We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Tashinsky,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts into the premium version of
our website as well. I'm joined today virtually sadly, and that's my fault,
but by Christopher Bedford, executive editor over at the Common Sense Society,
who's very eager to talk about John Federman and his sloppy dress. Chris,
why aren't you here because I have a panel. I'm doing a panel for
the Quincy Institute on why Republicans are just so trigger happy when it comes to
nuclear weapons and Ukraine and child all that. You know, it's a good
question, it's a good question. It's a it's when I wish I had
a better answer to. I mean, I remember watching I'm looking forward to
this next week's VP debate, but watching it last month to see Nikki Haley
so self righteous and her explanation that if we don't fight Russia in Ukraine,
then China will take Taiwan. Yes, and then we'll have to fight them
here, and people just nodded, and I thought, man, I'm sure.
I actually I was talking about this with Sarah in the cards morning.
I'm sure if I actually had her on to debate, she would be like,
well, you don't even know about the sky a cord of Okay,
but we're just true, you don't know about it, no idea. I
just made that up. But they just know so much, isn't so it's
it's yes, it's like this Cold War reflexes, and then that's understandable.
But at the same time there's this weird also like cultural elitism that comes into
play, and you know, thankfully, actually this is some news. There
were six Senators along with a handful of House Republicans, who sent a letter
to Biden's omb director today on on Ukraine aid basically saying we're not supporting more
Ukraine aid for a you know, myriad different reasons that we've talked about on
this podcast before. But I think it was jd. Vance, Tuberville,
chip Roy was on it. Some some interesting names on the list. So
Republicans are you know, waking up to the problems with that sort of Cold
War muscle memory in twenty I love about the voters. I mean we I
hear more and more from voters just what exactly what are we doing here?
I think they're right. I can't recall my follow up well, speaking of
nuclear disasters, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, it's addressing like a plumber on
the floor of the Senate they recently. I just saw a picture. My
brother's a plumber. He doesn't dress like that. I usually have to wear
a long pants. Well, it's actually crawling down at the spaces. It's
not always a clean job. I was gonna say this was actually just pointed
out to me that Fetterman doesn't wear pants. I didn't realize that he was
really only wearing shorts. But I say that as somebody who disagrees with you
heartily on the question of sort of like sartorial standards for airplanes and airports,
and just like in general, I detest the sort of elitism that sometimes creeps
into these conversations. But John Fetterman is not elitism. To ask somebody to
not trust like an animal on an airport, it's not elitism. It's not
elitism for me to be able to expect that if I sit in a seat
I paid for. I'm not sharing half my own space with a four hundred
pound woman who's ryan her pajamas. Okay, this is not what you are
constructing a straw man and just punging it to hell right now. But we
need to get into this to both agree that John Fetterman, who was photographed
today going to meet with Vladimir Zelenski who's in town to ask for all that
more money, was dressed in like a gray I don't know. It reminds
me of like the big sort of cargo Carhart shirts that I like car Heart.
Yeah. Again, like this is totally normal dress. I completely support
people dressing like this. As you were collars, it had a collar,
It had a collar that was good. Bring a collar. When I when
I was a bartender and launching the New Guard and living in DC, not
even paycheck to paycheck, there was a point where I was buying discounted like
Jewish holiday food at the grocery store and literally had a pot of potatoes that
I kept on the stove just like that and throw in the fridge in between,
keep on the ste like a stone lady stew and throwing the fridge in
between and like seasoned with Montreal susanas and eat at work. Yeah, and
I still watched my face. I didn't wear my pajamas outside. It's not
a matter of poverty, it's a matter of or It's just a matter of
taste and classics. Actually, you know, I might surprised you with this.
I hate all the takes about the decline of the Senate embodied in this
stress code thing. Flush that out. The Senate is not an institution in
decline. The Senate is already declined. The Senate is a pit. The
Senate were used to be an august body of legislature, legislators in debate.
It's not anymore. There's no normal order, there's no real voting, there's
no honest debate, there's no oversight. They're completely run by the bureaucratic state.
There's no interest in actually doing these things. Like as we saw you
mentioned Tuberville earlier. We saw the whole play out when he said, well,
you're not gonna be able to get any of these military officers confirmed past
me. You have to have a vote, And they pretended for three months
like they couldn't do anything. I mean, if you if you read it,
and we've talked about this before, but if you, as you put
all politics closely, you have for a decade. If you printed out a
list of the hundred of US senators, one hundred and most profit people on
the planet, you wouldn't recognize one more than half the names. And they
could walk by you at on their plane or a bus stop and you have
no idea who they are because they do nothing. I mean in order to
like Ted Cruiser eventually just started a podcast. We have a podcast. We're
not US Senators, And it's like, that's that's kind of what they're doing
here. Very few people are actually interested in the nitty gritty. So now
to see, like, you know, this obviously brain damaged kind of hoax
candidate from Pennsylvania show up dressed in like a buffoon, and everyone says,
oh, respects the institution? What institution? What respect is it? What
self respect? Does the institution happen has a lot of self importance, Yeah,
but what respect for itself and its duty and its role as constitutional role
does it actually have? I mean, look at look at what we're doing
with it right now. The spending bill, President of some sound spending bill.
The president by the way he was like busily engaged in protecting his son,
prosecuting and prisoning against enemies, and Republicans are like, oh wait after
after pass it in according to metro comus, and it probably exists to send
money to Ukraine and past president's budgets. So that's why I would I wouldn't
work for almost any politician because I don't want to have to do that.
Yeah, but I would work for Senator kid Rock if you ever ran,
I would quit my job and take a pack up to work for some of
the kid Rock with two middle figures in the air wearing Jean George in the
Senate chamber of being like, you're all full of it, You're all self
important because you have no self respect. You are a shadow of what the
it was supposed to be your costplaying, So so the heck with you?
Oh cool? You wore a tie to work and you shine your shoes.
That's wonderful. Are you actually a functioning US senator and a functioning US Senate?
No, shut up, look like Federman is just kind of just an
exposing how stupid the whole thing is. Gene George is redundant. I want
to say that, but also you're right. You're also right likewise, you're
right to I think focusing on the hypocrisy of the people who are now decrying
the institution and the how precious this institution is. But actually Federman is so
interesting because he is recovering from what hospitalization over depression obviously the stroke, he's
brain damage, there's no reported there, spends a lot of time sitting on
a bench in a park inside one of the senabildings. A lot of time.
Yeah, And I think, you know, there's still this question of
like we should we're giving up on this pretense of actually aspiring to be great,
and that is like the saddest thing of all. Like it makes sense
when people are genuinely suffering from depression, they have a hard time getting dressed
in the morning, have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.
But it is the standards of society that eventually help us, uh,
you know, live. We have something to aspire to, right, Like
we don't want to be in our pajamas all day, not able to like
muster the energy. And what's happening here is that truck Schumer is lowering the
standards of the Senate to meet John fetterman without also being like without also saying
yeah, we're giving up the pretense here, like we're all a bunch of
gabrownies. Like I agree with you, I agree with you. It is
exposing I agree, it's it is entirely exposing this. But it's also still
so irritating because they are still insistent that they can dress, you know,
with the utility of somebody who is a contractor and needs like to have freedom
of motion literally because they are like using jack hammers and regular hammers and all
that stuff saws all day long. But they're not admitting that it's because they're
lowering the standards. In fact, they still claim to be as virtuous as
before, if not more virtuous, because they are allowing this poor suffering man
to live his truth. To her point about that kind of oppression acts or
magically had a thing from the who and from the mots earlier in the British
working class rock and roll in the sixties, which was dead like a model.
I can't recall it exactly. It's like clean living and dirty circumstances,
or sharp living and dirty circumstances. These guys lived in factory towns and places
that were going under and the changes in England, and England was the poor
man of Europe. But they and they basically just messed around and got in
a fight. It's and we're not drinking, but they pour a suit and
tie everywhere they went, and it was just kind of part of the ethos.
And I think it's not it's more to your earlier point than it's your
latter point, but it's it's important. I mean, you you feel to
make your bed in the morning, your day starts by making your bed in
the morning. It's just I'm not here too. I'm not going to join
the chorus of exploration over for John Federman because I know that my future boss
and your kid Rock's not going to wear a suit and about it how much,
asking, well, yeah, and you know the reason that you would
vote for and work for apparently, Senator kid Rock is because the institution itself
is declined. It's not you're right, it's it's not like in decline.
It has declined. No, I mean, Nero might as well run his
horse as the Democrats running Cederman. That's well said, kind of mean,
though, oh, I mean, it's it's not that mean. It's yeah,
I Fetterman is. I actually really do think he's an interesting person because
he's LARPing too. And we've talked about this before, Like the guy is
a Harvard graduate who grew up with money, has money now, his parents
have supported him in his sort of public service career, and there's like documentation
some of that came out during the campaign, and that is as irritating like
if he weren't LARPing, like if he were genuinely I was thinking about this
last night, if he were genuinely Joe the plumber who recently passed away and
was sort of rocketed to political stardom in the Obama era because he just had
the audacity to like interrupt Obama at a campaign at a campaign stop once I
think it was in Ohio. It kind of looked physically resembled John Fetterman,
like a similar physical type, like bald guy. But Fetterman is totally LARPing.
He has is absolutely no claim, no reason for the way that he
dresses other than that he wants to trick working class people into thinking he identifies
with them, whereas he completely supports all of the cultural bs and will shove
it down their throats and will allow Democrats to shove it down their throats,
no matter how appalling they find it, no matter how much money it then
costs them to find a way to pay to get their kids through private school
because they can't send their kids to the damn public schools anymore. Yeah,
that's kind of thing the Democrats has to do so well, but they get
off right. They've larned for decades. There's kind of that party and they've
given up on it. And you know, now now their publican party's doing
some of that of their own, trying to say, oh, wait,
Trump did well, so now we're the working class party. But then you
get them actually down to what they're going to vote for and what they're going
to stand for on Aside from like Jade Benson a couple of others, they're
still a corporate party. I mean, yeah, lark, he lark says
a working guy and he has never really worked, just like Bernie Sanders never
really worked. Lad doesn't play that part as much, and the Senate larks
as a senate. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah Carter, investigative columnist
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like John Federman grew up with money, you went to Harvard, like Bernie
Sanders is a kid from Brooklyn. This guy knows nothing like if Federman has
no legitimate claim to having the experience of a working class person, Which is
fine, by the way, if you understand that, and like we both
work in DC media and don't claim to be like the voice of working people,
but you can like understand your station is different, and you know,
try to do your best to put yourself in other people's shoes and empathize with
people across the board. But he doesn't get like he'll legitimately like people really
think that the guy is like pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He looks
like it. I mean, he looks like it, So yeah, exactly.
But you know, speaking of Larkin, I actually wrote a piece about
this with Trump Yes this week, which is, I don't know if you
guys have noticed it, but Trump has been Trump has been moving further and
further and further to the left on abortion since twenty twenty two. And granted
he's in a Republican primary, and I think that has something to do with
it. Not an excuse, but I think for Trump, he's very he
moved to the left on abortion and the Republican primary. I mean, it's
then you're going to move even further left during the general. Well, he's
misreading and thinking what Republican voters want is electability, which is the exact opposite
of how he got elected in the first place. So you had all of
the people saying, we have to vote for Jeff Bush, He's more electable,
and all of the Republican voters were like, actually, we like this
Trump guy. Don't give a damn if he's more electable, but either way,
he actually might be. So pro life and Trump have a complicated and
interesting history. I mean, I remember the Las Vegas debate stage and I
read about this in the piece of the Telegraph where Trump came out on the
general election against Hillary Clinton and put her on the defensive and describes light term
abortion and called her a nasty woman and went straight at her as opposed to
just apologize and saying, well, in the courses of right. But it's
like, who life for? You just rand like you understand what these people
are abrogating. And it was really clear we've never seen anyone who've gotten that
far in the primary in the half century of Republicans pretending to care about abortion
to actually go at it that way. We've seen congressmen do oversee senators do
it, but not on the national debate stage that way. And Scalia had
died and Mitch McConnell held the line. So the pro life movement realized,
this guy's got a chance to put out these judges. They really changed this.
And then he released a list of judges when there was so little conservative
doubt about this guy's bona fees, and people have brought up a pro life
movement that should not be taken for grant. Republicans have often taken this thing
for granted. They did not show up for Mitt Romney, you know,
despite the fact that everybody in Fox News didn't really go to church agree that
he was a Christian. They didn't show up for him. They didn't feel
like that was actually the kid. And and Trump rewarded them and had a
fruitful relationship. And by the accountant people I knew who worked with him in
the White House, he took a behind the scenes even interest in the works
from politics. Then Row gets repealed. He gets all this credit. Mitchmonconnell
gets a bunch of credit, but then Trump's candidates losing the mid term to
the Democrats. They don't do well, they get and crushed, and he
doesn't. Instead of he looks at this whole thing and says, the pro
life movement has portrayed me, that this row rewade has crushed my candidates,
the dobbs has crushed my candidates. And he was particularly annoyed that the pro
board Democratic groups like I was spent the pro life Republican groups like twenty to
one or something like that in these elections, which is true. She's like,
hey, where'd you guys go? You betrayed me? And he turned
up them, and he's he's attacked them since he's routinely attacked Ron Santus for
his life bill that they passed in Florida. Run Santis, by the way,
dramatically I performed his candidates and actually sent him into a private temper tantrum
and ralago that some people have to witness. Yeah, and he's grown increasingly
antagonistic program. This past Sunday, he was on Meet the Press. I
think and he said, he said, I think both pro life people and
pro abortion people are gonna like me. I think everyone's gonna like me.
That could just be classic Trump, but that doesn't work in this country and
abortion politics, it happens, or there's Lindsey Graham has that fifteen week band
that Trump was angry about. There's rumors swirling that I've had not confirmed,
the Trump is toying with a twenty week band, which is basically Rovy Way.
It's codifying Roevy Way and the Republicans. If there was a breakdown of
Republicans in South Carolina, for example, this is just what say they chose,
and they took those who are Trump's supporters and they compared them to the
supporters of other Republican cannadas. Trump supporters were like ten points more pro life
than their fellow Republicans. It's like eighty seven percent or something, or maybe
even higher. They were more conservative on guns too, which is Trump actually
wasn't particularly conservative, and they were more conservative on a host of these issues.
And I'm wondering, what's what's going to come up with this because eventually,
like people are kind of running on memory and fumes with Donald Trumps,
Like Donald Trump twenty sixteen really ran on a conservative message and like a message
for a renewed America. Trump twenty twenty kind of ran out his grievance train.
Trump twenty twenty four I think is even more of that. But people
are still kind of remembering that we're going to build the wall, we're gonna
stop wait from abortion, and we're going to end these foreign wars. Kind
of guy that message in twenty sixteen, and they had people said earlier,
I think voters are really updated their impressions of Trump. Left wing or right
wing voters have not updated their impressions of Trump in years. It's a kind
of set so. And that's but I think this is going to come to
a head. Pro life groups in a creative support this sort of stuff.
Well, anyone care and and you know, I was talking to a guy
who's in the Trump orbit after my piece came out, and he said,
he's got a nothing's interesting. He's a real concern that Trump could actually push
the evangelical American right more pro abortion, more pros That's very interestingly. There's
a lot of different people in that like barring and absolute catastrophe will not change
third loyalty to Trump. I'm not one of those left bringers like it's a
calls, but there's a lot of people who doesn't really matter what It doesn't
matter if we're dealing like actually with like a six foot two eighty year old
male. Nancy Mace's kind of sometimes it seems like as far as politics are,
which she Bill McMorris made that line compared to Nancy Mace yesterday and it
haunted me. It's like still like banging around in my head. It's like
Trump is the same politics is Nancy Mace is most liberal Republican support. Remember
how we taught you photoshop. You could have some fun with that. Yeah,
yeah, But I mean the evangelicals itself, the which out important poor
force in the in the American right, the moral majority. We're late to
the abortion trade. When this started, it was a bunch of Catholics after
a reviewaite. It was basically Catholics, and there wasn't any strong condemnation or
opinions from the ether. The local Baptist churches that started to build and change
later and then they became an important part of that movement. I wonder if
do they push Trump to course correct with push back and say okay, because
he does do that obviously, and say all right, I'm back on the
training with you. Guys, or does he pushed them to vote for approach.
Christ came in it. Just last night. I was out of dinner
where some people who are really involved in this and talking all this stuff through.
My theory is that there's really no mathematical, tactical reason for Donald Trump
to be alienating pro life voters in a Republican primary, like you think suburban
woman right need to do anything in the Publican primary. He could not come
outside for three more modest party. So it's a huge opening for DeSantis in
Iowa. Not that Trump can't afford to lose it. Obviously, Trump can
afford to give De Santis an opening in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire,
and there's still a huge uphill battle for Donald Trump to lose or for
Ron de Santis to do anything that puts it down in Donald Trump's like massive
support. I think Trump's instincts are correct that you know, this is not
how he thinks about it. But we are a fallen country riddled with evil,
and people are tolerant of the abhorrent practice of abortion because we've been conditioned
not to see the dignity in all humans and in all life. But but
in a Republican primary. This makes no sense except that I think Donald Trump
always had this transactional, as you described, relationship with the pro life movement.
He's always seen pro lifers as sort of weird intent ikey Christians, pretty
weird and dark. I agree, very good, but it impacts personality.
But that's a very empathetic way to look at it, and I think Donald
Trump is one of the many people that doesn't have that sort of empathetic lens
when looking at pro lifers. And my theory is that him spouting off in
this way is reflective of a deep seated visceral inability to continue his side of
the bargain because he really is like grossed out by pro lifers and postdobs.
He's like frustrated that he feels like people aren't grateful enough, and he feels
like these people were always weird, and he feels like it's a losing issue.
So it just he's not able to sort of like keep a lid on
his internal just his internal dislike fundamental discis. That's true, But again,
like in a Republican primary, he he kind of wouldn't, but we can
kind of Maybe I've got no point now, I don't think the primary batter
is for Cybon we're talking about. No, I agree, but like he's
still in the middle, Like he has no reason to be doing it right
now. He's not running in the general right now, it's not happening,
like it just it doesn't there's no reason to be alienating people right now.
Yeah, And it's I would I mean, like I said, open a
course correction, Like there was a period of time and when he was first
selected where he was toying with the idea of following Ivanka's incredibly stupid green agenda,
and he responded to outside pressure that was opposed to like you know,
it was like attacking Ivanka. But I was saying, because you can't do
that. It was saying, yeah, this is going to completely tank your
reindustrialization agenda. He's going to tank your energy agenda. I was going to
tank your American jobs agenda. So don't do it. And maybe I'm hopeful
that he's responsive to this because I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon of
conservative writers who complain about Trump. Yeah, I don't. I don't like
type of the people Gerald, But there's a problem here, and I don't
think voters are paying attention to it. I think it's going to come to
the four and I'm wondering who's going to give first the base for the candidate.
No, I agree, I mean I think because Trump doesn't have a
real serious challenge at this point in the primary, It's like he has no
incentive to be responsive to voters. It still doesn't make sense to like unnecessarily
alienate people and to make it so that maybe he does have to just for
the sake of it, like spend a little money here and there in Iowa
and here it just like it was unforced, Like nobody is forcing him to
answer the question the way that he did so, and he's got to come
back and win Iowa. He didn't win in twenty sixteen. I was there
that is that is a election night party, And speaking of spending money in
Iowa, I was kind of surprised. This is my first real exposure to
Donald Trump besides from like seeing him in a helicopter Atlantic City once was an
sixteen We thought it was school. I had a bachelor party. We saw
in the land because he has hair, you know, like somebody, I
said, a helicopter, it's clearly Trump, but uh, it was it
was not an open bar. It was sad. I'm sorry about that,
and that was I was like, oh, Donald Trump, not an open
bar. And that's since realized, like that's really not his style. It's
what you lost and other people's drugs. Now you can buy his drinks.
And it was a strange, motley group of people. There a lot of
girls who were dressed for the club. But I remember he was talking about
much he loved that he was gonna come back. Maybe he was gonna buy
a farm there. So I don't think he ever bought a farm there,
and then he ended up winning stakes later. I was actually I think I
was at Rubio in New Hampshire, so I was always at the losers parties.
Way more interesting. Uh, it would have been fun to me to
the event once for once. I think it was a Scott Brown special election
on that was a winning event, so that was fun, the Scott Brown
special election. Yeah, my absolutely Bellot didn't come in. I had like
one hundred and thirty five dollars in my checking account and zero credit cards.
Teddy Barr and I spent it all on like a round trip Jet Blue flight
to Boston because Masterty Bellot didn't come in and a splue hotel on with my
buddy at the Scott Brown headquarters and my wars one suit and went there voted.
He picked up the airport we bob. I think he got a thirty
back. I couldn't afford to go out for beers and flew back the next
day. It wasn't and it wasn't an excellent time. Sounds like it.
Well, we've a stuff at Harmacare. Oh you were so close? No,
I mean yeah, it turns out turns out the Democrats were rolling the
fight a little harder on that. Yeah, she's a nail. Well that
on that. We're gonna have to leave it there because I'm I'm late for
the good folks at the Quincy Institute and Chris has parked illegally. That's how
badly we needed to bring this podcast into the universe today. All right,
absolutely find your loser pe Okay, Thanks chrisy. You've been listening to another
edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Deshnsky, culture editor here at
the Federalist, Joint to day by Christopher Bedford, Executive editor over at the
Common Sense Society. We'll be back soon. More. Until then, be
lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.