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0:35

Today on the Town Hall Review with Hugh Hewitt,

0:37

brought to you in partnership with the Pepperdine Graduate

0:39

School of Public Policy. This week,

0:42

another heartbreaking school shooting,

0:45

this time in Nashville.

0:46

We thank our wonderful officers for everything

0:48

that they did to neutralize that threat as fast as

0:50

they did. With a crisis on our southern

0:53

border, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas

0:55

gets pressed. Hear from Senator Ted

0:57

Cruz. Yes or no, is there a crisis? I

1:00

believe I've addressed that question. So you're refusing

1:02

to answer? We'll hear from Mike Gallagher.

1:05

If you have an open border, you're going to have a crisis.

1:07

Admitting that we may have a crisis at

1:10

all is tough for Mayorkas. Ohio

1:12

Representative David Joyce. The idea

1:14

that we're going around talking about the border

1:16

being secure is something that I think he needs to

1:18

explain. And President Xi hints

1:20

of a military

1:21

escalation. Wisconsin Representative

1:24

Mike Gallagher. If there's one lesson from Ukraine,

1:26

it's that when dictators tell you what

1:28

they're going to do, we have to take

1:30

them seriously. All this and more. I'm

1:33

Hugh Hewitt. Great to be with you. Catch

1:35

my program each weekday morning live, 6 to 9

1:37

a.m. Eastern Time and on demand 24-7.

1:40

Learn more at HughHewitt.com. And

1:43

follow me on Twitter, please, at Hugh

1:45

Hewitt. Follow this program as well,

1:48

at Town Hall Review.

1:50

We begin in Nashville in the heartbreaking

1:52

story. Another school shooting, this

1:55

time at the K-6 Christian school,

1:57

the Covenant School. Associated with that

1:59

same school, the K-6 Christian school.

1:59

City's Covenant Presbyterian Church.

2:02

Three youngsters and three adults, including

2:05

the school's headmaster, all dead. Tommy

2:08

Larin lives in Nashville.

2:10

She's the host of her own program on Outkick.

2:13

Tommy joined Chris Stigall on AM990, the

2:16

answer in Philadelphia. The good news

2:18

this morning, the heroic news this morning,

2:20

is the story of a couple of Nashville's

2:22

finest who got involved and stopped this woman

2:25

before she did something even worse. Tommy,

2:27

good morning.

2:28

Thank you guys for talking about Nashville

2:31

and for keeping the spotlight

2:33

on this story. Every time I talk

2:35

about it, I do just what you did. I talk

2:37

about our brave Metro Nashville police officers

2:40

who rushed into danger, didn't even think

2:42

twice about it, making sure that they kept those

2:44

kids safe or as safe as possible considering

2:47

all the carnage and the tragedy. We

2:49

thank our Nashville officers. It's

2:51

such a sad circumstance, but our

2:53

hearts go out to the

2:55

families of victims, but we thank our

2:58

wonderful officers for everything that they did to neutralize

3:00

that threat as fast as they did.

3:02

Tommy, I don't

3:04

know Nashville well. I've only visited it once. It's a lovely

3:06

place, and I know it's become a destination for a lot

3:08

of people. It's a great place to call home and a great place

3:10

to live. I don't know much about this institution, this

3:13

Christian institution. It looks pretty big, the campus.

3:16

Yeah, it's a wonderful private

3:18

Christian school, and I'll tell you

3:21

this, in talking about everything leading

3:23

up to this and what we hope is going to be

3:25

a discussion after this tragedy,

3:27

a real honest reflection and discussion.

3:29

I don't know if you're familiar, but in Tennessee

3:32

here just recently, there was a

3:34

law passed that made it illegal

3:36

for drag queens to perform

3:39

in front of children, also made it illegal to

3:41

perform gender transition and hormone

3:43

therapy treatments on minors. There's

3:45

been a lot of discussion about that, and there's been a lot

3:47

of anger and vitriol aimed

3:50

at the Christian community over this and

3:52

over the Christian community's advocacy

3:54

for protecting children. In my

3:56

mind, no doubt that this played some kind of a role.

4:00

anti-Christian rhetoric in this country, but especially

4:02

aimed in Tennessee. So we need to get to the bottom

4:05

of all the elements here, but after

4:07

hearing something about the manifesto

4:10

of this shooter and the map that they had

4:12

of the school being a former student, there's

4:14

a lot of connections that are going to be made over the next couple

4:16

of days, and we hope that the mainstream media doesn't

4:19

ignore them just because they're not politically convenient

4:21

at this time.

4:22

One thing we know, and you just mentioned the manifesto,

4:25

apparently this person wrote extensively

4:27

about what she intended to do, and I find

4:29

it kind of interesting that dribs and drabs

4:32

are being let out about that when I'd sure like

4:34

to get my hands on the whole thing because I bet we'd find

4:36

Tommy, that written in that manifesto

4:38

is probably some pretty detailed

4:41

trouble, maybe even hatred directed

4:44

at just exactly who you were talking about,

4:46

those of faith.

4:48

Right. Well, I do have confidence because

4:50

this occurred in Nashville, Tennessee that we will get

4:52

to the bottom of it. You know, I don't think that they're going to

4:55

safeguard this for political reasons,

4:57

quite like they would do in other cities and other states. So I do think

4:59

that we're going to get some answers.

5:02

Metro Nashville has been very forthright about

5:04

it. And again, the way the mainstream media

5:06

is going out of their way to talk about

5:09

how some are misgendering the shooter and

5:11

this, that and the other. We really need to talk

5:13

about though, is mental illness. And there

5:15

is a huge problem right now with the

5:18

radical arm of the LGBTQ movement

5:20

and their targeting of adolescents, young people,

5:22

the confusion that they're throwing on these young people, they don't

5:25

even know what they are, who they are, what they want to be.

5:27

And it's deeply disturbing.

5:29

It's a conversation that needs to

5:31

be had. And I know that in Nashville,

5:33

we'll definitely be having that.

5:35

This transgender thing is an

5:37

issue. I've heard gay folks explain

5:39

that to me. It certainly is. Yeah. And it's always

5:41

so difficult when we have to talk about it because there's so

5:44

much political correctness, we're going to step into

5:46

a landmine. But we need to remove that

5:50

cloud and that muddiness out of all this and have the real discussion.

5:52

They're targeting young people. They're targeting children

5:54

to exploit them. And this is not your

5:56

average gay community. This is something

5:59

completely different. This is targeting

6:01

young people telling them they don't know what gender

6:03

they are, telling that they should do hormone

6:06

therapy and go to extreme measures. You know,

6:08

this is another level, and I agree with you. There's

6:10

a lot of folks that I know in the

6:12

LGBT community that are saying, hey, listen,

6:14

this is not us. This is not what we stand for. We

6:17

don't talk about this as it relates to children.

6:19

This is something that should only be an adult conversation

6:22

to be had. So I agree with you.

6:24

And I hope that the mainstream gay

6:26

community gets more active and more

6:29

vocal about this because it

6:31

puts them in a bad light that they don't deserve.

6:33

So I agree with you, and we need to have discussions

6:36

about mental health as it pertains to our youth. You

6:39

know, this is the breakdown of the American family, the breakdown

6:41

of the American church, and they're going

6:43

after our kids. So in my opinion, there's

6:45

nothing off the table when we have this discussion.

6:48

On the other side of this, and I know you've

6:50

addressed this on your show, it is remarkable

6:52

to me as we celebrate women this month that

6:54

there's so many on the left willing to embrace men

6:56

who want

6:57

to compete as women and

6:59

beat women and expect us all to shut up

7:01

about it. That's remarkable. It is.

7:04

Where

7:04

are the feminists? You know, the

7:06

whole Women's History Month, the women's

7:08

rights movement, should be about ensuring

7:11

rights for women and taking away

7:13

opportunities, titles, and accolades from

7:16

women to give them to biological men is the

7:18

exact antithesis of what the women's

7:20

rights and feminist movement should stand for. But

7:22

again, as we were just discussing, it's this rainbow

7:25

mafia effect. That's what I call

7:27

the radical LGBTQ plus,

7:30

plus, plus movement. I call them the rainbow

7:32

mafia and for good reason, because

7:34

they allow this mind plague

7:36

to become mainstream and normalized. And

7:39

you even see ESPN honoring this leotop

7:41

is over actual women who are

7:43

competing in sports. You know, at this rate,

7:46

women's sports will cease to exist because you're

7:48

going to have a whole lot of men that are going to see

7:50

this as an opportunity. And we're

7:52

not going to see actual women being given

7:54

the credit that they deserve for their hard work.

7:57

This is a snowball effect. It's not just one

7:59

or two. it's becoming increasingly more

8:02

common that we see this in women's sports. So

8:04

somebody needs to stand up and do something before

8:06

the rainbow mafia runs roughshod

8:08

over our entire country.

8:10

You know, you mentioned this and I'm really glad to hear it. You're very

8:12

confident that the Nashville police

8:15

will release all that we need to know. I mean, it seems they

8:17

were very forthcoming, very quick to release video. You

8:20

don't anticipate that they're going to politically sit on

8:22

any of this. We'll, we'll know everything we need to know about it

8:24

in due course.

8:25

I think we'll know a lot because one thing

8:27

I know about Tennessee Nashville might be

8:29

kind of a liberal area, right?

8:31

Cause we're an arts and music community, but

8:34

Nashville is in Tennessee and Tennessee

8:36

is very red and very conservative. And

8:38

like I said, we just passed that bill protecting children

8:41

from the rainbow mafia. I expect we're

8:43

going to get some transparency on this because I think Tennessee

8:45

lawmakers are going to make sure that happens.

8:47

Our nation's

8:49

southern border remains a point of crisis.

8:52

School shootings, of course, are a risk for our young

8:54

people, but so is fentanyl

8:57

and it's streaming over the southern border

8:59

in amounts never seen before. Homeland

9:02

security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

9:04

appeared this week before the Senate's judiciary

9:07

committee.

9:08

Mike Gallagher looked at a lively interchange.

9:10

Listen to this. First of all, count

9:13

how many times Senator Cruz asks secretary Mayorkas

9:19

if there's a crisis at the border. Yes

9:22

or no? Not a tough question. You

9:24

think you'd be able to acknowledge it? A spoiler

9:26

alert.

9:27

It was five. Is

9:30

there a crisis at our southern border? Senator,

9:34

there is a very so that that's a yes or no question.

9:36

Very significant. Is there a crisis? Senator,

9:39

there's a very significant challenge. I think your microphone

9:42

is not on.

9:44

There is a very significant challenge that we

9:46

are facing. Yes or no. Is there a crisis?

9:48

I believe I've addressed that question. So you're refusing

9:50

to answer. Senator, there is a very

9:53

significant challenge and will you answer if there's

9:55

a crisis? Therefore, we are dedicating

9:58

the resource. Okay. So you're refusing to answer.

9:59

Well, Secretary Mayorkas, I'll tell

10:02

you someone who is willing to answer, which

10:05

is your and President Biden's chief

10:07

of the border patrol in a sworn deposition

10:10

in July of 2022 when asked, would

10:13

you agree chief Ortiz that the Southern border is

10:15

currently in crisis? Answer. Yes.

10:18

Notice none of those wiggle words, none of that equivocation.

10:20

One word, one syllable. Yes. Are

10:22

you willing to speak with the same clarity as chief Ortiz?

10:25

Is there a crisis at our Southern border? Yes or no?

10:27

Senator, I'm very proud to work alongside. You

10:29

refused

10:29

to answer five times.

10:32

So then Senator Cruz decided to

10:35

really lay into him. I've

10:38

been on the Rio Grande and I've seen dead

10:41

bodies floating there who drowned because

10:44

of your refusal to do your job. You don't

10:46

even know how many have died. What

10:49

do you say to the Texas farmers and ranchers

10:51

who find pregnant ladies dead on

10:53

their property, who find toddlers dead

10:56

on their property? What do you say to them? I say

10:58

that is why precisely

11:00

we are taking it to the smuggling organization.

11:02

You are not. That is simply not true.

11:05

Now, you know, I know

11:08

Cruz's frustration stems from his inability

11:10

to answer basic questions. What's

11:13

he afraid of? This ought to be a bipartisan issue.

11:16

There shouldn't, partisan politics shouldn't play

11:18

a role in this.

11:19

But when you've got one side that

11:22

wants open borders, well,

11:24

you got a problem. It's like the way we started

11:26

the hour with the reporting from the Washington

11:28

Post that the that the state

11:30

attorney there doesn't want to prosecute

11:33

and hasn't prosecuted 67 percent

11:36

of the criminals who've been arrested by the police.

11:39

If you have an open border, you're going to have

11:41

a crisis because millions of people are going

11:43

to pour into the country. And

11:46

then finally, the the game set

11:48

match by Ted

11:50

Cruz over Alejandro Mayorkas.

11:55

Mr. Secretary, I want to say to you right now, it

11:57

is your behavior is disgraceful.

12:00

and the deaths the children assaulted,

12:02

the children raped, they are at

12:04

your feet, and if you had integrity

12:06

you would resign. And

12:09

I will tell you the men and women of the Border Patrol, they've

12:11

never had a political leader undermine them.

12:13

They despise you, Mr. Secretary, because

12:15

you're willing to let children be raped

12:19

to follow political orders. This is a crisis,

12:21

it's a disgrace, and you won't even admit

12:24

this human tragedy is a crisis.

12:27

You know, that message

12:30

about their deaths,

12:32

the rapes are at their doorstep,

12:34

what would you say to a prosecutor

12:37

who won't prosecute criminals

12:40

under some goofy social justice

12:43

narrative? My gosh,

12:47

how would you like to have a loved one killed

12:50

by somebody who just got out of prison? The

12:52

guy that plunged the knife into the head

12:55

of Senator Rand Paul's top staffer?

12:58

He had gotten out of jail hours

13:00

before. They let him out early.

13:03

How many times have we seen that song played

13:06

before in America, huh? My

13:08

goodness. Coming up,

13:11

Ohio Representative David Joyce. The

13:13

idea that we're going around talking about the

13:15

border being secure is something that I think he

13:17

needs to explain. When the Town Hall

13:20

Review returns in a moment.

13:28

That's

13:52

publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.

14:02

Welcome back to the Town Hall Review with

14:04

Hugh Hewitt. Build a wall on

14:06

our southern border. I've been saying it for some 20

14:09

years now. It made sense then in

14:11

the years of W, President George W.

14:13

Bush. It makes a ton more sense

14:15

now. I turn to Representative

14:18

David Joyce, the key leader to watch. Joyce

14:20

is now the chair of the Subcommittee on Appropriations

14:23

for Homeland Security of the House Committee on

14:25

the Appropriations Process.

14:27

David Joyce joined my program earlier this

14:29

week. Talk to me about Homeland Security

14:32

then. That means that my orchids was there

14:34

recently, right? Is he in there for the budget

14:36

request?

14:37

He's in this morning as a matter of fact, very timely.

14:40

Yesterday we had a director from

14:42

CISA and also from TSA

14:45

and then today he's coming in. Are you going to talk

14:47

to him about the fence, the wall, the border

14:49

barriers that are absolutely necessary

14:51

to send a signal? It's the outward manifestation

14:54

of an inward resolve to control the border.

14:56

Yes, and the fact that we let all these contracts

14:59

and we're paying the contractors to do nothing and letting

15:01

the steel rot there on the ground just makes

15:04

no sense. The idea that we're going around talking

15:06

about the border being secure is something that

15:08

I think he needs to explain. I've explained

15:10

to the other members on the committee, though, what you've

15:12

got to say is you ask money for X, you

15:15

have produced Y, tell

15:18

us what the discrepancy is. Why are you not solving

15:20

these problems? Why aren't you doing the things that

15:22

are necessary to secure our border?

15:24

Let's talk a little bit about whether

15:26

or not this Congress is going to get anything done. I just

15:28

had Olivia Beavers-Onch, fine reporter from

15:31

Politico. Great. There are

15:33

tensions within the caucus. Expand on that,

15:35

Congressman Joyce. Are there? You

15:37

know, it's a growing pain, but

15:40

the one thing that a decade I've been here, we're finally

15:42

starting to see, although the craziness

15:45

that took place the third through the sixth, so Kevin was

15:47

finally appointed, this is the first time we've

15:49

had all the different factions at

15:51

one table discussing how we're going

15:53

to move the ball forward and get to 218. And

15:57

that's a very important aspect of this that has

15:59

been lost. over the in the past in working

16:01

together instead of having things come

16:04

from the speaker's office directly to the floor working

16:06

on doing our job in committees doing

16:09

our job as a whole to try to process

16:11

the bills like and get to an agreement and

16:13

what it's going to take to get the debt ceiling done

16:15

and other things and I think Kevin's made

16:17

some tremendous progress there but

16:20

you know there are some growing pains in that

16:22

obviously they're going to be growing pains

16:24

and I just want the Main Street

16:26

caucus of which you are a member and I think

16:28

I'd probably be a member of it too if I were in a member of

16:30

Congress to get along with the Freedom

16:33

Caucus and then can't you do between

16:35

the various caucuses what you just discussed among

16:38

the various demands for

16:40

appropriation give me your top three can't

16:42

we satisfy every caucus in the Republican

16:45

conference

16:46

and that's what we're trying to get to actually and

16:49

an amazing part of this is the other day they were

16:51

talking you know we were trying to talk through the budget process

16:53

and they're the way that Kevin calls the five families

16:56

and I'm happen to be the chair of the Republican

16:58

governance group so I have a seat

17:00

at the table and as they got through with it all I said

17:02

look you guys I appreciate what you're saying but

17:04

when you do a 10-year budget and you talk about

17:06

the cuts that are going to be made all the 10 members

17:09

that Lee Zeldin brought to the table are

17:11

all going to be out next time they're all Biden districts

17:13

that we won you know let's talk about this

17:15

year let's talk about

17:16

what it takes to get to 218 and keep the 218 assembled

17:19

in about two minutes later Scott Perry goes you know I agree

17:21

with Dave Joyce the head of the Freedom Caucus

17:24

we got to make sure that our policy is consistent to

17:26

bring everybody on board and get everybody through

17:28

the next election too without messing with their own

17:31

people if you're anywhere in

17:33

the center to write the center to conservative you

17:35

ought to be hoping that this narrow GOP

17:37

majority in the House of Representatives

17:39

get some stuff done in this Congress because

17:42

the states going into 2024 could hardly

17:44

be higher exhibit a let's

17:46

look again at the threat the threat

17:48

from China here's another Mike Gallagher

17:51

this one is chair of the new select committee

17:53

in the House on the Chinese Communist Party

17:56

chairman Gallagher was a guest on my program

17:59

the first come

17:59

from John Pomfret and Matt Pottinger. I believe

18:02

Pottinger was one of your first witnesses. Chinese

18:04

leader Xi Jinping says he is preparing for

18:06

war at the annual meeting of China's

18:09

parliament and its top political advisory in

18:11

March. Xi wove the theme of war readiness

18:13

through four separate speeches, in

18:15

one instance telling his generals to dare to fight.

18:18

Then we drop down to Orville Shaul from

18:20

the Hoover Institution. I don't think he's been before your

18:22

committee yet. I think Xi is a purilinist.

18:26

He has certain aspirations to reduce the

18:28

inequalities in Chinese society, but

18:29

his real focus is on building

18:32

the wealth and power of the state. And he

18:34

views party organizations as the key to the goal.

18:36

Lenin too was a party builder, in

18:39

essence repudiating the dang approach. Do you

18:41

agree with both that, preparing for war and

18:43

party over people?

18:45

Xi Jinping and other members of the Politburo

18:48

say one thing to a Western

18:50

audience, one thing that the denizens

18:52

of Davos are desperate to believe, but they

18:55

say an entirely different thing

18:57

to other party members,

18:59

to

19:00

their populace. And Pottinger in his testimony

19:02

talked about it as one of the great

19:05

magic tricks of the modern

19:07

era. And that Chairman Xi would actually

19:10

agree on that point because he refers to the party's

19:12

propaganda and its influence

19:14

activities, its united front work as a magic

19:16

weapon for advancing the regime's interests.

19:18

And Pottinger went on to say, you

19:21

could call the CCP the Harry

19:23

Houdini of Marxist-Leninist regimes,

19:25

the David Copperfield of communism, or the Chris

19:28

Angel of autocracy. So I commend his

19:30

testimony to everybody. And

19:32

for a while now, Xi Jinping seems to be

19:34

preparing his populace to endure

19:37

enormous economic pain and

19:39

sacrifice that would ensue

19:42

if they got into a confrontation with

19:44

the West. This is why the cult of the

19:46

Korean war has become so popular in

19:48

communist China as an example of

19:51

a moment when Mao risked everything

19:53

to confront the West. And though the Chinese

19:55

people had to endure great pain and sacrifice, they

19:58

emerged as a great power on the world. world

20:00

stage. So all of this is very concerning. This

20:02

is why we need to do everything possible that enhanced

20:05

deterrence and help Taiwan defend

20:07

itself. And I'm looking forward to joining Speaker

20:09

McCarthy as we greet President

20:11

Sian Wang of Taiwan next week. I

20:14

want to ask you about

20:15

what Pottinger and Pomfret

20:17

said. He's preparing for war.

20:19

Now

20:20

that is going to shock a lot of Americans.

20:23

You know, they spend 300 billion

20:25

dollars a year. We spend 800 billion and they say, well,

20:27

they're not catching up. They don't have to spend 800

20:30

billion. All they got to do is get Taiwan. We got to

20:32

defend the world. So if you do a preparing

20:34

for war hearing, I'll listen

20:36

to all that. I think it will shock a lot of Americans,

20:38

Mr. Chairman. I know you, you, you touched on

20:41

it in the first hearing, but

20:43

when Pomfret and Pottinger

20:45

say preparing for war,

20:47

we didn't listen to Hitler in the thirties, right?

20:49

We did not listen to it. If believe people,

20:52

what they say. And do you think that's

20:54

true that he's preparing for a war?

20:57

Well, I do. I don't think it means

21:00

necessarily that war is imminent. A

21:02

lot depends on what we do. If we get

21:04

our act together, as I believe we can

21:06

with the right leadership in the United States,

21:09

I think we can deter a war.

21:11

But we have a tendency to mirror

21:13

image. We have a tendency to assume that

21:16

dictators like Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin

21:18

play by the same rules or

21:21

care about the same values that we in

21:23

the West do. And if you examine the rhetoric of

21:25

the Biden administration leading up to Russia's invasion

21:28

of Ukraine, you'll see a lot of naive

21:30

thinking, a lot of utopian assumptions

21:32

about the fact that something like this couldn't

21:34

happen in the modern era. And I

21:36

fear a lot of the same naivety

21:39

is guiding our view on China

21:41

right now, which is why Pomfret and Pottinger's

21:43

analysis is so important, because in

21:45

essence, what they're saying is that we have to

21:47

take what Xi Jinping says

21:50

seriously, that if there's one lesson from Ukraine,

21:52

is that when dictators tell you what they're

21:55

going to do,

21:56

we have to take them seriously. And repeatedly

21:58

Xi Jinping has said that he wants to

22:01

reunify Taiwan with the mainland

22:03

by force if necessary. It

22:05

would be foolish to discount that possibility. Now,

22:07

no doubt, he'd prefer to do it through

22:10

non-kinetic or non-military means.

22:12

He'd prefer to do it through what President

22:14

Tsai of Taiwan calls cognitive warfare

22:16

or political warfare or via economic

22:19

coercion. But I think he's prepared

22:21

to endure enormous

22:23

pain and loss of life in order to

22:26

secure his legacy

22:27

as a paramount leader in the CCP pantheon

22:30

on par with Mao. That's what we're dealing with here.

22:33

Coming up, the climate cult, the

22:36

energy crisis, and the fight for our energy

22:38

future. They've restricted fossil fuel

22:40

investment, production, and transportation

22:43

on the lie that these unreliable renewables

22:45

would replace them, and it's failed. And so now

22:47

we're short of fossil fuels, and we have a global

22:49

energy crisis. When the town hall review

22:52

with Yu Yu at returns in a moment, stay with

22:54

us.

22:57

Hi, it's Mike Gallagher. I start every

22:59

day by reading through the stories at Daybreak

23:02

Insider. It's a look at today's most compelling stories

23:04

and provides responses from key conservatives

23:06

in media and politics. Over a quarter

23:09

million people get Daybreak Insider by

23:11

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23:13

no cost. Go to daybreakinsider.com

23:16

and simply plug in your email. That's daybreakinsider.com.

23:19

In five minutes, Yu will be the most informed

23:22

person in the office. That's daybreakinsider.com.

23:31

Welcome back to the town hall review with

23:33

Yu Hewitt. Brought to you in partnership

23:36

with our sponsor, the Pepperdine Graduate

23:38

School of Public Policy. In

23:40

the later years of President Donald Trump's term, he

23:43

and his entire administration posted rightly

23:46

of America's hard fought for and won

23:48

energy independence. The average

23:50

gas price was $2.17 a gallon. All

23:54

of that, our energy independence, the

23:56

reasonable prices at the pump, it was

23:59

willfully

23:59

relinquished by President Biden. And

24:02

now he and his team, the Biden

24:04

team, do not want to turn back.

24:06

Like President Biden's climate czar, former

24:09

Secretary of State John Kerry, made

24:11

it clear as gas prices have continued

24:13

to soar. President Biden has made

24:15

a very significant commitment

24:18

for the United States to be, first

24:20

of all, power sector

24:24

carbon free by 2035. I've

24:27

called it a climate cult. Alex

24:29

Epstein is pushing back against

24:31

this movement, which he sees as increasingly

24:34

religious. He's the author of Fossil

24:36

Future, why global human flourishing

24:39

requires more oil, coal and natural

24:41

gas, not less. He

24:43

was a guest to my friend, Dennis Prager. But

24:46

I just read a report in

24:50

a left wing

24:50

source that it's

24:54

going to be so long before we

24:57

can actually transition to

24:59

what is called a green energy

25:01

world. Are you familiar with

25:03

this latest report of saying that?

25:07

Well, you're seeing different people. So, you

25:09

know, there is a big UN person recently

25:11

who had said something to that effect. But

25:14

what's basically happened is there's been this mythology.

25:16

There's sort of two ideas behind

25:19

we should rapidly eliminate fossil fuels. One

25:21

is they're causing this climate catastrophe

25:23

that will become an apocalypse. Number

25:26

two is that they're rapidly replaceable by

25:28

so-called renewables, mainly solar

25:30

and wind. And what we've seen is all

25:32

these countries have invested huge amounts in

25:34

these renewables. They've given them huge favoritism

25:37

and they've restricted fossil fuel investment,

25:39

production and transportation on

25:41

the lie that these unreliable renewables

25:44

would replace them and it's failed. And so now

25:46

we're short of fossil fuels and we have a global

25:48

energy crisis. And so the idea

25:50

that, oh, now it's going to work to rapidly replace them

25:53

is even delusional

25:55

people are stop it are not as diluted anymore.

25:58

Really? That's

26:00

happy to hear. When

26:02

GM announced- I mean, some of them, some of

26:04

them are not as- Right, okay. John Kerry, Joe Biden, okay.

26:07

Unrealistic. Correct. Thank

26:10

you for modifying it.

26:12

GM announced that by 2030,

26:14

it will not be producing anything except

26:16

electric cars.

26:18

A, do you believe that's true? B, why

26:20

are they doing it?

26:23

I doubt it's true. I mean, of course, Tesla

26:25

only produces battery cars, so it's possible

26:27

to be such a manufacturer. I mean,

26:30

I think the basic thing that people don't get

26:32

is that there's no scalable way to replace

26:34

gasoline cars with EVs, and

26:37

so you can have some minority of people doing it,

26:39

but if everyone tries to do it, you're going to run into massive

26:41

shortages of all the raw materials. We're

26:43

already having skyrocketing lithium prices at

26:46

a tiny scale of EVs. So

26:48

why are they doing this? I think a combination

26:50

of status, trying to anticipate

26:53

future

26:53

government mandates, and

26:57

I think they probably haven't thought through

26:59

the scalability issues. I doubt

27:01

Mary Barra has fully ... I think that's who runs

27:03

GM, has fully thought through these

27:06

issues. What does a scalability

27:08

issue mean?

27:09

So a scalability issue means

27:12

how do you produce something at a given price

27:14

or a lower price on a much larger

27:16

scale? And one thing that all of these green

27:18

things have in common is they involve many

27:21

multiples times more basic elements

27:23

than we're using today. So lithium is an

27:26

example where people are talking about we need 100,

27:28

1,000 times more lithium.

27:30

We never have that kind of scaling and

27:32

keeping the cost low, and we're already

27:34

seeing with a modest amount of scaling that

27:37

the cost is going sky high. So whenever

27:39

you impose a

27:39

very artificial crash timetable on

27:42

the market, you get these drastic price

27:44

increases, which these people are not factoring

27:46

in.

27:47

So I'm going to ask you another question related

27:49

to the electric car. It

27:55

might be just a very simplistic, not just

27:57

simple question, but I don't care. I

28:00

don't know the answer, so I'm asking you. Since

28:03

we're already experiencing, you and I both

28:05

live in California,

28:07

we're already experiencing brownouts

28:09

almost every summer

28:11

where simply the electricity dies for

28:14

a certain number of hours in one

28:16

of the most advanced democracies

28:18

in the history of the world and

28:20

one of the richest and this

28:22

is happening as well in Germany.

28:25

So where is all the electricity

28:27

going to come from to power

28:30

all these cars? It's

28:33

unfortunately not a dumb question or a naive

28:35

question. It's a question that people haven't really

28:38

thought through and one of my big points in fossil

28:40

future is this idea that we're going to rapidly

28:42

replace fossil fuels is not a really

28:44

thought through idea by people with a real

28:47

plan. Otherwise they would just compete on the market

28:49

and perform. It's by people with

28:51

a deep hostility toward energy, not

28:53

just fossil fuels but also nuclear and hydro who

28:56

are just looking for a rationalization. So they

28:58

say, yeah, okay, we'll build solar and wind, don't worry about

29:00

us getting rid of fossil fuels, don't worry about shutting down the pipeline,

29:03

don't

29:03

worry about banning leasing on federal lands

29:05

because we have this magical solution and then

29:07

you look at the details and it's like you haven't thought

29:09

this through at all because you're already making

29:12

electricity more expensive, more

29:14

scarce, less reliable. It's

29:17

a hostility toward all forms of

29:19

energy. Or Alex Epstein when

29:22

the Town Hall review with you, Hewitt returns in a moment.

29:26

As the Pepperdine Graduate School of Public

29:28

Policy celebrates our 25th

29:30

anniversary year, please watch our new

29:32

promotional video based on Ronald Reagan's 1976

29:35

radio address Shaping the

29:37

World for 100 Years to Come on

29:40

our Pepperdine SPP YouTube channel.

29:42

And if you know someone who's thinking about graduate

29:44

school this fall, we welcome applications

29:47

at publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.

29:50

That's publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.

30:02

Welcome back to the Town Hall Review with Hugh

30:04

Hewitt. Americans are coming to grips

30:06

with the fact that the environmental left,

30:08

the climate cult, as I've called it,

30:10

is not really about a forward-looking plan to

30:12

help humanity prosper in the future without fossil

30:15

fuels.

30:16

How do you know? Well, they never talk about nuclear

30:18

power, for example. That's part of their cannot-do

30:21

list as well.

30:22

In fact, with control of both chambers of

30:24

Congress and the presidency as well,

30:26

the environmental elites in today's Democratic Party

30:29

have had an opportunity to let their agenda play

30:31

out.

30:31

And humanity has not been helped.

30:35

Let's pick up on Dennis' conversation

30:37

with Alex Epstein, author of Fossil

30:39

Future, where

30:40

he argues that the environmental movement really

30:43

has an anti-human aspect to it. Why

30:45

do you argue that? I know it's a big theme of

30:47

yours, so elaborate.

30:49

So the easy

30:51

thing to think is that the anti-fossil fuel

30:54

movement is just really focused on

30:56

CO2 emissions, and they're just so concerned

30:59

that our rising CO2 levels that we've

31:01

caused by our CO2 emissions from fossil fuels,

31:03

that that's making the world a bad

31:05

place. But we see, wait a second, they

31:08

also oppose nuclear, which is the most promising

31:10

and proven alternative to fossil fuels. They

31:12

oppose hydro, which is the next one after that.

31:15

And then with solar wind and batteries, they

31:18

oppose mining, which needs to

31:19

be scaled up massively, and they oppose

31:22

massive amounts of development, which are needed for

31:24

transmission lines and for building the things. And

31:27

so what you see is the common denominator in

31:29

this anti-fossil fuel movement is

31:31

not a concern about fossil fuels. It's

31:33

a hostility toward all forms

31:35

of energy because all forms

31:37

of energy involve impacting nature.

31:40

And the core thing I say about this in Fossil Futures,

31:43

the goal that's animating the green movement

31:46

and in diluted form much of the population

31:48

is not advancing

31:49

human flourishing on Earth, but eliminating

31:52

human impact on Earth. But

31:54

the deep hostility toward human life,

31:57

this is something you see emerging. Yeah, I mean, you see

31:59

it with Rousseau.

31:59

So you see with a lot of the people who

32:02

have resentment over the successes

32:04

of industrialization, I think there's a lot

32:06

of envy there. And a lot of people like the

32:08

idea that human impact is bad because

32:10

even though it makes them bad, it makes us

32:13

worse.

32:14

Alex Epstein knows

32:16

a tremendous amount, but he understands

32:19

a tremendous amount.

32:21

The animating impulse, you've

32:24

really explained it well, is

32:27

the opposite of human flourishing. It's

32:30

like between the contest of nature

32:33

and humans, they're rooting for nature.

32:37

And now you have, by the way, it's very

32:39

interesting, you're the founder of the Center for Industrial

32:41

Progress, but your project is

32:44

the Human Flourishing Project, correct?

32:47

It's a podcast of mine.

32:49

And what is the name of the podcast?

32:52

It's called the Human Flourishing Project.

32:54

And the basic idea is human flourishing is

32:56

the theme of my work on energy, but I like studying

32:59

it in other areas. So I have a podcast where

33:01

I discuss it in other areas.

33:03

Give me an example of another area.

33:06

Well, a big area that I focus

33:08

on is actually our creative and productive

33:10

life. I'm a big fan of what I call

33:12

relaxed productivity, which is the idea

33:15

that we should produce tremendous amounts of value,

33:17

but really enjoy the process instead

33:19

of just being stressed by it all the time.

33:22

And it's something I plan to write a book on at some

33:24

point in the not too distant future. And so that's

33:26

kind of, I think one key aspect of flourishing

33:29

that's misunderstood is that productive

33:32

work can really make you happy, but it has

33:34

to be approached a certain way.

33:36

And I think, you know, you study a lot

33:38

of these kinds of things on the happiness hour, which

33:40

is, you know, my favorite part of your show. And

33:42

I'm very interested in these kinds of issues. And

33:44

I integrate them all under human flourishing.

33:48

I love it. I love the

33:50

name of the podcast. Is that how people find

33:52

you? They just type in human flourishing project.

33:55

Yeah. If you just type it in on Apple,

33:57

I've been a little bit delinquent in new episodes, but I

34:00

think they're 98 episodes, so you got

34:02

plenty to count out. Right, so you could binge watch

34:04

it for a while, yes, exactly.

34:07

The book is Fossil

34:10

Future, why global

34:12

human flourishing requires more oil,

34:14

et cetera. Unfortunately,

34:18

China agrees with you. That's

34:21

the irony.

34:23

And so while we

34:24

and Germany and other countries

34:27

start impoverishing ourselves and

34:29

pushing ourselves into terrible inflation

34:33

over energy, they're increasing

34:35

their use of coal, for example.

34:38

Is that correct?

34:40

Yeah, for sure. This is one of the big motivations

34:42

for me to write the book is we're not going

34:44

to pursue global net zero. That's not a realistic

34:46

possibility. What is a realistic possibility

34:49

is what I call unilateral disempowerment.

34:51

So disempowerment means going from a state

34:53

of empowerment, which means you have cost-effective

34:56

energy and modern life, to a state

34:58

where you have less of it or none

35:00

of it. So a place that has been disempowered as Venezuela,

35:03

primarily by socialism. And

35:05

what's happening in the US is we're foregoing

35:07

fossil fuels. We're trying to forego nuclear.

35:10

To some extent, we have hostility toward hydro. We're

35:13

supposedly trying to replace them with unreliable

35:15

solar wind, but even those have opposition. And

35:17

what's happening is so we are disempowering

35:20

while China is empowering with

35:22

an explicit goal of world

35:24

domination by 2049. And

35:27

mind you, they control the entire supply

35:29

chain for green energy, which is something that people

35:31

don't think about when they talk about our dependence

35:34

on fossil fuels. That's nothing compared

35:36

to our dependence on China for solar

35:39

panels, wind turbines, and batteries, which even if

35:41

they were cost-effective, which they're

35:43

not for producing electricity on a large scale,

35:45

they would be disastrously dependent

35:48

on China's whims and manipulation.

35:52

Wow. I was thinking the

35:54

other day about this. If there

35:56

were a,

35:57

not even a military conflict,

35:59

but an-

35:59

economic war with China, the

36:02

amount that we are dependent upon

36:05

China,

36:06

I mean somebody told me just recently we

36:08

get our vitamin C from China. So

36:14

your point is

36:16

not new to me but I didn't realize

36:20

even the the green world

36:22

is dependent upon especially especially

36:26

the green world. But here's here's

36:28

the kicker. Especially

36:30

the green world is dependent upon China

36:33

which is completely okay with being dependent

36:36

on coal.

36:37

Yeah and so that's part of the fallacy of green

36:40

energy is it involves you know Chinese

36:42

coal, Chinese slave labor, Chinese

36:44

low environmental standards and so

36:46

it's part of the reason why I say it's not a serious

36:49

attempt at energy it's just a rationalization

36:51

for people who have hostility toward energy in general,

36:54

energy in general and then human impact in general.

36:57

That's exactly right. So

37:02

explain this I think you

37:04

have a loot I know you've alluded to

37:06

it so I

37:08

believe France is

37:11

get 60% of its energy from nuclear power.

37:13

Electricity.

37:14

Sorry. Electricity not energy. Good thank you. It's

37:17

electricity. Thank you. Where does it get its energy

37:19

from? Well oil.

37:22

So it's where is it getting

37:24

its oil from that's what I meant.

37:27

Oh I don't know exactly where they're in. Okay

37:29

all right fine. No they banned fracking. So

37:32

they get six they banned fracking that's fascinating.

37:35

Coming up. There's a deep like

37:37

hatred of humanity. A few more minutes

37:39

with Alex Epstein and fossil future

37:42

in the final segment of the town hall review with Hugh

37:44

Hewitt.

37:45

Stay with it.

37:59

Welcome back to the town hall review with you Hewitt,

38:02

the contemporary effort to go green

38:04

with renewable energy sources. Of course, it is

38:07

not unique to the United States. Alex

38:09

Epstein and Dennis Prager turned to Europe

38:12

in their conversation on the book. Fossil

38:14

future. So 60% of

38:17

the electricity of France

38:19

is nuclear. What, why did

38:22

Germany

38:24

destroy or abandon its nuclear

38:26

power?

38:28

Well, I think largely because of this lie

38:30

that unreliable solar and wind could rapidly

38:33

replace reliable nuclear

38:35

and hydro. Right. That's right. So

38:38

they felt like we can get some status in the wake

38:40

of Fukushima, which killed nobody by radiation

38:42

by shutting down our nuclear plants.

38:45

Uh huh. So they really, they've

38:48

bought the

38:50

nonsense that you could

38:52

depend on solar and wind.

38:54

Yeah. Although interestingly, you know, one of their major power

38:56

sources that's unheralded is they use wood

38:58

pellets often coming, I think from the U S

39:01

at least Europe uses a lot of this to hit their,

39:03

their targets. Europe uses a lot of

39:05

wood that we chopped down using oil

39:08

transport, using oil, and then they burn it with

39:10

a lot of emissions and they call it renewable and

39:12

pretend it's solar and wind. Would

39:14

you say environmentalism? I

39:17

mean, not the idea that we should be concerned

39:19

with the environment, just environmentalism

39:22

is a secular religion. Yeah. I mean,

39:24

I think it's, I mean, I don't even think

39:26

it deserves to be called secular, but I think it's a primitive

39:29

anti-human, uh, religion

39:31

and the concern with the environment, I think is

39:33

a vague way that they want us to think about it. It's

39:35

really believe, believe that we should sacrifice

39:38

to the non-human.

39:40

Which is nature. The rest of nature though,

39:42

I think of we're the best part of nature.

39:44

So it's really a hatred of the human part

39:46

of nature. So it's a fascinating thing

39:49

about the left.

39:50

They, most of these people

39:52

are, are overwhelmingly the,

39:56

the heads of the environmentalist activists.

39:59

movements are white,

40:01

they're generally rich. So

40:03

they hate themselves for being white and they

40:05

hate themselves for being human.

40:08

There's something very sick going on. It

40:11

is very sick. And you know, Douglas Murray has

40:13

this new book, The War on the West, which I thought was

40:15

really good. And he really identifies how the hostility

40:18

toward the West is not about the things they

40:21

say because racism is much worse other

40:23

places, slavery was much worse other places.

40:25

There's a deep like hatred of

40:28

humanity. And I think a lot of it is envy driven

40:30

some human beings who feel inferior like

40:33

the idea like ideas that make their

40:35

superiors inferior.

40:37

That's the Israel test

40:39

of George Gilder.

40:41

Interesting. Yes. Test

40:44

yourself how you react to those who

40:46

are more successful than you. Do

40:48

you resent and hate them or

40:50

do you want to emulate them? To

40:53

him, that is the ultimate human test.

40:56

Thank you for joining us for the town hall review with

40:58

you. You

40:59

catch up on earlier episodes at our website,

41:01

townhallreview.com and sign

41:03

up for a daily dose of the best in talk radio.

41:06

Special thanks to executive producer Russell Shubin,

41:09

producers, David Pouchon, Michael cook,

41:12

Adam Gantner, Adam Ramsey, check

41:14

up or doing it. And Dwayne Patterson. Let me

41:17

say thanks once again to our sponsor, the

41:19

Pepperdine graduate school of public policy.

41:22

I'm Hugh Hewitt. Thank you for joining us.