The Tom Woods Show - Ep. 2795 The Neocons Refuse to Die

0:00Get ready to take a flame thrower to the official narrative and learn what the elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show. Everybody Tom Woods here at this episode 2795 of the Tom Woods Show with the great Jack Hunter with us. Jack wears many hats, but one of those hats is contributor over at the Libertarian Institute which you can find at LibertarianInstitute.org where he has an article that caught my eye. And I thought we had talked old Jack in a while and it has to do it. Well, it's MAGA didn't vote for a war with Iran, which is a topic that's come up now and then since there is a war with Iran, we get told, oh, you people are all unreasonable. Trump said from the beginning that Iran couldn't be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, which is not the same thing as saying that you favor a war. So anyway, I thought we would start talking about that. By the way, I'm trying to set up an appointment at the car dealership for my car and I call

1:03the dealership and the answer, the person who answers, it's an AI who says, hi, my name is Brooke. Look, don't insult my intelligence. I know you're not a human being. You're going to name them. They have names now. My name's Brooke. You don't have a name. I just had to tell somebody that Jack. It's the AI is moving rapidly. People are marrying these things. You have worked on the words. You really expect me to think, although I'll tell you something, the same people who thought Thomas Massey was in a thruple with those women from the squad probably think Brooke has taken their appointment. Yes. It's effective to some degree. It worked on Massey, unfortunately, but yeah. Anyway, well, don't get me started on that. Well, there's much we can discuss, but let's start with your article. I mean, at this point, it seems like water under the bridge. I mean, who voted for what? We all know that I hate to quote a certain person. You and I both know, but whoever you vote for, you always get John McCain and me now, these things happen. But what do you say, though, to people who say, look, you guys are deceiving yourselves.

2:07You were trying to cast Trump in a mold that just doesn't fit him. And you want to believe he's anti-war and anti this and that and then he's one of you. But actually, if you go, look, I have this old newspaper clipping from 1988 in which he said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. So you guys were just willfully blind to that side of him. What do you say to that? I say they're willfully rewriting history for their own purposes, which is part of my article. Yeah, that started with, I guess, we'll start with Mark Thiesen, who's a former George W. Bush speechwriter who was saying after the report came out, I think many of your listeners and viewers will remember there was a report recently that said that Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence had tried to warn President Trump, hey, if we go and attack Iran, A, B, and C are going to happen, the straight of our moves is going to be a problem. All this stuff, everything she predicted has happened. Trump ignored her advice, everything that has happened. Mark Thiesen, the former George W. Bush speechwriter, Neo-Confanboy, habitual liar, however

3:10you want to describe this man, he basically retweeted the story about Tulsi and he's like, Donald Trump is a great man because Maga went to war with Iran and he had the bravery to do it amongst all these naysayers and isn't this wonderful. And him, Mark Levin was doing a version of the same thing, a couple other Neo-conservatives. I saw Sorbomari who works, you know, writes for Compact saying, like, I'm paraphrasing, I'm not quoting him, but like, I can't take these Neo-Con's pretending that this is what Maga voted for. It was a good war with Iran and be there for six months in the replicate George W. Bush, Iraq-style war in Iran, like that that's what Maga signed up for and he's right. And that's what my piece was about. Donald Trump from 2016 all the way through the 2024 campaign, even though his presidency, especially in the first term or especially in the second term, but definitely also in the first term, didn't live up to his restraint rhetoric, his anti-war rhetoric, his, I'm not going to have any more endless wars rhetoric as he told West Point graduates at one point.

4:12And though it did live up to that to vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 or 24 was to say, I don't want to begin anymore endless wars. It's America first. We're going to look out for our interest first, not other countries, not Israel. That's what people were voting for on the foreign policy side of Maga. That's what it was. But now that Trump has the invasion of the body snatchers, the Neo-Con body snatchers of Baton Holder Trump and he's basically trying to out George W. Bush, George W. Bush at this point with the war in Iran and continued funds to Israel and whatever's still going on in Ukraine. People like Martha and these Neo-Con are saying, Hey, this is what Maga was all along. It was always Neo-conservative. Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, myself, Mark Deason, we are Neo-Con's and Trump was always with us and now you're seeing full real Maga. Well, I'm sorry, there are some people out there dumb enough to believe that and I guess that serves the Neo-Con's purposes. I voted for Trump for the first time in 2024 because I saw Tulsi Gabbard right there.

5:13They'd advance was fairly anti-war at the time. Trump was fairly anti-war at the time and he said he wasn't going to do that. He would say Neo-cons by name. What was the speech was that in Germany? It was like the Neo-Con era is over talking about Donald Trump and then he did exactly what the Bushies would have wanted and invaded Iran. I can't have my intelligence in Sultan be like, Oh, yeah, Mark Deason, that's what everybody who donned a red hat voted for was more endless Neo-Con wars because it's just not true. I hope that made sense, Tom. What I just saw. Oh, it did make sense. It's more likely that I talked to somebody named Brooke just now at the dealership than that stuff. Now, if you remember, there was I think more than one actually. I think there might have been a series of tweets over time from Stephen Miller in October November 2024 saying that in part because Liz Cheney was so supportive of Kamala Harris that look, Liz Cheney wants to invade the whole Middle East and so you're going to get World War III with Kamala, but with Trump, you'll get peace.

6:15Now Miller was not rebuked by Trump as far as I know for saying that. So we were certainly supposed to believe it. Tulsi was a Trump target at the time and later appointed a DNI and said that if you vote for Kamala, you're voting for Dick Cheney and you're going to get war, war, and more wars and a vote for Trump is to end wars and not start. I mean, all that stuff was said. You know, so what he was just supposed to pretend that wasn't said. I mean, those things were said. Yeah. That's what I guess Mark Thieson and the Neo-Con crowd wants you just to pretend. Yes, Stephen Miller has multiple tweets that are out there, exposed to whatever you want to call him at this point, saying basically what you just said, Tom, if you want war with Iran, vote for Kamala Harris. That's what he was saying. Why did he say that? Because she was the one saying, don't talk to dictators. I'm not going to be like Trump who coz he's up to dictators and all of us who are anti-war always prefer diplomacy over war, which that's what she was criticizing. Shumbing around with Liz Cheney, Harris was at the time. All of that stuff, I think what Kamala was doing at the time was saying, hey, Neo-Con's,

7:16this Trump guy, your Republican guy saying all this anti-war stuff, I got your back. I can be just like Hillary because she was like that. Hillary Clinton. That's what she was aiming for. So when Stephen Miller and that era saying, you know, just two and a half years ago, whatever it was, if you want war, vote for Kamala Harris. I agreed with him at the time. I'm like, yeah, that's what she stands for. And we got this Trump guy saying the opposite. Now that Trump's done the opposite, done a 180, Stephen Miller stuck, he's not going to be able to say anything. But it does indicate that there was a complete 180 flip flop that those of us who were intellectually honest can recognize. I don't know why I'm even bringing this up. I don't think I've ever mentioned, I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever mentioned this guy. Are you familiar with this kid? Like I don't even know why I'm doing this. But it's his name, Brian Lenn Holleyhand, something like that. I don't know how I'm talking about on social, I think, but he's the substitute Charlie Kirk. They trotted out after Charlie died. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, I don't know how old he is, 18, 20, I don't know what, I don't know what.

8:17But somehow he's like flying across the country speaking. I don't know who the hell is inviting this guy, but it's like I can't seem to get him to shut up. I turn around and he's got some other ridiculous opinion. But he's like the resolutely neocon version of Charlie. And the thing is when you're, when you're his age in general, you don't have opinions that are worth enough that you should be going around giving speeches. You should be listening and reading at that age. Now I know that sounds like what an old man would say, Jack, but at that age you really should be listening and reading. And he's going around and he, he has a superficial grasp of everything. And so the other day he was saying, why don't we make the straight of hormones into the straight of America? And like it's all dumb, intended to appeal to like 78 year old, mega people. Just so terrible. And then at the end of that, he says, America first. And it's like he knows that gets under your skin because America first always, from the time it was first used, always meant non intervention.

9:19It didn't mean America should be as imperialist as possible to put itself first. It never meant that kid. It never meant that. It always meant who the hell cares about the straight of hormones? Put America first. You know, the straight of hormones will straight itself out if you stay out of it. So I don't even know, Jack, I haven't even got a question. But I saw him in my feed before you came on. And so I had to complain to you about Brooke at the car dealership and now this guy. Well, he's a useful tool, basically, or whoever's paying the bills. Look, I remember John Bolton spoke it. It was either the first or second national conservatism conference. Like, you know, we as libertarians would have some disagreements on economics with those people. There's a lot of restraint, sentiment at those conferences. Well, they happen to invite John Bolton to one of those. And I remember at the time, laughing to myself that he went on that national conservatism conference stage and said, we should be for America first. And Iraq first in Iran, we should be first in Syria. And I just laughed like nobody's buying this bolt.

10:21And like nobody that's maggot, like this is stupid. And yet here we are where this kid with TPU, USA, you're talking about, is saying this. I guess they consider a substitute for Charlie Kirk of whom there is no substitute. We can talk about that here in a little bit. I laughed at John Bolton at the time when he was doing it. Here we are where you have a small army of Bush, Cheney, Neocons, whether they're of that era or of that mindset. Ben Shapiro is not old enough to be that. But he's certainly that. He was saying that same kind of lie that that's what America first means. We were the first to hit Iran. We've been in war with Iran for 47 years. Did you know that, Tom? And Trump was the first guy to say he's going to end this 47 year war. I think I made the point in my piece that if we've been in the US, it's been a war with Iran for 47 years. How Reagan was a trader? Did he send weapons to Iran? And none of them would say that. That point in your article, I thought, how did I not think of that? Because I have been talking about this Iran 47 year war thing.

11:21But I never thought to make that point that that would make Reagan a trader. Yeah. You're absolutely right. And I don't think they would go quite that far. They do want to let us know that Trump is, of course, better than Reagan. We got to make sure we know that. But they wouldn't actually go that, yeah, the whole thing's ridiculous. And incidentally, I understand that there are certain things you're not supposed to say. But I'm just going to go ahead and say, when Iranian say death to America, you know, first of all, I think there are a lot of social conservatives who would look at the American regime and almost speak the same way that it's the great Satan that it promotes every degenerate thing. You know, they would speak that way at least half the time when a Democrat's in power, at least half the time they'd call it the great Satan. But the other thing is it was the US in the 1980s, citing with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the war those two countries were having. It was that that helped to lead to at least a quarter million dead Iranians, a huge percentage of them conscripted teenagers who were just wiped off the face of the earth, possibly

12:24as many as 500,000 of them. And then, you know, the shooting down of the civilian airliner, which would not have happened if the US hadn't been in that war zone that would not have happened. So you know, was something like that happens. I think I know I'm not supposed to say this, but if we were talking about any other country in the world, certainly if we were talking about the United States, we would say they're entitled to use some bad words when talking about our country. They're entitled to use some bad words, I would say. Well, and I would add to that, I have there been protests over there justifiably, justifiable anger, righteous anger at the United States in Iran, where people say death to America sure. You could go to a Magah rally here in the last 10 years and here lock her up or all kinds of anti-government things about our own government. You will meet Republican and Democratic politicians who want to just like totally obliterate the entire population of Iran and say death to them. But the idea, the Neocons does to say they've been saying death to American, they being Iran for 47 years, they act like that's the state position and we got to go take it

13:26on. It's just not like a protest thing. How many wild murderous types of you heard it, Black Lives Matter protest or hell, even anti-government stuff at Tea Party things that 10 years ago were Magah rallies, and protest here on kinds of crazy stuff. But the idea that as national, as our state policy is American foreign policy, that's what we're going to base going after them on I agree with you Tom, that's a stupid. It doesn't make any sense. It's a way to manipulate people into supporting something that doesn't make sense. Hey gang, when you're self-employed or you found your own company, you know what it means to forge your own path. And a great way to forge your own path is to break free from the broken American health insurance fiasco. I hope you'll do what my family did and join crowd health, the health insurance alternative. With a membership at $99 per month for your first three months, you get access to a suite of tools and personal care advocates all focused on your well-being. That resources like prescription discounts, a team of health bill negotiators and more. You have the freedom to choose your doctor.

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15:28Take your power back. This is how we win. Join crowd health.com code woods. Didn't you feel like going into 2024 that maybe the neocons were finally on the ropes? Yes. So today, so what do you think? You could argue that might sound strange given that the Iran war is going on. That's what they've always wanted. But you could argue they're still on the ropes and it wouldn't be special pleading because they're left to defend a war that nobody supports. But where do you think, do they ever go away? How do these people not ever go away? That's their institutional power is the big one. It's the defense contractors. That's their power. It's not public support. They might have it for a little bit like, oh, we can manipulate people's emotions after 9-11 to get this war in a rack we wanted long before 9-11. They can do that. But it only lasts for a little bit of time once the war goes south and public opinion goes away. All they've got left is their institutional power, the big money and the act like that's nothing that's huge. The reason, look, Mark Thieson, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, I know Mark Levin and I think

16:32Thieson, in particular, reparted that national review never trump issue in 2016. You remember that? Yeah, I do. Sort of like neocons and neocon friendly Republican voices were saying, we would never be for Trump. He's talking about being against war. We hate this. Well now they're saying they're maga. So it's like one or the other and the reason they do that, you're talking about neocons and support on the last ropes. Trump is still the gravitational pull within the Republican Party. Is unpopular as he is right now with the Republican base to be on the side or against Trump still mean something? Well, neocons who did feel like, oh my god, the most popular guy in the Republican Party is calling us neocons and saying, bush lie. There were no WMDs and neocons suck and we shouldn't get a war. And like that's what Trump was saying at one point. They were like freaking out. They were used to be able to say, hey, Ron Paul is talking about anti-war stuff. He's not even a real Republican. That's what neocons were used to. And they got away with that to some degree sometimes. Well here comes this Trump guy who overwhelms the entire party says anti-war stuff. Then when he does neocons stuff, they're like, oh man, maybe we can use this to get popular

17:35support. Let's put Mark Levin in Fox News. Trump please tweets. Mark Levin. Everybody needs to listen to Mark Levin. I'll send him nights on Fox News and say the Iran war is great. They're grasping under what they can for any kind of popular support. And Trump has served it up to them. We can speculate as to why, but he has. I mean, he's trying to out George W. Bush, George W. Bush. Donald Trump is. That's the true fact is I'm talking to you here in 2026. It's been weird to watch Trump's interactions with a guy like Mark Levin because he'll retweet him or, you know, he'll post about him multiple times. And he'll say you got to watch his show tonight or you got to read his book or this or that. But then he'll do something that really upsets Levin. And Levin never criticizes Trump by name. It's always the White House. Maybe it's France. Yeah. Yeah, right. Exactly. Maybe it's France because he knows he doesn't dare go after Trump himself. But he's obviously been unhappy when Trump went through a phase in which he realized he obviously needed to get out of the war. So I wonder if Trump is just figuring Levin's a hothead and I'll do this in that forum.

18:40I don't know what his thinking is behind the Levin thing because Levin is obviously criticizing him sometimes just not by name. And Trump is still throwing him a bone here and there. I don't know what the deal is with that. But anyway, what do you think is going on there? I mean, Levin is a never-trumper. Right. Yeah. And the thing is what he's demanding of Trump militarily is something that Trump would I don't think Trump would do. I don't think Trump wants to do the, in fact, I'm not even sure what the Levin strategy is, but I'm pretty sure it's a series of strategies that the Pentagon has already foreclosed. It's the same that Lindsey Graham before he passed was doing was to stroke his ego and say things. Look, some insight into what the Trump Levin relationship is besides the fact that Trump has done much of what Levin would want and Mark Lisa would want, Ben Shapiro would want all these conservative horrible people. If given nothing but bad advice for the last half century, he'd still have jobs and whatever. Do you remember when Trump, one of the last things he said, he's on the outs with Tucker

19:43Carlson. He was like, Tucker Carlson's not even on Fox anymore. He's old news. In Trump's mind, being a man of a certain age, he thinks that watching Mark Levin on Fox news on a Sunday is like the most influential thing in the world. When really Fox has put them on the best things happen to Levin is Trump's got behind him a little bit. The reason he's on Sunday night is it's a dead zone for Fox news. But in Trump's mind, a podcast is this thing, oh, whatever that is, I don't know even that the podcast helped deliver Trump the election in 2024. Ask Theo Von to Joe Rogan in his brain that the age Trump is, Mark Levin is more prominent and more of a voice than Tucker Carlson. Wouldn't nothing could be farther from the truth. Yeah, that is a great point. I do think he looks it at that way. Yeah. This is the same like we were talking earlier. I think this AI stuff where voters in Kentucky were like, did you see that? Tom is mass. He's sneaking in a hotel room with AOC in Omar. That's only going to work for maybe another cycle or two. Just like the, oh, I love Israel and Israel is great. That's going to wait too. It's a generational thing.

20:43I think people will look at AI and be like, is this real? Is this AI in a way that mass, he unfortunately wasn't lucky enough to enjoy it? Yeah, no kidding. Well, all right. So here we are in, I don't know, some kind of weird equilibrium. I don't know, equilibrium makes it sound nicer than it is. But I mean the way things stand on the war, every advisor in the world is saying, you've got to figure something out before the midterms. Well, geez, we're in September now. You know, is he going to have to go into the midterms on the basis of this? Is there any prospect? I try to avoid speculating on things that we can't know because you can talk and do podcast episodes all day long about things you can't strictly prove. I don't want to make you try to be a fortune teller. And also the other thing I want to avoid being a fortune teller on yet I'm still curious about is I've speculated that maybe going into the 2024 election, he already agreed to go to war with Iran to get the Miriam Adelson support. That's quite possible that this was already decided there was nothing you were going to

21:45do or arguments you're going to make or magazine articles you're going to write that we're going to change his mind that he had alienated so many people. The only way from to win at that point was just to take the money and spend it. What do you think about that? I mean, again, I don't know. How do I know? But it would explain a lot. We can't know, but it's certainly not the realm of possibility knowing everything we know about politics, the human nature and Miriam Adelson. I mean, come on. I would say this, we're in the business of speculating to a degree because we're people who talk for living. So there's that. But let's talk about what we can know. The midterms are very, very close and we're still in this war. Trump's numbers are historically low. He's saying things like he tweeted this as you and I are talking, Tom. I think he tweeted it yesterday. When we win the war in Iran, gas is going to drop two dollars. That's where we're at. Okay. When we win, what do we do? You've already said we won 30 times. What are we talking about? He couples that with, well, maybe we need to pay a little bit more in gas because Iran

22:45can have a nuclear weapon. That's not really resonating with people. I would say. That message doesn't work at all. No. You see his ancillaries on Fox News, different Neocons saying basically versions of the same thing. That's not working. Republicans are going to get their ass kicked in the midterms. They deserve it. Trump deserve it. And Trump's going to say, that was it. He's already said different versions of that. As far as what that means for the war, I think his gut instincts, somebody that would know better than I that has worked close with him that you and I both know and I won't say. But his gut is right on this stuff. He gets twisted around in the wrong direction. And I believe that just based on his behavior. I don't know if people hold him up over his head or his blackmailer people speculate. But he goes in the opposite direction of what he said. And it's the worst direction for the nation. And more importantly, as it pretends to Trump, his own legacy. This man has an ego. We know that. But his legacy is in bad shape right now. You think you'd at least care about that, right? Yeah, you would. But see, one thing you can say about Trump is that typically if a reporter asks him about

23:46something, he was being briefed reasonably well. But now it's like since no one wants to give him bad news, could it really be that he is in such a bubble that he genuinely thinks he's more popular than ever? Is that conceivable that the most powerful man in the world is deceived? Is that possible? I think the people around him could be doing that. And anybody can correct me out there from wrong. Wasn't there a report not long ago this Suzy Wiles who kind of runs the show there were saying like, hey, he doesn't need to be in this bubble. It's not healthy. He doesn't need people around him being like, oh, the Iran war is winning. By the way, what was the thing we saw in Fox a couple of months ago? It's like, Trump has the highest poll numbers in history or something like that. Obviously, that's not true. They didn't go from independence like you, 21% to you have the highest poll numbers in history. But I bet he watches that. I bet it was orchestrated. And that's what he knows. So to answer your question, Tom, yes, I think he, he in particular, can be in that bubble. And I think there's been people around him that would like to pierce that bubble or don't like that he's in that bubble.

24:47Now that Thomas Massey has been voted out, I just, I hate hearing myself uttering those words. But now that that's happened, let me say this, when that happened, I think a lot of us thought, this is unbelievable. Like this really demonstrates to us something quite disturbing that the Israel lobby has a veto over our representatives. We can't be allowed to have this guy that a handful of billionaires who never even set a footing Kentucky can tell us that you can't have this man. Even though I feel more represented by him than anybody who's ever literally represented me, I can't have that because people who care more about a foreign country have decided that I can't have it. Right. So when that happened, it was easy to think, well, well, then I guess there'll be nobody who has the courage to take Massey's positions now because we all know what's going to happen to him. But then on the other hand, it has to be said that the Democrats, all of whom are a disgrace obviously, I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. Then they had some turnover that was in the direction of the more left-wing part of them

25:50that that happens to be hostile toward the way that US relationship with Israel has gone. And those races were won by the not the pro-Israel candidate. So doesn't that show that maybe in fact, it isn't possible to keep all such people out of Congress? But I don't know. That's the Democrat side. There'll be any Republicans who will unambiguously say this relationship has been a net negative for the US and we have to treat Israel like a normal country again. Yeah. On the Republican side right now, I mean, after watching what happened to Massey, who knows? I will say this, you're talking about some of the Democratic Socialist candidates. There was a route in New York not long ago or a bunch of DSA. This is far left. Call themselves Socialist candidates. Mom, Dommy is the mayor in New York. He had a couple other elections in different states with these hard left candidates. And a big part of that is them saying different versions of where Democrats were hard left Democrats were America first. We want to use money to improve things here at home, not to send it to Israel and not

26:53to do that is resonating and they're beating sort of moderate Democrats in these primaries. What I would say to that is the reason the Trump phenomenon happened in 2016 is he tapped into a populist sentiment that had been in American politics for some time. The Ron Paul movement of 2008 and 2012 were populist movements that happened to be a libertarian Republican who drew throngs of people that nobody ever expected or saw coming. That happened. The Tea Party movement that happened around the same time or in the middle was part of that. The Bernie Sanders movement in 2016. Why would this progressive guy, you know, who's saying all this crazy stuff be able to challenge the establishment of Hillary Clinton because people believe what he was saying and he said some anti war stuff at the time more than what the establishment was saying. So this is not new. What you're seeing with these hard left candidates is a different version of what Trump tapped into. The Occupy movement was a version of this. So that's sent them is there. People are tired of the institutions.

27:54They're tired of the establishment. They don't trust it. They don't trust the establishment media, legacy media. That's why podcasts like yours are popular and podcasting in general is popular. They will trust a personality a person. They don't trust the news. So all that is to say we were in a cycle with Massey where enough of that old system was still there that they could take them down that, you know, these Israel aligned packs and Miriam Ailsen and all these people could put so much money into Kentucky and destroy Massey. How far are we going to go where people are still believing in that even though they spend as much money to the ever did? I think that's going to get weaker and weaker and weaker. Maybe I'm being optimistic that that's how I feel about it. And what springs from that or as another Thomas Massey, Massey has already said he probably won't run for Congress again. He said that at the recent law and Paul Institute function. He is a saying he's not running for anything again. He said he's not running for Congress. But what comes out of what I just described I don't know, but it could be something good. Hey gang, every day potential customers are searching online for businesses like yours.

28:54If they can't find you, they're finding your competitors instead. That's where persist marketing comes in. For more than 15 years, they've helped local businesses rank higher on Google, show up in Google Maps, and run paid advertising campaigns that bring in real phone calls instead of just burning through budget. They're also helping businesses get found in AI search, including chat GPT, perplexity, and Google's AI overviews. As more people use AI to find local services, showing up there is becoming just as important as showing up on Google. Whether you're a contractor, an attorney, a medical practice, or another small business, persist marketing helps you get found where your customers are actually searching. Visit persist.marketing. That's persist.marketing or call 770-580-3736 to schedule your free consultation. And, Jack, are you originally from South Carolina? Yeah. Okay. But you don't live there anymore. I was splitting my time between DC and Charleston for a long time, but I'm mostly in Charleston

29:55now. That's where I'm at right now. Oh, is that so? Oh, okay. I thought you were entirely in DC. I'll just say in parentheses, I don't want to bore people, but I love Charleston. I've been there a few times. I just, we have a picture in our home hanging up of the, well, now I can't remember what you called them, but it's a series of homes that are brightly colored. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, that's very interesting. Okay. But let's not get stuck with that. What can you possibly tell us? I mean, I don't think any of us would have expected that Lindsey Graham's sister, whose distinction is simply that she's Lindsey Graham's sister, would actually, like people actually voted for her and said, yeah, she says she doesn't know anything about foreign affairs, which guarantees she'll be a puppet. Like, there was good reason to think she'd be a puppet before, but that's a guarantee. And a lot of people in South Carolina said, that's just what we need. More puppets. This must be matting for you. Well, it is to agree. Believe me, that Tuesday night election, I voted for Mark Lynch. She was running against darling Graham.

30:56I had Mark Lynch on the show. Right. So, I can tell you this time, I can say this as a South Carolina. And it's just like, I can't talk about your mother, but you can talk about your mother. You can't talk about South Carolina, but I'm about to write now. I totally get that. Yes. It's because for people in other states who can talk about their own neighbors and whatnot. If you talk to Republican voters in this state, including friends and family and this, they're like, darling Graham's not qualified. When she had that one debate to the people, to the degree that people saw it, they asked her for policy questions. She goes, I have to admit, I'm not that informed on national security. This is a woman who's already a senator running to be one for another six years. But you know what, in a way, you almost have to respect somebody who comes out, says something like that. No one ever says, I don't know anything about something. Never. One of the first things she said in an interview, tickled me to death. They were asking her whatever she goes, I have to be honest. My brother was about sending all this money to Ukraine. I'm worried about the kitchen table budget than that. She said that. I was like, yeah, you're a normal person. That's what you would say. But the point I would make, the reason they voted for darling Graham, and there were reports

31:59when Trump had the big rally in Myrtle Beach and had darling Graham and all this stuff. And you better go vote for darling. There were people at the rally saying, we support Trump, but we're not sure about darling. There were enough people that wanted to vote for darling because Trump came to Myrtle Beach that day and they were kind of on the fence to begin with and we love Trump. It wasn't them thinking, oh, this is a woman we want for six years. It's like, we love Trump. He said vote for her. We will. That's what that was. And I would guarantee you that's not a lot of 35-year-olds and 21-year-olds. That's what that is. And I say that as a South Carolina, and he was like, what the hell? I talked to many of people who were in that age bracket who were like, who weren't even anti-Lindsay Graham. They're like, darling Graham can't do this. I talked to a lot of people like that. It was a special runoff election. How many people turn out in those? Well, that's true. That's true. What do the polls look like? I mean, it's South Carolina. So the Republican's supposed to win, right? Yeah. I mean, oh, she's going to be a senator for the next six years. I will say the Democrat running against her is not stupid. I'm not saying she's stupid, by the way. I think she's inexperienced and not politically savvy, which in in another context might be

33:03attractive, right? But in this, it's not. The Democrats are going to make her look foolish just because she doesn't know anything. And the same way that Mark Lynch did, he was very jickered with her. The Democrats are woman, by the way. It's two women. So that's going to look like. Well, she doesn't have to debate. Does she? Yeah, you can bow out. I mean, she was supposed to debate Mark Lynch more than she did. They called it off. So that was the thing is the lay low. Oh, you said something in the debate. We're not going to have any more debates. And we'll just hope Trump comes out here and says you're wonderful. And that's all it will take. And that's what happened. That's kind of what happened to Massey too. They're not exactly the same, but they're very similar. Oh, geez. That whole thing. Somebody confronted this Ed Galrain and said, well, I want you to debate Massey. You remember what his answer was? He said, what was it? I'm debating him right now. That's stupid. Well, that is unbelievably stupid. Like how stupid do you think we? Well, I may be asking that. But you know what? That's even the wrong framing because his supporters, it's not a matter of thinking we're stupid or not stupid. It's a matter of we're going to overwhelm you with money. We don't care if you're stupid or not stupid. It doesn't matter what your opinion is.

34:04And we're going to let you know that it doesn't matter. That's right. That's right. That we control you and that the people spending the money hope you're stupid. Like that helps them. So that's what they're banking on. Yeah. Look, Ed Galrain or anybody saying that, like, I'm debating him right now. I'm having an event. Could you imagine Mike Tyson, if he was fighting, you know, whoever was even going to fight was like, they're at the, you know, the weigh-in begin and the yelling at each other. And then Mike Tyson doesn't show up for the boxing match. And they, where were you, Mike? Well, I was debating him at the weigh-in. We were talking to Mike. And it got me what he would do that. Galrain wouldn't be meeting face to face. So like, that's just stupid on his face. Well, yes. Recently, sometime this week, I gave a free webinar on public speaking because I have a lot of experience with that. And it was packed with information. But one of the things I said is that depending on whether your subject matter allows for it, like, obviously, if you're talking about some technical thing in electrical engineering, this doesn't apply. But at the end, I was basically repeating something Gary North said, which is, leave them

35:05with legitimate hope. Like, you can't just black pill, black pill, black pill, black pill and say, all right, see you later, go home. Like, I have a gaping wound in my system because of you and you're just going to leave it open like that. So that doesn't mean you have to be a polyanna. It doesn't mean that you have to give them false hope. It's give them legitimate hope. Well, Jack Hunter, you write a lot of things about things that go wrong like this article that, by the way, your article about, people not voting for the Iran War, I have that at tomwoods.com slash 2795, which is the show notes page. But before that, at the Libertarian Street, you had an article about the terrible Florida Congressman Randy Fine. There are a lot of terrible things. But if I said to you, you have to give people legitimate hope. How would you do it? Part of us, what I just said, that people on the left and right are just tired of the same old same old. You could say that in different election cycles, but the idea that Donald Trump, somebody like him, would have even gotten elected. I remember when he got in in 2016, like this will go about three months and he'll drop

36:08out. That's what I thought. Probably a lot. Just because this is a guy from TV, it's the guy who, you know, just a rich guy from the 80s. I'm from the 80s. Like, that's what's going on. My point being, the idea that a guy like that could get in there and become president twice, things are possible now that weren't before. They could be really negative and really bad, or they could be radical in a way that the people in charge could have never foreseen of which Donald Trump is a good example. I still think that Bernie Sanders could have won in 2016 if Hillary would do what she did to him, just because people wanted something that radically different from the norm. I'm not saying that would have been a good thing. I'm just saying that's where we are in our politics, the democratic socialists of America to win primaries and beat a moderate Democrat that's been there for 15 years or whatever. That's happened. So that's why I see hope in politics. And all our hopes shouldn't just be about politics either. When Ron Paul ran for president, he'd tell you how terrible the Fed was, how terrible the wars were, how terrible the national debt was, he'd give you hope at the end. And he would also say it's not also just about politics.

37:09Go do what you like, do what you love, have fun. So it's a combination of all those things. My personality is optimistic. If we're just going to depress ourselves, go do something else. But my brain is thinking about this stuff all the time as I'm sure is yours and so many listening. How do people read more Jack Hunter? Of course, they comparatively check Libertarian Institute.org, which I highly endorse. But is there a more regular outlet? You can find me the Libertarian Institute. I'm on a regular basis with the American Conservative and Responsible Statecraft. I contribute there frequently, which is the Quincy Institute. Let's pause for a minute before we wrap up. Quincy Institute is something I think more of my people should know about. Can you say something about that? Yeah, it is a bipartisan. There are people on the left and right there, bass, voice, right for Responsible State Craft, which is the publication. But the Quincy Institute is for restraint in our foreign policy. Joe Kent has been a contributor there, as have I, as have been people on the left. Andrew Basifitch was sort of the figurehead and still is there at the Quincy Institute, a people familiar with him. The guy who's sort of right-leaning, the very anti-war and served in Operation Desert Storm.

38:14So if that gives you a little insight into what the Quincy Institute's about, our friend Kelly Vleyhose, sort of man's the mast head there at Responsible Statecraft. And it's a wonderful publication that I encourage everybody to check out, ResponsibleStateCraft.com. All right, very good. Well, I'll put that also at Tom Woods.com slash 27.95. But do you not want to send people somewhere else, Jack? I'm going to give you a little nudge. Oh, Jack, you can go on X, the Jack 174. No, you can find everything I do, but like that's everybody lives now, I guess, on X. That's not real life, but that's where those of us who run our mouths and write for living put our stuff. Okay, Jack 174 on X. I'll also put that Tom Woods.com slash 27.95 is the place for all this stuff. Jack, thanks so much for the chitchat and let's hope for the best. Absolutely, always great talk to you, Tom. Thank you, Jack. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

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