Where Do Republicans Stand With 2 Weeks To Go Until Midterms?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there and of course to listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues. All of them at hueforhillsdale.com or just google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Glory to be raised in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt back inside the Beltway for the two weeks prior to the election. Wouldn't be anywhere else. Actually almost three weeks, not two weeks. I um I've got a lot to get through that's political, including why I feel great about Susan Collins in Maine, pretty good about Michelle Tafoya in Minnesota, better about Ken Paxson in Texas, and okay about Iowa and Ohio. Better about Iowa than Ohio. I think Ashley Hinton's doing better in Iowa than John Huston's doing in Ohio. I'll cover all those races today. I've got clips of all of them. But first, I want to begin with an interview that our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, gave to Matt Boyle of Breitbart, which had a number of important pieces in it that I want you to hear about. The first cut is not about Ukraine or anything. It's about actually Central and South America. Cut number 15.
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Speaker 2: It really is remarkable just how fast this has happened across the Western Hemisphere. Why is it happening this quickly? I've seen some people out there suggesting, oh, it's USAID is gone, so they're not funding the NGOs and they're not funding the left. I don't know if that's why, but maybe that's part of it.
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Speaker 1: But what do you think?
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Speaker 3: You know, I don't think it's a coincidence to some extent that pulling foreign aid into the State Department and away from the sort of independent, do-whatever-they-want organization, which was USAID, has had a direct impact on what's happening in the region.
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Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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Speaker 5: Absolutely.
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Speaker 3: There are groups in that region that are clearly aligned with anti-American leftists. Now, they may be dressed up as an environmental NGO or a group that works for the indigenous population in these countries, but the reality of it is they are part of this anti-American global network of NGOs, and we were.
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Speaker 6: Funding many of them.
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Speaker 7: We were funding many of them.
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Speaker 3: Now, our foreign aid, we're still the most generous country in the world in foreign aid. The difference is our foreign aid is now designed specifically to further the national interest. We are not going to pay for things that are bad for America. We are not going to give money to people or organizations that hate America. And that's why that's now whether I can prove to you that's had a direct impact on these elections. I'm not sure we've studied it, but I don't think it's a coincidence in my personal.
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Speaker 1: Then Secretary Rubio told Matt Boyle about what Europe needs to do about Russian energy cut number 16. That's exactly what happened.
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Speaker 3: Their dependence on Russian energy is one of the reasons why Putin went into Ukraine, because he thought he could, because he believed Europe wasn't going to do.
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Speaker 1: Anything about it.
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Speaker 7: So I hope they've learned that lesson.
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Speaker 3: It seems like they now are, but it takes time now to reverse engineer 20 years of both this green hyperbole in terms of believing they're going to go completely green and their belief that they could somehow not develop any domestic sources of energy and, in fact, just be overly reliant on one method. So the answer is I hope they are because Europe's future depends on it. Right now their economy faces, unfortunately, real stagnation in most of these countries.
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Speaker 1: Because Then President Trump has refused to sanction Russia despite the passage of the Lindsey Graham Russia sanctions bill. And Matt Boyle pressed Secretary Rubio about that. Cut number 17.
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Speaker 3: The United States, where he once again reiterated why it is that he's done the things he's done with suspending the sanctions for 60 days, is because he wants to see if there's an opportunity for the talks that are going on right now with both Ukraine and Russia to lead to something positive. and avoid another disastrous year of war and conflict.
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Speaker 1: That was not to Matt Boyle. That was outside. Cut number 18, a gaggle.
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Speaker 3: And now we've done everything we can, and we'll continue to do everything we can to help facilitate the end.
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Speaker 1: Of that war.
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Speaker 3: No one's winning that war. People are dying every day. Things are being blown up every day. Things are being destroyed every day. And he's talked about it. He's talked about the death toll. If you've listened to the president, he repeatedly cites the 25,000 people a month dying in these wars.
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Speaker 1: And then cut number 19 from Secretary Rubio.
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Speaker 3: The president's been clear. He'd like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end. He wants that war to end. He has said that when he was a candidate. He said it never would have happened had he been president at the time, but it did happen. And now we've done everything we can and we'll continue to do everything we can to help facilitate the end.
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Speaker 8: Of that war.
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Speaker 3: No one's winning that war. People are dying every day. Things are being blown up every day. Things are being destroyed every day. We want the war to end. We see nothing good coming from this war, and we see a lot of downside to it, including the very real risk of escalation and the spread of this thing spreading into another country because of a failed sabotage attack, because of drones that are hit with electronic warfare and they wander into a neighboring country.
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Speaker 7: We see that every night.
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Speaker 1: We see it every night. And so things are very tense along the Russia-NATO border. And along, of course, Russia and Ukraine, they're fighting. Ukraine is the good guy. We need to get more weapons to Ukraine. Putin is a gangster. We need to recognize that. The president can deal with him. If anyone can, it's Donald Trump can deal with Vladimir Putin. But Putin floated an idea over the weekend, which was so on the nose with the Munich conference of 1938, that we don't want any part of that. 1938, Neville Chamberlain flies to Munich sits down with Hitler, so does the French representative. And Hitler demands half of Czechoslovakia. No Czechs are there or they're in the other room. And Chamberlain gives him half of Czechoslovakia. I think it's in September of 1938. In March of 1939, Hitler takes the rest of Czechoslovakia, occupies Prague. You can't deal with dictators. Putin is a gangster. You can't deal with him. But President Trump and other strong leaders have tried to always deal with him. Every president of the United States has tried to deal with him since Clinton. There is no dealing with him. He's a gangster. Now, Brian Kilmeade talking about the other big story of the weekend abroad, which is France is burning. And I don't mean a little bit. I mean 600 different places across France and part of Italy as well. Brian Kilmeade talks about it. Cut number 22.
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Speaker 7: They're afraid of the people. They allow the people to come there, and then now they're afraid of them. This is where President Trump is ahead of his time.
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Speaker 9: He's going to give full credit for it eventually for clear-thinking people. He said you've got to watch your borders, and you have to also judge people coming into your country.
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Speaker 7: They're going to benefit your country.
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Speaker 1: Yes.
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Speaker 9: Because Syria decides that Syria has a brutal revolution.
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Speaker 7: It doesn't mean they have to all go to France and Germany. Ro Khanna, if you want to underline.
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Speaker 9: Things that lawmakers say that miss the point, here's an example.
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Speaker 7: Ro Khanna, who wants to be president?
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Speaker 9: From the high schools of France to the streets of Madrid, young people are telling their governments the same thing. In an age of massive wealth inequality, they want a future.
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Speaker 7: They can believe in.
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Speaker 10: J.D.
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Speaker 9: Vance says this is what happens when a nation lets its too many immigrants. From the global south, he is not just morally wrong, but misreading the moment. This is what happens when nations let wealth and power accumulate in the hands of the few. This is what happens when young people lose hope in their future. In America, let us listen to the young. We need an economic and political transformation now. America's next new deal. What is wrong with you? This is an accumulation of promises made by the state.
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Speaker 7: They're impossible to sustain.
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Speaker 9: They have the largest debt to GDP in Europe.
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Speaker 7: And here's this.
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Speaker 4: They said free child care, free health care.
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Speaker 7: Free school, and you can retire at 60.
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Speaker 5: The math was never going to work when you started it, and now it's beginning to implode because your services don't meet the moment, the promises don't work, and you keep electing the same people who think you can work 35 hours and retire at 60 years old and have a successful democracy.
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Speaker 7: You don't get it.
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Speaker 9: That is a scary statement for any lawmaker to make.
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Speaker 1: Brian Kilmeade is absolutely correct. The math doesn't work. And it doesn't work anywhere. It won't work here eventually. We're running a $ 40 trillion debt and a trillion plus every year because our entitlements are unmatched, mismatched with our actual life expectancy and what people actually do. People work to 75. That's just kind of routine. And the idea that you can pull out at 62, that's crazy. The idea that you don't have to work after 62, that's nuts. We have layered entitlement upon entitlement. We've given away golden parachutes to millions of government employees. There's no private sector counterpart to that. The public sector is overburdened with promises made to people who are now retired. And we're not going to be able to break those promises, but we can fix entitlements. It's going to take serious people, not Abdul El-Sayed or Abdul El-Sayed. The Michigan radical who's running as a Democrat is the most important race on the calendar this year. And I want to play for you is knock down of a young kid, or his attempted knockdown, it actually blew back on Saeed, this weekend, cut number five, the young man asked him about the Muslim Brotherhood, listen closely.
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Speaker 8: What's your name?
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Speaker 7: No, what's your name?
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Speaker 4: No, what's your name?
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Speaker 7: No, no, what's your name?
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Speaker 4: No, your friend's got the mic here.
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Speaker 8: I'm asking you a simple question.
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Speaker 1: You give me your name, I'll answer the question. Hi, Tommy, how are you?
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Speaker 4: Are you... Do you know what the Constitution of the United States is?
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Speaker 1: I have one simple question.
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Speaker 11: Will you disavow the Muslims?
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Speaker 3: Sure.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 7: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
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Speaker 8: Well, because they're a terrorist group.
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Speaker 4: Okay. No, no, but what are you implying?
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Speaker 1: Do you assume that I wouldn't?
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Speaker 4: Yes. Why not?
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Speaker 8: Because I have not heard you disavow them yet. Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you.
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Speaker 1: Disavow them yet.
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Speaker 8: I disavowed them.
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Speaker 4: Do you? Great.
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Speaker 1: But here's the thing about it.
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Speaker 4: You're asking the question because implicitly you assume that I'll have dual loyalty.
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Speaker 1: No, he's not asking the question because he assumes that Abdul Al-Sayed is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter. He's asking the question because Abdul El-Sayed is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter. He signed the letter on behalf of Mohammed Morsi, then president of Egypt, who was a Muslim Brotherhood stalking horse and member. And it's a good question. It could have been answered very directly with, I really, really dislike the Muslim Brotherhood. They're a terrorist organization, have been since BANA founded it in 1923, and they're up to no good wherever they are, and I will have nothing to do with it. Or he could have said, yeah, I think they're necessary for the Arab world, Some in the Muslim world, but not here in America. He could have answered it a hundred ways. Instead, he went after a young man who asked an obvious question. How insecure is Abdul El-Sayed? How bad are his numbers? They must be pretty bad. More coming up after the break. Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt inside the Beltway after a week in Maine. Spent watching very closely the Collins-Troy Jackson race. I think that one... Pretty much baked a cake and put it in the oven. Susan Collins coming back. But I'm joined now by Jonathan Williams. Jonathan is the president of the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, A-L-E-C dot org slash U, ALEC dot org slash U. Jonathan, we have to celebrate. I would not have believed it, but New York State has opted in to the scholarship program that Ted Cruz devised. Tell us about it.
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Speaker 8: Well, this is the big one, Hugh.
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Speaker 12: Nobody really saw this one coming, but Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, who, as we all know, is not a big friend of school choice or education freedom over the years.
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Speaker 8: New York ranks, after all, 49th out of the 50 states in the ALEC report on education freedom.
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Speaker 12: Did the right thing here and has decided to opt in to the Trump education tax credit scholarships, as you mentioned, devised by the great Senator Ted Cruz.
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Speaker 8: This is a huge deal.
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Speaker 12: Jared Polis led it off as the first Democrat governor, but this will only be the second Democrat governor of the 31 states that have opted in.
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Speaker 8: All the others have been.
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Speaker 12: By Republican governors or by Republican legislators overriding their governor's vetoes, like in Kentucky and North Carolina. But Governor Hochul now going out and doing this, maybe some would say it would be for campaign purposes. Maybe she's doing it for the right thing from a perspective of saying it's what's right for the kids. I'm not going to judge her motives on it, but this puts every other progressive or Democrat governor in a really difficult position, especially those that want to claim that they're moderates to say they're to the left now of Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, the 49th state in education freedom across the country. But kudos to Governor Hochul for doing the right thing on this one and aligning with this great movement that we've been working on it from an ALEC perspective all across the country.
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Speaker 1: I think Bruce Blakeman must be catching up to her because this is an important thing, but it's not particularly political. I want to remind everyone how it works. Beginning next year in 2027, the regs are in draft right now. They're out for notice and comment from the IRS. Beginning next year, every individual can contribute $ 1, 700, or if they're married, $ 3, 400, to a qualified scholarship-granting organization, an SGO. And then that SGO will take that money and give it to schools as scholarships for students, and the taxpayer gets a credit. Why is a credit so much better than a deduction, Jonathan Williams?
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Speaker 12: Well, in this case, you know, it's something, Hugh, that, you know, it's a dollar-per-dollar credit, right? I mean, this is exactly dollars paid in, you get dollar-per-dollar back instead of deducting against your income. But more importantly, from the state's perspective, this doesn't cost the states a dime. This is something that's federally financed because the federal government correctly realizes that education opportunity is a huge.
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Speaker 8: Goal that needs to be furthered across the country.
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Speaker 12: And for a lot of these governors who, especially these progressive governors who always are at the trough in Washington, D.C., asking for more money, It's awfully strange that they would turn down a so-called free new federal tax credit.
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Speaker 8: It doesn't cost them a dime.
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Speaker 12: So I think it's time for the rest of them to follow the lead of Governor Hochul in this case and realize that this is the right thing to do for parents and students all across their states.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to emphasize there is no downside for a state. It's a tax credit off your federal income tax. So the federal government will receive $ 3, 400 less because you got $ 3, 400, which you would have paid to the federal government. is going to go to an SGO, a scholarship-granting organization. Now, those have to be stood up. Those have to be qualified. They have to give to more than, I think, 10 different schools. There are a number of things and hooks that go with it, and those SGOs can't spend overhead greater than 10%. There's a lot of protection there. But what a magnificent driver of freedom in the education, Jonathan Williams. It is going to remake American education. I mean, Ted Cruz gets the gold medal. medal for innovation in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
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Speaker 12: Well, I'll tell you what, there's a lot of good ones in that One Big Beautiful Bill, but Senator Cruz is up there.
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Speaker 8: And as you know, Hugh, you've been at our awards dinner before.
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Speaker 12: We at ALEC love recognizing Cax Fair champions across the country. And I wouldn't be surprised to see Senator Cruz get one of those great awards from ALEC in the coming months.
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Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you about the rollout now. 31 states have said yes, and it just takes your governor saying we're in. There's no law required. You don't have to get it through a legislature. And 19 have said no. When you come around to do rich states, poor states.com this year, do you expect opting into this program will be a significant factor in where you rank?
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Speaker 12: Well, it'll certainly be something we look at in the ALEC report on education freedom that will come out in January. So stay tuned for that, because I think it's going to play right into what we're seeing play out across the country when it comes to the state education freedom revolution that we've been happy to be a part of from an ALEC perspective. But it clearly plays into rich states, poor states, this migration of families. going to states that have more business opportunities, more employment opportunities, and more opportunities for kids. So you really can't separate the two in terms of economic freedom and education freedom going hand in hand.
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Speaker 1: Now, Jonathan, last week I was in Maine covering the Collins-Troy Jackson race. I'm inside the Beltway now. And Maine has got a lot of troubles. It's a pretty blue state. And they've got an 8% income tax. They've got a death tax. They've got a bunch of things that prohibit people from building houses and from moving up there. Federalism is the greatest. I don't know how the famous came up with this, but nothing works like federalism. And people vote with their feet. Does that continue to be the great sort? Are people still going all over the country to follow their dreams to the best state to live in?
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Speaker 8: Well, there's no doubt. I mean, it's a key message from rich states, poor states every year. And here we are, 20 million people moving across state lines just in the last number of months.
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Speaker 12: And we track this trajectory and it ties exactly back to what the founders were doing to put in those checks and balances to keep central power from corrupting. And this is something our good friend Lee Habib wrote about. It's really socialism versus federalism. And at the end of the day, federalism is the great check and balance on big government ideas.
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Speaker 8: Because guess what, Hugh?
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Speaker 12: States can't build walls to keep people in if they have these bad policies that don't work. People are going to leave. They're going to look for more opportunity for themselves and their families. And that's the name of the game. That's the American experiment. And it's a wonderful thing that when you think about it in the grand course of world history, it's awfully rare that countries have experimented with this kind of bottom-up governance that we have in the United States.
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Speaker 8: And the founders, you know, thank God they were thinking ahead of.
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Speaker 12: Their times just a bit to say, what is it that we can put in the Constitution to prevent central government planning and big government prevailing here in the United States?
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Speaker 1: And there is no more obvious comparison than California with a big long coastline and a lot of wonderful things going forward, and Florida. They both should be booming. Only one state is. It's Florida. And that's because of their state legislatures and their governors. It's because of federalism. Agree or disagree, Jonathan Williams?
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Speaker 4: Well, 100%.
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Speaker 12: And nobody ever has moved away from California because of the bad weather in California, right? And this is what Paul Krugman and Mike try to say. It's all about the weather, why people move. And nobody ever has moved to Texas or Florida for better weather than California.
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Speaker 8: They move for economic opportunity. They move to make their lives better off.
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Speaker 12: And they move to give their kids a better chance with things like this education freedom movement that we were just talking about.
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Speaker 1: That is the number one, and I think you're going to see more people go to wherever they can get a scholarship and a school. I think you're going to see lots of SGOs in the states that opt in. Federalism makes the differences between the states known. They are all collected in richstatespoorstates.com. Get your free copy of richstatespoorstates.com. A new one will be coming out. I'm sure Ohio is going to be near the top. especially if the Guardians win tonight. Jonathan Williams, always good to see you, my friend. A-L-E-C dot org, Alec dot org slash you, Alec dot org slash you, or RichStates, PoorStates.com. I'll be right back. Stay tuned, America. Welcome back, America. Big elections ahead in Brazil for the presidency on Sunday next week. for the prime ministership and every seat in the Knesset in Israel, and then, of course, our midterm elections on November 3rd. To talk about the one in the middle, Israel. I'm joined by Ambassador Michael Oren. Dr. Oren was the ambassador of the United States for Benjamin Netanyahu for many years. He is now the founder of the Israel Advocacy Forum.
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Speaker 4: Dr.
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Speaker 1: Oren, what's going to happen? I just want to get it done and figure out who's going to be the next prime minister of Israel.
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Speaker 13: Good to be with you here.
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Speaker 14: I was just listening to your previous segment about prophecy, okay? So now you're asking me to be a prophet, but what's going to happen? On the basis, and I believe in prophecy, don't I? I don't necessarily want to fulfill that role, but here it is. If you look at the statistics, no group, and there's two groups here. There's the Netanyahu group and the anti-Netanyahu group. By the way, it's pretty much what Israeli politics have been about for the last quarter of a century. None of them are capable of piecing together, cobbling together that 61% majority Knesset block, there's 120 members of Knesset, 61 of the majority, that would make a viable government. Trust me, I've been in a government of 61. You don't want to be in the government of 61. You don't get to go to the bathroom because they yank you out for votes. And even that minimum they can't reach. That does not mean that in both these camps, they cannot start, ah, horse trading back and forth. It happened back in 2015 when Netanyahu's group actually lost the election to Stipi Libni. She couldn't put together a coalition. Netanyahu could, and he remained prime minister since then. So a really fascinating period. What are they talking about in the anti-Netanyahu camp? That if they cannot put together a government, they will at least remove the current speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, who was a Likudnik, replace them with one of their own, and first of all, block legislation. The government cannot move legislatively in the Knesset, but also they can pass legislation that would prohibit an indicted.
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Speaker 13: Prime minister or minister from running from office, i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu. Whether that would pass must or the Supreme Court remains to be seen. So that's one option.
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Speaker 14: The other option is, okay, who's going to sit with the Arab parties, including the moderate Arab parties?
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Speaker 13: Who would sit with the ultra-Orthodox parties? Nobody knows.
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Speaker 14: And will anybody outside of, say, the government bloc, will anybody in the anti-government bloc form a coalition together with Likud as long as Prime Minister Netanyahu remains the head of that party?
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Speaker 1: I'm going to come back to the speaker in a moment, but I wanted to ask you about President Trump's endorsement of Prime Minister Netanyahu made yesterday. Does it make a difference?
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Speaker 13: Not a big one. Interesting enough, not a big one.
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Speaker 14: Uh, Netanyahu ran in the previous round of elections with huge posters showing him shaking the hands of Donald Trump.
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Speaker 13: And the logo read, he's in a league all by himself.
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Speaker 14: Israelis are not enamored of that league anymore, especially since the signing of the MOU to the United States and Iran, which was perceived by many Israelis as sort of a stab in the back. The president's popularity, his trust, his credibility in the Israeli public has gone significantly down from what it was. And so it doesn't necessarily redound to Netanyahu's benefit. marginally, just marginally, they're talking about maybe an increase of a mandate, a single seat at most.
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Speaker 1: All right. Now, to remove the speaker, does that anticipate the anti-IBB bloc working with the Arab list?
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Speaker 13: On that specific issue? Yes, of course. And the Arab list have said they're.
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Speaker 14: Willing to do that, sort of as an external non-participant member of the government.
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Speaker 13: And This is one venue they'll try.
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Speaker 14: Now, I've often mentioned in this broadcast, watch out for Victor Lieberman, head of a party that maybe get eight or nine seats in Knesset.
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Speaker 13: But he's a very clever.
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Speaker 14: Politician, very experienced, a former foreign minister, former defense minister, former foreign minister. I worked with him as a foreign minister. He's never failed at any of these roles. And he could try to pull a Naftali Bennett. Naftali Bennett, back in 2021, had all of seven seats in Knesset. He ended up being prime minister. Watch Lieberman come out and say, OK, you don't want to go to another round of election. You don't want to have Bibi as prime minister for another three, four months. Make me prime minister. Even make me prime minister in a rotation with somebody else like Gotti Eisenkot.
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Speaker 13: And I'll go along with this. And maybe we can pull out that 61%.
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Speaker 7: Dr.
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Speaker 1: McLaurin, are you anticipating any kind of an October surprise from or to Iran that would affect yours and our elections?
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Speaker 13: Well, I think the Iranians are more focused on your election than our election.
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Speaker 14: I think that the Iranians would like to see a change of a party in Congress. I think they could strike a deal with the Democrats much more handily than they could with the Republicans. And so they keep on trying to provoke the United States into renewed kinetic action, renewed warfare around the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere, attacking Saudi Arabia, for example, and trying to drag America in.
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Speaker 13: And so far, President Trump has been unwilling to take that bait.
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Speaker 14: Not an easy decision, considering the fact that Saudis are very good allies of the United States, and they're getting pummeled.
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Speaker 13: And I think the president understands that.
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Speaker 14: Renewed warfare now would spike energy prices again and further impair the chance that the.
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Speaker 13: Both or even one of the houses of Congress. That's what the Iranians want.
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Speaker 14: The Iranians are less eager to drag us in because they know they're dragging us in.
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Speaker 13: We don't care about gas prices. We don't even care about the elections that much.
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Speaker 14: We care about an existential threat to the state of Israel, and we will respond accordingly.
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Speaker 1: All right, last question. Benny Gantz pulled out today, former defense minister, former member of the emergency cabinet, followed the invasion of Moscow on 10-7. He's out of politics. Is that a tragic story? Is that a story of a military man caught in a world with which he is unfamiliar? What is that a story of?
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Speaker 14: A deal of the above, but I think above all it's sort of a morality cautionary tale. Benny Gantz was a fairly popular chief of staff who came out, and he was at that moment the messianic hero that was going to take.
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Speaker 13: Down Benjamin Netanyahu after after so many years in power.
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Speaker 14: And I keep flashing before my eyes the picture of Benny Gantz speaking in front of an audience in Tel Aviv that's seemingly limitless. And everyone's screaming and so exciting. And here we are, what is it? Five, six years later, and he is now dropped out of politics. So the cautionary tale is, beware. Glory is fleeting, particularly in Israeli politics, but perhaps in all politics. And that at the end of the day, Netanyahu is a hard act to follow. And as I've said repeatedly, It is always premature to predict his political demise.
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Speaker 1: I was hoping you'd get that in because I think that is your tagline. Never underestimate Netanyahu.
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Speaker 12: Always.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: Michael Oren, thank you. Follow him on X America. D.R. Michael Oren.
00:26:39
Speaker 8: Thank you.
00:26:39
Speaker 1: Ambassador Oren will be texting throughout and posting throughout the election cycle ahead. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere yourself. Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. I'll be right back. Joined now by our good friend, Selena Zito. She of the Washington Post, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the New York Post, the Washington Times, the DC Examiner. Good to see you, Selena. You were up in my neck of the woods, right? Up in Ashtabula. And Warren, what'd you find out in the Ohio races?
00:27:07
Speaker 11: I was in the Mahoning Valley. So Ashtabula all the way down to Columbiana County. And, you know, these are the voters that you and I both know. who have been traditionally working class Democrats, have handed and helped put Democrats over the top in multiple elections, in particular in presidential elections. But that all began to change in 2016 when we saw Trumbull and Warren, the Warren area and Stark County and Astrabula flip to the Republicans. Mahoning Valley almost, but not until 2020 and then 2024. And it also helped place J.D. Hance in office. And that, to me, is where this election is decided.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: Now, where did you go in Ashtabula and Warren? The rest of the places are fine, Stark, Columbia and all that. But Ashtabula and Warren, those are the keys.
00:28:08
Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I was everywhere and I was talking to lots and lots of voters and And voters are very reluctant to, voters are going to vote. They're very reluctant to say who they were going to vote for. But I will say that these are Republican-leaning or independent-leaning Democrat voters or Republican voters who have voted for Trump in the past, a little bit upset about gas prices, but I really didn't get an indication that they were going to switch allegiances But they were very unwilling to say, I'm definitely voting for this person or that person.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: Did anyone say, I get the Iran conflict? I understand what the president is doing. I don't know if anyone's made the argument.
00:29:01
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:02
Speaker 11: They totally get the Iran argument and they totally understand why it needed to be done. They don't like seeing it in their gas prices, but they're very willing to. to look aside from that because they understand the consequences of not doing anything, which is what we've done for 40 plus years, right?
00:29:23
Speaker 1: So Selena, this piece ran in the Washington Post. How did the editors like it?
00:29:31
Speaker 8: They loved it.
00:29:33
Speaker 11: They really loved it. They really, is first my first story for The Washington Post outside of Pennsylvania. And they really saw that I understood Ohio and I understood what was going on and what was the most, you know, who the most important voters are in that state. And they really loved the story a lot because it was unlike anything they've seen.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: So how many of the people that you talked to were wearing Guardians gear? Because they got to win tonight and they got to win tomorrow night.
00:30:07
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
00:30:07
Speaker 11: Everyone was really into their sports teams. The Browns, too.
00:30:15
Speaker 3: I know.
00:30:16
Speaker 11: So the Steelers. Remember, I don't think people understand this, but in like Youngstown, it's a three-football team city, right? You've got Browns. You've got Steelers, but you also got the 49ers. So that's always, to me, really fun to talk to people about that.
00:30:35
Speaker 1: That's like when I went to Erie. I did not know this about Erie until Steve Scully brought me up there. And you've got the Browns, you've got the Steelers, and you've got Buffalo Bills fans. That's a really schizophrenic city.
00:30:49
Speaker 8: Yeah, you do.
00:30:50
Speaker 11: And you can see why. Why that split and the allegiance to those three teams?
00:30:56
Speaker 8: It all makes sense.
00:30:58
Speaker 1: Well, go say some beads for the Guardians. We had a 2-1 lead when I was on Friday, and now the guards are behind 3-2. They've got to win tonight, and they're throwing a bullpen game, and then they'll have the big machine on the hill, Gavin Williams, tomorrow night, but they've got to get the win tonight. Selena Zito, follower on X at Zito, Selena. Go over to selenazito.com, sign up, get all of the things that she writes in all of those different venues. President Trump's favorite journalist. Stay tuned. Hi, it's Hugh Hewitt for Consumer Cellular. If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know I appreciate companies that deliver real value without unnecessary gimmicks. That's why I recommend Consumer Cellular. They offer reliable nationwide coverage, outstanding customer service, plans that make sense. Right now, there's an offer that will get your attention. Get $ 100 off your bill with any unlimited plan. Go to consumercellular.com slash hue and use promo code hue100. If you're 50 or over, you can get a single line of unlimited talk, text, and data for just $ 35 a month, plus that $ 100 of saving. Need a new phone? Consumer Cellular makes that simple, too. Choose what you want to spend each month. They'll show you a 5G phone that fits your budget. With EasyPay Financing, once you've completed your payments, you own that phone. The $ 100 offer ends on November 1st, so don't wait. Visit ConsumerCellular.com slash Hugh. Use the promo code Hugh100. Hi, it's Hugh. Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you buy your own health insurance, November 1st is an important date. But before you simply renew the plan you've got or click through to another online enrollment system, do something different this year. Get a second opinion. John Ruhlman and his team at U.S. Medical Plan help individuals and families understand all their health insurance options, also small businesses. because the marketplace isn't necessarily the only conversation you should be having. Your income, your health, your doctors, your prescriptions, your budget, that can all change what makes sense for you. And remember, the cheapest premium doesn't always mean the lowest health care cost. A plan that looks good online can look very different when you actually need to use it. That's why you shouldn't wait until open enrollment is already here. Call now and get on the schedule. Waiting until the last minute can mean rushed decisions, missed opportunities, and potentially paying more than you needed to. John's team can review your situation now, explain your options, have you prepared when it's time to make a decision. Don't wait until November to start making a November decision. Call U.S. Medical Plan today at 877-410-4321. That's 877-410-4321. 877-410-4321. Or visit usmedicalplan.com. Welcome to the hour number three of today's program. Reminder, uh, This time, or actually late next hour, I'll be over on the special report set with Brett Baer, so I hope you join us. I'm joined now by Lilacs, as in jameslilacs.substack.com, National Review columnist, humorist, proprietor of his own website as well, lilacs.com, which is almost a horror house of fun, if that's seasonal reference. James, I did not know if you would be too depressed to talk to me today. Because Christiane Amanpour announced she is leaving CNN. Are you okay? I wanted to do a wellness check.
00:34:17
Speaker 4: No, I'm not okay. I'm really not. I mean, 40 years, is that too much to ask? Could we not have 41? 43. 43? Okay. Well, then we've had 43. That's three more than I thought. I guess I'll be able to get by. I can get through. There are compensations. Laudanum. You know, I can take any number of compounds to ease the sad, the pain, but somehow we'll get through. A remnant of another age when actually something would happen and you would turn to CNN and say, I wonder what Christine says. There's Wolf Blitzer. He's going to tell us what's going on on the ground. It seems like an era that is long gone and perhaps better than it is.
00:34:54
Speaker 1: All right. This is a fair question. I mean, honestly, objective question. What do you remember Christiane Amanpour for, if anything?
00:35:04
Speaker 4: Portentous self-importance, actually. Somehow regarding herself as the equivalent of the Avengers simply because she was there and reporting on it. And I don't know exactly when that began to curdle for me, but I just sort of got tired and stopped believing. And I can't exactly tell you why. It may have been some question at a press conference. It may have been a framing. It may have been one of those moments that everybody has when they're listening to a reporter and saying, wait a minute, the way you phrase that indicates that either you don't know what I know or you do know and you're not telling or you have an agenda or something like that. Everybody has one of those moments with the mainstream media at some point. And at that point, the invisible mental croupier's wand just sort of moved her from the center of expectation of objectivity over here to she's got an agenda, which, you know, is people in the media.
00:35:50
Speaker 1: Now, CNN has lost Jim Acosta. They have lost Don Lemon, now Christiane Amanpour. Do you think they're reeling or do you think they're getting ready for the makeover that might make them relevant again?
00:36:04
Speaker 4: Well, none of those people made them relevant in the first place. What made them irrelevant was, first of all, we had so many other opportunities and places to go to. When the first Gulf War happened, CNN was absolutely indispensable. They were there. The scuds were flying. I can't remember the name of the guy, the scud stud, who was sitting there on the rooftop of a hotel. But it was exciting times. And they had a gravitas and an immediacy, and people trusted them. And that just vanished over the years. And they became just another competing voice. It's not necessary for me to expect or hope that CNN is going to reinvent itself. I would love to have something come down the pike that is absolutely, completely, 100% objective, without question, giving you both sides and the rest of it, and not trying to play to what little, narrow, boomer, graying, Prius-driving ladies with the coexist bumper stickers happen to want.
00:36:56
Speaker 10: I mean.
00:36:57
Speaker 4: It's there for the taking if they would like to do it. But the idea that they went to CNN +, I think it was called, and they tried to charge money for that, and nobody did, shows that the brand has lost its left there an awful long time ago. But again, you're talking to somebody who doesn't really depend on television for stuff at all unless something blows up.
00:37:16
Speaker 1: Well, after my program tonight, James, I'm going over to do the last actual news hour in primetime. I mean, real news hour, that special report with Brett Baer. And I always reflect on why he gets 2.5, 3 million people and CNN gets 300,000 people or 400,000. It's because it's straight. Brett's a straight news anchor. They do a bunch of packages of interest to the center of the country, maybe center-right, maybe a little bit center-left, but of interest to the country. And then they have a panel, usually with a conservative like me who's center-right and a lefty who's kind of center-left and a third person who may or may not be one way or the other. It's just it's not that hard to earn credibility if you just do what Brett does.
00:37:58
Speaker 4: No, but unfortunately, the industry, the demographics are dead for them. The people who watch this stuff are interested in what's going on. They have keen minds. They want to engage. But also, they're probably likely to have the television set on a lot. And it's a piece of furniture that talks to them, keeps them company. And if it's not Fox, it's the Weather Channel. The people who are getting the news today from sources aren't going to those shows. I mean, every young person I ask, you know, because young to me now is a relative term, but I was talking to some 20-somethings the other day, and I asked them where they got their news, and they got their news from TikTok. They got their news from TikTok, from stupid little edited-down vertical videos of somebody saying something somewhere with no idea as to whether or not it's true. They have left the television model so far behind that in order to get them, you have to get them where they live, which is in a little doom-scrolling box that they have in their hand that gives them the dopamine hits all day. So, yes, I mean, it's not that hard, but somebody might not want to spend the time and the infrastructure to do it because the audiences that they want to reach are sitting there looking at news in between pictures of AI-generated pieces of fruit having an affair with a banana.
00:39:08
Speaker 1: All right. All right. I haven't seen that one. Would you send it to me? I want to know about, I'm going to bring an existential crisis to you in just a moment. But before then, you're living in the middle of Tafoya v. Flanagan. And I like Michelle Tafoya a lot. She was on last week. Can she actually do this? What do you think? I mean, you do have shootouts at Eden Prairie Park. homecoming game. And you got $ 9 billion that walked out the door in the line of the year, which is sell it to someone else, Peggy. What do you think?
00:39:38
Speaker 4: I think she can.
00:39:39
Speaker 7: I do.
00:39:41
Speaker 4: The ad campaign recently has just been brutal against her, tying her to Trump. Well, you know, and if you hate Trump and you hate ICE and all the rest of it, well, you weren't going to vote for her in the first place. I don't know. In most years, I would say, yeah, Flanagan is going to win, but this is different. That it is actually a question, that it's a doubt after the fraud that was perpetrated on this state during Flanagan's tenure is astonishing to me. But it tells you how some people will vote no matter what. I mean, and both sides has those people. It's mostly the city. It's not the excerpts. I mean, when you look finally at the map of Minnesota when it comes in, you're going to see a whole thread surrounding this little glowing blueberry that is the metropolitan area of where I live.
00:40:24
Speaker 7: All right.
00:40:25
Speaker 1: Last, now my existential crisis. I don't know what you did during the summer, but the summer is now behind us as Halloween is upon us. But I would normally go through a couple of books a week because there was nothing else to do after the Gilligan's reruns, right? You got home from work. You might have been a lifeguard. You might have been working at your dad's filling station. Whatever it is, you read. You read Trinity. You read all those big books for this. You read, you read, you read, you read. They gave you a knowledge base. I don't think teenagers read anymore for entertainment. Do you?
00:40:56
Speaker 4: Few of them do. The ones that do are not reading the sort of books that we did, maybe. I mean, we would sneak an Arthur Haley, an Alex Haley novel, if it had any grown-up adult parts in it. Those big, thick potboilers, the summer beach books that they do, the market has diminished, and the market, like everything else, has fragmented. So what are they reading? They're reading young adult novels, which aren't exactly literary in their intention or in their execution, but more or less just sort of describe a plot like you would if you were narrating a movie. It's not particularly good stuff. But then again, you know, the Tom Swift books that I read as a child weren't great literature either. A, it's good if they're reading. B, I'm not going to complain about the quality if they do. But C, I think you're right. They don't read as much because there are so many of the distractions that require less attention, less focusing. And with the fractured attention span that we have today, gosh, who wants to spend all that time on what they call a chapter book reading? when you can just look at some funny little cartoons here and, of course, see the AI videos of the fruit.
00:41:57
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you two examples. Alan Drury, Advising Consent, Fletcher Neville, Seven Days in May. Those are two bought books. I love them. I wasn't even 16 when I read those things, but I love them. They were believable. They were accessible to a 16- or a 15-year-old. Is there anything like that anymore? We have two minutes, James.
00:42:19
Speaker 4: No, there isn't. I don't think that there is. I mean, I'm sure that somebody out there is writing serious political novels. I mean, Seven Days in May is a cracker. But if you had to do it today, people would look at this and be scratching their heads. Why would I want to read about middle-aged white men having power struggles about nuclear disarmament conflicts and treaties and plotting a coup? When you could be reading some magical fantasy adventure that is sub-Tolkien in every single way, where there's people on quests and people with powers and young women who have issues but are great nevertheless and gender and all the wonderful things, why would you read what teenager today can possibly see themselves in Seven Days in May? That's the problem, is that you have an audience that is expected to see an insert of themselves in this situation. and have everything spelled out in a dreary fashion. So again, like everything else we've been talking about, the audience is there, it's just shrunk.
00:43:14
Speaker 1: Existential question number two will come next week when Lilacs is back, and it won't be about books this time. It's going to be about what the next generation is going to do to our benefits, because Lilacs and I are getting close to the point that we worry about that. Lilacs, thank you. Don't go anywhere in America except to lilacs.com or jameslilacs.substack.com. Bethany Mandel is next. Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Coming up after the break, I'll be joined by Gaudi Taub from Israel for a little pre-election coverage there. Gaudi is, of course, preceded by Bethany Mandel, who is the proprietor of themomwars.substack.com. I think she's a friend of Gaudi. Am I right about that? We don't really know him that well. What should we know about Gaudi before we talk to him?
00:44:07
Speaker 10: He is one of the smartest, most lovely men. Um, he has such a handle on how the, how the West is under attack. Like he's Israeli, but like he really has such a window into Western values and how American values intersect with Israeli values. He's brilliant and such a delight.
00:44:29
Speaker 1: So we've got three elections coming up. Bing, bang, bong, which is Brazil this weekend, uh, Israel next week, and then the United States, of course, on November 3rd. How do you feel about each of those, Bethany?
00:44:43
Speaker 10: I'm not feeling great. I mean, I don't really have a dog in the fight with Israel, and their election system is so complicated that I can't even venture a guess as to what's going on there. So I'm not going to weigh in there, but it's very chaotic at the moment. The midterms are looking real messy. I filled up my tank yesterday. Yesterday, and it was double what I normally spend. And I said to my oldest daughter, this is why the Republicans are going to lose the midterms. And I don't think that's fair, but nobody in life said that life was fair.
00:45:16
Speaker 1: What did you pay?
00:45:19
Speaker 10: So for our smaller car, we paid 50. And for our giant SUV, it was 111 the last time I filled it up. Ouch.
00:45:28
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:45:28
Speaker 2: Early voting.
00:45:29
Speaker 1: Early voting. I did my vote today. I always vote early in Virginia. I went and cast my ballot. There weren't very many people there, but it's not very interesting in Virginia because Mark Warner is expected to romp and everyone is expected to hang on to their job. And I voted no on all the constitutional amendments because I always do. Do you think turnout– but turnout was very high on Sunday. I talked to one of the election judges, and they had 1,800 people in my precinct on Sunday. What do you think? Is turnout going to be high just to register– anger or support for Trump? What's your sense?
00:46:02
Speaker 10: So the data that I saw was not good for Republicans, that of the likely voters, it was much more likely that Democrats were going to turn out than Republicans. I think that people are feeling upset about the war in Iran for many reasons. One of them is gas prices. And so I think that that might depress turnout among Republicans. And Democrats never miss an opportunity to vote against Trump no matter what. And so I think that their get-out-the-vote efforts are better. I will say I think that there's an exception in places like Michigan. Everyone I've talked to in Michigan have said that there is such a a push to make sure that al-Sayed is not their senator. Same in Maine. I've heard that there's a lot of excitement not to have Troy Jackson in Maine, that I think those will be exceptions to the rule. But I think overall it's not looking great for Republicans.
00:46:55
Speaker 1: Let me work on four Senate races, which are my most important concern on election night. First, you mentioned Maine. I was just in Maine, watched two of the debates that Susan Collins had with Troy Jackson. Troy Jackson cannot string three sentences together. He's he's over. She got angry at her. He told her to shut up. He didn't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. I can't imagine Maynard voting for a rookie over the most powerful woman in in Washington, D.C. And she's the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Can you did you see any of that debate?
00:47:30
Speaker 10: So I didn't I watched small clips of the debate, but I watched his his sit down interview with Dana Bash in which Dana Bash was educating him on very basic issues of foreign policy related to Iran. And so I I mean, he was an 11th hour pick and replaced a Nazi. And, you know, like you're not you're not going to get the gold standard.
00:47:50
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that interview for a moment. I work with Dana. I think she's a great pro. But do you think it's right to throw people the answers just because they're struggling on air? He didn't know anything.
00:48:03
Speaker 10: I mean, I, too, would pity him in that moment. It was it was excruciating. I mean, the purpose of the interview interview was to show that he was unprepared.
00:48:11
Speaker 4: I mean, to me anyway.
00:48:12
Speaker 10: And that came across. He came across very unprepared, very unschooled. And so whether she tosses him the answer or not, the message is clear. He needed the answer toss. And you don't get that on the Senate floor.
00:48:25
Speaker 1: I just talked with Lilacs, and we focused mostly on Minnesota, but I'm going to ask you your opinion as well of Peggy Flanagan, DSA adjacent, wacky left winger, and Michelle Tafoya, who just gutted her in their debate. Sell it to someone else, Peggy. That's the best line of the year thus far. What did you make of her?
00:48:46
Speaker 10: I mean, Safoya is another one that I think is really promising. It's a hard map there. But she, I think, is among the strongest candidates for Republicans nationwide. So, I mean, here's hoping.
00:49:00
Speaker 1: I don't know. Then Texas, where Attorney General Paxton has surged and has closed his statistical tie and in a couple of polls is ahead of Tallarico. Tallarico's vanishing is weirdness over all. What's your gut tell you again about Texas?
00:49:18
Speaker 10: I don't know. I mean, I think that Paxton wasn't the strongest candidate, but I mean, Tallarico is such a radical. Texas is shifting and it's it's shifting not in a great way. And so I don't know. I mean, that that's another area that really that really troubles me.
00:49:37
Speaker 1: All right, that's not good. I feel good about your first two answers, not about that one. But let's turn our focus on Michigan. You're Jewish. Michigan has between 1% and 1.5% of its population is Jewish. Between 2% and 3% is Arab American. I think– I don't know. I'm not Jewish. I can't say. I think I would think of El-Sayed as a threat to my family, an actual breathing threat to my family if he got in the Senate.
00:50:06
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:50:06
Speaker 1: Because of what he would encourage and what he would ignore. What do you think?
00:50:11
Speaker 10: That is absolutely true. I've spoken to a lot of folks in Michigan who have said, you know, people in their Jewish congregation have never voted for a Republican, never pictured voting for a Republican, but the enthusiasm to make sure he is not their senator is so, so high. I think that this is a watershed moment in American history where if this kind of candidate is acceptable to any party, We're in really deep trouble here.
00:50:38
Speaker 1: By this kind of candidate, I don't mean that he's a Muslim. I have many friends who are Muslim. I've worked with Muslims my entire life. I don't know if I've ever voted for one. I've had other Muslims on the program who are conservative Muslim. This fellow is a radical. I just don't know. And he's also angry, deceptive. He deflects. He gets in people's faces when they challenge him on simple things like Why in the world did you sign a letter on behalf of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt who had to be removed in a coup? Is there any argument for him on the Democratic side, other than he's as radical as.
00:51:13
Speaker 10: Radical can be? I mean, that's it, though. He's as radical as radical can be. He has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. And for me, I've never understood this, and I feel like I'm going to say it until I'm blue in the face. This is not a progressive. This is not someone who will fight for the right's for your girlfriend's right to have an abortion or your guy friend's right to fly a pride flag. This is not a candidate who aligns with liberal values. And I don't understand why they've decided to make this red-green alliance and align themselves with Islamists because at the end of the day, the first people getting thrown off the top of the building are the homosexuals.
00:51:52
Speaker 1: Sorry. It seems to me so unusual. The red-green alliance seems so unusual. They tried it in 1979 in Iran. And Khomeini had them all hanged as soon as the revolution was over. By they, all them, I mean all the red parts. Bethany Mandel, author and provider of TheMomWars.substack.com. Follower at Bethany. Sean Dark on X. Thank you, Bethany. I'll be right back with the aforementioned Gowdy Cub after this. Stay with us. Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt, joined now from Israel by Gaudi Taub, who is a longtime Israeli journalist, historian, author, observer of all things political. And of course, we're a week away, actually 10 days away from the Jewish states voting. I wanted to check in with Gaudi. Welcome back, Gaudi. What's your thinking in the horse race side first? Does anyone get a majority that's going to be clear in your view?
00:52:56
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. On the right, optimism is on the rise. Because, first of all, there was a Trump endorsement, which plays in a very important way in Israeli politics. The ups and downs of the Netanyahu polling depend often on his image and his actual skill in playing politics on the world stage, along with the president of the biggest... superpower in the world. So we are a very small country, and this is very important, especially in light of the joint effort to cartel Iran's effort to get a bomb. Aside of this, it's a very strange election, you know, because after October 7th generally moved the Israeli public to the right. And so what happened is that the center and the moderate left are pretending to be right. We actually have it on tape where Gadi Eisenkot's campaign chief is saying to an American advisor, what should we say in order to make people think that.
00:54:10
Speaker 7: We are on the right?
00:54:11
Speaker 6: It's actually on tape. We saw it on television and we know that Gadi Eisenkot is far to the left. So the Netanyahu line of campaigning says, you either vote for Likud and its partners or you vote for a Palestinian state, because the only coalition that the left can scrape together is dependent on the anti-Zionist Arab parties.
00:54:38
Speaker 1: Well, let's unpack that a bit for the American audience. I often have Israeli journalists on, yourself, Amit Sehgal, Nadav Eyal, Haviv Redigur is probably on more than anyone else, and they all say, don't count Netanyahu out, but boy, the math looks tough for him to get to 68. which is a majority in the Knesset, and therefore he's going to have to have a partner across the aisle. Would Lieberman change this time and come back into a Netanyahu government? Do you expect any of the other parties to be willing that are not part of his current coalition to join him as he assembles 61?
00:55:18
Speaker 6: Lieberman is swearing that he will never sit with Netanyahu. And he also now unveiled a trick that he has under his sleeve. If the left, including the Arabs, has even a slight majority, they can overtake the speakership of the House. And then they can take over the committees and they plan or he says they plan a. a fast-track legislation to forbid anyone standing trial from becoming prime minister. This is like an impeachment. They're trying to pull something that Americans would recognize as a lightning-speed impeachment, and then they plan to take Likud apart. Now, you, in the last four rounds of elections that we had, in the middle of it all, There was a guy called Naftali Bennett who used to have a right-wing party who, with a very small party, managed... managed to take for himself the premiership with six parliamentary seats, because our parliamentary system is not in good order. And so if you hold a few seats, but you can tilt the election to one side or the other, you can extort almost anything you want. Lieberman has eyed this. He has declared he wants to be the prime minister. And so he thinks that even with nine or ten members of Knesset, if he is the party needed for any side to have a majority, then he will demand the prime ministership for himself.
00:57:02
Speaker 1: We've got a minute to the break, and we'll come back and talk about Iran on the other side. Is there an easy way? For Netanyahu, with the Trump endorsement to win, I mean, is there any way for the current coalition to actually hold together and get more than 61 votes? In your opinion, we've got 45 seconds to the break, Adi.
00:57:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, my opinion is that there is such a possibility, and I'll tell you, Likud has internal polling that gives it far better chances than the polls that we see on the press. So on Netanyahu's camp, there's great optimism.
00:57:35
Speaker 1: All right, I'll be right back with Gaudi Taub. He is a longtime veteran Israeli journalist, political observer, analyst on all, I don't know which channel he's on, but he writes for every outlet that one can want to read in the Israeli press in English. Don't go anywhere because I want to ask him, October surprise vis-a-vis Iran or not? Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back on The.
00:57:56
Speaker 4: Hugh Hewitt Show.
00:57:57
Speaker 11: The Hugh Hewitt Show.
00:58:07
Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. Israel goes to vote in 10 days. I'm joined by veteran Israeli journalist, political analyst Gaudi Taub. He's been on many, many different programs. He's back on mine again. Gaudi, much speculation in the United States that there will be an October surprise, that there'll be a joint mission between the United States and Israel to hammer either Pickaxe Mountain or the remaining missile force inside of Iran. What do you think is most likely in the next 10 days? Anything major?
00:58:39
Speaker 6: Well, Iran is in a bit of a bind because if it will try to provoke an attack in order to foil Trump's chances in the midterms, she will give Netanyahu an easy victory. If in the last stretch leading up to the election, Israel is again engaged in military action, the public in greater numbers will rally around the chief that has led this war. And I think on the Israeli scene, what is most important and I think will be decisive when people actually place their ballots in the ballot box is that all along the war, Netanyahu is the only national leader who insisted on continuing the war. All the opposition parties kept saying, we need to finish this thing before it changes, before it seeps into other theaters, before it turns into a regional war. And Netanyahu has planned a regional.
00:59:44
Speaker 1: War all along.
00:59:46
Speaker 6: By regional, I mean he planned to take the war from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria and to Iran. And the public supported that effort almost immediately. if not unanimously, then I'd say it crossed the aisle into two-thirds of the Israeli public who understood that Iran is a mortal threat. Now, I hope Americans understand that Iran is a mortal threat to the American-led international order. It's not just a threat to Israel. It's not a coincidence that they call us the little Satan and America the big Satan. However, I don't see Trump initiating any large-scale military action, any meaningful escalation before the midterms? Because insofar as I understand American politics, viewing them from across the ocean, I don't think that a president on the eve of the midterms will escalate an unpopular war.
01:00:48
Speaker 1: Now, Gaudi, I understood in Israel that President Trump was very popular right up until the MOU. And maybe his popularity is rising right now. But what I hear you saying is the endorsement of Netanyahu by Trump is actually material to some Israeli voters' decisions. Is that correct?
01:01:10
Speaker 6: I think it is because we are– Israel is a very small country. It punches way above its weight, but it's surrounded by enemies with huge populations, some of them very rich. And we need to maneuver very carefully in this hostile and dangerous neighborhood. In this constellation, we see ourselves as loyal partisans of the American-led international order. And for an Israeli politician, it is always a difficult game. And I think Netanyahu clearly played it better than anyone else because the left in Israel has said to the Americans, no surprises, which means we will not do anything without your permission. That's not a way to survive in the Middle East. If you portray yourself as a vassal state of the United States, then nobody will take you into account. Anybody that has any dealings with Israel will go straight to daddy in Washington and just ignore you. So you always also have to keep your distance. And people in Israel remember that in the difficult days for us of the Obama administration, when the administration tried to force our hand to acquiesce to a Palestinian state, Netanyahu stood firm. Netanyahu stood firm also when he... So in those difficult days, Netanyahu defied the president and stood up to Obama, gave a speech that irritated the president a great deal to the joint session of the two houses of Congress about the terrible JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. So People here appreciate the friendship with Trump. They understand that the fact that Israel went to war alongside the United States is unprecedented. They also trust Netanyahu that the close relation with Trump would not mean that Israel would be America's supplicant, that we have a prime minister who will also be able to to stand up and protect our own interests, as he did, by the way, with Biden, who threatened the embargo. And Netanyahu said, we will fight this with our nails if we have to. That was when Israel entered Rafah and over and against the objection of both the president and the vice president.
01:03:41
Speaker 1: We've got two minutes. I just want your assessment. I think Iran is staggered and close to crumbling, that they're out of money, they're out of assets, they have some missiles. Do you agree with me or do you think that they're going to be around five years from now?
01:03:57
Speaker 6: I don't think they'll be around five years from now. And I think President Trump is doing exactly the right thing, all things considered, is suffocating them slowly economically and separating them from their lifeline of through Russia and China. I think this policy will eventually bear fruit. But let me remind ourselves, you, that when President Truman decided on the policy of containment, it bore final fruit only under George W.
01:04:29
Speaker 1: Bush.
01:04:30
Speaker 6: So it took a long time. These policies need patience. I don't think five years. I think their leash on life is over. far, far shorter, but we also cannot expect it to happen in a week or two. So, you know, there's always a problem in democracies that the election cycle is short and policy has to take the long view. I think that what Trump and Netanyahu are now doing is wise, moderate, and may cost them public support, but in view of the long-term interests... I think they are acting responsibly.
01:05:10
Speaker 1: Gaudi, it's so good to talk to you. Follow him on Exit Gaudi Taub, spelled G-A-D-I-T-A-U-B. And I look forward to having you back after the elections to sort through whatever maneuverings there are. Gaudi, thank you. Don't go anywhere, Merrick. I'll be back to wrap up today's Hugh Hewitt Show.