I am Jeffrey Lord of the American Spectator or Newsmax and all over the place, the Word of the Lord podcast.
We can't forget that.
And I am sitting in for Sean as we wind down the year.
You can call in at 800-941-7326 or 800-941-Sean.
And we now are going to move on to our next guest, one Selena Zito.
Hello, Selena.
Hey, Jeff.
How are you?
Nice to hear your voice.
I am fine.
Let me just tell our audience, Selena is a, I'm biased, is a terrific journalist who joined the Washington Examiner in 2016 as a Pittsburgh-based columnist and reporter covering national politics and culture from a perspective outside the Beltway.
She is the author of Butler, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland and the Great Revolt.
She began her career at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review as a reporter and columnist covering national politics.
And she has been a contributor at the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal and is currently a contributor at the Washington Post.
So, Selena, it is great to talk to you.
Well, right back at you, Jeff.
Thank you so much.
I hope you had a very Merry Christmas.
I did indeed.
I did indeed.
And now it's on to 26, which is exactly where I wanted to start with you.
Let's start out with your thoughts on 2026, both in terms of what's going to be happening in Pennsylvania politically and then anywhere else in the country that you have found of interest.
Well, as most people know, a midterm election for the party in power, traditionally, but not always, tends to benefit the opposing party.
But we're in very different times, so I wouldn't place a bet on that.
There's been a lot of sort of speculation because of what happened in Virginia and New Jersey.
But what happened in Virginia and New Jersey is exactly what always happens.
And so I wouldn't use that as a stepping stone to say, well, this means this or that.
We're in very sort of turbulent times, not just in our politics, but also in how this country is changing in terms of our economy.
We are going through a version of the Industrial Revolution, only this time it centers on tech.
And so with that turbulence becomes unpredictability in American politics.
Now, Pennsylvania, as always, will be the center of attention.
We have a governor's race between Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Stacey Garrity.
This will be a very different matchup than the one between Shapiro and Mastriano.
And so I would look to this to be competitive.
But Shapiro has done a very good job of earning Trump voters in the last election cycle.
So I would be cautious to think that this is something that would be easily won by a Republican.
Shapiro does a very good job of having a moderating voice.
And so we also have, I would say, three competitive races in the House for Congress and also for the State House and the State Senate.
Both parties are going to be pushing to get the majority in those legislative bodies.
How much do you think Governor Shapiro's eye on 2028 will affect what happens with him in 2026?
I think what Shapiro wants to do is obviously win the seat, right?
He wants to win reelection.
But I think he also wants to show his muscle and try to get a larger majority in the State House.
They only have it by one seat.
That's not a lot of power.
And I think he wants to also win the state, the majority in the state Senate, which they do not have.
I think Republicans have the majority by about five or six seats.
So that's what he is going to be putting his effort into, not just his race, but also show his political chops by saying, hey, look what I did.
I not only won the governor's race, I brought majorities in.
Now, that's what he wants to do.
That doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen.
Pennsylvanians notoriously split their tickets.
And I suspect this year will be no different.
How do you think?
You know, one of the things when I first, when I was a teenager getting involved, I was a page, not to date myself, I was a page at the 1968 Republican convention.
I was, I think, 17 years old.
And I started having conversations with my political elders of the day.
And one of the things that was explained to me was about what Pennsylvanians know as the T.
And for those not from Pennsylvania, basically that means that Democrats would do well in the East and Philadelphia and in the West in Pittsburgh and surrounding counties.
And then this huge swath of Pennsylvania that goes right up the middle from between those two spots and goes right up the middle to from the Maryland border to the New York border and then goes left and right all the way over to Erie and the right over to Scranton and Wilkesbury.
How much of a role do you think that that sort of formulation is going to play in the governor's race as they go on?
Well, not much has changed about the T other than the middle of the T has gotten wider.
So, you know, there's more, there has been more power exercised in counties like Luzerne and Erie, but also Cambria, Beaver, Washington, Westmoreland.
Back in those days, those were still Democrat, reliable Democrat counties.
That has changed over the past 10 years to the point where most locally elected offices are now held by Republicans.
So that has given Republicans more power and more ability to win statewide elections.
You saw that with President Trump in 2016.
You saw it more so with President Trump in 2024, where he expanded those wins.
And you also saw it with Dave McCormick.
So the power has shrunk away from Philly and Pittsburgh and went one point where those cities and the counties that surrounded them determined elections.
That's not the case anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
What was I going to say to you here about how much do you think President Trump is going to affect things in Pennsylvania in our election, whether it's for the governorship or just in general for other candidates lower down on the ballot?
I think that the president is going to be really, really focused on the congressional races and also on the state legislative races.
I suspect in our state, that's where he's going to use his political muscle.
And that's where I expect him to come out and be supportive and do the things that those candidates need for them to win.
And I have to ask, what are your thoughts on the state of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and how it's doing?
Well, I mean, it has its challenges.
I think that the state party should have not focused on the Supreme Court races this past November to the extent that they did.
They were never going to win them.
Those are races that are hard to win.
And also, I think most importantly, because, you know, I'm old and I have history, historical recollection, in 2015, Republicans lost those state Supreme Court races.
And everybody thought everything was over for the Republican Party.
And then look what happened in 2016.
So I'm really reluctant to believe what happened this past November with those state Supreme Court races matters.
They should have focused more on local elections because that's what, meaning, you know, row offices in counties like Bucks and Erie and Westmoreland.
I think that's where the state party is most muscular and they should take advantage of what they're best at doing.
Yeah.
Do you think, I'm curious what you think about the state of industry in Pennsylvania?
I mean, once upon a time, it was all steel and coal.
And now I think there are other things coming to the fore in Pennsylvania, 21st century technology and all that kind of thing.
What are your thoughts on that as to how we're doing, how the state is doing with that kind of thing and changes that may lie ahead or are already in progress?
Well, thanks to President Trump, the steel industry is going to be booming.
It already is.
They've been hiring at a robust clip because of the deal between Nippon and U.S. Steel.
So the steel manufacturing is only going to get bigger and better in our state.
And coal is also on the rebound in the state, in particular because of the most important emerging industry in our state, which is the AI data power centers.
Now, while they don't typically employ a lot of people, the data power centers themselves, to build them and maintain them does.
And we have rich, abundant energy in coal and natural gas to build the facilities and energy components needed to supply the energy to those data power centers.
So we're going through a boom right now in our state.
And we are for at least the next 10 years.
We've got hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, not only in western Pennsylvania, but also in Luzerne and other counties.
There's going to be one upcoming in Greene County, where you are going to see, and also Indiana County, where you are going to see a surge of hiring.
It's already started.
And you're going to see these little boom towns start to form around these jobs.
Well, that's great news because I think that, you know, I was more than a little concerned about our state of Pennsylvania.
And when I was starting out and eventually watching my old boss, Senator John Hines, working very closely as staff members, we had to work on the energy industry.
And we also, and I don't know, maybe you can update us on the status of what's going on with shipyard construction.
And I don't know, the Philadelphia Navy Yard, is that still in business, as it were?
Yeah, Senator McCormick and President Trump announced just a few weeks ago, yeah, a couple billion dollar investment in the shipyards.
So in terms of manufacturing and blue-collar work, you know, people that work in the trades, the biggest challenge is to finding people to fill the jobs, not that the jobs aren't there.
There are lots of jobs.
Well, that's good to know because when I worked for Senator Hines, that was one of my assignments that he made.
They would get, this was directly tied to the Reagan defense buildup.
And the deal was that there were aircraft carriers and battleships that needed to be, they called it the SLEP program, S-L-E-P, which stood for Service Life Extension Program.
And it was a battle for Senator Hines to get others around the country to compete against them and win so that we would get those ships into the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
And a lot of times it happened, but sometimes it didn't happen.
And that's a problem.
Well, my friend, it was great to talk to you.
We will doubtless be seeing you, talking to you again.
Have a great 2026.
And I would just remind our audience, our number is 800-941-7326, 800-941-Sean.
And we'll be back very shortly.
All right.
This is Jeffrey Lord sitting in for our friend Sean Hannity.
And let me give out our number here.
Sean's number is 800-941-7326 and 800-941-Sean.
And you are welcome to call in and check in and see what's going on.
We're going to have a good guest coming up with our friend Jeff Bardos, who is very involved in Pennsylvania and is now also moved to the international stage at the UN.
And we're going to want to talk to him a little bit about that.
The UN is always, as long as I've been around in life, it's always been a source of conversations with various ambassadors from the United States making a case eloquently for the United States and sometimes scolding others and all of that.
It's always very interesting, a very interesting atmosphere.
So it'll be interesting to talk to Jeff about that.
And after that, I think we'll see what's going on here.
We do have news coming out with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, and we'll see what that has going on for it.
We will be back very shortly.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right.
This is Jeffrey Lord sitting in for our friend Sean Hannity.
Welcome to Sean's radio show, and you can reach us at 800-941-7326 or 800-941-Sean.
So we're going to play a little, we're going to dip into this press conference that was just held.
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
And actually, I think some of it may even still be going on.
But there's a lot of stuff happening here.
And, you know, what President Trump has managed to accomplish in the Middle East with various countries and getting peace agreements and all of this kind of thing, I think has been astonishing in getting Israel and some Arab countries to work together.
Jared Kushner has been out there working very hard on all this.
So we're going to just play a little bit here for you to sort of get the flavor of what's going on.
Can you clarify to us, did you talk about the- With the President Ertzok, the Israeli President Haritzo, did you talk with him directly?
Harzog.
Harrison.
Her tongue.
The Israeli Prime Minister.
You're talking about pardon.
Yeah.
Oh, you got to say that.
No, I think he's going to be in great shape.
He's a wartime prime minister at the highest level.
He's achieved tremendous success.
And I'll say it, you know, if you had eight out of ten prime ministers in his position right now, or before right now, maybe, you wouldn't have Israel any longer.
Israel would not exist.
I'd say two of them would, and eight of them wouldn't.
Those are not good odds.
You needed a very special man to really carry through and really help Israel through this horrible jam.
You know, these are major factions, and it started with our negotiation with Iran.
I think it probably started with Soleimani.
That was really where you mentioned that today, which started with Salome, bad guy, doing bad things, hurting a lot of people, killing American soldiers and other soldiers.
But it started right there would probably be the starting point.
And then from that point forward, but you would, you have a wartime prime minister at the highest level.
There could be other wartime prime ministers, but they'd lose.
He won.
And I think the people of Israel appreciate it.
I think a lot of the people in the world appreciate it, actually.
And because of that victory, we were able to get peace in the Middle East.
If you had a different kind of a personality, if you had a weak person or a stupid person, and there are plenty of both of them, you would not have had success.
And you might not have Israel.
And you report for Israel.
I know you're very proud of it.
You do a great job.
You might not have a job because there might not be an Israel right now if you had a different prime minister.
That's a big statement, but to me, it's a very simple statement to make.
I'm looking at Pete Hegseth and he's sort of nodding.
If they don't have a strong Prime Minister, Pete, you might not have Israel today.
I think he'll go down in the record books.
And, you know, I was a big help.
I'll be honest.
Big, big help.
Somebody said in the room, if you don't have Trump, you needed a proper combination of everything.
And if you didn't have that combination, which they had, you would not have an existing Israel right now.
And the people of Israel know it.
That's why they like me, and it's why they really, they actually like him.
He's got a little bit of a love-hate more than I do over there.
But you know what?
Even the haters have a lot of respect for him.
There's a lot of jealousy about him.
A lot of jealousy.
Jealousy is a bad word.
But I believe you would not have Israel right now.
So it's a big deal.
Yeah, please.
Mr. President, a recent poll showed that as many as half of Gazans would be willing to leave the Gaza Strip if afforded the opportunity to do so.
Back in February, you said that all Gazans should be Gaza.
I heard that number today, half of Gaza would leave.
I've always said it.
I said if they were given the opportunity to live in a better climate, they would move.
They're there because they sort of have to be.
I think it would be a great opportunity.
But let's see if that opportunity presents itself.
But we're helping the people of Gaza a lot.
So is Israel, by the way.
So we'll see what happens.
But I saw that it was a poll.
It was actually more than half the people would leave if they were given the opportunity.
And I've been saying that for a long time.
To me, it was common sense.
So it's interesting.
Why wouldn't countries accept that?
Look, let's not talk about it because we don't want the controversy.
Right now we're helping Gaza.
But if they were given the opportunity, I think even higher than that, the person, the group that did the poll is usually, I call them negative pulses.
You have a lot of them.
And yet this poll was, I think, very accurate other than it would be more than half the people, if given the opportunity.
But they haven't been given that opportunity.
So we'll see what happens.
Mr. President, have you reached a point of understanding regarding Syria?
We do have an understanding regarding Syria.
Now, with Syria, you know, your new president, I respect him.
He's a very strong guy, and that's what you need in Syria.
You can't put a choir boy.
You can't put somebody that's a perfect person.
Everything's nice.
No problems in life.
You have the opposite there.
He's a strong guy.
We get along with him great.
I can't ask for any more.
He's been with us all the way.
We had that mishap with ISIS, and he was with us all the way.
He was fighting us.
He was fighting them.
So I hope Israel, I'm sure that Israel and him will get along.
I will try and make it so that they do get along.
I think they will.
Bibi, do you have anything to say about that?
Yeah, well, our interest is to have a peaceful border with Syria.
Our interest is to have, and we openly say it, we want to make sure that the border area right next to our border is safe.
We don't have terrorists.
We don't have attacks.
And we also want to secure our Druze friends.
And by the way, I think not only the Druze, but other minorities, especially the Christians, should be protected as well in Syria and throughout the Middle East and in Nigeria.
In your efforts, we back completely because Christian communities are beleaguered around the world and especially in the Middle East, but in parts of Africa too.
And we stand for the same thing.
And don't forget, it was President Erdogan that helped very much get rid of a very bad ruler of Syria.
That was President Erdogan.
And he never wanted the credit for it, but he really gets a lot of credit.
Bibi agrees with that.
I agree with, I mean, I know it.
And President Erdogan should get a lot of good credit for what he did.
He got rid of some very bad people.
And, you know, they've been wanting to do that for a thousand years with different names, but for a thousand years in Syria.
President Erdogan did it.
And we give him a lot of credit.
I give him a lot of credit.
But I think it's going to work out well between Syria and Israel.
Mr. President, about Lebanon.
The Lebanese government, so what we saw is not meeting the terms of the ceasefire agreement, has failed to disarm Hezbollah, actually.
In your view, should Israel strike the terrorist organization again?
Well, we're going to see about that.
We'll see about it.
The Lebanese government is at a little bit of a disadvantage, if you think of it, with Hezbollah.
But Hezbollah has been behaving badly, so we'll see what happens.
Mr. President, you can also win to another operation of Israel in Iran.
You said before the meeting with Netanyahu that you are in support of Israel if the ballistic missile project will take on and also the nuclear weapon.
But after the meeting, after what you know from the intelligence, how close are we to another war with Iran?
Well, I don't want to say that, but Iran may be behaving badly.
It hasn't been confirmed, but if it's confirmed, look, they know the consequences.
You know, consequences will be very powerful.
Maybe more powerful than the last time.
Yeah.
And Iran should have made a deal the last time.
I gave them the option.
I said, you can make a deal.
Do it.
I told them, do it.
And they didn't believe me.
Now they're believing me.
Do you have evidence that Iran is behaving badly?
And what do you mean by that?
This is just what we hear.
But usually where there's smoke, there's fire.
Have you heard the expression?
What do you mean related to the nuclear capabilities?
Well, no, I'm hearing that they're not nuclear yet, but maybe nuclear too.
The sites were obliterated, but they're looking at other sites.
That's what I've heard.
So it'll take a long time.
They're not going to go back to where they were, but they have other places they can go.
And if they're doing that, they're making a big mistake.
Yeah, please.
There's no reason for them to do it.
Mr. President, is the United States currently open to engaging in bilateral discussions with Tehran?
We're hearing reports from numerous countries that there may be some discussions.
Is that something you would support or something that is?
I would.
You should support that.
I would.
Yes.
Right now.
Thank you, sir.
I have been, by the way, before the war, I would support that.
I said to them, baby, I said, let's negotiate.
And they didn't believe what was going to happen would happen.
Yes, ma'am.
China.
So China's been doing naval exercises basically to test encircling Taiwan.
Can you explain to us what your knowledge is of that?
What do you think about that?
Have you had any discussions with?
Well, I have a great relationship with President Xi, and he hasn't told me anything about it.
I certainly have seen it, but he hasn't told me anything about it.
And I don't believe he's going to be doing it.
Does it worry you?
No, nothing worries me.
Nothing.
So if you're in circle, if you're doing naval exercises and air exercises.
I've been doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area.
Now people take it a little bit differently, but in fact, larger than they're doing right now.
So we'll see.
But they've been doing that for 20, 25 years.
Mr. President, if you don't see Hamas disarm in that short amount of time they're giving them, can you tell us what the next steps would be?
Horrible for them.
Horrible.
Gonna be really, really bad for them.
And I don't want that to happen.
But they made an agreement that they were going to disarm.
And you couldn't blame Israel.
By the way, we have other countries that will come in and do it.
They said, let us do it for you if they don't.
Countries that were with them wanted the deal to be made, agreed that they would disarm.
And now if they say they're going to disarm, that's fine.
If they say they're not going to disarm, those same countries will go and wipe them out.
They don't even need Israel.
You know, we have many countries, 59 countries that are in agreement.
This is a real peace in the Middle East.
And Hamas is a small part of it, but it's still a part of it.
But we have 59 countries that signed on, big countries, countries that are outside of the Middle East, as you know the Middle East.
They want to go in and wipe out Hamas.
They don't want Israel.
They don't need Israel.
They want to do it because it's the right thing to do.
Because they were for the deal based on the fact that Hamas pledged, they swore that they were going to disarm.
Now, if they're not going to disarm, those same countries will wipe out Hamas.
President Trump, do you think that the PA should be involved in the day after in Gaza Strip, even in the near future?
And the same person to Prime Minister Netanyahu, do you see a real opportunity that the PA will be in Gaza?
Go ahead, Mibi.
I think President Trump put clearly the conditions of reform that he wants to see in the PA for them to be involved.
And I think he put it very clearly what he wants to see, the kind of real reforms, not just perfunctory reforms, but real reforms.
Stop pay to slay, change the curriculum in your textbooks, open up a different society and a different future if they do it.
Well, you know, let them, you know, I think it was clear.
Pretty clear.
He put guidelines that were, by the way, in the Trump plan of 2020.
And they were put then in the 20 points.
And it's up to them.
Remember this.
If we didn't do what we did to Iran, just to make the subject just slightly different, you wouldn't have peace in the Middle East.
You wouldn't have a deal signed in the Middle East.
You wouldn't have a deal.
Because other Arab nations, which are great, great, great people.
I know them very well.
I know them.
They're great people.
They wouldn't be able to have agreed to peace in the Middle East because you would have had a dark cloud hanging over everything.
It wouldn't have been possible.
So Iran has been greatly reduced in power, prestige.
I don't want to use the word humiliation because, you know, they're trying to build up again.
But we can't let them build up because if they build up, they can't be peace in the Middle East.
It was a mistake.
You know, when they wiped out Iraq, Iraq and Iran were about the same power.
And they fought each other with different names for a thousand years.
And then our country came out and blew up one of those two countries, namely Iraq.
And all of a sudden, Iran had the whole peace all to itself.
But that's not true anymore.
That's not true anymore.
Tell us something about it.
Tell us something about your plan to expand the Abram Accords.
All right.
This is Jeffrey Lord sitting in for our friend Sean Hannity.
And we can be found at 800-941-7326 or 800-941-Sean.
And we will be back very shortly here.
We will have a great guest with a talk with Jeff Bartos from Pennsylvania, who's now got some ties to the UN.
This will be very interesting.
Keeping an eye on breaking news and bringing it to you first.