Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And, of course, I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh for Hillsdale.com or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning, Lori and Evening, Grace, America. Welcome to the big weekend pod. And indeed, it is big. At the end of it, I will include, just in case you haven't already listened to it, my interview with President Trump from Thursday's program. But for the Big Weekend pod, we talk with Matt Continenty, Ben Dominic, Eli Lake, John Ellis, and a little bit of football with Doug Leymoury to make sure

that it's light. But it's not light. All eyes are on Iran this weekend, whether or not the

IRGC retreats in the face of hundreds of thousands of protesters, or do they, in fact, risk the wrath of

the United States by firing on the protesters.

We'll be watching all weekend long, and I'll talk about it with Matt and Ben and Eli and

John, and I hope you enjoy today's Big Weekend Pot.

Welcome back, America.

I'm Hugh Hewitt.

To our new audiences, way up north in Michigan and down in Pensacola, Florida.

Welcome to the Contonetti half hour, where Matt Contennetti of AEI and the Wall Street Journal joins me to explore the news of the week.

Matt, I want to read you something, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Jaime E. said today.

He dismissed President Trump's threats as, quote, he has hands stained with the blood of Iranians and said that the protesters are ruining their own streets in order to please the President of the United States.

He said because he threatened he would come to the aid of them.

He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.

Do you think that Ayatollahomani is going to shut down the protests with that?

No.

And he's not shutting down the protests with the offer of $7 to each Iranian, which came earlier in this week, which to me showed a panic on the side of the regime, a sense that the regime is not sure how to proceed.

I think it's a very combustible situation in Iran right now, Hugh. You have another

night, it seems, of massive protests. It's hard to know exactly what's happening, of course,

because the regime has shut down the internet, shut down most phones. It's hard to understand

what is happening on the ground, but what we can glean from social media is that there are mass protests

throughout the country in response to the economic desolation that this regime has perpetrated

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