The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 4:

• Michele Exner—Senior Advisor for Parents Defending Education—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss her latest opinion piece in The Daily Caller, “The Real Reason Why Many Young Americans Side with Pure Evil.” You can read her editorial here: https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/17/opinion-the-real-reason-why-so-many-young-americans-are-siding-with-pure-evil-michele-exner/
• The Wall Street Journal reports, “Israel, the U.S. government and independent security experts cast doubt Wednesday on Palestinian claims that an Israeli airstrike was responsible for a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital compound, saying the preliminary evidence pointed to a local militant group. Independent analysts poring over publicly available images of Tuesday’s explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza and its aftermath say the blast site doesn’t bear the hallmarks of a strike with a bomb or missile of the types usually used by Israel….The U.S. has collected ‘high confidence’ signals intelligence indicating that the blast at the hospital in Gaza was caused by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, U.S. officials said, buttressing Israel’s contention that it wasn’t responsible for the blast.” You can read more from the report from journalists Margherita Stancati, Yaroslav Trofimov, Nancy A. Youssef, and Stephen Kalin here: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-tries-to-back-up-claims-it-didnt-attack-gaza-hospital-a8cc3405
• On Wednesday, the House of Representatives once again voted to fill the speakership position left vacant following the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The Republican nominee for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), received 199 votes—well short of the 217 votes he needed to win a majority of the House and one fewer vote than he received on Tuesday. It seems increasingly unlikely that House Republicans will be able to coalesce behind one candidate. Consequently, many House members are calling for a temporary expansion of powers granted to Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC). According to Annie Karni of The New York Times, “Scott Perry, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus that Jordan helped establish, says he won’t support any resolution to empower Patrick McHenry, the speaker pro tem. Perry says he hopes Jordan keeps fighting, adding that the race is simply about ‘stamina.’” You can read updates as they unfold here: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/18/us/house-speaker-vote-jim-jordan
• While appearing on the All In Podcast, billionaire venture capitalist and democrat donor Chamath Palihapitiya concedes that now, in hindsight, he realizes former President Donald Trump’s policies were actually effective and good. He explained: “so much of the work that happened in [the Trump] administration turned out to be right” but no one wanted to acknowledgement is at the time because of “Trump derangement syndrome.”