Senate Majority Leader John Thune joined Hugh today to talk about the looming “Schumer Shutdown” of the government:

Audio:

09-24hhs-thune

Transcript:

JDV: So here’s my sacred obligation to you, to all the law enforcement, but to every person whether they wear a uniform or not. Over the next couple of years, the Trump administration is going to do everything that we can to dismantle the networks, to destroy the funding, and to make it harder for people to kill one another just because they disagree with what somebody says. That is what we’re going to do. We’re going to fight for it.

HH: Morning glory, evening grace, America. I’m Hugh Hewitt. That was Vice-President Vance earlier today after yet another outburst of deadly left-wing violence in Dallas left two migrants dead and another assault on an ICE office. I’m joined by Majority Leader of the United States Senate John Thune, Senator from South Dakota. Senator, your old colleague, Senator Vance, now Vice-President Vance, laid it out. Do you have a reaction to what happened in Dallas this morning coming so soon on the heels of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other left-wing violence?

JT: Well, I mean, I think that the facts and details are still coming in, Hugh, but it does appear that again, this is some left-wing activist resorting to violence. And you know, it’s hard to fathom, I guess, what, where the country is headed and where all the rhetoric that’s been directed at President Trump and others, obviously is radicalizing certain people. And they’re resorting to political violence. It’s really unfortunate, it’s tragic, and I think it speaks to the need for change and reform among a lot of the political leaders and some of the Democrat left in this country who seem to be generating the kind of emotion that leads to these really tragic shootings.

HH: Now Leader Thune, you’re like Mr. Level-Headed guy, and always even keeled. Very South Dakota. When Gavin Newsom goes on Colbert last night and says we’re not going to have elections in 2028, do you just think that’s a joke? Or do you recoil from that, because I don’t know what my reaction should be, because it’s so stupid.

JT: Yeah, I mean, and it seems like that just happens whenever he seems to open his mouth. I don’t know what to make of it, either. You know, what is this thought process that leads to these kinds of statements? And so I just…

HH: Well, he and your opponent in the Senate, Leader Schumer of the Democrats, are in a contest for dumb things to do and say.

JT: Yeah. I know.

HH: And the dumb thing that’s coming up, well, first, I want to thank you for the rules reform and holding the caucus together and for getting Mike Waltz to the U.N. and 50 other people around there. Did you almost lose anyone, because you kept the caucus together?

JT: Yeah, we were, it was fairly remarkable, Hugh. It took a lot of work. We spent a lot of time, you know, sitting down and having conversations and making the arguments. But in the end, I think people concluded we’ve got to fix this. And what the Democrats had done is broken it beyond repair. So we’re going to get more done. We’ve got a whole new slate of nominees for a lot of these positions that we’re going to take up next, but I’m glad we’re able to get started, and grateful that we had the team all onboard for doing what needed to be done.

HH: I’m glad you had Ambassador Waltz up there for the UNGA when the President was there.

JT: Yup. Yeah, totally.

HH: Let me turn now to the Shumer shutdown, because I can talk about Gavin all day long, but people are used to him. They don’t know what Chuck Schumer’s planning. I think he’s going to shut down the government for a long time. Is that the signal you’re getting?

JT: Seems to be. And yeah, trying to predict what some of these guys are going to do, but I think what’s happening, and Newsom’s obviously playing to this crowd, and so is Schumer in the Senate. But the radical left, Hugh, is, they just want to blow anything up that has anything to do with President Trump. It is, is this Trump Derangement Syndrome unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So much so that they’re taking what I think are pretty bizarre steps, and frankly steps that I think are not smart politically for them. But they can’t see. They’re just blinded by the hatred, and they’re doing some really strange stuff. I mean, obviously, Newsom’s trying to run in 2028, and so he’s out there every single day throwing crazy statements at the wall. But Schumer, some of the decisions that they’re making now, have real consequences. And I’m hoping that some of the Democrats over there on his side of the aisle will come to their senses and realize what a bad idea this is. But he’s, that seems to be where he’s going. And maybe, he feels like he doesn’t have any choice. After he voted to keep the government open in April, he got blown up by the left-wing base in the country. But that’s where, that’s who they’re answerable to these days. It is the tail wagging the dog, and Schumer doesn’t seem to have any intention, at least at this point, of deviating from the strategy that would take us into a government shutdown. But I hope there are people around him on the Democrat side who see it differently.

HH: Now Leader Thune, I want to make sure the audience knows a couple things. One, the House has already passed a clean CR to keep the government open while appropriations’ regular order proceeds. So the Republicans will pass that. But they need at least 7 Democrats to do so. Have any Democrats indicated their willingness to keep the government open with the 53 Republicans?

JT: John Fetterman, but we’ll see beyond that. Right now, everybody seems to be following down the Schumer shutdown path. But I hope, you know, what’s ironic about this, because you’re right, you know, we have a bill at the desk in the Senate right now, Hugh, that would keep the government open. Passed by the House, ready to be signed into law by the President. All we need is, you know, as you said, a handful of Democrats to come across the aisle and vote to keep the government open. A short-term funding resolution. Short-term that would enable us to finish up the other appropriations process, something that we did 13 times when the Democrats had the majority and Biden was in the White House. We did 13 short-term continuing resolutions to fund the government. That’s what this is. It’s non-partisan, bipartisan. It is clean. It is simply an opportunity to give us the chance to continue to complete the appropriations process. But the Democrats have decided to take it hostage. I mean, they have hijacked this in a way that they think advantages them politically. But I don’t still think the American people are going to see it that way for the reasons that you just mentioned. We’ve got a bill sitting at the Senate desk, passed by the House, ready to be signed into law by the President to keep the government open, and they want to hijack to do over a trillion dollars in new spending, allow free healthcare for illegals, completely wipe out the rural hospital fund that we passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill to support our rural hospitals. And obviously, you know, it’s just the Democrat liberal wish list, and there’s no way. They’re not serious, but that’s where we are.

HH: So how long can they, shutdowns always end, and I want to assure the audience if you get a Social Security check or a Medicare check or any check like that, that keeps going. The entitlements don’t shut down. Essential government services don’t shutdown. But you can inconvenience a lot of people for a long period of time. How long do you think they’re willing to keep the government shuttered, Leader Thune?

JT: Good question. You know, and I’ve always argued that the Democrats are the government party. They are the party of government. And so it strikes me at least that this has some serious ramifications for them and their political constituency and their belief system, for that matter. But you know, how long they want to, if we end up in that posture, how long they want to keep it going remains to be seen. But I don’t know if you remember this. The argument they made in April for those that voted to keep the government open, the argument they made was that you don’t want to give Trump, basically by shutting the government down, was in effect carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do with these government agencies, and you know, to let the OMB make decisions about who’s essential and who isn’t. Because they do fundamentally believe they are the government party, which is why I think it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be really hard for them to sustain this over a long period of time. But we’ll see. I mean, like you said, I think they think it is politically advantageous to them right now, and a benefit to their political fortunes, which are frankly in the tank at the moment. And they see this as an opportunity to be grabbed. But I think they’re wrong, and I think people are going to disagree with that.

HH: I think you’re right. They’re going to get hammered, and I also assume that they’ll fold eventually. In the meantime, I assume the appropriations process will go forward in regular order. Might you start a second reconciliation with your colleagues in the Senate and their counterparts in the House as a means of overcoming this, because you can do another reconciliation. You can fund the government forever if wanted. You could pass another budget in another reconciliation.

JT: Yeah, I mean, there’s, we did. We were able to get some things done frankly because of what the Democrats had done in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, where they actually did a bunch of spending on the reconciliation bill. Historically, that’s kind of been ruled out of order. But we expanded on that when we did the One Big Beautiful Bill and funded border security, funded national security. So you know, that would be, that’s something I think probably, my assumption is that we’ll explore all the options if we get to a point where the government is shut down, and it starts having the effect that it will over a period of time. But I still think that there have got to be Democrats out there who are wise to what Schumer is up to, or at least more than John Fetterman, and who will come to the realization that this makes no sense for what they believe in, and they are believers in government.

HH: So last question, this is the hardest of hard noes from the leader of the Republicans to the demands of the Democrats to add the spending to the short-term bill. Am I hearing you right? No, not now, not ever, never?

JT: Right. Yeah. That’s right.

HH: Senator John Thune, always a pleasure to talk to you, Leader. Continued good luck in getting things like the rules reform through that you did, the nominations through, the One Big Beautiful Bill. You are level-headed, and we like level-headed leaders. I appreciate your time, John Thune from South Dakota.

JT: All right, Hugh.

End of interview.

The post Senate Majority Leader John Thune On The Looming Schumer Shutdown appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined me today to discuss her new book “Listening To The Law”

Audio:

09-15hhs-acb

Transcript:

HH: Hope many of you had a chance to see Vice-President Vance on the Salem News Channel earlier or listen to him on the Salem Radio Network or our affiliates. I will talk about that later in the program, but I begin today with Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett who has a brand-new book out, Listening To The Law, which is a fabulous read. And I want to talk to her about that. I had a chance to do so five days ago at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, so this is round two. So I get to actually finish my questions. Justice Barrett, thank you for a second bite at the apple. I have to begin, though, by asking. Two hours after I was done talking to you, my colleague, Charlie, was murdered. Your reaction to that and to just generally political discourse in the United States about which you write a lot in Listening To The Law?

ACB: That was horrific. I was at Notre Dame shortly after I left you at the Nixon Library. And the mood on campus was very somber. I mean, for the father of two young children and a husband to be murdered in cold blood was a tragedy and certainly sobering for the nation. And I think it is a sign of a culture that has, where political discourse has soured beyond control and something that we need to really pull back. I mean, obviously, well, I assume that the person who murdered Charlie Kirk was mentally ill. But nonetheless, you know, to create a culture in which political discourse can lead to political violence is unacceptable in the United States.

HH: You know, Justice, you quote your father in the book as saying repeatedly to you and your siblings, control your emotions or they will control you. It’s very similar to a message I got repeatedly growing up. Do you think that message is out of style? Or do parents have to double down on that message?

ACB: I think it’s time to double down on that message. That was a message that, as you say, my father repeatedly gave my siblings and I. It’s one that I’ve repeatedly given my own children, that I’ve put up in various places on index cards around our house to remind them of the message. And I think in political discourse and relating to one another just generally, I think we often let our emotions get out of control, and we’re driven by emotion rather than reason. It can take discipline to speak civilly and collegially to people with whom, you know, one disagrees.

HH: You reference G.K. Chesterton as well and his brother on Page 38 of Listening To The Law. “The two argued incessantly, but never quarreled.” You continue, “A good argument involves logic and a search for truth. A quarrel is an effort to tear down your sparring partner. Sparring with intellectual opponents is the way to hear the other side. Shunning others just because they disagree with you is also a recipe for a lonely and ultimately unhappy life.” Do you think that people are going to hear that message more clearly now?

ACB: I hope so. I mean, I really hope that the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a turning point for us as a society where we look and see where things have come, the point at which we’ve come to in the United States. I mean, there’s a big difference. I see two dangers that that Chesterton passage that you just read gets at. One is to silo ourselves so that we don’t engage with the other side. Now that’s the opposite of what Charlie Kirk did. He consistently engaged the other side. I think the other message in that passage is that when you do engage the other side, we’re engaging ideas, and we’re not trying to attack our tear down people. And there’s a huge difference between the two. And I think those who fall into attacking people primarily do it verbally and not physically. But too often, I guess, we’re now seeing that verbal attacks can spill over into something more sinister.

HH: Justice, now I want to turn to Listening To The Law, and I’m going to come back to the problem of our culture in a moment. But I want to remind our audience that before you joined the 7th Circuit in 2017, you had spent 15 years teaching at the Notre Dame University Law School. Before that, you had clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Scalia, on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Silberman. You had attended Rhodes College. You worked at Miller Cassidy. You spent your whole early life in New Orleans, and now you’ve been on the Supreme Court for five years. Ought presidents to think, you represent something very different on the Supreme Court – a Southerner, though Louisiana and New Orleans are very different from the rest of the South, and not an Ivy League-trained lawyer. I’m very happy to have the president of the United States, and I mentioned to you this on Wednesday, reaching beyond the Ivy Leagues for justices. Do you hope that continues at least intermittently in the years ahead?

ACB: I do. You know, people have asked me that especially as I’ve been around talking about the book. And it’s not that I think people should be chosen from outside an Ivy League for the sake of doing it, but I think people choose law schools for all kinds of different reasons. To assume that people are unqualified if they choose to apply to schools outside of the Ivy League and choose to attend those schools, I think really distorts and takes people out of the running who make decisions based not solely on prestige, who make decisions based on scholarships and financial aid, who make decisions based on geographic considerations like the locations of their family. I just don’t think we have a culture in which every single person is motivated to apply to and then only attend the top-ranked law school at which they get into. That was not how my own decision process unfolded.

HH: Now Justice Barrett, the very last justices of the Supreme Court that you mention or quote in Listening To The Law is the great Potter Stewart, the great pragmatist. And is it incidental, accidental, or intentional that you quoted him at the end, the justice best known for “I know it when I see it”. But he also said the docket of the Supreme Court is a fairly reliable mirror of our domestic problems confronting our nation. I agree with that, but were you doing something intentional in pointing at Justice Potter Stewart, who was a longtime sort of center-right justice?

ACB: No, and Hugh, I confess that when I quoted that passage, it didn’t occur to me that I might be sending a subtle message. I quoted it because of the quote itself. I think a lot of people think that the Court somehow sets its own agenda or goes out and finds, you know, the most controversial cases to decide. But I think Justice Stewart was absolutely right. If you look at the Court, you see back a reflection of what’s happening in the country.

HH: Listening To The Law is almost Bartlett’s when it comes to quotations about the Constitution and the Supreme Court. You, but however, one that does not include either is John Adams on Ben Franklin. John Adams was very disapproving of Ben Franklin’s style of life. Adams said, “As far as fate shall compel me to sit with him in public affairs, I shall treat him with decency and perfect impartiality.” Then, you add, “There’s no reason to treat colleagues any other way.” I see that breaking down. I try and abide by that myself, but do you see it breaking down?

ACB: I do see that breaking down. And I think it’s, I think it goes back to what you talked about at the beginning, which is learning how to debate ideas and attack ideas, not people. I guess I think the idea or the notion that you can’t like and work with or treat civilly, you know, as John Adams with Ben Franklin, people with whom you disagree or even that you dislike, is just foreign to the way we ought to be conducting public affairs and personal ones. I mean, it kind of goes back to that control your emotions or they’ll control you. I mean, frankly, in every walk of life, you’re not going to like everybody. But you can’t, you’ve got to control your emotions, and you just can’t treat people consistent with the way you sometimes might feel about them.

HH: Well said. Let me go now to some nitty gritty of the law. I brought this up at the Nixon Library. Concurring opinions. We covered this a bit. On Page 39, you explained that you sometimes write concurrences, “to identify areas of law that could benefit from development by advocates and scholars.” And you footnoted that to Fulton V. City of Philadelphia. One of our regular listeners is a now-retired Archbishop of Philadelphia, Chaput, who brought that case. And in that concurrence, you invited scholars to opine on what could replace the test of Employment Division V. Smith, which is a little too geeky for the audience. But then you surprised me at the Library by saying no one had taken up the challenge. Does that happen often? Do scholars avoid the stuff that the justices could profit from?

ACB: I’m waiting, Hugh. After I said that at the Nixon Library, I’m waiting for a deluge of law review reprints from scholars who say I certainly have taken you up on that challenge (laughing). I do, over every summer, try to read scholarship to see what has come up in the interim. I haven’t had time this particular summer to do that with respect to Fulton, so maybe I missed something. I think people respond with scholarship to their interests. It could be that people have not been interested in that case. And I haven’t had another case present that question squarely, so I haven’t had reason to dive in. But I mean, I think if the Court or an individual justice on the Court highlights a particular area as one that would be useful to get more scholarship on, I would think that would be a motivation. It would have been to me as a law professor.

HH: Yeah, I would have thought Judge McConnell would have weighed in, but then he took over the job of chief justice of the Meta Supreme Court. So maybe he hasn’t had the time. But I am surprised, and I hope just by bringing it up here, the 9,000 full-time law professors in the United States give an ear to that, because it’s a difficult issue. It’s a very and important one. I do want to repeat about Abigail Adams, because I found it fascinating in the book that her portrait, and you confirmed it on Wednesday, hangs in our office. Would you tell the audience why they should read, get the full story in Listening To The Law, but why?

ACB: Sure. In brief, you know, the Constitution is obviously a large part of what I do. And because I interpret the Constitution as an originalist, I look back to the founding era a lot. And I wanted some inspiration, some reminder of that in my office. But I also wanted it to come from someone whose life looked at least a little bit like mine, despite the fact of living in a very different age. And there were no women at the Constitutional Convention or any of the state ratifying conventions, so Abigail Adams is about the closest that we can come. You know, she was very involved in advising her husband, John, about public affairs. She was very attentive to all of the affairs of the time. You know, yet she raised a large family, managed her family’s finances, all the while participating to the greatest degree that she could at the time in the formation of the country. So I have her up above the mantel in my office. It would make you dizzy if I picked up the iPad I’m using right now to flip around so you could see that picture, but I reprint it in the book just to remind me of Abigail and her participation in the founding of the Republic, and just to inspire me about the promise of America. Because now, of course, I can do what she could not – serve simultaneously on the Supreme Court and as a mother.

HH: Oh, I’m glad you added that, as a mother. Anyone who has not watched the HBO series Adams from, my gosh, 15 years ago, I would recommend because of its portrayal not only of John Adams, but of Abigail Adams. It’s fabulous. Justice Barrett, we also talked about the founding era. Now the Second Continental Congress passed the Declaration of Independence. And there are parts of it, and you told me why it does not count for you in interpreting originalist intent. But I went back after we talked, and I read it. And for example, in the Bill of Particulars, the Second Continental Congress wrote, “King George has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, eat our their substance.” That seemed to be one of the examples where the Declaration might, you know, figure into Loper Bright or the Major Questions Doctrine or something like that. Would you explain to people again, as you did at the Library so eloquently, why you do not consider the Declaration as among the founder materials relevant to the interpretation of the Constitution?

ACB: Well, maybe I didn’t explain clearly what I meant by that. I don’t consider the Declaration, I understand some people to make the argument that the Declaration itself is a source of law. And I don’t consider it to be a source of law, because the Declaration of Independence wasn’t ratified as law as our Constitution was. But I do think when you look at the founding era and you look at the array of materials, I mean certainly, I would look at the Declaration of Independence much like I would read Blackstone’s commentaries. I mean, it was part of the political culture in which those who adopted our Constitution were steeped.

HH: Oh, I misunderstood you, then, because that is exactly what I would, I thought that’s what you were going to say, and I didn’t hear it. But that’s on me. I want to go to the very interesting part of Listening To The Law where you add your voice to that of many scholars of the Sedition Act of John Adams’ era was unconstitutional. Good on you. What do you think about Thomas Jefferson’s acquisition of the Louisiana Territory?

ACB: Ah, that’s an interesting point. You know, Thomas Jefferson himself thought his acquisition of the Louisiana Territory was beyond his power. He thought it might be unconstitutional, but he did it anyway, which is an interesting addendum. I mean, I think at this point in the day, and as someone who was born in Louisiana, I’m certainly not advocating for an argument that the Louisiana Territory is not validly part of the United States. I think that’s been settled by time, even if Thomas Jefferson was right to doubt his own Constitutional authority.

HH: Are there other parts of the old law that need to be clarified, such as your comment, “The Court officially repudiated Korematsu,” thank goodness, for the benefit of the lay people out there, the decision of the Court that the internment of Japanese-American citizens was Constitutional at the time has been repudiated by the Supreme Court subsequently. Is there any other clean up on aisle three, you know, the K-Mart green light thing? Does the Supreme Court need to do that?

ACB: You mean overrule precedence or clarify that some past act actually was unconstitutional?

HH: Correct.

ACB: So I can’t, I mean, there’s certainly cases in my own personal capacity or that I might have thought as a law professor were wrongly decided, and then I wished the Court would correct. But just now, in my capacity as a justice, I can’t identify those cases with the same freedom that I could before, because I have to stay my hand in the event that any of those questions actually came before the Court.

HH: Of course, you do.

ACB: Because they would, yeah. I mean, the Court, with respect to the Sedition Acts, the Court has said, the Court itself has said that those were unconstitutional, you know, in New York Times V. Sullivan. You know, the Court acknowledged that, and I think that’s pretty widely-regarded as unconstitutional, so it’s not a controversial question likely to come up before us. So I try to be pretty careful in the book to only, to hew towards describing doctrines that the Court itself, opinions that the Court itself has already expressed.

HH: You also note in the book that the Roberts Court, of which you are a part, that’s a direct quote, averages about one overruling of precedent a term, which is below the historical average for any of the other Courts. And with that in mind, what is your advice to lawyers and litigants about tilting at windmills? When I teach Con Law, I advise my law students, do not waste your client’s time and money unless they’re really interested in tilting at a windmill and trying to go after, for example, New York Times V. Sullivan, because it’s not likely to happen. What’s your advice to lawyers and litigants on that, Justice?

ACB: You know, I think that’s true. And lawyers and litigants, of course, their chances of getting up to the Supreme Court are pretty slim. They’re starting in district courts, and district courts have to abide, because of, you know, vertical stare decisis, they have to follow and apply the decisions of the Supreme Court, and so do the Courts of Appeals. And the lower courts are not going to, and they don’t have the authority to contradict existing Supreme Court precedence. And then there are 4,000 cert petitions filed a year. The Court takes 55 or 60 of those. So you’re really tilting at windmills to spend all the money, litigating it all the way up, and then trying to run through the narrow gate to get on the Court’s docket, that unless you’re pretty certain that you have a case that’s on such shaky ground, and that the Court has signaled would satisfy the high standard for overruling, I mean, I don’t think it’s probably a good expenditure of client’s money to tilt at those windmills.

HH: You know, Justice, it’s been a very busy summer for the Court when it normally isn’t. Your colleague, Justice Gorsuch, who’s been a guest on this program, issued a rather sharp concurrence in an emergency docket case this summer at district courts who are not abiding settled case law. Was this unusual, in your experience of the past five years? And ought it to stop? And do you think it will?

ACB: The emergency docket has been going on. These emergency motions where litigants come to the Supreme Court and seek relief on an interim basis, you know, before litigation has been completed in the courts below. It’s not new to the past six months, but it has definitely accelerated in the last six months. I think it’s a bad way to run a railroad. I’m not sure if it’s unavoidable, and we have to rule on the motions that are filed. We can’t ignore them. So I don’t see a way for the Court itself to extricate itself from this process. You know, how one could stop it and channel this litigation differently, I think, is something that’s beyond, largely beyond the Court’s control. So we have. There’s just been a lot of litigation. There have been a lot of executive orders, and there’s been a lot of litigation, a lot of, many, many injunctions by lower courts, and so that’s just contributed to a state of affairs where we’ve been very busy over the summer.

HH: Now Justice, you went out of your way to make this, Listening To The Law, accessible. And my highly-annotated book here, accessible to non-lawyers, and I appreciate that because people don’t often understand the work of the Court. So I want to cover a couple of things that you said that might be just beyond the grasp of a layman. Page 141-142. “By adopting the Bill of Rights, the founding generation made the Constitution a more morally-laden document. Americans wanted specifics, and they wanted them in writing, promises that the federal government would not violate the rights that Americans considered most sacred.” Morally-laden document. I think I know what that means, but what do you mean to mean by that?

ACB: Well, I think the Bill of Rights, you know, for those in the audience who are not lawyers, the original Constitution dealt only with the structure of the government – set up Congress and the presidency and the judiciary. But it didn’t protect our rights. The Bill of Rights, you know, the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, for example, was not part of the original document. And the Bill of Rights, certainly those amendments and then many of the amendments that we’ve added since, actually expressed the values and the principles that we as Americans hold dear. That’s what I meant by morally-laden document – one that actually expressed value judgments and didn’t deal simply with the structures of government itself.

HH: Now when I teach fundamental rights, I’m going to be using your commentary on Washington V. Glucksberg, which is a 1997 case, special protection for some fundamental rights that while not mentioned in the United States Constitution are nevertheless, and I’m quoting the case here, not you, though you quote it, “deeply-rooted in this nation’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Is that an open-ended invitation to sift through and root about the ratification debates? For example, or among the seven of the eight amendments that were originally proposed by Madison that didn’t make it into the Bill of Rights of the 1992 Ratification of the Long-Dormant Amendment? Would the framers, what do you think? Do those matter?

ACB: Well, let’s see. Washington V. Glucksberg was an attempt to narrow and channel the Court’s activity, and to try to take the Court out of the business of rummaging around in the area of individual rights and to channel that authority so that the Court was not, for lack of a better word, inventing rights or simply plucking out and imposing rights that the justices thought should be valuable, imposing them on the people by incorporating them into the Constitution.

HH: And do you think that that will be a limiting principle on, you know, Judge Bork used to say the 9th Amendment’s an ink blot. And I’m not really in a hurry to open up the Constitution for non-originalists who want to import today’s moral milieu, whatever it might be, whatever they think it is, into the Constitution. Is it the Glucksberg precedent the one you want people to understand? It’s got to be deeply-rooted in history and tradition, really anchored.

ACB: Absolutely, because the Glucksberg precedent is the Court’s latest, and it is the controlling statement of what the Court’s approach is, the methodological approach to interpreting the 14th Amendment’s Due Process clause, which under current doctrine, is the source of unenumerated rights. And by unenumerated rights, I mean those that are not spelled out in the Constitution. You know, in contrast to freedom of speech, those rights like the freedom to marry, which is not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, but under the Glucksberg test, one might say well, that’s deeply-rooted in our history and tradition at the most specific level. So yeah, that’s is, that is what the Court has said is the test.

HH: Now Justice Barrett, the two parts of the Constitution that I think have strayed the furthest from the original intent, the Free Exercise clause, which we’ve already talked about, but also the Takings clause. And do you think the framers, or even the anti-federalists especially, would recognize modern jurisprudence in Village of Euclid? I don’t think they would.

ACB: (laughing) There are a lot of things about our jurisprudence, under the Takings clause and probably, and certainly outside the Takings clause, too, that the founders would not recognize.

HH: Do you call that out as a part of our instructions to clerks? Let’s make sure we call out this area and how it connects back to the framers when you’re giving them instructions on research and direction for the bench memos?

ACB: I do not, because one principle that controls in judging is that precedent applies unless, you know, you and I were talking a few moments ago about stare decisis and whether it’s tilting at windmills for litigants to ask for precedent to be overruled. We certainly have some cases in which we overrule precedent. As you pointed out, on average, one a year. But if we are not expressly considering whether to overrule a precedent, the Court’s practice is to take all of our prior cases as settled and go from there. So I don’t tell clerks to go back and set all the precedent aside and dig down to the original meaning, starting, in other words, from scratch.

HH: Okay. Now this is a subjective question completely. I used to be dazzled at the D.C. Circuit by the quality of the oral argument. I was just amazed at the lawyers. And I’ve only been in the Supreme Court audience on one occasion. Is there a difference in the quality of the Supreme Court bar from the bar at the 7th Circuit or the D.C. Circuit when you were a clerk? Or are they all pretty much five stars?

ACB: If you ever want to come to another argument, Hugh, consider it an open invitation.

HH: Thank you.

ACB: As for the quality of lawyering, I would say there were certainly some fantastic advocates that I saw at the 7th Circuit. But on the whole, you know, I have very rarely seen in my five years on the Court someone who was anything less than an excellent oral argument. The Supreme Court bar tends to be fairly specialized, and so it’s populated with very talented appellate lawyers. And there are so few cases at the Court, so few cases get oral arguments, you know, that there’s a lot of competition among those lawyers to get the cases, as opposed to the 7th Circuit where, you know, we hear many, many, many, many, many oral arguments. And so there are just more lawyers participating in the process, and it’s less specialized.

HH: Would you be willing to opine on this, Justice Barrett? Usually when a Court grants cert, my advice to anyone who’s ever asked, it’s happened a few times over the years, do I go with the lawyer who got me there, or do I go find a specialist? I invariably say go hire Paul Clement if you can, and if you can’t, go hire someone he recommends. Do not take your lawyer from the appellate division. No matter how good they are, how long they’ve stuck with you, or how loyal they’ve been to you and how they’ve let you ride along for free, because it’s a different skill set. Do you agree with me, or do you think you ought to give everyone a shot to go up there?

ACB: Well, let’s see. I think it’s generally pretty high risk, I agree with you, to stick with the lawyer that was with you below, because it is different to practice in front of the Court of Appeals, and certainly in front of a trial court than in the Supreme Court. I’m hesitant to say that you should only consider existing Supreme Court litigators, because then that would make them a closed set, and it would make it hard for anyone else to break in. But I certainly don’t think you should just default to sticking with the lawyer you have. And I think it would be a good idea to ask Paul Clement or any other experienced litigator from the Court if there’s someone that they recommend. I wouldn’t be afraid to give someone a chance. You know, they’re often, because arguments are of such a scarcity, there are often many young, ambitious appellate lawyers willing to take a case pro bono at the Supreme Court simply to get an opportunity to make the argument.

HH: Now I was surprised in Listening To The Law that oral argument can indeed, and has, changed your mind. Do you want to expand on that for people, because I’ve always thought it’s kind of fun for me and other people who follow the law to listen to them, but I wasn’t really sure that it was other than a debating technique for the conference that was going to follow.

ACB: You know, sometimes it does change my mind. I mean, most often, I would say, when oral argument does have an effect on me and kind of moves me from the place that I was when I went into the oral argument having read the briefs and all of the legal authorities, I think it’s most often in the scope of the decision or how the decision is going to be decided. But sometimes, it actually moves me on the bottom line. And I think, you know, it’s a mistake to think of oral argument as just a throwaway.

HH: Now I want to have you argue a little bit with Justice Breyer by remote.

ACB: Okay.

HH: He was on this program when he came out with his book, and we got around to talking about the internet. And his argument was George Washington didn’t know about the internet, and my response was George Washington knew about liberty. What do you make of that exchange, because it’s my favorite exchange, maybe, in 25 years of radio?

ACB: (laughing) Of course, George Washington didn’t know about the internet, and neither did any of the founders. But if we’re thinking about, for example, freedom of speech, that principle applies beyond the pamphleteer. The internet is a way of communicating ideas, and so freedom of speech, and the language, and as you say, this idea of liberty, the freedom that we have to speak and communicate our ideas and argue, applies to the internet just as easily as it does to, you know, the town crier passing out pamphlets in the town square. I think it’s a caricature of originalism to say that we must interpret the Constitution only through the eyes and problems that the founders could foresee.

HH: So Justice, that, we don’t want to talk about the specifics of the murder of Charlie, because it may end up before the Court. But we do have a 1st Amendment regime where you really can’t act against a speaker unless they have the intent to cause violence and the imminent ability to do so. It’s a pretty tenured decision now. As the internet progresses and the deep web becomes darker, and all of these crazy chatrooms develop that we have seen in the news, what do you advise, to the extent that is appropriate to do so, Congress to think about when they think about regulating the web?

ACB: Well, as you say, Congress’ ability to regulate speech is circumscribed by the 1st Amendment. And so the Court has any number of cases. In fact, we had one last term involving the regulation of children’s access to porn, which happens, of course, mostly online. You know, I’m not sure that regulation or legislation is going to be the most effective way to stamp out, just as a policy matter. I don’t know that that’s going to be the most effective way of stamping out some of the cesspool that we have on the dark web and on the internet generally, just because of Congress’ restraint, because it’s constrained by the 1st Amendment.

HH: Let me ask you as a mother, not as a justice. What have you and your husband done about internet access for your children, some of whom are adults now, but I mean, it’s a real deal for my children now that they have children. And I sit in the back saying don’t let anything in the house. Don’t let them have anything, but it’s not really practical.

ACB: It’s one of the most difficult things about parenting in the modern era, I would say. You know, we use screening software that we check. You know, we have parental controls on their phones. We try to have very tight control over the TV. We have time limits on their devices. And it’s still very difficult to keep up with, you know, all of the things that they do online. And you know, my kids are very good. But you know, you can very easily inadvertently wander. So it’s important to be vigilant. We don’t allow them to have social media until we’ve kind of said around 16 as the age. One of my sons recently got Instagram, but the condition was that he read The Anxious Generation with us.

HH: (applauds)

ACB: We watched a documentary together about the effects of social media on teenagers. And then we had to have the discussion about it. And he’s only allowed to be friends on Instagram with people who he knows. And we check, and he has to be friends, I don’t have social media, but my husband has an Instagram account solely for the purpose of tracking what our children are doing online, and he has to allow my husband to be his friend.

HH: Jon Haidt is one of heroes, and I think Governor Youngkin, I’m a member, I’m a citizen of the Commonwealth, has done us a great favor by urging every school in the Commonwealth to ban phones from campus. I don’t think I take you into the shoals of commentary that you may not issue. What do you think of that advice from the Governor?

ACB: Well, the school that my children attend requires them to leave their cellphones in the lockers at the beginning of the day, and they can’t get them back until the end of the day. So if a parent needs to reach a child during the school day, has to do it through the office. And I think that’s excellent advice. I can’t imagine how children can focus on learning if they have access to a cellphone. So I wouldn’t allow my kids to take their phones into schools for that reason just as a parent, speaking as a parent. I think it’s been a very good practice for my children to have that rule.

HH: Now I want to make sure I get to a few things that I did not get to last week in our remaining 12 minutes, Justice Barrett, and thank you again for the time. Listening To The Law is a fabulous book. “The best days are days when joined memos come in quickly without requests for changes.” How often does that happen? And are you every surprised by a justice, a particular justice doing it on a particular case that’s been discussed in conference?

ACB: So joined memos coming in without request for changes, you know, the more complicated a case, the more likely you are to get requests for changes from your colleagues. So I describe in the book one particular occasion in which joined memos came in quickly. And to be clear, I don’t say which case that was, but where joined memos came in particularly quickly. So my law clerks and I popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate once we had everyone in on the case.

HH: I say it’s not often, though. Questions for law students who are out there. If they are not intending to do a clerkship, should they even think about law review?

ACB: I don’t, I think law review teaches some valuable skills. You know, I find, and I found this in practice as a young associate and watching others with whom I worked, it teaches a real attention to deal, and to editing. There’s just, in fact, my husband did clerk, but he helped me. He read chapters of the book, and he was the editor-in-chief of the law review. And all of these years later, he still has such a sharp eye for editing and for grammar, and for, you know, spaces that shouldn’t be in there, and I do think that there’s value to it. I also think it opens the doors. It is for, you know, for better or for worse, it is a gold star on your resume that will open doors to jobs at law firms and other places, because it makes you as a someone who’s a good student and attentive to detail.

HH: Now you can’t choose to become order of the coif. That’s just something that you get. But moot court absorbs a lot of students’ time in enormous amounts. What is the value of that after 15 years in the classroom and almost a decade on the bench now?

ACB: I think moot court, you know, there aren’t that many opportunities in law school to do things that actually mimic what you would do as a lawyer. In moot court, you’re writing briefs and you’re making arguments to a judge, or to a panel of judges. And I think I that’s good practice. You know, I think to allow any particular activity to suck up so much of your time that you don’t have enough time to devote to your classes is a bad idea, but the opportunity to see what it’s like to argue in front of judges and be articulate on your feet, I think, can serve you well in your career.

HH: So Justice, now I want to talk about the 9,000 law professors and the faculties that they make up, and the committees on curriculum on which they serve. There has been quite a lot of change in recent years, but no one is in a hurry to add American history, despite my many urgent suggestions that they do so on this program. What would you delete from the law school curriculums generally? And what would you insist on a 2L or a 3L taking that is not right now required?

ACB: So I taught, for listeners who are unaware of my background, I taught at Notre Dame. I can’t remember if we talked about that earlier. And my experience then is limited to the curriculum at Notre Dame, and I wouldn’t want to offend any of my former colleagues by saying I would cut their class, but I do think that there are certain classes that all students should take. And there’s been a move among law schools to not require classes anymore except for very few. Certainly, the classes that are the traditional first year classes – civil procedure, torts, contracts, the basics, need to be taken. But I think a lot of law schools have added courses in legislation and regulation. I think that’s really valuable, because most of what young lawyers are going to do is deal with statutes and deal with administrative regulations. I know you’ve had Justice Gorsuch on, and certainly he’s written a lot about how many regulations that we have. So I think you need to understand that. I think administrative law really is whether you’re going to do a transactional practice or whether you’re going to litigate, you have to know how to deal with regulations. So I think, and statutory interpretation, that’s something that I taught for a long time and that I still teach. Everybody has to deal with statutes. That’s a very practical skill to know the kinds of arguments to make and know your way around textualism. And we mentioned Justice Breyer, and Justice Breyer’s pragmatist approach. You need to know how to argue before judges who take both different approaches.

HH: You quote Judge Friendly, quoting Justice Frankfurter, the basic rules of statutory interpretation are simple. One, read the statute. Two, read the statute. Three, read the statute. It’s sort of a Breyer V. Barrett over the validity of including how one uses the text. And I think you’re both very, I’d like to see that debate. Do you talk with him as a retired justice with chambers still open, and he’s still working hard? Do you talk with him about these things?

ACB: I do. And actually, we have had that debate. We participated in an event at the Court in front of a group just last year. And we did a discussion, it wasn’t so much a debate as a discussion about textualism versus Justice Breyer’s more pragmatic approach.

HH: I will look for that online. Bravo as well on a succinct, persuasive argument for the ongoing exile of legislative history from Supreme Court decision making. Can you explain to the audience why it doesn’t matter that Senator Cotton says to Senator Graham X is allowed, or that Senator King says to Senator Van Hollen Y is allowed? Why does that not matter to you?

ACB: Well, as a formal matter, the legislative history has not been, has not gone through both houses of Congress and been signed by the president. It is not itself the law. And you know, as a practical matter, it’s just the views of, and your examples say Senator Cotton. It’s not the views of a majority of both houses of Congress, and anybody can say anything they want in legislative history. Often, legislators themselves don’t know what’s in the legislative history. It’s put in by staffers who might have gotten it from interest groups. And sometimes, you know, I talk in the book about an example that I used to use in my statutory interpretation class. Sometimes, it’s a fiction. You know, there are instances in which legislators insert supposed colloquies and dialogues that they have with one another that never actually happened. And they insert them in the record after the fact. So it’s just not a reliable tool apart from the fact that there’s no Constitutional basis for treating it as authoritative.

HH: And does that in fact become even more relevant a consideration the longer back you go in the legislative history, because the legislative history wasn’t all that good, and the records weren’t all that exact in the days of the early congresses. Do we look even more askance, the older the legislative history?

ACB: That’s funny that you ask that question, because there have actually been studies. You know, the Court didn’t really start looking at legislative history until Holy Trinity V. United States, that notorious case. That was one of the first cases that really looked at legislative history in addition to the dubious approach that it took to interpreting statutes at all. It was after that case that legislative history started to balloon. And some scholars have argued that there was a feedback effect that the more the Court cited legislative history, the more Congress created legislative history.

HH: That’s well said.

ACB: That makes it more suspect, in my view.

HH: I want to close, Justice, by getting to the heart of your argument about originalism, which I think is on Page 200. “In my view, departing from the original meaning differs in degree but not in kind from departing from the text outright. The primary difference between originalism and other approaches is that originalists treat historical meaning as determinative, while non-originalists sometimes prioritize other considerations such as purposes or values underlying a Constitutional provision.” Is that the heart of originalism?

ACB: I think it is, yes. I make the point in the book, which I do think is an important one, that all justices, even those who don’t consider themselves originalists, at least on justices to my knowledge, take history into account. So I think sometimes, people who are outside the Court caricature originalism by saying oh, well, you know, crazy originalists consider the history. That’s not so. But originalists do treat the historical meaning of the text where it’s determinative as conclusive, whereas, for example, Justice Breyer in his most recent book makes the argument that well, that’s one thing to consider, but there might be other considerations that would overcome the historical meaning.

HH: So I want to do something, which is to give time back to a justice, not unlike giving time back to a Court. Two minutes. And I want to know when you hear that, I’d like to give time back to the Court, are you happy? Are you sad? Are you surprised?

ACB: You mean when you’ve given time back to me? Or…

HH: No, when someone in the Court…

ACB: (laughing)

HH: When in oral arguments, you know, I’m going to give time back to the Court. Do you like that?

ACB: You know, it happens very, very rarely. I’m trying to remember if it’s happened before the Court…yeah, it’s happened before the Court, and usually, I think that’s a sign of strength, because a lawyer who does that recognizes the strength of his position, and that there’s nothing more to be said, or can read the bench, knows how to read the room and sees that the justices themselves have no further questions. So it’s usually a good thing.

HH: Well, Justice Barrett, thank you again for your time. I will be replaying our Nixon Library conversation. Between the two of them, I will have asked and answered all my questions. Good luck in the term ahead, and I appreciate the time very much. Listening To The Law, a great read for everyone. Thank you, Justice Barrett.

ACB: Thank you, Hugh.

End of interview.

The post Justice Amy Coney Barrett On “Listening to the Law” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune joined me on the program today to discuss the rules changes the Senate GOP Conference have agreed to impose on the Senate’s confirmation processes via the precedent set by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2013:

Audio:

09-04hhs-thune

Transcript:

HH: Welcome to the Thursday edition of the program which I begin with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senator from South Dakota. Senator Thune, welcome back. It’s great to have you, Leader. I understand you were in Columbus this past weekend at the Shoe. How low was it, Senator?

JT: It was deafening, as you would expect, Hugh. Your fans came out in full force, and they got a big win, a great way to start off the season. And it was very exciting for me, and I had some of my family members there, because it’s just a, it’s an atmosphere that’s really second to none, as you know.

HH: Well, you didn’t get to see QB1B, Lincoln Kienholz, who’s from Pierre, South Dakota.

JT: Yeah.

HH: But he will play this year, I think a lot. I don’t know how often you’re going to go back to the Shoe, but he will play.

JT: I hope so. He’s incredibly athletic. I got a chance to watch him, of course, in high school. And he’s a special athlete. So yeah, I hope they find a way to integrate him into some of their schemes, offensive schemes or whatever, because I think he’d bring a lot to that offense. But they’re talented…

HH: I’m waiting to see special packages for him, and I expect Coach Day to do that. Now Leader Thune, I want to get to the important stuff. I watched your press conference after the conference meeting yesterday. The Dems have been absolutely standing in the way of everything when it comes to nominees. You have pledged to invoke the nuclear option and change the nominee rules. When will that happen?

JT: Well, if everything goes according to plan, hopefully next week. I think we’re, as you would expect, Hugh, we have kind of shopped these ideas around about how to do this in a way that actually helps us clear the backlog and creates a way for us to confirm the rest of Trump’s administration, President Trump’s administration. We’ve got to figure out how to make sure we’ve got the votes to move it. And so we’ve been having those conversations here, and I hope that we get to a spot where we’re ready to move. And if things go according to plan, I think we get on that next week.

HH: Now is that a Tuesday, a Wednesday, or a Thursday next week, Senator?

JT: I think it starts early in the week. My hope would be that we’re on it Monday or Tuesday. It’s going to take a little while, because these things all have, any time you’re talking about some of the changes that we’re contemplating here, it does, it takes some time to work it through the process. But we’re intent. We know this has got to be fixed. The Democrats have created this problem. Chuck Schumer, but prior to Chuck Schumer, this was always done in a way where if you had some of those, you know, lower level nominees in the administration, those were all handled by, voted in bloc. I mean, they were packaged, they were grouped, they were stacked, and that just doesn’t happen. This is the first president in history, in the annals as we went as far back as Herbert Hoover’s administration. There hasn’t been one president which the exception of Trump who at this point in his presidency hasn’t had at least one nominee clear by unanimous consent or voice vote. It’s unprecedented what they’re doing. It’s got to be stopped. The President deserves his team, and that’s what the American people voted for, and we intend to deliver it.

HH: I did my research. And I want to know the audience to know what I’m working off of. In the 101st Congress, which was H.W. Bush’s Congress, 817 civilian nominees received confirmation by unanimous consent/voice vote. Under President Clinton, it was 1,100. In the 107th Congress for W., it was 911. In the 111th Congress for President Obama, it was 856. In the 115th Congress for President Trump’s first term, it was 533. In the 117th Congress for President Biden, it was 530. This Congress, zero. Zero. Not one unanimous consent/voice vote for a civilian nominee. The inverse of that, total Senate votes by year – 2017, there were 187 Senate votes. 2018 – 200. 2019 – 262. 2020 – 157. 2021 – 358. 2022 – 325. 2023 – 212. 2024 – 230. Thus far in 2025, there have been 500 votes. What’s that tell us, those two sets of data that I just gave us, Senator?

JT: That the Democrats are engaging in record obstruction. I mean, we’ve been in more hours, more days, cast more votes than any Congress in certainly modern history, Hugh. And I think it’s indicative of just the political environment. I mean, Chuck Schumer and the far left, this is Elizabeth Warren, this is Bernie Sanders, it’s Chris Murphy, it’s Cory Booker, they have decided to just virtually shut down anything that this president wants to accomplish, and try and use the floor, the Senate floor to delay and block and obstruct. And it is, as I said, Trump Derangement Syndrome on steroids here in the United States Senate. It can’t be, this just can’t continue. We can’t function as a government in this country unless the president’s able to get his people in place. So it starts there. I mean, they’re doing it on everything, but these nominees, you just pointed it out. I mean, it’s just, you can’t argue with the data. It’s just absolutely crystal clear what they’re up to, and that is to try and completely put road blocks up and stop this Trump agenda. The American people voted for the President. They voted for him to have his team in place. And it also prevents us from doing other work. I mean, their, all the other things we need to do around here, we’re spending two-thirds of our time on personnel. I mean, think about that. The United States Senate is spending two-thirds of its time on human resources.

HH: Well, there are between 1,200 and 1,400 positions that require the advice and consent of the Senate. And I believe you’ve been able to act on 135 of those, thus far. I want to get to the particulars, but first, a little history. You’re going to have to use the nuclear option. The Senate is a continuing body. So to change the rules is a big deal, and that means a continuing body, only a third of it comes in every two years. Two-thirds of it are not new, and they have a rules package. Normally, it’s never amended, but Harry Reid, the late majority leader from Nevada, a Democrat, invoked the so-called nuclear option to change Senate rules by a simple majority on November 21st, 2013 for all nominees except Supreme Court nominees. Your predecessor in the Republican job, Leader McConnell, used the Reid rule, the Reid precedent on April 6th, 2017 to extend the Reid rule and the Reid precedent to Supreme Court nominees. Now, you’re going to invoke the nuclear option to change the Senate rules to do what, Senator Thune?

JT: Well, I mean, we have to reform a broken system, Hugh. You used the analysis that you provided, the data that you provided earlier in terms of votes and time spent, time wasted doing nominations. This is historic. This has never happened before. In the past, both Republican and Democrat Senates, in the way that they treated both Republican and Democrat presidencies, as you point out, is that a lot of these lower level nominees in various agencies and departments of our government were handled by unanimous consent. People just agreed. These are people that, you know, the president needs his team in place. So the level of obstruction is historic. We’ve got to reform a broken system, and so what we intend to do is to allow to happen what has happened up until now just the old-fashioned by unanimous consent, where we take a bloc of these noms and approve them in bloc as opposed to having to vote on them. First, you’ve got, the way the Democrats are doing it right now, they force you to file cloture, which I’ve had to do endlessly. Then, you have to have an intervening day. Then, you have to invoke cloture. That’s a motion to proceed vote. And then, you have another intervening time period, and then you have a final vote. So we’ve exercised that, as you pointed out, 135 times already. But we have 300 nominees in the pipeline, either out of committee or coming through the process right now. Between now and the end of the year, to get them confirmed, and by the way, if they aren’t confirmed by the end of the year, they go back, and the administration has to resubmit them all over again. That would be 600 votes. And you said, we’ve already had 500 votes, and we’ve been here more than any other Senate in history. So this can’t continue. There is no way. The American people deserve better than this, and the Democrats here in Washington have moved so far to the left in terms of who’s, you know, the tail wagging the dog, and I don’t think Chuck Schumer has any control of his conference anymore. It’s the far left that’s driving this, and they aren’t going to let this president have any wins on anything. And they’re going to do everything they can to drag it out. So we’ve got to reform a broken process, and the way that we intend to do it is to get back to the way this was done prior to Chuck Schumer’s Senate.

HH: Now Leader Thune, I’ve been doing this long enough I was around when then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was going to use the nuclear option in 2005 because of an unprecedented Democratic blockade of George W. Bush’s judges. And we got right up to the line to pulling the trigger, and seven Republicans defected, and the Gang of 14 upended it. They sacrificed Miguel Estrada and other fine nominees like Carolyn Kuhl on the alter of Democratic appeasement. Are you certain of your conference? Are they going to support you in the nuclear option?

JT: Well, we are trying, doing everything we can right now, Hugh, to shore up, to make sure we’ve got the votes to execute on this, because, and that’s obviously, that’s a fair question. And we’re trying to confirm that. We’ve laid out the reasons why. I don’t think there’s any question people acknowledge that this is a problem that has to be fixed. We can’t continue like this. This is not, the Senate cannot do its work. It’s not going to be able to function as an institution unless we make some changes. But it’s always a function of trying to, you know, round up the votes and ensure that you’ve got the requisite number to actually execute on getting this done. So we’re working on that at the moment. I’m hopeful that we’re going to land there, and we’re doing everything we can. I’m sitting down with individual senators as I have been now for, and having these conversations on an individual basis, and then bringing smaller groups together. And then, of course, we spent two hours yesterday with all of our Republican senators kind of walking through the reasons why we need to do this. And I think everybody realizes that this is just, this pattern can’t continue.

HH: Now Leader Thune, the Republicans lost the Senate in the 2006 Elections after the Gang of 14 intervened, because I think, in part, a lot of that was the Iraq War. A lot of it, though, why have a majority if nobody uses it. There are two members of the Gang of 14 still left. I doubt very much Senator Graham or Senator Collins will vote against the nuclear option this time, because they understand you can’t run a government with 135 people. They’re very serious people. But you’ve got some folks who aren’t running for reelection who might just want to stick their thumb in Donald Trump’s eye. Are you going to hold a vote regardless, because I would like to know who, if someone won’t support this, I’d like to know who.

JT: Yeah, well, and you’ll get that opportunity, because we don’t, I don’t think we have any choice. We have to, we’ve got to move forward. I mean, the other alternative, Hugh, as you know, and this is also a, I put this out there as a viable alternative. If in the event we don’t have the votes to do it this way, there’s always recess appointment. That also takes 51 votes, because you have to adjourn the Senate. And there are some people who would, I’m sure some who would object to that option. But I think if you look at the alternatives that are in front of us right now, the best way to do this is to change the Senate, reform the Senate rules in a way that enables the United States Senate and the President to get their people in place. I mean, I think that’s, again, the American people when they cast their votes last November had an expectation that the President was going to be able to assemble a team to execute on the agenda that they voted for. And he is a duly elected president. He deserves to have his team in place. This obstructionist Senate is using the delaying/blocking tactics in ways that have never been done before. And in the time I’ve been here and watched this, and like all the history that we compiled going back decades, never been done before. And so we’ve got to deliver. And I just, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the votes to do that, but I think our folks realize that we don’t have many options here.

HH: Now Senator Thune, I would approve of carving out judicial nominees for the same standard that is currently in place. Those are lifetime appointments. I understand going on a lifetime appointment, going as long as it takes and getting 30 hours of debate or whatever it is, two hours of debate. It depends on what job they’re up for. But these are 3 ½-year appointments. I just don’t understand why it’s even a question if they get out of committee that it gets a vote a week later. So are you going to divide the judicial nominees from all the other civilian nominees?

JT: We are. I mean, we’ve left the judiciary as is, as we did with cabinet-level appointees. Those are treated in a different fashion. But so many of these, the 1,110 or so that you mentioned on the executive calendar are positions that frankly, 1) I would argue, I don’t know that they need a Senate confirmation in the first place. I think the President ought to be able to put his team together. But to the degree that they do need Senate confirmation, there needs to be a process that enables these people to get into their jobs in a reasonable time period. I mean, think about this. We are now eight months into this president’s term, and he has, I believe, 11 or 12% of his folks in place, because we’ve had to grind it out. The Democrats have forced us to go through all the hoops. We haven’t had a single one confirmed by unanimous consent, a practice that has been employed by Senates, like I said, Republican and Democrat, with Republican and Democrat presidents going back decades. This is a new level of obstruction, and it’s got to be dealt with in a way that enables the President and us to do the jobs the American people elected us to do.

HH: Now I want to close this part of the conversation, Senator, by underscoring I’m prepared to live with this for Democrats as well. If you can get someone out of committee, they ought to get a vote. The Constitution all but says that. It says the Senate shall provide advice and consent. It doesn’t mean you have to vote yes, but you have to provide a vote. That’s implied there. Are your colleagues prepared to live with it under a Democratic president and a Democratic majority, because they will have to?

JT: Not surprisingly, that’s been one of the big conversations. As you might expect, Hugh, we have folks as we think through the long-term impacts of everything that we do, if you have a future Democrat president and a future Democrat Senate, what does this look like? And I think that on that point, I mean, I would argue that a Republican or Democrat president, you’re, you know, people who run for that office are elected by the American people, deserve to be able to put their team together.

HH: Yes.

JT: There are prerogatives that the Senate has, as you point out, Constitutionally – advice and consent. And we want to preserve and retain that. We believe this does that, but we have to, we’ve got to, we can’t do what we’re doing today. The Democrats have broken the system, and this is Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, a problem of their making. Unfortunately, the Republicans are going to have to clean up their mess.

HH: Now I understand you can’t say one way or the other. I’m just putting it in your ear. Please force a vote on these changes, because I want to know who among the Republicans is not really understanding their Constitutional duty or their debt to the party. And that’s fine. Let the chips lie where they may, but I want to know. You know, the Gang of 14, we had the names and the argument. We lost the Senate thereafter having done that. Last question, Senator. The Schumer shutdown is in the offing. I can’t believe he’s going to do this. Are there any moves by the Democrats to prevent a government shutdown, or do they want one?

JT: I think that they see it politically advantageous to have the government shut down, because I think historically, they always perceive, at least, that the president party in power is often blamed for that. But I honestly think if we have done our jobs right, and I think I’ve talked to and met with the Speaker yesterday, and I’m meeting later today with the President in the White House to, there are a number of things we’re going to cover, including nominations. But I think, too, this question of funding the government and whether or not the Democrats, they think it’s a political gainer for them to shut the government down, I expect they’re going to try and look for ways to do that, which means we’ve got to be doing everything we can to take away any excuses they have. And we’ve got to fund the government. We realize that. But we also want to fund it in a way that makes the government more efficient, smaller, and a better return for the taxpayer. So those are all objectives that we have, and you know, clearly not shared by the Democrats. And so we’re going to have, I’m sure, rather testy conversations here in the weeks ahead. But if we end up in that posture, I just want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, and the American people understand that it’s the Republicans who are trying to keep the government open and running in a responsible, fiscally responsible and efficient way, and the Democrats who are trying to shut it down. I think that’ll be clear.

HH: If serious people could be heard, it would be louder than the Ohio State stadium last Saturday. Senator Thune, they would be saying go for the nuclear option, break the logjam, get the government staffed. And if Senator Schumer wants to shut down the government, leave it on him. Thank you for joining me, Majority Leader Thune. Come back after Monday or Tuesday, whenever the vote is. I appreciate it.

JT: Will do. Sounds good. Thanks, Hugh.

HH: Thank you.

JT: Go Buckeyes.

HH: Go Buckeyes.

End of interview.

The post Senate Majority Leader John Thune On The Rules Changes Coming To The Senate Via “The Reid Rule” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Ambassador Rahm Emanuel joined me today to cover the waterfront of issues (including, of course, the nuclear triad and the future of the Navy):

Audio:

08-07hhs-emanuel

Transcript:

HH: Special guest on this Thursday morning. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, most recently ambassador to Japan. Before that, of course, two-term mayor of Chicago. Before that, chief of staff to President Obama. Before that, long-time member of Congress. Before that, political director in the Clinton White House. Basically, he’s done everything including being an investment banker. And I’m very glad to have you join me, Mr. Ambassador. Where do I find you today?

RE: In Montana.

HH: Ah, good place to relax. Before I get to the serious stuff, I want to ask what your reaction was when you learned a new Pope was from Chicago.

RE: Well, as all good Jewish boys, I was proud to know that his mother was a fan of the Chicago Cubs.

HH: oh, but he’s a White Sox fan.

RE: That’s my point. Like his mother is the most important in that process.

HH: Oh, I get it.

RE: There’s a lot, on a serious note, I actually was communicating this week with Cardinal Cupich, who is on his way to Hiroshima, where he’s from Chicago, obviously, on his way. And we were talking, and I was talking about the Pope and how much hope and how much pride people in the city of Chicago have in a hometown kid that done well.

HH: You know, I’m pretty excited. I’m Roman Catholic. I’m just a little big younger than he is. I want to know what’s in his album collections, did he watch Laugh-In. I just want to know the cultural stuff, right? So if you see him, tell him he’s got an interview over here. Serious stuff. What is the number one external existential threat to the United States?

RE: Well, you say that. I would say external, I actually think is internal. And I say that, you know, I wrote a piece for the Washington Post when I was wrapping up being ambassador. What I learned about China and the region, what I learned about Japan, and being away from America, what I also learned about America, the good, the bad, and that ugly. And I actually think the biggest challenge externally is if we’re not strong at home, and I don’t mean in he kumbaya sense, although that’s a portion of it, we can’t actually deal and deter all the external threats. So I actually do believe that the biggest external threat we have is at home, which is the strength and the capacity for us to both be politically, economically, and strategically successful in calling on all of America’s strengths. So as you think it’s meant…

HH: I’ll come back around to the internal divisions in the country, but I was wondering if you would say China. Do you think China is our biggest threat?

RE: No…there’s no doubt, because I think when Xi becomes president, the premier, China goes from being a strategic competitor to a strategic adversary. We were late to realizing the shift in mindset by China. They were no longer, there’s a lot of it that goes into this from the 2008 financial meltdown, etc. There’s a lot of components to break apart in that analysis. But Xi makes a fundamental change not only about China, but in the relationship with the United States. And we were, hope overcame reason in the sense of understanding that China wasn’t not only playing by the rules, but they made a shift strategically, and we were late to coming to that understanding. I think he actually gave us a wake-up call, and had he silent or more oblique we would have lost a decade when we lost, really, closer to half a decade or maybe just a tad more. And now, we are aware of it. I’m not sure we’re doing everything to meet it.

HH: President Obama began what is called the pivot to Asia. Donald Trump has continued it. What do you make about that redeployment of American military strength in numbers and in capacity to the Pacific?

RE: You know, I happen to think it’s very important militarily. I happen to think our multiplier, we can get into this, is making sure that Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, India, the Philippines, all our allies are aligned and pulling in the same direction both on economic deterrence and on strategic and military deterrence. I don’t think as a father of two kids in the Navy, one full-time and one reserve, I don’t think it’s only about our military. Our economic power, take an example of export controls on semiconductors. They’re effective, because Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Dutch all lined up with the United States, shoulder to shoulder. If you think you’re going to do it by yourself, you’re going to be the odd man out. This basic pivot here, our goal is to isolate the isolator, China. China’s goal is to isolate us. And I think that we have to use our economic strength, our political strength, and our strategic strength to our advantage. Look, even countries that aren’t “allies in the region”, they do not want an undeterred, unhinged China. They welcome America as the counterpoint. So to me, that’s the key thing, and could build on that across each of the spectrums, or each of the component parts.

HH: Well, I love the fact that you’ve got kids in the Navy. I had a son in the Navy who passed in the hallway with your son in Naval Intelligence.

RE: Oh.

HH: He just retired about six months ago. And then I have a son-in-law who’s still on active duty. And so I’m always hearing about our Pacific deployments. You know about, then, how important it is that we keep a robust submarine and carrier fleet out there. Do you think we’re building for a future to face China? Or do we need a rethink strategically?

RE: Well, first of all, you always have to rethink constantly and strategically. You basically have a consensus. There should always be a group of people questioning the consensus. Now we are, there was a great story in the Wall Street Journal this week. I say great, because it underpins, underscores something I’ve been advocating, wrote about when I was ambassador, which is we are not building the Navy and the capacity from submarines to other things, other parts of the Navy, fast enough, and the supplies we need fast enough. And that means we’ve got to call on the strengths of our allies, which is, I advocate for repairs of the 7th Fleet that’s based out of Japan, to be repaired in Japan. Keep them in theater and use the United States’ power and capacity, industrial, to build new an additional, and not clog up the system with repair work, which we’re way behind on. Second is we have, the only part of the world where we have an aircraft carrier permanently based is in Japan in the Indo-Pacific. There has got to be a potential to call on the other parts of both the Navy, the Marines, and the Air Force in different ways to think strategically, think about the challenges, and not just Taiwan. You have the Philippines, a sovereign nation and a treaty ally, and the South China Sea is 14% of the world’s entire fish catch. 40% of the GDP of the world goes through those waters, and China is trying to change the facts for both the Philippines, Vietnam, and other countries that surround the South China Sea. And so you have to think of it from that strategy as well. The best offense is an effective, credible deterrence.

HH: I agree. That’s Teddy Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to the present day. Now you may have overlapped with Admiral Paparo, whom I have not met.

RE: I did.

HH: But I love the fact he said we have to make the Taiwan Strait be a hellscape if China attempts to cross it in force. Do you agree with the Admiral?

RE: Well, Poppy is his code name, and I agree with, whatever Sam says, I take at face value. He’s a very smart and very strategic thinker, as is his predecessor, The Lung, Aquilino. John Aquilino was, I think, they no doubt had part of the credibility of the deterrence on the military side is not only the United States, not only Taiwan, but our allies being part of that and making sure that it is, since China has never ever fought a navy war, or naval-led military effort, that they understand the command of the seas is something the United States and Japan and Australia understand. And we will make it so hard to think about, it is that credibility of doubt that creates its own deterrence.

HH: I agree with that. Do you believe Xi is ever going to loosen his grip on that country, Ambassador Emanuel, because he is different from previous Chinese leaders?

RE: Look, I mean, they’re very, they’re shades of each other. He has taken it to a higher level. There is no way he will loosen his grip, because of his own sense of protest, whether they were in Hong Kong or when there was housing protests in China itself in the mainland. There’s no way he will loosen his grip. And look, follow the money. He has spent more on domestic security than he has on his own military security and the projection of that power. That tells you there’s three senses of vulnerability in China historically. One around food, one around energy is the second, and the third is around the Chinese people. They live in constant fear of the Chinese people. That is one of their big insecurities, and so therefore, based on history and based on culture, no way will the Chinese Communist Party under Xi loosen their grip and control. And I think if you think about COVID, it used to be if you wanted to get rid of a political opponent, you send them away. The iPhone or the phone, mobile phone, they have now realized how to bring the gulag to you. You can’t get on a bus. You can’t go shopping. You can’t get groceries. You can’t leave your neighbor. You can’t use $5 bucks, because they know where you are. So the concept, like Russia, or the Soviet Union where you used to send a political dissident to Siberia, the Siberia now comes to you.

HH: That’s very well put, and I agree with that. Do you think most Americans understand the nature of the Chinese political system, and indeed Chinese espionage in the United States?

RE: I don’t think most Americans, and I don’t think most of the political class, either. So I wouldn’t distinguish the Americans. I think our political class on both parties, both have, you know, I’ll give you an example. Political class, I’m guilty of this, also. Sometimes, I’ve used the Cold War metaphor. It’s actually wrong, and it leads to wrong conclusions. What do I mean? When we had a Cold War with the Soviet Union, well, the Soviet Union, and in Russia specifically as the anchor of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, was maybe 7% of the world GDP. We had zero trade. Here, we have over a trillion dollars of trade. China is close to 20% of the world’s GDP. And it is not a military conflict alone. Xi has made sure that the future of the United States’ battle with China is going to be on science and technology. Why I oppose what President Trump is doing, one of the reasons, not the only reason, is while they’re investing in quantum, while they’re investing in AI, while they’re investing in biotech, we are cutting our investments in the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, DARPA and all the other aspects that make up America’s scientific and technological leadership. It is unilateral disarmament by the United States of America led by President Trump. That is the war that Xi is getting ready for, and we need to play to our strengths in the scientific and technological arena, and we are not doing it with the university system and college systems that the United States has built up post-World War II.

HH: Oh, Mr. Ambassador, up front, I tell people interviews are not debates, so I just want to hear your answers and I won’t debate you on them. But on that point, we are also falling behind in the AI race because we don’t have enough of an electrical base. We don’t have enough power in the United States, and renewables don’t provide it. They’re uncertain.

RE: Hugh, you’re not going to get…

HH: Do we need small modular reactors?

RE: Yeah, yeah, we can have a debate. This is like, I thought this was going to be like a Jewish home for dinner. We were going to scream at each other. That’s how we debate with each other.

HH: (laughing) Okay, tell me about nuclear reactors. Are you in favor of them?

RE: Yeah, I mean, look, I’m in favor of them. I was an advocate. And when I was ambassador to Japan, for Japan expanding, opening their closed nuclear facilities post-Fukushima. I want the United States to be a leader in what is called the small medium reactor, SMR field. There’s about seven companies from NuScale to the one, Hitachi, GE, to the Westinghouse, and now I’m getting into a problem because I’m starting to name and I shouldn’t leave any off. Bill Gates has a great company out in Wyoming that’s starting a plant. There was a story today about a new thing in Idaho. So my view is we should let a thousand flowers bloom. Test which technology works. I happen to think if you look around the corner, what’s going to happen which will be different is the industrial large users will come off the grid and become self-sufficient. The rest of the grid system will go to a consumer retail-base type of energy. And the SMR as a piece of the solution, not only for climate change, but for energy independence, will be a key component. I slightly, not slightly, I disagree with you in that sense that the renewables will be a strong component. But what they need is the battery storage, which America is also a leader in. And the capacity to keep that retail energy and the electrical system working. And then the biggest thing, which is a win-win for the United States, which is redoing the electric grid to support this type of investment. And that means training men and women to be Illinois, in an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, because we are short workers to build the grid system, which is one of the lynchpins. And this gets to your first question. If we don’t invest in America’s electrical grid, I don’t, not that I don’t care about China, but that’s like a domestic internal piece that will hold America back from its great leadership and potential.

HH: We are in 100% agreement. Last China question. Are you familiar with Jimmy Lai?

RE: Well, this is definitely, this is definitely not a Jewish meal if we’re in agreement. So I just want to start and end right there.

HH: I’ll get to it. We’ll get to that stuff. But are you familiar with Jimmy Lai in solitary confinement in Hong Kong, because Xi is afraid of him?

RE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s…

HH: President Trump and Secretary Rubio have assured me on this show they’re working to get him out. Do you think they’ll get him out? Or is Xi just going to say no forever?

RE: Look, this is an uneducated guess. They will get him out, but the price is going to be one that’s going to be painful. And like in everything of governing, you’ve got a list of about a hundred things. Is it number 99, or is it number 9? What are the pieces, where does getting him out sit against fentanyl, against industrial, against chips, against Taiwan? So the list is long, and I can’t speak to the administration’s, where is they…you tell me where they put his freedom on their list of ‘musts’ and where does it rank, and I’ll tell you whether I’m optimistic or pessimistic.

HH: They tell me it’s near the top, but that’s a vague assurance. Let’s move on, but you’re right. It depends on where it is on the list.

RE: Yeah.

HH: Very definitely not the Jewish dinner. Let’s get there. Should we allow allies like South Korea and Japan to build warships for us? Not just repair and maintain them as you pointed out we could do in Japan tomorrow, but build them for us against the Jones Act, for example?

RE: Yes, But before I get my hate mail, let me fill out the yes, but…

HH: Yeah, you’re going to.

RE: Yeah. You could find a way that the United States and Japan, who are more familiar. Japan builds the hull, and the United States then brings the hull to the United States and customizes the Aegis Class. Then, Japan does their own Aegis their way. But the hull production, which would allow you to multiply the production of the Aegis, I’m just using that as one example, would, could be a joint project. I actually think one of the things you could do with Japan is we will do more of the 7th Fleet maintenance there, but we need Mitsubishi or Kawasaki to purchase one of the shipyards in the United States, and open up a shipyard here and start the production, because their capability of on-time and on budget versus the United States is junior varsity versus NBA.

HH: Why is that, Ambassador?

RE: So, I…look, I mean, I wrote about this. So I want to give a point out to something. In the United States, we’re all responsible for, both parties, both political class and commercial class, for allowing our miliary industrial capacity to shrivel over the years, post-Cold War. We overshot the runway from 55 companies to five big ones. We didn’t get efficiency. We got rewarding overbudget and behind schedule. No other business professional besides the military industrial complexes of the United States have we rewarded, year in and year out, failure. So my view, if you want to get, we’ve talked about it, talked about it, talked about it. Ban for seven years all corporate stock buybacks until they fix on time and on budget. And Japan does that. I went personally with Del Toro, the former secretary of navy, to see Mitsubishi production and their capacity. They could tell you three years from now which screw will be put in, in which base, on what hour of the Tuesday in the third week of November. And they’ve never been behind budget or behind schedule in the way the United States has, nowhere close. Another is a lot of cultural…

HH: No, we are not.

RE: And so my view, you need to take a 2X4 to the corporate suite, and I’ll give you two examples. And I wrote about this in Bloomberg. Hugh, at Raytheon and Lockheed, in the last three years, did $19 billion dollars in stock buybacks, and collectively, $4 billion in new production and capital expenditure. $19B versus $4B, and you and I have spent the first 15 minutes talking about China, which is a naval and aerial and missile theater versus a land theater in Europe. And we don’t have, nobody’s going to say time out, we’re not ready for the Taiwan Straits or the South China Sea. They’re investing in their potential and where they think the conflict’s going to be. We are hamstrung by a broken system that we have rewarded the worst behaviors. And there’s only one way to do it. Cold turkey it. You want to focus the corporations and the leadership of those corporations in fixing what is broken? And don’t talk to me about oh, we need more certainty. Budgets for defenses are going up. That, you know. No corporate stock buyback to enrich the CEO’s in the corporate suite until you fix this problem with the American people. And that will wake them up.

HH: Music to my ears. Now do you think carriers, and this is important if you ever decide to run for and are successful being president. Do you think carriers are on the edge of becoming obsolete over the next 20-25 years and we’re going to be a submersible Navy?

RE: All right, I’m going to give you, I’ve actually, crazily, started to read about this and educate. I actually think the short answer is no, but I would expand what carriers are. And what I mean by that is we have the potential now for both unmanned and other type of drone capacity to take off vertically. So you could take a barge, put five of those capacities on a barge, and that becomes an aircraft carrier. So you have to change your concept, and here’s what I’m thinking about. You can now have 50 aircraft carriers in the South China Sea or in the Indo-Pacific theater, not just the Ronald Reagan, not just the George Washington, not just the Abraham Lincoln when they’re there. You could massively expand your aircraft carriers, and that goes to America’s strength, and all of a sudden makes China’s investments more vulnerable and more weak, because if you don’t give them a singular target, but massively expand what the targets are and massively expand what an aircraft carrier is for the 21st Century, you just have rethought and used and played to America’s strengths China’s vulnerability and our capacity to change the asymmetrical warfare today.

HH: You just spent four years in Japan that is transitioning from post-World War II Japan to…

RE: Do you not disagree with that?

HH: What’s that?

RE: I said…

HH: We agree. Absolutely, and I’ve got carrier people in the family, and they tell me I’m a little bit, we need the big ones, and I understand that, but they’re going to be like battleships in World War II before long in the age of hypersonic missiles. I want to know what you saw in the Japan attitude? Have the Japanese embraced their need to be a war fighting nation again?

RE: So I’m sensitive to the Japanese public, but what I would say is they absolutely understand the world is different today. They absolutely understand that they have a role to play in meeting that challenge. And they have gone from a pacifist to investment into deterrence. Do I say go into a militaristic, based on history, etc., and the post-World War II culture? No. But they’re going from the 9th-biggest sized defense budget in the world, the 9th largest, to the 3rd largest defense budget. And they’re acquiring capabilities like counterstrike capabilities that nobody would have thought of on those two things. And that goes to Prime Minister Kishida, the leaders of the LDP. But that consensus is actually shared by the entire country, mainly because of knowing that they can’t just rely on the United States. And they also have a lot of security concerns about what China is doing, not just in China, but how they are also starting to do things around the Senkaku Islands, around the Okinawa island chains, and in and around the Sea of Japan, that they have never done before. So Japan understands the world’s different, they’ve got to change.

HH: Now about Taiwan, Admiral Montgomery comes on this program a lot, retired Navy two-star. He does a lot of work with Taiwan. They have ordered a lot of weapons from the United States. They can’t get approved by DOD and State. Can you fix that if you were president? Do you think you could accelerate getting Taiwan what Taiwan needs to defend itself primarily, even with our help?

RE: Look, I mean, Mr. Montgomery is much smarter than I am about what Taiwan needs, but I think if I read it correctly, I think there are like $12 billion dollars, $15 billion dollars we’re behind on meeting their orders?

HH: Correct.

RE: All right, so can you fix it? Yes, you can fix it. But it requires putting white light heat on the bureaucracy. Let me give you one example of what I mean. Japan produces the Patriot. Mitsubishi had the industry. They make it. They have the capacity on site to go up to 75 missiles a year. They were making, just a couple years ago, 35. Now, they’re down to single digits. Why? Because we can’t get an agreement in the United States to get them the stuff quick enough, and for the capacity. So can they, can we do it? Yes. The only way, and I spent countless hours with good people both in State and Pentagon trying to get this. You have to make a decision like on proprietary technology, the risk. It’s not risk free, but you know, governing is choosing between bad and worse. If you want to get Japan, which is one of the only countries that can produce up to about 150 if they took more real estate capacity, right now, the existing industrial capacity is 75. If you want that, you either decide that we’re going to stay at 75, or we’re going to go bigger, but we’re going to make a different decision on the licensing of other type of technologies. And you’ve just got to make that decision. And that requires somebody sitting there, and rather than in committee looking at the same facts year in and year out, we are going to make a call here.

HH: Agreed.

RE: Either we’re going to get to X number…

HH: We’re going to find something to disagree on pretty soon. Don’t worry, we will.

RE: Get to domestic. Get to domestic politics (laughing).

HH: I’m going to get there, but I’ve got to do the, I only do national security on presidential debates, so I’m doing it with you. In the, we have a triad. Which leg of the triad needs modernization first, fastest, regardless of cost?

RE: I know this is not usual for somebody who has spent his time on national. I haven’t read a lot on that particular question, so I don’t, I’m not, this would be an uneducated guess. Given the capacity of America’s Air Force, I would say to keep the modernization of the, get the Air Force piece of that because of the globe, get that modernized first. But that’s really a bad, I’m not sure.

HH: Okay, you’re wrong. It’s the Columbia-class. We need the boomers. They can’t be found, but we can go back to that. I want to switch to Israel.

RE: Seriously, if you have something to read on that, I’d be very eager to get it.

HH: I will get it to you. Now Israel…

RE: Yeah.

HH: Today, the cabinet is meeting. Indeed, they’re meeting as we speak about whether or not to occupy all of Gaza. It is allegedly, reported in the Times of Israel, the Prime Minister’s plan to occupy all of Gaza, beginning with Gaza City, and then to turn over a conquered Gaza, free of Hamas, to Arab troops. What do you make of that proposed decision as it’s being reported?

RE: I think this is, I would listen to the head of the IDF, Israel Defense Forces, of the consequences of what you have to do. This is, in the way I look at this, this is a byproduct of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s refusal to have a day after plan starting 18 months ago. Now if you look at the situation today, Israel has militarily succeeded, and failed politically and strategically. And that sits at the Prime Minister’s front door. Hamas, on the other side, has succeeded politically beyond what they expected, and failed miserably militarily. They’re mirror opposites of each other. I will try to control myself here, because I think the Prime Minister, if you’ll look at it historically, and we have a, you know, he called, we have a long history going back to ’09 when he called me publicly, when I was President Obama’s chief of staff, a self-hating Jew, publicly.

HH: So you get along.

RE: (laughing) Yeah, well, he has failed miserably in the responsibilities of thinking through politically and strategically the opportunities that Israel has achieved militarily. Look, my middle name is Israel. My father fought in the Irgun, fought in the war of independence. Never has Israel been more secure militarily from the days when Ben-Gurion led the hora at Dizengoff Circle when they were declared a state. They’re incredibly secure, strategically, militarily. And they’re unbelievably, politically and internationally, more vulnerable than they’ve ever been. And it’s on the doorstep of this Prime Minister, because he refuses to make the tough political decisions because of his own sense of being held hostage by a cabinet that is divorced from political and strategic reality. The Israeli Defense Force has done an incredible, as we’ve seen over the last few years having fumbled on October 7th and 8th and 9th, has incredibly reestablished not only Israel’s military superiority, it’s the credibility of deterrence for future efforts, have done things that nobody thought could be done both in Beirut, rather in Southern Lebanon, in Syria, in Iran, and even in Gaza. But there has been an absolute absence of political leadership. And to literally do to, since March 18th when the last ceasefire ended, 50-plus Israel soldiers have died for what military advantage? The highest suicide rate by reservists in Israel’s military history. And those poor men and women, hostages, rather men, hostages are still underground in those tunnels with no greater strategic effort. And Israel now, rather than isolating Hamas, has isolated itself. Now you decide to put…

HH; Now you’ve seen the pictures of those hostages. You’ve seen the videos. They will die unless the IDF gets them out. They will die. They’re going to starve to death. Should the IDF take the risk involved in going after them, and that means into parts of Gaza they’ve never gone before for fear of the hostages being executed?

RE: The one thing I know, by the way, I said earlier that I know about governing is choosing between bad and worse. I don’t have all the information. What are the risks to the civilians? What are the risks to the soldiers going after them? What are the risks that they decide in the tunnels? Are they kept together? Are they kept separate in different parts? Israel has intelligence. I don’t have that intelligence. I couldn’t even give you a 3rd grade answer to that, because that’s a question that’s a legitimate question that I would be guessing without a series of pieces of information over a period of time.

HH: Fair enough.

RE: But I do, I want to say one thing. What is going on, also an example of what I mean about the Prime Minister’s absolute, abject responsibility to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people and to the strategic position of Israel, to stand up there a week ago in front of the world and say there’s no hunger, there’s no malnutrition, destroys the credibility you need when you make other claims. And he has failed the one test of leadership that is essential. He failed the security of the state of Israel, and he failed to invest and take advantage of what military success does, which means it creates a void, an opening for political, strategic chess moves. And he refuses to do it because of his own political calculations, for his own security, and he’s put at risk the rest of the Israelis’ own future, potentially.

HH: I’ve heard these criticisms from people like Haviv Rettig Gur. I’ve always heard Dr. Michael Oren make some of these criticisms, and I’ve heard Amit Segal give counterarguments. I’m not an Israeli, so I just look at them as the equal of any of our strategic allies, and I’m glad they launched Operation Rising Lion, and I’m glad President Trump did Operation Midnight Hammer. Is Rahm Emanuel glad that both of those two things happened?

RE: Look, I, so the first part, rather the second part on Iran. That was, I do think it was the right decision to do. They actually not only destroyed the nuclear, I think they actually degraded it, that it’s incredibly costly. Iran’s efforts for the last 40 years are now blown up from Southern Lebanon to Syria, and also in, when the Israeli Air Force occupies and controls Iranian air space, it’s an incredible effort. I have some doubts about whether I’d make that decision of the President of the United States based on Israeli intelligence that’s the direct opposite of your own. To be studied and analyzed. Now, the question is what is the day after? And again, the Prime Minister has failed both in Syria and Lebanon, and what, vis-à-vis Iran, vis-à-vis what I mean Iran, for the rest of the Gulf countries, and also with Saudi Arabia.

HH: You know, there’s a good chance he’ll be prime minister if you ever become president. Can you work with him, because your old boss, President Obama, sure couldn’t?

RE: Well, look, I work with anybody. I mean, I could work with President Xi. I’ve been as critical there, too. As you know, they went after, when I was ambassador, they basically four or five times went from the podium, went after me. I’m up front. You know where I stand. And can I work with him? I can work with a lot of parts and components of the Israeli government. I can work with a lot of components of both friend, foe, as ally as well as not ally. That’s a responsibility. But I’m going to be clear about my position. I would make the decision to do that. Now as it relates to Israel’s other pieces of its security, I’ve been supportive of that effort, and consistently supportive. But you have to understand that the military is one piece that creates a platform for the political and strategic to then secure. That is the only way you lock down. Look at this. In the history of Israel, they have secured things with…oh, go ahead.

HH: Can you…can you be that clear about President Macron’s comments on a Palestinian state? I think that made him an accomplice of Hamas. I think it killed another hostage deal, and I think he’s responsible for at least half of the 20 still being in the tunnels. What do you think?

RE: I don’t think he’s responsible for that. The responsibility sits with what Israel did and didn’t do, what Hamas did and did not do and refuses. Now look, I come from a position Israel uses its missiles to protect its population, and Hamas uses its people to protect its missiles. Much different moral equivalence. They’re not even equivalence. I think, I don’t want to speak for President Macron, but my guess is there’s a massive frustration that Israel hasn’t thought about what’s next. That’s on Israel. There are things you have to decide and do, and I don’t support the idea that you unilaterally call for a Palestinian state. You work for it, but you have to understand, also, and I am sympathetic. I’ve worked going back to the Oslo Accord with President Clinton and President Obama, there’s a belief that you know, you could have a one state, but you can’t have second-class citizens in that one state. That’s crazy. So like Rabin, not exactly a softie when it comes to Israel’s security, understood the future. The other party, Prime Minister Olmert, understood the security of the future of Israel. That’s why he tried to negotiate the ’06 agreement. Ehud Barak at the end of President Clinton’s background in 2000 at Camp David, everybody, look, the Palestinians, and the Palestinian leadership, failed three separate times to say the word yes with 98% of what they could have gotten. 99%. So they own that. But that doesn’t mean you are cleaned of your hands, and you can say okay, well, they failed. You have a responsibility.

HH: You know, Ambassador, there comes a point where realism takes over, and we’re not going to get a Palestinian state in my lifetime because of 10/7. It’s going to take a long time for the Israelis to trust another independently operated Palestinian enclave not to do what happened on 10/7. Do you agree with that assessment?

RE: Yes, but here, look, that’s, I agree with that in this sense, but that doesn’t mean you’re done. There’s Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf countries ready to do things they would never do 5-10 years ago.

HH: Agreed.

RE: You have to make the first question isn’t that. The first question is, is Israel’s long-term security, and when I say long-term, I mean a decade or two, in the present situation.

HH: All right. Let’s go to domestic politics.

RE: So, wait a second, if you agree that long-term security is not the status quo for the next 20 years, then you start making other types of calculations. I think the Gulf countries and the Arab countries surrounding Israel, a number of them, specifically Egypt and Jordan, would be ready to step in and do certain things of standing up a technically capable Palestinian governance that would deal with meeting the aspirations of the Palestinian people in a way that Israel can’t and shouldn’t. And that solves some of the political and economics.

HH: So…this is the bridge to American politics. There is a new left-wing in your party that wants to “globalize the intifada”, that is running Mr. Mamdani in New York, socialists in Seattle and Minneapolis, that are simply radical and anti-Israel. 1) What do you think about them? And 2) Do you think the Democrats will ever nominate a Jew to be president or vice-president again?

RE: Yeah, well, one, on the first part, I’ve already spoken to the fact that I don’t believe calling for a global intifada is part of the core of what the Democratic Party would present. It’s not. You’re calling for the destruction of the Jewish people.

HH: Correct.

RE: That is what the Intifada 1 and Intifada 2 and globalizing mean. And I don’t know any of these individual candidates across, but, and I don’t know them, but the idea that you would embrace the concept that both the state of Israel and Jewish people could be killed because of both their identity and their nation, or their beliefs like Zionism, is not welcomed in the Democratic Party. It’s not welcomed in America, regardless of party. And there are elements in both parties that are talking differently about both Jewish people and the state of Israel. As it relates to a Jewish nominee who could be Jewish for the Democratic Party, the short answer is yes. And I say this based on what reference and rather referential experience.

HH: I hope…

RE: When I ran for Congress…

HH: I hope you’re right. I just think your party’s lost a lot of its bearings since Bill Clinton. It’s gone left, left, left, woke, woke, woke, and off the edge. Can you get it back? Can you throw them a rope and bring them back up to the top?

RE: Hugh, I don’t mean to do this to you, but you know, you know, you and I could be isolated on the same island at this point, because your party’s gone right, right right, okay? So I mean, in my own view on that. That said, I do believe, and I mean, I think this is an important lesson. The prior members that were elected from the north side of Chicago were Dan Rostenkowski, Frank Annunzio, Roman Pucinski, Rob Blagojevich, Mike Flannegan, and along comes Raham Israel Emanuel where the Jewish community represented only 3% of that district. Same thing as when I ran for the mayor of the city of Chicago. I don’t want to extrapolate more from that, but that’s also, take Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania.

HH: Great friend of the show. We love him. Yeah.

RE: Okay, but my example is you have both the city and that state where ethnicity, background, history, name, etc, culture, faith play an important role in politics as they always have in America. They reach past racial differences and distinctions and saw a person, a character, and capability. And I believe that’s true about America, and I think that will always be true about America. And that’s why I think it’s sad when we turn Americans against each other rather than as President Lincoln once said, to our better angels.

HH: We must be friends, not enemies. Let me ask you, Rahm Emanuel, have you read Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, Original Sin?

RE: Yeah.

HH: Is it true what your brother was yelling at the gathering for the weekend?

RE: The one thing I know about being an Emanuel is don’t speak for the Emanuel brothers. Look…

HH: Diplomatic.

RE: They have a chath…no, they have, oh, it doesn’t mean that we don’t try. They have Chatham House rules there, and so I wasn’t there that year. I was in Japan. But I know from my own conversations with Ari, there’s one thing you should know about Emanuel’s. You will never leave a conversation saying well, what is their opinion? We’ll give you our opinion whether you ask for it or not.

HH: All right. What is your opinion of the bad high school theater going on with Texas Democrats fleeing to Illinois, because that’s what it is. It’s bad high school theater.

RE: You know, you say that, and I don’t, Hugh, let me say this. Look, as somebody who’s practiced the dark arts of redistricting, that’s been going on in politics for a long time. That’s why the term gerrymandering has a couple hundred years behind it.

HH: 1812.

RE: That’s, oh yeah. Right. What hasn’t happened is the idea that because you’re scared of an election result, you rewrite the rules midway in the game. Not redistricting. Now I happen to think we should be focused on reducing the cost of living. They want to focus on redistricting. If you were confident in the success of the One Big Beautiful Bill, you really think you’d be trying to redistrict and eliminating five seats? Because…

HH: Yes, because Illinois did it and Massachusetts did it, and Maryland did it, and the Texas Republicans were timid.

RE: No, no, but…Hugh, I’ve read enough about your history of your experiences with Ronald Reagan and that type of Republican. You would not decide in the middle of a decade to play politics again. We’ve got big challenges. We’ve got a third of our kids are behind reading levels at national level, and we are doing redistricting. That is turning America against America, and no, I get gerrymandering. And I get the reforms of California and New York and Iowa. I’m pro those reforms. But the idea that you’re going to do this right before the midterm election on a presidential, not because you’re confident of the voters and the voters’ decisions to say I agree with what you’re doing. Your not confident, so therefore you’re trying to rig the system mid-cycle. Now don’t talk to me…

HH: Now it’s new. It’s an innovation…

RE: No, wait a second. Oh, please.

HH: It hasn’t been done before, but Democrats elected…

RE: Wait, you…

HH: I won’t talk over you. Go ahead.

RE: Look, you have, today there was data out. Again, highest level of unemployment. You have more people not looking for employment. And you have inflation up, which is what he promised to deal with. So rather than dealing with reducing costs, we’re going to deal with redistricting. That is what’s going on. And you’re basically wanting to rig the system, and that, the reason people are reacting like this, Hugh, is because this is different. Gerrymandering, we get. Everybody gets, because it’s been going on for a long, long time in American politics. Doing it right before a midterm election, in mid-cycle? That hasn’t always been done. And don’t make it the same, because…

HH: No, it’s new. Unless it’s been ordered by a court, it’s new. But it is Constitutional. What was new with the Democrats is these “independent commissions” which like in California, were actually facades for Democratic takeover. And in Illinois, your state, you are the most ruthless redistricting state there is. And I think everyone agrees Illinois has got the most ridiculous map. So Republicans are playing catch-up, but I don’t believe because we were slow out of the gate that we shouldn’t sprint to catch up and do what the Democrats do.

RE: Hugh, first of all, you should have done, Texas did redistricting.

HH: Badly.

RE: Oh, well, that’s on them. If you think this, let me ask you a question. Let’s flip this. With all the things we’ve got to deal with in the United States, you think this is where our energy should be? You really believe that?

HH: It is where, one of them is because we will go backwards with a Democratic legislature.

RE: Oh, I actually think…

HH: We will go backwards with a Democratic Congress, and here’s my proof. In the Congress, in the Senate for the first time in history…

RE: Hugh…

HH: …not one nominee received unanimous consent in the first six months of a term of a president, because Chuck Schumer would not allow one. So there are new rules all the time. Harry Reid broke the rule on filibuster with the nuclear option. There are always innovations.

RE: Hugh Hewitt…

HH: Your side usually starts it.

RE: Hugh Hewitt, you know, okay, Hugh Hewitt, well, first of all, both parties of always starting something. You’re, you started, your pedigree is under Ronald Reagan.

HH: Actually, it’s under Richard Nixon.

RE: Okay.

HH: I worked for him right out of college in 1978, so it’s with Nixon. He was in exile in San Clemente.

RE: I’m actually helping you on your biography, but you wouldn’t take it. I will tell you, I knew where it started. I was actually giving you kind of the maturity of coming through the Reagan mold to the Republican Party. All I’m going to say to you right now, he worked with Tip O’Neill and saved Social Security. They had big fights. He then worked, starting in 1986 with a Democratic Senate and House, and he was capable of doing that in the final two years. If I’m not mistaken, he also got welfare reform signed in the final two years. So I’m saying, this, don’t act like this is oh, just normal playing catch up. This is new. Ronald Reagan would not have done this. Richard Nixon would not have done it. Richard Nixon also had a Democratic House and Senate. This is totally different. And don’t…

HH: Well, there are some totally different things…Let me give you a totally different thing.

RE: And don’t…moral question. It’s time we…

HH: You’re familiar with the Pod Bros, right? You listen to podcasts. You listen to the Pod Bros. Do you know that in their most recent sit-down, they set table stakes for a Democratic nominee in 2028 is the cut-off of military assistance to Israel. Do you think that’s table stakes for people who want to be president?

RE: No. And if that, we’ll have a debate on it.

HH: What do you think of the Ben Rhodes wing of your foreign policy establishment? He’s the guy who went to Fidel Castro’s funeral on his own dime.

RE: Well, look. Let me say one thing why you wouldn’t want to cut off military assistance. I was in the room with President Obama when the seed capital for the Iron Dome that produced the missile shield and protection shield that we saw capable since October 7th, 2023. And the United States has access to that technology in our own capacity. And the military theater is changing dramatically. And so the assistance is not a one-way street. It’s also a two-way street.

HH: Correct.

RE: And we have new challenges. Look, by way of example, Israel is developing a laser for dealing with drones, and that’s much more energy efficient and cost efficient. The United States will be a beneficiary of that. And so I don’t think when you think about oh, we’re going to cut off Israel, you may be, to use the old phrase, cutting off your nose to spite your face.

HH: I agree with that.

RE: So I just think that…

HH: We’re running low on time.

RE: Go ahead.

HH: So I want to get three questions in, in six minutes, Mr. Ambassador. One…

RE: And I will give you four.

HH: I have great sympathy for parents and children who struggle with gender dysphoria. I don’t talk about it on the air very much because of that. But I’m adamant that boys ought not to play girls’ sports, and men in women’s sports. Do you agree with me? Or do you agree with the activists in your party who think it’s a litmus test?

RE: No, I don’t think boys should be playing in girls’ sports, because as somebody that kind of kicked this issue up, not that, but specifically the issue of trans, rather gender identity, I said that before there’s too much emphasis on bathroom access and locker room access, and not enough about classroom excellence. And the question we should be focused on, and as somebody as a mayor who signed the ordinance into law as it relates to bathroom access and accessibility, I do believe in being sensitive. But I’m very sensitive about the fact that 30 kids don’t know what a pronoun is and can’t tell you. And we are, our kids are behind in math and reading in a way that they haven’t been in three decades. And that means we have to focus on the priorities of making sure every child is educated and capable of meeting their potential and their future. And we’ve lost the focus. Now I’m a little surprised. I keep getting this question. I understand it’s a big question. But we don’t seem to talk about what would we do on education, what’s the roads on Mississippi showed us on reading, Alabama has showed us on math, things that we need to do to invest to start turning around the future of not only our kids, our education back to actually making gains on national and international standards.

HH: Now Mr. Ambassador, the American Legislative Exchange Council follows school choice very closely. 17 states have adopted a good, robust school choice program. They are succeeding better than the states that have not. Do you support universal school choice? And by the way, in the One Big Beautiful Bill, there’s a $1,700 dollar tax credit authored by Ted Cruz for parents or anyone who wanted to give $1,700 dollars to a scholarship-granting private school supporting organization? What do you think of that?

RE: Look, as somebody, I said this a long time ago. We’re having a debate where it’s not about this public school versus that charter or this public/private. I’m for a debate about excellence versus mediocrity, not about brands. I have both open schools that were succeeding and expanded them, and charter schools or gave them warnings and resources, either get better or not on both traditional public and charter. So to me, the real debate should be what meets excellence, not mediocrity. And reward, and getting and rewarding both, not only the excellence, but not the mediocrity. Now as it relates to, and I’m also one that allowed kids out of Parochial schools that were in Chicago that were poor to come into our community college for free. I said they’re kids of Chicago. I didn’t care where they went. If their parents went to X High School, they were big shoulder children from Catholic schools, they were poor, we started, the first city ever, B average, you get free community college – books, transportation, and tuition. To me, that was…

HH: Penultimate question. President Biden threw open the border. Between 5 and 10 million, maybe more people walked across. President Trump closed the border in two months. Why did Biden fail and Trump succeed?

RE: Well, I mean, this is, well, one is because of the attitude and policies. Somewhat resources, I think as you are also asking the person that for President Clinton designed Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego and Operation Safeguard. The American people prefer order versus disorder 1) The border under President Biden took on the qualities and characters of disorder, and the American people issued judgment on that. However, I happen to think while you focus on what President Trump has succeeded at the border, he, doing what he’s doing inside the United States, is now the sponsor of disorder, and that’s why the American people have now flipped on their position of what he’s doing on immigration. And even elements within his own party are saying what are you doing going after people that are working and abiding by the law? What are you doing going to hospitals? What are doing to people who are abiding by the law and showing up to the courtroom to follow the immigration rules that we have established and seizing them?

HH: Nothing would be easier to get done in the United States if the Democrats brought forward a serious immigration policy. Nothing would pass faster with DREAMers, resources for ICE, and allowing people regularization, but no citizenship. Nothing would be easier if Democrats got real about this.

RE: Hugh, I’m going to, as somebody who has practiced politics for a good portion of his entire adult life, in a real way, you say the Democrats. I happen to have a view that the Oval Office has more control than anybody else, just having been both a mayor, chief of staff, and as senior advisor to another president.

HH: And a Congressman.

RE: And a Congressman. And so when you say a party that is neither a majority in the House or Senate, doesn’t have the Supreme Court, and doesn’t have the Oval Office, they’re the responsible party? I’m going to have to call you offsides.

HH: Oh, I didn’t say they’re responsible. I’m saying they could fix it.

RE: Number two, I’m now going to go out on a limb. So this is the bigger headline. We have more consensus on how to confront illegal immigration at the border and the workplace than ever before in the last 20 or 30 years on politics.

HH: Correct.

RE: We need to have a debate and move it not from enforcement alone, which I’m for, and the Democrats are for, to a discussion about what comprises legal, legal immigration. We are both a nation of laws, and a nation of immigrants. And what we need to do is honor both traditions, and both practices. And I have to know, you know, also, just to be full truth in advertising, and the reason I want to have a debate about legal immigration, is because we now as a country have a consensus on illegal is because the legal immigration is where the Republican Party divides against itself.

HH: And I think we can fix that divide. Here’s where I want to conclude.

RE: Okay.

HH: Senator Cotton’s a good friend. Comes on the show every week. Would you join Senator Cotton on this show to talk about immigration exclusively? You’ve done Megyn Kelly. I listen to Amy Walter. You’re great on the one-on-one. I’d love to, I don’t know that Senate Cotton would agree, but he does care a lot about immigration.

RE: Yeah, I don’t think he wants to lower himself to my standards.

HH: What’s that?

RE: I said I don’t think Senator Cotton wants to lower himself to my standards.

HH: Oh, I’m sure he would if you were talking about immigration only. Would you do that?

RE: Yeah. I don’t have a problem with that.

HH: So you are, you’re basically available to anyone to talk to. Is this a conscious decision, because Secretary Clinton came on this show after the election in 2016, and she admitted on the air she should have done shows like mine before the election. John Kerry said the same thing when he came on. Are you going to talk to conservatives?

RE: Well, two weeks ago, I did Megyn Kelly’s show. I’m hoping you have more than just a conservative audience. You have people interested in politics. But yeah, I think, look, you can’t say you’re inclusive and then have a big strain of exclusivity.

HH: Perfect.

RE: I don’t know if I’m going to run for higher office. I don’t know that. But I happen to think we are at a critical point in this country. I wouldn’t want to be a president for 48% of the country if I decided to do it. I’d make major efforts to try to make sure it’s more inclusive. And I learned something. I want to find out which of the triad, which I should know, and I feel embarrassed, which of the triad needs to be modernized first. I learned something on this show. But let me also say this. I used to do what is called Congress on your Corner, would stand at a grocery store just meet people. When I was mayor, I called it Wal-Mart walk-ins, Target Townhalls. When I was a Congressman, a young woman told me about her, the problems taking care of her mother in a nursing home, and I introduced the Elder Justice Act, and it passed. I, if you’re listening, debating, exposing yourself, not just your ideas, but exposing yourself, a practice that I would say is a strength in an Emanuel household, to listening, I’ve got a lot to learn.

HH: On that note, Rahm Emanuel, thank you for joining me. I hope you will be back soon and often.

RE: Thank you.

HH: Thank you very much.

RE: Thanks, Hugh.

End of interview.

The post Ambassador Rahm Emanuel On China, The Triad, And The Democrats’ Left Wing appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Senator Lindsey Graham joined me today:

Audio:

07-31hhs-graham

Transcript:

HH: So pleased to welcome back to the program Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Senator Graham, good to see you again. Welcome back. It’s always a pleasure.

LG: Thank you.

HH: You are up for reelection. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about President Trump’s first six months. But first, I want to talk about getting to recess. You’ve got a lot of nominees to move. What’s the strategy?

LG: I think we’re going to wind up changing the rules so we can move them. What the Democrats are doing is pretty outrageous. There have not been one person confirmed by voice vote. And at this time during Biden’s administration, we had 46 people confirmed by voice vote. About 90% of the people in the past have been confirmed without a vote on the floor. So they’re making it incredibly difficult. We changed the rules back in 2017, 2019 where there’s two hours debate on every nominee. We’re just going to shorten that time. Once somebody’s reported out of the committee, we’re going to bring them to the floor under the executive calendar and get them through. And the source of the problem is that Chuck Schumer is in a fight for his political life, and everybody’s afraid of the nut jobs on the left. And so they’re just being held hostage by the radical left who doesn’t want to do anything. I like Cory Booker, but his attack yesterday on his fellow Democrats tells you were the energy of their party is. And it’s in a pretty dark place.

HH: It is. It’s incredibly left, and they’re down to 8% with strongly support the Democratic Party, which is the lowest number in my lifetime. Senator, I have one nominee in particular I’m concerned about. You got Emil Bove confirmed. Congratulations. You’re on Judiciary.

LG: Yeah.

HH: But we need Mike Waltz at the U.N. yesterday.

LG: He’s coming.

HH: Can you get him put to the top of the list?

LG: We’re trying to. I’m talking to the White House. They’ve got some priorities of theirs for some of these jobs that are, they see to be mission essential. I’d like to have him at the U.N. yesterday. You know, you’ve got Morgan Ortagus up there. You’ll have Mike. You’ll have a great team. But yeah, we need him up there. UNGA will be here before you know it. So we’re working on a package to try to get out for the break here, but the long-term solution is a rules change. And again, I hate to say, but Senator Schumer started this whole filibustering of judges under Bush, along with Ted Kennedy. And it’s just completely changed the way the Senate operates. And every time he touches something, Senator Schumer, it goes south. And the reason we’re having to do this is because I really do believe he believes that if he does anything like a normal person, they’ll take him out.

HH: Well, I think AOC will anyway. That’s the problem for him. I’ll leave it at this. I’m a friend of Israel, and every friend of Israel wants Mike Waltz at the U.N. yesterday, because we’re getting hammered up there.

LG: Yeah.

HH: So if you’d go see the Leader and just relay it, I just think the only one, I ran down the list on the executive calendar. I want the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with a Trump nominee. I get it. I litigated against them for 27 years. But Waltz at the U.S. means the most. And so, yeah, he’d be number one.

LG: Yeah.

HH: Let me move to your reelection. I don’t know any of these Democrats who have filed. Would anyone recognize them in South Carolina? Is anyone running against you? Or are you like Tom Cotton six years ago?

LG: Oh, no, no, I’ve got three primary opponents that probably most people don’t know, or if they do know of them, they’ve got problems. But yeah, I’ll be challenged. I don’t know what it is about me. I seem to bring out the worst in everybody. But you know, last time, they spent $132 million dollars, Hugh, trying to beat me. Jaime Harrison, who became the DNC chairman, the most money ever raised in the history of the United States Senate was against me in South Carolina in 2020. $132 million dollars. That’s more than John McCain raised running for president. And oh, they’re coming after me again. There’s this Amy somebody, I can’t remember her name, from Charleston, ran against Nancy Mace and lost. And she raised $1.2 million dollars in three weeks. So every liberal hates me for two things, I think. I’ve become a friend of Trump, and I stopped their desire to destroy Kavanaugh. And I’ve been probably one of the most instrumental people creating the Court we have today from a conservative point of view, helping Roberts, helping Alito. You know, that’s a passion of yours. It’s always been a passion of mine. And that Court, helping that Court, and you know, standing up for Trump seems to be more than the market can…

HH: Well, I think it’s because you play golf with they President that you spin some people off into the ether.

LG: (laughing) I think I do.

HH: But do you expect the President…if you’re photographed with the President, and you haven’t got a gun aimed at him like the guy in the tree, then everybody hates you. Let me ask you, Senator, when you talk with President Trump, does he seem changed from the first term?

LG: Yeah, a little bit. I think he’s far more knowledgeable about Washington. He’s far more knowledgeable about the job of being president. The first six months is un-friggin-believable.

HH: Yup.

LG: We took the most broken border, 11 million people came across that border in four years that we know of, a couple million gotaways, and now they’re like 5 guys went across last week.

HH: Yeah.

LG: The bottom line is that Trump, through sheer will, secured that border. He told Mexico and everybody else if you don’t work with me to stop the flow, you will regret it. The number of, the amount of fentanyl is at an all-time low. And the reconciliation bill, which I was the budget chairman and very proud of, there’s $175 billion dollars in that bill to hire more ICE agents, finish the wall, and do all the things that we need to do to keep it secure. He has all the money he needs for four years to finish the job without one Democratic vote. But that’s the major success. We don’t even talk about it anymore. He’s put Putin on notice that he’s not going to play the game anymore that Biden played. Biden would say don’t, and Putin would run all over Ukraine. Trump tried to get Putin to the table. He tried to be enticing. That hasn’t worked. Now, he’s going to start putting tariffs on every country that buys Russian oil and gas and props Putin’s war machine up, starting with India. It’s been amazing. The One Big Beautiful Bill, you know, you’ve been around this stuff for quite a while. That, like me, that was the biggest domestic accomplishment in my lifetime as a result…

HH: Yeah, I started this radio show, and now it’s on television as well, in 2000. I think that’s the year you went to the Senate. So you’re right. I’ve watched a lot of it. I’ve never seen a six months like that. And you haven’t mentioned defending girls in women’s sports.

LG: Yeah.

HH: You haven’t mentioned ending the era of woke by crushing DEI and CRT.

LG: Yeah, yeah.

HH: And you haven’t mentioned the most important thing, which is destroying the Iranian nuclear program, which is the number one thing.

LG: Yeah, well, I wasn’t quite finished, but I wanted to come up for some air. We could spent the whole 11, 12, 13 minutes talking about the first six months. But here’s what bothers me. Why isn’t it resonating? If you believe in polling, and there’s a lot of polls showing that Trump’s at like 40% approval rating, we have to focus on making sure that when we accomplish these major things, that people understand what we’re doing and how it affects our lives. So I talked to the President a couple days ago. You know, go to the border. People have sort of just checked that box. Talk about what you’ve done, what you’re going to do, make sure it never goes back to the way it was. Talk about the Big Beautiful Bill. Hitting Iran, making them far away from a nuclear weapon compared to where they were. Talk about what would happen if they got a nuclear weapon. We’ve got to do a better job. Those of us who believe in President Trump and trying to help him, and letting the people know what he’s done. He’s turned this country around in six months. And it’s not resonating the way it should.

HH: It isn’t, because regulatory rollback is difficult to sell. Lower taxes isn’t, and every friend of Israel, helping Israel destroy not just their nuclear program, but basically reveal them as the paper tiger, I believe you and your old friend, John McCain, used to say again and again and again, hit Iran. Probably first in line to hit Iran. Long time, right?

LG: So it’s funny you mentioned that. See, John used to get a lot of grief for “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran.”

HH: Yeah.

LG: Iran is the center of the terrorist universe. It’s the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world. It funds Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the center of government in Iran is a religious theocracy who believes in killing all the Jews, submitting Sunni Islam to Shia Islam, and driving the infidels like you and I out of the region. They have a very dark view of the world, and it is the center of the terrorism universe. And Donald Trump has put them in a box, pounded the crap out of them. Israel made them very exposed, and Trump finished off, put back their nuclear program by years by hitting Fordow. And we talked about bombing Iran, and he said I’m going to, what do you think about Iran? And I said why are you even calling me, and he laughed. He knew what I was going to say, which is hit them. But I said, Mr. President, the reason you need to hit them is that we can do things that Israel can’t that need to be done. But I did say this, having been a long-time golf partner of President Trump. If you do it, use one more club than you think you need.

HH: Oh.

LG: So if you look at the number of bombs that were dropped, it was one more club.

HH: He used a driver from 90 yards out.

LG: And there’s a guy, there’s a guy highly placed in the Pentagon…

HH: I’m coming right back with Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina. He’s going to win again, and that’s a good thing. Don’t go anywhere. I’ve got a couple things to talk to him about beyond this. Stay tuned.

— – – –

LG: Well, we’re going to do more. So when you look at the trajectory that Biden put us on, we were going below 3% of GDP, which would be an all-time low in Defense spending. Apples to apples comparison – how much is enough? What percentage of our gross domestic product should we put aside to defend ourselves? And if you use that analysis, GDP spending on Defense, we’re headed way in the toilet under Biden. Trump’s turning it around, first trillion dollar budget. The $150 billion dollars through reconciliation will help us rearm and retool. You know, any administration that runs out of bombs is doing something right, so we’re going to buy more bombs and more missiles, and this money really helped. And you wouldn’t have gotten that money from Democrats. They’d want half a trillion of domestic spending for $150 billion of Defense spending. But under reconciliation, we did not need their votes. They would have never given us money for the wall, to hire ICE agents, or to increase detention space by 100,000. We did all that without one Democratic vote. But one thing I forgot to tell you about Iran. So he calls me up, this is pretty close to the time we attacked. And he says what do you think? I said, Mr. President, you know what I think. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Use one more club than you need. Fast forward a couple weeks later. I got a guy from the Pentagon, and I will not tell you who he is, but he’s very high up. And he said have you ever heard the term one more club than you need? And I said, yeah.

HH: (laughing)

LG: (laughing) That came up at the meeting, at the discussion. I love this guy. I love Trump.

HH: If you write a book…

LG: He said have you ever heard of using one more club…

HH: …just use One More Club as the title, Senator. I’m pretty good at book titles. One More Club…

LG: (laughing) One More Club Than You Need.

HH: That’s going to be the title. Well, let me talk to you about the tariffs, because I’m going to have Oren Cass after you.

LG: Yeah.

HH: And I came into this as a free trader, worked for Reagan for five years, almost six.

LG: Yeah.

HH: Wasn’t so sure about it. But I looked at the numbers. We collected $27 billion in June. July will be higher. Scott Bessent says $300 billion by the end of the year. I view that kind of as a tax on the world for our keeping the freedom of navigation going through our Navy and our Air Force. What do you make of the trade and tariff policy, because South Carolina exports a lot, too. Are you worried about this stuff?

LG: Yeah, well, so there’s a couple categories. Tariff is a tool to change bad behavior? Count me in. If you do things to hurt America, we’re going to hurt you. So if you don’t help us with fentanyl, Mexico, we’re going to tariff your products. If you don’t help us close the border, we’re coming after you. It worked. What are we doing with people that buy Russian oil and don’t help Ukraine? China, India, and Brazil buy 80% of Putin’s oil, and they don’t do anything to help Ukraine. So Trump’s going to put a 100% tariff on all their products coming into America unless Putin goes to the peace table. So he’s using tariffs to change behavior, and I love it. He’s also using tariffs to get better trade deals. This EU deal, nobody could have done this but Trump. Oh, my God, is this a good deal for us. And he believes that people will pay 10-15% to have access to our markets, because we’re such a good deal for them. I think he’s right.

HH: So I don’t think you need more legislation. There’s an argument you might if the IEEPA is found to be wanting.

LG: Right.

HH: I just think it’s working, though. I’m just a pragmatic…

LG: Oh, my God, look what India did. India today announced they’re buying less Russian oil. Again, India, Brazil, China buy most of Russia’s oil. They do nothing to help Ukraine. Peel Putin’s customers away. He could care less about sanctions. He evades them. He doesn’t care about how many Russians are dying. But China will care.

HH: Okay.

LG: If they have to pick between helping Putin and the American economy, access to our economy, I’m thinking Putin goes to the table.

HH: They’ll pick us.

LG: Trump’s been a genius in handling tariffs.

HH: So last question. Political cycle 2026, the title charts of American politics say we lose. I’m not sure. I had breakfast with Scott Brown in New Hampshire last week. I’m, obviously Susan Collins is a friend of yours and mine, and I’m going to try and do what I can for her. I think the open seat in North Carolina is winnable, though Roy Cooper is a real opponent against Michael Whatley. I don’t think Jon Husted loses. How do you feel about keeping the Senate in 2026?

HH: So Senator, two last questions. What’s your website for the campaign? You’re not in the Congress, so you can tell me what it is.

LG: I can’t, because I’m sitting in my office.

HH: Oh, you can’t. When does One More Club get written? I want to read One More Club.

LG: So if I wrote a book about President Trump, it would be One More Club. It needed to be done, and you know what? The 2024 Election is going to pay dividends for the American people. And Thune and Johnson are working well together. We’re a well-oiled team up here. We need to do a better job of selling our successes, but that’s why I’m on your show.

HH: Well, thank you for being here to do that. Please walk across the street and talk to John Thune and tell him put Mike Waltz on the top of the list, and come back early and often. I don’t think it’s going to be close in South Carolina, but come back early and often whenever you want to, Senator. Good to see you.

LG: God bless you, my man.

HH: You, too.

End of interview.

The post Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) On Changing The Senate Rules and “One More Club” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, joined me to discuss the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill”:

Audio:

06-17hhs-daines

Transcript:

HH: I open with United States Senator Steve Daines of the great state of Montana. Hello, Senator. Welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

SD: Glad to join you, Hugh.

HH: You are here on a big day both for the Senate Finance Committee’s release of its bill, but before I go there, you’re a close friend of President Trump’s. I’d like to read to you his last three posts both on Truth Social and X and get your reaction to them. Three posts ago, we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment and plenty of it. But it doesn’t compare to American-made, conceived, and manufactured stuff. Nobody does it better than the good ol’ U.S.A. Second post, we know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding. He’s an easy target, but is safe there. We are not going to take him out, kill, at least not for now. We don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And then finally, two hours ago, Unconditional surrender. What’s it all mean, Senator Daines?

SD: Hugh, I think it’s important to step back and put this all in context about the threat of Iran. I remember my first visit with Bibi Netanyahu in Jersualem 12 years ago when we talked about the threat of Iran as they were seeking even then building centrifuges and getting to 90% levels to build a bomb. But at this moment, Hamas is disabled. Hezbollah has been neutered. The Houthis are on their heels. All, of course are proxy terror groups for Iran. One of the reasons the Israelis hesitated in striking Iran earlier was because they knew if they did, it would have unleashed a war with Hezollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Well, if you look at the sequencing what’s happened here over the course of the last two years, after October 7th, the Israelis went on the offensive against Hamas, against Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It gives them now a window of opportunity to do what they need to do, and that is destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And that starts with their command and control in terms of leadership as well as nuclear scientists. They’ve been very methodical about the approach. They’ve taken out about a third of the missile launchers so far. They’re controlling the skies now. That allows them to really tee up the final act, which is going to be to destroy, with probably some deep kind of penetrating ordinance, their nuclear capabilities in places like Fordow and so forth. So I applaud what the Israelis are doing. I stand firmly with them. I’m thankful for President Trump’s bold, decisive and strong leadership as we’re standing side by side with Israel. And let’s not forget this is a regime that had a plot to assassinate President Trump. They’ve killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers. They refer to us as the Great Satan, and Israel as the Little Satan. If Israel didn’t get this done now, it’s just a matter of time before the Iranian regime would strike Israel with a nuclear bomb at some point, and eventually the United States. This has to be done. I’m glad it’s being taken care of.

HH: So Senator Daines, though, do you believe American planes will be in the air over Iran to assist Israel in the destruction of Fordow and other sites?

SD: Yeah, I mean, that’s something that’ll be up to the President, certainly, working with our military leaders in thinking that through. But obviously, we stand closely with Israel. And I think they’ll have to make a decision here. That’ll be President Trump’s decision to make. I am confident if you look at the leadership, the strong, and bold, decisive leadership that’s back to the old President Reagan playbook – peace through strength, combined with, by the way, a great ambassador in Israel named Mike Huckabee representing us there. I’m confident they’ll make the right decision. Whether or not U.S. planes are going to be involved, I don’t know. That’s up to the Commander-in-Chief. I will say I have complete confidence in President Trump and his team in doing the right thing.

HH: All right, now I want to turn to the one big beautiful bill, because Chairman Crapo and your committee released its version of it today. There are a lot of questions about what’s in, what’s not. Let me start with gores my ox. The House gave us a 23% passthrough for small businesses. Your committee took it down to 20%. Why? And is that just a negotiating maneuver?

SD: Well, let’s keep in mind the primary principle and goal of the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were to take what was passed in 2017 and make it permanent. That was our operating principle. 20% was what was passed in 2017. The one thing we could have done better back in ’17 was to make it permanent. I told the President that two weeks ago. And we can kind of go back and look at what we could have done better. We should not have put an eight year sunset on that bill. That’s for passthroughs. By the way, Hugh, if you go back to 2017, it was two of us – Ron Johnson and myself, who locked arms and said we’re not going to pass this bill unless those passthroughs are addressed. So that whole 199A, 20% discount that takes passthrough rates, top rates before 30% down to about 29% to get them kind of in that 20-something range, because we’ve got C-Corps 21% was something that we fought for and got passed. So the answer to your question, I think we need to start taking a look at some things they did with some of these passthrough workarounds with the states and so forth. We’re going to try to minimize some of those issues and come back to the 20%. The bottom line is I think the net tax paid after we modify some of the other workarounds with the states, will take us to about where we were back in ’17. That’s always been our goal.

HH: Now my response to that as a small businessman, my entire media empire employs 8 people, Senator. So it’s not a big media empire. The whole thing is there’s been a lot of inflation since the President’s first tax bill, and the 20% to the 23% would have made it easier for small businesses to grow and invest. I leave that with you. Let’s move onto, you’ve got some colleagues…

SD: Well, let me, I’ve got one other point, though. One other point on that, Hugh. One thing I fought hard for and we got it down, and in fact, I had to have a discussion with the White House here two weeks ago, was to get permanence on capital expensing and R&D expensing at 100%. So keep in mind, instead of looking at one provision of the bill, step back and look at the fact that capital will be expensed at 100%, R&D at 100%, interest even at 100%. That also will be contributing factors to lowering your overall tax liability and incentivizing the right behavior – grow and research.

HH: I did like that. I did like that. I did not like…

SD: Yeah,…

HH: I’m a retired lawyer. I’m a retired lawyer, so I did not like the workaround for law firms, but let’s leave that aside. Let’s talk now about the recalcitrant members of the caucus on the Senate, and then your House. You’ve got Josh Hawley, who’s concerned about Medicaid, Ron Johnson concerned about spending. Rand Paul’s not going to vote for it. Have you lost anyone else beside that with the Finance Committee bill?

SD: Well, I think right now, it’s down to member to member negotiations with Senator Hawley, with Senator Johnson. I mean, Ron Johnson, a dear friend of mine. We just have a minimal different view about this bill. I think frankly, the change we made in the Senate with some additional revisions certainly on Medicaid to really go after the abuse, the fraud that’s been going on in Medicaid, this makes the bill even better than it was from that out of the House. But I think at this point, there’s a handful of members right now that are expressing some concerns. We can lose three. If we lose four, we’ve got a problem. Three takes us to 50/50 to bring J.D. Vance in and break the tie. I would guess when the dust all settles, Hugh, that when this bill does pass, and it will pass, it’ll be probably with 50 plus 1. That’s just the way reconciliation bills tend to pass. When the Democrats have control, Kamala Harris broke all the ties. I’m guessing that probably, J.D. Vance is breaking the tie here for us as well.

HH: I’m okay with that. Now the next question, we’ve got two minutes. The House is dug in on doubling or tripling the SALT cap. It doesn’t go up at all in your bill. Is that just negotiation positioning?

SD: Well, I think we’re going to give them $10,000 on that. So they’ve asked for a $40,000 dollar SALT exemption. There’s going to be a negotiation there. I think you’ve got to step back and look. That’s a $350 billion dollar provision. It’s a very expensive provision. And frankly, most of us in the Senate don’t like the idea that red states are subsidizing high-tax blue states. That’s why they have to have this big SALT deduction. But if you ask yourself why such a huge deduction at $40,000, I mean, when you look at the average taxpayer in places like New York and California, are paying less than $10,000 in terms of SALT taxes. Why does it have to be $40,000 dollars? If you’re talking about trying to protect first responders and nurses and teachers, and laborers in the construction field, why does it have to be $40,000 dollars? That’s for the very, very wealthy, the fringe liberal elites, frankly, on the East Coast and the West Coast. So that’s why a lot of us from red states have a problem with it. So I think there will be a path forward. There’s ways we can put caps on income. If they’re dead set on the $40,000, you can take the income caps and bring them down, or basically…

HH: I heard the compromise right there. I heard it.

SD: Yeah.

HH: I heard it, Steve Daines. You just gave me the tip on that. Does the final bill get to the President’s desk by July 4th?

SD: The President’s asking for it. I think better odds than not, we get it done. I think we must do it. Look, we’ve got to stop the tax increase. We’ve got to get the debt ceiling here before August.

HH: I hope you are right, Steve Daines. Come back, Senator, every time you need to explain something to me, the slow guy. I love talking the specifics with you, and thank you for the introduction on Iran as well. Don’t go anywhere, America.

End of interview.

The post Senate Finace Committee Member Steve Daines (R-MT) On The “One, Big Beautiful Bill” appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna joined me today:

Audio:

05-21hhs-khanna

Transcript:

HH: I’m joined by Congressman Ro Khanna, Democrat from California where he represents the 17th Congressional District. Welcome back, Congressman. It’s always good to see you.

RK: Hugh, always great. Always enjoy the intellectual sparring.

HH: All right, so there’s no sparring here, yet. I just want to know your reaction to the revelations in the two books that have come out, Original Sin and Fight? I’ve read Fight. I haven’t read Original Sin, yet. That’s for this weekend. I’ll talk to Jake and Alex next week, but I did interview Jon Allen and Amie about Fight. What’s your reaction to the revelations in these books?

RK: Well, first of all, my thoughts, like so many people in the country, are with President Biden and Jill Biden for a full recovery from a very serious form of prostate cancer. I really hope that he defeats it with grit and grace. I also believe that he should not have run for a second term in light of what has come out. And I said candidly that many of us were mistaken in not saying that earlier. Now in the few interactions I had with him, he was on his good days. But in retrospect, it was clear that he should not have run for a second term, and we should just be honest about that.

HH: I have appreciated your candor about that on air. I want to know, though, do you think he ought to have resigned from the office or been removed pursuant to the 25th Amendment given what we know now?

RK: I’ve seen no reporting that he was not capable of doing the job. That’s a very different question than could he have run for another four years. And you know, my understanding is he was still managing what, or acting on troop movements in Ukraine, and capable of making the big decisions. And so you know, that, I believe he was still capable of governing. That’s a separate question whether he should have run for a second term.

HH: It’s a more important question, actually, in my view, because he could have been defeated if he had run, and he would have been defeated after that debate. But I don’t think, Congressman, he was even close to being at the speed you need to deal with the world that you know, you represent Silicon Valley. You know how fast the world…do you think he had the chops to deal with the world given what we saw, and now what we know?

RK: Well, look, I think he had the judgment to be making the big calls on key issues. And that’s the representations I’ve had from the White House, from the people closest to him, from his cabinet. Of course, you know, as you know, members of Congress interact maybe a couple times a year with the President unless you’re particularly close. I had a few interactions with him on rope lines where he appeared fine. But in retrospect, I shouldn’t have defended his decision to seek a second term. But I, you know, I have no reason to believe that he wasn’t capable of governing. And that, you know, I think has, those questions have to be asked to the administration.

HH: Now Congressman, you’re a very good lawyer. You’re a Yale lawyer. And so there’s evidence that is before us, and evidence that is speculative. But the evidence before us now is that he was substantially impaired, a substantial, at least a substantial part of many days. Can we afford to have a president like that in the future?

RK: Well, I think we need to make sure that people are vigorous, are energetic, and that that will be a criterion the American public uses. I think not just for president, probably for the House and the Senate, which is why I believe that future elections, certainly 2028, you’re going to have a whole new generation of people on the Republican side, on the Democratic side. And the American people are going to demand that. And so absolutely, having vigor, but also understanding of modern technology, I think, is going to be important.

HH: So Congressman, I have a column in the Washington Examiner today that argues the 25th Amendment failed. I want to read it for the benefit of the audience and to remind you of what it says. Section four – whenever the vice-president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide… Now the 25th Amendment failed, because the Vice-President did not summon, nor did the cabinet ever consider the President’s fitness for office. Do you think it is incumbent on you and other members of Congress to take the authority provided by the 25th Amendment or other such body as Congress may by law provide, and establish some other mechanism for judging a president’s capacity to continue in office?

RK: Hugh, here is why I’m reluctant on that, and have concerns. During Trump’s first term, there were numerous Democrats on my side who wanted to invoke the 25th Amendment to try to remove Donald Trump from office, arguing that he did not have the correct mental health, arguing that he had personality disorders. And I just am leery giving the power to a partisan Congress to be able to remove presidents that have been democratically elected. That’s a separate question from whether someone should run and have the judgment of the American people. But you know, I just, I think that that amendment will be abused by both parties.

HH: Well, the amendment doesn’t require Congress to make the decision. It doesn’t have a be a partisan body. It provides that you have the authority to establish, you as being Congress, such other body as Congress may by law provide. You can provide for a team of medical experts, and you can condition that the president submit to a full examination annually. I mean, you can do a lot of things so we don’t have to go through this again. And I would point out, and this isn’t a partisan hit, it’s just the record. Four times in a 105 years – Woodrow Wilson with his stroke, FDR with his terminal illness, John F. Kennedy with his Addison’s disease, and President Biden with his incapacity and infirmity, have been hidden from the people – two Republicans with health issues, Ike with his heart attack, Reagan being shot and then colon cancer, disclosed every detail, including too much detail in President Eisenhower’s opinion. Don’t you think that you can find some way to establish somebody that is non-partisan, but which provides against this happening again?

RK: Well, look, I think there should be transparent disclosures. I mean, two of the presidents you mentioned, FDR and Kennedy, were, in my view, some of the greatest presidents we’ve had for different reasons. And Wilson did win World War I. But look, I’m all for transparency and medical disclosures and health disclosures. I’m just, and my understanding on the 25th Amendment is it ultimately still requires a two-thirds vote of Congress, if I’m remembering it correctly, to actually have a removal. I thought it was half the cabinet, two-thirds of Congress. But correct me if I’m wrong on that. I just, I don’t want a body…right now, if you gave that power to a Democratic Congress, if we won, you’ve have people on my side saying, having, have Donald Trump submit to mental health tests and emotional tests. And I guess I’m just very concerned where if you give experts this power to remove presidents by saying that they were depressed or mentally, didn’t have mental health, I mean, Lincoln, as you know, suffered from bouts of depression. Imagine if there was a modern-day medical panel of experts saying well, he has depression, can he really govern.

HH: Well, you’re correct about the complexity of the Amendment, voting requirements in the second half of the amendment. But the first half of the amendment is about the determination about whether, of Section four of the amendment, about whether or not the president is fit. And I am pointing out that we have a structural failure here, and it sounds to me like you don’t want to say that we had a structural failure here. Is that correct, Congressman?

RK: I’d say that we, I don’t believe that it should have been invoked under Joe Biden from the evidence that I have. But I think more broadly, we should be very careful about empowering experts to pronounced on presidents who have been democratically elected by millions of voters, and trying to put them out of office. I believe, actually, it would be more weaponized by our side even than your side by subjecting Republican presidents we disagree with to mental health tests and tests about their emotional well-being. And I’m not sure we want that. I trust the American people. Now can we have laws about the disclosure? Absolutely. Transparency, yes. Get the information out.

HH: That’s, you have the power to bring that bill forward. I hope you do. Before I let you go, Congressman, have you ruled out running for president yourself in 2028?

RK: No, I haven’t ruled it out. I mean, I believe that we should have a new generation on the Republican side – J.D. Vance, Rubio, Cotton, you know, intellectual debate. And I think we should have a new generation on our side. And as you know, my core platform is economic patriotism. I believe that we’ve had all these towns like Lorraine, Johnstown, Milwaukee deindustrialize, and that there needs to be 21st Century solutions to say look, here’s a real vision of how your family, your community, your kids are going to participate in economic success. Coming from Silicon Valley, having grown up in Pennsylvania, I think I have something to offer. Does that mean, you know, that I’m going to run? No. I mean, it would be premature. Right now, let’s focus on the midterms. No one knows what the world’s going to look like in two years.

HH: Sounds pretty good to me, Congressman. You’re welcome here whenever you want to make your formal announcement. You just come back, and we’ll talk it through. Congressman Ro Khanna, we disagree on the 25th Amendment, but I look forward to your campaign, which I think is in the offing. Thank you, Congressman. I’ll be right back, America. Stay tuned.

End of interview.

The post Congressman Ro Khanna On President Biden and the 25th Amendment, and the Congressman’s Plans for 2028 appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Vice President J.D. Vance returned to the program today for the first time since being sworn in as Vice President:

Audio:

05-09hhs-vance

Transcript:

HH: Very pleased to welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, but first time as Vice President, Vice President J.D. Vance. Mr. Vice President, welcome back. It’s good to talk to you.

JDV: It’s good to talk with you, Hugh. How are you?

HH: I am great. I have been spending the morning listening to the American cardinals talk about Leo XIV and reading about Leo XIV, because like you, I am a Catholic. I’m wondering what your reaction is, sort of at length over the course of the day since that news came down?

JDV: Yeah, well, look, I watched with baited breath. I think they, you know, they let the white smoke go off, and then they just sort of, you know, hold us there without giving us the news. I was starting to sort of, you know, I was watching it with my staff, and I was like, my God, we’ve had white smoke for a long time. Why can’t they just, you know, show this guy, because I was on the edge of my seat like a lot of other people. I mean, look, I have a few thoughts in response, Hugh. First of all, a big moment, of course, for American Catholics, and I think the American people, writ large. So many people my entire lifetime has said you’re never going to have an American pope. Obviously, now we do, so I think that’s a great thing. The second thing I’d say is you know, we don’t know a whole lot about him, but I just wish him the best, right? I’m a Catholic. He’s now the head of the Catholic Church, and we’ll pray for his wisdom, for his good decisions, and his good health, and hope that he has a long and successful papacy. And then the third thing, Hugh, and this is, you know, these things always get discolored a little bit by American politics or by politics writ large. You know, people are asking is he a conservative or is he a liberal. Will he attack President Trump and J.D. Vance on certain things, and hasn’t attacked Democrats on other things. And I guess my response to this is it’s very hard to fit a 2,000-year-old institution into the politics of 2025 America. I try not to do that. I am a Catholic convert, and so I come at this maybe with a slightly different perspective. But I try not to play the politicization of the Pope game. I’m sure he’s going to say a lot of things that I love. I’m sure he’ll say some things that I disagree with, but I’ll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all, and that’ll be the way that I handle it.

HH: You know, when you watch the press conference, it’s a wonderful press conference, but the American media never fails to fail to understand the Catholic Church. And three out of the first four questions are about President Trump. And you know, the cardinals are just kind of waving them off, but they’re digging in, Terry Moran and another reporter. And I just thought to myself, they really never fail to not understand the Catholic Church. You and I used to go to the same church in Virginia, I don’t know if you do anymore, but the local church doesn’t have anything to do with politics. It really, you have no idea who’s in the pews. I, do you find any journalist who actually understands that who are not actually Catholic journalists?

JDV: No, I don’t, Hugh, and I think it’s really disappointing, because you know, the Church is so much bigger than politics. Obviously, there are 1.3 billion Catholics. There are about, you know, I don’t know, probably 100 million or so American Catholics, maybe a little bit smaller than that. But it’s a big institution with a lot of members. And most of the people are not thinking about whether the Pope is a Republican or a Democrat, or a conservative or a liberal. And the truth is, Hugh, as you know well, that there are a lot of views the Catholic leadership holds that are, you know, you might consider on the right side of the spectrum. There are a lot of views they’re going to hold that might be more traditionally on the left side of the spectrum. And then there are a lot of views that don’t map easily onto politics at all. And my attitude is, you know, the Church is about saving souls, and about spreading the Gospel. And yeah, it’s going to touch public policy from time to time as all human institutions do, but that’s not really what it’s about. And I think it’s much healthier for the American media, and certainly for Catholics, to not take such a, you know, politics in the age of social media attitude towards the papacy. I just think it’s bigger than that, and it’s not even, it’s sort of tangential to that in so many ways. And I think it’s a lot healthier way to go through life is to do that as opposed to focus obsessively on the politics. And by the way, Hugh, that’s true for liberals and conservatives.

HH: Yes.

JDV: I think it would be better for all of us if we allowed the Church to be about the saving of souls and didn’t try to fit it into a pre-ordained political box.

HH: Now I know you’ve been busy this morning. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read it. The Wall Street Journal excerpted the new Pope’s first sermon at the Mass in the Sistine Chapel this morning. He said there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent, settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure. They are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. There are many settings in which Jesus although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is the world that has been entrusted to us. How do you respond to that?

JDV: It’s quite beautiful, I think, isn’t it?

HH: Yes.

JDV: And if you think the way that I do and believe what I believe, I think it’s also true. There is a tendency to try to make Jesus Christ this sort of very wise, I guess young man, to make Him a sort of teacher, maybe a prophet. But of course, Christians believe that He was much more than that. He was, in fact, the living, breathing Son of God. And so I think it’s, again, powerful words from an American Pope that we don’t know a lot about, but I think, you know, what I heard you just repeat to me was quite beautiful. It was quite moving, and I hope it’s indicative of the kind of Church that we’ll have under the leadership of Leo XIV.

HH: I agree. Two more quick Pope questions, Mr. Vice President. The former Pope, whom you met, the most criticized aspect of his papacy, I think, was the deal that he okayed with the Chinese Communist Party that allowed the Chinese Communists to co-pick bishops there, and that he never spoke up for Jimmy Lai. I talked with President Trump about Jimmy Lai on Wednesday. I talked to Secretary Rubio a couple weeks ago about Jimmy Lai. Has Jimmy Lai come up in any of your conversations, yet, about the need to get him out of prison before he dies?

JDV: Yeah, I mean, look, we certainly have talked about it in the administration. We’ve been here about 100 days, Hugh. And we would love to get him out of China. You know, but it’s come up in general terms. I don’t know that we’re closer now than we were a few months ago to getting him out of China, but certainly we think about him and we care a lot about him.

HH: All right. Let me move now to foreign leaders. When Richard Nixon was a new vice president in 1953, Ike sent him on a 19 country tour that lasted two months – October, November, into December of 1953, and so he could meet all these world leaders. I see the President, including you, not only sending you to Germany and the Vatican, but every meeting, whether it’s Prime Minister Modi or Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Zelenskyy, you’re in every meeting.

JDV: Yeah.

HH: How do you find that? Is that fascinating? Are you learning so much more than you ever knew?

JDV: That’s exactly right, Hugh. It is incredibly fascinating, and I’m learning a whole lot, just one about the President’s instincts. You know, he’s a successful president for many reasons, but the thing that I’m always amazed by is he has just an incredible instinctual ability to sort of know when to interject, when to sort of let somebody else talk, when to move the conversation in a different direction. He’s just a very instinctual person. I think it’s the core of his success as a president, certainly in foreign policy. But it’s been amazing, and as you know, Hugh, we’ve got three little kids. We’ve been able to take our kids on a lot of these trips with us and make it really a family affair. And it’s just, yeah, it’s an amazing learning experience. I think that we’re doing good work for the American people, which of course, is the most important part. But if you can pick up some new skills and some knowledge along the way, then that’s a win-win scenario.

HH: I just think it’s an amazing opportunity and good preparation should anything terrible ever happen. Now Mr. Vice President, I want to turn to something I talked with the President about – Trump Derangement Syndrome. You’ve now been campaigning with him and talking with him very much often for almost a year, and you’ve known him for far longer than that. And you know how American journalism is. I asked him about the Atlantic cover that came out. “It’s Later Than You Think” – Anne Applebaum, David Brooks, Aziz Hugg, and George Packer. Fighting autocracy. This very morning, the New Yorker, Susan Glasser, who’s been a guest on my program before. I used to read her, I don’t now – “A Day In The Livestream Life Of Donald Trump”. Have you noticed that he just unbalances otherwise sane people?

JDV: I have noticed that, Hugh, and it’s one of the most bizarre things, because if you know the President at all, you know that he’s very kind, he’s very gracious. I mean, I was in a meeting with the President yesterday, and my 5-year-old called me on FaceTime. You know, sometimes when he’s on his way home from pre-school, he’ll use the, Secret Service will let him FaceTime. And he calls me, and the President’s like, “pick it up.” And I answer it, and he talks with my 5-year-old in the middle of a meeting in the Oval Office. That happened yesterday. Like that’s the kind of guy that he actually is. But you know, if I could say a word in slight defense of some of these Atlantic writers, yes, they’re crazy, but I think that their craziness reveals something that’s very exhausted about their worldview. I mean, if you think about this, Hugh, that these guys have been making the same arguments for 40 years. They’ve been making the same arguments about what we should do from a foreign policy perspective, weakness on the world stage, the same argument about what we should do on economic policy. And I think they sense that even among left-leaning individuals, their worldview is totally exhausted. And so they don’t have anything anymore. They don’t have a positive, constructive vision for America in 2025. What they do have is this unhinged obsession with one person. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know, I almost worry for their sanity when Donald Trump decides that he’s no longer interested in American politics, because he is the thing that gives them meaning. Hating Donald Trump is what gives so many of these writers meaning. It’s sad, it’s not good for the country, but I do think it comes from a much deeper place, an exhausted worldview that doesn’t work in the 21st Century.

HH: Oh, that’s very interesting. I don’t know why it comes, but I do know what the tell is. When they attribute to people thoughts, when they assume the power of telepathy and tell me what other people are thinking, that’s just such a tell that they’ve gone off of the edge of reporting and into the edge of psychiatry for which they are not licenses. You are a Yale lawyer, Mr. Vice President. Has President Trump asked you to help him in the selection of judicial nominees?

JDV: So we haven’t had that many judicial nominations, Hugh. And so we just nominated a great candidate, a young woman to the 6th Circuit vacancy in Tennessee. I think she’s very impressive, and of course, me and the President spoke about that. I think if we have, of course, a Supreme Court nominee, you know, we’ll talk about that. We’ve talked about some other judicial nominations. So he asked my counsel and my input, but we also haven’t had as many, you know, high impact or at least high visibility appointments to make. I’m sure that when we do, I’ll get a little bit more involved in that process.

HH: I know Vice President Pence when he was serving in your office, he had the last interview with every Supreme Court nominee potential. And if you are in that position down the road, what do you want to know about a Supreme Court nominee?

JDV: Oh, that’s a good question. I’ve never been asked that question, Hugh. You always ask the best questions, man. But you know, I guess what I would try to understand is how persuadable they are by the mob, because what we’ve learned from our Supreme Court over the last 10, 15 years, but especially over the last few years, is that the mob really comes after these guys for high profile decisions. And obviously, you don’t want to prejudge an outcome, but I just want a person with real courage. I think this is what makes Alito and Thomas so special, is that they’re just willing to stand in defiance of a lot of incredible media and social pressure. I mean, if you’re in the Supreme Court, you’re literally inside the Beltway. You consume Beltway media. That’s who you see day to day. You have to have a particular special character. And so I guess I’d ask some questions that try to tease that out a little bit. I’d ask them, you know, when have they ever stood up to the crowd? When have they ever had people attack them for their views? And if they’ve never, ever had to stand up to public pressure, they’re probably not the right person for the Supreme Court.

HH: Now Mr. Vice President, I’ve never asked you before. At Yale, I don’t know if you had Akhil Amar or who you had for Con Law, but I hope they taught you the Bob Jones case, because that divided the DOJ back when I was a DOJ lawyer.

JDV: Sure.

HH: And I think it’s four points square on Harvard and Columbia right now. I think if you violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, you ought to lose your tax-exempt status. Has that been talked about in the White House? I brought it up with the President. I don’t think these institutions deserve tax-exempt status if they don’t protect the Jewish students on their campus.

JDV: Yes, Hugh, we have certainly talked about this. And you know, obviously we want to protect Jewish students on campus. We want to protect everybody on campus to be able to speak their mind, to be able to participate in public spaces, to be able to go to the library without crazy people in veils trying to destroy the library, to destroy the public space. And importantly, Hugh, we want to protect people against racial discrimination, whether you’re discriminating against somebody because they’re Jewish or because they’re Black, or because they’re white, which does happen in academia. You should not receive federal funding. And the way that I put it is actually quite simple. If you’re violating the Civil Rights Act, then you’re not going to receive federal funding, and you’re not going to receive a federal subsidy via tax exemption. It’s just basic, basic stuff. And unfortunately, the Democrats have gotten so addicted to this idea that you’re going to put, you know, one person in this group, and another person in that group, and had out rewards and also punishments based on membership in these racial categories, that they don’t even know how to make an argument in the world that we wake up. And it’s not we’re attacking you because of your worldview, or we’re attacking you because you said something that we didn’t like. It’s we’re actually exposing you to the force of law. When you violate the law, it’s very, very simple stuff.

HH: Mr. Vice President, I’m cognizant of your time. Three last questions. First, Xi Jinping, I think he’s the most ruthless man in the world, and I think he’s a Communist. Do you understand him as a hard-core Leninist as I do? Or do you think there’s a different angle to take on him?

JDV: Yeah, I think you and I maybe have talked about this, Hugh. I think he’s a fascinating guy. He is ruthless. He’s tough. He obviously is looking out for the best interests of China, just as we have a very tough leader looking out for the best interests of the United States of America. But you know, I really don’t have a good insight in his underlying philosophy. I think it’s probably the case that he’s a hard-core Leninist. I’ve tried to understand him. But I think there’s something about the Chinese system, Hugh, that is just very, very hard to for the Western mind to grasp. And I try to be a little bit humble about what I know and don’t know about China, because I think it’s such a different system, that it raises questions that don’t even quite compute. It’s, you know, they’re literally speaking a different language, and I think that’s hard for us to fully apprehend. And it’s one of the major blind spots, Hugh, that we have in American public policy. There are a few places that we get really well. Like I think we get Europe very well. I think we get the Middle East quite well. I think we understand most countries in Africa pretty well. I think we actually have a real strategic blind spot vis-à-vis the Chinese. And we have to close that gap. And you know, not to say too many nice things about my boss here, but one of the things that I think is unique about President Trump is he really tries to understand where Xi is coming from. He tries to understand his motivations. And because of that, yes, he’s going to rebalance global trade, but I think he’s going to do it in a way that hopefully preserves America’s, well, I think he’s definitely going to do it in a way that preserves America’s upper hand in the global balance of trade and the global balance of power. But I think interestingly, you know, President Trump has no ill will towards Xi and no ill will towards China. He wants to look out for America. And his main criticism, it’s fascinating, is not actually against the Chinese, it’s of America for allowing the Chinese to take advantage of us, of American leadership in particular. And I think the President’s dead right about that.

HH: Subtle answer. I’ve been dead wrong about China since Deng Xiaoping. I mean, I was really wrong about which way they would go, so that’s a subtle observation. PenuOr ltimate question, on Wednesday, the President told me Iran has two choices. They can have their centrifuges destroyed nicely or viciously. And everyone tries to put you in opposition in some so-“restrainers” camp. How do you comment on those who are trying to drive a wedge between you and the President on Iran?

JDV: Well, it’s just totally bogus, Hugh, and it’s funny, man, because I’m in these conversations, obviously, with Marco, and the Secretary of State, with Pete, the Secretary of Defense, with a lot of the other President’s senior advisors. And we’re all very much on the same team. The President’s been clear. He wants a deal. He would like to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program peacefully, but he’s going to eliminate it. He’s just drawing a very clear red line. Iran can’t get a nuclear weapon. That is the policy of the President of the United States. And we all, of course, have our own views about how best to implement this policy, but it’s so funny to hear these media reports that say that, you know, J.D. and Marco are in one camp, and the President’s in another camp. Or J.D. and the President are in one camp, and you know, the chief of staff is in another camp. It’s all completely made-up B.S. We are all aligned to try to implement the President’s agenda. And on this one, it’s just so clear. Iran doesn’t get to have a nuclear weapon. That’s the policy of the United States government. The President’s going to see it through. Hopefully, peacefully, but we’re going to see it through however we have to.

HH: Thank you for that. Last question’s quick. Just because there’s so much discussion about Pope Leo having been a Cubs fan when it turns out he’s a White Sox fan, are you on the side of good, that you’re a Guardians fan? Or are you on the side of evil, and you’re a Reds fan?

JDV: I am unfortunately, Hugh, a Reds fan. I grew up in Cincinnati. I’ve always been a Cincinnati sports fan. Bengals and Reds all the way. So I had a friend of mine that, you know, had a pretty funny take on this. He said, you know, if Pope Leo really is a Chicago White Sox fan, then he’s already actually faced the stress of martyrdom multiple times, so maybe we have a real winner in the new Holy Father.

HH: Vice President Vance, good to talk to you again. Come back early and often, and thank you for the time today.

JDV: All right, see you, Hugh. Take care, man.

HH: Bye bye.

End of interview.

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President Trump returned to the program today:

Audio:

05-07hhs-trump

Transcript:

HH: Mr. President, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Thank you for spending time with me today.

DJT: Well, thank you.

HH: I have just finished reading Matt Continetti’s review of your speech at the University of Alabama.

DJT: Ah, thank you.

HH: It sounds like it was a big success, and Continetti, who I think is at least as influential as any other conservative out there, loved it.

DJT: He’s great.

HH: Did you expect that?

DJT: He’s a great guy, by the way. And I was, we had a good time. Amazing people. Amazing crowd, and amazing people.

HH: Well, I would recommend to everyone they get the Free Press’ assessment of that. I wanted to start light, because I was so surprised when Commissioner Roger Goodell of the NFL showed up in the Oval. You know he’s not really very popular with a lot of your base.

DJT: Yeah.

HH: And you really rehabbed him pretty quickly. Did he offer you to make the announcement of the first selection in 2027, something he normally does?

DJT: I think he did, actually, and they’re going to have a, I think it’s ’26, actually, the ’26 Draft, 2026, and it’s going to be exciting. It’s great for Washington, D.C. We needed it a little bit. And we’re, folks…

HH: Oh, it’s going to be wild. There are going to be a million people there. It’s a great big party.

DJT: Take the time, and all the different things. The city is really, the city, by the way, the city is really a lot safer today than it was three months ago before we started here. But it’s, so it’s going to be exciting having the NFL do that.

HH: So you rehabbed him pretty quickly. Now I want to know, because I’m a Browns fan, season ticket holder…

DJT: Right.

HH: Why did you intervene on behalf of Shedeur Sanders during the draft?

DJT: I watched a couple of games, or pieces of games, and a number of things. His father is a big Trump fan, and I like people that are Trump fans, like you like them when they’re Hugh Hewitt fans, right?

HH: You bet.

DJT: His father said great things about me over the years, really, really nice. And number one, number two, genetics. You believe in genetics, and so do I. He has good genes for a football player. And I watched him play a little bit. And to me, you know, what do I know, but I pick talent. And I thought he was a very talented quarterback. I really thought he was good. I like his gene pool, and I liked his talent. And I really think that he’s going to do well. I think, I don’t know, I just felt they treated him very badly, if you want to know the truth.

HH: Oh, it was very humbling. Do you think it’s good to be humbled at a young age?

DJT: No.

HH: Or is that harsh?

DJT: No, I don’t think it’s good. I think if it happens, you have to handle it. But I don’t think it’s good. I was surprised. You know, he was, people were saying he was going to be the number one pick, and he ends up in the, what, fourth round or something.

HH: Fifth round, yeah. Fifth round.

DJT: It’s, no, I don’t think it’s good, but sometimes you have to do it. He’ll handle it. He’s now going to Cleveland. It’s not because it’s very cold, and you know, I wouldn’t say it’s an ideal throwing…

HH: Best fans in the world.

DJT: It’s not the best…

HH: Best fans in the world.

DJT: Yeah, they have great fans. We love them. No, we love them. But it’s a hard place, it’s a hard place to throw a football, but it’s, you do have great fans.

HH: Oh, gosh, yeah. December in…let’s get to the serious stuff. Last time I talked to you, you were the President-Elect and we talked about General-Secretary Xi being very, very tough.

DJT: Right.

HH: You were very clear-eyed about him. And you told me you were going to try and get Jimmy Lai out. Secretary Rubio has told me he’s going to try and get Jimmy Lai out. That would be a really great start to any kind of thaw. Any progress to report on Mr. Lai?

DJT: Well, we haven’t started, yet, because we’re meeting, actually, for, you know, we’ve been talking back and forth. Look, they want to make a deal so badly. That, I can tell you. But we’ve been talking, it’s not a question of, like the pride. Somebody said oh, who made the call? Who made the call? It doesn’t matter. I will tell you, you would have been happy if you, if I gave you the answer to that. But it doesn’t matter. The conversation matters, not you know, how it got set up. But I think talking about Jimmy Lai is a very good idea. We’ll put it down, and we’ll put it down as part of the negotiation.

HH: All right, that’s terrific. Now I want to talk to you about your executive order from April 9, Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. I thought that’s the best of the executive orders other than closing the border which you got done, and no one seems to remember you got that done in a week.

DJT: Right.

HH: The Columbia class submarines are behind by about 18 months.

DJT: Right.

HH: Have you talked with Secretary Phelan about that, about catching up?

DJT: Oh, I have. And he’s very good. He’s tough. He’s a great business guy. You know, I’ve known him, and I put him in there because he’s got great toughness. And you know, it is behind. It’s the greatest submarine every built. It’s the most lethal weapon ever built by far. It’s not even a contest. And they’re behind. Now they’ve always done a great job, that particular group. You know that, and they’ve always been great, but they’re behind. And usually, they’re not behind. So we have a lot of them are behind. Boeing’s behind, a lot of them are behind.

HH: So when it comes down to brass tacks time, do you tell Phelan fire the bunch or hire a new bunch, because you don’t it to be like President’s Obama’s library. You were talking about that yesterday. We’ve got to get those ships in the water.

DJT: Oh, that’s the worst. By the way, his library is a total disaster. You know that. It’s like stopped, I guess. They, he didn’t want to use construction workers. Can you believe it? They didn’t, and that’s what you got. You’ve got a building that’s probably never going to get built. I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re going to do with it. It’s a mess. But in this case, we have a company that, you know, the submarines, and they are the greatest submarines in the world. The one thing, we are way advanced on submarines. It’s the greatest in the world, and they’re behind a little bit, and maybe a lot, but maybe it’s not going to matter that much as long as they get them done and quickly. Also, I’m looking at costs. You know, I just got here. Remember, don’t forget…

HH: Oh, yeah.

DJT: I’m the one that complained about the aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford.

HH: Yes.

DJT: And I complained about a lot of aspects about the, you know, the elevators being run by magnets, okay, as opposed to hydraulic. I campaigned about, and it was part of my campaign. We talked about the catapults, you know, what throws the planes out. I said why not…

HH: The Ford class are behind, too. The next two Ford class are behind schedule.

DJT: Yeah, no, it’s…

HH: It’s a mess.

DJT: And I’m not a big fan of the Ford class. I don’t like the tower being in the back, okay? You know, the tower on the aircraft carrier, you look at the Roosevelt and the various aircraft carriers, I like it in the middle where it’s the widest. I like it hanging over the side. You know, the hardest thing to do is land a plane, if you’re a pilot, even a great pilot has a hard time if they have at all a little bit of the claustrophobia thing going. And when you move the tower to the back, it makes it that much harder to land the plane. I don’t like a lot of aspects of it, and I let it be known, but they decided during the four years to start a couple more like that.

HH: But one of the things you told the kids in Alabama, in Alabama, you told the kids don’t lose your momentum.

DJT: Right.

HH: And I think we’re losing our momentum on the fleet. It really does seem to be slowing, slowing, slowing. Can you juice it?

DJT: Well, I’m going to juice it a lot, and we were getting ready to really start, and then we had an election that was very unfortunate. Think of what would have happened. You wouldn’t have happened, the least of which is inflation, but you wouldn’t have had the border, 21 million people coming in, many, many, many criminals from all over the world. You wouldn’t have had Russia-Ukraine. You wouldn’t have had October 7th with Israel. You wouldn’t have had the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. You wouldn’t have had a thing called Afghanistan.

HH: Correct.

DJT: What a disaster. And I don’t mean getting out. Getting out was good. They should have kept Bagram, which they didn’t keep. You know who’s occupying Bagram right now? China.

HH: China.

DJT: China’s occupying Bagram. And the reason to keep it wasn’t Afghanistan. It was because it was one hour away from where they make their nuclear missiles, China. And that would have been a big, that was a big one. That’s among the…

HH: It would not, that, I don’t I’ve heard anyone argue you’re wrong on that. It would not have happened. You would have had Mike Pompeo and Robert O’Brien and you, you would have figured that out.

DJT: Nothing would have happened. You would have been very happy with what we did. I was all set. We were getting out, but we were getting out with dignity and pride and strength, not the way we got out there. That was, what a horror…

HH: Well, you mentioned…

DJT: And we lost 13 soldiers. And you know, the thing nobody ever talks about it, Hugh, you do, but nobody talks about them, is the 42 people that were so horrifically injured. And then if you add it all up, you probably lost 600 people, you know, on both sides. A lot of people died.

HH: A lot of Afghans died. A lot of them died.

DJT: A lot of people died.

HH: A lot of controversy. But you mentioned 10/7, so I want to go to Iran. It’s the most important thing I’m going to ask you about today. The first question is have they stopped trying to kill you and Mike Pompeo and a whole bunch of people, because I don’t know how you negotiate with someone who’s trying to kill you?

DJT: Yeah, well, I don’t want to be foolish enough to answer the question, because you can never really answer a question like that. But let’s just assume, and I put out the strongest of orders, and this is not about me. This is about any president. If anybody does it, they’re going to be harder than anybody’s ever been hit in the history of our country. You can’t do that. You can’t do that, period, but you can’t do that to presidents.

HH: Good, good. Now last night, I was on Sean Hannity, and Sean asked me what I thought about your Iran statements. And I said the one thing that President Trump has done I think every day since he got back is tell Iran they have a choice. They can turn over the centrifuges and the uranium, or they can get bombed.

DJT: Good.

HH: Is that as explicit as you’ve made it to them – either/or?

DJT: It’s very simple. Yeah, it’s very simple. And I’d much rather make a deal, you know, a really verified deal. We want total verification. We can do that. We have some very brilliant people up at MIT and various other places. We could do that very, very solidly. But I would much prefer a strong, verified deal where we actually blow them up, but blow them up or just de-nuke them. But the other alternative, there are only two alternatives there – blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously. And…

HH: Yeah, there’s no half-measure.

DJT: No, you’ve got to get them out.

HH: That’s what I wrote for the Washington Examiner.

DJT: You’ve got to get them out. You can’t do it. Can’t do it.

HH: Let me turn to politics, Mr. President, because I’ve seen you talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome and do so with humor. But it’s getting worse. In fact, I’ve got the new issue of the Atlantic right here, and the cover is “It’s Later Than You Think” – Anne Applebaum, David Brooks, Aziz Hug, and George Packer – fighting autocracy, dominoes falling. This is silly. It’s stupid. But it’s there. What is it about you that deranges them so much?

DJT: Well, I win. You know, they were losing for so long. They’re losers, the names you mentioned. And many others, most others. But I win, and when I win, it drives people crazy. And I win a lot. And you know, they have a hat that was made, that Trump was right about everything. If you look, if you go back, I don’t think you could find anything I was wrong about. Right about China, right about trade. You know, we had China making a trillion dollars, think of it, a trillion dollars under Biden, a trillion dollars, more, actually, six billion dollars a day, we were losing on trade.

HH: You have the measure of Xi. You have the measure of Chairman Xi. Do you think, I know you can sit down with him. I know you’re very respectful in public and private. I know it’s a tough negotiation. Do we get along with them for the next four years? Or is it going to be toe to toe for four years straight?

DJT: I can’t tell you that. It depends on if they’re going to treat us fairly. They, like every other country, practically, that you could name, including our so-called friends, ripped us off on trade, and on the military. You know, until I came along, NATO was bust. NATO wasn’t going to be able to make it. And you know, I said we’re paying almost 100% of this thing, and they treat us badly on trade. So we save them on military, and they kill us on trade, mostly the same countries with the European Union. I said can you imagine? But I can’t tell you that. I mean, we’ll see how it goes. We have a big meeting on Saturday in Switzerland with some of the guys going over there – Scott, some other guys, very good guys. We’ll see.

HH: They’re very impressive, by the way. The Secretary of the Treasury is very impressive.

DJT: But we want to have fair trade deals.

HH: So I want to go back to the political establishment. You broke it. You broke their system. You broke their credentialing. Can they ever reassemble that? Are they ever going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again where you’ve got to go through this gate and then that gate? I mean, you came from the sidelines in sort of at the 50 and won. Can they ever put it back together again?

DJT: So I use a phrase over the last few months, because I’ve been watching them very closely. They’ve lost their confidence. Guys like David Brooks, who is supposed to be like Republicans, they’re not Republicans. They’re bad guys. The other character that’s writing for the New York Times, they call him the Republican. He’s not a Republican. He’s just a flunky for the New York Times. And these people have lost their confidence, because they lose all the time. And we have a movement the likes of which nobody’s ever seen. You know it better than anybody. You covered as well as anybody, and…

HH: It’s a realignment.

DJT: Make America Great, the MAGA movement, it’s Make America Great Again. It’s very simple.

HH: It’s a realignment, but realignments sometimes fail. Richard Nixon had a realignment going in 1972. It all fell apart. Can you keep this one going? It usually means moving to the center, not moving to the right. If you want to realign, you’ve got to take the center and hold it. Can you do that?

DJT: Well, I think so. I’ve never seen spirit like we have. You know, you mentioned the speech in Alabama. The place was packed with, you know, big arena. They’ve never had a crowd like that. And it was, you know, University of Alabama, incredible people, by the way. The whole place was, everybody was beautiful. It was like the most wonderful-looking arena, both the arena itself and the people. And no, we have a great, we have a great country. We have some people that are sick, frankly. They have, they have just, I don’t know, there’s something wrong with them. And you talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome. And it probably makes them every crazier.

HH: Oh, it does, but you won seven swing states.

DJT: But these people, they haven’t won, and they’ve lost their confidence, totally.

HH: You won seven swing states. Can another Republican pull that off, because seven for seven is the inside straight on seven card poker. It’s just not done.

DJT: Yeah, no, I won all seven. Yeah, it was, I felt I was going to win all seven. You know, I campaigned in all seven. Every arena was packed. We were doing great everywhere. That was, you know, we ran that last three month period, you know, you figure 90 days, but that last three to four month period, that was a flawless campaign. We were just running flawlessly. And then they put her in. He was losing by 30 points, and they put her in. We didn’t know was she good, was she bad. Nobody knew too much about her. Most people didn’t know the name Harris, right? They knew Kamala, they didn’t know Harris. But she got up, and she turned out to be a total disaster for them. But I’m telling you, it just, if you look at their, hey, we have a big bench. We have a beautiful bench with a lot of very talented people. Look at the people they have. They have somebody named Crockett. And somebody was telling me she’s the future of the party. And I figured oh, this will be good. I look forward to watching her. And I watched her, she’s a low IQ person. She’s a very low IQ person.

HH: AOC is the future of the party. She has charisma. Do you think she can win? Do you think she’s going to be their nominee in ’28?

HH: I think she, I think you’re right about the charisma. I don’t know about her speaking ability. I don’t know about her debating ability. I don’t know how she is, you know, in an interview, because you rarely see her being interviewed. Rarely, and that’s a bad thing, because usually, that means something, you know? It’s like Kamala. They didn’t want…

HH: You spent an hour with Kristen Welker this weekend, and I was listening to a podcast today of the National Review editors, and they’re, no one doubts your availability. Joe Biden never spoke to anyone on any side of the aisle.

DJT: Yeah.

HH: He just, he was hidden away. Do you think he was competent for more than a year or two years?

DJT: No. Well, I don’t think he was competent 40 years ago. He is a very average guy. Look at his credentials academically. Look at his, you know, look at his whole life. He was a gladhander, you know, hale and hearty. He had a good personality. I mean, he had sort of a good look other than the hair was weak. You know, hair was very weak. The look was pretty good. He was a hale and hearty and well met guy, but he was not a smart guy. But he was a vicious guy. You know, you saw that here. He knew enough to know to go after his opponent. He went after his political opponent. And I’m in the White House.

HH: When you came out on the stage for debate, when you did that, did you know immediately he had lost it? I mean, he had lost the capacity to actually debate? At one point, you said, and it probably ended his campaign. I don’t know what he said, I don’t think he knows what he said, either. And it crushed him right there, but did you realize it at the time?

DJT: Well, when that, when I gave that answer just before that, you know, the answer was in reference to the way he was acting and talking. I was sort of saying that’s sort of a strange thing going on here. He also was very white. I mean, they had the whitest makeup. I can say this. Whoever his makeup artist is, don’t use them again. And they had a very big makeup person, and maybe they wanted to set records by trying to make somebody the, he was the whitest. So when I walked out, I looked across, because I didn’t see him before. I didn’t meet him before the debate. And I walked on, and for whatever reason, they put him on first. Normally, if you’re the President, you go on, you know, you go on second like a fighter. You know, they put the champion in the ring second. They put the challenger in first. And so I was very honored by that, actually. But I went into the arena, so to speak, and I looked at him, and I said man, is he, there’s something wrong. And I think it was more makeup than anything else. And when he started talking…

HH: Well, makeup got Richard Nixon in 1960.

DJT: Yeah.

HH: Yeah, makeup killed Nixon in the Kennedy-Nixon debate.

DJT: Yeah. Well, it didn’t help him.

HH: Let me ask you, I want to go back to Israel. You’ve had Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House twice, and I’m very happy to see that.

DJT: Right.

HH: Because in this country, anti-Semitism is taking off. How do we, how do we crush that? And how do we make sure it doesn’t get into the Republican Party?

DJT: Well, I think I’m crushing it more than anybody ever, and I think nobody’s been better to Israel as a president than me by a factor of about 20. In fact, I could say maybe nobody’s ever been better than me on Israel. And I am shocked to see what I’m seeing, because if you look back at the old days of the Holocaust, you’re seeing the same kind of thing happening now as you saw many, many years ago. And you would have thought that that could never happen, right? I mean, wouldn’t you think, I mean, that that’s not something…

HH: Right.

DJT: If you go back a few years, you would say that could, you know, it’s never…when I was growing up as a young guy, I would say without question the most powerful lobby, most powerful without question was Israel in terms of the Congress, in terms of the Senate and the House.

HH: Sure. AIPAC.

DTJ: The most powerful, the most powerful lobby was, if you ever said anything bad about Israel, your political career was over. Today, and the Senate’s hanging pretty tough, but the House is, you look at some of these people, including AOC plus three and all of these different people that are now, I mean, look at Schumer. He’s become a Palestinian. I think he’s a Palestinian, actually. You should give him the garb. But I can’t believe that Schumer, of all the people, you look at the guy. I think he’s a wreck, first of all. I don’t know what the hell happened to him, but he’s being beat up pretty good. You know, when I wrote him the little note, thank you very much for your this and that, that was not meant as a wise guy note. That was meant sincerely. I appreciated that he did what I considered to be the right thing with his vote.

HH: Right.

DJT: And a couple weeks ago. And they got ahold of that letter, and they just creamed him on that letter.

HH: Well, the left is out of its mind.

DJT: Well, the real question is, is he going to be challenged by AOC? Is he going to be challenged by somebody else, because I think he’s pretty weakened right now. He looks like hell.

HH: Well, I think she can be their nominee for president if she wants. I don’t know if maybe Josh Shapiro can beat her. I don’t think so. I think she’s unstoppable because of her charisma and because of the left-wing sort of lurch of the Democratic Party.

DJT: I just don’t know about her speaking ability, and I don’t know about her, you know, she still has to answer questions. And I haven’t seen that, yet. She goes on very rarely. You don’t see it. And you know, Kamala was a disaster with answering questions. Before that, she was doing all right. And then when she started opening her mouth, she started losing rapidly, really rapidly. And I don’t know, and I don’t know about, you know, I don’t know about her speaking ability. You have to be able to speak in front of large crowds. Her voice is a little different. I don’t say it’s bad, but it’s a little squeaky. And is a squeaky voice, I’m not sure how that sounds, you know, but we’ll see.

HH: We’ll see.

DJT: A lot of things, you never know, right. You know the expression, you never know.

HH: Now let me go back to the anti-Israel…well, never say never. I believe I’m quoting you. Never say never.

DJT: Never say never. That’s true.

HH: Let me ask you about Harvard, my alma mater. I hope you pull their tax exempt status. I want it pulled.

DJT: Well…

HH: It’s, they don’t deserve it, and it’s, by the way, it’s not illegal, for the audience. It’s not illegal for the President to request that review. He cannot order an audit, but he can certainly asked for tax exempt status to be reviewed. Are you going to push that for every university where the anti-Semitism gets out of control?

DJT: I think so. Yes, we’re going to look for that, and where we find them. Sometimes, it’s out of control but you don’t see it. You know, it’s not so obvious.

HH: Right.

DJT: With Harvard, it was very obvious. You look at it, totally anti-Semitic. And when look at where they had 3% conservatives, and you know, the rest of them were mostly radical left. A couple of things I put in, I had them put this in. I said you hired at a tremendous salary Lori Lightfoot, right, the mayor of Chicago, one of the worst in history.

HH: Chicago.

DJT: And then you hired the worst mayor in the history of New York by far, a man who started the downfall of New York, de Blasio, Bill de Blasio, a total disaster. And they hired these two people. They don’t hire a Rudy Giuliani or somebody that could actually, you know, who was actually a great mayor. And but think of it. They hired these two people, paid them a fortune, and they’re talking about municipal management. It’s ridiculous.

HH: I want you to keep the pressure on, because it’s gone off the rails, like the left. I want to wrap up, Mr. President, because you’ve been very generous with your time. Your team is always very generous. Let me ask you, will you issue a veto threat on funding that involves NPR, PBS or CPB, because we’ve got to get out of that business.

DJT: I will do everything we can to make sure they’re not funded. They’re horrible. And I watched them just because I have to watch the enemy sometimes. I don’t watch them often. I watch MS-DNC sometimes. I hate it. I hate watching it, but I feel I have an obligation. They are so bad and so corrupt. They’re a disgrace. This guy, Brian Roberts that runs that company, he should be, they should look into the whole thing, because first of all, CNN and MS, I call it DNC, Democratic National Committee, the, those things are political arms. That should be, you know, that should really be campaign finance violations at the highest level. They don’t say anything good about, and me in particular, but any Republican. And they are so dishonest. You could do, you could come up with a cure to the worst disease known to man or woman, and they would say he did a terrible thing. They are just horrible people.

HH: I don’t want them to get any more of my money. I worked for PBS for ten years. They were bad back then in ’92 to 2002.

DJT: No, they were bad, and they’ve gotten worse. And they’re worse now, probably, than they ever were, yeah.

HH: They’re worse. Two last questions. 2028 Convention…

DJT: We’re going to try, we’re going to try, and look, you know, they may get the funding. They may get the funding from lunatics on the left. And these are lunatics. These are sick people. But the government should not be providing funding.

HH: Amen. Now 2028 Republican convention, you get to pick the city. Do you want to go back to Cleveland where it all began, because you had a good convention in Cleveland.

DJT: Well, we do actually, have, I haven’t really been giving it a lot of thought, but I will get to pick the city. That’s true. That’s true.

HH: Keep in mind that…

DJT: I’ll get to pick a lot of things, okay, if you want to know the truth. But I get to pick the city.

HH: Now are you going to participate in the GOP 2026 primaries? You’re going to pick favorites like the Ohio governor race – Dave Yost and Vivek, and there are Senate races all over the place.

DJT: Yeah, yeah.

HH: Are you going to get involved?

DJT: Well, I am. I’ve already endorsed Vivek. I mean, I will be very much involved, because we have to win. It’s very important that we win, and we should win. There’s an amazing anomaly. It doesn’t make sense to me, actually, that if you’re president, you sort of almost always lose in the midterms. Now if you look, it’s crazy. I think we’re having a great presidency. I think we had a great 100 days. You know, the people that are legit say this was an amazing 100 days, the things that we’ve done. We’ve practically gotten rid of woke. I mean, it’s virtually, I mean, people are, if they believe in that nonsense, they’re afraid to do it. But so many different things we’ve done.

HH: Oh, the most impressive thing, Mr. President, the most impressive thing, the Democrats said they could not close the border unless you passed a bill.

DJT: Yeah, the border is fixed.

HH: And you closed it in a month.

DJT: Right.

HH: And I don’t know how it happened, but I think I’ll be waving that flag in every election from now until I retire, because you did it in a month, and I’m grateful for that. I hope you will achieve immigration reform. Regularize the people who are here who are good people.

DJT: We’ll be looking at that, Hugh. We’ll be looking. No, but we did a great job, and I’ll tell you, Tom Homan was great, Kristi was great. We have a lot of good people, great people in this administration. And we’ve accomplished a lot, and you know, it’s 100 days. It’s not very long. We have a long way to go. We have almost four year, so we’re going to turn this country around so fast.

HH: You’ve got to get that tax bill. We’ve got to get the tax bill.

DJT: Say it again?

HH: We’ve got to get the tax bill done. I don’t know if…

DJT: Yeah, that’s a big thing. The one big beautiful deal. That’s what we want. And it’ll be the largest tax cut in history. Now the alternative is you’ll have a 68% jump if the Democrats get their way. Now who’s going to vote for that? But you’ll have a 68 point, taxes will go up like at a level never seen before if they don’t.

HH: They want…

DJT: I think there’s a lot of pressure on Republicans, even.

HH: Very last question…

DJT: Because we don’t need grandstanders.

HH: No, we don’t. Last, very last question, Mr. President. There’s a rumor going around that on the movie business side, Tom Cruise called you up and tried to lobby you. True or false?

DJT: No, it’s false. He did call me up, but he called me up for another reason, very nice, innocent reason. He’s sort of the last of our great movie stars, if you think about it. You know, he’s a nice guy. He couldn’t have been nicer. I don’t believe I ever spoke to him, but others have. Jon Voight has. Jon Voight, I love Jon Voight.

HH: Great man.

DJT: And he has, and others have also. And I love the idea, the concept of the tariff. If you make your movie in another country, you know, they make them all over the world now, and they don’t make them here. And if you make your movie in another country and you want to sell it here, that’s okay. You have to pay a tariff.

HH: I don’t know how you make it work, but that would kill Canada, because Canada makes a lot of movies. A lot of movies.

DJT: Yeah, they do. They took a big chunk of our movie business. They took a lot of our businesses, but they’re all going to come back.

HH: Do you believe the prime minister, bonus question, Prime Minister Carney said he was going to step up on NATO. If he does, that will be a great thing. I’m not really sure I believe that Canada’s going to step up on NATO.

DJT: Well, they have started paying more, but we basically defend Canada.

HH: Right.

DJT: We lose, we subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion dollars a year. And I say why. Why are we doing that? Because we want to make our cars. They make a lot of cars. We’re going to take that business back, and you do that with tariffs. Lumber, we have all the lumber in the world. I’ve already, I’ve taken care of the environmental situation. You know, we’ve opened up forest areas that were ridiculously closed. But we have as much lumber as anybody almost in the world. We have more energy than anybody in the world. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their steel, their aluminum. We don’t need anything they have. With that being said, I had a very good meeting with him yesterday.

HH: Well, they’re very nice people. We want to get along with them.

DJT: Yeah.

HH: But I hope they pay their NATO share. Mr. President, thank you for the extra time. Thank your staff for me. They’re always great to work with, and I look forward to checking in with you again soon.

DJT: Thank you very much, Hugh. Great honor.

HH: Thank you, Mr. President.

DJT: Thanks. Bye.

HH: Bye bye.

End of interview.

The post President Trump Returns To Talk China, Iran, AOC and…the NFL appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Representative Jason Smith of Missouri is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which means he’s got the heaviest oar in the boat that the House GOP has to row to get the “one, big, beautiful bill,” aka “reconciliation” over the finish line. He spoke with Hugh today:

Audio:

04-23hhs-smith

Transcript:

HH: In Studio West for another couple of days before I go back to the Beltway where I think I find our next guest, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri. Congressman, are you in Missouri, or are you back in D.C?

JS: I am in Missouri and pretty glad to be home.

HH: Oh, that’s what I always hear from Missourians. Keep your eye open for Tim Garrison. He’s a buddy of mine. You probably know Tim.

JS: Tim’s a great guy. He’s a very good man.

HH: Yeah, wonderful, wonderful guy. Look, Congressman, I had breakfast this morning with a mortgage banker, and he told me the economy is not going to settle and grow until we get the tax bill straightened out. I agree. So when do we get the tax bill?

JS: You know, I totally agree, Hugh. This is why you and I, the last time we were talking, we were talking about how we needed to pass the tax cuts first, how we needed one big beautiful bill. That’s why I’ve been pushing it, is because America needs certainty. You’re looking at 27 million small businesses that they’re making decisions for next year, and they don’t know if their tax rate is going to be 43.4% or 23-28%. We have to provide that certainty, and that’s in fact what we’ll do. I’m thankful that the House and the Senate have passed the budget resolution. That is just part of the process, and now the real bill comes. And so you’ll see the 11 different committees in the House of Representatives start marking up over the next couple weeks different portions of this big beautiful bill. And we’ll get it done. We’ll get it done fairly soon. I’m happy with the progress that we’ve been moving so far.

HH: A couple of specific questions, Congressman. Where do you expect the debate on the SALT, state and local tax deduction to settle?

JS: You know, so that’s always been one of the key sticking points. That and a lot of the IRA green credits are things that have a lot of conversations. We’ve been pulling all kinds of numbers from the individual Congressional districts of our members in California, New York, New Jersey, and trying to figure out what is that right spot? And we’ve been going back and forth with a lot of different ideas and numbers. That number is not agreed to, yet, but we’re getting pretty close.

HH: All right. Now Congressman, I’ve also been persuaded that you can close the revenue gap not by raising taxes on the highest earners, that’s kind of not a Republican deal, but by opening a conversion window on ROTH-IRA’s for traditional IRA’s and 401K plans. Let them move over for a tax of 15 or 20%, flat tax, one time. Do you have a plan on closing that revenue gap with the Senate?

JS: You know, we’ve been working on this aggressively, the House Ways and Means Republicans. We’ve put in more than 50 hours in the last six weeks trying to craft this bill and looking at every provision within the tax code of, like, how could it be enhanced. Is this a provision that we don’t need, whether it’s an IRA credit, whether it’s looking at, I’ll just say it, looking at endowment tax on universities. We’re looking at all kinds of things to close that area. We need, we have to make permanent Trump’s expiring 2017 tax cuts. We have to deliver on the President’s promises when it comes to no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax relief for seniors, tax incentives for products produced in the United States. And these are all things that we’re working for, and they’re going to have to be paid for. And so we’ve been looking at all different options. This is one that has been discussed along with numerous others.

HH: Now the conversion attracts me only because I think people ought to be able to use their money without government oversight, mandatory withdrawals and all that kind of stuff. Is there a voice on the committee for converting everyone to ROTH-IRA’s and getting a flat tax done?

JS: There has definitely been members on the committee that have brought up exactly what you’ve been pushing. Even the Speaker of the House has brought this up to me himself. So it has been part of the conversations. The issue that we have with any tax provision, I’m not talking about this tax provision, I’m just talking about all of the tax provisions as a whole, is trying to thread that needle, because we can only lose three people at the most in order to pass this bill. And trying to keep the Republicans together, they’ve done a good job so far with the budget resolution, with the spending bill. We have to keep them together on this package. So I’m just really trying to thread that needle. But failure is not an option.

HH: Yeah, I don’t envy you that. But I also don’t think there’s a single member who’s going to find their constituents are against a conversion window. Let me turn to that top income tax bracket. I personally would not object, I don’t care if they try to add a bracket for people making seven figure or more, or even higher. But I know that a lot of people do, because it’s sort of contra the flat tax approach of the GOP since Reagan. Where are you on that, Mr. Chairman?

JS: So I haven’t taken a position either way, much like every position. I’ve just been, I guess you could say, Switzerland, trying to make sure that I can pull all the forces of this conference and in the Senate together, along with the White House. There are members that have been discussing this provision, much like others. I want to deliver a pro-growth, pro-worker, pro-family, pro-small business, pro-farmer tax bill. And that, the way that you do that with Republicans is making sure all Americans are paying less.

HH: You know, Mr. Chairman, you used the word Switzerland. Throughout Republican primaries dating back to 2008, I said I am Switzerland. Everybody’s welcome here, no one’s going to get gotcha questions, and it works. Does it work for the chairman of Ways and Means? There have got to be people who don’t want Switzerland. They want you on their team.

JS: They all want me on the team at the finish line. That’s what they want. Throughout this process of making the sausage, it’s going to be bouncy, but my whole, the whole key for success in passing this bill is keeping the Republican conference all together to pass this bill with 218 votes, and then of course making it go through the Senate on to the President’s desk. And so I don’t know what it’s going to take in the end to get the final numbers to pass, but you betcha, Hugh, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get there.

HH: A couple of process questions. How often do you talk to the President? And how often to do you talk to Russ Vought, who runs OMB, and is maybe the smartest, the equal of anyone when it comes to smarts over in the White House complex?

JS: You know, I talk to the President very, very regularly, either by phone or by text. He is, he is an aggressive texter at times. There’s times that I’ll wake up at 5:30 in the morning and get a text message from the President at 2:30 on a tax or trade issue. And I feel really bad that he knows I was sleeping. So he just, but he’s working around the clock all the time. And I’ll tell you, when he has a tax question or a trade question or something he wants to talk about within my space, he has no problem picking up the phone and calling directly.

HH: And Russ?

JS: Russ, I do talk to Russ periodically, not as much as I do the President. So most of my conversations are within my committee’s jurisdiction. So Secretary Bessent, also Secretary Ludnick, and of course Ambassador Jameison with all the trade that’s going on.

HH: So last question, when the Senate got done with their version, they had plussed up Defense $50 billion dollars more than the House. Is that sticking?

JS: So you said $50 billion more in the House. Is that $150 billion? Is that…

HH: Yeah.

JS: Is that the total?

HH: That’s it.

JS: I am very confident that the House and Senate when it comes to the Defense spending, and the White House, are all on the same page. I don’t want to share those numbers. I don’t want to share those numbers. I’ll let Mike Rogers share those numbers whenever they’re there. But I’m confident the House and Senate will be on the same page when it comes to Defense numbers.

HH: And will Doug Burgum be happy, because Doug Burgum wants to dig everywhere, sell everything, drill everywhere. I’m with him, by the way. I’m 100% with him. We have an asset sheet that we’ve never calculated, and that we’ve got to put to work. Is he going to be happy with the final product?

JS: You know, this is exactly why we were pushing the one big beautiful bill, because we want spending cuts. We want permanency of all these tax provisions and all the items that the President asked for. We want to unleash U.S. energy to make sure that we are energy dominant. We want to reduce crazy regulations, and we want to take care of the border. Those are all things that will be in this bill. It’s going to be, as the President says, one big beautiful bill that will deliver for all of America.

HH: Well, we’ve been on the same page from the beginning, so I’ll close with this. Outside date – when do we see a bill emerge from Congress for the President? Outside date?

JS: So my hope, and my goal, Hugh, of course, I wanted this done by Memorial Day, but it took a little bit longer in the Senate to pass the budget resolution. I think it was six weeks they had it over there. But I really believe, Hugh, that we can get this on the President’s desk by 4th of July.

HH: All right, if that happens, that will be enough time to save the Congress in 2026.

JS: You’re exactly right.

HH: If you get it done by Independence Day. So Congressman, Mr. Chairman, Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, thank you. Back to work. Back to the salt mines and answer those texts in the middle of the night.

JS: You got that.

HH: Thank you very much.

End of interview.

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