Welcome back everyone to a new episode. If you're wrong with Molly Hemmingway and
David Harsani. If you have an email, please send it to the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com. How are you doing, Molly,
I'm doing great, And I do want to say I love the email that
we get on this show. It's the best email. But I get for
any of the shows I do you know, TV, or for writing,
and I read it all. I don't always get to respond to it.
But I am really appreciative for people who take the time. I don't know.
It's like a higher class of reader slash listener. I feel like we
get on this show and that we get such like thoughtful comments and interesting ideas.
It's okay, you don't think so, it's all right now. I'm
kidding. I get a lot, we get a lot of thoughtfully emails,
and I though we'll probably get far less than you in general. I am
not I do not. I'm not a big responder to emails because I just
don't want to. I thought this week we'd start with let's talk about that.
Iowa was at the Family Leadership's Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, where Tucker
Carlson had most of the candidates, I believe other than Donald Trump, bond
to ask them some questions. Were you impressed by that event and what are
your thoughts? I loved it. I can't get to watch all of it,
and some of them I'd like to go back and see the full interview.
It was sort of just it was a nice amount of time that each
candidate got. It was a really interesting set of questions for the vast majority
of them, and I was struck by how so often when you're doing a
candidate forum done by corporate media, the questions sound like they were written by
and for or the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you know, like the
things that matter to those people. And these questions were things that I was
really interested in. And it was almost like weird to just get questions and
answers that were totally on point for a non left wing audience. Did you
watch it at all? I watched highlights mostly. I dipped in occasionally,
but I mostly watched the highlights on that you know, ran through my Twitter
feed, and I was pretty impressed. I mean, I think the upside
of these interviews, as you say, is that you're going to get someone
like Tucker's asking questions that primary voters actually care about. I think there are
pros and cons, you know, in the general you want to I think
you want more questions that can you know, where you can reach out to
voters who aren't voting in primaries. But at this point, yeah, this
was much better. Remember a few years ago, maybe a few years ago,
eight years ago or whatever, when we had it's that guy's name at
CNN. He was You were a great calm about it at the time.
You know, I'm talking about the CNN. Oh my god. John Harwood,
Yeah, John Harwood, John, Yeah, goodness. Yeah. Yeah.
So basically you just got questions that left wing Democrats care about, and
that is not helpful for primary voters. So yeah, I think it was
Even in the in general election candidate forums, I find that the questions tend
to favor left wing audiences, and particularly when it comes to like tricky or
tough questions, those always are from the left. It is rare to hear
someone be challenged from the right or just even from a different perspective than what
you normally get with left wing journalists. So I really liked it. I
I also just kind of found it interesting how entitled some of these candidates seem
to feel about whether they can be asked questions or not. Like Asa Hutchinson,
I don't entirely understand why he's running, but he was asked questions about
his support for chemical castration of miners and genital mutilation surgery for miners, and
he didn't just do a bad job of responding to it. He's like,
I kind of thought we'd talk about more important issues than how, under my
leadership I've allowed the children of Arkansas to be irrevocably harmed? Is that how
you say that word? Yeah? Okay, so and it was like,
oh, you thought there was a more important question than that, And like,
even if you did, just what a weird and arrogant way to respond
to it. There's plenty of time to ask a lot of questions. He
can answer that one, if you know, take a minute and explain himself.
But he didn't want to. Oh he's terrible. He's terrible. Maybe
it's because I had kind of low expectations, but I thought Nicky Hayley did
a fantastic job responding to questions from Tucker. I think you had said on
this podcast that she has like a sing songy way about her, which was
the meanest thing you could say to me, because now like every time I
hear her, I hear you saying that about her. But I thought she
kind of handled the questions well had I don't agree with her on a lot
of stuff, but I but I felt like she was a competent, quality
candidate and she's a polished politician, right, I mean, she's going to
get rattled in interviews that often, though, you know, I don't think
she really speaks to the modern Republican voter very much. No, And I
mean I thought Tim Scott was very weak in his answers, like he's really
got to be better prepared for some of this. And then Mike Pence of
course, had that disastrous turn, which was, you know, it just
was one of those things that like he didn't listen to the question properly,
and he got really rattled and kind of angry, and as a result,
it made it sound to a lot of people like he was saying he didn't
care about American cities. I think, in context of the moment, if
you're doing a real as much of a good faith read of it as possible,
he was saying that something more like he didn't have particular concern about how
we're doing our proxy war in Ukraine, but he thinks we can balance both
that proxy war in Ukraine and beginning to care about rotting American cities. Do
you agree with that or no? No, I mean, I don't think
he gave a good answer. I think it's a it's a false choice.
Really, I mean, we wanted to we could do both if we felt
like it, but he didn't give a very good explanation of why we should
want to do both. I don't think the problems of American cities are happening
because we don't have enough funding to help them or something like that. It
just doesn't make sense to me. But yeah, you're right, I mean,
I think I think we need to remember that Mike Pence has always been
kind of a terrible politician in my view, Like he is really yeah,
he's like I don't know if you like if if you write the word milk
toast and you just you put a picture of his face, like he's no
charisma and he I think Trump basically picked the guy who least could threaten him
possible in the United States as a politician, and he was a loyal pretty
much a loyal soldier in that in that role for a lord. Let me
just say and I am. I am on record in the Federalist going back
to twenty fifteen my problems with Mike Pence. So I'm not some like you
know, Pence lover or whatever, but I thought the choice of him by
Donald Trump was a really smart one because a big portion of the Republican Party
is motivated by social conservative concern and Mike Pence like spoke to that. I
thought his debates but sorry, his debate against Tim Kaine in twenty sixteen was
brilliant and that's a kind of your only job as the VP candidates. Kind
of nailed the debate, and he did a great job of articulating to a
lot of American like articulating for Americans and also like on their behalf why they
were voting for Trump and why they viewed this as like a smart choice to
make. And it really was a big issue. Like went out of four
Trump voters in twenty sixteen said they were voting for him for the Supreme Court.
You know, Mike Pence articulated this concern that people had, and he
did a good job of representing that person, that group. But my opposition
to him does relate to how he caved on religious liberty in twenty fifteen at
a really important time to not cave. Corporations came in and bullied the government
of Indiana while he was governor, and he backed down so quickly, and
he actually took a pretty good religious liberty situation in Indiana. There was an
attempt to improve it, and at the end of the day, Mike Pence
ushered in a complete cave Like that is not what you want to have happening
in a leadership position. So but I still think I think he was a
brilliant choice for twenty sixteen. I don't think it was a terrible choice.
I think do no harm with your vice president is the best policy. Or
someone who's going to, you know, someone who has speaks to, like
you say, you know, a faction of your party that you maybe don't
represent that well whatever, like you know. I don't think he was terrible
in that sense. I just don't think he has the kind of charisma to
be a serious presidential I do want to say too, yeah, but I
wanted to quickly just pointing that his caving on religious freedom was just a horrible
moment, and that should have disqualified him from for speaking for those kind of
social conservatives he does, you know, but most people probably didn't know about
that and don't very much care about that. Frankly. So No, It's
actually one of these things that I find very funny when I'm talking to more
left wing corporate media types, is that they are shocked to find out that
there are religious conservatives who don't trust Mike Pence in a way that predates,
you know, any recent years. They just think like, oh, he's
this big evangelical Christian, you guys must be best friends. And it's actually
it's not that way. And but I want to point out as good of
a debater as he was in twenty twenty and twenty sixteen, I recently had
someone kind of changed my mind on whether he had done a great job in
twenty twenty against Kamala Harris. Like, in retrospect, I thought he did
a really good job that night, But he's, given what we know now
about Kamala, don't you think he should have like utterly trounced her in twenty
twenty. It's like when people think a team is going to be great,
and then they lose, and everyone, you know, to another team.
Everyone thinks that team is great, but actually just they're just beating sort of
minor league squad. That's kind of what you're saying. Yeah, yeah,
she is not a talented politician either. I don't know. I don't like
politicians in general, So there are very few I feel, or you know,
that that talented. But anyway, so what who else there there was?
I also thought, yeah, I didn't really watch the vague Ramaswami,
but I did watch clips of Rhonda san and I, and I thought he
did a great job as well. Yeah, I thought so too. So
let me quickly ask since we're on the topic of the Santis. He was
interviewed by Jake Tapper of CNN yesterday. I guess, I guess there.
I guess there has been a some upheaval on his campaign, and now they
had this weird raising of Jake Tapper right as a kind of reporter that they
that they want to deal with because he's he's actually a good journalist. They
said, yeah, I can, I can speak to this a little bit.
So, Yeah, The New York Post put out a story saying that
in a total twist, Ron de Santis is going to do this interview with
Jake Tapper. And in that article it had a quote from one of their
spokesmen at the Santist campaign saying like, we are willing to work with anyone
who's truthful and honest and whatever. And I'm like, uh, then why
are you working with Jake Tapper? You know, because that guy's not truthful
or honest. He's behind some of the worst the worst hoaxes journalistic hoaxes of
recent memory. He was an instigator of the Russia collusion hoax. He was
a big backer of the Kavanaugh serial gang rape theory. You know, he's
not a good guy. But I didn't because because I tweeted that, and
because if you tweet anything about Desantists other than that you love him. It's
kind of like it was in twenty sixteen. If you said I'm not sure
about Donald Trump, you would all of a sudden have an army of bots
or people you know, just like you're you're avorable. And so the Desantists
bought army, came after me, and I'm like, I liked Descantists,
so like, maybe don't come after me for doing a critical Jake Tapper tweet.
But long story short, I learned that that might have been a little
bit mischaracterized by the post. I mean, it was a confusing I don't
want to I didn't talk to the reporter who wrote it, so I need
to. I need to do that too. But it seems like what they
were trying to say is, obviously, we're going to talk to CNN and
MSNBC if we need to, and we will actually sort of treat people fine
until they treat us horribly and then it's war. But I didn't watch the
Jake Tapper interview, did you. I was traveling in New York. Yeah.
I watched parts of it as well. I thought people over rated Tapper's
questions just because he was like semi normal. You know, everyone's like,
whoa, you know, he did a great job, no, you know.
He also he was asking about Trump constantly, like that's you know he
you know it was. He wasn't as good as Tucker in getting to the
issues that Republicans actually care about right now, but it wasn't terrible. And
I thought the Santis from what I saw, did a very good job.
He's also quite polished, I think, and disciplined kind of candidate once he
gets once he has an issue that he understands a lot and knows about it
has and stands out for us. So I, you know again, I
think he's talent did and I thought he did a good job. And I
am definitely a fan of getting out there and mixing it up with people who
are trying to you know, war on the left, which Tapper is The
Watchdoldo on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the
connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. As Biden
continues to to out his bidonomics plan, does any of it sound familiar?
How about the Soviet style five year plan? State run capitalism is not capitalism?
Command and control economics fails every time it's tried. Bidenomics equals chindonomics.
Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Be informed. Check out the Watchdodo on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
on Apples, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Yeah, I did
see something. You know who they am the I don't even know what these
are. If they're real or not, like the Scantist war room Maga war
room kind of things where they put out good clips of their candidate, And
they did one this week for Descantis, which was him addressing a large crowd
in Iowa, and a woman got up and said that she was brought there
by her rep that she's a big Trump fan. But then she kind of
did this thing about how, based on her heart, she's one hundred percent
Trump, but if she were to be thinking with her head, she thought
that Deciantis had done a good job of making the case as well. I
hate the idea that there is a hearthead dichotomy here. I mean, ideally
you're into your candidate for both reasons. I understand why some people would say,
like I hear that all these establishment people say, oh, if you're
supporting Trump, you're not thinking with your head, And it's like, well,
when I talk to Trump supporters, they're you know, I'm not saying
they're not angry. They're angry at what's been done to them and their candidate,
but they're thinking rationally. And I hate it when we act like people
aren't thinking rationally when they support this candidate or together anyway, Rond de Santis
responds something like, I hear you. You know, I also agree that
what was done to our former president is reprehensible and what has happened with the
weaponization of law enforcement Department of Justice is like awful and we have to stop
it. And that's why I'm running. I'm running for that, like this
is about you, not me, and I'm going to do it. And
I was like, oh, this was my idea of what kind of campaign
he would run. And to me, the only way that you can actually
win the Republican primary is to like the big elephant in the room. In
the elephant room is the treatment of the former president and whether you think it's
okay and you have to accept it and just move on, or whether you
don't think you have to accept the destruction of these norms and all this stuff.
And you can't be on the side of the Republican voter if you're trashing
the person who's doing it. Now, I totally get why people are enraged
that they can't trash Trump given that he's trashing them or I totally get that,
but that's just the nature of the situation, and there is some respect
earned by actually winning a presidential election and going through what was gone through what
he went through, and achieving so much that he accomplished given that he was
fighting everyone, including half the Republican Party, Like, there's just respect ode
there, I think is the perspective of a lot of Republican voters. And
that little snippet from the manga or from the Ronda Santist war Room was the
first time I'd actually seen it in action, even tried. But I do
not see the discipline with that. I see a lot of sniping, even
when it's like sandwiched between excellent comments, like the only answer for Joe Biden
trying to imprison his top political opponent is as Kevin McCarthy said, that's cow
excrement, that's what you say. And instead he was like, this is
wrong. Of course Trump is also bad and this is wrong. That's not
going to cut it like that doesn't know where to aim your freaking fire,
buddy. Yeah, I have no problem with the comment he made it because
it was truthful. I don't know how it's going to play with Trump voters.
I would say this too. We have to remember the Trump is the
effective incumbent, a gigantic personality that had a lot of voters give him the
kind of personal loyalty that most candidates can never have, and it's going to
be very hard to beat him, no matter how what Desanta says, no
matter what he does, and no matter how good he is. And I
think his main argument should be I can finish the job that Trump said he
was going to do because I'm more competent. I've done it here in Florida,
et cetera, et cetera. You know, But him saying, you
know, I don't know. I don't understand the hard argument in politics very
much, so I don't really get the I don't really get the love of
Trump, so it's very difficult for me to understand why that would be offensive
to anyone. I have this issue with them with Rhonda Santis, like so
many people I talked to are like, feel that he's weird, you know,
basically interacting with him, and I'm like, who cares? He's he
is weird and I don't don't care, right, But then I have to
remember that, like all my friends are autistic, and I'm a weirdo myself,
so I'm not the you know, because people who are really good political
analysts that I trust say that when they see different people interact. Like Bill
Clinton was magical on the campaign trail, Donald Trump magical comes off Air Force
one or comes off Trump Force one immediately like best friends with the union workers
who are meeting him off the plane. You know, that is real charisma.
That is very rare. Even Barack Obama had an effect on crowds.
Mitt Romney not so much, you know, you know, like in movies
when they have like a sociopath and he's like pretends smile because that's what he
thinks he needs to do. That's how I am when I talk about charisma
in candidates and stuff like, I don't actually see it in any real wake
or care. I would vote for a robot if they did what I wanted,
But I will say that so I try to understand it. And obviously,
someone like Bill Clinton I thought was just amazing at connecting with people.
He just like instinctively understood what he needed to say to a crowd or a
person and it was completely fake, right, but he knew how to do
it. And I think one of my blind spots and was a blind spot
in twenty sixteen when I thought Trump would lose, was that I didn't understand
how he was connecting with a lot of folks. And I don't know that
the Santis has that talent, frankly, but maybe he does. I don't
know. And you know, you can get better at it, obviously,
politicians get better at it. But I think Trump, just from his background,
has always sort of had that. Yeah, but that's another thing I
do think. You know, people always talking about how Rondo Santis wasn't well
liked on the Hill. By the way, that's another thing I like about
him. They're like, he wasn't buddy buddy with the losers on the Hill.
It's like, it's, okay, I like that he didn't like DC,
but he but it is true that he was noticeably. He's improved noticeably
in how he interacts with donors and with voters. Then when I first encountered
him when he was on the Hill, and you know what happens when you
have a candidate like Mitt Romney was where he was. He's not a real
conservative. I think he's just sort of an a political technocrat type, right.
They tried to make him into a conservative, and he'd say things like
I am a severe conservative or whatever he said, and it just makes him
come off like he's not genuine. You know. I think you have to
somehow figure out who a person is and nurture and that part of them,
and like, let the Santis be the Santis he is the way he is,
Let him just be the way he is, and people either going to
like him or not. You can't fake charisma. You can't fake a town.
Went to connect with people on a personal level either or be a retail
politician. You are or you aren't. So I don't know. Yeah,
I think that there's truth to that too. And I also feel like he
had some really good advisors and instincts when he first managed to win the Republican
nomination for governor and also that race, and I know he won it like
a monster in twenty twenty two, Is that right? But I feel like
something has changed in his instinctual approach or I feel almost like his advisors are
making him be different than he is. Or maybe maybe I'm just wrong and
he was always this way. I don't know. I think you're right.
It'd be interesting to watch. It's like if you and I are talking somewhere
right, there's an ease in which we can talk to each other. But
when you get on TV for most of us, at least perhaps not professionals
like yourself, you know, you you tense up, right, you tense
up a little, And maybe that's what's happening in the early going here.
So we'll see. Um, let's switch topics for a second. Can we
talk about Tommy Tubberville for a minute and this hole? Hold on? Yeah,
you have something else to Yeah, but no, that's great. I
want to talk about Smilse but that's okay. Yeah, so what about Tommy
Tubberville. So I just wanted to point out, like I was reading,
I wrote about this week, So I just wanted to mention that I am
not actually a fan of the guy. I don't I don't know much about
him, but he's just not my type of guy. But the attacks he's
gotten on numerous issues are so dishonest that it is driving me crazy. And
the number one thing that's driving me crazy is this idea that he's somehow brought
the culture war to the military by holding up all these promotions I think.
Unfortunately, I saw Hugh Hewitt writing a column about how he should let go
of that hold as well. He's holding up all this stuff because Joe Biden
decided I did, after forty five years, to start paying for people's elective
abortions in the military. He is completely within his rights and he should continue
this fight. And you know, until they pulled us, they are the
ones who have injected culture this culture war. It's not even a culture war
issue, it's a life issue into the military. So I don't know,
I just felt like I wanted to defend the guy, even though, you
know, even though I'm not a big fan. Yeah, I know.
Sean Davis and I were joking about how weird it is to be doing so
much to speak in favor of what Tubberville's doing, given that we're not huge
you know, it's not he's not like our kind of guy or whatever.
But he's showing surprising resolve here. He's showing surprising amount of principle, and
when people do that, they should be defended. One of the most appalling
things about his principal stand is that he's not only having to fight Biden and
the media and other Democrats, but he's having to fight people in his own
party. There was an article this week about how Senate Republicans are worried that
conser of populism is taking over the party, and as examples of this were
like, well, voters are concerned about the weaponization of law enforcement at the
Department of Justice, they care about election integrity, and Tommy Tuberville is putting
a hold on military promotions because of this crazy radical thing that Biden did.
And it was like, literally, none of that is populism. It's all
principled. And it is true though that Tombobville has had to fight Mitch McConnell
on this, Like in a perfect world, Mitch McConnell and his little minions,
John Cornyn and John Thune would be would be the ones actually leading the
charge, you know, giving everybody different tasks for how to actually stop this
ridiculous thing that Biden is doing, and instead they're battling the one guy who's
actually standing up to do something about it. I think Mike Lee has also
done good stuff on this topic too. The entire House Republican you know,
roup managed to stand on this, but we can't expect that of Mitch McConnell,
John Thune and John Cornyn, who are going to like left wing media
to trash Tuberville like this is insane, it's not politically insane. It's insane
as a matter of principle, and it is wrong. John Kirby or whatever
his name is, the real Press secretary who always comes in when things are
tricky, and Queen John Pierre like it is taking her idiocy too far.
He said, we have to pay for members abortions because it's a sacred duty
to help kill unborn children, and that for mission preparedness. If we're not
able to help kill unborn children, we have like betrayed our members. I'm
like, I'm not surprised we're having trouble with recruitment or winning wars or anything,
given that this is who's at the top here. But he's right.
Abortion is a sacred right among on the left. It is perhaps the most
sacred right on the left. R I And and he's just being on But
I will say this. They are constantly saying. Look either the subtexts implied
or stated is that look at these extremists, MAGA senators who are fighting for
abortion, Like this is a new issue that just popped up in twenty sixteen
and hasn't been you know, so it hasn't been around since since Roe was
first ruled. I've noted this on Twitter at one point. I've noted that
every time people talk about Trump like he's some kind of or Trump fans like
they're extremists, that he is literally one of the more moderate Republican domestic presidents
in a long time. Frankly, and you know, my concern with Trump,
one of my main concerns that he's not conservative enough, right, But
they make it out to be extremism. So some semaphore reporter says, like,
it's too bad, you know, he put these judges on the court
and now he is the face of the pro life movement. Like they can't
think of any issue without making it about Trump. They literally can't write anything
or think about anything without making a Trump. They're as bad as the most
do you know crazed Trump fan who can't think about the world without Trump?
And it is it. Really you can't have a debate anymore. You can
only debate Trump. They will not let you debate anyone else. We haven't
talked about my journey through scripture recently, but I've made it through the I'm
at the beginning of second chronicles right now, and it actually makes me laugh
that people would view this is like a problem that someone who's not known as
a moral great like Donald Trump would be the most pro life president in history.
But when you read these Old Testament stories that happens all the time,
that someone who's like personally got great moral failings manages to save Israel or even
help Israel or the people of Israel be more faithful to God. It's like
a story as old as time. And who does Jesus bring around him?
You know, all these former sinners and stuff, right, I mean,
it's not like, you know, you spoke for the Old Testament. I
spoke for the New test But I'm even saying that they are current sinners who
are doing good course, you know what I mean, Like the people who,
at the same time their life is a little bit of a mess,
they're also doing good work. Like, it's not that shocking. A lot
of great men in history have been deeply flawed, and when we were like,
imagine that someone deeply flawed could accomplish great things. It's like this weird
American evangelical thing that thought that you only could be great if you were like
a perfect Baptist or something. I don't even get it exactly. Donald Trump
is the most important pro life president in history, whether he planned it that
way, whether he really believes it, dear yeah, most effective in his
core, or he doesn't believe it, or he's a hypocrite. I couldn't
care less. I care about getting it done. So, speaking of the
court, if I may just very quickly, there have been a number I
will talk about this every week, but there have been a number of smears
against Clarence Thomas in the court. Again, it keeps happening. And I
wrote this piece because I believe that it reminds me very much of the of
the Russia collusion hoax. And tell me if I'm right here, you have
activist groups create this mythology, create conspiracies where none are. They launder these
things through the media. They spread it out among many different media out let's
to make it look like everyone's working on this big story. It's all over,
it's widespread. Then the same activists hand those stories over to the politicians,
and then the politicians pretend that something terrible is happening that we must investigate
and we must deal with and we must pass legislation on It is the same
formula. It is equally a hoax. So anyway, I don't know it
angers me No. I mean, we live in the age of the information
op. That's what We're all being subjected to information ops all the time.
Once you see it, you can't stop seeing it. And I remember that
for me, the time I realized that these were all like planned political pr
campaigns was with Sandra Flock. Do you remember that person? No, oh
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fuk I think what's her
name? Yeah, it looks like Fluke, but it's Fluck and she um.
She was a Georgetown law student and the issue was whether Obamacare would would
compel religious groups to pay for a bordifacians and she was brought out by what
is that? Oh my gosh, I want to say Anita done? Is
that right? Who his favorite philosopher? Her favorite philosopher was MAO Chairman Mail.
So it was like this perfectly orchestrated campaign in which the media, Democrats,
and other left wing activists all work together. So there was a hearing
on religious liberty. I think Republicans actually organized the hearing. You had the
heads of major religious organizations talking about the importance of religious liberty in how they
run their you know, their synautical offices, their colleges, their schools,
and then the Democrats had like a little panel of people, including Anita Dunn's
hand picked pr OP Sandra Fluck, who came out and was like, I
need a bortifacians, but not to kill babies, because you know, some
one of these like I am a perfectly picked person who has a medical diagnosis
that requires me to get this type of drug which ninety nine point percent time
is used for this, but like wouldn't be from RS. I don't remember
all the details. Then Jake Tapper and other media people like just ran ran
the infoop like can you believe these people are trying to deny life saving medical
care because they because they have retrograde views about preserving onborn human life. Jake
Tapper mentioned his wife was a big professional. Yeah, I think he forgot
to do that, but he's such a truthful and honest person. You can
really he asks good questions one out of one hundred times, so you can
pretty much just lay down and let him do whatever he wants. And then
the Democrats ran their their campaign that year on war on women. It was
all coordinated, it was all like highly focused group tested everything, and like
once I saw it, and I saw it because I'm Lutheran Church Missouri Senate
and the president of our church, but we're very apolitical. But the president
of our church body testified in that hearing, so like I saw it happening.
I remember I told him, I don't think this will be a controversial
hearing or something. You're fine. I was wrong, and then just sort
of like see it all go, and like there's nothing you can do to
stop it because the media, the Democrats and all left wing activists which are
funded by like not even American billionaires in some case, but global millionaires.
It was all just like an operation that was flawlessly executed. And this is
why, you know, having a media that is so intimately embed with the
left wing activists is such a problem because it affects like our elections and their
integrity that they can just run info ops all the time. The Supreme Court
thing is an info op they are trying to destroy. I mean, that's
so are trying to destroy the legitimacy of the Court and take it over because
they're really upset that it's the one institution that they haven't been able to control
because it's like the one thing that conservatives have sort of effectively said, what
if we tried to save the country by having justices who actually cared about the
constitution. It's worked well, And they don't want to spend fifty years working
to persuade and convey. They just want to use the power of force to
like run, like you know, CIA level info up on people. Like
the other day there was a story in The Guardian about how and this is
the wording, Clarence Thomas took seven payments from former clerks at a restaurant,
whatever it turned out. And I knew when I read it, and I
wrote this in a piece that they didn't give you the amounts because it would
make you laugh at the whole story. But turned out the amount was twenty
dollars. One of the most of the payments around twenty dollars, but that
you know, because he was having dinner with former clerks, like reunions during
Christmas and stuff like this. These are so clear early hit pieces that anyone
with a brain would know it. So what they do is they spread out
a whole bunch of them to create the impression that there's something going on where
there's nothing going on. There just hits you were about to say. You
said you want to talk about something else before and I interrupted you. Yeah,
I wanted to talk to you. We were so happy this week you
got to sign a statement, and you were so happy you got to sign
it. So I wanted you to give everyone an opportunity to talk about this
important thing you did of signing the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles. So I
want to say this. I believe this is the first time I signed any
statement or any document or anything ever in my life. Like I don't think
I've ever done it. It's not typically in my nature. But I read
it and I liked it, and I was speaking to someone about it,
and you know, I decided to participate and put my name on there.
It's pretty innocuous statement of neutral principles of free market economics of things like that.
I don't think you probably even disagree with anything in this statement. I
would say, I am not a statement signer. I just don't see the
benefit of doing it, or like the amount of time it takes to like
read through and like figure out what's actually going on in this statement whatever.
Just and I'm I'm not a good joiner. I am a very gen x
person. I don't join, so I don't sign statements. But when I
read it, I actually, yeah, I did not really have a problem
with any of it, but I did. I felt like there was like
this additional commitment that you had to agree to that I didn't love. But
I don't have the wording in front of me. Maybe you do, maybe
you've already framed the statement that you've signed on your wall to make sure that
you uphold the commitment. But I said something like we we recognize that,
like we particularly want to have descendants of slavery to have the benefit of these
principles, or something like. Yeah. That was my, I would say,
my least favorite part of it. But I think it was fine in
that it said that, you know, it basically proposes that people who who
were brought here, who didn't have a fair shake originally in this country can
rely on a good meritocracy to get ahead, that they don't need the government
and the state to do special favors for them, and that the other part
of that statement was that racism is wrong in all its forms, meaning affirmative
action, etc. I'm fine with the statement. My main reason for signing
the statement it was because I am I believe that not all, because it's
such an umbrella term. There are moderate people involved in this movement, and
then there are what I believe are basically just authoritarians involved in the National Conservatism
movement, and I wanted to distinguish myself from that. I think it's important
to uphold neutral principles. I don't think that most of those people believe in
that, and if this is the future fight, I wanted to take a
side. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm not a big
signer of statements my self, but this isn't a political statement to me.
It's just a statement of principles that I believe in, and I was fine
with it some of the people who have come on and signed the statement since
I think I like less than a lot of the people who had initially signed
the statement, because I believe they're frauds and don't really believe in these principles.
But that's a different story. So my thing. One thing I don't
understand about conservatives, and I'm not you know, I'm kind of a latecomer
to conservatism. I've always been a classical liberal. I've had a great deal
of frustration with the conservative movement. Obviously it was like libertarian for a very
long period of time, so I wasn't like intimately familiar with them, but
I always feel like they're really good at making statements and very bad at executing
policy that helps people or like the you know, the politics, the policy
process of it. Like I almost have like a little twitch when people are
like, oh, we signed a statement. I, by the way,
like a lot of the people who signed it, and I have high regard
for them, And I am also concerned about how some of this, like
national conservatism, doesn't seem to have to be their naive in their lack of
love for how markets have enabled so many good things in not just our country,
but in human flourishing in general. They also politically naive and believing that
they can get a coalition together to move forward on a lot of things they
believe. I think that they they they disregarding kind of the neutrality of government
or you know, ideal you know, ideally the neutrality of government is a
very counterproductive thing for social conservatives, who are now in a more and working
class, who are now in a bigger minority than ever to achieve I think
not naive I think they actually believe. I think that this is something that's
that's good and that they that is u important for people to recognize, which
is when you say you're neutral in a government battle and the left is like,
by the way, we're going to take over everything and destroy you,
you're just basically laying down arms and you're also making it much easier for them
if you believe that government can be used to accomplish public good, which is
different than saying that you don't you know like that you think like a big
government is great or anything like that. But there is a naivetate about neutrality.
I think that there is no such thing as neutrality on some of these
issues, and that if you actually articulated a robust vision for how to take
the government of buying for the people and have it preserve good things, that
that would be more exciting for people than the sort of milk toast Paul Ryan
approach to we don't really have anything to offer you but vote for us.
You know. It's just like there's no compelling statement there, but there might
be for people who are for a limited but value laden government. I think
that's a good debate for another time, for us. I want that.
When Ovic put out his tweets saying that he was honored to announce the publication
of this Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles, signed by over eighty leaders of the
liberty movement, it was interesting to see some of the different responses. So,
you know, like Q Hewitt says, this is a very fine statement,
um, but he thought it should say more about property rights. Tim
Andrew said he was proud to be a signatory, Van Skin proud to be
are glad to be a signatory, And a lot of people were saying that
they that they like it. But then there were some just normal people who
were weighing in on it, and I thought it was interesting what they said.
So Conjunction seventy seven says, I don't disagree with any particular thing in
the statement, but that's missing the forest for the trees. It's so many
glittering generalities like the Bourbon Kings. The signatories have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
A perfect statement for a world where it's nineteen eighty seven forever. There
was something else I wanted to see a lot of people saying here. Shar
Thakur says the statement is dumb and basically provides nothing new or interesting. The
whole idea is to preserve liberty, but it doesn't even define what they think
that concept means. Yes, not a single mention of faith, God,
Scripture or Christ like the Constitution. Let me say this, I guess once
again, reading this document is like this is Za Gilani once again. Reading
this document is like a dispatch from one of those Japanese soldiers who is guarding
an island decades after World War Two ended. Saying the words freedom and liberty
and market over and over isn't really a policy agenda. It's a meme.
Zgilani is a is a progressive leftist just because he's not. He's a perfect
example. He's a perfect example of why I think these kind of statements unlimited
principles which he people like Xagilanni don't have are important. He's anti woke and
people like that who are anti woke, and I respect that they're anti woke
whatever that means. Okay, how come come into this monument and make it
into a left wing Christian party right like like we have in Europe, which
is no choice at all most of the time, no choice at all when
it comes to actual how the state is run and what liberty means. Sorry,
go on. A former Trump staffer named Page I'm forgetting her last name
says, this isn't really a statement of principles. It isn't really anything.
The z blog says, way back machine conservatism. Hey guys, let's dress
up like our favorite characters from twentieth century conservatism and pretend we're at Bill Buckley's
house. And then this one, which I do agree with. Freedom isn't
actually what made America great. This is the fundamental error of the libertarian.
Rather, it was the combination of freedom and moral virtue. One without the
other doesn't work nearly as well. They fetishize the former and use that to
justify ignoring the latter, like nonsense. I completely agree about about how freedom
didn't make us great alone virtuous. Part of that you can't have the point
of freedom is to get to a virtuous community in society. The problem with
his side is that they want to compel people to be virtuous and compel people
to believe in Christ, and compel people to go back into the churches,
and that is not going to happen. And they want to compel you know,
if that person was Christian who wrote that, whatever. Yeah, I'm
just talking about out the average net Con type today, and they are concerned.
Listen. I take that last one back. I don't know if all
nat Cons are as religious, but they are typically social conservative, and they
believe that our society is not as virtuous as it can be, and they
blame markets for that, and they blame freedom. Listen. I don't know
what people said sitting in Bill Buckley's house, but I do know this.
There are principles and then there's politics. Politics Informila, I mean principles Informila
politics. If principles worked in nineteen eighty seven and in nineteen fifty six and
so on, they work today, you know they don't go away or you
didn't really believe in them in the first place. I believe in those principles.
I think that many of the people on the nat Con side and these
other leftists who have infiltrated the nat Con side, don't believe in those principles
and don't believe in any any limiting principles or neutral principles. And to me,
that's a deal breaker in my I don't want to be on the side
of those people in the long run. So I've already said, like,
one of my concerns about some of what happens in national conservatism seems to be
a lack of shared does not share some of the same principles that I hold
too in as a classical liberal. Some of them are very honest about it.
There are a lot of people in national conservatism who in fact are just
like us on these topics. I agree with that. Yeah, I'm not
sorry to I'm just speaking in general. Yeah, but it's in fact because
I don't see a change in principles or what we hold too that makes me
a little frustrated with statements like this, like our problem is not principles,
Like we actually have great ideas and principles. The problem is in the execution
on those. And so when that's like the issue that's happening in the country
right now, doing a like restatement of some of the principles, I just
sort of like, well, what does that do? Like I do see
and some people have been very clear this is an attack on national conservatism because
they're worried that they're getting all the press and they're getting all the like excitement,
and they want to say, like we're here too. You know,
liberty are still part of this movement, not a liberty go on. I
think they're libertarians. That statement was very don't I don't mean that as an
insult, by the way, I just think it's a libertarian and PLEXI state
to ne cons and not you in general. Anything short of wanting you know,
government interfering and basically everything is that person is a libertarian. I by
the way, I'm a classical liberal. I don't really actually consider myself a
conservative. I think conservative is shorthand now for a bunch of different kind of
groups that work together and have worked together for many years. In fact,
Reaganism was built on the social conservative movement and the libertarian type conservatives together.
Fusionism I think works and is important. But I just wanted to stress that
I don't think this is some since the Sharon statement or I mean, this
is just allowing people to say I'm on this side of this debate. The
net cons had their own, uh statement of principles, I believe, and
it was similarly innocuous in my mind of view. Actually, Michael Brendan Doherty
wrote a thing about how he could like easily sign both like there's nothing in
conflict in his view between these two statements, which oh vic I think then
responded to. But I haven't really actually read either of their statements hip because
I don't. I just don't care enough about it. Like I don't care.
I am so done with like think tanks that don't do anything other than
help separate mind the country. Those are step Those are two separate issues.
One is here is the think tank, which I you know whatever, I
don't know that this is a think tank necessarily, but anyway, so here
are people who come up with ideas, who think about principles, and here
is the political world that you have to live in. I'm a classical lebron
pretty libertarian in most things. Do you think that I am not fighting those
fights in the way I should. I think you can do both, right.
I am just not sure signing statements does anything, which is my newest
thing to do. So you shouldn't be upset about it. We should stop
talking about it. I want to make a quick note, a quick note
on something I saw your tweet that really impressed me, and I like how
you said that you have a filter, but that if anyone says to you
be better or do better, you immediately block them. Those are my two
least favorite, my most hated things that people send me. They used to
do it in letters, like they're like, you're better than this, David,
And I've always was like, I am one hundred percent, one hundred
percent not better than this at all. There is nothing more like condescending and
ridiculous than someone saying like, yeah, be better than this, Like,
who the heck do you think you are to tell me that? First of
all, like random, It's so rude that if someone said it in my
presence, I'd be like, well, I never want to be around this
person ever again. And I block people not just who say that to me,
but people who say it to anyone. I just think it's like the
stupidest, weirdest thing. Like if I saw someone say it to you,
I'd be like, well, that's an instant instant block. Do you like
when people say do better that's the tweet, that's a tweet period? You
know? When they like that, they think they can just end an argument
on Twitter by putting period at the end of a statement. I hate that
too. I don't really block people anymore, just I just I just would
mute them. Hugh Hewett said, we do a weekly thing, and he
said that Bethany Mandel had just been on and she was talking about why she
highlights the trolls who say mean things to her in her feed, and he's
like, what do you you know? He's like, I don't do that,
and I was like, oh, I definitely don't do that. I
just block them quickly. If anyone's ever rude to me or anyone else that
I'm like witnessing, Like, I don't need to see that in my life
is short. If someone's being horrific to someone else, just block them.
There's there's so many people who have good and interesting things to say, even
in disagreement, that you should prioritize those people and not people who are just
mean on social media. This is going to sound somewhat arrogant of me,
but you know, I used to occasionally take some rando who was insulting me
or saying something stupid, highlight them and then pummel them like a straw man,
or burn them down like a straw man because they were dumb. But
then I felt like it was kind of unfair and that in a sense,
in my small world, people have a right to come after me. In
some sense, they don't have a right to personally insult me or stuff,
but they have a right to come after me because I'm out there. I
get to give my opinion and this is their way to react. And in
the same way, I think it's okay to make fun of famous like actors,
because you know, that's the deal. You get to be rich,
I get to like judge you, right though, that's the deal we've made
in a way, you know, I guess that's probably not very Christian,
but you know what I mean. Yeah, I think everyone should try to
be nice like you can. I love disagreement. Some of my favorite people
are the ones who are like, here's why I think you're wrong, and
they make a good case, and even if they don't convince you, like
they've given you something to think about. I love that. Anyone who is
just being rude, I don't. I've got so much going on in my
life. I just don't have time for that. Have you noticed that there's
no the left won't debate you anymore, Like, no, there's no one
around to debate. Years ago I used to debate people. There's no one
debating right wingers from the left. Anywhere. We're just debating each other right
now. But anyway, let's go to let's go to culture for a second.
I hear that you may have seen a movie or two that you liked.
I did, so what was the fruit? Oh? I went to
see the Mission Impossible movie on Imax. I did like it, and it
was It's not a cinematic masterpiece or anything, but it's just really fun.
Did you see it or no? No? Tom Cruise, though, loves
you and wants to make you happy, and that's why I like Tom Cruise,
right. It's like crazy that he's become like just like the best that
we can expect from Hollywood, but just like there were five action packed scenes
that I totally had me on the edge of the seat. And at one
point I turned to Mark and I was like, this is very ridiculous,
and he was like, oh, did you come to Mission Impossible for a
very realistic, you know, good situation. If you want to be lectured,
you have to see Barbie from what I hear, if you want to
be lectured about the patriarchy, So I will say that that our theater had
no air conditioning and it was excutiating horrible. Okay, The other movie that
I watched which I loved was Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid. So my mother
is a wonderful person who's very funny, and she's always loved Elaine May,
so she'd kind of like turned me onto her early. She's a really good
director too, and her daughter who looks exactly like her an axe exactly like
her place in this but also Sybil Shepherd, and I mean it was so
enjoyable. Who's sorry, Charles Groden was the shallow idiot. So the whole
thing is like this guy marries someone impulsively and then spoiler alert because it's a
very old movie, he leaves his wife on their honeymoon and pursues another person.
So weird and funny, and I really enjoyed it, um and thoughtful.
Yeah, there was a you know, there was a remake of this
movie right with Ben Stiller, but I haven't seen it, so I don't
know how faithful it is to the original or anything similar. But it's not
very good. It's not very original. Yeah, the original is much better.
And Charlie Rowden being annoyed with his newly newly wed wife like on day
one is so funny. I don't know why. It's so funny, just
like and she has a subtle way of doing it, like right, Like
his acting is just excellent. Is he still around? I don't even remember
die like recently? Didn't he? Oh? Maybe? Yeah? Like I
feel like possibly this year could be. Could have just made that up.
Sorry. I hate that when someone you don't know but like Noah of like
a celebrity dies and you're grieving and then like five years later you find out
they were dead, and then you're like, oh, that's horrible. It's
like you already went through it. You don't need to go through it again,
but you forgot that they died. Yeah, where you just thought they
were dead and then they die and you're like, oh, so are you
gonna go see Oppenheimer? By the way, I love as you know,
I love me some Christopher Nolan. Although I didn't understand Tenant. I'm confident
enough in my intelligence to just tell you I didn't really get that film,
and I tried and I didn't. Did you see it? Yeah? Did
you get it? No, there's nothing to get Its nonsense. It's just
you know, I just think that he hit a kind of dead end in
that type of movie. What was the movie with Leo DiCaprio where you go
Deeper and deeper in your dreams? That didn't of that one? Yeah,
it was an excellent movie. It didn't hurt makes sense inception. But he
pushed I think that that, you know, he was trying to go back
to that sort of movie. But there's a dead end there and that,
you know, so I didn't like Tenant. I will go see Oppenheimer because
it's a historical movie and I love that sort of thing. Though I am
not a big fan of Oppenheimer. I think he's just a leftist creation in
the sense of the martyrdom through McCarthyism and things like that. That he's always
getting that people always and I'm not sure he's going to do this in the
movie, they always get are very forgiving of his very serious flaws, and
including his ridiculous position about the bomb after the war, and including that either
he was a spy or there were tons of spies that he had hired working
for him at Los Alamos, which if they had all been Nazis, we
would not be celebrating Oppenheimer and there would be no movie. But communists are
always forgiven these things. I saw two shows. One was called Inside Man,
which was is on Netflix. It's like a four episode BBC type of
show. It's Stanley Tucci and David Tennant. Didn't love it, but I
thought it was interesting enough if you like those guys. I think that they're
both great. So the show is good. And I'm watching a French show,
believe it or not, called Lupin. Have you ever heard of this
character? He was kind of like a Sherlock Holmes character in the I think
in the eighteen sixties. Maybe he was first written whenever Sherlock Holmes was written
about. In fact, one of the books, Sherlock Holmes makes an appearance,
but his name is Harlock Showmes or whatever. But anyway, and it's
an interesting show and it's pretty good, and it's French and it's on Netflix,
and I would recommend it. Yeah, that's it. I am also
watching The Bear. I have to say, did you get to the episode
with the whole families together episode in season two? Yeah? No, Okay,
I only got to the like Denmark episode. Okay, there's an episode
that was a bit hard for me to watch and hard for me to come
back to the show. We'll talk about it when you get there. Yeah,
little tease for maybe next week or the week after that. So that's
it. You have anything else, No, I just you know, let
us know if you sign any more statements of Prince both in the next week
or so. You guys have been mocking me on the slack our signal channel
for a week a week now, and listen, I am not a statement
signer. I think sometimes it's important just to lay out what side you are
in a debate. That is, did you want to tell that a little
risk that when you got mocked, you started posting pictures of your dog.
That's such a lie. Someone asked me about my dog, so I posted
a picture of it because oh, here's what happened. You guys were mocking
me, and I was at the vet with my old dog trying to save
his life. He's still okay, and you guys were mocking me, and
I wasn't answering, and you thought that I had sort of you know,
escaped, and was was too scared to defend myself because when I point out
right now, you're doing the podcast equivalent of sharing pictures of your dog.
Just so you know, my dog is wonderful and he's old and I was
at the ved and when I came back, I defended myself and I send
you guys a picture of how cute he wasn't you? I forgot to do.
I think your husband asked me about the dog. Someone asked me about
the dog's out of the blue. I know what you're saying, trying to
endarras my favorite I don't want to like. I'm always like careful about respecting
the privacy of that chat, unlike you. Oh my gosh, I not
have said that. Well no, but my favorite thing was when someone said
that you had pulled a quote Jonah quote in posting a picture of the dog,
which I think is a good like. Um, what do you call
those like you know Ambrose Beer's dictionaries where you make up a new word so
to avoid criticism, you post pictures of your dog, and that's called sud
Jonah. Now you will admit, so everyone knows that my dog is incredibly
cute, right true, wit and terrier, very cute, struggling a little
right now, but he's okay. I'm going to just continue to post pictures
of my dog whenever you guys mocked me on the signal chat we have from
now on because I think it's kind of done, but until then everyone should
be lover is a freedom and anxious for the free S five