Shock Story About Kristi Noem's Husband's Double Life, and Trump Warns Europe, with Brandon Weichert, Tom Bevan, and Andrew Walworth | Ep. 1285

29:14It's the same thing here. And now here we are where he's flailing around, frankly, trying to find how do I win this thing? Well, there's no victory here. So how do I get out of this without looking bad and making our position worse? Well, unfortunately, the only thing he can think to do is to keep escalating. And, Megan, that's why I say I think we're going to see ground troops soon. And I'm going to go one more. I said this on another show. I'm going to say it here. I am convinced that in a couple of weeks, as soon as a couple of weeks, we might actually see nuclear weapons being deployed, not by the United States, but either by Israel and or the Iranian regime, which I believe probably has a handful of rudimentary nuclear weapons that they've been playing with.

29:55I mean, I was comforted by Professor Pape suggesting Israel knows not to do that because he was saying they know that they're not the entire Middle East hates them. But if they drop a nuke in Iran, which, you know, the blowback of which will spread across the Middle East, they'll all turn on Israel. And it's only a country of nine million people. It would just be too existential a risk for Israel to take. Yeah, but if you're sitting in Tel Aviv and you are in the Likud wing of that part of that government, which is very fanatical, you might be looking around going, hey, look, this is the use it or lose it moment.

30:33The Americans under Trump can't be depended upon. We have no idea whether Trump is going to actually go forward with what he says or if he's just going to taco out and leave us holding a bag. We can't carry that bag. The Iranians are actually going to walk away from this stronger now. So we're gonna have to do something to bring them down to size and that is why I'm fearful given the current government in Israel that they might if they think that the Americans either can't or will not be able to Achieve some semblance of success on the ground that they will then just pop off some nukes And I think that's where this is headed and by the way if they do that I think at that point we're gonna find out real quick whether Iran has nukes or not because I think that they would retaliate in some way using whatever nuclear material they have.

31:22Yes, it is not too crazy to say this thing could turn nuclear. I mean, that's what's really scary, that this whole thing could turn nuclear. And we may not be in control, especially if we leave. I mean, I want us to leave, don't get me wrong, but I want us to stand Israel down too. Because if we leave and Israel stays and feels like they're now exposed to a very angry hornet's nest in Iran, they may do it because they feel like they've left themselves with no choice. That Israel may do it because Iran is now even more dangerous than ever if it does have a nuke that it wasn't using because the old Ayatollah, now dead, had a fatwa against it, but the new guy doesn't.

32:00And now they're very pissed and feeling defenseless. And Megan, you got to remember, we whacked not just the Ayatollah, Kamani, but we whacked a bunch of IRGC senior commanders well now their adjutants and the younger guys who are a lot more hot-headed uh than were their commanders have risen to positions of power and you're witnessing them execute a very comprehensive very methodical uh strategy of counter-attack with these missiles and these hypersonic weapons and the drones here's some data points that i i've been throwing out the last week. I just heard that we have officially expended one-third of our terminal high-altitude area defense, the THAAD.

32:46We've expended one-third of those interceptors in this month-long war alone. Those are the very important, high-powered, very expensive, I think they're about$12 billion a pop, air defense systems that we have ringing the Middle East. We've gone through one-third of those, And it will take about eight years if operations stop tomorrow. It will take eight years to replenish those numbers. The Royal United Services Institute, which is one of the oldest, I think it's the oldest think tank in the world, usually very pro-war, by the way. But they assessed last week that Israel is days away from running out of their important Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 exo-atmospheric interceptors.

33:30It's a very fancy way of saying they have interceptors in Israel they rely on that go high, go fast, and go far into the atmosphere, into space, to knock out incoming missiles. Well, they're basically out of those, which means they've got to wait for Iranian missiles and other attack systems to get closer to their territory, which, of course, increases the risk. Then you have also this report coming out saying that we are about, on the THAAD system, we are about three weeks away from being totally empty on those THAAD interceptors for what we have in our current stockpiles. We're already cannibalizing stockpiles from Indo-Paycom, which is a very important command for deterring China, and we need the THAADs in place to deter China.

34:15They are being depleted now and moved over to the Middle East. So what we are witnessing is a race to depletion and it looks like to me the Iranians are beating us in that all-important race to depletion Which is why I think the Americans and Israelis are so spastically Trying to up the escalation ladder because they figure well, we're not doing well on this rung Let's go up one higher and we can maybe outmaneuver them that way and and run them because otherwise if we keep doing this match tit-for-tat it's not going to end well. I think the Iranians probably have about 18 to 24 months left of missile capabilities at least, which is just based on my own observations and based on what I've been looking at.

35:00If you look at the way that the Iranians have shifted their munitions packages, this is not a country that seems to be running low. I know Hegseth and the boys keep saying, oh, well, you know, he said that this morning. I know he's been saying this morning said just in the past 24 hours, the number of missiles went down to, it's like 95 % less than it was. Yes, that matches though. This is my own assessment, so take from it what you will. But if you take my assessment, I think the reason you're seeing that decline is not because they're reducing numbers too much. I think it's because they recognize the Americans and Israelis have depleted, for the most part, their interceptor force.

35:40So now we can conserve our fires. There's there's this thing called conservation of fires And so the no professional military wants to waste ammunition no waste ordinance So the the Iranians are professional military and they're saying okay, we've now depleted We don't have to send swarms as much anymore because the the Interceptors are now pretty much drained and we can have our pick of the litter of targets And we know that there is a higher probability of those systems making it through That's why, by the way, you're now seeing the newer Iranian missiles being deployed. These multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles where you have one missile and then multiple warheads that separate over the target makes it harder for interceptors to hit.

36:22That's why you're seeing them deploy these hypersonic weapons. You're seeing them deploy the Karamshar, which is a very complex system. In the beginning of the war, Megan, they were using their old 10-year-old missile systems, rudimentary systems, to just drain us dry. Now they're up the escalation ladder and they're using their more sophisticated systems to really slam targets in Israel and throughout the Arab states. And I think that's because they know that the American and Israeli stockpiles are drastically depleted and they don't have to expend as much ammo. that is very scary when you think well i mean basically in israel the iron dome is has got big holes it's got big holes and they also punched those radars so remember we had installed billions of dollars worth of um early warning air defense radars in places like bahrain in places like saudi arabia qatar etc and what were the among the first target packages that the iranians fired and they destroyed were those expensive radars which is why now we're having to flood in these Century planes and of course the Iranians have apparently very good intelligence because last weekend They blew up our spy planes that came in our radar planes that came into Saudi Arabia the minute they parked at the tarmac which means they have actionable Intel live Intel sure the Russians and Chinese are helping them as well But they yes, they've also got locals on the ground the Iranians have really good human intelligence notably in Bahrain Which is mostly Shiite and that's why you're seeing those precision strikes with the drones against the Hilton Hotel Where so many of our of our troops and our CIA and intelligence people They moved out of the base that's destroyed there and they moved into these hotels Well, it turns out I think the locals at the hotels and the drivers are calling up Iranian Intelligence operatives saying they're at they're on the eighth floor in the corner of this building send your drone there And so we have a problem where the people of the region are turning against us as well This is going south very fast, which is what gets me thinking Not only is this not going to end anytime soon, but we're going up the escalation ladder with troops that ain't gonna work so then they're gonna move to You know the Israeli saying well, we're gonna have to do something perhaps we and we short circus that's short short circuit this by launching nukes weeks.

38:42Pray God, that's not true. I want to follow up with what some of what Pete said this morning, because he and Dan Raisin Cain held a presser. But before I get to that, I just want to stick for a minute on the Laura Ingram soundbite. I did think it was somewhat promising to have someone as prominent as Laura, who I know the president admires, say, you know, start questioning, start poking. How did we get here? Better late than never. It's certainly right. Totally. But, you know, it seems like the president may have been misled into thinking this was going to be a snap and by whom. And, you know, obviously we know that Netanyahu was chief among them.

39:19He was probably the biggest cheerleader, but we know there were a lot of Fox News personalities who got into the president's ear. And then we talked briefly about how the president pushed to Mark Levin's show on Saturday night, where my friend who I really care for, Mark Thiessen said the following. And, you know, like, I can't see a world in which this happens. But Mark is very smart. So you tell me your take on this prediction. I've never seen a war where the Democrats turned against the war on day one and are rooting for defeat. You know, there are people in this country who hate Donald Trump more than they hate the Iranian regime that just massacred 32 ,000 people in their streets.

40:02You know, they were all very upset about what was happening in Gaza. But 32 ,000 people massacred. And then Donald Trump comes in to wipe out the genocidal regime that actually was committing genocide against its own people, massacring them in the streets like that. And because it's Donald Trump, we have to play it down. We have to say it's a defeat. We have to say we're losing. And they're all going to have egg on their face because we're about halfway through this thing. And when this is all over, this is going to go down in history as possibly the greatest military campaign the United States has waged since the American Revolution.

40:37Since the American Revolution. Your thoughts on it? Well, that's to be expected from Don Rumsfeld's former speechwriter, I guess. You know, this is the same Pollyanna-ish predictions we were hearing in Iraq. I just remind everybody Iraq was actually supposed to take a few weeks and then we were supposed to be out In fact, I know for a fact Rumi had the the plan for the exit was September Oh three the last tranche of US forces were supposed to be pulled out of Baghdad International Airport And that's so that's when did we launch we launched it March this this month actually ironically this month I think it was March 19th that we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, which turned into a quagmire.

41:23And by the way, we're still fighting in Iraq, just so the audience understands, even though we pulled out, they've ripped open the fighting again between Sunni and Shiite militias. So we are still involved there. So, you know, Mark Thiessen may be a nice guy. I used to see him bouncing around Old Town Alexandria when I lived out there. uh but ultimately mark is not the guy to listen to on anything related to war with all due respect well he he's a wonderful guy and he's very smart and i i will say this he's completely sincere in his analysis i'm sure he is like yeah he became a star on the kelly files we used to open our show with him every night he could talk he's a nice guy i'm not attacking him personally yeah no no i know i know i know i just like i i don't since the american revolution seems like a stretch to And I think that the problem is like President Trump was pushing people to watch that.

42:13And clearly President Trump watched that. And back to Laura Ingraham's question about like who's been in his ear and what have they been telling him that led him to completely reverse himself on his promises of no war, no Middle East war. and all the millions of tweets we've seen circulating from Donald Trump, you know, repeatedly saying it's so dumb to get involved in the Middle East war. Why are we wasting all this money? We should be focused on domestic politics, you know, leading up to when he was president. And we'll just remember, Megan. And we're so confused about why. In 2016, remember his famous South Carolina debate during the primary.

42:47You might have even been there. You know, he went in there, Trump did. And this is when I fell in love with him. And I'm a three time Trump guy. I when he went in there and he called out all of the Bush people in the audience Then he yelled at at Jeb Bush and he said, you know your brother light us into the war That was a doozy he was speaking for I'm on the older side of the Millennials. He was speaking for my generation 100 % he was speaking for the Gen Z generation and probably part of the Gen X generation as well Who knew that that war in 2003 was a doozy of a lie? And we are still paying down that war, by the way, today.

43:23And now here he is a decade later. And I think it is the echo chamber that Joe Kent talked about in his resignation letter. But I also think we need to not take away agency from the president. I mean, he is the president of the United States. I think he really was moved by the protesters. I believe that. I think he has heart. And I think that he saw what was happening to the protesters in January and February. And he was like well slaughtered by the ayatollah right now I don't know to the level of thirty two thousand sounds a lot. I don't know but okay But it was clearly bloodshed. It was horrible.

43:58What was happening again? The regime in Iran is not a good regime But ultimately I think that he was moved and then you throw that in with his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu And then you throw it in with the echo chamber of neocons that he only listens to now And this is how you have a perfect brew of him believing after maduro what happened in venezuela and what happened in june with our iranian but i won't just say he thought he could do it i will say general kane and this came out in the press the day before the war started there was a very content he warned him warned him now why kane didn't resign in protest after that is beyond me and i think that that's actually a blight on his i really want to talk about this this is under reported and under i've been covering there is no question in my mind that the chairman of the joint chiefs didn't want this and warned the president we shouldn't do it that hit the press the day before we did this the day of the meeting president trump came out with a true social saying all dan kane knows how to do is win if i tell him to go in there he'll win that's that's the only he just bellicose his way around the clear warning And how did Dan Cain's advice to the president not to do this wind up in the papers?

45:11Well, it was Vice Emerald Fred Kotcher, who was, I believe, his adjutant. And it's a big mystery among people I know at the Pentagon. Did the Vice Emerald do this of his own volition? Did he just leak it because he was so worried that the president was locked into this horrific quagmire? Or did he do it because maybe General Cain asked him to do it? Maybe that was sort of a quiet. That's my question. And we don't know. But I will tell you from what I can tell, and now I know there's an investigation, so this might be why, but I do think it's interesting. They didn't fire Vice Emerald Koccher for leaking.

45:44They removed him from his position on the joint staff, but he's been sent back to his regular post at the Navy. So he is still technically, and I welcome anybody to correct me online if I'm getting this wrong, because this is the last I heard of it was a few weeks ago. He's still very much active at vice-emoral in the Navy, which to me is odd because it tells me that perhaps This was not just Kacher acting on his own Maybe this was Kacher representing the uniformed joint services command structure Most of whom by the way are Hegseth and Trump loyalists now They're trying to get a message out to the president and they know the president doesn't listen to anybody When you're talking to him he watches it on the media that Trump is a creature of the 20th century.

46:29He loves TV He's a ratings guy. He cares about that And I think this is how the Fox News and the the boomer cons and the neocons get through to him is through Mark Levin and the TV And I think that the people who are not interventionists have figured out too late in the game You can't talk to the president always you're gonna have to go go on TV and get your points out that way because you'll see it That is really true. This is not an unfair criticism. I've spoken to many people at Fox who've told me that administration figures will come to them saying, please put me on because I have something the president has to hear.

47:04And also if their fortunes are dwindling, they want a hit like on Fox and Friends, for example, because they want to show I'm on TV. See, I'm relevant. I'm making your points. They know the shows he watches and they try very hard to get on them. But look, we know that the case was made because we know that Tucker Carlson got in front of him three times in the month leading up to this war. And, you know, just he wasn't persuaded. So, but there were just so many other voices. It was nine to one, you know, that he was listening to pushing him into it. Not to take agency away from the president at all, but I do think a full assessment.

47:38I agree. We know Trump made the call. That's not a mystery, but who pushed him into it, who made these representations also matters. It's the famous bubble. When you work in DC I worked on the hill for a period of time and you work in the White House it's even worse I'm sure you get into a bubble and you know you're always taking incoming so you only start listening to friendly voices and you know I will tell you I remember being mortified listening to Dan Crenshaw at a private event in 2018 where we were at at Capitol Hill Club and he was gloating about how he Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham convinced the president to break his 2016 campaign promise to keep to pull troops out of Syria and he was gloating at the table about how When I said well, how how did you even get him to do that?

48:23Because I was very cross and he he said He said well he goes I just I just we just appealed to his ego He has the ego the size of Jupiter and he said and we just kept appealing until after two hours in the yellow oval office He said we all just he said we all just got him to just keep to break that campaign promise It's the same thing with this war. Same thing. I mean, I'm thinking about Joe Kent's wife, his first wife, who was killed in Syria because she was left there. And he had said to her in the last conversation, don't be the last one to die for a cause that no one supports anymore. And Shannon was killed, likely, by the elements that are now we've elevated into power in Syria.

49:04So, you know, it's... Well, that's a whole other ball of wax right now. We elevated Al-Qaeda, which is Sunni, instead of the Shiites there. And now, like, they're cooperating to, like, basically, we're working with terrorists. We're working with ISIS, to be clear. Let's just be clear. It's ISIS. They're working with ISIS. Yeah. We're working with ISIS. It's very dark. And, yeah. There's more to discuss. Can you stay over? I've got to take a quick break. Can you stick around? All right. Brandon stays with us. And after, Brandon, the guys from RCP will be here. Don't go away. Ever been in a bad relationship?

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51:41I heard, we want everything faster. Higher op-tempo. Wartime speed. The feeling was the exact opposite of the rotational units year after year in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we're so familiar with. What I witnessed was motivation. It was sheer mission focus. It was the American warrior unleashed. A crew chief we flew with summed it up nicely. He said, it's been a busy few weeks, sir. Tough stuff. But I'm so honored to be called up. This fight is long overdue. We need to address it for our kids. We cannot pass the buck. Please thank the president from us. I heard that time and time again.

52:29Okay, that was Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of War. Like, to me, I just, it sounded like a Jack Nicholson impression. I just, of course, the men and women in uniform speaking to the Secretary of War are going to say that. that doesn't tell us whether this is in fact a noble cause or whether it was smart for the United States of America to do in the first place. I care for Pete, as you know, I backed Pete, but this bravado is not gonna get it done. We actually need to be very serious and sober about the risks we're exposing. He and the president are exposing those men and women who are so courageous to, and for whom are we doing that?

53:14Brandon Weichert is back with me now your thoughts on that Brandon. Well, I call him Pollyanna Pete for a reason and I say this because I was a like you a very firm supporter of his I actually got a lot of pushback from friends of mine in the defense community who were like why is why is this guy becoming secretary? I said look I think he has some great ideas and to give credit where credit is due. He's done a lot of good work with until now with recruitment and he's done a lot of good work with acquisitions reform. Now, acquisitions reform has been my great bugaboo for a decade. So I give credit to Mr.

53:48Hegseth. But on the war, he's Pollyanna Pete. And unfortunately, we don't need that right now. We don't need a mindless cheerleader. We need someone who understands strategy, ends ways and means. And as I noted at the beginning, our strategy in this war, Megan, and as you noted, makes no sense. You saw in the previous hour, you played Rubio's clip. Rubio's now emphasizing, oh, we got rid of the Iranian Navy and the Air Force. That was never a significant threat. The Iranian Navy, I mean, it's like the Iraqi Navy. The other problem with that is we learned, we learned in our 20 years in the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan that it's not about that.

54:25Like, it's great. Okay, Iran no longer has the Navy and the Air Force. That's better than them having it. But that's not how these guys fight. that's not the thing that kills Americans and makes the war go on and on and on it's like the Mujahideen the fighters, the ongoing jihad from the caves that's what we've proven so not inept at fighting but it's a very difficult fight well you're right and what we're facing is yet another and it's different because it is more of a state actor but it's a hybrid model we're facing yet another insurgency. That's basically what this is. This is the unconventional insurgent model.

55:05And I got to tell you, the Iranians are reminding me a lot of the Muj, and they're reminding me a lot of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese who, remember the North Vietnamese after the Battle of Ayah Drang, or into the Battle of Ayah Drang, the first major battle we fought in Vietnam in 1965, the general there was saying that we want to kill Americans. We're welcoming The Americans we want them to land so we can we can bloody their nose and it's interesting President possess again of Iran who by the way was raised among the Kurds the Kurds that supposedly were gonna overthrow the regime Interesting little fact there till he stood down right because they couldn't work wasn't gonna work But president possess again has said twice now in the last two weeks that we cannot quit the war in Iran Because we have to bloody the Americans knows so much that they never try something like this again So that is what you're dealing with.

55:57That clearly seems to be what they're doing, Brennan, doesn't it? Like the reason they're being so cagey about whether they're negotiating or whether they want an end to this war in which we're killing lots of them every day. Clearly we are. Look how many Vietnamese we killed. They feel like they can outweigh us. They're like, we don't really care. We want you to feel the pain economically. We want President Trump to feel the pain politically. We want gas prices to go up. and for you to get the message that this is a freaking disaster for you. And it is. And the Iranians, like I said. So, you know, the Iranian strategy, I've said this on Tucker's show, I'll say it here because it needs to be constantly reminded.

56:36Von Clausewitz, the great Prussian leader in the Napoleonic War, wrote a book called On War. It's required reading at all the military colleges around the West. And he said, essentially, warfare is an extension of politics through other means. You have to have a political end goal in mind that your military strategy is attempting to achieve. In our case, what is our end goal? It is shifted from regime change to we want to get rid of the nukes to we want to get rid of ballistic missiles in Iran to, oh, we're going to sink the Iranian Navy, sink the Air Force. And, oh, by the way, we're going to get them to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

57:11So that's like six things that are kind of ambiguous, and we've attached an air war-only approach. You can't achieve those goals in a short time frame with air power alone. Meanwhile, on the Iranian side, Megan, their only strategic end goal, their political goal, is survival. Regime survival. That's all they have to do, is hang on long enough for the Americans to run out of stuff and to run out of patience with fighting the war. Now there is a chance there is a chance now because I as we're talking in the first segment I got a note from a retired CIA guy and He says to me quote because I I think we might actually be thinking We need to be thinking the unthinkable that POTUS will actually leave the war With leaving by leaving the Iranians in charge of the Strait of Hormuz So on the one hand, I think that's what he's getting ready ready.

58:05I hope that's how he's right I think President Trump has seen these numbers that we've been reporting on our show, and I've been reporting them on X, and I get all sorts of blowback, Brandon, because my audience loves President Trump for the most part. I was a three-time voter for the guy. You need to see this. Yeah. But even if you still love Trump and you want him to succeed, he's got another three years to go, you have to see these numbers. Yes. You have to see what's real. It can still be potentially turned around. There's no reason to double down on what we've already done. Right. If there's any way of wrapping it up quickly, we should.

58:38And as I listen to President Trump over the past 24 hours, I think someone has seen the many Harry Enten reports, the Fox News polling, the Quinnipiac polling, the Reuters polling, that Amherst polling that came out yesterday putting his approval rating at 33 percent. The drag that this war on Iran has been across the board for every single group that put him into office. President Trump is brilliant. He is very smart when it comes to politics. And I think he's finally at the point where he's like i'm out. You know what eff it i'm out It's europe's problem Somebody else gonna have to deal with the problem is though the enemy gets a vote And like I said possess again is talking about i'm not gonna let go now until i've bloodied your nose And the israelis get a vote too and the israelis are making it clear They're not going to stop.

59:23I mean like I said last week I talked to yakov armador who was he's still very much intimately involved with with netanyahu And he made it clear that the israelis will only do what they think is in their national interest They do not care if the americans want to reopen or keep closed the strait of her moves They do not care if the americans bail out They will do what they perceive is in their national interest So that to me was an implied statement that they will continue pressing Militarily knowing full well, it's probably going to rope us back in not going to let us go And so this is why I see which they want.

59:57Yes, which is why I said in the beginning i'm very doubtful that even if trump wants to quit which he probably does at this point because like you said he's politically savvy he might not be able to this is the nature of what your previous guest mr dr pape was talking about with the escalation trap you are trapped now yep and so this is why here let me show you just one i mean we could we could play these harriet and sots all day let me show you one um sot 12 this is the lowest of his term the lowest of his second term we're talking about minus 17 points, 17 points underwater. So I went back and I looked at all of the presidents at this point in a presidency, all of them, all of them at this point of presidency.

1:00:39And guess what? Donald Trump is the lowest ever, the lowest ever at this point in a presidency. Yeah. Today he updated that to say it's actually minus 19, not just minus 17. YouGov, with his latest poll, Trump's approval among independents approved 22 percent, disapproved 65. The trend for independents in March of last year, 12 months ago, Trump was one point underwater with independents, which is very good. In December of last year, he was minus 26. He was already losing them because of affordability issues. And then March this month, he's minus 43 with the independents who are worried about their money and do not support this war.

1:01:25The independents, there's almost none who are supporting this war right now. And more and more, you're seeing the Republican Party split. The core MAGA is for it, but every other Republican is at best split right down the middle. Which is exactly what happened in Iraq and Vietnam. If you remember, it started out strong support, patriotism, rally around the flag. And a lot stronger support, by the way, in Iraq in 03 than there was this time around in Iran. But what happened was over the course of time, and it wasn't in Iraq in particular. Remember, the first bombing on the airport road in Baghdad occurred, I think, six or seven weeks after we invaded.

1:02:01So that was relatively quickly that the support started turning on the war because it was the first Marine that was killed, was that 19-year-old guy by the IED, the improvised explosive device. And from that day onward, you can track the decline in support in the United States and the rise of the Democratic Party, the return to power in 06, that ultimately then laid the groundwork for the rise of Obama and really the unseating of that Reagan coalition that had dominated American politics since the 80s. And that really ended there with Obama. And that all goes back to the first bombing in Iraq in 2003.

1:02:42Something similar is going to happen, I think, in Iran. I just want to make it clear, by the way, the president can quit today if he wants. We don't know what that's going to mean in terms of, is Iran going to stop or what are the Israelis going to do? But even if it all works out according to plan, the time that it will be needed to restore economic capacity, The time it will take to rehabilitate the destroyed infrastructure of the Gulf Arab states as well as Israel. Now, the Gulf Arab states are more economically important because of the oil and the fertilizers and the helium is the big one as well.

1:03:15It's going to take years and years. I mean, they put on force majeure in Qatar on five-year contracts for oil. So that indicates to me that they're anticipating. Meaning they don't have to honor them because of like a massive intervention beyond their control. So what that tells me is that the Arab states, if it all goes according to plan and they quit the war now, it doesn't matter. We're not getting that economic capacity restored fully for months and months, if not years. And we saw this, by the way, when Trump finally reopened after lockdowns and COVID, it didn't matter. The economy did not rebound the way they said it was going to.

1:03:53But does this matter? Because Trump's been saying, we don't get our oil from the Strait of Hormuz. So while Qatar may be suffering a problem on its balance sheets, we'll be fine. It's important that we understand global markets. And I don't mean to sound like a jerk when I say that, because I understand people think in America, well, we have all the stuff we need under our feet. And it's true, we do, but we don't actually have full productive capacity here in the United States. And that is a business decision that has been made by various oil and natural gas and fracking companies because they want oil internationally in a price range.

1:04:31They like it, I think it's$66 to$88, preferably closer to$66. They like it in that sweet spot. So what happens if you overproduce at home your oil and your natural gas? You're going to lower the global price of oil, which means good for you and I at the pump, But it's bad for those oil companies, which have to see ROI, return on investment. So when we talk about why is what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz affecting us here, it's because we're integrated. Why is my gas more than a dollar more a gallon than it was a month ago? It's because we do not get all of our oil from our own, not only North America, but the Western Hemisphere.

1:05:10And also, even if we did, we're still affected by volatility swings in the oil market. So what that means is we are going to be subject to price increases and shortages here in the United States, especially because we don't have full capacity. The infrastructure is not in place and the oil companies don't want to spend the money on expanding infrastructure in the near term for a variety of reasons, but mostly because that's going to harm their bottom line every quarter. You know, they have to post a return every quarter for their stockholders or their shareholders. So it's not in their interest to do this.

1:05:44Long term it is, but short term it's not. And everything in America is about the short term. And the number one thing that's upsetting voters here is the economy. So the last thing we need to do is give them yet another hit in the economy. We haven't even talked about the fact that the war is costing us a billion dollars a day. They want$200 billion to fight this. We can't afford that. We can't afford to rebuild all of our military bases throughout the Middle East. we can't afford to replenish all these interceptors. And so like, we can't afford any of this, but we're going to have to because we can't sit exposed without these things lest we get attacked.

1:06:19But wait, I want to ask you about something else, Brandon. This just broke via the New York Times. It's related, but not on the same exact topic. The Revolutionary Guards of Iran just issued a threat against top American corporations accusing them of helping the US and Israel carry out strikes against Iranians. Quote, from now on, the main institutions involved in such operations will be considered legitimate targets, says the Guard, in a statement that named 18 companies, including Apple, Google, and Meta. The statement carried by Iranian state media called for employees of these companies, quote, in all countries of the region to evacuate their workplaces and stay a kilometer away from their officers.

1:06:56I think they mean offices. It was not the first time that Iran had threatened American tech companies earlier this month. They threatened wider attacks against enemy tech in infrastructure belonging to seven U.S. tech firms. They think the tech firms are helping, are assisting in the conduct of this war. Now this is a direct threat against the people who work at the branches anywhere in the region. I mean, that's not good either. Like we don't spend a lot of time talking about the satellite problems that this thing is gonna cause beyond the gas. So my, yeah, my first book was on Space War. It was called Winning Space.

1:07:30It came out in 2020. and I talked about the threat to our space systems, which is still very underappreciated. Your audience might be aware of these fireballs in the skies over Texas and Ohio. Some of them are meteorites, but some of them, I think, are satellites being destroyed. Now, I don't have proof of this, but my theory is I think somebody is clipping SpaceX, possibly, Starlink satellites. I hope that's incorrect. I hope that they can prove that is not correct by clipping. You mean like tapping into no, I'm sorry I mean shooting down and I believe the reason that Starlink is a target now is because we know 40 ,000 Starlink terminals were uncovered in Iran during the protests by the Iranian regime And they are now associating that as not a private Satellite company providing internet to people around the world But as a backdoor way for regime change by the West using these decentralized Satellites in fact, we saw the Ukrainians in the Ukraine war at the beginning We're using Starlink to basically keep their units in the fight after the Russians attempted to de-link Ukraine from the world telecommunications networking.

1:08:45Yeah now today the Russians are using Starlink terminals as well So we're seeing Starlink increasingly used whether intentional or not by SpaceX It's being used to, you know, in these combat situations or in these political situations, which is now in turn making it a target. I think also there's probably some some anti-satellite warfare going on because I was told years ago there is a fear that the Iranians put a cluster of EMP satellites or satellites armed with electromagnetic pulse weapons above the United States. And I suspect we're probably taking those things down as a precautionary measure.

1:09:21But ultimately I think that the the businesses particularly the tech companies that they're singling out the Iranians believe and it's not always wrong That these tech companies in some way or members of these tech companies are facilitating operations against the regime in Iran electronically So how do we get out of this if the president? Pray God calls you tomorrow say Brandon help. He's never called should I do? Clearly, he's not big on talking to the critics, but what what do you want to see happen at this point? Well, what I would love to see happen is a complete reorganization of the U.S.

1:10:04defense posture. I want to see the complete reduction, if not complete pullout of U.S. military forces from the Middle East. We've lost this region. I want to see the reorganization of our defense apparatus so that we are prioritizing only two things. only two things western hemispheric defense plus space dominance uh and that is the only things that we should be focused on uh patrolling the world's oceans and patrolling the world's you know straits and whatever sounded great in the 90s very alfred mahan you know influence of sea power upon history wonderful stuff but we are no longer a unipolar uh you know hegemon anymore We have blown that the economic situation alone for consistently many years indicates we can't afford that kind of an empire anymore What I want to do is focus on rebuilding America I want to focus on rebuilding the defense industrial base truly the industrial base I want to bring the factories home so you can't do those things if you are constantly engaged and exposed to the varying hostilities and grotesqueries of Geopolitics in Eurasia that's Europe and Asia and the Middle East you can't do it You've got to be hard about this and say we're getting out And I can't think of a greater example of why we need to get out than looking at how boxed in We are by the Iranians of all people, you know, they spend a fraction on their defense budget than we do Also, you know, we well but wait but wait We're boxed in by the Iranians.

1:11:38We're boxed in by Israel who saw all of this coming and couldn't have cared less what this was going to do to the United States. This chaos serves every single one of their interests. Well, on paper it did, but of course, if you look at what's going on in Israel now, I don't think in another decade Israel's going to be a real country anymore. I think that they have been completely smashed. If you look at Tel Aviv, the footage, you have to go to foreign sources because of course our own censorious media won't cover the story. but if you go to some of these foreign networks in India and elsewhere, you will see the real footage being revealed on social media, on their networks.

1:12:18These Iranian missiles are nothing to joke about. They're very serious and they're doing a lot of damage. You're talking about their key ports, Haifa's getting hit. ELAT has been blockaded on and off for years. They've had an economic downturn because of this. You look at the hundreds of thousands of professional class people who are getting their passports and going to places like Cyprus or Crete or Malta or London or Canada or here back in the United States. They are leaving permanently. So you have a brain drain going on. How do they rebuild? They can't rebuild. And they're now breaking the IDF in this stupid thing in Lebanon.

1:12:58You know, the Merkava massacre. They're sending hundreds. They've lost over 100 of their Merkava. A million people have been displaced out of Lebanon because Netanyahu saw an opportunity to clear out Hezbollah and anything related to Hezbollah. But the civilians are being killed there, too. And they're promising to do what they did in Gaza, which is very scary. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be a viable entity much longer. And I don't say that pro or con. I'm just pointing out, if you look at the damage, I don't know how they get through this as an intact— They were much stronger before this started than they will be coming out of it.

1:13:30Let's just put it that way. And it's like this was – it didn't have to happen. I'm not defending Iran. Not defending – I mean we all can't stand Iran. It's like, okay, we know what they've done. They have been popping up here and there periodically over the course of the past 40, 50 years. And they are responsible for American blood and treasure being spilled. There's no question. But more got spilled just this week and more will be spilled if we continue doubling down on this thing. And it's doing more strategic damage to us than it ever did before. Yeah. That's the problem. it was, it's just, it's not worth it.

1:14:03Not, not right now. And we're about to lose politically as well. This keeps going. Um, Brandon, thank you. You've been one of my like sages in following, uh, you on X and the podcast that you do. You're so smart. I really appreciate you. Thanks for coming. You will for sure. We'll invite you. Um, up next, the guys from RCP join us and there's a lot to go over. Think about this in 2006,$20 ,000 equaled roughly 33 ounces of gold at spot price. At today's prices, those 33 ounces would be worth about $165 ,000. That's why many smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals.

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1:15:20Turning back to the double life of Kristi Noem's husband, Brian, part of the Daily Mail report raising national security concerns that his personal fetish poses. Again, he didn't admit it all to the Daily Mail, but when asked about the allegations that he's doing it, that he was paying women to show their breasts to him, enormous breasts, and to look at him and his fake enormous breasts, the Mail reports that Brian, quote, made indiscreet remarks about Kristi Noem as well while on these forums. In any event, Brian responded to the part about whether this all opened Kristi Noem up to the threat of blackmail, because of course the Daily Mail went to him for comment and he told the outlet, quote, I made no comments like that that would lead to that.

1:16:07I denied the second part of that, but not the whole bimbofication parts. And now we know that Kristi Noem has spoken to the New York Post, not Kristi herself, but somebody who represents Kristi Noem has spoken to the New York Post and said she's devastated by it. Going to get the exact quote. Miss Noem was devastated. The family was blindsided by this. They asked for privacy and prayers at this time. So she's not denying it either. Her people are saying she's devastated by it. Okay, here to react, the guys from Real Clear Politics. Before this show on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, you can hear them live.

1:16:49Today we have Tom Bevan and Andrew Walworth. Sadly, Carl Cannon is off because I really wanted to talk to him about this. You know, Megyn, it's funny. It'll be just the three of us guys. You get scheduled on a show and then it's like winning the lottery. Story like this pops up. You're like, oh my God. So there is a new wrinkle to this story. It's kind of interesting. Mark Caputo of Axios seems to be getting ahead of possibly a report that he had this story and didn't go with it. Because he is tweeting out, his tweet reads, Yeah, I got a weird lead. A source texted me February 13th. They told Axios' Mark Caputo that an immigrant sex worker, possibly here illegally, wanted to go public about Noam's husband using her services online.

1:17:46It was vengeance for DHS's immigration enforcement. He says he wasn't able to land the interview because he couldn't get the verification the way the mail did. The mail actually got one or more of these workers to talk to them. They got the text messages with Brian. they have pictures of Brian's face. I mean, he can't deny it. It's his face. Plain is, you know, the day with his weird fake breasts and his weird tiny little pants, hot pink and otherwise. I know Andrew's shaking his head. No, that's how we all, you speak for us all. No, no. In any event, the story has been circulating. It doesn't surprise me at all that it was an illegal immigrant potentially who wanted this story out.

1:18:25The question really is, might some of our adversaries have wanted it out? Look at this. Look at this. Look what's on the board right now. First of all, why are his legs smaller than mine? They're teeny tiny little girl legs from the look of it in hot pink biker pants with his enormous cartoon-like fake breasts. This guy was married to our Department of Homeland Security chief. Andrew, of course, I'm going to start with you.

1:18:54Well, I had two thoughts. One was first Leo Tolstoy said, what counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. So, um, did you just go to Tolstoy as our first answer on the Crispy Gnome boob story? Trying to elevate the story. Did have to look up bimboification, which is a new word for me, but that is what this fetish is. And then finally, my initial reaction, I wonder what you guys thought. My first written, when I saw the pictures, oh, this is fake news. These are AI-generated pictures. I mean, this can't be real. But apparently I was wrong.

1:19:39I guess it's a real story. And I mean, what can you say? I don't know. I do think that national security... I have a lot to say about it. The national security implications of this are serious. You know, Tom, there is a case to be made, in fairness, though, that like, we've all known about the alleged affair between Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski. It's the most open secret you can have in Washington. And, you know, maybe this is an argument for not just letting that kind of thing just kind of go by like it's a nothing. Maybe there is a justification when you hear this. Somebody like the DHS chief, okay?

1:20:15She's like Monica Crowley, my friend. She's in charge of protocol. You know, she's overseeing the 250th. And that's great. But it's like no one's trying to blackmail Monica Crowley. Homeland security matters. Forget the ICE stuff. Like, I'm worried about like terror attacks and so on. They're the ones who raise the threat level, all that stuff. Maybe this is an argument to like you actually do need to kick the tires when you hear something like this about someone in that because who knows how many layers there are to the compromised position she's placed herself in. Yeah, I agree. It raises the question about should spouses be vetted for these positions as well?

1:21:00Because the obvious implication is that they go to him and say, listen, if you don't start leaking us information about what's going on in Department of Homeland Security, we're gonna expose this. But look, my first thought at this is like, oh, it all makes sense now. I could never understand why he stayed with her because he sat behind her at the Department of Homeland Security, and it was just sort of like being cuckolded like that. It's like, you know, it never made sense. And now it kind of does. My other thought was like, I totally don't believe Kristi Noem in that statement that she was blindsided by this and didn't know anything about it.

1:21:38I would be, that seems impossible or near impossible to me, that this was just going on and she didn't know anything about it. And the last thing I would say is, I don't buy the story that this was leaked by some illegal immigrants, you know, bent on revenge. It happened after she's already gone. I mean, we're hearing sort of rumblings. My first thought was, well, Corey probably leaked it after he got fired. I don't have any proof of that. I'm just saying like that was my first thought, but that this had to come from someone who had this information and was holding on to it. And it wasn't ever, it never made the rounds to the media in years.

1:22:20And then suddenly, you know, she leaves the Department of Homeland Security and this stuff just comes out. That's not coincidental. So I don't buy the idea. Yes. Why do we know about her affair? Why is that, Tom, that we know about her affair for all this time, but we don't, we didn't know any of this, even though he's posting pictures of his face on these message boards. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot more to this story. And it's bizarre to begin with, but it's not over. So do we care now that, Andrew, she is still special envoy for the shield of the Americas, Western Hemisphere? No one knows what that is because it's a new creation.

1:22:59Now she can be blackmailed and nobody cares like this. I don't know, I guess. I'm not sure. But like, you know, it's not like she was on the message boards with the huge fake balloon breasts. Like that would I think she'd have to step down if that were the case. But do we care? She's still married to him. These pictures are unbelievable. Like, I'm sorry, they're unbelievable. And by the way, I have the same question on this dude as I have. I know somebody who is in my orbit who was a man, a very accomplished man in New York City, who suddenly I walked in, I saw this person one day, and they've gone trance.

1:23:39Now they're purporting to be a woman. They're wearing a dress. They have long fake fingernails. They have a full face of makeup. They have pearls. They have high heels. But they still have their man hair, which includes a bald spot and, like, man hair. Easy on the bald spot. I'm just saying, like, are you phoning it in? Like, where's the full commitment? I don't get that. Why is this guy wearing the enormous Kayla Lemieux fake breasts and his man face and his man hair? Andrew, I know you can't explain that. But do we care about special envoy for the Shield of America? Yes, I think we do. I think she should.

1:24:18My feeling is she should probably just resign from public life and take some time off to deal with her family or whatever. They have three children. This is embarrassing. I feel terrible for the kids. But it's just, you know, it's a terrible look. And in a normal society, yes, this would be the kind of thing where you would sort of say, okay, I'm going to go to the farm and relax for a while. But I am waiting for the Democrats to come to his defense. That's what I'm waiting for, because this is supposed to be okay, right? I mean, he just, you know, he's, you know, whatever he's thinking, he's on some sort of spectrum.

1:24:54And, you know, there are more than one gender. And this happens to be one that, you know, you have a man's haircut and big boobs. I mean, I guess that's, why can't that be one of 58 genders? I saw someone on X saying, you know. You're so right. He's lucky he didn't have like a puppy fetish. Pretty funny. Oh, I'm just glad Cricket is not here to see this. It's like a furry. Cricket. Poor Cricket. God only knows what Cricket's called. And Cricket's limited time with the family. Oh, man. I just feel like, thank God. Count our blessings that Cricket didn't have to see this. I will say this. Their children are 31, I think 29 and 23.

1:25:34I mean, that doesn't make it, it makes it a little better than if they were young, young, young kids. But I'm sure they're upset by this. This is like, this is a nightmare to find out your dad's doing this shit. It's a freaking nightmare. And it just reflects so poorly on like our country. Like the whole thing is so skeevy. I do want to play this soundbite. Deborah So is, I don't remember her official like degree. She's like got her PhD and, you know, sexual fetishes and sex issues. It's like a Woody Allen movie. She's brilliant. I know, but she's legit and she's very smart. And she came on the show early on when we just had audio.

1:26:15We didn't have video yet. and listen to her talking about fetishes. There are so many different paraphilias. I really found it interesting to hear what people are into, why they're into it. And I also wanted to help remove the stigma and shame that often comes along with having an unusual sexual preference. I found that there are, and there's a larger body of research to suggest that paraphilias are innate in that they are with someone from a very young age. They cannot be changed. and that whatever it is that someone finds sexually interesting, if it's very unusual, there's a biological component to that.

1:26:52So previously it was believed to be purely a social thing or that it's something that someone learned. I think it's a combination of both, but the main takeaway is that if someone has a paraphilia, it's not something that they can change. So if they're really into something sexually, they can't suppress that, especially not in men. They can't suppress that and be interested in something else. By the way, that completely tracks with what we know, for example, about like pedophiles, they can't be reformed. You can't just like say, okay, you did three years in jail and now you can have back out to society.

1:27:22We know that's not true. I don't think that's a sexual fetish, but I'm just saying like that logic that you can't be therapized out of your fetish or what turns you on seems real to me, which is why the marriage can't, in my view, continue. Debra So is, by the way, a neuroscientist who specializes in human sexuality and biological explanations for behavior. I guess some online are upset that this came out on International Transgender Day of Visibility. Not it, Tom. That's not where the story goes. It's not about that at all. Right. So we'll see what happens with Kristi Noem and the husband. It's a nightmare.

1:28:04The whole thing is a freaking nightmare. Okay, let's keep going because we have other things to get to. I know there's been a lot of talk about the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said we have to have it open. Marco Rubio said it has to be open, period, you know, before we end this war. Then Trump, it comes out last night in the journal, has been talking to aides about maybe we peace out while it's still closed. Like, let's not hang around there for too much longer. Well, comedian Lionel Leed went out to the No Kings protest and he got to the bottom of this whole Straits of Hormuz thing. Take a look at this.

1:28:34Not seven beats. So isn't it a little bit homophobic that was so focused on the straights of hummus and not the gays of hummus? I agree. Yes, for sure. Why do you think they're willing to leave the gays of hummus behind? I think it's just history historically like you know gays have always been very discriminated against which is wrong on so many levels. Even in war. Yeah, even in war it just takes more reform in government obviously and then also educating society. Just feel like if we're gonna go and say We can't leave the gay people behind. I don't think we should go and say at all, but if we're going to, the gays of Hormuz, we could turn it into Fire Island.

1:29:13For sure.

1:29:18What we need, Tom, is more education, she says. Yeah, right? More education. I think it was, I think Jesse Waters sent one of his guys into the, you know, the No Kings protests. Yeah, spring break. Like, I mean, they often, you know, probably can't even find a run on a map. I mean, you know, we saw this with like the Palestinian protests and the whole river to the sea thing. People didn't know what the river was or what the sea, like they don't know what they're talking about. They're just out there because it's a vibe, right? They hate Trump. They want to be out there, you know, and we were talking about these crowds.

1:29:51She was young, the one you just played in the clip, but these No Kings protests were primarily overwhelmingly sort of, you know, boomers from the 60s that were kind of reliving their protest days, it seemed like to me. But a lot of them still didn't seem like they could articulate exactly what it was they were objecting to or what they wanted. It's, I don't know what to say. I got one for you too, Andrew. Tom's not having all the fun. Here's 7C. Who thinks Iranians maintain such good women and LGBT rights as well? well that they they have a good leader uh ayatollah or yeah yeah he's very pro lgbt because they said he wants the next ayatollah to queen out be a woman no guy but he's a queen oh like a gay guy they wanted gay guy to be in charge yeah who cares it's actually because ralph and muhammad actually oh had a lot of gay friends oh yeah yeah oh that's cool the guy's wearing a fuck trump sticker this is these are trump's enemies andrew i don't you'd think he doesn't really need to worry and yet the latest polls suggest he does yeah well you know this reminds me my mom used to uh when she would get mad she would say to me and my brother it's your whole damn attitude and i i think that's what they're saying right it's like they don't the the inchoate sort of argument against trump is just that it's his whole damn attitude.

1:31:24They just don't like him. And so on the one hand, it seems like a sort of unfocused protest. On the other hand, it's very focused. It's simply sort of anti-Trump. It's sort of, you know, we can call it Trump derangement syndrome. But basically, he sort of has personified something to these people, which means that whatever he's for, they're against. You know, anything that he does good for the country, they want the opposite. And I mean, And that's the way I view the whole thing. They've always been against him. Yeah, and they always force. Tom, if you don't start using it's your whole attitude against Andrew regularly on RCP.

1:31:59I will. Missed a golden opportunity. But can we talk about these polls? Because these numbers that we've been talking about a lot on our show, they're just dreadful for the president. And you'd truly hate to see it if you're a supporter of his. Now, the Democrats are loving it. They're like, we can't leave. We have to stay in Iran, even though they're totally against it because they want to see these numbers plummet further. Only 8 % support sending ground troops in. I'm sure the Democrats are like, do it. We need ground troops to support the Strait of Hormuz. How does one turn these around? Like, is that historically, have we seen dips this low, like these numbers with independents, where he's got 22 % approval ratings, and still a party able to win, let's say, at the midterms, Tom?

1:32:50Well, typically, I mean, the problem that Trump is experiencing, all right, midterms are typically lower turnout. So they're base elections. And Trump has, he has shattered his base. I mean, the coalition that elected him and has fueled MAGA is now split over this. And it's not like a, it's not a tiny split. It's not a split over a sort of tangential side issue. This was one of his main promises. No new wars in the Middle East. and here he is engaging in it and trying to say you know i'll define what maga is and um it's it's not it's not working it's not happening and so you go into midterm where your base is divided the other base is united um you're gonna get your ass kicked and that's where republicans are i think in terms of independence you mentioned i mean he's lost ground with independence and there may be you know 10 15 of the electorate which isn't huge but is important and he's underwater with them, not only in this handling of the war, but then you go back to sort of domestic gas prices now over$4.

1:33:48That's the main concern is the economy inflation. He's not attending to that at all. If anything, people would say he's making things worse. And so, yeah, it's shaping up to be a perfect storm against Republicans. And then, you know, after that, it's like, well, We'll have to see as the race starts to be the inheritor of MAGA, if somebody can put Humpty Dumpty back together again, whether that's Vance or Ruby or somebody else. Right. Now you're talking about 28, which is going to start in earnest after those midterms are over. Yeah, I mean, I— Here's the latest polling, Andrew. I'll give it to you in one second.

1:34:25let me just tell you, this just dropped, latest YouGov polling shows that his approval rating on handling Iran. On March 9th, it was 39 approved, 52 % didn't. So he was minus 12. March 23rd, he was down to minus 19. March 30th, it's now down to 30, the swing, net 30. So 30 % of the people approve, 60 % of the people do not, and some 10 % don't know. So he's gone from minus 12 on March 9th to minus 30 on March 30th. With independents, it's worse. He started off at minus 23 with just 30 % of the independents favoring it. And now he's down minus 47, 19 % of independents approve of the war. 66 % do not.

1:35:16I mean, that can you like, how do you win a midterm election? Do you need the independence? Can you do it with just core MAGA if you're a Republican? Because even if you look at core MAGA, which is like 15 % of the party or the populace, and then you look outside of core MAGA. You've got sort of regular America first Republicans, and that second group is split, but MAGA's not. They support the president, though, a little bit less than 100 % now. It was like, now I think it's 90. So how can you win the midterms with those numbers? Well, back up just a minute. I mean, you know, real clear, we averaged the polls just so, because according to Hugo, that's a recent poll, but according to our average on the approval of war.

1:36:08It's 53.1 % disapproved, 39.6 % approved. But your overall point is correct. These are not great numbers. No, in the past three days, we've had a slew of polls. We've had four plus polls, all of which have these same numbers. Yeah, no, no, I'm saying the numbers are not good. And the answer to your question is, I think the problem with Trump is that he not only, if he motivates his base, but he motivates the Democrats maybe a little bit more. And so I think that the fact that he's not on the ballot is a problem because Trump voters might not come out as much. But what we're seeing in all these special elections, and every special election is special, I get that.

1:36:54But when you look at this trend, those are all going against the Republicans as well. So no, I think he loses the House, but I think that people expected him to lose the House anyway, just based on sort of historic trends. What about the Senate? Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, we've talked about this on our show a lot. I mean, the Senate is an interesting thing because in my view, the Senate comes much more down to sort of candidate quality in these individual races. So you really have to look at individual races. But overall, certainly it's more in play right now than people thought three or four months ago.

1:37:33Can I just add, even if you set aside Donald Trump and the Iran war, Republicans have an enthusiasm gap, right? That's very clear. And what's going on in Congress? Like, they won't pass the SAVE Act. They just, like, did this, the Senate just did this ridiculous deal, declared victory and went home for two weeks. And Mike Johnson was like, what are you doing? So there is huge, huge frustration with the elected leaders in Congress from the base of the Republican Party. And you could really see the bottom drop out to the point where they're just like, I'm not voting for these guys at all. I'm not going.

1:38:11I'm not going. I'm not doing it. And then they would lose the Senate. I mean, they definitely, there are enough seats out there that Democrats could pick up. If the bottom really fell out, they could easily get there. I shouldn't say easily, but they could definitely get there. And that would mean Susan Collins would lose in Maine. That would mean, you know, they might lose. talarico might win in texas yeah maybe i'm thinking more like alaska ohio sherrod brown would win there and they defend in georgia and michigan and suddenly you know you're you're right knocking on the door of 51 votes and so um that is certainly possible because from what i see where i sit there's frustration with trump but there's also huge frustration with like john thune and all the Republican leadership in the Senate in particular.

1:39:01What is this, Debbie, that you sent me? Is this Republicans? Okay, she's pointing out in that same YouGov poll, the polling of Republicans shows that as of March 9th, Trump had 83 % approval of the war. By March 30th, it was down to 68%. So he's losing now Republicans too by pretty significant amounts. I mean, if you look back at when the Iran, the Iraq war began, the numbers were far, far, far better than this. The majority of the country supported the effort. And that was across the board. It wasn't just like the one party, the Republican Party that George Bush was from. Now you've got the numbers dwindling by 20 something, just about 20 points, down 15 points, even amongst Republicans from a couple of weeks ago.

1:39:47So it's not great. Here's the other thing that I'm looking at, Tom. So in 2026, the midterms, Republicans defend 23 of 35 seats, but many are in red states. So there's not a lot of not a ton of opportunities for the Democrats to convert. They could do it to gain control, but it's not great. In 2028, 34 Senate seats are up. Of those, 19 are held by Republicans, 15 by Democrats. Republicans have to defend more seats. Democrats have more pickup opportunities. And so I think the thinking is what like they can't give up three or four seats in 26 and then be exposed to that map in 28. Yeah. And then, you know, if, if let's say J.D.

1:40:39Vance is the nominee, which at this point, he's probably, you know, the favorite, according to all the polls. And I think that's probably right. And he's got to defend Trump's record. And let's say the economy hasn't been great or isn't great. He's got to defend war and all that. you're looking at Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House. They would have, you know, all the powers of government at their disposal. And they would immediately, I'm sure, abolish the filibuster, legislative filibuster. Get rid of the filibuster. Absolutely. Wait, hold that thought. That's where I want to take it.

1:41:15Quick break. And we'll be right back with the guys from RCP on the backside of this. Don't go away. When you are in a business growth mindset, you know how much the basic stuff matters, like how you talk to customers or clients and keep your team aligned. A more modern setup makes everything run smoother. So I wanna tell you about one of our sponsors, Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the modern alternative to running your business communications. Quo works right from an app on your phone or computer unless you keep your existing number, add new numbers or teammates, and sync your CRM. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, so there's no mixed messages or missed, mixed or missed.

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1:43:38Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Drushinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news. Only on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:43:59Just take a look here. Oh, hello. Most house retirement since 1930. So far this cycle, already 36. 36. That is the grand record over the last nearly 100 years. My goodness gracious. That actually beats the former record in total, which was 34 back in the 2018 cycle. And that wasn't that long ago. And I do recall that was a very, very good year for House Democrats. The bottom line is this. You don't run for the exits unless you know trouble is brewing. and House Republicans so far believe trouble is absolutely brewing. Okay, what they're looking at is the President of the United States and his approval rating.

1:44:39So why don't we just take a look here? Why are GOP retiring? Okay, when the President's approval is less than 50 percent, I went back all the way through the record books, all the way back since 1938 and midterm elections. When the House, the press party in the House, on average, loses 34 seats, loses 34 seats when the president's approval rating is less than 50 percent. Hmm. Well, that's certainly not what we want to see come November. Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. Tom Bevin and Andrew Walworth are back with me. It is amazing the number of retirements they're having in amongst Republicans in the House, Andrew.

1:45:16And a lot of people thought it was because, you know, leading up to now, it's tough to ever buck Trump. You know, they they're kind of a rubber stamp. And if they're not a rubber stamp, he attacks them. And so like, it's just not a pleasant life. You know, now it's maybe that's still there or not, but it's like, you're also probably going to lose, right? Like they see their fortunes rise or fall with the president's is basically what they're seeing. And probably even worse so because they're not Donald Trump and Donald Trump's not on the ticket. At least he has some hope of getting like the MAGA faithful out there to vote Republican.

1:45:53But when in the midterm, he's not there. I don't know. You tell me, how does it affect your average Republican House member? Well, I think those numbers are indicative of just what he was saying, which is that basically a lot of Republicans are thinking it's two things. It's not that fun to be in the House right now. And second, all they're going to lose. So why bother? So I think that's bad for Republicans. I think what might be, you know what the Republicans hoped would offset this a little bit would be redistricting but it doesn't even look like they're going to pick up that many many seats through redistricting so you know I think all indications are pointing to a bad bad midterm for the Republicans in the house I mean I don't think there's any other way to look at it having said that you remember Tom the midterms of 2022 and we really thought there was going to be a red wave and it turned into a trickle.

1:46:50It was like not a wave. They did take control of the house, but it was like tiny, by a tiny, tiny margin. So it was like, I don't know, like how much stock can we put into these historical trends? Because things do seem to be a little different now. People are entrenched in their partisanship. I don't know what he's saying. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, Harry Enten, smart guy, whatever, but like there are a couple of different things, right? That that comparing 1900 and the 1930s to now is completely different, right? And one of the things is Trump. I mean, Trump's never had 50 % job approval rating.

1:47:27He came in in 2016 with, I think, 44 % job approval rating and went down from there. And Republicans, you know, he still managed to win Senate seats in 2018, even though Republicans lost. And the other thing, too, is that historic number of 34 seats that he was mentioning on average, Well, because of redistricting, because of gerrymandering and what's been going on, there just aren't that many seats at play. I mean, so even if Republicans have a terrible night, you know, maybe they lose 25 seats, but there just aren't. By the time you get to 34 seats, you're into deep Republican territory. And some of those retirements, by the way, are, you know, Sam Graves just retired from Missouri.

1:48:12And these are deep Republican districts. they're getting out just because they're tired of the job or whatever. It's not like those seats are going to go Democratic. But the point is taken that when the winds are blowing against you, a lot of these folks decide that they're just done with it. They don't want to be in the minority. We can talk about how big a wave it'll be, but it looks like it's going to switch the control of the House. I mean, it is sort of a light switch here. And the Democrats, at least traditionally, have been a little bit more disciplined than the Republicans. when they have a narrow majority.

1:48:46So if that trend holds, I mean, maybe they'll only have a five-seat advantage in the House, but does it really matter whether it's five or 30 seats? Well, I mean - And who will be the happiest man in Washington, Tom Bevin, if the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives? Who's going to be the happiest man in Washington? Mm-hmm, yeah. I don't know. Mike. Mike Johnson? Yes. Yes, he's such a nice guy, but he seems so unhappy in that role. It is just a thankless, thankless job. It is a thankless job, particularly on the Republican side. To Andy's point, Nancy Pelosi did a better job of managing a very slim majority.

1:49:29Hakeem Jeffries is no Nancy Pelosi. So, you know, even if he's got a five seat majority, it's going to be tough. And certainly, you know, if Democrats win the Senate, they'd have at best maybe a one seat majority there. So it'd be 51-49. And then you still got President Trump as a backstop to veto anything. So, you know, it's going to be we're in a very tribal, very partisan, very evenly divided country. We have been for a number of cycles. and and this is just the the way you know one side gets a tiny majority in the house or tiny majority in the senate and um and they're not able to necessarily do a lot with it other than investigate uh which is certainly something that democrats will do when they get if they get control of house oversight and if they went control of the senate they will definitely uh well they're probably going to start impeachment proceedings in the house anyway yeah but two cheers for mike johnson a little bit about the the presidential Yeah, two cheers for him for sure.

1:50:27I was going to say, I mean - I like the guy. He's done a hell of a job when people didn't even know who he was before he took the office. I know. And like he's managed to keep the president happy and not have a full revolt in the House, but he's now controversial, obviously, given the role. I want to ask you one other thing. So I'm not going to play it, but Harry Anton did another thing on J.D. Vance versus himself and his 20-28 odds. and he showed that Vance had fallen from 53 % odds. It wasn't a poll. It was like a Polymarket thing. 53 % likelihood of becoming the nominee six months ago to, he says, 37 % today.

1:51:08And again, that's not a poll. That's like you go to Polymarket or one of these betting sites and when people have to put money behind it, the theory is that it'll accurately reflect what the public sentiment is. um that's it's probably not a great time to ask that question right because like the trump administration's fortunes aren't favored at the moment given everything that's going on but is there any doubt in your mind that jd vance will be the next nominee andrew i because i feel like for me i have no i have no doubt that unless he chooses not to run he's going to be the nominee i think if last time i looked at the poly markets i think donald trump jr was in second place in those betting.

1:51:45So I don't put a lot of stock in the betting right now. But yeah, you would have to say that I think he's going to be the nominee. I mean, people talk about Rubio, but if you look at what's going on right now and Rubio being so identified with the war, I wouldn't think his stock is rising. I'd be curious to see what the betting markets say. So that's very interesting, Tom, because if you talk to sort of the neocons in the Republican Party, they're like, Marco, it's Marco. Nobody likes J.D. now. You know, J.D.'s going down and Marco's going up. And I have to say, from where I've been sitting, I'm like, what do you base that on?

1:52:26Like that's just instinct because the war's not going well. Trump's Trump is the grand poobah. You know, the party loves Trump. Even the non-MAGA people tend to love Trump if you're a Republican. He's got, amongst Republicans, very high approval ratings. So if his number can go down, anyone's can, including Marco Rubio, who is much more associated with the war and with hawkishness than J.D. And I also think it's significant that they're saying JD should be the negotiator to bring this thing to a close because, like, the Iranians can trust him since he's not hawkish and he can get the president on the phone whenever he wants to.

1:53:05Yeah, look, it's interesting. I mean, on one hand, he's the heavy favorite and you have to assume that he is going to run and will most likely be the nominee. However, you know, look, I've talked to a bunch of folks who have seen some of this stuff online. And, you know, you always fall into that trap. Am I too online? Is this really representative of what's going on in the country? But the folks who were America firsters who was like, that's it. Like, anybody who's involved in this administration, anybody who got us into this around war, whether it's J.D. or Marco, like, we're done. Not doing it.

1:53:40Got to be someone else. Got to be someone from outside to sort of reinvigorate or whatever, MAGA. So the challenge is going to come perhaps in 2028 from someone on that side of the aisle, whether it's Joe Kent or Tucker or somebody else who will come in there and say - They're looking at Tucker, but I can't see a world in which Tucker runs when JD is running. They're too close. Well, right. I agree with that. But the thing is then, okay, but J.D. is going to have to, therefore, somehow, he's going to have to distance himself from Trump on this issue. He's going to sort of have to reassert the fact that, yeah, I wasn't really for this war, but I was loyal and I was doing my duty and all that.

1:54:23I think to sort of recapture some of those folks and whether they believe him or not, whether they think he's sincere about that or not. He certainly had this sort of non-interventionist bona fides before he became vice president. And even during the early Iran exchange, he was on those text messages where he was like, I don't think this is a good idea. That's the JD that I think people, at least on the MAGA side, they like that part of him. And so, again, a lot of this depends on how does this war work out? Is it still a disaster six months from now? Is it a disaster? Are we still there a year from now?

1:54:59then does he have to defend it as he's starting to kick in to his campaign for president? That's going to be a really interesting thing to watch and to see him maneuver. It is going to be very interesting because I think, Andrew, he needs to give the answer that Kamala Harris failed to give on The View. You know, is there anything you would have done differently? He's going to have to say, with all due respect to the boss, you know, going into Iran probably wouldn't have been my choice. But I believed in the president because he's smarter than the rest. And as I said publicly at the time, I could get behind it because Trump is a unique commander in chief, unlike George W.

1:55:34Bush or Barack Obama. Yeah. But when he's going to have to give this answer, he's still going to be working for Trump. And while Trump will be a lame duck at this point, is Trump ever a lame duck? Like when he leaves the office, he's still going to be very loud, very influential in this contest and every other Republican contest for a long time. Yeah, I think when you look back on this period, we will think about how he talked about both Rubio and Vance and how much we tried to figure out where he was leaning. Because sometimes, remember this? We made a big deal of the fact that he would mention Rubio first when he was talking about the two of them as being the next leader of MAGA.

1:56:09And the fact that he was talking about Rubio being the next leader of MAGA at all was kind of interesting to a lot of people. It's just too early to tell. It so much depends upon how the war goes. And, you know, if we're all vacationing in Cuba and playing golf in Greenland, I mean, you know, the world might look very different. They may all be clamoring to take credit for these adventures. Well, Cuba, I mean, you know, Trump keeps saying Cuba is going to fall on its own because they have no oil. They have no electricity. city. We're letting one oil tanker go through from the Russians so that probably the government officials can turn on their lights.

1:56:50But it's going so poorly there that it is possible something could be negotiated with Cuba. The regime's not so great. They're really not so pro-America. So I don't know. I've been waiting to play golf in Cuba. I don't think the possibility of military operations down there is still on the table after this disastrous Iran thing. I've been waiting to play golf in Cuba for a long time. Every time we predict they're going to fall in six months, they don't seem to. So I'm just a little skeptical. But I thought that was interesting, Megan. I think Trump, when he initially launched the strikes against Iran, really did think and was told and was convinced that, yeah, we could get this done in four to six weeks, despite the fact that his regime had been in power for 47 years and had total control of the media and all the guns and everything.

1:57:41And then he turns around and he says the same thing about Cuba. Oh, I think they're going to fall pretty soon. It's going to happen. It's like, well, maybe or maybe not. I mean, that regime has been in power a long time as well, same situation. And these regimes are much more durable than sometimes our politicians think they are. So I thought that was... I would love to see it happen. I think everybody would love to see it happen, most of all, Marco Rubio, because he's got family ties and all that. But it's not just going to happen organically, I don't think. The Cuban people have been suffering under that regime for 50, 60 years.

1:58:21Well, the other thing that we didn't talk about with Marco is, you know, and I like Marco, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat, but it's not great. They kind of put him in the position that Pam Bondi put herself in with the, I've got the Jeffrey Epstein file, the client list on my desk right now. Right? Like she put herself in that position by saying it wasn't true. And then she had the influencers there and she embarrassed the influencers. poor Marco kind of took a similar shot to the face in being the one who had to come out and be like is we did this because Israel said they were doing it and we knew that we would get attacked and we didn't want to get attacked first we wanted to do the attacking first so that's the reason we did it now because of Israel and then everybody was like he was like oh what I said you know we did it because of the Navy and the Air Force and the missiles.

1:59:20And it was like, suddenly the whole thing about Israel went away as though we'd like the evil press had made it up. It's like, no, you're on camera. You said it, you're stuck with it. I think he's been dinged up a little bit by that. You know, I'm sure the administration gave him permission to say that, not realizing the amount of blowback he'd get. So it's just an interesting, you know, footnote to whose fortunes are rising and whose may not be. I too would love to see Cuba. They say wonderful things about Havana. It's supposed to be very beautiful because of the embargo and all that. They say that all the cars are stuck in like the 1950s styles that we had here.

1:59:55You know, we might go down the street and see an Ed Solt. It's very like full of pastel colors and warm winter nights. And if we could just get rid of those pesky communists, it might be a lovely thing for the United States to have in the toolbox, you know, as a territory or not, you know. Imagine how prosperous they'd be with all the tourism dollars they generate too. It'd be remarkable. Seriously. I don't just, like having a rum drink, a Panama hat, like one of those white suits. I always thought that that would be fun. Big Trump hotel right there in downtown Havana. Yeah, right. Yes, I would do it.

2:00:32That one I'm kind of rooting for. I always talked into Greenland too. Never talked into Iran, however, and remain against that one. guys thank you both so much you got it thanks man thanks great to see you don't forget to check out the real clear politics podcast you can listen to it live right here on sirius xm channel 111 right before we air or you can listen to it via pod later wherever you get your podcasts that was tom bevan and andrew walworth carl cannon is also part of the crowd though not today thank you all so much for listening we will be back tomorrow and we look forward to talking to you then.

2:01:05We've got a couple of interesting legal cases we're going to go through. Stay tuned. Okay, see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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