← The Josh Hammer Show
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Josh Hammer
Donald Trump is the undisputed king of MAGA and the Republican Party. But can that undisputed king status get himself out of the Taqiah trap? Iranian quagmire? I'm Josh Hammer, and this is the Josh Hammer Show. So after Tuesday's primaries, there can be no possible doubt Donald Trump is the undisputed kink of MAGA in and also of the Republican Party at large. Donald Trump went 37 and oh in his primaries on Tuesday evening. He did not lose a single contest in which he made endorsement on Tuesday evening. This happens all across the country, most prominently in Kentucky's 4th congressional district. It also happened in Georgia as well. Overall, it is a very good night for Republicans on Tuesday, conservatives will be maintaining the Georgia Supreme Court after Democrats made a very aggressive effort to try to take over that body. However, lurking in the background, as we also discussed a little bit on yesterday's show, is this troublesome new poll out of the New York Times and Siena College, which is one of the nation's overall best pollsters. I'm not even talking about the overall approval rating. It's actually a horrific new poll out of Quinnipiac, another top pollster. Well, your mileage may vary as to Quinnipiac, except some elections, they get better than others. Overall, considered to be a genuinely reputable pollster, they've got Trump's approval rating down very, very low. It was in the mid-30s, actually, 34% is what I saw. So even holding that aside, though, there's this new New York Times Sienna poll, another top pollster, which shows this massive generational divide within the MAGA fold, within the Republican Party fold, and the broader conservative coalition between older Republicans and younger Republicans. And we see this playing out in the specific context of Iran and Middle east and foreign policy perhaps above all. And that really is what I want to start diving into here because this is the big question right now. The big question right now as we get set to enter this Memorial Day weekend holiday, I actually will be offline tomorrow for the Jewish holiday of Shavu. We'll have a little bit more on that later on towards the end of today's show. But as we get set to go into this lengthy holiday weekend, the big question yet again is, will he or won't he? And part of this paradox, if you will, this irony is that Trump, on the one hand is the king of maga, on the other hand, on the other hand, the younger up and coming generation, the folks who will be the majority MAGA Republican voters come 20, 28, 2032 and beyond are not necessarily on board with this particular agenda. So this New York Times Sienna College poll said that they asked younger voters essentially a series of questions. Do you want to stick with Trump in 2028, or at least his vision, or do you wanna switch to a new vision? For instance, 60% overall want a new direction. Only 33% of young Republican respondents in this poll said they wanna follow Trump's lead. Overall, 70% said they want a new direction. When it comes to Israel, only 20% wanna follow Trump's lead. 56% want a new direction. On Iran, only 35% want to follow Trump's lead. That's. That's pretty galling stuff. That is a very tough pill to swallow. And it really does raise this. This serious irony and this serious bit of tension between the fact that Trump is so utterly dominant, his endorsement still goes a million miles when it comes to inside the GOP fold. But looking forward, we just don't know. And apparently this tension is playing out not just in the polls, but. But really it's actually playing out in the nerve center at the very nexus of the White House itself. So there was some reporting that I saw just yesterday, Israel Hayom, among other newspapers that were reporting it. I saw this report elsewhere as well. Apparently, it was a very tense meeting at the White House on Wednesday. This has been reported. You can believe it or not, if you choose to. I personally believe it. So there's been reported that there's a White House meeting on Wednesday that exposed pretty deep divisions between. On the one hand, you had Vice President J.D. vance alongside Steve. Steve Wykoff and Jared Kushner in the diplomatic side. On the other hand, you had Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, and Marco Rubio, who is, of course, Secretary of State. And they apparently really, really vehemently disagreed, let's put it that way, about what to actually do when it comes to Iran, if you believe the reporting, and I'm not sure who leaked this or exactly how it got out there. Again, your mileage may vary, but the reporting is such that Trump was very frustrated and was leaning on Wyckoff and Kushner. What's going on here? We're dilly dallying there. Is there a deal? Is there not a deal to be had there? And this is what the Vice President was saying there. And then, apparently, according to reporting, Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio basically made the case that you need more kinetic action, that you need more military activity to even bring them to possibly, possibly, possibly make A deal, if a deal is even possible, with whatever is left of the so called Iranian regime at this particular instance. And that then takes us to another interesting data point that came up this week as well, around the same time that this reported White House meeting was going on. Again, in the broader context of this fascinating paradox between Trump's dominant status and this looming specter over the possible future of MAGA on these particular foreign policy issues. And the other data point to throw into this already highly combustible mix is this. The other data point is that the new supreme Leader of Iran, Mushaba Khamenei, who is the son of Ali Khamenei. Bear in mind, we have not seen this dude since the war started. He was seriously injured, he was lacerated, he had grievous wounds on that initial kill strike, the one that took out his father, Ali Khamenei. We have literally not seen the guy. There are reports that he was dead. Apparently he's not dead, but we have seen no actual photographic or video evidence that he's alive anyway, allegedly, allegedly, he has ordered that the enriched uranium stockpile is not going anywhere, Period. Full stop, end of story. So to the extent that he actually speaks for the regime, which itself is a disputed point because we don't even know who speaks for Rahm at this point, is it the supreme leader, is it Ahmed Vahidi who was the head of of the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? Is it someone in the more conventional bureaucracy, the more conventional parliament, the more conventional military bureaucracy, who is there? But to the extent that the so called supreme leader speaks for the country, which is certainly the way it was under his father for 47 long bloody and tyrannical years, then this is a rejection of a core United States demand. An absolutely core demand. And is this just the Taqiyyah trap all over again? Well, I will explain what I mean by that on the other side of this, but for now, just a very quick word for from one of our sponsors for today's show, which is balance of nature. You know folks, I try to stay healthy. I always eat a well rounded meal. I am not big on carbs. I'm not big on sugar. I'm always eating my fruits and veggies. But nonetheless, I've been using these balance of nature supplements over the past few months and I feel like a million bucks. The ingredients are super au natural. Don't just take it from me. I give you my word. My wife is an RFK gal. She is a total maha mom. She's all about those healthy ingredients there. The very first time these supplements came in the mail, she looked at it and said, josh, two thumbs up. Go and supplement your diet to your heart's content is more or less what she said to me. Balance Nature's products are all lab tested. There are no binders, fillers or flow agents at all. They use a process whereby whole foods are dried. It's a tailored vacuum cold process and it's powdered and packaged and sent out to you to supplement your own diet. The Whole Health System gives you 47 ingredients of fruits, veggies, spices and fibers. And also if you go to balancenature.com, you can actually get 10% off the whole health system today by using discount code hammer. So again, Balance of Nature is a sponsor for Show. Go to balanceofnature.com make sure to use discount code HAMMER for 10% off your purchase of their whole health system. So Takiya is a Sharia law concept that we have discussed on the show a couple times there, but I want to revisit it because I think it's actually deeply relevant to this will here won't he debate that has been reprised yet again as we head into this lengthy holiday weekend. Taqiyyah is a long standing Sharia law concept that essentially encourages, at minimum or overtly tells you, commands you to conceal, to hide your true feelings or your true beliefs for the sake of something greater, for the sake of spreading the message of Allah or for committing some sort of jihad, whether that is spiritual jihad or some sort of military aspect violent jihad. It is essentially a carte blanche, essentially a permission slip to lie. And for various arcane doctrinal reasons, the concert of taqiyah in the 21st century is more commonly associated with Shiite Muslims. Shiite being the type of Islam that's practiced in Iran. Iran is the Shiite de facto capital of the world, the same way that Saudi Arabia with Mecca, Medina and so forth, is the de facto Sunni capital of the Islamic world. Iran practices Taqiyah like no other group of people known to man. So especially with that Reuters report in mind that the new so called Supreme Leader Mushaba Khamenei is saying we're not giving you any Iranian period. Full stuff and a story that does take us back to this first principal's question which is is there any possibility of getting a deal that is worth saving at this point? Is there any possible way for Donald Trump to get a quick, dirty and easy deal that fulfills our interests, therefore allowing him to go back to focus on domestic issues, therefore trying to appease this, this young up and coming generation reflected in the New York Times. He had a polling there and the short answer unfortunately is no. There is no deal to be had with these people at this time. If there are other people calling the shots inside the country of Iran, if it is not the so called Supreme Leader, if it's not the irgc, if it is a less radical, dare I say, even arguably, quote, unquote moderate faction, then maybe, maybe, maybe there might be a deals we have, but that is simply not the case. And the inability of so many people to grok this, to grasp this, to understand this is really downstream of an overarching, deep, dare I say, massive philosophical, epistemological chasm between how Westerners view religion and faith versus how the Islamic world views it. Westerners, Jews and Christians, we think of our relation to religion and politics in a very, very, very different way than many Islamists think about their relationship between their religion and how this cashes out in terms of policy. This is why, for instance, at the height of the Cold War, we could do with the Soviets who were a bunch of rationally calculating atheists. Atheism is terrible and it's a lie. But if nothing else, you can bank on them to do a game theory calculation, a rational fashion. This is why Mutually Assured Destruction as a doctrine worked with the Soviets and the Kremlin at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis with jfk, and on and on and on. That same mentality simply does not work, does not work when it comes to the current Iranian regime, when it comes to, to Mujaba Khamenei and so forth. So that takes us back then to the question and tying all this together and the conclusion that, that I have is as follows. If you're trying, Mr. President, to make sure that your status as King of Maga continues into this more skeptical younger generation, the easiest way to do it is, is just to get results, to lead in a way where the younger generation sees a successful policy initiative. The reason I believe that some younger millennial and many Gen Z Republicans are so deeply skeptical of all things Middle east, of all things American foreign policy in general. Because they grew up in a milieu where all they knew was America losing wars. All they knew was the failed moralistic boondoggles of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Samantha Power Barack Obama intervention in 2011 in Libya. And on and on and on. By contrast, if you show them, Mr. President, what a successful operation looks like, you will lead by example and by leading in such a way, you will be able to coalesce the coalition yet again and to make sure the MAGA endures. 2028 on Beyond. I'm going to expand on this. There's a lot more on today's show as well. Oren Cass joins us later as well. But for now, folks, a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with much more on the other side.
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Voiceover Announcer
Soldiers, you are about to embark upon the great crusade.
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Movie Trailer Narrator
From Focus Features and the producers of Darkest Hour. There are major storms advancing towards the Normandy coast. Experience the untold True story of D Day. If you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away. An inspiring story of courage, sacrifice and the mission that gave the free world home.
- [12:24]
Voiceover Announcer
We will accept nothing less than full victory.
- [12:28]
Movie Trailer Narrator
Fresher the Untold True Story of D Day WP 13 may be inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters May 29. Discovered at Dolby Cinema.
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Josh Hammer
So, yes, to answer the question that we posed at the outset, this looks an awful lot like an Iranian regime taqiyah trap all over again where you're simply not going to get a deal that you desperately want. Because no one wants war, no one wants conflict. Because we are operating from fundamentally different epistemological, philosophical, just general worldview premises. The Western mindset has a very, very difficult time grasping this, frankly. The only ways to really understand how these people think is to do a genuine deep dive into not just all Islam, but some specific strands of Islamism. That's on the one hand, or if perhaps you have deep on the ground empirical exposure to these cultures, let's say that you serve perhaps for years and years and years in the Iraq war or things like that there, that is another way to really acculture yourself and to understand what is actually happening in this part of the world. But it's a very, very, very difficult thing for the American mindset mentality to frankly, just to understand. But Donald Trump, to his great credit, does understand this because he's been calling the Iranian regime's number for 47 freaking years. As we've said numerous times on the show, he's been calling out Iran ever since the hostage crisis that began on the day of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, ultimately ending the Jimmy Carter presidency and bringing us mourning in America. And the former President Ronald Reagan in January of 1981. He's had this regime's number for years and years and years. All he has to do now is just to trust his instincts, trust his instincts and to bring back the military action. No one wants that. But there is just no alternative at this point. We've been trying this negotiation for a deal thing for over a month now, as we just saw yet again, this Reuters report from Mushaba Khamenei. The enriched uranium will never, ever, ever be a part of the deal. That is a deal breaker. I'm sorry to be that blunt, that is a literal deal breaker. We've said repeatedly that there are four goals for this operation. Those four goals are a free and open Strait of Hormuz, the cessation of Iranian regime funding of their various terror proxies throughout the region, the end of the ballistic missile and drone threat, and most importantly, as we've said repeatedly since day one, most importantly is the elimination or the ferreting out, ideally in a peaceful way, of their enriched uranium, especially that 60% enriched uranium, one step short of a bomb, which they have roughly £1,000, half a ton of it. So they're saying no. So what option, you know, put other way, if the Iranian regime, or whatever it's left of it, if they wanted this war to recommence, what would they be doing differently right now? I have no idea. I actually have no idea. There's. They're still hitting Emirati infrastructure right across the Strait of Hormuz. I have no idea. So, yes, I understand that people are deeply, deeply concerned about the midterms. I totally, totally, totally get it. Donald Trump's approval rating is going down. People are deeply concerned about the price of gasoline. Right now, the average price of gasoline in America is roughly four and a half dollars. We are getting perilously close to a decades long high which was reached during the 2022 inflation peak under Joe Biden. I totally, totally, totally get all of that. Again, the easiest way, the easiest way to bring those prices down ASAP is to finish the job asap. That is absolutely the quickest way. Rip the freaking band aid off. By the way, speaking of the midterms, another thing that we need to hear more about is just an emphasis on just how crazy these certain specific Democratic candidates are in certain areas. So we've talked recently about Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom and how they're just saying a lot of crazy stuff. Gavin Newsom with his so called break the glass scenario in case there's a Republican versus Republican mano mano matchup in the jungle primary there out in the California gubernatorial primary, Kamala Harris talking about her no bad ideas brainstorm, which actually was a very bad idea because she dropped the mask and it was quite terrifying. Frankly, to see without her mask on. But there are other candidates who are just saying lots of really dumb stuff as well. So in Maine, Graham Platner, who is this literal Nazi tattooed communist. Yes, that's an actually accurate description of Graham Platner. He is going to be the nominee for U.S. senate in Maine. He will be challenging Susan Collins there. Now that Governor Mills, who's going to be his challenger, has dropped out. The nominee is going to be Graham Platner. So he said a lot of horrific things, but the most recent crazy thing is that he suggested that Chris Kyle, like the American Sniper, like the actual war hero who Bradley Cooper famously played on film in the eponymous film American Sniper, Graham Platner is now saying that Chris Kyle shot a bunch of innocent civilians in Iraq in order to inflate his kill numbers and that he was a mother effer. Except he actually said it, obviously, who really should not have deserved to get out of there alive. He apparently said this in a May 2024 podcast interview on what's known as the Greenbrett Chronicle show. This is Looney Tunes. It's insane stuff. This is patently, patently insane. Maine is not a far left state, by the way. Jared golden, who's one of the few congressmen there, is one of the co chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition or whatever the heck remains these days, of the Blue Dog Coalition, the bloc of so called moderates in the House Democratic Caucus. Susan Collins is the quintessential rhino alongside Lisa Murkowski in the United States Senate there. So you have to like Susan Collins chances. And Republicans are actually currently outspending Democrats there in Maine, which is a positive sign as well. But more focus on Graham Platner's insanity. How about a little bit more talk as well about this outrageous primary which is set to happen in Texas. It's a Democratic runoff actually in Texas recently redrawn 35th congressional district, which is a Central Texas congressional seat. Yet you have two Democrats running in this runoff. You have the establishment pick who is the sheriff for Bexar county, where San Antonio is Bexar County, I guess we probably pronounce it in Espanol. So he is Johnny Garcia. He is the establishment favorite there. He's running against an absolute loon by the name of Maureen Galindo, who is apparently a sex therapist. So you probably know that she's a loon based merely on the fact that she is a sex therapist. So I probably need not continue my point, but I will indulge and elaborate more. This is a woman who recently in Instagram comments talked about turning a local ICE detention center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. And then she added, quote, it will be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists. So you're talking about castrating Zionists. Okay, not a great platform, which by why you have everyone from AOC to low T James Talarico, who's going to be the Democrat nominee for U.S. senate in Texas there. They're all already distancing themselves immensely from this absolute lunatic there. So more talk please, about how she actually could win this nomination on Tuesday. We'll see if that happens. If you stick on that, folks, I think that they will actually be in in very good shape, folks. For now, I want to tell you about another sponsor for today's show, which is the upcoming film Pressure. So from Focus Features and the producers of Darkest Hour comes the new movie, the Untold True Story of D day. In the 72 hours leading up to the largest seaborne invasion in history, General Dwight D. Eisenhower face an impossible decision that would determine the fate of the war. As allied forces prepare to land, two massive storms converge over Normandy behind closed doors. With the clock ticking, General Eisenhower must decide the send 300,000 men into nature's unforgiving fury or delay and risk losing the war itself. There is no safe option, only consequences. One decision would change the world forever. On May 29, you can go ahead and see Pressure for yourselves, folks. I've seen an advanced screening of Pressure. Honestly, I'm a history buff. I learned a lot. I actually had no idea just how much the weather and the meteorology specifically actually went into the timing of D Day. We're going to bring on an Eisenhower presidential historian actually in the show. That's kind of weak to continue this conversation there, but based on my own research, it seems very accurate. What was portrayed in the film Pressure, I learned a lot. You're not going to regret this. I think that is well, well worth your time. A very well produced film and just great Americana as well around Memorial Day. So Pressure, the Untold True Story of D day is rated PG13. It's only in theaters May 29 with special engagements in Dolby Sim. And go ahead and check out Pressure when the film comes out. That's again on May 29th. So we're going to bring on Oren Cass shortly to talk about what is happening when it comes to the economy. I want to briefly play just one clip here from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, just to kind of tee up our conversation, that's going to happen with Oren Cass of American Compass there. Jeff Bezos recently did this lengthy interview just earlier this week with cnbc and he was talking about how America doesn't have a revenue problem in this country. We actually have the most progressive tax system in the world. And he's totally right on this. So let's go ahead and play this
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Voiceover Announcer
from Jeff Bezos, us quoted all the time is, you know, the wealthy should pay their fair share and we can argue about what the fair share is. That's a policy debate. That's okay. But the vilification is the thing. That's just the distraction. And by the way, if you really are being honest about it, we don't have a revenue problem in this country. We already have the most progressive tax system in the world. The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of all the tax revenue. The bottom half pay only 3%. We have already. I think it should be zero. I don't think it should be 3%. I think it should be zero. So we'd be making more progressive that way. We actually have a spending problem.
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Josh Hammer
This is total common sense and sometimes it's nice to hear common sense said. It's also a bit of a rebuke to all the billionaires who are cozying up to Zoram Hamdani and all these other various democratic socialists there. Jeff Bezos is a mega, mega billionaire who, much like Elon Musk, at least has some common sense. Maybe Jeff doesn't have as much as Elon, but he's got some. It is always very good to hear. So folks, another quick commercial break. We will be right back on the other side with Orencast soldiers.
- [22:33]
Voiceover Announcer
You are about to embark upon the
- [22:34]
Movie Trailer Narrator
great crusade from Focus Features and the producers of Darkest Hour. There are two major storms advancing towards the Normandy coast. Experience the untold true story of D Day. If you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away. An inspiring story of Kurt courage, sacrifice and the mission that gave the free world home.
- [22:52]
Voiceover Announcer
We will accept nothing less than full victory.
- [22:56]
Movie Trailer Narrator
The untold true story of D Day with DP13 may be inappropriate for children under the 13th of only theaters May 29 discovered at Dolby Cinema.
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Josh Hammer
So before the break we were talking a little bit about midterms and this weird triangulation between the conflict in the Middle east and Donald Trump was just over in China meeting with our big civilizational enemy, the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping there in the midterms and if there's one thing we know about the midterms, it is always the economic issues that are top of mind for voters. So to that end, there's really no one better to bring on to discuss all of it and more than Oren Cass. If you are a loyal listener or viewer of the show, you probably know who Oren is already. But in case you don't, then shame on you if you don't. He is the chief economist of American Compass. You can go ahead and check out American Compass@AmericanCompass.org so, Oren, welcome back to the show. It's always great to to talk with you, my friend. I want to begin with China. China is an issue that I think and talk a lot about. I know that you think a lot about it as well. On the one hand, Oren, the rhetoric out of this recent Trump Xi Jinping summit was, shall I say, borderline exuberant, Very, very positive. But I am very much of the mind that you take Donald Trump seriously, not literally much as Selena Zito said many, many years ago. And the rumor that I heard was that they actually distrusted the Chinese so much that they wouldn't actually even drink the water that was served at the I don't know what to make of this summit is what I'm trying to say here. So what do you make of this recent summit between Don Trump and Xi Jinping and what it means for US China relations going forward?
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Oren Cass
Well, I think you really have to work backward from the question of where we're trying to go. And I think a big part of the challenge for US Strategy toward China really going back in the Biden administration and now we're seeing it in the Trump administration as well, is there just is no clear strategy for what is, what is the long term relationship with China supposed to be? Are we trying to actually build a closer economic relationship? Are we trying to decouple? We actually did some polling recently at American Compass on how the American people think about China, and you see the exact same thing on every specific issue. Should we be selling them AI chips? Should we be allowing them to invest here? Americans want nothing to do with China. Then ask them, okay, but what do you want the outcome of the summit to be? And they say, well, we want a deal that builds closer economic cooperation. And so I think we're sort of in this holding pattern right now where nobody wants to rock the boat too much. Obviously, disruption for no particular end is just cost without benefit. But it's very hard to imagine what could have come out of the summit that would have actually been good for the United States. And so I think what we're seeing is kind of status quo holding pattern and then of course, lots of niceties with everyone trying to claim credit and pat themselves on the back anyway.
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Josh Hammer
Yeah, personally, I would have liked to have seen a lot more talk in the way of decoupling and a lot less talk in the way of trying to integrate our economies. And one thing that I discussed on the show a little bit was how I think was a few months ago that we in the United States here, we allowed Nvidia to export a lot of their most advanced AI specific chips to China. I thought that didn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest with you. If I'm not mistaken or I think American Compass actually polled this issue and I think it's actually very unpopular with the American people. Can you describe that poll a little bit?
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Oren Cass
Yeah, this was one of the questions we asked in this poll. I was just describing is just, okay, do you think we should sell advanced AI chips to China or not? You get across the board a pretty large no answer. The interesting thing is we actually then dug in a little bit and said, okay, well, there's this kind of middle course that some people are trying to pursue where we're not going to sell them the leading edge stuff, but let's try to sell them some pretty good stuff and get them hooked on our technology anyway. And even that was very unpopular. You actually had absolute majorities across political parties saying, no, why would we sell AI chips to China? And you're exactly right. That's a place where it's very clear that the Trump administration has gone a very different direction. And I think it speaks to the extent to which my sense is President Trump really views this as a transactional commercial dispute. Right. He has always said the problem is China is ripping his US Off. And I think his answer has always been we need to get a better deal. And if that's how you see the relationship, then, well, they want to buy lots of really expensive chips from us. Sounds like a great thing. But if you see this as a much broader geopolitical conflict with a long term adversary that really is quite zero sum in more AI capacity for them means less of an advantage for us, then I think you take a different view. And you know, certainly I think that's where we should go. The reality is China's already there. If you look at, you know, everything from the Chinese Communist Party, from Xi Jinping, they view this as A long term conflict. They, you know, they are, they will say if you, if you look at what they say, you know, in the Chinese documents, yeah, if we can invest in another country to get more control over it, if we can lure them into this or that, that's fine. But, but let's keep in mind that there is no mutually beneficial settlement here in the long run. And I think in the US we have a problem. It is a fundamental flaw in a sense of a small l. Liberal society. We just assume that everyone else is really a liberal too. Right. And you can get up, Xi Jinping can get up and say, I am not a liberal. I think liberalism is stupid. My vision for the world is completely different. And a lot of people in the US especially in the business community will just say, yeah, yeah, he's saying that. But really deep down he wants, you know, market democracy too. And people really have a hard time appreciating that. That's just not what this relationship is ever going to be.
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Josh Hammer
Right. You can follow Orncast on xrencast. Make sure to check out American Compass as well. AmericanCompass.org, i've been delighted to be a Compass member for, gosh, six years now. So congratulations on six years since the launch of this great organization, Oren, I want to say on the intersection of foreign affairs and domestic economics and pivot a little bit to the Middle East. So inflation is in pretty much every election. It is one of American voters top concerns. The most recent monthly data that we got, if not mistaken, was 3.8 annualized year over year in the most recent monthly reading, which is the highest that's been in some years, raising a lot of eyebrows, especially at this inflection point, as we discussed earlier on today's show, about this big will he or won't he debate when it comes to President Trump and the possible re engagement of hostilities against Iran there. So I say all that. Oren, do you view this, this inflation spike as indeed, to use Janet Yellen's somewhat infamous phrase, transitory due to the conflict in Iran, or is this a broader structural problem that the President really has to deal with?
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Oren Cass
Well, I guess to give maybe a slightly wonky economist answer, but I think it's an important distinction. You know, inflation and price increases aren't exactly the same thing. And so I think it's important to say that actually inflation in the sort of prices of everything just seem like they keep going up. So then you raise wages and then that drives prices higher and you get this sort of spiral that's not something that I think we're seeing right now. And it's interesting that that, of course, was the case with the tariffs also. Right. Everybody who hates tariffs said, oh, tariffs are going to be inflationary. It was important to say, no, tariffs are going to change the prices of some things. That's the point of tariffs. But they are not inflation in the sense that you tend to, you know, worry about and tamp down. And I think you would say the same thing about this oil shock. Now, in both cases, the question remains, are American consumers being asked to pay more and how much more, and what does that do for affordability? And that's where it's so frustrating. You know, for me, as someone who's been involved in these tariff debates for so long. Right. Everyone lit their hair on fire about tariffs. And then you go and look in the data and like I said, they do change prices. You can discern a signal. But they did not raise the overall rate of price level, increase what we would call inflation. In fact, it was coming back down to its normal level. Contrast that with starting a war in the Middle east and you send gas up to 450 a gallon, and boy, does that show up in a very serious way. That really does hit pocketbooks hard. And so this question of is it transitory or not is a really interesting one for the Federal Reserve. And what should we do for interest rates with respect to the American household? Trying to make ends meet doesn't matter whether it's transitory or not. The reality is that things have gotten a lot more expensive very quickly at exactly a time when certainly when people were demanding. And what the political system was saying it was going to do was exactly the opposite.
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Josh Hammer
Yeah. And no doubt is coming at a particularly politically inopportune time for the president and for his political party as we go into November's midterm elections. Or just about a minute left before I have to let you go. But for now, in brief, if you will, on the midterm issue, what is the number one issue when it comes to the economy? I presume it's probably affordability there, but easier said than done when it comes to getting this price down there. Do you have any kind of quick and dirty suggestions for how to possibly message and actually legislate on this in the months ahead? Well, you know, I think it's been
- [32:11]
Oren Cass
a mistake to frame everything as affordability, because the reality is that the affordability problem in this country has been building for decades. I mean, the inflation during Biden's term got everybody focused and talking on it, but you're not going to just quickly bring prices down. And by the way, actually bringing prices down would be very painful, right? You don't want to. If you don't like inflation, wait till you see deflation. So what we need to be talking about in the the right political message is what are the actual things that have made life unaffordable and what is our actual pathway to changing that? And that's the message I think you have to be focused on if you want to be both winning elections and successful in improving the country. But unfortunately I don't see that where really anybody on any side is focused right now.
- [32:58]
Josh Hammer
Oren Cass, somewhat of a Jeremiah say for better or for us. I'm just joking of course. So he's the chief commentator of American Compass. Follow him on X Orencast Oren, always a delightful conversation, my friend. Come back again soon.
- [33:10]
Oren Cass
Likewise. Thanks for having me.
- [33:13]
Voiceover Announcer
Soldiers, you are about to embark upon
- [33:15]
Movie Trailer Narrator
the great crusade from Focus Features and the producers of Darkest Hour. There are two major storms advancing towards the Normandy coast. Experience the Untold True Story of D Day. If you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away. An inspiring story of courage, sacrifice and the mission that gave the free world home.
- [33:33]
Voiceover Announcer
We will accept nothing less than full victory.
- [33:36]
Movie Trailer Narrator
Fresher the Untold True Story of d day with epg 13 of may be inappropriate for children 13 only in theaters May 29 discovered at Dolby Cinema.
- [33:47]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. So easier said than done, obviously, when it comes to inflation, when it comes to trying to get prices down. Although Oren is totally right, you definitely don't want deflation either. You probably know a thing or two. And if not, you probably just Google Japan Lost Decade the Japanese, their economy went way, way backwards in the 1990s. Not due to inflation, but due to deflation is known as the lost decade. Decade in economic circles for Japan, which really was the rising Asian power at the time, still was a top GDP economy, but is now far below China and the 1990s have a lot to do with that. For now I want to circle back briefly to Jeff Bezos. We played earlier in today's show. He had this recent very interesting interview with cnbc. Jeff Bezos, who is now the owner of the Washington Post, is trying to reorient the Washington Post opinion section in in an interestingly vaguely right of center direction for years and years and years. The Washington Post before Bezos took it over and then even into his earlier years of owning it. Mark Levin famously referred to it as The Washington compost because it was just liberal trash, liberal Beltway elite propaganda trash. And that actually is changing under Bezos. So is Bezos coming out as a crypto MAGA guy? He's not like a true on Elon Musk put on the red hat guy, but he's kind of sort of maybe getting there. Let's go ahead and play more from Jeff Bezos in the CNBC clip talking about New York City school system this time.
- [35:06]
Voiceover Announcer
And by the way, New York City doesn't get better outcomes. So this, listen, let me, let me just say if, if, if we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, right, Your packages would take six weeks to arrive. We'd have to charge you $100 delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it have the wrong item in it anyway. We can't. That's a skills issue, Andrew. It's right. It's not about, it's just competence.
- [35:34]
Josh Hammer
So elsewhere in the interview, Jeff Bezos was actually coming out very opposed to this recent outrageous video that Mamdani did where he was campaigning outside the penthouse of Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund titan. And Bezos sounding a lot like a Trumpy, let's just call it. He sounds a lot like a MAGA Trumpy here again, I'm not saying that the dude is ready to put on the red hat like Elon Musk and trot around on stage at CPAC with one of those fake chainsaws just ripping up the federal budget or whatever Elon was doing at CPAC last year in 2025. But he's definitely sounding a lot less sympathetic to the left. And I think many of us long pegged Jeff Bezos as. It's a fascinating time in politics where for a very, very long time the American ruling class, the billionaire class, were really, really, really overwhelmingly in hock to the Democratic Party. That still is the case more often than it is not. But it is changing and is changing in real time and in a way that is interestingly happening at a time where the Republican Party's becoming even more populous. So the base of the party is more working class. But a lot of these billionaires are actually really getting more on board. It's really kind of a fascinating thing. Speaking of fascinating things there, Bruce Springsteen, actually, Bruce Springsteen, who is a longtime, longtime liberal, has been a liberal for essentially his entire adult's life. Bruce Springsteen recently chimed in on the fact that tonight, tonight is apparently the last episode of Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert wrapping up an 11 year run hosting the late show on CBS, that is tonight. And precisely no one is going to miss that. Like literally no one, period. False up in the story. Except maybe maybe Bruce Springsteen, because Bruce Springsteen decided to weigh in with Colbert. When it came to the end of Colbert on cbs, here was Bruce Springsteen.
- [37:16]
Voiceover Announcer
Stephen. I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you're the first guy in America who's lost his show because we got a president who can't take a joke.
- [37:30]
Josh Hammer
And
- [37:33]
Voiceover Announcer
anyway, Stephen needs a small minded people. He got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about.
- [37:40]
Josh Hammer
This is for you. So Bruce Springsteen is a man for whom I have some personal, personal sympathy. It was actually the very first rock concert, first concert really I ever attended at the old Giant Stadium back in New Jersey. I was in middle school, must have been 2002, something like that there. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen music, Born to Run and many of his greatest hits. There actually kind of a funny personal anecdote that I have. So I went to college at Duke University, N.C. and my senior year, Bruce Springsteen's daughter entered Duke as a freshman. She was a big, a big equestrian writer, if memory serves. I think she was very competitive and equestrian. I think she rode for the Duke equestrian team, if such a team exists. I don't even know. Anyway, long story short, Bruce Springsteen flew down in the fall of my senior year, his daughter's freshman year, for parents weekend or something along those lines there. And the anecdote that I heard at the time, and I presume was true, because it was the talk of the campus was they went out to a bar on Main street in Durham, North Carolina, or the Main Drag one evening, I believe it was at a local watering hole called Divines, where I used to go every so often myself. And the rumor was that there was a local band playing from Durham and Springsteen was there with his daughter. And apparently he just goes on stage and asks the lead singer, do you guys mind if I join you? Which is kind of a cool thing, right? And I have a lot of respect for that. But unfortunately, on the other hand, Springsteen's politics have been liberal for his entire lifetime. Born in the USA is oftentimes played in a very patriotic context. Heck, it's a very fun song. It's a very fun song. It's got a really nice upbeat tune. It's fun. The play on Independence Day, on Memorial Day. But the actual lyrics, the actual message of Born in the USA is a vehemently left wing message. It was written as an anti Vietnam War sort of protest song. And he is fundamentally a man of the left. Briefly here, he is wrong on the actual laws. We've had Brendan Carr, the chair of the fcc, on the show before. Brendan Carr is trying to do something that most of his predecessors at the FCC have not done, which is to actually enforce the law. Heaven forbid, Heaven forfend that the actual regulators here, the people in charge of Article 2 of the Constitution and the executive branch actually do that which the Constitution says that Article 2 should do, which is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Well, Brendan Carr's been trying to enforce the fairness doctrine. Fairness doctrine, excuse me. Among other things. That is why he got into it with Colbert. That's why he's got into it with Jimmy Kimmel, among other reasons with Kimmel, and on and on and on. But ultimately, the reason that Colbert show will be extinct is because he stinks. Because his ratings are garbage. Because it's been losing money for cbs. That's why. Also, you know why? Because the new owner of CBS is David Ellison, who's the son of Larry Ellison there. He's not a crazy person, not a crazy person at all. If you want more crazy people to buy up media companies, then get more crazy people to buy up media companies. As for me, I'm pretty happy working in the media space. I'm pretty happy when non crazy people, when sane, rational people buy up media companies. I'm happy when Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. I am happy when David Ellison controls CBS News. I like that. I like that a lot, actually. That's the way it should be. If you don't like that, then go ahead and find a new owner. But for now, frankly, from my perspective, no one, perhaps other than Bruce Springsteen is going to miss Stephen Colbert very much. So, folks, just a couple of housekeeping notes here before we go. So I'm gonna be off tomorrow. I'm gonna be offline. We're gonn a great show for you where I talk with Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, one of the most prolific pro life advocates in the entire country. I think the world of Lila, you'll love this conversation, make sure to tune in. But I will personally be offline celebrating the holiday of Shavuot, which is on the Jewish calendar exactly seven days, seven weeks. Excuse me, seven weeks and one day after the beginning of Passover, which is the holiday that preceded it just about a month and a half ago, Shavuot in the Torah in the Hebrew Bible actually commemorates the beginning of the harvest season in ancient Israel. But it's also known more popularly as the day on which the children of Israel, the Israelites, actually received the Word of God, actually received the Ten Commandments, received the Torah through the great conveyor, the recipient of the Word of God, Moses himself, standing there at the top of Mount Sinai. And it's a wonderful holiday there where you're supposed to immerse yourself in learning, in learning of the Bible, of Scripture, of Torah. And also you're supposed to really just to drink and to eat and to be merry and spend family time. And one message here is that it's not just the calling of the faithful to immerse yourself in Scripture and to actually heed his calling. You should make it a part of you in a very physical, tangible way. So that's actually why on Shavuot, the Talmud says, actually the Gemara says, more than any other Jewish holiday, this is the holiday where we really kind of go all in and making it more physical and tangible. And the answer, again, is because you want to take that scripture and inject it into your bloodstream, make it a physical, tangible part of your life. So I'll be offline tomorrow there. So I'm personally getting an early start to this holiday weekend. So Monday is Memorial Day. That's the actual main part of the holiday weekend. On the civic calendar there, Merle Day is a special day. And I encourage you just to take at least a moment while you're out drinking a beer or barbecue and to really think, to think about what it means there. I mentioned earlier in the show that there's this great upcoming film pressure about D Day. Some of the scenes in this film are very difficult to watch, frankly. You see a lot of men at Normandy just being gunned down. Think about them, think about them. But I also think about this amazing quote that I think every year on this day, every year, I think of this from General Patton, one of the great men in American history. And General Patton famously said in his speech in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 7, 1945, he said, quote, it is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived. He said that apparently the day after D Day. It's an amazing sentiment. Thank God that such men lived. Have a great weekend, folks. Enjoy it, think about it, and thank God. The Dutchman Live. We'll be right back. As always, tomorrow.