Will VP Vance pick Trump or Tucker? — On Balance Full Show

[0:00] let us go to the new and better show in front of me with Leland Vittert. AOC is starting to look [0:06] moderate these days. Yes, yes she is. And that is the problem of being part of the establishment. [0:15] You see Fetterman? He called them the dirty part of the left. The guy in the hoodie. That's what he [0:22] came in on. He called these people the dirty edge. I think it's his deplorables moment. I think it's [0:28] going to haunt him. Yeah, that wing of the Democratic Party I think is the Democratic [0:34] Party, not the other way around. Sort of like what you were saying. We all figured out, some of us [0:39] too late in terms of Trump in 2016, that that was the Republican Party. Chris, great show, good [0:45] conversation. Friends, welcome to the program. President Trump appears caught right now between [0:49] wanting to move on from Iran and knowing Vice President J.D. Vance's deal with Iran is not [0:56] going to work out. Washington Congressman Adam Smith, former White House Chief of Staff Mick [1:18] Mulvaney on how to work with how to reverse America's withdraw. Election night in New York City [1:25] as Cuomo was talking about. Zorhan Mamdami's brand of socialism put to the test. So far, [1:31] it is passing that test. Latest primary election results of what it means out of all four states [1:36] coming up. We start with our Why It Matters segment tonight. Vice President Vance's handling of [1:42] the Iran deal makes any sane person wonder whether he is serving President Trump or Tucker Carlson. [1:50] Tucker, again, went scorched to earth on Trump and the GOP, now announcing he's done with the [1:57] Republican Party. Interestingly enough, Tucker had nothing bad. In fact, he feels sorry for Vance. [2:05] Wow. Vance's takeover of the Iran negotiations represents a move back to the 1930s. [2:12] Isolationism, blaming the Jews, moral equivalents, and, of course, appeasing evil. [2:19] Israel doesn't give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. [2:26] The Iranians don't give up the right of self-defense in their country. [2:29] The same mistakes of the 1930s were paid in American blood and treasure. [2:36] Many on the shores of Normandy, the sacrifice is real. The cost of America withdrawing, letting evil [2:44] take over like the Iranians, like adventuresome or expansionist Islam. I was there in Normandy [2:51] this weekend and saw how that price was paid on Utah Beach firsthand. Much of the anti-Trump media [2:59] keeps wanting to show that Vance is failing against Iran. And true, that's fine, but it totally misses [3:07] the point. Vance isn't failing to lead on Iran as he is leading America's retreat. He is doing a very [3:15] good job at what the America First crew wants. It doesn't help America. It doesn't help Trump. [3:23] But it helps Tucker Carlson. America's retreat is exactly what the Tucker Carlson and his wing of [3:31] the Republican Party, if you want to call them that, want, even at the expense of America. [3:36] Bring in Adam Smith, Washington Congressman, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. [3:41] Mick Mulvaney, former Trump White House Chief of Staff, NewsNation political contributor. Mick, [3:46] I want to start with you. There is another explanation for this, right, which is, as Carlson laid out, [3:54] a lot of Trump's America First voters feel betrayed. So Trump sends Vance out to bring them back into the tent. [4:05] Maybe. You know, listen, I think the premise might be a little bit flawed, Leland. I don't think [4:10] the question is whether or not J.D. Vance is serving Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson. He's serving himself. [4:15] I mean, that's what politicians do. He wants to be president of the United States, [4:20] and he's doing what he thinks would be best to accomplish that. Personally, [4:25] I can't imagine anybody in that circumstance would choose to align themselves with Tucker Carlson [4:31] more than Donald Trump. Tucker Carlson is not going to get you elected president of the United States. [4:36] Donald Trump might. So, look, we could talk about all the issues. We could talk about appeasement. [4:42] We could talk about those things. But if the threshold question is who is J.D. Vance serving, [4:46] it's himself. That's what we'd expect from someone who wants to be president. [4:50] Oh, shouldn't we think so much more of our presidents and then be disappointed or presidential [4:55] candidates? Congressman, I'm confused a little bit. Maybe you can help me about Democrats' response [5:02] to this. The far left says this is Israel's fault, which, by the way, is sort of what J.D. Vance [5:08] is saying. The Europeans love this new Iran deal, says a lot about the deal when the Europeans love it. [5:14] Many have compared it to the Obama deal, which Democrats love. Why are more Democrats not [5:21] supporting J.D. Vance in all this? Well, I would tend to agree with you. I think the way Democrats [5:26] should look at this, the way I look at this, is first of all, this is not surrender to Iran. This is [5:32] not, oh, Iran's fine. We're all going to just get along. It's an acknowledgement of the situation that [5:37] we're in and that there's not a military solution to this, which was, as you and I talked about many [5:41] times in the lead up to this and during it. That was always my position. I never thought [5:45] that a bombing campaign was going to break the Iranian regime and bring them to heel. Personally, [5:51] I felt what Israel had done, what we had done to some extent prior to this war, had weakened Iran [5:57] to the point that we were in the best position we've ever been in to get a good deal at deterrence [6:02] and containment. Everyone wants absolute victory. Everything, sadly, is not World War II. You don't get [6:07] that opportunity for absolute victory over your adversaries. I support what Trump and Vance are [6:14] trying to do here. I think a lot of Democrats are caught up in the fact that no matter what Trump [6:19] and Vance do, we must criticize it. But if we, me, have been against the war for so this long, [6:24] and along comes Trump and Vance saying, okay, we're going to end it and negotiate a deal, [6:29] then the details of that deal are obviously going to matter, what they say about it, how they do it. [6:34] But I wanted this war to end. If J.D. Vance is trying to end the war, [6:38] then I'm not going to be overly critical of at least that impulse. [6:43] Well, suddenly we have now J.D. Vance serving himself because even Democrats are praising him. [6:49] So that says something. Mick, there is somebody who is criticizing this deal from inside the Republican [6:57] Party, and he represents the other wing of the Republican Party, the other side of who might be [7:02] the presidential nominee, if it's somebody out of Team Trump. That's Marco Rubio, Vance and Trump, [7:07] back to back. Look, there's a lot of Republicans. [7:10] So all in all, a very productive 36 hours. We're going to have to keep working it. The last point [7:15] that I'll make is, as I told you all this morning, this is laying a foundation for what could be [7:21] a truly transformed Middle East. But we haven't built a house yet. We're going to have to keep on [7:25] building and that's what we'll do. If its leadership makes a decision that they want to be a country [7:29] instead of a revolutionary movement that exports terror, they're going to have an opportunity to do [7:33] incredible things in Iran. I'm not promising you that that's the choice they're going to make. [7:37] I'm saying if that's the choice that they make, then there will be opportunities. [7:41] Mick, explain to us the wing of America that thinks an emboldened and strengthened Iran thinks [7:50] that's a good thing. No, I don't think there is. I think the criticism of the deal has been from [7:56] all sorts of wings of the Republican Party. You've got the hardcore right-wing neoconservative [8:01] Lindsey Graham's of the world raising questions about it. You've got the ordinarily sort of, you know, [8:06] quiet and nondescript Roger Wicker questioning the agreement. Ted Cruz is questioning the agreement [8:12] as well. I think that's fair. I think that's healthy. I don't see those two statements, by the [8:18] way, Leland, as being internally inconsistent. I think that what we're hoping for is that Iran [8:24] is going to do better, that they're going to join the League of Nations, not League of Nations, [8:29] join the first tier of nations of good countries around the world not interested in pursuing, say, [8:33] terrorism. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'm willing to give the president a chance. [8:38] I think history is going to be the ultimate judge of this deal. I don't like it looking at it on the [8:42] piece of paper as we sit here tonight, but I'm willing to give them the chance to negotiate something [8:47] and see if it turns out better than what we had going into the war. [8:51] You know, Congressman, I think for very good reason, the one thing that was sacrosanct in American [8:58] foreign policy over the past 40 years, if not 80 years, has been the support of Israel because [9:05] Israel is the best friend we have in the Middle East. There's a lot of people on the left who [9:09] think Israel is now the problem in the Middle East. Obviously, I lived there for a long time, [9:15] reported in the region. I have a different feeling. And now there's people on the right, [9:19] it seems like JD Vance, who now seems to think Israel is a large part of the problem. Does that put [9:25] you as a man without a party? Well, it puts me in a difficult position. People, [9:31] there's a lot of conflicting beliefs out there. I think the right way of looking at this, and first [9:35] of all, Rubio and Vance are being true to who they were before they wound up in the administration. [9:39] Rubio has always been a hawk in a lot of different places. He's convinced that our military can [9:43] bring our adversaries basically to their knees and bend them to our will. JD Vance has always been [9:49] more cautious about that. He's felt that we shouldn't be as aggressive militarily across. So they're [9:54] being consistent with that. As far as Israel is concerned, yeah, I think we're in a dangerous [9:58] position. And I'm kind of in the middle on this. I don't agree that Iran is such an existential [10:03] threat that we have to wage total war on them until they're completely gone. I think there is [10:08] a deterrence there. I think there is a strategy that can contain them. But Israel has to be part [10:13] of that strategy. And as much as I may disagree, I certainly disagree with what Smotrich and Ben Gavir [10:18] have been saying and doing within Netanyahu's cabinet. Israel is a bulwark against the threat [10:24] from Hamas, from Hezbollah, from Iran, and the Houthis. And that is a threat that doesn't just [10:29] threaten Israel. That's the problem I have. I mean, even within my own party, the people who are [10:33] critical of Israel, I get it. It's been a very difficult war in Gaza and elsewhere. But look who [10:38] they're fighting. Are we really going to be better off if Israel goes away and in its place, Hamas and [10:43] Hezbollah have greater power? Forget for the moment—well, don't forget, because what happens to the [10:48] Jews should be something we care about in Israel and the fate that they face. But those people [10:53] threaten a lot more than just the Israelis. They threaten us. So yeah, we need to build a [11:00] containment strategy instead of a total war strategy is sort of where I'm at. [11:05] Well, and Israel had been containing Iran and its proxies for a while now. But, [11:11] Mick, I still can't figure out where this turn in the Republican Party to—beyond [11:20] impeachment—J.D. Vance says it's going to be a remade Middle East. Yes, a remade Middle East, [11:24] where Iran goes back to being a hegemonic power because the United States has abandoned Israel. [11:30] Yeah, neither can I. And what bothers me just as much is that you sort of get the feeling that one [11:35] of the Iranian goals here is to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Israel. And I sort of get the [11:42] feeling that's working, whether or not you want to attribute it to anything, including, [11:46] I don't know about AI-inspired bots on social media. But for whatever reason, the bond between the U.S. [11:54] and Israel is probably as weak now as it's been in my adult lifetime. And I think the Iranians look [12:00] at that as a good thing. That's too high a price for me to pay for all of this. I think at the end of [12:07] the day, what you'd like to see is an Iran without nuclear weapons and a strong bomb between the U.S. [12:11] and Israel. I think we might get part of that, but not the other. I think the Israeli-American [12:16] relationship is at a nadir for the last 30, 40 years. And that is a relationship that needs to [12:22] be tended, because otherwise we lose our best friend, you know, to use it over— [12:27] There's now wings of both the Republican and the Democratic Party that want to blame the Jews and [12:31] say it's Israel's problem, which is something that we haven't done for a long time. As I said, [12:36] we've got to go back to the 1930s. I'm sorry, but they're also ignoring the fact that the Iranians [12:40] are still saying, by the way, we are still interested in wiping Israel off the face of the [12:45] planet. They are saying that publicly and privately, and we choose to ignore it for whatever reason. [12:49] Sorry, Lila, if I could just— Look, I completely agree that, you know, Iran wants that wedge, [12:57] they're succeeding, and that much of this is unfairly blaming Israel, not looking at what Hamas is, [13:03] what Hezbollah is, what Iran is, what the Houthis are, the threats they face. I would also say, [13:08] however, the Netanyahu and his government could help us. It doesn't help to have, again, Ben Gavir [13:13] and Smotrich in there talking about how the Palestinians need to be wiped out, you know, [13:17] what they're doing in the West. Yeah, I see—I see more of it. [13:20] That doesn't help. Look, if Israel wants us— [13:22] It may not help. Just because something doesn't help doesn't mean it's the problem. And I think [13:27] Mick points out very rightly, you've got the Iranians, though, you're trying to tie—and for [13:32] some reason J.D. Vance and Donald Trump did this—tie some deal with Iran to Lebanon and then telling [13:38] Hezbollah, hey, go launch more rockets in Israel so we can keep blowing up the deal and demanding more. [13:44] That's what happens when you don't understand the Middle East and are trying to make deals. [13:47] Congressman Adam Smith, Mick Mulvaney, thank you both very much, gentlemen. Good to see you. [13:51] Good to see you. The pilot of that F-15 shot down over Iran delivers a stunning clue in the search [13:57] for answers on UFOs. The fog of war may actually solve the greatest mystery in the world. [14:03] Live pictures of Capitol Hill where lawmakers are preparing for Thursday's UFO Disclosure Day, [14:15] not the movie, but an actual one. It's a full day focused on government transparency about UFOs, [14:22] other unexplained objects in the sky. But one fighter pilot may have already figured some of this [14:27] out. A stunning new report reveals a downed American fighter pilot may have seen something [14:32] over Iran that looked more like science fiction than modern warfare. According to a CNN report, [14:38] the U.S. pilot rescued after being shot down over Iran in April repeatedly described [14:43] a chilling sight. Dozens of drones moving together in a coordinated formation, something called a [14:50] jellyfish formation drifting through the sky, similar to what you see in this UFO video from 2017. [14:58] The downing of the F-15 fighter jet marked the first time U.S. aircraft has been shot down over [15:04] Iran during the conflict. First time a U.S. aircraft has been shot down in a very long time. If the [15:10] airman really saw what he described, that means Iran has developed a new way to overwhelm some of [15:14] America's most advanced fighter jets, a sophisticated drone network that would hunt and destroy [15:20] enemy aircraft. For decades, strange lights in the sky have fueled UFO theories, alien theories. [15:26] One of the most obvious explanations is adversarial technology, the Chinese or Russians testing [15:32] something right under our noses. Could have given it to the Iranians. With us now, cultural [15:37] anthropologist, member of the UAP Science Advisory Council, Dr. Peter Scafisch, retired U.S. Marines [15:42] fighter pilot lieutenant colonel Tom Altornik. Gentlemen, good to see you both. Dr. Scafisch, [15:50] talk starting with you. What he's describing is best we can tell. Does it match any of the videos [15:58] that we've been seeing over the past couple of years? Well, thanks for having me on. It doesn't match [16:03] any of the videos that I know of, with the exception of one that I think is so dubious that I wouldn't [16:08] want to comment on that. But what it does match is occasional reports over the decades of things that [16:14] do look like jellyfishes, sometimes larger than this, that predate the time where that could have been [16:21] a drone swarm. So, you know, there's an indication that this could be a UAP, not of human origin. [16:28] Another term for that that I like to use and that we're developing is a non-anthropogenic vehicle, [16:34] or NAB. Hmm. Okay. Well, it would not be the military or science fiction world if we didn't have [16:40] more acronyms. Lieutenant Colonel, there's reporting about this pilot being, you know, shot down and then [16:50] ejected is probably one of the most violent things the human body can endure. Here's CNN's thought on [16:58] what he went through during that time that he noticed this. For one, the pilot was concussed [17:04] from being shot down. And two, this was actually the second time he had been shot out of the sky [17:08] during the weeks-long conflict with Iran. He was one of the pilots that was hit by friendly fire over [17:13] Kuwait just a few weeks before that, too. But all that taken into account, this did spark a debate [17:19] inside the U.S. intelligence community. All right. That matches my reporting as well that he had been [17:24] hit by friendly fire. He was one of the ones who was shot down a little earlier in the war. Colonel, [17:30] somebody who's gone through being shot at by a surface-to-air missile, the explosion in the plane, [17:38] and then a concussion and an ejection. I hate to say, does it call into question, but does it [17:46] make this report credible or not? Well, I believe it would be credible. That's [17:53] this pilot's account, as far as we know. Some of it's classified. I've never been shot down before, [17:59] thank God, but very, very close. I've had missiles very close, AAA, things like that. [18:06] So it is loud. It's violent. It's mortal combat when we're in that environment. And we saw that. [18:13] The reports of the pilot are very concerning. It was a violent environment that they came out of, [18:19] and the ejection itself is violent. That's the second one that this pilot went through in the same [18:26] theater, which I believe is probably a record. But he was able to walk away from both of them. [18:33] I'm assuming he passed his flight physical. He's back in flight status. So he's very fortunate in [18:37] that regard. And we had some intelligence come out of it. It looks like maybe it was leaked, [18:41] which is never a good thing. Classification matters in national security, but we are learning bits [18:47] and pieces as we go. My theory, or at least question out of this, is it explains why we haven't heard [18:54] from either of the two pilots who were rescued in Iran. It seemed as though that's the kind of thing [19:00] that we would at least either see them or hear from them or have them come to the White House, [19:04] and we did not. This may explain that. Dr. Scafish, you seem to be skeptical, though, [19:09] that this explanation of the pilot in some of these videos would be an adversarial weapons system, [19:18] meaning the Chinese or the Russians. Well, with this particular case, I'm agnostic, [19:23] and I don't have enough information to make any kind of call. What I think we're facing here is [19:29] what now feels like the age-old problem, which is that you have a public that knows to some extent [19:36] and increasingly knows that some UAP really aren't of human origins, but they're technologies. [19:42] And they're looking to aviators, they're looking to military aviators, they're looking to the [19:46] government for answers, but they're not fully getting answers. The government's become better [19:50] about that in the last five, six, seven years, but we're far away from what we call disclosure, [19:56] where we would have a full acknowledgement of something that I and some of my colleagues [20:00] know for a fact, which is that there is a part of the intelligence community that certainly knows [20:05] this is real, which is to say there are technologies not of human origins that are in our atmosphere, [20:10] they're under the sea, and they're coming down from space. All right. There's a lot to unpack in [20:17] there. But, Colonel, you, I think, remain skeptical of this. How much weight do we give one pilots, [20:25] or even a few pilots, explanation, observation, firsthand account versus the lack of evidence [20:34] otherwise? Well, as you mentioned previously, the fog of war could come into play. You have to [20:40] kind of evaluate what the pilot is saying against what you know on an intelligence front. The debriefers [20:47] may actually know more than he knows, or she. They're just trying to confirm what this pilot saw [20:55] and experienced. I don't think the viewers should be surprised that there are airborne drone mesh [21:00] networks out there. They do fireworks displays with these things, thousands of them working in unison. [21:06] It's not a stress that they are deploying this stuff in the battle space. There's mesh networks on the [21:11] ground. There can be airborne mesh networks. Or that this was U.S. technology that the pilots didn't [21:18] know about. Dr. Scafisch, Colonel, thank you both very much. Primary night in New Jersey, [21:24] first real test of Zorhan Mandami as Kingmaker. All right. We have a race call when we come back. [21:30] Can the socialist mayor of the Big Apple send three more like-minded socialists to Congress? [21:37] Welcome back. Decision Desk HQ now projecting Democratic Socialist Brad Lander wins his New York [22:05] Democratic House race, defeating Dan Goldman, the sitting U.S. Congressman. DDHQ also projecting [22:11] Claire Valdez wins her Democratic House race in New York, the primary there. Live look at Lander's [22:18] watch party. Socialist Zorhan Mandami's endorsement, well, it is proven effective tonight. [22:26] He's now likely to get at least two comrades to Congress, just one to go. Conservative media loves these [22:34] days. The self-hating Democrats, the ones who say a progressive and socialist pivot will end in [22:40] disaster. They're not Democrats, right? They're socialists, and they're essentially parasites. [22:46] They've decided that they cannot win on their own by creating their own party, so they are going to [22:51] latch onto the Democratic Party, feed off of it with the overall goal of taking it over and killing it. [22:57] Socialists are parasites, but so far they have taken over the Democratic Party and will leech off of it [23:04] until it dies. I remember all the normie Republicans in 2016 saying Trump doesn't [23:09] represent our party. You could book them, and it was very edgy because they were talking about how [23:13] the Trump wing of the Republican Party wasn't the real wing. Yeah, that didn't work out so well for [23:18] those folks. They're now all on MSNBC and The Bulwark. We told you almost a year ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [23:25] and socialism are the new Democratic Party. Just like there were and are Republicans more extreme [23:31] than Trump, that's true now for Democrats. Just take a listen to a couple of Mamdami's chosen [23:35] congressional candidates. I believe as a proud Jewish New Yorker that Israel's genocide in Gaza [23:43] is a desecration, is a violation of the understanding that everyone is created in God's [23:49] image kind of partnership I developed with Soran. I hope to come to have with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. [23:56] You reposted now deleted messages declaring, yes, literally abolish the border and that all [24:02] deportation is wrong. And the one the caller referenced, F, using the full word, Kamala Harris. [24:10] I'm not interested in re-litigating the politics of my tweets. Understandable, why not? These people [24:18] make AOC look normal and they're not alone among Democrats. 50% now have a favorable view of [24:24] socialism, although you can argue what that means. Scott Traynor, director of data science, [24:28] Decision Desk HQ, Mike Nellis, former senior advisor Kamala Harris, the author of Endless Urgency [24:33] on Substack. All right, Nellis, how are you going to cover this tomorrow? Is the Democratic Socialists [24:41] now just Democrats who happen to be socialists? No, I think you can't overstate New York City [24:47] politics. I know New York City is the center of the world, so it's going to be taken into, [24:51] you know, same thing happened with Soran a few months ago or last year. But I should point out, [24:55] Brad Lander is not actually a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He's a Democrat. [24:58] He's been a longtime elected official. Soran and the DSA support him in this race against Goldman. [25:02] And I've worked for both candidates, actually. You're making my point. You're making my point, [25:06] Nellis. It's a distinction without a difference. It's not a distinction without a difference. I [25:10] mean, I just think that these are words that don't really mean anything to people anymore. [25:13] There's guys at a pulpit at a mosque that talks about killing infidels. [25:18] Hold on. Here's my problem with this, Leland, is that if we went back in time 20 years ago, [25:21] every single member of the Republican Party was calling Barack Obama a socialist and they were [25:25] calling him a jihadist. So like, what's the difference anymore? These words don't mean [25:28] anything in American politics. Do you want me to go pull the clips? I'm going to [25:31] go pull the clips. I mean, it comes to Sarah Palin calling him a socialist. Like, come on. [25:33] That's not every Republican. They weren't calling him a jihadist. But your point about [25:36] socialism was on the Republican ticket, was she not? [25:39] But hold on. This is what Tranter needs to answer for me. [25:42] Okay. Okay. The argument always is, from the part of the left and also from the right, [25:49] is that this is never going to work in a swing state. Graham Plattner in Maine, Democratic Socialist-esque, [25:56] is, or actual, is never going to win in these kinds of swing states. Maybe Michigan, Abdul Al-Sayed, [26:04] etc. Does the polling play that out? Yeah. Look, the polling says at the end of the day, [26:09] in these close races, and we've had some very close races, especially the last two or three cycles, [26:15] it is the, and they're not always independent, but there's those voters who sometimes will vote [26:19] for the Democrat and sometimes vote for the Republican. There's not a lot of them, [26:23] but when the race is separated by three or four points, you don't need a lot of them to make [26:27] a difference here. And they tend to be more center-right or center-left, depending on... [26:31] So does the socialist moniker turn them off? It does, just like the MAGA conservative turns [26:39] them off on the other side. The extremes tend to turn off the middle, those small sliver of swing voters. [26:44] Okay. And the extremes tend to motivate more people inside those groups for primaries. [26:49] Um, Ro Khanna, I guess, is trying to become the spirit animal of the Democratic Socialists. [26:55] I can't quite figure out his lane, but I got to, I, you see, I got some smiles and some nods. [27:00] Uh, here he is on with Bill Maher. [27:01] Do you think Mamdani is a great one, huh? [27:04] I do. I mean, don't, did you see his Nick speech? [27:06] Not the issue that most concerned me. [27:10] I don't need... [27:11] It's worth a watch, because the speech was not just about the Knicks. First of all, [27:16] he, like, recites every Knicks player. I mean, I couldn't do that about the 49ers. [27:19] Who gives a s*** about the Knicks? He's the mayor of New York. [27:22] Well, yeah, but he talks about how it's actually bringing people together. Trump voters, [27:25] Mamdani voters, how it's overcoming the odds. And he took a speech that was just about celebrating [27:31] a championship, and he made something bigger about it. He's a talented... [27:33] Okay, okay. Well, it doesn't make me forget that his wife loved October 7th attack on Israel, [27:39] and that he pals around with terrorists. [27:41] He also pals around with folks who are sort of terrorist plus, um, if that, if that is possible. [27:51] Nellis, though, you're, you, I, I wish you were right. Progressives went across primaries. Nithya [27:57] Rahman in California. Graham Plattner in Maine. John C. Lewis, Georgia, here in D.C. [28:04] Um, she makes Mamdani look reasonable. Julia Stratton. Adam Hamaway, uh, who is terrorist, [28:12] adjacent, enthusiast, uh... Oh, come on. That's not fair. [28:15] Really? Really? I mean, he signed up to serve his nation after 9-11. Like, come on. [28:21] He was a translator for Blindshake. He served in the United States military, Leland. [28:24] Yeah, he, he, he also, he also helped an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group. [28:29] I just, I just think that's an unfair attack. And I'll also point out, like, that list of [28:32] people you just threw up there, the idea that the candidate who's going to be the next mayor [28:36] of D.C. is somehow representative of battleground districts across the country is silly. [28:39] Well, okay, well, okay. I mean, okay, what about... [28:41] Julianna Stratton, who's the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois under J.B. Plitzker. Like, come on. [28:44] Abdu al-Sayed in Michigan. [28:45] And Julianna's great, by the way. [28:47] Abdu al-Sayed in Michigan. [28:48] Okay. He's not on that sheet. [28:50] Well, that... We didn't have, we didn't, we didn't have enough space. [28:54] Okay. Okay. [28:56] So I have, I have full trust in your creative team that they could add another person up [28:59] there by the end of this segment. [29:00] Okay. So while, while we've argued about the graphic now for 30 seconds, I think it says [29:04] that you don't want to talk about it. [29:05] I'll talk, I mean, I'll talk about it, but like, look, it's, it, we'll see what happens [29:08] in the Michigan Senate primary. You know, and I've said it on your show before, I don't necessarily [29:11] believe that he'll be the nominee, but there's plenty of other races that you can point to where [29:15] Democrats got a more moderate, better candidate. I would point it to like Josh Turek in Iowa right now. [29:19] He's got a real shot to win that race. Mary Peltola in Alaska, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, [29:23] who's up by 14 points today on the Republican candidates. So again, I think you can cherry [29:27] pick any way you want, but like in progressive blue cities, DSA candidates are doing pretty well [29:32] and the rest of the country, they're really not. [29:33] Traynor, do we explain that because people are more socialist or they just want somebody [29:40] who's willing to say they're going to blow everything up? [29:42] I think it's a little, I wouldn't say blow everything up, but right now the political mood, [29:47] whether you're right or left is some form of change and not the, not the Barack Obama change of [29:52] 2008, something more akin to, we want to tear everything down and we want to make it more in [29:57] our mold, right? Just general anger at the government. [30:00] Yeah, well, the government, the government has earned us all being angry at it. I think that's [30:07] something everybody can agree about. Scott- Anger at the government is a bipartisan issue. [30:11] I can tell you that- 100%, 100%. [30:15] Wow. I've got agreement now. Mike, you never tell me 100%. [30:18] 100%. [30:20] All right. Boys, good to see you both. Thank you very much. [30:24] See you, buddy. [30:25] For Democrats and their buddies in the left-wing media, it is Christmas in June. Santa, [30:31] Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman have delivered a new book from the New York Times. Their new book is [30:38] called Regime Change. It's a look inside Trump 2.0 and the left's last-ditch effort to make President [30:44] Trump look really bad. I mean, really bad. And to be fair, there's a number of reporters and anchors [30:54] who almost sound like sorority girls. The most important look inside the Trump White House, [31:02] you read through it and you start picking up these themes and you actually start putting your arms [31:07] around all the chaos of the first year. You have information in here from inside the situation [31:12] room where they're having a meeting to discuss the damage from the Epstein files. [31:18] Baby, when you talk about jaw-dropping, jaw-dropping. [31:23] My jaw has yet to drop. Some of the jaw-dropping material, [31:30] for example, made the rounds on The Daily Show last night. Jonathan Swan confirmed what, [31:38] frankly, no one was waiting to hear. There's a story in here that, uh, that Donald Trump called [31:45] Howard Lutnick a . Accurate. Yeah. I'm not here to speculate. [31:52] I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's accurate. He is a . [31:59] Really? That's the best? That's really the jaw-dropping information? [32:05] Haberman and Swan are phenomenal reporters. They will sell a lot of books. They will not [32:11] accomplish what so many on the left have tried to do and hope this book will do. Think of regime [32:17] change like the reflecting pool. Trump thought he could get an easy win. The project and the pool [32:24] predictably turned into a mess and now the media and Democrats will obsess over it for days, [32:29] maybe even weeks. Suddenly now CNN is interested in the reflecting pool and the algae, although they [32:34] weren't for the past 15 years there was algae in the reflecting pool because they think it hurts [32:39] the president. For example, Debbie Dingell of Michigan. The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln [32:46] Memorial. If I raise that subject, what do you say? Algae. Algae. That's all anybody talked about at home this [32:53] weekend. Really? If all my friends talked about was algae, I would think about getting new friends. [33:01] That's just me. Is the reflecting pool embarrassing? Yeah. For everybody. Especially for all the people [33:10] celebrating and relishing in it. But for Trump, the more the media yells, the more it helps him. [33:16] And there is never any real fallout. His base loves the fight. We all remember a guy named Bob Woodward [33:21] who used words like fear and rage to sell books about Trump. And Trump got reelected in 2024. [33:29] There's a group of people who love swimming in their hatred of Trump. [33:32] They buy books and evidently talk an awful lot about algae. Let's just hope none of them swim [33:40] in the algae. There's something there. First word about this in War Notes, [33:44] your chance for an inside look at the show every day. It is free. [33:47] War Notes dot com. Your first dispatch comes at 1230 with a video exclusive for subscribers [33:54] about our first thoughts of the day. I'll see you on social media at Leland Vittert. [33:59] America's youth is drinking far less than their parents. That's a good thing, right? Well, maybe not. [34:17] Welcome back. Taking risks when you're young. Stupid risks. I know a little bit about this. [34:24] This used to be a rite of passage in America. And thankfully, Instagram and Facebook didn't exist [34:30] back then. So there's no evidence. If you don't believe me, consult pretty much every great teen [34:37] movie ever made. And somehow my team put that entire thing together and did not include an animal [34:45] house clip. I don't know how that's possible. Gen Z, of course, came of age sending selfies on Snapchat [34:54] and other things on Snapchat. They have virtually no tolerance, though, for the major leaps into [34:59] adulthood. The number of young Americans that drink, work, date, or even have a driver's license [35:04] is down by double digits compared to their parents' generation. The number of Americans under 35 who [35:10] haven't moved out of their parents' house, so that now includes millennials, too, is one in three. [35:16] Great new piece from the free press describes the troubling trend this way. If life were actually more [35:23] dangerous than in the past, these increases in risk aversion would make perfect sense. But this is not [35:27] the case. In other words, the problem isn't an increase in risk. It is an increase in risk [35:32] aversion. Someone who no doubt has taken a lot of risks in her life, former Biden press office [35:40] chief of staff Yamissi Agbawale. Am I wrong? I would say I think a lot of people who end up working in [35:48] Congress than working in the White House have lived a very risk-averse life, mostly because you at one [35:53] point needed to pass a security clearance. Okay. There is that point. But what is it [35:59] about these kids who are supposedly so enlightened, but it's not just not drinking as much. It's that [36:07] few and fewer of you getting driver's licenses. Yeah, I think it's about the risk of failure. [36:12] And they've grown up in this world that's almost treated them like a bubble. And they are on social [36:18] media so much more now. And everything has to look picture-perfect. And in a sense, [36:22] maybe they feel that they need to be picture-perfect. Look, I'm not going to complain about [36:26] the teen drinking going down. That might be good. And that might be... [36:29] Well, yeah, drinking's going down, vaping's going up. But there's something to this, [36:33] though. You'd think that if people are drinking less, it's like, okay, I'm drinking less, [36:37] therefore I'm going to be more productive because I want to start a family and go out and get a house or [36:41] whatever it is. But they're not doing that. But are they going out into a world that... [36:46] And they're not going out and getting jobs. Yeah, but they're not going out into a world [36:49] that's really welcoming them with open arms. We talk about teens and like young adults staying [36:53] at home longer, but they're staying at home longer because they can't afford really to live [36:56] outside of the home. Yeah, but they're not dating. They're not trying to start a life. [37:01] Yeah, yeah. I made my best friends over martini, so he's not wrong. [37:06] But what... Okay, what is the cure for this? The cure? I'm not so sure we can go back. I mean, [37:16] a big good point he made was COVID played a huge role in this. They were infantilized in high school. [37:21] They were sent to college. Infantilized? [37:23] Infantilized, yes. Well, they were coddled as babies in high school. [37:27] They weren't really pushed to have to strive. I think COVID and remote learning really gave [37:32] people a cushion and it said, look, we just want these kids to graduate. [37:35] Then they went to academic institutions, which frankly, I think is even more cushioning. [37:39] And then they came into the workplace. They said, well, wait, why is everyone being hard on me? [37:42] Why do I have such high expectations in the workplace? They're not ready. [37:46] And what do they do when they go home? They kind of cocoon in this world of social media, [37:50] and it might be why they don't want to date. Who wants to scroll and pick left or right all day long? [37:55] Nobody's really meeting in real life. And this is interesting though, right? Because [37:59] there's this whole idea of, oh, they're drinking so much less, they must be so much healthier. [38:03] But prescriptions for antidepressants for adolescents up 46%. They're replacing [38:12] drinking, I guess, with SSRIs. Yeah. Team SSRI. [38:15] Yeah. Nobody ever made friends over antidepressants. [38:18] But there's something else happening with this generation. I think what you're saying is, [38:22] is this idea that they are coddled, not forced to live up sort of to the standards that we were, [38:28] by the way, leg up to any kid now who is forced to because they end up with security clearances [38:33] and working at the White House. But that's had a real effect. [38:37] It really has. And I think part of being social and making friends is that you also risk not making [38:44] them. You find out social cues. You find out people that you don't want to be friends with, [38:48] people that might not like you, and you end up tweaking a lot of yourself. So I think [38:52] people grow up and they don't really know who they are as a person because they haven't been thrown [38:56] out into the world and been told, hey, that's kind of weird. Maybe you should change that behavior. [39:01] Yeah. Brad Paisley had a country song about this. And it was something about like, [39:05] I can be whoever I want to be online. And then you don't have to go out into the real world and face [39:10] that risk. Missy, always good to see you. Always good to see you. Thank you very much. [39:13] One thing for tomorrow when we come back. Okay. So that is the Norwegian World Cup soccer team [39:26] doing the Viking row that has made all of their fans famous. I'm just going out on a limb here. [39:35] Evidently, they won last night. They beat Senegal 3-2. And they are now on their way to the next round. [39:43] It would appear, Katie, as though they are far better soccer players than they are rowers. [39:47] I rowed just like that at Orange Theory. So maybe I have a chance in the Viking soccer team. I don't know. [39:53] There's so much to say right now, but we're out of time. Well, maybe we can put our rowing skills to the test. [40:01] Exactly. Maybe better at rowing than soccer for me. We'll see about you, Leland. Great show. See you tomorrow.