We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski,
culture editor here at The Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr lst
mixture, subscribe wherever you download your podcast into the premium version of our site
as well. Long awaited return of Christopher Bedford right now he has rum.
It is not yet afternoon time, and he's back from his honeymoon. Chris,
I'm relaxed, I'm easy, I'm feeling good, well sunned. He
had a jaunt across Italy, and I think it is having a hard time
letting go of the vacation because again, he just poured a glass of rum.
I do have to shake some habits. Um. I was working really
hard to get in good shape for the wedding, and when I can,
I accomplish it. And then when I not, not my way I want
to be, but much better than I was when I got engaged. And
by the time I got back, I was like walking at the door to
dinner and one of my shirts didn't fit. Interesting because one of the things
I've heard it's employmentally, but one of the things people say, I haven't
spent a time of time in the Europe at all, but one of the
things people say when they come back is that they actually feel like they ate
a lot, but they feel better and they feel like they've lost weight because
the food isn't as chalk full of chemicals and processing. It isn't and you
like you don't, you don't feel you don't get sleepy and feel bad after
eating a plate of pasta there, which is very different from experiencing in America.
But most of those people probably aren't ordering between two people, you know,
three antipastas, two pastas, a secunde, a bottle of wine,
and two j just divos at lunch. Yeah, Dinna saying I like,
I like you took a brief pause and then added at lunch. But I
mean we're also walked because I hate cabs and they're also hard to get in
Rome. But at least it was hard for me. Someone else is going
to write it and like you idiot there everywhere we walked like five miles a
day to the point yet my my legs are still still killing me. Old
man, oh man, old man, Well, Chris, congratulations on your
wedding. Are you glad you had it took good time on your honeymoon.
Um. The other thing I would add is Chris and his now wife Sarah
are both really into cooking and really into food. You said, actually,
you think Sarah's favorite meal of the entire trip was in Umbria wild boar raised
wild boar. Yeah, and just we pulled into this medieval town, Spoletto.
Almost all the towns in Umbria are medieval like. They're really still within
the walls of the old fortresses. And it's amazing a bunch of Italy,
you know, as much as they seem like they don't have their stuff together
nowadays, for a thousand years they were just warried city states, and most
of the towns still like show that. You can see the walls and their
churches inside. It was brave as wild boar was one of her favorites,
and that was the kind of the food of the countryside. And we stayed
out. There was a lot more meaty, a lot of mushrooms, a
lot of truffles. We got pigeon at one place, which was better than
quail. Really, I really loved it. It was phenomenal. We can
guse some pigeon out in the street here in Capitol Hill. I wouldn't eat
a DC pigeon. I don't think. I don't think they've been they've had
the proper diet. Yeah, but you know the Riley family every Thanksgiving they
fry pigeons appetizers. Your friend Sean Riley, who's over at the American Conservative
They hunt them off their farm in Delaware and eat pigeons. That's some American
conservatism right there. Instead of raw egg nationalism, it's pigeon frying conservatism.
The original art of cooking had had a recipe for pigeon. Interesting. Yeah,
most of the country was not eating like subway pigeons. The town where
I grew up in Wisconsin does an annual raccoon feed where they cook up a
bunch of raccoons. Raccoon Oh yeah, I had no idea. Yeah,
I wouldn't eat DC raccoon suf No, again, not the proper dyet.
Garbage pandas well, speaking of garbage pandas speaking of the filth that has come
to dominate America's cities. Once again, there's a war simmering. We wanted
to talk about Chris because you resentally moved out of the district and we've talked
about this bit of a few times over the last couple of years. It's
really sad, not just what's happening to DC. I'm sure people around the
country have experienced it in their cities as well. Chris is having trouble with
the mic stand but I think you dropping, I know, you have to
tighten the knob. Yeah, ain't too much in Italy. It can't hold
us it up. But Eric Adams is engaged in feud right now with Joe
Biden here in the district. There was a congressional here and basically JD.
Vans and some of the Republican senators. I'm just sitting here wondering if you're
gonna if the filth that has come to take over our cities is going to
be the crime or the immigrants to see where you where. No, no,
no, no. That's what got Tucker in trouble. He said that
they're making American dirty er yeah, dirty. Yeah. He got in some
trouble for that. He definitely got in trouble, that's what That was one
of the ones that catalyzed all the advertiser boycotts, like one of the original
when he took that primetime slot that catalyzed a lot of the original corporate advertising
that illegal immigrant slitter how dere he well I was talking about. I mean,
so there is It is true that part of the feud between some of
the Blue cities and um the Biden administration and Republicans is because of the Greg
Abbott decision and the run Santa's decision. And I think Doug Doocey did this
in Arizona as well, to send migrants illegal immigrants. In most cases,
some of them probably have valid asylum claims, but that's a minority of this
massive influx of people. These are these are young men. So but I
think the broader theme here is a breakdown of I don't want to say law
and order, but I would just say order. It's just outright chaos in
New York City. Texas is not a sanctuary state. Texas doesn't want one
hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants pouring over its border. I think there are
sanctuary cities in Texas. There are sanctuary cities like Austin, I think,
but they're not a sanctuary state. And these immigrants are poored over whether they
get lectured by these northern mayors and they said, you know what, you're
a sanctuary state. A city. New York has literally said that has been
fighting. I'm not sure if it ever passed to give it legal are going
to the right to vote. They basically made them citizens, so take them
right and they can't handle. I mean, that's the thing about New York
is New York's services are always strained. I mean, mayors lose election for
not being able to plow the streets properly. That's why during COVID when everyone
was like, oh my gosh, the hospitals are completely overrun. It's like
with New York City, the emergency rooms are a capacity on a Tuesday.
It's it's just a very busy city. It's a lot of humans, and
they sending these illegal immigrants here at a significantly smaller portion that are coming over
the southern border has completely overwhelmed them. Eric Addams, who made this rule
as a sanctuary now it doesn't like it well. And he's openly critical of
Joe Biden. And he's got county commissioners Republicans and the suburbs, and he
started shipping them to these Republican counties of the suburbs, and those Republicans like
those citizens, like, what the hell are you doing? Absolutely not.
This is not our problem. This is your problem, and it's causing this
all this squabbling, and they've turned on It's funny he's turned on Joe Biden.
Now Joe, he's not really turned on him. He's been somewhat critical
Biden's completely failed policy. So they kicked him off of the reelection team.
Yes, I mean, a young, probably rising black politician and mayor of
New York City kicked off of Joe Biden's re election team. It's kind of
wild. So yeah, this is from Axios, just this one. I
wondered if you were reading something or just taking a picture of me. Nobody
needs that. Yeah, I was documenting her rum infused podcasting. Oh no,
yeah, now I have to sneeze. I'm allergic to Christmas bad jokes.
Is there another one coming? Maybe you only get one? Bless you,
bless you? That was it. You keep making bad jokes. I'm
gonna keep sneezing. The allergy is very real. But this is from from
Anic Plague. You know, um how they phrase It's kind of funny.
New York Eric Adams, the highest profile back black mayor in the country has
gotten so crosswise with the White House that he was dropped from Biden's twenty twenty
four campaign advisory board before it was announced last week. Eric Adams, they
say it reflects a new loan relations between Biden and the mayor, who was
set to be a key surrogate in the campaign. So I think one big
takeaway from that is this speaks to a war going on, not within the
Democratic Party, you know, the tug of war that always exists between the
activist base, this refringe activist base, and the kind of normy wing of
the party. This is a war within the Democratic Parties, like so called
mainstream wing between Joe Biden, Eric Adams, both figures who have been I
think swayed and seduced by the radicals in their own party in different directions,
who have been pulled by those activists that have worked their way into very high
positions in corporate media, in the corporate world in general, the kinds of
people who fueled what we saw happen twenty twenty. You can look at that
on their policies on these so called gender identity, their policies on crime um.
You know, Eric Adams obviously has moved towards like involuntary committing, et
Cetera's a long time police officer who has tried it, was trying to address
these very real problems, but also still faces these kind of new ideological hurdles,
and the Biden administration is unwilling to get over that ideological hurdle. Well,
that's the thing when it comes to when it comes to a legal immigration,
when it comes to the border, it's utterly absurd because all it does
for like, let's just make let's take their argument of open border to theological
conclusion or asylum to its logical conclusion um, and like give them let's say
we give them that argument hypothetically, they're endangering so many people's lives and emboldening
cartels with their open borders policies. Period, They're putting so many people's lives
in danger. People are dying because of this, they're suffering because of this.
Is completely inhumane. So even on their own, by their own logic,
with their own argument, this all fails. It's just fully stupid town
Like it's completely nuts. But it's just I mean, it's political mismanagement.
It reminds me of the conversation we had about how badly they bungled the East
Palatine disaster, which should have been a slam dunk for Democrats, combining infrastructure,
pollution regulation like all of their favorite things. But they couldn't do it
because they're they're they're too stupid. And I also think that there's there's there's
aspects of them that just really don't like poor white Republicans there with Adams.
I mean, this surrounds me of something that maybe, like twenty three year
old me would have thought. I remember saying to a friend in an argument
of the bar about a liberal Republican who was who had lost the back end
of the GOP over a stance on guns. And my friend, who was
much more moderate than I am, was saying, Hey, you need an
ally who cares, and I was saying, if you don't write on guns,
then what use are you. We're kind of Republican even, are you.
This is this is a simplistic argument of a young guy. Uh,
there's there's no point to you, Like you might as well be a Democrat.
Just get rid of him, like Eric Adams would have done his job,
I'm almost certain of it. Maybe not, but very likely would have
done his job if the Biden administer, why why would they kick him off
the team when I have private disagreements and ask him to stump for you?
What's he gonna stump for Donald Trump or Ronda Santus. I don't think so.
But this is like political miscalculation. But maybe it's worse. I mean,
what, you know, how when we used to have the presidential of
the photographs back in like a normal time, but I'll like former presidents to
hang out together and there'd be pictures of like Bill Clinton, George W.
Bush, Jimmy Carter altogether H W. Bush And how Jimmy Carter never stood
near Bill Clinton did famously ice relationship really didn't like each other. That goes
back to when Clinton was governor of Arkansas and Jimmy Carter started shifting shipping refugees
to Arkansas. I can't remember where they're refugees from. And they put them
in a penitentiary to hold them, and there was a massive riot, including
people dying, and it was extremely unpopular with Arkansas. And Bill Clinton was
like, what are you doing to me? What you why are you sending
what you're putting right prison riots in my state? Don't you understand that I'm
like, I'm an a tenuous political position here, and it nearly derailed Bill
Clinton's young political life and he never forgave him and he was openly critical of
Carter over it, and Carter didn't like that, and they literally Carter will
go to his grave not liking Bill Clinton and probably vice versa over that kind
of thing. So maybe there's something more to it. And I'm wondering who
leaked it taxios. I mean, did Eric Adams's team have receipts, like
the invitation is withdrawn, because they would take receipts to show that they can't
just be like this council that hasn't been formed. I'm not on it,
but I was supposed to be on it, ordered by this team do it.
And you know, it's it's interesting that that's insane. I think it's
interesting to see this through the lens of the war inside the mainstream wing of
the Democratic Party, because in Congress this week they hauled and I think for
really good reason. Right Like, we talk about DC not just because we
live here, but because it's the federal city. It represents our government,
it represents our culture, it represents our society, and it's doing. Gosh,
I hope it doesn't represent our culture and society. It absolutely represents our
culture and society in both the sense that it's supposed to and the sense that
it actually really does for all of its flaws right now, Like all of
the faults that we see on the streets of DC right now are reflective of
cultural failures in the United States. So I think, as sad as it
is, it does represent those problems ways. I mean, you get more
of American culture driving to the country an hour outside of DC. An indirection,
any direction is a better You know, a lot of people live in
America's cities, and they are responsible for the poor governance of those cities.
Sadly enough, it's in the last nine in the last seventy two hours in
d See, I think a ten year old was fatally shot while driving with
their parents in their car. Yeah about a straight bullet. I think a
twelve year old was grazed by a bullet, was sleeping in their bed.
A seventeen year old, just basically an adult was shot to death in front
of Roosevelt High School. I think there have been five carjackings in my little
neighborhood where where I used to live and sew in a house. It's absolutely
wild. I meanwhile, we have traffick cameras everywhere as the mayor launches her
project zero for Zero Deaths and traffic Accidents, which really just means a lot
of revenue for tickets initiative. Well, the murder rates skyrockets. It's really
sad. And every time I come back to the city. I tell you
what I Aside from the steakhouses, I truly don't miss it, like at
all, the steakhouse Hill. I used to walk around Capitol Hill, and
this is where I want to live forever. I'd like to have a house
here and maybe like a little place I can get away too, on the
shore, like an eastern shore or something as like my retirement goals. I
don't. I don't like being here anymore, even even in the nice parts
of Capitol Hill. And I was, I know, I was on kind
of like the works Drift part of Capitol Hill. But this, uh,
these nice parts even are getting crazy. The Peabody, Uh, the elementary
school that my stepson was enrolled in, awful place, absolutely evil place.
But it's supposed to like the top school on Capitol Hill. It's public and
there's a lottery system, and people, rich white women who are extremely liberal,
by the way, hire high paid consultants to get their children in there
for like the local minorities. There was a police incident involving a homeless person
in front of there. The kids were frightened. We're not allowed to go
into school. There was tape that the school wouldn't even tell them what was
going on. It's on Lincoln Park. Yeah, it's absolutely wild. There's
always been some trouble, Like I remember one of Mike Lee's staffers got mugged
for all the office laptops in Lincoln Park, like ten years ago. But
it's gotten significantly worse. And the voters in Philadelphia just put in a an
a mayor who's in favor of stopping frisk, and like didn't like run.
I'm like, I'm gonna be tough on crime. And then institute is stopping
frisk, which is like a super controversial policy for whatever reason. But it
ran on that you think the primary, right, It was on the prime
Yeah, which is the election. Yeah, the Democratic nominee. But then
I am ruting Aunty I will stop and frisk teenagers platform, Yes, but
This is why I think it's important because then in Jacksonville, the one like
major American city that had a Republican mayor, I'm endorsed by de Santis just
lost to a Democrat. Chicago just elected to send us through in that endorsement
too, I don't know. I mean, you would want way ahead of
her, keep a Republican mayor In one of your biggest primary it was Trump
Trump candidate versus Oh you're talking about then that was like way ahead in the
polling. I see what you're saying. Yeah, it's got involved in that.
And then you look at you know, you can look at the pivot
from London breed in San Francisco. You can look at New York going from
de Blasio to Adams. Then you can look at Chicago going with Brandon Johnson.
The explicitly anti lawn or your candidate is. I think it's tribal.
It's like super tribal for especially I mean the choice in Philadelphia. Maybe to
an outsiders like trying to really think about it, it's like a law and
order candidate versus not a liberal a lot of out candidate, or it could
look at it as a black candidate, versus an Asian candidate, and like
how people really vote. You could look at in Chicago. I remember just
kind of rolling over in bed and Sarah was hard at work already, and
she's like, this race is really close. I'm like, no, it's
not. There's no shot that Chicago is going to elect a white guy to
arrest people and fix its problems versus a black canda. It's just America.
On race lines in the cities particular, and on political lines in the suburbs
and everywhere else, it's gotten so freaking tribal. It's like people don't care
anymore. So it worked out I think in this case in Philadelphia, but
I don't think it's gonna work out for Philandodoer in Chicago, where the progressive
group that backed the new mayor just released a plan for what they want to
have the mayor do, and the first page of it literally is titled First
we get the Money. It's a list of all the taxis they want to
do. We're in trouble in this country. Yeah, and again I think
a lot of this is not. That's why you see tension between you know,
the Brandon Johnson's and like moderates that are also Democrats. You know.
That's I think that's where this is really really interesting, because there was a
period of I don't know, maybe ten years, like second Obama term until
post twenty twenty where the Democratic Party was completely myopic and thought there would be
really no consequences other than cashing virtue signal checks and just you know, depositing
virtue signs border policy and crime. Um. And I was also thinking particularly
of the gender identity positions as well, all of these things that they took
on cultural issues. Um, well easy, It's like it's like supporting in
God, we trust on coins. Yeah, consequence right, right. So
they're they're working on they're they're closing up to Silicon Valley and they're working on
Dodd Frank and um, what they're doing in the meanwhile just absolutely insane radical
gestures towards things on gender identity. Like that's an Obama era policy that came
out of his Department of Education via dear Colleiague letter that radically transformed the way
every single school that received public funding in this country. So almost every school
governed itself in terms of bathrooms and locker rooms and single sex spaces. It's
like seeing a nation actively engaged in heaping up its own funeral power. They
changed. They thrust college campuses into absolute chaos with their kangaroo court policies that
were also via a dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education. And then
even the left, and especially the left. You had Emily Yaffi writing in
The Atlantic, you had the Washington Post editorial board, all these people criticizing
those policies, and suddenly it's like Joe the Biden administration is trying to figure
out what to do with them, trying to kind of have it both ways
on those policies, even though they're still they still can't bring themselves to divorce
themselves from these insane, radical activist policies. And that's where I think it
gets interesting. They're gonna get away with it because Republican voters are going to
nominate Donald Trump again. Okay, flush that point out. Well, there's
there's no consequences. I mean, Donald Trump won in twenty sixteen in large
part because a lot of black voters stayed home and a lot of moderate,
moderate voters detested Hillary Clinton, and no one thought Donald Trump was going to
win. He's not going to get a forty six percent. Again, he's
got a strong feeling significantly lower than that. So Republicans are most likely unless
the Senus changes the game dramatically, which it's going to be very difficult for
him to do, but possible, is going to win the nomination and then
it's going to become a contest of Trump versus Biden again. And Trump's just
got too hard of a ceiling. So, like these polls and the same
thing in Chicago, the same thing in Philadelphia, the same thing in California,
the same thing in Los Angeles, They're not going to elect Republicans.
They might. I like, if you can get like the right race to
appeal to the two our extremely tribal, tribally racial voting blocks right now,
maybe you could kind of turn around with some moderation, like like we might
see in Philadelphia, but we might see in New York. But it's a
Republicans aren't really aren't aren't posed to pounce. I guess, as political might
say, they're not. What's the alternative, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell's,
Well, the alternative, I think would be if we're talking about some of
these contests on a state level. There's an interesting question of like de Santis
one originally, I mean now post twenty twenty, we think of Florida.
It's almost a joke to think of someone like Andrew Gillham winning the governor's race
in Florida. But he and Florida itself is no longer a joke. I
mean Florida man like Florida was thought it was a kind of a crime ridden
retirement community with Disney World, with Basalt, Florida did not have a very
good reputation. The idea that if you told a time traveler from twenty thirteen,
like, hey, in ten years, Texas is going to be following
Florida as like the leader of the GOP what right, right right? And
Florida itself has only had that transformation because Ronda Santis, I shouldn't say only,
but in large part because Ronda Santas won a race by the slimmest of
margins for governor of that state, and because she didn't run a very strong
campaign when you ran a very maga campaign. I remember I remember at the
time being frustrated with how he didn't seem to be fighting Andrew Gillham properly,
literally literally in order you having meth head. As it turns out, IgE
if that'll come out when he was actually governor, Man, I wonder what
happened to that Ronda Santas guy. I'd be like rob Ford, Remember Rob
Ford. I'm sure the Day Caller was all over the Rob Ford Sr.
Love that guy. Yes, well, so that's I think an interesting question,
right that you have distansis winning by the slimness of margins, transforming a
purple state into a pretty deep red state. Obviously, COVID was a total
game changer for Florida. People moving to Florida. You had just a change
of attitude because of crime and what people were seeing with crime around the country,
what was happening at the border under Joe Biden, etcetera, etcetera.
There's a lot going into this, but the point is Republicans in Florida,
Conservatives in Florida successfully capitalized with messaging and legislation on those policies. And yeah,
remember I spoke to the incoming speakers class Republicans and Florida legislature like two
years ago. This is because of you. You did this. No,
but Chris Bedford secretly transformed Florida into a conservative eye the way, very appreciative
of my references to the Thirty Years War. There's a big win. As
I remember just going down there and they put together this advertisement like Florida's open
for business, and they had like these state legislators like grilling or jet skiing
or soft and they're coming in and saying Florida's open for business. Come on
down. And it was like, by far the most professionally produced and actually
good and not cringe at all local state party added ever seen. And it
was it was like part of the whole Republican Party of Florida has kind of
gotten a lockstep and just moved forward in the direction with the Santis and it
was it was really impressive. You know, a lot of times state legislatures.
I actually love interviewing them state party chairman and other people when you're on
the road because they're not like DC people, like really honest and they'll tell
you the reality situation, like they know their stuff right, like they actually
understand the policy fights in legislation. But it's rare that there that they have
such smooth operations as it's not down there. Well that's yeah, that's interesting
too. Gillam is a figure that I think is Biden asque in that Um,
I shouldn't know, Biden is wrong, Biden's the wrong comparison. But
I meant in terms of having this tug of war, being a figure in
the tug of war between the like activists left and the sort of mainstream.
Gillem was really liked by the media. It was really championed, I think
by the Democratic Party because he's able to be put forward I guess progressive messaging
while also being kind of an establishment darling because of the political the strategic things
they're able to do that. There was so much that I tried to rehabilitate
him, Like six months ago, I was a GQ or somethody just spread
up. Did they really I missed that? Yeah, everyone decided to just
ignore that one his wife, he's still married, I recall. I think
I couldn't be mistake. Oh well, good for them, that's great.
They're sickness and in health. I hope they're doing well. But so their
Democrats have lost political capital in states like Florida by not owning these issues.
And I think Eric Adams is frustrated that Eric Adams of the party are frustrated
by that, both politically and like genuinely ideologically. Eric Adams is a guy
who comes from a police background, looks at the city under build A Blasio
and says, obviously, we need to do some things. But he's not
able to like really fully do everything because there's still this they've replaced their actual
moral beliefs with new ones because they were never that deep seated in the first
place. Because if it's not sort of rooted in something that you believe is
fundamentally true. And when I say that, I mean God or I mean
order in all of these like first principles, if you didn't have that in
the first place, then Christ just showed me a picture of Eric Adams and
as his wife. So how Andrew Gilram's marriage survived and out of scandal.
But I immediately you're good at that because you're on a really good role.
So well, I'm just saying, if you don't have those first principles,
And I think what we've learned is that in the twentieth century, a lot
of people just grew up without those first principles and were easily swayed by what
came in the twenty first century. In this like new religion of radical postmodern
leftism, A couple there was a couple of new religions of radical new religions
in the twentieth century. But I mean, if you decide I met in
the twenty first century. Yeah. So if you've decided that sex and gender
identity are interchangeable, and you have staked ten years of your politics on that,
and if you have decided that we need to decriminalize, we need to
do X, Y and Z, and you've made that a really like a
fundamental part of your ideology, and your ideology is your morality, then you
can't easily let go of these things. I think the thing is a cential
lie. And I've gotten an argument with friends of ours, editors in chiefs
of websites I think that are considered conservative and stuff over this issue. They're
like, oh, let's live and let live. Who cares? Why do
you care? I think the gender thing once you can get an entire population
and it's children to repeat after you, what I see is not real.
Yes, what I don't see Israel yep, Like fact up is down,
down is up? I mean, it's it's really basic. Once you can
get people to openly speak the lie and attack those who attack those who are
like what yep, Then you can really convince some of everything. And when
you can get the Democratic Party to have utter lawlessness on the border but claim
because they have they're still customs and border patrol, etc. When you can
get the Democratic Party for a year to follow the defund the police line and
then trot out the geriatric president the United States and say we don't want to
defund the police. A couple of years later wanted to defund the police.
They are like they are. They are rooted in absolutely nothing except some like
very very radical lies, like the sex and gender one is a good one
that America is systemically and on. You can't rehabilitate the like fundamental racism that
is built into the system of our government. And so there are some I
think, you know gen X and Boomer Democrats who maybe had values that actually
were deeply rooted and they have rethought some of these things. But the people
that are our age and younger than us who are now coming up as voters
in the workforce, who were raised on this like very thorough post boomer postmodernism,
like post Howard's in ideas about the world that there is no God,
that it's a truth is relative. I mean, I think this fundamentally comes
down to the idea that truth is relative. You can believe that somebody's God
is real without believing that God is real, because it's your truth versus their
truth. I mean, things that just absolutely don't make sense. Then you
are installed with a software that's going to glitch out. And I think you
see that in the Democratic Party, they just like it is utterly incoherent.
And this isn't to say that the Republican Party is truly the party of God
in law and order and all of those things. I think we see this.
This has bled deeply into the Republican Party because it's bled deeply into the
American population. And you're right, Chris, that we don't just like the
cities are very very different. And Charles Murray wrote about this and coming apart,
that's for all of these socioeconomic reasons that what's happening in the suburbs,
what's happening in rural America is different. But what like it or not.
You know, a huge percentage of the country lives in the city. It
lives in our cities, and a much bigger percentage than that is affected by
what happens in our cities, and it's a it's reflective of I think that
that very very very deep problem in our culture more generally. And that's why
I think sadly when you look at what happens here in the district where you
have Mariel Bowser, a corporate Democrat who even won over the heart of Christopher
Bedford and the vote of Christopher. Now that was a strictly self preservation vote,
right, and she's testifying her second arm. She's testifying in front of
Congress where Republicans are criticizing her policies rightfully so, but she also is in
fights with the left here in Washington, DC because she wants to do something
crazy. Persons in the city council. She's like the bare minimum. But
there is good news that now finally, instead of someone who speaks truth to
power, we now get the APM Fox News slot Sean Hannity interviewing Caitlin Jenner
about how Democrats are the real racists. So like, there is hope for
the republic. Yeah, but so you say that sarcastically, and then you
think, well, an institution like Twitter was captured by somebody like Elon Musk
and Tucker is not going to Day I buy and sell people like you.
And then Tucker is now going to be broadcasting without literally any corporate filter,
straight to that platform. That's interesting, Well, I'm interesting. That's like
the Florida of the tech interestring. Like Tucker is to Twitter and Elon Muskin
and Tucker are to Twitter and Silicon Valley. What run to santasist to Florida.
Yeah, I mean, let's I'm interested to see what Tucker is going
to do with that. There's a question like why did they do that on
Twitter? I think I think he rightly is saying I'm not going to shut
up, even though Fox lawyer is going to try to make me shut up.
And I don't think he wanted to sign a contract with anyone like Spotify
or something, yeah right away. And also, you know when you're if
you're a company like Spotify, you probably have to build in all the millions
of dollars the Fox is going to sue you for if you hire him and
break his contract. So that's I love that a lot of people get beat
up and pummeled by corporate media and told to shut up and do and I'm
really interested to see what the mixed iteration of Tucker is, what he puts
his energies forward. I mean, he was kind of sick of the TV
show, Like the television format was not his favorite format. And you can
really tell that when you looked at the Fox Nation show man there and have
an hour long conversation with someone that was thoughtful and didn't have to be boom
boom boom boom commercial break, boom boom boom, commercial break. I think
he loved the monologues in the opening, and he really enjoyed some of the
interviews, but just the nature of television, which made for like a seven
year old attention span. You should be constantly shifting, constantly moving, thank
you, thank you. I think my last couple of interviewers on his show
were like two questions, Yeah, yeah, it's just rapid fire. Yeah,
so I'm interested to see, Okay, we're now. Now you get
to choose what you want to do. You're you're not constrained by anything,
and people will follow you. I mean the viewers, the average viewership of
all of cable news just went up significantly when he was fired from one station.
And yes, I'm looking forward to it. Were people pinging you on
your honeymoon questions about Tucker less fortunately less by the honeymoon a lot, a
lot and leaked up to the wedding. Oh my gosh, a lot the
Tucker whisper ye were because he got so busy that we missed him. But
you know, I think on the thirty thousand foot level, there there are
two themes. So what we've talked about. One is institutional recapture, and
the second is how institutional recapture then can can shift incentives and institutions that plainly
cannot be recapture must be getting the long mark right, Like the New York
Times. Isn't that going to be recaptured by you know, like or Time
magazine is not gonna be recaptured by like Henry Louse right, Like this is
not happening, um, but by like the anti commies, Like that's they're
not retaking Time magazine. But the incentive structure at those institutions can shift by
the institutions that are recaptured. Anyway, That's the basic math as I see
it. Beautiful mounting on a truck, David Ezra maybe actually feel better about
this? So wrong? What we've been losing for sixty years. You said,
yeah, we would only just begun to fight treads coming from all right.
Well, Christopher Bedford, exact editor over at the Common Sense Society,
thank you so much and congratulations. Thanks a lot. Glad to be back.
I bet you are. You got rum out of it. I have
to pregame. It's the Feast of the Ascension. It starts in two minutes.
You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm em
A Leijashinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with
more. Until then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend heard
of fame by a reason, and then it raided away.