SOTU and The Constitution

HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory, and bonjour. Hi, America, and Canada, and the rest of the world. Greetings from HughHewitt.com. I'm in the ReliefFactor.com West Coast studio today. I believe, in Michigan, is Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College.  

All things Hillsdale are available at Hillsdale.edu, and by all things I mean, if you visit the website, you can sign up for free for Imprimis, the speech digest, which is old school—comes to your mailbox once a month. You can sign up for the online courses, which have millions of viewers. You can start a charter school. You can get smart. You can also listen to every one of our conversations dating back to 2013, beginning with Homer and the Old Testament right up to today at HughforHillsdale.com. Good morning, Dr. Arnn.  

LARRY ARNN: Good morning.  

HEWITT: Are you in Michigan?  

ARNN: I am. I'm here watching the vortex go away today.  

HEWITT: I was wondering how vortex-y is the vortex in Hillsdale?  

ARNN: It's just colder than blue blazes here, and we've been having an adventure. It's fun, because I have to send out all these warnings. And the parents call, and they're very worried, and they should be. And so, we took it seriously, and so we sent out cautions, and we canceled classes one day.  

But then, I always put a joke at the end of them. And so one of my students gave me a great opportunity. I said, would the young man—the young man who ran across the campus in shorts and a T-shirt is to report to my office tomorrow properly clothed, so I can call him an idiot, and he did. Of course, he did.  

HEWITT: You know, there was a picture of a college student in Minnesota with a parka, and a headscarf, and wrapped up. But he was wearing bicycle shorts, and they asked for his name. He said, I'm not going to tell you my name. My mom will be mad at me.  

ARNN: Oh, yeah. This boy said—this boy's a physics major and a sophomore—and he had looked up a chart—how long he could be out. He timed it. But he said, Dr. Arnn, I'm dumb, but I'm not dangerously dumb.  

HEWITT: Well, I actually think he might be, but that's why you instructed him, and he did turn himself in. That's good.  

ARNN: He did. Yeah.  

HEWITT: That's very good. All right, what I want to do—I wrote your assistant yesterday. I said I want to talk about Article II, Section 2, and Article II, Section 3. Article II, Section 2, in the relevant part says, “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”  

And Section 3 says, “He shall from time to time give the Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.” Now, that's an interesting clause I haven't considered before, but let's talk for a moment.  

The State the Union's coming up on February 2. Nancy Pelosi invited Donald Trump. Then, she revoked the invitation. Could he have ordered the houses to convene?  

ARNN: He could. Yeah. That would be foolish, but first of all, understand how—you just read the clause, right? It doesn't say he's going to go before the Congress.  

HEWITT: Correct.  

ARNN: It says you're going to give me information, and the first time this happened, George Washington went over there and sat and talked with them. And when he was leaving the room, he says, I'm never going to do that again. And so he sent them a letter. And most of the nineteenth century—that's the style.  

This tradition that we think we have now, that really grows up in the twentieth century. And it's been changed by the invention of the modern media, first the radio and then the TV, because, now, it's a big communication opportunity. But what it was supposed to be was just keeping the House informed—keeping the Congress informed.  

And so, he could do whatever he wanted. He could send them a letter. He could convene them. But, if they're already convened, he can't make them be in the chamber. And he can't make them be anything but rude to him, so I think that would be foolish.  

What he could do—he could do it readily—I had a really great idea from a friend. And that was, he should go to an inner-city church in Detroit and give the State of the Union, and he's at perfect liberty to do that. And if he sent the text of it to the Congress later, he would have satisfied the Constitution.  

HEWITT: That would have been wonderful.  

ARNN: Yeah. It's a good idea, and it's such a putrid, little squabble, this thing. The whole thing going on with the shutdown is in one way a putrid, little squabble. But Churchill said, wars sometimes start on small occasions, but never for small causes. And the squabble was—the start—Nancy Pelosi said her reason was—because see, remember, Trump and Pelosi are both feeling their way here now. Right? She said the reason was she couldn't guarantee security.  

And so, Trump got the Department of Homeland Security to say, plenty of security. We'll be fine. And she wouldn't change, right? So it started with a reason, and then the reason was taken away. But she persisted, and he persisted until he probably thought it through. And it seemed to me like—I hope it's true—in the shutdown, presidents can do one of two things: They can make a big deal out of it, or they can say, it's OK, and keep the—like Clinton, like among the things he closed was the national parks. Right?  

HEWITT: Right.  

ARNN: And they generate a lot of revenue for themselves. They could keep going, but he wanted it to change people's lives, whereas it didn't seem to me like Trump did want that. He wanted it, everything's OK, and we're going to work this out. And then, people like you and me conclude we don't really need the government to be working all the time.  

HEWITT: No, we don't, and we don't need a lot of it. But I do feel for those who have jobs and don't get their paychecks, because that would be difficult on almost anyone. The correct response is to methodically eliminate that which was proven to be unnecessary but to do so within the rule of law and with due accord to the rights of the employees.  

ARNN: Yeah, and it took a long time to build this mess, and it'll take a long time to disassemble it, if we do it right.  

HEWITT: All right. Now, I want to turn to Ambassador John Bolton—that first the president shall be commander in chief. Ambassador John Bolton joined me in the first hour of today's program. I'm going to play for you a Q&A and then get your response as we move through this as a constitutional authority. Cut number one: 

The first question is the obvious question: Is military intervention imminent by the US, Brazil, or Colombia or some combination thereof in Venezuela?  

JOHN BOLTON: No, the president said, all options are on the table, but our objective is a peaceful transfer of power. And that's why we've been imposing economic sanctions, increasing political pressure from around the world, including from the European Parliament yesterday, for example, hopefully from the countries themselves within a day or two. We're going to see a major series of demonstrations all across Venezuela tomorrow intended to convince the military, among others in Venezuela, that the overwhelming majority of the people of the country want the Maduro regime thrown out. That's what we hope and expect to do.  

HEWITT: Dr. Larry Arnn, your response to that exchange.  

ARNN: Well, Bolton is an ace. That's my first response.  

HEWITT: Yes.  

ARNN: And, for sure, you don't want to go running around all over the world intervening militarily when you can help it, and sometimes you can't help it. But about this point about all options on the table—the president can certainly send a force down there, if he wants to. And he tells them to go, and they're going to go, and that's what the commander in chief provision means.  

The trouble comes because you need money to sustain such a thing, and Congress controls the purse strings. And so, way better to keep them on board while you go, especially if you think it's going to last. But he can send them, if he wants to, and I should say a word about why that's important.  

One of the great achievements of Winston Churchill was that, in the Second World War—and he only learned how to do it and then got the job to do it in the First World War, where there were constant failures, because there was not unified command. There was actually, in Britain of all places, a political controversy that ran through the war between what they called the Frock Coats—the politicians—and the Brass Hats—the military. And the military leaders were popular, and the politicians didn't feel like they could stand up to them.  

And then they were hampered in trying to stand up to them, because it wasn't clear in this prime ministerial system, where the prime minister is just the first among a bunch of equals, who could say. And so Churchill, in the second war—and this took him 24 hours to do after he got the job on May the 10th, 1940, the same day Hitler attacked to the west—he organized the government so that (a) he was Minister of Defense too.  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: And (b) he was the political member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee—that's where the generals gathered—and he was a member of the war cabinet, and he was the only member of all three. And, in 1942, a war hero, who Churchill himself had helped make a war hero—Roger Keyes—led a motion. You're going to have to stop. Anyway, I'll tell about the motion when we get back, and that will show why this commander in chief thing is so important.  

HEWITT: Roger Keyes when we return to the Hillsdale Dialogue. In the meantime, go to Hillsdale.edu. Go get an application. Send your child or grandchild to go get an application. Get them a real education at Hillsdale College, the lantern of the north. Stay tuned, America. It's The Hugh Hewitt Show.  

Welcome back, America. 22 minutes after the hour, the Hillsdale Dialogue is under way, the last radio hour of the week. All things Hillsdale, especially for our new audience WGGO, The Patriot, 100.5 FM, 1590 AM in Salamanca.  

This last radio hour of the week, I always give over to big issues with big brains. In this case, Dr. Larry Arnn is the president of Hillsdale College. Hillsdale, you can read all about at Hillsdale.edu. You can sign up for a free newsletter which—how many people get that, Dr. Arnn?  

ARNN: Over four million, I think, now.  

HEWITT: And it's great content, it's absolutely free, and there are online courses about the Constitution, about Progressivism. And I've been doing this hour with Larry Arnn or his colleagues for five years, and all of those are collected at HughforHillsdale.com.  

When we went to break, we were talking about the commander-in-chief power, and we'll come back to the Bolton interview in a moment. But you were explaining that Churchill gathered unto himself all threads, and then Roger Keyes rose in the House of Commons to say that's bad. Right?  

ARNN: That's right, and this shows how much importance Churchill attached to this. Roger Keyes led a motion of no confidence against Churchill, in 1942. And, by the way, the war was less desperate in 1942, although it was going badly, because we'd come in, and the Russians had come in, and it looked like the allies were going to win. So—and the thesis was Churchill's doing too much, and so the demand was that Churchill give up the Ministry of Defense—that is to say, divide the power again.  

And so, Keyes wore his uniform and his medals, some of which Churchill had given him, to be impressive, and he made a speech. We can't win the war without the prime minister, but he's doing too much. And then he finished and sat down, and Churchill stood up and said, the House can take my job any day they want to, but they cannot take one of them. And then Keyes stood up and said, Speaker, I withdraw my support for this motion.  

HEWITT: All right. With that in mind, we go on to Ambassador Bolton's second question: If the US is obliged, because of all of the options being on the table, to intervene, would it intend to stay long?  

BOLTON: Well, I don't really want to speculate. I think this is something that the people of Venezuela, really, are the focus of. I think what is important, as you mentioned in your first question, though, is there is overwhelming support among the Latin American countries for the transfer of power away from Maduro. There are a few exceptions—Cuba, Nicaragua, for example, for obvious reasons—but this is not a made-in-the-USA effort. This is a made-in-Venezuela effort, fully supported across the board, all kinds of different governments in Latin America supporting Juan Guaidó, the interim president.  

HEWITT: Now, in addition to that, Dr. Larry Arnn, the president just tweeted two minutes ago, “I inherited a [total] mess in Syria and Afghanistan, the “Endless Wars” of unlimited spending and death. During my campaign, I said, very strongly, that these wars must finally end. We spend $50 Billion a year in Afghanistan and have hit them so hard that we are now talking peace…” How does that play into whether or not we go into Venezuela?  

ARNN: Well, it's exactly apposite, because, if we go into Venezuela, we need to have a plan to win and to do it soon. I myself rebel against this claim sometimes made, sometimes by conservatives, that the American people don't have the stuff anymore for long wars. And I rebel against it, because Winston Churchill rebelled against it.  

We don't want to be perpetually at war. He wrote a speech. He wrote an article, in 1936, “What Good's a Constitution?” And in there he says, if you're always at war, there can be no limits on the government, and so he deplored this.  

Like in America, we have the War on Poverty, right? And we've waged that war now for more than 50 years, and we've spent enough money to endow every poor person in America with a good income. And we still have the same poverty rates, and that means that, in a liberal society, you need limited government. And so that's why to go and be perpetually at war—  

Now, there's a million ways to do what we need to do in the Middle East that don't involve constant, year-after-year fighting in difficult places. Bases, air power, go in when you have to and get back out—that was Churchill's actual strategy in Afghanistan, where he fought in 1897. So, if we go into Venezuela, we should go in with a plan to win and get out.  

HEWITT: And get out. I'll be right back with Dr. Larry Arnn. That's exactly my view. I believe it is John Bolton's view. I believe it is the president's view, and we will see. More of the Bolton interview, more of Dr. Larry Arnn when we return. Go nowhere, America. It's The Hugh Hewitt Show.  

Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College. You can always hear everything about Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu, including a tremendous new course on World War II Dr. Arnn and Victor Davis Hanson put together. It is just the best thing available for your content downloading at Hillsdale.edu. All of our conversations for listening—binge listening—are available at HughforHillsdale[.com]. There are about 200 of them now.  

Dr. Arnn, as I said, last hour Ambassador John Bolton joined me. I would like to play for you a little bit more of what he had to say and get your reactions to it. This is the second exchange we had: 

Now, Ambassador Bolton, your yellow pad the other day said, quote, “5,000 troops to Colombia.” Has an army combat brigade been ordered to Colombia or are already there?  

BOLTON: When we say all options are on the table, we want to keep it at that level. And going beyond that I think would be imprudent, as George H. W. Bush would say.  

HEWITT: Well, radio is, of course, an audio show. We can't see what's on your yellow pad. Anything written on your yellow pad right now you'd like to share with us?  

BOLTON: It says, “Hugh Hewitt.” That's what I have written down.  

HEWITT: That not enough. Don't invade the studio! Let's talk about after Maduro. I think he's a goner. How quickly can Venezuela revert to the norm of a thriving—I mean, they've got the most oil in the world. How long will it take to recover?  

BOLTON: Well, we're hoping it will be very quick, although one has to say the social disintegration, the assault on the fabric of civil society, after 20 years of rule by Chavez and Maduro, has had profound effects. Right now, we estimate somewhere perhaps as many as four million-plus refugees have fled from Venezuela. Maybe a million and a half in Colombia, maybe a half a million in Brazil, the other million scattered around, including a couple hundred thousand in this country.  

The poor people who were the source of Chavez's support in the early years have been hardest hit. There are studies by think tanks and universities that said, just in the past year or so, the weight of the average Venezuelan has decreased 24 pounds. Think about that. So the economic devastation that this Socialist government has caused is really quite profound.  

On the other hand, we believe that the oil infrastructure—which has been neglected by Maduro so that he and his cronies can loot the oil revenues away from the Venezuelan people—we think that can be fixed in some substantial measure fairly quickly. So, if we could get that turned back on, get oil production back up after Maduro leaves, then that's a source of revenue that would be applied very quickly.  

We are looking now at what humanitarian assistance we can give. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last Saturday that we would be prepared to donate an initial $20 million to the Red Cross, to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. So we're looking at all this very, very carefully.  

HEWITT: Pause there. Now, Dr. Arnn, your comments in hold. But I noticed he used the word imprudent, and prudence is often a focus of the Hillsdale Dialogue.  

ARNN: That's right. Prudence is the intellectual activity of figuring out what to do amidst complicated circumstances, understanding those circumstances, and keeping in mind the proper ultimate aims. And so that's kind of an intellectual split personality. You have to think about stuff that's shifting all the time, and you have to think about stuff that's eternal, and you have to bring them together.  

And, by the way, John Bolton—isn't he good? You were poking him there, trying to get him to say stuff, and he's just very nimble. He's even casual while he's nimble.  

HEWITT: Yeah. He's funny too, which helps.  

ARNN: Yeah. This is a man with some intellectual command, let us say. Yeah, and he raised two points there that, I think, matter: One is, when you're talking about using the military, it's just necessary that you think about what the interest of the United States is. And we commented last week that Venezuela basically forms the southern border of the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a choke point there—a narrow one just north of Cuba, a narrow one just west of Cuba, and then a wider one between Venezuela and Puerto Rico.  

And so, if the Soviet Navy gets to be a big deal there—the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico lead up into the breadbasket of America, and so, strategically, it matters. And you think about the Monroe Doctrine, which is, you European powers don't get to do that over here. We're going to have a free land over here, and you're not going to come over here and turn it into Europe. So a commander in chief has to be thinking about things like that.  

And then the second is the point about socialism, isn't it?  

HEWITT: Yeah.  

ARNN: Like when Mexico nationalized—and I don't remember the numbers anymore—its petroleum industry, they increased the staff on it by a multiple. They just put all their friends in there.  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: And then it started losing money. And if you have a market and competition, then there will be real returns in the company, and that will spread prosperity around. And if you socialize it, then it actually tends to—in the case of Venezuela, and in the hands of Hugo Chavez and his successors and their friends.  

HEWITT: And I hope—the leader who's emerged, Juan Guaidó, is a leftist, but I hope he's not a socialist. There are differences. Let me play you the next two exchanges with Ambassador Bolton. Number one:  

Now, Ambassador Bolton, Reuters reported atrocities have begun to occur—between 35 and 40 people murdered, 850 people kidnapped. I believe that the secret agents of Maduro were at the home of the actual president, the legitimate leader, Guaidó. Can even the dumbest generals and admirals count on us standing by when they do this? Can they not realize that's going to trigger—if they have a Tiananmen Square in Venezuela, we're not going to stand by, are we?  

BOLTON: Well this is a critical question. And I think, when you've looked at other revolutions—some in the Arab Spring—in Egypt, for example—the military wouldn't fire on their own people. So tomorrow, as I say, all across Venezuela, there are going to be what we believe to be massive demonstrations. And I think that should show to the military where the real heart of the people is.  

The problem that makes it particularly acute in Venezuela is the control exercised by Cuban security forces, in many respects, that actually intimidate the Venezuelan military. It's not an accident that around the hemisphere people now call the country Cuba-zuela, because the Cubans are so much a part of the Maduro regime. And that's why the stakes are high here, because a major defeat for Cuba in Venezuela could have ramifications in Cuba as well.  

HEWITT: Is there a risk that the Cuban agents—and there are now Russian mercenaries allegedly in the country—the little green men—that they opened fire on the free people of Venezuela demonstrating, and they create the Tiananmen Square? Have you considered that risk, that it's not the Venezuelan military but the Cubans and the Russians?  

BOLTON: Now, that's precisely correct. What we've seen, the violence you've referred to already, which, interestingly, has been largely in the poorest parts of Caracas—that is to say, directed against the poorest residents of the city, the former supporters of Chavez, by basically armed gangs called colectivos in Spanish, trained and equipped by Cuba.  

These are the thugs and killers that have been sent out in the past days—were sent out against earlier expressions of opposition to Maduro, and it's these people. They are absolutely ruthless. They're capable of cold-blooded murder, and they've engaged in it already.  

So, the strength of the demonstrations by the civilian population is important. And the more people who come out, it provides safety for everybody. So there's a kind of cycle here, and this is what has to convince the military that the regime has completely lost the confidence of the Venezuelan people.  

HEWITT: So it sounds, Larry Arnn, like the administration has weighed the risks here, and they know what has to happen—is they need everyone out, or the killers will kill.  

ARNN: And I can't help but think of something famous that Abraham Lincoln wrote. So, in 1848, a fellow named Kossuth—a Hungarian revolutionary to whom there's a big statue in Washington, DC—toured around America and got resolutions and support from state legislatures and political committees. And the Republican committee in Illinois met with him, and what proceeded was the Kossuth Resolutions written by Abraham Lincoln. And they're amazing, and they're exactly apposite to this.  

It says, the United States has no right to intervene in the internal affairs of another country; if a third country does so intervene, it may at its option intervene; and that, if it does, it must do things—to the best of its ability but not to guarantee success—that help the people to enjoy their rights. So it looks to me like that's how they're thinking about this right now. The Cubans are in there, and the Cubans were in Grenada when Reagan invaded Grenada, and that's a kind of parallel to this that I think we haven't mentioned.  

HEWITT: Yeah.  

ARNN: And now, that's the first time the United States had performed admirably in a war for a long time, and there's a Clint Eastwood movie about it.  

HEWITT: Yeah, Freedom Ridge, I believe.  

ARNN: Heartbreak Ridge.  

HEWITT: Heartbreak Ridge. Yeah.  

ARNN: Yeah, it's very good. And that thing, I happen to know how that happened. Eugenia Charles was the president of the Dominica and she was, at that time, the chairman of the Organization of American States.  

And she went to the ambassador to the Organization of American States, Bill Middendorf, a colleague of mine on Heritage Foundation Board, and said, We need help here. This place is going to take over the whole Caribbean, and our freedom is threatened. What can you do? And he took her to see Ronald Reagan, and so it started with a request from local people worried about their freedom, just like this. And it involved a third power, the Cubans—the proxies of the Soviets—being intervening there, and so we went and stopped it.  

HEWITT: When we come back from break, we'll play the end of the conversation that involves Cuba with John Bolton. Don't go anywhere, America, except of course, to our sponsor, the one and only ReliefFactor.com. Go there. I tell you about it three times a day. I take it every single day.  

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This week on Townhall Review with Hugh Hewitt, fire disaster leads to lawsuits, and an electric company struggles to survive. I discussed the mess with Pete Peterson, dean of the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. All you have to do is go to TownhallReview.com, sign up for the podcast. You'll never miss a show. That's TownhallReview.com.  

I also do the post-game show with Duane, the garden gnome, the slumbering Duane who has—he's been sort of here today, kind of. We'll be right back, America, with Dr. Larry Arnn. Stay tuned.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt. This is the Hillsdale Dialogue with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of probably the most successful college in the United States. By any metric, by any review, by any judge, you would want your child to go to Hillsdale. And you can go download an application at Hillsdale.edu, where you can educate yourself and your homeschoolers by all of the wonderful courses there. And you can listen to every Hillsdale Dialogue at Hillsdale.edu.  

Dr. Arnn, I want to play the last couple of exchanges with Ambassador Bolton from an hour ago and get your comments on it. Here we go:  

Have you been talking frequently with the president about this, or has he basically delegated this to you and Secretary Pompeo? How often is he talking to you about Venezuela?  

BOLTON: We talk several times a day about Venezuela. He called President Juan Guaidó a couple of days ago. They had an excellent conversation. The president's very actively engaged in this, and we're looking at a whole range of economic and political steps that remain to be taken.  

HEWITT: Two last questions, Ambassador John Bolton. Have you requested plans from the Pentagon for military action in Venezuela, as it was alleged you did concerning Iran after Iran attacked our embassy in Iraq?  

BOLTON: You are a persistent questioner, Hugh. All I'll say is all options are on the table.  

HEWITT: All right, and then lastly, Cuba. Did President Obama make a mistake in recognizing Cuba? Has Cuba's behavior changed anyway? Does it remain a Stalinist police state?  

BOLTON: Well, Cuba's behavior has certainly changed. It has gotten worse since Obama's recognition, and we've taken a variety of steps to change that. We're looking now at additional sanctions and steps we can take. That's why I was pleased to give, in October, a speech in Miami, where I singled out the troika of tyranny—Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua. We're dealing with Venezuela now, as we've just discussed, but these other two legs of the troika of tyranny remain very much on our minds.  

HEWITT: Ambassador John Bolton, thank you for joining us.  

I had missed that speech. I had missed the troika of tyranny speech. What did you think?  

ARNN: Well, that's aggressive. Isn't it?  

HEWITT: Yes.    

ARNN: Stand by. More to come.  

HEWITT: More to come, and Mr. Sandinista, and your wife, and Mr. Raúl Castro, more to come. This is not the Obama administration.  

ARNN: Oh man, is it not. See, just remember Obama fist-bumping with Hugo Chavez.  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: Right? And that guy—I mentioned it last time, but I have a friend, Carlos Ball from Venezuela. And I was with him at a conference when the vote was first subverted that put Chavez in greater power—in perpetual power. And I saw him at breakfast, and he was heartsick. And I said, Carlos, and he said, I've lost my country today. See? And the guy who took it, President Obama fist-bumped in public with that guy.  

HEWITT: Now, I do believe that this is maybe the first time John Bolton has been able to exercise the full panoply of his intelligence. He's not fighting bureaucratic wars. He's talking to the president frequently about this. He is a friend of Mike Pompeo, who is a friend of yours. And I believe we haven't really seen this kind of unanimity in the executive—the commander in chief, with two advisors, Pompeo and Bolton, who are in sync—since Reagan had Shultz and Weinberger.  

ARNN: That's right, and, if you read the media, there's just nothing but incompetence and chaos around Trump. The foreign policy team is strong, and Pompeo is a natural. Right? You've interviewed him too, and he's just smart.  

He graduated top of his class at West Point. He's a studious man, and he's a fighter. He was in the Army for a long time, and he's a warrior. So you're just dealing with some very formidable people right now.  

HEWITT: And I want to add to them your commencement speaker; Vice President Pence just tweeted out, “On the way to Miami with Second Lady to meet with Senator Rick Scott, Senator Marco Rubio, Governor Ron DeSantis, representative Mario DB, and Venezuelan exiles. The day is coming when Venezuela will be free once more—and the US stands with the people of Venezuela to reclaim their libertad—#libertad!” They're going all in, Larry Arnn, and they're doing it the right way.  

ARNN: Isn't that something? And you asked me a question in the break, are they going to use soldiers? And I don't know, and I think that they hope and expect not to have to. Bolton just said that, but, on the other hand, they kind of need to win here now, don't they?  

HEWITT: They do. Explain that to the audience.  

ARNN: Here's the temptation: So trouble in Venezuela, opportunity in Venezuela, and so you start out making cautious statements. We recognized the new guy faster than anybody, and we expressed, from the first minute, confidence that this thing was going to be successful, and that means that we've invested in it. Well, that's, first of all, the way to make it successful and, second, risky.  

So, I think that they think they need to win. And if there are troops in Colombia, that's not very far away. And it wouldn't—we might wake up one morning, and they're doing something.  

HEWITT: We may indeed, and if that morning is next Friday, Dr. Larry Arnn and I will be talking about it on the Hillsdale Dialogue. Thank you again, President Larry Arnn. The lantern of the north is Hillsdale College.  

If you want your son, daughter, grandson, or granddaughter not just to go to college but to be educated, you will send them or at least try to get them in at Hillsdale. That starts with an application, because they're kind of serious about that. Lots of places around the country are seeing applications decline, not at the lantern of the north, not at Hillsdale.edu. Thank you, Dr. Arnn.