← The Josh Hammer Show
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Josh Hammer
Remember that whole Iran Mou thing? It appears it's done. So strikes by both sides. Donald Trump calling Iranian leaders scum. What's happening and where do we go from here? I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer show. Well, it seems like just yesterday that J.D. vance, Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner were over in Lucerne, Switzerland at a bougie mountaintop resort. They were negotiating this memorandum of understanding. And then the parties were meeting just over the past week in Doha, in Qatar. And now it seems like it is totally off because just over the past 36 to 48 hours, there were strikes from the Iranian regime on various commercial vessels trying to transit through the Strait of Hormuz. And then there were also Iranian strikes on American military bases, at least in both Bahrain and in Kuwait. The United States responding in turn on all sorts, all sorts of various Iranian military assets, on surveillance facilities, on missile facilities all along the Gulf coast over the wee hours of the morning. Donald Trump promising, promising this morning in Ankara. He is in Ankara, Turkey, for the neo summit, promising there are likely going to be additional strikes this evening. This is a very fluid situation. Donald Trump is not mincing words. He has called Iran's leaders scum and liars and evil. He says these people cannot be trusted whatsoever and that this MOU he believes to be done here is Donald Trump actually saying that he doesn't know if we're going to have a deal here was Donald Trump speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara this morning.
- [02:08]
Donald Trump
They'll never build a nuclear weapon under our deal. But I don't know if we're going to have a deal. We may just do it without a deal because you know what? It's easier because these people, they lie and they cheat and you have an agreement and they'll go outside. For instance, they agreed we will never have a nuclear weapon. They agree, then they go outside, they have a news conference or they leak that we never discuss the subject. Now, who would believe we never discussed the subject? Because for me, that's 99.9% of what we're doing, it's denuclearization of Iran. Okay. So when you ask, our guys can continue. You know, Steve is great. And Jared, all the guys, they know him very well. Yeah, Actually, they work under your stuff, too. I wonder which. I picked two beauties. You know what? We settled eight wars. I got a couple of beauties here. But Steve's great and Jared's great. You know, they're the right guys. We'll see what happens. But I will say Iran, they've misbehaved for 47 years.
- [03:13]
Josh Hammer
And here was Trump talking about how they've not just misbehaved, but in fact, they are cuckoo. More from Trump at the NATO summit.
- [03:20]
Donald Trump
They are behaving very badly, as they have for 47 years. And, you know, we hit them hard last night after they launched. They launched a couple of. You don't have to know about this. You got stuff on your mind. But they launched a couple of drones and one rocket, one missile. And at chips, I think we've made a lot of progress. And they'll get out of the room, we'll talk about it like we're here. They'll agree on everything, and then they'll go have a news conference and say, we never even talked about it. They're cuckoo. There's something wrong with these people. And for 47 years, they've been the bully of the Middle east. And they're not the bully anymore. They're not the bully anymore. And all we want, it's very simple. They can't have a nuclear weapon. That's what I'm there for.
- [04:08]
Josh Hammer
Trump also saying that Iran is currently wasting their time and they're wasting our time as well. Here was just another clip from Trump this morning at NATO. Does this mean that talks with Iran will not resume?
- [04:19]
Donald Trump
I don't care. They can talk, but I think they're wasting their time. They're a bunch of lying guys. I do it my whole life. That's all I do is deals. My whole life is. That's how I became president. I guess that's a deal, too, right? But I made a lot of money. I had a lot of great success, tremendous success. Everything I did, I was successful. And I deal with these guys. And I say, this is from a different school. They're liars, they're cheats, they're sick people. They've hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now that were protesting. You know, when people say, how come they haven't taken over? They can't take over because they're dead. They killed them. Nobody's going to take over. They have no guns and the other side has machine guns and they're killing them. The press doesn't report it, but they're bad people. They're bad people.
- [05:07]
Josh Hammer
Donald Trump also announcing just on Tuesday that his Treasury Department, led by Secretary Scott Besant, has revoked a license, a general license that had, per the MoU, had authorized the sale of ronin oil oil. So recall that immediately after the MOE was announced, Iranian oil was flowing again through the straits. And this was having an immediate effect on the price of energy and gas, which obviously is a good thing. Nonetheless, because of what Iran has been doing over the past few days, that license has been removed. So the situation with Iran is escalating in real time. Donald Trump saying that there will be more strikes tonight. Where do we possibly go from here? What does it mean when it comes to the midterm elections? Well, there's a million questions raised by this. Was it me when it comes to the nuclear issue, Was it me when it comes to ballistic missiles? Was it mean? Frankly, when it comes to the diplomacy that we just saw from J.D. vance, Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff, was all of this for naught? How about the various cheerleaders, those who were praising this MOU that, well, we were very critical of here on the show. And now it appears that MOU was not worth the price of paper that it was written on. So there's just countless questions to ask right now. But I guess for now, we will just simply say this, this is a good thing, that this is happening with Iran because the status quo was simply not sustainable. So without further ado, we want to bring on our guest for today, and that is Rich Goldberg. If you are a viewer or listener on the show, you probably know who Rich is by now. But in case you don't, he is, among other things, the senior advisor at FDD foundation for Defense of Democracies. All around Iran experts. So, Rich, welcome back to the program. A lot has happened, to put it mildly. Can't say I didn't see this one coming. I'm sure that you saw this one coming as well. What is the situation as of right now as you understand it? When it comes to the Gulf, there's a lot of moving parts. We'll have time to unpack it. But tell us what's happened to begin our conversation over the past 24 to 36 hours, what we can reasonably expect over the next day or two.
- [07:02]
Rich Goldberg
Yeah, I Think the simplest way to explain this to everybody at home is that the MoU was a different interpretation for two different parties. For President Trump, this was a device to get the strait opening faster, to get oil out to market, and limiting the benefit to Iran much as possible in the interim, so that you are paying less for gasoline when you're filling up your car, that you sustain that, that it has beneficial economic effects. And then we still find ways to keep the pressure on the regime to get additional concessions. The regime thought they were signing up for an extortion racket, a protection racket, where we would be paying them to have their control of the Strait of Hormuz enshrined, and that every time that they would launch a missile, that they would threaten the strait, we would just open the spigots and give them more cash. What they have found is that they have not gotten a lot of benefit out of the mou. None of the frozen funds have been unfrozen. The sanctions relief that was promised to them didn't produce any new buyers beyond the Chinese. And so they started realizing, wow, the market is getting a lot of relief. The United States is getting a lot of relief. We're not getting any relief. Our economy is still in shambles after the war. We're going to try harassing and see if we can't shake down the president. And the president, to his credit today, is saying, I'm not getting shaken down. This is not a racket. I'm not paying you anything. And he's responding militarily and saying, I can do this all day long. You can't stop me from attacking inside of Iran. And so what now? Is the showdown over Hormuz finally coming to a head? Is the Iranian attempt, most likely, to try to bring shipping back to a halt, and the US Attempt to make sure they can't do that, to keep ships moving. That will be the test in front of us. If ships stop moving, oil prices go back up. If they keep moving, the president has proven he has control of the Strait and the regime has effectively lost.
- [09:00]
Josh Hammer
And Rich Goldberg, folks, if you don't follow me, you should go ahead and do so. He's on X at RichGoldberg. Rich, you must be feeling some sort of indication, actually, because the last time that we had you here on the program, I was giving a very hypercritical take of the mou, and you responded with a bit of a more nuanced take, making a point that has, I think, been vindicated, that Donald Trump clearly is not Barack Obama, which We obviously know because he has been very harsh on Iran over the course of his entire presidency. And now, again, we see that no matter what criticisms may or may not have been legitimate about the MoU, unlike let's call it Barack Obama and perhaps some others as well, Donald Trump is not going to take the Iranian regime's shenanigans just sitting down. So what are the next concrete steps? There's talk about possibly putting back the US Naval blockade. Will Project Freedom come back? That was the effort to try to shepherd a lot of the commercial vessels through the strait unimpeded. What are some of the concrete next steps here in the strait?
- [09:57]
Rich Goldberg
Well, the president has various options in front of him that would sort of ramp up an escalation ladder. He hinted at some of them in his comments at the NATO summit today, for example. Obviously, if he wanted to really hyper escalate, he can take out the negotiators. Most likely, he's allowed the IRGC leadership to roam the country, leave their bunkers, go to the funeral of Ali Khamenei. We likely have tracked how they got out, how they got back in. The Mossad probably has been on them the entire time. So if we wanted to actually decapitate the leadership again, that could be an option. That, of course, would lead to a hyperescalation, most likely with missile fire blindly throughout the Gulf, like you saw in the early days, February 28th and onward. So the president probably doesn't want that to happen, in my view, because that would probably pretty quickly explode the market and would bring shipping to a halt. He could reassert the blockade, as you say. What he's taken away so far has been the official license from the Treasury Department to let Iran sell oil. They didn't really find many buyers for it beyond the Chinese, but he's taken that away. So the legitimacy of their oil sales is gone. The blockade is not there yet. So the ships keep going in and out. That's still relief to their economy, especially on the import side, and the potential of getting oil out to market. He could reassert that blockade. However, again, the Iranians might escalate beyond what we would expect for the blockade being reimposed. And so there is this middle ground here of how do you keep them in a place where they're bleeding out financially? You're not solving their problems. They're still in the red every single day. And we prevent shipping from coming to a halt so that we don't go back into the red. From an oil market perspective, I think Project Freedom is that middle ground. I think, Josh, Project Freedom's been there all along.
- [11:52]
Josh Hammer
Me, too.
- [11:52]
Rich Goldberg
He's walked the Iranians into it and now we're gonna see it come to life in much more aggressive fashion.
- [11:58]
Josh Hammer
Yeah. There's a lot of reporting that even when the president called a quote, unquote official end to Project Freedom, it was subsequently revealed that a lot of this is actually just happen. It's just happening surreptitiously a little bit under the surface, out of the limelight. So I tend to agree with your analysis on that point, folks. We'll go to a quick commercial break. On the other side of a quick break, we'll be joined again by Rich Goldberg for more on the breaking news of the Middle East. The whole situation with Iran is changing on a minute by minute basis. Rich Goldberg joins after a quick break to assess what's happening. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
- [12:29]
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- [13:02]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. And we are pleased to be joined again by Rich Goldberg, who is the senior advisor for the foundation for Defense of Democracies. You can follow him on xichGoldberg. Rich, before the break, we were talking about Project Freedom and the possibility of a renewed naval blockade, to put it mildly. The United States has a lot of tools at its disposal when it comes to confronting this regime. I want to zoom out a little bit here and talk about the region more broadly. Since this MOU was announced and the Israeli government has certainly been critical of it, the Arab states have been a little hard to suss out exactly how they feel. There's been a lot of discussion as to the mixed messages that this whole MOU process sends to America's partners in the region. For instance, Rich, I myself was on Saudi TV on Al Orbi on their English Channel earlier this week and the host was pressing me as to a rift between the United States and Israel and Trump, Netanyahu. And I personally did not take the bait. I said that there are some short term political calculations, but there is no fundamental rift. How do you assess what the current seeming re engagement of hostilities or Some sort of action. How does this affect America's posture vis a vis our various allies in the region, including both the Israelis and the Sunni Arab states?
- [14:12]
Rich Goldberg
Well, I've always believed that moment of tension right when the MOU was coming together and the President was very publicly trying to restrain the Israelis, and that was what everybody sort of latched onto, particularly in the Lebanon flashpoint, was really all about. The president's theory of the case, which is if he just gets everybody to quiet, gets the Iranians to say yes to the MOU, and gets the shipping community to start moving under the COVID of the mou, that the shipping community is going to realize it can move, it's not frozen, the strait is open, the US Military is there and can provide additional escort and protection, and that even if things eventually break down as they look like they are doing now, that the shipping will keep moving, even under fire. That theory is about to get tested big time. He will be proven very, very, very right in just trying to get everybody to stay calm, stay quiet, do nothing, go along with the mou. If shipping continues as it might be. Now, meanwhile, in the Gulf itself, remember, it's the Saudis that pulled the plug on Project Freedom, we're told, by denying our airspace rights. Clearly, their tanker came under attack recently. The Qataris have come under attack. Other shipping coming under attack. They have a vested interest in backing us up and making sure the US Military and hopefully messages to the Europeans at this NATO summit join us as well in protecting their own supplies. If you're Europe, you might have been upset with President Trump. You didn't consult with us. You went into this war without us. It caused our supplies to be constrained. Okay, there's some fairness to that point there. But at this point, the President has entered into good faith negotiations. He's gotten shipping moving. Are you not going to protect your own supply from the Iranians breaking the deal from coming back and harassing your own supply of oil and gas? So there should be some pressure on our NATO allies here as well to come join a maritime mission to protect more of the shipping. But look what else is happening. The Saudis reportedly are working on an expansion of the east west pipeline to bypass Hormuz. The Emiratis are working on additional pipelines already. Not the one that was already reported, but more. The Qataris are in gas pipeline deal discussions. There is a lot going on to de risk Hormuz for the long term, and that won't be decades from now. That's like the next year or two when Hormuz will not even matter as much to the world because of all the infrastructure that's going to get built in the next year in the Gulf. I put all of that together and think to myself, if the president can figure out that balance of being able to protect shipping, keep the confidence of the shipping captains going and going through Hormuz, keep the price of oil where it's at or going down as it was, and prove to the Iranians they have no choice. They have lost control of the strait and they have lost control of all their strategic assets that we've destroyed. That will be a game changing moment for the world and will be basically victory for the president.
- [17:12]
Josh Hammer
Rich Goldberg, as you can tell, is a very smart man. Follow him on Xichgoldberg. Rich, this conflict with Iran, as you and I both know, is not just about energy and oil prices, though. There's a lot more going on here. And look, I think it'll be great, of course, if NATO, if the European partners want to get a little bit more involved when it comes to confronting this threat, which is much more in their neck of the woods, frankly, than it is in our neck of the woods here in the Americas, here in the Western Hemisphere. I'm not sure they're going to do so. And frankly, it's not just energy, it's also the missiles. It's also the ballistic missiles. We saw that Iran can hit very close to Diego Garcia, this military base two to two and a half thousand miles away from Tehran. So that puts parts of the European content in play. And it is very interesting timing given the current NATO summit. So how does this change what's happening right now in Ankara? How does the re emergence of some kinetic action with Iran change President Trump's discussions with the European countries there, frankly, with Erdogan himself, who Trump was just praising there. But it's a little bit schizophrenic, frankly, because Erdogan is quite cozy with the Iran regime. How does this affect the rest of this NATO summit in Ankara?
- [18:23]
Rich Goldberg
Well, we understand that. I think he, behind closed doors, spent a lot of time on the Iran question here because he is of course disappointed and irked that no European countries came to join in a naval mission to help reopen the Strait, or at least protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps he has gotten some commitments now from the French, from the British to come actually defend their own supplies as they are continued now under attack again by the Iranians. As far as the missile program goes, obviously they should be saying thank you to President Trump, because as far as the actual manufacturing capability for those long range missiles, he set them back several years at this point. Now they still have what they have in stockpile in these underground missile facilities, and that obviously remains of concern. But we shouldn't lose sight of the strategic gains we've already bagged from Epic Fury and from last year, from, from Midnight Hammer. We've talked about this in the past. They can't enrich uranium today. They can't build ballistic missiles the way they could before. These are major setbacks for the regime. And if you wrest control of the strait on top of it and prove that they cannot stop shipping and increase oil prices, this is a regime that just circles the drain. And then it's all about maximum support to the people to get fundamentally real change in the region, and that is the regime no longer being there.
- [19:46]
Josh Hammer
You know, I feel like Donald Trump must feel like Michael Corleone in the Godfather Part three, where there's a famous scene, it's the worst, of course, of the Godfather trilogy, but there's this famous scene where Michael Corleone, Al Pacino is just saying, every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in. And I kind of imagine that's how Trump has to feel about Iran. He clearly wants to move on. He clearly wants to move on from this issue. He's been campaigning about the threat of socialism at home, trying to campaign on the commie first message ahead of midterms. And I don't blame him at all, frankly. Most American voters, our economic first, inflation, et cetera, centric thinking voters. But this issue is just not going to go away, is it? Because the Iranian regime, well, I mean, they're the same people in charge here. There's been no regime change and it's still the same radicals calling the shots. So I say all that rich, just to kind of tee you up, let's fast forward a few months now. We're now in the first week and a half, two weeks of July. We're really not that far from the midterms. Are we gonna get some sort of resolution on this, whether it's the MOU or not, prior midterms, or is this going to go into 20, 27 and beyond?
- [20:50]
Rich Goldberg
Well, let's keep in mind that if this regime is still there and it remains a terrorist group running a country, a revolution in their own mind that they're continuing to wage to destroy America, destroy the west, of course, it never goes away. Right? There's always something there. If they have money, they will spend it on terrorism. They will spend it on fighting the revolution. That is fundamentally true. That doesn't mean that we have the answer today to get rid of the regime in an instant. It doesn't mean that we do everything in one step. It means we have to be smart. We have to understand where this stands in the broader context of our grand strategy. The various threats we face as a country, get rid of those that are the top strategic threats where we are out of time to deal with them. That's what the president did. Crossing nuclear thresholds, crossing missile thresholds, that was game changing for the world and for our national security. Doesn't mean that he has been able to decapitate the full regime. But he certainly has them bleeding out of arteries right now, financially circling a drain without the ability to threaten us with nuclear extortion and with missile extortion on a long range basis. The next step is making sure they cannot extort us through Hormuz and energy extortion. And if they have no more extortion capabilities then they fear the biggest threat of all. And that is not us. It's not the Europeans, it's not the Saudis, it's the Iranian people that they will have to deal with if all their external threats have been extinguished.
- [22:18]
Josh Hammer
Fair enough. It's a very important point. And let's not forget that the reason that Trump got involved or at least the public facing reason that he got involved in the first place was the fact that the regime was butchering tens and tens of thousands of their own people. And I think many of us have been hoping, indeed praying that the people will find some way somehow to rise up and to take matters into their own hands. Goblin that happens whether it is this year or next year, but sooner rather than later. That would be the best outcome certainly for everyone involved. Rich, you are a good man, a very smart man. He is the senior advisor for the foundation for defense of Democracies. Him on xichgoldberg. Rich, we appreciate you as always, my friend. Take care and see you again soon.
- [22:54]
Rich Goldberg
You bet. Thank you.
- [22:57]
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In 2025, Americans lost more than $21 billion to fraud and identity theft. That's why so many people are turning to Aura. Aura helps protect your identity with fraud alerts, dark web monitoring and up to $5 million in identity theft protection. And if you become a victim, Aura's 24. 7 US based support team is there to help. Help. Don't wait until your identity is stolen. Start your free trial today@aura.com safe that's aura.com safe.
- [23:30]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. So is this really going to be the reinitiation of Operation Epic Fury in earnest? We don't know. To be clear, it is way, way, way too early to think or to try to speculate as to whether or not there's going to be a full scale military option or something. Quite a bit, bit less than that. Listening to our guest today, Rich Goldberg, it seems that the number one focus right now is indeed on clearing the strait, on clearing the strait once and for all. The regime level question is definitely one that is, that is going to be tabled for another day. The nuclear question. We hear Rich say that they're not currently enriching uranium, but we don't have a resolution right now for their previously enriched uranium that has not been ferreted out of the country. A lot of the ballistic missiles vessels still remain in place, although many others have been buried underground. So there's just all sorts of questions as to where we possibly go from here. I genuinely feel for Donald Trump on this one. I think that Donald Trump went in possibly a little cocky off of the Venezuela success, off of the the operation to get Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. This is my working theory. The case, my working theory is that United States foreign policy was so unbelievably successful, really unbelievably successful in the first year of Trump's second term, who came to the narco terrorist boat strikes led by Pete Hegseth and Department of War, then getting up to Caracas and Nicolas Maduro, that was highly, highly successful operation, absolutely resolved. So I think Trump was a little cocky, got a little ahead of his skis when it came to Iran and probably thought this would be easier than it would be. He did pull the plug prematurely. We've said that all along, beginning with the April 8th ceasefire culminating in in this not so stellar MoU that now we know is not worth the price of paper that has been written on. But I feel for him because he doesn't want to be in the situation now. To be clear, he didn't have to do this. And when you start something, you got to finish the job, period, full stop, end of story. But I feel for him at nothing if not an emotional level because I understand to go back to this Michael CorleOne Godfather Part 3 analogy that he really, really, really wants to focus on on the economy. Inflation's still a little too high, 4.2% month over month in the most recent reading, really wants to focus on jobs, on reindustrialization. I totally get Mr. President. I am Deeply, deeply sympathetic. But on the other hand, if you start the job, you have to finish the job. All along, we have been consistent on this program by articulating four goals of this operation. We've said this since the day it launched on February 28. The four goals of the 2026 conflict between the United States and Iran are as follows. In no particular order, they are One, a free and open Strait of Hormuz, a straight of Hormuz that is not subject to Iranian piracy, is not subject to Iranian tolls or fees, whatever other kind of euphemism or adjective you would like to use. That's number one. Number two, you have to have an end to the Iranian regime's funding of all of their terror proxies throughout the region. Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and on and on. That has not happened as of now. Three is the ballistic missiles, which we were just talking about a little bit with Rich Goldberg. Many of those missiles have been buried due to the efficacy of the United States Israeli joint military operation, but much of the infrastructure still remains to this day. We've seen that play out when it comes to Iran still firing a bunch of missiles, not just at Israel, but at a lot of the Arab countries throughout the region. In fact, it was really Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait who were among the most recent countries to be on the receiving end on the wrong end of those Iranian ballistic missiles. And finally, above all, there is the nuclear issue, which we still don't have an actual final resolution for at this time. It seems like they are not currently enriching uranium, but frankly, we don't actually know. And we don't actually know because. Because, well, they're still the same people in charge. They really are. They've taken a strong blow to the chin, but they're still the same lying, evil bastards, frankly, as Donald Trump accurately has been calling them. That's who they are. They are still the same people. So ultimately, this has to be continued until there is some meaningful, real resolution on those issues. The good news is that it seems like Donald Trump does understand that. The most interesting question I have is what does this mean for Vance? What does this mean for the vice president, J.D. vance, who was really all in as the spokesperson for the mou? I don't know. Frankly, I have no idea what it means for the mou. What does it mean for Marco Rubio, who many people are touting as a possible 2028 rival to Vance Rubio, who. Who was nowhere to be found anywhere near selling the MoU, probably because he opposed it. And that's what the rumors said. The rumors were that Hegseth at war, Rubio at State, and Ratcliffe of the CIA all opposed the mou. Well, frankly, they look pretty vindicated right now because it's barely been a few weeks and this MOU is at this time deader than dead. Is Donald Trump going to turn on his vice president? Well, that's probably a bit of an exaggeration. It actually was just an Axios article earlier this week talking about how Donald Trump is currently holding JD Vance in very high esteem because of all the media rounds he's been doing to sell the diplomacy. But now Trump has done something of an about face, not coming about face. He's done about face when it comes to Iran. What does that mean for 2028? What does it mean for his relations with his own vice president? Well, I don't really know the answers, but I do know that's something that I'm keeping my eyes on very closely from here on out. I want to talk as well about something here on the domestic front. It's not just a radio that's in the news today. There's all sorts of other stuff happening as well. So there was an interesting paper that just came out from the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas. And if you're just tuning in, you might think an interesting paper from a regional Federal Reserve bank that sounds super, super nerdy and just really not something I care about, but you really should care about and here's why. The paper talks about the cost of Biden era illegal immigration into the United States markets and talks about how various prices and how various commodities and goods saw massive spikes due to this invasion that happened over the course of the Biden Harris regime. So the economist who wrote this paper for the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas estimates that illegal alien worker flows over the course of the Biden Harris regime. We're talking here from 2021 to 2024. They alone they accounted for about 30% of total employment growth. So 30% of the job growth according to this Fed study, went to illegals. 30% of the increase in home prices attributed just to illegals because they're buying homes when they get here. At least some of them are. And 20% of the rent growth was attributable to illegals. So let me break this down for you. We're talking here about the fact that illegal immigration dramatically increases the price of getting your home, dramatically increases the price of paying your rent. Who in the world could have seen this coming? It's almost like immigration is, among other things, a supply and demand issue. Immigration, as we say on the show all the time, is the single most important issue of all the issues in politics. The single most. Why? Because it affects everything. It affects basic supply and demand in the housing market and, and all markets, frankly, like this. It affects crime, it affects national security, it affects culture, it affects our language and affects the most foundational questions in all politics. Namely, who are we as a polity, as a populace, as an electorate. We talked a lot last week in the context of the birthright citizenship debate about the notion of consent to the govern. We the people. The first three words, the Constitution's pre emptive. Well, who are we the people? We're not consenting to illegal immigration, that is for sure. It's worth noting as well that so much of this I would argue actually including the price in home prices, rent even for Native Americans, lowercase and native like, not American Indians, but for those of us who are Native Americans, I think that a lot of this is actually baked into Democratic party's calculus for a very, very long time. Joe Biden, interesting clip back in 2015, was seemingly bragging about the fact that the so called Browning of America will make white people a minority in the United States. He said that this is a source of our strength. Here was Biden back in 2015, an
- [32:05]
Donald Trump
unrelenting stream of immigration, non stop, nonstop. Folks like me who were Caucasian of European descent for the first time in 2017 will be an absolute minority in
- [32:21]
Josh Hammer
the United States of America.
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Donald Trump
Absolute minority. Fewer than 50% of the people in America from then and on will be white European stock. That's not a bad thing. That's a, that's a source of our strength.
- [32:37]
Josh Hammer
You can see he's almost gleeful. He's very happy, isn't he? Look, the actual race of Americans doesn't matter at all. And that's a lie for those who tell you that it does. What matters is not race. What matters is culture. Are people coming here? Do they want to come here for the right reasons? Do they buy into the declaration to the Constitution? Do they have the same religious fervor that this country has always been built upon? Those are the things that matter. Race is a distraction there. But the Democrats take a different perspective. They openly want to change this country. Barack Obama said it out loud. He said in the precipice of the 2008 election that we are just a week or two away from fundamentally transforming these United States. There was Joe Biden in 2015, just seven years later. Openly bragging about it. Here we are in 2026 and we're starting to see some economic data revealing that that is happening in shockingly real terms. Folks, we're going to go to one final break. We'll be right back with more on the other side.
- [33:37]
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- [34:40]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. I want to continue this line of thought briefly. When it comes to immigration and difference between race and culture, there are a lot of race hustler across the spectrum who tell you that the so called Browning of America is an inherently good thing. That would be Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Then there are people on the other side will tell you that it is an inherently bad thing. These would be some stripes of paleo conservatives, some in the so called alt right places like that. To be clear, race itself is ultimately meaningless. You could easily get easily get some black immigrants from let's call it Nigeria, just as a hypothetical, who are devout Christians who go to church, who live a very godly life, who very much live in a cultural civic Protestant manner that would accord with the founding values and precepts of the American founding. So the actual race itself, you want to take race and zoom it out. The actual race doesn't actually matter. What matters though is what you bring to the table and who you fundamentally are. Are you eager, are you chomping at the bit to come here and to not just assimilate? Assimilate should be the barest bare minimums to make an affirmatively positive contribution using your own idiosyncratic personal gifts to bring this country to the next level. There's all these quotes from the founding generation. You can recall one from James Madison who really is above all the chief author of the Constitutional text Madison, had this one quote, talk about how the burden should be on the on the migrant, on the would be immigrant to prove his or her bona fides, to prove that he or she is worthy of coming here because of fill in the blank because of some sort of special skill assault for some sort of special reason. That is the right way to think about immigration. Certainly above all, illegal immigration totally, totally perverts and distorts that paradigm. There is no burden placed on the illegal alien. The burden, frankly, is placed on the American taxpayer to absorb illegal aliens and to provide them with all sorts of social services and housing. And as we just discussed in the context of the Federal Reserve stuff, we see that in the increased price of housing and rent and commodities and consumer staples and goods and on and on and on. We don't talk enough about immigration in this country. I think a lot of folks think we talk about it too much. We should talk about it more because as I say all the time, it is the most important issue that we face. And I think Republicans will be doing themselves a disservice by not talking about this issue. Incidentally, on the campaign trail this this fall, a lot of the K Street consulting class for the Republican Party, a lot of the Beltway types are saying, oh, don't talk about immigration because you're going so hard. Tom Holdman talking about the largest deportation operation. You don't want to lose all those Hispanic voters that you just got in 2020 and 2024, do you? But I don't buy that for a second, actually, not for a second. Those voters came to the Trump era Republican Party not in spite of the fact that Trump was talking tough and acting tough on immigration because of that. Because so many of these voters, especially in places like South Texas, they are the ones who are most impacted by all the various calamities that attach to a wide open border. When it comes to the human trafficking rings and the cartel violence, they're the ones most affected. And just at an objective level, this administration has a soaring success of a story to share with the American people on the topic of border security and illegal immigration. Just to cite off some statistics from you, this is courtesy of CBP US Customs and Border Protection. Southwest border apprehensions under this second Trump term are 94% lower than they were under Joe Biden. 94 94% in this current fiscal year. Border crossings were lower than the monthly average over the course of the last 30 years. Daily average apprehensions in April this year were 94% lower than under Joe Biden. So you get the idea. They've reduced that. As I say, the administration has reduced border crossings to darn well near zero. It's a very successful story. They should tell it. Don't be afraid to talk about it. Yes, the economy is the most important issue. I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it. Most important issue for virtually every voter, frankly, probably in some ways at least, including me. Although I really do care a lot about immigration. But immigration is an important issue and you simply cannot just give it up. I want to update us as well when it comes to the situation with Graham Platner. So we spent a lot of time on yesterday's show talking about Graham Platner, who is the most comically compromised candidates in recent U.S. senate candidate history. A man who now, now is, is fielding lots and lots of calls from the Democratic establishment, from the various elected official leaders, from the super pacs, from the streamers, the podcasters, from, from, from the whole left wing ecosystem, with some very rare exceptions. Kind of curious, but, but most of the left wing ecosystem is now calling on Grand Platner to drop out. Not because the dude had a literal SS Nazi death camp gas chamber tattoo on his chest. Not because he lied and lied and lied about how he served military, because he actually was bragging about how he was going to brothels in southeastern Europe and he was going on benders and backpacking all across Europe while he was on leave for the military. No, Democrats didn't really care when he lied about the fact that he was a, a Maine blue collar, working class oysterman. No, he wasn't. Dude reported $5,000 in income from oystering. His business was on a private island owned by his wealthy business partner's family and his only recipient of his oysters for his mommy's restaurant. So Democrats didn't care seemingly about any of this. What they care about though, is that according to POLITICO, a 41 year old Mainer by name of Jenny Rasico says that Graham Platner raped her. And the New York Times, if you recall from yesterday's show, knew about this and buried it deliberately trying to hand a catch and kill story, a bit of goodwill, if you will, to the main Democratic Party and Democrats across the country on a silver platter. But now, now, now, because it wasn't a Republican like Lindsey Fifield who also was accused or also did accuse Graham Platner of being physically forceful and sexually assaulting her. No, now it's a politically sympathetic leftist remains saying that he raped her. And now they're all saying that he should drop out. So will Graham Platner drop out? Well, I'll be candid. I'm a little surprised that he has not done so already, actually. It really seemed like he was about to do so. He canceled a lot of his campaign trips over this past weekend. He is not really out on the campaign trail. As I speak, he released a video saying that he's addressing his next steps forward. By the way, that video was about a minute and a half, two minutes long. As one astute observer on X pointed out, there were eight cuts spliced in that video, which means that Graham Platner couldn't talk straight to the camera for like two minutes. Kind of funny, because he's trying to sell himself as this real blue collar, authentic working man. Never mind the fact that he went to Hotchkiss, one of the most elite prep schools in all of New England. So is he going to drop out? I predict that he will. I'm a little surprised that it is taking this long, but it's something of a kamikaze mission, frankly. If he doesn't, he's going to lose all of his funding. There's going to be no funding left for Graham Platner. The reality of the math for Democrats is that if they are not able to get maimed, then it's going to get very, very, very difficult for them to retake the Senate come January 2027. They will have to start winning in places like Iowa and North Carolina, Alaska, perhaps even Ohio, perhaps as well. It's not looking good. They're going to have to go all in on Maine. Democrats, to their credit, tend to do a slightly better job than Republicans do when they have a flawed candidate in trying to get that candidate out of the picture. The most famous example, naturally, would be the bloodless coup of Joe Biden in July of 2024, where they toppled Joe Biden and brought in Kamala Harris. They're trying to do the same thing right now with Graham Platner. And whether or not Graham Platner wants to bow out, it seems like he probably doesn't. He will bow to reality and he will drop out. Republicans don't actually do this for the most part, do they? All sorts of candidates from another lifetime ago. People like Todd Aiken, Richard Murdoch, Sharron Engel, the 2010, 2012 candidates who may remember as being flawed. How about Roy Moore back in Alabama in 2018, who lost to Doug Jones in a deep, deep red state? So Democrats are a little bit more cynical, I would argue a little bit more practical when it comes to this. Politics is a dirty business. We prefer our people to always be moral. Sometimes they are not. But in a situation like this, you have to bow ultimately to political reality. Graham Platner is not a very good human being. Good human beings don't get Nazi tattoos. But even he recognizes political reality. He may not want to, but he sees it. And he will, I think, bow out before it is too late. Come this Monday. Although personally I hope he doesn't. But I do think that he will. Folks, have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off. We'll be right back. As always, Foreign.
- [44:52]
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