00:00 - Opening: Rubio Stands Up For The West Walworth, Cannon, and Bevan start with a review of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's soaring speech yesterday in Greece, where he proudly proclaimed the value of Western civilization from the Parthenon in Athens. Watch: Rubio Urges Defense Of Western Civilization At Acropolis: "We Choose The Unapologetic Pursuit Of National Power" "I love hearing Marco Rubio talk about Western civilization, how great it is, why it needs to be defended and celebrated, and we should be proud of it," Bevan said. "This is Marco Rubio's wheelhouse. This is what he does best: to be sort of a cheerleader for America and Western civilization. Given his background, his parents, Cuban, coming here with nothing, and now their son became a senator and secretary of state and maybe the president of the United States." "This is not only mainstream Republicanism, whether you're part of the MAGA movement or the old George Bush party. Mitt Romney wouldn't disagree with that -- and if you go back 10 or 15 years, it's what half the Democrats would have said," Carl Cannon said. "It's a proudly pro-American speech. And that's what you'd expect an American secretary of state to deliver." *** 09:26 - Mamdani's October 7th Statement They look at how NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani handled the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel after his pointed criticism of the state of Israel. "We're literally watching him ride the tiger right now," Tom Bevan said. "He goes to this pro-Israel vigil where apparently the protesters were about twice the size of the vigil itself, and he's standing there with a candle looking like he's about to throw up. He just looks miserable there as he's being called a traitor by all of the pro-Hamas folks." "He tried to thread the needle here ... he tried to have it both ways, and he ends up getting criticized from both sides." "Who are these people under these masks? A lot of them are immigrants. We hear from their accents," Carl Cannon observed. "So, no matter how critical you are of Trump-and I'm often critical of Trump-this is what he was talking about. No country has an obligation to import people into its country who hate that country." *** 18:25 - Eli Steele: "America Made Me Possible" Filmmaker Eli Steele joins the program to talk about his new documentary, "White Guilt," which profiles his father, Shelby Steele, and his message to Americans: "Reject the fear of being labeled racist, embrace individual freedom, and have the courage to defend the country's founding principles." More on his film: "White Guilt": A Documentary Essay Steele wrote: The Terror of Being Called Racist Is Crushing Free Speech in America Steele recounts his grandparents' interracial marriage in the 1940s and their fight against school segregation, describing their commitment to American ideals in the face of discrimination, and the personal and professional costs of his father's outspoken criticism of racial identity politics. "My grandparents were the very first ones to shut down a segregated school north of the Mason-Dixon Line," he said. He also comments on growing up as the son of a prominent black conservative, and how Shelby Steele rejected restrictive racial expectations and insisted on being judged as an individual. *** 33:03 - Iowa Senate Debate: Hinson vs. Turek The panel turns to the debate last night in Iowa between GOP Representative Ashley Hinson and Democratic State Representative Josh Turek in this surprisingly close race for the open red-state Senate seat. Hinson's lead has fallen to less than one point in the RCP average: Watch: 2026 Iowa Senate - Hinson vs Turek | Hinson +0.7 RCP Average: Iowa Senate Debate: Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek Clash over Trump, Healthcare, Taxes, Iran "According to the polls, it's like a coin flip," Tom Bevan said. *** 37:57 - Trump's Advisers in Bosnia The group considers whether Trump is concerned about reports that political advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair were paid to work for a pro-Russian political party in Bosnia. "I think Trump himself was shocked, Andy, that these guys are over in Eastern Europe while the Republican Party is, in his mind, in this death struggle to avoid losing the Senate," Cannon said. "He seemed to be saying: Why aren't they here helping us?" *** 41:37 - Kimberly Guilfoyle Needs $100,000 The episode ends with a Wall Street Journal investigation alleging that U.S. Ambassador to Greece and former Donald Trump Jr. girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle asked for money from a Kentucky attorney in exchange for access to Trump administration officials. Guilfoyle denies the allegations. Also notable, they published this story during Marco Rubio's trip to Greece. "It's all pretty juicy stuff, actually. And it does not paint her in the best light, even if she was desperate for money," said Bevan. Cannon added: "Federal prosecutors have a hell of a time proving quid pro quo."

SCOTT JENNINGS: Because yesterday in Athens, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a speech about the qualities that make a civilization worth preserving and the character that is required to preserve it. He spoke at the ancient meeting place of the Athenian Assembly with the Acropolis behind him, quite a setting. But the important part wasn't the scenery, as dramatic as it was, it was Marco's argument. Western civilization has given us an extraordinary inheritance, constitutional government, scientific discovery, individual liberty, the freedom to question the people who govern us. We inherited institutions that let us argue and worship and invent, compete and replace our leaders without a civil war. And we have a responsibility to keep that inheritance alive. Rubio's speech was a challenge to a habit that has infected too much of our public life, treating achievement as suspicious, national pride as embarrassing, and the defense of our own civilization as something requiring an apology. I think he's right. I think this speech was nothing short of remarkable and necessary. And I want to start with what he said about excellence. Cut three. SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Too often, these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure that no one will lose. We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre. JENNINGS: That's a direct hit on the culture of lowering expectations. You know, we've all seen the temptation. A standard becomes difficult to meet. So somebody proposes changing the standard. A competition produces winners and losers. So somebody questions whether we should be competing at all. A student excels. And instead of asking how to help more students reach that level, we start worrying about whether excellence makes somebody else feel bad. Here's my view. Give every child the opportunity to climb. Give them good teachers, encouragement, and help them when they struggle. But keep the mountain, because removing the challenge also removes the achievement. Nobody benefits from being told that mediocrity is all that we should expect of them. As a father myself, I want my own children to learn that effort matters. Preparation matters. Sometimes, rather, somebody else is better than you. But you can learn something from that. You can lose a game without losing your dignity. You can fail at a test and learn to study harder. You can hear an argument you dislike and develop a better answer for yourself. These are essential skills for adulthood. The world beyond the classroom will judge whether you can do the job. When you board an airplane, you want a pilot who met the standard. When you need surgery, you want a surgeon who mastered the work. And when somebody's shooting at American soldiers, well, you want Alvin York out there on the battlefield. You want excellence. You want competence. You want somebody who can deliver when the consequences are real. Rubio's second point gets to what we teach Americans about the country itself. Listen to this, cut four. RUBIO: The word nationalism became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments. We condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay. JENNINGS: We should teach our history honestly, of course. We can teach slavery and segregation and the broken promises and the injustices. And we can also teach about the Americans who confronted all of it. Teach the founding promise of equality. Teach the abolitionists. Teach the soldiers who preserved the union. Teach the civil rights movement and the extraordinary courage it required. We don't have to pretend our worst moments are current because they aren't. Look how far we've come. It's remarkable. You can give children the whole story, including our capacity to change and improve. The Declaration's promise mattered because generations of Americans insisted their country live up to it. That's a reason for pride. An education that leaves children knowing every American failure but unable to explain why American freedom matters, well, that's a failure in and of itself. And it leaves a question hanging over everything else. Why defend a country you've been taught to despise? Why serve it? Why sacrifice for it? Why preserve its institutions for your own children? We need to give the next generation an answer. America gives you the freedom to criticize America, of course. You can challenge the president, organize against the government, practice your religion, and argue that the law ought to change. Those freedoms are precious. They require courts, laws, public trust, and people willing to defend them. Loving this country means taking responsibility for its future. Secure its borders, educate its children, maintain its defenses, make its government answer to its citizens, and build things here. Factories and power plants and ships, the technologies that will shape the next generation. National confidence ought to produce national effort, which brings us to Rubio's warning. Cut five. RUBIO: Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads because the next decade and the decisions we make will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all. JENNINGS: That last point from Secretary Rubio deserves our full attention. The ability to act depends on the decisions that you make before a crisis. You need industrial capacity before you need to replace the weapons. You need reliable energy sources before the demand arrives. You need citizens who understand freedom before somebody tries to take it away. You need allies who can help defend the peace. Our adversaries, our enemies, they're making their own plans. They pursue power and technology and resources and influence around the world. We Americans should pursue ours with confidence. There's a practical agenda here. Reward achievement, demand competence, build strength, and teach the next generation why this country deserves their loyalty. Think again about Alvin York, a man with little schooling, deep faith, and an extraordinary skill who answered an obligation larger than himself. Then he came home and spent some time helping to educate children. Courage in war, service and peace. America should still produce people like Alvin York, and we should raise our children to admire them. Rubio, he gave us all in the West a challenge yesterday, and I hope that we accept it.

Vice President JD Vance announces the suspension of the PERM Program for Microsoft: "Thanks to an ongoing investigation, we have decided to suspend the PERM program for Microsoft, which means they will no longer be able to take those H-1Bs and apply for permanent resident status within the United States of America. Now our message to Microsoft and to any other foreign or domestic corporation is quite simple. We obviously want you to thrive in the United States of America. We want people to invest in the United States of America, particularly the American technology sector. We're the biggest boosters of your industry. We want you to continue to grow and to employ a lot of people, but we want you to employ American workers. And so our message to Microsoft is, you're great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants."

- Vice President JD Vance (@VP) October 8, 2026

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: I saw RealClear over here! CAROLINA LUMETTA: Can you clarify what exactly the fraud element of this is? What is the scale of it? You mentioned Microsoft with the 6,300 [visas]? Were they lying on those applications? Was there some kind of law they were breaking? Or was this a legal pathway to the system and you are taking an objection to that? VANCE: I don't think it was a legal pathway through the system. The nature of the fraud is fundamentally, when you apply for these visa programs, you make a couple of certifications. One of the certifications is that the person you're bringing in has a hyper-specialized, hyper-capable skill set. That is clearly not the case if you're just replacing one American worker with a foreign indentured servant and undercutting their wages in the process. The fraud is that they are making representations while applying for this program that are fundamentally illegitimate and therefore ultimately illegal.

Arguing YES: Romina Boccia, Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at Cato Institute Arguing NO: Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics and Policy Analysis and Director of the Wealth Equity Lab at The New School

00:00 - Opening: Three Years After oct. 7, 2023 Walworth, Porter, and Bevan discuss the Democratic Party's turn against Israel in the three years since the October 7 terror attack, and how candidates running for Senate are now openly advocating an end to military aid. Watch: Maine Senate Debate: Sen. Susan Colllins vs. Troy Jackson "This was Israel's 9/11," Bevan said. "It tells you that the Democratic Party has not just done sort of a wink and a nod to some of these folks on the left, but they're actually now ingesting this policy position." "I think the Democrats have become an unreliable ally of Israel and American Jews," Porter said. *** 16:52 - Trump Wants a New Camp David RCP White House correspondent Carolina Lumetta joins the show to explain reports that President Trump wants to make his Palm Beach golf club a new "Winter White House" and the history and practical challenges. "I think it is indicative of how he's thinking: What's he going to do after the presidency?" Lumetta sad. *** 23:53 - Trump Won't Pay for the DHS Ads After All The panel argues Trump should stop using federal money for personality-driven advertising, or at least stop making it a story by changing his mind about it. I mean, the first thing you do is to put the shovel down, right? Walworth quipped. "But he's not stopping," Lumetta said. *** 37:15 - GOP Playing Defense in Red States The GOP's late-campaign strategy is becoming clear: protect vulnerable red states, energize Trump voters, and preserve control of the Senate. "If you want to know what's happening, you look at the two most valuable resources that candidates have: money and time, " Bevan said. "They're spending all of their money and all of their time defending red states." *** 39:39 - Ken Griffin's Lesson for Chicago Richard Porter uses Ken Griffin's move from Chicago to Miami as a case study in how taxes, crime, and political hostility can drive wealthy residents and investment away. Richard Porter for RCP: Chicago Chases Away the Rich. Miami Says 'Thank You' "How often is it in life you get to see a social policy experiment unfold right in front of you?" he said. "It is an experiment that's happening right before our eyes, where he is enriching Miami instead of Chicago, instead of New York. And why Miami? Because Miami is hospitable to people like Ken Griffin. It's so obvious." "It kind of goes to our earlier point about where there's sometimes a disconnect, a delusion on the left about what's real and what isn't real," Porter said. *** 44:44 - Who Still Trusts Our Elections? The episode ends with a discussion about collapsing confidence in U.S. elections across party lines, prompting a debate over why trust has eroded and how it might be restored. Gallup: "51% of Americans Lack Confidence In Elections" "Both parties have contributed to this," Bevan said. "But I do think we need to have some standards that help us inject some trust and faith back into the system."

The Legacy of Greece and the Acropolis SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: There are great ruins all across the world. In many cases, they are places where history seems to have exhausted itself, remnants of distant cultures that have long passed beyond living memory. But the Acropolis is different. For thousands of years, the civilization that built what stands behind me has captivated the imagination of the Western world. Generations of our statesmen, artists, and philosophers have looked to it with wonder, and they look to it with awe. Now, time has a tendency to dull the senses. Great victories and catastrophic defeats, they seem to shrink to becoming like a footnote in a textbook, another fact for our schoolchildren to memorize and forget. But the Greeks of antiquity, they seem to have an almost mystical hold on our memory. They call us back to them again and again. ... For 25 centuries since, the Parthenon has stood. Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow, and the progeny of the men who built it, the sons of Athens and Rome, have carried their civilization with them to the ends of the earth. Two and a half centuries after the founding of the American Republic, halfway across the world from where I stand now, I stand here today as the secretary of state of that republic and as the great-grandson of settlers who arrived in the New World from Spain. I stand here to testify to a debt that no lapse of time, no distance of space can ever extinguish. The history of America, the history of my country, is covered with the fingerprints of antiquity. Greece is literally carved into the architecture of our government, in the towering columns, in the domes, and the monuments across our capital city. The city where our Constitution was born, Philadelphia, is itself a Greek name. The men who founded my country were fascinated by the heritage we inherited from yours. They were exceptionally well-read in history. They were vividly aware of their unique place in it. But no other age of the past held their attention or their imagination quite like that of antiquity. Many people are surprised to learn that the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was not an Enlightenment philosopher or political theorist. The most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was Plutarch, the Greek biographer of Greece and Rome's great men. Now, much has been written and said about the influence of ancient Greece on the ideas of the American founders and, for that matter, on all of the Western philosophers and statesmen that preceded them. Most of us are familiar with the basic history. Athens gave us democracy. Plato and Aristotle gave us Western philosophy. Our ideas of law, of virtue, of citizenship and republic and government were shaped in the Greek city-states. Even much of our political vocabulary, words like democracy, tyranny, the word politics itself, found its origins here. Now, all of that is true, but the things we owe to this place as Americans and as Westerners are actually far, far deeper. ... To know them is to know ourselves. What blossomed here in this place was the Western desire to uncover all that ignorance, darkness, and distance had kept hidden from the mind of man. The Greeks did not just shape history. The Greeks gave us history itself. Much of what we know about many ancient civilizations comes almost entirely from the records of Greek explorers and historians, explorers and historians who didn't just chronicle the histories of their own people, but ventured outward to observe and record the sagas of foreign peoples and cultures all across the world. Where others looked inward, the Greeks were the first to direct their focus outward, to chase the thrill and glory of seeing all that was strange and new. It was this trait that would push the West to create and build things that others could not, marking us out from so many other cultures and civilizations where stability and subsistence were the highest ends of life. But it is not just the ambition to explore the unknown that we inherit from the Greeks. It is the conviction that the unknown can be known. The confidence that the world can be charted and measured and mapped and understood, and that there is a rational order to the cosmos governed by certain fundamental laws, laws that men can observe and the mind can come to understand. ... This was the foundation of the Western mind, our math, our science, our medicine, our philosophy, ethics, and religion. It paved the way for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to find fertile soil in Europe and flourish into the empire of Christendom. It was the foundation of the riches of Christian theology, of Augustine and Aquinas and the whole tradition of natural law. It gave birth to a civilization marked not just by a common culture, but marked by a common anthropology, a common view of man and of his place in the universe. Its descendants would share not just the idea of a natural order, but a distinctive understanding of virtue, of destiny, of fate, of truth, goodness, and beauty, of a code that dictates how men ought to live, of objective standards and ideals to strive toward. For the Greeks of antiquity, the pursuit of excellence was the very principle of man's existence. They organized all of civic life around contest and ambition and competition, in philosophy and poetry and sculpture and drama, in athletics and art, in war and statecraft. The classical Greek city was an arena for great men to test and prove themselves, to hone their potential through perpetual struggle, to be the best, the strongest, the most beautiful, straining to inch ever closer to perfection. What the West Has Forgotten Now, I know that to modern ears, what I just described, this way of life, may sound odd. It may even sound cruel. The ideal of many ideologies in our time has frankly become a world of perfect safety, a world devoid of risk or failure, where neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat. Too often these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure that no one will lose. We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre. The men who made the Parthenon built upwards. They held that the highest and most noble aspiration in life was to surpass all others, to strive to be the best in all things. The ancient Greek city-states were filled with intense passion and rivalry and faction and conflict. But from that constant struggle for distinction came the great flowering of art and philosophy and political and intellectual energy that would transform a collective of Mediterranean cities into the birthplace of the greatest civilization in the world. The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it, the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride, is the heart of great civilization. And without it, without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive. Today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness. The word nationalism became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments. We condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay. And with every passing year, we seemed to outsource more of our sovereignty, transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control. But others were all too happy to fill the vacuum that we left, the vacuum left behind by our weakness. And as the West's confidence faltered, its adversaries and its rivals only grew more assertive, building up their own wealth and their own power in our stead. And now today, we find ourselves at a crossroads because the next decade and the decisions we make will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all. Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power, to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future. We choose to reach for new frontiers in advanced manufacturing and superintelligence, in drones, weapons and warfare, in chips, minerals, cyber, and every other domain of human possibility; to unleash our energy, to rebuild our factories, to return our astronauts to the moon and launch a new age of exploration in space. Now, for all their lofty ideals, the ancient Greeks were not naive. They understood that nations have interests. They understood that statecraft requires prudence and diplomacy. But they also understood that it requires the ability to wield force when prudence and diplomacy fail. They understood that power requires not only having the means to defend yourself. It requires the credibility that you are willing to use it. This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft that the Trump administration hopes to reclaim. Reclaim not just for our country, but for the whole of our civilization. We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago. There are already signs across this continent. We are witnessing what we hope will be the beginning of a generational shift: skyrocketing defense spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programs, expanded manufacturing and production following on the historic defense commitments made last year in The Hague. Greece has been at the center of this shift. The people of this nation have proved themselves once again to be an indispensable friend to Europe and to the United States alike, on everything from energy to migration to defense, where Greece has been a model ally. It is our sincerest hope that all of Europe will follow your example. Though passions may at times have strained the bonds of affection between the United States and Europe, it must not be allowed to break them. Together, we must strengthen an alliance capable of confronting the threats of our age. And we can because we do not believe the transatlantic friendship should be zero-sum. Quite the opposite. Our vision is an alliance whose strength is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a vision we saw in action just last month in an unprecedented new agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland. An agreement that will reshape the Arctic and bolster the security of all of NATO. All three partners in that deal emerged victorious. All of Europe and NATO and the United States emerge safer, stronger, and more secure because of it. We want to win together. We must win together. Heroism and Duty Now, it's become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the global community over one's own people. And I think here too we have much to learn from the men of ancient Greece because they knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else. They believed fiercely in the ideal of the great man, the exceptional individual who obtains immortality through his own deeds. But they believed that glory and fame, those things were won through striving, sacrificing, and achieving greatly for something larger than yourself. The recurring hero of the ancient Greek world was the man who was willing to pay any cost for a cause worthy of his loyalty. We see this in Socrates, who refused to abandon the inquiry into truth even at the cost of his own life. We see it in the legendary stand of 300 Spartans, surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by the vast armies of Persia, who refused a chance to save themselves, choosing to fight to the last man rather than abandon their post or abandon their duty. And we see it in the epic myth of Achilles, who's offered the choice to return home and live a long and peaceful life, but chooses instead to remain at Troy and perish in pursuit of eternal glory. These are the qualities that would shape the Western moral imagination. From the Christian martyr who refused to betray his faith to the patriot who gave his life for his country. From St. Thomas More to the Battle of the Alamo. Running through the immortal closing words of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, which says, "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." It is from the Greeks that the West inherited its sense of duty and unbreakable loyalty to one's code, one's cause, one's country. Our heroes, the heroes of the West, are those who choose to remain faithful to their duty precisely when it is most difficult and painful to do so. The man who is bound by his word. The soldier who will not abandon his post. The captain, the proverbial captain who goes down with the ship. This is wholly different from what we see even now, for example, from fanatics like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself. Our heroes may be willing to die for their cause, but our heroes do not worship death. It is precisely because we value life that we come to recognize the heroism in those who would sooner sacrifice it than betray their principles. Now, we take the Western conception of these things, heroism, honor, duty, we take these things for granted. We assume that these somehow are universal to all people in all times and in all places. They are not. They are the product of a distinct character, a distinct character which arose here and shaped the whole story of the civilization that came after it, the civilization that we must fight to defend today with the same passion as our forefathers did. A Shared Future The men who built the Parthenon were succeeded by the architects of European Christendom, who raised the cathedrals of Milan, Cologne, and Florence. The quest to perfect the human form that moved the ancient Greek sculptors found a new expression in Michelangelo. The Greek philosophers' search for the structure of the universe was inherited by Copernicus, then Galileo and Kepler and Newton. The hunger for new knowledge, that's what gave birth to Magellan's first expedition around the world, to Columbus' discovery of the Americas, and ultimately to Apollo 11's journey to the moon. And the qualities that led Alexander to conquer the entire known world reappeared in Caesar and Charlemagne and Cortes. And in America, that same tradition rediscovered itself anew. An open and wild land became the site of a great revival of Western imagination and ambition. The Greek aspiration for new horizons became the American frontier spirit. The civilization of Athens and Rome transformed an infant seaboard republic into a continental empire. The greatest Americans of every generation have carried the unmistakable features of their forefathers. Born in Athens, formed by Rome, baptized in Christendom, hardened in the furnace of medieval Europe, endowed with the English genius for liberty, and then carried across the Atlantic to be reborn on the shores of a new world. Together, we must now rediscover that spirit. We are at an inflection point. An inflection point not only in the history of my nation, but an inflection point in the whole of our civilization. The threats we face today are every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity. National interest did not vanish in the face of international institutions. War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace. Other states continued to arm, to seek influence, to compete for territory and technology and resources and markets and energy and power. And now there is war again. There is new competition between great powers again. There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again. And so we must rebuild our institutions and our alliances to face these threats together, understanding that the purpose of these things is not to abolish the sovereignty of the nations that constitute them. It is to defend them, and that nations need not abandon their distinct identities in order to recognize their common interests. We have built a model of that with our partners here in Greece, in our defense partnerships, in energy and technology, in our shared ambition to secure Europe's borders from the threats of mass migration. You know, our friendship dates back to the earliest years of my nation. When Greece rose in 1821 to recover its independence after centuries of Ottoman rule, Americans recognized something familiar in that struggle. Three years later, the great American statesman Daniel Webster delivered a famous address to Congress, helping bring the cause of the Greek Revolution before the representatives of the young American republic. And he began by calling their attention to everything around them. This is what he said in his speech. He said, "This free form of government, this popular assembly, this practice of free debate and public discussion, the contest of mind with mind, even the edifice in which we assemble, these proportioned columns, this ornamented architecture, all remind us that Greece has existed and that we, like the rest of mankind, are greatly her debtors." Those words are as true today as they were when he said them. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/10/07/rubio_urges_defense_of_western_civilization_at_acropolis_we_choose_the_unapologetic_pursuit_of_national_power.html700572940 World News Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:14:50 -0500 10/07/2026/00/00/00 ]]> 728358 HEATHER MAC DONALD: Well, what's happening now is absolute hysteria and the embrace of a totally absurd fiction, which is that there was a horrible gang rape that occurred in 2024; that the law enforcement system was indifferent to the local district attorney. This is all the narrative that is shooting around the internet for the last week. That narrative says that the district attorney was indifferent to the survivor, that Cornell was indifferent to the survivor, and now she's finally coming forward and suing, as a civil lawsuit, everything in sight, especially the deep pockets of Cornell. And the even broader narrative is that what happened at Cornell is emblematic of the rape culture that females are subjected to in the United States and on college campuses. None of that is correct. The one good thing that's come out of this is that, at some point, the alleged survivor, who was actually a voluntary participant in an absolutely disgusting orgy, was worried when word of this orgy got out. People were calling her a [unclear], and this upset her, so she decided to change the narrative. I never would have known that the concept of [unclear], which is extremely useful for enforcing what should be norms of sexual propriety and modesty, was still active on college campuses. You know, it suggests that there's some people, at least, who are not completely on board a bacchanal of inebriated sex, where females deliberately drink themselves blotto, as happened here, precisely in order to lower their sexual inhibitions, in order to keep up with the liberated male libido that has been liberated from any kind of restraint by the 1960s culture of maximal sexual liberation and premarital sex whenever you want it. So that's a good sign. Other than that, though, the underlying incident, which we can discuss, is completely squalid and depressing. And, you know, parents are paying God knows what the Cornell tuition is-it's probably like $80,000, $90,000-to have their children go and simply engage in these orgy-fests of drugs, ketamine, and drinking blotto, instead of using their time there productively to actually fill some knowledge into their empty noggin, is status quo in the university scene today. Very discouraging. ... WILL CHAMBERLAIN: It seems like the actual correct answer to this is there should be no drug-fueled orgies on college campuses, whether or not the participants consent to that or not. HEATHER MAC DONALD: Absolutely. And, you know, we had norms of female modesty. And I'm going to use an extremely dangerous word: chastity, God forbid, for good reason. Because the male libido is voracious, and it is immoral, amoral-you know, mows down whatever is in its way. And marriage, the norm of marriage, of no sex until you're married, and females being gatekeepers, literally, to their own physical body, was a way of putting that libido in check and taming it, redirecting it towards noble ends of aspiration and accomplishment, so that you could actually woo a female to be willing to have intercourse with you, as opposed to having her drink herself blotto, as happened here with the so-called Jane Doe. And I hope that her name is soon released, given that the males are being crucified with their names being released. Anyway, Jane Doe drinks 10 drinks before even showing up at the fraternity, and then proceeds to have a beer there and proceeds to take ketamine. This is all voluntary, and she is walking in deliberately to a sex scene. The males don't have to do anything. You know, it's completely agreeable to everybody. And when you have that, you're going to see males behaving boorishly. To be perfectly honest, there is sort of a meme around here in conservative circles that these males are evil. You know, they certainly should not be criminally prosecuted. That would be outrageous. They should not be held liable monetarily. But they committed some horrible sin here. Frankly, I'm sorry. To me, this looks like it was instigated throughout by the female. And again, given male nature, if it's not forced to restrain itself, I'm frankly not surprised and I'm not all that horrified by what happened here from the male perspective. But that, I know, puts me way out into the outer reaches of a strange blend of morality and amorality.

AOC at tonight's NYC fundraiser for El-Sayed, per audio I received: "If Abdul can win in Michigan, anyone can win anywhere... we are going to break the map everywhere because that is what it will take to guarantee health care to everyone in the United States."

- David Dayen (@ddayen) October 6, 2026

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Thank you all so, so much for being here. I cannot thank you enough for being part of this moment. We are at such a pivotal crossroads as a country, not just as a political party, but as a nation. And Abdul's race, and Abdul himself, represents such a bright light of hope that we have right now. And not just Abdul's race, but we have many others. We have Angie Nixon. That are challenging the assumptions and the political calculus of an elite in, of a political elite that we have. That assumes things about our neighbors. That assumes things about our fellow Americans. And tries to assume an artificially low ceiling about what is possible in America. And we are up against not just an ascendant and fascist right wing in this country. But we are also up against people with extremely small imaginations. About what is possible in America. And what I am very excited about is that we are not just saying that they're wrong. And we're not just talking about what is possible in this country. We are doing the damn thing. Can you imagine five years ago, four years ago, saying that the Democratic nominee for Senate in a statewide race in Michigan. Just after Democrats lost to Donald Trump, is a man, a Muslim doctor by the name of Abdul El-Sayed. And not only that, but he doesn't take a dime in corporate power. He is willing to stand with the people on issues from everything. Ranging on Medicare for all, to not participating and pulling out of the genocide in Gaza. It would be unbelievable. And yet, here we are anyway. And the only reason we are here is because of everyday people like you. We are not here, and he is not here at the blessing of the powers that be. He is not here by permission. He is not here by waiting in line. He is here solely on the will of the public. And he can only get there with the support of everyday people like you. There is no secret, you know, extra thing. This is it. And what I am so excited about and thrilled about is that when we work for him to win. And when we go out there, chipping in here, going out there, knocking on doors, making phone calls, doing everything that we can do. When we get him past that finish line, which we will. And we have to dedicate every day between now and then to doing that. When we get past there, what we do is that we break open the entire political calculus in America. Because if you can win, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere. Anywhere. We are in a long term, but I am being very open right now, right? About our generational project that we have ahead of us. Generational. We are here to break the map. We are going to be organizing voters in disenfranchised communities across the South. We are going to work to elect people like Justin Pearson in Tennessee. We are going to elect people like Andrew Nixon in Oregon. And we are going to break the electoral map everywhere. Everywhere. Because that is what it is going to take to guarantee healthcare to every American in the United States. So I am thankful to be in this shoulder to shoulder with each and every one of you. Because this project is not about one race. It's not about one cycle. It's not about any one person. It's about all of us. And my dedication, and I know so many of our dedication, is that we are going to come out of this nightmare stronger than we've ever been before. And when it starts with Abdul, if he could overcome $80 million in super PAC slandering in a primary election, he's going to have to go up against possibly hundreds of millions of dollars of the same in the general election. And we have written a check on the left saying if you champion these policies that have popular support, we can win. And now it is time to cash it. Now it is time for us to go out and show what we are capable of. And we need to wreck them. We have to do the business. We have to show them what is up. That there are consequences to violating people's right to vote. That there are consequences to taking away women's right to choose. That there are consequences for picking on trans kids and lowering our wages and stripping our healthcare. And the consequence is righteous, better leadership that will bring us to a better place in this country. I am deeply grateful. I'm very thankful. And I'm sure many of you already know this, I don't do these kinds of things very often.

00:00 - Opening: Walworth, Cannon, and Bevan discuss the Senate races in Michigan and Maine, both of which have debates scheduled this week. Watch: Maine Senate Debate Between Sen. Susan Collins and Troy Jackson Maine remains a genuine toss-up as Susan Collins and Troy Jackson begin a four-debate home stretch of the campaign. "This is really like a true, true toss-up," Bevan said. "However, she is Susan Collins, and with that she's sort of an institution in Maine and known as a moderate." Watch Live: Michigan Senate Debate Between Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers will debate tonight. "This is a big moment for Mike Rogers because he gets to stand on stage and make this case directly against El-Sayed, make him try and answer questions," Bevan said. "El-Sayed's very good, by the way, at sort of dodging and weaving and deflecting, and he seems to be pretty quick on his feet verbally." *** 07:39 - Is South Carolina in Play? The panel turns to Darline Graham's campaign to replace her brother in the Senate, as spending in South Carolina suggests the GOP is taking a race once considered safely Republican more seriously than expected. "These are not states Republicans expected you would even have to think about," Carl Cannon said. *** 10:03 - Cruz vs. Vance Ted Cruz's clash with JD Vance is fueling speculation that Cruz still sees an opening for another presidential run in 2028. "I think that some Republicans, Ted Cruz among them, are starting to see: If Donald Trump continues to lose altitude, if he gets down there-he's in the high 30s-if he gets in the mid-30s, the low 30s, well, then the bottom falls out," Cannon said. "Well, then the thinking is JD Vance is not a shoo-in, and maybe even Marco Rubio is tainted by his association with the Trump administration, and maybe then it's an open-it's a truly open race." *** 16:36 - Harris's 2024 Problem The panel debates whether Kamala Harris is going to mount another presidential run and whether she is capable of becoming a substantially stronger campaigner. "If you look at the polls, she is leading," said Bevan. "If you look at the betting markets, she's not." *** 27:10 - Does Trump Help or Hurt GOP Candidates? The hosts debate whether Trump's campaign appearances help Republicans by energizing the base or hurt them by generating distracting controversies. Specifically, what Trump meant when he appeared to joke about an Iranian attack on Los Angeles and San Diego. Was he using dark humor or trying to make a point about gas prices? "This is the problem with The Weave," Walworth said. Cannon added: "Another unforced error by a president who increasingly seems to have no filter." *** 38:11 - Russian Lab Leak? Carl Cannon praises Trump's offer to help Russia respond after a possible lab leak of the plague reportedly killed a scientist. "If they do need our help, I'm glad that we'd offer it," he said. *** 43:16 - DOJ Report on Targeted Parents The episode ends with new disclosures from the DOJ and FBI about surveillance of the Trump family and federal investigations involving parents who protested COVID rules, critical race theory, and transgender policies at school board meetings. "It's literally un-American to say that someone is a terrorist because they have a gun or because they railed against the government," Cannon said about reports that comments at school board meetings led to 25 domestic terror investigations. "It's outrageous that they were trying to silence parents who had questions, concerns, criticisms about some of these issues," Bevan added.

Trump on Iran: Let 'em take out Los Angeles and San Diego, it's a small price to pay https://t.co/Fc4BcjVDKj

JOE SCARBOROUGH: And we, the country, are being asked to grade this president on such a curve that he makes a joke-I guess I hesitate to use that word. He made a comment. I don't know who it was for or why he would have thought it was funny, but about nuclear attacks on American cities that, by the way, are in a blue state that he doesn't need to worry about, which is the antithesis of what being president is all about. And it's laughed off by some people. And if you dare criticize it or raise it or bring it up, then he's owned the libs and he's owned the media. See? They took the bait again. Well, no. We should hold our president and all of our public figures to a much higher standard than just brushing off a comment like this or some of the other ones that you just detailed right there. ... WILLIE GEIST: It's that fundamental. I know nobody raised you that way. Your parents didn't raise you that way. Your pastor didn't raise you that way. Your coach or your teacher, all the people in your life, the mentors and influences. But how did you get to the point in your life where you were able to laugh at that, where you're able to laugh at Paul Pelosi being attacked with a hammer? We could cite 100 examples over this last decade. Why is that funny to you? Is it funny because you think it's going to incite a reaction from the people you don't like in the country- Or that you disagree with. "Oh, that's a good one. He's going to own the lefties. He's going to own the media." ... JOE SCARBOROUGH: I looked at The New York Times. I looked at The Wall Street Journal. I looked at The Washington Post. I looked at the Financial Times. Looked at all the websites this morning to see how many picked them up. Only one: The New York Times. If any president in American history had called for the obliteration of two American cities, even in what his deranged supporters would say is a joke-deranged, because if you think it's funny to joke about 10 million Americans being killed by Iran, that's a serious problem. That's a serious problem. But he's graded on such a curve that the bias actually breaks the other way. He gets away with things that no other president would ever get away with because people in the media are so numbed by it all by now. So media bias? Yeah, media bias in a way that breaks his direction. ... It's not happening. And it's not happening now because Donald Trump is graded on such a curve that he can say that-you know, he can say, let me get it right-"Let him take out L.A. and San Diego," and only one national newspaper reports it. That's a problem.