← The Josh Hammer Show
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- [00:01]
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Josh Hammer
Well, the Iran war is back. It is fiery and it is not so peaceful. But the big question looming for the administration and all Americans is the will this be the time when we finally finish the job against Iran? I'm Josh Hatmer and this is Josh Hammer.
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Hugh Hewitt
Show.
- [00:52]
Josh Hammer
So for three, four, five consecutive nights now, there have been a series of strikes, dozens of strikes on a seemingly nightly basis on the coast of Iran along the Persian Gulf. When it comes to their missile facilities, when it comes to their drone facilities, when it comes to their surveillance facilities, essentially all things industrial and military related, make no mistake about it, the United States is now back at war with Iran. Donald Trump just on Monday joined our Salem media colleague Hugh Hewitt to discuss the latest and where things stand when it comes to operations. Operation Epic Fury, Epic Fury 2.0. I'm not sure if there is a name on it, but here with President Trump on our Salem media colleague Hugh Hewitt's show on Monday.
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Donald Trump
Can you or the American military or the Israeli military get to what's left of their third string and their fourth string and their fifth string?
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Josh Hammer
Do you know where they are?
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Donald Trump
Can you kill them? Yeah, I do. And, but we don't want to talk about that. But we certainly are watching. Yep. I know a lot about that subject. I know a lot. But I don't think it's appropriate to talk about it right now. But we will, we will. Like as an example. We're going to hit them very hard tonight and we're going to hit them hard tomorrow and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. They have nothing, they have nothing going other than they have big mouths. Keep it up, Mr. President. It's very good that I did because I got to know him. The MOU buckle and it's a lot better. You know, people say I was at least reasonable, but I got to know them and they're stone cold crazy people.
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Josh Hammer
So that was on Monday. And we believe based on the timing hasn't been super corroborated, but there's been a lot of reports that in the wee hours, the morning, so Tuesday morning. So after President Trump was speaking to Hugh Hud yesterday, that on the clip that you just saw, it was after that apparently that the United States took out the chief of the IRGC of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It was a very large bomb in an underground bunker and we apparently got the head of the irgc. So we're not taking out just coastal missile drone capabilities, just ships. We're actually going seemingly for the kill this time. Otherwise, why did you go after the head of the irgc? By the way, the naval blockade, as we reported yesterday, is now back on. So that that indeed has been corroborated. The United States is now imposing a naval blockade again on all Iranian ships that are trying to flee. All commercial and for that matter just residential personal ships to the extent that even exists over in Zonk Republic. All that is now being blockaded by the U.S. navy. And for good reason. That was one of the foremost tools of American leverage during Epic Fury 1.0 before it was called to a premature stop on April 8 for the months long back and forth iterative ceasefire MOU conversation. So the NATO blockade is back on. But, but it's worth noting there's actually already been some damage when it comes to the lifting of that blockade and the beginning of the MOU discussion. So as we've reported here on the show, when the MOU was first announced, there was immediate oil relief. There was immediate relief when it came to sanctions on Iran's petroleum exporting industry, on their facilities. They were having to store, physically store, that is in literal storehouses, warehouses, just tons and tons and tons of oil because there was nowhere to actually get it to. That was a crisis in and itself. And the results of that was that when these sanctions were lifted, it was an immediate, like a truly immediate, within minutes, within hours windfall for the regime. There's actually a brand new study that came out From a Washington D.C. think tank called Ginsa that found that Iran actually netted $5 billion just in the first 22 days after signing the MOU. So we're not making that up. That is real money. $5 billion is no shortage of money. Once upon time, conservatives really cared about these sorts of things when it came to the Barack Obama JCPOA. By the way, that $5 billion number is 47% more than Iran normally cashed in in a whole month prior to the war. They did that just in about three weeks after the MOU was signed. So it was a real problem. And now the blockade is on and we've bit the bullets, we've paid a literal cost actually for engaging in this farcical dog and pony show of an MoU conversation. And Donald Trump has now even not notifying the Congress formally that we are now in a wartime footing again with Iran. So President Trump gave formal written notification to the US Congress that the US Is once again at war with Iran under the War Powers act, which is a constitutionally dubious 1970s era legislation, a bill that I have long thought, long argued is actually unconstitutional because it violates the Article 2 Commander in Chief constitutional prerogative. But that's neither here nor there for today's purposes. Trump, just as he did the first time with epic fury back in late February, early March, he yet again is now notifying the Congress that this is the initiation of hostilities which under the War Powers act, whether it's constitutional or not, gives the President a 60 day carte blanche free reign to engage in hostilities prior to the need for congressional authorization. This letter was actually dated on July 10 and he says that these actions, quote, represent military action consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests both at home and abroad. So this thing is indeed really back on with Iran. The whole region actually is getting in on the action. So there were some satellite images yesterday. So there are all these maps. I'm sure you've seen them on television here on the show. We'll talk about it a little bit as well. There are these maps that track all these commercial oil tankers. You can go to ship radar and can physically track the movements. And yesterday it looked like there were a couple of Israeli tankers heading towards Iran. No word yet as to what exactly that means. Saudi Arabia is actually getting in on the fun a little bit as well. So there's been a decades, about a decade long blockade, a blockade imposed by the official nominal government in Yemen which is in a civil war against the Iran back Houthis. There's been about a decade long blockade by the official Yemeni government which is backed by the Saudis and the Emiratis against Iran. But yesterday, in a bit of a brazen move, the IRGC and America again just took out the head of the irgc. The IRGC was trying to land a military convoy smack in the middle of one of Yemen's largest cities at the airport, trying to move the Houthis and the Saudis actually decide to bomb the crap out of the airport. Ultimately that was futile because Iran was able to land. They know the Houthis, but that's an unmistakable sign that Saudi Arabia now means business. The, the uae, which is the most pro Western, pro America, pro Israel. Of all the Arab countries in the region, the UAE has had numerous of of their flagged comm vessels that have been struck by Iranian targets or Iranian ships, missiles, drones, etc. Over the past few days. So this thing has the potential to escalate from here. By the way, another wrinkle in all of this. The New York Times has a fascinating news story that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is the former president of Iran, a somewhat infamous former president, a former president who was really not a moderate when he was in office, a guy who was really accelerated Iran's nuclear program, a guy who literally denied the Holocaust, who was constantly threatening to, to wipe off the face of the earth the little Satan and the big Satan, that's Israel and America, respectively. So the New York Times reporting that apparently Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, was in touch trying to recruit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come in after the toppling of Khamenei in a bit of a regime change exercise. The details are crazy. It's out of a spy novel. Apparently they created a pretext for Ahmadinejad to FL to Budapest, Hungary, which is something of a neutral party. Hungary, under Viktor Orban, the foreign prime minister, very close with Israel that had ties with Iran. So the idea was to bring men Ahmadinejad to Budapest, nominally purportedly to give a speech at some university, but really he was there. The actor reason, allegedly, according to the New York Times, was to meet with David Barnea, the head of Mossad. This plan did not exactly work out because Ahmadinejad was under house arrest and it was ultimately not properly executed, which raised a lot of questions as to why this is coming public. Now, who was leaking these details? There's, there's a lot of questions here. I'm not saying that the New York Times is making it up, but it's definitely an interesting wrinkle in this broader conversation. Another interesting detail that came to light as well, just speaking of the broader Middle East, Yahya Sinwar, you might remember him, he was the number two in Hamas in all of Gaza. He was ultimately taken out by the IDF just about a year almost to the day after October 7. So in October 2024, Yahya Sinwar was killed in, in Rafah in southern Gaza. So there's a new note, a new letter that he wrote that has just been brought to light from investigative journalists or the Jerusalem Post reporting that in this letter he writes approvingly, Yaya Sinwar approvingly of the possibility that Israel might have responded to October 7th with a nuke. So let me translate that. He's saying potentially. I'm translating roughly. I look forward to the possibility that Israel might respond with a nuke, which shows you how crazy these people are and the utter fallacy of engaging in mutually assured destruction style diplomacy. He said, quote, israel may even use a nuclear bomb, but first it will be surprised by the attack and descend into chaos. You can't reason with these people. Whether it's Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, Iran. They are these same cut of Islamist cloth. They are here, there and everywhere, apocalyptic radicals. And they have the backing, fully, as this audience knows, of the globalist community, of all the transnational institutions. Among those institutions is the International Criminal Court based in the Hague, which has had all sorts of prosecutions against, well, now the Israelis, but also some Americans and going after the Americans for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. And now, now our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is saying enough is enough. Here's Marco Rubio talking about this new State Department initiative against the International Criminal Court based in The Hague.
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Hugh Hewitt
For 250 years, Americans have governed ourselves as a free and sovereign people. We choose our own leaders, we determine our own laws. And when we're accused of a crime, we stand for judgment before a jury, our own peers. This is the essential and indispensable feature of our form of government. It is the foundation of our shared way of life. But today, powerful people in faraway places want to take that away from us. They believe that they should be in charge of your laws, of your country, your life, and they don't care whether or not you agree. Halfway across the world, there's an institution that calls itself the International Criminal Court. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't, but chances are you don't know the names of its judges, of its prosecutors, or its president. And you shouldn't have to. But as we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country. Not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so called international law.
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Josh Hammer
So there you have it. The United States is declaring war on the icc. And what does that entail? Well, we're going to bring on a great crest to talk about all that and much more. After a short break, folks, we're going to be chatting with Eugene Kontrovich, who is an international law expert who's got a lot to say when it comes to Iran, the ICC and how all these pieces ultimately fit together. So we're going to go to a quick break, folks. On the other side, Eugene Kontrovich wanted to stay with us. We'll be right back.
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Josh Hammer
Welcome back. So we're pleased to bring you onto the show for a long overdue main appearance. An old friend of mine, and that is Eugene Kontorovich. Gene Kondrovich is a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He's also a senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom. An all around expert on, well, lots of things, but including international law and the fight against globalism. So really no one bear to bring on the talk about this new development when it comes to Marco Rubio launching this crusade, Eugene, against the International Criminal Court. You've been on top of this for a long time. What can you tell us as to the level of the threats that the ICC currently poses to the Trump administration and to Americans more broadly? And what exactly do you think this administration is now doing about it to combat that threat?
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Eugene Kontorovich
So, first of all, I want to say one kind of threat the International Criminal Court does not pose. The International Criminal Court does not pose a threat to the warlords, dictators and evil men of the world, some of whom they have indicted, most of whom they have ignored, but none of whom are afraid of being arrested by the ICC. So one of the ICC's big talking points is we indicted Putin so great that and a nickel is gonna not stop him in the Ukraine. So dictators don't care about the ICC because the ICC doesn't have a police force and they just ignore it. But it is a real threat to democracies and it poses a real threat to the United States. We know because the former prosecutor threatened to indict and go after and seek to arrest U.S. legislators, U.S. senators and a lot of people in the orbit of the icc. International legal academics, people who have worked for or consulted with the ICC, have made arguments to the extent that the Trump administration's repatriation policy for illegal immigrants is A crime against humanity which can be prosecuted by the icc. The attacks on drug smuggling boats, some of those countries that they're smuggling the boats are coming from, like Venezuela, are actual ICC member states. So even though the Venezuelan government is not fearing ICC prosecution, that could be used as a hook to prosecute US Servicemen and all the way up to senior US Leaders. So that's a very real threat of having US Officials arrested and tried abroad.
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Josh Hammer
And it's no small threat. And Marco Rubio, actually, in his new Wall Street Journal op ed, talked about the possibility up to and including military force. He does go there. He talks about a statute that potentially authorizes everything up to and including military force to prevent Americans from being forcibly prosecuted by this kangaroo court to which the United States never assented because we never signed the Rome Treaty that authorized this for other countries. So what exactly is happening, Eugene? There's this new op ed from Marco Rubio at the Wall Street Journal, as I mentioned. I haven't heard a whole lot of other details. You probably know more about this than I do. What exactly is happening at a concrete level when it comes to the administration's plans to try to defang the International Criminal Court?
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Donald Trump
Yes.
- [16:21]
Eugene Kontorovich
And I think it's important to explain exactly what the threat is from the court. It's not like the court is going to go arrest or seek to arrest US Officials tomorrow because they know Trump is president and a huge world of pain would rain down upon them. So the smart play for the court is to wait out the Trump presidency, wait until Trump is out of office, and then issue secret warrants for the arrest of U.S. officials while they're traveling abroad under President Newsom, who would no doubt say, you know what? I'm against this. This is a terrible thing, but what can I do? What can I do? It's an international court. So that's what they're trying to prevent. The only way to prevent that is for there not to be an International Criminal Court when President Trump leaves office. If there is an International Criminal Court, they will go after U.S. officials, including, quite likely, President Trump. So what this means is probably getting countries to quit the court. So that has already started to happen, kind of like the International Criminal Court's Brexit. Several African countries have quit. Now, Hungary quit in protest to the court's bad practices, but was then pressured to rejoin by the European Union. So the reason so many countries have joined the ICC is not because they think it's a great idea, because Europe puts concrete pressure on them to join. I call the icc, the last official church in Europe. So the United States now is going to do the opposite. European foreign policy supports the ICC. U.S. policy will be to get countries to quit using concrete pressure on countries that we have alliances with and cooperation, and then sanctions are going to be part of it for sure. Some court officials have already been sanctioned, but that is likely to extend quite broader. And, you know, the administration has to hope that this is going to be enough because, you know, as they say in the wire, if you, if you go for the king, you better not miss. And the ICC has already made clear that it believes the. These kind of, you know, pressure on it is a violation of its rules and is itself a prosecutable offense in front of the icc. So this is real. You know, Rubio's statement was very bold because he's putting himself in the crosshairs if this fails.
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Josh Hammer
You can follow Professor Eugene Kontorovich on X at EV Kontrovich. I think it's important, Eugene, just to briefly zoom out and contextualize this conversation. So this is happening in the backdrop. You allude to Brussels and the eu. Donald Trump as a figure represents the nationalist pushback against globalism. This really was the broader context for his initial election, 2016. You referred to Brexit. Brexit was the same year as President Trump's election. That's why Donald Trump has found himself allied with various nationalist leaders over the years. You refer to Hungary under Prime Minister Orban, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Modi in India, Javier Milei, et cetera, et cetera. This is really the global battle is nationalism versus globalism. And we live in a kind of a strange world where the globalist bureaucrats of these faceless institutions like the un, the icj, the icc, et cetera, et cetera, they've made common cause in many ways with a different type of globalist, which are the radical Islamists. These are both universalist ideologies, various stripes of totalitarianism, one a little bit softer, one a little bit harder. And I say all that, Eugene, because nothing that we're talking about on today's show is the resumption of hostilities by the Trump administration against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's fiery. It does not seem to be particularly peaceful at this time. I think the big question is whether or not the United States will finish the job on its own terms. What are you hearing from your perspective? You live in Israel. What are you hearing from your government, from the Israeli government? What does Netanyahu think about this resumption of hostilities. I presume that he supports it. What is your general sense as to the urgency of actually finishing the job this time on terms that will actually be durable?
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Eugene Kontorovich
So I haven't talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu about this, but I can say that when there was the original Memorandum of understanding, there was grave concern in Israel, but not what I would call opposition. Israelis recognize that America has its own interests, America has its own politics. American electoral politics are important. They're important for Israel, they're important for the whole world. And the main concern in Israel was that Iran not be given suzerainty over Lebanon in the Memorandum of Understanding, which is how it actually first appeared. How the Iranians interpreted that this was a recognition that they are the feudal state over Lebanon. So that already has been erased by the Israeli Lebanese Memorandum of Understanding, which makes clear that Lebanon is responsible for Lebanon. So the resumption of strikes shows that President Trump is really a completely different kind of leader in a very refreshing way, because the history of Middle east diplomacy has been leaders putting their faith in agreements and then becoming a kind of psychological hostage of their own diplomacy. That's the Oslo Accords, for example, right? There was this idea, the two state solution. Maybe that was the idea, give territory to the Palestinians. And it failed. And we just had Rahm Emanuel in Israel lecturing Israel, saying, yes, it failed. And the Palestinians used every opportunity given them to revolution, wreak havoc and terror on Israel. So please do it again, because there's no other choice but the two state solution. Rahm Emanuel represents a generation of politicians who became so captivated by this idea of their two state solution, they can never admit that it's wrong because it would be admitting their life's work was wrong. Trump is not an ideologue. He is a flexible, pragmatic guy. He tried something, it didn't work. Okay? And it's funny because Trump is seen as a kind of arrogant guy and is certainly very confident in himself, but he's also confident enough to admit something isn't working. I'm trying something again, something different. That is amazingly refreshing.
- [22:35]
Josh Hammer
It's a very, very astute point, actually. I really had not thought of it that way, but he really is showing deep humility here because he tried something. It did not work. As you said. This really does get back to the notion that he is inherently more of a businessman, more transactional, less ideological. And it's a very interesting observation, Eugene. I had not thought of it that way, but it actually makes a whole lot of sense. But frankly, a lot of things that Eugene says make sense, which is why you should go ahead and follow him on X. He's at EV Kontorovich. He's a law professor and a fellow at Advancing American Freedom. Eugene, the first appearance, hopefully not the last one. We hope to see you soon, my friend. Have a great day. Thank you for joining us.
- [23:07]
Eugene Kontorovich
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Take care.
- [23:09]
Josh Hammer
Folks may notice a quick break. We'll be right back with more on the other side. Welcome back. So I want to just talk a little bit more about the situation with Iran right now. We're not going to get into the nuts and bolts. Nuts and bolts, frankly, are frequently in flux. So actually, just this morning, Donald Trump saying that he is no longer going to charge a 20% fee or try to charge that fee when it comes to the cargo flowing through the strait. Recall that yesterday we said that that was his new plan was to charge a 20% toll for the United States for doing the public service of keeping these straits open. Apparently, that is no longer the plan. Now there's a plan for some sort of Gulf investment initiative. The details are a little scant at this time. So the details are constantly changing. Rather, I want to zoom out and make it more a more profound, I hope, point. And the point is as follows. You only get so many bites at the apple before you actually genuinely lose deterrence and credibility on the world stage. The cardinal sin of American foreign policy for decades and decades has been that we do not finish what we start. We have seen this well, basically ever since Vietnam, to be candid, it's just been one mess after the other. We fail to define what the goal is in crisp, clear, articulate fashion. And then we fail to finish the job according to the terms. And in pursuit of those goals as we just defined them, this is a recurring problem. It is a mini tragedy of sorts of American foreign policy going back further than I have even been alive. When President Trump decided to launch Epic Theory, presumably he did so with the intention of bolstering and increasing American credibility and deterrence on the world stage, especially in the broader context of this 21st century great power competition struggle with the Chinese Communist Party for at least the first three, four or five weeks of the war, it looked like that was going to be the case. Unfortunately, all that we have seen since then has resulted in a presence right now, as you and I are talking, a present status right now, where American deterrence and credibility in the world stage is, if anything, worse than it was prior to February 28, which was the kill shots of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Why? Well, because America at this point does not necessarily look like she is ready to finish what she started, but perhaps she is. That story is yet again changing. That's what we've seen over the past few nights. So at this point, the move has to be to finish the job on the terms that we laid out. Now this is a little difficult because, well, we didn't actually fully lay out in crisp, clean fashion what we were trying to do. There was a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Surely now is the time to level with the American people and say, here's what we're doing. Open the straight, stop the funding of the terror proxies, end the ballistic missiles, turn over the nuclear dust in the nukes. Are those not the goals? They seem pretty clear to me. But the point is, no matter how you define the goals, whether or not it includes quote, unquote regime change or not, and I've never defined that as explicit goal here on this show, whether or not you include that, it doesn't matter. Define the goals and then pursue them and actually achieve them. You only get so many bites before you start to lose deterrence and credibility. I worry that if we don't actually finish the job on our own stipulated terms this time around, that deterrence and credibility will take a serious, serious and indeed severe blow. We mentioned the absolute phony Rokohana on yesterday's show. So Rokuhana is a chameleon. He is someone who just loves, loves seeing himself on camera, loves, loves talking to a microphone. Dude is one of the most self aggrandizing public officials in America today. He genuinely might be number one on the list. So Rokuhanna is, well, he's a very, very wealthy man. He might be the single wealthiest member of Congress right now. He comes from Silicon Valley. So he's surrounded by a lot of wealthy people. A lot of people who once upon a time were not inherently hostile to the US Israel relationship. So when Rokuhanna started climbing through the ranks, he was pretty warm towards US Israel relations. He is now transparently Rio fighting his party's anti Israel dragon. Which is why as we mentioned on yesterday's show, he did this whole outrageous stunt whereby he claimed that he was detained by Israelis with guns, which by the way is a pretty common thing. It's a country constantly bombarded by terrorist attacks and they have a rapid response civilian force whereby civilians do indeed carry around rifles. Probably not a bad idea in general to be honest with you as a Second Amendment guy, it's something that probably get behind over here. He's not produced any actual footage or evidence of being, quote, unquote, detained, though. And he says that he reached out to the American Embassy in Israel, led by our ambassador, Mike Huckabee, to coordinate his trip. But apparently that's just a lie. How do I know that? Well, because Mike Huckabee actually tweeted, he literally tweeted out this morning, said that the left wing activist who set up this stunt, and he's referring to Rokahana, the congressman, which is kind of funny. He says that Rokahana said the embassy is involved. Says Mike Huckabee, that is all caps. Not true. We did not know a member of Congress was coming. We would have said, don't go to a restricted zone. As facts come out. It's not helping the desired narrative. He was not held at gunpoint. That was what Rokahana said. He said he was being held at gunpoint by these very, very scary people. He's trying just to be victimized for the cameras. But the broader point, just zooming out a little bit, I think, is this. What does it say. What does it say about a situation whereby you have someone who is trying to gin a momentum for his, well, inevitably doomed 2028 presidential campaign based on flying to Israel and trying to play the victim card by fabricating a tale like this? What does that say? It says that his party is so utterly consumed by a monomaniacal focus on this one issue, an issue that really ought to be a niche issue. After all, it's a tiny country halfway around the world. Why is American politics, especially on the left, so utterly focused on this? It's absolutely crazy to me. Ruth Weiss has been a professor at Harvard University for the better part of a half century or more. She's been a professor of the Yiddish language and, and Jewish culture and Jewish civilization, among other topics. She's an older woman who's been around the block one or two times, and she says that anti Semitism is not necessarily a, quote, unquote, bigotry or prejudice. Rather, Ruth Weiss defines antisemitism as the organization of politics against the Jews, against the Jewish people, the Jewish state, etc. The organization of politics. Is that not exactly what you are seeing in the Democratic Party today? Why else would Rokahana fly over, not even gonna announce his visit to the embassy, coordinate this whole visit with the Palestinian Authority and play the victim's tale and lie? Yes, Mikhail could be calling a liar when it comes to this tale that he was held at gunpoint for this self aggrandizing victimhood narrative emboldening stunt. Why would he do this other than to rally the base, A base that apparently just utterly hates, utterly hates and despises. Because going back to Ruth White's definition, they engage in politics whereby the organizing principle is an organizing principle that is oriented towards anti Jewish, anti Hebraic, really anti biblical frankly, but in this case anti Jewish, anti Hebraic ends. It is really a damning indictment of the Democratic Party that Rokohanna did this in the first place. You heard Eugene Kantarovich refer to Rokohanna's stunt earlier in our conversation. Rahm Emanuel was over there last week too, giving a speech that no one of note attended or no one note even commented on. It was just a fork into the wind trying to show that he is one of the good Jews. Ron Manuel trying to say, ah, you know what, I'm one of the good ones. I'm here just to be a warning. But he's not one of the good ones. Why? Because in the eyes of this current Democratic Party, there are no good ones meaning good Jews. There's no such thing. There was a very eye opening panel on CNN just a couple weeks ago. A panel was discussing prospective possible 2028 presidential candidates and they were talking about Jon Ossoff was going to be in a very heated race this November against Mike Collins, albeit one of the most expensive Senate races in the country, Jon Ossoff, who is nominally Jewish. And the panel is talking about on CNN as well also Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania who's slightly more moderate perhaps than Jon Ossoff. And the panel made the following observation. They said that Josh Shapiro, quote reads he reads as more Jewish than Jon Ossoff. And they said that with the implication being that Jon Ossoff has a better chance because he hasn't screamed Jewy McJew. That's the modern Democratic Party. That is the party that Rokahana is going over to, Jane Samaria, AKA the quote unquote west bank, trying to play the victimhood card, trying to gin up passion. That's how Daria Lisa Chevalier, who marched on October 8, 2023 in Times Square. That's how she gets elected to Congress. That's how Mamdani gets elected mayor of the nation's largest state. This is dangerous, dangerous stuff. The left has fallen to it. I fear that is already done. The only question at this point is will the American right be able to withstand that? Not so pleasant indeed. Civilizationally fatal siren song, folks. We'll go to a final break. We'll be right back with more on the other side. Welcome back. So speaking of the right being able to withstand the siren song of anti Semitism, we should go back to Lindsey Graham. So Lindsey Graham, we talked about him at great length on yesterday's show. We're not necessarily going to do a whole recap of Lindsey Graham's life and all that Lindsey Graham, his foreign policy views were not exactly mine. In many ways, Lindsey Graham was an unreconstructed Bush era neoconservative. I am more of a hardened Maga esque realist, like an actual realist, not an isolationist who calls a realist, but an actual realist. So my foreign policy was not exactly Lindsey Graham's, but I nonetheless had a deep and profound appreciation, indeed admiration for Lindsey Graham's passion for this particular relationship, for the US Israel relationship. And for what it's worth, from what I can tell, Israeli media is mourning this loss. They are, they, they are not taking it well. There's a lot of public bewailing and just deep sadness that Lindsey Graham is gone. And in fact, there was actually this very poignant moment on channel 14, which is the right wing Israeli television network, whereby the host on air actually read the mourners Kaddish, which is a prayer that Jews say for the recently deceased. We typically only say it for our Jewish relatives, our parents, our grandparents, our spouses and so forth. So it's not typically said for non Jews because we say it for our family. Typically our family are Jews. So the on air host actually got permission from a great rabbi in Israel to say it for Lindsey Graham on air that that actually happened. So it's sending shockwaves amidst this whole broader conversation about whether the right is going to be able to withstand the anti Semitism of the likes of Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and on and on. So it's with that in mind, among other things in mind, of course, that Henry McMaster, the governor of South Carolina, just yesterday announced that he is indeed appointing the sister of Lindsey Graham, Darlene Graham Nordone, to replace or to fill out the rest of Lindsey Graham's term. Now, Lindsey was running for reelection this cycle. He defeated others in the primary already. He was going to be on the general election ballot this November. So the rest of this term just means until January 2027. So, so Darlene Graham, Nordone is an optician. She's probably not going to be the full time Senate member Come next February, let's call it 2027. I guess you never know. We'll see what happens. But this is the pick. Now, we don't really know a whole lot about Darlene. Excuse me, Graham Nordom. We know that Lindsey Graham loved her. Lindsey Graham, single man, never married, no children. This was his closest kin. This was his closest relative. I was reading a very poignant story. So Darlene Graham, Nordon apparently was the one who just when she was a teenager, tragically, sadly found her father's dead body when he had a heart attack and passed away overnight. Because he passed away at the age of 68. The Graham's father from a heart attack. Lindsey Graham, tragically, same thing at age 71. And the story is essentially that Darlene Graham, Nordone in the morning finds her dead father. And at that point Lindsey Graham, who was just a little older than her, apparently wrapped his arms, physically embraced his sister and said, I will take care of you and guard you for the rest of your life. One of those very poignant kind of classic America stories, really kind of an old school Southern charm, South Carolina esque story, very poignant stuff. And again, I didn't share Lindsey Graham's politics on every issue. Immigration comes to mind as a major area to scream between Lindsey Graham and myself, but fundamentally a good and decent person. And it does raise this broader question as to the Republican Party's approach to matters of foreign policy. Lindsey Graham, not my foreign policy, but definitely in some ways at least closer to the foreign policy here on this show than, let's call it the foreign policy of Tucker Carlson. Now, most Americans are somewhere in the middle, to be clear. Foreign policy, as we often say, is not this ridiculous dichotomy. It's ridiculous false choice between Tucker Carlson striding into isolationism versus McCain, Graham Esque, America, world policeman everywhere. There was a very reasonable middle ground, and that's a middle ground that I've been trying to stake out in my commentary for the better part of a decade or more. But Graham's tragic demise is going to have the effect, it is absolutely going to have the effect of emboldening the isolationist crowd. I have no doubt that the Tiger Carlson forces, the gripers, the isolationists, they're going to try to fill this seat from South Carolina. The Civil War is on, it is raging, and the loss of Lindsey Graham, I think can only be contextualized, understood in that particular context. Now, I don't really know a whole lot. I'm not sure anyone knows a whole lot really about the views of his sister on basically any issue for that matter. I assume that the Governor McMaster did at least a little bit of substantive vetting. It's worth noting that his sister was at his side, Lindsey Graham's side, during a lot of his campaign. So presumably they believe similar things, but we just don't really know. So it'll be interesting to see what issues she leans in on over the course of her time here, going up until the end of her temporary term next January. It's not just foreign policy. Lindsey Graham was also very outspoken on pro life issues. He was an ardent pro lifer, very involved in the judicial confirmation battles. And actually, on that topic, fascinating thing happened this morning. So now Amy Coney Barron and Elena Kagan of the US Supreme Court made a very, very rare appearance in the Congress to testify. They were testifying to try to get a larger budget passed for the Justice's own security, which probably is necessary. And that's a very sad thing, but it is in fact necessary. And Elena Kagan, in her opening remarks, paid tribute to Instagram, which you might say is interesting, a little bit curious, because Elena Kagan is a liberal. She's one of the most reliable liberals of the court. But she was basically thanking Lindsey Graham for voting for her confirmation. He was one of the only Republicans to do so. And again, another area where I didn't agree with Lindsey Graham, I would probably be a whore. No. On every judicial nominee who does not share my own jurisprudential views, my own interpretive views. But that's not how Lindsey Graham played ball. And it was kind of pointing to see that this morning come out of Elena Kagan. But we do live in that world to Elena Kagan's point there and Amy Coney Barrett's point, where political violence is a real thing. And it's horrific that we're at situation. It's absolutely horrific. If there is one thing that I fear could ultimately lead to the unraveling of this country, it is just this sheer hatred and animosity leading to political violence. You know, on a Jewish calendar. From our perspective, we are now in the middle of what's referred to as the three weeks, the three weeks of mourning. And it started about a week and a half ago on the 17th of Tammuz on the Jewish calendar. And it culminates on the 9th of Av on the Jewish calendar, which will be nine days a week from this third Thursday. That is the date, the 9th of Avenue, the Jewish calendar, where the Holy Temple, both the First Temple, Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple where they're both destroyed on the same day. Various other calamities befallen Jewish people on that day. The reason that our sages tell us that the temple was destroyed was due to baseless hatred, a failure to have unity. The Hebrew word for that is akhdus. There was no aktus, there was no unity. In other words, the Jews were speaking gossip, speaking slander, they couldn't unify. And that our sages tell us what led to the destruction of the temple from Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar and then the romans with the second temple in the year 70 of the common era. I think that's a very relevant lesson, frankly, for the present day, especially when it comes to these increased threats of political violence. The fact that the Supreme Court justices are having to go there to try to get more money for their own security detail. It was only a few years ago that we saw those not so peaceful protests outside the justices houses trying to get them to overturn the Dobbs opinion after it was maliciously leaked when there was Nicholas Rosky, the now transgender individual, as we know he she is, who flew from California to Maryland trying to assassinate Brett Kapanal. This is dangerous stuff and it's ultimately why and we'll talk about this again on tomorrow's show. It's ultimately why Donald Trump needs a really, really, really strong Attorney general to enforce these laws and to make sure that justice is pursued, secured and upheld for all. So tomorrow, we'll talk about this again. Tomorrow it's going to be the confirmation hearing of Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche is the Acting Attorney General of the United States and Donald Trump's pick to be the permanent Attorney General of the United States. I am a fan of Todd Blanche. I'm also senior counsel at the Oracle III Project, as you likely know, and we are fans of his at the Oracle III Project as well. I view Todd Blanche as someone who has personally bled for Donald Trump when it came to being one of his criminal, quote unquote, criminal defense lawyers during the height of the Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Lawfare. And before you scoff at that, I think it's worth noting that Donald Trump deserves a personal loyalty warrior for the trained general. He's been burned so many times when it comes to the doj. He deserves that. Blanche has bled for the cause and any number of other issues as well. I am definitely a fan of him. I think he has the votes when they're, when they had that so called weaponization fund, it was getting a little wobbly. John Thune, many others were very opposed to that. That's off the table. That's been removed. So I think the votes will be there. I think Thom Tillis, Murkowski, probably even they, they will probably all vote for Blanche. But Trump deserves his pick for attorney general. I thought Pam Bonnie did it, did a perfectly fine job. I actually supported her much more than money. My peers here on the show, I think Todd Blanche will actually be even better in today's climate of escalating political violence. I think that he is the perfect guy, the guy who defended Trump on the lawfare, to come in and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully restore us to a modicum insanity on that all important front, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We'll be right back. As always, tomorrow.