Donald Trump wins the Iowa CYS, and now we turn our attention to New Hampshire, where a new poll has Donald Trump and Nikki Haley tied at 40% in the latest CNN/ORC poll. Meanwhile, a new CNN poll has Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis tied at 4% in South Carolina, and Chris Christie dropped out of the race. What does that mean for the rest of the field? And what does it mean for Trump's chances of winning the primary in New Hampshire? Plus, a look at why the Republican primary debate will not be happening next week, and why it might not even be happening at all. Plus, the latest from CNN and ABC News on the latest in the New Hampshire primary race, and a look ahead to the first primary debate next week. All that and much, much more on this episode of HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GUYS! Happy New Year and Happy Holidays from The Weekly Standard. -- ROBERT MEYER -- THE PODCAST IS BACK! -- RATE 5 STARS! Rate/subscribe in Apple Podcasts! Rate, review, and subscribe to our new podcast CRITIQUE! Subscribe, comment, and tell a friend about what you think of the show! -- Rob and Sarah are listening to The FiveThirtyEight? Subscribe? Rate, comment and review our new episode on Apple Podcast. Subscribe to our newest podcast, The Five Thirty Eight! and we'll be giving you a shoutout in next week's New Year's Day Offers! -- Subscribe to the FiveThirty Eight Podcasts and more! -- We'll be posting a new episode next Tuesday! -- Thank you, Rob & Sarah will be listening to your thoughts on our newest episode next week! -- Rob is listening to you! -- and Sarah will review your responses to your responses in the next episode of the latest episode of FiveThirty One's newest podcast "The Best of the New York Times podcast, Monday, Wednesday, February 14th, February 15th, 2020! -- Yours Truly Truly? -- Thank You, Sarah's Best, Sarah Best and Sarah Best & Sarah Best, -- -- Robert Badger -- Thanks, Sarah Good and Sarah Good & Sarah Good, Best, Best Shot, Best Fiend, Bestest, Best of Yours, Best Effort, and Sarah Worst, etc., etc., Best of Thanks, etc. --
00:00:05.000As I said yesterday on the show, it seems as though all of this is just a prolonged introduction to Donald Trump as the actual GOP nominee.
00:00:41.000Presumably, those 4% from Ramaswamy will now move over to Donald Trump.
00:00:46.000In fact, Vivek last night went on stage with Donald Trump.
00:00:49.000He, of course, dropped out right after the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump, which, of course, was going to happen from pretty much the very beginning of the race.
00:00:57.000Again, Vivek's race was about things other than being president of the United States.
00:01:01.000He accomplished many of those goals, but this was sort of what was expected.
00:01:05.000Here was Vic last night on stage with Donald Trump.
00:01:08.000Last night, I was honored to receive the endorsement of a man who has become a true leader and earned the admiration of so many patriots.
00:01:17.000I've been a friend of his, even though we were competing against each other.
00:01:21.000But I was a friend of his and we got along and he was saying he's a great president.
00:02:21.000Revolved around not cutting any entitlement program, but cutting aid to Ukraine.
00:02:27.000Which again, you can make arguments about cutting aid to Ukraine, not cutting aid to Ukraine, but the idea that the Republican Party wholesale is behind non-reform and non-touching of the entitlements, it is one of the reasons why Donald Trump was more popular with the general electorate than some other Republicans, but it is not a particularly conservative principle.
00:02:43.000Also the idea that Any amount of money spent on Ukraine would have healed the problems with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid is absurd.
00:02:52.000The entire amount of USAID to Ukraine so far, which is $75 billion, a lot of military aid and civilian aid to Ukraine, that would pay for about 11 days worth of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
00:03:03.000The bottom line is that the dynamics of the race are obviously very much in Donald Trump's favor.
00:03:07.000There will be apparently no debates next week.
00:03:10.000Nikki Haley suggested that she would not debate Ron DeSantis, who finished ahead of her, in the Iowa caucuses.
00:03:15.000The reason she's doing that is she's now playing Trump's card.
00:03:17.000Trump's card was, I'm not going to debate anyone because I'm so far ahead.
00:03:20.000Nikki Haley is basically suggesting that going into New Hampshire, she's so far ahead of DeSantis that there's no reason to make herself vulnerable to that.
00:03:27.000ABC News then duly called off the Republican primary debate.
00:03:30.000They announced that there would be no debate at all.
00:03:32.000They said, our intent was to host a debate coming out of the Iowa caucuses.
00:03:36.000But we always knew that would be contingent on the candidates and the outcome of the race.
00:03:39.000While our robust election coverage will continue, ABC News and WMUR-TV will not be moving forward with Thursday's Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire.
00:03:48.000Now again, do I think that New Hampshire is quite as close to that poll as making out?
00:03:51.000I think that Donald Trump does in fact have the upper hand in New Hampshire.
00:04:11.000All eyes are already turning to the general election.
00:04:15.000And because all eyes are turning to the general election, that means we have to look at the strategy the Democrats are using to defeat Donald Trump.
00:04:22.000Well, to understand that strategy, you really have to speculate on whether this is all, as Admiral Ackbar might say, a trap!
00:04:30.000Whether, in fact, Democrats' plan was to basically get Republicans to nominate Donald Trump so that they could run against him.
00:04:36.000Of course, they tried this trap in 2015-2016.
00:04:38.000Hillary Clinton suggested that Donald Trump run.
00:04:41.000She wanted Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee, and then, of course, she lost it to him.
00:04:47.000Annie McCarthy at National Review suggests that that's the case because he says that basically by promoting all of these legal cases against Donald Trump this year, that opened up the primary in favor of Donald Trump.
00:04:58.000It reversed all of the momentum in the race in favor of Donald Trump because the Republicans reacted to the unjust persecution of Trump by supporting him in the race.
00:05:06.000And then the entire next year is going to be all about his legal cases.
00:05:10.000And in fact, there's some data to support this.
00:05:11.000If you look At the Republican presidential primary polling, what you see is that right after the 2022 elections, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis were running basically neck and neck.
00:05:21.000And then, they continued to run neck and neck through January, through February, and then something happened in March.
00:05:37.000And Donald Trump's line, which was effectively that they are coming after me
00:05:41.000because they will also come after you, was an effective line.
00:05:44.000That's particularly effective when the Democratic Party is making clear
00:05:47.000that the center of all of its policies lies equity, equity, equity.
00:05:51.000And when many Americans hear equity, what they mean is the preferred
00:05:54.000Democratic voting constituencies are going to get special benefits
00:05:57.000and everybody else is going to get jacked.
00:05:59.000So when Donald Trump says they're coming after me because they're also coming after you,
00:06:03.000that does have some credibility to it.
00:06:04.000That said, the next year obviously is going to be a very stacked year for Donald Trump in terms of the various calendars.
00:06:12.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:06:13.000First, as you've already seen, 2024 is going to be a wild ride.
00:06:16.000You're already seeing the impacts of inflation at the gas pump, the grocery store, the dollar is losing its buying power faster than wages can increase.
00:06:37.000Because again, diversification, good strategy against the terrible possibility of future events.
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00:07:27.000On January 10th, the Trump Organization civil fraud charges closing arguments were made.
00:07:33.000Today, there was a second trial that began in New York, in which E. Jean Carroll, a woman who alleged that Donald Trump raped her in a department store in New York City, again, allegations that I think are really dicey on their face, but she did win a defamation suit against him, and now she's filed a second defamation suit against him.
00:07:53.000Next week, January 23rd, of course, you have the New Hampshire primary.
00:07:56.000On February 8th, you have a Supreme Court case with oral arguments, hearing about whether Donald Trump should be barred from the ballot.
00:08:03.000On February 12th, we're down in Mar-a-Lago, and there's a hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, on which classified materials the special counsel can withhold from the Trump defense or not withhold from the Trump defense.
00:08:14.000Three days later, there's a hearing in Manhattan on the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
00:08:18.000That'd be the Alvin Bragg, again, specious Manhattan DA case.
00:08:23.000Move forward just a little bit in time, and you end up with the March 4th scheduled opening in Washington of Trump's trial on the four felony charges being brought by Jack Smith with regard to January 6th.
00:08:35.000Move forward just a little more in time, March 25th, you have state criminal cases, Stormy Daniels again on the docket.
00:08:42.000That's the scheduled start of the Trump trial over the hush money that was paid to Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair.
00:08:49.000In May, you have the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents trial, which is scheduled to start.
00:08:53.000Now, again, all of these dates may be delayed.
00:08:56.000August 5th, you have the Georgia-Rico case that is supposed to start.
00:08:59.000Okay, so this is gonna be all year long.
00:10:51.000Because it means that we can just filter all of it out.
00:10:54.000So, for example, he was ranting about E. Jean Carroll on Truth Social yesterday.
00:10:57.000He said, after a historic win in Iowa, I'm going to the Biden-encouraged witch hunt in lower Manhattan to fight against a fake case from a woman I've never met, seen, or touched.
00:11:06.000Naturally, it starts right after Iowa and during the very important New Hampshire primary where, despite their sinister attempts, I will be tonight, it is a giant election interference scam pushed and financed by political operatives.
00:11:19.000I mean, it is certainly true that E. Jean Carroll's case was funded, in fact, by a Democrat billionaire named Reid Hoffman, who's a tech bro.
00:11:28.000Democrats are gambling that Trump's legal foibles are going to somehow sink his campaign.
00:11:33.000I don't know that that's a particularly amazing gamble.
00:11:36.000Nonetheless, the media are very into it.
00:11:37.000Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Karl, they say that Trump's campaign is going to get stuck in the courtroom.
00:11:42.000But Maggie, one of the things he wants to do is to drag it out is because he's got this very complex legal and campaign schedule over the coming months, but he likes to appear in court because it's good for fundraising.
00:12:37.000And it's very much... I mean, his political advisors are as aware and involved in what is happening on the legal front as anything else.
00:12:49.000And he spends more time with his lawyers, with his legal team, than he does with his political team.
00:12:53.000But even when he's with the political team, as Maggie points out, it's about the lawyers.
00:12:59.000Okay, well, I mean, all of that, again, may very well be true.
00:13:02.000But are you that interested in this stuff?
00:13:04.000I don't find myself particularly stimulated by Donald Trump's legal cases.
00:13:07.000Again, all of it happened, like, before.
00:13:10.000And it's not as though the trials themselves are going to be wildly fascinating.
00:13:12.000You're not watching a murder trial here.
00:13:14.000You're going to be watching a bunch of people testify about the handling of classified documents down in Florida.
00:13:18.000Or people rehashing for the one millionth time what happened on January 6th up in Washington, D.C.
00:13:24.000Or more allegations about Stormy Daniels and campaign payments from full-on eight years ago.
00:13:29.000Is that something that's really going to hurt Donald Trump?
00:13:31.000Which means the Democrats are now having to rely on some backup strategies.
00:13:35.000One of those backup strategies is, of course, the attempt to bar Donald Trump from the ballot.
00:13:39.000Yesterday, Joe Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested he didn't know if it was undemocratic to ban Donald Trump from the ballot.
00:13:48.000You can't just ban your political opponents from the ballot.
00:14:06.000That's not something that's not a Democratic Party position.
00:14:11.000It's just that in various states, people, individuals, have taken this issue up, and we're going to hear from the Supreme Court shortly, I'm sure.
00:14:20.000Okay, so again, the fact that they are lending credibility to this nonsense is really not going to benefit them, and it does lend credence to Donald Trump's claims that they are out to get him, which of course is the reason he got the nomination in the first place, presuming that he wraps it up, as I assume that he will.
00:14:33.000There's more on this in just one second.
00:14:35.000First, I've been talking about my Helix mattress for years.
00:14:37.000I've had my Helix mattress for nearly a decade.
00:14:39.000At this point, it is the gift that keeps on giving because it is made just for me.
00:16:11.000So allowing people to vote early by mail, three months in advance of elections, leading to 60% of all Democrat votes in 2020 being cast by mail.
00:17:05.000It was rigged in the informal sense in which the media obviously were on board, all the American institutions were on board with Joe Biden's victory.
00:17:11.000And we're starting to see it right now in some of the most perverse ways.
00:17:14.000A couple of those most perverse ways are members of the intelligence community.
00:17:18.000Who were awful during the 2020 election.
00:17:20.000You'll recall that when the Hunter Biden laptop story came down, there were dozens and dozens of intelligence officials who claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop was in fact a piece of Russian disinformation.
00:17:41.000Well, now you're having the same thing.
00:17:42.000You're gonna have intelligence officials, foreign and domestic, claiming that Donald Trump
00:17:46.000is actually a threat to the good working order of the West.
00:17:48.000This presumably is why you have the former MI6 head, Sir Richard Dearlove, talking about Trump's re-election
00:17:53.000being an actual national security risk to the UK.
00:17:55.000But I think it's important, but I'm not a politician.
00:18:00.000You have to add a political threat, which I'm worried about,
00:18:04.000which is Trump's re-election, which I think for the UK's national security is problematic.
00:18:15.000Because if Trump, as it were, acts hastily and damages the Atlantic Alliance, that is a big deal for the UK.
00:18:26.000We've put all our eggs, in defence terms, in the NATO basket.
00:18:31.000Okay, but the reality is that even when Donald Trump was president, he was just asking for our NATO partners to increase their spending.
00:18:36.000The reason I point this out is because if the intelligence community is in fact mobilized against Donald Trump, they can do some pretty corrupt and terrible things.
00:18:44.000Meanwhile, members of the big tech community are also mobilizing Over the beginning of the week, we have had the beginning of the World Economic Forum over in Davos.
00:18:53.000So, for folks who don't know the World Economic Forum, it was founded originally by a guy named Klaus Schwab in the 1970s.
00:18:58.000It is essentially a meeting of big business leaders, big corporate leaders, big government leaders.
00:19:09.000In fact, we have a brand new facts episode out on YouTube where I explain everything you need to know about the WF and Davos in detail.
00:19:16.000And basically, their agenda is cooperation in corporatist, quasi-fascistic fashion between big business, big government, big tech, in order to sort of rig the rules of the road.
00:19:28.000And already, over at the WEF 2024, participants are talking about the necessity for quote-unquote policing misinformation.
00:19:35.000Now, nobody's interested in falsehood being prevaricated.
00:19:38.000But what I think everybody is interested in is who gets to set the standards.
00:19:42.000And to say that I don't trust the people of the WF to determine what is misinformation and what is not is to put it absolutely mildly.
00:19:48.000Here, for example, are Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and Center for Democracy's Reeve Givens talking about the necessity of policing misinformation over at Davos.
00:19:56.000Again, when people talk about globalists, this is what they really mean.
00:19:59.000They really don't mean people who are in favor of free trade.
00:20:02.000Most Republicans are in favor of free trade, including, for the most part, Donald Trump, despite his rhetoric.
00:20:07.000When he was actually president, he was a pretty free-trading president.
00:20:09.000When people say globalist, what they mean is a cadre of people who wish to restructure the entire global system so that they are in control of the levers of power.
00:20:16.000And that's what it looks like over at the WEF, including with regard to quote-unquote misinformation.
00:20:21.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:20:23.000First, according to Forbes, January is the hottest month for hiring.
00:20:26.000Business owners, hiring managers, they're on the hunt for top talent.
00:21:31.000So here are two panelists over at the WEF talking about the necessity for cracking down on misinformation, by which they mean information they don't want you to hear.
00:21:40.000And the rest of the private sector is just sitting on the sidelines.
00:21:44.000And they're just not saying anything and they're biting their tongue because, well, maybe they liked President Trump for other reasons because he cut corporate taxes.
00:21:53.000And so I think the private sector has largely stood by and allowed a lot of really damaging things to happen.
00:21:59.000Things that in the long run will not be good for You know, liberal democratic capitalism.
00:22:05.000And so I really hope that the World Economic Forum will take this issue on board and think harder about the role that the private sector can play in standing up against disinformation.
00:22:15.000In this big election year, what kinds of safeguards and measures are you thinking that companies and countries should be trying to implement as they get ready for elections?
00:22:26.000Well, I'll pick up on a theme that I think you were just getting to, which is one of the most crucial intervention points is how we surface authentic, trusted sources of information.
00:22:35.000And you're absolutely right that the media has a critical role in this.
00:22:45.000Yeah, again, who's going to pick those trusted sources of information?
00:22:48.000Presumably that will be the New York Times, the Washington Post, all the left-wing outlets that the left, particularly the globalist left, absolutely loves.
00:22:56.000When we talk about rigging the election, this is what we are talking about.
00:22:59.000And it is Joe Biden's team who's working hand-in-glove with these people.
00:23:03.000John Kerry, who's sort of the official envoy to the WEF every single year, he obviously is very much in favor of a globalized regime
00:23:12.000in which he gets to ferry back and forth and make friends with the Chinese and talk, for example,
00:23:17.000about the wonders of restructuring their entire global economy so as to avoid climate change.
00:23:21.000Of course, he takes private jets doing all of this.
00:23:23.000Here he was at Davos talking about the need to transition away from fossil fuels.
00:23:27.000In Dubai, we were able to change that paradigm to some degree with one critical paragraph.
00:24:48.000So I want to be able to speak out on that and other issues globally, but I'm going to stay at this, and there are so many different ways To continue to be able to be engaged in this.
00:25:01.000And I think the American public, this is going to be one of the reasons I want my voice back, to be able to go out and get involved, is this issue is a voting issue.
00:25:12.000And people ought to go to the polls because they want to continue down this road and see this new economy emerge and not have air that kills them.
00:25:22.000and gives them diseases, and sends their kids to the hospital in the summer from environmentally
00:26:33.000Or are there ways of... What are we able to keep on the positive side from the old order to bring into a new world order?
00:26:42.000And how can we avoid that that new world order becomes like a jungle growing back and we rather have Order based on international law and
00:26:53.000principles that have brought us prosperity and freedom for decades.
00:26:58.000I don't think the international order built after 1945 is getting replaced wholesale with some new order.
00:27:07.000It will obviously evolve as it has evolved multiple times over the decades since 1945.
00:27:14.000But I do think in a more sharp and distinctive way we are moving into a new era and that's what I talked about in my remarks.
00:27:22.000That, of course, is the NSA Jake Sullivan.
00:27:24.000So when you talk about Joe Biden being in the pocket of sort of these types of people, and in fact, this kind of Borg all acting out, that is correct.
00:27:33.000This is what stands in the way of Donald Trump attaining the White House again.
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00:27:48.000I was just kind of like, Lord, if this is, you know, if this is the way, you know, let me know.
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00:29:09.000The thing in favor of Donald Trump is, of course, the fact that the Biden administration and these globalists are truly incompetent at all of this.
00:29:14.000In fact, the title of the WF this year is Restoring Trust.
00:29:19.000Well, I mean, the trust hasn't been lost because people are talking about them.
00:29:23.000The trust has been lost because they are garbage at this.
00:29:25.000It turns out that all the people who suggest you ought to give them control over your life and over the system, those people have botched it six ways from Sunday.
00:29:35.000Speaking of that opening and the botchery, what's going on on the border continues to be a complete disaster area.
00:29:41.000An amazing story between Texas and the federal government.
00:29:45.000According to Breitbart.com, a strongly worded letter from the Department of Homeland Security to the state of Texas is demanding access to the U.S.-Mexico border on land seized by the state in Eagle Pass.
00:29:53.000Eagle Pass, of course, is one of the great sources of illegal immigration in the country.
00:29:57.000Right now, hundreds of thousands of people every month arriving at Eagle Pass DHS officials ordered the state to cease and desist its efforts to block Border Patrol's access in and around Shelby Park and remove all barriers to access by the end of the day on January 17th.
00:30:09.000The DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer wrote in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas's actions are clearly unconstitutional and are actively disrupting the federal government's operations.
00:30:37.000Joe Biden has essentially turned our Border Patrol units into a busing service for illegal immigrants.
00:30:42.000They literally arrive at the border, hold up their hands, say they're claiming asylum.
00:30:46.000Border Patrol then picks them up, processes them, lets them into the country within 72 hours.
00:30:50.000The state of Texas is saying no, and they are building barriers.
00:30:53.000And this means the Biden administration is now probably going to take them to court.
00:30:56.000They say, quote, the recent actions by the state of Texas have impeded operations of the Border Patrol.
00:31:01.000Now, as Breitbart points out, the use of the word impeded by the DHS General Counsel could imply a threat of criminal action against officers and agents of the state of Texas who are carrying out the orders of Governor Abbott to secure Shelby Park and prevent Border Patrol's entry to the area.
00:31:14.000Now again, the reason they don't want the Border Patrol in there is because the Border Patrol is simply facilitating the entry of all the illegal immigrants.
00:31:20.000All this is coming amidst a false story reported widely by the left-wing media suggesting that the state of Texas is responsible for migrant drownings.
00:31:32.000According to a timeline provided by the Texas Military Department on Sunday, the Border Patrol's request to enter the park came after migrant drownings had already occurred and the bodies of the families were being pulled from the water by Mexican authorities.
00:31:42.000But that didn't stop the media from running with the story, which was supposedly that a bunch of migrants were trying to cross the border.
00:32:46.000Free flow of people across borders, including the American border.
00:32:50.000There's a piece today in the New York Times from a person named Andrea Flores, who's an immigration policy advisor for both Obama and Biden, calling on Joe Biden not to compromise with the Republicans on border policy.
00:33:42.000We should widen the nozzle to allow more illegal immigrants into the country.
00:33:46.000This, of course, is a lady who was, in fact, an advisor to Joe Biden on immigration policy.
00:33:54.000Joe Biden's bad governance is going to have significant ramifications for his own re-elect hopes.
00:33:59.000In just one second, we'll get to exactly what that means in terms of the Middle East, because there's a story that has been wildly under-reported that we must get to here, because it is insane that, again, it is not top of the news.
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00:35:00.000Meanwhile, the disaster that is rolling in the Middle East is of Joe Biden's making.
00:35:06.000A couple stories that are just insane in the last 24 hours.
00:35:10.000So first, did you know that we have two missing US Navy SEALs?
00:35:32.000Navy SEALs missing in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia were on a mission to board a DAO that led to the seizure of Iranian-made ballistic and cruise missile components headed to the Houthis.
00:35:41.000The risky nighttime mission last Thursday to board the DAO in rough waters continued even after one of the Navy SEALs fell in the water and the second Navy SEAL following protocol jumped into the water to rescue his teammate.
00:35:50.000Search and rescue operations for the two missing SEALs are continuing in the Gulf of Aden with U.S.
00:35:54.000Navy aircraft and ships participating in the search.
00:35:58.000Navy has intercepted these DAOs, that's a small fishing or cargo vessel, from the region, believed to be carrying Iranian-made weapons to the Houthis.
00:36:04.000Typically, boarding teams pull aside these ships to undertake a flag verification mission if the DAO is unflagged or has replaced its flag to mask their smuggling mission.
00:36:12.000The latest seizure was the first since the Houthis began to carry out more than 30 drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
00:36:20.000So, apparently, these Navy SEALs are unfortunately missing.
00:36:24.000It's hard to imagine that given the fact they've been missing now for days on end, that they probably are dead.
00:36:31.000According to the Pentagon, in the wintertime, the sea state is typically 8 to 12 feet.
00:36:36.000The horizon is flat, so 8 to 12 feet is 8 feet above the flat horizon, then 8 feet is like a 16-foot wave.
00:36:42.000Meanwhile, Iran continues to facilitate terror around the region, not just with regard to Israel, not even just with regard to the Red Sea.
00:36:53.000I mean, they are doing that in the Red Sea, by the way.
00:36:55.000Right now, the latest is that the Yemeni Houthis continue to attack, apparently, shipping in the Red Sea.
00:37:02.000Tuesday's strike on the Iranian-linked Houthi movement in Yemen was another attack the U.S.
00:37:06.000had to launch against the Houthis in Yemen.
00:37:08.000It targeted four sites where rebels were preparing to launch missiles against commercial shipping vessels.
00:37:13.000And the Biden administration, which has been signaling that it's going to do what it must do in order to ensure shipping in this region, now they're relegated to saying, well, you know, we're doing these low-level attacks and we figure the Houthis are going to continue.
00:37:33.000We mobilized a coalition of countries to take strikes to degrade the Houthis' capabilities so their ability to mount sustained and complex attacks becomes more difficult over time.
00:37:47.000We did not say when we launched our attacks, they're gonna end once and for all, the Houthis will be fully deterred.
00:37:53.000We anticipated the Houthis would continue to try to hold this critical artery at risk, and we continue to reserve the right to take further action, but this needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort.
00:38:04.000Okay, I missed the part where he laid out a plan.
00:38:06.000So his idea was, we're gonna bomb a few empty sites after a week of warning, and then they will continue to come after the shipping, and then what?
00:38:22.000If your solution is, we'll fire a few rockets at you, and you fire a few rockets at us, and that's pretty much status quo, how exactly is that a solution?
00:38:31.000And if you like higher prices at the grocery store, prepare for some of those.
00:38:35.000John Kirby, spokesman with the White House National Security Council, said on Tuesday that when the United States launched dozens of strikes in Yemen last week, senior U.S.
00:38:41.000officials fully anticipated the Houthis would probably conduct some retaliatory strikes.
00:38:45.000He said, we're not looking to expand this.
00:38:47.000They still have time to make the right choice, which is to stop these reckless attacks.
00:38:49.000But you have not made clear what exactly the consequences will be if they do not do that.
00:38:54.000And again, if you are the Houthis, all you have to do is survive this.
00:38:57.000So here's John Kirby trying to explain what the hell we're doing.
00:38:59.000The strikes that we took Friday No matter what the Houthis might say, it has nothing to do with the fight in Gaza.
00:39:07.000It has to do with defending shipping in the Red Sea.
00:39:11.000No matter what the Houthis say, they're not going after ships that are tied to Israel.
00:39:16.000You know, they hit yesterday, the other day, they hit a ship carrying Russian oil.
00:39:23.000So I think we need to not buy into the Houthi propaganda, that's one.
00:39:28.000We still have an interest in not seeing this conflict widen or escalate.
00:39:31.000In fact, that's why we took those strikes I'm so confused.
00:39:39.000So you don't want it to widen and escalate, so you're doing just enough so that they continue to harass shipping in the Middle East, thus prolonging the possibility of this thing widening and escalating.
00:39:46.000Meanwhile, Joe Biden quietly attempting to walk back his idiotic policy from 2021, in which he delisted the Houthis as a terror group, according to Jackie Heinrich, who is reporting for Fox News.
00:39:56.000His sources tell Fox the Biden administration is expected to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
00:40:02.000Officials have not yet said if the group will be placed under the same designation, but sources tell Fox there are a number of sanctions options that can be used in lieu of a formal FTO finding, which can take a long time to complete.
00:40:12.000So, again, they are now having to walk back their dumbass policy with regard to Iran in the same way they earlier in the administration had to walk back their dumbass policy with regard to the Saudis.
00:40:22.000Meanwhile, the Iranians, by the way, are now attacking targets in Pakistan.
00:40:26.000So if you think that this regime isn't attempting to destabilize anything within rocket range, you are totally wrong.
00:40:31.000According to Reuters, Pakistan said neighboring Iran has now violated its airspace Resulting in the death of two children hours after Iranian state media said missiles targeted two bases of militant group Yaish al-Adl on Tuesday.
00:40:42.000Islamabad warned the incident could have serious consequences was completely unacceptable in a statement released by Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson in the early hours on Wednesday.
00:40:51.000On Monday, the IRGC, that would be the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, attacked targets in both Iraq and Syria.
00:40:58.000So right now, Iranian proxies are hitting They're now affecting the following countries and areas.
00:41:04.000Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Northern Israel, Southern Israel, the Gaza Strip, the Red Sea, and Pakistan.
00:41:15.000I'm not talking about over the course of the last three years.
00:41:17.000I'm talking about, like, in the last three days.
00:41:19.000Okay, well, does that seem like a successful containment policy to you?
00:41:24.000Or might it be that the United States should say to Israel, do what you have to do against Hamas, and that the United States, they have F-22s and F-35s, guys.
00:41:32.000You might want to actually devastate the ability of the Houthis to, you know, do what they are doing in the Red Sea.
00:41:39.000We might want to make clear to Hezbollah, the West, that if you guys get to a little bit too much on the northern border of Israel, that we will allow Israel to do what it needs to do on the northern border as well.
00:41:53.000Again, the threat of force is what keeps people in line in the Middle East.
00:41:56.000The fact that this administration continues to try to play this middle game is so stupid, it's so idiotic, and it's predicated on, again, false notions of the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
00:42:05.000You may have noticed that in that whole disquisition that I just gave with regard to Iran, there are a bunch of countries that have literally nothing to do with the Palestinians.
00:42:12.000You're talking about the Red Sea, you're talking about Iraq and Syria, and you're talking about Pakistan.
00:42:18.000Do any of those places have to do particularly with Israel and the Palestinians?
00:42:24.000But for a long time in foreign policy circles, there has been this idiotic notion that central to all conflict in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian issue, as though if Israel and the Palestinians came to some sort of agreement, Iran would calm down and everything would be all better.
00:42:42.000I mean, guys, here's how dumb Jake Sullivan is and bad at his job.
00:42:46.000Jake Sullivan literally had a piece in Foreign Affairs Magazine.
00:42:49.000It was written before October 7th, and it came out the week after.
00:42:53.000And in the print edition, it suggested that Gaza had never been more peaceful.
00:42:57.000That's how bad Jake Sullivan is at his job.
00:43:00.000And this is the guy who's now designing Middle East policy.
00:43:02.000So you wonder why Donald Trump has a shot even against the rigors to be?
00:43:06.000The answer is because if you're bad enough at your job, it turns out the American people don't like it very much.
00:43:13.000So what you're saying is that the follow-up of the Abraham Accords was to bring in, if we were to bring in Saudi Arabia and that it would have been also the basis for that would have to be a political solution also where Israel would have to move on a two-state solution.
00:43:32.000Yes, in fact, when President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke in the weeks and months leading up to October 7th, This was a key topic of discussion.
00:43:42.000Where do the Palestinians fit into a broader vision for Israel's integration into the region and normalization with Arab states?
00:43:51.000The basic recipe, which is peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, a two-state solution with Israel's security guaranteed.
00:44:02.000These pieces are not, you know, In a way, operating in completely separate spheres.
00:44:14.000And there's something that we're going to have to continue to work on.
00:44:18.000Again, the very fact that Jake Sullivan is suggesting that if Israel had somehow made more concessions to the Palestinians that, for example, October 7th never would have happened and peace would have broken out in the Middle East is totally insane.
00:44:29.000I mean, first of all, it's totally insane that we're even having a conversation in the aftermath of the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust about making concessions to the governments that support the mass murderers.
00:44:39.000That's totally insane, but again, the entire foreign policy of this administration is totally insane.
00:44:44.000Meanwhile, again, in the middle of all of this talk about concessions that the West can somehow make, or how much care the US has to take with the Houthis, in the middle of all this, we now have more and more reports that are emerging from Israel, from the people who are held hostage by Hamas, and they are just as awful as you thought they would be.
00:45:02.000There's a piece over at Barry Weiss's Free Press by a Young woman named Agama Goldstein-Almag.
00:45:08.000She watched Hamas murder her father and her sister in front of her eyes.
00:45:11.000And she explains what exactly happened.
00:45:13.000She said, I was with my mother, my protector, who did everything she could to keep me alive while we were in Hamas's captivity.
00:45:18.000Together with my two young brothers, aged 9 and 11, the four of us had been taken from our home in Kfar Aza on the morning of October 7th, but not before terrorists shot my father in a point-blank and afterward went my older sister, Yam, the bullet tearing through her face.
00:45:37.000Any hopes we had they were still alive or dashed when we heard over the radio they had been murdered at some point during our captivity.
00:45:42.000We were moved a lot during our time in confinement, transferred through a series of homes, apartments, tunnels, even a mosque in Gaza.
00:45:47.000Remember, though, guys, it's super easy to tell the terrorists from the civilians in Gaza, especially when they're holding the actual hostages among civilians.
00:46:13.000I heard from them accounts of terrifying and grotesque sexual abuse, often at gunpoint.
00:46:17.000They told me that when they were sad and cried, their captors took advantage of their helplessness even more, stroking and caressing them, and then shoving and grabbing intimate parts of their bodies.
00:47:01.000And the Biden administration is already putting pressure on the Israelis to stop their operation while these hostages are still being held.
00:47:38.000Senate negotiators have spent months discussing a potential bipartisan agreement to add new
00:47:42.000border and immigration policy restrictions to Biden's supplemental request for $100 billion
00:47:46.000for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and border security.
00:47:48.000Those negotiations have yet to produce a deal.
00:47:50.000Apparently, the attendees will include Senate Majority Leader Schumer, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
00:47:58.000Key committee leaders, including those head of the appropriations committees, are also expected to attend, according to two people, that presumably is going to be for show, because obviously Joe Biden is in no particular shape to lead negotiations, nor has he taken a strong stand against the radicals in his own party and said that they ought to, for example, cave on some of the border provisions in order to assure the foreign aid that Joe Biden so desperately wants.
00:48:21.000Alrighty folks, coming up we are going to jump into the mailbag, so stick around.
00:48:25.000If you're not a member, become a member.