Well, welcome back everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Me David
Harsania, Molly Hemingway, and a reminder, if you'd like to email the
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able. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, honestly, four bucks,
I mean, you can spare it. We should probably you should probably
increase that quite a bit. Actually, Molly, it has been a crazy
week, or more than a week, crazy almost two weeks now, I
guess, with what's going on in Israel. I've been to Toto last week,
just really affected by it, angry, rage, tweeting my way through
the whole thing, lasting anyone who I feel is honestly pro amas. I
think there's plenty of people are pro a mas. It's got a lot of
blowback. I mean, we talked about this off air, but it's you
know, it's a weird and trying time, I think for most Americans.
Like I might have mentioned this last week, but I was interviewing someone from
my book on Justice Alido, and he was saying that as bad as the
leak of the Supreme Court decision was, he was in some ways more upset
by the response to the leak, where people didn't really care that justices lives
were being threatened or there were major security concerns, and they just kind of
were ho hum about it. And I was thinking about that as it relates
to the reaction to what's going on in Israel. What Hamas did is horrific
and I can't stop thinking about it. And you read these stories of brave
individuals who saved lives even if they ultimately lost their lives, even as they
ultimately lost their lives, But then to see what's happening on US college campuses
or in certain cities where people are openly supporting terrorist tactics against civilians as part
of their political conflict, it's not hard to condemn what Hamas did and yet
it's hard for it's impossible for a lot of people. And that's just very
sobering. Yeah, I mean I always try to stress this, I think,
and I think polls bear this out that most people are not And I'm
just going to preface this by saying, I think if you're on Pomas side,
you're an anti Semite functionally. I don't know if you know that,
but you are. And I think that most people are not that way.
I think most people are decent and understand this is a fight of civilized people
against not all the people in Gos are this way, but a government that
is barbaric, and you know a lot of people support them. I mean,
that's another truth that we have to grapple with. But most people are
decent. I get a lot of like antisemitic mail when this sort of thing
happens, but I know that it's just ginned up by a small section of
people. However, I will say, the problem is this. Those people
are in our colleges, those people are in our media, and those people
are in our government now. And that is scary because and I'm sorry to
say this as well, it's something it's again a truth. There are immigrants
from certain places that are very are predisposed to being on the wrong side of
this, and that's something to concern ourselves as we turn more and more into
Europe. I mean, I wrote a book about this. I believe it's
true. I think it needs to be avoided, but we're just headed in
that direction and that scares me. Well. Pulling for whatever it matters,
shows that people are more supportive of Israel right now than they have been in
a long time. So that's important to remember even as we see these disturbing
signs of people being supportive of terrorism. But I was thinking about these,
you know, some of these lefty professors were saying, Oh, what did
you guys think decolonization meant. We've been calling for decolonization. This is what
it means. It means, you know, killing babies and attacking young people
at a concert, That's what decolonization means. You thought it was vibes,
you thought it was feelings. And I was thinking about decolonization and whether that
would be an appropriate way to view like these protests in Dearborn, Like would
you say, dearborn Michigan has been colonized by a pro hamas population. Should
we be calling for decolonization of dearborn. Yeah, I mean that's a good
point. The whole because of their ideology is fraudulent, frankly, and there's
no consistency in it at all. So I always think about this when something
like you know, this happens, that people talk about colonization, which is
just historically nonsensical. When it comes to Israel, is that no one talks
about. No, you know, how about Tibet, how about the Zulu,
how about the Hungarians of Transylvania, how about I mean, there are
thousands of people who do not have states in this world. There are thousands
of people. I don't mean thousands of individual people. I mean thousands of
minority people who you know, groups of people, ethnic minorities, religious minorities
in throughout the Arab world, throughout the Islamic world, throughout Asia, everywhere,
that they never write or talk about because they care about this one.
It means European people who are colonizing supposedly you know, brown people, and
that is also historically nonsensical. But first of all, if you go to
Israel, you see there are many Sephardic Jews who come from the Middle East
who live there. Probably around half the population. I don't know the exact
number. It is not about race, It is not about color. It
is to the Western intellectual here. And you know, the reason they need
to lie about history, the reason they need to lie about this is because
their case is so so poor. So yeah, I would tie it.
I forgot who was talking about this online, but I would tie all of
this philosophy into the woke an decolonization stuff, into the you know, black
lives matter stuff. Sometimes, I'm sorry to say, and it's all one
big group of people. That's another thing that's kind of been bothering me.
Okay. On the one hand, I'm happy to see that there are some
CEOs and some law firms, and some big businesses and some foundations that are
saying, hey, we think think your open celebration of slaughtering Jews is not
okay, So we're going to rescind this job offer or we're going to stop
funding you. These are the same exact people who gave eighty billion dollars to
the BLM movement, and the BLM movement never hid the fact that, in
addition to their racism domestically like their racism against white people, they were also
anti Semitic. They also were openly supportive of Hammas. You have the leader
of BLM saying our battle is the Hammas battle or is the Palestinian Liberation battle?
And I'm sorry, but it rings so hollow that it's like, Oh,
you thought it was okay to destroy the country by giving eighty billion dollars
to a domestic movement that was attacking the White House, attacking federal courthouses,
setting cities on fire, just like destroying the country. You thought that was
okay, But now you're not okay with the open anti semitism. Like,
I'm sorry, but it's a little like maybe you should have cared more a
couple of years ago when the pressure was really up, because now you're looking
for support here. You funded this, you you know, you helped,
you helped inject this into our system, and now you're like, oh,
well, that's bad. Yeah, some of us were saying that a few
years ago. No, I agree with that completely. I should also point
out BMI BMI, Black Lives Matter BMI BMI. A record is that a
record company? It's your body mass index. Oh okay, let me put
it this way. If you're if you're a white supremacist, you're anti Semitic.
If you're a communist, you're probably anti semitic. The authoritari to see
people are anti Semitic are usually authoritarian. You know, it is a good
indicator. So when you have black lives matters. The women Women's March was
started by anti semites. People do they know this? The all of these
left wing, socialist, progressive movements are filled with anti Semites. It's on
the right. It's on the right wing as well, on the far right.
But here's the thing. They are not in Congress, right, they
are not running this, They're not in the State Department. They are not
teaching classes at Cornell and Columbia and Harvard and Yale. That's the difference.
And it has a lot to do with people just being scared to speak the
truth. I abhor racism. I believe in individual liberty. I believe people
should be judged by their actions. And the left has become incredibly identitarian.
I saw this woman who was caught like at NYU, was caught ripping down
posters of the you know, Jewish hostages or whatever, and she apologized in
her letter it's just a bunch of like aggressive gibberish, and she says,
as a brown Arab woman, I don't sometimes know what my place is in
the society. You know, you hear all this kind of like whiny victimhood
that makes zero sense, just ideologically now ingrained in these young people, and
I think it's going to lead to a bad place. All these people at
Harvard and Yale are being taught this stuff, will be running institutions. They
will be our elite in a few years. And this problem, every time
it happens in Israel, I noticed that it gets worse, the reaction gets
worse and worse. It's heading in the wrong direction. The trajectory is wrong.
All these people are taking money away from yell and stuff. As soon
as you get back to the normal leftist stuff, they're going to be all
on board again. Don't believe this is going to change very much at all.
Also, I'm an old person and the Palestinian extremist groups were on my
campus when I was in college. So when you say, oh, these
people will become this way, oh, I think they have. They they
are in control, right. You spoke about this last week. I mean
the Palestinian terrorist movement of the PLO long before it was even before occupied territories
supposedly existed, had the backing of all kinds of leftist European groups. They
participated in the terror sometimes and they were supported by them. So anyway,
I don't want to go back through that history. It's you know, but
let's talk about a little bit about some of the stuff that's going on right
now, namely, and I think this is incredibly this is an incredibly important
story to understand what's wrong with journalism in America in general. But yesterday we're
recording this on Wednesday. So this was Tuesday. A hospital in Gaza City,
I believe, blew up. It was reported, Yeah, reportedly reportedly.
It reportedly blew hospital hospital, hundreds of patients in it. Yeah,
yes, so this was wildly reported. Now I don't even know how to
get into this. So anyone who knows any thing about this conflict understands that
two things. One that the Hamas side and the FATA side is constantly lying
about everything about you know, what's being blown up, who's being blown up,
how many casualties they are. Secondly, everyone who has followed this conflict
knows that Hamas wants people to die. They put their munitions under schools and
under hospitals, and they hide there knowing that the Israeli you know, that
either they're going to be used as human shields or will there will be new
martyrs for them to you know, talk about completely unskeptical reporting. Right on
the front of the New York Times, right on the front of the Wall
Street Journal and other papers. This is reported. Soon enough, we learn
that, you know, Israel's like, we didn't do this. Of course,
you know, some people are not going to believe them, and you
know, you should be skeptical of everything to some extent, though, my
skepticism of Hamas is always going to be higher that my skepticism of a country,
a free country where they're actually you know, would investigate or report something
like this, and then they say, they give you all kinds of proof,
there's recordings, there's video, everything, that this was just the Islamic
shie had group had accidentally hit this place, right this hospital. Then this
morning I wake up and I see that the sun has come up and the
hospital is still standing, and the parking lot was hit by this missile.
The entire story basically is junk. Let me ask you something, how long,
how many people. Do you think we'll never know that. I think
the number is really high, or it's been sort of embedded in their thinking
that Israel Baum's hospitals. You know, this has been happening forever with media
and it speaks to their I'll put it this way. If they many people
in the media are sympathetic to Hamas, so they are either credulous and report
whatever Hamas says, or they are participating in Hamas propaganda. This is the
same thing they did during a million the Kavanaugh story, the Russian collusion story.
If it fits their ideology, if it comports with their ideological view,
they will report it and they will spread it. But if it's a beheaded
Jewish baby, they are going to really take their time and make sure it's
true, and you know, they need to see video first. That is
actually the thing that bothers me the most about this. And you know,
to be fair, all of us look for things that confirm our prior beliefs,
and so it's a thing you have to fight against because it's human nature
to do that. But when there were reports of women being raped and children
being beheaded as part of the torture and murder of those women and children.
You had a bunch of people in the media being like, I'm going to
need to see live action footage of the actual beheading because maybe like the heads
got separated from the bodies as part of the other you know, as part
of the natural burning of these bodies that we tortured and killed. You know,
I found the whole thing a little bit offensive. Like I don't even
particularly care how they murdered the forty babies, just that they did it.
So there's all this like fine tuning and parsing and like, you're going to
have to show me timestamped footage of the action as it's taking place. Never
mind that Hamas had live streamed their attack on Israel. So those of us
who were watching non filtered media, and what I mean by that is really
like being on Twitter x, we saw it all happening like in real time
from the perspective of the Hamas people who were live streaming it. So it
wasn't like Israel is putting out these videos that are fake. It was they
were homos videos. Then when there's an in the middle of the night attack
on supposedly a hospital, we just go right with the claims from Hamas.
Really there was a New York Times headline that said something like Israel bombs Gaza
hospital, killing hundreds, and pretty much nothing in that was true. It
wasn't Israel, they didn't vomit, it wasn't the hospital, and I don't
think it killed hundreds. What did happen, you know, from what did
What it looks like happened is that the Palestinians, as part of their war,
fired a rocket that didn't work, and they fired it from behind the
hospital, so it went right into a parking lot near the hospital. And
this is particularly tragic because reportedly there were like refugees camping out right near that
parking lot, all of whom probably died. And it was like thirty to
sixty people there. So it's a very awful, awful situation. But is
there anything wrong with waiting to find out and then also, don't regurgitate Hamas
without noting that they had a track record of inflating numbers, of mischaracterizing situations,
of denying reality, such as the reality that hamas and beds and schools
and hospitals, like you have to put all that in there as you report
it. Right now, people are being they're being targeted because of this lie,
and the media do have a responsibility to play here. Hey, y'all,
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promo code Sarah. This was dangerous. There are riots across the Middle East
right now near embassies. I wanted to quickly say, you know, if
you're confirming your priors by being pro Haamas, maybe you should reassess you view
the world and your moral structure of how you think about the world. That's
one thing. The second thing is, here's what happens. Though, even
if you walk this back. I've noticed all the news stories or like,
Israel claims that they didn't do this. So when you first report what Hamas
says, now it is on Israel to onus, is on Israel to debunk
something that was never true in the beginning. It should have been reported correctly
from the start. So now the whole thing falls on Israel. Oh well,
Israel, it's a he said, she said, which is ridiculous.
There is overwhelming evidence now that it wasn't true, and that's how it should
be reported, but it never is. I will say this too, just
because of something you said about Twitter, I'm just gonna call it Twitter.
I'm with the X thing. I can't but there's a lot to hate about
social media. I think it has a detrimental effect in many ways. But
I have to say, a story like this would have run in nineteen ninety
six. It would have been in every would have been on every single,
every single, all three networks, it would have been in every major newspaper,
and it would have been incredibly difficult to debunk that story. It would
have you know, there would be no way. But now there are lots
of people out there who will ask the right questions. There's a lot of
stupid people out there, you know, spreading disinformation, but there are also
a lot of people who do a really good job. And you know,
overall, I just I don't know, net I think it's it's a positive
that we don't have to accept what these people say. I mean, I
forgot who it was, but someone on Twitter was saying, like the people
who cry, you know, people who want censorship and cry about miss and
disinformation the most, they all spread this story. They all spread this dangerous
lie. This isn't some kook fringe person who's talking about you know, you
know, some conspiracy theory. These are people we're supposed to rely on to
debunk those things and yet they are the most malicious. I'm just going to
say it's malicious, delicious spreaders of this. So The New York Times has
been doing this sort of thing for decades, you know. And then you
see the people, the reporters and the columnist and the editorial board members chiming
in, and they're all of course, it makes sense that they're prohamas the
paper. It's filled with these people. I don't know how you fix that
anymore. I don't think it can be fixed. I think it needs to
be burned down. I'm happy to see the Washington Post struggling and firing people.
There's not enough people being fired. The problem with this that is,
though, that the wrong people are being fired. People on the metro desk
who report real news are being fired, not you know, Jennifer Rubin or
you know or whoever else is writing on the editorial page and garnering hits.
So all the incentives are wrong in journalism. I don't know how to fix
that either. I don't know how it can be fixed. So, yeah,
there's some major structural problems in play here that lead people to not being
the reason. One of the reasons why things are bad is people are rewarded
for being wrong, as opposed to in any way punished or having you know,
there's no repercussions that are negative. I know people talk about how the
Washington Post is on track to lose one hundred million dollars this year, and
you know the Atlantic Loss loses ten to twenty million dollars a year. The
thing is, people on the right need to really wake up and realize that's
not a loss, that's an investment. It's an investment in controlling narratives.
And for people who were wealthy billionaires on the left, it is worth it
to lose ten to one hundred million dollars like individually, much less with all
the foundations and corporate support to control narratives. You look at how the media
portrayed the Trump administration for four years. It was abject chaos and horror,
horrific. I mean, they just kept the volume at eleven so that people
were tense and they were freaked out all the time, and it affected the
way they voted. And those were four years of economic prosperity until the media
manipulated COVID hysteria. Those were years of peace breaking out all over the world.
That was four years of beginning to secure the border, taking on some
of the craziness of the left and right now. The media are incredibly calm.
You watch a press conference with Cream John Pierre, They're very calm.
They're like, ma'am, could we ask you a question about this horror show?
But we don't want to call it that, Like, we'll be really
gentle. Just remember the screaming every day from the White House Press Court against
anyone in the Trump administration, which was like the equivalent of your monsters,
you know, whether who's the kaylie Mcananey who I now work with at Fox.
They would treat her like she was this horrific evil person and she was
super competent and she had to be because she was working every day against like
hundreds of ideological opponents. Cream John Pierre is treated like a three year old
with a learning disability. She is so gently handled, even though oh,
I mean she's an idiot, right, I'm sorry, so but so gently,
so kindly, and like the questions are so puffy, and so everyone
kind of is like, well, you know, I guess I don't have
any money and I can't afford to move into a new house or buy a
car. Or groceries. But things sure are nicer now that that bad guy
with the mean tweets isn't around. Like it's all manufactured hysteria or calm.
I don't know if it works, like it might not work, but well,
it's a good point. The media was far more skeptical of anything the
Trump administration said than they were of what Hamas, the terror organization that chops
off heads of babies said, So that's interesting. They treat Hamas with more
respect than they do the Trump administration, who I know most people think is
worse than Hamas. I'm sure most progressives think that Trump is a bigger threat
and authoritarian than they do Hamas, which they're pro the Mehdi Hassans of the
world or whatever, the anti Semites that MSNBC we should pull for Al Jazeera
by the way, Yeah, we should add that to one of our questions
that we pose in our occasional pulling, just to see what the results are.
Who's more dangerous Hamas or Donald Trump? It is interesting. Just one
last thing you say, you know, they people fall fall up. Is
that what you said or is that the same there are no negative repercussions,
Yes, exactly. You were talking about this. It reminded me of the
our coverage ten years ago of Vox the side Box, which had a lot
of fanfare and all of that, And I remembered that I had written that
they were one of the biggest defenders of Hamas out there, so I looked
it up. Yeah, I did write a column about it. They were
constantly justifying and rationalizing Hamas. One of those writers, Max Fisher just a
terror apologist, you know, up there with the worst of them works.
Last I heard it the New York Times. He went in that direction.
He should have been headed towards his own you know, sub stack with two
hundred followers, but no, he haded in the other direction. And you
know, the gods of Bridge guys still there, who knows. Can you
imagine these people were there to explain this issue to us and they didn't know
the most basic geographical facts about Israel. I mean, it was so pathetic
and crazy. And where's Ezra Cline now? Is at the New York Times?
So and Russia collusion stuff that you know, all of those people have
been you know, have gotten better jobs or bigger platforms. So yeah,
I mean, it's a structural problem with the media that A they have people
who think that Hamas is you can trust be that they think jummas. They
actually are more sympathetic to Hamas than they are to Israel and choose. I
don't know how you can't really fix it. So let's talk a little bit.
Is that enough on that? I have to talk about Biden a little
bit. So Biden's over there right now. I'm going to put this.
He gave that speech last week and I was sort of impressed. I thought
it was a decent speech. But I regret and I wrote a column where
I said that, and I regretted it almost like ten minutes after I published
it because what he's doing now, Well, first of all, he's done
nothing. I'm not saying that the United States needs to get into a war
for Israel. I'm one hundred percent not saying that. But the least we
could do is not fund help fund Iran, help fund has Bullah, help
fund Hamas directly. We directly helped fund Hamas. He has cut off none
of that. He did not rescind the six billion dollar deal. Anthony Blincoln's
over there playcating the Katari regime that has the leaders of a group sitting in
a four seasons hotel that killed thirty Americans. Forget the Israelis, they killed
thirty American citizens. They have American hostages right now. We should be putting
maximum pressure on them them molly coddling them over there. And now Biden's there,
and why is he there? Yesterday it was reported that he's going to,
you know, from someone in the State Department, say he's going to
ask Israel some tough questions. So they're thirty American dead, he goes over
there to restrict and inhibit the response of Israel because that's why he's there,
so that they don't go into Gaza, and he's going to ask them some
tough questions. This is the third Obama administration right now. They are anti
Israel. No matter what they say, they do not do anything really to
help them in any real way that they need. I shouldn't say nothing.
They do some things, you know, but just in general, it's really
upsetting. I don't know, I don't know if you're if you're an Israel
supporter, this is just upsetting stuff. Well I hate I mean, okay,
I can't even listen to him by the way they were playing him on
the radio this morning and he was like, I think it was the other
team. Yeah, like it's a game that hit the hospital, and it
was like just the lack of we have not excelled in having particularly articulate presidents
recently, but that is it's painful to listen to. I don't think there's
anything wrong, by the way, with US encouraging prudence in how Israel goes
about this, Like people reflexively worry that means that they're not going to be
supportive of Israel doing what it needs to do to rid the region of Hamas.
I'm worried about that too. The pressure already seems to be so strong
against Israel seeking justice that you can kind of envision a future where Hamas is
not really taken care of at all. Right, But I don't want to
say by that that there's anything necessarily wrong. I mean, like it is
wise to keep this from turning into a complete global war. I'm not saying
that's a realistic thing that will necessarily happen, but I would like people to
think about it. I don't really trust the Biden administration to do that,
if you know. But you see what I'm saying, what you're saying I
think it is bad in this case, it's not necessarily bad. First of
all, he can call on the phone and say, listen, be prudent.
He is there as ISRAELI say to give them a bear hug, which
means, you know, it looks like you're hugging them, but really just
holding them back. And I think Israel is prudent too careful with its dealing
with hamas it has for years not done what was necessary because Israel wants to
avoid civilian deaths of Arabs, but also they want to have peace with other
countries around them, Saudi Arabia and countries like that, So they do what
they have to do to balance all these interests because in the long run that's
very important. But it is also a democracy, and if you had forty
thousand American dead here from an attack, you would want to take care of
the people who did it, and they should. There's no need. There's
not going to be a global war. That's just I'm not saying you're doing
it. But there's a lot of scare mongering over that there's not going to
be a global war. Israel has nukes, Uran doesn't have nukes. Russia
is not going to get involved in this. I mean, they'll get involved
in pressuring Israel to stop, but it's not going to spiral out of control
in that way. I just said something similar to my daughter last night when
she was asking about this, that I wasn't really worried about the near term.
It's also true that you can have people exploiting situations reforming relationships in a
way that can lead to problems. So that's all I'm saying, Like,
if Iran were to take advantage of Israel's focus on Gaza by opening up some
stuff up north, if China is just watching things and poking and prodding certain
directions, or Russia is looking for strategic advantage here too, it's not completely
outside of the realm of possibility that things could heat up here. That could
always happen, even the attacks on US embassies or a stray person being a
stray important person being killed here or there, et cetera. I don't think
China has any real interest in that situation, And frankly, this is just,
oh my gosh, China always has interest in they don't. They do
not have enough interest. If Israel has a relationship with China, as do.
I just don't think that. I mean, they'll say the right things
as far the wrong things, But you know what I mean, the right
things, I just don't. I mean, listen, I just don't.
In fact, I would say this. I don't know if people would agree
with me or experts, but I think Saudi Arabian countries like that would be
very happy, very happy if Israel eliminated Hamas. Egypt would be very happy
if Hamas was eliminated. No one wants that headache. That's why no one
lets gosen refugees in. No one wants that headache. They want it to
be quiet there. They understand Israel can't give Hamas a state. They say
things for the public because the public gets enraged by it, and they you
know, but behind closed doors. In my opinion, none of these none
of these these folks don't want Iran gaining footholds in Gaza or the Hasabala thing
is is true, that is a very dangerous situation, and many people believe,
I don't know if it's true that if Israel committed ground forces to the
south, then has bollowould attack in the north. That's a serious situation.
They have like one hundred thousand missiles that are much more sophisticated and can do
a lot of damage. But I know that people understand Israel is one of
Israel has a lot of missiles and a lot of it can hurt people pretty
badly. So I don't know, we'll see what happens. It is a
dangerous situation, no doubt. I just think when people think we're going to
spiral into World War three, they're exaggerating the situation there a bit. The
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you get your podcasts. That's all I just want to also say about Biden.
I would prefer Biden not be on TV when he's tired. I certainly
don't think he should travel. I myself don't do well with that international travel
from the US to the East. I am a wreck the first day I
arrive. He's like falling asleep in the middle of meetings. I don't even
I'm not even judging him. I would do the same thing. I find
it very difficult. But he is an eighty something year old man. They
should just keep him home that they should send other people. It's just not
a great look will be able to serve their own purposes. Like it makes
him look cute, and then it makes it looks weak. Yeah, he
looks weak. If I fly to Colorado, I sleep all day, So
even a two hour change for me is problematic. I'm just gonna be honest
about that. But you know, he's the president of the United States.
He needs like spruce up a little bit. When he's in the middle of
a conflict in Israel. You know, he should take those uppers they give
him when he does nighttime speeches and debates, the ones that make his eyes
like saucers. Mainline some botox get him on the uppers. Let's get this
thing moving in the right direction for guys. Somebody you can do it.
This is where, honestly, this is where having a competent, respected vice
president like I get I get that, I get that no one liked Dick
Cheney now and all that, But you know he that's why he was there,
right or even even Pence, that's why he was there, like a
calming influence, a person who you can like, talk to. Mike Pence,
author of the COVID response, that's why he was there. Great job,
buddy. Listen. They were terrible in the end, both in many
ways, but the thought, the thought was there, right, Like you
wanted someone who was responsible, not someone who wanted to be president. Basically,
I guess Pence did so. I don't know what I'm talking about,
but Kamala Harris could go over there and be like, we want you to
think about what's possible with this ground invasion. Unburdened by what has been,
she would do to the Middle East, which she has done for the border,
for the border, right, she fixed the Middle East like she fixed
the border. And administration. Let's just talk about this administration for a minute.
Nothing, not one thing has gone well for them, Like some of
it's not their fault, a lot of it is their fault. And listen,
I'm not going to Lisbon, Palestinian Hamas stuff going on forever. But
it is clear to me that Iran feels like he can do whatever it wants
right now. There's just no way around that. I'm not saying I want
war with Iran. Do you remember Donald Trump when they shot down our drone
they wanted to bomb Iran and one hundred and fifty soldiers might have died and
he didn't do it and all that. But let me tell you something.
I think that the Ranians were sitting there saying, this guy's kind of nuts,
Like if we mess around with him, something bad might happen to us.
Right It was like when Reagan was around people. I think we're more
nervous about what he might do than what he actually did and his rhetoric.
But that's what I was talking about before. So the Biden administration talks.
You know, he gave a good speech, Biden. They have not done
taken a single step. They have not cut off a to the Palestinians,
They have not cut off any of the waivers to the Iranians. They have
not what have they done. I guess they've threatened HASBALI keeps saying, don't
do it, don't do it, And you know what, I think that's
a good thing. But if you say that and Hasbala does attack Israel,
are you going to now attack Hasbala? The United States going to get involved?
I mean you just said don't Is that a red line? I will
see. I guess yeah, I don't know. I don't think they believe
it is. But Hasball and so on, we'll see. Anyway, it's
a tough situation. It's taken up a lot of my I tried to write
a column about something else the other day. It's very difficult, but I
did it. I did it. So I can't remember who is like Richard
Dreyfuss's kid, who's like a lefty on Ben Yeh Ben on Twitter and he
was saying, I don't think the left fully understands how angry we Jews are
with them right now, like we are super angry, like it's under the
surface angry. And he was making a joke about how he almost tweeted something
just to own the Libs, and then he realized that he is actually pro
tranny, so he didn't do it. This isn't going to change anything.
I think guys like that are living in a fantasy. I mean a lot
of people I see saying that the Jewish boat is going to be altered.
Now I don't buy it, no offense, but I know that we are
The US has the second largest Jewish population in the world, but it's still
like six million people. There aren't that many of you guys, So even
were wet, we run everything so that you do all right, you know,
but it matters. Honestly, this is going to sound the kind of
antisemitic to someone's people's ear. But the Jews in this country have done well,
and they are a lot of big donors are Jewish in the Democratic Party,
and as you saw, many of them are starting to hold money from
from Harvard or wherever. I think that that matters in a political sense,
don't you do. I just when people talk about the Jewish vote, I
don't think that matters so much. Definitely, there is influence in media,
academia and the like, and I would love for everybody to kind of stand
up against some of what's happening on campuses, and it would be great,
But the Jews in academia and the Jews in media, the peter beinart or
whatever they're you know, the traders did the Jewish beople. Basically is how
I see it, And now I'm I'm serious if you are, if you're
a Prohamas, this is not when I see someone write the words they're not
letting us be critical of Israel. If you're Prohamas, you're not critical of
is or not saying you can't be critical of Israel. If you think that
the Jews are the only people who don't deserve a state, you're not critical
of Israel. You're anti Jewish. There's no other way to explain that position.
After seventy whatever years of a nation existing already and fighting war afterward to
defend itself. Anyway, I get passionate about it, hey probably say something
that should. I also don't like how extreme other people can get about like
It is a common situation throughout history that when one country comes to be controlled
by a certain group of people, it usually means that a different group of
people is on the outs. And so I think sometimes people make too much
of the situation between Israel and the Palestinians it's kind of a story as old
as time. But I also don't think people should act like it's not that
that there is this conflict there or that these you know that, it's that
there's not paying trauma problems for the Palestinians as well. Do you know what
I'm saying? Like, so when you say like self inflicted, self inflicted,
now I'm serious, You're one hundred percent right. I agree with every
word you said. Think about the Kurds. There are fifty million of them,
No one, no one cares about them, No one wants to give
them a state. Maybe if they started killing Jews, professors at Harvard would
get on their on their side, right, maybe we would. Yeah,
maybe if Tibetian started blowing themselves up in I don't know, you know,
maybe people would care about them. I don't even think so. Actually,
you know, there are there are there are nationalistic movements all over the place
for people who want states to have legitimate claims to state, unlike the Palestinians,
and yet no one cares about them. That tells me only one thing
that you care about this situation. For one reason, what's the difference in
this situation situation is the Jews even any there are Christian minorities, no one
cares about them, even that, David, It's not just that, it's
that we're talking about holy lands for three major religions, okay, and that
makes it more fraught as well. This isn't like just land. It's not
just land for the Jews. It's land that they believe they were given by
God himself, you know. And it's not just land for the Christians.
However, many few people are, how many few Christians are left in Israel.
It is the site of their Savior's life, death and resurrection. And
then for the Muslims it has also got some you know, significance Jerusalem itself
with their Holy Mosque built you know, in triumph over the Jews on the
side of the temple. So it involves all the normal land disputes, but
so much more as well. Do you not agree with that? I mean,
I think it's overstated. I don't think that before israel existence, was
before Israel's existence, that those were actually very driving people towards that Christians did
not care about. The Crusaders didn't happen. Is that what you're saying.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about after World War One, there
was no big movement. Listen, Obviously many people made pilgrimages there. There
was a Christian population there. I don't know that it's shrinking. What you
said like horrifically. It's like well being exterminated. Basically, well in Israel
itself, you're saying it's being exterminated, or you're talking about the West Bank.
I don't mean that's a violent sounding word. Christians have left in droves
over the less. It was interesting. I was actually listening to a book.
I forget which one it was, but they were talking about the Christian
populations of Syria and so forth. It was almost fifty percent of the population
was Christian in those places, and they're all gone, George W. Bush
about the Christian population in Iraq at the time of his invasion versus after right,
Anyway, I don't want to, you know, it's a big conversation.
But Goldeman, you're saying, goes, if Palestinians put down their guns,
it would be peace. If Jews put down the guns, it would
be dead. It's very simple. I think that if if people want to
live peacefully in Jerusalem, they can do that under Jewish rule. Jews actually
hand custodianship of the of the holy Islamic holy sites to the Jordanians to take
care of. They've done everything they can, but you know, you know,
I don't know what people expect them to do at this point to get
peace. So anyway, I did write a column about something else this week
that I think will interest you, that I wrote about the GAG ruling in
the United States versus Donald Trump case by the judge Tanya Chuck can so bad
pronouncing names and needless to say, I don't. I don't think speech and
hibiting speech of a presidential candidate or anyone actually is a very good idea.
My main problem with it, which I don't know many people, if many
people, have spoken about, is that she said that she's not going to
allow Donald Trump to goranz smearing people in her on her staff and in government
and stuff like that, which is an incredibly prejudicial statement for a judge to
make. It essentially preemptively says anything Donald Trump says about this stuff, which
is part of his case incidentally, is a smear. Do you know what
I'm saying? Like anything he says against prosecutors who might be partisan is a
smear. Well, that's more prejudicial than anything he said. For my view,
I would tell me if I'm wrong. Also, this is the woman
who gratuitously tells people in her courtroom that she wishes that instead of them being
on trial, it was Donald Trump. So like, are you kidding me?
You're going to complain about what he said when you have already said things
that should mean not only that you're not overseeing this case, but that you're
not a judge period. Like it's insane, It is insane. Another part
of this that bothers me is that, of course the media as usual bothers
me, but every single story says it was a narrow gag order. A
narrow gag order. I don't know. And why is it narrow because Jack
Smith only got half of what he wanted or something like that. Well,
that's not how you define things. If you ask for the world and get
half doesn't mean you're not getting something. It is not narrow because it says
that he cannot say things about participating government staff when a that is his president.
His presidential campaign is tied to saying that he's been railroaded and he's been
abused by the Justice Department whatever, and b maybe that's his legal defense.
Why is he not allowed to give his legal defense? If the prosecution can
give their send their case out to everyone in the media, but the person
the defendant is not allowed to talk about his case. It seems incredibly authoritarian
to me to do this during the presidential election or ever. Case is a
joke. And that's why, you know, so talking even about the particulars
of this bothers me somewhat, because this case should never have been brought.
We have right now roaming free throughout the country. Every single person who ran
the scam claiming that the twenty sixteen election was stolen by Donald Trump. That
was a real scam, Like that was a real hoax that damaged the country.
And nobody, not Hillary Clinton, not Mark Elias, not Joe Biden,
not Barack Obama, not their intel chiefs, not their intel bureaucrats,
not the media, not the insiders at the FBI or the DOJ, or
the CIA or the NSC or NSA or all these different people who conspired to
falsely claim that a duly elected president had stolen the election. Right, none
of those people have been in any way prosecuted by comparison, you have the
twenty twenty election, which I wrote a book about, which Molly Ball wrote
an article about all the ways in which it was manipulated to secure the outcome
for the Democrat, and you're not allowed to talk about it. That gets
you put in prison, that gets the full weight of the government coming after
you. And also you can't complain about it. And there's nothing you know.
We're going to destroy you financially, We're going to destroy everyone who ever
knew you. We're going to limit your free speech rights. We're going to
limit your right to a a legal representation. We're going to kill your right
to assemble. We're going to do a censorship industrial complex ground run to destroy
freedom of the press. And the entire thing is so horrific and third world
totalitarian it's terrifying to me. Also, there are like Smith says, you
know he's going to intimidate witnesses. Well, it's already illegal to intimidate witnesses.
If he's intimidating witnesses, charge him on that right exactly. So Also,
I wouldn't say something about this example they used where he criticized Mark Milli.
So Mark Milly was this Joint Chief's Chairman, guy who publicly claimed that
he called China to tell them that if his commander in chief did something that
he personally disagreed with that might affect China, he would call them. He
publicly confessed to this, and he has gone on a tour for years undermining
what was his commander in chief. He did it while he was in office
and everything. And you have people who are actually praising Mark Milly, everyone
in the media praising him, everyone in the never Trump movement. It was
not that long ago, you know, when General Stanley McCrystal thought he was
off the record with that reporter who died at Rolling Stone and he talked a
little bit of crap about Barack Obama, and that man was fired, and
everybody kind of agreed that you're not allowed to do that. You know,
throughout history, we've had generals who undermine a president and when that happens,
they get fired. And I'm almost more concerned again about not just like what
he did, but the reaction to it now, because Donald Trump accurately says
that calling your chief adversary to warn them of any potential military action against them
is treasonous, and the penalty of treason according to our constitution, which people
claim to care about, is it's a capital offense. Because he said that
accurate thing that nobody else is saying, he must be silenced because Mark Milly
could be a witness. Holy bleep, everyone in this country could be a
witness on this situation. You know, like there are so many people who
could be witnesses. He's not allowed to talk about anyone in his administration,
anyone in the current administration, anyone in government, anyone he knows. And
that's a running while running for president, to take on the people who are
doing this. Okay, so sorry for you, that's all right, that's
all right. I admire your passion. Wait can we say that before we
begin. You were talking about how you sometimes get worked up and passionate about
things, and I was like, I don't think anyone thinks that, David.
Yeah, sometimes I think I'm I'm I'm worked up or angry, and
my wife will be like, I don't know what you're talking about. What
Sometimes I think I'm smiling at people and I'm not, so I have to
like smile, and in my head, I feel like I'm the joker or
something like make it really big, so people realize I'm smiling. I want
to break down this issue a little bit. One is you were talking about
how Donald Trump is, you know, offering true statements. I don't even
care if they're true. Yesterday people attack me, you know, anti anti
I'm anti anti Trump and all of this stuff. No, I'm for unfettered
free speech. Now you can if you can find any column I've written in
the last twenty years or said anything that would you know that would that I
wanted to limit anyone's speech, Please show me that, and I you know,
I don't think you will be able to find it. And Donald Trump
is an American like everyone else, and he gets to say whatever he wants.
I don't even I don't think most of his claims have much veracity that
I know of. I'm not an expert on it, but he should be
able to say them. This is he's he This is like a complete you're
you're just blowing up due process. He has every right to talk about this
trial. He has every right to say that the people who are prosecuting him
are on a witch hunt if he feels like it, and maybe he's right,
frankly, because I you know, there's plenty of evidence that a lot
of people involved here have partisan concerns, and you know, and there's a
presidential election coming up. Secondly, I don't know if I have this exactly
right, but so far so the case is about the classified documents and the
over the overturning the election, right those are the two. Are they all
wrapped into one case here? No, they've separated it so that the J
six stuff is in DC and the classified documents is in Florida. I think,
okay, So I have problems with both of those cases against him one
because to me, the overturning the election stuff is just another matter of free
speech. But the classified document thing is a complete asymmetrical you know, I
don't know what the word is, an asymmetrical government action. So Joe Biden
right now did the same thing Donald Trump did, probably worse. But yet
one is being prosecuted and one is being molly coddled. Again, that is
clear to me. Is a day everyone's like, well, he's cooperating,
which is irrelevant in the law reasons. And also just last week we learned
that wasn't true. They had misled people about how they were hiding and manipulating
documents, but going, oh, they let them come in, yeah,
because otherwise they're going to get a subpoena income in. Like you're not doing
anyone new. Just because Donald Trump is fighting and gets a lawyer and says
you can't do that doesn't make him any more guilty. So I think that's
a big problem as well, in the way people view rightfully, So the
Justice Department. I'm not saying it's every single person in the Justice Department,
every prosecutor, but enough that it's a really, I think big problem.
And you know, I don't know, I just I've never heard of anyone
but a Banana Republic shutting down the leading candidate of the other party. Right.
And by the way, this is all calibrated to coincide, like this
is this investigation started a long time ago. This is all calibrated to coincide
with the twenty twenty four race, you know, to have him in a
courtroom, to have him shut down, to have a gag order on him.
This reminds me. I'd love to put a gag order on him,
but I you know, it is America, right, Yeah, Well,
this reminds me of something Byron York was saying about covering the Biden campaign.
He's an excellent, excellent reporter, and he was. He went to this
thing down in South Carolina, a rally that Trump had, and he said,
you know, it was one of these like typical Trump meander speeches,
but it was all focused on the economy. He would go off on tangents,
but it was all focused on the economy. And it hammered it over
and over and over again. And he looked at the media coverage after this
speech and one hundred percent of it was not about the speech and the people
that came. It was about how he'd visited a gun shop prior to the
speech and he had handled a weapon, and they were all like in this
total hysteria about that handling of that weapon, claiming he bought it and that's
against the law and all this stuff. And Byron was saying that the result
was that you have one of the most famous men in the world, not
just right now but in history, giving a speech to a group of people
and it's not covered at all. So Trump is running a completely below the
radar campaign while the media alternate between hysteria about him and ignoring him, which
is kind of interesting. Well, that reminds me, you know, one
of the one of the reasons for the gag orders. They don't want Trump
to supposedly, you know, mess with the jury pool. They want an
impartial jury, so you're gonna have a ninety eight percent never Trump jury pool
in DC. They don't want to have them tampered with. Okay, I
hate to break the news to people. This is perhaps the most famous person
on earth. So the idea that they don't know how he's like or what
he's about, or have very firm opinions about what they think of him is
preposterous. I don't think you can get a fair jury there. I mean,
I don't know how to fix that. That's the American system. I
guess you can move to trial somewhere else, but you know whatever. But
the idea of the show some wisdom at the Department of Justice and not charge
your primary political opponent who depants to you for your Russia collusion hoax with like
made up crimes that you're not going after anyone else for. How about that.
You know, if you didn't want this problem, you had about a
million ways to not have this problem. DJ I mean, they're happy to
have this problem. They want to put him in prison. They're controlled by
their passions, their hatred also controlled by passions and hatred. Bill Crystal,
my husband's former boss, who's been very bad to me personally, So I
have a little I have to just admit that he's been very cruel to me
personally, and that informs my dislike of him to some extent. But he
tweeted out that he came to work for Reagan because he cared about the Constitution
and the market and about American dominance, and that's why he's now a Democrat
who bows down before Joe Biden and worships him. And it's like right,
because if you cared about those things, you would support the man who put
Katanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court Nobody's idea of a smart person, and
you would hate irrationally in a way that consumed you, the man who put
Neil Gorsich, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court,
because that's believable. Other than Articles one through three, the first, second,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth Amendments,
Joe Biden loves the Constitution. So I think Bill Kibber Crystal is right,
Yeah, I saw that tweet. It's insane because I see people writing in
the Atlantic and elsewhere, first of all, let's talk a little bit about
the politics. Let me bring Israel and Tis too. So I see a
lot of them talking about the fight for democracy. Now, Joe Biden,
has you fought for democracy? I think he is almost as bad as Barack
Obama on executive abuse, maybe even worse because it's become so normalized by the
media that it's fine to do it in Democrats. But everything is politicized all
the time in that way and including and maybe you have an opinion on this.
We didn't actually talk about this before the show. The Democrats now are
going to try to link ISRAELI help helping Israel and helping Ukraine. At the
same time, everything has to be every tragedy has to be politicized in some
way to help them leave. No What was that saying by Rayam Emmanuel,
like leave, let leave, don't let a crisis go to waste. I
was going to say, leave no child behind. Yeah, never let a
crisis go to waste. I find it so off putting. It's uh.
The difference between today's politics, and when I got into this, I think,
listen, politicians have always been basically the same kind of people, but
I do think there was a little bit more earnestness and principles, and also
duty to defend, like to protect your to protect the Senate from the executive
branch, or to like, you know, not make politicize every single issue.
And now there's nothing that these people won't politicize. And I don't know,
I don't know where I was going with that. It's just it's just
really off putting. In general. Another thing I'm not sure how to fix
is I think we become more and more reactive, reactionary. I mean that
on both sides in the sense of how we conduct our politics. So you'd
need some better people in Congress, I guess, and in the presidency.
Nothing from you on that, Okay, Amen, Dave, maybe you're correct.
I just don't know. I was like thinking about the current speaker battle
and what a mess that is, and also sort of how I don't care
about it. Bill Crystal, by the way, such a mess, such
an ideological mess. It just I used to like the guy, and it
just makes me think, like I have to reassess who I like because,
you know, take a deeper look. Maybe people change. I don't understand
how you can go from being like on the board of Americans United for Life
to being pro abortion. I have death definitely developed my thinking on all sorts
of things. I like developing my thinking, and sometimes that even means kind
of a change. It definitely used to be much more of a libertarian than
I am now. I still feel like I have a libertarian angle to the
way I think about things, but I wouldn't describe myself at all as a
libertarian. So I'm totally fine with change, but I don't get that radical
of a shift where it's like and also I don't get disliking someone so much
that you change your views about everything that they believe in. I don't like
many people. Maybe that inoculates me against that kind of thing. Well,
the people who dropped all their principles because of Donald Trump. That worked both
ways for a bunch of people, and it works, you know for a
lot of these never Trumpers as well. So I think that he Trump just
broke his brain. Basically, I don't mind people changing their opinions either,
but I think that a columnist. Again, maybe this is just like high
minded of me need to explain why Jennifer Rubin takes the opposite position on everything
now that she used to, Well, explain your evolution to that position when
I became pro life. When I became pro life, I wrote a bunch
of columns explaining why that happened, what I saw in the world, and
why I'm thinking that. And I'm not saying I'm better than these people.
Well I'm better than those people, but you know, I'm not better than
most people. But I think most people, when they have an evolution,
explain it. Otherwise I'm just going to say you're just a cynical partisan who
will take any position, which I think those people those I think those people
are. All right, we've done bashing people. Do want to talk about
culture a little bit? Ye, anyone else we want to rip on?
All right? So I too, have been working on a book. The
people asked that you shared with the staff that you were reading this book by
pgr Work that was called Like Enemies List, and then we all had kind
of fun talking about our own enemies list, of which yours is probably the
longest. Well, let me explain that that book was so the American Spector.
I'm not sure our younger younger people might not know. In the nineties
was just absolutely amazing. The American Spectator was like this radical I wouldn't not
radical ideologically, but just this fun magazine. I think Byron new York actually
worked there at the time. You yeah, who went after Clinton, who
did a lot of reporting about you know, what Clinton had done in Arkansas,
and it was very funny. So anyway, PG Ork wrote there,
and The American Spectator put out a book that he wrote called The Enemy's List,
which the list everyone he hated it, and then had readers send in
their enemies lists. And the one that was like, what on the list
was any any group that has the word piece in its name. Yeah,
there are a lot of people on that list who are still around. It's
kind of funny. Trump was on the list. Yeah, he said he's
not a comedy, but like you say, he had some kind of personal
grudge against so well p anyway, sorry, culture, go on, Yeah,
I wrote it down here someone now I can't say, oh, here
it is. So I've also been writing a book and a few people email
to ask what it's about, and basically, I don't want to get too
far into it. But it is about the paranoid nature of left wing politics,
and it is very inspired by PJ. Rock books like Parliament of Whoores.
So we'll be coming out next year hopefully people will buy it. What
did I do? I do not so anyway, I say that because I
did not have a lot of time to watch stuff. So here are the
twenty movies I did watch. Reptile. I don't actually have twenty movies.
By the way, Reptile is a movie on Sorry for not laughing it,
Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna have to put in a laugh track
there. It's a movie on Netflix with Benicio del Toro, who I'm a
big fan of a lot of expression in that man's face even when he's not
speaking, and Justin Timberlake and some other people who I don't know. So
now it was about Justin Timberlake. That's gonna say, Yeah, so apparently
he pressure yeah, who knows if that's true, because Britney spears is not
exactly you know, I don't know. Maybe it's shere, maybe it's not.
Whatever she had he had pressured her into an abortion. So then I'm
like, I would not have watched this had I had I known that,
but I watched it and I liked it. It's kind of a slow burn
mystery in a small main town former. He's a former, like Philly Cop
or something. It was that right, I watch, Oh, do you
want to go back and forth? Or do you want me to just do
my list? Just go for it? I watched we watch Saving Private Ryan
while you watch that every few years. I don't know. I think it's
an excellent movie. Uh. I think it balances nicely. Yeah, I
don't need to tell you people, you've all seen it, but it balances
nicely sort of the heroism of people but also the cost of war. So
it's not one of you know, I remember watching movies when I was a
kid. A lot of these John Wayne Warr movies or whatever. You know,
it's just all heroism. Very rarely do they touch on on the hell
of you know, how bad war is and the hell of it. But
I think that and then in the sort of the eighties with the Vietnam War
movies, it was like Americans are going around killing everyone. They're terrible,
they're the villain. And I think these movies sort of balance those two,
you know, balance that out better. So anyway, I watched that because
oh, I just want to mention I watched Band of Brothers the Pacific and
apparently there's a new one coming out about the Air Force during World War Two
on HBO soon, so I'm looking forward to that. And then finally,
I was watching a long documentary about David Beckham, the soccer player and his
wife Posh Spice, which I was enjoying. It is that the one where
he makes fun of her for her trying to say she was working class growing
up. Absolutely, that was a funny scene. Yeah, he is so
vapid, that guy. It is incredible. Yeah, oh my god,
lie, like all he cared Like, don't get me wrong, I actually
like him, Like I like watching this documentary. I think he's an interest.
He had an interesting story and his wife, his marriage, they have
I think four kids, they're married a long time. I'm happy. I'm
always like, oh, I'm so happy these people stayed married and aren't like
all other celebrities. But he is very vapid, Like a lot of his
life's just about his clothing, his hair, Like, he doesn't really say
anything very deep. And I used to think that he was just sort of
a reserved person. But now I just think he doesn't have a lot of
thoughts in his head. Does that mean to say about somebody is billion piles?
I just think you're the one who spent time watching a documentary on them.
So I'm not sure. It's not even one. It's like a series.
I'm only on like two the second hour. I'm like, how long
is this? You're like, I'm going to be watching much more? Okay,
So I did watch two things. One was with my students, and
one was just because I was kind of fried from working. The one I
watched because I was fried was Murder by Death, Which have you seen that
as like nineteen seventy six? Maybe? Oh my, is that Peter Falk
Alec Guinness? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah yeah. Peter Fark plays kind of like a boguard character
or something. Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen it in many years.
I love Peter Falk, love him. It is. I mean, there's
so many people in it, like Eileen Brennan, James Coco, David Niven,
Maggie Smith, Truman, Capodi, like on and on and on,
but it was oh and Fey Ray. I just realized, Oh no,
that's her. I was like, how was she alive during that? I
love those movies in the seventies where just like everyone everyone's in it. First.
Yeah, I like stupid murder mysteries where everyone's trapped in the house and
it's actually a send up of that, and it's a send up of every
single mystery writer and their characters. So it was fine. It was actually
not that great, but it was totally fine. And then each semester I
watch a movie with my students and they come over for lunch. And we
did that this weekend, and usually we do Richard Jewel, and I thought,
I can't handle Richard Jewel this weekend because it involves a bombing. And
I just didn't want to see a bombing because I thought that would be too
heavy. So I, in all my wisdom, showed them Ace in the
Hole, which is like a nineteen fifty one film about journalism, and it
is the bleakest movie I have seen in a while. I really really like
this movie and I highly recommend it. It's a Billy Wilder film, and
I think when it came out it bombed. It's about this guy played by
Kirk Douglas who's like a New York newspaper man, and he kind of has
like been an alcoholic or slept with the publisher's wife or just gotten into trouble
in every paper. So he ends up in Albuquerque and he tries to make
it go of it at this newspaper, and he's trying to get a big
enough story that he can be noticed by the big time East coast papers and
get out of there. And so he happens upon mining or an incident where
a guy was like inside a mountain trying to get Indian collectibles out of there,
and then something caved in and he's trapped, and then it becomes this
huge story, and so it's about how he portrays the story, what he
does to keep the story going, which is quite bad actually, and then
like how the American people respond to that story and what responsibility they have to
keep our news from becoming like a circus. And it's great. It is
a really really good movie. Have you not seen it? I've not even
heard of it. And I try to watch every journal movie about journalism and
existence because there's so few that are good. So I will look into that
and watch it, please do. And it has my favorite line, which
is even for Albuquerque. This is pretty Albuquerque asan thome, So I just
don't quickly mention. I had not watched Richard Jewel when it came out or
a while, because I don't like movies about bombings and stuff either. But
I did watch it finally, and that guy, Paul, I looked him
up. Just new Paul Walter Houser, who plays Richard Jewell is just one
of the greatest actors in America. I saw him in a show called Blackbird
on Apple plus everything I've seen him in. I'm just blown away. He
was in Itania like he is just amazing. Okay, so I agree.
And do you know what he and I have in common? Did he go
to school with you or something? No? Okay, his father and my
father are both missouris and and Lutheran pastors. Were they they like they knew
each other and were friendly or I have never even talked to my dad about
this. I just feel as a pastor's kid a bond with anyone else who's
a pastor's kid. I don't know anything about this guy. Actually, I
don't know if he's Lutheran, practicing Lutheran whatever. He went to Valley Lutheran
High in Michigan. Oh and his yeah, Reverend Paul Houser, Lutheran minister.
There you go. Yeah. I like being a pastor's kid. I
recently met some other pastors kids and I was like, it's a cool It's
a cool gig if you can get it. So, Oh, I have
to tell this story really quickly. I'm having my parents read or do these
books that they write themselves. Each week, they're asked a question by this
company called story Worth. I'm just giving this ad for free to story Worth.
Highly recommend story Worth. They send a question to your parent each week
and then the parent responds, and then at the end of the year it
gets put together in a book. I haven't seen the book yet, so
maybe it'll all be a disaster. But did it with my mom starting at
Christmas time, and did it with my dad starting just a few weeks ago.
Each week he has the most amazing stories. Last week it was a
story about like, what's your favorite pet? I learned about pets I never
knew, including a dog that he rescued basically from a girl he went to
college with. The dog's name was Cocaine. I just told you my dad's
a Lutheran pastor. I was not expecting my dad to have a dog named
Cocaine anyways in the seventies, so that seems to it was in the sixties,
and yeah, and he anyway, So also then this week, the
question was like, if you could have all the money in the world,
what what would you do with it? And he was like, oh,
I've been blessed by the way my parents are very poor. So that's like
the starting point here. He's like, I've been blessed to have so much
in life, and that God has taught me how to work with the money
that he has given me. I do wish that my wife and kids could
have had more, but we may do. And he tells a story about
how my mom wanted this ceramic Christmas tree when they were at the seminary that
my dad was studying at, and they couldn't afford it because he didn't want
to have any debt in college or graduate school. And so finally the ceramic
Christmas tree went on sale from like twenty nine dollars to twenty three dollars and
he could buy it for her. And how what a blessing this has been
their whole life to have this beautiful ceramic Christmas tree, which I will say
goes out every single year, and my mother thinks it's like the most amazing
thing anyway, And he's like, but my real treasure is my friendships.
And he names my godfather, Denny Jost as this one treasured friendship and how
he's helped him in being a source of comfort. And then this other friend,
Ron Mueller. These are both pastors, by the way, and how
that's my sister's godfather and a what a brilliant and wise man he is.
And the treasure that comes in these friendships. And then like mostly the treasure
is the word of God. And so that was my dad's answer to how
you would what you would do with money. I send it to my brother
and sister and I was like, I think our dad is a saint.
Anyway, I would just drop it on dark money group, my dark money
on all kinds of crazy like anarchy groups. That's why I'm not a saint
or a Lutheran pastor. But let me ask you something. Can you repeat
the company's name story worth? I think I've seen this. If you make
that up, I don't know, you know what it's an approximation probably of
the name. And that's fine. It is. It's a story worth I
just looked it up. There was this guy political math. He's written for
us a few times on Twitter, and he recommended it last year as like
the best gift he's ever given. I agree. It is not just a
gift to my parents. It's a gift to me and my siblings and our
children to have these stories written down. And it's a totally doable thing,
like you do it in a nice chunk each week, and so they can
handle it and put some time into it. Also, I learned that both
of my parents are really good writers, which I guess I should have realized
before that, because you're a good writer. I'm like, oh, where
did I learn my writing skills? I've seen this sort of thing. I
think other companies do it as well. A lot of times. It's like
right, you know, asks prompts, questions so that you can learn about
your family's history and things like that. My dad did not need any promptings.
He wrote me a probably one hundred thousand word book about our family's history.
He's super into learning about you know. He has like a big like
chart of our family history. And stuff for your family tree and say he's
like super into that stuff. So I have a book probably around one hundred
and hundred and fifty thousand words, I would say, of our family history,
which is which I treasure because you know, instead of having to ask
those questions, I have it all there. So anyway, so that's trying
to prod my mom to give me her side of this history. But it's
a little harder. Yeah, but maybe this is this Yeah yeah, all
right, that's great. So that's it. That's all all right, very
passionate episode. I think we'll be back next week with another passionate episode,
and until then, Lovers of Freedom and Anxious for the frit HM