, far way too quickly when it overturns the pro life laws in many many states and therefore constitutionalizes issue depriving it from being part of we the people and our lowercase, our republican self governance and our political processes. The Dobbs case four years ago returned this issue to we the people. Crucially, the Dobbs case, if you read very carefully the majority opinion from Samuelita, it does not return the issue necessarily simply to the states. If you go through his opinion, you will see references to elected representatives, you will see some references in some of the concurring opinions, including Justice Kavanaugh's, to the legislatures. You will not see the states. That's because the Basic holding of Dobbs is that the so called substantive due process notion, the notion of the 14th amendment gives you a right to snuff out your child in the womb. That this was here, there and everywhere wrong. And that this is an issue for we the people. There are a lot of people over the course of this debate who erroneously for years and years insisted that the issue should be, should just be sent back to the states. But that is the first place where we look to see actually that we are wrong. Abortion can indeed should be a federal issue. Go back to the Bush administration as well. You had the so called partial birth abortion ban that was passed and signed into law by President George W. Bush. That happened just about two decades ago. Congress absolutely does have a role to play when it comes to protecting nascent unborn human life. And I want to get more into to the legal nuances of this in just a minute here. But I do want to set the table before we do so with this, this stark, truly stark indeed dark reality that no matter how magnificent and glorious the victory in Dobbs was, there truly are actually more abortions in America today than there were prior to Roe versus Wade. So by some estimates there is a pro abortion organization known as the Guttmacher Institute. They're one of the most frequently cited pollsters when it comes to pro abortion advocates. There their data at least a 21%, upwards of 25 to 30% increase in abortions actually happening in abortion clinics, Planned Parenthood and elsewhere. That's actually not even accounting for telehealth and the distribution of the abortion pill, typically mifepristone. And here's where it starts to get really, really, really dicey. There's actually some data that suggests that when you take into account telehealth and telemedicine, the notion that you don't even need to go into a doctor or an abortionist, because abortionists are not doctors. They kill life, they don't treat life. The notion that you pick up a phone and get mifepristone or some, some sort of other abortifies mailed to you, that has had catastrophic effects from sea to shining sea. There actually was just an interview that npr, the very liberal npr, did a couple of days ago. This happened just on Monday, on June 22. And over the course of this interview, their guest actually estimated, speaking of the topic, that the number of abortions has actually doubled, has actually doubled since the Dobbs opinion. We don't have exact data, but the point is it has gone way, way up and that is not because of, rather is in spite of the efforts of a number of red states, pro life states who have taken bold measures to try to legislatively protect life. So according to LifeNews.com, which is a pro life website, there are at least 19 states that since Dobbs returned the issue of abortion to we the people, there are at least 19 states that enacted protections for unborn babies from fertilization or conception, if you prefer that nomenclature from that point onward. 19 states, that's a lot. There are at least four other states who have protected at six weeks time. My state of Florida is one of them. They said that Ron DeSantis was dooming his political career when he signed that six week abortion ban. I'm not entirely sure that was the case. So any number of red states, conservative states, have taken steps to protect unborn life. The problem is that when you have a federal regime of abortion pill essentially on demand and to the abortion crowd on demand and without apology, and they are able to circumvent the pro life laws of the states to mail in dubiously legal fashion to then distribute via the U.S. postal Service and various other carriers up, et cetera, to then distribute those drugs in into the red states to try to get around the pro life law, then you have a massive, massive problem. That's why when we had Lila Rose of Live Action on our show about a month ago, Lila was saying that the number one pro life priority right now needs to be to end telemedicine and the use of common carriers such as the post service to actually mail abortion drugs such as mifepristone. This case was kind of sort of litigated in a not truly orthodox fashion in a more procedural emergency fashion to the Supreme Court fairly recently. And unfortunately it was actually only Clarence Thomas, only Clarence Thomas who was who came out swinging and said that this practice of using common carriers like the Postal Service to distribute abortifacians flies in the face and therefore violates a 19th century, 20th century, 20th century statute by the name of the Comstock act which a little in the weeds legally. But it was an act that basically said you can't use the mails or any other common carrier or comm distributor to mail board of fascians or some sort of other pornography listed material, et cetera. It's right there in the statute. And for whatever reason, Clarence Thomas was the only justice who said that this actually makes sense. You can't actually do this. I'm not entirely sure exactly where the other conserved justices were at that time. If Congress wanted to legislate in this area tomorrow, they absolutely could do exactly that. If HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Wants to issue new regulations that proscribe or at least severely limit the use of the post service, the use of common carriers to mail these things, he could totally do that. We could get rid of mifepristone tomorrow, frankly, if we wanted to. I was just in D.C. earlier this week, as you know, if you've been following the show, and I was speaking at a Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America event just off Capitol Hill on Monday evening. Senator Josh Hawley, the very Pro Life center for Missouri spoke after our panel and actually called to outright ban mifepristone. If you're truly pro life, this actually is the only logical conclusion. If you truly believe that as the science says, and we know that the trust the science crowd is a little, a little all of the map when it comes to which science they claim to trust. But the actual science is conclusive. It is indisputable that life does begin at fertilization. Steve Jacobs, who now works for Illinois Right to Life, was working on his PhD dissertation just a few years ago in Chicago. And as part of his PhD, he had a global survey of three and a half to 4,000 biologists, embryologists, scientists, trust the science, right? And he polled them and said, when does human life begin? 95 plus percent of them said it begins at fertilization. We know this. Therefore we know that that is where protections for unborn life should begin. Now, I mentioned that Congress does have a role to play here. You might find yourself asking why that is the case. Well, think about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. We've spoken a lot about the 14th Amendment recently when it comes to the birthright citizenship debate. Indeed, that is a constitutional question when it comes to the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. But a few clauses later, also in Section 1 of the same amendment, the relevant text reads, no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. This is what we refer to as the equal protection clause. Well, what if persons includes what the science says are persons, all natural persons? In that case, if a state has a homicide code, which any state does, because murder is illegal everywhere, then you can't discriminate against unborn persons in favor of born persons. That would be an equal protection clause violation. Actually, the argument really is that simple. It actually goes even further than that. Think about the fact that corporate personhood, the notion that corporations are people, as Mitt Romney infamously said, you may or may not agree with that as policy that is well established, for better or for worse, as Supreme Court doctrine. A lot of folks will think of Citizens United in 2010, but it goes back way further, to a case from 1886 called Santa Clara county vs Southern Pacific Railroad, which came out just 18 years after the Fourth Amendment was ratified. And the court back in 1886 said that the railroad corporations in question are persons within the context of the 14th Amendment. So if railroads are persons, then why in the world would unborn persons not be persons? I'll take it even further than that, though. It's not only this is a correct interpretation of the amendment and should be enforced as such by the courts. Congress itself, if it were ever to get off its butt and actually do what it was meant to do, which is not to be the least dangerous branch, that's Article III to have to be the most effective, the most powerful branch, that should be what Article 1 is. The Congress. Congress has a role here as well. Why? Because Section 5 of the 14th Amendment says that, quote, the Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this Article. In other words, Congress has the ability to enforce its understanding of the 14th Amendment. Are you following what I'm saying? Congress can enforce this understanding of the Equal Protection Clause, therefore abolishing abortion in America tomorrow. It should do so post haste because the relevant question is not whether a majority of people in a certain state or jurisdiction thinks that unborn persons are persons. That was the approach taken by Stephen Douglas against Abraham Lincoln in 1858. The reason that we remember Lincoln, not Douglass, though, is because Lincoln famously came over the top of this talk about popular sovereignty and said, no, the relevant question is whether the individual, in that case a black person, is or is not a person. So too, is the question in the year 2026 whether the unborn person is or is not a person. We know the answer. The science, as they say, is settled. The law should follow suit. That is our end goal. We will not rest until that is achieved. Folks are going to a quick break. We'll be right back with much more after this.
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Welcome back. So when we checked in yesterday, we were paying close attention to primary nights, primarily in New York City, to a lesser extent across the country. There were races also in Maryland, in South Carolina and elsewhere. But most eyes were affixed to New York State and really above all to New York City because yesterday was a big, big day to determine who is the future leader of the Democratic Party in New York State, because New York State's law and California is one of the most iconic blue states in the country. For that matter, across the country, will New York Democrats be led still by the two actual leaders in Congress, namely Chuck Schumer on the Senate side and Hakeem Jeffries on the House side? Or, or are they going away in favor of Zoramdani, the open, avowed Democratic socialist? So Mamdani placed a big wager. He got very involved in a lot of races, a lot of Democrat primaries, including at least three U.S. congressional primaries yesterday that got a lot of attention where he was challenging two incumbents and then in a third race was going against the endorsed preference of the congresswoman who's retiring. So he was going against the establishment in all three, the mayor of the nation's largest city and the unfortunate news report, or fortunate, frankly, if you, like me, are rooting for Schadenfreude when it comes to the Democratic Party. So the news is that Mamdani went three for three. That is the takeaway headline there. Azuram Donny had an absolute banger of a night in the Big Apple. He won all the major races that he got involved in. So in the, in one of the two incumbent races, Mamdani's pick, Brad Lander, was able to knock off Dan Goldman. We covered Dan Goldman a little bit earlier this week because of this blatantly anti Semitic incident that he faced at a coffee shop in Brooklyn where the coffee shop refunded him and said, you're not welcome here because you are too Pro Israel, which is kind of hilarious because Dan Goldman is really not particularly pro Israel. But I guess if you support, if you support the state's right to exist, you're too pro Israel, frankly, for today's modern Democratic Party. Brad Lander is about as left wing as one can possibly get. So he got basically twice the amount of votes, twice the amount of votes as Dan Goldman in New York's 10th congressional district. A stunning, stunning loss for a Congressman Goldman, who is pretty freaking progressive left wing on his own terms. This race painted him as a moderate because he was running against an absolute looney tunes communist. Goldman is not a moderate. Goldman was one of the impeachment lawyers against Donald Trump, a man who was all in cheerleading for the Merrick Garland Jackson. This is not a moderate in any stretch of imagination. Nonetheless, Brad Lander looking like he is going to the Congress and God help us, because he was an absolute disaster as Comptroller of New York City. Dan Goldman, and far be for me to feel sympathetic for this guy because he very much has been hoisted on his own petard by many of the fires that he has helped start on his side of the aisle. Dan Goldman nonetheless saying that he did feel some anti Semitism over the course of this campaign. Here was the soon to be former Congressman Dingell, your opponent.
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Do you think he exacerbated any of those attacks?
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I think he used the. I think he used the issue as a wedge issue because, you know, and you'll have to ask him why he did that, and he did. Brad Leonard did use this as a, as a wedge issue. Goldman, again, not a particularly pro Israel guy, frankly. I can't think of a single Democrat who is a truly, truly aggressively pro Israel person these days. Maybe, maybe Josh Gothemer or Jared Moskva. I mean, the mind reels, frankly. So Dan Goldman is out. In two of the other races in New York City, you had Darieliza Avila Chevalar. This was one of Mamdani's boldest picks. So she won against a man by the name of Adriano Espilot. You might not know of who this individual is. He's actually the first former illegal alien to get into Congress. Okay, this from a New York State Congressional district. He literally was here as an illegal. I guess he got legal at some point, some sort of amnesty, some sort of TPS revocation, whatever. And then he was in Congress and he most recently has been the leader, the chairman, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. So he is now out too. He has now lost to Dariel Lisa Avila Chevalier who is one of the absolute, absolute tips of the spear of the lunatic far, far left, part of the Democratic Party. She was a founder of an organization at Columbia University called CE uad. Columbia University Apartheid and Divest. I think you know where I'm going with this. She's a vehemently anti Israel person. Also a vehemently anti American person. Are you noticing a common theme here, how Israel's enemies oftentimes usually are just the exact enemies of America. So the organization cuad, Columbia University Apartheid and dives, which this lunatic Chevalier founded, she's going to be going to Congress. She's going to Congress. This is what the organization actually calls for. They call for, quote, nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself. They seek to quote, undermine and eradicate America. Undermine and eradicate America. And they support, quote, unrest and violence in America. This is an openly violent movement. It is absolutely an openly violent political movement. So that lunatic won last night as well. The third victory was for Claire Valdez who was the Thurough Madonna doors candidate. This was district for an open house seat representing the 7th congressional district which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The outgoing congresswoman had endorsed the Brooklyn borough president who was a moderate ish figure. And nonetheless Mamdani's pick ended up winning there. So Mamdani goes 3 for 3 and the DSA at this point the Democrat Social America is unequivocally, absolutely unequivocally, they are the rising force, the rising force in Democratic party politics. Brocahana, who once upon a time was kind of a moderate ish figure and over the past year or two has been riding this far left way of trying to reinvent himself, likely in advance of a 2020 president run. If I had to guess, he was on CNN talking about how the progressive movement is ascendant in his party. Here was Rocahona. But I do believe that this shows two things. First, Madani is a star. Anyone dismissing him is just naive and out of touch. He is one of the five most consequential Democrats in the nation right now and people should treat him with respect. And the second thing is that the progressive movement is on the ascendancy in the House of Representatives and across the country. And the idea of just saying oh this is New York is just not true. We've been winning in Pennsylvania, in New Jersey, in Michigan, in Maine. And this is really where the energy of the party is now taking a slightly different stance. Notably is Hakeem Jeffries, possibly for self certain reasons. After all he is by definition the establishment. He is the leader of the Democrats in the House. He's also from New York City. Hakeem Jeffries, again, perhaps for self certain reasons, is downplaying, downplaying the rise of socialism in his party and across America. Here was Hakeem Jeffries on C Span when I asked about the New York races, mentioned that. Are you worried at all about the influence of the Democratic socialists in primaries there and across the country? Well, there are four races in New
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York City and I'm standing behind every single
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one of those races that involve an incumbent, of course, and that's Adriano
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Espaillat, Dan Goldman, Yvette Clark and Grace Meng. And then we're watching closely two open seat races that House Democratic leadership hasn't gotten involved in by custom. And that of course, is in the 7th congressional district. District. But Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez and a coalition of very progressive Democrats, including Tish James, the Attorney General and the Public Advocate, Jamani Williams, along with the Working Families Party and many of the unions that we work closely with are on one
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side of that race with DSA on the other. We'll see what happens. So we'll see what happens. Not exactly downplaying or not exactly confidence, frankly, in his stewardship of the party at this time. And there was a very clear and compelling read from that, which is that the DSA is at this point the Democratic Party. Just this morning I saw Josh Gotheimer, who was one of the few remaining kind of sort of moderate figures, I saw him downplaying the rise of DSA also and saying that this is a small faction similar to the Tea Party back in the day or this or that there. No, it's actually not the dsa. If you look at the polling, Democrats by a majority opinion, now support socialism over capitalism. These are majority opinions within the Democratic Party. The undoing of this party might still be the case that the American people don't share these ideas, but the Democratic Party does. That much is clear. Folks, this is not your grandfather's Democratic Party. Heck, it's not your father's Democratic Party. This is a radical, radical entity. And Zormi Abdani is now making his name and staking his claim to be the next Barack Obama. He may well, tragically. Just get it, folks. Another quick break. We'll be right back with more.
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Welcome back. So it's not just this new Congresswoman Chevalier who was involved with founding cuad, Columbia University, Apartheid and Divest and who supports their foreign organization that's calling for the eradication of America. It's actually not just her. This is increasingly a party wide phenomenon. If you get a Democrat these days on a bit of truth serum, especially a young 20something, 30something young Democrat who goes on Blue sky and maybe watches Ms. Now or watches Hasan Piker, God forbid, and the other far left streamers, and you ask them what they actually think about America itself, you're not going to get a favorable opinion. You're going to get a highly, highly unfavorable opinion which by the way is actually something that in horseshoe like fashion makes these folks quite similar to the Tucker Carlsons and Marjorie Taylor Greene to the world. But we'll hold that conversation for another day because if you look at another individual who Zoramdani endorsed, who won, who won on Tuesday night, individual by the name of Aber Quas, who I believe is a Palestinian Arab, while Abra Quas won the Democratic primary for a state Senate seat. And there is this astonishing clip of her saying that America deserved 9 11. Yes. She really said let's go ahead and play this clip as well.
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And so like, and finding that like, you know, the system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy, et cetera, have all and Islamophobia have all been used, you know, to colonized lands, right. To take resources from other people. And so this is like a long trajectory and we're just seeing the manifestations of that continuation right with 9 11. And so a lot of times when people are asking us to respond about, you know, attack Right. When if we look back, like, historically. Right. You know, a lot of us come from lands that were colonized, lands where wars are being waged. Right. A lot of Times because of U.S. policy or. Or the policies in Europe. And so I find that we can connect over that. But then also that the idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible.
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Did you catch that? Let me spell it out in case you missed it. She referred to 911 as the, quote, manifestations of decades or centuries of colonialism and Western oppression. In this, the natural manifestation would be taking a 787 and flying it twice over into the tallest building in the country and killing 3,000 people. That's a natural manifestation, according to Zurmadani's preferred candidate for New York State Senate. By the way, at the end, her rhetoric there, I guarantee you this woman studied Ilhan Omar to a T because she's saying there how a couple of people did something. Do y' all remember that old clip of Ilhan Omar? I believe it was an. At an event for cair, the Council on American Islamic Relations, which is founded, by the way, as a Hamas front group in the US back in the 1990s. But Ilhan Omar was at a caravan years ago speaking about 911 and how some people did some things. Well, that's what April Kwast is now doing now. A couple of people did something. I mean, way to downplay that, I think would be a very polite way of putting it. This is where the Democrats are at. This is their party. On the issue of abortion, which was our lead for today's show, the Democrats are no longer the party of safe, legal and rare. That was the Bill Clinton paradigm. Now Democrats are all in favor of shout your abortion, be proud of it, Spread it from sea to shining sea with love. Love, I suppose, except for the unborn child. Democrats are no longer the party that believes in borders or in national sovereignty whatsoever. Rather, they believe that if you are a human being, any human being whatsoever, you have some sort of amorphous natural or moral rights to come here to the United States with or without proper documentation, with or without the bestowing of legitimacy of American law. You can come here anytime for any reason whatsoever. They believe that America is a force for evil on the world stage. Therefore, they rabidly cheer on America's enemies. And to this extent, this is why the issue of Israel and the Palestinians become so prominent in their thinking because they see here just a microcosm, simply a microcosm of this broader dynamic, a dynamic that is between civilization and barbarism. This is a core argument in my book last year. You have to understand this, folks. The reason that the leftists are so obsessed with this issue, so obsessed, because in the abstract, it's crazy. Why in the world would these elections talk so much about this tiny conflict halfway around the world? It really makes no sense objectively. It just doesn't. The reason that they do this is because they understand that the Jews are a proxy for the Christian west, that the Jewish state is a proxy for Christian America. Again, sometimes they just spell it out for you. That's why we read to you the founding document of Columbia University, Apartheid and Divest, which calls to, quote, undermine and eradicate America. The same group, by the way, in a since deleted Instagram post, openly said that America should be abolished. They're trying to get rid of the whole thing. That's why they support 9 11. It's radical, radical, radical stuff. And again, these attack ads, frankly write themselves. Donald Trump is already having some fun overnight on Truth Social talking out there. Lots of other conservative influencers having a lot of fun on this as well. The attack ads really do right themselves.
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Now.
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The tiniest morsel of legitimacy, the tiniest, tiniest morsel legitimacy to these radical DSA lunatics. The people like Mamdani, like Grand Platinum, remain, et cetera. There is that There is such thing as a healthy, properly channeled populism. My long standing stance on the show is that we here believe on the Josh Hammer show in two cheers for capitalism, not three cheers. Free markets are one of the greatest things that mankind has ever derived, has ever invented, if you will. But they must be properly channeled and properly construed. There is such thing as a healthy nationalist populist flavor. Call it common good capitalism, perhaps, as Marco Rubio did back in a 2019 speech, if you are so inclined. And that is why I was really happy to see over the past day that the House and the Senate have passed a deeply populous measure when it comes to trying to keep the blackrocks and the Wall street tycoons of the world, the big institutional fat cat investors, out of the national housing market. So this was a bill that passed the House 358 to 32, clear the Senate by a vote of 85 to 5. It would put real strictures on, quote, large institutional investors from buying single family homes. So Only five senators ended up coming out opposed this very, very, very bipartisan measure. You have some true laissez faire fundamentalists, some true free market absolutists who oppose this sort of thing there, but this is the kind of prudential healthy populism. It's very different than the burned down America faux populism peddled by people like Bernie Sanders, Zormadani and so on. There is such thing as a healthy populism and it looks a lot like this two tiers for capitalism consensus. Now, this bill was actually supposed to be signed this afternoon. And then Donald Trump, as Donald Trump often does, changed plans because this morning around 10, 10:30am he put on Truth Social that the housing news conference and signing that was scheduled for early this afternoon is quote, hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed Save America Act. So he basically said he's not going to sign this housing bill. This very bipartisan, frankly, probably a very good election year achievement for the Republican Party because typically speaking, when one party controls the White House and both houses of Congress, if there's a bill, even if it's bipartisan, it's that party that gets credit for it. So Trump nonetheless saying that he's delaying the signing of this until he gets the Save America Act. So I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, the Save America act is utterly common sense, as we have discussed many times on the show. This bill, drafted by Chip Rolly in the House and championed by Mike Lee in the US Senate, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, which would require a voter ID to vote. It is incomprehensible how this sort of thing is not already national law. You know, it's funny, you see all these Europeans like this guy Freddie from Germany, who are having the time of their freaking life here in the United States during the World cup. They're going all out for ranch dressing, which by the way, is gross. I don't like ranch. You can take it up with me in the comments if you're so inclined. I think it's actually disgusting, but they love the ranch dressing, they love the wings, they love the brisket, they love all this great stuff. There's. And nonetheless, their European countries are actually way better than ours when it comes to things like voter id. This is crazy, crazy, crazy. I do feel that Donald Trump is throwing away an easy political victory in a tough political climate by delaying this housing bill. I hope that this thing gets signed post haste. The other side of me does think that this is such a winning issue, the Save America act as well, when properly explained, because even Democrats support voter id, blacks, Hispanics, it's so popular that you can use this leverage to get this passed. I would prefer to use this leverage in the Defense Authorization act, the NDAA or some other sort of quote unquote, must piece legislation. I'm not sure this is the right time to take this stand. But as long as the House bill gets passed, that's a good thing for Republicans and a good thing for the American people as a whole. And is a is an example again of a healthy populism because populism can be healthy. It's not always healthy. Mamdani is very unhealthy. But this is healthy and hopefully this signs one way or another. Post haste, folks, one final commercial break. We'll be right back. Closing thoughts. Welcome back. So in international news, the Iran negotiations are continuing over in Switzerland. It's been a little more subdued over the past 24 to 36 hours, but they are still going on. Marco Rubio is also trying to reassert his foreign policy bona fides. He was missing in action there for a little while. My take is that that was strategic. Let JD Vance own what appears to be a failed diplomatic engagement with Iran. But Rubio is now emerging on the world stage. He is visiting Bahrain, Kuwait and various other American allies in the region this week, trying to shore up relations. Talk about the Iran mou. So Ribio was asked, among other things, about the issue of the Strait of Hormuz because last we checked in yesterday morning, the foreign minister of Oman, Oman is a country right across the strait from Iran. The foreign minister of Oman was saying that the Omanis and the Iranians had agreed to impose some indeterminate toll or fee on commercial ships passing through the straits. In other words, apparently allegedly Oman and Iran were agreeing to new post epic fury, post MOU modern piracy when it comes to the strait. But as we've explained, that is an absolute deal breaker. There is nothing else to talk about if the straits are open. That's the entire reason we called a premature ceasefire on April 8th. That's the entire reason we engaged in 70 days diplomacy. That's the entire reason that we embarked on this whole MOU charade in the first place. So Rubio, to his credit, says that Iran will not be able to charge tolls at Hormuz. The question, of course, is how America will enforce that. Exactly. But if Iran starts doing it, will the United States actually go in in an Operation Freedom Type thing as was referred to there for a brief stance. Will we actually send in our naval ships, our coast guard, marines, whoever, to actually make sure that these trade is open? I do not know. And I suspect that Iran, for what it's worth, has some of their own suspicions at this point that President Trump might not actually do that as well, frankly. Unfortunately, those suspicions would be somewhat warranted at this moment in time. Rubio was also asked about the situation in Lebanon. So the situation in Lebanon is as follows. As part of the MoU, which is signed by two countries and two countries only, the US and Iran, there is a stipulation that the fighting in Lebanon will end. Now, Hezbollah, which is the fighting party in Lebanon, and Israel, which is the defensive party in Lebanon, are not parties to this deal. Now, the Iranians are saying that there's nothing to discuss unless the fighting in Lebanon ends. By which they mean Israel can't defend itself against terrorist attacks because Iran controls Hezbollah. And if they truly want Lebanon to go silent, they could tell Hezbollah literally tomorrow, stop, because we want this deal with the Americans, they won't do that because one, they love Hezbollah, two, they love jihad, and three, they don't want to deal with the Americans. So Iran won't do that. But they're saying that they want quiet in Lebanon, which again, we know, just means that they don't want Israel to respond. Rubio was asked about that as well. And Rubio saying the situation in Lebanon is distinct, it is a separate front from the situation with Iran. This has been in an ongoing debate for months now is whether or not the Lebanon situation is one aspect of any broader deal or rapprochement between the United States and Iran, or whether it is an entirely separate conflict. A lot of the folks who are more dovish toward Iran are trying to keep these two things together and are saying that we need a comprehensive peace deal. We somehow need Israel to stop doing what they do, and then we need to peace with Iran. But the more sober, sober perspective is that the situation in Lebanon is really complicated. And it's made even more complicated, as we explained in yesterday's show, because Lebanon's largest Christian political parties. So Lebanon as a country is basically one third Shia Muslim, one third Sunni Muslim, one third Christian. The head of the largest Christian party there in Lebanon came out two days ago and was pleading with Vice President Vance and Jared Kushner Cwickov. Pleading with the American negotiators in Switzerland to make sure that Hezbollah is not part of any eventual resolution in Lebanon was a nice way of saying, please, please, please finish them for us, meaning the United States does, or at least allow Israel to do it in conjunction with the laf, the Lebanese armed forces. So Rubio is now saying that this is a separate deal than Iran. Will Iran agree with that logic, will Iran agree to table the Lebanon issue and just focus on whatever other concessions were inevitably given them over the course of these negotiations? Over in Switzerland, I don't know, because again, I don't think Iran actually wants a deal here. I don't think they want a deal at all. But Rubio did say, verbatim, quote, it is impossible to end the war if Iran's proxies keep launching missiles. The Lebanon file is separate from the Iran file. That is strong stuff and God willing, that that will hold. By the way, there's also been some confusion when it comes to the nuclear inspections. So Iran was saying that they did not concede, they didn't give an inch when it comes to the IAEA, the UN's Atomic Energy Enforcement and Inspection Arm, the United States, led by Vance and Trump, saying that, oh, yeah, no, we actually are getting inspections, which, by the way, is not necessarily a huge victory. That was part of Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal as well. But over the past day or so, Trump has come out swinging and said that, no, we really, really, really are getting these inspections. Iran is just lying. So there's all these things, whether it's Lebanon, whether it's a nuclear issue, whether it's the Hormuz toll, there's all these issues that you can already see are potentially going to blow this thing up before it even starts again. Again, my prediction is that the whole thing will do exactly that, that this is going to blow up. There are too many obvious areas of disagreement, which is kind of shocking because the US is seemingly trying really, really hard to give away as much as possible in some ways to Iran. Unfortunately, in my judgment, and even now, even now, with that very dovish bordering on desperation to make a deal, even that you still don't have anyone else on the other side to make a deal with. What does that say about this most radical of regimes that you have? The world's greatest superpower that is begging is desperate to give you essentially all you want, and you still can't take the darn deal. That is fundamentally not a regime, not a group of people that can be reasoned with. It's just not. Push will come to shove in this matter, and we will have to see exactly where it goes from there. So I want to take it home for the rest of our time. On today's show, there was this deeply humorous story that I noticed out of New York City. So the New York Knicks won the NBA championship. In case you haven't noticed, it's the Knicks first championship in 53 years. I grew up a big Knicks fan and on a personal note, I was deeply happy to see my childhood team win the championship for the first time in my lifetime. And there was a somewhat raucous, a somewhat raucous celebration when it came to the Canyon of Heroes and the big parade that happened last Thursday in New York City. So over the course of this championship parade, there was a woman who the New York Post reported was caught on video taking a public trash can on the streets of New York City, emptying it and then stealing the contents of the trash can. This is a 40 year old woman by the name of Angie Baez, who most recently was executive director of community and Industry engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JP Morgan Chase, one of the world's largest bulge bracket banks. This 40 year old at JPMorgan Chase was emptying a trash can and sealing its content. She was promptly fired, for whatever it's worth. So kudos to JP Morgan Chase, I suppose. But get this, it gets better. This woman who I guess to use the political correct nomenclature is rather plus size, I guess we would say her previous job was that she worked, you guessed it, in dei. So before working at Chase, she was the director of DEI at a New York website called Infatuation. Chase ended up acquiring them. That's how she worked at Jake Moore and Chase. Anyway, the point is, DEI is brain rotation. And as part of Brain run, you are typically going to inculcate a culture that is deeply uncivilized because you need a brain to be civilized. When you lose a brain, you will lose civilization. So it seems to be a very clear line from a DEI to getting fired for emptying a trash can and then looting its contents. Unbelievable stuff. Now, Mamdani's been trying to make the Knicks thing part of his whole public shtick, for lack of better term, over the past week or two. Trump, on the other hand, is a man who knows how to do sports. He knows how to do sports. And I just want to briefly say here that this recent announcement that just came out over the past day or so that Trump will be on hand to present the World cup Trophy on July 19th in New Jersey to present it to the champion. This is a great move by Donald Trump, who is increasingly chumming with the head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino. It's a brilliant move by Donald Trump to be there. The haters will be darned. I don't really care about the haters there. This is the global sport and it's very important for the president to be there to hand out that trophy. That is how you do sports and politics. Unfortunately, though, when you celebrate sports by looting through a trash can, well, it turns out at least if you're employed by JPMorgan Chase, you will indeed get fired. Folks, have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off. You'll be right back. As always, tomorrow.