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Iran fires on a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. Is the Trump Vance Iran Memorandum of understanding even going to last the weekend at this point? We analyze that and much more. I'm Josh Hammer and this is Josh Hammer Show. So we've had almost two weeks now of these negotiations going on at this bougie five star mountaintop resort over in Switzerland. It's a little hard to figure out exactly what is happening on a day to day basis. The Vice President is a busy man. I presume that he can't just camp out in the Swiss Alps for months at a time. So it seems that we have Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner who are leading on a de facto date day level. The American negotiators over in Switzerland recall that it is Qatar and Pakistan that are the two countries that have assumed the role of being the mediators in these talks, which is problematic point number one, frankly, given the fact that Qatar is a duplicitous actor and given the fact that Pakistan, well, they're very cozy with Iran. And Pakistan, lest we forget, was the country that was housing Osama bin Laden back when SEAL Team six went in for the kill shot there in May of 2011. So these are not exactly countries that you want to be the mediators. Perhaps Switzerland could have actually reprised that law. Recall that Switzerland historically was the quintessential neutral country, a country that refused to get involved in all of those old outmoded European alliance structures, but they are deciding not to do so. In any event, it has been two weeks now now and we have had rhetorical affirmations from everyone from the Vice President to the Qataris to not really the Iranians, but basically everyone else saying that we have laid the foundation to get a foundation for a foundation for a deal. I'm exaggerating a little bit. We haven't got a whole lot of clarification. And part of that is because the Iranians just are who the Iranians are. I do not know how else to say. And we got just the latest indication of that that happened on Thursday. So there was an attack and it's had that the United States confirmed, per the Wall Street Journal. The Wall street journal citing U.S. intelligence and Defense officials who have confirmed that it was indeed the Iranian military, the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, all the powers that be there in the still very intact extent Iranian regime. They fired on a Singaporean flagged cargo vessel. This happened on Thursday as this vessel was trying to traverse the Strait of Hormuz. And we are getting new intelligence as well that indicates that Iran plans to. To toll the crap, to tax and toll the crap out of these straits. They are essentially going to have a very, very narrow channel whereby the IRGC can patrol the boats and inspect if they are so inclined, which they probably will do if the vessel is flagged by a country that they are not particularly sympathetic to, which is actually most of the world, because this is a highly radical rogue regime, as you may have heard. And then they will be tolling, AKA getting a tax, AKA getting a fee from these ships as well as. So your mileage may vary as to whether or not this, this amounts to a full, free and open strait. It definitely is not what I had in mind. I presume it's probably not what President Trump had in mind either when this conflict started. One of the goals of Epic Fury all along was to make sure that this exact thing did not happen. We didn't want Iran to actually get a veto power on the strait to be able to board these vessels. But what we've read is that Iran apparently is looking at other models throughout the world. This is a very recent thing. Just over the past month or two, as the administration has made clear their desperation to get a deal, the Iranians have been emboldened to look around the world and to look at competing models as to what it looks like to truly have a stranglehold over a crucial chokehold and water points of a narrow gap. And apparently what they've been looking at actually above all is the Turkish model. So Turkey, without getting into many details, there, you have the Bosphorus, you have the Darnells. It's essentially how you get from the Mediterranean all the way to the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. It's complicated without visualizing it on a map, but Turkey around Istanbul with the Darnells and Bosphorus has this exact model in place where they were able to get a narrow choke point and then place a massive levy, a fee, a toll on these ships. Apparently, Iran has been studying the Turkish model. So we have now Iran actively firing, like legitimately firing on ships on the one hand, too. They have all these plans in place to toll the crap out of these ships on the other hand. Now, the good news is that there is still some oil flowing. It's both good news and bad news, frankly. It's bad news because it passed the coffers of this most tyrannical regimes. This is how this regime makes money. At the end of the day, they make money due to the fact that they are a petroleum based economy and that they are exporting a crapload of oil. 90% of it, give or take, goes to the Chinese Communist Party incidentally. So that's the bad news. The good news is that the price price of Brent crude, because oil is a global commodity, it has indeed gone down and the price of gasoline at the pump has gone down about 50 cents on the dollar, give or take, depending on where you live in these great United States. But it definitely has gone down over the past month or so. Not down far enough. Which is why Donald Trump is threatening the oil companies for a possible DOJ price gouging investigation. He basically sees that this precipitous decline in the price of Brent crude on the commodities market and he has not seen that percentage affected in the stick oil markets. That's not really exactly how markets work. Sometimes prices are sticky for various structural reasons. Markets are complicated features of our day to day life. But in any event, the point is that there are both good and bad news to the oil flowing. By the way, it's not just this Singaporean flagged vessel that is now under Iranian attack, or at least possible attack. Just this morning, just this morning I was looking at social media, the uae, the United Arab Emirates, which along with Oman is one of the two countries right across the Persian Gulf and the Syria of moves to the matter from Iran. The UAE issued an alert on their emergency alert system for potential missile threats. It said, quote, this is translated from the Arabic. It said, quote, due to the current situation, potential missile threats immediately seek a safe place in the closest secure building. Steer away from windows, doors and open areas. So as Philip Pilkington, who is a very shrewd geopolitical analyst and economic analyst, as he put, as he put it on X, this is quote, increasing evidence that the IRGC might enforce the blockade over the heads of the negotiating team. So whatever the alleged negotiating team is on the part of the Iranians, whoever the President and the Vice President think that they're dealing with there, these are the flunkies, these are the suits that they tried out to look pretty for the Western cameras. Yet again we see evidence that the one who is actually calling the shots is the little Khamenei, Mushaba Khamenei, who we haven't seen any evidence of because he's been grievously wounded, we think from the kill shot that killed his father back on February 28. But he is the one, the so called Ayatollah, the irgc, they remain the ones who are calling the shots when it comes to control of the Straits to this day. In somewhat related news, I mentioned Turkey. How the Iranians have been allegedly studying Erdogan in Turkey and their control over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus as a possible model for how to toll the crap out of ships going through the strait, which is inauspicious in and of itself. Just to add some additional inauspicious material to this somewhat inauspicious opening segment of today's show, there is now the distinct possibility that the United states might sell F35 planes to Turkey for the first time in at least four or five years. So the F35s are some of the most advanced, advanced warplanes that the United States has produced. You might argue that the F35 platform is becoming increasingly outdated in the year 2026, where we have drone warfare. I don't think we're quite there yet. The F35 is still something that a lot our allies, the Israelis, Emiratis, et cetera, just love, love, love to have. The Saudis too, certainly. And the reason that Turkey was cut off, even though they are a nominal putative NATO ally, the reason they were cut off from the F35 program a few years ago is because Turkey, much like Qatar, plays both sides. So Turkey is part of NATO, which is somewhat problematic because Erdogan, the leader there, is an Islamist strongman who is trying to refashion Turkey in the image of the Ottoman Empire. He's trying to become this great Neo Ottoman 21st century Sultan. He is a massive sponsor of Hamas. He is very cozy with Iran. Trump apparently just came out yesterday and was bragging that he stopped Erdogan, who referred to as a quote unquote great leader, which is not great language because Erdogan is a psychopath. Trump referring to Erdogan as a great leader and saying that he actually stopped Erdogan from joining the conflict on the side of Iran. Not great. And now apparently as a reward, I guess, for Turkey not joining Iran in this conflict, even though they're literally a NATO country, as a reward, we are apparently looking at possibly selling them F35 platforms again, which would violate US law if they still have the S400 air defense, which is a Russian air defense. That's why they were stripped of this in the first place few years ago. So unless they can truly, truly corroborate, they do not have that air defense, we shouldn't be going down, down this perilous path. Look, in many ways, the Trump first term had the Middle east at a certain level, more correct than sometimes what I see coming out of this administration in the second term. The first Trump administration understood that when it comes to American interests in this region, our interests are in political moderation, instability and ultimately against Islamism and jihad. Really, those were the motivating features. And above all that jihad Islamism came from the Iranian regime, it still does come from the Iranian regime, and then also comes from certain problematic other states that are known to sponsor Sunni Islamism, that are known to sponsor Hamas and Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood. Above all, that was and remains Turkey and Qatar. Things have changed a little bit, as you've probably noticed. As we explained on yesterday's show, you have this very weird two track diplomacy happening simultaneously whereby the vice President and his team with Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner are presiding over these negotiations, which look like an implicit rebuke in some ways of the Abraham accords infrastructure in 2020. While on the other hand you have Marco Rubio, who was going to a lot of our traditional allies, Kuwait, Bahrain, Liu ii, trying to shore up this alliance in the context of an emboldened Iranian regime. So the administration fundamentally has a decision to make. What is it going to be? What is their approach going to be? Now, I was reading a blog post this morning from Erik Erikson and he made an interesting point that I want to just read and then we'll kind of have our own thoughts from there. So what Erik Erickson is arguing is that the J.D. vance foreign policy thesis and Jamal Chan Varius, whether or not you think this is his thesis, this is what Erik Erickson says. He writes, quote, that J.D. vance's thesis is that the world is multipolar, that resources are scarce, that allies must fend for themselves, and that America should pull back to what he deems vital and let the other great powers run their own neighborhoods. I agree with the first half, then disagree with the latter. So here is where it gets a little more nuanced. Interesting. The world is multipolar. China absolutely is a superpower. We say this on the show time and time again. You cannot pretend that that is not a thing, not a reality. In the year 2026. Resources indeed are scarce. Here's where I disagree, where I disagree is that we shouldn't just leave our allies to fend for themselves. We can develop these regional alliance structures. Abraham Accords a very good example in the Indo Pacific. Let's bring together Japan and the Philippines and Australia and India in a China containment structure that's Where America gets its bang for its buck in this 21st century is in these alliance superstructures. At a regional level, the Abrahamic Accords really ought to be the model. We should be acting the world stage to shore up the accords, which is what Rubio is doing, not trying to undermine them and appease Iran, Qatar and Pakistan, which what some others are doing at this time. Folks, we're going to go to a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with much more analysis on the other side.
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So this morning, just about as we were getting ready to do our show, Donald Trump actually came out swinging on what we're just talking about this Iranian missile fired at the Singaporean flagged vessel, the SA in the Strait of Horror Moose. So President Trump coming out swinging on Truth Social this morning saying, quote, the Islamic Republic of Iran shot at 4 one way attack drones at ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz. One of the drones solidly hit the upper deck of a large and very expensive cargo carrying ship. Damage was done, but the ship was able to proceed on its way. We knocked down three other drones. Obviously, this is a foolish violation of our ceasefire agreements. So it's one thing to say, it's another thing to contemplate what to actually do about it. So if this really is a violation of the ceasefire, this really is a violation of the nominal punitive good faith that has gone into the early stages of this MoU as the two countries try to get towards this 60 day agreement whereby we allegedly, with unicorn farts and pixie dust and rainbows, we get to some source of utopian agreement. This is a clear violation of all that. And so the question is, Mr. President, what are you going to do now? And this was so easily foreseeable. It is obvious that President Trump does not want this issue to be a thing. As he gears up for November. President Trump has been hitting the campaign trail this week. He's been trying to pivot back to the economy. Of course he is, of course he is. Because the economy is here, there and everywhere. The most important issue there is not a single poll that I am aware of in, let's call it the past 10, 15, maybe even years, where you see an exit poll at an election where the people care most about a non economic issue. In other words, it's always the economy. It is always, always, always the economy. Inflation, affordability, cost of living and so forth. I totally get it. But as much as the President wants to just shelve this Iranian issue to the side, the problem all along is that the Iranians were not going to let us do it. Which is why we've been screaming from the top of our lungs that the easiest way to this freaking band aid off was to rip the freaking band aid off. That was always the easiest way to get back to a domestic political message, get back to the economy. There was once you go in swinging, you go in really swinging, going really hard, you blow their brains out and then you get the heck out of there. No nation building, none of that crap. Accomplish your objectives and leave. We just have not accomplished our objectives. That and our allies, unfortunately in the region, see that it's not just the Israelis, our non Islamist Arab allies. Absolutely see that. So the uae, which is the most Western oriented probably of all the Sunni Arab Gulf countries, a very, very moderate, deeply anti Muslim Brotherhood, deeply anti Hamas leadership there in Abu Dhabi, they've been taking measures in recent weeks just to try to cozy up to Iran. Why? Because they are afraid of this mou. Because they don't like the fact that the Iranian regime is still in power. Whether or not they're publicly saying that is another story. They have all these games they play as a kind of classic Arab two face talk, but don't be fooled. They are deeply scared that the Iranian regime is still in power because they know that this regime will come back swing at them sooner rather than later. In fact, that's why you saw those missile alerts on the UAE's internal EMS system just this morning. So the administration has some very real decisions to make here. And what they choose to do over the next two week or two will say a lot about the extent to which Iran will continue to be front and center when it comes to our election season as we race towards November and continuing to race towards November. The Supreme Court is always a political issue. It will especially be a political issue if we get a Supreme Court vacancy this summer. I've been publicly predicting that we are going to get a vacancy. My confidence factor on that is not super high, so take it with a grain of salt. But while I consider it close to a coin flip, I will predict yet again that I do think that we're going to see a vacancy and it could potentially happen. Could potentially happen as soon as, gosh, a week and a half, two weeks if it just wants to retire basically right after the term's over. Because this is it, folks. This next week is the final week of the 2025, 2026 term. Then the justice go on the customary summer recess. They will come back in October for the full suite of oral argumentation. We are still waiting on some pretty big cases. We're still waiting on a ruling in the Slaughter case. This kind of the Slaughter case is the case where Trump is trying to fire a sitting commissioner of the ftc, which is a very related legal dispute to his attempt to fire Lisa Cook. That debate entails the extent to which the Article 2 executive power actually gives full plenary power to remove anyone under the president at his discretion, period, full stop in his story. Our basic take is that the executive power means, or at least it ought to mean, the plenary full ability to hire and fire whoever the heck you want at whatever time you want, for whatever reason, whatsoever, period, full stop, end of story. That is the plain meaning of Article 2. We will see what the court says on that. The biggest case that we are still awaiting, as you likely know, is the birthright citizenship case. I do not think this case is going to go out well. I actually saw Shannon Bream just this morning on Fox News saying the exact same thing. She's predicting 7 to 2 loss potentially, she said even 8 to 1. That's actually exactly how I see it. I think that we're looking at a, at best case scenario, the absolute best best is maybe, Maybe you get a 6, 3 loss. Maybe there's some chance Brett Kavanaugh joins Alito and Thomas. I don't think it's going to happen. I think you will get a ruling on statutory grounds, a ruling on the Immigration Nationality act of 1952, thereby circumventing the underlying 14th Amendment constitutional question, I predict that you will see the liberals concurrently in judgment and reach the same conclusion on constitutional grounds. They will do that because they want it to be in the Constitution. And if it's in the Constitution, then you can only override it with a constitutional amendment. So I think that the majority or the plurality will probably rule just that. This is in the immigration statute from 1952. The Liberals go further and say that it's in the Fourth Amendment text. And then you'll probably get, God willing, you'll get at least one or two dissenting votes taking the actual correct stance as we articulate here on the show, that's subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The relevant language in the citizenship clause actually refers to subject to the complete and total political allegiance, not just to the territorial jurisdiction. We'll bring on some more guests over the next week or two to continue to unpack this as we've done previously with guests like Richard Epstein and so forth. I am predicting, unfortunately, a massive loss for the administration in the birthright citizenship case. Your mileage may vary as to the extent to which yesterday's two big, tremendous victories for the administration in some other immigration matters, namely asylum and tps. Your mileage may vary on the extent to which that might inoculate you against the inevitable major loss next week on birthright. In other words, Trump, I think, is going to freak out when he loses on birthright citizenship. It's an issue that he cares a lot about and for good reason. It's a very important issue. I think he's probably going to lash out of the court like never before. And if we then get a vacancy from Alito or Thomas, that's going to really kind of heighten the stakes. But some of the liberals are freaking out already about yesterday's extremely straightforward rulings that asylum doesn't actually entail arrival until you actually arrive. Like going to Mexico does not count. That was one ruling yesterday. The other ruling is that temporary protected status actually means temporary and not permanent. Who would have thought that was the case? But the libs, they are melting down as they do. Zormadani was reacting to this ruling and was not exactly happy. In fact, he says we will never accept that. We will never accept this ruling when it comes to tps. Here was Oram Donny yesterday.
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We saw today the Supreme Court make a decision that is putting so many people's lives in jeopardy. And I just came back from a rally with 1199 as I stood alongside a number of Haitian New Yorkers who are concerned about what this means for their status in our city. Now, many of you know this is a city of 8 1/2 million people. More than 3 million of us were born elsewhere. I'm one of them. We're a city that's proud of our immigrant heritage. And when we think about especially what Haitian New Yorkers have had to deal with, not just for weeks or months or years, but frankly for decades, we have seen a cruelty that has become normalized. And to have a people who frankly taught the world about freedom, have their own freedom be put in jeopardy by the actions of a Supreme Court and a federal administration, it is not only cruel, it's something that we will not ever accept. And so we stand here as New Yorkers proud of standing in solidarity and proud to do everything that we can to keep people in their homes and to keep people together.
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What does that mean? We will not ever accept it? Does that mean that New York City is going to double down when it comes to active defying of federal immigration law when it comes to trying to protect some of these Haitian Syrians from not going back, even when the administration says they must go back now, Supreme Court says they can and they should if the administration says they should. What does that mean, Mr. Mayor? This is this insurrectionist mentality all over. And it's the exact same mentality that we saw from Tim Walls and Jacob Fry and Keith Ellison back in Minnesota. Listen, we know from Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun. The same mentality, unfortunately that led to Fort Sumter in the Civil War. The notion that states and localities can tell the feds to get lost. We see it rising again and again. The notion of a so called sanctuary jurisdiction is the perfect example. Zoram Doni has made New York city Sanctuary Jurisdiction 101 here in the year 2026. Ultimately, the administration will win on this. This is not going to work out for his honor, folks. We'll go to a quick break. We'll be right back. More analysis after this. Welcome back. So it's not just New York City that is emerging as a bastion of DSA Democrat Socialist America, of insurrectionist activity, of neo confederate. I mean it's not just New York City. We've cut on the show how Washington D.C. is about to get a new DSA mayor. Chicago under Mayor Brandon Johnson is an absolute lunatic asylum. A city that frankly I actually really enjoyed living in for the three years that I was there. Yes, it was liberal back then. Yes, crime is a problem that's gotten way Way, way, way worse. Under the adelbrained leadership of Mayors Lightfoot and now Mayor Johnson, Los Angeles speaks for itself. Karen Bass is somehow now the ostensibly more moderate choice in the mayoral runoff. There out in the City of Angels, Boston, Massachusetts, a city that you might not think a whole lot about. Boston is also led by a left wing lunatic. She is known as Michelle Wu. She's not as nationally known as someone like a Mamdani or a Karen Bass or Brendan Johnson. Boston not as big a city, but it does punch above its weight when it comes to making news every so often. Michelle Wu, much like Zormadani, was reacting to yesterday's very straightforward, very anodyne, very non controversial ruling on tbs and she said that we are grieving. Here was Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Live Now, Fox.
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Boston is the antidote to what's happening at the federal level. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been standing strong for a very long time against the attacks that have been coming at us from every direction. And so we have been preparing and in between all of the many, many meetings about logistics and safety and transportation for the World cup, we had just as many meetings about logistics and safety and protections for our Haitian community members and for our immigrant community members. We've celebrated the joy and cultural pride and contributions of our community in the same breaths as we've been preparing for the worst. And so we stand here today grieving, still feeling that sense of shock, but having done everything that we could possibly do to date to be as ready as possible to face what we are about to face.
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Yes, she's grieving because the Supreme Court said that temporary means temporary, not permanent. That is literally the takeaway. These two immigration cases that came out yesterday that are so controversial in the eyes of these leftist insurrectionists, on the one hand, they said that you don't actually arrive in the United States until you wait for it arrive in the United States, as Sam Alito very healthily puts it. In his opinion, if you are running in football, if you're a running back and you're going for the end zone and you're tackled at the one yard line, you haven't arrived in the end zone, you won't get six points on the board for your team. That was one ruling. The other ruling dealing with tps temporary protect status. So to back up a little bit, TPS is a program that goes back from the early 1990s. It was implemented in 1990, specifically during the George H.W. bush administration. It came about because there were earthquakes and natural disasters in Honduras El Salvador and in Central America, and basically said that, okay, if you're here legally and there is a terrible tragedy back home, there's a tsunami, typhoon, whatever, and you can't go back, we will extend your stay a little bit. So let's say you're on a three month visa, tourist visa, and you're two months and 30 days in terrible, tragic hits back home, okay? Okay, fine. We're not gonna deport you. You could stay for a little bit until things clean up. Some of these people end up staying for years and years and years. Decades. Decades. Does that sound temporary to you? No. But the crux of this dispute yesterday in the TPS case was even more straightforward than that. The basic question was, do people who are having their TPS status removed by the Department of Homeland Security, by secretary Mark McMullen, do they have a cause of action to sue in an Article 3 federal court? Guess what? The statute that authorized TBS answers this question. You don't have to have gone to Yale Law School to answer the question. Why? Because it says it in the most straightforward language imaginable. You do not have a right to sue. If Congress wants to give you that right, they can. Should they? No, they absolutely shouldn't. Because these are discretionary, ad hoc decisions that are best handled by the administration and the DHS in particular. So this is what these people are melting down over. And between Mamdani, between Michelle Wu, all of these people, you see this rise, as we've been discussing on the show all week this week, of this genuine socialist fringe. For a very long time, Republicans ran against Democrats warning them about socialism. And some of us saw that and we said, I mean, listen, they're liberals. Are they actually socialists? I mean, are Bill and Hillary Clinton actual socialists? No, they're not. That would be an insult to the term. They believe in a welfare state. They believe in higher taxation, redistribution. None of that actually makes you a socialist. An actual socialist means that you want to share all the resources and ultimately to get back to Marx and communism, to control the means of production. The difference between then and now is that you actually have people winning, like his Honor at Gracie Mansion, like Zormandani, who actually believe in that. Mandani is the dude who was quoting Marx and Engels, who was quoting repeatedly the Communist Manifesto on his loathsome social media feeds. He got elected not in spite of that, it seems, but perhaps because of that. That's where they're at. That's how you get the girl now known as dac Darlieza. Chevalier, who is about to become the new it girl of the squad. She will probably outflank AOC when she takes office come January 2027. That's how you get her saying that she believes in the full scale seizure of the means of production and indeed she believes, according to her own word, in the complete eradication of the United States of America. These people, in short, are lunatics. There is nothing good down that road unless you define good as the eradication of the United States. If you are actually trying to destroy America, what more could you possibly do other than to elect and to work to elect people like the three individuals who won their congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday. What more could you do? Like trying to get people like Zormadani elected. People like Chris Rapp, who won a contested primary in Philadelphia. This is happening increasingly all throughout the country now. James Carville is one Democrat who's not going to take this sitting down. James Carville is an interesting man. He was a campaign manager for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign. He is certainly a liberal, he is absolutely not a conservative. But he is someone who has been very opposed to the ever woke direction of his own political party. And he had some color for words this week. This came out on the Politikon contest that came out on Wednesday. I think it would be accurate to say that he was freaking out, maybe even just melting down actually over what happened the night prior on Tuesday evening in New York City. Here's what James Carville had to say. He said, and he was speaking here to Dariel Lisa Chevalier and these other communists, New York City. He said, quote, lady, I ain't in the same party as you. I'm sorry, I'm just not. And I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word schism. I really do. Everybody's always said, no, no, we're a coalition, we're a big tent and there's just some crap I can't be in the same tent with. He went further and said, but I'm done. I'm not in that effing political party. I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I'm enthusiastic about that. I don't want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. That's just not. I just can't do that. So the question is, who is going to win this civil war? And as we've said on the show, there is definitely a civil war of sorts on the American rights that is brewing. There is this horrific faction that is trying to take the American right in this dystopian anti American, anti Western direction by Molly coddling China and Russia and radical Islam and ultimately hating Judaism, Christianity. It's just awful. And this is led by people like Tucker and Candace and that whole ilk. But whatever is happening on the right utterly pales in comparison. It utterly pales in comparison to what is happening on the American left. There is a gargantuan civil war that is happening before our eyes. The question is, do the moderates stand a chance? Do the Carvilles of the world, the Josh Gotheimers of the world, do they have any chance? The answer, I fear, is no. This is a party that in real time, they are falling like a bunch of dominoes. You can draw a very straight line, a clear path from Barack Obama 2008 to Kamala Harris 2024 to now. What we are seeing Zoram Doni as the new IP mem in the Democratic Party. The DSA is the beating heart of the Democratic Party. Any effort to suppress that is going to fail. Most Democrat voters tell pollsters, they actually tell them that they identify as socialists more than capitalists. They don't believe in Israel's right to exist. They don't believe in America's right to exist. That's why they start all their older introductions with these land acknowledgements. They're on stolen land. They do it now at the DNC and other national Democratic gatherings. This is the heart and soul of the party. Frankly, I actually wished moderate luck. I don't want the Democratic Party to become a full on communist entity. I wish you luck, James Carpool. I really do. But unfortunately, sir, you are going to lose this fight. We're going to one final commercial break, folks. We'll be right back with closing thoughts after this. Welcome back. So we are definitely on needles. We're on pinpoints here waiting for the Supreme Court to give us that birthright citizenship opinion. And I can't wait for that to happen and talk about it a lot on the show when it happens. But just one final legal update as we head into this weekend. So just this morning, John Bolton, the disgraced former national security advisor for President Trump has gone ahead and pled guilty. He pled guilty to his mishandling of classified information. This is a remarkable victory for the Trump administration and the DOJ that has pursued this. A lot of folks looked at this and said, oh, this is a witch hunt. Oh, this looks like Going after James Comey. Oh, this looks like. Going after Tish James. Oh, this looks like. Insert your alleged witch hunt. And they tried to dismiss the gravity of what John Bolton allegedly did. And now it looks a lot like he did. Now, to be clear, anyone who's dealt with law knows that you can at times strategically plead guilty to a lesser charge while trying to avoid a grave charge. That's just how the plea process works. And it's ultimately up to defense lawyers and prosecutors to make those sorts of very difficult decisions. But this is a serious guilty plea. This is a guilty plea that would include a sentencing range from, to be clear, he could not go to prison, but it could be as high as five years behind bars. The judge will make that determination. John Bolton, who's been in D.C. and been in politics for decades, guy, he went to yell and then yell again for law school, who has sharp credentials and was at one time the talk of the town. He's not going to plead guilty to a massive charge of this unless he. Unless he really did it. I mean, look, I don't know what he did. You don't know either there. But we can definitely surmise that he did some very, very, very shady stuff. And what he was actually accused of doing was sharing classified information with two relatives for possible use in a book that he was writing, including notes on intelligence briefings and meetings with senior officials and foreign leaders. Just last year, he pled not guilty to 18 criminal charges last year. Now he's pled guilty to. This does not show me that as a kind of thing that you ultimately would do unless you are actually prepared, unless you were actually prepared to go ahead and potentially serve some time behind bars. We will see whether that happens. But for now, know that John Bolton has pled guilty in the, in the classified information case. And it's a huge victory, by the way, for the Trump doj. A tremendous, tremendous victory there. They've said the Trump DOJ is going after the political enemies, and in this case, they got a massive scalp and is not a scalp that will go unnoticed. This is definitely something that will be felt. And in the particular case of John Bolton, really could not have happened to a nicer individual. And I say that with all due sarcasm. Finally, I want to end by talking a little bit about marriage. We played for you earlier this week. We played for you a clip of Secretary Sean Duffy. He was speaking at President Trump's National Mall America 250 launch event. And Duffy was talking about the importance of focusing on your marriage, your kids, and the things that really matter in life. And that's, that's fantastic. It was, it was actually a really, really, really wonderful clip which why we played on the show and talked about it. Today is June 2026, but it's June 26th is what I meant to say. It's June 26th, 2026, double 26 there. And this is the anniversary of a number of decisions at the U.S. supreme Court. Many of the court's gay decisions or homosexual decisions have come out on this day. I don't know if that's coincidence or they do intentionally, but they just have. So in 2003, you had the case of Lawrence versus Texas came out, which was an erroneous decision whereby they found a 14th amendment quote, unquote substantive due process right to engage in homosexual sodomy, which you may or may not think should be criminalized. But the Constitution definitely does not require one result. That's up to the states. That was in 2003, on this very day you had the Windsor case in 2013, on this very day, which overturned the Defense of Marriage act, commonly known as doma, which was the Clinton era law. Speaking of Bill Clinton as being a force of moderation. It was a Clinton error law that defines marriage for federal purposes between one man and one woman. The Windsor case in 2013, excuse me, overturned DOMA. And then above all, you had the 2015 case, which came out 11 years ago today of Obergefell vs. Hodges, which was, which was the infamous Anthony Kenney opinion whereby they finally said they finished their logical progression. They said that marriage is whatever you want to be. And they kind of said it's up to two people. But why exactly once you were defining it as being entirely oriented around the romantic interests of adults and not the needs of children, why exactly would you limit it to two people? There's absolutely no limiting principle whatsoever. Which by the way was one of the arguments that those of us who opposed the redefinition of marriage made for years and years and years sometimes on this day, I can't help but think one of my favorite paragraphs that has ever been written in the US Supreme Court. It was written on this day 11 years ago by a very great man who tragically is no longer with us. That of course would be Justice Antonin Scalia, the lead dissenter in Obergefell. The lead dissenter in the same sex marriage case was Chief Justice John Roberts. To his credit. Roberts is. Listen, he's not a liberal, he's not a true originals conservative. He's center Right. Every so often, Roberts comes out swinging. He came out swinging big time. In a 2020 case called McGirt, the one where Neil Gorsuch decides to give one third of Oklahoma to the American Indians, Roberts wrote a vociferous lead dissent. He wrote a big dissent in the Obergefell case, too. But my favorite dissent from Obergefell was Antonin Scalia, who just had a way with words. The man just was so acerbic and biting when he wanted to be. And his final paragraph, referring to what the court had done in constitutionalizing this issue on which the Constitution is utterly silent, on which people of good faith and no faith and all the above disagree mightily, he finally wrote this to conclude his assent, he wrote, quote, hubris is sometimes defined as overweening pride, and pride we know goeth before a fall. The judiciary is the least dangerous of the federal branches because it has, quote, neither force nor will, but merely judgment. It must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm and even the states, quote, even for the efficacy of its judgments. Close quote. With each decision of ours that takes from the people a question properly left to them. With each decision that is unabashedly based not in law, but on the, quote, unquote reasoned judgment of a bare majority of this court, we move one step closer, being reminded of our impotence. I quote that frequently because what he's actually getting at the end there is saying the More that Article 3, the courts go rogue, the more the political branches can push back, which is what he's getting at when he says there that we can be reminded of our own impotence. Because when push comes to shove, when the separation powers actually clash, Hamilton's least dangerous branch, the judiciary, can't lift a finger. Assuming that Congress actually acts. That here and everywhere is the ultimate question. Will Congress act? Well, we've been calling for them to act here on the show for a year and a half now over the course of this gargantuan judicial insurrection that is still to this day hobbling Donald Trump's second term agenda. On the immigration issue, above all, that still should happen. It is not too late to remedy that mistake. I want to briefly also just touch on the actual underlying substance of the Obergefell case. We've been told for years that the marriage issue is dead. We've been told that the court decided this, that it's not a live political issue anymore. And for a while, that appeared to be true. For a while, even on the right, Even Republicans, around 2022, 2023, that was with the zenith during the Biden administration. At that point, even 50 plus percent of Republicans told pollsters they believed in same sex marriage. Notably, those numbers have actually come down. The percentage of Republicans who now believe in same sex marriage is actually down into the 30s again, which is still too high. But it's, it's an improvement. There's actually a grant, a brand new poll, excuse me, from the Greater Than Campaign. You follow them at greater than campaign.com I was part of their launch video back in January. Actually, a brand new poll that they've commissioned and they've just released shows that 82%, 82% of conservative and moderate likely general election voters from a poll conducted just earlier this month, 82% of these voters agree no child should be deliberately denied a mother or a father. That's a very, very high number. 96% of these voters say that it is important for a child to be raised with both an involved mother and an involved father. 96%. 82% of those say that no child should be delivered denied. I just read that 66% reject the claim that being raised by same sex parents is no different for a child than being raised by an adopted mother and father. You get the idea. Again, you can go to GreaterThancampaign.com, which I've been involved with a little bit since January, to go ahead and check out more of the details. The point folks, is that this issue is not, as they say, forever decided because the court decides. That's not the end of the story. Decisions get overturned. It happens all the time. Just this week we talked about how Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs case. That came out four years ago in 2022. Plessy versus Ferguson, praise be to God, overturned in Brown versus Board of Education. This happens more than you might realize. Keep the fight up on this issue. This is a politically, culturally live issue. And on the margins, if only on the margins, there are some green shoes indicate that we're actually winning on this issue as well, folks. Hope you do have a great weekend. We will see what happens when it comes to the Iran situation and much more. And we will be right back to talk about it and much more on Monday. We will see you then.
Episode Title: Trump-Vance Iran Deal Is on Life Support
Date: June 26, 2026
Host: Josh Hammer
In this episode, Josh Hammer analyzes the rapidly deteriorating Trump-Vance Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) amid escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, discussing the broader implications for American foreign policy, oil markets, internal U.S. politics, and judicial developments. Hammer also offers commentary on the ideological shifts within the Democratic Party and revisits the ongoing debates around marriage law and the Supreme Court’s role.
[00:00–10:00]
Iran Attacks Commercial Vessel
Negotiations and Mediation Concerns
“Qatar is a duplicitous actor and…Pakistan, well, they're very cozy with Iran.” —Josh Hammer [00:43]
Iran’s Strategic Choke Point
“One of the goals of Epic Fury all along was to make sure that this exact thing did not happen.” —Josh Hammer [03:10]
Oil, Economics, and U.S. Politics
[10:00–16:40]
Regional Alarm: UAE Missile Threats
IRGC’s Real Power within Iran
“We see evidence that the one who is actually calling the shots is the little Khamenei, Mushaba Khamenei…” —Josh Hammer [06:50]
Turkey’s Role—and U.S. Policy Contradictions
[16:40–18:18]
Trump’s First vs. Second Term Approach
“You have this very weird two-track diplomacy happening simultaneously…” —Josh Hammer [10:20]
Key Quote on Foreign Policy:
“The world is multipolar... But where I disagree is that we shouldn't just leave our allies to fend for themselves. We can develop these regional alliance structures.” —Josh Hammer [11:15]
[18:18–26:18]
SCOTUS Watch: Anticipating Major Rulings
“I am predicting, unfortunately, a massive loss for the administration in the birthright citizenship case.” —Josh Hammer [16:30]
Left-Wing City Governments and Sanctuary Policies
“This insurrectionist mentality… That led to Fort Sumter in the Civil War.” —Josh Hammer [22:40]
[26:18–34:35]
“Lady, I ain't in the same party as you... I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word—schism.” —James Carville, quoted by Josh Hammer [28:30]
[34:35–37:00]
“This is a guilty plea that would include a sentencing range... as high as five years behind bars. The judge will make that determination.” —Josh Hammer [35:23]
[37:00–End]
Anniversary of Landmark Supreme Court Decisions
“Hubris is sometimes defined as overweening pride, and pride we know goeth before a fall... With each decision of ours that takes from the people a question properly left to them… we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.” —Justice Antonin Scalia, quoted by Josh Hammer [40:30]
Polls & Conservative Sentiment
Final Thoughts
“Keep the fight up on this issue. This is a politically, culturally live issue.” —Josh Hammer [44:15]
On Iran’s Actions:
“Your mileage may vary as to whether or not this amounts to a full, free, and open strait. It definitely is not what I had in mind.” —Josh Hammer [04:50]
On U.S. Foreign Policy:
“The first Trump administration understood… our interests are in political moderation, instability and ultimately against Islamism and jihad.” —Josh Hammer [09:30]
On Democratic Infighting:
“The DSA is the beating heart of the Democratic Party. Any effort to suppress that is going to fail.” —Josh Hammer [32:30]
On John Bolton:
“This is a huge victory… and is not a scalp that will go unnoticed.” —Josh Hammer [35:58]
On SCOTUS & Marriage:
“Decisions get overturned. It happens all the time. Just this week we talked about how Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs case.” —Josh Hammer [44:00]
This summary provides a comprehensive guide for listeners on the episode’s core arguments, notable exchanges, and the broader political narrative as seen by Josh Hammer.