And Jonathan, you'll have the rebuttal after that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brett.

First of all, delight, honor to be back at the 96th Street.

Why I did my first appearance here a quarter of a century ago.

And I honestly asked the audience how many people had been present at my bar mitzvah.

Now I can ask you how many people are going to be present at my grandson's bar mitzvah, which is next month.

Yeah,

There are too many parties and too many combinations for me.

Yeah, this is the bottom line, okay? A number of scenarios.

That the Yashar party of Ghazi-Eisenkot holds together the Change Coalition, which is a euphemism of get rid of BB Coalition.

And the question is, they're only going to have, you know, 48 seats.

They can't get to the 61.

So there's only really...

Three options.

So is he dying to get back into the cabinet? Some, because that government won't last with, and I, and I think they'll all be radioactive if they sit with the joint list, right? They'll be radioactive.

I'd like you to give us your prognosis and diagnosis of what has taken place.

Well, certainly it does seem to be the end of an era.

And what was that era? The era of about 50 years that really began in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.

It accelerated after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the first memorandums of understanding that began with the Clinton administration in the 90s, and then through this century with the Bush MOU and then the Obama MOU.

uh aid reaching 40 billion dollars a year but that's just the beginning of it like during the recent war and really the ongoing war that began October 7 2023 the Biden administration gave us something the equivalent of 22 billion dollars in emergency aid and that doesn't include all the aid that went into the development of Iron Dome which I was privileged to help bring from Washington David Sling, Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and the list is quite, quite long.

In current dollars since 1948, something in the vicinity of $300 billion in American aid toward the state of Israel.

Israel is the largest recipient of that aid in the world, but there are countries that actually get much more, Germany, Japan, South Korea, get more money than Israel does, but it's not listed as aid.

you

So let's start our discussion by taking a look a little bit backward and say, what do you think are the major issues, the major currents driving through American civil life, through American politics that fed to the Democratic victory yesterday?

Well, we'd have to go back.

Let's see if we can do this very quickly on one foot, as it were.

Because I think as you intimated earlier, Laser, the U.S. has a relationship.

On one hand, it's a special relationship.

It's a more special relationship than any other bilateral tie that the United States has with any country in the world.

And I'm including Great Britain in that, France, Italy.

What do you think his next two years will look like? And how likely do you think it is that he will want to strike Iran again in a significant fashion?

So let's start our discussion by taking a look, you know, a little bit backward and say, what do you think are the major issues, the major currents driving through American civil life, through American politics that fed to the Democratic victory yesterday?

Well, we'd have to go back.

Let's see if we can do this very quickly on one foot as it were because I think as you intimated earlier, Laser, the U.S. has a relationship.

On one hand, it's a special relationship.

It's a more special relationship than any other bilateral tie that the United States has with any country in the world.

And I'm including Great Britain in that, France, Italy.

It has a strong, strong spiritual component and not just the evangelicals.

What do you think his next two years will look like? And how likely do you think it is that he will want to strike Iran again in a significant fashion?

This is a guest essay by Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and founder of the Israel Advocacy Group.

Contrary to the iconic Saul Steinberg map, published on the New Yorker's cover in 1976, America does not end at the Hudson River.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once told me, in fact, America begins 70 miles west of New York and ends 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

And in the middle of that vast expanse sits the verdant, generally prosperous, and usually stable state of Michigan.

The great American Jewish composer Irving Berlin back in 1914 wrote, that's why I wish again that I was in Michigan.

One wonders if today, 112 years later, Berlin would express the same yearning.

For it is in Michigan, improbably but plausibly, that the future of American Jewry will be decided.

What do you make of our race in Michigan against Mike Rogers, seven-term congressman, state legislator, army officer, FBI agent, up against Abdul El-Sayed, who I think is at least Muslim Brotherhood adjacent?

What I think about it, I think it's the watershed event.

I think it's the most important election in this midterms.

It is crucial, certainly for the United States.

It's crucial for foreign policy, domestic policy.

But I got to speak honestly, for American Jews, it's the bellwether.

That is, if a person who hates, hates the land that is the homeland of the Jewish people, that is home to more than half the Jewish people, who sympathizes with those who wish to destroy those people and destroy that state and does so openly, And he does all this not from, you know, kind of crazy New York, right, Hugh? Right, but does it from mid-America, from Michigan, a prosperous, verdant, and largely stable state.

Do you think El-Sayed's an anti-Semite?

worst military defeat or the worst terror attack in Israel's history?

Well, I think September 7th was a military defeat.

The IDF did not defend this country.

I would call that not a terrorist attack.

I'd call that a military defeat.

But it was not just a military defeat.

It was a conceptual defeat.

Because when it comes to security policies, I don't think there's a lot of daylight between what Netanyahu, Eisenhower, Bennett, and many of the other leading candidates, Lieberman, I don't think there's a lot in what they think that's different.

By this time tomorrow, who's going to be the next prime minister?

I'd love to be able to tell you I knew.

You know, I love prophecy, and I'm usually pretty good at it, but this is a hard one.

I still think that Gotti Eisenkant is going to pull this out at some level, but he'll fall short of the 61 he needs.

And that's been a question of horse trading.

the Change Coalition.

Can they agree on a leadership? Not quite sure they'll agree on Gadi Azenkot.

And then second question, no matter who is the prime minister, will they stand shoulder to shoulder and tell the IDF to fly wing to wing with America if there is another round coming with Iran?

Is that right?

I think that's almost a moot point, whether it's a strategic issue.

I can give myriad examples.

Let me give you one random one, which is particularly relevant right now.

A vote held several weeks ago in the U.S. Congress whether to suspend military aid to Israel.

Democrats overwhelmingly voted for this.

There was a similar vote in the Senate just about a week and a half ago.

What do you think has happened in these intervening decades?

Dr. Oren, what's going to happen? I just want to get it done and figure out who's going to be the next prime minister of Israel.

Good to be with you here.

I was just listening to your previous segment about prophecy, okay? So now you're asking me to be a prophet about what's going to happen.

On the basis, and I believe in prophecy, don't I? I don't necessarily want to fulfill that role, but here it is.

If you look at the statistics, no...

And there's two groups here.

There's the Netanyahu group and the anti-Netanyahu group.

Dr. McLaurin, are you anticipating any kind of an October surprise from or to Iran that would affect yours and our elections?

Let's talk first about October 7th, because the most horrific thing to me after October 7th was watching some people react not with horror, but with joy to what happened a- as if Israel ha- had gotten what it deserved and, and th- this idea that, well, it's about Israel, but yet they were targeting people who were Jewish, weren't Israeli citizens.

It's true.

First of all, thank you for having me on.

Um, sorry you were delayed on that airplane.

I've been there, done that, uh, and good to be with you today.

It, it's a very hard day here, uh, on October 7th, the third anniversary of this war.

We are still in the war.

How do you see it playing out?

Let's talk first about October 7th, because the most horrific thing to me after October 7th was watching some people react not with horror, but with joy to what happened a- as if Israel, uh, had gotten what it deserved and, and this idea that, well, it's about Israel, but yet they were targeting people who were Jewish, weren't Israeli citizens.

It's true.

First of all, thank you for having me on.

Um, sorry you were delayed on that airplane.

I've been there, done that, uh, and good to be with you today.

It, it's a very hard day here on October 7th, the third anniversary of this war.

We are still in the war.

How do you see it playing out?

How-- What are the various ways in which this issue could play out? What do you think is going to happen?

Well, let's, let's just understand it.

It, it is an immensely complex issue, and I'll try to simplify as much as I can.

Um, the, the state of Israel is a modern, um, ostensibly secular country.

Um, it is Zionist, which was the, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.

It wasn't a religious movement per se, though many religious people are Zionists and see the creation of the Jewish state as, as a, as, as kind of divine intervention, uh, in, in Jewish history.

Um, but the ultra-Orthodox are people who basically look at Zionism and say, "This is-- These are Jews arrogating the exclusive purview of God, which is to bring about the Messiah and bring about the redemption of the Jewish people.

Tell me a bit about your father and his experiences in a little bit more detail, and how did that shape your worldview growing up, and how did it intersect with your decision to become a lone soldier in Israel?

And can anything really move in three weeks in Israel?

Well, that's about four different questions.

Let's begin.

The fly Dubai incident miracle at first redounded to Netanyahu's benefit.

He was at the airport.

He greeted the passengers.

He praised the heroes and hugged them and great optics for a while.

pleasant thing to think about.

What did you make of the Miliband speech? Because it went on from there into even worse and more sinister suggestions.

Well, Ed Miliband cares great about injustice in the world, but they don't say a word about the fact that China's put a million Muslims in concentration camps, doesn't care whether Turkey illegally occupies half of Cyprus.

It's only the Jewish state he's going to beat up on.

And that, wow, the big British, big, brave British are going to beat up on the Jewish state because they care about injustice in the world.

And they don't even care what's happening in their own country.

And I'm going to make an association, which may sound rather incendiary.

Hugh, but, you know, there's a memory from World War II of Europeans killing Jews even when they were losing a war.

How important is that issue to the elections, which ought to be about the straight Iran and Israel security issues?

How have these three years changed the Israeli electorate?

Okay, let's begin with the fact that this is not the first election since October 7th.

It's the first election since December of 2022, which means that this is a very rare accomplishment of any Israeli government to go its full four years.

It's very rare.

And why this happened, in spite of the truly unprecedented, almost unspeakable vicissitudes of the last three years, is because nobody in the government wanted to break up the government.

No one had an interest.

No one thought that by going to elections, they could do better in elections.

Who you said was kingmaker, and I was going to check in and see if he's still kingmaker.

Do you have an opinion on the Houthis, though?

Well, it's insofar as they tend to shoot missiles at my home, yeah, I got an opinion about them.

Uh, they're a proxy for Iran.

They're an extension of the Iranian regime.

Uh, and now they have taken the coastline along the Bab el-Mandab waterway, uh, which means that Iran is effectively controlling that waterway.

It's trying to control the Strait of Hormuz.

And from the Bab el-Mandab, watch this, Iran will now try to control the entrance to the Suez Canal.

The Saudis and the UAE can't control that?

I don't know what your

answer was.

No, we talked about the Sheffield.

Oh, that's right.

Right, right.

You remember that.

The Sheffield factor going back to the Falklands War of 1982 when a French-made rocket was fired by the Argentinians at it.

So, Ambassador Oren, if we want to establish the deterrence for the United States targets that Israel has established for its entire country, what would you advise President Trump to do right now rather than after they get lucky?

How does this go in your view?

I think it goes.

I think the Iranians are going to try to drag the United States into more kinetic activity to get oil prices driven up, to weaken the Republican chances of retaining the two houses of Congress.

That's their goal.

They're not stupid, Hugh.

They know what's up.

They know they're in an impossible situation with the naval blockade.

How long does she stay the attorney general? And who thought up this system?

What happened and why did Israel do it? What did it hope to accomplish?

Well, first of all, great to be back with you, Hugh.

Let's put it in context.

The context is Israel post-October 7th.

October 7th was a result of successive Israeli governments being passive, while massive terrorist forces, enemy forces built up on our borders, on Gaza, in Lebanon, etc.

That's never going to happen again.

Post-October 7th, Israel is a very different Israel.

What do you make of that scenario?

... against any sort of military aid to Israel, both offensive and defensive.

Right.

Well, I started off with an understatement.

I said, "It's curious.

It's curious that these members of Congress are smiling." Because they've just endangered the security of their children and grandchildren.

The United States has one, count them one, ally in the world that's willing to fight side by side with the United States.

To fight as not just military equals, but certainly technologically equals if not beyond that.

Bennett is fifty-four years old.

What is the best case and worst case for what he brings home from his meetings this week with President Trump?

Well, the worst-case scenario, let's start with that, would be if President Trump says to him, listen, our interests have diverged.

We understand that you really care about that ballistic system in the hands of the Iranians.

You care about Iranian support for terror.

You care about the nuclear program and the – highly enriched nuclear dust, as the president called it.

What we really care about is the Strait of Hormuz and getting oil prices down.

And we're going to focus on that.

Do you

What does that look like from your vantage point?

You're winning it.

You achieve the five goals, Alex, that the United States and Israel set out at the beginning of this war, which was ending Iran's nuclear program, shipping abroad the nuclear stockpile of highly enriched uranium, ending Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program, ending Iranian support for terror around the Middle East and across the globe.

And then as the war progressed, really additional demand was an end to Iranian attempts to control or even block shipping of energy cargoes through the Strait of Hormuz.

That's it.

That's what winning looks like.

Anything short of that, maybe partial victory, for example, having Iran give up its nuclear program.

So what is your hope for the Trump administration? What do you believe is the best policy going forward?

Mm-hmm.

I think, uh, it's extraordinary.

We're in a truly historic moment.

John, Jillian, always good to be with you.

Um, who would've thought? This is one of the world's most wicked regimes.

It's not just that they have tried to destroy the State of Israel again and again for the last 46 years.

They are the world's largest state sponsor of terror.

Yeah, of course