Well, whiskey coming, fame, my pain, my brain, Oh whiskey
go le Men from Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com.
This is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You
and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia's gotta give me and let that whiskey
blow. Where you're being in love down in Low Well. Welcome everybody to
the latest episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. I'm your host, co
host John You, and I'm joined by my partners in crime, Steve my
multi state multi month criminal enterprise under the Georgia Rica Statute Steward by Steve Hayward,
Hi, Steve, Hi, John and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Hi, Lucresia. John. Good to see you, Good to see
you. Guys. We have I don't know, I don't know how our
shows can't get any more packed. Today we're going to talk about our reactions
to yesterday, well earlier, this week's debate in the Republican primaries, and
then we've got the little matter of President Trump showing up for his arrest in
Fulton County, Georgia. Then we've also got a little thing happening out in
Ukraine and Russia with the assassination of the head of the Wagner groups, Ogan,
can you prove that I'm sorry? In fact, someone was telling me
today that this might all be of a clever effort of his to just disappear
and go off to some solitary fortress in Bali. And then if we have
any time left, we've got a whole bunch of other issues to talk about,
including we still have to talk about some more favorite books. If anybody's
got some, I'll figure out the subject and let's bring it on them.
But first let's ask Steve and Lucresha. Maybe start with Lucresha, what'd you
think of the debates? And is it true what everybody's saying that the person
most like you on the debate stage was the vague Ramaswamy. I hope so.
I hope so, because he was the one with all the energy.
And I told Steve before he came on that he gave my favorite line of
the night, which I know isn't going to surprise you. John where when
Nikki Haley was talking about how important it was that we were in Ukraine,
et cetera, et cetera. Ramaswamy said he wished her well on her future
career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon and I thought, I thought that
was the best dig of the night. Person Who do you think? Who
do you think was the winner? And who do you think was the loser?
Or nobody actually wins and loses a debate with nine people, So I
put it a different way. Who do you think did the best and who
do you think did the worst? And why? Okay, so here's the
honest to god truth, John. I didn't watch much of it. I
have less and less tolerance for these sorts of things, and I'd rather just
sort of read it and then kind of take it in. But it has
been kind of interesting. I've read dozens of different to takeaways. And I
don't see that the debate moved anything, to be honest with you, I
see that the never trumpers are still the never trumpers, the and so the
never trumpers really like you know, Chris Christie and Mike Pence and you know,
and then the the the young people, I say almost exclusively the young
people, and maybe they're really nutty. Conservatives like me really liked Ramaswamy.
People who liked DeSantis think he did great. People who thinks DeSantis is whatever,
I don't really get it. I don't get any of this. Think
he did terrible. That he didn't smile. I haven't read the stupid thing
by some FBI body language guy just for the hell of it, because I
saw it. And supposedly the best body language of the night was Vivis Vives.
Sorry because he smiled and he was kind of in your face, but
he was sort of the happy warrior. DeSantis only managed one tiny little grin
at the very end, and the rest of the time he was scowling and
looked really nervous. It was anyway, I thought that the commentary on the
and I refused to call it a debate. I refused to call it a
debate because there was an anything debating about it. It was just a bunch
of cliches and sound bites and too much interference by moderators. And even though
they say they all, you know, compared to past non debates, they
did a decent job, they still interject way too much into things. So
there's my thought. One last question, So you think a number of people
did well, Who do you think did badly or maybe putting it differently.
After this, who's the first person to drop out? Chris Christie? They
go why why? Had? I thought he had the best line of the
night when he said the vague I was like, why are we talking to
this guy? Was made by chat GPT? That was good? That was
a great lie. I guess I don't see that though? Why did he?
I mean, I guess it was a cute see line, but it
doesn't maybe maybe because I didn't watch most of it, but see but no,
sorry, go ahead, no, I'm asking, but this is well,
this is the prob with this debates. We remember who got off a
zingger line, whether it's Vivek attacking Haley, Now that does draws into some
substance. But the line about Zvec, that's just a personal side swipe and
it's kind of fun. But that's why I remember, and not any of
the arguments they made that might change minds on an issue. And that's why
I didn't watch it either. I've read about it. I hate these debates
because they're not debates. But one of the reasons I hate them is even
Fox News tends to ask questions of Republicans based on a liberal agenda. So
Martha McCallum asked the panel, do you I've just I forget who she started
with, do you favor a nationwide abortion band of what fifteen weeks or whatever
it was with Nicky Haley? Was that Nicky Haley? Yeah? Now again
Republican incompetence in malpractice. That is the moment when you want to attack the
media. Attacking the media is always a winning play with the Republican base.
And I think the answer should have begun with I will answer that question,
Martha when you can point to me and you or any of your colleagues have
ever asked the Democratic presidential field why they favor late term abortion? It's never
been done. Why not? So you know you're you're asking us questions drawn
from the National Associate Organization of Women. How about you asked them a question
sometime from the light to life perspective. And I'll wait and they could have
added by the way, Uh, you know, I know Democrats won't come
on Fox News, will go on MSNBC. I know they're chicken to answer
those questions. So make that an issue about that particular issue when it comes
up. I've said before about what I think beyond that, of the rhetorical
failures of Republicans on abortion, I'll restate it again briefly. Still, the
only Republican who's argued effectively on the substance of the issue in presidential politics and
the last two generations was Ronald Reagan, both in eighty and eighty four.
So, you know, nineteen eighty he you know, he talked about and
at first debate with John Anderson, he says, I noticed all the people
who are for abortion, I've already been born, which is a good line.
And then, remember we've talked about this before. Remember he published his
little book Abortion in the Contents of a Nation right at the beginning of the
eighty four reelection campaign, and there he drew the direct comparison between the dread
Scott case and Roe versus Way. Our friend Michael Yeoman had something to do
with the writing of that book and the crafting of the arguments. And if
you go back, although the feminists are in a tizzy in nineteen eighty four,
Democrats didn't attack Reagan very much on abortion. I think there's a reason
for that. They are actually afraid to take up the argument with somebody who
was going to be on the offense about it the way Reagan was. Our
team is still defensive about this, and I think, by the way,
LUCRETI, I think you'll agree with me. I think you want to have
a variation to continue Reagan's argument that yet the extent of public opinion is not
in favor of a national abortion ban. It's because the Democrats in recent years
have been just like the Democrats in eighteen sixty in debauching the public mind called
that Lincoln language on slavery. I think that would be very effective and drive
the left nuts. One last thing. Sorry I went on too long.
I mean I have thoughts on winners and losers. But here's what I would
do for a debate. I think what you do is you find the qualified
candidates. I think there are too many of them. They let him self
qualify and all that, but you have five or six of the serious ones,
and then by lottery, you pick one of them to open the debate
with a five to seven minute uninterrupted statement on whatever issue they choose. And
then I'm not sure what step two is. It would be allowing the other
candidates in some order, maybe not all of them, because you don't want
all of them shooting at the person or uh, you know, giving their
own view on In other words, it would it would, It would make
the date and more substantive. You'd hear more from an each individual candidate and
less of the sound bite. You know, give me your healthcare plan in
sixty seconds. Nonsense? That beget Now give me a show of hands.
That nonsense, right? That was ruined de Santis's best right or nothing of
the night when he says we're not school children school kids? Right? Yeah,
yeah, and he guys, you guys are both students of the Master
of the Lincoln Douglas debates, and you're just trying to restore it to the
Lincoln four and a half, let's see, No, No, an hour
opening, an hour and a half rejoinder, and a half an hour rejoinder
to the rejoinder. Is that how it works? Right? I'm not sure
it was two and I think it might just been an hour and a half.
They were longer. But you're right, you have to write about the
format. Yes, you've got to lay out a long argument. Yes,
right, yes, exactly, that's why. Yes, yeah, we have
audience has the attention span of five minutes. If you're lucky so well.
I say it would take them getting used to, but I think it would.
It would make the media work harder too. I think not only that,
but you know what, maybe the audience, maybe the audience does,
maybe they don't remember that these supposedly uneducated rubs back in Illinois in the you
know, mid nineteenth century would go out and Steve was complaining a moment ago
that he's in the Bay Area without air conditioning. Imagine I've been in Illinois
summer and the late summer and the early fall. And when these debates were
held, the seven Lincoln Douglas debates were held, twenty to thirty thousand people
attended and listened for those I really do think it was a full three hours
between the two of them, but I'll double check. But my point is,
and you know, they didn't have speakers, they didn't have loudspeakers or
anything like that, so you're straining to hear. But people stayed there for
the whole thing. They responded, and you know, I cannot believe that
people then were that much more intelligent, that much more well read, or
anything like that. It's just our expectations now are so low that I don't
know. I think I don't know, although you know there was a you
know, a theatrical element to those It was more i'll say Shakespearean, right.
I mean, if you read certain transcripts of those debates, you'll hear
the audience not just the rup with applause, but cheers and saying you hit
him again, Abe, You know it was it was like, yeah,
yeah, just for the moment, off the format and ask back to Lucrisia.
Well, I mean there were some important differences between the candidates. Oh
what were the some of the most important ones, and who did you think
was on the right side of things? So you we just talked about abortion
with Nikki Haley and Mike Pants talking about abortion. What about your favorite subject?
Form favorite? Ukraine? Russia. Actually, everybody who took the side
against our intervention in Ukraine I was in favor of, and I thought they
had the better I actually thought they had the better arguments. Ramaswami, Ukraine
is not a priority for America. It's not a priority for America. Now
I am upset that they didn't, that nobody bothered to link our intervention in
Ukraine with the corruption of the Biden crime family because I think that that's really
what's going on there. But okay, so that I liked that. I
I thought it was interesting that the crowd booed when who was it that said
climate change? That we spend more, that we've caused more damage basically forth
climate change policies, and we have than climate change has ever caused me.
I didn't hear that that's actually right. They booed a couple Yeah, of
course they booed a couple of things about climate change, which surprised me.
But I liked hearing that this. Ramaswami says, why are we this was
argument you made fun of me for John, Why are we spending all of
our money, uh, protecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine and not our own
territorial integrity. You know, those kinds of things I think probably go well
with people. My personal favor. I was telling Steve about this before you
got on that the comments after the fact about Chris see are right up there
with that Babylon be thing that said, uh, political analysts agree, Chris
Christie will eat the competitors lunch. They follow on with us tipping the scales
tonight it was Chris Christie and he's sure to give a heavyweight performances. Yeah,
I think that's hilarious. Sorry, nobody did that on the debat stage,
but that was what made me laugh today. So well, he got
booed the most, apparently. And you know, the five thirty eight guys
have done some surveys of Republican viewers and it's interesting findings. Hailey did the
best, Ramaswamy, the second best is Santas did okay and Christy Bomb And
what about Tim Scott. I mean, every time I turned on Fox today
they had Tim Scott on. That's he's obviously their candidate, no doubt.
He was on every single show today when I because I was in the car,
and I don't think I mean, he got the least amount of time.
And he's somebody's told him have one single message and never stray from it,
and he just keeps saying it over and over and over like a bad
commercial. Well, I can't remember what that message. What is that?
I don't even know what that messaging message is? That. You know,
poor children in poor urban communities don't deserve the bad education that they get from
the teachers' unions in America as the land of opportunity, all of which I
agree with, by the way, I absolutely agree with. And he has
he has, you do, enough of a personal story to be able to
say that sort of thing, but I think he needs more. Yeah,
he's he's an an exciting guy. And you know, once again he reminds
me of Oh, I do want to give you my field theory, which
is Ramaswamy why he's going to do well for a while. Tim Scott reminds
me a little bit of Ben Carson, who's you know, Ben Carson's this
fine guy, but he was kind of flat in the every week that went
by in twenty sixteen. And but Republicans, at least since Pat Buchanan in
nineteen ninety two, or maybe even he could say Pat roberts in the eighty
eight, they want an outside and they really like an outsider who is an
outsider from politics, not just Washington. So you know, Pat robertson,
Pat Buchanon ninety two, Steve Forbes in ninety six, two thousand election doesn't
quite happen. But then you had what's it Herman Kaine in two thousand and
eight, about twenty twelve, Sorry, I think that's right. And then
you had Ben Carson, and then of course Donald Trump, the ultimate outsider
right outside of Washington, outside of politics, and now Vivia comes along and
he feels that as they say, too much now that Lane and I think
for a while Republicans are gonna like him. And then what about the youth
part? What about the name part? Here, here's what I do.
If I'm Ramaswamy, I point out how damn old everybody in Washington, DC
is, every single person in a position of power. Maybe the slight exception
of Kevin McCarthy, right, is just old. They're so damn old,
And isn't and isn't it time that you know, the younger people in America
who are going to be paying off this debt for the next thousand years.
I had some representation there that would be you know, he doesn't that help
to Santis too? I mean De Santis is pretty not that much older.
Yeah, right, yeah, And I do think he's actually made that argument
on more than one occasion. He's the new generation and so on. But
he didn't have the he didn't have the energy that that vivic how do you
say it? So, I'm told it rhymes with cake. Oh that helps
you? I finally remember how to say last name's going to be a problem.
Probably eat it too. Yeah, I was working vote from I was
working on that. Yeah, I mean, there's there's always been space for
you. Remember Ron Paul then Rampaul were very poputive with the younger voters.
Partner, that's a libertarian vibe that younger voters like my you know, my
college boy. He loves vivic so far. So there you go. Yeah,
he's quite taken with him. So I feel I'm missing out. I
don't think the guy's got a chance. But let me ask you this.
I thought you guys were going to say in terms of why, you know,
who did best? Although I don't think he has a chance either.
The guy I thought who outperformed expectations was Mike Pence. Oh god him.
No. But just as a matter of like debate technique, how what do
you agree? Disagreed? Just like hee, he spoke the most, apparently
and talking because he interrupted everybody, just like I'm doing right now. She
doesn't like a fellow traveler. I don't really mind. There's just something patronizing
and stiff and wooden and and preachy, and I don't know, no,
and and you know, I don't like that kind of disloyalty amongst people.
I really don't. I mean, he owed Trump a little more loyalty,
if nothing else, just to have been quiet about it. But instead he's
exploiting something that he really shouldn't be exploiting. And I don't like that at
all. Whatever you think about what really happened in twenty twenty, there's I
just I don't like disloyalty. There's no reason for him to have to be
that disloyal. So, well, you're basically saying he shouldn't be running.
I do definitely think you shouldn't be running. Yeah, I'd rather have a
Johnny quest. So Steve the same question to the ask the critia. What
was an issue that you saw there was a really substantive difference between the candidates
important you know, Ukraine was one, Abortion was another. What's another important
difference amongst the candidates that you saw and who you think came out on the
right side of it. I'm not sure they differ that much. I do
think Christy he didn't bring it up last night, and he was pressed on
the matter. As I understand it, he's not keen on you know,
the battle against Wokerie, partly because I think vivek V and the Sants is
a corner of the market on that issue, right, I mean, that's
been the Sansis slogan is Florida's where Woke goes to die. And it supposedly
Christie's strategy is to go all in on New Hampshire, which is not a
state. Supposedly that's much a tune to some of these culture war issues in
Wokerie and all the rest of that. If they pressed him on that,
he might have said something dumb or something offensive, right, I mean,
we know Governor Senunu up in New Hampshire has said no, he shouldn't be
running on these issues. It's a bad idea. And I'm you know,
this is the last dying gasp of the bush Wazi as I call people like
Sunu, you know, marketing back to his dad who gave us David suit.
But I'm rambling on another direction. What about Asa? Yeah, I
didn't he chopped right facing the planet right God? And that guy Bergham where
he where'd he go? Yeah? People thought he did well, but I
didn't. I'd haven't heard what. But those little horse race things are very
interesting because we didn't expect Mike pants he's a wooden and preachy and all those
other things to do very well. Well, he was loudly wooden and preachy
when he was surprised. I wanted to say, were you surprised that when
the hosts asked would you still support Donald Trump if you to win the nomination
but then convicted and sent to jail? Were surprised that everybody said yes,
aside from Christy and Hutchinson. And it would look like perhaps de Santis wasn't
sure what to say first until he looked around at everybody else's hands, and
then he stuck his hand up. I have a home about that reaction.
Well, I have a hunch that de Santis prepared for a different dynamic of
the debate. I think he thought he was going to get attacked, and
I'll bet he had responses practiced and rehearsed and in the inventory defend off attacks
and the counter attack. And it did happened that way. Nobody really went
after him. That was one of the surprises. The other one is,
you know, we now remember twenty sixteen and then of course the twenty twenty
general election debates with Trump, and it may be starting to dawn on people.
How different how I just imagine how different that debate would have been if
Trump had been there, and if oh, yeah, I'm flying off in
the morning to get my mug shot taken. It would have just been a
complete, completely different dynamic. And who knows how that would go and whether
I mean, I don't, I don't know. I can't predict how this
is going to turn out. If Trump shows up, it's going to be
back to the good old days, and Roma Swami is going to have a
problem because he was trying to be the mini me, you know, saying
all these people on the stage and been bought and paid for, you know,
well that was Trump's line from twenty sixteen. He kind of And then
but if Trump stays out, maybe the lot of voters say, you know,
these guys are actually pretty good. There's enough of us might be peeled
away from Trump. You might see the race start to shake up. And
then who knows what happens at that point. I don't know. Okay.
All I want to say is, let me remind you that Steve last let's
not listen to his predictions anymore. Because his prediction last week that Trump was
going to show up, right, Sorry, Steve predictions, I'm wrong about
it all the time. But but no, But it's a good point to
examine Steve's was it tactically smart for Trump? And Lucrisias this was tactically smart
for Trump not to show up? Or did this? I mean some of
the commentary is Trump comes out the biggest winner. I actually didn't get that
sense without I agree with Steve. Without Trump there, Actually I think that
debate had a very different dynamic, was more substantive. I think it would
have been if Trump hadn't been there, You've Trump had been there, they
would have spent a lot more time talking about Trump's prosecutions. I bet,
yeah, yeah, except that they still spend an awful lot of time.
And part of this is Brett Baron more than McCallum's fault. They spend a
lot of time talking about Trump. And remember that, as nearly as I
can tell, the thing on Twitter is over two hundred million views. Interview
with Tuckers over two hundred million views. And I'm I'm told that to watch
those who watch the debate and those who have gone back to it after the
fact, is you know less than less than a tenth of that, so
I don't know what that says about things. Two hundred million is a lot
of views. Now, that can be the same person watching it two hundred
million times, I suppose clicking on it, but yeah it could Yeah,
that's right. I mean that could also be one hundred million people clicking on
it for five minutes. That doesn't mean they completely watched the whole thing.
I'm not sure if Twitter videos allow you to know how many people finish them
or the events they I think they don't. Actually I read several times that
they don't. But right, because you will right to go at least watch
a little bit of it, that means something. Yeah, curiosity probably away
the same to say about it, But I mean YouTube, I'm not sure
you can find this about every video, but you're on that you put up,
you can. Do you know the data on how long people watch it?
Do they quit watching the five minute mark and so forth? And what
the falloff is? Now? I did you know the clips I've seen?
Now, I'd never clicked on the actual thing, but there've been lots of
clips have been popping up and Twitter feeds, and I looked at a few
of them, and what struck me was Trump was had a very different demeanor.
He was very calm, He was very I thought, measured. It
was very interesting when January six came up, and you know, he said,
well, that was a bad day, and you know, there are
a lot of great people there, a small number of bad people did some
bad stuff. And then he also said, you know, very cleverly to
people listening carefully, there's a whole bunch of different scenarios about how that day
played out that we can think about. Right, So he didn't go beyond
that, but it was pretty clear what he was suggesting. But so that
was a calm, measured Trump that you're not used to seeing as much.
And the other one is Lucretia. Tucker asked Lucretia's style questions, did you
catch that right? What I forget how we put it? What makes you
think they're not going to shoot you? Somebody's not going to shoot you assassinated?
Well, but I remember he shuts it off by wait, that's what
I was going to mention. He asked that. Tucker asked that question after
he asked Trump if he if Trump thought that Jeffrey Epstein had yet suicide or
had or if he had been assassinated, and Trump I couldn't believe it,
declined to answer that he came back with a kind of whoam, Well,
he probably committed suicide, but I don't rather than you know, buying into
the conspiracy theory that I buy into, or at least that I have fun
buying into. You know, I love of course, don't we all right?
By the way, not the craziest question of the night. The craziest
question to Chris Christie was on UFOs in Republican debate. His answer wasn't bad.
His answer to that was pretty good. I would it was basically,
I can't believe you're asking me this. Yeah, you know, when was
the last time they asked about UFOs at a serious presidential Debrino? I know,
God, yeah, Steve, what do you think about Trump's tactical decision
not to shot if you were just starting to yeah, I don't know.
I mean, uh, you know, having been wrong last week thinking he'd
show up with lots of drama and you know, come marching in the room
with you know, a couple of girls with feather bow as like a boxer
coming in Las Vegas or something. That's what I really thought he might do.
I think he won the day after. You know, he goes down
there and he gets his mug shot, and he clearly thought about what he
wanted the mug shot to look like, I mean, really mean and honoring.
And it's already up on T shirts. I think, yeah, T
shirts, bumper stickers, Uh yeah, all sorts of cool places. You
can get it a teacher for only thirty four dollars. Yeah, it's gonna
rival. It's gonna rival Shake Bovara in history. I think as a teacher's
scary face. I think, yeah, when she was helping, I'm sure
that what's what's that stupid woman's name, the da Fanny, But you don't
say it like that, but well, yeah, yeah, that's not how
you say it. You're supposed to say it some other way, but I
forget anyway. I'm sure she was expecting it for him to look down trodden
and defeated and all of those things, because you know, she made sure
he had to go into that filthy, insect and fested jail, over crowded
jail in Georgia to get uh what do they do? Booked? Booked right,
yeah, and rained and some of them still haven't gone in and they
only have till tomorrow. She's not grant she's not granting any extensions. Well,
then then I hear read to read to on Thursday that she wants to
start the trial in late October twenty third. That is preposterous, it seems
to me, but I don't know. We have We've segued nicely into our
second topic already, which is the Trump Trump getting a rain today. Very
scary booking photo of the first mug shot of a former president I think ever,
because it has to be true because there was no over former president prosecuted
ever before until this year. Along with as Steve said, the DA would
like has asked for in October twenty third trial date for all nineteen defendants several
I think one is several of the reasons. The reason why not everybody has
shown up to be booked, as at least two Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark,
who's a Justice Apartment official and White House counsel I'm sorry, White House
chief of Staff have asked for the case to be removed out of state court
and moved to federal court. So they're saying they don't have to show up,
So Lucretia's We're back to you first, What do you think of this?
What do you think of the photo? Do Trump somehow do some jiu
jitsu and upstage the debate itself by, you know, choosing to hand himself
in today on a Thursday, the day after the debate? But is this,
in reality is setback for President Trump to get actually arraigned for the fourth
time? And why? I so, it's I don't know about a setback.
It's certainly an awful thing, there's no doubt about that. But do
I think that Trump has managed absolutely to make the most out of it like
he always does? Yes, I do believe that. I'm trying to show
you this. I'm you know, I'm still I don't know what to say
about this, Joe, and this is so it's already you're show what Lucretia
is showing us. If you can't see you can't see it. As the
photo is already on sweatshirts, T shirts and mugs and it says the dawn
You know, you know, the guy is an amazing performer, right,
there's no doubt about them. But you know what, never mind Trump,
never mind Juliani, never mind Mark Meadows and all the other people who are
essentially, let leave Trump aside the lawyers who are essentially being prosecuted as conspirators
to give legal advice. I mean, as a lawyer, doesn't that bother
you, John, doesn't it? I mean, you could have been one
of those people. You didn't give maybe legal advice to Trump, but you
probably gave a little bit of legal advice to John Eastman now and then right,
that's on the advice. Okay, sorry, I shouldn't. I'm just
I'm actually just I'm actually kidding, because you know, John had to They
took his phone and his email accounts and everything, and I think they found
one email between John and I during the entire post November period. But that's
more than yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah so I so, I mean,
there's there's two different kinds of I think issues here on the charges.
One is right, using this criminal Rico statute to charge a re election campaign
as a criminal enterprise. That's one issue. Then the second one is including
Johnnystman, our friend, other people who are giving legal advice in that process
and they were unindicted co conspirators in these Special Councils charges against President Trump.
Too for January sixth. So it's not just Georgia that's doing this. It's
not just a state prosecutor that's doing this. Is a federal you know,
the Justice Apartment is also thinking of charging and Jordan is actually investigating Fanny Fannie
whatever name is. Willis for interfering. I forget all the things he's investigating
her for, but he's saying, look, she's interfering with federal elected officials,
which she has no right to do as a state district attorney, and
to try to bring state Georgia laws to harass federal officials. I read it
quickly, so I don't remember exactly all the things he's investigating her for,
but I'm in favor of that. This is this is worth than Banana Republic
stuff. It Uh. You know that Mark Meadows is being considered a co
conspirator and dieted because he arranged the phone call on behalf of Trump to Brad
Raffenberger. Ra. Yeah, so he picks up the phone and makes a
phone call and that makes him a co conspirator in a criminal conspiracy. I
mean, it's ridiculous. I don't even know. I can't wrap my head
around it now. Hold on a minute. We're not a banana republic.
We're a democratic banana republic. That's sorry, I couldn't help it. Yeah,
I mean, well, first of all, it seems to me the
appellate claims over this could go on for years, your pre trial or post
trial. I mean, I've just it just seems completely absurd before you even
raised the question of federalism. And you know, how can a state,
you know, a county prosecutor be doing this. I don't have that much
new to say about it. I mean, I've sort of sent my piece
last week. I almost said, though, what about Lucretia's point about the
lawyers and giving constitutional advice? Yeah, well that you've waited on that.
We should all disclose if you don't remember already that Steve Hayward and John Eastman
were roommates in graduate school, right, and we can now reveal on the
podcast that Steve is a true source of every idea John Eastman ever had that
well, and Lucretia was a classmate with along with Leonard Levy. So oh
yeah, we learned from the true source of the conspiracy hasn't been revealed.
Well, it's all let's fault. Well, I will tell you a funny
story just quickly. I you know, John and I used to jockey for
the one space in the garage in the house we rented from Peter Drucker,
the famous management guru. And one day, somehow in the garage I found
some old photographs of John from like the seventh grade. This would have been
in the seventies, I guess. And he had a big, bushy hair
like we had in the seventies, and he had one of those preposterous two
inch leather watch bands that we all wore in the early seventies. And so
I was working in a magazine at the time, and my publisher was a
very funny guy, former British soccer player. He said, oh, we
gotta do a missing he knew he met Eastman. We got to do a
missing children poster for him. That was back when you had the milk cartons
stuff, right in the eighties. And so we type set this missing have
you seen this child? The answers to all these strange trousie and names,
and we put him up on bulletin boards all over Claremont. And one day
we're going to Walter's Restaurant to have breakfast with Professor Hale Rude. We did
that every Tuesday morning. And the waitress comes up and she looks at John
says, hey, wait a minute, you're the kid on that poster,
aren't you. He never forgave me for that stunt. I don't have any
of those. I've looked everywhere to see if I had one, but I
can't find what I was going to say earlier, back to the serious point,
and I skipped over it. But now I'll go back to it.
You know, I read some of Mike Pence's book, especially about the whole
January sixth affair, and okay, he didn't pay for it, No,
I was given a signed copy from you know, Pence's people at an event
that he was at, so I'll take a free book. And you know
what put me off about it was not his account of the what I thought
were the facts in the law and all the rest of that. That's,
you know, perfectly reasonable, but his references to Eastman and at that,
you know, the ten pages about that, we're very snide like this guy,
you know, this guy Eastman. It was, you know, sort
of unworthy of a guy who otherwise is so pious. Uh. And you
professores this Christian faith and anyway, okay, anyway, I was put off
by that saying that's not that's not okay, not fair at all, but
put it mildly anyway. It annoyed me. Everything about Pence annoys me these
days. Well, if he becomes president, I can never have dinner with
you guys again. And I enjoy having dinner with you guys. Why not
do we remember this, Johnny the pencil, right, yeah, the pencil.
Never ever ever have dinner with a woman who's not your wife. I
guess maybe if your wife's around without a third person, nor Larry Well,
I mean, yeah, I don't know. So let me ask you,
Steve, before we leave this, who do you think is gonna who you
think are going to be the first people to drop out of the race because
of this debate? I don't. I'm not sure this debate will it.
I think everyone's gonna want to stick around a couple of rounds because it's free
and easy. But you know, Mayor Suarez of Miami was even on the
debate stage, even he didn't make the stage. She didn't, okay,
And then you know Asa Hutchinson and this governor Bergham guy. He may people
say good things about him as a general matter. He may make a go
of it here for a couple of innings, but I don't think he's going
anywhere. So at least it's not you know what we had. We had
so many candidates in twenty sixteen, you had to have split debates. It
was absurd. So at least it's a somewhat more manageable field this year with
you know, four or five reasonably top tier candidates, and I think,
yeah, they'll they'll be out after Iowa. Let me ask you. Let
me also ask you the question I asked Lucretia. Also, is Trump doing
better out of all this or worse out of the combination of the monk shot,
the indictment, and then choosing not to show up for the debate.
Well, I'll be interested in the next round of survey. You know,
with the caveat that the surveys are pretty crappy, but it had been struck
a couple of weeks ago with the voter surveys that show these very high negatives
for Trump. I mean just they're just off the chart bad and people drawing
a conclusion that means you can never possibly beat Biden. On the other hand,
you know, last week or the week before or after this latest indictment,
you had several polls from the reputable mainstream people in New York Times Post
people like that, showing Biden with a mere one point lead over Trump.
And we saw in twenty sixteen the people don't have to like Trump to vote
for him, and so I can't tell what's going on. I think a
lot of the stuff is obviously strengthening Trump with the Republican base. And if
Trump, by the way, campaigns and talks through a whole campaign the way
he did with Tucker Carlson this week, I think he wins over a lot
of those people who don't like him. Because, by the way, when
people say they don't like him, are they really are they saying they really
really just low them, despise him, or they're just put off by his
antics and they don't like him, but they'd vote for him. I don't
I think those numbers are that meaningful. I think it's those head to head
numbers are more important. And right now it's a dead heat, which is
amazing when you think about it. Also, stop there just wondering what you
guys think I was listening to somebody I forget talk about the fact that that
maybe go back to an earlier presidential contest and when you have X number of
secondary candidates and a front runner, what really is the case? Not with
Trump right now, but what is the cases if you add up all of
those other people's percentages you get more than fifty percent. We're not at quite
at that. I mean, what he's sixty percent in most of the polls,
right, That's what Trump said. But if that slips, why isn't
there an attempt by all of those never trumpers to say, let's get out
of the race and all of us endorsed somebody else, kind of like what
happened with Biden. In order, Apresia anticipates my next question, and and
Carl Rove, this is a weird feeling when Lucretia and kar Rover of making
the same argument. I wasn't making the question, try so the Carl was.
So Karl Rover agreed with Lucresha and those facts probably takes it in a
different direction. So Karl Rove was saying, if you look at the polling
in Iowa New Hampshire, Trump does not have a majority there he's running well
short of his national polling, and so Rove used this to say, you
could could you see a return to the importance of New Hampshire and Iowa in
the nominating caucus? You know, with Biden, Biden lost the first two
states, he had only one South Carolina after what Lucretia described happened. Could
Iowa New Hampshire actually play a more important role like the kind they used to
when it comes to the Republican primaries, given how the polling in those two
states is quite different than these national polls that Steve's pointing to. I would
say first really quickly that I don't think the Republican the Republican National Committee is
capable of the kind of perfidy that the Democratic National Committee is capable of to
be able to orchestrate, that is a difficult problem, right, yeah,
yes, that's exactly right. Go ahead, Well, yeah, I was
just gonna say something similar. The two parties have changed places. You know,
the old line used to be Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in
line when it comes to nomination contests. So Republicans is always whose turn is
it? So you know, it was Ronald Reagan after gerald Ford, George
H. W. Bush after Reagan, George W. Bush after his dad,
and you know, succeeding Clinton, right, and you know John McCain
after he came in second, and then Mitt Romney after he came in second
or third, right, and then suddenly that all blew up with Trump.
Suddenly the Republicans fell in love with Trump in twenty sixteen. And the Democrats
they always wanted, you know, George McGovern the politics of the candidate to
the new left, and Jimmy Carter, this guy from nowhere who had to
smile, and you know, you go on down the list and culminating of
course with Obama. But they really fell hard for Obama, right, and
not for Hillary. It was her turn. They told her to go to
hell. Uh So in twenty and twenty twenty, the amazing thing is the
Democrats said, nope, sorry. Bernie Sanders is two weeks away from locking
up the nomination, which would be a landslide loss to Trump. We have
to stop him. Everybody has to fall in line behind Biden. Biden.
I mean, have you ever met a Biden Democrat like you know, a
Kennedy Democrat or a Bernie bro Right. There are no Biden Democrats. Well,
what wouldn't Biden Democrat even be right, like, okay, it would
be well, I'm just saying Hunter Biden, right, No, I mean,
the guy has no charisma. He's bombed every time he ran on his
own. I think, but I'm to get an article done about what explains
how deeply weird he is. I think, deep down inside, he knows
he didn't get here on his own, that he is sure luck has brought
him here, and he has an inferiority complex that's even greater than Lyndon Johnson's
was. Because Johnson knew he didn't get there. Biden would never have made
the presidency if he hadn't been picked to be Obama's vice president. Right,
he knows this, and he still that a serious That's a serious question.
There's a good point of creatures making said. If you read the liberal press,
they've been running stories recently saying many of these points, but saying the
reason Biden is there is because of Obama. Obama really has a huge amount
of sway in yeah, Biden administration, and to the extent Biden's you know,
checked out or not doing it or not top of things. It's Obama,
who's really his people who are really still driving the train? Yeah,
but John, I heard somebody the other day say, talking about the end
of the whole ludicrous, really really abysmal situation with Biden and Maui, you
know, the no comment followed by his performance there. Oh yeah, the
kitchen fire. I know how you guys feel. Oh, you know,
what a moron, but no, what a narcissistic Yeah, anyway, but
here was I wouldn't have ever thought, by the way, if it happened
to a Republican president about wearing high heels off the plane right when she was
done to Katrina. No, but somebody mentioned that if Obama was really,
you know, so much the puppet master behind the puppet here, why on
earth did he not accompany Biden to Mallie When Biden went to Allie. It
was a really interesting question, like Obama is from Hawaii, right from Hawaii,
and think, I mean, that's the whole thing is just strange,
like who's in charge there right now? Who are those It's a little bit
like me asking you way back when about when he didn't even praise the Georgia
Bulldogs, and I said, you know, it's just this bunch of stupid
millennials who are so so far removed from from normal people's reality that they can't
even think this through. So a bunch of people burned to death in Maui.
Who cares? We got more important things to worry about, you know.
But and look the Obama. I think that's a simple answer there.
If Obama. I think that doesn't happen. For two reasons. If Obama
went, he would have overshadowed Biden badly. And the second thing is I
think Obama smart enough for No, he doesn't want to be next to this
disaster of a president in Maui. No one that he's going to say all
kinds of crazy stuff would It would have been a disaster for both of them,
and so Obama. Who knows if they even thought to ask him,
that's an interesting question. I'll bet they didn't. I bet they knew that
that would be a disaster for both of them, and Obama wouldn't have accepted.
I think he could have just taken Obama and not said a word.
It would have been better. No. If yeah, I agree, Steve
Obama, if he's smart, wants to go separately. Obama will go sooner
or later and actually the worst that Obiden does as he has done now,
Obama is just going to look better, right, you know, So I
Obama can't lose either way by delaying and going by himself. But you're right,
nucreatia, what a disaster. Well may my last two thoughts on this,
unless you want to press further on it, John Is. I do
keep hearing from you know, people who hang around with elite Democratic circles that
you know, their donor class, and a lot of you know, loyal
Democrats are just terrified that Biden has not got it in him to run again
and it's not going to physically make it right, and then they would be
out of bed tomorrow. Well I know, but then the point I'm looking
ahead to the campaign, they would all say they would be so relieved if
he decided to step down. And the second thing is I've been meaning to
mention is for reeks and right about it is And this has been leaking out
of the press a bit. There's all this poll data that shows, for
example, Trump pulling twenty per sound of the black vote right now, which
is, you know, five points better than he did in the last two
elections, and him doing better with the you know, working classes. The
point is is that, oh and you see, we saw lower turnout from
blacks and the midterm elections here this last year, and Democrats are terrified that
they're going to lose the vote. They need to maintain their margins in all
those close states and other places. So that's yeah. Since actually a thing
that I meant to ask about the debate, but Steve's question brings it up,
is does that mean it's smart for Trump to pick black or Hispanic vice
presidential candidate this time around to further eat into you? And so sure,
it's actually a question I have for you. Who did did somebody during the
debate just win the vice presidency? Were a lot of people auditioning really to
be vice president? Tim Scott, the Vike Ramaswamy, Nicky Haley, they're
all, you know, they're a little muted in their criticism of Trump.
Is that is that because they're really running for vice president? Did you see
someone actually sew up the job? Yeah? No, not not too soon
for that. But we'll see. I still my short well, actually Trump
attackers will probably not. I like this Kim Reynolds woman in Iowa. I
think she doesn't get a lot of attention. From what I've seen, she's
pretty good. And Okay, I'll stop there. Let's say that come back
to that. Any last thoughts on the domestic stuff before we turn to the
Only thing I was going to ask is the I heard the other day from
somebody that that I think it was someone trying desperately to defend Calmala Harris and
you know the job she'd done. But saying that, ultimately vice presidential picks
maybe account for two to three percent of a bump one way. Uh,
that's the that's the margin of the election these days. I think it could
be right, Yeah, but they could. I mean in some way keys
of someone like Kamala, there's also more than a two point or three percent
bumped the other way. I would think, you know, someone who might
be willing to vote for Biden knowing he had a younger, more capable possibility
for vice president. When he's going to croak, which he surely has to
sooner or later, you know, it's going to be harder for them to
vote knowing Kamala is going to be the person. That's my opinion. I
don't know. I just despiser Yeah, and We have a few more minutes
left, trying to get as many issues as I can. Because its been
such a busy week, we haven't even talked about Ukraine and Russia. I
mean, the events there. If it weren't for Trump and weren't for the
debates, and I'm actually in the debates, Ukraine was one of the main
dividing issues. Ukraine I think would be the topic of conversation. Two developments.
The Ukrainian counter counter offensive, which was much predicting a lot of hopes
place, has barely changed. The front lines, has not achieved its objectives.
The Russians actually have seemed to have been quite successful in building up their
defenses and grinding down the attacks. There really has not been any major victories
for the Ukraine so far. That's happening Ukraine, and then just this week
you have any predocean the head of the WOG group seems to be choosing to
fly and exploding airplanes. No, no, John, I know. The
right line take on this is that I did not know airplanes could fall out
of high rise windows. That's the preferred method, is that, you know,
the worst thing I heard is that the theory that there was a bomb
planted on the plane inside a case of wine. Yeah, wrong with them?
Well it's because well, because he has just to draw the facts.
They're initial reports as I was shot down by an anti aircraft missile, but
now more recent reports are saying the plane exploded but there was no missal.
Now I wonder how that happened. I did see on Twitter a supposed I
say supposed. I can't. I'm not sure it's legitimate. But it was
a Russia Today, you know RT headline and it said possible heart attack by
pilot following third COVID booster injection, thought that, wait a minute, that
can't possibly be real. If it is real, they're trolling the you know
the okay, uh, what's that famous line from the Congress at Vienna in
eighteen twelve, wasn't it? Where eighteen fifteen? When was it? I
forget one of the one of the big potentates died in the middle of it,
and Tally Rand or one of those guys, supposedly said, gosh,
I wonder what his motive was. And you know what, it's the what's
the signal putin sending here for consumably being behind a bomb to take out this
guy? Gee? I don't know. I mean, there's always you can
go up and down the list, right, but he's clearly not deterred or
wants to send a signal. I mean, I wondered about that whole thing
that had happened, whether it was really on the up and up, or
whether it was a classic false flag operation which the Communists used to do all
the time in Eastern Europe to flush out disloyal senior military officers and senior government
officials. That was always a way to do it, or one way to
do it. And you know that that Putin and what's this guy's name we're
in on together in a certain way. It would appear now that that's not
the case, but who knows, or maybe, like Romero do Orco and
the Prince, the guy finally outlived his usefulness to Putin, and Putin wanted
to make sure he'd send a message by getting rid of him. I think
the bigger stories what's going on in the battlefield, But you know, I'll
save that for now. Appreciate your thoughts about the untimely passing any progos.
Uh. Like I said, I'm just upset about the case of wine.
It might have been bad Russian wine right exactly. Uh, I'm gonna wait
and see attitude. I'm a little bit more inclined, you know, because
even though I don't still don't have that hat that lovely personally delearned to buy
steveson designer conspiracy theory tinfoil hat. I want to wait and see what happens
with all of this, because it certainly makes sense to uh do a little
a little house cleaning and uh even put a little fear into people. Putin's
good at that. But I'm wondering if if I saw the wreckage of the
plane, I'm not sure that there's even enough to pull DNA out of that.
Are you did you? Did you guys see it the fire? I
mean, you don't much to trust of this. But the Russian government did
say they did collect the remains of all the people on the plane, but
they haven't said that they DNA matched them. They said it seems like the
only reason they think Progosian was on the plane because he was on the right
the manifestoes. Yeah, and there is video available now showing the plane actually
falling out of the sky on fire, but doesn't show why. But does
it? Just let me ask you guys don't even think that the whole thing
with that guy and the Wagner group was all kind of strange anyway, and
hard for us to fit into our Western way of thinking about these things.
Uh So, I'm not the right person to ask about this. I'm really
not because it all kind of confuses me, to be honest with you.
Well, my last theory is he made one of those nifty escapes like Bane
and whichever one of the Batman movies, you know, up in midair and
if you ever saw that one where okay, never mind, I can see
if I have no idea what you're talking about. Oh yeah, there's this
great scene where the commandos intercept the plane in the air. It's anyways,
oh yeah, yeah, right, that's what he did. And he's gonna
show up in Gotham City and in a mask, and I don't know,
okay, much more important is? I mean? It's just your significant Okay.
So, so you know, Lucretia has been predicting here and a lot
of evidence in her favor this week that we're gonna get COVID lockdowns again.
Last I heard is Georgetown University is instituting a mask mandate as of the end
of this week, which is annoying. Uh So we'll see if we're gonna
get a you know, the branch Covidians as I call them, We're going
to go on the rampage again. I were an article in the New York
Post here what two months ago saying, uh, say, I'm kind of
in the middle on this thing. I mean, all right, I'd like
Ukraine to win. I'm not sure we're going about it in a I can
see where it might be in our interest to curtail Russian aggression. We can
talk about that a long time. The point is, I don't see that
we have a strategy here. I don't Biden has still not Biden, I
don't think has given a speech yet saying here are the stakes in Ukraine,
here's our policy. Is our policy we want Ukraine to win and kick the
Russians completely out of the country? Or are we fighting for a stalemate,
in which case policy is very effective or And the reason why it reminds me
of Vietnam is we were always afraid to escalate in Vietnam and take the war
to North Vietnam because we were afraid of a wider war with the Soviet Union.
Now we're afraid of a wider war with Russia that might engulf the other
countries, you know, Poland and Romania and whoever else. But what is
our policy? And so suddenly, after the media telling us for months that
oh, there's gonna be this great Spring counter offensive and Ukrainians are gonna go
out in the field, they're gonna kick but because the Russians have bad morale
and bad equipment, and it hadn't happened, And instead what you hear is
it's a stalemate at best, and maybe the Ukrainians have even gotten their nose
bloodied a few times and taken big losses. And I'm like, gosh,
maybe the media doesn't really know what they're talking about. So suddenly, here
in the last week or ten days, a whole bunch of stories saying,
gosh, the Ukrainian effort has really failed. And you keep hearing and analysts
say again, these unnamed sources, which means the Biden, Pentagon or National
Security Council or putting out the line that Ukraine has you know, their forces
aren't being deployed right or not being commanded right. And my point is,
if we want them to win, then what weapons do they need. We've
been dribbling them out and fits and starts, with no clear rationale, and
you know, the cynic in me says, it looks like our policy is
we're going to fight to the last Ukrainian and hope that they all just get
tired and you know, may again. You know, Henry Kissinger might think
that's the you know, remember his old line of budd Iraq and Iran.
I kid, they both lose and they just exhaust themselves ultimately. But that's
really a terribly cynical policy. We're going to fight to the last Ukrainian and
give them just enough to hang on and not be defeated, but not enough
to win. I would like one or the other either decide it's not in
our national interests and tell the Europeans this is your problem. Europeans quit,
you know. And the Germans are now said they're not going to honor their
pledge to increase their defense spending. Well, let them suffer the consequences of
that. So that's my rant, which is halfway. Please lucrease. You're
probably not enough, but lucre this is good. I know this is going
to probably shock both of you. But one of the things I find most
upsetting, John, I might be a little means you for a second,
but they understand I don't embracing myself physically right right. I don't like the
idea that we are sort of sacrificing given all the things that Steve just said,
you know, that we're pushing this war. I believe there has been
more than one opportunity for some kind of negotiated settlement and that the Biden administration
is stopping it. I you know, don't have absolute proof of that,
but there seems to be a lot of indication that that's the case, and
we're doing so. You'll you'll say, John, that we're doing so,
you know, weakening Putin, which is in our national interest, even if
Ukraine is not, and it's not. I'm concerned about the fact that they
found evidence of a one hundred and fifty thousand new graves outside the battlefields in
Ukraine. I mean, should we really be pushing a war where we just
don't give a damn about Ukrainian lives? Or are we that crass and self
centered here in America that we don't care that you know, hundreds of tens
of thousands at least of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are losing their lives. That
bothers me, especially, like I said, if they were doing it with
no kind of interference from anybody else and this was their fight, that would
be one thing. But I just wonder how much of it's being manipulated on
the international stage for all sorts of reasons, which how very little to do
with actually stopping Krutin's aggression. That's my thought on the matter. If that
make Does that make sense? John? I mean, actually I think both
of you are hearkening back to the debates we had in the Vietnam War,
because you could say that's what we did in the Vietnam War. We never
gave South Vietnam the weapons to win the war. We didn't want them to
lose, but we didn't want the war to become wider, and so we
had this kind of calibrated response rather than trying to win. And it's interesting
more recent historical work shows that we were likely on the path to winning the
Vietnam War towards the end, but we were there too. Remember we had
I mean, we had troops on the ground there. We have troops on
the ground in Ukraine too, but not like Vietnam. And in both of
you making the point it seems, which is not the point by the way
that Ramaswami was making, but you both want to make the point that if
we're not going to pull out, it doesn't look like I mean, it
does seem like there's a consensus to cut Ukraine. Often we are to try
to win. And I guess I'm on the more cynical side. Well,
yeah, but you're both. I think you're both. You are both you
both combined political your political philosophy with the way you view foreign affairs. I
think I just have a hard time being that cynical about so many young men
losing their lives for something it's really not clear, and us playing a role
in it that we don't really have an endgame on. I guess that's that's
the problem. You kind of wonder if these leaks from the Biden Defense Department
are preparing to bug out and blame Republicans for it. And it's not like
we have a great track record in the last several decades, right, you
know, we abandon the courage in Iraq in nineteen ninety one and the Afghans
and then the Afghanistan, the Afghanis by Biden here two years ago. You
could easily see you talk about cynicism. You could easily see them seeing trouble
in Congress, and uh, you know, the really cynical move would be
for Biden to cave on Afghan aid in some kind of budget deal next month
with Republicans, because there's going to be a fight over the budget and a
possible government shut down. Ukrainian need because what I say, a yeah,
sorry, yeah, Ukrainian aid, right, but you know, you know,
look, the leaks are coming from, as you said, Steve,
from the Biden department, Defense department, because they don't want to bear responsibility
for the counter offensive, grinding to a hall right that you know, the
stories are, oh, we told them how to do this and they didn't
listen to us. Right, Ukrainians are doing it all wrong. If they
do only listen to us, or be more modest, or had a different
war plan, they would be successful. So they're already trying to push the
failure off onto others. But I agree that the part of the primary reason,
it seems to me, is that we did not equip them fully.
But maybe that's what they wanted to do. Maybe that's what Biden wants.
He doesn't, as I say, he doesn't want the Ukrainians to really have
an effective counter offensive because then they'll drive all the way to the Russian border,
and then we'll have to have a tough decision about what are we going
to right take away territory Russia thinks it's theirs. Yeah, yeah, I
just see all kinds of bad endings to this either. Okay, that's yes.
I guess the bleeding heart in me sees lots of bad outcomes right now.
Yeah, I really do. And I admire you both because you're both
taking what I admire but don't agree with. You fully on with the natural
rights, have a source, and you give them equally to Russians and Ukrainians
as you do to Americans, and you worry about the lives of Ukrainians Russians,
right Yeah. I mean I'm the first one to jump in and say,
if you're gonna if you've got an enemy and that enemy needs to be
vanquished, and you do it. You do it quickly, You do it,
you get it over with. You make sure that they never have any
reason, you know, you do the German's March to the Sea. Absolutely,
but I don't see any purpose to this war or any end of this
war that justifies it. That's my problem, other than you know how I
feel about it. The corrupt side of me, or the at least aside
recognizing corruption, sees that Raytheon and Lockheed and everybody else's stock is way up
as a result of having to ramp up for this war at the same time
that we are putting ourselves in a dangerous situation with respect to our own readiness.
So there you have it. I'll just end by saying I think that
the Biden administration, intentionally or not, has fallen into the cynical realist strategy
of just having the Ukrainians destroy the Russian military, which from a realist perspective,
is not such a bad outcome, but you're right, it's at the
cost of a lot of Ukrainian lives and Russian lives. Okay, why don't
we turn to one last feature, a fun optimistic feature. We're not gonna
talk about Trump or Ukrainians or you've getting pregogen. At the end, we
are still engaged in our favorite Books project. So I had two potential questions
about favorite books but I'll just pick one of them, which is maybe Steve
go first and Lucretia Steve. What's your favorite novel? What novel would you
recommend power Line three Whiskey Happy Hour listeners to read if they have time for
one more before the summer is over at the end of next week. Yeah.
And I wasn't quite prepared for this, and I guess I can't say
Cloud Atlas again because I did that before and wrote that it, so I
won't. I've got a novel to recommend that's very controversial, but it's very
timely and I think a lot of our listeners and readers will like it.
It's the nineteen seventy or seventy one early seventies novel Camp of the Saints by
Jean Raspail, the French author. Do you know this, John? Have
you heard of it? It's this the one about the immigrants take over?
Yes, CRB. Well, I don't know. It might have been reviewed
again. I mean, it's a fifty some year old book, very controversial.
The left says it's racist, and by the way, some conservatives didn't
like it. You know. Malcolm Muggridge I remember reviewed it very harshly in
National Review when it came out in the seventies. But I think, okay,
so there's some very So look at the plot line of Camp of the
Saints is a flotilla of hundreds of thousands of its Hindus in India and a
decide let's take overlies freighters and sale to France. It's a welfare state,
they'll take care of us. You see why it's topical to both the Europe
and ourselves today and the two One of the funniest chapters is when they swing
around the Cape Horn and Southern Africa, and you know, the everyone in
Europe thinks, well, the South Africans, being the most miserable apartheid racists,
will will stop this flowtilla, right, They won't let them come.
Instead, the South Africa gut them. It supplies them with food and fuel
so they can keep going, which was wonderful little touch. And then you
know you have all the liberals singing John Lennon type songs. Were all from
the Ganges now and we're going to welcome these newcomers to our shores. And
they land and of course trash the place. And you can see why it's
attacked as a racist novel. But like I say, it sounds very topical.
I think every once in a while they comment or on power line will
make reference to the novel. It's very well written, and I think as
a study of sort of you know, European decadent nihilism, it's spot on.
Well, do you think that they, the French still have this kind
of attitude to the large population of Arabs and people from them years to live
in these what they call bad lows are surrounding Paris and other major cities.
Muse it's still yeah, contemporary relevance. Yes, they got they just got
the country wrong. You got thentry wrong. No, I think so I
keep your eye on France. You know, my late friend Herbert Meyer,
who was William Casey's right hand man at the Reagan CIA, he wrote an
article I think you're on two thousand and five, two thousand and six,
but you know, when we're into the war on Terror and there's you know,
all this worry about you know, muslimusiology and how it's going to change
Europe, And he said one day acting an article, and I talked to
him about it. He died a couple of years ago, sadly, but
very interesting guy, he said, keep your eye on Europe, but especially
France. Nobody can do fascism like the French. And he says it would
It would not surprise me if a day comes down the road when the French
decide we cannot tolerate this anymore and they expel large numbers of Arabs living in
the country from their shores. It'd be very unlike really, oh yeah,
he thought, well, you know, you know, I don't understand the
end the announce of French politics, but that Eric Zamorgai took the country by
storm last year, did not succeed in the election, but you know,
every time and Marine La and I think is compromised because of the legacy of
her debt. However, every election she gets closer. If they ever find
somebody who's a good candidate from her party, I think that candidate's gonna win.
And even Macrone has been making lots of noises it actually been pretty good
on some of the cultural issues on this stuff. And so I don't know,
I mean, I could easily see it getting very ugly in France.
Uh, And whether they would actually go as far as expelling thousands and thousands
of Aaron migrants in the shorts. I'm not sure you can count that out.
It's extreme point of view. But you know, if I'm trying to
keep up with Lucretia for outrageous predictions and well, you know, so don't
get Steve recommended a book that people definitely aren't going to read at the end
of their summer vacation. Lucretia. How about you? In years? John?
Really? Yes? But but if I were going to go back and
read a novel, one or two novels that I've already read, it would
be either The History of Henry Esmond by William Thackeray, I was one of
my favorites. Ever, I just don't know that book. He's the guy
who wrote Vanity Fair. Yeah, who wrote Vanity Fair. It's a much
better book in my opinion than Vantage because there's it actually is a transition from
the fight over the the British monarchy all the way into America, and it's
really it's very nicely done. I'll just leave it at that. So that's
it's been. It's been a thousand years, so I don't even want to
pretend I can re restate the entire plot of the book. Can I ask
you quickly. Why have you not written read a novel in so long?
Are you boycotting novels? No? No, god no, but are you
boycotting fun No? No. The there's two reasons for it. One is
that the stack of books that I want to read that arn't novels next to
my bed is this tall. Okay, the stack here on my desk is
even taller. The stack in that I can't even get to in the bookshelf.
You know that sort of thing. And then what happens is you sit
down at night and you're a little bit tired, and you start looking on
the internet and there's all these articles you have to read. I as one
of that much time. So the things I have to read, the things
that I want to read that are that are non fiction, usually take all
of my reading time. But the other book that I would go back and
read that I haven't read in a long time and I've really been wanting to
would be The Brothers caramaws Off. Oh, it's my favorite Jostaevsky novel.
I like The Possessed at Mind, but okay, sorry, go ahead,
that one's a little harder on your soul. I think that's one thing you'd
like it. Well, yeah, but anyway, those if you have not
read the History of Henry Esmond, it's really delightful. Okay, it's not
quite as it wouldn't make it a It wouldn't make a a movie quite as
easily as Vanity Fair did. I'll just say that much, all right,
John, which husako endo novel is going to be the one you recommend?
Ah? So I had I actually wasn't planning to answer this by had too.
But they're so much more pleasant than these these deep works that really,
you know, you wrap yourself, especially with these Russian novels, you want
to kill yourself at the end. The idiot was just I was gonna suggest
I Claudius always I Claudius and Claudius the God. You know, it's actually
two novels, and they're much better actually than the miniseries that everybody has seen,
really really well were by Robert Graves, right, and then I always
liked The Count of Money Christo. I always thought that would be to read
at the end of the summer. I was thinking of something enjoyable to read
at the and you know, a great revenge novel. I mean, come
on, we can all agree with that I used to like to read spy
novels. I used to like to read all of the lock Away novels and
even even got it's embarrassing to admit this, the William F. Buckley spy
novels, the Blackford Oaks. Yeah novels. Those are very easy, fun
reads and take you back to the Cold War and and that sort of thing.
Okay, how about also a preview for next week? Let's let's offer
our favorite ancient text. Oh, okay, book written before the printing press.
Okay, or no, that's not even Yeah, maybe before Machiavelli,
favorite book before Machiavelli. Okay. Challenge accepted. So so you don't want
to a sort of post a BC A D you don't, Well, that's
even better. Maybe we'll do one BC well okay, okay, sorry,
okay, let's uh. I have a commonism, but I think we usually
go for the Babylon B headline of the week first, okay. Man oh
Man confused Mike Pence under impression he's running for president of Ukraine. No one
was good winner of Republican debate, declared to be anyone who didn't watch the
Republican debate. Yeah, how about this one. Man accused of trying to
violently overthrow government turns himself in peacefully again And okay, finally, finally the
last one. I swear ugly people rejoice over return of mask mandates. You
didn't, did you see the one about the homeless in California after the rainstorm
said get engage in scatter. I'll just leave it, very very last one.
Sorry, this one. CDC announces deadly new election eur acron COVID variant.
Yeah right, okay, sorry, Yeah. Campel's on has been doing
a number of big interviews with trying to rehabilitate herself and say that the you
know, I guess the current stories that the media has been missing all the
important things she's been doing, and she's been doing a much better job than
anybody thinks, and her poor, poor approval ratings are really undeserved. So
she did this long interview with Politico. Here's her quote. You could have
followed me around in Iowa ahead of twenty twenty, Harris told Politico, you
would have seen the same thing four years ago. It's always who I've been.
So I can't get into people's heads about why they characterize things as being
one way or another. It's not as though I've just found myself. I've
always been here and never went away. I've always been here and never went
away. It's time to drink whis We've been drinking in that time and every
day. All right, to sign us out, but always drink your whiskey.
Neat, let's go, Brandon and Steve. God saved the queen man
all right. Next week next guys Ricochet joined the conversation.