Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway and
David Harsani. This is just a reminder that if you'd like to email the
show, please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We enjoy
hearing from you. Molly. Last night, how are you, by the
way, I'm doing great. How are you doing, David? I'm doing
okay. Last night we had the Michigan primaries. Which person would you love?
Which party would you like to discuss? First? Let's go Biden Democrats.
I actually think that was more interesting in many ways. So Biden went
I think eighty percent of the vote or something around there, so basically ran
away with it as an incombent president or as president should. But there were
around one hundred over one hundred thousand non committed votes, which was like a
protest vote against Joe Biden's handling of the Gaza Israel situation. There are many
Arab Americans in Michigan, especially in the suburbs of Detroit and Dearborn, places
like that, and I crunch some of these numbers. I think one hundred
thousand is actually pretty significant number. I think it was thirteen percent of the
vote that you know, thirteen percent is a relatively large number on just a
one issue kind of protest vote, I think. And the thing was that
Joe Biden has been sending emissaries out there from the White House for like maybe
over a month, kind of like appeasing and playcating what I would call pro
Hamas people for the most part, not all, but some, And it
didn't seem to make much of a difference. And I think it actually matters
that one hundred thousand could be if you projected out into an election, or
even if you depress the vote in Michigan, that could be big trouble for
Joe Biden. Do you agree with that? I don't know. I was
trying to think about it. I was looking at how when Obama ran for
reelection, I think about ten percent of his party voted non committed, So
this isn't that much bigger. But as you note, Michigan's can be a
swing state, and with all of the other problems that Biden is having in
that, you know a lot of his supporters who thought that voting for him
would make things easier in the country and instead things have gotten much worse.
That you know that I have nothing to do with foreign policy, and you
combind these people, it could be a real problem for him in Michigan.
And that's what the polling has suggested when you do a head to head matchup.
So I saw Paul from Harvard something else that showed that the vast majority
of the people are still basically pro Israel and not you know, Prohamas,
and that you know, I think sixty seven percent believe that Hamas should have
to return all the hostages and you know, be destroyed and all this stuff.
But it's very I think it's important to point out that no matter what
Biden does or how he offends let's say, Jewish voters who still care and
stuff like that, California, New York, Florida, these places are not
going to be affected enough to have any kind of real It's not going to
change any kind of outcome. But Michigan it could. Joe Biden won Michigan
two point eight million to two point six million in twenty twenty. That is
pretty close he wanted in twenty sixteen. I believe, so Trump wanted,
and Trump wanted in twenty sixteen. So I'm just saying, like even a
sort of a depressing of enthusiasm or something like that could definitely matter considering what
you just said. They hold all the other stuff that makes him so unpopular.
Just even having to work hard in Michigan after winning it in twenty twenty
means that you don't get to spend resources elsewhere, and so it's not great.
The night was not great for Democrats. No, yeah, even with
an eighty percent win. I don't know who the was it, Dean Phillips
still running, Yeah, but he didn't really get much of the vote.
It seemed like everyone who did the protest vote went for the what is it
uncommitted? Uncommitted? Yeah, uncommitted. I'm doing a piece on this.
Some of the people that the White House has spoken to there to try to
placate our outright pro hamas terrorists, it would be like sending I was trying
to come up with an analogy, and this doesn't really work. I'll tell
you in a second. But it's like sending out people to Borough Park in
Brooklyn and finding pro Putin Russians and then saying, as John Kirby did yesterday,
oh, we're we're going to we're going to craft our foreign policy to
app is your concerns about this. I can't even think about Russian immigrants not
being pretty pro American and like supporting terrorists or anything like that. But I'm
just saying this would be tantamount to that, and yet the media doesn't even
cover it like that at all, you know what I mean? On that
note, can we just briefly talk about the man who self immolated in front
of the Holocaust Museum. So I'm just very concerned that this was an air
He was in the Air Force, right, and he did this in uniform,
which is not even supposed to do anything political in a uniform. Obviously
not mentally well in that he killed himself with I think a child or children
at home. But it just seems concerning that he was doing a lot of
political activity of the Prohamas variety and had some anti Semitic stuff on his social
media. He was an Antifa enthusiast, and he was at the NSA.
I know, like, what kind of metting are we doing for these like?
It could have been much worse than just a self emilation in front of
the cost Museum. As someone pointed out to me, the line between lighting
yourself on fire and blowing yourself up is not that you know, dense or
thick, right. So, but if this was some kind of white supremacist
or something, we would be knee deep in a national conversation on how dangerous
it is and how they've infiltrated the air Force and how they've infiltrated the NSSA.
And you know, but does anyone Is anyone even talking about it in
that way? No? And then remember the Iranian affiliated person who was at
the Department of Defense, and I believe is still there, and nobody really
cares about any of this. Yeah, I forget her name, but she
wrote a letter that we know exists because of a third party founded on a
laptop, where she promised the Iranian of the Islamic State that she would do
everything she can to help them. And she sits in the Pentagon. And
there were three of these people and they worked for Rob Malli. You know
before they had been part of the negotiation team for the United States with yourn
which is confusing, I think. And do you know, we still don't
know what Rob Malle did. We still don't know he is under investigation.
No one seems to care. He's teaching in Yale or Princeton or somewhere.
You know, I'm sure I have no doubt that whatever investigation has done,
that he will be found to have done nothing wrong whatsoever and will be promoted.
And you know, as per usual, people forget this. Yeah,
oh sorry, no, no, please, people forget that. Rob Malley
tried to actually met with Hamas twice. The first time he met with Hamas
leadership in Obama's name, Obama like threw him off the uh, you know,
his advisory team or whatever. But then he brought him back and he
met with Hamas again, and Hamas said, we hear you, we hear
that Obama cares more about what we have to say. And a bunch of
these same people are in the di Biden administration, So anyone's surprised about how
they're acting. I mean, you know, anyway, you want to talk
about Trump. Yeah, so Trump did very well. What was the final
percentage in Michigan? Impressive? I forget what it was right off, but
it was like big right, yeah, I should have had this in front.
I should have had this in front. But yeah, I mean you
want he won handily. It's not it's not really a race anymore. And
I'm confused about why. I mean, I'm not really confused that much about
why Nicky Haley is in it or why people would run again, you know,
knowing that they were going to lose, But I am confused why we
still have to pretend that there's any kind of race going on as far as
journalism goes. Yeah, I think it's all very interesting. I very strongly
believe that if you want to run, you have the right to run,
and I get angry when people act like you have to drop out. If
Nicki Haley wants to lose all fifty coxes and primaries, that's her right as
an American to do that. But it does seem that people who are covering
politics should think what is the goal here? And I think there are a
few different goals she might have, and it's worth thinking about each of them.
So one which I kind of heard people talking about on Fox News Sunday
this Sunday was this idea that by running and placing even a very distant second
behind Trump in the delegate count, that sets her up to be the party's
nominee in four years. That was kind of the theory that was pushed by
various people on Fox News Sunday. Another idea, which is which is what
I've talked about before, is that she's really just running for a third party
no labels run, Like if she were running for a no labels run,
this would kind of be the way to do it. And she's early on
she was saying things against Biden. Now she's turned into like a extremely deranged,
not deranged, but like obsessed anti Trumpist type candidate, and so that
could be setting herself up for a third party. And then another thing that
some people theorize is that she's just trying to hurt Trump and is hoping for
a plumb cabinet position in a second Biden term. But you see how like
these things can't all be true, Like she can't be trying to have a
future in the Republican Party and trying to run for No Labels or trying to
have a future in the Republican Party and vying for a cabinet position in a
second Biden administration. And as each primary goes on, it seems like it's
not like horrific numbers. She set a goal for herself in the South Carolina
primary that she would exceed the percentage she got in New Hampshire and she'd gotten
around forty percent in New Hampshire, so she needed to do better than that,
and she failed to do that. But she God blessed that woman's self
confidence. She took that failure and turned it right around into a victory speech
about how actually, you know, thirty nine percent isn't so bad, and
how she's going to keep going because she's a woman of her word, and
her word is that she's going to go and tell the bitter end or something.
So it's like that meme of the guy with the close shot of him
celebrating winning the race. He's hugging the woman, he's got the champagne,
and then they when you scan out, you know, he's like in fourth
place or whatever. But I did notice. I think it was in the
Why had it here? Somewhere the Washington Post had a poll that they'd done
or something. Maybe it wasn't the Post, Who wasn't, I can't remember.
There was. There were exit polls or voter analysis polls that some left
wing media organization had done, and it showed that for self identified Republicans in
South Carolina, Trump got like eighty percent of that vote for independence. People
were identified as independent, I think Nikki Hayley did much better. There was
some other group, and then they said only five percent of the voters in
the Republican primary were Democrats self identified Democrats, so there was too small of
a number for them to analyze who they voted for. Well, I think
probably the five percent of voters who were Democrat were you know, reasonably speaking,
Nicky Hayley voters, which means that a not you know, insignificant,
probably large single digits of her vote total was Democrat. So if you remove
that, that means that Trump, you know, Trump as it stood,
was like sixty forty, but if it's more like sixty seven thirty three or
something like that among actual Republicans, that makes it look a little less good
for her. And I think she's like a good vehicle for the anti Trumpist
vote in Republican primaries, whether you can come in as a republic as a
Democrat to vote in the Republican primaries, or whether you are a Republican.
But I also kind of get the feeling that New Hampshire and South Carolina were
probably the high watermarks there, both because she had immense donor support in both
of those, enabling ballot harvesting type operations, particularly in South Carolina, which
she put a lot into, and the Cochs have withdrawn there back in correctly.
Yeah, she's still getting a lot of Democrat support, avert more overt
Democrat than the Cokes. But the Cochs said that they were pulling out,
and that's a big army of people who are paid to do what they say.
So I don't think that's going to help her much in the future.
But she she runs the risk. I said this, He said this this
week, that she runs the risk as she continues to run of being viewed
as a as a Liz Cheney type character. And I tweeted out this thing
this hit where I said that, and I think like one hundred percent of
the comments were telling me that I was an idiot because she has been a
Liz Cheney character for many months now. So you know, yeah, I
think that that's I think you're right, she will be viewed that way.
I think it's a little harsh on her to say she is that already in
my view, I think she wants to I don't think she wants to have
that. I don't know. This is my theory, right, I don't
think she wants to be in no Labels candidate. I don't think she wants
to be in the Biden administration. I do think she wants to differentiate herself
enough from Trump that, you know, if Trump fails or if he loses,
or whatever happens in twenty twenty eight, she can be that candidate who
said she stood up, you know, to Trump, this is the right
way to go. But if she takes it too far, I think that
she'll people will remember it enough, especially people like Trump, which is a
lot of Republican primary voters, that she would have a chance. So I
don't know. I mean, maybe she just wants to be on TV.
I don't know what these people want. History, economics, the great works
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Yeah. I do think that maybe the you know, there's like a whole
media apparatus that tries to create this like false reality where Republicans are represented by
Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes and David French and Liz Cheney. And so if
they have like four slots on their Sunday show, they'll have three crazy leftist
Democrats and then they'll balance it out with Liz Cheney or Jonah Goldberg, right,
And so people actually don't like those people so much, no offense,
but they're not they aren't much of an audience outside of Democrat circles, and
so maybe they are thinking could refresh some of that with a Nicki Haley,
although I honestly think Liz Cheney is in her bones much more conservative than Nicki
Haley, so I'm not even sure where that would go. I mean,
Liz Cheney has truly remarkable hatred for one man that I don't think think he
has think he's nicky, is not a great governor or. You know she's
not. Obviously her own state just rejected her in the primary. So well,
I mean, the thing is the way she differentiates her. You see,
someone like Liz Cheney is just full out blown hates Trump, says democracy
is in danger. But Nikki Hally doesn't really do that. So she tries
to sort of play what she tries to do what DeSantis did in a way,
you know, even though I don't think she has the credentials to do
it, is to say, you know, I'm the confident, you know,
reality based person who can appeal to a wider audience. And it's always
it's an age old problem. You have to appeal to the primary use first
before you appel to the you know, the center. I think she would
actually do okay in the national election. I know you may disagree with that,
but there is no appetite for her that hasn't been from the beginning,
So I don't know those one thing with the media, yeah, I don't
think she would do particularly well. And in general, I mean, one
thing that is so silly about these polls where they're a year out or you
know, many months before an election. Let's say, oh, in this
head to head match up, this person who most of the country doesn't know,
would do better than this person who half the country despises. And once
you get into a campaign and you have corporate media, like think about all
the things Nikki Haley has done that are considered by corporate media to be the
worst possible sins in the history of the world, like her weird New Hampshire
gaff on slavery and stuff like that. Do you think that they would still
treat her as kindly with those issues should she be the general nominee, or
would that become the drum beat every front page New York Times story was about
her troubled racial past and all that. No, you're definitely right about that.
And the media does also need to gin up these races because it's for
ratings, it's to cover something it's not really it's kind of boring if there
is nothing going on. The slavery gaff was turned me against her in a
way that had not been against her, and not because she said something stupid
about slavery, but it's because that's what she thinks Republicans want to hear,
which tells me she doesn't really understand Republicans at all. Like Republicans don't want
you out there defending slavery. That's a leftist conception of what Republicans want,
and she bought into that, which tells me she is really not prepared.
But like you said, she is not an untalented debater and speaker, and
she does have some charisma in a way. And so I just don't know
that I think she could beat Joe Biden, because I think a lot of
people can beat Joe Biden, and I just I don't think she would be
terrible, though she would not be I should not be one of my choices.
But well, I will say one thing, Yeah, I agree with
you on a lot of that. But also because of her unique foreign policy
views, which you could call like Mitch McConnell foreign policy views, they are
not super popular in the Republican Party, and they would also kind of help
Joe Biden seem more rational and nuanced. So I'm not sure that would play
out very well for her either. It's a big reason why she's not going
to be the Republican nominee. Her views are like who said one of my
friends says she's the ideal candidate for two thousand and eight or something like that.
You know, she really was what Republicans were trying to be fifteen years
ago. Can I talk about foreign policy for a second. So I just
don't think it's as important maybe as you do others do. I agree completely
with you that her positioning on foreign policy is at a step with what I
think most Republicans feel or primary voters do. But did you see that poll
where I think it was a gallop pole that shows what people are thinking about
or care about, and immigration is like at the top. Economic things are
at the top, crimp crime I think is up there, and foreign policy
is like way on the bottom. Like, I just don't think Americans care
that much about it. I don't know that their vote would hinge on your
foreign policy position. I could be wrong about that, that's just no.
I agree. I don't think Americans have ever. I think it's kind of
like a typical complaint, but it's actually kind of a feature of ourselves too.
We're so important globally that we just we have the luxury of not having
to care about foreign policy too much. And so I think that is something
We've seen pole after poll, year after year that people do not prioritize foreign
policy, which is not to say that it's not important and that it's not
a big reason. You know, a lot of people talk about how much
Trump is hated or beloved by different people, but when it comes to dislike
of Republicans, I do think foreign policy ranks high on that or you know,
even how it relates to other things. So yesterday there was the Big
Four meeting where the top two Republicans in the House and Senate and the top
two Democrats in the House and Senate got together to talk about funding the government,
and Mitch McConnell. So it is Mitch McConnell, Mike Johnson, Hakeem
Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer. And Mitch McConnell, according to reporting from people
he's very friendly with at punch Bowl, told Mike Johnson to stop talking about
the border because, like they really needed to fund Ukraine. And I think
that's why Republican voters give such low marks to their supposed leader, Mitch McConnell.
The thing they care most about is the border, and Mitch McConnell is
telling Mike Johnson stop talking about the border. We have to get money to
Ukraine. Yeah, I think you're right about how that Ukraine an issue enhanced
beyond just being a foreign policy issue because you see how it's prioritized. So
if it's the border and Ukraine are not really zero sum propositions, if you
felt like you could do both, but the idea that you only need to
do one of those things and the other one is not important. I think
that that makes especially when you see you know, illegals murdering people and you
know, just flooding over the border at the same time, and Mitch McConnell's
more concerned about what's going on in the eastern provinces of Ukraine, you know,
with the Russian minority there. That that I think does matter definitely within
publican, party politics, anything else. On Michigan. If not, I
think we can. I just want to say that Michigan was the place where
I figured out twenty sixteen a little bit better. Mark and I were teaching
out at Hillsdale during the primary in twenty sixteen, and when we were in
DC, we were totally up in the anti Trumpist hysteria. Mark was working
at Weekly Standard and on Twitter, everyone had figured out how to stop Donald
Trump from winning the nomination, and on Twitter everyone figured it out. They
were like, we're just going to ask every other person running to say that
if Donald Trump is the nominee that they won't support him, and then that
will scare Republican voters into stopping voting for him in the primary. It sounds
silly now, but like it totally made sense at the time, and so
there was all this pressure that when a reporter was able to get in front
of one of the other Republican nominees, they'd be like, would you support
Donald Trump if he were the nominee, And all of these people, I
think more or less were like, well, yeah, you know, if
he were the Republican nominee, and then everyone I don't think Trump promised that
he would vote for the Republican nominee. Yeah, because like all the other
people were establishment Republican a variety of stripes, meaning like they had been brought
up in the Republican Party and they were elected in the Republican Party, whereas
Trump was kind of loudly talking about how awful the Republican Party was while we're
running for the nomination. But anyway, we go out to Michigan and we're
just interviewing local people there and I tell this woman at the grocery store about
the plan for how to keep Donald Trump from winning, and she's like,
so they're going to try and get people to say that whoever the Republican voters
pick, they're not gonna vote for that person. And somehow, when she
asked the question back to me, I was like, oh, yeah,
that's a really idiotic plan for stopping Donald Trump. And then the other thing
was that everybody we met who was voting in the Democrat Party was voting Bernie
Sanders, and the polling had Hillary I can't remember she was winning by six
or winning by twenty, but she lost by the other number, you know,
so it was like a twenty six point clip. Bernie Sanders beat her
in that Michigan primary. It was kind of a shock. But if you
talked to people, even you know, where we were, which was fairly
rural Michigan, they were pretty enthusiastic about Sanders and not Clinton. And that's
it just was like such a helpful trip for me in twenty sixteen, which
was such a weird year, but to get out and talk to people hear
from them what they were thinking. And getting out of that DC bubble just
reminded me also that Twitter is not real, does not represent normal opinion.
That's it, normal opinions. Bad people are nuts, that may be,
But David, I'm not sorry. There's reality, there's reality. Respect them
enough to want to hear what they think. Yeah, I don't, but
reality is something you have to deal with in politics, like you have to
deal with that reality. And I think you know they were. I remember
seeing that picture where Trump shows up somewhere and there's a huge enthusiastic rally,
the kind of rally that Hillary could never ever muster because she was just not
charismatic enough. People didn't like her, not enough she was compelling enough people
disliked her. And I thought to myself, I never I never really sort
of calculated how much I think people didn't like her and how much people like
Trump, et cetera. But then they come up with a guy who's probably
Biden is not likable either once you get to know him right, and they've
I think, fallen into the same exact trap again. I just don't think
he has he's charismatic. I don't think he can speak to big crowds and
get people excited. When I remember when Obama was present, you see Obama
bumper. This is a stupid way to judge things, I know, but
just anecdotal, but you so Obama bumper stickers. Everywhere you sell. People
have been wearing Obama shirts. People were excited about Barack Obama. I haven't
literally never met anyone on Earth who's excited about Joe Biden. I know people
are excited about Trump, I'll tell you that. And people tell me they'll
vote for if Trump isn't the nominee they promised to vote for, like RFK
or not vote or whatever. But you don't see that with Biden at all.
And I just I don't know. I'm feeling like it's a little bit
of a rerun of sixteen today. I don't know. I saw that Joe
Biden was on Seth Meyer's political show that he does late at night, and
Seth was like really trying hard to make Joe seem likable and sentient, and
even I was thinking back, you know, in twenty sixteen, Donald Trump
did appear on some of these shows from Saturday Night Live to late night comedy
shows, and it actually used to be the case that Republicans would regularly appear
on left wing corporate media and be treated roughly but not like horrifically. And
one of the things of fallout from twenty sixteen is because these shows have become
like, you know, literal vehicles for Joe Biden's reelection campaign while shunning all
Republican viewers and voters. Is like they're just there's so much less influential than
they ever used to be. Someone was pointing out that, I think it
was Kyl Kyle Smith, was pointing out that there were all these left wing
efforts to stop advertising on conservative media, so you know, major efforts to
get advertisers to stop having ads placed on Fox News, major efforts to have
people stop funding any non leftist media with advertising, and it was very successful.
I mean, we've been subjected to this ourselves rather famously. There was
a foreign disinformation operation that worked with NBC News to de platform and defund us,
and you know, we kind of survived and won that, but it
was really weird to go through. But one of the things that happened as
a result of that is a lot of advertisers were like, well, we
don't want to we don't really want to have our ads next year transactivism either,
and so they just voluntarily stopped funding some of the left wing outlets and
just focused more on social media. And so in the last couple of weeks
we've seen major closures or layoffs at left wing news sites, and Kyle Smith
was suggesting that partly this was to their own campaign to destroy any non leftist
media. I think that's right. I think also you look at bud Light,
they say, you know, conservatives can actually hurt us as well.
Why didn't get involved in any kind of political you know, why have our
ads next to any of this kind of content. I do want to say
though, that you know, you're right about Trump appearing on some shows,
and obviously Republicans haven't done that. But I think that Trump was treated that
way because they just all thought he was going to lose. Like he if
they thought he had a chance of winning, I don't think they would have
humanized him or whatever in any in any way. And just a quick last
word on something you talk about how how these late night shows aren't influential,
and sometimes I forget that I'm old and people are young and they don't.
So I'll say something like, oh, he was on Johnny Carson like that
that was like a big deal. If you were on Johnny Carson, that
meant like a ton of people were seeing you. It mattered, you know,
this platform. But no, I have never heard anyone say, oh
he was on you know set, you know, unless it's the president.
But I don't think that these shows have the reach or anyone really cares very
much anymore. Inflation's not going anywhere. The watch Dot on Wall Street podcast
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Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Right, I don't even know
what we were talking about. This is just reminding me too. Did you
watch Shane Gillis this weekend on Saturday Night Live. I saw the monologue and
then I watched the one clip of where he mocks that EMU Insurance ad with
the guy, and I thought, I I didn't love his monologue, not
because I think he bombed, but I think he was too apologetic for not
making people laugh with the jokes he made. Does that make sense? Oh
yeah, yeah, So that bothered me. He should have just gone and
done it and walked off. You know, I have to imagine that doing
a monologue is incredibly difficult in front of an audience like that, but he
was clearly nervous. And also it just I get a little annoyed when people
only go a little bit of the way instead of whole hog, and then
they act like they're being so incredible. So you've seen this with Dave Chappelle
and Mickey Kervas, and they're like, oh, they're very brave. They're
making some jokes about the radical trans insanity. The jokes are always really mild
and nowhere near what they should be for the problems that we're dealing with.
So I just thought it was like a little I don't know, I was
expecting more, but probably because I really like Shane Gillis, and I really
enjoyed his stand up. This reminds me he's like a good natured guy like
it. It doesn't feel like he wants to hurt people's feelings or insult someone
or make any big statement. I just think he thinks what he's saying is
funny, and I think it is too, And so I just felt like
let down that he kept saying, Oh, you're not making you laugh,
you know, it was almost apologetic. It's just you just can't do that.
So there are these two comedians that I'm going to see here pretty soon,
and my husband loves me, and I know he loves me because he's
taking me to see Chris Fleming. Have you ever seen him? No,
very absurd comedy, like I'm sure it's going to be awful, even but
for some reason he makes me laugh. And so we're going to see him,
and then we're going to see Ryan Long. Do you know who that
is is? He he's like the he has skits, like he's kind of
like what is it called unwoke or whatever kind of comedian you would say,
yeah, kind of. He's Canadian and I think he's really funny, and
so he's doing He's take, and we were so Mark and I were getting
ready to buy tickets for his show, and said like, just FYI,
this is going to be taped for a comedy special. But it's just at
the DC Improv so it's not like one of those big theaters or anything like
that. And I still am going, but I like realized I have a
total fear because do you ever watch those comedy specials where they will tell the
joke and then they'll scan the audience and they'll see people laughing. And I'm
like, oh, my mother would be so upset with me to hear me
laughing or to see me laughing at some like inappropriate jokes. I have to
like sit in the back. Hopefully. Fine, Great, let's switch.
I was trying to come up with a good segue, but let's just switch
this story of media bias, something we rarely touch on. I wouldn't even
say this is bias. I'd say this is just like double standards. Right.
So Adam Rubinstein, who is a you know, a guy I read
for a while, Like I know him through social media and stuff like that.
I think he was at the Wall Street Journal, then he went to
the New York Times, edit page. He was there when James Bennett was
that the editor's name who was fired for running a Tom Cotton up ed about
where con wanted to have the National Guard. I don't know why I'm laughing.
It was a good idea have the National Guard come in for these BLM
riots and stuff like that. Anyway, he wrote a piece at The Atlantic
where he oh, do you want to explain? So basically he goes through
what happened to him there and it's it's quite interesting. But one of the
stories that made me laugh and a lot of people honed in on, was
that he was there for orientation and it sounded like some kind of insufferable kind
of like kumbayamaman or whatever. But they asked him like what his favorite food
was or sandwich, and he said Chick fil a spicy chicken sandwich. It
he verse wants to say what his real favorite sandwiches, but they realizes it
costs nineteen dollars, so he doesn't want to like come off poorly to his
colleagues, so instead he's like Chick fil a spicy chicken sandwich. And then
the leader of this group says something like, no, it can't be your
favorite, yeah, or anti gay basically, right, that's hate chicken?
How could you like hate chicken? And then and then a bunch of people
snap because snapping is what lefties do to because we're told that other people don't
like to hear the sound of clapping, so if you snap, it's less
offensive or something. Wait, wait, we'll take a step back. You're
so if there's a lot of snapping going on, that's like clapping, but
not clapping for something. Someone said, Is that what you're saying? Yes,
lone, he wrote, is people started snapping their fingers in acclamation.
Gosh, when I was young, the thought of working for Ye Times or
Washington Post, even though they were on the left, was just the goal.
And then at some point, maybe ten years ago, I'm like,
I would never want to work there in a million years. And now it
sounds like it would be something someone it sounds like an oppressive kind of thing,
like okay, yeah, go on, David, He went to the
end. You know, we were still talking about this story, right,
so snapping fingers and he says he wasn't thinking about the fact that left wingers
are worried about chick fil or don't like chick fil a and the story just
makes it was a good scene setter to kind of explain how crazy left the
organization is. But my favorite thing is that I read this whole piece and
I, by the way, very much like Adam Rubinstein, and I think
he's, you know, a really good writer and editor. And he worked
with my husband at The Weekly Standard, and my husband has very good things
to say about him. Seems like a good guy. But there is this
part where he's talking about how he was considered very right wing and he's also
very anti Trump and was at the Weekly Standard. That alone, like that
you're considered right wing when you used to be at the Weekly Standard, which
is nobody's idea of right wing, is sad. But he says that he
starts to notice that the Republicans or conservatives that they publish only get published when
they agree with the left. And I was like, man, nothing gets
past you, does it. Adam, Like, how could you not have
figured that out? I mean, he's a younger guy, but like,
I feel like, fourteen years old is about a good age to figure out
that that's what the New York Times does. And so I have always like
one of the things that just freaks me out so much. You know how
journalists love to congratulate other journalists when they take jobs or whatever. So sometimes
you'll see a supposedly non leftist, non leftist activist reporter say I'm honor to
announce that I am making my debut in the New York Times, and everyone's
like, oh, wow, you go, girl, and that's so amazing,
And I always want to be like, I don't consider it, like,
I know, you got published merely because you probably attacked a conservative or
a conservative idea, So I don't view that as something to write home about
or brag about. I think it's something you should be ashamed of, like,
absolutely ashamed of. And it embarrasses me that so many people on the
right in internalize a second class status so that they feel honored. When a
newspaper that does nothing but run hoaxes and smears, you know, the Russia
collusion hooks, the Kavanaugh rape smear, every single like false idea and unfactual
claim gets laundered through the New York Times. Why would you be honored in
any way to be affiliated with that? Can? I? Can? I
give a quick story. So in twenty sixteen, I wrote a piece about
how voters or stupid or whatever, and it was run in the Washington Post.
Now my theory was they thought I was talking about Trump voters and that's
why they ran it. So they thought I was agreeing with them, but
I was actually talking about all voters. So when it ran, everyone got
really mad about it. And but I was talking about them, you know,
which says something about voters, right, But you're right. I think
it was only run because they thought I was attacking Trump voters. Anyway,
let's talk a little bit about the chicken sandwich again. So two, A
bunch of people are online saying that's implausible, like one of these things where
they view it like when we hear some Democrats say my two year old son
turned to me and said, are we really going to be plunged into this
kind of you know, white supremacy or whatever? And you're like, that
never happened, right, So everyone's like that never happened. But to me,
it sounds completely like the most plausible thing that a liberal, that liberals
would do at a newspaper. Remember The Atlantic when they fired Kevin Williamson,
and they had like the the I think either they had texts from their like
signal chat or whatever whatever. They sounded just like people who had snapped their
fingers. Washington, d C refused to allow Chick fil A to open up
a business in Washington, d C. The idea that this is like some
fringe idea, when it was the New York Times itself who laundered some of
this hysteria and mob action against Chick fil A, which by the way,
was very successful, and they got Chick fil A to totally like back down
on any kind of social conservatism. And it's shameful, but yes, their
hate chicken is very good, and so many of us still, you know,
eat it. Honestly, I only eat it because they hate it,
Like I don't love it. Oh, but I go there because they hate
it. The whole way I discovered Chick fil A is during this mob hysteria
there was this left wing activist who as a federal employee who worked in my
neighbor in my neighborhood at the time, he was called like del Rey Dave
or something, I can't remember what it was, and he was saying that
the real reason why you should boycott Chick fil A is not just because of
their progressive policies, on the nature of marriage. But because they use chip
dice in styrofoam cups for their sodas. And I'm not joking. I read
that tweet, I got up from my desk and I immediately went to a
Chick fil A because I love soda with chip dice and styrofoam cups. And
I so hard to guess it was a styrofoam cup that they had a problem
with. Oh, I mean, there's just nothing better than that. And
so that's that began my journey of loving Chick fil A. They have a
good salad too, if you're into that, which I bought myself. So
you know, you mentioned. All these people were like, the Atlantic clearly
didn't fact check, and then the right the right responded with, oh,
yes they did, they did fact check. I'm like, okay, first
of all, the Atlantic doesn't fact check anything. They ran stories about Anonymous
about the Russia collusion hoax. They published Franklin four, didn't they like he
was like the worst of the idiots with the Russia collusion hoax. They ran
the information op by who's the editor there? He does a lot of info
ops. Well, Jeffrey, Yes, Jeffrey Goldberg ran the info op that
was refuted by name by like two dozen contemporaneous sources. The infoop he ran
was that Donald Trump secretly hates dead American soldiers, something so stupid that you
have to be Trump dranged to believe it. That got laundered into debates.
I believe Chris Wallace asked about that in a national debate. It was a
very successful info op. Jeffrey Goldberg also was used by some of the same
agencies to launder information that was false related to the Iraq War. Like The
Atlantic does not fact check the narrative check maybe, and even the fact that
like Adam put this in The Atlantic was so sad to me, Like I
thought he wrote it really really well, and I thought it was edited really
really well. It was perfectly calculated and calibrated to humiliate his enemies at the
New York Times. But they don't fact check. I'm not saying I doubt
the story. I totally believe the story, But the atlant a bunch of
people I trust have come forward and said that he told them that story when
it happened to me. You believe one of them works with us? Yeah,
So yeah, so that it is so a bunch of journalism professors are
like, this is completely you know, unprofessional. None of them came out
and questioned at all the suckers and losers story by Trump, and that there
was not a single on the record source for that, and that it came
out right before in elevee. Not just that there wasn't a single on the
record source, but that you had something close to two dozen on the record
sources saying it was completely made up. The included people like John Bolton,
who hates Donald Trump. You had contemporaneous documents that verified, you know that
the reason why Donald Trump didn't go to the ein Maarn Cemetery on a particular
date was not because he secretly harbored hatred for dead World War One soldiers,
but because it was deemed by the military not to be safe for travel.
So you had It's like, it would take a lot to like make up
a make up a DoD argument that in real time backed up his story but
was contrary to what these info ops run by the Jeffrey Goldberg allies said.
I did get a kick out of the author of the sixteen nineteen project Hannah
What is There is? Hannah Joe Cole Hannah Jones cal Hannah Jones saying this
is not true though she wasn't there, though she knows nothing about it,
which is kind of how she writes history. So obviously we can't be there,
but she knows nothing about it. So yeah, those double standards.
But you know, it just reminded me of how terrible journalism professors are on
you know, we're not all of them, because don't you teach journalists smell,
I mean all journalism professors, but many of the big named ones that
are you know, endorsed by media and constantly they go to them for quotes
are just complete hacks and journalism jay school for the most part, though there
are some places that are okay. Is kind of a racket and not unnecessary.
I think for most journalists it's better ways of becoming one. So,
Mollie, what what are you doing? What did you do last week on
the culture front? Did you see anything, hear anything, read anything?
I did. I watched a documentary while I rode call. It was about
the making of the We Are the World Oh yes, video. And it
wasn't like the World's Best documentary or anything like that, but I enjoyed it.
And it was kind of ludicrous that they were able to put this song
together. And have you seen this at all? Or now I just saw
the trailer I was actually going to I was debating whether I should watch it.
Some of the people like do I really want to revisit some of these
artists? I don't know, But so it definitely took me back to kind
of my musical awakening. I was pretty young at that time, but I
definitely was interested in all the artists who were there. Lionel Richie comes up
as being I can't remember who it literally says that at the beginning of the
documentary whose idea it was? But you know, Bob Geldoff had put on
that do they know it's Christmas thing? That had raised so much money?
And so there were all these artists in the US were like, well,
we should be doing something, and so Lionel Richie tries to get Stevie Wonder
to help him write a song, but Stevie's kind of busy, and Michael
Jackson and he work it out. Quincy Jones produces, and they're trying to
figure out like how to get all these people in and Lionel Richie was hosting
the American Music Awards like a few weeks ahead of like a few weeks later,
and they realized, like, there's going to be every everybody's going to
be at these awards, why don't we try to do it around that?
And the plan is that they will finish the awards ceremony at like ten PM
and then just go over to the A and M Studios and record right then.
And that's how it happens. And so everyone just like shows up,
and some people like Bruce Springsteen just like drives over. Oh my gosh,
who's the guy who sings the Gambler stuff. Kenny Rogers. Kenny Rogers drives
in, you know, and they've got all this like video of it because
they were making it to be a song and a video, so there's just
tons of video of every aspect of this. And so they go through kind
of the drama. Algio is overserved by himself, you know, which at
first is kind of funny and then becomes horrific. And dan Aykroyd is there
for reasons that are never explained in the documentary. He's one of the Blues
brothers. Yeah, I was reading that because he was on this album and
he was also one of the Blues Brothers. He's like one of the top
selling musical artists of all time. But and then there was just like really
hoping that Michael, that Prince would show up. And they invited Sheila E
and she kind of feels like she was only invited, even though she performed
that night, but that she was only invited as like a way to make
sure Prince came. But he doesn't come, and so Huey Lewis has to
fill in for Prince and does a great job, but he's like super nervous.
Bob Dylan is nervous beyond belief because like everybody else who's involved in it
is a crooner and he's a mumbly folk artist, you know. And so
Stevie Wonder actually kind of like coaches him into sings like him to get him
to see how he could do it. And it was just and then like
Quincy Jones is amazing. It was like really interesting to see how it was
done and to see all these egos competing but also working together. It's great.
It was really kind of the boat, you know, we are the
world and then this and then there were like a bunch there was like a
heavy metal one. There was like Farm Aid, you know, there was
like a bunch of stuff that followed, but it was really unique at the
time. I think they were. There were a few concerts in the sixties
like for or early seventies like for Bangladeshi and stuff. The funny thing not
funny, but the thing about this one and We Are the World and Live
Aid is that it would have been a lot cheaper to go over there and
get rid of the socialist government that made a man made famine and was spending
this money on like Lenin statues and stuff. Then to have the concerts.
Now remind me, did Live come after? We came after? I think
yeah. So I stayed up for that because it was like a reunions of
you know, I watched it all day. There was like reunions of like
led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and it was just like this amazing event. I
didn't really think there's ever been anything like it, you know, even even
like Woodstock or Monterrey things like that didn't have as many like huge names.
Remember when Phil Collins played with I think the Who and then took like a
concord Jet and then played in philadel or something. Yeah, I watched that.
That sounds like a you know, take me back to my teenage years.
It's not a fan of that song. I think we are the we
are? What's the other one? Do they know? It's Christmas? Is
probably a better song, would you say? If you have to choose?
Neither are particularly great, but they're both pretty catchy. Do you know what
our outro song is going to be? Now? I even just like seeing
the A and M studios. I had watched this documentary on Herb Albert.
I think one of my weird things is I probably have the world's largest Herb
Albert record collect I'm always on the lookout for you when I'm in thrift shops
and stuff. I know the ones they have, and Jerry Moss recently died.
The M in A and M, and Herb Albert is obviously the A.
But I always foun those studios to be interesting. They were the old
Charlie Chaplin studios, and so just even seeing the studios themselves, I thought,
interesting, that's cool. Anything else? Yeah? Should I go through
it? Yeah? I want to. You want to do one at a
time or do you want to just go through you now? I don't have
much. I saw this show called The Bookie with Sebastian Oh boy, men
at Scoalco Meniscalco. Do you know that comedian? Who you talking? I'm
so unprepared. It's on HBO. It's it's about the Sebastian men of Scalco.
I know he is. Yeah, he's pretty funny. It is not
like, say, for children or anything like that. It's definitely not.
But it's about a bookie. I don't even know. I was going to
look up if if gambling is legal, like online gambling is legal in California,
but they're in California, and it's kind of like the last Bookie.
He's still like, you know, he's trying to survive in this world where
uh, you know, betting is becoming legal and stuff like that, and
you know, it's I thought it was pretty funny. I liked it.
This does remind me that one of the skits that was funny from Shane Gillis
was the one on gambling addiction and how you did not see it. Oh,
you should look it up. It was good. And this also reminds
me I wish there was someone who could just provide the service of listing what
we have watched and recommended, because I'll remember weeks later that you said something
about some show that sounded vaguely interesting, but I didn't write it down,
and so then I don't know how to go find it. And then also,
every time someone recommends that we watch a show or read a book,
I send it to my husband in the hopes that he will remember, so
that when we're trying to figure out what to watch, that won't do it.
Like you see the recommendation for Organized Do you see the recommendation for Amsterdam
that someone sent in? Yeah, I heard that movie's terrible. Me too,
so I think we published reviews saying it was horrible. So I just
didn't bother even though I very much like David o'russell. But now that we've
been challenged to watch it, I'm like, well, I think we'll have
to watch it. I mean, I won't be able to do this weekend.
Okay, let's keep the recommendations coming. I actually sometime tho I don't
answer emails that often. I do most of the time. If I haven't
heard of it, look it up and see what it's about. Sorry,
Okay, so we watched The Firm recently. The firm like Tom Cruise or
the firm Gary Oldman. There's two different firm Tom Cruise. Okay, I
like that movie. It was all right. I like those nineties thrillers,
like there were a lot of them in the late eighties. I really felt
like it was normalizing infidelity. There's a lot of infidelity. Was there a
lot or was there just that one instance that instant? I love how he
was set up, Like, you can't set someone up to do that.
You do it or you don't do it? Right? Am I wrong about
that? All that infidelity is is constant set ups, you know, by
Satan or otherwise, like it's you have to be stronger than too. It
wasn't even like that difficult to keep walking. Yeah, I mean Tom Cruise
could have looked at it and said not today, Satan. Right. So
we watched Guardians of the Galaxy with the kids, which was it was fine.
I'm not really into those, are they Marvel movies or whatever? But
this one's pretty good, much better than other ones I've seen. I think
they're the only ones I actually kind of like because they are funny and kitchy
a little bit, I guess. Yeah, And the part of the well,
there's like a subplot involving a soundtrack that the main character listens to,
and the first song he listens to is ten CC's I'm Not in Love,
which is the first song my husband and I danced to at our wedding.
It's very nice. Yeah, And then I think, oh, I did
watch one that I do want to highly recommend. So those those other things
I'm not recommending, but Night Crawler, Oh, with the Jake Gillenhall.
Gill I always kiss Jillen Hall. No, I don't know, I always
kill Hartroy his name, and I want to see that. Actually, is
he the photographer from that or kind it's kind of like plays it kind of
like a psychopath who becomes a person who gets footage of gruesome incidents and then
sells them to TV stations. But it's it's kind an interesting story, but
also an interesting look at the media and how they cut corners for stories.
Really, all right, I'll give that a shot. That's been on my
radar for a while now it's a few years old. I only have one
other thing I've still watching going through all the Columbos. But there's a show
called Tokyo Vice. I mentioned the first season of it. It's on HBO,
and it's about this American trying to be a journalist in Japan and gets
you know's a mob stuff and all this other interesting stuff going on. It's
a pretty good show, so I'm just going to recommend it. I don't
know the names of the people who are in the show. The guy was
in Baby Driver. Do you remember that movie Baby Driver? I do?
I see Ken Wotton Abby was on there too. Oh yeah, he's in
it too. Yeah, And it's a it's a pretty good show. That's
your kind of thing. Yeah, okay, great thriller. It's not not
kids safe either. It's violent and there's sexual content and all that. You
know, as I get older, I don't really love that stuff at all.
Like I don't think the story like I need to see people being dismembered
or I need to see people being raped or whatever. But I feel like
it's hard to find a show, a thriller or mystery where that's not really
part of it. And maybe that's why I'm watching Colombo. I don't even
know, you know, I just want a good story without like all the
I don't need to see it. Do I sound like I'm losing my edge.
No good. I should have warned people that Night Crawler has a lot
of violence. Yeah, I do. I am skip it, I am.
I think I mentioned this one earlier, but I'm now in season three
of Loudermilk. Yeah. I like that show. It's all right. I
like his uh that's the he's the record former critic. Yeah, I like
that show. Yeah, it's kind of like a very mellow kind of short
show, right, Like, I don't know this kind of new trend where
it's not too much all right? Is anything else? No? So,
I just wanted to mention the email again radio at the Federal Federalist dot com.
Please emails if you have any cultural suggestions, and until then, the
lovers are freedom and anxious for the play