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0:35

Today on the Town Hall Review with Hugh Hewitt, brought

0:37

to you in partnership with the Pepperdine Graduate

0:39

School of Public Policy. It is time for

0:41

our nation to start taking Chinese President Xi

0:43

Jinping's threats over Taiwan seriously.

0:46

I just think it's very naive to discount the likelihood

0:48

that Xi Jinping would make a move like this because

0:50

he keeps telling us he's going

0:53

to do it by force if necessary.

0:55

But consider the potential consequences. If

0:58

the Chinese invade Taiwan, you're

1:00

seeing a free nation, a democracy

1:02

of 24 million people taken

1:05

over by

1:05

a totalitarian power. The World Health

1:07

Organization is pulling back on their COVID

1:09

narrative and on their recommendations. WHO

1:12

has realized they've been taken for a ride. And

1:15

three years in, President Biden signs

1:17

a resolution formally terminating the COVID

1:19

emergency. Republicans force

1:21

Biden to officially end the

1:24

COVID-19 emergency. All this

1:26

and more.

1:27

I'm Hugh Hewitt. Great to be with you. Catch

1:29

my program each weekday morning live 6

1:32

to 9 a.m. Eastern Time and on demand 24-7.

1:35

Learn more at HughHewitt.com and

1:37

follow me on Twitter at Hugh Hewitt. Follow

1:40

this program as well at Town Hall

1:42

Review. We'll start with Hollywood

1:45

and communism. No, I'm not talking

1:47

about Soviet communist sympathizers as

1:49

in the 1930s and the 1940s Hollywood. I'm

1:52

talking about Hollywood in the third decade of the 21st century

1:55

and their reticence to see what has become all

1:57

too clear for those who have eyes to see.

2:00

We need to decouple from China, separate

2:03

from China. Yes, including

2:05

the world of Hollywood and the world of big tech

2:07

right now. Congressman and China

2:09

Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher join

2:11

me to explain his recent efforts on

2:14

the West Coast.

2:16

Let me now talk to you about your trip out West.

2:18

You didn't call me. I would have gone with you to see Iger.

2:21

I speak Hollywood. Did

2:22

he just shine you on or did he actually

2:24

have a candid conversation with you about Disney's

2:27

agenda with China?

2:29

Well, I think we were able to raise a lot

2:31

of concerns. There's obviously been some high

2:33

profile incidents, most notably

2:36

in the making of the live action. Mulan,

2:38

Disney not only filmed in Xinjiang

2:41

province but thanked local officials.

2:44

And Iger and his team walked us through

2:46

what happened, what policy changes they've

2:48

made subsequently. I sort

2:51

of left thinking, and again, this was really

2:53

an introduction to a world I've never interacted

2:55

with in Hollywood before. There's

2:57

two issues here, Hugh. There's

2:59

one involving if you want a movie

3:01

to screen in China, you submit

3:04

to Chinese Communist Party censors, right? And

3:06

there's a quota of about 34 movies a year that are allowed to

3:08

get in. They've

3:10

actually stopped letting a lot of American movies

3:13

in besides James Cameron movies. And

3:15

most studios are realizing that when it comes time

3:17

to formulate their P&L sheet, their profit and

3:19

loss sheet, they just have to put a big fat

3:21

zero under China because China is increasingly

3:24

privileging its domestic movies, and it should

3:26

be a lesson for every industry. So

3:28

that's one thing. A studio

3:29

has to make a decision as to whether they accept

3:32

censorship or tweaking from CCP

3:35

censors.

3:36

That's troubling. The bigger issue,

3:38

and what we didn't really get answers to, is

3:40

the issue of self-censorship. If

3:42

your entire business model is built on the

3:44

expectation that you'll be able

3:46

to make money in China,

3:48

what creative choices are you making on the

3:50

front end before you film

3:52

as you're tweaking the script, as you're

3:54

deciding character choices, as

3:56

you're deciding filming locations

3:59

already expected?

3:59

that you're gonna have to appease a CCP

4:03

censor. Put differently, it's one

4:05

thing to tweak a movie to get access

4:07

to a particular country. And studios do

4:09

that not only for China, they do it for Middle Eastern

4:11

countries, but it's another thing for

4:13

that censored version to become

4:16

the global version. And of course,

4:18

the CCP wants their version

4:20

to be the global version. They don't want anyone

4:22

to know they're committing a genocide. They

4:24

don't want anyone to know they have egregious

4:27

human rights abuses. And so that's

4:29

really what

4:29

we need to be worried about. As well as I

4:32

just think the general hypocrisy

4:34

we see from Hollywood sometimes, which is they

4:36

tend to bash America, particularly conservative

4:38

America, but they have no problem apologizing

4:40

for the CCP. So that's the conversation

4:43

we started. It's just to start, you

4:45

know, we're gonna continue, we're gonna follow up, but

4:47

I think it was a good chance for our members to voice

4:49

a lot of their concerns. You also went and saw

4:51

Tim Cook. Now I was in a room when Tim

4:53

Cook got very sparky with Senator Tom

4:56

Cotton, when the Senator, whom he did not appear

4:58

to recognize. I'm not sure Tim Cook's

4:59

up to date on much in the Congress,

5:03

questioned some of their practices early on

5:05

in his tenure as a member of the Senate. And Tim

5:07

Cook just bristled and dismissed what he thought was

5:10

a young man who probably didn't know anything. Tom

5:12

Cotton, it's like dismissing you that are on

5:14

the intel committee. How did Tim Cook

5:16

respond? Because they're the most deeply embedded

5:19

American company in China. They

5:21

can't get out. They're like the pirates who

5:23

are part of the ship in the Disney movies,

5:26

Pirates of the Caribbean. The guys who were stuck on the

5:28

wall. That's Apple in China. What'd

5:30

he tell you?

5:31

Well, to your point, I left thinking that even in the

5:33

best case scenario, where a company like Apple

5:35

realizes it needs to de-risk

5:38

is the new phrase of the moment and rebalance

5:40

their supply chains out of China, it's

5:42

not like they can pick up and tomorrow they'll

5:44

be in Vietnam or they'll be in India. And so

5:46

it's gonna be a prolonged process.

5:49

And the point I tried to make is that if Apple

5:52

conceives of their relationship or presence in

5:54

China,

5:55

the sort of the floor of our economic

5:57

relationship, but differently, if we continue to decouple

5:59

in other areas.

5:59

AI, Quantum, they

6:02

feel that they should still be allowed to make

6:04

iPhones in China. Okay, well

6:07

what happens when the floor falls

6:09

out of the relationship? The bottom falls out of the

6:11

relationship because Xi Jinping decides

6:14

to invade Taiwan. Well then they're in a heck

6:16

of a tricky situation. For whatever reason,

6:19

whenever I interact with big tech

6:21

CEOs or particularly major

6:23

asset managers on Wall Street, they really

6:26

just tend, particularly those who have met with Xi

6:28

Jinping repeatedly, they

6:30

just tend to discount the likelihood

6:33

that Xi Jinping would do something like that. For

6:35

whatever reason, it's totally foreign to my

6:37

sensibilities as a military analyst. They

6:40

just think that he's going to act rationally,

6:43

he'd never do it, it would be economically

6:45

destructive. And I just, I find

6:47

myself always puzzled as to

6:49

why they think that way, because

6:52

I think that for reasons that have less

6:54

to do with the

6:56

pure economic calculus and have

6:58

more to do with his own legacy as well

7:01

as the ideological nature of

7:03

the

7:03

Chinese Communist Party, which we've

7:05

ignored for two decades,

7:07

the odds of Xi Jinping doing something like

7:09

this are indeed increasing.

7:12

You know, Hugh, as I think about it,

7:13

I think it's sort of the same form of mirror imaging

7:16

that we saw leading up to the Russian invasion

7:18

of Ukraine. There's just a tendency to graft

7:21

our Western sensibilities onto

7:23

ruthless dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping, who

7:25

of course don't abide by those same rules. Or

7:28

if you remember someone who's been in the news in the

7:30

last two days, French President Emmanuel

7:32

Macron actually went to Russia

7:34

days before the invasion

7:36

and then came back and said he had assurances

7:39

that there would be no crisis. We just make this mistake

7:42

over and over again. And

7:45

my hope is that we aren't deluded in

7:47

this way. I just think it's very naive to discount

7:49

the likelihood that Xi Jinping would make a move like

7:51

this, because he keeps telling us

7:54

he's going to do it by force if

7:56

necessary. And we should listen to what he says,

7:59

particularly when he speaks.

7:59

speaking not to Western audiences,

8:02

but to his own party faithful. Congressman

8:05

Gallagher makes a simple point that we do well

8:07

to listen to here. When we hear what Xi

8:09

is telling his own people, we ought

8:11

to believe him. The pro-democracy

8:14

demonstrators in Hong Kong may not like

8:16

Xi, but now they believe him. Jimmy

8:18

Quinn is national security correspondent

8:20

for National Review. He was a guest

8:23

on Side Line Sanity with Michelle Tafoya.

8:25

I'm curious about these circumstances

8:28

we're facing right now. There's been

8:30

a lot of Washington,

8:32

D.C. leadership interacting

8:33

with the president of Taiwan, and

8:36

this seems to get under the skin

8:38

of China, or at least they use it as a pretext

8:41

to sort of bully a little bit. What

8:43

can you tell us about what the circumstances

8:46

are right now between the United

8:48

States and Taiwan and how much of

8:50

it is worrying you about China?

8:54

Yeah, I mean, it's a very worrying time,

8:56

but there's been a silver lining here

8:58

in the uptick in diplomatic

9:01

interactions between the U.S. and Taiwan. We've

9:03

seen many dozens of trips that

9:05

lawmakers have taken to Taiwan in

9:08

recent months over the past two or three

9:10

years. And capping that off

9:13

were last August Nancy

9:15

Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, and

9:17

more recently the Taiwanese president's visit

9:19

to the United States to meet with House Speaker

9:22

Kevin McCarthy. So this is a very

9:24

bipartisan thing where members of

9:26

Congress on both sides of the aisle are saying

9:28

they're not scared of Chinese bullying

9:31

and they're ready to fully support

9:34

U.S. partners in Taipei. So

9:37

the Taiwanese president's visit concluded

9:39

last week. She first stopped

9:41

in New York, and then she went through South America

9:44

and came back through Los Angeles where she

9:46

met with Kevin McCarthy and a bipartisan

9:48

congressional delegation. And

9:50

this was a major new development

9:53

in the U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic relationship.

9:56

Never before had a Taiwanese president

9:59

met such a high- ranking official on

10:01

US soil. And this is something

10:03

where McCarthy was able to pull this

10:06

off and really take a stand

10:08

in support of Taiwan without making

10:10

it a partisan thing or a personal

10:12

legacy thing. He really exemplified

10:15

great leadership here in meeting with

10:17

this US partner and ensuring

10:19

that members of Congress on both sides of the

10:22

aisle could speak with their Taiwanese

10:24

partners and have a conversation about a range

10:26

of different things from US arms sales

10:29

to trade to diplomatic

10:32

support of the country as it faces down

10:34

a Chinese political and

10:37

military onslaught with the potential

10:39

for a military assault by

10:42

China on Taiwan. On

10:44

Taiwan. Sometimes in the

10:46

next several years, this is something that

10:48

people in Washington are very, very worried about

10:50

right now, looking at the way in which the People's

10:52

Liberation Army has built itself up recently.

10:55

And it certainly seems that

10:57

the I fear for using

10:59

the word appeasement because of what

11:01

it hints toward. But this placating

11:04

of China, this desire to keep

11:06

these diplomatic relations positive

11:09

with China seemed to me to be commercially

11:12

influenced or motivated more than anything else.

11:14

In other words, we know that there are human rights

11:16

violations going on every single minute

11:19

in China. We we know

11:22

that it is a communist country that really

11:24

doesn't share any of our values, that

11:27

their hostility is growing, that their

11:29

long term aim

11:31

basically calls for if not

11:33

the destruction of the United States, certainly

11:35

the minimization of its power. So

11:38

are we purely motivated by the dollars

11:41

that are available in trade with China?

11:44

Or is there something

11:46

moral here that I'm not seeing? Well,

11:49

I mean, as far as the situation

11:52

around Taiwan that we're talking about just now,

11:54

it's all of the above, right? It's

11:57

our it's our interests.

11:59

the US national interest to ensure that

12:02

China does not seize Taiwan and

12:04

therefore break through the first

12:06

island chain and be able to

12:08

project power more directly into

12:10

the Pacific and to disrupt

12:13

trade and travel

12:15

and all of these things that are critical

12:18

and involved in freedom of navigation.

12:21

But it's also a moral thing. If the Chinese

12:23

invade Taiwan, you're seeing a

12:25

free nation, a democracy of 24 million

12:28

people taken over

12:30

by

12:30

a totalitarian power that

12:32

has shown that it's willing to put people

12:34

into prison camps arbitrarily

12:37

to execute political prisoners.

12:40

There was recently a Chinese official

12:43

during a recent Chinese government meeting

12:45

who said that the People's Liberation Army,

12:48

once Taiwan is captured, should

12:51

have these blacklists of people to go

12:53

after and to execute these execution

12:55

blacklists. And so if

12:58

Taiwan were to be invaded, it would

13:00

be a humanitarian catastrophe,

13:01

very tangible interests.

13:05

There's trade we're talking about where

13:07

most of the world's semiconductors

13:10

are produced, but it's also

13:13

very much a moral thing. You

13:15

can catch Michelle's Sideline's sanity podcast

13:18

on the Salem Podcast Network. Coming

13:20

up, China's gamesmanship

13:23

on COVID. WHO has realized

13:25

they've been taken for a ride. In the

13:27

next segment of Channel Review, stay with

13:29

us.

13:31

As the Pepperdine Graduate School of Public

13:33

Policy celebrates our 25th

13:35

anniversary year, please watch our new

13:37

promotional video based on Ronald Reagan's 1976

13:40

radio address, Shaping the

13:42

World for 100 Years to Come on our

13:45

Pepperdine SPP YouTube channel.

13:47

And if you know someone who's thinking about graduate

13:49

school this fall, we welcome applications

13:52

at publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.

13:55

That's publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.

14:05

Welcome

14:05

back to the Town Hall Review with Hugh Hewitt. The

14:08

World Health Organization recently

14:10

revised its recommendations on how

14:12

and when to use the COVID vaccine. The

14:15

news caught the attention of many because the

14:17

WHO, a major international body

14:20

part of the United Nations, was seen as moving

14:22

away from China. Dr.

14:25

Marty McCary of Johns Hopkins was

14:27

a guest of Joe Piscopel. I'm

14:29

A.M. 970, the answer in New York City. World

14:32

Health Organization, they called

14:34

out China for not

14:35

sharing genetic information earlier

14:38

with regard to COVID. You and I have been talking

14:40

about this from day one. So now

14:42

WHO is coming, they're stepping up in

14:45

this regard.

14:46

Yes, they are. The

14:48

WHO has realized they've been taken for a ride,

14:51

that China was doing everything possible

14:54

to distract attention from the obvious

14:57

no-brainer that it came from the lab. Now,

14:59

whether or not it was manipulated or not, that's

15:01

another question. But 99.9%

15:04

chance it came from the lab, there's a high

15:06

burden of proof, circumstantial

15:08

evidence is massively overwhelming.

15:11

So China sees the liability.

15:14

This is the biggest liability case in

15:16

the history of the world. So they made sure

15:18

things were rigged early on.

15:20

I'm trying to find a reason for it, Doc. It

15:23

was for just to make more money for the pharmaceuticals.

15:26

Would that be the bottom line or was it just incompetence

15:29

and ignorance? Your thoughts, Dr. McCarry, please.

15:32

Okay. I think in the laboratory world

15:35

of PhD scientists, sometimes

15:37

there's an interest in doing

15:39

things just because you can do them.

15:42

Why would you take a bad coronavirus

15:45

and change it genetically

15:48

so it can infect human cells? If

15:51

you were to ask them this before they did the

15:53

experiment, back when they told the NIH

15:55

they wanted to do this before

15:58

COVID, they would have said, oh, because of this. because

16:00

we can do it because

16:01

it may be helpful for something, for

16:04

someone, somewhere, someday.

16:05

And it's like, no, no, no. You don't just do

16:08

things because you can do them genetically.

16:11

You do them because you must do

16:13

them because you need to save someone's life. So

16:16

that culture of just doing

16:18

stuff because we can is

16:20

probably what led to this thing getting

16:22

brewed up in the lab.

16:24

And I'm reading here now from Fox News

16:26

from Dr. Marty McCarry. He said, opinion, not

16:29

giving any medical advice over the airwaves. Please,

16:31

Dr. Marty, you write something and you don't put

16:34

the headline in that there's an editor to put the headline

16:36

in. You know, so I got, I

16:38

have to be cautious, but it does say right here,

16:40

and this caught my eye, I don't recommend

16:43

FDA's infinity vaccine booster

16:45

strategy. Again, the headline

16:48

aside, give us your thoughts on that infinity

16:50

vaccine booster strategy because it is. It's

16:53

a vaccine every week, it seems.

16:54

A booster every week, right?

16:56

That's right. Look, we can't be given every

16:59

American a booster shot every Monday

17:01

morning when they show up at work. And right

17:03

now you've got an FDA that's

17:06

just saying, look, we see that

17:08

if we give the shot another time

17:10

to a mouse, we see antibodies go

17:13

up.

17:13

Well, that doesn't mean we keep

17:16

doing it to keep the antibodies high for

17:18

the rest of your life.

17:19

It's just, that's not, that's, it doesn't

17:22

make sense because we, what

17:24

we need to do is say that this is

17:26

effective, that we have a study showing

17:28

it's effective and then make a

17:30

recommendation. But ironically,

17:33

when the COVID vaccines were originally up

17:35

for their first approval, you know,

17:38

they took their time and things were slow

17:40

at the FDA. They took a month to look at

17:42

a paper application. And

17:44

now they're not even really looking at any

17:46

applications or requiring any studies.

17:49

They're

17:49

just saying,

17:50

you know what, I have a gut feeling you're going to

17:52

need this every year. I mean, if they get their

17:54

way, a 12 year old girl is

17:57

going to need 70 COVID vaccine

17:59

shots.

19:51

The

20:01

White House sent out a statement

20:03

on Monday, April 10th, 2023.

20:07

The president signed into law. HJ

20:11

resolution 7 which

20:13

terminates the national emergency

20:16

related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

20:18

It's it's over

20:21

the COVID emergency is officially over

20:23

and you didn't even know it was going on. Did you

20:25

you know Twitter is a cesspool as I say

20:28

over and over again, but sometimes there's clarity

20:30

on Twitter and I saw three tweets that

20:32

spoke directly to how I'm feeling

20:35

about Biden

20:36

quietly and

20:38

you know, very very surreptitiously

20:41

almost signing this into law.

20:44

Let me read these three tweets in order

20:46

as I saw them.

20:47

Here's tweet one. They

20:50

shut down your businesses your

20:52

schools your churches

20:55

made you say goodbye to loved ones on

20:57

Zoom calls took

21:00

away your child's education made

21:03

every attempt to muzzle you and

21:05

keep you in a state of fear injected

21:09

millions with poison taught the weak-minded

21:12

to hate shame and blame

21:14

their fellow man

21:16

and stole three years of your life

21:19

no accountability for any of it.

21:22

Just a single sentence to spit

21:25

in your face and sweep it

21:27

all under the rug

21:28

before they move on to part two.

21:31

Didn't that something isn't that something

21:33

here's another one tweet number two Biden

21:36

ends the national COVID emergency three

21:39

years of ruined lives closed

21:41

businesses fake science and

21:43

destruction of children

21:45

and don't worry. They will try another power

21:47

grab

21:48

one day soon. And finally

21:50

this tweet after over

21:53

three years of failing

21:55

to prevent a single person

21:57

from getting COVID

21:59

pointless.

21:59

mask mandates and

22:02

inexcusably banning unvaccinated

22:05

people, the national

22:08

emergency is finally over. Congratulations

22:12

to public health and politicians

22:15

for accomplishing nothing

22:17

of value whatsoever.

22:21

It is a pretty

22:23

remarkable feeling, isn't it?

22:25

To know that it's over

22:28

and it went out with a whimper

22:31

after three years of

22:33

deliberate destruction.

22:37

Coming up. We're in a more dangerous,

22:39

less prosperous place today than we were

22:41

just two years and three months ago. Former

22:44

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when

22:47

the town hall review with Hugh Hewitt returns in a moment.

22:49

Stay with us.

22:58

Welcome

23:14

back to the town hall review with Hugh Hewitt, brought to you

23:16

in partnership with our sponsor, the Pampadine Graduate School

23:18

of Public Policy.

23:31

I

23:39

hope you're tracking with a rather abrupt reshaping the

23:41

world order that we've been watching in recent months. China's

23:44

bellicose behavior towards Taiwan, and

23:46

we looked earlier in the program, might be

23:48

exhibit A. And we need to look at allies,

23:50

formal and informal. We need to look at alignment,

23:53

that is, what nation does country

23:55

A look to in order to strengthen themselves

23:57

in the face of a challenge they are facing.

28:00

whether it was certainly chaos. And

28:02

I have a lot of respect for Kirby, but that was

28:04

a foolish thing for him to say, he knows

28:07

better. He knows that the debacle

28:09

of the departure from Afghanistan is on

28:11

the shoulders of the Biden administration. And

28:13

for him to say, well, gosh, we protected

28:16

the airport, an airport that was ultimately

28:18

denied

28:21

the very security that would have permitted us to get

28:23

the Americans out that President Biden promised he

28:25

would, is a travesty.

28:27

Last question, Mr. Secretary, on

28:29

page 11 of the after action report, they

28:32

argue more broadly when the president, President

28:34

Biden made the decision to leave Afghanistan,

28:36

some worried that doing so would weaken our alliances

28:39

or put the United States at a disadvantage on the

28:41

global stage, the opposite has happened.

28:44

Has the opposite happened?

28:46

Let's see, we've spoken about the

28:50

Russians taking a hostage, the Iranians close

28:52

to a nuclear weapon, the Chinese

28:54

now conducting exercises off Taiwan

28:57

flying balloons over our country, the

29:00

Middle East now turning to Iran to

29:02

protect itself from American failed leadership.

29:05

I think the facts are pretty simple. We

29:07

are in a more dangerous, less prosperous place

29:09

today than we were just two years

29:11

and three months ago. Coming

29:14

up, the radicalism of today's

29:16

democratic party. When you look at today's

29:19

democratic party, they don't like the constitution

29:21

either. Victor Davis Hanson, when

29:23

the town hall review with Hugh Hewitt returns in a moment.

29:27

frBlue,

29:58

the party's strong

30:01

Welcome back to the Town Hall Review with Hugh Hewitt.

30:04

President Biden, you may remember, was nominated

30:06

because he was the centrist Democratic

30:09

candidate. Bernie Sanders had a lot

30:11

of energy, but key players within the party knew

30:13

he was way too far left. He couldn't

30:16

win. Elizabeth Warren too far left, and so

30:18

on. They nominated the quote centrist.

30:21

But Biden is governed from the left, notably.

30:24

His administration has energized some of the hard left

30:26

elements across the nation. Victor

30:28

Davis Hanson is concerned. He

30:30

was a guest of Sebastian Gorka, talking about

30:32

his recent piece, Our French Revolution.

30:35

Is it fair to say that this is happening

30:38

because they just can't get away from

30:40

themselves? And this is in the gene code

30:43

of the Democrat Party that they are now neo-Confederates?

30:47

Well, I think that racist

30:50

neo-Confederate hatred

30:53

toward what was then Republican

30:55

government, which was moderate and

30:58

it was constitutional.

31:02

That was one thing about the Confederates. Remember, they

31:04

attacked the Constitution all the time.

31:07

They said the problem with the Constitution, and they

31:09

listed it. One of the things they got angriest

31:11

about was there was no mention of race. So

31:13

they were racially obsessed. And

31:16

when you look at today's Democratic Party,

31:19

they don't like the Constitution either.

31:21

And in a weird way, they feel

31:23

that it's not fair enough or it's

31:25

not fluid enough in the way

31:27

that the old- Or it's an obstacle to what

31:30

they wish to achieve.

31:31

Yes. It's an obstacle to radical

31:33

change. And they see it as an impediment. But

31:36

I think there are people. I'll give

31:38

you one example. Acres Halle Berry

31:40

was in a custody suit not long

31:42

ago. And she's of mixed

31:44

race. And her child is, I think, one-eighth

31:47

or something. And she was making the argument

31:49

in court that the one-drop

31:52

rule, the old one-sixteenth rule, applied.

31:55

And she wanted to apply that to get custody

31:57

of that child. And when you go apply

31:59

to a-

31:59

admissions. The thing that's

32:02

very fascinating said, what does a Stanford

32:04

or a Yale or a Harvard do in their

32:06

closed room when somebody applies

32:08

and says they're black or they're Latino? They

32:11

claim they don't, but we know and I've talked to

32:13

them, they do have a 1-8th, 1-16th

32:16

rule.

32:17

And they're racially obsessed about that. Or

32:19

they have a special mixed category that

32:22

allows one to do that. And then one

32:24

is somebody saying, is this a new thing? Or do you think

32:26

they're just reverting to their old racist tendencies

32:28

and they just kind of get it out of their heads?

32:31

Yes. I, well, I think they, they

32:34

transmogrified affirmative

32:36

action into a new idea called diversity,

32:38

which was very advantageous because

32:41

it wasn't 12, 88%. It was anybody who was quote

32:45

unquote, not white. And it was therefore

32:47

a permanent victim and a permanent

32:49

oppressed person. And they had grievances

32:52

against the majority culture, which now had

32:54

shrunk to 67 or 68% and

32:57

that's, that started with the Obama administration,

33:00

but now

33:01

they are fixated.

33:04

It's very strange. I mean, it's, it's

33:06

completely racialized. And that's

33:08

what's really scary about it. Where was that

33:11

in our history? It was only in one place.

33:13

And so I don't know that the continuity

33:16

of the culture, but

33:17

I do think that there's precedents

33:20

that they go back on and they would never admit

33:22

it. And because they're progressives and they don't believe

33:25

in absolutes,

33:26

like the Neil Confederates, they're perfectly

33:28

willing to adopt things like the one 16th,

33:31

which they feel has had a history in the past.

33:33

Incredible. And,

33:35

and we use DNA, the Confederates

33:37

use genealogists, but it's the same thing.

33:40

So I ask you as a neophyte,

33:43

have we ever seen such, you

33:46

make it clear in your latest article that this is

33:48

a top down driven revolution,

33:50

or rather, it's not, it's not a revolution.

33:53

It's a, what has happened to the, the

33:55

rights of the people, the mandate of

33:57

the people? Are you concerned that at one point

33:59

be a break and they'll say no

34:03

we do not concur we do

34:05

not agree and it

34:07

might be answered with violence. Yeah

34:10

I'm worried about that and I mean we

34:12

saw this is how the Bolsheviks remember

34:14

the Bolsheviks said they were part of a broad

34:17

coalition that was anti-zarist

34:19

and was willing to have some type of constitutional

34:22

system replace it and then as soon as

34:24

that first revolution they hijacked

34:26

it by taking control of the the press

34:29

the military etc. Same

34:31

thing as I said with the Jackmans

34:33

did the same thing and it happens

34:35

in antiquity there was 30 tyrants it

34:38

took over Athens there was 5 000 it took

34:40

over but again the purpose

34:42

is to take the institutions in lieu of

34:44

a popular agenda that appeals to 51 percent

34:47

of people. The left knows that nobody

34:49

likes the open border nobody likes high

34:52

energy prices nobody likes what happened

34:54

in Afghanistan nobody likes the obsessions

34:57

and fixations on race no one

34:59

likes what we're doing

35:01

on crime and these district attorneys

35:04

no one likes any of them the New Green Deal

35:06

and yet

35:07

they feel that they don't need

35:09

popular support because whether

35:12

it's the corporate boardroom Disney or

35:14

the NFL halftime show or

35:17

Silicon Valley or Facebook

35:20

they have institutions that they dominate

35:22

academia K through 12 that they

35:24

can increase and influence

35:27

power and if that's not enough and

35:29

it sometimes isn't

35:30

then they can under the the cover

35:32

of COVID

35:33

radically change I think the biggest revolution in

35:36

my lifetime was I woke

35:38

up one day and 70 percent of the electorate

35:40

in most states was not voting on election

35:43

day

35:44

and it used to be 70 percent

35:46

did

35:47

and there was such a thing and then the word absentee

35:49

ballot disappeared

35:51

from the vocabulary it was replaced by mail-in

35:53

ballot meaning there was no reason

35:55

to get an excuse you didn't have to say you're

35:58

out of town you were sick we're going to make

35:59

out the ballots. Here, 10 million

36:02

of them were mailed out. We don't know what happened in California.

36:05

So these are revolutionary processes.

36:08

The Pact of Court used to be a dirty word.

36:10

It was a mark of shame

36:13

on the Roosevelt administration. There's a website Pact

36:16

of Court. It's

36:17

an agenda of pride.

36:19

Same thing about destroying the electoral college

36:22

by circumventing the amendment

36:24

process by this national voter compact

36:26

that they're trying to do. So they

36:28

want to change the system by which we

36:30

govern, not appeal

36:33

to the electorate and say this is their point

36:35

of view, this is our point of view, you decide.

36:37

They don't trust the people.

36:38

They don't like the people.

36:40

No, no, they don't. They're ruthless.

36:42

But isn't

36:44

that why the word populism

36:46

is now pejorative, which is so strange?

36:49

If you're popular, then that should be a representation

36:52

of the people's will. But it's now a dirty

36:55

word, isn't it?

36:56

I've had people come up to me and

36:59

say the ACLU, I never liked it,

37:01

but it used to defend right wingers. It

37:03

defended anybody. They felt

37:05

now it's just a hardcore leftist

37:07

organizing tool like the Southern Poverty

37:09

Law Center. Same thing. Stanford

37:12

Law School was always liberal, but

37:14

thousands of alumni honored it because

37:17

it had one sacred protocol. That

37:19

is, anybody who was invited to speak

37:22

would be given a fair hearing and a quiet reception.

37:25

And now

37:26

people can't believe it.

37:27

They just can't believe it. And the idea

37:29

that a dean hijacked the right lecture

37:32

and then turned on the speaker and said, basically

37:34

you deserve it

37:35

for who you are. That had never

37:38

happened before. Coming

37:40

up, they are the party of the ultra

37:42

globalist rich that came out like bandits

37:44

in the 21st century. A few more minutes

37:47

with Victor Davis Hanson in the final

37:49

segment of the town hall review with Hugh Hewitt. Stay

37:51

with us.

37:59

Welcome back to the town hall.

37:59

I'll review with Hugh Hewitt. As we look at the

38:02

strength of the hard left elements in today's

38:04

Democratic Party and we hear a lot about

38:06

his role in getting district attorneys, the

38:08

ones who don't prosecute anyone elected

38:11

in our major metropolitan areas. Victor

38:13

Davis Hanson is looking past the Soros

38:15

DA's to the private foundations who

38:17

are funding other things. Let's pick up on more

38:19

of this conversation with Sebastian Gorka.

38:22

The basis of that power is money. They

38:24

have enormous foundations. I'm on

38:26

the Bradley Foundation. We have a 1.2 billion dollar

38:29

it's a conservative foundation.

38:31

We're nonpartisan, but 1.2 million.

38:34

We had a presentation not long ago said we're

38:37

something like 90th

38:38

in foundations. We're talking about foundations

38:41

that are 50 million, 80 million, 100 million.

38:44

It's not even close what the left has

38:46

the resources. They are the party

38:49

of the ultra globalist rich that came

38:51

out like bandits in the 21st century. The

38:54

bicostal elites that

38:55

were able to capture markets in

38:58

Europe and Asia on each coast and they

39:00

became fabulously wealthy. Nine

39:02

trillion dollars in Silicon Valley of market

39:04

capitalization. Civilizations never

39:06

seen a staggering sum like that in such a small

39:09

place. And not only that the

39:11

foundations which were conservative, especially

39:13

the family foundations like the Ford Foundation

39:16

have been likewise captured

39:18

as the state has been captured by the left-wing

39:20

ideologues. Professor, I think

39:23

the whole transgender

39:25

movement

39:25

will be the red pilling

39:28

of tens of millions of Americans,

39:31

especially parents who say this

39:33

is wrong.

39:34

What you're doing to my daughter at the next

39:36

swim meet, this man

39:38

walking into the girls changing rooms. This

39:41

could be the saving grace. Do you think that of

39:43

all the issues we can choose border, economy,

39:45

freedom of speech, social media, this

39:48

one could be the most powerful in

39:50

removing the scales from

39:53

the eyes and being that Damascene moment.

39:55

I think so because it attacks two

39:57

of their constituencies, which they

40:00

think are

40:01

automatic. It attacks women because

40:03

they have destroyed women's sports, and women

40:05

don't like that. They labored very hard to

40:07

get parity or equity, and all these records

40:09

mean nothing now, and it's going to get worse.

40:12

And then a lot of minorities, especially Hispanics

40:15

that are very religious, they look at this

40:17

and they don't understand. It's baffling to

40:19

them. They've never seen anything like it, new

40:22

immigrants. And I think the African-American

40:24

community, if you look at polls, is not in favor

40:26

of it. This is another top-down issue

40:29

that most people, they live

40:31

and let live, but then when they see transgender

40:34

people going into the Texas legislature,

40:36

what they saw in New Zealand, they

40:39

don't think it's a warm, fuzzy movement. It's

40:41

a strident, angry, often

40:43

violent movement, and it's

40:45

captured the school. And also,

40:48

the

40:49

suburban family, they think at any

40:51

moment

40:52

my daughter can come home, or my son can

40:54

come home and tell me that he's transitioning,

40:56

even though I know it's historically 0.1%

40:59

of the population suffers

41:01

from gender dysphoria, but they've been told

41:03

this in school as if it's a hula hoop or

41:05

dunk and yo-yo fad. And my gosh,

41:08

that terrifies parents. Thanks

41:10

for joining us for the Town Hall Review with Hugh Hewitt.

41:13

Catch up on earlier episodes at our website,

41:15

townhallreview.com. And be sure to sign

41:17

up for our podcast. Special thanks to executive

41:19

producer Russell Shubin, producers David

41:22

Bouchon,

41:22

Jacob Ordunya,

41:24

Adam Ramsey, Tim Gantner, and

41:27

of course, Blaine Patterson. Let me

41:29

say thanks once again to our sponsor, the

41:31

Pepperdine Graduate School of Public Policy.

41:33

They had a commencement this week. Congratulations to all

41:35

the new graduates at Pepperdine Graduate School of

41:38

Public Policy. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Thank

41:40

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