Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College.

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Erica, I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by Wall Street Journal, columnist, AEI, Senior Director of Domestic Policy Studies, Matt Contonetti.

Follow Matt on exit Contenetti.

Matt, we got a lot to cover in 14 minutes over two segments.

So let me start with Eli Lake's article on the free press last night.

Is Donald Trump doing psychological warfare on the Iranians?

What do you think?

I think Eli makes a compelling case, Hugh, that we're living in the fog of Trump.

Donald Trump's comments about the war and about diplomacy are in a way another tool he's using in this

conflict with Iran in order to, one, set the Iranian leadership against itself, to confuse

the Iranian leadership, but also, two, to keep the markets in a place where they don't panic to such a degree that we face an economic calamity that would bring the war to a premature close.

So I thought Eli's piece was very persuasive, and I recommend it to everyone listening.

I'm trying to find what the price of the markets are up today.

Crude oil is at $101.90. It's not going

crazy. I think people think the strait's going to get fixed eventually. Do you? Yeah, I think the markets

are taking in a lot of different information. I think they see some ships getting by. I think they

have a new hope that the war may come to

end sooner rather than later. And then they also have Trump's rhetoric. And it's interesting

that Trump always begins the week by talking about diplomacy, by talking about ending the war

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