Hello, everyone, Welcome back to another episode of A You're Wrong with Molly
Hemingway and David Harsani. You know, Molly, some weeks I really worried
that we're not going to have enough to talk about, you know, and
this I think might be one of those weeks, don't you. Yeah,
nothing really is going on in the world at large, the country. The
country is not falling apart anyway. Let's talk about the Durham Report. That
is the news of the day, but apparently not the news for mainstream oh,
for establishment media, where it was barely covered, including I'm sad to
say, in the Wall Street Journal on the initial day, though they had
a very good editorial later about it. Obviously, this is something you've heard,
I mean, the topic of Russia collusion, the hoax of Russia collusion
from nearly the very beginning. I think the Federalist deserves credit for being onto
this very early and writing just a slew of really good stories, great journalism.
But I'll just start with this because I don't know how else to get
into this huge topic. Was there anything in that report that surprised you or
anything that you didn't expect, or was it exactly what you expected, So
I think I might have had a better understanding of what to expect than a
lot of people did. So the report in some ways was exactly what I
expected, a really thoughtful, precise look at how the Russia collusion hoax got
weaponized by the FBI, and it is that. But having said that,
there are lots of surprises for me, including I mean, like, one
of the things that Durham explains is that there were more tiple disconcerting issues surrounding
foreign attempts to bribe Hillary Clinton, and the way the FBI handled that was
either to sort of not worry about it, or to give a defensive briefing,
certainly not to open up an investigation. In one case, they actually
tell a confidential human source that they don't want that source continuing to give information
about foreign attempts to give money to the Clinton campaign. So there were lots
of interesting details about that that I had no idea about, and even I
think it's largely surmised that one of these incidents involves a guy who had been
publicly saying that he had been an FBI confidential human source put against the Clinton
campaign. It's this overstocked CEO Patrick Byrne, and I think I think a
lot of people just kind of dismissed what he was saying, and then it
looks like he might have been telling the truth about parts of this because it's
in the Durham Report. So there's a lot of stuff that would be like
any journalist who has a pulse has a lot to look at here. And
I've been doing a real close read. I mean I did that thing everybody
does of getting the report, reading the executive summary, going through like skimming
the rest. But now I and also Mario Cleveland and a few other reporters
at the Federalists were doing like a real careful look, and there's a lot
in there that's very interesting to me. So for me at least just reading
through it very quickly, and I haven't taken a deep dive. And honestly,
people who have been paying attention to every aspect of the story can contextualize
it much better than I can, you know. But still it is such
a disheartening thing to read. I'm not even exaggerating here when I say that
I feel like this is the last like nail in the coffin for me,
Like I feel like we can't survive, not only because we have the FBI
and all these you know, really powerful people coordinating attacks and being involved in
this conspiracy to undermine an election. It's that no one cares that I became
a journalist because I thought, like, you know, journalists stand up to
people, empower journalists, defend freedom, all these things. But we have
nothing. And now, obviously many of these journalists who involved themselves in this
were credulous and many of them were devious. But after reading this report,
it seems to me like most of them were probably devious, and few of
them were actually just dupes, do you know what I mean? Or they
were willing dupes because they knew that this was just incredibly thin. Like to
me, it seems like there was dispositive evidence that the FBI ignored, not
just like not enough evidence, that there was actually evidence that they were spreading
Russian or tracking down Russian disinformation. Am I wrong about this? I'm not
sure exactly what you mean by that. What I mean is that the FBI
not only have not pursued this investigation because they didn't have enough evidence, but
that they had evidence that proved that it would have been a bad thing to
pursue in the first place. Okay, so yeah, this is actually one
of the really interesting parts of the Durham Report. And I just want to
make a real quick point that one of the things I find disheartening is how
many people opine on what's in the report without actually having read it. It's
quite obvious that a lot of these corrupt propagandists who are like, oh,
it's not that big of a deal, they clearly have not read it.
In some cases, they're mentioned by name for their wrongdoing, and yet they're
going out on major media and saying there's nothing there. But so, one
of the things that Durham looks into is the fact that by the end of
July, US intelligence knew that Russians were talking about Hillary Clinton personally approving a
plan to say that Donald Trump was an agent of Putin. Now, the
reason why that's significant is because everything that they got related to this should have
been viewed through the lens of is this real or is this a Hillary Clinton
operation. Now we found out, you know, a year or two years
later, that Hillary Clinton had personally paid for the operation to create the Steel
dossier with her campaign along with the DNC. So it was like a they
actually purchased the Steel dossier. But even before we knew that conclusively, a
smart FBI would have thought, gosh, this seems like kind of what we
heard the Russians seem to know about what Hillary is doing, and Durham lays
out everything it's like, so supposedly the Russians said on this day in July,
Hillary Clinton personally approved the plan. We asked her about it, and
she said, no, I never said I never personally approved a plan like
that. That's crazy. But Durham points out that the very next day there
are emails from top four and policy advisers trying to get this whole thing going,
and then he leads out he talks about what's happening in July, what's
happening in August, what's happening in September, what's happening in October, And
he actually points out that on one day, October thirtieth, twenty sixteen,
multiple stories dropped Alpha Bank, the Russia investigation at the FBI, Christopher Steele
being really concerned about Russia collusion with the Trump campaign. They all dropped on
the same day. Hillary Clinton put it at the top of her Twitter feed
that this was like a real thing, and Durham is like, so she
denies it, but also, here's what happened July, August, September,
and October. That happens to all be directly related to the campaign and what
they were funding and fusion GPS contacting this reporter and that reporter. In other
words, you'd have to be a complete idiot to think that this whole thing
wasn't like one Hillary. If I could just add one little thing, you
can add anything you want. My first story arguing against the Russia collusion hoax
was published at The Federalist on October thirty first, twenty sixteen. I loved
that Durham did the same thing I did, which was to look at all
of these stories about Russia, all dropping on the same day, all seeming
like an infoof from Hillary Clinton. And that was my argument, and that's
his argument. And it was just kind of nice to have that confirmation from
someone who had greater access. I mean, for kind of if I may
pat myself on the back that I did it the day it happened, I
think impressive. It was. It was not an easy thing to do for
you, and obviously I was there with you and I saw you know,
the attacks on you and all that. But even later in twenty seventeen,
I think I wrote a story like stop, you know, like maybe we
should just listen to Devin Nunez a little bit, like maybe this isn't crazy,
Like there was no reason to just dismiss it and not investigate. And
the blowback for just saying something like that of me being a Putin stooge,
and you know what, all the stuff from like all these lived journalists.
It was, you know, and it's a bit scary because you don't want
to come out on the wrong side of a huge story like this. It
was the you know, but as it turned out, this was the most
successful political you know, disinformation operation that's ever happened in American history. If
we went out to again, Brennan briefs Obama and Komey in July twenty sixteen
that the Russians say that there's this info op going to be coming out of
the Hillary Clinton campaign, like they knew that early. They knew therefore that
I mean, at the very least they knew. The Russians believed this to
be the case. So any information that was coming was so obviously Russian disinformation
or highly possibly Russian disinformation. Turned out that Christopher Steele was contracting with an
actual Russian dude who had been investigated by our own intel services for being a
Russian spy, who had bragged to all of his friends that he was former
Russian intelligence, who bragged about being involved in military operations on behalf of Russia,
who had asked some of his callings at the left wing Brookings Institution if
they would like money for revealing secrets to Russia. Like this is the guide
that was Christopher Steele's primary source. And our intelligence agencies were so idiotic they
opened an investigation on him like ten years prior, but closed it because they
believed he had left the country and he had not. Well, thanks for
bringing up John Brennan. You know he knew from the and that's why it
was so difficult, because you had these people lending their considerable credibility. This
is the former director of the CIA saying there's something there. So a normal
person and not anymore, of course, but in those days would say,
wow, the former director of the CIA saying there's something here. The director
of the FBI is fine with this, Like these are people you know who
have incredible knowledge that you don't have and or you know have credibility. But
the problem was Brennan, we now know knew not only then, probably from
the very beginning, but also knew later when he admitted that he you know,
inclosed behind closed doors, that he knew there was no conspiracy. Yet
that same week I think it was, went on Joe Scarborough Show and said
there's more to it than Muller's leading on. There's definitely more to it.
There's a collusion. This good he lied. He's a complete liar who belongs
in prison. Now, when I wrote this column this week that John Brennan
belongs in prison, I got a lot of blowback for it. He belongs
in prison for other reasons as well. He spied on the Senate and all
that. He's just an odious person. But how about how about instead of
prison, not promoting people who did this like that would be a good start
for me, or not putting them on TV anymore, or not celebrating them
as some sort of heroes of democracy. That would be a good start for
me. It doesn't have to be prison. I'm willing to start anywhere.
I also don't think it has to be prison. But I'm going in a
more extreme direction probably than you are. But yes, at the very least,
nobody should be talking, like every single time these people talk, it
should be announced this person lied about Russia collusion in a way that damaged the
country. This you know, in the case of Brennan and Clapper, you
have other instances that they have lied to the country in ways that we're very
harmful to the republic. But our corporate media actually reward the people who participated
in the hoax. They themselves were co conspirators in the operation. I'm never
actually one hundred percent sure if they're co conspirators or if they are literally the
stupidest people on earth and actually believed this fantastical tale of Russia collusion. I
think it depends on the person, and we don't want to need to go
through the whole list. But it was funny that the New York Times had
I think four byline stories saying there's nothing to see her, and one of
the authors is Charlie Savage was participated in the hoax, So of course the
hoaxter says he doesn't think anything is there. I'm like, can you can
you get another person who didn't fall for this to write about it, at
least in your newspaper, right, And I think he knew he was falling
for it. So it's not that's not quite the right term. But Charlie
Savage, I remember, was really critical of the Nounez memo, even after
the Inspector General report came out completely confirming the Devinnunez memo. Once again with
the Durham report, you know, So the Nounez memo had like five points,
and one was that the dossier was used to secure the Faiza on Carter
page. Another was that they had failed to include exculpatory information. Another was
that Bruce and Nellie Orr were more involved in this operation than had previously been
known. There were a few other things. Every single thing that was that
memo has been To say it's been confirmed is an understatement. It was actually
so much worse than what Devin Newness as memo said. And I also want
to point out that when the Newness memo was coming out, the Department of
Justice authored a letter saying that if the American people were to read this memo,
it would harm the country. And I had said at the time,
I thought that what they meant was that the FBI would be embarrassed, and
that was absolutely true. The person who authored that letter is the special counsel
supposedly investigating for Joe Biden for his mishandling of classified documents. The guy who
was a also this same guy ever get his name? The special counsel was
one of the few people who understood that Christopher Steele was who he was and
that he was compromised by his relationship with the in campaign. This is the
guy that Merritt Garland says will do a really good job investigating Joe Biden's five
decade career of mishandling classified information. Sure Buddy, The Watchdolt on Wall Street
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out the Watchdoto on Wall Street Podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or
wherever you get your podcast. Joe Biden was also informed about Hillary Clinton's plans
to paint Trump as a Russian asset, and yet later or he went and
basically it agreed that the election had been stolen by Putin. So but you
know, no one seems to care. But so, I mean, let's
talk a little bit. Also, the office of the Vice President is mentioned
early on in the Durham Report, you know, meaning Joe Biden, then
Vice president, the day after Hillary Clinton supposedly authorized this operation to destroy Trump
by calling him a Russian stuge talk foreign policy aids to our campaign. We're
trying to get help from the office of the Vice president to just like,
yeah, get things out into the ecosystem, or to get information. So
they were early participants in the hooks. There are early adopters. The funny,
it's not funny, it is sort of funny that that. You know,
of course, the reaction from the left is exactly what you exp back.
That's either to ignore it or pretend that, oh, there's nothing new
here. No one's even indicted. You know, he couldn't even find someone
to indict It's amazing how this story has gone from the elected president of the
United States is actually a Russian spy to hey, they couldn't even find anyone
to indict for this hoax, right, Like I So much has happened since
seventeen, But the hysteria this country went through, I have in my twenty
years of writing or talking about politics, maybe nine to eleven, which was
an actual event, nothing has matched that kind of hysteria and anger. And
you know, I don't even know what to call it. It was just
this, this collective hysteria, and we were talking about it every day,
and none of it was true, and every stupid story that came out had
to be chased down. Do you remember, like a story would drop and
everyone would get hysterical in the media and like for two days, and usually
it would like fizzle out. But it all made its way into the consciousness
of the voter, if you remember. I think it was by like twenty
nineteen, sixty seven percent of Democratic voters thought the Russians had literally tampered with
their votes, not bought some Facebook ads, but changed their votes. It
is such a success. This was such a success, and no one has
been held accountable, and no one ever will. No one's going to jail,
no one's going to be indicted. I don't think anyone's going to be
held accountable for this. I just think it's worth pointing out too. From
twenty sixteen, on the book Shattered mentions that Hillary Clinton is devastated by her
failure to win the presidency, and within hours she and her brain trust are
meeting in Brooklyn and they decide to lean into this Russia, this Russia false
claim that they had made, and they used that to try to keep the
electors from voting for Donald Trump. There were lots of legitimate stories about how
maybe Donald Trump wouldn't be inaugurated. The day of his inauguration, one of
the major co conspirators in this, The Washington Post, published a piece saying
that it's time to impeach Donald Trump. So they run this whole, like
years long overt campaign to say that Donald Trump stole the twenty sixteen election by
colluding with Russia. They knew it was false, they weaponized it. They
got it into the idiots at the FBI who were eager co conspirators. They
talked about it at length, and they used it to undermine the will of
the people who had just elected a new president. It was used to keep
people from serving in that administration or to oust them if they did. It
was like a full on coup that was quite successful to undermine that. And
you put by comparison what happened in twenty twenty, which involved a radical shift
in how we do elections in a very short period of time without buy in.
You know, there were all these changes to laws and processes under the
cover of COVID that were just pushed through without legislatures weighing in on them,
which is what the Constitution requires, to enable a flood of like tens of
millions of mail in ballots at the same time that scrutiny of those ballots was
like brought to nearly nothing. You had the private takeover of government election offices
by Mark Zuckerberg, spending four hundred and nineteen million dollars in the blue areas
of swing states to take to gin up get out the vote efforts for Democrats.
You had the suppression by big tech of major media stories like the Hunter
Biden and the Biden family corruptions stories. You had our corporate media, which
had just engaged in a four year long Russia hysteria thing, also inventingle just
making completely made up stories, like The Atlantic completely invented a story that Donald
Trump had disparaged dead World War One soldiers, a story that was refuted by
like twenty five on the record sources. And so that's the situation going into
the twenty twenty election, where Trump loses by an even smaller margin than Hillary
Clinton lost in twenty sixteen, and when people are upset about it, the
media are like, you're not allowed to ask any questions. You're not allowed
to say the words rigged or stolen, you know, like all of a
sudden, it was just, you know, on a dime, a complete
one eighty switch where they went from adopting the most absurd theory in history and
then saying you're not even allowed to like notice the big tech you know,
interfered in the election. Yeah, election denialism, which has been a democratic
hobby since nineteen eighty, right, but you're not allowed particularly, I would
say, particularly since two thousand. You know, the last election that they
even came close to accepting that they lost would be nineteen eighty eight. But
I don't even want to dive into this not too deeply. But there was
a story recently in the New York Times about how the nineteen eighty election was
actually stolen because Reagan sent agents over to the Middle East to tell the Iranians
to keep holding onto the hostages which would have been released before, and then
Reagan would have lost, and then the world would be a better place.
Right. It is interesting though that now since then, I mean you could
sort of retroactively see this, but now you can see these things, these
operations unfold from like ten miles away. For instance, the dark money concerted
effort to smear and destroy the Supreme Court as one of these sort of efforts
that everyone is involved in. But the Hunter Biden laptop story effort was very
similar. You had the former the CIA guy, I forget his name,
Barrel, maybe you know, cooking up talking points for Joe Biden, enlisting
people again who have credentials, who you're supposed to trust, like John Brennan,
to sign a letter that it reeked of what was it like had all
the characteristics of Russian disinformation. The New York Post story, which incidentally had
more corroboration and journalistic ethics behind it than any Russia collusion, hoak story,
mostly all of them put together, all of them put together with their one
sourced you know, leaks, and to interfere in an election, to interfere
in free speech and debate, using giant corporations, using the people from the
CIA and FBI and so on. It is just it's far more dangerous to
democracy than January sixth was. It's not even in the same realm. It
is. I've never said these words, these words that I'm about to say
in my life. I don't think, not sarcastically, worse than Watergate by
any conception, this was worse. This was a soft coup on the government.
They basically tied up the duly elected president for four years with this nonsense.
So how many investigations were there into this, how many much money did
they spend? How many tens of millions of dollars that they spend? And
in the end, Devin Nunez was right about everything, and Adam Schiff lied
about everything, you know what I mean? And Adam Shift is going to
be the maybe be the Senator from California running the country. It is really
it's like what Harry Reid said about lying about Mitt Romney's taxes, and then
when he was confronted on it, he said, well it worked. I
mean, can you mentioned that? Yeah, I thought about that the other
day. That is an encapsulation of what these things are about. And I
see these I don't want to mention all these reporters. We call them at
by name all the time, but they are not upset because it worked.
They're happy that it worked. They're fine. They want a one party state.
I'm completely I'm not saying, like the average Democrat walking around in Cleveland
once a one party state. But these media types, these journalists, these
pundits, these people in government, they want a one party state. The
only thing they don't runs the Supreme Court. They're going to destroy that as
well. And they're happy when the FBI does this because they think they're on
such a moral plane that whatever needs to be done is fine. So there's
why I'm just ranting about this because it upsets me. But I just I
think this is like to me, I don't know how you come back from
stuff like this, because I just don't know how you come back from it.
Just one additional thing that I think relates to this, which is when
the Russia collusion hoax started. I think most Americans who aren't crazy just thought
it was stupid. You know, the theory was put forth by Washington DC
media that the reason why Donald Trump had won was because he had colluded with
Russia to steal the election. That was you know, Hillary Clinton and her
allies in the media. And then a lot of Americans said, I think
he won because we didn't want to vote for Hillary and we voted for Donald.
We liked his ideas better. So immediately, like just Middle America was
like, this is stupid. But in DC it was incredibly difficult to fight
against this. And I would go on these panels on TV and the latest
story would drop, and of course we would talk about it. It's not
like the Biden corruption story, like we've got actual government documents that are on
the record showcasing Biden family influence pedaling. Do we talk about it at night?
I don't think we talk about it that much, right, Like,
I don't think many media outlets are really paying much attention to it at all.
But it didn't matter how absurd the Russia story was. We talked about
it. And so every time I would talk about it, I would get
all this pushback from other people, you know, mockery, anger, derision,
you know, like sniping, and now that it all has come out
once again as being like that you had to be a freaking idiot to believe
this stuff. You do not see a lot of apologies from these people who
were so disdainful of those of us who were skeptical about this Hillary Clinton operation.
My favorite formulation is I'm happy it wasn't true. I'm happy he wasn't
a spy like you know, Oh, I'm happy Brett Kavanaugh was not a
rapist like I said he was before. Or you know, this is good
for the country. You know, they do this all the time. They're
doing it now with the Supreme Court. I just think it's a good example,
though, you know, is that they throw out accusations and it sort
of becomes the accusations, though never proven, become embedded in the way they
talk about everything, like all these ethical problems we've been wrangling with, you
know, yeah, you made it up. And then they're like, oh,
no one trusts the Supreme Court. We have to reform it. Yeah,
because you destroy trust in the Supreme Court, you do trust. You
destroy trust in the FBI, you destroyed trust in the CIA and basically every
institution, and now we trust no one, and that's where we are right
now. I don't know. I guess it's all big picture stuff. But
you know, I think a lot of Americans I think you're wrong by the
way. I think there was a contagion on the there's sort of like conspiratorial
contagion on the left, and I think tons of people believe that there was
some I should have been clear. Yes, a majority of Democrats to this
day, I think actually believe the twenty sixteen election was stolen to this day.
That's how effective the lie the election denihalism was. What I'm talking about
is what we experienced in DC, which is that you would have, you
know, all of these liberals on TV pushing the Russia collusion hoax. You
have like a limited number of slots for people who aren't openly on the left.
Most of those slots were held by never Trump idiots, like just straight
up not very bright idiots. They also pushed the Russia collusion hoax. So
what I'm saying is if you're if you're talking to like conservative America, they're
all like, this thing sounds crazy, But it was very difficult for those
few of us who were not never Trump like madmen to say I don't think
this. I think I don't think this sounds right. There's so much pushback,
I mean extreme pushback places that there should not have been pushedback, including
right the way. One time they've briefed the Senate on the Russia collusion hoax
and meant Romney himself like attacked me because he thought he believed it, and
he thought, basically like Trump deserves this, which is what I heard one
of these never Trump aloo pundits say just this week, like, Okay,
well it turns out I was wrong to trust Come more than Trump, but
he deserved to have people lie about him and claim that the election was stolen
and be subjected to four years of a soft coup. So that's the level
of thinking you get from the idiots that run the never Trump movement. Well,
parent, you know I'm an idiot because someone will quote I'm an idiot,
Dartsani. I am an idiot because I actually, you know, I
care about process and stuff like that. I think it's more important than actual
issues sometimes. You know, how we deal with issues, how we debate,
and all these norms people and process people. They didn't care at They
didn't give one wit about anything to do with process. None of the almost
none of those never trumpers really cared because none of them care right now about
this. But you know, so I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker because
I care about process and I think it matters. And I'm a sucker because
no one does anymore, No one, David. We have so much we
have to cover. We have to move on to the what's the next thing
I'm going to talk about? We're off the Durham report. Do you think
do you even more to say? Say it? No? I just I
like ranting because I don't talk to anyone all week, and this is where
I come to rant. Let's talk a minute. Let's talk for a second,
just just very quickly about because we've covered these this Hunter Biden investigations and
what's going on with that quite a bit. But there was a whistleblower,
I believe, this week who says that the Biden administration had replaced maybe the
entire team at the IRS that was investigating hunters, hunters, you know,
financial doing, you know the stuff he was doing, the whole family's stuff.
Apparently, Yeah, So there had been reports of a whistleblower at Treasury
who was aware of very significant information that he wanted to tell Congress about,
but he was worried about violating his own requirements not to reveal information. So
he went through like a very formal whistleblowing process and he got approval to give
some information to his attorneys and to Congress. And this week we learned that
he was retaliated against. In fact, his entire team was retaliated against.
They were all removed from this Department of Justice investigation that is like the longest
investigation in the history of mankind. Like the dude is on tape breaking laws,
he's got paperwork up the ying yang of how much he has avoid to
taxation and stuff, and the Department of Justice it is just gosh, they
couldn't be kinder. It's almost Hillary Clinton, Like how gentle they're being with
this guy. But the whistleblower was retaliated against, he was removed, He
and his entire team were removed from the investigation. So, which is not
supposed to happen in is a violation of whistleblower protections. Hunter Biden lied on
like we know he lied on his background check form for a gun, right,
and why isn't he being prosecuted. I don't even understand, Like,
I don't care about Hunter Biden. Like I said, I care about Joe
Biden, and I think I want to know if Joe Biden got any money.
There is tons of circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction, But I still
don't understand why he hasn't been prosecuted for gun crimes, for tax crimes,
Hunter. I mean, it's clearly there's got to be some interference in the
drug and sex issues in there too, But most of what people are interested
in, I think is the influence peddling. And this person I correspond with
had this great point about how easy it would be for the Biden family to
just make all of the news go away, which is just explain why every
member of the Biden family, except for the dogs and the four year old
daughter that they refuse to acknowledge her exists. Why is every other family member
at the receiving end of why our transfers from foreign governments. I'm sure there's
a perfectly sensible reason, right if nothing bad is happening, they could just
say, yeah, you know, the reason why we're all creating shell companies
to funnel money from these foreign oligarchs. Is villa in the blake. You
can't even get the people in the White House Press briefing room to ask the
question, But I was going to ask you, has anyone asked anyone asked
the White House Press Secretary or Biden? Has anyone asked him about this?
Just to quick pet Peeves since today's day of ranting, it enrages me to
just remember every single day of the Trump administration featured not one, not two,
but like four hundred journalists screaming at any possible member of the Trump administration.
They were just hysterical every single day. They were rude, they were
dismissive, they were antagonistic, they never accepted any answer. They were just
like rabid hyenas. And then now we have this subliterate, frankly incompetent Press
secretary who does not appear to have any education whatsoever, and they're like ms
Krinn, may we please ask you a gentle question? And then she'll yell
at them in response, and they haven't even asked anything talk and instead of
even having one one billionth of the hysteria that they had under Trump, they're
just like all the meekest, mildest. It's like they all have frontal lobotomies.
On the day they walked into the into the White House Press briefing room,
not all of them, but like ninety nine point nine percent of them,
like they. She keeps saying, with this debt ceiling and debate,
that the Republicans need to do their job and lift the debt ceiling, and
no one's like, yo, they passed a bill and lifted the debts like
no one challenges her. Real quick point on that. I think it's under
noticed that Joe Biden completely caved on his on his stance. So for months
he said, I'm not going to negotiate with these people, their hostage shakers.
They're never going to raise the debt limit no matter what. So I'm
not even going to bother negotiating with them. A few weeks ago, Republicans
did it, and finally earlier this week he announced that he's sending in a
negotiating team. I mean, he totally caved. I mean today but yeah,
today he they brought up the work work requirements for Medicaid and he didn't
dismiss it, Like he didn't say Oh no, that's never going to happen.
He just sort of war you know, went around it, and even
Chuck Schumer was talking about negotiating. So I think the Republicans on this issue
have done a good job, though sometimes I'm like, we take these smallest
little victories, you know, and really it's not that much. There is
no spending cut. It's going to be one, you know, percent hikes
in spending every year. And by the way, they're never gonna stick to
this, like just like they didn't stick to that a Banner Obama deal.
It'll just spend money. But because you were talking about all the way the
press treated Trump in comparison to Bama, let's talk about the CNN town hall,
which happened the day we recorded last week, so we didn't get to
speak about it. I just want to say a few things on it,
just three quick points. One, it was entertaining as usual. The thing
that people I think underestimate about Trump is that he's actually quite entertaining, even
when he's saying things you know, you don't like or whatever. He's just
fun to watch. Two, he is completely unafraid of doing interviews with people
who are antagonistic to him, which I actually have argued with you about I
think I think is a good thing, so so so that that part's also
entertaining. And the third thing was the what was her name again? Who?
Okay, she did what they always Dooh that's not true, that's not
I have no problem with an aggressive press, by the way, I just
wish they were aggressive against everyone. But if you're going to say that's not
true, come with some facts, challenge him specifically. They don't do that.
They're just like, oh, you're just a liar. Oh, you're
just lying. Oh, you're just lying. And Trump does a good job
and he is. Last thing, it made me recall that during his presidency
he was maybe the most open president of modern times. He was he literally
answered any question it literally answered it from all kinds of antagonistic journalist all the
time. I think it was a mistake for him because he was not,
you know, very disciplined in his answers. But you know, you can't
even compared. And yet, yeah, here we are again with the you
know, with the press just doing what they always do with the new presidents
whenever it's a democrat. Okay, So I also agree it was entertaining and
I was thinking about how this left wing censorship industrial complex that we have,
the one that has been trying to silence or remove from any platform any effective
conservative voice, had done like a pretty good job of getting Trump off the
airwaves, off of you know, just he kind of like went away.
It made his appearance at the CNN town hall almost seem like the opening of
his presidential campaign. And it couldn't have gone better for him in the sense
that, you know, he can be kind of exhausting, to put it
mildly, and it was like oddly refreshing to have him back on the scene,
just saying things directly in a way that so few politicians do. And
I'm not saying like I agree with everything or anything like that, but yeah,
it was very it was very I don't know, it just it's like
the time away from him had served him well. The refreshing is the right
word. Now. I know that this is not the word that most people
think of when they describe Trump, but I will say this here. It's
just it's a visceral thing, Like you're like, these people are complete hacks,
they've hacks, they're constantly being dishonest, and this guy they deserve this
guy. They deserve this guy to say that you're a terrible person or whatever
he said to her, Like he is treating them like they treat us.
I think that's what a lot of voters see, and they like that because
they're sick of being pushed around. Now. I know everyone thinks they're always
losing in politics, and sometimes they are and sometimes they are. But he
is the only person who goes on there. Maybe DeSantis will do it in
the future or whatever, but he's the only person who regularly goes on there
and treats them the way they treat voters or so what I want to say
about I know what you're saying. Also about how you like that he will
go into the lions den, and I agree with that at the when he
does it. The problem is he also talks to these corrupt reporters when he
has no control over the situation. So he could say something to a Maggie
Haberman type who was a participant in the Russia collusion hope she actually won an
award for her participation in that you should not talk to people like that.
There's no reason unless you're completely in control of the situation. And he just
like rewards these idiots and then they write stupid stories. And also he's not
as prepared as he should be when he goes into some of these discussions.
So what I like about Ron de Santis is handling up this and Ronda Santis
does not have the skills of a Donald Trump on this. I'm not saying
he does. But his media team operates I think at a very high level.
They are well informed and why they're not going to talk to different people.
They are very specific about reminding people of their errors and their falsehoods and
their lies. And Ron de Santis does a really good job of pushing back,
like in the moment on the law's very He's very well informed in a
way that inspires trust. But yeah, I mean, I don't want anyone
to think that I'm saying that I like everything Trump says or anything like that.
I'm looking at it purely as just a spectacle. And why the you
know why I got good ratings? Why the next week CNN's like un been
behind Newsmax and audience and when he's on, you know they're doing well.
I just I look at it in that way, and I agree with you
as well. He has this weird. I don't think it's weird. I
just think it's the world he's in. He has this weird need to be
liked or have a relationship with these big media reporters that doesn't serve him at
all. All they do is attack him, But for some reason he likes
to talk to them. I don't know why he does that. I don't
think I just wouldn't do so. I agree when you control the situation,
if you can have an interview, if you can tape it yourself to make
sure things aren't taking it out of context, I think being out there is
a good thing because I think the Conservatives, at least if you believe in
what they're believing what they're saying, have good arguments to make. Sorry.
I want to just also touch on some of the ostensibly Republican pushback to this
town hall that I thought was worth noting. So the first is I saw
that it was like Johnson new Knew and Larry Hogan, those types of people.
They were really upset that the audience agreed or like laughed when Trump mocked
Ejean Carroll, and they were like and I think even like Matthew Continetti,
who's normally you know, at least as like sensible about these things. He
kind of suggested that this was not appropriate, that these are very serious things
that happened with Ejean Carroll, and that you shouldn't make fun of stuff like
this. And I would just say, to these people, how are you
supposed to, like, why not mock Democrat claims of you know, Brett
Kavanaugh being a serial gang rapist. I don't think like it's a I actually
think they should. Mockery is the least that should be done, you know.
Byron York wrote an excellent deep dive into how this entire Egene Carol thing
was a left wing plot to as one of the many legal efforts to you
know, putin style removed Donald Trump from political life. The even even this
left wing crazy New York jury did not find that her claim that he had
raped her plausible, and I mean even just hearing Trump talk about it.
There she claims that when she was in her fifties in a Bergdorf Goodman public
space, she was raped. Like, I think it's okay to mock this.
Yeah, people who falsely accuse others of horrible crime should be destroyed in
every way possible. I mean, that's just it. I don't know though
in this case, she didn't. Her story did not sound plausible to me.
I did not like take a deep dive into it or anything. But
if Trump didn't do it, doesn't believe it did it, he has every
right to mock her. She seems like a crazy person, right, I
mean, I've seen her on TV. So but you know, a crazy
but incredibly well financed by the left person. And I mean, yeah,
so certainly if you believe that Donald Trump in a public place raped a fifty
year old, fifty something year old woman, if you if you believe that
as apparently, I mean even the jury didn't believe that, but they still
held him like responsible in some way for defaming her. Make any sense to
me? The decision made no sense. I have no doubt it would appealed,
and who knows what will happen there. But like, if you believe
it, that's fine, but don't gaslight the rest of the country into being
like you shouldn't make fun of that. I'm sorry, Like, listen,
if you don't don't accept democrat claims of sexual assault after decades of experiencing how
well founded they are. No one undermines the seriousness of sexual assault and rape.
The people who who use it as as a weapon to her people they
disagree with in politics or something. I mean, those are the people who
are really undermining the serious nature of sexual assault, not someone who's mocking some
woman who's making up a story. I don't know, okay. So another
thing that I saw the same type of people say is that Donald Trump was
a Putin stooge or something, because Caitlin Collins asked him to say the magic
words. Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and if he could just say those
magic words then everything would be okay, And he said, I actually don't
think that's like a smart way to build to resolution. Like once you start
saying stuff like this, then it's harder to go into peace talks, which
is a very wise and statesmanlike thing to say, not very common in our
political class right now. And then these Larry Hogan whatever Sono new types were
like he loves Putin. Or when he said she said, will you just
say the magic words that you want Ukraine to win, he was like,
I want the war to end. I want people to stop dying. Again,
very statesmanlike, a statesmanship that we have been missing in our political rhetoric
since this war began, and they are I don't know, there's just clowns.
It's like virtue signaling, who no matter how destructive this war is,
no matter how much it puts that puts the entire world at risk of world
war, Like, if you just say these magic words, then everything's okay.
Yeah, I have no problem with what he said in that regard,
other than I'm going to fix this in one day. I mean that kind
of like in my you don't believe it it will be fixed in a twenty
four hundred period. I do not believe it will be fixing, which is
a very sort of New York way of speaking. Um, I'll get this
done in a day, no worries. But overall, just say, you
know, I just don't think the president should be speaking that way. I
think it's different for us. I do want Ukraine to win, but I
feel like it's already kind of one. So I don't know what the what
the point of this war going on is anyway. I don't want to get
into that time. Gosh, well no, okay, I know I want,
I wanna. I feel like that's fine, but you feel Ukraine has
won the war with Russia. Well, I feel that they've repelled Russia in
a serious way and that now this is a good time to start talking to
try to deal with the situation. I don't what is the what does winning
look like? No one ever tells me. Is it taking Moscow? Is
it arresting Putin? I don't understand when the winning happens. So okay,
so I think I think the general definition would be what I've heard people who
are big supporters of US like risking World War three to support Ukraine here is
getting all Russians out of Ukraine at the borders from the nineties. It's good,
that's not going to happen. But I but I, you know,
as I've been wrong about many things related to this, including like I did
not expect Putin to come in so hard at the beginning. I think the
fact that they kept him out of Kiev, kept the Russians out of Kiev,
is like great. I mean, that's like a great opportunity to be
like, Okay, we know we've got some issues here, but they have
they haven't. Both could negotiate to an end. But I don't fashion MYSELFE
Yeah, I don't fashion myself some expert on this, but it seems to
me like Putin's prestige has been incredibly damaged. The Russians have been unmasked as
a third rate power. Basically, I just don't know why continue how continuing
this war indefinitely helps anyone. So sorry, David, that's what I never
these people say these things that don't even make sense. But he'll say,
okay, so Putin's army is the worst army in the history of the world.
And also no, no talking about these people who are Putin's army is
the most incompetent, like weird, awful force in world history. And also
if we don't give hundreds of billions of dollars more, he's going to take
Poland you know, it's like they don't really make sense on this happens with
all the time. And this will be my last comment on this where I
am supportive. I'm supportive of Ukraine. I think that Russia was the aggressor
and all that, and then the argument becomes so stupid that you feel a
need to point out that actually Ukraine is not defending democracy. It isn't even
a very good democracy at all. In fact, it's one of the most
corrupt countries on earth. Or you know, no, Russia was not going
to march into Berlin and Paris. They had no. They don't want to
do that. They can't do it. It's ridiculous and all this stuff.
But yeah, the longer war like this goes on, the more danger there
is pulling others in of something terrible happening of you know, all you need
to do is read a history book to know this, of any kind of
conflict that's ever happened. So I thought Trump's answers are fine on that.
I have no problem with it. Listen, there are a lot of other
things we needed to talk about, but I'm going to skip them and get
right to culture because I actually watched a bunch of stuff and talking about politics,
but let's hear about it. I watched a show called Jury Duty.
The premise oh because so many, so many listeners had recommended it to you.
The only reason I did it so everyone the judge, that urry,
everyone on the jury, everyone in the courthouse, everyone is an actor except
one guy. And they sort of subtly make it just an insane place.
So very quick seeing the guys, like another guy said, an actor says
to the real guy, you know, like, how do you get out
of this? I really want to get it out of jury duty? So
he mentions a Family Guy episode where Peter pretends to be a racist. So
the actor pretends to be a race because I'm racist, Like, I can't
because the judge says, why can't you be on the jury? He goes,
because I'm racist. There are a lot of you know, African Americans
and so forth. So they's like, no, no, no, I
was just kidding whatever. But so they do a lot of crazy stuff and
it's a pretty funny show. I watched a movie called A Man a Man
Called Auto, which is based on a book called A Man Called Ova.
Now I am I hate Tom Hanks. I hate him. You just stepped
on my line. I hate Tom Hanks. I cannot stand his voice.
I cannot stand exacting. I think he's one of the most overrated actors in
America. He's like a parody of himself. Yeah, the movie was okay,
Like, if if Tom Hanks doesn't make you ill, you could probably
watch it. I didn't hate it. There's some stuff in there you would
hate. I would not recommend it to you. Um I read I saw
the movie called Air. We heard about this again, Ben Affleck, Matt
Damon, Jason Bateman, a bunch of other of these type of actors about
about the Air Jordan sneaker and how they got Michael Jordan. Listen. It
hits the right spots for someone who was a kid in the eighties. And
you know, if you like that sort of thing, it's not too deep.
You'll probably forget it in about five minutes after you're done. And then
finally, I would mention that I have started reading a great book by Quentin
Tarantino. Oh, I think it's called Cinema. Something damn escapes me.
But he goes through the movies he loves from the seventies, which I have
all writing down, and I'm going to watch like The Outfit, The Getaway,
things like seventies movies that he liked. And it's a really good book.
And if you're a fan of Quentin Taranty you knows movies, I would
highly recommend it. He's really blunt about like directors of movies he likes and
what he doesn't like, and he insults movies sometimes that most people are beloved
like heat, like he thinks the ending was terrible and stuff like that.
So it's fun if you're if you're a cinophile, right, and that I
think is it? I did? Yeah, go on, now let me
hear hear from you anything. So there's something that we had been watching for
a while that I was too embarrassed to admit. But we're done now,
so I can just share my shame, which is this TV show called The
Night Agent. I've not heard of it, no. Mark said it was
like a like a show for people whose lips move when they read, Like
it was just like a stupid detective mystery, but like you could figure out
things, not just like before before it was revealed, but like four episodes
before it was revealed. You know, that's the bad guy, here's the
twist that's going to come. But for some reason, I felt compelled to
launch it anyway, So recommend it necessarily people whose lips move when they read.
That's not anything. Ever. Now, the funny thing about that is
I read really fast, so I'd lately tried to move my lips when I
read so that I read every word rather than sort of skipping over. So
I have to stop doing that. In front of Mark Hemingway, yeah.
Also, that's just not a good way to read. I mean I speed
read and if you're slowing down to our team, no, but if you
read literature, you should slow down. That's what someone told me. Okay,
well, m yeah, I speed read too. We also started The
Marvelous Missus masl the latest season, so it's okay. And we watched a
movie with the kids that I hated. I don't know how to say this
director's name. Is it Sukor or kukor George Sukor Probably it sounds Hungarian.
Actually that means I'm in sugar and check. Okay, So it was well
done. It was Carrie Grant and Katherine Hepburn was from nineteen thirty eight,
and the people were also immoral or just like. It's like a guy is
engaged to marry this socialite whose dad is very wealthy, and as it comes
out that he doesn't really want to go into the family business. He wants
to just travel and find himself. It literally uses the phrase find himself or
like find myself in nineteen thirty eight, and so the socialite daughter ends up
rejecting him, and then the Katherine spoiler alert, Katherine Hepburn character runs off
with him. But I was, like I told the kids at the end,
it was like nobody in this movie was good, Like these were really
bad people making really bad decisions and not understanding what responsibility means. Okay,
And then I am continuing reading my Bible, which has been so awesome.
I just really enjoying this. And so spoilers, so a lot of people
had said something about getting bogged down in numbers. I did not find numbers
to be It was actually one of my favorites that I've read this far.
I'm now in Deuteronomy. I'm only like maybe fifteen chapters in, and it's
a lot of repeat of the previous few books, so I'm not loving that
quite as much. But it's nice, like it's a nice summation of what
we've done before. But I don't know, I just have really enjoyed reading
it the way I'm reading it, where you get everything in context and you
start to get this like, I don't know, I'm really enjoying seeing the
relationship between God and his people and how they interact with each other. And
I don't know, it's been great. That's great, That's it been busy.
I wanted to see Jerry Duty and Mark heming White said he didn't have
any interest in it, So that's what I'm up against. The trailer made
me laugh, like it was so stupid, but it made me laugh.
It's it moves somewhat slowly at least. I haven't only watched a few episodes.
I mean, it's funny, but it's not like you know. I
also watched something else that just hit me. I watched a stand up comedian
Nick Kroll. Uh, it was pretty funny, Oh I did. We
also watched the John Mulaney said his name, Yeah, what do you think?
I kind of agree with what we published at the Federalist about it.
Um just it just it was not my favorite. It was he seemed to
still be sort of enamored with his addict life, and it was just I
don't know it. I mean, he's on he's own a journey. I
wish him well. He I did like that he kind of made a point
of reference that he wasn't really able to dig as deep as he should.
You know, when he tells the story about the how he told his accountant
not to give him money so he wouldn't do the drugs, and he like
pawns a rolex, and he says something at the end like, keep in
mind, this is a story I'm willing to tell you, which I thought
was like a nice bit of honesty about how bad addicts get and how the
stories aren't actually so charming as pawning a rolex. Yeah, yeah, I
didn't love it. It's hard for me to put my finger on what I
didn't like about it, but I think it was that he still seemed enamored
with that lifestyle and didn't feel like, I don't know, it just it
didn't seem maybe earnest or no, it didn't seem sincere enough in some way,
I don't know. I was a little worried about him, but you
know, who knows, maybe he'll maybe he'll improve here in the days to
come. Also, you need to tell everybody about the picture that you showed
me right before we started this. So, as you know, I moved
to a more an undisclosed but more nature foresty sort of area. Right,
So now I have run ins with all kinds of wildlife, owls and stuffs.
But now my neighbor sent me a picture of a snake and it's huge
and it looks like a cobra to me basically, I don't know, and
then he told me, so he's you know, he told me it's a
black adder or a hognose snake, which is very venomous, which concerned me,
you know, but then he had the you know, then he told
me these words. He said, it is venomous, but it isn't interested
in attacking human beings, like he has any clue what the snake is thinking,
or that the snake told him. Yeah, don't worry, I'm only
going to bite deer or something. It is horrifying the snake, so I
might have to move back to some kind of city area and listen, I've
seen a giant black snake in the back before, but someone told me it
was a rat eat or rats. You're fine, Yeah, yeah, they're
fine snakes. But I'm not worried about like those rat snakes. Yeah,
I'm a little worried. But anyway, you sent looked like you were in
a South American jungle and that it was like, I mean, it had
that flare out at the neck, which is only like I know, that's
not good. Yeah, so I'm concerned about that. But you know,
I, uh, what am I going to do. What am I going
to do about it? Nothing? So I'm hoping that an owl will eat
it. I don't know if owls will eat a snake that big. I
don't know. Every time I mention an animal is here that I don't want
to be here, like lizards where I live, which I didn't think there
would be lizards here. Just want to point that out, and they're pretty
big. They tell me some other animal will eat it, like they'll say,
I'm saying, I'm like, there are a lot of bugs here,
and they're like, well, don't worry, the mice will eat it or
whatever. And then they're like, oh no, the lizard will eat the
mouse. And then they're like the hawks will eat the lizard, and then
the snake will eat it. Like it's a it's a big circle of life.
But at the top I think is the giant, venomous snake that picture,
I say, And I don't think anything's gonna eat that thing, So
I'm concerned. But oh, you know, I saw the other day too.
I couldn't believe it. I'm out of my driveway and there's a giant
snapping turtle just walking across my driveway. Yeah, okay, And I wanted
to move it, and then they're like, I wouldn't put my finger near
like its head. I'm like, it can't reach all the way back here.
They're like, no, it can pop its little head out really far.
So I took a shovel, I lifted, and I took it back
to safety. Okay, I can't imagine anyone on Earth wants to hear these
stories. So I'm sorry, and I apologize, but but it is,
it is. It is pretty crazy anyway. I like to say, yeah,
but I know we need to go, but since we get such amazing
feedback from listeners, we haven't. We have to take a couple of these
where where I'll be traveling, we should do a you know, question and
answer one where people send in questions and we answer them. What do you
think? Sure, so we're going to take a sort of a little break
for the summer, right, Well, I mean, I'm just there'll be
a week, a couple of weeks at some point in the summer where I
where I can't do So, so you're saying we should have people send us
q and as on anything they want, Like anything doesn't mean we're going to
answer all these questions, but it can be answer every single question. I'm
going to send it a few for Molly myself. I want to know more
about her life. But you can also, and you can send them to
radio at the Federalist dot com and hopefully we'll get at least a show out
of it. Maybe we'll get two shows out of it, and ask anything
movies, what your favorite band was growing up? I want to know all
these things about Molly, so please send them. Maybe I'll make something.
Yeah, all right, I love how you wrap me up. Alright.
Anyway, we look forward to talk to you next week. Until them,
The Lovers of Freedom and Right