The Hugh Hewitt Show

Carly Fiorina joined me on today’s show:

Audio: 12-29hhs-fiorina

Transcript:

HH: As we come in running into the corner of the New Year, everyone is not working this week unless they’re running for president, but I have a feeling that Carly Fiorina is working somewhere today. Maybe in Iowa, maybe in New Hampshire, maybe in South Carolina, that’s where I’ve been catching up with her recently when it’s not Las Vegas. Carly Fiorina, Happy New Year. I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

CF: I did Hugh. How about you?

HH: A wonderful one, but where do I find you today? Are you at home or back on the trail?

CF: Well, believe it or not, I am at home today.

HH: (Laughs) Oh good. I found Governor Huckabee in a duck-hunting thing, so maybe everyone gets the week off (laughs).

CF: Well, I’m happy to talk with you.

HH: Now let me begin by playing for you a clip of Donald Trump talking this morning with Savannah Guthrie about Hilary and Bill Clinton. As a woman candidate, I want your perspective on this. [Audio file delay] Have you heard this exchange yet, Carly?

CF: Well, I’ve heard some versions of it, but–

HH: Here we are, now we can play it.

CF: Okay.

DT: There was certainly a lot of abuse of women and you look at whether it’s Monica Lewinsky or or Paula Jones or many of them and that certainly will be fair game, certainly if they play the woman’s card with respect to me. That will be fair game.

SG: You mentioned Monica Lewinsky. Are you saying an alleged extramarital affair that of course he has now admitted, is that fair game in a campaign?

DT: Is that alleged? I don’t think that’s alleged.

SG: No, he’s admitted it.

DT: Well, he’s admitted it, as you know, I just used the alleged.

SG: Right, exactly, so are you saying [an] extramarital affair by Bill Clinton is fair game, it’s something you think should be in the campaign.

DT: I’m not saying [that], what I’m saying is very simple. If she is going to play the woman card because I’ll do more for women than Hillary Clinton is going to do for women, including the safety of our country which is good for everybody. But if she’s going to play what she started about a week ago talking about, “Oh, he mentioned the whole thing,” playing up the woman card very strongly, and if she’s going to play that game, and he’s going to be out there campaigning, then he’s certainly fair game and I think just about everybody agrees with me on that.

HH: Carly Fiorina, do you agree with him on that?

CF: Well of course Bill Clinton is fair game, but that isn’t the way to beat Hilary Clinton. Continue Reading

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joined me on today’s show:

Audio: 12-29hhs-huckabee

Transcript:

HH: Joined now by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Governor Huckabee, welcome. Merry Christmas. I hope you had great one and I hope you’re looking forward to a New Year.

MH: I certainly am, Hugh, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year back to you.

HH: Now I got you for a couple of segments. I want to talk about Bill and Hilary next segment, but I was thinking as I was driving in today, here’s a guy who ran in 2008 and ran in 2016 and I’m curious what you think the big difference is between the presidential races of the eight years.

MH: Hugh, the biggest difference is that the anger of the voters is just beyond anything I have ever seen or have could have imagined going into the cycle. Voters were angry in 2008. There was a lot of frustration, lot of weariness with [the] financial situation in the country, lot of weariness of how long the war in Iraq and Afghanistan had dragged on. But there’s something about this cycle in which people now after seven years of Obama are so angry and, particularly on the conservative side, it’s almost a seething rage that is beyond any ability to sit down and rationalize with it, and people just are so ready to burn the whole thing down, and that’s the big thing I see.

HH: So how do yo talk to an audience like that because you and I both know we can’t do that, we have a constitutional republic that has endured for 200-plus because it was drafted by genius. How do you get back into the lane?

MH: It’s the biggest challenge. In fact, I found, Hugh, just take a look at the field. The more qualified a person is, the more experience, the more background, preparation, judgment, moments of leadership challenges that a person has had, it’s almost as if that is the disqualifying factor rather than for somebody to say “It looks like you’ve done the kinds of things that would prepare you to be president.” This time it’s almost like “You have done nothing to prepare yourself to be president of the United States,” that’s just who we want, and I don’t really know how to resolve that. Continue Reading

I joined Don Lemon on CNN Tonight Monday night to discuss the eruption of the Trump-Clinton knockdown.  In the conversation I make one key point I don’t see often, which is Donald Trump’s ability –unique among all the candidates– to create his own headlines via his Twitter feed, and the very difficult problem this creates for Hillary and Bill:

We are torn asunder by labels. David French wrote yesterday about the nation not having a general ideological direction, but rather being more polarized.  He has a point, the left is moving more left and the right is moving more right.  It is as if it when it comes to choosing a stance on an issue, it matters more to be left or to be right than to pick a stance.  What else would drive people, in a accelerated fashion, in both directions simultaneously?  Rather than ask what is the best stance on an issue, we ask what is the liberal or conservative stance.  Such an approach would serve to naturally polarize us.  Our labels seem to matter more than the issue in front of us.

It is very easy to blame media for this state of affairs.  Media likes a simple narrative.  They want the story to be one of left v right, good v bad.  Every story gets whittled down to its “essentials” and then defined in those terms.  When you add on top of that the “commentary complex,” from Limbaugh to Matthews and we end up sounding like I Cor. 1:12.  But I think that is too easy.  We have a choice, the information is available, we can look deeper if we want to.

It is also easy to blame the political process.  Consultants break us into groups, label those groups and pander to the group profile.  But that is too easy as well.  Just because someone tells us we are like X,Y, and Z, we do not have to fit the mold they try to put us in.  We often choose to, but why? Continue Reading