Dems Celebrate George Floyd on Memorial Day, and AOC 2028 Rumblings, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1325

25:42They won't apologize for trying to destroy our national creed, which they really did try to do, by insisting that discrimination is good if it runs in one direction, by insisting there's been no change in America since the 1860s, by pretending that the average cop is going out there with the hope of killing or hurting minorities. They won't apologize for egging on, and they did that as well, the rioters. And they won't apologize for destroying faith in public health, which they did, if you remember, by saying, stay in your home, stay in your home, stay in your home, stay in your home. Oh, but actually, if you want to go out and riot, that's fine, because it's more of a public health crisis.

26:23It's a public health emergency. And I just, it makes me crazy, because I feel as if they want to just move on from it as if it never happened or even rewrite it. And it was actually a huge moment in American history. And it could easily happen again. You know, at least on January 6th, we know that there was some some amount of feds present. There was some instigation. I've talked to reporters who were there covering it myself by some of those people toward the January 6th protesters. I'm not saying all of them were incensed by that. Some of them just behaved terribly. But at least we know that like at the BLM riots, that was organic.

26:59That was that was like, well, it was George Soros funded and all that. But I mean, leftist planned and organic rage as opposed to, you know, right wingers who are there trying to make left wingers look bad. That's not what happened. Yeah. And it went beyond. It was property damage. It was murder. It was injuries to cops actually throwing bricks at cops' heads. We saw that down in Baltimore. You mentioned the murder rate in Baltimore right now. Those cops got completely harassed down there. I remember that one that night. Not to mention the absurd raise your fist. We pulled some video of one couple getting harassed in Pittsburgh as BLM terrorized a white couple.

27:38Watch this.

28:09They're drinking their drinks.

28:21They knocked the drink over and put a fist in the air. We all saw the videos, too, of them making people say BLM. Say it. Say it. You know, the harassment. I know we're spending a lot of time on Sonny Hostin, Rich, but this is a leftist narrative that we cannot let stand. The BLM riots were terror. It was domestic terror that was unleashed on the streets of America for months. Not in all cases. I personally watched a BLM demonstration on the Upper West Side that was totally peaceful. I did. It was fine. It was normal Americans who were upset about what they'd seen on that tape, and they got together and protested.

28:56That's fine. That's their right. That's as American as apple pie. But you and I both know that the vast majority of what we saw in the summer of George Floyd of Palooza was anti-American. It was riotous. It was criminal. It was illegal. It was harassing. It was burning. It was looting. And it was setting black people up for more death and murder, which has been documented. Spent two minutes talking to Heather McDonald. She can walk you through precinct by precinct what happened with policing and what happened in poor black neighborhoods as a result of the drawback. We've interviewed people on this show, black members of these communities who saw crime skyrocket as a result of the cops pulling back.

29:35And she, Sonny Hostin, who might be whiter than I am in attitude, et cetera. And she's got millions. Her son went to Harvard. She's still bitching about how hard he has it and how like everybody in their white neighborhood wants to kill him. Sure, they do. Sure. wants to go out there and minimize it down to a nothing. Because she didn't feel anything in Westchester, Rich. You know, it was fine. You know, she was like me on the Upper West Side where we saw like a nice protest. She didn't have to deal with it because she's not actually living the black experience of the people I've put on this show.

30:08You guys have interviewed at National Review who had a loved one killed or endangered as a result of the insanity she helped unleash. Yeah, so that harassing behavior that you're showing, That's classic revolutionary totalitarian fervor. You see the same thing in the French Revolution or in the Cultural Revolution in China. It's not enough for you just to walk away or mind your own business or eat your brunch. You have to become a believer. Now, because this scheme of things is a relatively small-scale movement and we live in a lawful and liberal society, they weren't guillotining or stoning people afterwards if they didn't go along.

30:43But that's the logic that we've seen in other parts of the world over and over again. And the de-policing, you had cops quitting, you had jurisdictions reducing the number of cops, and you had cops not going to the hotspots, which they need to do. Cops need to go and interact with dangerous people. And in most cities in the country, the vast majority of violent crime is driven by a small number of offenders who've already committed crimes and already known to the authorities. You need to go and get them and arrest them and deter them. And you do that, you have a much safer place. If you don't, you have a debacle.

31:20And the years after this, we had a debacle that was a deliberate and foreseeable outcome of these moronic policies. We had all these newspaper headlines defending looting. There was a book in defense of looting, like looting was good. Property destruction was great. Burning down cop stations was fine. hurting cops, no problem. It's just it's absolutely absurd that George Floyd's death should not be marked at all. It shouldn't be a touch point for anything other than a reminder of how badly we allowed certain groups to behave in this country without throwing the book at all of them. It was a revolving door through the police stations that remain standing as they got away with slaps on the wrist and would start an era in earnest of policing that allowed revolving doors.

32:12You know, it was really the Ferguson effect that started that Ferguson, Missouri back years earlier, but, but this, this took it, you know, times 10. So no, we will not be doing revisionist history on George Floyd and what happened with BLM and the riots. The, um, a related, I don't know, it's kind of related, it feels related, uh, story in the news today is what's happening in Minneapolis and Minnesota. Um, sorry, no, in New Jersey, in New Jersey with, well, there's a couple. I'm kind of confusing my stories because they're both reminding me of it. In New Jersey, we had lawmakers at an ice facility trying to storm it, trying to get their moment on camera.

32:54And, you know, the nonsense is starting up again. Let me stay there and then I'll go back to Minnesota on what's happening. But it was at a place called Delaney Hall where we had ICE protests. And it seems like to me, this is my headline, you guys tell me what you think, the Democrats are looking for another Minneapolis. They want the unrest of February and March that we saw there when we were cracking down on illegal immigrants. They're itching to make it start back up again because they know it's good for them. And I mean, I think there's some sincerity to their outrage over the fact that we've got some of these illegal migrants locked up.

33:31So what happened yesterday was at this ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, the new governor, female Mikey, Mikey Sherrill, was denied access to the complex. All right. So now why does the governor go to an ICE complex? She's looking for her moment. You know, she wants her moment on cam, her AOC moment in the white pantsuit, maybe, Charlie. And they don't they don't just open the doors and let her in. So then we start to get a bunch of protesters there because word has gotten out that the prisoners inside are having a hunger strike in response to allegedly terrible conditions. They claim that there are absolutely disgusting things happening inside, like worms in their meals, crowded in non-air conditioned rooms and so on.

34:20The Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen, chief, says there is no hunger strike happening. There is nothing more than a political stunt by the New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks. And there are no subprime conditions whatsoever that these are all lies for attention, either by leftists or the inmates or both. So she went and then we had protesters outside. And then we had Senator Andy Kim, who's a Democrat from New Jersey, show up there. and the left is going nuts with this imagery because he tried to put himself in between law enforcement and the protesters and tried to de-escalate.

34:59He says he was trying to de-escalate the tactical teams versus the immigrant advocates and they weren't having it and he wound up getting some crossfire from some pepper spray and there's video now of them spraying his eyes with water to try to relieve him. He's he's outraged. They're all outraged. You tell me what you make of whether this is happening organically or whether the Democrats have decided they're kind of tired of being quiet and letting the Republicans hurt themselves and engage in the circular firing squad we've all been in for the past six months. And they'd really like some headlines of their own again.

35:39Well, I think it's organic. There's probably a large element of organic nature to it because they hate ICE and they believe the lies about ICE, that ICE is an American Gestapo. Now, it's often asked, we'll see these stories about people picked up and detained by ICE and they end up at a facility in Texas or Louisiana, even if they're picked up in the Northeast. And people are like, this is so terrible. Why are you transporting them across several states? It's because those states, one, actually don't obstruct these kind of facilities. And two, you typically don't see these kind of protests outside these sort of facilities.

36:10So maybe bad things are happening there. I don't know. Maybe there are worms in the - Andy's in that video in the soup, by the way. Sorry, I keep going, Richard. Maybe something bad's happening there. But the ICE has very specific standards for detention. They are extensively overseen by all sorts of House and Senate committees, five or six in the GAO. So it's very unlikely that these horror stories are happening, but they want to believe these protesters that these are gulag type facilities and they do not deserve to exist and they should be shut down. And if you're a senator and you become part of the mob, I didn't, we don't, haven't seen video of the actual tear gassing, but if you're getting in the way there between a mob and law enforcement officials who want to move people out, you might get tear gassed, right?

37:00That's on you. It's not on them. What do you think is going to happen? Yeah, it's kind of a classic op where you become part of the mob and then you're shoved or they yell at you or you get tear gassed. You're like, oh my God, look what they did to me as a sitting U.S. senator. Yeah. It's a classic play. But you're right, Megan. Right. We're no longer, ICE is no longer picking them up in Minnesota, but the fight has moved to this different realm now. it's also they clearly wanted the headline i don't like to me this would make more sense charlie if it were like abigail spamburger who has ruined virginia in just a matter of a couple of months and has already terrible poll numbers as a result of going far left which she's far more radical than she led the commonwealth voters to believe but like new jersey mikey was part of that same little you know trio that got elected in the state house races uh last election cycle.

37:54And she also promised to be more moderate. You remember, she was in a very tight race there with the Republican. So I don't totally understand what she's doing. Let me just give you a little soundbite of her along with Senator Andy Kim together on site there before the alleged pepper spray incident. This type of facility shows exactly why we should not have private mass detention facilities. They were raising not just concerns about the conditions, but about how they are intentionally not being given access to the courts, that this is a farce of a system. Your thoughts on it? I have a lot of thoughts on it.

38:33The distinction that I have drawn right from the beginning of this is between people who have specific criticisms, which is fine, this is a free country, and people who don't believe in the enforcement of law at all and or are trying to block it, which is, I think, what we saw in Minnesota. voter. I'm happy to talk to people about what our immigration policy should be or how ICE should behave. But if you are of the view that ICE is per se illegitimate, because all immigration enforcement is illegitimate, and you're going to try to kick out ICE from your locality, then we don't have much to talk about, because you are repudiating our constitutional order.

39:15Now, I don't think that Andy Kim is doing that. I do think that he went down there to get pepper sprayed. And I think this is a growing problem. This is true on the right as well. This is not purely a Democrat problem of politicians behaving more like activists, preferring to be activists, forgetting that they are lawmakers, and they are part of the machinery and ought to use their influence within it. So I think that distinction has to be drawn. You know, Rich mentioned these complaints that people are moved around across the country. That's a perfect, it sounds a bit specific, but that's a perfect example of how silly some of these objections have become.

39:57It might sound to people as if that's somehow sinister. ICE is a federal organization. Immigration is a federal question. Of course, people are moved around the country. I live in Florida. I file my business taxes in Utah. Where was Timothy McVeigh sent after he was in Colorado? This is how the federal government works. It moves people around. There's nothing sinister about that. And the reason I bring that up is just because it's another good example. They did it with Carl Rittenhouse as well, by the way. He crossed state lines as if people aren't allowed to do that. This is another good example of how what should be quite a straightforward policy debate, which again, I'm open to, is elevated up into something that it's simply not.

40:39And then you end up with ICE being cast as the Nazis, when they're a federal law enforcement agency that is enforcing a federal law that's been on the books for a very long time, and that by all accounts was ratified pretty emphatically in 2024, where immigration was a huge issue. So I just find it so difficult to talk to people in the Andy Kim mode about this topic because they're not really complaining about the specifics. They're rejecting the very notion of immigration enforcement per se. And once they do that, I just don't have much to say back. Yeah. And the irony is, Rich, they kind of won this fight.

41:20Unfortunately, they already won this. I had Greg Bovino on the program just a couple of weeks ago, and he was he's the ousted top one of the top dogs at Customs and Border Patrol and he protection. And he was saying there's really no question that the Homan, and I love Tom Homan, but he's definitely representing more of the worst, not just first, but kind of worst only policy that the Trump administration has retreated to in the wake of the PR debacle in Minneapolis. Those crazy blue haired ladies got their way. You know, Trump did take his foot off the accelerator. I get why. His poll numbers were precipitously falling.

42:01The public did not approve of what they were seeing, the death of Alex Preddy and the other woman and enabling media and so on, all just created a political firestorm for the president. And we've eased up. So, like, I'm not sure what the Democrats are doing other than they need another hit off the needle. It felt so good. Yeah, I think there are two things. One, the Holman approach, as I understand it, in theory would be you let up on the very visible presence in cities and picking people up in a public way, which is kind of what Bovino was involved in. Let's kind of scare everyone and get a lot of legal immigrants to go home.

42:37There's something to be said for that approach as well. But Holman also wanted worksite enforcement, major workplace enforcement. He's been telling people at events and privately this is coming. It hasn't come yet. So I think his approach would be a sounder one if you're actually doing it. But we haven't seen that in part because Trump's ambiguous at best about worksite enforcement. And then two, what Democrats are up to, at the end of the day, they just consider immigration enforcement illegitimate. So you see this cascade where they oppose the public operation in Minneapolis. That ends. Then they oppose the detention.

43:12We know nothing about how these people were picked up. It doesn't matter to them. They're just being detained and that's wrong. And then if they could, again, they'd work their way all the way down to let's not enforce the border. And they protest that as well because they don't consider it illegitimate. I think this is they don't consider it legitimate. And this is an underestimated aspect of politics. People do things by and large, shockingly, because they think it's the right thing. And they think it is moral to let anyone who comes in the country and claims asylum into the country. They think it's the right thing to do.

43:43At the end of the day, that's why Joe Biden did it. If he didn't think it was the right thing to do, the groups pushing him to do it thought it was the right thing to do because they have this righteous belief that borders, end of the day, they shouldn't exist. Or if they do exist, they should basically be a line in the map and a suggestion not to come into the country, not a barrier to coming into the country. And that's still driving them. So they've been pushed back on all this stuff, Megan. This is the connection to George Floyd. It's not at the extreme high tide it was, any of this. But you can see it's still there.

44:13and if they get unified control in Washington in 2028, they're going to try to bring it back with a vengeance. Well, speaking of Democrats making dumb moves, Kamala Harris is back in the news, Charlie's favorite. This is who he loves. He misses her desperately and I'm happy to tell you, you might be getting a whole lot more of her. There was an in-depth piece in Vanity Fair and the title of it is Who Wants Kamala Harris to Run? in response to which I thought, I do. I definitely do. I do not speak for Charlie, but I definitely do. It starts with a great quote by James Carville. It's written by Aidan McLaughlin, who writes, quitting the endless campaign is easier said than done.

44:55When Al Gore was in the same position as Kamala Harris, James Carville quipped that running for president is like sex. You don't do it once and forget about it. He writes that she drew 75 million votes in 2024. This is why she might have a case for running the most of any runner up in history. She holds a double digit lead in some early primary polls. Her book was a smashing success, selling half a million copies in its first week. The extension of her book tour was not forced either. She's drawing sold out crowds and she's proven a popular voice on social media. He writes where a recent TikTok video excoriating the Supreme court decision on voting rights drew more than 19 million views.

45:33According to multiple sources, close to the former vice president, She remains undecided, but is strongly considering another run. Quote, people around her are pushing her to run, says the person who's spoken with her. She seemed inclined to seriously entertain it. I'll get you to weigh in before I get to part two of his piece, which begins as follows. I spoke with more than two dozen Harris campaign staffers, former White House aides, elected officials, political ops and big dollar donors for this piece. Aside from her own close advisors, none spoke enthusiastically about a Harris 2028 campaign.

46:03some after praising Harris on the record asked to speak on background to give more candid opinions about her political future so there's what they're saying on the record of Vanity Fair and then there's what they're saying in order to try to guide the piece to get her not to do it Charles which tells us what well which tells us that they think she might lose I mean if she were to run again and become the nominee we really would be in a new era One of the things that is so interesting about American history before about the 1950s is you do get a lot of characters who lose a general election and then come back.

46:42Adlai Stevenson ran twice in the 50s. William James Bryan ran three times in the late 19th century. And that just stops at some point, you know, 60 or 70 years ago. But if she were to come back and be the nominee, then we'd have had Trump, who lost an election in 2020 and then came back and won in his case. And then we'd have Kamala Harris. So I think the last person who did that was Richard Nixon, who lost in 1960 and won in 1968. But that was uncommon. I don't think it's going to happen. As you can hear, I'm quite interested. The running? I think she's going to run, but I don't think she's going to win the nomination.

47:20And as you can hear, I'm quite interested by this sort of history side of it. But I just don't think that that's going to happen. I think once again, she is incapable of seeing how she comes across. I think that's been a problem for her her entire career. I'm slightly also incapable, Megan, of judging her fairly because I hate her. And I think she's the worst person in American life. But if you look at the last election, she really did fall on her face. And the new narrative is that she was let down by Joe Biden. In fact, there was a piece that used the word that said, Biden effed her. I think this was twice in the piece.

48:04Biden effed her. And I'll be perfectly honest. When I first read that, I thought, now, well, that is a scandal until I realized the context. And they meant politically. I'm serious. I was completely shocked by this. I've been away for a week. And I thought, wow, I've missed a scandal. I'm not sure that's true. I mean, I think that Biden didn't do her any favors. I think it was very difficult for a vice president running, you know, to separate herself out from Joe Biden. I also just think that she's not particularly good at it. And it wasn't the case that, oh, she had to throw in at the last minute and that she didn't have enough time.

48:40She was doing much better at the beginning. The more time went on, people began to shift from her and realize what she was. So I do think she's going to try and run again. I think she thinks she should be president. I don't think she's going to get the nomination. I love this. I love it so much and I want it very badly. Here is that piece, quoting again from the Vanity Fair piece. President Biden's disastrous decision to run for a second term and his late parachute pull to exit the race did her no favors. Quote, Joe Biden fucked her, says the third White House aide. He effed her. And according to her book, he called her the morning of the debate to be like, I heard your donors are talking shit about me.

49:20Back to this source. He was the fucking worst. He's a prick. So this is probably the aid to Kamala who's speaking to Aiden McLaughlin here, Rich, because of course, Team Harris completely blames Team Biden for the loss. But it goes on to say just a couple of the other quotes. I've spoken to maybe one person out of 100 who thinks she should run, says another source, whether it's former campaign colleagues, people around D.C. or just people around the country who are like, oh, God, she's not going to run again. I've been all over the country for these midterms. I've not encountered anyone, anyone who said, boy, I really hope Kamala runs, says one veteran Democratic operative.

50:01Will she run? Most likely, yes. Should she? Absolutely not, says a former White House aide. There is no appetite for the former VP to return to the campaign trail. I can't really name one person who's excited about the prospect of her running. I am or thinks that it would wind up being a successful endeavor, nor are donors particularly enthusiastic. So those realities are going to be heard by the Kamala Harris team. It's not like whatever they're saying publicly, they're aware of this. Yeah, she's going to run. I think she should run. What else is she going to do? And she'd have some chance of winning the nomination.

50:36The chance wouldn't be zero. Now, Biden did screw her in that he was an unpopular president, right? And she couldn't escape. But she also he also handed a nomination to her that she got by calling some people on the phone one afternoon. How often does that happen? So but I've been completely dismissive of another Kamala Harris campaign. But doesn't see one reaction when a candidate loses is we never want to see you again. Forget it. You know, thank you. Goodbye. I don't think that's the reaction of Democrats to her. She's leading the pollings very early. That's probably name ID. But then you run down the other possibilities.

51:10You're like, are any of these people giant killers themselves? No. So I think it's it's the chance for winning a nomination is not zero. I bet on the field rather than her. But she's going to give it a college try. And for her purposes, she should. There's news about AOC today, which we'll talk about in a minute. But first, we take a break. More with Rich and Charlie, who are here for the show on this NR Day. Don't go away. What does it feel like when your clothes actually feel good? This spring, Cozy Earth makes the case that what you wear at home matters just as much as what you wear out of the house, and maybe even more.

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53:44We are back now with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cook of National Review for our and our day here at the MK show. Debbie Murphy really wants me to get this line in from that Vanity Fair piece. And so I must, it ends with, um, or at least toward the end of the piece, uh, they write in late April at a summit in Chicago, Kamala Harris was asked what she's learned about herself as she's had time to reflect over the last few months, quote, I don't like losing. She said, breaking into a laugh as she looked out into the audience. We don't either. An attendee in the audience shouted back, move along, lady.

54:22You are the loser. You got to come to terms with that fact and keep going. OK, AOC, the last we heard from AOC on any sort of national basis was just a couple of months ago in Munich, where she was asked some foreign policy questions that were very, very basic. The three of us understand, most of my audience understands, that the basic policy of the United States with respect to Taiwan is something we call strategic ambiguity, where we really don't want the Chinese reclaiming Taiwan and taking it back over. and we may or may not be prepared to defend Taiwan from such an attempt, but we don't talk about it.

55:06We don't want to provoke the Chinese. We don't want to provoke the Taiwanese on whom we rely for our computer chips and so on. So we've just kind of maintained the shoulder shrug policy when that subject comes up. It's kind of basic. It's kind of interesting, really. This is not something that the three of us should know in AOC, who is she's been in Congress since 2018, right? We're going on eight years now. Should not know she should know, especially because she continues to get mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. And she doesn't tamp down that talk. But here's how it went for her in Taiwan.

55:42Before I get to what is happening today, not in Taiwan, in Munich, about Taiwan. 16B would and should Should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move? You know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, this is of course a very longstanding policy of the United States. And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point. And we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise. OK, so she was mocked universally.

56:37We cut out the long pauses just to keep that soundbite going, but it sounds even worse when you hear her long pauses. And now we get this from Axios. AOC takes more steps toward a 2028 run. Democratic operatives expect that she would easily raise one hundred million dollars or more just from small dollar donors, mobilize many supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders past campaigns and command attention as few other candidates could. She has launched a national tour in recent weeks without calling it that. Just in May, she's rallied voters in Philadelphia for a left-wing congressional candidate in a competitive primary.

57:16She's spoken at a rally in Montgomery, Alabama about voting rights. She's addressed the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta with Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock. She met with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter at the King Center in Atlanta to talk about data center and voting rights. She's visited the Morehouse School of Medicine to discuss black maternal health. She's rolled out several endorsements and races across the country. None of this. I don't you know what I don't hear in here? Queens. I don't hear anything about her district, which includes Queens and part of Westchester.

57:50Nothing. Nothing. OK. Here is what I did hear from her when she went to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where she seems to be taking on some of the characteristics of Kamala Harris. See if you can guess why I say that. Listen. I'm here today, brothers and sisters, with a simple message. We stand together and we are not going back. What happens to Florida happens to New York. What happens to Tennessee happens to California. What happens to Louisiana happens to all of us, Ebenezer. Because this is America. We are not divided by state. We are united by our humanity and common citizenship. Because no man can grant us our humanity.

58:49No law can erase it. No king, no system, and no president can strip it away, Ebenezer. because it is not given by man. It is ordained by God. Thank you, Ebenezer Church, and happy Mother's Day. Praise God.

59:11They're both smiling. Rich, you want to start on that one? We always talk about this and mock the people that do this. I just wonder whether it just seems like inevitable anyone who speaks in a black church feels the need to talk that way. I wonder if I if I stood at Ebenezer, the podium there, I'd do it, too. Maybe it's just a such a powerful, rhetorical American style. I would or I wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. It's ridiculous. You're not a ridiculous person. I can actually manage yourself standing in front of a mostly black crowd in a church and being like brothers and sisters in front of God.

59:49No, you know, you would not have. But I'm the same way on AOC as Kamala. I think she should run. I think she is going to run. She's so light, though. So light. I think Kamala kind of statesperson compared to AOC. Yes, I mean, sadly, you're right. She's all white suit and it's an empty one, Charlie, but she is popular with the progressive wing of her party. Yeah. Well, in her defense, in her answer in Munich, she had the ambiguity down, just not necessarily the strategy. She's halfway there. you know I just spent a week in the deep south and I will agree with Rich to some extent it's quite it's quite tempting to start talking like the people around you because it's such a lelting way of communicating but it is also ridiculous and to that extent I really think that people who aren't African-Americans in church should try and avoid slipping into sounding like African-Americans in church and she couldn't do it and Hillary couldn't do it.

1:01:00I don't know what it is that infects Democrats when they enter a church that they suddenly become that. I think she's going to run too. I actually think that perhaps one reason she did do this is because it might be her biggest problem gaining African-American voters. And if you look at the last few years of Democratic primaries, Democrats have been dispositive. They're the ones who've decided who the nominee is. Sorry, African-American Democrats who've decided who the nominee is. But they've also been more moderate. They saved the party from Bernie Sanders in 2020. And they revivified Joe Biden, who looked as if he was done.

1:01:47the wing of the party that AOC represents is the Bernie Sanders wing that's who she is and I would be surprised if there was a mass uprising to use a word we used earlier of African-American Democrats in her favor perhaps she knows that perhaps she's trying to change that by going to their church the last thing is it was quite funny wasn't it when she was just speaking because she got some parts of the tone and the intonation and the pattern right but she couldn't say ebenezer right so she sort of ended up she kept adding the r on the end so she ended up sounding almost irish or something where she sort of say ebenezer and then she'd go like a pirate so she hasn't she hasn't quite got it she's she's not quite there yet but she's gonna run It's not the first time she's tried it.

1:02:42We actually have an AOC montage of her trying to sound like a preacher. Here's a little bit. Watch. I'm proud to be a bartender. Ain't nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with working retail, folding clothes for other people to buy. I'm tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of breed traveling on our way of life.

1:03:22That's way worse. I mean, that's bordering on parody. You know, we've talked about this. One of the reasons is that it's such a great... The Black Preacher sort of tone is so great. I just could listen to it all day. So American, so powerful. Of course she wants to sound like that. It's wonderful. Yes, yes. If you had the actual Raphael Warnock doing it, fine. That's cool. But here she is. Remember she was campaigning? Was it Jamal Bowman when he was in trouble? And she went and she campaigned for him and she looked like a lunatic. This is when she whipped her hair out of the bun. Here, watch.

1:04:06running jumping before the weight gain

1:04:18jumping jumping jumping reminds me of my aerobics days screaming here comes down the hair

1:04:49Charlie, are you feeling that special tingle that you feel when you watch Jasmine Crockett? No, I love Jasmine Crockett. I love Jasmine Crockett. I know you do. But no, and in fact, the opposite. it i've i i actually think that that's lowered my opinion of aoc quite seriously um because i don't think she's particularly good at that um i've always thought that that although she's a lightweight and i didn't think she's going to be the nominee i've always thought she had something she's good on social media um she's savvy but those those three videos have lowered my opinion of her ruined aoc for charlotte but she's just yeah yeah they the republicans should consult me before they run their campaign ads against her.

1:05:30I think I've found the magic sauce. She's not particularly good at that. But again, I don't think that's her lane, as they say. I think if she has a lane, it's not going to be that one. To me, that looks like a caricature of what Hollywood might produce in a movie of what a really hot, young, leftist politician looks and sounds like. But in real life, no one's voting for that other than like some tiny percentage of far left young progressives with multiple piercing stretch. Yeah. So I thought the case for her running is that she could pick up the Bernie Sanders coalition. And that's a lot in the Democratic Party.

1:06:09But the thing with Bernie, absolutely authentic, like him or hate him, and always knew his brief. You never have a sense when he gets any question thrown at him that he doesn't know the answer. He hasn't thought it through sincerely. That is not the case with AOC. No. Well, over on Team Blue, we have some interesting news out of the state of Maine. Graham Plattner is running. He's a former U.S. Marine Corps member, and he served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is taking on Susan Collins, who's this sort of more moderate, to put it mildly, Republican who's been in office for a long time and he's up over her by eight points right now.

1:06:55And you can see why, because Maine is not particularly right-leaning anymore. And though she's been there for a long time, she's been there for a long time. And I think on both sides, there's sort of like a, oh, do we have any fresh blood feeling coming into the parties? And she's definitely not fresh blood. She's older. She sounds older. She's got the shaky voice thing, which I think is a health thing as opposed to an age thing, but whatever. She just doesn't seem all that robust. And he's coming for her. He's up eight. And this is a Senate seat that the Republicans would like to defend. Now, it comes out, and I don't know why now, it's interesting, but it comes out that he, on this Reddit account, that's caused him so much trouble.

1:07:41He's made a lot of controversial comments over there, and it was deleted, but it's all archived, so everybody has it, that he saw a video posted by PFC Ted Daniels from Afghanistan, and it's of Daniels fighting with his brethren over there, he's an American, in 2012, and Daniels in this video gets shot, this is an American, this is one of ours, gets shot four times. Now, you see him sort of at the top, looks like at the top of a hill. And then he goes down onto the face of the hill, putting himself much more in the front, in the line of fire, because the Taliban fighters are shooting already when they're at the top of the hill.

1:08:21Nevermind if you're going to crawl down the front of it and continue shooting at them. He would later say he did that to draw the fire away from his comrades. But whatever, he got shot four times and lived to tell about it. Thank goodness. Here's the video.

1:08:41I'm hit! I'm hit! I can see it from his helmet. I'm hit. I'm hit!

1:08:52I'm hit!

1:09:02Ah! Fuck! Yo!

1:09:15Help me! I'm hit! I'm hit! I'm hit!

1:09:28I'm hit! The great Jim Garrity has a column at National Review about this right now. I believe it was broken by Fox News Digital late last week. And the headline is that Graham Plattner has sparked outrage again as he appears to mock this wounded soldier, saying he's a dumb motherfucker who didn't deserve to live. Quoting here, at least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and holding contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouth breather made it home. He managed to make every possible shit decision when it comes to small unit combat.

1:10:15So the headline is he didn't deserve to live. And then it appears that he, Graham Plattner, did not respond at first when asked outside of a market near his home whether he regrets making the post. Let's see. Did not respond and doesn't look like he is feeling too remorseful about it because he still, as far as I can tell, has not responded, has not apologized, and is just sort of standing by saying that a fellow serviceman who risked his life for us in Afghanistan honorably and received a Purple Heart for his four bullet wounds deserved it and actually didn't deserve to live and that he's a dumb motherfucker.

1:11:01your thoughts on it Charlie well I think Graham Platton is a creep and I think that that is obvious across pretty much everything I know about the guy uh he has or sorry had a Nazi tattoo on his chest which is something I in my 41 years have somehow managed to avoid doing by accident and from that moment on uh he has got worse and worse and worse and I think it's absolutely astonishing that he's up eight in Maine, and I hope he loses. I mean, it's not even as if there's much of an excuse. Susan Collins is a moderate establishment figure, a very nice lady, who seems to be unimpeachable in her personal life.

1:11:47She's less conservative than I am, but she's also a senator in Maine. So this idea that anyone but Susan Collins has to be elected to that seat. I think it's ridiculous. Once again, Graham Plattner in that Reddit post is saying words that you couldn't waterboard out of me. I mean, we've seen him talk about women in absolutely appalling ways. We've seen him profess himself to be a communist. And now he's pleased when he sees American soldiers being shot. I almost can't believe this is a real person. I can't believe this is a real race. And after the last 10 years of American politics, that's saying something.

1:12:29It's true. Correcting myself here, Garrity's post goes on to say that after he originally tried not to respond, he did pull the indignation card, Rich, by saying, I did four tours in the infantry. Any attempt to say that I disrespect veterans is slanderous and offensive when asked the follow-up question. Slanderous and offensive. I mean, is it? Because, like, he didn't deserve to live seems pretty black and white to me. It seems pretty simple to just say, you know, I was behaving like a knucklehead. I shouldn't have said that. I was being an idiot because, you know, I thought his decision on the battlefield was really dumb, and I wasn't articulate about saying that.

1:13:15Yes, clearly this guy is a poisonous toad. We have extensive record online of him being a poisonous toad and no evidence that he's stopped being a poisonous toad. But what they're going to argue is that this is a product of his service and he was in a bad place when he came back. So that's why he was such an a-hole online. I hate to say it. I think you've got to favor him in this race. It's going to be a very tough year for Republicans. Now, Susan Collins is a survivor. She's survived when the polling was against her before. Maybe she will this time. But I kind of think the other Democrat would have been easier for Susan Collins because it's an 80-year-old white woman with a real poor record as governor and quite a left-wing record as governor.

1:13:55Whereas Plattner is anti-establishment. He's something fresh and new in lots of bad ways, I would argue, but different than Susan Collins. So he's got a real puncher's chance in this race. And I hate saying it because he he deserves to be a streamer like Hassan Piker and not anywhere near the Senate. But he's got a real chance to be there next year. He's I mean, he's he's. For expanding the Supreme Court, he's for making Puerto Rico and D.C. a state. So before our friends up in Maine fall in love with his anti-war stance, which I know a lot of Republicans are feeling, yours truly included. Let's not get so blind on his radical leftist nature as to fall in love with him.

1:14:41I'm sure there's a lot of positions that our friends across the aisle may share with us on one issue or another, certainly if you're an independent like I am. But good God, he you know, there's no expanding the Supreme Court. And there's definitely no making Puerto Rico and D.C. states or the Republicans will never win an election ever again. That blog has had a lot of things on it. one of the most offensive was somebody posted white people aren't as racist or stupid as Trump thinks. And his response was living in white rural America. I'm afraid to tell you they actually are. And I mean, there's tons of really offensive stuff on here.

1:15:15He's ripping on black people and whatever. It's like it goes on and on. But that's Graham Plattner, who's again, up eight. And speaking of Democrats who have stepped in it over the weekend intentionally or not, Tom Steyer is running for LA mayor next to Spencer Pratt, who should be winning. And sorry, governor. And next to next to our friend Steve Hilton, who should be winning. And he decided to weigh in on the transgender debate on the podcast of the very angry lady with the blonde hair. I can never remember her name, but he went on her podcast and the subject of trans athletes comes up. He's from California.

1:15:58Keep in mind, just this past weekend, there's one of the most infamous trans athletes competed in track and field. This is a boy who looks like a girl now because he's, you know, posing as one with the long blonde hair. It's a boy. And he's crushing all these women in the high jump and the long jump and the triple jump by like several inches and several feet, depending on the event. And no female is keeping up with him. Now the accommodation that Gavin Newsom has come up with for these female athletes, the actual female athletes, is that if they're, you know, first, but for the presence of this boy, they get to stand on the podium with him.

1:16:35They can stand up there next to the boy posing as the girl and they both get a first place medal. It's ridiculous. Get off of my riser. Go to the boys event. See if you can get yourself on the riser there. Get off of my riser. That's what these girls are clearly thinking, looking at him like, what are you doing up here? So Tom Steyer from California, a billionaire, decides to weigh in on this debate. And this is what he said. It's not 14. I'm totally in favor of trans athletes in high school. I think when you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand that almost half of them try to commit suicide.

1:17:20Yeah. And then you think we're going to punish those kids. We're going to cut them off from team sports. We're going to cut them off from participating in the community. We're going to cut them off from fun. It's like, no, we're not. No, we're not. And, you know, as someone who played sports my whole life and loves sports and love playing sports, they're more important things than whether you start on your high school basketball team. And that is standing up for people who are under threat of death. Oh, my God. Shame on you, Tom Steyer. Shame on you. Rich's head is like in his chest right now.

1:17:55This is so outrageous that these young girls have to endanger themselves. I mean, literally, I refer to the girl in Lowell, Massachusetts on the field hockey field who got all of her teeth knocked out. The other girls were so horrified. Some of them could barely go on by a boy wielding a field hockey stick and inadvertently smashing it in her face with the force that a boy who's in full boy puberty with all of his testosterone coming in can do. That has to happen because it's the boy who is in danger, according to Tom Steyer. It's the boy who is experiencing stress and vulnerability. How dare he?

1:18:33I issued him an invitation to come on this program to have a debate with somebody who actually will challenge him respectfully. We can have it. No response because he's super tough, Rich, while he's sitting across from the angry lady who's a far leftist. But he wouldn't dare come on this program and say that to me. He doesn't have the balls. I don't care how many billions he has. He's so wrong. He's a coward and he's a failure. That soundbite is so wrong on every level, including, as you guys at National Review know, because you've been reporting on it, and was it Audrey Fahlberg? But I can't remember.

1:19:07Yeah, she hasn't been there in a while, but you know who I mean. She did a great report on putting the lie to this nonsense about half of trans youth attempt suicide. That is total bullshit. Everything he said is bullshit. Yeah. Hold on a second. I have it in front of me. Oh, it's Maddie Kearns. It was it was Maddie Kearns who said the only long term study done on transsexuals like post surgery. So like they've done the crossover to see if like did having the procedures make them less suicidal, you know, more well. It was a 2011 Swedish study and it found overall mortality for these people was higher, was higher than for those who remain in their biological sex.

1:19:52Your thoughts? Well, Steyer is a class enemy because he's a billionaire. So he's pandering and desperate, clawing to get into one of the top slots in that gubernatorial. primary. But you're right, this answer has everything terrible in it, beginning with this go-to argument for everything that if you don't bend to the trans agenda, you are causing trans people to die because they're going to commit suicide. Now, we've heard it mostly with regard to so-called gender reassignment surgery. But here we are, if this guy is not on the podium with the girls, he's going to commit suicide. It's insane.

1:20:26And yeah, it's not the most important thing if you're a girl, whether you're starting on a high school basketball team or not, varsity basketball team. But it is pretty important when you've spent years on a travel team, probably practicing, playing, and it's one of your aspirations. Why should a guy take your spot on the basketball team or anything else? It's crazy. And then also the idea that trans people won't have fun. Fun will be banned and prohibited for them if they aren't competing against girls and competitive sports. It's just everything about it. So vomit inducing. They also, you know, it's fun.

1:21:01It's fun to win. It's really fun to win. And I'm sure that this A.B. Hernandez in California is having a grand old time, less so the girls coming in behind him. Go ahead, Charles. They always play both sides of it. On the one hand, they say it's so important that people who say they're of the opposite sex need to play in sports, that we need to upend all of our institutions to accommodate it. And then they say when it happens, Well, it's only sports. It's not like sports matter. You know, I like sports, but it's not like sports are important. You've got to pick a lane. They're either important or they're not.

1:21:32And the reason they do that is that they know that they are actually very important to people. And they know that Congress recognized that they're important to people, which is why we have Title IX. and Congress did not intend Title IX to be hacked by men who, by dint of their biological virtues, I suppose they are bigger and stronger on average than women, can win. The second thing is, Rich talked about the threat of suicide. That is a fundamentally undemocratic position. I mean, to say I have to get my way or I'll kill myself in any other circumstance would be rejected out of hand if i said i think taxes are too high so unless you lower taxes i'm going to kill myself or to pick something that is far more important in the grand scheme of things abortion i'm pro-life i think abortion is killing in most states abortion is legal in some states abortion is legal almost to the point of birth so am i allowed to say you have to enforce my particular abortion preferences or i'll kill myself and then what everyone just has to follow it it is completely ridiculous that that's become currency within our political system.

1:22:38And in addition to Maddy Kearns' reporting on that study at 2011 from Sweden, remember when that trans lawyer went before the Supreme Court in Skirmeti, which was looking at whether you could stop the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for trans youth? And this this lawyer who I think is a woman posing as a man who goes by the name Chase Strangio got up there and made a stunning admission when Alito pressed her. Again, she's posing as a he pressed her on this ridiculous claim because she tried to argue that these trans youth, if they didn't get access to all these puberty blockers, etc., were going to kill themselves.

1:23:30And finally, somebody in the form of Justice Alito, who is entitled to honesty from a member of the Supreme Court bar, no matter what her issues, pressed her on what is that true? Like, what is the data for that? And she gave it up. Listen. On page 195 of the cash report, it says there is no evidence that gender affirmative treatments reduce suicide. What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in some in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare. And we're talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don't necessarily have completed suicides within them.

1:24:20However, there are multiple studies, long term longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction in suicidality, which I think is a positive outcome to this treatment. Suicidality. So she's saying it'll reduce the amount that they want to kill themselves. OK, there's actually not data to support that either. Like this is this is a lie that continues to be pushed on us. But as you point out, Charlie, even if it were true. And by the way, if it's if the suicidality is caused by the fact that they're not allowed to transition, then why do why do we have an increased to some level thoughts of suicide by L's and G's?

1:25:02the lesbian and gay crowd, right? Like they're not looking to transition. Could it be that just being in the LGBTQ rainbow coalition raises additional challenges that you may find stressful and there's no surgery that's gonna solve it for you? You might need actual therapy to address your issues. But as you point out, this cannot be a trump card on the sacrifice of girls and women's rights or children's safety and the protection by those of us who are over the age of 18 of their fertility, their right to sexual enjoyment when they get old enough to understand what that is, which is taken away from them when we castrate them at age 11 and 12 as loving but well-meaning parents when it comes to the medicalization.

1:25:46None of this should be a matter of choice for the parents or anybody else. It's the child's choice that he or she can hold onto and must make only, only when they reach the age of majority. Yeah. Sorry, I'm still struggling to get over that voice coming out of someone who has a mustache. That was really quite disconcerting. It never fools anybody. It's really bizarre. So we talked earlier about the summer of 2020 and the moment at which the medical authorities decided that having told us not to go outside for months, taking our kids out of school and so forth, that it was okay to riot. I think that was sort of the moment at which people said, so is this all just made up?

1:26:27Which of course it wasn't, but their guidance was. The same thing happened around the same time with the trans issue. This is one reason why there is such low trust now in government health organizations and academics, because from the United States all the way across Europe, people who had previously been trusted, people who had a doctor before their name or PhD after it, just started making things up. And you would see people say with a straight face that there was no difference between the average strength of a man and the average strength of a woman. There's no difference in the height between the average man and women.

1:27:10There's no difference in stamina or athletic ability. And the thing is, you don't have to have a medical degree or a doctorate to know that that is just absolute nonsense. And it wasn't just those sort of boldface lies. it was when you dug down into it, they started lying in papers and in government guidance as well. And this suicide 50 % number was just one of those. But there are tons of them. They just proliferated. And they've slowly been pulled back. And especially in Europe, which has been a little faster than the United States, a lot of that guidance has been rescinded. And a lot of the indulgence has been reversed.

1:27:54But people still remember that there was all of that lying. And I think, as you say, what was great about that moment was that there was an immediate consequence for Chase Strangio. Had Chase Strangio lied to Justice Alito, it's a bit like being put under oath or subpoenaed or put in a box in a courtroom. You suddenly can't do it anymore. Whereas if you're the British National Health Service, or you're a politician, or you work for, you know, a state level public health organization, you can say whatever you want to follow the trend. But Chase Strangio couldn't, because the court has rules. And that was that was really a terrific moment by Justice Alito where he got he got Chase Strangio to admit that.

1:28:44Yeah, you have a duty of candor to the court as an officer of the court. And I mean, especially when it's the Supreme Court and you're part of the Supreme Court bar where the behavior bar is up here as well. And so she was caught. She had to give it up and she did. It's not just, you know, streamers and so on. The Hollywood crowd to still pushing this messaging, Rich, this went unnoticed because nobody really cares about these two people. But it is indicative of left wing thinking that still dominates the Democrat Party. I mean, that that leaked DNC autopsy report that came out. Well, it's not leaked because they actually finally made the decision to release it after a lot of pressure.

1:29:23But it said that Kamala Harris, they them add that Trump unleashed was very, very effective. But then they were quick to say, but it's not going to change any of our behaviors. We're totally we're on board with the trans thing. Like notwithstanding that, you know, that was a good ad, but nothing's going to change. Here's a little microcosm of really, truly this is how the the average leftist, not like the more moderate Dems who still linger in some pockets of the country, but the leftists have taken over the party, how they think. And this is Lena Dunham talking to Monica Lewinsky. Forgive me.

1:29:52Here you go. What's interesting now is these conversations about, now we have more conversations than ever about what gender is, but also this sort of, she's a very internet word, gatekeeping of what being female is, which is this kind of, you know, we know the word turf, like what it is to kind of say, if you haven't been female in this extremely specific way that is involves biology, then you are not welcome at this party. I had Dylan Milvaney on recently and you know, it's, it's an amazing, her story is amazing. I have multiple nuclear trans family members. It's a big, it's been a big education for me to see, to be around that.

1:30:33I think, you know, I got to go speak at Trans Day of Visibility in D.C. last year with this amazing group called the Christopher Street Project. And the thing I expressed was just how having a trans sibling, having trans people in my life has really opened up in this most expansive way. So there she's complaining of the gatekeeping of what female is. And of course, Rich, the irony of saying if you're not female in the exact specific way they want, you're not female. That's biology. Biology that's a specific thing that's too constraining. She means she means not having a penis. It's the left. Yes, exactly.

1:31:16But it's the left that's saying if you're a tomboy and probably gay, like a female who's probably lesbian. No, you're a boy. Right. That's that's not being female in exactly the specific way that's demanded by leftists. They're the ones who have reimposed these gender norms. We on Team Sanity, which is right wingers and they're the independents who lean right. We're fine. We have a big tent. We love our butch lesbians. We're not trying to make them into boys. OK, and we love our femme boys. We're not trying to make them into girls. It's fine. It's her. That's the irony. She's the one doing all that rich first, by the way, when she said nuclear trans.

1:31:56I was like, is this a new gender? Don't tell Trump he'll invade. Yeah. This is why a traditional gay guy like the journalist Andrew Sullivan hates this stuff because it would mean like everyone would be trying to convince him that he's really a girl. Or he's like, no, I'm a guy. Yep. I'm just a gay guy. So this is crazy. And again, these aren't hugely, no disrespect to Monica Lewinsky or Lena Donomio, did have a hit show, not the most thoughtful or original people. So these are just the beliefs that they receive, they come down to them, and they are reflecting, right? And thinking they're being extremely original and thoughtful when they're saying it.

1:32:41But again, the theme of this whole episode is this stuff is still working, hasn't gone away. I believe we've reached peak woke because I don't think they're going to get every institution in American life to go along the way they did in 2020. but they will do as much as they can to push and reimpose the stuff as possible if they're in power again. Once AOC took the pronouns out of her ex-bio, it was a very good sign. We were off to the races on the end of Peak Woke. It was just, you know, she was as woke as they come. She lectured us on all the things, and she did take those pronouns down, and it's over.

1:33:20I mean, it's lingering, but the war on that issue has been won. We just have a few more legal battles to put to rest. Thank God. Thank God. So we have to, you know, obviously, A.B. Hernandez is on the podium out in California, so we still have some work to do. But I would say the lion's share of this battle has been won and is behind us. Thank God. All right. Stand by. Rich and Charlie, stay with us. And quick break first. If your dog is scratching more than usual, licking his paws or shaking her head, it might seem like normal dog behavior. But it turns out those can actually be signs your dog has allergies.

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1:37:37Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cook are back with me now. So guys, there may or may not be a deal to settle the Iran war, or at least to engage in a phase one settlement of the Iran war that would be followed by a phase two, which would take us closer to like a more encompassing peace deal. They are saying precious little about it. So I'll tell you what we've cobbled together based on all the reporting. First of all, President Trump has said that it's going to be a good and proper deal if he makes it, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of cash. Our deal is exactly the opposite, he said, but nobody has seen it or knows what it is.

1:38:20It isn't even fully negotiated yet. So don't listen to the losers who are critical about something they know nothing about. I don't make bad deals. Then we did find out from a truth social that he thinks that, quote, should be mandatory that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan should have to join the Abraham Accords where they recognize Israel's right to exist and engage in diplomatic relations with Israel. Apparently, that call didn't go over very well as Axios' Barack Ravid, who's gotten scoop after scoop from the administration, reported that when Trump said it on the call with these people, quote, there was silence on the line and Trump joked and asked if they were still there.

1:39:03So I don't think they want these are Middle East Arab allies joining the Abraham Accords to be part of the settlement of this deal. He also said Iran should join. OK, good luck with it. I mean, good luck with that. Wow. So we, this is what I think is happening. Trita Parsi, who's done a great job in reporting on this war from the beginning, he posted to his sub stack the following, that the agreement includes a comprehensive cessation of hostilities. So we're going to stop bombing them and they're going to stop hitting us over there, including in Lebanon, which was originally what we were supposed to have with this ceasefire, but it didn't go through.

1:39:44through. Israel kept bombing Lebanon, and in fairness to Israel, Lebanon kept attacking Israel too. So we're supposed to have a comprehensive cessation of hostilities, including in Lebanon, the gradual release of Iran's frozen assets. So we've got a bunch of their cash around the world that we're freezing that they can't get access to, and we're going to ease that, and an end to America's blockade of the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. So we'll pull, to some extent, our warfighters from the strait and allow Iranian ports to come back open and online. And then the maritime traffic through the strait, which has been under Iranian control, quote, would resume under joint Iranian and Omani oversight.

1:40:25Oman is the other country that has access, you know, is the border of Strait of Hormuz, those two. So I don't know what that means. They'll work together to allow ship traffic. Will they be charging? I don't know. And then that would give them an additional 30 days to negotiate a final agreement. The second stage would address the nuclear issue and the long term status of the Strait of Hormuz. I'm just going to give you a little flavor of the reaction from the more hawkish Republican and Democrat thought leaders, politicians and so on. Here, watch. I remember when we never used to negotiate with terrorists.

1:41:00Here we negotiate They were terrorists repeatedly, constantly. So when they're quote-unquote negotiating, they have no intention of living up to any aspect of any deal. Did I really prefer not making a deal and going back to combat operation? They will be empowered here as a result of a deal, and they will continue. Where we're going to unfreeze Iranian assets and give them billions of dollars to be able to control proxies again. Giving Iran more money, as he has said, will allow them to do things like fuel their terrorist proxies. If the result of all of this is to be an Iranian regime still run by Islamists who chant death to America, now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.

1:42:00The details are still coming out, and I pray that the early reports are wrong. Rich, your thoughts? So I think what's going on here, clearly President Trump is highly reluctant to start bombing Iran again. I think for a number of reasons, right? One, obviously the politics. Two, we're running low on precision munitions. Three, the Gulf states aren't so sure we can protect them from Iranian retaliation. Now, I also think the Iranians don't particularly want to get bombed again either. So I think both sides are ready for a deal and then both sides are trying to avoid overbidding for a deal. I think we'll get a basic trade of the blockade, our blockade for an opening of the Strait of Hormuz in some form or another.

1:42:47And then and then you'll see what you can get on the nuclear. The problem Trump has is I think at the moment he seems more eager for a deal than the Iranians are, and the Iranians see that and sense that. And two, once the Iranians at the outset of the conflict claim de facto control of the strait and we couldn't or didn't or whatever take it back, then they have this enormous strategic chit that you have to negotiate over to get back before you even get to the nuclear stuff, which you consider most important. So I think there'll be a deal and the devil will be in the details, especially on the nuclear side of it.

1:43:26I'm not surprised to hear them objecting to our loosening the spigot on Iranian assets and funds, Charlie, because that's something that people who can't stand Iran don't trust Iran and think Iran is going to launch some sort of nuke against Israel, etc. really don't want for them to be flush with cash. And if they do have control over the straight at all, and we're loosening our restrictions on their cash, they're not going to like that. So does it go through? Well, I don't think that any of the people that you played clips from are going to persuade Trump. I think Trump's going to make his own decision as he did going in.

1:44:11I do wonder if it was a mistake. As you know, I've been unsure as to what I've thought throughout. I'm not as educated in this area as Rich is, and I'm also not as sure of my views on foreign policy. I mean, to me, it seems that the sort of solid argument, if we end up with that being the deal, is that you've got broadly what we had under Obama, except that we also have bombed their nuclear sites. But we did that before we went in the second time. So I do think it's going to be quite difficult to spin. The argument is going to have to be, well, look, gas prices are coming down again. Well, yeah, but they went up because we went in.

1:44:53So I think Trump might want out, but I'm not sure we're in a particularly good position now. And I think that a lot of the criticisms having gone in that we just heard are correct. Hmm. Out would be good. I'm in favor of out. I don't think it's going to be pretty or perfect, but out is better than in. And at this point, you know, given the poll numbers on this war, it's like, how much are we going to lose? I mean, we can't lose much more. It was like the Grand Plattener's up by eight. We could lose control of the Senate on Team Sanity. We're definitely looks like going to lose control of the House, though the redistricting offers one shed of light.

1:45:32I'm rooting for out, and I hope the president withstands this pressure. Guys, a pleasure. As always, check out National Review. Go and subscribe. Become a member. That's the best way so you don't have to deal with the ads. They have such great content over there. We will see you right here for more tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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