Welcome back everyone to a new episode of And You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway and
David Harsani. Just as a reminder, if you'd like to email the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We'd love to
hear from you. Molly. How are you? I'm great. I would
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all the major issues facing the country. Totally blew it and forgot to say
all that stuff. I agree, Molly, definitely do all that stuff.
It's important, it is important. Elections coming up. Media is added again,
you know, establishment media is added again, and so on. So
big week, right, Iowa Caucuses. I don't have the numbers in front
of me. I think I think Donald Trump won fifty one percent of the
vote or the delegates. I forget. Second place was Ronda Santis. But
the winner, according to Nikki Haley, was Nikki Halley in third place just
a weird thing. Might say that meme where the guy celebrating with the women
and like the champagne, and then when they panned back, he's like an
eighth place or whatever. Yeah, that was weird. You want people to
be happy with their results, and she was very happy with her third place
finish after she was projected to come in second place. But just on a
bigger picture scale, I have to say I have not enjoyed the last year
of campaigning. I hate how long primary season is, election season. I
wish we could condense it into a shorter period of time. So I've been
just resistant for the last year to even really talking that much about it.
But I woke up on Monday. This is so lame because I'm not super
super political, but I was like a little excited for Caucus Day. I
was like, Oh, it's finally happening. We are finally beginning the Republican
primary season. And there's something nice about how it all comes down to how
people vote. Like you have all these talking heads and online armies and people
just talking about what's going to happen, and then at the end of the
day, it's just, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm talking
to you about this, David, since you don't you're not a big fan
of democracy, But you know, at the end of the day, it's
just people who can get people to show up and vote and say who they
want. I like that the people get to say the real people and not
the TV people. All Right, well let's get into that part a little
bit. Yeah, I generally hate democracy, and I think it was even
again this week. But why I do? But do you think that you're
you're dealing with any kind of Do you think regular people are hardcore party activists
who show up with caucuses or primary voters. No, I think that that's
a select group. I'm not putting them down there. Anyone can do it
if they want, but it's it's it's a select, very activist group of
people who decide who the who, the you know, candidate is going to
be in the general election. And those two groups are not always perfectly aligned.
I think you see that when people with cigars in back rooms pick pick
candidates, But you also see it when activists pick candidates. What do you
what do you do? You are you a fan of how we have the
caucuses and primaries are laid out that states like Iowa and New Hampshire are so
important South Carolina, or do you think that it should maybe be reformed,
I guess is my big question. So there are two separate things there,
and I actually want to go on the first off, I'll say why I
don't think it's a good idea to do things the way we do right now.
The reason and why it's not a good idea is because Americans. America's
elections are basically broken. They're not about who generates the most excitement or who
can get the base out to vote. They're really about who runs the best
ballot harvesting operation. And in a ballot harvesting operation scheme, your ideas don't
matter, your candidates don't matter, Nothing matters other than ballot harvesting, like
who has the power to get the ballot into the box, who can control
what's filled out in the ballot, and all that. So when you're doing
a caucus based on almost the exact opposite thing, which is who can generate
enthusiasm to show up in negative four degree weather in the middle of a blizzard,
you know that's not how we run elections anymore. Because we do all
this mail out unsupervised balloting and huge you know, ballot schemes. So that's
why it's probably not a good idea. But if we could just say take
that apart from it, I actually love this stuff. I like it because
running a p cidential campaign is not just about you know who you are or
what your record is. It's also about can you run an organization? And
so it's good to test these things by putting an army on the ground and
you know, seeing how you manage them and seeing how your message resonates,
and those are good things. And it's kind of nice that we get to
do it in one particular state and then another particular state to really hone that
operation and get a feel for like who's actually up for the task of running
for president. It's interesting. I honestly, I don't know how I feel
about it. Like I kind of think it's weird that IOEF, for instance,
has such outsize importance. But on the other hand, I do like
that America has a federalissistant so that we don't have New York and California deciding
these things. So I sort of like it in that way. I don't
know if there's some something that can be done to sort of balance it out,
maybe in some way, maybe add a state to Iowa some other state.
So I am of two minds of this. And also I don't like
when we have tons of people voting at the same time. I prefer a
caucus kind of system, as you say, where people who really want to
vote, really care, show up, not just you know, it's mail
to your house and you just like don't even care and you fill out about
and you throw it back. On the other hand, people who really want
to be involved in politics, it's funny because I'm rewatching parks and recreation a
little bit. And what's their name, Leslie Nope, you know, is
to me like a horrifying figure. So people who are like really into politics
and love doing stuff and love voting, they scare me, and I wish
they wouldn't be as gung ho about it. So I don't know, I
don't have a good answer. I'm just saying it is thinking IO is so
important. Yeah, Like if I go to a Lutheran event, I love
it. I was just telling my brother about going to the Issues Etc.
Conference, which is this annual conference for this Lutheran podcast that I love,
and the people who show up are also just awesome. And I was explaining
to him, like they're all very different, but they're fun and they're mostly
lay people, and I realize, like, that's my crowd. I like
that crowd. That's where I feel comfortable. That's the type of people I
like talking to. When I'm in a super political crowd, it is actually
not totally my scene. And it's weird because like, I work in this,
but I I feel the same way. I actually kind of like it
when people are super goofy and into it. It's just not personally where I
get most excited. Like you want to talk about Lutheran apologetics or something,
I'm like, I'm down. I'm totally into it. But anyway, the
problem is for at least for Republicans or let's say even kind of movement small
government conservatives who aren't you know, who are kind of like that it's off
putting to them, is that the other side use it as church like to
them, that is the Lutheran conference. So to balance that out, you're
going to have to have people are really excited about politics. Oh, anyway,
we should talk about the actual results though, because they were still kind
of interesting. So was it did it a lot with your expectations or what
I think deep inside I knew and I wrote a column sort of about this,
is that I knew that Donald Trump was not going to lose. I
mean, I just think, you know, the thing with him is like
it's all already embedded in the package. Like he's never going to say anything
that everyone's like, WHOA, that's a policy I can't live with, or
WHOA, I can't believe he said that about whatever, Like he cannot shock
a voter. He will not shock a voter. He's the incumbent in many
ways, people have seen him win, they think he can win, they
think an election was stolen from him, they think that he is a victim
of the state. All those things drive and fuel both anger but enthusiasm for
that candidate. And I just it's going to be very hard, very hard,
impossible. Actually, I think now I could say knock him off.
Yeah, sure. But I also had this realization on Monday night about just
what a stunning comeback this was. In many ways, Like I know that
we've been expecting Donald Trump to win the Iowa primary and even the Republican nomination.
That's that's the odds on you know, favorite if you look back at
how much everybody had counted him out three years ago, though, it's really
interesting and I mean obviously people counted him out because they wouldn't have been running
against him if they thought that they would be in this situation, which is
very humiliating for a lot of people. And it's just just interesting to note
how like what you think in a given moment is not necessarily how things are
going to be. I don't think people expected Donald Trump to win Iowa by
more than with more than fifty percent of the vote. He didn't even do
that in twenty sixteen, you know, he he didn't even win ioland twenty
Ted Ted Cruz won it, right, yes, but which was to me
it was amazing because I remember Ted Cruz had come out against Ethan all subsidies
and still won Iowa, which told me that I don't know what it told
me, but something weird was going on right like almost like that it wasn't
like an issue driven thing anymore. It's you know, like in that kind
of specific way that it used to be where you had to watch what you
said. I don't know, Yeah, I mean you're right about that.
I mean moreover, you have like I know, how her own views around
DeSantis. So we could talk about that in a minute. But if you
go back half a year, if you go back to COVID, he he
was a legitimately people were legitimately excited about the potential of him being president and
his candidacy. So it's not like Donald Trump has had no one opposing him
who actually, you know, conservatives liked he actually had a real, you
know opponent who who and maybe in a different world would knock someone like that
off. So yeah, it's like, if he becomes president, that's just
like a big comeback. It's like bigger than Nixon coming back in sixty eight,
right, I mean after losing the Senate Senate race and all that.
I mean, it will be a big comeback. I mean, people won't
view it that way in the media, or they won't be perceived that way,
or won't be for him that way, but that's what it would be.
Yeah, I mean, and he didn't even it felt like he didn't
even really try. I mean like he didn't really have to do much to
win. I actually, so this is one of the things that I think
is interesting about this general season is you know, we've had a lot of
commentary on the problems in the Ron de Santis campaign. The New York Times
has written about it, Political Rights about it. It's like a very tumultuous
campaign. It's interesting how little you have seen that about the the Vaik campaign,
the Nikki Haley campaign, and then most especially the Donald Trump campaign,
which is the one you'd expect to be full of like chaos. And you
know, the twenty six teen campaign was kind of notorious for all the people
on it fighting, and you know, he is who he is. It's
been a pretty air tight campaign that has been very well run. So I
don't think it's that he didn't do anything. I think he actually wanted to
win Iowa with more than fifty percent of the vote, but by the end
he went but he really wanted to win because it kind of hurt him that
he hadn't won in twenty sixteen. Oh and that reminds me. You said
there was something about not being surprised by anything he says. I remember in
twenty sixteen being surprised when he expressed humility about evangelicals supporting him. It was
just so out of character for him. He's not someone for whom the word
humble, you know, is associated. But what I met was during the
last campaign. Every time that's something like nuts, I thought, you know,
the media is like that's it, you know, and then his support
would go up, you know. But I watched everybody's acceptance or denial speech
in the case of Nikki Haley on Monday night, and Donald Trump was kind
of funny because he was so I don't know what the right word for it
is, but he was like speaking lovingly about each of his five kids and
how much they meant to him, and how much his mother in law meant
to him, and talking about Baron and how he wishes played basketball, but
Baron wants to play soccer. And it was just very tender. And I
was like, what have they done with Donald Trump? And who have they
replaced him with? Oh? Also, he was like really gracious after being
the opposite of gracious in fact, quite awful toward Ron DeSantis and Nikki Hayley.
And I was like, I mean, I know everybody does that in
politics. You run a hard campaign and then you thank your opponent or whatever.
I get that, But for some reason, because of how over the
top Donald Trump is with his insults. It's also sobering or what not to
see him be the opposite. Now having said that too, I think he
understands. It was like a message of hope at the end, like we
all need to come together, independent Democrat, Republican to save the country.
That message of the seriousness of the moment that we're in is not matched by
many other Republicans, you know, like you don't get the feeling Mitch McConnell
thinks things are bad. In fact, they're probably not bad for him at
all, you know, but for the rest of us, they're kind of
bad. So you don't hear that seriousness of message from many other candidates.
But on Donald Trump's acceptance speech, I heard it the Watch Dot 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. Biden still wants more of
your money this time. It's called a perpetuity tax. The more you make,
the more you pay in, even though you get taxed already from your
income. Small businesses will get waxed without seeing the money they actually put in.
Whether it's happening in DC or Donald Wall Street it's affecting you financially.
Be informed. Check out the watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think he
does, in a sense, need to be gracious towards the losers if he
wants to win. I am I am somewhat skeptical that he, you know,
in the general, I think it's going to be tough for him to
take certain states he can't afford, or to lose Republicans. So I know
that people typically come together in the general, but it was pretty nasty.
Where is between the supporters of DeSantis, especially, I think, and Trump
in the sense that he's not going to ever get Christy's supporters, but he
needs DeSantis supporters, right, He needs DeSantis himself and people like that to
win. I think. I think though David, isn't there a difference between
an average DeSantis supporter and an average DeSantis online person? Like everyone I know
in real life who supports Ron DeSantis is a totally normal, good, like
good conservative kind of person. The online version has never made sense to me.
They and I don't mean by there's people who are online who support DeSantis,
but there's that like online army that never seemed to be having fun.
That's like, I'll vote for Joe Biden four times before I vote for Donald
Trump. Like that's not really representative of a typical Republican voter, is it.
It's not? But I mean I think that more probably this is just
my perception. I'm not saying. I just think that the more normy voter,
you know, old fashioned conservative type who likes the things that people have
voted for Bush likes, would gravitate towards DeSantis before Trump maybe, and then
those people, and that those people, if you keep banging on them as
like tools of the plutocracy, whatever people say about them, or you insult
DeSantis himself constantly, I think that it might turn those people off a bit.
I'm just saying that I think Trump won running against the Republican Party actually
in a weird way in twenty sixteen, you know what I mean. But
I think that he's in a different spot now in some sense because a lot
of us support Yeah, sorry, no, no, no, that's basically
it. I'm just I always go two sentences too long on my So I
was thinking about how I don't remember what the latest polls are for the Republican
primary in Florida. But in Florida, Rondasantis is an incredibly popular governor.
He won his reelection walking away by twenty points. It's and he's been very
effective. He's, in my view, the most effective Republican governor in the
country. He's done, he's opened up like worlds of possibility about what you
can do. And he is losing that Republican primary in Florida, even in
the state that has the most like I would say probably like one hundred percent
of the Republican Party in Florida loves Ronda Santis, but he's losing that primary
to Donald Trump. That right there shows that you can be a Ronda Santis
lover, as so many people are, and also be a Trump supporter.
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of
Like I said, there are a lot of factors here that I think make
an active primary going Republican want Donald trumpo for DeSantis. But this is just
me, this is my this is just perception. I'm not saying, you
know, I don't have polling to back this up or whatever. I think
the casual political person, a Republican walking around will vote for Donald Trump.
But he's not like as into Donald Trump, and in many ways he probably
likes the competence of a DeSantis type better like he's it's more appealing to him.
There is definitely a segment of people who are like that correct within their
world, who aren't like anti Trump, you know, crazy so it would
never vote for him in a million years, but they don't exactly love his
the way he speaks or whatever. And those are people you need to win
in a general election, meaning just because just because Florida he's going to win
the primary. Those are like hardcore Republican types. They're not There are millions
and millions of people in Florida who don't participate in that, who are also
Republican and they like DeSantis. It's all I'm saying. I don't know if
there was a vote in Florida for governor, Trump would beat DeSantis. Maybe
he does, I don't know, but I'm just saying there's this issue where
Rond de Santis. At the beginning of the Iowa caucus season, Ron De
Santis was a little behind Donald Trump, but totally within striking distance. At
the end of the caucus, he was in a very very distant second place.
Part of that was due to him losing support the more he spent the
more time he spent in Iowa. And I don't know why that is exactly.
I personally very much like Ronda Santis and his policies and his approach.
He does seem to rub voters the wrong way. You can't win a presidency
when people aren't, you know. And maybe this is like a flaw in
the like, not in this specific case, but like in the general system,
Americans tend to vote on things that they shouldn't vote on, Like would
not effective governance be a really high prioritiation, that'd be a high priority for
people. But there's something about like actual campaign charm that matters to the American
voter, and it matters more and more in an audio visual society, and
he seems to be lacking in that. Like it it seems like a problem.
I will you will not say this. I just think generally when you
get voters or any big group of people, that become idiots, irrational idiot
So yeah, I don't think voters are very smart as a big giant group.
They're more like a mob in many ways. But I will say this,
I just I don't know if you're a writer or now, but I
will say this. Numerous people have made this point, and they've shown polling,
and I think that it's right. The day so DeSantis was close,
close, he was twenty still twenty points behind, Okay, like maybe that
striking distance, Maybe it's not, I don't know. In the day the
indictments came down in New York, the most ridiculous of the indictments, Trump's
polling just takes off in like every single pull and it never comes back down,
and everyone else is just like it, you know, fighting for scraps.
It's clear then that Republicans were like, he's a victim here of something
that's wrong, and not only does he deserve another chance because he's been cheated,
he deserves another chance because these people want to destroy him. That I
just don't think after that indictment anyone had a chance. I don't think that.
I think that the thing that most people don't like about the Santis Republicans
is that he was running against Trump. Once those indictments came down, anything
he said sounded like he was on the wrong side of that equation or the
wrong side of that fight, and there was no way for him to make
up that number. So all the stuff you see and read about in his
campaign is them. They're struggling to figure out a way to try to make
up that difference. And there was I don't think any way that was going
on. There's nothing he could have said, no policy, no speech,
no personality change you know that would have I think done anything other than changed
it on the margins. That's just my view of it. Yeah, I
think you have to know the Republican voter enough to know that the vast,
vast, vast majority of Republicans really liked the Donald Trump presidency, and why
wouldn't they, you know, deregulation and like incredibly solid foreign policy, beginning
to get the border under control, forcefully fighting back against the absolutely evil propaganda
press. Like all these things were good. And so if your whole campaign
is to run against the first person in a really long time to do good
things that matter, you know, the three originalist Supreme Court justices which will
bear fruit for a long time to come. You know, these are solid
things. It's kind of like running against Reagan. Now in the DC hive
mind which also didn't like Reagan. Incidentally, a little less less conflict there
there was the this belief that Donald Trump was a bad president who made life
very difficult for them. Can we talk about another thing that happened. I
think it was AP did at first, but a bunch of news outlets just
called the race before people had even had a chance to do whatever they do
at caucuses and vote, make their they debate, right, they talk,
There's all kinds of things go on at caucuses, right, and they could
not do any of that or they already knew from their phones that the brace
had been called. So what do you think of that? I personally,
and I'm on record like for a long time, I just wish we weren't
calling things at all until the polls were closed. So in twenty eighteen,
they called the House for Democrats. The moment the polls closed, we had
hours of voting left in on the East Coast. And it does affect,
you know, how people decide it's not worth it for me to show up
and vote for this, and then there's no like, there's no glory in
rushing out a decision in my view, and it's disrespectful to the process.
I feel like all these people came out like one hundred thousand people came out
in Iowa in horrific temperatures and horrific conditions, and they're working and then like
they're getting alerts on their phone that what they're about to do doesn't totally matter.
I don't know. I just don't love it. Now, I will
say, in defense of the I think all the media organizations did it.
Their claim is you actually have to register at the caucus by like six thirty
or so. Definitely by seven you're not allowed in. After that. If
you're not there before it starts, you're not allowed in. So all the
people who were going to vote were already there, so it didn't materially affect
things in the manner that I just talked about in like twenty eighteen, and
so it doesn't really matter. But I still feel like it does matter.
It matters like you're voting strategically, even if you're you know, if you're
voting for, no matter who you're voting for, you're voting strategically. And
so why mess up, Why like interfere in the process. What good came
out of that? I don't know. Right, It's like maybe when you
see someone's going to win, you decide to join the bandwagon. I'm not
saying that happen in large numbers or whatever. I don't even know. You're
like, well, he already won, so I'm gonna throw it to right
ron or something, you know, like because I really don't want Nikki to
winter. I don't know what the thinking is. I'm just saying it has
to affect your thinking, especially when most states seem to have pretty good websites
showing you like what's happening in every single county and how the votes are going,
Like if you're really that into, you can follow it and people would
have to wait. Now, I don't want to force news, you know,
outlets not to say something, but I wish they would come to an
agreement where they wouldn't call races until the race was completely over. How does
it work? I don't remember now they called state races before the national election
is over. Correct. Yeah, I think that's problematic too, because you
have people in other states and they're like, well, the election's over,
he won this state or that state, and they don't go out and vote,
and I just it is. It is in a sense kind of like
election interference. And obviously Florida and not obviously a lot of people forget how
old I am. Sometimes. In two thousand, there were like calls made
really early right for Gore, I think in Florida. Maybe, yeah,
that is so before I was in politics, but I had all these friends
who were in politics, like journalists and Hill staffers. And I was at
Tortilla Coast that night and they called the state for Gore. I knew nothing
about politics, but somehow I just felt like that wasn't going to stand.
I really felt like Florida was going to go for Bush. And I said,
they're going to pull that call back, and everyone I was at the
table with said, like, that doesn't even make sense. They don't do
that, They would only do it if it were over. And sure enough,
they did pull the call back, and then they and then they gave
it to Bush I think, but then it kind of like as the recounts
for continuing, it kind of like narrowed down, so then they pulled it
back again. And the lesson from that should be you don't need to call
if it's closed, and don't do it, you know, And nobody's learned
that lesson so or very few people have learned that lesson. In the old
days, kids when the media said, like called a race or said they
had sources for something, you'd be like, ah, they probably do.
They wouldn't go out on a limb and ruin their reputations like that, But
yeah they would, and they would do it often and more and more.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I agree. I don't
like it. I don't really know what you can do about it. I
think voters have maybe sort of learned to ignore the calls, maybe becau because
you know they're done prematurely so often. I don't know, but like you
said, no, I just I did. I did TV earlier that day,
and everyone was talking about how basically Trump had to get over fifty percent
because if he didn't it would be a disappointment or something, which I was
like, I think probably a historic victory is a historic victory, even if
it doesn't reach like the majority threshold. But I enjoyed watching the coverage.
I wish there had been more coverage of the actual voters. I like how
caucuses go. I think they're just kind of interesting to watch, so I
wish we could have watched a little bit more of that. And then I
you were talking about rohnd De Santis and why he was not going to win
against Trump. But there was this, you know, the Trump speech,
he's talking about like having self respect as a country and not having a ugly
capital city with graffiti everywhere, and he's like, I'm gonna clean off the
swastikas off all these monuments, which you know in Washington, d C.
We've kind of let things go to seed. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis is out
there talking about like the blessings of liberty and like how important these like theoretical
concepts of freedom are. And it was just kind of it was a good
speech, very short, but I was just thinking, like, yeah,
the people chose the guy who said he'd clean he'd clean the swastikas off the
monuments. You know, there's like a simplicity to that that seems to resonate
with voters. And then Nicki Hayley had the just unbelievable speech where she said
that Iowa made it a two person race. It seems like she had written
the speech when she was as was expected, when she was supposed to get
second place. You know, all the polls had her winning second, So
if it's second place, saying it's a two person race would make sense because
it would be just her and Trump and Ron would have been in a really
disappointing third place finish, and she's gonna she could potentially win New Hampshire because
it's a totally open primary type thing, or very open primary. But she
just gave the speech that it was a two person race after she came in
third, and I was like, this is delusional, So let's talk about
her and that for a minute. So obviously, or I think at least,
her reasoning is like, I'm probably going to do well on New Hampshire,
DeSantis won't. Then we go to South Carolina, which is my state,
which she's probably gonna lose pretty big to Donald Trump as well, but
she might do better than Ron de Santis. So she's essentially counting DeSantis out
and herself as the secondary candidate. I will say that I was reading this
theory somewhere, maybe it was on someone wrote it at the Federalism. I
don't remembver wrote it, but it was me just kidding the uh, not
the theory, but the yeah, the theory. I guess that what happened
here was and why Haley's even competitive, if you can call it that is
that a lot of donors are behind Ron DeSantis as the alternative to Donald Trump.
When they figured out that Ronda Santus was actually serious about some of these
social issues that they are not serious about at all, they were like,
we need to find someone who's not serious about these issues. And Nikki Haley
is basically what's left, and she leaned into like it's her turn and all
of those identity politics things that Republicans hate. I actually am surprised she gets
as many votes as she does. To me, it seems like she doesn't
appeal to the populist, and she doesn't appeal to the movement conservative, and
she doesn't appeal to I'm sorry, excuse me, So she appeals to neocons.
So apparently whatever percentage she gets and I mean real neocons, so whatever
percentage she's getting of people who are actually involved in thinking about elections, it's
those types of people Bush remnants of the Bush. Yeah. And I think
the remnant of the Bush era of the Republican Party is partially about neokon interventionism,
yes, but it's also about wanting to be liked by left wing media
or like thinking that maybe if we nominate a woman, they won't be so
mean. Much of the Republican Party was cured of that when they nominated Mitt
Romney, who at the time at least seemed like a totally nice person and
they still called him hitler. Then they were like, Okay, it literally
doesn't matter who we nominate. They're going to try to destroy us no matter
what. But there is that remnant that's like, well, maybe they would
stop being mean to us if we nominated someone who agrees with them half the
time. And that to me is the divide even more than the neocon interventionism,
which certainly has its hold on you know, it turns out both parties,
but I don't know, but yeah, she's got a lot of money.
The Coke Network, which used to care about like freedom and liberty and
non interventionism, went all in, Like that's her entire area of support in
Iowa and New Hampshire. That's that army, which is kind of weird,
and the donors just absolutely love her. I think the donors have two desires.
One is to have a candidate they can control, and I think that
they had reason to believe that there was something work that they could work with
with Ron DeSantis in that he kind of backtracked on his Ukraine position when a
donor asked him to, according to reports, and there was something else he
backed down on. I can't remember, but I think they also just mostly
care about not having Donald Trump. Like life is not good for some elites
when Donald Trump is president. For a lot of the people, they like
it, but a lot of the power centers in New York and la.
I mean, I was up in New York this week and talking to someone
about how and it was actually someone who's a Trump supporter, and he was
saying he was kind of like getting ready for the tension of the coming year,
because he was saying that his friends and millieu are entirely trumped arranged,
and it just makes it hard to interact with them. And I think that
probably affects the donor class more than normal people. I Mean, sometimes I
think it's overstated or simplified when people say, you know, it's true,
the donor class doesn't like Donald Trump, but there are plenty of voters I
actually don't love him either. I mean, he's not a you know,
as popular figure in the world as many Republicans, I think think with regular
people. So I wouldn't mind an alternative, and I think Ron Desantez offers
one that's actually pretty good. But I don't think My problem with Nikki Haley,
who I don't hate as much as other people but seem to, but
she kind of when she talks, it's one of these people where you feel
is saying, like reading a script about what she thinks Conservatives want to hear
or think. But she gets confused when she says something that really offends them,
like the identity politics stuff, and she doesn't really get why. And
she said other things like oh, there should be and not you know,
there should be a law that doesn't allow anonymity in speech, like did you
not read about Citizens United? Do you not know that that has helped Republicans,
you know, helped conservatives innumerable ways, stuff like that. So she
doesn't like get it somehow, I don't. I don't really even know how
she was a conservative governor. She seemed to do pretty good stuff over there.
I don't think she was considered that good of a governor. She's a
very good politician, I do, And I have to say, you know,
I obviously am not a fan of her, but I think she's run
a really smart campaign, even insofar as getting the donors to get behind her
and getting all of sort of the DC establishment behind her. She I think
that was a last grass, like where else would they go if not Nicki
Haley after DeSantis. But again might be a last grasp, But that's all
that matters if it's she came in third in Iowa and didn't have, you
know, other than the Koke people that they that she got on the ground
there, kind of like she didn't have much of a campaign before that,
and she is doing well in New Hampshire. I do think there was something
so I think the ideal scenario for Nikki, the neo cons the donor class
would have been that she got the second place she was expected to get.
That was kind of like needed. In Iowa. She had this momentum between
August and December. Then it kind of stagnated. But she's in really good
position in New Hampshire. They ran the campaign. Bill Crystal talked about it,
Axios talked about it, of having Democrats changed their party registration at the
caucus to support her. It worked. That's actually why she did so well
in Iowa and she's definitely getting that in New Hampshire and it's why she will
do well in New Hampshire. The rest of the primaries and systems like,
they're not going to go so well for her because they're not so open to
Democrats who want to play spoiler. But she needed to come in second,
and then I think the Vake dropping out was not very good for her.
And what I'm thinking here is Christie dropping out was like the biggest gift in
the world for her. That's the that's the even more pure anti Trumpist vote.
So she gets that twelve percent or whatever that he had in New Hampshire
and that could be enough to get her the win. But the vague voters
likewise are just pure Trump voters. So his seven or eight percent in Iowa,
that really would have if he had dropped out, I bet you know
Trump would have done gotten most of those. He will get most of that
support in New Hampshire, so it kind of like takes away a little bit.
He didn't have as much as Christy did at all, but it takes
away a little bit of that momentum that she was kind of getting thanks to
the Chris Christie coming out of the race and everyone's saying she was going to
get second in Iowa, so it didn't go as well for her as she
was hoping. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right
that most of VIVAC. Though it's weird sometimes when you see second choices and
polls for certain candidates, you're like, what are these people even thinking about?
You know, But I think you're right in general, the Vivek voters
or Trump voters, he was just he was just a stalking horse for Trump
in my opinion. So I am not a fan of his at all.
I know that we have we differ on that. I just why why are
you not? If I ask? Because I really liked him. I don't
think he's genuine at all. I just like, relative to a normal human
or to a politician, just relative to a normal, a normal human being.
I just I don't. I don't exactly know what on that scale.
It's not like politicians are genuine. But I don't believe that he believes what
he says. I think there's a kind of nastiness to what he does.
That was was also kind of fraudulent in a weird way, like he was
on a kamikaze mission. What I don't remember the way he talked even Nikki
Hilly. I don't like the things he said were so outrageous sometimes in my
view, and I don't I'm not gonna be able to quote it. I
just I found him really off putting. Hey, you know, everyone votes
because they like a guy's charisma or whatever. Some people just turn me off.
And I just, like I've said this before, he just even when
I agreed with him, it felt like he was trying to sell me a
timeshare in Myrtle Beach or something like. He is a salesman, not authentic
in any way. That's how I view him. I don't know, you've
warmed up to him quite a bit from the beginning. I don't know.
I never didn't. I never had like a strong opposition to him. I
actually usually don't have a ton of feelings about Canadates in general. I do
get that he comes off kind of slick. I get that, But I
just wish he could be the czar of destroying the FBI or returning it to
a functioning law enforcement you know agency, Like would he is he capable of
that? He's never really from what I've read about his like, he made
a lot of money, he's successful, and I'm not diminishing that, but
I don't know that he has kind of expertise to do something like that.
I would like him as press secretary. Actually, I wasn't even talking about
that. What I'm trying to say is I like that when he learned a
topic, he really understood the seriousness of the situation. I think that it
was strategic for him to be in this position of like, Okay, I
will be much more extreme in like talking about the stakes of the country,
what the country is going through right now than Donald Trump. Like that was
it was a new way of being where he was like, yeah, that
guy's kind of a squish. I'm not a squish, but I do he
seemed to actually understand these positions, like he would talk about them in detail
in a way that mattered. I liked his interactions with the media. I'm
not saying that I think he's, you know, a future president or something,
but I do think he has a future of some kind in politics or
even like in the non political realm where you talk about ideas. I don't
know, Oh, he's definitely not. I mean, he's definitely a bright
guy. Like he when I would hear, you know, once he got
a hold of a topic. He would definitely have a lot of facts that
his fingertipsy is a smart guy. I'm not you know, I don't know.
Maybe you should have run for Senate in OHI isn't he from Ohio?
Oh? I actually I think I said that a while back. Yeah,
I don't know if that if that was determined not to be something that would
have worked well for him. But I don't know. I just think people
run for president for different reasons, Like Chris Christy is running for a TV
contract and Vi Vague Ramaswami was running probably not like an idea that he actually
would be president. Rond DeSantis was running to be president. And so when
you judge how they how things turned out for each of them. Ron de
Santis, you know, prior to deciding to run in this election against Donald
Trump, inarguably had one of the brighter political careers on the horizon. Whether
he will continue to have that future, I think depends a lot on what
he does in the next few weeks. Whereas Vivek Ramaswami was someone nobody knew
at all and now has like has a lot of love from a lot of
people for how he handled his campaign obviously also really angered the Washington d C
types and others who didn't like the way, you know, the way he
was presenting issues. I get that, but on a pretty small like,
he just went from from nobody in the political sphere to having I think a
bright future. Yeah, I mean, does no one see the hypocrisy of
someone getting up there and yammering on about plutocrats and all the control of money
who literally just bought himself with his wealth a ticket to you know, to
a to a presidential candidacy. He is, you know, he had no
business running for president. I mean, anyone could run, you want to
run, run, But you know the whole idea that I mean, he's
super wealthy. It's the only reason, you know what his name is.
He has no accomplishments that anyone could name other than being you know, wealthy
I mean in the public sphere. So anyway, he made his wealth himself.
I'm not I'm not dissing him for that. I'm just saying, like
what he ran for president to be famous, he didn't run for he had
no real agenda. He just took Donald Trump's agenda word for word. Whatever
Donald Trump liked, he likes and and all the trendy stuff that was going
on, and he has no he hasn't built up any kind of like philosophy
or that. You know, a few years ago he was a you know,
he had he had different opinions on a bunch of stuff. My only
point is like, I don't think here's any special about it. I mean
again, I think you can overstate that the way he came into politics was
because he started writing about how corporations were being overly they were overly swearing alert
allegiance to racist like DEI programs, and how that was not good. And
so you know, he kind of wrote some books on this. He was
published in the Wall Street Journal once he started doing that. It also actually
was causing a conflict in his own corporation that was, you know itself kind
of like victim to some of this stuff. And I think it was a
genuine interest in politics. I also think he has this thing where he gets
bored with stuff after every few years. Like he's had a lot of different
He had a different business in law school where he made a lot of money
there, and then he starts a new business and he like tried out stand
up comedy, tried out book author, he tried out politician. I think
he just gets a little he likes to change things up. But I find
him interesting, and he just didn't He just didn't bother me like he did
to you. Yeah, but you know, my inclination is not to like
any kind of populist stuff, and he just went like hyper hyper populist right
away. But anyway, let's talk for a second. Something about DeSantis' future
depends on what he does in the next few weeks. I assume you're insinua
or you're saying that, like, if he drags this out and makes it
more uncomfortable for Donald Trump or whatever keeps going after Trump or hurts Trump,
that people will hold him accountable for that. Are you saying that I shouldn't
put words in your mouth? Oh yeah. I think that he needs to
think about whether his future is one of like anger about his poor performance in
this campaign, or whether it's about being part of a successful effort to win
elections going forward. But I don't know. You've got to give people time
to heal from this. It's not it's so difficult. You know, he
was so much what people were thinking would be the means by which you could
take down Trump. Uh. That's that was sort of his whole case for
or you know what I mean. That was like only he could actually take
on Trump, and he's clearly failed at that. There are perhaps many reasons
for that, But I think I want, I want what he has done
in Florida to have a future. And I don't mean by that like everything.
I mean, I'm not like super informed on all of the different things
that he was doing in Florida. But this idea that governors have real power
and that they should use it. I like that, and I want I
don't know, I just want him to do well. But he it would
be great if he and Trump could heal their rift. I think when he
if he loses it, there'll be a bigger night coming up. Primary night.
He'll lose probably a number of states, and then he will endorse Trump.
I mean, I just think he'll endorse Trump, and then Trump will
forgive him. They will make an appearance together. Trump's this weird dude where
if you're disloyal, he will bury you, right, but if you come
back to the fold. He doesn't really seem to hold these kind of like
grudges for him. This is just all business, you know. And I
just think that once DeSantis comes back into the fold and says, you know,
Donald Trump needs to be president, Trump's going to be, you know.
And I just by by twenty by, when's the next election, twenty
twenty eight, no one's even going to remember any of this. I don't
think anyone will remember it by the time. First of all, as soon
as he endorses Trump, the whole media will be like, he's such a
fraud. You know, he's worse. You know, he's just as bad
as Trump, this and that. I mean, you remember when people thought
he could actually win, that he was worse than Trump, Like whoever?
I remember that. Yeah, So I don't. I don't buy that this
damage to me that to me was the case the case for him. Yeah,
exactly. I don't think that most people who don't like him now actually
have any real problems with him. I think they if Trump dropped out.
So we're so going to hear, We're going to hear from listeners who are
going to, like in detail, say what their problems are or what their
problems are with Trump or yeah, I mean, I don't my problems with
all of them, I don't, you know, I just anyway, whatever,
you know, you know how I feel about Trump. I think it's
a mistake. I think DeSantis is a better candidate. But DeSantis is not
a perfect candidate either. I don't know how, you know, honestly,
how that whole charisma thing or lack of it works in a general election.
I don't know. I just know that they're running against Joe Biden, who
is just the one that perhaps the most incompetent president of all time, and
this should be an easy election to win. Everything has gone wrong, not
everything has gone wrong for Joe Biden. Joe Biden has made everything worse.
And he should be one of the most easily beatable people. I know,
there's a built in, like you know, way people vote, but he
should. He is a beatable income president. Okay, just one thing on
that too. Yeah. The Democrat Party understands that they can't really have an
open primary because that would weaken Joe Biden. You might say, oh,
how could you weaken him any more? But you actually could if you had
a truly open primary where Democrat voters were allowed to pick someone else. So
they just made it so that there wouldn't be an open primary. And they're
just sort of pretending like they don't exist. You might not like that for
democracy reasons, but from party control reasons, that's really smart. Joe Biden
has been able to begin running against Donald Trump both by trying to secure his
prosecution, by trying to keep him off his ballot, off the ballot,
but also just by like running against him for years. Meanwhile, the Republicans
are still trying to figure out who their nominee is, even though we all
kind of know who it's going to be. The longer it drags out,
the more it weakens the eventual Republican nominee in the general. So a party
that wants to actually win elections should be thinking a little bit about whether they
want to just keep having this go on and on and on, or whether
they want to have it be decided and then just like move forward unified because
who runs for president affects the Senate in the House, or like running in
a unified fashion behind whoever it is it matters. That's why the Republican Party
made everybody get behind George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney.
And that's because, you know, kids, like a unified party is important
for some reason, there's like this huge asterisk next to Donald Trump where it's
like, oh, now we don't actually enforce that you have to get behind
the nominee, but if they wanted to win, they would probably do what
they did, you know in previous situations. Well, I kept push back
on that. I think, please do. That is not always the case.
Maybe with these old timers it's going to be the case. But I
can remember Obama and Hillary having a really nasty, you know, go at
each other, and I think that Obama became a better and better candidate and
his campaign became stronger because of a primary battle. I don't know that's certainly
true in twenty sixteen. But we're talking about once they become the nominee.
Well, I mean once Donald Trump, if he wins enough delegates or whatever,
he's going to be nominee, and then everyone's going to support him,
probably even Nicky Haley's thinking of you think money spent in the primary is better
than money spent to fight Joe Biden, then that's fine. I don't don't
know if it's better or not. I think that Trump's basically been running the
general election mostly anyway, right, Yeah, so it has he has and
that has worked out well for him. So I don't know. All right,
enough of that, Let's talk about culture. This is what everyone's here
for, right. I don't have very exciting things, Like I've been very
busy. Mark went hunting. I was like, the kids had busy things.
We're painting the interior of our house, which has been very time consuming.
So the only thing I really have to add to this is that I
am continue to watch The Chosen or I should say we are. The family
has been watching it, and I am, much to my surprise, continuing
to really enjoy it, even as I quibble with some of the choices they've
made in how they tell the story. So, as you know, I'm
a huge fan of the show, despite being a non believer. Most I've
watched a bunch of Christian themed movies and stuff, and they were usually garbage.
The acting is terrible, production values are terrible. Everything about the show
not everything. Most things about the show are excellent. You know, It's
almost like they do so much with the money they have that it's almost feels
like a big production. You know, in a way, I don't know
how much they spend on it. I know they raise a lot of money.
I enjoyed it a lot, and we've gone through it before, so
I'm happy. You know, I did suggest the show to you like a
year ago, right, and you dismissed it like I'm a nut. I
think this one, this one, she'll like. It's a Christian show.
She'll like that. I'm watching it. No. I feel exactly the same
way you do about a lot of the art produced related to, you know,
Christian stuff. Like I thought Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was
really well done. I can only watch it like once every you know,
fifteen years. I mean I've literally only watched it twice. But I really
like it. I also really liked I think I've talked about it like years
ago. The Gospel according to Matthew, which was this Italian movie made by
Pasolini in nineteen sixty four. That's just like a It just takes you through
the Gospel of same Matthew, really well done. Really liked it. And
this almost reminds me a little bit of I don't know it. Actually,
it doesn't remind me of that. Did you hear that Scorsese's doing a Jesus
movie? Said in present? Did I hope he has I hope that Jesus
sends him an editor to help him. Yes, he said, it's only
going to be like two hours. So the choice. Do you ever see
the Last Temptation of Christ? No? And I should, yeah, But
even as I don't like some of the choices made and then chosen, it's
more like it's like a minor thing. Like they definitely make humor a big
part of the dynamic between the disciples, but I but it had to in
scripture. We know that they did fight with each other, they like,
you know, leverage for control and so like, I like kind of the
way that they're talking about that. It just annoys me that the historic,
the historical inaccuracy of the role of women. And I come from a traditional
you know, I'm a traditional Lutheran. This is like a minor thing.
But for me, you know, I follow what Scripture says about order of
creation and headship and things like that. So like if I'm praying with another
Christian, I will, you know, generally speaking, if I'm like to
lunch with a man who's Christian and we're praying, I will ask him to
pray. And in this chosen they're just they keep on having women in like
positions. I just have a hard time believing they'd be in Like, yeah,
I hadn't thought of that traveling as a single person with a man,
or even if it's like a satyr in a woman's house. But if she's
a single woman, wouldn't she defer to the rabbi who was there to do
the prayers as opposed to doing them herself. And it just bothers, Like
I get that it it's not like the end of the day, but it
just kind of annoys me. Don't they even invent characters women, characters that
aren't in the Bible? Right? Yeah? I was like, who's it?
I mean, I think so, actually, maybe maybe I need to
check, but like the Raima character, is that what you're thinking of?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I did like the whole spookiness
of the Mary Magdalene story and stuff like that. I thought that was pretty
well done. I don't know what do you mean by spooky? Do you
mean that she was demon possessed? Yeah, exactly like they Yeah, I
no, no, I know, I'm just saying that they really put like
meat on it, like it's it's it's pretty well done. It's scary,
almost horror movie level scary, like how possessed she is and that whole thing.
I like that whole I like the Nicodemus character a lot. And I
don't know where we're going with him. Wait, funny, wait, which
one's Nicodemus again? The Jewish leader? Oh? Oh, the rabbi.
You see the way he's dressed and stuff. I'm always like, is that
is that historically accurate? I don't know, because it seems a little modern
for me. Oh, I think us of the San Hendrian guy. Yeah,
okay, I like Roman. Who's the Roman general? Dude, he's
hilarious, don't talk. I don't know. But anyway, so I'm looking
forward to continuing it. But I don't feel like every time I'm talking to
people about it, they're like, how have you not been watching this for
years? So you should feel vindicated. I think I mentioned this before,
but they make Matthew kind of autistic a little bit. I really love that.
Yeah, I don't know, it just makes him real. I don't
know enough about scripture to be too involved in well commenting, but I do.
I don't know, and I humanize these people. Yeah, but you
know, Matthew is just so precise the Gospel of Saint Matthew. It's so
precise, so much about the logical case, you know, for this and
that, and so I like that they bring that out in the character.
And then I just watched the first season, the first episode of season two,
which was about John and how he wrote his Gospel of John, which
is for many Christians myself included a you know, it's a fan favorite,
and the beginning of that is one of the most beautiful things. You know,
in the beginning was the word. The word was with God, and
the Word was God and getting that. The episode is kind of about how
how that came to him. I liked it. They do. They do
some calling the flashbacks, get some flashbacks to Old Testament stuff occasionally to start
seasons, so those are kind of interesting as well. So just also a
quick plug because I've decided I'm going to take the kids to a museum on
Saturday. And we've done a lot of the National Gallery of Art and the
Bible Museum in our past, just because I love the National Gallery of Art
and we're members of the Bible Museum the Bible, but I'm we're going to
go somewhere else. I don't know yet where, but the Bible Museum is
a really good museum in DC, and they had a couple of years ago
a really good exhibit on the Samaritans, and I was glad that I went
through that before the Chosen stuff where they're visiting Samaritans. Yeah. Last week
I recommended Paul Johnson's Sister of the Jews, and he has a whole history
of the Samaritans in there. It's very interesting. Oh interesting, Okay,
So on that note, I went to buy a used book in Amazon,
and but I was like trying to make sure that I didn't have it already,
because I think I might already have it, but our books are out
of order right now. So I held it in the cart and it got
bought. And then I did it two more times that I put History of
the Jews in the cart and they got bought. And I was like,
I think federalist radio listeners are like totally buying up all these copies based on
your recommendation. Any one time I wrote a column in Denver. You know
the record store wax tracks? Do I know the record store wax tracks at
Oh my gosh, wait, wait, what was the thirteenth in Pennsylvania.
I don't remember, but I intimately, well, I know all of the
stores there. That's where I purchased all my first records, and even still
go back there all the time. I believe they moved to Colfax Avenue and
they are part of a building with what's the big books are tattered cover like
I think they're like this big, one, big place. Now. Any
event, I wrote a column about wax tracks, and I don't think that's
right. There's a record store there for sure. Okay, oh I've been.
I haven't been there there. I think I was there this summer.
It's a new tattered cover. It's not okay, Oh no, maybe it's
not. I don't know. All right, I'm sorry about that. The
new tattered cover is on cool facts. It's not as charming as it was
when it was in University Hills area and then. But they do sell my
books. I'm always like happy when I go in there and I see my
books. There's a tattered cover in Lodo as well, or there used to
be when I work there down in Lodo. Yeah, okay, so at
the end of sixteenth Street sort of. But anyway, So anyway, I
wrote a column about it, and I just mentioned some crazy band I like
called the Swell Maps from the seventies, and I went back and the guys
like, everyone bought all the Swell Maps. He's like they were sitting there
for like a decade, no one ever bought one, and everyone bought them.
I have no idea why I'm telling you this story, but it is
interesting or weird when you realize people are listening to you and actually like moving
on your recommendations. I too have been busy. I've sent in the first
manuscript of my book, so I was I'll tell you you've written books like
it takes so much out of you. I don't want to complain because I'm
very happy that I get to do this for a living, but it really
is a book is a lot of work. I just want people to know
that it's the twenty fifth anniversary of The Sopranos. So I was watching since
did you ever watch The Sopranos? Did you like it? I did not
watch it every episode. I used to do things like it's so weird because
now everyone's isolated and alone. But we used to go over to the people
who had HBO to watch it. Wasn't it on HBO or was it?
Yeah, yeah, and I didn't have HBO because I was like poor kid,
and so we would go over to like someone like usually it was like
a young man who had HBO and we would we'd make parties out of it
anyway, nice. So I was just rewatching some of it. I do
like that show quite a bit. I read a book really quick. It
took me like just a couple of hours. But it's called mud Ride by
Steve Turner who was in the band called mud Honey that I liked. One
of my most memorable shows I ever went to is mud Honey in like eighty
nine I think it was. Yes, I'm old and so I've always been
a fan. Oh so Netflix has this show I talked. I spoke about
this years ago. It's called louder Milk. Oh yes, go on,
sorry, yeah, yeah, it's just about I think he's a former record
critic or movie, yeah, a music critic, and it's kind of one
of these small shows I would call it, you know, where there are
just a few characters and it's just you know, it's just I think he's
very funny. He's a cranky cerbic figure who is very gen X and doesn't
really understand how the world works today very well, right, Yes, I
have watched a few episodes of it, and I like that guy first of
all, the one who yeah what's he was in office space? I forgot
what else. He was in a band of brothers and he was in the
city, which, yeah, and he's married. Do you remember how we
were talking about that boxing movie? Oh yeah, why did he come up
recently? He? Yeah, he was. He's married to Rosemary DeWitt,
who's the actual real life Cinderella Matter Cinderella Man. She's the granddaughter of James
Braddock, who's the who's the guy that Cinderella Man is? And she also
was in the Cinderella Man movie. Anyway, all comes together. Uh,
and now I'm going too This is a weird one because I haven't I've watched
these movies a while ago. But I really I saw that Netflix just like
dropped a bunch of seventies and late sixties movies, which I am a huge
fan of. So I mean they dropped into Netflix, or they dropped out
of Netflix, dropped in. I see them. They're ready to be watched.
One is Charlie Verreck with Walter Mathow one is The Front Page with Walter
Mathow and Jack Lemon. That's a Ben Hect play, And this movie has
a young Susan Sarandon and I think Carol Burnett's in it. Oh did you
see the reader email that was like, when you guys talk about something,
could you repeat it? I was just about to ask you to repeat because
I wanted to write down because I'm super into seventies movies, and I was
like, I'm actually going to write these names down. I've already forgotten what
you said after Charlie Verick. So from page okay, front page, go
on the Parallel, Parallel, parallelex View. I saw that in the last
year, just carolex Yeah, parax View. Yeah, that's I liked that.
One that's with Warren Beatty, right, California Split with It, which
is an Alman movie with George Siegel and Elliott what's his name? I forget
his first name sometimes? Yeah, like the King of Seventies Movies, Yeah,
yeah, right, really cool? Yeah, like Gooled Okay, it's
got a fantastic mustache. I think the I wish I knew what the seventies
were like, like that he was a sex symbol is such a weird thing.
I am always this is gonna sound really bad. I'm just gonna say
it. I watched seventies movies and the women all look like prostag Like they
have makeup put on like a prostitute might like it looks really gaudy, Like
I don't understand what people were doing, and they all all the men are
like did they just hire hairy men? Like every man is a hairy chest,
like big beard, mustaches, terrible haircuts, gray suits, brown suits?
What was going on? But yet they made amazing music in art films?
Was it wrong to say that I was watching the first No? Am
I wrong to say that a meaning? Like? Am I factually wrong?
Don't a lot of the women look like they didn't really know how to do
makeup yet? But I can't be right because actually I feel the opposite.
I feel like seventies women have this natural beauty that's so interesting, like people
who would never be cast in something now like they're super intriguing, but like
they got a they got like a jagged tooth or something, and you're like,
oh, yeah, how And then the fact that they're so real makes
you kind of like really want to see more of them. I don't know.
No, you're right about that. Yeah, people were not perfect.
So even just think about neuros gino or like yeah, or even Elliot Gould
like that. The diversity of breast size is interesting to me that there are
a lot of small but it's like captivating because you know it's real, and
it's like, I don't know it's And there was a real big TV movie,
Divide. I can't believe we're getting into this, but like, if
you watch Threes Company, everyone is very buxommeing like they're they're just breasts everywhere.
But when you watch movies, it was kind of a different It was
a different setup, I think interiorated. Okay, do we need to repeat
anything else? We don't need to repeat the chosen, We don't need to
louder milk. And then we're gonna say Charlie Barrick front page, Parallax view
in California, Split can say Parallax can say the word. And then also
I read the book mud Ride, which very few people care about, but
I do get emails from people who are like, oh, you put Fugazi
at the end of the episode. That's amazing. So there are people out
there who are into that kind of music. You know, I get those
two. It's true you are on all those emails. I did like that.
One of the emails this week just acted like I didn't exist. It
was like, David, You're so wonderful to listen to blah blah blah.
And then I was like, I assume it's going to get to some nice
mention to me. Nope, just David, David David. Oh yeah,
I like that never happens to me, Like most people write to you.
But let me just say this to everyone who's writing. Molly is spelled m
O L L I E. Not well, I don't care. I don't
actually don't care. It's like sometimes I'll get up, do you know.
Its when people that are like, I'm so sorry I misspelled your name,
and I feel like I just am so used to it. I don't care.
I don't know why I care. Okay, well there you go.
No, I don't care, honestly, but it is It is funny that
people love you so much that they don't know how to spell your name learn
her name, but they probably just see you on TV most of the time.
So interesting. So it's a unique spelling for Molly. It's not very
common. It's like when English people sometimes spell David with an ea instead of
an I. Did your parents spell your name like that? Because it was
like the thing whenever you were born? Or is it just was there some
reason for it? So I'm named after a gold mine in Cripple Creek,
Colorado, called the Molly Kathleen gold Mine, and that's how it's spelled in
Cripple Creek, Colorado. So just write that down. We're gonna We're going
to get back to that topic at another time. Why. Oh, I
actually can't do it. I was going to talk about my children's names,
but I won't do that now. But I like that name. And also,
my grandmother is was Irish, so most of my family's German, but
my grandmother was Irish. So I think my dad really and his mom died
young, and I think he wanted to have some Irish in there. Yeah,
Molly is Irish. And you know the Germans named Molly Kathleen. That's
very Irish. Yes, just as David for the firstborn is very Jewish.
Oh. Sorry, one more thing. My husband really likes this guy,
Richard Hawlly. Have you heard of him. No, he's he so I
just have started listening to the first record that we have of him. But
he plays guitar and a singer, you know, but he never tours in
the United States. He only tours in the UK and in Ireland. And
I was telling a friend that it's a special anniversary, and so I was
thinking for my husban in me and that maybe, like, for this special
anniversary, we should take a trip to see Richard Holly because I know that
would make my husband so happy. And she pointed out to me that it
is our seventeenth wedding anniversary, which is not really special at all. And
I had mistakenly thought that we were celebrating twenty years of marriage. So I'm
really bad with dates. The special seventeenth I am actually celebrating. We're actually
celebrating our twenty fifth, so that is soul. Yeah, do you want
to go see Richard Holly in I don't know yet. I'm going to have
to listen to who this is and see if I like them, But they
probably be the OUTR music that I'm going to pick, because I don't think
we mentioned any other bands, So thank you for that. Some weeks I'm
like, I don't really know what's happening here, so thank you for that
and everyone else. Your lovers are family, anxious for, the fraid to
see you next week.