Kurt Mills of The American Conservative joins me to discuss his new book, The Bare Case for Israel: A Brief Scenario for Israel in the Middle East. In this episode, we cover: What is a bare scenario for Israel? Why does Israel need one? What does it mean for the situation in Gaza? Why is it so important to Israel to have a plan in place to respond to an attack by Iran on its territory? And what role does Iran play in all of this? Is it a factor that can be leveraged to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians? If so, what role should it play in bringing peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis? And how can Israel and Iran work together to achieve that goal? All that and much more on this episode of Firebrand Live! Firebrand is a production of the Firebrand Podcast, a podcast that focuses on the intersection of politics, culture, technology, and culture in the modern world. Produced in Washington, D.C., and broadcast live from Room 2021 at the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex on the West Side of Capitol Hill, where we stream live from a virtual virtual reality headset and satellite link to the real-world broadcast from the ground floor of our own Firebrand's virtual reality headquarters. Subscribe to Firebrand to get immediate access to all things Firebrand LIVE streaming wherever you get your favorite shows and social media feeds, and get access to the latest Firebranding and social medias, wherever you re listening to the most authentic firebrandism is available. Music: "Firebrand Live" - Firebrand live on the airwaves, wherever and whenever you get it's going. Download Firebrand.fm/firebrandlive? Send us your voice memo and we'll send it to us! Tweet us your answer to us on your feed! on the fastest and most authentic response to our most authentic, fastest firebrand response to this episode? We'll be listening to your thoughts and mashup on the latest episode on Firebrand in the next episode of on this week's episode of the podcast! Subscribe, tweet us your thoughts, or any other podcast you'd like us to us to say and we're listening to this podcast on the firebrand life! or your thoughts on it on the best of what we're reading or watching it on social media?
00:06:06.000But we have a very special guest, the contributing editor at the American Conservative, Kurt Mills, someone I speak to a great deal about foreign policy here to share his perspective on what's going on in the Middle East.
00:06:18.000The American Conservative, of course, is a publication you should all be reading.
00:06:22.000It is the fountainhead of intellectualism for a lot of the non-interventionist right, certainly emerging from a lot of the viewpoints of one of their great founders, Pat Buchanan.
00:06:36.000Thought-provoking piece at the American Conservative, the bare scenario for Israel.
00:06:42.000Before we get into that piece, give me your perspective on kind of what chapter we're in in the book here in this conflict, and what do you think is animating what Americans and people around the world are observing in Gaza?
00:06:59.000This is a lot one of the longest standing conflicts in the world.
00:07:10.000You know, I think everyone's just sort of waiting.
00:07:15.000The Israeli response so far, you know, needless to say, already a thousand plus Palestinians have died, has been relatively restrained.
00:07:25.000We haven't seen the Israelis go in and try to occupy the place, Gaza, door to door, a la, you know, the U.S. and Iraq or Fallujah.
00:07:36.000Everyone's just sort of waiting to see what happened.
00:07:39.000I think a critical component of all of this is whether or not they can establish a link between the Palestinians, Hamas, and Iran.
00:07:53.000Now, of course, the Iranians do finance Hamas.
00:07:57.000There is interchange there, but that is a completely different I think that would be a huge deal because the Iranian link to this,
00:08:28.000A, B changes the nature of the Israeli war, who they target, and B would be the most likely thing that would draw the U.S. into a wider war in a real way.
00:08:38.000So let me pause there because I think this is the biggest difference in how the Congress is observing this conflict and how the administration is because really at a bipartisan level You've got most in Congress believing that this was not a surprise to the Iranians, that there would be no Hamas without Iran, that an operation of this scale requiring this coordination, synchronization, land, air, and sea, that Iran had to be involved.
00:09:09.000The administration, I believe, has a very different viewpoint.
00:09:12.000I think that there are senior officials in the Biden administration who believe that Iran was just as surprised by this attack as the United States or Israel were.
00:09:22.000And what I think I want to get into with you is how this thing gets broader.
00:09:28.000Because right now, you're looking at essentially an asymmetric conflict.
00:09:32.000I worry that if Iran in fact animated this attack, this operation, They would have done so with the goal.
00:09:42.000They would have done so full knowing what Israel's response would be in Gaza.
00:09:47.000And if the whole kind of geopolitical overlay here is Iran is feeling isolated in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords, with the red to dead water infrastructure, with the Israelis and the Saudis going into business together on technology deals and capital markets, and with the Qataris and the Israelis working together on liquefied natural gas, A conflict with Arabs on one side, the Israelis on the other.
00:10:15.000And I worry that they're trying to draw Israel into an overreaction in Gaza and then use that as a basis to launch rockets out of Iran into Israel.
00:10:55.000And so to a certain extent, this is a partnership of convenience.
00:10:59.000And the exact level of coordination is murky.
00:11:02.000But at the end of the day, definitely people within the Iranian elite basically view the Hamas people as savages and, you know, don't super care about them in a certain respect and, you know, would be fine if it was, you know, a choice between them.
00:11:38.000I mean, what are the Israelis I think killing two million people is obviously off the table.
00:11:45.000It would be massively discrediting to Israel as a nation state.
00:11:50.000But I think also a potential occupation of Gaza is a huge mess for the Netanyahu government.
00:11:58.000I mean, if the Israelis, you know, a thousand plus are already dead, if they get 10,000 plus killed going door to door in Gaza, I mean, that's going to A, bring down the Netanyahu government and B, you know, they just called up the 300,000 reservists.
00:12:14.000A lot of these people are not hardened IDF soldiers like we think.
00:12:17.000They're civilians like you or I, you know, and the idea that they're going to go door to door, I think it's just pretty risky for the Israelis.
00:12:24.000So, yeah, it's just it's just I don't think anyone knows what they're going to do.
00:12:29.000Mostly because we don't know how this happened.
00:12:31.000I think as I got into my piece a little bit, nobody had this.
00:12:36.000Nobody had Hamas as this powerful or at least this competent.
00:13:20.000He's not particularly religious, but he has forged a merger of basically hard-line right-wing Israeli nationalists with some of the most religious people in the society.
00:13:33.000And Israel had really begun crafting itself as a sort of, you know, basically very different Western civilization at a time when Western birth rates are falling off The cliffs and a lot of people in the West, as I'm sure you're aware, are sort of self-hating and not proud of their countries.
00:13:50.000The Israelis have been really going in another direction.
00:13:53.000With some controversy, there have been massive protests within Israel, but it appeared that Netanyahu, he overperformed in last year's elections and came back to power, really was kind of on the glide path to forge a new country.
00:14:07.000I think now the idea that he You know, his principal claim to fame, that he is the security guy, was undermined, is a big deal.
00:14:17.000And I think, you know, there's a sort of bias that the, you know, the Palestinians are incompetent and are just going to get, you know, the Israelis are going to wipe the floor with them.
00:14:27.000I think the Palestinians are going to suffer massive fatalities.
00:14:31.000But in a certain sense, this is Could be pretty close to checkmate in terms of what the Israelis are actually going to do.
00:14:38.000I mean, how are they going to take out all of Hamas?
00:14:42.000I mean, they may be able to do it in Gaza, but are they going to assassinate Hamas political leadership in Qatar?
00:14:47.000And I mean, I think that's just a real, real crossing of the Rubicon and pretty dangerous stuff.
00:14:53.000One of the questions you ask in the piece, what if Israel in this period ends up being remembered as Russia?
00:15:13.000So, I mean, this is why, you know, covering national security, like, you always hear this stuff like, well, the Pentagon did a war game.
00:15:19.000And, you know, it's just sort of laughable, all of these projections.
00:15:26.000Given what we know about how a lot of this stuff looks when we actually get on the battlefield, people did not think, the smart set did not think the US is going to struggle as much as it did in Iraq, and the smart set did not think that Russia would struggle as much as it would in Ukraine.
00:15:41.000And so, yes, Israel, serious country, top five military capabilities pound per pound, intelligence capabilities pound per pound, but in an actual war, full on war with Hamas, Can Israel achieve its objectives and do so at a reasonable cost to its own country?
00:16:33.000There was definitely concerns from the Russians doing the exact same thing in Ukraine.
00:16:36.000It's still pretty close to home to do a nuclear blast.
00:16:39.000So again, I think Israel comes out of this no matter what.
00:16:43.000Major civilization, very important, very powerful.
00:16:46.000But their military options potentially are way, way more limited than people had even realized.
00:16:52.000I think Israel comes out of this a larger country, not a smaller country.
00:16:56.000I think that you're going to have to have a lot of these Gulf monarchies involved in almost a Marshall Plan for Gaza after the Israelis lay siege to Gaza.
00:17:06.000And I think it's really interesting you point out like the The political goals of Israel right now have to align to what you observe in the military operations, but that there are no real political goals of Hamas.
00:17:18.000You talk about, quoting now from the piece, it is clear that Hamas has now removed itself from all talks aside from hostage negotiations for a ponderable future.
00:17:29.000Hamas rules Gaza because the majority of the population believes in its agenda.
00:17:35.000That's a quote that you You're bringing from an IDF lecturer.
00:17:41.000So, you know, with Hamas having no goals, with Israel having goals that have to align to the military operation, how do you think it ends?
00:17:52.000Well, I mean, again, I think the big question is whether or not there's going to be an Iran war about this.
00:17:58.000I mean, this is sort of my bugbearing concern.
00:18:06.000Zooming back 20 years ago, so if this is Israel's 9-11, the US got into Afghanistan, dispatched the Taliban government from power pretty quickly, chased Al-Qaeda out of the country.
00:18:17.000But of course, you know, the leadership of Al-Qaeda, bin Laden famously lived 10 more years.
00:18:22.000And then in the long run of history, the Taliban is now in charge of the same territory 20 years ago.
00:18:28.000You know, there is just the danger here of the war widening and people forgetting why this even started.
00:18:34.000If that does not occur, and Netanyahu is able to run a disciplined operation in Gaza, and what does the disciplined operation look like?
00:18:46.000Essentially, vaguely limiting civilian deaths in the area, and successfully assassinating The leadership of Hamas.
00:18:55.000So I think the key ones here would be the political leadership in Gaza.
00:19:00.000There's a head of it who's been in charge of it since the elections in 2006. There is this guy called The Guest, El-Deef.
00:19:07.000They basically move him from house to house.
00:19:09.000That's why he's called The Guest, if they can get him.
00:19:12.000And then maybe if they can get the head of basically the Hamas, you know, rival group to the far, far extreme even of Hamas, the head of Islamic Jihad, And maybe that's going to be enough scalps for them to claim victory.
00:19:28.000But again, Hamas's leadership, political leadership also exists in Qatar, as do a lot of Islamist leaderships throughout the region.
00:19:36.000And, you know, I don't think Israel is beginning to continence a I think it's not even particularly advisable because the reality is Qatar serves a useful purpose.
00:19:53.000It's a moderating force on a lot of these countries.
00:19:59.000It didn't come out of this whole cloth.
00:20:01.000Qatar was allowed to keep the lights on in Gaza because the Israeli government feared the alternative.
00:20:07.000But now the status quo is obviously unacceptable.
00:20:10.000I think it's a really important point about how in the Middle East with these shifting alliances and you've got the obvious tensions that persist between the UAE and Qatar, Qatar and the Saudis, the Saudis and the Iranians perhaps in some sort of de-dollarizing new phase the Saudis and the Iranians perhaps in some sort of de-dollarizing new phase of their relationship Very important.
00:20:34.000Before I let you go, Kurt, I want to get your reaction to Speaker-designate Jim Jordan putting out a plan for the House of Representatives.
00:20:44.000He says, Additional steps we must take to destroy Hamas and support Israel.
00:20:48.000Iran sanctions for funding and arming Hamas, enforce existing sanctions on Iranian oil, more interceptors for Israel's Iron Dome, more precision-guided munitions, more ammunition rounds, more intelligence-sharing, replenish drained U.S. stockpiles.
00:21:10.000I mean, look, in Republican politics and in American politics right now, it's pretty safe to target the Iranians for more sanctions.
00:21:21.000The previous administration sanctioned them pretty much to the brink of bankruptcy.
00:21:28.000It's just a question of what these sanctions really do.
00:21:31.000I think we've also seen the Russia case, the limits of sanctions on a lot of these economies, and particularly for some of the de-dollarization You know, aspects that you just mentioned and referenced elsewhere.
00:21:44.000I think it will be interesting, though, to see how this all gets kind of framed.
00:21:54.000I mean, a sort of cut on this that I could see happening is whether or not somebody is going to convince President Biden to enter basically a war of all against all in defense of liberalism, right?
00:22:08.000We've got to fight Ukraine over here, got to do the China war there, and got to take out Hamas and Iran.
00:22:14.000And then, oh, by the way, we have to take out, you know, the would-be Timbuk dictator in our own country who just happens to be our principal political rival.
00:22:22.000That would obviously convulse US politics.
00:22:26.000But I think Jordan's statement there is well in line with Republican consensus at the moment.
00:22:33.000Kurt Mills, contributing editor at the American Conservative, one of the people I call frequently to discuss foreign policy issues.
00:22:39.000Thanks for sharing our conversation with my viewers, man.
00:22:54.000In this heightened environment, there's no question we're seeing an increase in reported threats, and we've got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own.
00:23:11.000So I'd encourage you to stay vigilant, because as the first line of defense protecting our communities, you're often the first to see the signs that someone may be mobilizing to violence.
00:23:24.000I'd also ask you to continue sharing any intelligence or observations you may have.
00:23:30.000And on our end, we're committed to doing the same so that together we can safeguard our communities.
00:23:41.000That's the message from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
00:23:44.000The very same FBI Director who oversaw an organization that turned a lot of anti-terrorism capabilities and functions internally.
00:23:53.000Against political opponents, against people who supported the Second Amendment or who didn't want unchecked immigration into our country, now they're saying, because of our open border, because of threats to the country, Keep calling in those tips.
00:24:07.000I think we need an FBI that's actually focused on potential harm to Americans, not becoming a political enforcement wing of either political party, and unfortunately that's what we've seen under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
00:24:22.000The FBI unaccountable, breaking the law, and there's an opportunity cost, and you see it laid bare by the FBI director right there.
00:24:31.000There's also cost to Bidenomics, and before we get into the ins and outs of the speaker race, we bring you to a tweet that really caught my eye from unusual whales.
00:24:43.000Americans filed more than 39,000 bankruptcy cases in August, an 18% increase from the same point last year.
00:24:53.000So if Americans are going bankrupt at a considerably higher rate, if our economy isn't growing as we would expect if inflation remains stubbornly high, It becomes very difficult for the Biden White House to tell you that everything is awesome, that the economy is improving.
00:25:09.000The reality is that more and more Americans are finding themselves in a circumstance so dire that they are filing bankruptcy at a higher rate.
00:25:18.000It shows that the interest rates that people are having to utilize to accrue debt are crushing people.
00:25:25.000There is a direct link between the government spending that I am fighting against and rising interest rates Rising APR and increased bankruptcies.
00:25:38.000And the lived experiences of Americans, I think, are going to be very, very reflective in how people think about the economy, not just some empty White House briefing on the subject.
00:25:50.000Alright, we're going to get into what's going on in the speaker's race, rules changes, big news, Jim Jordan putting out a letter to really try to rally Republicans to his cause.
00:26:04.000And this is a letter, I'm going to read you parts of it, that showcase where a lot of these discussions are going, what's being highlighted, and how Jordan intends to respond.
00:26:15.000So it's an October 16 Dear Colleague letter.
00:26:19.000Jordan says the principles that unite us as Republicans are far greater than the disagreements that divide us.
00:26:25.000He continues, the country and our conference cannot afford us attacking each other right now.
00:26:30.000It is time we unite and get back to work on behalf of the American people.
00:26:35.000We may not always agree on every issue or every bill and that's all right.
00:26:41.000We don't march in lockstep like our Democrat colleagues.
00:26:44.000We value the discussion and robust debate that generates effective public policies rooted in common sense conservative principles.
00:26:52.000We've discussed frustrations about the treatment of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and the events of the past month.
00:26:59.000The role of speaker is to bring all Republicans together.
00:27:50.000When Jordan first, you know, was in this contest for Speaker following the withdrawal of Steve Scalise from the race, 81 people originally voted against him.
00:27:59.000They voted for Austin Scott of Georgia, who's now supporting Jim Jordan.
00:28:03.000We had a ratifying vote thereafter that 81 had fallen to 55. And...
00:28:11.000Time and again, we are seeing people who were in that 55 now say that as a consequence of their one-on-one discussions with Jim Jordan, their interactions with constituents, the feedback they've received from the various groups here in caucuses that they're a member of, They are coming to Jim Jordan's side.
00:28:31.000Mike Rogers from Alabama has announced his endorsement of Jim Jordan and we're very excited about that.
00:28:38.000Neil Dunn of Florida indicated that he will support Jim Jordan.
00:28:42.000Ann Wagner, she was viewed as a potential significant holdout.
00:28:47.000She now has had her concerns addressed.
00:28:49.000And by the way, these members have a right To have a meeting, to have a discussion, and to go through where they'd like to bring the House of Representatives.
00:28:57.000And I think if Jim Jordan is that leader, that I know he can be the type of leader reflected in this Dear Colleague letter, that he's going to win folks over and he's going to chip it away.
00:29:09.000I count about a dozen Republicans that we can still clearly identify in the anti-Jordan camp.
00:29:17.000But that is, again, if we're really down to about a dozen, that's down from 55, down from 81. And there may be a few others that haven't publicly identified opposition to Jordan but may not have...
00:29:30.000We're working that list down and I'm really proud of Speaker Designate Jordan for winning over people who might not have originally been all that receptive to his message.
00:29:42.000There's still a number of Floridians that I pray and hope I've come to the conclusion that Jim Jordan is the right choice.
00:29:49.000Currently, Carlos Jimenez of Florida, John Rutherford of Florida, Vern Buchanan of Florida, Mario Diaz-Billard of Florida, all people I respect greatly.
00:29:58.000They're not there yet, and we hope that they get there.
00:30:01.000And that's why, right now, I know that Speaker-Designate Jordan is having those conversations, listening to people's concerns, And I think it's important for the American people to also continue to be enthusiastic about the Republican speaker-designate who can bring us all together.
00:30:18.000We also hope that my friend Steve Womack, who's out there in Arkansas, a guy I know well, a guy who's helped me with a number of matters in the Congress, we hope that Congressman Womack comes on board.
00:30:29.000And certainly the Rules Chairman, Tom Cole.
00:30:32.000We want to see Chairman Cole right there as one of the very respected and senior members of the House of Representatives come onto the team, support Jim Jordan.
00:30:42.000Tom Cole's always been a team player in the past, so we hope he's a team player now that the captain of the team Is a guy like Jim, a virtuous man, a godly man, someone I don't agree with on every subject, someone I've had very spirited disagreements with, but someone who I firmly believe can take the house in a better direction, and an inspired direction, frankly.
00:31:05.000Some of the concerns that people have about the speaker contest right now are about the rules and the rules that we negotiated heavily for in January.
00:31:15.000Some people want to renegotiate or change or modify and I'm negotiable to a point because when we designed those rules, it was the first time anything like that had really been constructed.
00:31:30.000And there are some other things that I'm fighting for that I think might provide just as much accountability or even more accountability.
00:31:38.000One of those things is to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
00:31:45.000If we want to have a stock ban in the United States Congress, we don't need a bill.
00:32:21.000According to Unusual Wales Politics, which keeps tabs on congressional trades, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been purchasing war stocks.
00:32:28.000Both Republicans and Democrats bought General Dynamics stocks.
00:32:31.000And while Republicans bought more on the energy and oil front, Democrats poured their money into cybersecurity stocks.
00:32:39.000The heavy wartime stock buying didn't just happen following the onset of the war in Ukraine, but there was a surge that hasn't receded.
00:32:46.000In August, Mississippi Congressman Michael Guest purchased about $15,000 worth of ExxonMobil stock, currently up and trading at $109.
00:32:54.000Per unusual whales, numerous politicians from both sides of the aisle are tailoring their investment portfolios based on these defense contractors and energy companies, all of which lobby Capitol Hill heavily.
00:33:08.000It's just another reason we really got to ban members of Congress from stock trading, or else how can we trust that their foreign policy decision-making, to the extent Congress exerts any influence or oversight over the foreign policy perspective to begin with, but they might be making decisions that are not in the best interest of U.S. foreign policy or the safety of Americans, but are lining their own pockets.
00:33:36.000Lining their own pockets, not something we should see from members of Congress trading individual stocks.
00:33:41.000Michael Guest is a Mississippi congressman identified in that report from The Hills The Rising.
00:33:46.000And get this, he's the chairman of the House Ethics Committee.
00:33:51.000So the very person who was buying the individual stock referenced in that report critically that wouldn't be allowed if my rules changes were adopted is literally the chairman of the Ethics Committee.
00:34:06.000But if we're going to get this done, if we're going to take on the swamp for major ethics reforms, we have to do it in a bipartisan way.
00:34:13.000And I'm working with California Democrat Ro Khanna, who disagrees with me on a whole host of subjects, but I'm working with him on these ethics reforms.
00:34:22.000Rising had commentary on that as well.
00:34:27.000The truth is that it's still a narrow slice of electeds, people like Matt Gaetz, Ro Khanna, who has often been out of step with his own party on these issues as well, who are willing to go here and actually do something about it, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want their Congress members to be profiting off of stocks that have serious implications for both foreign and domestic policy.
00:34:49.000And look how Matt Gaetz is being treated by the mainstream commentariat, even some conservative commentators, as in the way, as inconvenient, as crazy that he's done something totally insane and unprecedented.
00:35:03.000In order to advance policies, Some of the policy...
00:35:06.000I don't agree with every policy he's probably trying to get achieved everywhere, but mostly he's making a stand about funding for Ukraine that is clearly popular.
00:35:15.000That's what Republicans actually want.
00:35:17.000It's what they want their leaders to do, is to rein in some of this spending for every other nation on Earth.
00:35:22.000And he took a stand on that, and he wants to stop on the stock front, something that you could poll Americans.
00:35:43.000I am being perceived as procedurally crazy because I'm fighting for things that I think the American people want.
00:35:48.000Banning members of Congress from becoming lobbyists, banning lobbyists and special interest money from congressional campaigns, and not allowing members of Congress to trade these individual stocks.
00:36:00.000I think that that could restore so much confidence in the institution.
00:36:03.000For all the criticism I get for being an anti-institutionalist, I actually think that this would advance the interests of the institution and the American people.
00:36:14.000Then the things that matter to you would actually get addressed faster than whatever PAC could shuttle whatever amount of money into some powerful chairman or subcommittee Members' campaign account and leadership account.
00:36:28.000It's just not the way we should govern anymore, and it's truly what we are fighting against.
00:36:55.000Let's hope that the dam breaks with some of my other Florida colleagues who still aren't there yet.
00:37:01.000Again, we want to encourage them in the most respectful and thoughtful way because we want to see Jim Jordan get that gavel, assume the speakership, and unite this Republican caucus one step closer, just as we've been talking with Vern Buchanan.
00:37:15.000There's other breaking news that I want to discuss regarding the legal...
00:37:21.000Lawfare, tortured pursuit of President Trump.
00:37:25.000There's now a gag order that was issued by Judge Chutkin in the matter that is before the DC courts.
00:37:33.000And in that gag order, she seems to separate things that President Trump can say that constitute protected First Amendment activity and then anything to do with this particular matter.
00:37:44.000And the line she seems to have drawn is that any mention of any person In any way involved in the fact pattern of January 6th is now somehow off limits for President Trump, whereas he can still categorize the prosecution as politically motivated and he can make critique generally of the prosecution.
00:38:09.000One of the people that President Trump is, I guess, limited in talking about is Mike Pence, who's running against President Trump for the presidential nomination.
00:38:18.000So this gag order is, to date, the most severe effort at election interference that we've observed.
00:38:27.000I mean, even the indictments themselves didn't stop President Trump from talking.
00:39:01.000I'm sure there'll be a lot more on it.
00:39:02.000I'll probably want to bring in one of my colleagues from the Judiciary Committee or get some perspective on how a gag order like this interfaces with the U.S. election system and what equities the Congress has to protect federal elections and stop judges from limiting the speech of candidates for federal office.
00:39:22.000I am certain Congress has equities there, and if we don't defend them, they're going to be eviscerated by Judge Chutkin, someone who I think is well beyond the guardrails of a jurist and is actually engaging in political activity from the bench that we should not tolerate, as the Article I branch of government vested with a lot of Thank you guys so much.
00:39:48.000Make sure that you are subscribed, that you've got your notifications turned on.
00:39:51.000We always love it when you leave us a five-star review.
00:39:54.000Special thanks to Kurt Mills, contributing editor at the American Conservative, for joining us.
00:39:59.000There'll be a lot more going on this week.