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- [00:00]
A
This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance tech at a university, he knows ordering from multiple suppliers takes time away from keeping their arena up and running. That's why he counts on Grainger to get everything he needs, from lighting and H vac parts to plumbing supplies, all in one place. And with fast, dependable delivery, he's stocked and ready for the next tip off. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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B
And a good day, everybody, and welcome to the Josh Hammer Show. I'm Mark Davis, and the first thing I want to address is you may know who I am, I may be familiar to you, I may not. So I'm going to establish some street cred right off the, right off the bat and then tell you about my wonderful relationship with the man whose name adorns this program, the great Josh Hammer. In keeping with the legacy that Josh has established here on this particular video presentation on Salem News Channel and across the various video platforms. Oh, we're going to cover some things in the news and on a Monday. No shortage of things coming off the weekend. But first, a little personal word. If you're watching on Salem News Channel or just have any kind of familiarity in conservative media, I am the Morning host at 6:60am, the answer in Dallas Fort Worth after about 18 years down the dial at WBAP. Here in DFW, there are those who are kind enough to call me something like the dean of Texas talk radio. I don't know, I think that makes me sound old, but then I largely am. I'm 68. What's Josh is even 40 yet. Whippersnapper, these young kids. But I'll tell you what somebody like Josh Hammer does for me is he gives me hope, as Charlie Kirk did. May God rest him, as so many young conservatives do. And of course, young is a relative term. 55 is young to me. It gives me hope about the future. It's so easy to take a look at generations younger than mine and stand out in the yard and shake your fist to the cloud and say, oh, the country's going to hell. What are we going to do when these young people take over? But as long as there are voices like Josh's and a cohort of young conservatives, if you walk onto a college campus, which is a hazardous thing to do these days ideologically and practically, it's easy to get pretty depressed about the future and wonder what the next generation that really gains power will do. But with voices like Josh's I am comforted. Now, what about me and Josh? I have been writing for, I've done a lot of writing. I write for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the McClatchy chain of newspapers nationwide. But I've also been privileged to write for Newsweek for the last few years. And when I came up under that umbrella, the editor for my pieces and the guy who I would be talking to about what my next column would be was a guy named Josh Hammer. And he is now off being editor at large Newsweek, writing incredibly important books about Israel and doing commenting on various things about our country and about the world. But I grew to know Josh with a writer editor relationship and that's before anything really happened. Anything resembling the broadcast conservative media or the podcast conservative media, media, world radio, tv, any of that. So right here in dfw, Josh came by for a visit. He has. Speaking of, listen, this seems symmetrical. I'm filling in for him. He's filled in for me on my radio show here on Salem Radio in Dallas. So I've had this wonderful relationship with him for a while and it's an incredible pleasure to be here on this growing and important program of his. So what you want to do? What shall we start with? Obviously, there are events in Iran this very morning. The President, in kind of a hold my beer moment has said, this happened this morning, I guess 10 o' clock Eastern Time, 9 Central, saying essentially to the Iranians, you think you're going to close the Strait of Hormuz? Oh, no, no, we're going to close the Strait of Horus, Hormuz. We're going to blockade some ports. The, the eternal search here is for a language the Iranians will understand. And I don't mean Farsi, their actual language that they understand. I mean the language of power. Maybe it's the language of money. Doesn't everybody speak the language of money? Hope so. Maybe it's the language of, of threats. I mean it was the President's admittedly outsized we're going to civilization social media post that ostensibly brought them to the, the bargaining table. And what started this, this two week reprieve, this brief cessation of hostilities, whatever this even is, we'll have a lot to say about that today. What is this pause button that's been hit? What does it do? What does it not do? So as we go in search of something that will work, the barrier that we are up against is that dealing with the Iranians is not like dealing with the Soviets back in the day. It's not like dealing with the Chinese in the modern day say what you will about the evils of the Soviets, and I did say what you will about the evils of the Chinese and I will, but I don't believe on a day to day basis that they are stoked about dying. I don't think they want to, to be vaporized off the map. The Soviets on their worst day were a willing dance partner, if you will, in what was called mutual Assured destruction. Mad wonderful acronym. It essentially meant that, that they didn't launch nukes on us because we had nukes aimed at them. Soviet missiles and warheads existed to tyrannize the world. The American nuclear arsenal existed to thwart that tyranny. And it worked because they did not ultimately in the final analysis want to die. The Chinese, well that's today's evil regime that we have to deal with. They are no more savory prospect than the the Soviets were or than the Russians are now. Russia, of course, post Soviet Union is just a big lumbering third world nation with nukes. China has nukes as well. That's not comforting. Our nuclear arsenal is comforting. We exist in that nuclear family of nations to thwart Chinese tyranny now. But I don't believe that they ultimately want to die. This Iranian regime. I don't know man. I don't think if you pull 100 people off the streets of Tehran and say, hey, are you on board with this 72 virgins thing? Are you excited about going out in a ball of fire, you know, to go be with allah with the 72 virgins and all of that? I think that there are like every faith has certain levels of adherence to what the Quran either says or doesn't say. I think that it is more a uniquely held attitude of the mullahs, the theocratic ruling class that they're absolutely prepared to be on board with dying for Allah, dying for the great cause, dying in a war with Satan more than the Iranian people. That's why, by the way, we think that reaching out to the Iranian people is something we might be able to successfully do. We might need to arm the Iranian people. We apparently tried to do that. The Kurds made off with a lot of the guns. What are you going to do about that? I mean, I don't know if there are any black hats, white hats, I don't know who the good guys are on a reliable day to day basis. So here we are trying to find some way of finding a language that the Iranians will understand. It's going to be a tough slog and if it's a long slog, a long war, a long presence, I support the war. I support the intent of the war effort. I'm glad that most, one presumes of the Iranian military has been obliterated. I am glad that the. I guess we've had regime change because the first Ayatollah Khomeini, he's dead. I guess that's the definition of regime change. There may be more changes that need to be affected militarily or some other way. So I think that, that the region is safer, the world is safer, Israel is safer, America is safer because of what we have done so far. But reaching the finish line, reaching the point at which Iran is truly defanged as a nuclear threat. Good luck with that. Are we going to have to have some special operations mission to go in, get the uranium? Where is it? How do we get it out? Maybe. I've heard a particular strain of optimism today say that if we do that, it's not like Iran gave up the uranium, it's that we took it. So they can then claim, if not victory, they could at least save face. This is going to be a big concept, them saving face and say that at least we got the sanctions lifted once the uranium is out of Iran. So amid all of this, and it's all very, very important, I woke up to something this morning and you probably did, too. This will be the still photograph. President Trump saying a lot, doing a lot, expressing a lot of things. And much of it has been a lot of bluster, a lot of aggressiveness, a lot of he's kind of messaging like a Persian strongman, which is probably a smart thing to. Yeah, but was this the smart thing to do? Yeah. Here we go. Yes. Yes, it's Trump as Jesus. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You did not make a mistake today. Said is that Trump as Jesus? Yes, it is. Is this my favorite thing? It's not. But, but here's the. Here's the thing. As with everything Trump does, it is instantly ratcheted up to something that is dumped in the lap of Trump supporters with the question that says, I got this on my radio show this morning. Hey, hey, MAGA boy, talk show boy. Hey, what do you think of him now? And the answer is, he's still my favorite. President Reagan was great. Trump comes along at a much more consequential and important time. That's not my favorite thing. Trump doing things that are going to make me go is kind of baked in. That's why those looking for his evangelical base to somehow peel away. It's not going to happen. I don't presume that every reaction will be like mine, but I think most people who are evangelical and who do support Trump will, will go slump shouldered for a moment and go, oh, whatever. We'll bang our heads against a wall one time and then we'll dust ourselves off and realize what really, really is important and that is that we thank God every day that he's president and that Kamala is not, that he's president and that Hillary is not, that he is president and no Democrat is. We remain thankful for that. We'd like for everything that the president does to have a kind of a philosophical wise man, high gloss, high class, scholarly way of communicating. That's not him. It never will be. It never has been. This is what we've got. And on balance, I will absolutely take it. All right. On today's Josh Hammer show, we're also going to take a look at the travails of Congressman Eric Swalwell, should he be California governor. He has suspended his campaign. We'll take a look at Trump versus Pope Leo. We will take a look at the return of the Artemis crew, which I was totally geeked out about and which Josh actually wrote about all these and more and more as we continue. Marc Davis in for Josh Hammer. Thanks for being here.
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Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account. While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little known investment. Today that $114 would be worth over $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade. It wasn't even insider knowledge. It was an account that's been around since 1888. And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts paying less than half a percent while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early banks are great businesses, just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com that's secret account the numbers29.com secretaccount29.com.
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B
Back on the JOSH Hammer show. Thanks for being with us. So what in the world are we even going to do with Eric Swalwell? And by we, I guess I mean conservatives, people who have spent years and years identifying him as the loathsome person that he is. If you make a just a list of people who have made my teeth itch the worst through being a Trump impeachment manager, a daily Trump tormentor, just a jerk every day, listen, they're going to be liberals. There are liberals I like. I don't agree with them, but I don't find them as execrable as I have Eric Swalwell over the years. So that would seem to indicate that with him neck deep in a sex scandal, that I should largely be enjoying myself. I'm not. I don't ever want somebody to be steeped in this. I don't ever want this to happen to anybody. The story of fallen people, especially fallen men, is. It resonates with me. It should resonate with all of us as we, we spend a lot of time doing a lot of messaging about the way men ought to act, the way all people ought to act in terms of what California voters are going to do or what the people who voted for him to be a member of Congress, how they feel. This is where it gets very, very interesting because you're seeing some Democrats. You'll see one here in a moment line up on what seems like the right side of saying that he should absolutely get out of the gubernatorial race, which he has done. He's suspended his campaign last evening, Sunday evening. But they're not doing it because they're particularly wounded, offended or taken aback by what he did. I mean, they may be to some degree, but mostly this is about, this is about Democrats and power and, you know, what was going to happen and what may still happen. Steve Hilton, Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff are currently running 1 and 2 in the polls because there are so many Democrats. All the Democrats support is atomized out across a number of Democrats. One of the foremost among them, along with Katie Porter and Tom Steyer, is Eric Swalwell. With him gone, the Democrats support will gravitate elsewhere, meaning they're hoping from the Democrat perspective, please, Lord, they're praying that one of the Democrats winds up in the top two, because this is the crazy California jungle primary system. It's not Republicans against Republicans, Democrats against Democrats. They throw everybody into the basket. A vote for whoever you want. Boom. And the top two face off in November, no matter who they are. So if you really could, they were staring down the barrel of a prospect of having the top two people be Republicans, which would guarantee a Republican successor to Gavin Newsom. Now that I do love. Will that Happen, I don't know. But what's going to happen with Eric Swalwell out of fair. Out of. Out of fairness to him. And honestly, fairness to him is something we need to examine here. Here's a little bit of Eric Swalwell and what he had to say about his current plight.
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D
A lot has been said about me today through anonymous allegations, and I thought it was important that you see and hear from me directly. These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have not never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past, but those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. I also apologize to you if in any way you have doubted your support for me. But I think you know who I am. For over 20 years, I have served the public as a city councilman, as a member of Congress, and as a prosecutor who went to court on behalf of victims, particularly on behalf of sexual assault victims. That's who I am and have always been. This weekend, I'm going to spend time with my family and friends, and I appreciate those who have reached out to me to show support, and I look forward to updating you very soon.
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B
Well, he updated us pretty soon, just hours after that by suspending his campaign. When he said, I think you know who I am, I could almost hear all of conservative America going, yeah, we do. Yeah, we do, buddy. So here's where the fairness angle kicks in. I believe all women is a frequent sentence, and no, that's a hard pass. All women should be heard, evaluated, given the respect of hearing what they have to say. And then we see who we think is lying and who we don't. I have no idea if these women are lying. I'm certainly not going to say they are. That's the thing. That's where we all should be. I have no idea if these charges are true. They sound terrible. And, you know, there's. For women, I guess, and counting. Is it true that where there's smoke, there's fire? Often, yes. I would apply. Consistency requires me to apply the same standard that I would if this had happened to somebody I actually admire. And I would say, I hope it's not true. If it is, let the wheels turn. The Wheels of investigation. I get fair charges to be filed. But mostly the thing that's right in front of Eric Swalwell right now appears to be whether he is going to be expelled from, from Congress. So Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington state, member of Congress, a liberals liberal, was on Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, who asked her about this.
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Do you want to ask you about your colleague, Congressman Eric Swalwell? You heard me discussing this with Congressman Donalds. He's facing allegations of sexual assault from a former staff member which we should say Swalwell says are completely false and politically motivated. Notable though, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Adam Schiff, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi are calling for Swalwell to end his run for California governor. Do you think that Swalwell should drop out of the gubernatorial race? I absolutely do. This is, as you know, I've been very vocal on behalf of survivors of the episode Epstein scandal. And I think that what we are seeing now is an emergence of women across the country who have been dismissed, told to shut up, told to move on, who have been abused by men in powerful positions. This is not a partisan issue. This cuts across party line and it is depravity of the way that women have been treated. And I'm just, just inspired by the courage and the bravery of the women who came forward. This is clearly a pattern. I've already called for Congressman Swalwell to drop out of the gubernatorial race. And I think we have to hold everybody accountable.
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B
Okay. So I think I know what's driving Congresswoman Jaya Powell. Two things. One is a sort of a woman power kind of thing. Believe the women, let's stick. And by the way, we should all stick up for women who have been marginalized or sidelined or disbelieved when they deserve to be believed. Absolutely. But she's all in for the credibility of these stories without totally knowing that they're true. So why power play in California, man? Because she knows that California has the strong likelihood of a Republican governor if we can't do some jostling of the remaining candidates and get Eric Swalwell out of there. He is, he is, he is to be sacrificed for the greater good. Meanwhile, somebody was asking Steve Hilton, who you'll notice with a British brogue, because he's a transplanted Brit, been in California since 2012. That's long enough to run for, for governor. And he might, he's probably going to finish in the top two with somebody. They asked him about all of this that was happening over the weekend. Hey Steve, what the hell is going on with Eric Swalwell?
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So I just got a message that Eric Swalwell is confirmed now that he's going to be dropping out. And you think, yeah, of course he's dropping out. The real question is why was he ever in? How on earth did he think he could run for governor of California with all this going on? It just shows you that these career politicians have no shame. They have absolutely no respect for the public, for the voters. They have contempt for the voters. They think they can get away with anything. They're never going to be held accountable. It is just completely unbelievable. And the other thing that's unbelievable is all these people, you know, the unions, the teacher unions, seiu, Adam Schiff, Pelosi, all these people that pretend now to be outraged about what Eric Smallwell is alleged to have done, they endorsed him anyway. Knowing all that, everyone's been talking about this for ages and yet they endorsed him anyway. And now they're trying to distance themselves. But we're not buying it because we all know that this Democratic Party in California has absolutely been talking about their values. It's ridiculous. All they care about is their power. And they are now collapsing after 16 years of one party rule that's been a total corrupt failure. Now they are collapsing to chaos and sleaze and scandal and it's just another reason that we are going to kick them out this year.
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B
Okay, so there's some confidence. So last thing on Eric Swalwell, should he be expelled from Congress is his colleagues get to make that decision ultimately. I mean, look what they did to George Santos. He had not been convicted. James Trafficant of Ohio in 2002, he had been. Don't you kind of wait for somebody to be convicted of something before you throw them out. Ultimately, shouldn't the voters get to decide things like this? I don't know. Depends on, on what side of the battle your, your fish are fried on. Mark Davis in for Josh Hammer. And we will continue.
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C
Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account while other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks. Buffett put $114 into a little known investment. Today that $114 would be worth over 50, $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade. It wasn't even insider knowledge. It was an account that's been around since 1888. And over the last 25 years it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts paying less than half a percent while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early banks are great businesses, just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com that's secretaccount the numbers29.com secretaccount29.com.
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B
Hey everybody, welcome back. Mark Davis in for Josh Hammer. You can't not get to the Pope versus Donald Trump, the hair match, the rage in the cage, the mano a mano squabble between the leader of the free world and the leader of the Catholic world. So cards on the table. I am not Catholic. I am an evangelical Christian, kind of a non denominational sort if you care about that. So I care about the Bible, I care about Jesus. I care about God. I care about what Jesus says, what God says through his word to me in the scriptures that guide my life. So that's me. I certainly not only do I not have anything against the Pope or the papacy in general, Catholicism can do whatever it wishes to do. And they have since before there were Protestants. I mean, they were here first. So and in fact, to lay down a little, perhaps a little Teflon, I've spent a lot of the last few months going to bat for Catholics because there is a real weird stretch here in Texas. We had a religious liberty commission our lieutenant governor Dan Patrick put together, and a very strange lady named Carrie Prejean Bowler was on there who apparently converted to Catholicism like 5 minutes ago and suggested that it somehow guided her to be really, really harsh toward Israel, which it doesn't. And a lot of Catholic clergy said, wow, you're completely misstating Catholic doctrine. And I went to bat for them then. So I offer that now in view of what I am about to do over the weekend on 60 Minutes. In fact, on Sunday night, here is Cardinal Robert McElroy of the District of Columbia weighing in on Catholic doctrine and the current war in Iran.
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E
Is this a just war?
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B
No, under Catholic teaching, this is not a just war.
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G
Catholic faith teaches us there are certain
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B
prerequisites for a just war. You can't go for a variety of different aims.
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You have to have a focus aim, which is to restore justice and restore peace.
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B
That's it.
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Iran has been the chief exporter of terror. Is there no scenario in which preventing that can be a Just war.
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It's an abominable regime and it should be removed. But this is a war of choice that we went to.
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And I think it's embedded in a wider moment in the United States that's
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B
worrying, which is this.
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We're seeing before us the possibility of
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war after war after war.
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President Trump has argued that military action against Iran was justified in order to destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, among other reasons.
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B
So, look, if the cardinal wants to get a stint on cable news or get his own show pontificating about wars, politics, strategy, global issues, that's fine. When you're wearing that clerical collar, you are speaking for God. The reason there are no female priests is that God is a fatherly image. It's Father, it's the Holy Father. It's the whole fatherly thing. It's a representation of God here on earth among us. And maybe I'm just being naive here, but I believe that that means that the teachings ought to be things that come from the actual Bible. But silly me, let's go to the Pope himself. And again, American Pope. Yay. I love. That's great. And, and being a popular, he's obviously staunchly pro life. I love that. There is a host of other things that he could say that I would completely agree with, but for some reason, and somebody's going to have to tell me what that is. This Pope Leo xiv straight out of Chicago, straight to the Vatican and straight into your face with a complete distaste for Donald Trump. I believe that's what informed what you. You were just hearing from the cardinals. Look at what they said. They said that a just war has to restore justice and restore peace. That is exactly what we're about. That is exactly what we're trying to do, restore peace. What, what disturbed the peace in the first place? The Iranian Revolution of 1979. That's 47 years running. Regime change and establishing better behavior on the part of the Iranians will restore, restore peace to that part of the world. Nonetheless, here's Pope Leo XIV himself
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in English. I would simply say, once again, what I said in the Urbi message on Sunday, asking all people of goodwill to search always for peace and not violence, to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything. In fact, we have a worldwide economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle east of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world. So come back to, to the table. Let's talk. Let's look for solutions in a peaceful way. And let's remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare. To remind all that attacks on civilian infrastructure is against international law, but that it is, is also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction the human being is capable of. And we all want to work for peace. People want peace. I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always. Thank you very much.
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B
Oh Lord, where to begin? Where to even begin? Listen, if I run across a moral illiteracy on the part of just somebody on the show or in life, that's one thing. But from the Pope, really what you know, we. Peace is not defined by everyone laying down their arms. Peace is not defined by a mere cessation of hostilities. Peace is what you get when the good guys win. Let's talk. Let's reason together. Wonderful. Should. Should. Were we wrong to take down Hitler? Should we have just talked it out for the rest of the decade of the 1940s at what cost? Should we have just sat down and had dialogue with Imperial Japan? I'll tell you what's the willful blindness that is necessary to say these things. You have to be blind to the existence and threat of evil because evil exists. War will always crop up from time to time as a moral necessity. This very country. He here's the American Pope. If we follow that logic, and I use the term loosely to its natural extension, the very war that created this country perhaps should never have happened. Should we have just talked it out with George III through the rest of the 1770s, the 1780s? Because the longer you just talk, the longer and talk and talk and talk and talk. The people with the mightier military are going to win because they've got that hung over our heads. The colonists, the patriots. We would have never been free. It took a war to create this nation. It took a war to beat Hitler. It took a war to defeat Imperial Japan. It took wars to scream, squelch the evils. In the era of World War I and World War II. We are now in a multi generational time of evil being practiced, visited upon us upon Israel. Maybe Israel should mean a little something to the Vatican. And we are now in a season that has lasted almost 50 years of death, destruction, terrorism. Where's the empathy for them? There was the Pope talking about, you know, children and victims as the bombings are dropped. Listen as we knocked Hitler out, there was, pardon this term, collateral damage. There always innocent people will die in every just war. Innocent people will die in every just war. Now, this is not me saying that he or anybody else must agree with me that the war is just. But there. From the pope to the the cardinals interviewed in the 60 Minutes piece, their reason for viewing the war as unjust didn't seem to have anything to do with the Bible, didn't seem to really have anything to do with God. It seemed like their assertion that the war is unjust hangs on their distaste for President Trump. Trump and how he conducts himself. And President Trump's way of protecting the American people is one thing. The papacy, the Catholic clergy, they have their right to view things in the way that they wish. Doesn't make them right. It doesn't make them right. The Artemis crew is home. We'll examine that wonderful homecoming when we return.
- [34:23]
C
Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account. While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little known investment. Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade. It wasn't even insider knowledge. It was an account that's been around since 1888. And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to go compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts paying less than half a percent while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early banks are great businesses, just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com that's secretaccount the numbers29.com secret account22nine.com.
- [35:27]
B
So in our final segment here on the Josh Hammer Show, Mark Davis filling in here from DFW at Salem News Channel, Salem Media headquarters. It's just been a joy to be here. And we've so much disagreement, so much angst, so much people are, you know, going at each other, at each other's throats on so many things. Actual war, we got to figure out evil terrorism, big exhale. Because for this final segment, how often do we run across something that truly unifies? No politician ever can because anybody who's a conservative is going to do things that infuriates liberals and Vice versa. But when you have something like the Artemis mission that concluded this past Friday with a safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, if you enjoyed it, I am so pleased. I enjoyed it with a fervor and a history that I have worn out my audience describing for years and years and years. As I said, I was 11 when man walked on the moon in 1969. I've stayed plugged into this stuff forever. So as this mission approached and we left Earth orbit for the first time in 53 years, I thought we'd be walking on Mars by now. When I was, you know, 11 years old. Took a while. So when this mission was approaching, I was just unbelievably enthusiastic. And a friend of mine, 6th District Texas Congressman Jake Elsey is an old Navy buddy with the commander of the, of the Artemis mission, Reed Wiseman. So he hooked us up. I had Reid on the show a couple of times. I think I'm going to get to go pay a visit at some point. You know, pinch me for that. But let's visit right now with each other about what this meant. We'll start shallow and then go deep. Some of the observations made by people of my generation were what they loved about this is that there were no politics, no influencers, nobody under 45. So yes, I love that too. But what I really loved was the opportunity to look back in awe and wonder as four human beings, three Americans and a Canadian explored, reached out to explore just the very, very first molecules of this vast universe created by God. And I didn't need this crew to be evangelizing at every turn. But pilot Victor Glover in particular is someone, I think they all have a certain faith going and you know, they didn't wear it on their sleeve every turn day. But what they did, what they did wear on their sleeve every day is the childlike wonder of leaving the surly bonds of Earth to head out and go around the backside of the moon. And it was apparently life changing for them. First up at this Houston gathering where they bathed in the adulation and gratitude and love of their co workers, Artemis Commander Reid Wise. This was not easy being 200,000 plus miles away from home, like before you launch, it feels like it's the greatest dream on Earth. And when you're out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It's a special thing to be a human and it's a special thing to be on planet Earth. Thank you. I'm not crying. You're crying every time. Every time I see that it just gets better for Reid Wiseman in particular. He's a single father. His wife Carol died of cancer a few years ago. They named a crater after her. You might have seen that clip. Go find it. If you did not. Victor Glover, the pilot, talked about God while he was in the cabin of Artemis and talked about it in Houston the other night. When this started on April 3rd, I wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again, because even bigger than my challenge, trying to describe what we went through, the gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did, and being with who I was with, it's too big to just be in one body. It's too big to just be in one body. I felt that way sometimes in terms of. I sat with my wife on the couch on April 1st for the launch, hoping to God that that went well. Because, look, my age enables me to remember. I mean, I go back, they dragged at one point a black and white Sylvania set into my fourth, fifth grade class to watch the Project Gemini launches in 1965 and 1966, the Apollo launches, we were doing those every few months. Time to go to the moon again. Yay. After our first mission, Apollo 11, America largely stopped caring. I didn't. When we nearly had people die in space, Apollo 13 in April 1970, we cared again for a little bit. Let's get them back safe. But then we went to the moon 14, 15, four more times, and not too many people cared. I did. I stayed. Stayed fused to all of this. For many people, the last launch, they remember America gathering together to watch as one was in January of 1986. And the reason that we watched that launch, gathered as a unified country, was it was a teacher in space. It was Christa McAuliffe, it was the shuttle Challenger. And we watched them explode in the sky right in front of our eyes. And there. So there's a certain lasting stigma from that that, you know, is that going to happen again? Not that there was any necessary reason to think that it would, but it was something that really gave you pause, that really made it grip your heart. As they returned on Friday night, that's about re entering the Earth's atmosphere at about 25,000 miles an hour. And that's where you get to a heat shield issue at the butt end of the spacecraft. It was a heat shield issue that killed the Columbia crew into in February of 2003. When they came back through the atmosphere, the heat shield on the shuttle had been damaged at launch. They were pretty well dead at that moment. There was no way they were going to come home safely. So. But it made. It made everybody think about reentry, about and how hazardous that can be. So I just. My heart was in my throat. My wife and I, we just. We teared up watching them drop perfectly on time, right in the right location off the coast of San Diego and get picked up. And those smiles and those faces and that attitude and that gratitude. Let's go to Mission Specialist Christina Cook, because she had a wonderful point about the lens that you see it through before the mission happens and the lens that you see it through after you're done.
- [42:35]
E
This journey started with our mission manager, Sean Duvall, knocking on my door in crew quarters and whispering, christina, we're going for launch.
- [42:47]
B
Get up.
- [42:49]
E
And it ended last night when my nurse on the ship put me to bed and said, ma', am, can I get a hug?
- [43:01]
B
They used to say about the old Seinfeld show, no hugs, no learning. It's kind of a observation about all the other sitcoms of the day. Well, for this Artemis mission, lots of hugs and lots of learning. One of the things we learned is that we can do this. We can take this step. The next Artemis mission, Artemis 3 will be somewhere in the middle of next year where they will take the lunar hardware. The actual. You remember the limb, the spindly spidery thing from the 60s and 70s. It is now called the Human Landing System, the HLS. Not a snappy acronym there. The Human Landing System, as opposed to what? What else would we land there? A bear? Anyway, but that's going to be cool. We'll test that out in Earth orbit. And then apparently in 2028, the plan is to put footprints back on the lunar surface for the first time since December of 1972. The video will be crisp, the enthusiasm will run high, and I hope that multiple generations of people will be just thrilled about it. And I have to tell you, there's evidence that they will be. Because let me tell you about a young man who was really stoked about this, this Artemis mission, so much so that he wrote a wonderful column about it. And his name is Josh Hammer. Again, Josh is, what, in his late 30s, and I've got about 30 or so years on him. So my enthusiasm is baked in for somebody to be 20 something, 30 something, 40 something, and have that enthusiasm rekindled or maybe kindled for the very first time. That means something has to be happening that reaches them intellectually, reaches them in their heart, reaches them spiritually, and in a truly unifying way. It looks like this mission did. And I hope the missions that follow will as well. All right, I'm Mark Davis. You can follow me in the old world of Twitter and X ark Davis, M A R K Davis, Mark Davis show on Instagram and Facebook and even TikTok. And it's the Josh Hammer Show. It bears his name. He will be back tomorrow. Thank you, Dustin, here at Salem Media Dallas HQ for handling the technical aspect of all of this and putting it all together. May God bless this great country. May he protect our troops and our path forward. It's been an absolute joy being with you here on the Josh Hammer Show. Thanks very, very much for watching and Josh will be right back with you next time.
- [45:26]
A
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