The Hugh Hewitt Show

Fromer Secretary of State, CIA Director and Congressman from Kansas Mike Pompeo joined Hugh Thursday to sift through rubble and talk about rebuilding:

Audio:

11-05hhs-pompeo

Transcript:

HH: As promised, after the tsunami on Tuesday, I went looking for people who actually or might guess well what has happened. Among them, of course, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also former CIA Director, also former Congressman from Kansas, now head of CNQ Advisors. That’s his own shop. West Point graduate, Harvard Law, you remember all that. Mr. Secretary, welcome back. ‘What’s the matter with Kansas?’ was the name of a book in the 90s or the 00s. What’s the matter with Kansas? What happened? And not just Kansas, but across the map?

MP: Yeah, I remember that book well. He was wrong, too. Thomas Frank wrote the book, and said Kansans were stupid. That’s also not the case this time. What they are is frustrated and a little bit pissed off. Pissed off that they haven’t been told the truth, pissed off that the prices are high, that tariffs impacted our farmers dramatically in Kansas. They could see that their lives had not been made better, and they let everyone know it that night.

HH: Well, let’s walk through it all. But I listened to the Ruthless podcast today. Those fellas are pretty good. And they warned against what’s happening online. Everyone’s taking their pet issue, you didn’t do this, everyone’s taking their pet issue and said it’s because of my pet issue. You just listed a bunch of them, and you actually listed the number one that they found in the internal polls across many campaigns, which is corruption. Now corruption means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In Minnesota, it means Somali daycare centers. In New York City, it means Medicaid fraud. But to others, it means self-dealing. What’s it mean to you?

MP: Yeah, look, I think there is a perception. So I was out, I was in Michigan on Sunday, the day that Stevens made her announcement. I was back in Kansas the week before that. And I heard it every place I went, Hugh. I heard that just, like, we’re not getting told the straight story. We’re hearing about people getting rich who are inside of government. We’re hearing about those who benefit from federal programs that don’t deserve it, student loans that aren’t being repaid, right? And people who work in a machine shop like the one that I ran in Kansas saying I didn’t even go to school. Why is my taxpayer money going to repay somebody’s student loan? That’s the kind of thing when they see government not doing the most basic things that Republicans have stood for, for decades, right – smaller government, more freedom, a little bit of space to move about the cabin. And they see us doing things that drive prices up and not actually doing the things that create markets that really create wealth and jobs. Then when they see people inside of government trading stocks and doing all those things, they think well, that’s indecent, and I’m just going to going to vote for change. And damn it, I’m done with whoever’s in office today.

HH: Well, that makes a lot of sense to me. I do want to walk through some of the issues, but I want to go back to when you first ran for Congress. Has the Republican electorate and the independent electorate changed? Democrats have gone off the left cliff. But has our electorate changed much, even though we’ve had a charismatic burst of populism under President Trump? Did the base Republican case change?

MP: No, it hasn’t changed. Times change. We have to deliver it in a different way, but Hugh, your point is a good one. The last huge wave election, I was part of. 2010, the Tea Party class of 2010, I was one of those 70-plus Republicans who was elected that day out of nowhere. I was running a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas before that. No, what they really want is a government that’s decent, that’s smaller, that doesn’t tax them into oblivion. They want to take care of their families. In Kansas, they are deeply, I’ll call it, conservative with a small c. They understand family and community in deep and important ways. And when they see the state, they see all these things happening, Hugh, they reject it. And they haven’t changed in the sense of times move on, but the central notion of peace through strength, let’s not be wimps and appease the bad guys. Kansans can tell evil from good. And when they see us walking away from those central ideas, they get really upset and they take it out on those who are in office. There’s no doubt about that. I think that’s what we saw Tuesday night.

HH: I’m going to come back to peace through strength in our second segment, Mr. Secretary. I want to stay with the traditional stuff. You’re not anywhere near as old as I am. I’m old enough to have worked in the 1974 Congressional campaign of Paul Cronin and got blown out. I remember ’76. I was around when we got beat over the head in 2006 and 2008. We always get off the ground. Any words of optimism for Republicans, independents who are right-leaning about how long it takes to come back, and what do you do to get back in the game?

MP: Oh, no. We’ll come back. We’ll come back not because you think so or I think so. We’ll come back because people in the end in America understand that the Democrat Party has nothing for them, that the ideas that are being put forward by the senator-elect in Michigan and Bernie Sanders and AOC, these are not things that are good for the people of America. And I think centrally, you talk about all these times we’ve been on the mat before. No, the party will come back if we’ll stick to the core ideas that have delivered such good outcomes not just for our party, not just electoral wins, but really good outcomes for America that grow our economy and created more space and a lot of wealth for the least amongst us as well.

HH: So let me ask you about two races in particular on Tuesday night that upset me the most – Senator Susan Collins in Maine, the conscience in the Senate. Joe Manchin campaigned with her. She was the most powerful woman in Washington, D.C. until Tuesday night, chair of the Appropriations Committee. They threw her overboard for a guy I just think is a shlub. And then, Michigan. You were in Michigan. I’ve got nothing against Muslims being in office. I’ve got a lot of worries about Abdul El-Sayed. What are your thoughts on both those races – Michigan and Maine?

MP: Yeah, it’s very interesting. In those two races, we had very good candidates, candidates that fit their state very nicely, right? Susan Collins is a warrior, a political animal, and a good senator. Not as conservative as I am, but nonetheless a really good fit for Maine. And she just got blown out in a way that no one could have predicted. Same thing in Michigan, right? Mike Rogers, who was the chairman of the Intelligence Committee when I was in Congress and on the committee, good candidate, center-right conservative, true believer in American exceptionalism, gets beat by a guy who’s just dangerous. And your point about people’s faith, well, whatever faith someone’s of, that’s fine. But this is a guy whose family is deeply-connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and who could not tell the difference between good and evil between Israel and Iran. I’m very surprised that people of Michigan couldn’t see through that and elected him. I’m not as surprised that Susan Collins in a time when the mood is as sour as it was, was unable to use her enormous political skill to still prevail against a really bad candidate.

HH: So Secretary Pompeo, we’ll again turn to specifics on the world after this. But you mentioned Reagan’s peace through strength doctrine. President Trump put his arm around that. Most Republicans didn’t run on that, though. The Golden Fleet, a trillion and a half, they didn’t get it done. I’m told they can’t get it done. How important is it to Defense plus-up our industrial base and our shipbuilding capacity, etc., etc., etc?

MP: Hugh, you’ve talked about this for years. We had a 300-ship Navy. I don’t know what we have today. We have to go rebuild. We saw it in the munitions challenges that we faced. You’re right. Very few candidates ran on this. They thought it was somehow unpopular. My sense of this is always the American people get it. If you articulate a vision for American security that’ll keep their children and grandchildren safe, they’re prepared to give a president a lot of space to do the necessary, whether that’s spending money, pushing back against Vladimir Putin who is terrorizing Europe, or the Ayatollah who continues to terrorize the Gulf and Israel, and even the United States. The American people do that. But you have to make the case. You have to explain why it matters to the people of Kansas that the Ayatollah is not successful closing the Strait of Hormuz. And I know we’ll talk about this, but I’ve heard some in the aftermath of the election say, ‘well, gosh, that was the thing that cost us, and we just need to walk away from this.’ Trust me. You walk away from this conflict where it sits today, energy prices ain’t coming down.

HH: Okay, we’re going to come back to that. Last question for this segment. On Tuesday night, Bill Hemmer, your friend and mine, we both are Fox News contributors, kept going back to his map to my hometown, Trumbull County, Warren, Ohio, to Mahoning County, Youngstown, Ohio. And Rob Portman won it, Trump won it. Jon Husted lost it. How do you lose the counties that had flipped for the first time in my lifetime ten years ago?

MP: You know, I don’t know. We lost counties in Kansas. We lost Finney County in Kansas. If you know Finney County at all, that’s a serious Republican stronghold. I think we lost Hispanic voters with some of the methods that were used to enforce the immigration rules. People saw these videos and didn’t like it. I think, too, that when we could see it was beginning to slip, we were way too late. We began to put effort into these races only after Labor Day when somehow, the die was already cast. I saw some candidates like our friend, Tom Cotton, in Arkansas got the joke, and in the summer, began to do the hard work of campaigning. So I think we made some tactical on-the-ground political errors, and then I think we didn’t honor the people’s wishes, which is to talk about unaffordability and explain why the Republican party is the better party to deliver an affordable, good life for ordinary Americans, not the liberal Democrats.

HH: And a last question before break. We’ve got a minute. I’m not a big tariff guy, but I’m not blanket against them, especially when they’re used against China. Is that where you are on tariffs?

MP: Yeah, I’m not a big tariff guy, and we should be trying to partner with our nations that are our allies, right? So think about Canada, right? We hurt people all across the United States by picking a fight with Canada when they provide a lot of energy for us and a lot of things that really benefit us. And I think people could see that. We were picking on our friends in ways that weren’t making their lives better. I think that had ramifications, too. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that over time, tariffs do drive increasing costs. They are a tax, and blanket tariffs that aren’t aimed at a particular purpose don’t benefit ordinary Americans.

HH: I’ll be right back with Secretary Pompeo. We’re going to talk about the war, and we’re going to talk about what to do next in that war, because that’s my particular part on the Bingo card if I had one thing to talk about. So I get to talk about it with the former Secretary of State and head of the CIA. Stay tuned.

— – – – —

HH: Mr. Secretary, I know you don’t feel obliged to agree with me, and you’ll tell me if you think I’m stupid. That’s what old friends do. But I am convinced that I hope the B-2s are in the air right now headed for Pickaxe Mountain, and that the MOU was a bad idea, and we’ve got to finish the job. What do you think?

MP: Hugh, I’m happy to tell you when I think you’re stupid. It seldom happens, and it certainly doesn’t happen on this file. I hope it’s the case, too. There is still more work to be done. The President’s decision to deny not only a nuclear weapon, but the conventional systems, Hugh, right? All the systems that would have made a truly impenetrable fortress in Iran, the President took them out. And we can now fly over this place with impunity, and we should. We should keep the economic blockade in place, we should continue to press every nation to stop providing any resources to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to the other proxies in Iraq, and to the regime itself. If we get that right and then do the necessary, take down more capability, then we can reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and then we can rebuild the infrastructure that’s been destroyed. And then, the American people will get the affordable energy that I know was so much on everyone’s mind in the election on Tuesday.

HH: And to double down on that, I think our most important, or at least the equal of any of our strategic allies is Israel, a nuclear power that can project and has the will to project force, and then the United Arab Emirates, little Sparta. I think they struck back at the Islamic Guard themselves. I’m not sure if Saudi Arabia did, but Saudi’s got our oil, and they’re our ally as well. We stand with these people, right? We don’t let them just get, if we don’t finish off Iran, they’ll terrorize our friends forever.

MP: No, we need to finish the job for them. Most importantly, though, we need to finish the job for ourselves, for America. President Trump fundamentally grasps this. When I see comments that talk about Israel as being the problem, that’s the things that El-Sayed said. That was the commercial he ran. He said Israel’s causing our bananas to be more expensive. And then I’ve seen Republicans say that one of the things we have to do is fix the relationship in Israel. My gosh, Hugh. I was the CIA director. Our most important security partner, bar none, was Israel both as an intelligence service and the military. Our Gulf State allies are central to American success. This is in America’s interest to deliver, finish the job, and I’m also just heartened when I hear people say well, we can’t do that. You know, we bombed them, and it didn’t work. No, we bombed them, and we were very successful. We simply clutched out and tried to do a stupid deal. We called it an MOU that was never going to work with a regime that is implacable and isn’t going to honor anything they sign. We knew that, Hugh, with the JCPOA. We need to go back at this, deal with it with resolve, make it very clear that there will be no free pass with the Iranian regime, and we’ll ultimately prevail for the American people.

HH: So Secretary Pompeo, we’ve got two other big conflict fronts. We’ve got the Ukraine-Russia war, where Russia invaded twice under Democratic presidents, and we have helped them, and I hope we continue to. But China remains our biggest menace. China was not discussed. I don’t think anyone discussed China in 2026. Did they?

MP: Too little, and we’ve been too willing to placate Xi Jinping under multiple presidents from multiple parties, Hugh. It’s the central problem of the next 15-20 years. They are supporting the Iranian regime against us. They’ve provided components that have killed American kids. They are helping the Russians. The Chinese-Iranian axis is very real, and you’re right. It wasn’t part of the conversation in any serious way. It needs to be. I hope it will be an important part of the conversation that President Trump will take forward, and then an important part of the conversation in the campaign in 2028. I will tell you, there are too many that were elected from the Democrat party who don’t see that, who are prepared to cozy up to the Chinese Communist Party. Hugh, we know evil, and we know the aggressor. We know who it is in the Middle East, we know that it’s Vladimir Putin terrorizing Ukraine, and we know that it’s Xi Jinping that is threatening every American as well. We have to be serious about this. We will prevail, just like the Republican Party is going to rise. America will be fine, but we need leaders who are prepared to do the necessary things to provide the security that the American people so richly deserve, and I’m convinced they will demand in 2028.

HH: All right, at the risk of putting people to sleep, I’m going to bring up the debt, and I’m going to do it in the context of the fact we need a trillion and a half dollar Defense budget like President Trump has requested. So on the one hand, I’m saying we’ve got a $40 trillion dollar debt. On the other hand, I’m saying we need to spend another trillion and a half. Can you reconcile those two deeply and I think necessary strategic important points?

MP: I certainly can. And by the way, they’re not remotely inconsistent. You spend a trillion and a half dollars on Defense, and you will continue to have the United States dollar as the reserve currency for the world. The single most important thing to grow the American economy is that we protect and secure America, maintain our freedom, property rights, basic human dignity. We can grow the economy, and that, Hugh, that’s the only way out of the $40 trillion dollar hole that we’re in. GDP growth not up 2.5 or 3, but of 4 or 4.5 year on year. You can spend the money on security. You can deliver for the American people, and you can dig our way out of this incredible challenge we face with $40 trillion dollars in debt today. And by the way, your point earlier, anybody campaign on this, Hugh?

HH: No, they didn’t, and a lot of people tried to have it both ways on data centers. And that’s where I interestingly want to finish with you. I read this morning that outer Mongolia has become data center central for the People’s Republic of China. They’re just building them everywhere, because they know it’s the future. Now, we’ve got the left in this country, and some populists saying well, we can’t have a data center in my state. What’s Mike Pompeo think about that?

MP: I think markets should drive the outcome. And markets are going to demand enormous amount of compute, and the United States needs an enormous amount of compute to keep people safe and to win the technology fight against the Chinese Communist Party. We can build these facilities, right? They’re buildings with servers in them, Hugh. We can build them in a way that is environmentally safe. Whatever it is the left wants, we can do it in a way that doesn’t drive utility rates through the roof. We can tax them appropriately. All of those things are reasonable. But if we put a moratorium on it, or we ban them, or we say we’re just not going to play in that game, the Chinese Communist Party will own compute. They will own AI, and that is not good for your children, my children, and our grandkids, Hugh.

HH: Let me close with this. Almost a decade ago, you were kind enough to invite me out to Langley when you were the director of the CIA. And my last question to you was are we capable of keeping up with our adversaries in the world of cyber. You said we’ve got that, Hugh. Don’t worry about that. Do you worry about it now?

MP: Yes, it’s always something we should have in the front of our minds. I worry about it greatly. We saw the North Koreans take $6 billion dollars of tokens, apparently. It’s a constant threat. We’re in a pretty good position. We have continued. By the way, under Republicans and Democrats alike, we have continued to do hard work hardening our systems. But you know, on defense, you’ve got to go 100 for 100. On offense, you just have to have one breakthrough. We need to maintain the capacity to defend ourselves from cyberthreats. And you see both in the Middle East and Europe that becoming an even greater part of kinetic warfare, but it matters to economies as well, Hugh. I’m convinced that our model is the right one – university systems, private sector, leadership, those are the ways you deliver on cyber protection for the United States. I’m convinced the United States will prevail there as well.

HH: Thank you, Secretary Pompeo. By the way, is Pipe Hitters still up and running? I don’t know if you’ve got a political arm anymore.

MP: I’m focused on things other than that for the moment, but I still care deeply about America in the same way that you do, Hugh.

HH: All right, well, Mr. Secretary, don’t be a stranger. Keep coming back, because boy, the Republicans are going to need a lot of good advice to navigate this particular channel of politics where we have not been for a long, long time. 2008, we were down to 41 senators. We can rebuild. We need to listen to people like Mike Pompeo in the course of doing that. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

End of interview.

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Mike Rogers, locked in a tight battle with Abdul El Sayed for the Senare seat in Michigan, joined Hugh to discuss why Michigan voters have to be concerned about El-Sayed’s decptions and diversions from the topic of his views of and ties to the Muslim Brotherhoo:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: Joined now by Mike Rogers, who I believe will be elected to the United States Senate tomorrow. Mike, welcome back. I want to ask you a couple of tough, quick questions. My audience knows about the Muslim Brotherhood. We’ve had Lawrence Wright on. We’ve had many scholars of Islam on. They know that to be worried about the extremists in the Muslim Brotherhood is not to be Islamophobic. It began with Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Qutb took it over. It’s murderous. It’s Islamist. Has El-Sayed answered those questions to the satisfaction of you or anyone you know?

MR: No. Not at all. He’s not answered any of these questions. He’s very good at talking, very bad at answering the question. He often starts by asking you, if he’s uncomfortable, you can tell. He’ll ask you a question right away.

HH: Yup.

MR: And this is the one thing in his campaign he hasn’t tried to flip around and try to shapeshift himself into doing something else. It’s the one consistency. He won’t condemn the folks who support Hamas that gave him money, or the folks that support Hezbollah that gave him money, or the organizations that support the Muslim Brotherhood that gave him a lot of money. He is all wrapped up in it. He won’t condemn Hasan Piker, who just even last week was going after a Jewish member of our community who had a Democrat for Rogers sign in their yard. He just absolutely torched them, insulted them on his live stream. Nothing. I mean, he just won’t say anything about it. I mean, it is troublesome. He’s got this long connection and past that’s very, very worrisome. As a matter of fact, they just had a superseding indictment. One of his staffers was indicted for terrorist-related charges. I mean, the list goes on and on. And even his own senior staffer who was with him in 2018 when he ran for governor, was with him this election for the U.S. Senate, came out halfway through and said I can’t do this. The guy’s a former U.S. Marine. He said I just can’t do this. This guy, I watched him lie often. He’s a manufactured candidate. And he is just not right to be in the United States Senate. And of course, now we’ve got this parade of Democrats coming out saying this guy’s just not good for the state.

HH: Well, Haley Stevens endorsed you yesterday. I think she’s trying to save her party. And Chuck Schumer, by condemning her as reprehensible, is trying to save his job. But in the aftermath of that stunner, and it is a big deal when a Democrat’s Democrat like Haley Stevens comes over and says I’m voting for Mike Rogers. A fellow named Wajahat Ali posted at 12:41 yesterday, “If, God forbid, Abdul loses, this will be a watershed moment in Democratic politics. The fire will rise. It’s over. People will be radicalized against corporate pro-Israel Dems. There will be a reckoning. If/when he wins, it will be a watershed moment, and that reckoning will still come.” I understood that to be a threat at Michiganders. Do you understand that to be a threat?

MR: Oh, my gosh, these guys have been veiled threats, open threats. They had an Abdul staffer yesterday attack a Jewish woman at a free speech rally. Listen, aggressiveness is kind of what they do. We had a staffer that was posting and got threats. I mean, I do worry about this, because the radical conversation that they’re having, it’s at this fevered pitch where it gives permission for more political violence. If you can’t condemn the guy who loaded up his car with gasoline and explosives and drove it into a school to kill 130 schoolchildren at a synagogue, if you can’t condemn that, guess what? You have no business being in the Senate. And guess what that also does, Hugh? It encourages this behavior of being more aggressive. When you can’t condemn the ad that says Jews are the reason that you have high grocery prices, you’re encouraging violence. You’re encouraging aggressiveness. That’s what I worry about. That’s who they are. You’re seeing it now. They’re telling you who they are when they’re attacking Haley Stevens for having the courage to say my country is more important than my party. And by the way, she said I’m a Democrat. I’m voting all Democrat except for one race.

HH: Oh, yeah.

MR: They are going after her like, it’s unbelievable.

HH: And she cited Philip Hart, the conscience of the Senate. And I have great admiration for her for doing that.

MR: I do, too.

HH: So Mike Rogers, I think you are going to win. The polls say you aren’t, but they told us at the primary on August 4th that Abdul El-Sayed was going to win between 10 and 18 points. They had no idea. I don’t think they have any idea about the Black vote. And I don’t even think they have any idea about the Arab-American vote in Dearborn. I think you’re going to do pretty well there, because they’re not radicals.

MR: Yeah, you know, listen. The imams in the mosques have been very, very aggressive about saying you have to bring your ballot to the Friday prayer. Very, very unusual, pretty aggressive. I do think if people have their own choice, we know this, because we talk to a lot of Muslims, saying hey, this is not who we are. We are not that extreme. We love America. We love freedom. We love the free market. Those Muslims aren’t being heard right now. And the intimidation factor is pretty significant there. So we know we’re going to get some of those votes. We’re definitely going to get some more African-American votes. And a lot of times, what they’re telling us this guy, Abdul, goes into the community. He’s dismissive, he’s arrogant, and it just doesn’t sit well with them. And the same with Jewish Democrats for Rogers. I mean, they are afraid for their children. And here’s another group that people don’t realize. We have Chaldeans here who are Iraqi Catholics who were persecuted and sent.

HH: Oh, yes.

MR: And we have a huge number, almost 200,000. And literally, we would go to these events, and they’d grab my wife or me and start sobbing about please, please, you must win. You can’t allow this hate to come back here. This is why we’re here. I mean, so there’s, Hugh, the passion on the ground, it’s pretty easy to get lost in all the punditry and the polls and all of that. It’s real for so many people here. And it’s, you know, we’re going to win by inches, but I think we’re going to win.

HH: You know, Mike Rogers, I had lunch today with a Muslim friend of mine, Arab Muslim friend who said if El-Sayed wins, it will normalize Mamdani on a national level. And the radicalism that El-Sayed represents will be everywhere acceptable. Do you agree with that? Because I think it is a breach in the dike if this happens.

MR: Oh, I completely agree with that. As a matter of fact, he will move the Senate to the left. All of the folks like the Bernie Sander’s, and that whole crew – Elizabeth Warren, all who have been here, AOC, this gives them a new leg up. And what it does is it forces even moderate Democrat senators, if there’s any such thing left over there, it forces them more to the left, because that will be the energy in their races, too. And you know, AOC has said with Abdul on the same stage, this is our first chance. And if we can win here, we can win everywhere, which tells you what’s coming. That’s why this race becomes so, so important. And we definitely need people not to pass on voting tomorrow.

HH: They need to get out and vote. Last question. Do the union members understand completely? You’ve driven it home. Medicare for all is the end of their union-backed insurance. Do they understand that?

MR: We think they do. We’ve been working pretty hard to get that word out. I’ll give you a quick anecdote. We were, a guy called me. He had a business next to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a union up in Marquette, Michigan, way up north in the Upper Peninsula. And he saw a whole group of them getting out of their cars going into the IPEW. And Abdul had a rally up there with AOC. And he was walking into his business, they know each other, and the guy came over and said oh, it was great. We just came back from the rally. And he said oh, okay, well, how was Abdul? He goes, oh, no, we were on the counter-rally We were protesting Abdul. We can’t let that guy win. We like our benefits. Now it’s anecdotal, but it gives you an idea that these guys are like, hey, wait a minute, I don’t want my health care taken away.

HH: Yeah, well, run through the tape, Mike Rogers. We need you in the United States Senate. Seven-term Congressman, former Army officer, former FBI special agent, former state legislature, moderate Republican. Michigan, do the right thing. Vote for Mike Rogers tomorrow. Thank you, Mike. I’ll be right back, America. Stay tuned.

End of interview.

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Our broadcast from 9/11/2001:

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

The post 9/11, 25 Years Later appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Prince Reva Pahlavi was named Crown Prince of Iran in 1967. He has long been the most visible face of the Iranian opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: We are on the cusp of big events. Whether it’s this week or this month or next month, it’s a very important time, and I’m honored to have with me Prince Reza Pahlavi. He’s the Crown Prince of Iran. He is also the voice and face of the Iranian opposition in exile. Prince Pahlavi, welcome. Thank you for joining me. I want to start with a very direct question. To your understanding, how many of your fellow countrymen were murdered by the regime on January 8-9? I’ve heard a lot of different numbers.

RP: First of all, thank you for having me on your program. The number vary between 36,500 to about 40,000. That’s the last estimate that we’ve had. It could be higher than that, because there’s still ongoing arrests happening. They are killing people in hospitals. They are finishing them off on their wounded beds. They are arresting doctors or anybody rendering assistance to the victims. Who knows how much the total numbers will be, but the most conservative figure so far has been over 36,000 people, unfortunately.

HH: I’m going to start using that number, Prince. Thank you. What do you hope to see President Trump order our military and America to do right now?

RP: Look, when you are fighting an occupying force that has taken a whole country hostage, and people are on the streets unarmed as civilians demanding liberation from this tyranny and hoping for freedom, and at the time they are being shots on the streets by military machine guns, and basically war instruments, this is no longer a fair fight. This is a genocide in the making. And the only thing that will equalize the playing field for these brave Iranians who are fighting for their own liberation is to have an assistance that is needed help at this time to neutralize elements that the regime has used against its own citizenry to brutalize them the way they have. And this means targeting the regime’s top apparatus of repression, which is, of course, the IRGC and many other elements that are associated with that repression. And only a military intervention at this point could level the playing field. This is the reason why the Iranian people have been anxiously awaiting the action that the President has promised he will do in support of the Iranian people, that help will arrive, just hang in there. And they have. And they hope that this president will stay true to his word as he has always demonstrated, and that he’s no Barack Obama. And he believes in what he says, and he’s a man of peace, and ultimately will help the Iranian people get rebuilt. This regime has been devastating not only to Iran and Iranians, but has been a source of chaos and instability since its inception, and most dramatically, the most hostile regime against America as opposed to a country that was always with America, and certainly not at all on the same wavelength as this regime.

HH: Prince, I saw over the weekend the regime ran an AI video demonstrating how they were going to destroy the Lincoln and other associated ships in the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force. What risk do you think the United States runs to its forces and its allies in the region if it does strike in that way against the regime?

RP: Well, first of all, we saw how the Iranians attempted to respond to the Israeli attack by targeting Israel with missiles and drones. And I don’t think that was quite a successful campaign, if you look at the actual result of that. If this is the might of the Iranian forces, and if they hit before they have a chance to strike, I very much doubt that unless the AI-projected messages, they actually have the capacity to do that. And if so, there’s no other military in this world that can neutralize that than the American military, and with the help of some of its allies. So I think that’s just basically saber-rattling as a desperate regime that’s on its last leg and once again wants to create doubt as to whether or not they need to be intervened against. What’s in the balance right now is not just, as I said, the liberty for the Iranian people, but it’s to put a complete end to a regime that has only raised havoc in the region. And the best way to do that is to make sure that this time, you don’t just wound the beast, but go for the full kill. By that, you cannot leave it with a possibility of retaliation. Clearly, this deployment is not a simple target practice. It clearly is much more in depth and much more complex than everything we’ve seen before outside of a full world war-level type of deployment. This is serious.

HH: I agree with that. What do you say, Prince, to the so-called restrainers, they’re really neo-isolationists in the United States, who say there’s no upside for America in freeing the Iranian people and going to war with Iran?

RP: Well, look, if America had not gone to war in the Second World War, what would have been the outcome of the Nazis’ victory, of Hitler getting his hand on the atom bomb? Who knows what history would be looking like right now? And again, Americans have to realize that this is a regime that has been the root cause of instability in the region, has been the biggest enemy of America and its allies versus a nation that has proven time and again that it doesn’t have any hostility versus its neighbors. Most of them are allies of the United States, unlike this regime who calls for the disappearance of an entire nation from the face of the earth. I mean by that Israel, of course. But the Iranians have not only a friendly attitude towards our neighbors, but particularly with Israel, because I think the two nations on this planet that can claim that they have a Biblical relationship happen to be the people of Iran and the people of Israel. And that goes back to the time of Cyrus the Great 25 centuries ago, before America even existed as a country. But what does it mean to America? What it means to America is not only not having to yet again have to police the whole region, but to rely on partners that are on the same boat with you, that share the same values of freedom and democracy and human rights, that want to be partner in that future, and they will bring that element of stability. So you no longer have to have your troops deployed in faraway lands, or have American taxpayers fund the bill of having to sustain long-term campaigns. That’s what’s in the balance for America – a country that will be on your side as the best partners. It’s good for regional peace. It’s good for world peace. And it’s good for business and economic opportunities. Iran is a country that would represent in the first 15 years at least a trillion dollars’ worth of revenue to the U.S. economy by means of American investment in Iran. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs that are willing to invest in that…

HH: I agree with all that, Prince.

RP: And that’s, at the end of the day, that’s what the net benefit to America with a regime change in Iran, as opposed to the controversial regime that not only deprives you from that market, but has been a constant threat to America directly.

HH: Now I agree with all that, Prince. You are the most prominent voice and face for the Iranian opposition. In fact, you may be the only one of which I’m aware, and I’m pretty aware of the news. Right before I talked to you, I talked to Professor Dan Schueftan from Haifa University. He’s been basically the Kissinger of Israel for 40 years. And I said I’m going to talk to the Prince, what would you ask him. And the same thing I’m going to ask you. Who else would help you lead a transition? Are there other people in a position to step up in the aftermath of regime collapse in Iran to lead the country back to what it was prior to, a dawn of freedom again?

RP: All the Iranian democratic secular forces that believe in these four core principles have a place under this tent. The four core principles that is the basis of our coalition is number one, Iran’s territorial integrity. Number two is a clear separation of religion from government as a prerequisite to democracy. The importance of individual liberties and equality of all citizens under the law. And finally, the right for the Iranian people to determine their own future by means of free election at the ballot box, which is a process that the interim transitional government will have to play. They have called for me to lead his movement as witnessed within Iran and across the world. I am humbled by that trust and confidence they have in me. And I’ve always intended to play this role, except that today, there’s no question that they have chosen me to lead this movement, and that’s why I have stepped in. But I am not doing this alone. I’m doing it with the broadest possible coalition of democratically-minded Iranians who may vote differently at the very end for the final outcome, but they believe that this is the only process that will take us to where we need to be. And in that, we have the broadest coalition ever of Iranian democratic forces within Iran, and of course, within the international community and Iranian ex-pats.

HH: Do you think in the way that the Air Force generals met with Khomeini 47 years ago, do you think there are members of the regular Iranian armed forces who would help you establish, and your allies establish a monopoly of force in Iran so that there wasn’t a civil war?

RP: Well, look, when I started this campaign about a year ago, and we started a special process whereby people who want to defect from the regime have a secure means to communicate their intentions to us, we started this about six months ago. To this day, we had over 160,000 people who have applied. Many of them are members of the security forces, the military forces, the civilian bureaucracy that have reached out to us, that they’re willing to play a role in making sure that we can all share in that transition. In other words, they want to be part of the solution. And what I’d like to take this opportunity to stress, that unlike a scenario that wasn’t quite well-handled in terms of regime change, example, Iraq had the de-Baathification. Our position is very clear. For all those people who are not directly responsible for the massacre of their own citizenry or have the blood of the people on their hand, they can survive regime change and have a place in the future. The people who have rendered justice for their crimes will be judged like we had at the end of the Second World War in the Nuremberg Trials, for instance. But many of them have not been directly associated with that violence or criminally involved. And they can have a place in the future. When you’re part of the solution, you are an element that will in fact reduce the risks of instability or chaos. To the contrary, it will help facilitate a more smooth transition. So there’s a sense of national conciliation and amnesty at play as well, but those who will have to face justice, will face justice. There’s no question about that. The Iranian people need to have their day in court against these criminal people. But at the same time, they’ll understand that we need to make sure that we can have a successful transition. And every Iranian that I know that are believing in that freedom know the responsibility that we all bear together to push that agenda forward and minimize all the risk, minimize the casualties, maximize success by guaranteeing the most stable possible transition.

HH: Well, let me focus in on that, Prince, because I’ve been thinking since the massacre how in the world would you ever prevent a round of reprisals? After France was liberated, the resistance did quite a lot of blowback at those who cooperated with the Nazis. After you’ve murdered 35,000 people, how in the world would you keep the families of the victims from seeking rough justice or vigilante justice?

RP: Again, you know, but when people have faith in the fact that justice will be served, when people have faith that this time, the institutions that we are creating, or this time have faith in the leaders in their government or institutions, that changes the dynamics of whether or not you believe in your system or you don’t believe in your system. I think vigilantism usually occurs when there’s total lack of trust, and an abandonment of any hope for civility or, if you will, a more moderate approach as opposed to extreme measures. All of that is at play. I don’t know on the psychological level how one handles that. I think a lot of that has to do with hope for a better future, and the fact that we already paid too much of a price to continue building a nation on bloodshed and retaliation and retribution. I think that sense of national relief in terms of everybody’s now in an opportunity to mends the wounds and heal together is more important than seeking revenge, because an eye for an eye only makes the world go blind, eventually.

HH: 47 years ago, Prince, I watched the revolution on a couch in the old Western White House with Richard Nixon and Ray Price very night. And former President Nixon, I was a writer on his staff just out of college. He could not believe that Iran was falling, because it was so pro-American. And he was, of course, a great friend of your father. After 47 years of non-stop anti-U.S./Great Satan, anti-Israel/Little Satan rhetoric and propaganda, and after the devastation of the Iran-Iraq war, is there a returning of Iran to a pro-U.S. resting face, to being an ally?

RP: No doubt. Listen, remember 9/11 and how many people on your so-called allied countries in the Middle East were dancing in the streets in celebration after that attack? The only country where people held candlelight vigil in sympathy for the victims of 9/11 were no other than the Iranian people in Iran. In Iran. Not just outside of Iran, in Iran. That was then. And the same people who today march in rallies in protest against the regime, you will see that in all our demonstrations, from Australia to Canada to the U.S. to Europe, there is alongside the Iranian national flag either an Israeli flag or an American flag, or whatever the host country in which they live flying. That’s the Iran that we know. That’s the Iran that we are, not this regime that always calls for death to America or death to Israel. And I think many Americans know that. Many Americans know a fellow Iranians that was either a schoolmate of his or is a colleague of theirs or work in a company, vice-versa. They know that Iranians, unlike this regime, are a peace-loving people, are…that cultural and civilization want to be friends with whoever respects them and respect their sovereignty. And America has always been a great friend to Iran, and should be. That’s the way it should be. And I don’t think that it will be my miracle that this will occur. It’s just that this regime has been an aberration. This regime has been the product of two extreme forces that were clearly against the West – the Marxists and the Islamists that ganged together, brought this regime into power. And from the very beginning, we saw the hostility towards the West and the U.S. in particular. A liberated Iran that doesn’t buy into the extreme radical ideology of totalitarian Marxists or Islamists, unlike them, are committed to freedom, are committed to human rights. And guess what? America has been a beacon of hope and opportunities. Many Iranians came all the way to the United States to find refuge or find a better life. And most of them, once Iran is freed, would like to go back to their country to bring back these very same values that are taken for granted here in the United States by many Americans, but that the Iranians are starving and dying for having in our country. And what better partner can we have than America to help us not only liberate ourselves and bring about all the aspects of liberty that we deserve, but also what good partners we could be in the future in the rebuilding of Iran. As President Trump has said, MAGA, we say MIGA – Make Iran Great Again. And together, with America, we’ll make both countries great again.

HH: I have two final questions, Prince. Have you noticed from your various sources and information that there are fissures within the regime, maybe between the IRGC and the regular armed forces? Do you see that?

RP: Well, this is nothing new. Remember that the IRGC was created as a parallel military or militia to contain the military that the regime, the revolutionary regime of Khomeini could never trust. That started right in the early 80s. And as a result, it became more and more of a parasitic mafia to control many aspects of Iran’s economy. And basically, they’re in full control of most aspects of the nation. The military, on the other hand, considers itself much more a professional army and a national army. So the divide between the IRGC and the military was there from the very get-go. In fact, the IRGC doesn’t even have the name Iran in its title, which is kind of bizarre, to be a militia that doesn’t even have the name of a country in its name.

HH: It’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

RP: So that is an aberration. That will need to be disappearing from, as an organization. They can be reincorporated into the military or go to the private sector. We won’t have a parallel militia. So obviously, the military will be a professional army in charge of protecting our territories, and the rest of them could be distributed into various aspects of either private sector or other aspects of military institutions or like a national guard of some form. Anyway, there are plans for that as well. Now even within the IRGC, mind you, there are some who want to defect. There are some who want to abandon ship. There are some who are disillusioned. There are some who maybe thought at some point this was a sacred cause to fight for, but guess what? Many of them have their children on the streets that are being shot at. They also are paying the price for having been associated with this regime. And as I said, those who haven’t been criminally involved can abandon ship, can join with the people. This is their last chance to do so. And at some point, they will have to be accountable for having helped preserve this regime rather than to come to the rescue of their own citizenry. The choice is theirs to make. But I think this is the outcome that we hope to push for, and minimize the last pockets of resistance there is out there, and hopefully not through vigilantism, but through proper planning, and make sure they don’t even think that they have a chance of resisting and creating some distractions in the path. This won’t be easy, but it can be done.

HH: A last question, Prince. You mentioned Persia is very old. It’s 25 Centuries old. Cyrus the Great and others, it’s been an empire forever. And it defeated the Parthians. It goes way back. But Islam is very old in Iran as well, and there are these enormous centers of learning for Islam within Iran. After an iteration to democracy, what will be the position of those moderate, I mean, traditional Muslim studies and Islamic scholars and mullahs? Will they have their freedoms recognized and protected as well?

RP: Well, freedom of religion should be one of the guarantees of a constitution that is based on the universal declaration of human rights. And therefore, when we say we want to have a secular alternative, that doesn’t mean that we have anti-religious thoughts. But as much as religions have to have their right place in society, what about the right of atheists? What about the right of the LBTQ community? What about human rights in general? And I think a future constitution that will be guaranteeing those rights, among them includes freedom of religion. Now to this point, let me also remind your distinguished audience that is listening to this program that we have many clerics in Iran that never believed in this Wilayat al-Faqih, which was Khomeini’s version of establishing an ideologically-based regime that is so radical and treats everybody in an inferior way, and has been discriminating against other faiths and other religions. They have spoken against this regime and also believe in a secular alternative. In fact, one of the most prominent religious clerics that we have in Iran who is a Sunni cleric leader in Baluchestan, his name is Mowlavi Abdolhamid. He has been calling for a secular government in the future, because he recognizes among many other clerics that it is in the best interests of the faith itself not to be in any shape or form directly involved in politics. In fact, being directly involved in politics has weakened the faith and has weakened our religious establishment. They’ll be the first one to tell you that. So therefore, they realize that they’ll have their place in society like in any other free secular country where nobody is questioning the fact that people have a right to practice their faith as long as we have a separation of church from state, as a prerequisite to democracy, which is another thing that has been proven in almost every democracy we see around the planet today.

HH: Prince, you’ve been very generous with your time. Thank you for it, and good luck and prayers for the success of your movement so that there is an iteration and an evolution of the regime there. Thank you very much.

End of interview.

The post Prince Reza Pahlavi On President Trump’s Looming Decision On Iran appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

As President Trump weighs his decision on what to do regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israeli national security expert Daniel Schueftan joined Hugh to discuss what POTUS should do and why:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: Professor Dan Schueftan is the preeminent Israeli national security expert. That’s what Haviv Rettig Gur called him in an interview done with Professor Schueftan on February the 2nd, which I heard and said we’ve got to go get this guy. He sounds like Israel’s Kissinger. Professor, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. That was a fabulous episode with Haviv. Thank you for joining me today. I want to begin by saying to the audience they should go listen to that entire hour and ten minutes with Haviv. It was taped on February 2nd. But I don’t have that time, so I want to condense one thing you said. You said American presidents can be smart or dumb on the Middle East. Eisenhower and Obama were dumb. Johnson and Nixon were smart. How do you rate Trump?

DS: Trump has the right instincts. And mostly what he did in the Middle East was very helpful for the whole region. Think of the Abraham Accords. Think of the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And the support he had for Israel when Israel needed not only to assert its power not only to destroy the terrorists, but also to deter them from the immediate next step. And now the question is, of course, how it will work with Iran and with Lebanon. But so far, his instincts about the Middle East were correct, and he was certainly not the kind of naïve president that we had in Jimmy Carter and in Barack Obama. Eisenhower made a terrible mistake in his first term in office, in 1956. But by 1958, he already corrected it by understanding that it was a mistake to build up Nasser. But you have presidents like Nixon and Kissinger as national security advisor and Secretary of State who were excellent in the Middle East.

HH: Now Professor, that leads us to my seconed question. What do you hope President Trump decides to do about Iran and when?

DS: First of all, I don’t think you can arrive at something that the Iranians will agree to, because whatever Iran accepts will be terrible for the whole region and beyond this region. This regime is as dangerous a combination as we had Nazi Germany in the sense that they’re very able people and very barbaric leadership is a combination that presents a danger to the entire region and beyond. And unless this regime is undermined, weakened, and hopefully one day replaced, you cannot rest in the Middle East with the regular problems. We have problems even without Iran, but Iran makes these problems unacceptable by the way, not only to the region. Very soon, if they have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, they can reach Europe. They can dominate the Middle East. They can use all the oil in the region, control of Mecca and Medina. They can be a major power. Let me put it this way. North Korea will be considered minor compared to Iran if Iran, if we make the same mistake in Iran that we made with North Korea, allowing them to get nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

HH: Now in the conversation with Haviv, you said that the arch-radical in the Middle East, Iran, had been terribly weakened. And I agree. But what do you want, President Trump has surged a lot of American striking power into the region as well as a lot of defensive power that might have been there when the demonstrations began in December. It definitely wasn’t there. Do you want him to hit Iran this week, next month, three months from now? And what do you want him to hit in Iran?

DS: I don’t see any other choice, because again, if the Iranians even agree to something on the nuclear issue but maintain the unbelievable capacity they have to build a very large number of ballistic missiles, we will have the same problems that we have today only compounded, only multiplied by ten in a very short time. You need to destroy the Iranian economy, certainly not under any circumstances whatsoever allow the sanctions to go away, certainly not to prevent the possibility of Iran being so weak that it cannot at the same time satisfy its own citizens and support the entire array of proxies that they have in the Middle East. So whatever is bad for the Iranian economy, whatever undermines its military capacity, is good. If I thought that any kind of an agreement could be helpful, I would be for an agreement. It should always be the first choice. But I don’t see any kind of agreement that the United States can live with, Europe can live with, Israel can live with, the most of the Arab states can live with. I don’t see any of that. And therefore, now that we have the opportunity, I think that the military strike will be very helpful.

HH: Now I agree with that assessment of agreements, Professor. I don’t know that I’ve heard anyone but you mention economic targets before. I’ve asked a number of our military analysts who’ve come on, and political analysts. I had President Trump on, in fact, in January, but I didn’t ask him this. Why Israel and the United States did not his Kharg Island or the other two oil terminals? Iran’s got nothing except oil. I mean, they don’t export anything. I guess pistachios and caviar, but should Kharg Island be taken out in a second round of strikes?

DS: I would be very careful there. Remember, we don’t want an enormous surge in oil prices all around the world. It will not only be the Iranian resources, it will be in the entire Gulf. It has impacts on the Straits of Hormuz. It can change the entire balance of power. For instance, I don’t want the Russians to get more money from selling oil after the price of oil doubles. Remember, we, under a war we had in 1973, the oil prices quadrupled, and again quadrupled. Now I don’t think that we will go that far, but I would be careful before I do that. If I go in this direction, then I would take it only if other means don’t work. Then, you have to destroy this as well. But it’s not as if you do it, you harm Iran, and that’s the end of it. That’s not the end of it.

HH: All right, so Professor Shueftan, this is a missiles-first for me, then IRGC headquarters. If you can find the Supreme Leader, great. Blow him up. But that’s my target list. Do you have a better one?

DS: I would hit in Iran, first of all, whatever is left of the nuclear project, whatever you can hit concerning the missiles, the ballistic missiles, any other military target, and whatever harms their economy – their ports, their, anything that can harm. They are in a terrible economic situation. They don’t have water. They don’t have electricity. Nothing works. You need to bring out the people of Iran when they are desperate about the ability to live in Iran. They’re already in very, very bad shape. And you should compound it. You should make it even more difficult in Iran, economically.

HH: Okay, what do you make of the regime over the weekend putting out AI videos about sinking the Abraham Lincoln, sinking other American ships? And does that telegraph to you incredible weakness and fear? Or are they trying to get inside American heads? They should have bought a Super Bowl ad. They didn’t, but they should have if they wanted to get that message out there. What are they doing?

DS: They are, I think, underestimating the difficulty of their own situation. I don’t think they understand how bad their situation is. And they are doing things that they could have done if they had a better bargaining position. I wouldn’t be alarmed for it. Let me put it this way. If the Iranians can hit effectively an American aircraft carrier, then America is in very, very bad shape. And if anything like that happened, and they even try, and the United States doesn’t respond in a very major way, then we have a problem. Look, these barbarians, you need not only to hit and to starve, you need to humiliate them. If they’re not humiliated, this is a world order where the United States cannot function. Then everything you’re doing in Venezuela and in Cuba, and in other parts of the world, and vis-à-vis Russia doesn’t work. If you don’t break and humiliate these minor threats to the national security of the United States, what will the Chinese learn about it when they come to hit Taiwan? What will the Russians learn when they need to reach some kind of agreement in Ukraine, in Europe? So unless you humiliate, break the Iranians, you can’t in any way proceed with any major objective of the United States on the international arena.

HH: Professor, after Soleimani was killed by, on orders of President Trump in 2020, the Iranians hit the al Asad base with great precision. Now we were, we either had the intelligence capability to see it coming, or we were tipped off by the Iranians or a third party that it was coming, and the base was evacuated. Only a few soldiers were injured. So they can hit bases. How much damage do you think, ships are different. Ships don’t have a GPS, but bases do. How much damage do you think Iran can do to the U.S., to Israel, and the Middle East if the United States and Israel hit it very hard, very fast?

DS: They can do considerable damage to American bases, to American allies in the Middle East, to Israel. The question is are you willing to take a minor hit when you don’t allow them to behave this way? Or will you take a ten times harder hit if you wait and let them not only arm again, but also have the self-confidence that you need in order to do it? It’s not only the Americans who benefited from the fact that no Americans were killed by the Iranian missiles. Iran benefited from it, because there was no American response. So unless you prove that whatever they do, you can always escalate much more than they can, you see, this is where Israel has a lot of experience over a hundred years, even before the establishment of the state of Israel. Unless we can escalate more than all of our enemies, we are doomed. And the United States can definitely escalate. So whatever the question, the answer is more force. In other words, if there is one thing that they can do that we cannot make them sorry that they did, I think that we are doomed. In this region, this is something the Israelis have learned from their experience, and the Americans are learning now. Anybody who’s not afraid of you, you should be afraid of them.

HH: Israel has taken enormous casualties since 10/7, and of course, since the founding of the state, and even before in 1929 in Israel and in the Middle East. The United States is not very capable of taking casualties like we did in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and long wars. Do you fear America has lost the ability to take casualties? And I say that with active duty family members. I am not indifferent to it. I’m just a realist about this.

DS: Look, Israel behaved irresponsibly vis-à-vis Hamas before the 7th of October, and we brought 7th of October on us, because we wanted peace at any cost. We wanted tranquility at any cost. We didn’t realize that we can’t afford it. And the result was many more casualties. You can either take some casualties when you select when to go to war, or many more casualties when they select when to go to war when they’re ready to go to war. So because we are more ready now than ever before, and they are in the weakest possible bargaining position that they’ve ever been, this is the time to see to it that they will regret it.

HH: Now Professor, I’m talking to you before I talk to Prince Pahlavi, who’s coming up in a taping session when I’m done with you. I am curious what you think I should ask the Prince about Iran.

DS: How can he or anybody provide a leadership for the people who are rebelling in Iran? They’re unbelievably courageous. He is all they have at the moment. We need much more than in terms of a coordinated leadership so that people on the one hand will not let the existing situation continue, and at the same time, they should have an alternative reality. Nobody wants chaos in Iran. Nobody wants, even if this regime is gone, to have a situation where we cannot find a substitute, where we have nobody responsible in Tehran that we can speak to. So the most urgent goal of anybody at the moment concerning the unrest in Iran itself is to find a wide leadership that enjoys the support of a considerable part of the Iranian people. This is extremely important. Remember, when the Shah fell, it was not so much the weakness of the Shah, but an alternative was there. The alternative of Khomeini was there. And Iranian democrats were stupid enough in order to believe that they can replace the Shah together with the mullahs and then bring about something that is better than the Shah. A lot of the questions are decided domestically. When I’m looking at Israel today, my major concerns are how do you translate the unbelievable resilience of the Israeli people that we have shown in this war into more of a political benefit? So a strong Israel is strong primarily because of a strong society, and a resilient society. In Iran, you have a lot of brave people, but you don’t have enough organized leadership to take over.

HH: Now Professor, I can remember a time when Iran was an ally of Israel prior to the revolution. Do you think it can ever go back to that after 47 years of being sheep-dipped in anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-American sentiment?

DS: Definitely. Definitely.

HH: It can go back?

DS: Definitely. First of all, anti-Semitic today, in the West, you have so much anti-Semitism, including, unfortunately, in the United States, that if we were to think that if there is anti-Semitism, then we cannot go anywhere, we would be in very bad shape. Today, anti-Semitism is more popular than any recent time in history that I can think of. In Iran, you have a people who are unbelievably capable. Unlike the Arab world, most of the Arab world, with few exceptions, notably the UAE, unlike the Arab world where you have a society that is not functioning or is incapable at the moment of meeting the challenges of the 21st Century, in Iran, the society is. They are capable of a high-level of science, of technology. Many of them want a pluralistic society. My guess is that about a quarter or a third of the Iranian society wants something like the mullahs, and a majority of Iranians not only want another regime, but also are capable to develop a very strong society, a society that will be more pluralistic, a society that can win its position in the Middle East not by rockets and nuclear weapons, but by being more capable than its Arab neighbors. So I don’t think that people who want to make Iran great again need to think beyond replacing this regime. If they replace it with something that functions and reflects the qualities of a majority of the Iranian people, we will have a kind of coalition in the Middle East of Iran, Israel, and the United States. And they can work together with those Arabs who want a more stable Middle East, a less radical Middle East. And you can have a great future for this region if there is no major radical force. Remember, most Arab states at the moment don’t want regional wars, don’t want major confrontations. Radical forces were eradicated, or at least very severely hit by Israel. Today, we have less functioning radicals in the Middle East than we had before. Today, we have to deal with problems like Turkey and Qatar, which are very serious problems. And I’m very sorry that the president of the United States supports Turkey and Qatar. But at the moment in the Middle East, there are no radicals that are strong enough to change the reality inside the Arab world. If Iran is out of this picture, the whole region will look different.

HH: Two more questions, Professor, and you’ve been generous with your time. Thank you for that. You, it’s like you’re reading my outline. You just mentioned United Arab Emirates in the beginning part of the last answer. I think Israel is the equal if not better than any ally America has because it’s nuclear, because it has the will to use its power, because it projects power, and it’s pro-American. Our European allies are a little big sclerotic. We’ve got great allies in Asia in Japan and Australia and South Korea and Philippines and Taiwan. But Israel is number one. Do you put the UAE in the same circle of allyship for America as everyone other than Israel? I think Israel is our most important ally for a lot of reasons. But in that second tier, do you put the UAE in there?

DS: Yes, for two reasons. Not only because it’s more committed, but also because there is a fascinating experience in the UAE of trying to do something about their own society. They’re educated, their elite for tolerance, I’ve had a lot of experience in the UAE. I’ve visited the place nine times in the last two years. I’m friends with the foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah, and I’m very, very impressed by this person. I’ve been teaching there in their diplomatic academy. And I’m unbelievably impressed. I’m very deeply impressed by what they’re trying to do in their own society. They are really trying and succeeding to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. And I would like to see in the Arab world more like the UAE. Israel is, as you said, in a very unique situation. I think the best thing for the United States would be if the United States had three Israels – one in the Middle East, one next to North Korea, and one next to Venezuela and Cuba. I think the American would have benefited from the fact that the Israelis are willing to be fierce and committed when Americans sometimes hesitate.

HH: Amen. Amen. Now I want to close on a discordant note, because if I agree with you on everything, it’s no fun. In my view, Professor, I don’t know anyone in Israel who could have led Israel after 10/7 other than Prime Minister Netanyahu. I know you were an advisor to Rabin and Peres, and pretty much everybody else on the other side. Do you agree with me that I don’t know who but Bibi, I don’t know if you need him now, but for the last two-and-a-half years, could anyone else have done this?

DS: It is a very complex question, because Netanyahu has a good strategic mind, and made very good, important decisions in this war. On the other hand, his government is the worst government that Israel ever had, including the ultra-orthodox parasites. So I think it’s a mixed bag. And Israel, like the United States, like all democracies, has a major problem where the political sphere is very deeply divided. We are lucky, unlike the United States, that the Israeli society is not divided. And the Israeli society is the eighth wonder of the world in spite of the problems we have on the political level. But yes, Benjamin Netanyahu has all my criticism against him on many other things. The decisions, the major decisions in this war were correct, particularly not stopping the war when many others, almost everybody pushed enormously to stop it in the beginning of ’24. Had we done it in the beginning of ’24, the results would have been catastrophic. And I think that when you blame somebody for the drought, you also need to give him credit for the rain. In other words, when you say, and you should say that being prime minister for so long, he has special responsibility for our being unprepared on October 7th, at the same time, coming out of this predicament, I think the achievements of the moves that he led were enormous.

HH: Professor Dan Schueftan, I hope you will come back again and again. That was a fabulous half-hour, and I appreciate you taking that much time. And I again, I recommend to everyone. Go over to Ask Haviv Anything, the February 2nd interview. It’s much longer than this. It’s 71 minutes long, and it’s all gold. And it’s where I found the professor. I have to give Haviv a quarter or something. I don’t know. I think he’s my booking agent. But thank you, Professor. I look forward to talking to you again in the future.

DS: Thank you.

End of interview.

The post Professor Daniel Schueftan On The Israeli View of President Trump’s Decision On Iran appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Hugh spoke earlier with Senate Majority Leader John Thune about Iran escalation, the Appropriations bills, and what’s to come with negotiations on the last appropriations bill, The Department of Homeland Security.

The audio:

02-04hhs-thune

The transcript:

HH: I’m going to talk now with Majority Leader John Thune about that. Leader Thune, welcome. I want to begin by asking if you and Senator Cotton, who are two members of the Gang of Eight who get briefed on intelligence matters have been briefed on anything, yet, about Iran.

JT: I think at some of the Gang of Eight meetings, it’s been high-level stuff, Hugh, but you know, I obviously don’t talk a lot about what’s said in those meetings. But I don’t think a lot of specificity, I would say.

HH: Okay, what would you conclude from the cancellation of today’s meetings, and the dispatch of the George H.W. Bush carrier to join the Lincoln?

JT: I think that you know, obviously there, the administration perceives the Iranians to be escalating, and you know, clearly cutting off the talks was a huge signal that they were sending. But I think it’s, I mean, we’ve got a lot of interest to defend in that region of the world, and it has implications not just for that region of the world, but for the entire world. And so I think the President and his team are right to take it seriously and to ensure that America’s national security interests are protected there.

HH: Last question on Iran, Mr. Leader. If we go to a battle with them, what is an acceptable conclusion of that battle, from your perspective?

JT: Well, obviously for me, Hugh, it would be regime change. I mean, I think you’ve got to get new leadership in there. And there’s no guarantee that new leadership might be the answer, either. I mean, we’ve seen that before in other places around the world. But I do think that the Iranian people are clamoring for a voice in their government, and for the same rights that people in freedom-loving countries have around the world. And I think that’s what we ought to be supportive of there. And so if that were an end game, I think that would be at least a great starting place.

HH: We will pick it up from there next time we talk. I want to thank you, by the way, and congratulate you for getting the Defense Appropriation bill done, as well as 11 of 12 appropriations bills done. I don’t remember the last time that that happened, so hat tip to you, the leadership, Chairwoman Collins, Senator Collins, of course, the leader of the Appropriations Committee. When was the last time that happened?

JT: You know, it’s been a while, Hugh. I actually ran into one of my former colleagues in the House of Representatives. We had come in together, you know, almost, now, 30 years ago, and he said I think the last time we did all the appropriation bills was 1996. So…

HH: Sheesh.

JT: It’s been a while. It’s been a while.

HH: Oh, I’ve been doing this show for 25 years, and I do not remember it ever happening before. So congratulations on that. Regular order is restored except for the Department of Homeland Security. So I’d like to go there and ask you where the status is of those talks, what the Democrats are asking for, and whether or not we have creative ask backs?

JT: Well, we do. I mean, I think there are, if you kind of put it into three categories, there are things the administration is already doing, which are significant. And they’re a lot of the things the Democrats have asked for. Then, there are things you could do through that DHS funding bill that are funding oriented that you could, you know, increase or withhold funds into certain categories of the DHS budget. But then, there are the things that I think they want, which are policy changes. And if they’re going to insist on any kind of policy changes, we’re going to be at the table with ours, too, because I don’t think we want, we do not want these negotiations evolving into something that makes it harder to deport and detain dangerous illegal aliens that are in this country. And so I, you know, that bill needs to be focused on protecting and ensuring that law enforcement officers are safe in their jobs, able to do what the American people expect them to do, and to deport and detain dangerous illegal aliens. How you go about that matters, and I think Tom Homan has done a great job on the ground there of, you know, sort of getting that situation a little bit more in a place that hopefully the Democrats ought to be pleased with. I mean, I just think of the things that have already been done, Hugh, including in the DHS funding bill, the original one, which they agreed to and helped negotiate, by the way, that it had a number of reforms in it, including body cameras. And then, they walked away from that, and then they walked away from the two-week funding bill. At least a lot of them did. And the two-week funding bill is way too short in the first place. I mean, this is, they don’t know what they want. All they know is they want to fight Trump. And that, to me, is a really bad motivation, and it’s going to get them to make some bad decisions, which I think they’re doing.

HH: Well, I think they’re in a box canyon now, Leader Thune. I’m going to suggest that we, Republicans, offer them the DREAMers, which everybody in the country except 5% on each edge want to be done, along with the ability to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities, because sanctuary cities are a problem.

JT: Yeah.

HH: They’re a refuge for dangerous illegal immigrants, and possibly even worse than criminals, maybe terrorists. And everybody wants the DREAMers done. We can flip the script here. Any conversation about that on the Hill?

JT: There are some conversations around that. And again, I think if this does get, if the Democrats were actually serious about negotiating, I think those are things that could be put in place. Certainly, as you know, there’s a lot of interest on our side in doing away with sanctuary cities, which as you point out, is a huge problem. And I think the President has expressed in the past some interest in dealing with the DREAMer issue. I think the President’s in position, if we wants to, to be the guy, because he is viewed as the person who closed and secured the border, could do something on this issue. But in the end, you’ve got to have a willing partner. And I don’t know if he’s going to have that with the Democrats. We’ll see. I mean, I think right now, what I’ve suggested, and I think it’s true, is that if the Senate Democrats want to make a deal here, they’re going to have to sit down with the White House and figure out a path forward. But I don’t think the Democrats know what they want. I mean, they haven’t given us the list of their demands, yet, other than these vague categories. And I just think they’re in a tough spot. But TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, cyber, you know, CISA, the cyber operations for the country, are all in that bill. And if they decide to shut the government down, I think it’s going to be a very hard position to defend.

HH: Do they even have a lead negotiator, Leader Thune? Do they have someone that they’ve said it’s going to be Chuck Schumer is going to sit down with Leader Thune and the President to work this out? Or is it their Appropriations vice chair? What is it?

JT: They haven’t said, and we’ve been asking. You know, we’ve said we’re prepared to negotiate, and the White House is ready, I believe, to sit down. Katie Britt, who chairs the subcommittee on Homeland on the Appropriations Committee has sort of taken the lead role, or at least has offered up the opportunity to sit down with whomever the Democrats want to put forward. And you know, obviously, we will be engaged, I will be engaged in that as well. But you know, in the end, the Democrats have got to tell us what they want and be willing to negotiate with the White House. And at this point, it seems like they’re more interested in having the issue than they are in having a solution.

HH: Would you personally support a deal that included both the DREAMers and a funding cut-off switch for sanctuary cities? And that might be 100%, it might be 50%, it might be 25% of all federal funds in all categories. I don’t know what it is, but a trigger?

JT: Yeah, I mean, let me think about that. I hate to, I mean, not to negotiate in advance, or negotiate against yourself, so to speak, until we kind of figure out what the Democrats want. But I think, like I said, I think there’s some things that could be put on the table. This is a president who obviously likes to find solutions, and is willing to go places that others haven’t. And so let’s see where the conversation goes.

HH: Yeah, he did the First Step Act in Term one. A first step act on regularization would make a lot of sense to me. Let me close by asking you about the poor people at TSA. During the last shutdown, I was flying a lot, and they were working without pay for a long time. Are they back in the same hopper again, working without pay?

JT: Yeah, I mean, that’s the problem. Now fortunately, I mean, it falls on the pay period, so they’re probably paid for a couple weeks. But if this continues, that’s what’s going to happen. In fact, I was just talking to one of my colleagues who flew in just, you know, over on Monday here to come back into town, and said he was asked by TSA agents at the airport, you know, are we going to be in this situation again where we don’t know where the next paycheck’s coming from. That’s what the Democrats are, this is where this ends up, where this leads us. And again, that’s not a good outcome for anybody. So I hope they figure out what they want and are willing to sit down and negotiate in good faith. And let’s see if there’s a there, there. But if not, at least help let us fund these agencies with a continuing resolution until the end of the fiscal year. At a minimum, they ought to be willing to do that.

HH: Majority Leader John Thune, thank you for joining me. By the way, good luck to your South Dakota quarterback who’s leaving the fabled halls of Columbus for greener pastures. But good luck to Lincoln.

JT: Yes, indeed. He’s a good quarterback. Thanks, Hugh.

HH: He’s going to be a great kid down there. Thank you, Leader Thune.

End of interview.

The post Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) On A Looming Battle With Iran And Funding For DHS And “The Dreamers.” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

The Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran –one of the few genuine experts on Iran inside the Beltway– joined me on the program in hour three today to discuss what he thinks President Trump will do and what he hopes POTUS does.

The audio:

01-19hhs-doran

The transcript:

HH: As promised, Mike Doran of the Hudson Institute, where he is, of course, one of the resident experts on the Islamic Republic of Iran. And I preface this by saying there are a handful of people who have been actually working on the Islamic Republic of Iran for more than a day or a couple of weeks, or a news cycle or a few. And one of them is Michael Doran. Michael, welcome back. Good to see you. By way of beginning, can you tell people how long you’ve been focused on the Islamic Republic?

MD: Oh, well, first of all, thank you for having me. Great to be here. I guess about 20 years. I worked in the White House for George W. Bush from 2005-07. I was in charge of the Middle East at the National Security Council, and I spent more time reading intelligence on Iran than anything else when I was there.

HH: Okay. That is, that’s why I called you in. I want to find out, do you want, if President Trump calls you today and says, ‘Mike, what do you want me to do about Iran?’, what does Mike Doran say?

MD: Well, I think, I wasn’t expecting that question. I was expecting you to ask me what do I think Trump is going to do. And I’m, what I think he’s going to do, I think is also what I’d like to see him do. I think he should take out Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. I think decapitation is the only way to move forward at this point. I think there’s no possibility of negotiating with the regime as long as he’s in place. There’s no possibility of alleviating the suffering of the people on the ground as long as he’s in place. And so moving him aside, or moving him out of the picture is probably in everyone’s interest.

HH: Now that is regime decapitation. That’s what we did in Venezuela. Assume for the moment we can do that. What do you think would take his place?

MD: Well, I think a leader from within the IRGC, an IRGC general would, Revolutionary Guard general would step up and take charge. Or, it’s also possible that his son or someone else would take the Supreme Leader’s role. But I think that the office itself would be diminished by his departure.

HH: Now Mike Doran, I’ve got a target list. I don’t know anything, right? I’m a civilian. I didn’t, all I know about Iran is what I’ve read about Iran, and over the years, and what you learn on the domestic side over at DOJ when I was in the AG’s office doing FISA warrants. So I don’t know a lot about how it operates other than what Ostovar or you or Karim Sadjadpour or others write about it. Why have we not blown up Kharg Island? And they have two other oil terminals that fill up tankers that provide them hard currency for the regime. Otherwise, there’s just no way for them to get any money if we blow up their terminals. Why haven’t we done that?

MD: We haven’t done that, and that’s actually the logical next question in response to what I said, because there are real inherent dangers in what I said about decapitation. And we haven’t done it, because we’re afraid of the counterattack from the Iranians. There was, back in June when the Israelis and the Iranians were fighting, the Israelis didn’t hit any of the oil facilities of the Iranians because they were afraid that Iran would respond by hitting Saudi and Emirate oil facilities, or by hitting certain facilities in Israel that they, as well, oil facilities in Israel. So there was a kind of mutual restraint in that war. It wasn’t quite all-out war between Israel and Iran. And that’s something I think that we fear as well. The Iranians still have an incredibly potent missile arsenal that they can use to strike our positions and to strike the Israelis and others. I think the President, one of the reasons why I think he’s going to go for a, why he will think seriously about a decapitation strategy is that he’ll get signals from within the Iranian system that there are people at the top levels of the regime who would like to see that happen, too. I’m sure there’s a lot of frustration with the situation right now. They don’t have water in Tehran. They have water shortages. They have electricity shortages. They have a currency that is completely worthless now. If you’re a businessman, you can’t take a loan. If you’re a worker, you can’t have a working wage, because the economy is completely gone, collapsed. And all of that goes back to the American sanctions. So until you get, until you get a negotiation with the Americans, you can’t begin to work on any of the practical problems that they have day to day. And you can’t get a negotiation with the Americans, because the Supreme Leader won’t allow it.

HH: And so Mike Doran, I’m back to the what if’s. I thought in June that their ICBM attack hit at least one utility that was of interest, and that they tried to hit Dimona, which people in Israel who don’t have clearances, and people outside Israel who don’t have clearances, believe to be where their nuclear weapons program is located in Israel, at the Dimona facility. Assume for a moment that Israel has all the defenses that they had, and that the Lincoln will provide more, and that we’ve moved additional batteries of THAAD missiles and other things that we have, that they’re as well-defended as they can be. Why would taking out Khamenei, but not taking out the oil, not trigger an ICBM attack of the sort you’re worried about?

MD: Well, it will. It will, and one should be worried about it. But one would hope that there would be, then, a deescalation process after Khamenei was taken out just like there was the last time around. The Israelis have an escalatory ladder that they did not go up in June. They were restrained by President Trump. I think the President expected that because he restrained the Israelis, that there would be a kind of, I don’t want to use the word gratitude, but at least an awareness on the side of the regime that they were spared thanks to America restraining Israel, and that they would be then more inclined to negotiate with them. But they’ve stiff-armed him since then. So I think he’s going to conclude that they need another lesson. There is another thing they could do, though, Hugh, which they haven’t done, meaning the Trump administration. I’ve got an article coming out in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow morning saying that we can seize the money of the Iranians relatively easily. We know where it is, and so we don’t even have to carry out a kinetic attack against their oil facilities. We can shut down their oil sales by destroying their shadow banking system. And we haven’t wanted to do that until now, because it is being run through one of our close allies. And I think that we have been a little bit too delicate with that ally, namely…

HH: You know, Mike Doran, years ago when you were working for W., W. invited Bill Bennett, Mark Levin, and me, and three other talkers into the Oval to have a conversation about the war in Iraq. And either Bill or I, someone asked him why aren’t we going hard against Iran? And he said lots of things we can do. We can disintermediate the money. Heh. Pretty big word, isn’t it, disintermediate, for me? And it was funny, but I assume that’s what you’re talking about. We can take the money. We know where it is.

MD: Yeah, yeah, and well, we can shut down the shadow banking system that they use to sell their oil to China, because the economic lung of Iran is actually in Dubai. The Dubai banks are where most of the Iranian transactions are being processed. We keep, you know, last Thursday, the Treasury put out some new sanctions, and they hit shell companies that the Iranians use to move this money through the Dubai banking system. But we don’t actually touch the banks. And I think, that’s what my article tomorrow argues. We need to actually begin fining and even sanctioning these banks, because we know what they’re doing. They pretend to not know that this is Iranian money, but it is, and they know it.

HH: Now Mike Doran, when we come back after the break, I want to explore further with you whether you think, why you think he will act, when he’s going to act, and whether or not there’s enough strategic defense that has flowed into the country before then. But a quick exit question – can we do all three? Can we take a shot at Khamenei, who I assume is in a hardened location, can we blow up Kharg Island and the other two terminals, and can we disintermediate their money via the shutdown of the accounts? Can we do all three things at once?

MD: We could do, we could do all three things at once, but if we go after the oil facilities, I think that they will hit the oil facilities of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And that will be really, that will be quite messy.

HH: Is that why Saudi Arabia, I don’t think the UAE has, MBZ has not called the President, to my knowledge, to urge restraint. But I understand both Israel and Saudi Arabia did last week. I thought that was more in line with getting ducks in a row. Is that what you thought?

MD: No. I think that the Saudis and the Turks who are converging in their view of the region want stability. They fear all of the instability that will come from conflict.

HH: I’m going to come right back with Mike Doran. Follow him on X, [@Doranimated]. And go the Hudson Institute. He is one of the half dozen people who actually knows what they’re talking about when it comes to the mullahs. So stay tuned. I’ll be right back with Mike after this.

— – – – —

HH: Mike, why do you think the President didn’t act last week before the protesters were killed? Although they did not protest because of his assurances of help, because they were blacked out. They can’t rely on that. I mean, they weren’t listening to my radio show ten days ago when the President said, you know, we’ll hit them harder than they’ve ever been hit before, and then he said it to Sean Hannity, and he said it to Tony Dokoupil. I don’t think they’re in the streets to be mowed down by they Iranians because of Donald Trump. So why do you think he didn’t act last week?

MD: Well, there’s what we know, and what you and I were talking about. A lot of the major countries in the region asked him not to, asked him to hold off. I suppose that also because we don’t have enough forces in the region to handle the counterattack. You know, last June, we ran through 25% of our THAAD, of our global THAAD missile arsenal, or interceptor arsenal. And at current rates of production, it would take five years to replace the 25% that we went through. The Iranians, Russians, and Chinese, and the North Koreans, they have discovered a chink in our armor, and that is the question of these interceptors. They can shoot a lot of relatively cheap missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles at us and our allies, and taking them down is very expensive. And so I would expect that our military said to President Trump that they didn’t have the forces in place to handle the counterattack. Their neighbors were uncomfortable. And then there’s what we don’t know, Hugh, and that’s who’s, what have the Iranians been saying, them meaning the regime, to Trump? I wonder if there isn’t some kind of a negotiation going on there. There seems to be from some of the comments that the President has made, but I don’t have any information about it.

HH: Now Mike, on Friday during the big prayers, there’s always a major prayer deal in Tehran on Friday. It wasn’t Khamenei, it was Khatami, who’s another hard-liner. And he said we are going to hang people, and Donald Trump is awful, and he said bad things about the President. Khamenei over the weekend insulted the President again. This is not the behavior of a regime that is afraid of us, is it?

MD: No, it’s not the behavior, and it’s also, though, very important for them to look tough before their own public with respect to the United States. And what they’re, the message isn’t just to Donald Trump. It’s to all the protesters. Don’t think that we are cowed by America. Don’t think that they can do anything to protect you. So it’s a, really, that’s the heart of the message, is really to their own protesters. But they’re very adept at talking one way in public and sending a completely different message in private. You’ll remember that Trump told the story about when they hit al-Asad air base after we killed Soleimani, they called him and said listen, we’re going to keep it limited. Let’s please have a climb-down after this. And so this, that’s typical about the way that the Iranians work. Very tough in public, and sending more conciliatory messages in private.

HH: In June, Mike, I think the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies put out a target list in Iran. And there were 25 different things including oil facilities, IRGC headquarters. They can’t put where the Supreme Leader is, because he’s going to pull a Dick Cheney and go to an undisclosed location, or like W. did go, went to an undisclosed location. Do you think we even have the ability to decapitate the regime? I would imagine they’re on high alert, a lot higher than Nicolas Maduro was.

MD: Yeah, well I can’t know that. But I’m guessing that the Israelis probably know where he is. And they have been, they have shown to have such penetration of the regime, it would really surprise me if they didn’t know that. And if the Israelis know it, then we know it. But it’s possible, it’s possible that we don’t.

HH: You know, Mike, I’ve been reading this book, King of Kings about the Shah. And it was a bestseller last year, and about what the Shah did and didn’t do. And the Iranian army didn’t hang with him. And he was incapable of the kind of violence, the kind of violence we saw last week. I want to get your assessment of this. When we account for population size, 3,000 Americans dead on 9/11 in a country of 300 million. A country of 10 million Israelis, they lose 1,200 dead in a day. In Tiananmen Square, we don’t know how many people the Chinese killed in 1989. I think proportionally, the massacre of last week is far worse than any of those three events. Do you agree with me?

MD: Yeah, I do, and we don’t know, we don’t know the final numbers. But I mean, it’s clearly, it’s clearly in the many thousands. I don’t know how many. We won’t know for some time. But you know, there’s not going to be, there’s not going to be anyone in Iran who doesn’t have a family member who’s been affected.

HH: Okay, so that brings me to this. I don’t think we can bring about regime change. Matt Continetti talked about regime coercion. I talk about regime evolution in Venezuela. We’re hoping that they move like Jeane Kirkpatrick said from dictatorships to democracy. But I don’t think we can change anything, because it’s so, it’s such a malignancy inside, the state within the state is such a malign and everywhere present thing. What is the best way of killing, I thought killing off the oil was the best way to kill off the metastatic IRGC. What do you think is?

MD: I think it’s what I’m arguing in the Wall Street Journal. I think that the cleanest, the easiest move that will give you the most effect with the least disruption is to shut down their banking system. And we can do that in one fell swoop. We can do it. They will work to try to reconstitute, but we can definitely do that. That, I think, is the smartest first step, because this is also the system that is allowing the elite in Iran to live, you know, there’s these two economies. There’s the elite economy and then the economy of everybody else. And the elite is able to live this luxurious lifestyle by immiserating everyone else thanks to this banking system. So you’ll hit the elite hard, and that would position the Americans in, I think, in a much better negotiating position regardless of what they choose to do. If Donald Trump chooses to negotiate, if he chooses to strike, whatever he wants to do, he’ll have more leverage if he shuts down their banking system.

HH: Now do you argue tomorrow and generally that going after Khamenei is the first step? Or is it a coordinated step along with shutting down the shadow banking? Or is there a ladder of escalation in Michael Doran’s mind?

MD: No, I only argued about the, I only argued about the banking, because nobody was talking about this. And they’re talking about a lot of other things like seizing tankers, and you, for example, attacking the oil, which could have all kinds of secondary effects that we might not want to contemplate. And I was actually surprised at myself when I said take out Khamenei. I really think that that’s probably where Trump is thinking because of the success of the Maduro operation and so forth. If I were actually in Donald Trump’s shoes, the thing I think I would first do is go for the money. I would want to have a lot of information that I personally don’t have before I would order a major military operation.

HH: All right, so I’m going to come back with Michael Doran. Don’t go anywhere, America, except over to my YouTube channel. You will see this video there before the end of the day. You’ll also see the transcript over at Hughhewitt.com. Michael Doran can be followed, [@Doranimated]. I’ll ask him that on the other side. I think it’s that. I’ve got it linked. I watch it every day, so I know where Mike is putting stuff up, but I think it’s [@Doranimated]. And don’t go anywhere. I’m coming right back with Mike Doran of the Hudson Institute after this.

— – – – – –

HH: Michael, what is your X account? I left last segment without making sure I got it right. What is it?

MD: Oh, it’s @Doranimated.

HH: @Doranimated. Okay, so people will find it if they get close enough. @Doranimated. Okay, Mike, back to the IRGC. How, I’ve heard so many different views of how many people have guns within the crazy militia, their sort of parallel military. It’s not the Iranian military.

MD: The Basij.

HH: The IRGC. So how many in the IRGC, and how many in the Basij?

MD: Oh, you know, I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips. I think the Basij is about 6,000 armed men, but I don’t have those loaded up in my head right now. And the IRGC is a relatively lean force. You know, they don’t have, the IRGC is there to protect the regime. So it controls the missiles. It controls the proxy network abroad. The Artesh, which is the regular military, has been historically neglected by the regime, because it was associated with the Shah, and with the Americans.

HH: So neglected that during the 12-day war, none of their MIG’s from the old days even flew, because they would have gotten shot down by the IDF. Now I also remember from the June 12-day war, a lot of their missile launchers were destroyed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Do they have enough to mount an attack on the oil facilities of UAE, of Bharain, of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, because I still think unless you cut the oil off, you really are not going to, no one’s going to notice bank account seizures, right? If we’re trying to deter bad people around the world…

MD: But they…

HH: No one’s going to notice that.

MD: They still, they certainly do. They’ve put a lot of effort into building more since then. The Israelis did not getting all of them. They made a point of showing, remember at the end of the war, that they could still get them off. They had, also, many in the far east of the country, which they had been not entirely beyond Israeli purview, but outside of where the Israelis were focusing. And they could bring, they could use those to hit their neighbors. They could bring them westward to shoot the Israelis, at the Israelis. There’s no doubt that they have, that they still have a potent arsenal and the ability to deliver it.

HH: So Mike, is there really any solution here? I don’t think we’re going to go in on a ground war for another decade or two until the Iraq effect is over, and the Afghanistan effect is over, like the Vietnam syndrome. But is there any way to actually dislodge the regime? I don’t think there is, but tell me if I’m wrong.

MD: No, I don’t think, I don’t think this is an easy process. I think we are going to be managing a very, very volatile and messy Iran for years. It’s going to, it’s going to morph into different forms. Once the Supreme Leader is out of the picture, we can begin negotiations with the regime. But the IRGC runs the economy of Iran in some very large percentage. Maybe 80% of the economy, I’m making that number up, but it’s something like that magnitude, is in the hands of the IRGC. So regime change would really mean getting the IRGC out of the economy. And that’s going to take a very, very long time.

HH: Well, that’s like de-Baathification. And of course, everyone remembers what happened in Iraq after we de-Baathified and disbanded the army. It doesn’t want that. In fact, Donald Trump brought it up. Why didn’t you take out all the other people not named Maduro? And he said do you remember Iraq after Paul Bremmer got there? And is that a well-taken lesson? Is that something we should internalize?

MD: I do think it’s, I think it’s important. I think it’s important to be prudent about this whole situation. I’m not saying that we should be looking for an IRGC, a kinder, gentler IRGC to cut a deal with, but we should be careful about big, grand projects of remaking the Middle East. One of the most important issues that isn’t talked about in the Iran context is the ethnic question in Iran. Persians only make up about 47% of the population of Iran. And we have these concentrated ethnic enclaves all around. The Persians are in the middle of the country. It’s kind of a sunflower there, the disc in the middle of the flower. And the petals are all the minorities around the borders. And the minorities are on both sides of the border, so you have Azerbaijanis in the north and the northwest of the country right next to the country of Azerbaijan. So they have strong bonds of affinity with people across the border. The Kurds in Iran are right across the border from Kurds in Iraq and Kurds in Turkey and so forth. So the ethnic composition of Iran is of great concern to Iran’s neighbors, and this is changing significantly while we speak.

HH: All right, I have one more segment with Mike Doran. Don’t go anywhere except @Doranimated, I got it right, on X. @Doranimated, and follow him there, and I have one more segment coming up with Mike Doran of the Hudson Institute. Stay tuned.

— – – – —

HH: Michael, what are the consequences if President Trump hasn’t done anything to punish Iran for the massacre of at least 15,000 people and the imprisonment of tens of thousands more? If he does nothing in a period of time, let’s say two months, because sometimes, it takes two months to get ready for something. What will be the consequences for Donald Trump and for the American deterrence that he has rebuilt, actually, in the first year of his second term?

MD: Well, that’s, you put your finger, I think, on the key word there. You said the key word, which is deterrence. You remember, Donald Trump likes to, he likes to keep all options open, and he likes to put himself in the position of being the decider. And he likes to keep everybody guessing, including the people close to him who are around him. That isn’t such a bad thing, but I think sometimes, he gets the calibration wrong. In the last, in his first term, you remember that he contemplated striking Iran, and then he didn’t. And then the Iranians came to the conclusion that he was a paper tiger. And they tried to then, Qasem Soleimani launched this whole campaign to throw us entirely out of Iraq. And that, then, led to Trump taking down Soleimani. And I think that was an awareness on his part that he had gotten the deterrence wrong. And I think he’s had enough experience with Iran that he won’t make that mistake again. But one of the reasons why I’m saying that I think he’s going to act is because he took such a strong position, and they have flouted so directly. And I think he’s seen this movie before.

HH: I also agree with that. But having been dared, having been taunted by the regime since he took the strong public position for eight days, and they haven’t turned their internet back on, I think just to disintermediate money is bad, because no one can see it. It’s worse to take a shot at Khamenei and miss, you know, have him show up in a secret bunker. So the one thing we can do that I know we can hit. We can hit IRGC headquarters. They’re all over the country. And we can hit the oil terminals. So if the problem is our very closest allies next to Israel are the ‘Little Sparta’, UAE, do you think they want us to get to a conclusion of this? Or do they want, we haven’t done anything to Iran. I mean, we literally have done nothing to them since Midnight Hammer. Do you think they want to leave the status quo with them reconstituting their missile program and nothing else?

MD: No, but they don’t, what they also don’t want, the neighbors don’t want is a wounded animal. They have to live next to Iran always. So if the United States goes in and takes some action against the IRGC bases, IRGC headquarters and then leaves the regime in place, the regime can then, might take out its anger on its neighbors. The other thing the neighbors don’t want or worry about is tremendous disruption. The Turks especially are worried about this. The Turks look at our policies in Iraq, and they look at the Syrian civil war. They still have millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, created a lot of disruption on their borders. They all crave stability, and none of them, just like they go through the calculations like you just did with me, and they don’t see a simple solution here. There’s no simple set of actions that gets us to a perfectly stable Iran. And there’s no set of really strong acts of retribution against the regime that don’t create the possibility of tremendous disruption with lots of refugees, creation of new pockets for terrorists to work in, and so on. So nobody has the magic bullet here, the answer that gives us everything we want. And so they’re all counseling caution.

HH: So nobody has a magic bullet, nobody can predict the future of what they will do. What do you think the Israelis would prefer President Trump do?

MD: I think that the Israelis want, the number one thing that they want is an end to the Iranian nuclear program. The other thing that they want is an end to the ballistic missile program. So they, if there’s going to be a major attack on Iran, they would like to see, in addition to the stuff that you were talking about, like hitting IRGC headquarters, they would really like to see the ballistic missile program hit hard, very, very hard, and actually taking it offline. I don’t know that we can promise them that, though.

HH: Do you think, do you have faith that Iron Beam works, their new laser?

MD: Oh, everything I’ve seen about it says, suggests that it works. It’s not a total solution to the problem, but it’s an incremental step forward.

HH: Well, if that works and we’ve got the Lincoln there with the full complement of a strike group and all their defensive abilities, and we’ve flooded THAADs in there, what’s the worst-case scenario if Donald Trump does all of the above – IRGC, take a shot at Khamenei and other senior leadership, and take out the oil? What’s the worst-case?

MD: Oh, the worst case is that they would, the worst case is that they would hit, I think, the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. The worst-case is that one of their ballistic missiles would get through and create a mass casualty effect in Israel. We’ve also seen, now, you’ve seen that Catherine Herridge report last week that the Iranians used a dirty bomb, may have, I should be a little bit more cautious in my language, may have used a dirty bomb against us, against al-Asad base in response to the Soleimani killing. They could put something nasty on the end of one of these warheads as well.

HH: You know, I have seen that report. I’ve asked people who were at al-Asad before and after. They evacuated and they went back, were they worried about that. They’re not. Don’t you think we would have tested for that, Mike?

MD: Well, what I’m hearing is that there’s an abnormal, there’s an abnormal number of incidents of thyroid cancer among the people who, the people who survived. All I can say is it looked to me like it was a serious report that should be looked into.

HH: Oh, she’s a good reporter. Yeah.

MD: Yeah. So I can’t speculate as to why. Look, it’s possible that they weren’t aware of it, and it’s only becoming aware now. It’s also possible that they were not fully certain about it, and they didn’t want to say it, because it would require, it would require retribution when the policy didn’t call for that.

HH: Well, Mike, Mike Doran, we will look for your piece in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow to everyone who is listening, and I hope you will come back. Exit question, 10 seconds. Do you think Donald Trump will do something, anything that we notice, within this week?

MD: No. I think it’ll be the week after.

HH: All right. Mike Doran. I love people with answers. Thank you so much. Good to talk to you again. @Doranimated. Go follow him on X.

End of interview.

The post Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute On What He Hopes President Trump Does To Iran appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, covered the uprising in Iran for Hugh today:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: As you heard me say at the beginning of the show, the biggest story in the world is what’s going on in Iran. And I know we all have our favorite interesting stories, and I cover the news as it breaks, but the biggest story in the world is in Iran. For 47 years, that tyranny has been in place. And for almost as long, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has been working to bring it down and free the people of Iran. Joining us now is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Mark Dubowitz, who has been on with me before. He did a great podcast series last year on Iran, which was 12 parts. He added another part this weekend called Iran Breakdown. I recommend it to you. Mark, welcome. Let me start with a big, what’s your reaction to what’s happened over the last two weeks and a day?

MD: Well, Hugh, thanks so much for having me on. Look, Hugh, it’s extraordinary. I mean, as you said, I’ve been working on Iran for 22 years, working with a lot of administration, both Trump administrations, on maximum oppression on the regime but also encouraging maximum support for the Iranian people. And the Iranian people have been out on the streets since 2009 repeatedly calling for death to the dictator, end the Islamic republic, establish relations with America, with Israel. And now, in the past two weeks, they’ve taken to the streets. Millions of Iranians are on those streets, but they’re also getting mowed down by the security forces. Thousands of Iranians have been slaughtered, tens of thousands have been arrested, tortured, and dozens executed. So it is a pivotal moment for the United States, for Iran, for the region.

HH: So I stress to my audience they can’t trust what they see on X unless they know that the person on X is someone they can trust. They can trust you. They can trust Cliff May, Karim Sadjadpour at Carnegie. You’ve got a lot of colleagues at FDD I’m pushing out. How do you tell, if you’re just a newbie to the Iran issue, who to trust on this about what’s going on there since the regime has severed outside world contact with they people of Tehran and across all of Iran?

MD: Yeah, I mean, Hugh, listen, it’s difficult to know what’s going on, on the ground, because as you’ve said, they’ve shut down the internet. They’re interfering with Starlink access. Videos are still coming in, and we’re certainly seeing what’s happening on the ground. What do I trust? Look, I don’t trust anybody defending the regime, number one. Number two, I don’t trust anybody saying that U.S. intervention is going to lead to some kind of rally around the flag. The notion that millions of Iranians are on the streets and they’re getting mowed down by the security forces, but somehow if President Trump intervenes and goes against the regimes, these Iranians are going to defend the regime, I think is nonsense. So anybody saying that should not be trusted. I think there are a lot of good Iranian voices. My colleague, Saeed Ghasseminejad, certainly Reza Pahlavi. I mean, he’s all over social media, the crown prince, the son of the former Shah. He has been very articulate and I certainly would trust many of the things that he’s saying.

HH: Okay, now let’s talk about what the President can do. He was my guest last Thursday, and he said very bluntly ‘we’ll hit them very, very hard if they kill people.’ But he also gave them a little bit of an out. He said some of these deaths were because of stampedes. Later that night, he didn’t use that out with Sean Hannity as much, and it’s been totally abandoned by Sunday night. The President now knows there are thousands of people dead. I’m sure we’ve confirmed that to him. What could he do, in your view, that would be most effective in freeing Iran?

MD: So I think there are a number of things he can do. I mean, first of all is to target the security forces that are actually engaged in this brutal repression. Go after the repression apparatus. And you could do that through offensive cyber and/or military strikes against the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij, the police. These are the people that are engaged in this brutal repression. Number two is he’s already reached out to Elon Musk, is to try to restore or improve the Starlink connection so these videos are coming out. Iranians are right now being murdered in the dark. They need to be brought to light, and that’s very important. I think the President and Elon can do that. Number three, you know, what Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump discussed at the end of December that you reported on, Hugh, was the growing and reconstituting Iranian missile program, which is going to represent a significant threat to the United States and Israel as it gets rebuilt. The Israelis are going to go take it out. I think better the United States takes it out, because if the United States takes out the missile program, Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is going to be quite reluctant to respond, because he knows that if he attacks the United States, that’s the end of his regime. If the Israelis take it out, it’s going to read to another round. Iran will fire hundreds, if not thousands of ballistic missiles at Israel, and we’re going to be in a major war, and the United States and President Trump’s going to have to deal with that. So I think President Trump, if he has the opportunity, take out those dangerous ballistic missiles, support the people, unlock the communications, go after the regime apparatus.

HH: Mark, this is a difficult question for anyone to answer, but you’ll know if anybody knows. I heard Karim today in a podcast with Dan Senor say that the IRGC is 150,000 strong. All right, Iran is 90 million people. 10% is 9 million people. 1% is 900,000 people. So 150,000 IRGC members, that’s a third of 1%. How hard is it to overthrow 150,000 thugs? It’s a lot of thugs. They’ve got a lot of guns. There aren’t any other guns in Iran, but that’s not a big police state. It’s relatively small, isn’t it?

MD: Well, there’s 150,000 IRGC. There’s probably 2-3 million members of the Basij, which is their militia. Those are the thugs that drive around on motorcycles and beat up and torture and kill Iranians. So you’ve got a couple million there. And they’re also importing thugs from Iraq. This is the Iraqi-Hezbollah and the Shiite militias that they’re bringing in. They’re bringing in Arabs to kill Persians, because in some cases, the security forces don’t want to turn their guns on their own people. So the regime’s apparatus is formidable, but you’re right. Listen, I mean, there is 92 million Iranians. And if 10% came to the street, they could overwhelm the security forces. And certainly, some of them are armed, particularly some of the Kurdish groups, the Baluchis, and others. So I think that’s certainly potential.

HH: So Mark, you’re not old enough to remember the actual revolution. I watched it in real time with Ray Price and Richard Nixon in San Clemente, my second job out of college. People marched in the daytime then. Do you expect anti-regime marches to occur in the daytime?

MD: Yeah, they are. They’re occurring in the daytime. They’re occurring in the nighttime. I mean, what I’m worried about, Hugh, is that if there’s no U.S. intervention, that these protests are going to die off because of the brutal repression. And whether it’s day or night, they’re, the guns are being turned on Iranians. Thousands are being slaughtered. At some point, they’re just going to have to, they’re going to stay home. And if they stay home, the regime is going to come out of this, yes, a wounded animal, but a bitter one, a lethal one, a much more dangerous one. And I’d be worried that Iranians will never go back on the streets.

HH: Follow Mark on X @MDubowitz. Follow everyone at FDD @FDD. Mark is coming back next hour so my drive time audience inside the Beltway hears him for six minutes and repeat a lot of this. So make sure you listen to both segments of my interview with Mark Dubowitz and follow him, and follow the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Stay tuned.

— – – – –

HH: I’m bringing back Mark Dubowitz who was with us last hour. He is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, one of the actual people you can trust on Iran. Follow him on X @MDubowitz. Follow everyone at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and there are a lot of them. There are a half-dozen Iran experts. The FDD is actually the go-to place. Mark, when we ran out of time last hour, I wanted to ask you. President Trump mentioned on Air Force One last night that the regime wants to negotiate. My reaction is God no, don’t do that. They’re just playing for time. Is that your reaction?

MD: Yeah, Hugh, absolutely. I mean, this is a typical regime trick. Their back is against the wall, so they offer negotiations and try to trap American negotiators. And the only place where they tend to win against America is at the negotiating table. They won against Biden. They won against Obama. They think they could possibly win against President Trump. I think it would be a big mistake to go back to the table fundamentally because, number one, it would be a betrayal of the Iranian people that are on the streets. And number two, Hugh, there’s no way that Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is going to meet the minimum demands that President Trump has – a full dismantlement of their nuclear missile programs and terror networks. No way Khamenei’s going to give into that. And if not, he’s just going to play for time, try to divide America, try to divide the White House, try to divide the U.S. from Europe, and he’s going to ultimately try to embarrass the President. And I don’t think the President is going to be embarrassed, an is prepared to be embarrassed. So he needs to enforce the red line that he laid out.

HH: Now Mark, the Israelis could have killed Khamenei, and no doubt, we can kill Khamenei. But there are arguments on both sides. Ought we to leave him alive? Or ought we to, if we have the ability, have him shot and killed?

MD: Well, I do think we need to decapitate the leadership of Iran. And that includes Khamenei, but it also includes senior IRGC commanders, those who are in control of the command and control system of Iran, and that includes the repression apparatus. So yeah, if you can decapitate the leadership, then there’s a possibility of others stepping into their place. I mean, that’s what President Trump did in Venezuela with Maduro. I think there is more than just Khamenei. There are others, but certainly a decapitation effort should be seriously considered.

HH: All right, now Mark, what are the, how many IRGC bases are there? How many Basij bases? The final Israeli wave was going to hit them. President Trump waved it off in order to bring that conflict to an end last June. How many target sites are we talking about?

MD: So there are, I mean, there are dozens and dozens of IRGC and Basij bases all around the country. Obviously, headquarters in places like Tehran, but certainly, it’s a target-rich environment. I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have detailed intelligence on all of these bases, maneuvers, apparatus. This has been studied for years, Hugh, I mean, particularly by the Israelis. I mean, Mossad and military intelligence in Israel have a very, very large and expansive target set, and that information has been provided to the Americans. So there’s no shortage of targets. It’s just a question of what President Trump will choose.

HH: If President Trump brings down this regime, I think he goes to the top of American presidents at least since FDR. He’s going to actually surpass Reagan. The Soviet Union, of course, dissolved under George H.W. Bush. How would you rank that achievement? I think Iran is a lynchpin, and I’ve got Nixon on the brain. Nixon used to say it’s everything. It’s one of the two pillars of the Middle East. And so how big of a moment is this for Donald Trump?

MD: Yeah, I’ve said publicly, Hugh, you know that, that if he brings down the Islamic Republic of Iran, he will be one of the greatest foreign policy presidents in modern history, if not the greatest. I mean, the Islamic Republic of Iran, first of all, has killed and maimed thousands of Americans. It has created massive bloodshed and chaos in the Middle East, and continues to drag us into these endless wars in the Middle East. It’s sponsored terrorism globally. It’s threatened to kill President Trump and tried to kill him. And it has tried to build nuclear weapons. It has built a massive ballistic missile program. It’s fired hundreds of those ballistic missiles at Israel and missiles and drones at our allies in the Middle East. I mean, it has been such a force for murder, chaos, and violence, that to get rid of it and to replace it with something better and more stable, more peaceful, and more prosperous would be a game-changer for American national security. And by the way, it would also allow us to do what we need to do, which is to focus our resources in the coming years on the multi-generational threat from the Communist Chinese Party.

HH: Now I read him your quote, and he laughed. He said, “Haven’t I already done that?” He’s done pretty well, I’ve got to admit. Ruining the Iranian nuclear deterrent is a big deal. But do you think we could count on a post-Khameneist-Khomeinist regime being stable and at least not evil?

MD: Yeah, I mean, President Trump also did say that, he said, “I accept that.” I accept that in his interview with you.

HH: Yeah.

MD: Right. You know, I think he appreciates how important taking down the Islamic Republic is, and I think he has for most of his adult life. I think we have got, I don’t think we can count on anything in the Middle East, and we certainly can’t count on anything in geopolitics. But there’s no doubt in my mind that whatever comes next will be much better.

HH: So everyone in your car, go to FDD, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Follow it @FDD. Follow Mark @MDubowitz, and there are lots of other people as well. But make sure they’re reliable. Don’t believe the regime propaganda. Don’t believe the regime apologists. Don’t believe people who’ve supported the JCPOA. Believe people like Mark. Thank you, Mark Dubowitz.

End of interview.

The post Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, On the Uprising in Iran appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Ambassador Robert C. Obrien, President Trump’s last Natinal Security Advisor in the first term, joined Hugh to talk about the events of the weekend:

Audio:

01-05hhs-obrien

Transcript:

HH: Joined by Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien, formerly National Security Advisor to President Trump in term one of Donald Trump’s first term as president. He is now the chairman of American Global Security, and I’m so glad to have him on after this incredible weekend. Ambassador O’Brien, welcome. Let me begin with getting your reaction to Operation Absolute Resolve.

RCO’B: Well, Hugh, it’s good to see you and Happy New Year to you as well, my friend. It was in exquisite operation performed brilliantly by first of all, our flag professionals, the CIA guys who prepped the battlefield and were down in the jungles and the urban areas of Venezuela for months prepping this thing, getting the intel right, laying the groundwork for traitors and treasonist Venezuelans, and patriotic Venezuelans who wanted to see the regime change to cooperate with our guys, and then Delta Force, assisted by the 160th Air Assault regiment, aviation regiment, the Night Stalkers getting down there and into Venezuela in the middle of the night and hauling Maduro out of his fortress and bringing him to justice in America. It’s just 100% an exquisite operation from start to finish.

HH: Do you believe it is legal to have done this?

RCO’B: 100%. Without, there was a warrant out for his arrest. He was indicted for drugs. This is not, there were a lot of political reasons to do it, but this was a strict law enforcement effort backed by the Biden administration when they were in office. And it was 100% legal. He’s now facing justice. And look, he’s pretty lucky to be in a New York court. New York courts haven’t been very generous to Donald Trump over the past few years. So he’s got a fair and impartial Clinton-appointed judge, and we’ll see how the case goes. But it looks pretty rock solid to me.

HH: Asked on Air Force One yesterday what happens next, President Trump answers, “That depends.” I think that made a lot of sense to me, but what do you think it depends upon most, Ambassador O’Brien?

RCO’B: Well, it depends on how it goes, or how the Chavistas decide to play this. Look, they’re a political party in Venezuela. They have some support, maybe 20-30% of the votes in Venezuela. They continue to participate in the process, have free and fair elections, and may have a role in the future. Or they can be de-Baathified like the Saddam Hussein loyalists were in Iraq. And I think what President Trump and Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe are looking at is, and Pete Hegseth, is what happened to Iraq when we disbanded the Iraqi army and disbanded the government. And that was chaos, and ISIS arose, and I think they’re looking for a reasonable transition. There’s a very well-formed opposition in Venezuela led by Edmundo Gonzalez. He was elected president with like two-thirds of the vote. And since last year, he’s in Spain. He’ll be coming back. You’ve got Maria Machado, the Nobel Prize winner. You’ve got Juan Guaido, who is the acting president and former president of the national assembly. He’s in exile. He’ll be coming back to Venezuela. So there’s a very strong opposition. I’m sure they’ll enter into negotiations with Delcy Rodriguez, the current vice-president, and we’ll have a transition government, and then get on to the business of having free and fair elections.

HH: Now the minister of the interior and the head of their military have not changed. But I assume they are involved in conversations with Secretary Rubio and perhaps the Agency. Is that your assumption as well?

RCO’B: That’s my assumption, and they’ll be doing those negotiations in Spanish. Marco speaks fluent Spanish. He’ll be negotiating with them. He knows the region very well. He’s got a great team of people including folks like Mauricio Claver-Carone, who used to work for me, who was the envoy to the region for a while. And they’ll take care of business. And look, they understand what happened to Maduro. None of those guys want to be sitting in a New York courtroom. So they’ve got an opportunity here to play ball and cooperate, and potentially preserve a political future for themselves and Venezuela.

HH: Secretary Rubio on Saturday, in that extraordinary press conference, said President Trump does not play games. End of quote. You worked with him closely for two years as his NSA at the end of his first term. How do you read ‘President Trump does not play games’?

RCO’B: Well, Marco’s exactly right. He’s got my old position as well as being Secretary of State, the first person since Henry Kissinger to hold both offices. And the poor guy is working his tail off, but he’s doing a great job. And what it means is this, is Donald Trump always present parties with a fair deal. He’s an incredibly reasonable, pragmatic man. And in this case, he offered Maduro several offramps. He could have gone to Moscow or Beijing or Havana and left, and left on his own terms, and turn things over. He decided not to. He decided to play tough guy with Donald Trump. And look, Hugh, he thought he could leverage us with his illegal immigration, sending Tren de Agua guys to the United States, sending cocaine and fentanyl to undermine us, invited Hezbollah and Iran and China into the region. He thought all those things would give him an advantage. They didn’t. Donald Trump doesn’t play games, and he called his bluff, and Maduro is now in a Brooklyn jail and a New York City courthouse. And so Trump gave him a lot of opportunities, he didn’t take them, and look, this is what happens. It happened to Baghdadi, it happened to Soleimani, it happened to a lot of others when they didn’t take the deal. They lost. You had the Ayatollah a few months ago with Operation Midnight Hammer with the nuclear program. Trump said look, open your facilities to full inspections, and stop making a bomb, and we’ll leave you alone. And the Iranians gave us the middle finger, and they saw what happened.

HH: Now the most extraordinary statement in the press conference, I listened to it live, is there’s no transcript, so I’m doing this from memory. He either said, President Trump either said all of life is a deal, or life is a deal, meaning everything is a negotiation. Is that the essence of Donald Trump right there?

RCO’B: Very, very much so. I mean, look, he’s, and here it goes back to my, he’s not an ideologue. He’s a very pragmatic guy. He wants, his whole ideology is a deep love for America. Donald Trump loves America like nobody I’ve ever met, kind of like Ronald Reagan. And he wants what’s best for this country, and he’ll cut deals. I mean, look, he’s shown that. He’s shown, he was very reasonable with Kim Jung Un. He was very reasonable with Xi Jinping recently. He’s offered Putin a great deal, and Putin’s refusing that deal, which is kind of surprising to me. So he’s always willing to make a deal for peace and to end the killing, and look, war and these raids are a last option for President Trump. He would far prefer doing a deal, and doing things peacefully. And I think we’ve seen that. But if you push him too far like Maduro did, you know, he found out what happens.

HH: I will come back to Venezuela in a moment, but the President has also made a threat to Iran that if they kill protesters, and 14 people are alleged to be dead according to Reuters over the weekend as Iran convulses with protests, he will take action. What should the Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC understand about that threat?

RCO’B: Well, look, I saw today that the Ayatollah is already making plans to go to Moscow is President Trump enforces his edict. So that’s probably a good plan. Surprisingly, you now, the Iranian, who should be wealthy and doing well, have had a very difficult time economically. They can’t get water, you know, they’re lacking food stuffs. They said the Ayatollah’s got $95 billion dollars stored away that he’s going to take with him to Russia, which is crazy. So I think the Ayatollah and the mullahs are already making plans to get out of Dodge if they crack down on these protesters, which they apparently are doing. There are some open source information in the news, I don’t know what it means, that a lot of the 160th Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers, were moving to England and moving to Europe, which they did before the last attack on Iran. So you know, we’ll have to see what happens. But I don’t think the President’s going to sit back and watch innocent people be killed like Obama did in the Green Revolution when he sided with the Mullahs and the Ayatollahs over the people of Iran. And I think the President would rather side with the people of Iran over the mullahs and the Ayatollahs.

HH: Okay, let me go back to Venezuela. The last American oil company operating there is Chevron. The others were expropriated, and they were screwed. They won international arbitration awards. It is a country’s right to expropriate industries, but they have to pay for them. And they’ve been screwed. What do you think Chevron ought to do? Ought it to be standing by and willing to rebuild that, what is basically a rusted-out 25 years? We’ve got a minute left, Ambassador.

RCO’B: 100%. Chevron’s CEO Wirth is a very smart guy. Chevron’s hung in there under very difficult circumstances. A lot of people criticized them for it. I was actually in favor of Chevron staying there and keeping an American presence, hoping that something like this would happen. So Chevron can be in the lead, and I think the other American oil companies should get in there. But again, this is not to take the oil from the Venezuelan people. This is to produce the oil for the Venezuelan people, make Venezuela great again, make Venezuela rich again, make the people healthy, wealthy, and happy. And at the same time, give the American oil companies a chance to produce and then make a profit as well on the contracts that they owned.

HH: Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien, former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, still a member of the presidential advisory board on intel and the chairman of American Global Strategies, thanks for spending time with us on a very busy news day. I know you’re in demand everywhere, and I appreciate the time. Old friend, Ambassador Robert O’Brien. Thank you.

End of interview.

The post Former Natioanl Security Advisor to President Trump Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien On “Operation Absolute Resolve” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Congressman Mike Lawler joined me today to discuss why any Republican should support him in 2026 after he signed the discharge petition on a 3-year extension of Oamacare Covid-era subsidies:

Audio:

12-19hhs-lawler

Transcript:

HH: Joined by Congressman Mike Lawler. Mike Lawler represents New York’s 17th Congressional district. He won in 2022. He won in 2024. He’s been on the program before. I get along with him really well. I like him a lot. But I think I’m going to have to support his Democratic opponent in 2026, and I wanted to talk to him about that. And he was kind enough to come on. Congressman, welcome back. I’m very upset about the discharge petition.

ML: Yeah.

HH: And I don’t want to talk about the merits. I want to talk about what you did to my party that I’ve spent my life building, which has put all of your colleagues in a terrible position. Why should I overlook that?

ML: Well, respectfully, Hugh, this is a situation where Democrats shut the government down for 43 days. They made the issue of the enhanced premium tax credit the “reason” for the shutdown. And as I did during the shutdown, I went and exposed Leader Jeffries’ hypocrisy on that, showing full well that that really was not A) the issue, and B) they had no interest in solving it. When the government reopened, we sat down, a bipartisan group of us, to actually come up with a plan to reform the system. It would do a two-year extension, but it would actually start to make changes that conservatives have wanted to make to Obamacare for years – income limits, insurance reforms, rooting out fraud in the system, eliminating these zero premium plans and actually requiring a payment from the individual, PBM reform, HAS expansion. We worked, then, the group of us on the Republican side, worked with House Republican leadership to force a vote. We wanted to put the bill on the floor, and frankly, let the Democrats vote yay or nay. And I suspicion was going to be that if there was a zero plan elimination in there, most of the Democrats would vote no. And we worked through this. We tried to get it to the floor. Ultimately, we could not reach an agreement for various reasons. There was disagreement within our conference on a few fronts. But this is something that I felt very strongly about, both from a political standpoint, but also from a policy standpoint. Doing nothing was not a solution. The fact is that for the 7% of people who rely on the enhanced premium tax credit, they are going to see an exponential spike. And we have been pushing leadership for months to say okay, we need a Republican plan. We need to address the issue of healthcare affordability. It’s not enough to just say Obamacare bad, and we hate Obamacare. We all know Obamacare doesn’t work, and certainly not the way Democrats said it would work in terms of reducing costs. But we are in the majority, and we have a responsibility to govern and to address these issues. What I suspect with the discharge, what’s going to happen when we come back in January, it’ll pass the House. It’ll go to the Senate…

HH: Wait, wait. Stop. Stop. Stop, stop, stop. What’ll happen is all of the Republicans except the four will vote against that discharge petition, because it’s bad law. Am I right?

ML: No, I think there will be more than the four voting in favor of moving…

HH: Not if I’ve got anything to do with it, because it is such a bad idea. But go, I just want to stay on the discharge petition.

ML: Not, but Hugh…but Hugh…

HH: I’ll debate Obamacare with you for three hours.

ML: Yeah, no, nobody’s…

HH: But the discharge petition…

ML: Nobody’s defending the three-year. I said, even as recent as yesterday, the three-year is not acceptable policy. The problem is we need a vehicle to actually get reforms done. When the three-year passes, the discharge will be voted on, on January 6th. When the three-year extension passes the House, the Senate will not pass that. They’ve already shown they won’t pass that. And Leader Thune said that again…

HH: Okay, now Congressman, all due respect, it’s not the Senate. We’re not going to filibuster. I’m focused on one thing, which is you threw a hand grenade into my party that I’ve spent my life defending, and 213, or 212 of them are going to have to vote against what looks like it’s a good idea, and that’s going to be an ad against all of them. And if you can’t get David Joyce, you can’t get the most reasonable guy in the House. And he’s my Congressman from Ohio, if I were still living in Ohio. You threw all your guys overboard. A minute to the break, and then we’ll keep going.

ML: Well, respectfully, many of my colleagues have actually thanked us for doing it, because we need to have a vote and actually advance bipartisan legislation that includes reforms to Obamacare. So the fact is, Hugh, this is my party, too. I’ve spent my career electing Republicans and conservatives across this country and in New York. But we have a responsibility to govern, and I’m not going to shirk in that responsibility because there’s a dispute within the House.

HH: Pause for a moment. We’ll go off and then we’ll come back on. Stay right there, Congressman.

— – – – —

HH: I’m back with Mike Lawler. Congressman, I supported you when you used your leverage on the SALT deduction. I understand your district. I understand it’s difficult. But when you sign a discharge petition and the leadership says don’t do it, you are exposing, can I at least get you to admit, it’s going to be an ad in every marginal district in 2026 that they voted against extending Obamacare subsidies. It’ll be a lie, but it’ll be an ad, and they’ll be voting against them?

ML: Well, the ads were already written about allowing it to expire, and that’s the fundamental problem. That’s why I said this is political malpractice not to have a solution to this issue coupled with the larger reforms that we passed yesterday in the House that every Democrat voted against. I voted for our Speaker’s plan, because we do want to address the larger issue of healthcare. But to just dismiss the 7% and say oh, it’s okay, their healthcare premiums can go up, I’m not okay with that. And I know many of my colleagues, even…

HH: It is not dismissing them. It is not dismissing them.

ML: Yeah, but Hugh, you have to have…

HH: It is saying that…

ML: You have to have a plan.

HH: Go ahead, sir.

ML: And you have to have a plan, and we didn’t have one in time with the expiration of these premium tax credits. And by the way, we didn’t just raise this issue because Democrats raised it. Members brought this up earlier this year in May when we were negotiating the One Big Beautiful Bill. We brought it up in September before the shutdown. This was something that’s been discussed within our conference for months. And so it’s not like people were shocked that this was an issue we had to deal with.

HH: No, but it’s the discharge petition. I’m really being focused here. I’m being focused.

ML: Yup.

HH: I might agree with you. I’ve been arguing for tax credits that are targeted for people who are 200% of the poverty line and are stuck in the state exchanges. There’s a big debate to be had. There’s plenty of time to do it afterwards. But the three-year extension is bad law, it is inflationary law. It will never pass. It’s a complete showboat.

ML: No.

HH: And what I’m really, I don’t even mind that. I mind the fact that you probably cost seats to the Republican Party, because they have to vote on the discharge petition. And it’s like voting on a hand grenade.

ML: I disagree with you. Doing nothing will cost us seats. And what we did, and I just have a fundamental difference of opinion on the discharge. And many of my colleagues have signed discharge petitions, especially in recent years, including on conservative issues. The discharge petition is a tool of every member. It’s not just a tool of the minority. And sometimes, like we saw back with John Boehner was speaker, and the far right did not want the Ex-Im Bank to move forward, John Boehner did the wink and the nod, and said go sign the discharge so we can move the bill.

HH: And I do not object to the discharge petition.

ML: It’s a vehicle that…

HH: I object, that’s filibustering, I object to this one at this time when the country believes that the Obamacare three-year extension has a prayer. And you have already admitted it doesn’t have a prayer. It will never pass.

ML: Oh, I’ve said, I’ve said it will not pass, but we needed a vehicle, okay, to get an actual bill passed. And so what’s going to happen, the three-year will pass the House, the Senate will not pass it. They’ve already voted it down. They did it last week when Chuck Schumer brought it up, and I slammed Schumer for just doing a hyper-partisan three-year bill. I slammed Leader Jeffries for just doing the hyper-partisan three-year bill and not supporting the compromise bill that we negotiated. But we needed a vehicle that could get to 218 so that we could actually have a vote.

HH: But the compromise bill passed. I’ll come back on the other side. The compromise bill did pass, did it not?

ML: I’m sorry, did pass what?

HH: The compromise bill, the House bill did pass.

— – – – –

HH: Friends can disagree, and sometimes, they have falling outs, and I’m having one with Michael Lawler, because we’re not, we’re talking past each other. Congressman, the GOP healthcare plan in the House did pass, did it not?

ML: Oh, I’m sorry, yes.

HH: Yeah.

ML: The GOP plan that we moved forward, yes.

HH: So there is a vehicle that will go to the Senate. That vehicle will not get 60 votes. So if there’s going to be a resolution, it’s going to be done in the Senate, because the House can’t do anything by majority, but it takes 60 votes in the Senate. So you didn’t need to sign the discharge bill to get a vehicle. You’re making a facetious argument. You did that, I don’t know why you did it. I think you’re smart. You know what you’re doing. You’ve used leverage before. Why would you put your members, your colleagues, your friends, the party in the peril that you did? And why shouldn’t I be this pissed off?

ML: Look, I disagree with you about us putting our majority in peril. Doing nothing on the issue that Democrats weaponized during the shutdown, and that the media has tried to explain to voters is the reason their healthcare premiums are going up when you and I both know Obamacare itself is the reason. It has failed to actually reduce costs. But doing nothing on this was the wrong decision. And we had an internal battle over this. And four of us signed the discharge, but I’m telling you, there are a lot more A) that were willing to sign it, and B) that want something done on this. And so we are going to get a resolution come January, and force a vote so that we can actually get a compromise bill.

HH: You could repack, A) I want to go through your objections. Doing nothing, the Republicans didn’t do nothing. They passed an alternative. And as we’ve just let the audience know, it passed. Number two…

ML: That you just pointed out, that you just pointed out, is not going to become law, because it won’t get the Democrats votes in the Senate.

HH: Just like the discharge petition. So we have something to put in the Senate’s lap so that they can begin the negotiations. It didn’t have to be the discharge petition. But as you just pointed out, the media has been framing this to hurt Republicans, because the media is left-wing. You fed into that narrative. And no matter how many people came up and whispered to you, ‘way to go, Mike,’ four of you signed it. Four of you sent it to the floor, and it’s going to force a vote where 214 Republicans are going to have to say no. Maybe it’ll be 212, and that, because of the media that we just discussed, is going to be the ad that sinks them. So I don’t know how you can walk away from the car crash when you were driving and saying I’ve got nothing to do with that, it wasn’t me?

ML: Again, we’re just going to disagree, because the reality is the ads were already written about the expiration of the tax credits.

HH: They’ll get worse.

ML: We are seeking to do a two-pronged solution. Number one, having an answer on the enhanced premium tax credit with reforms. Number two, addressing the larger issues within the health care system, which you and I are in full agreement is a broken system under Obamacare. Healthcare premiums have risen 96%, and meanwhile, insurance profits are up over 2,000% because Obamacare was written by the insurance companies for the insurance companies. That system needs to be reformed. And we had a plan that actually will start to reform the system. And that’s what we’re seeking to get across the finish line. You know this better than anybody.

HH: I’ve got two questions before we run out of time. One, can you take your name off the discharge petition?

ML: No, it’s already active. It’s 218.

HH: Will you, you can, however, apologize for it and reconsider and say I made a mistake. Will you think about doing that between now and January so that you vote against the petition you forced onto the floor?

ML: Look, I am comfortable with my decision, and the decision I made. I didn’t make it lightly, and I made it after exhausting every single option we had before us within our House Republican conference. We worked tirelessly to get a deal with leadership, and unfortunately, as the Speaker said, we just couldn’t solve this Rubik’s Cube. There were a lot of reasons why. And ultimately, this is the decision I made.

HH: So Congressman, did you or did you not win on the SALT cap? You won on the SALT cap.

ML: We did.

HH: Yeah. So the party has been good for you. The party did what you needed done. The party, Mike Lawler got what he needed. So I’m listening to an ungrateful guy in a marginal district who wants the NRCC to support him, and people like me to do it, and you’re ungrateful. I really, I’m just furious that you did this. Do you understand that?

ML: Respectfully, yeah, respectfully, Hugh, I’m not ungrateful in the least. But I know this. My seat is one of only three seats in the country that Kamala Harris won, that a Republican represents. We’re at 220. If we lose those seats, we’re out of the majority. It’s that simple. And I am fighting to represent my district, to represent my constituents, and to give us the majority and keep Speaker Johnson in the Speaker’s chair and keep the gavel. So it’s not about being ungrateful, all right? I’ve eaten a lot of votes this year on things that I don’t necessarily agree with. There’s people on the other side of the conference that have eaten votes on SALT that they don’t necessarily agree with. That’s what happens when you have a small majority. Everybody’s got to give and take.

HH: Do you listen when you’re out in the district if enough people come up to you and say I heard the Hewitt, and Hewitt’s right, and you should apologize and vote against your discharge petition, will you listen to them? Because I think you’re a smart guy who made a mistake. And that shouldn’t end your career. You should win, but there are people like me who are just going to say you’re more trouble than you’re worth. We’ll win the majority somewhere else, because if you stab in the back, you’ll stab me in the front. And this was a real backstab, Mike.

ML: Yeah, Hugh, number one, I do listen to my constituents. I’m out every single day meeting with constituents when I’m not in D.C. I do dozens of events every week in my district, so I talk to everybody across the spectrum. Number two, I’m very blunt and direct. I don’t hide. I don’t mince words.

HH: I’m not being, I’m not being very subtle here, either.

ML: No, no. But my point is I’m not backstabbing anybody. I was very clear with the Speaker what was going to happen if we couldn’t figure this out. And so there was no backstabbing. It was straightforward. And I’ve owned my decision, and I’ve explained it. And people have every right to disagree with it, but it’s not backstabbing. It’s very straightforward.

HH: Okay, I’m going to pray for a Christmas miracle. I know you’re Catholic. Maybe on Midnight Mass, you realize you should apologize for this. I hope so. Mike, and by the way, thank you for coming on. You knew it was going to be a rough go, and I appreciate that you found the time to do it. Merry Christmas to you, Congressman. Talk to you in the New Year.

End of interview.

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