Welcome Back every one to new episode of the year Long with Molly Hamingway and
David Horsani. Molly, have you ever infused a doorknob with a fire alarm
when you were trying to get out of a building, like, let's say,
a high school or some government building. I have not ever confused.
I've never been confused about what a fire alarm does, what its basic function
is. And I assume you're referring to Jamal Bowman, the New York representative
who pulled a fire alarm in the middle of democrats strategy of delaying a vote
on a continuing resolution and then later claimed, when not everybody loved that he
committed this criminal act, later claimed that he was trying to open a door
and he thought he thought that was what fire alarms did. He's a former
school he's a former school principle. I would just like that his then you
release like this two page press press release where he explained why he did it,
which was so so funny to read, and then at the end it
said, shouldn't we be concentrating on the Nazis and neo Nazis in Congress instead
of this you know issue? But then he had to walk that back because
probably some Jewish organization explained to him that just calling anyone Nazis is not really
great. But he is that guy is a hysteric. I mean, he's
the guy who yelled at Tom Massey in the hallway that time about guns.
I think it was he is just a socialist, he's a nut. And
I think you were talking about this on Twitter, you were pointing out I
mean that he like for as funny as this is, and I think it's
super funny because there's a video of it and all that, But she did
try to get in the way of the democratic process, right, He tried
to under like if there wasn't video, would we ever have known who did
this now? So yeah, there are multiple issues here and mostly it's about
the context. So over the course of the last couple of years, the
Department of Justice has engaged in its most intense criminal investigation in its history.
So the worst thing in the history of the world, they believe, was
when people interfered with the proper operation of Congress. And more than one thousand
people have been charged in conjunction with this related to the January sixth thing.
So these people who came to the capital on January sixth. Were frequently people
who didn't know how Congress worked, did not know that you could not just
walk into the Capitol. I mean, we've seen the pictures of the people
who violently entered, but a lot of people just didn't know when they were
allowed in. We also have seen video of people with police opening doors for
them and then just walking in. Nevertheless, for that crime they have or
for that alleged crime, they have been charged and convicted in all sorts of
things, and usually the issue in play is interfering with the congressional proceeding.
Now, I might say, even before this past weekend with the Jamal Bowman
story, there were some issues here in that. For instance, during the
Kavanaugh confirmation, there were organized protests to interfere with the congressional proceeding, people
taking over offices in Senate office buildings, people taking over large portions of Senate
office buildings, intentionally going into a hearing for the purpose of shouting out in
the middle of the hearing and causing a disruption so that police would arrest the
person, and then having left wing organizations pay for that, pay for their
bail, or pay for whatever happened. There was a very organized thing,
organized to the point that even Democrat senators were providing the seats to the people
so that they could engage in this disruption of a proceeding. After Kavanaugh was
confirmed, there were all sorts of protests with the intention of delaying proceedings,
and nobody cared about that. Nobody had any problem with that at all whatsoever.
And then when J six happens, then all of a sudden, like
entering a Capitol building is the worst thing in the world because it delayed the
proceeding. So if that's true, then Jamal Bowman, who clearly was operating
in such a manner as to delay the proceeding, should be held to a
much at least that standard, because Jamal Bowman is an elected member of Congress.
The grandma from Iowa maybe didn't know how things were supposed to be,
but he definitely does. So people are joking about it, and I get
why you're joking about it, But what's not funny is all these people who
have had their lives destroyed by Merrick Arland's operation and then them being like,
oh, there's no no worry here. We have two standards of justice one
for people we don't like and one for people we do. And so we
don't really think Jamal Bowman did anything worth talking about. Yeah, and you
know we should also in even a broader sense, the left has always done
this sort of thing. They obstruct a highway if their climate, you know,
protesters, they throw things that people who go to colleges or won't let
them speak. You know, they are constantly obstructing the freedom of speech and
freedom of uh, you know, just discourse and all of that. So
I just think it's it's unsurprising that the big social one of the big socialists
in Congress would do this. So I do want to say I saw two
days ago on Neil Cavudo. I was at Fox for a show that's on
later, so I watched whatever's on at that moment, you know, when
I'm getting my hair and makeup done, and this member of Congress from Missouri,
I think it was myth maybe was his last name. He was explaining.
This happened five minutes into Hakeem Jeffries' delay strategy, so they actually had
a motion to adjourn for the purpose of reading the bill. Jeffries was like,
we're being rushed here. You know, they always passed legislation without reading
it, and they were pretending that that was a problem for them only on
this point, and so they were trying to delay, probably on the grounds
that they thought that they could get to a shutdown, and a shutdown would
be bad for Republicans and good for Democrats, and so they were doing it
this way. So they have this motion to adjourn so they can read the
bill. It was five minutes into that a vote they were likely to lose
that Jamal Bowman pulls the fire alarm, clearly related prior to this absid stance.
Prior to this, Hikim Jeffries had used what's called a magic minute,
so leaders of each party in the House get these magic minutes. Technically they're
only supposed to talk for a minute, but they can talk for however long
they want. I think Nancy Pelosi talked for eight hours once as sort of
like a way to filibuster that given to the leader of each party. So
he took a lot of time with his magic minute. This congressman said that
even after the fire alarm happened, and you know, things were proceeding,
that Democrats kept coming in to vote very slowly, like one by one they
had trouble getting a quorum for the vote, like it was a delay strategy,
and that part has not been accurately conveyed. I don't think by corporate
media who are pretending to accept Jamal Bowman's excuse that he thought fire alarms were
the way that you open doors, and that you're supposed to pretend like you
believe that, I mean the idea. Obviously they were trying to get to
shut down, and obviously Jamal Bowman did this on purpose to stop he got
caught. His excuse was laughable, and watching journalists pretend that it was realistic,
I forgot who it was one of those like, yeah, you know
what, look at this sign. It's so confusing, the big red sign
that says fire alarm. Anyway, just wanted to point that out. I
think, wait, there's one more thing. I wanted to say, yeah,
yeah, So the DC Circuit actually had someone challenge these this ridiculous like
sort of over penalty for the people walking into the Capitol building, which again
I think we should separate the people who were violent trying to cause chaos from
the people who were confused. On January sixth and this DC Court of Appeals
judge. I think it's greg Or Jeffrey Katsis. I'm so bad at first
names. He sounded the alarm. He's like, this is not good.
The way we're going after people like this is it's in Sarbains ox Ley that
it's against the law to disrupt a congressional proceeding. Why are we using this,
you know, this law to go after all these people. It seems
like it could really be rife with abuse and looking at how few limits there
are on when to apply this law, and the people who had the majority
there, they were like just sort of like, I think we need to
trust people they'll know when to use it or not. And I'm thinking,
like, this is not rule of law when you just sort of trust other
people. Like what they meant it seems to me is they'll go after our
enemies and not our friends. So Jamal Bowman is an ally of the regime,
so he's not getting gone after. The grandma from Iowa is an enemy
of the regime, so she has her life destroyed. Now, Republicans,
I don't know how it works in the House, honestly, but Republicans and
especially now and we'll talk about it. You know soon what happened to Kevin
McCarthy and all that, and with the health of Democrats now that they've been
they should punish Bowmen, right, they censure him for like, there should
be some sort there should be some sort of punishment for it. No one's
going to prosecute him, I'm sure, but there should be some kind of
center. Do you think that that's going to happen or have you heard anything?
I think there is a desire for something to happen, but I do
not have any idea what that will be. Now, so let's talk about
so this. This happened during another episode of shut down Theater, and I
know a lot of people use that phrase. I wish I could come up
with a better maybe kobuki theater. We go through this journalist DC journalists get
so excited when a shutdown's coming. They start they get to scare monger about
how you know, the whole world's going to fall apart, and it's always
the Republican's fault for not just giving in on all things. I have almost
stopped paying attention to this stuff because it almost never really happens, and even
when it does, it's basically innocuous, all the usual functions of government.
In fact, in my view, you know, things are running a lot
better when we have shutdowns. But so, can you explain a little bit
what happened there? So we have a forty five day reprieve now until the
next episode of this theater. Yeah, So fiscal year ended on Saturday at
midnight, and there were they had failed to pass appropriations bills. They hadn't
even really tried to pass appropriations bills, and so everything was going to be
shut down, and they passed a forty five day continuing resolution that allows things
to continue ostensibly so they can work on appropriations bills, although there hasn't really
been proper work on appropriations bills for a really long time. So you know,
whether they'll actually use this time to do what they should is another thing
entirely. Okay, So do you want to talk about what happened this week
with Matt Gates? And I think there's more to talk about it. Nevertheless,
you know, I thought one of the things that was interesting about it,
and we wrote a couple pieces of the federalists that get into this was
one of the few wins for conservatives, I guess, was that included in
this forty five day continuing resolution was not the six to twenty four billion dollars
Biden sought for Ukraine. And I think there's broad there's pretty broad agreement,
not not entirely unified, but pretty broad agreement that we want to help Ukraine.
We know that what Russia did to them a year and a half ago
is bad, so there's a desire for support. And what has happened in
DC since then is just unbelievable amounts of money, you know, tens,
ten, tens, hundreds of billions of dollars being sent their way. Ukraine
is one of the most corrupt countries on Earth. You get reports every once
in a while about how much that corruption is affecting the distribution of funds in
Ukraine. There is zero accountability and oversight of these funds, and the payoff
has been pretty bad. So, you know, Russia has, despite what
you read in a lot of newspapers, a pretty strong hand and a feeling
that taking over this land of Ukraine's is existential for them, that they need
it in order to survive, and so they're fighting hard and they're willing to
do what they've been willing to do for a very long time, which is
throw bodies at their problems, and the net result is, you know,
the New York Times had a thing last week with a map of what has
happened with the fighting since January one, and you hear you read in the
paper every day, Oh the Ukrainians, they had a great victory here,
and oh they're on the cusp of victory here. The map was appalling to
a lot of people because it showed that basically there was very little change in
territory since January first. This include it was the spring offensive, the summer
offensive, the reason why we have to be giving all this money and focus
and attention there instead of our own border. And if anything, Russia had
gained ground at the time of our greatest effort. And so you're seeing the
American people. A majority of the American people do not support giving yet more
funding to Ukraine, but a majority of members of Congress do. And yet
during this shutdown battle, through some pretty savvy maneuvering on both sides, meaning
House and Senate, there was no additional money for Ukraine in this forty five
day package. The Pentagon and Mitch McConnell had said that if they didn't get
it in that package. It was lights out for Ukraine. We'll see if
that's true that in forty five days they're done. They frequently make outlandish claims
that don't actually get backed by reality. But it was big, so I
think we all know. It feels like we are teetering on the brink of
an economic crisis that could threaten to wash away your savings and your retirement that
you've worked so hard to save up over years. Inflation has searched to levels
unseen in forty years. Prices are spiraling out of control, Our money buys
less and less, and Americans are incurring more debt just to stay afloat.
You budget your expenses carefully, but each trip to the grocery store feels like
a wallet pinching experience. Gasoline prices are spiking and your monthly bills are escalating.
That's what inflation is. It's the silent force that eats away at your
wallet and your purchasing power and your savings. Basic necessities are now unattainable luxuries,
and when prices spiral out of control, they not only disrupt your ability
to live day to day, they jeopardize your savings and retirement. So know
this. As your living expenses rise higher than the income that your retirement savings
can generate, you will eventually run out of money. Don't let this happen.
Protect your retirement with gold. Gold is the smartest and most responsible investment
you can make for you and your family. It's a safe haven asset that
protects your purchasing power and your wallet from inflation. It's just financially smart for
all of us to diversify our retirement accounts with gold and protect what we've worked
so hard for. When it comes to protecting your IRA or four to one
K, I would only trust the best. You can trust your friends at
Allegiance Gold. Allegiance Gold has earned the highest trust ratings in the precious metals
industry and builds relationships based on integrity, expertise and impeccable service. Get up
to five thousand dollars in free silver on a qualifying purchase when you visit Protect
with Emily dot Com today. That's Protect with Emily dot Com. Or give
them a call at eight four four seven nine to zero, nine one,
nine to one and speak with one of their experts. They'll answer all your
questions and help you get started on the path to a more secure and prosperous
retirement. Time is of the essence Protect your Future with Allegiance Gold, visit
protect with Emily dot Com today. Can I say one thing about this?
Even we have some reporting on this from Jordan Boyd, But in the Senate,
Mitch McConnell has made it known that he thinks the number one priority of
the Republican Party should be funding Ukraine. That is not the view of like
eighty percent of Republican voters, but he has said that. So he stated
his position, and he rules pretty fiercely. People are terrified of going against
him, so they go into conference on Saturday and Mitch McConnell's like, we
have to push this Senate Continuing resolution because it's going to have that funding in
there, and this is like do or die. Susan Collins reportedly agrees with
him, but then nobody else does. I think it was Senator Mike Lee
who gets up and says, like, why don't we just see what the
House can provide and then we give them We back off and sort of give
them the support The House Republicans the support they need to negotiate something by not
forcing this issue on our side, and a bunch of people backed him up,
including John Thune, who's one of Mitch McConnell's you know, main servants,
or however he would say it, and probably he did that because he's
lobbing to take over Mitch McConnell's spot when Mitch McConnell gets carried out in a
casket. But it was a huge coup for the Conservatives over Mitch McConnell.
And it showed just how weak he is mentally and physically, that nobody is
terrified as they have been during his reign, of going against him. So
kind of a significant moment, even though probably with all the Democrats supporting it
and a good chunk of the Republicans will be giving like one trillion dollars to
Ukraine by month's and I'm sure, but still it's interesting. No, it
definitely is interesting. That's you have never I can't remember the last time that
senators, much less you know, people like Thune would buck McConnell's wishes.
That's that's a rarity, and it probably, you know, and it is
weakened obviously. My problem with all of this, and I'm more probably more
hawkish, No, I am more hawkish than you on this stuff. Is
that it's not really a binary choice. But yet everyone, and I'm not
talking about Senate, I'm just saying the whole debate makes it one like if
I say, can't we debate how much we should give or what we should
give, or what kind of oversight there should be, then you're immediately branded
a Putin stooge wants Russia to win, and it's just not reality. I'm
sorry, you just said you're more hawkish than I am. What do you
mean by that? I would probably I mean, I don't know if hawkish
is the right word. I would say that I am probably more open sending
Ukraine funding than you are. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, I
don't understand how that's hawkish. Okay, what word would you use? Then?
I just won't use the word hawkish because hawks are wise birds of prey
like they are. And this again, okay, I am using the nomenclature
using the words that we have used in Washington for a long time. So
well that I am wise, I'm very wise, and that's not a good
word to use to describe neo kan interventionist policy. So is giving these they're
kind of like they're in gent they are there. You know, wait,
why are you being like all right here? Because I want to say something.
So you're saying that it's a neo? Giving Ukraine any money makes you
a neocon. It's the same kind of you know, overstatement or binary false
binary choice that the other side makes when you're when you say that you want
to have some oversight and then you're immediately your putin UHL. I not begin
this by saying that there was widespread agreement that what happened in Ukraine was bad
and we want to support them. Did I not begin that way? You
did? But when I say that, you know, I'm more hawkish or
whatever word you want to use, you immediately accuse me of being a neocon.
Basically, to me, hawkishness is about strong national defense, having a
military that's capable of fighting wage and winning and wars and then leaving. You
know, like, that's a hawk someone who actually thinks that we should use
our military to defend our country enter national interests. I hate when people use
the word hawk to describe like global aid or you know, like intervening in
any conflict across the land, Like that's not hawkishness. And I think it's
this pr coup that people who aren't very wise get to use the word hawk
to describe things that are not really hawk ish. It reminds me of people
who call anyone who is for giving aid and neocon immediately, which is I
think an unfair description of them. Yeah, but anyway, no, I
agree, I don't like. I wish there were better terms all around.
I don't want to be like they're a warmonger. I don't like neocon.
I actually I actually think the neocons were a pretty good group of people,
meaning the people who by strength of their research and analysis, realized that their
leftist views were wrong. That's not a bad thing, and you know,
those neocons aren't bad. I wish there was a word for that kind of
foreign policy that we had during the Bush era that is now to the bidens
of you know this, Oh, we've got to do this war that serves
not our country because we need to spread democracy and we're going to have to
spend a really long time there, maybe decades, and we don't really have
a strategy for success. We certainly don't have a strategy for exit. Like
what's that word the destructive foreign policy. I don't know, we'll have to
con use it how aid or like hoping, you know, to situation there.
Whatever they say, we got to do this because Ukraine's the most democratic
republic that ever lived, or whatever that that's a means to getting to a
twenty year war. Yeah. No, I resent that. I mean I
resent that I have to prote that Ukraine is a bulwark of democracy when it
is not at all, especially from people are always smearing other nations as facistic
who are freer and less corrupt than Ukraine, but they are fighting Russia,
and I do view Russia as a problem. So I don't know. The
truth is, I don't have a fully formed opinion of how much help we
should give or what we should do. And frankly, that's because I don't
understand what's going on there, because we are not actually given the information that
we need to fully understand what is happening there or to be honest about who
we're helping. I mean, Zelensky is treated like you know, mother Teresa
in the world right now, and that is just simply ridiculous. So this
is one of my issues too. I hate how you just can't get basic
news and information, What are the casualty numbers? What's the actual situation?
Even reading the Wall Street Journal, every day is a good day for Ukraine
according to the Wall Street Journal, in fact, a beautiful, amazing day.
They're on the cusp of victory, and then like after a few months,
like, well, that doesn't sound like they did end up taking that
city that you told me they were on the verge of taking. It's all
such propaganda and it's really frustrating to me. I also wish like if people
would say, if people would just be honest about the situation, about what
led to this conflict and they wanted to fight this war, I would find
that easier. When they're kind of lying about the circumstances and they want to
do it, I'm like, well, I don't want to be with these
people. They're just not telling the truth. That Matt or Felia, guy
who does these amazing videos, did one recently on how early on Putin was
claiming that, you know, one of his problems here was he was worried
about NATO expansion and enlargement. That is obviously true. You go back to
the you know, the situation with George H. W. Bush, He
and his people were warning NATO expansion and enlargement could cause problems for future conflict
with Russia. Right they were. They weren't what's the other stupid word for
a bird, doves, you know, they weren't doves. They weren't isolationists.
They were just saying, we have to kind of create buffer zones here
for Russia so that we don't have a problem. Some people, like in
the Clinton camp, actually considered bringing Russia in to NATO as a way of
like avoiding some of the tensions that could be there. But when Putin was
saying this at the beginning, they're like, this has nothing to do with
NATO, nothing to do with NATO. And then recently they were like,
well, obviously, you know he's concerned about NATO expansion. They just sort
of flip on a dime on what they're saying. So if we could be
honest about the threat posed by Russia to NATO, but also the threat posed
by NATO to Russia and why that makes Russia act the way they owe.
Another thing I can't stand when everyone was like Putin is a madman, he's
got terminal cancer, he's going to be dead within weeks. Do you remember
that talking point that was widespread. He's still not dead. And also you
might think he's evil, and I certainly do, but he's not engaged in
engaging in irrational behavior for what he views for his country as what they need.
And so if we could just be honest and then have a conversation like,
here's why they're doing this, here's what they want, and here's why
we want to stop them, I would appreciate that much more than when I'm
told, you know, when someone's mixtorating on me and telling me it's raining.
Yeah. Yeah, And if Putin did die, we have no clue
who would take over. I mean, maybe there's a clue, and certainly
could he could be more warlike and more conservative, you know, in the
smallecity sense. But also, you know, I would note that in the
seventies, for instance, we had we participated in cups, we did stuff
with bad people because our reasoning was that it's better than having communists in those
countries. So why can't we just say, listen, Ukraine's a pretty you
know, weird place, it's pretty corre, but it's you know, we're
gonna, you know, we're going to help them because they're a buffer against
Russian this and that. And also you're right about the NATO stuff for sure,
But also bigger than that is that Russia views all you know, views
Ukraine service, it views Slavic people as their domain. And when, when
when NATO starts intruding on that, you're gonna you're gonna have a reaction.
It's just true. I don't know that he's right, but it is just
a fact. So, but doesn't seem to me. Maybe maybe because of
what just happened, we'll get a better debate on this. I don't know.
I think people like Mike Lee have sort of started speaking out on this
much more and and once one person gets brave about something, other people will
usually follow, you know. So maybe it is contagious, right, courageous
contagious? So, okay, do you want to talk about Matt Gates now?
Sure? By the way, I think it's worth saying too that we
were going to record this yesterday but we couldn't. We're doing this on Wednesday.
We couldn't because we didn't know what was going to happen with a speaker
battle. It was like too big of news to talk around, right,
It would have been weird. It would have been weird, and or if
we would have guessed at what would have happened, it would have been could
have been wrong, and we would have looked foolish, and we only we
don't want to look foolish in that way. Well, I was pretty annoyed,
I have to say yesterday, all day long, I'm annoyed about a
lot of things. I'm going to write a long piece about it because I
think this whole incident speaks to a lot of things, and I just want
to say up front before I start getting before I get angry emails and tweets,
which I will get anyway. I don't care about Kevin McCarthy. I
don't probably even think he's the best person for the job. I think he's
a middling speaker. I don't think anyone's going to do a great job with
a slim majority and a you know, with the Senate and the presidency in
the hands of Democrats. But I think it's nice to dunk on Libs and
you know all that, but in the end, you have to also to
some extent govern and you know, he was trying to balance all of that.
I think it's it's an impossible job right now if you're a Republican considering
what's going on. But I think this Gates thing is just insane, pointless,
and all it does is help Democrats, That's all it does. And
in fact, I wrote a column today, Democrats did this. Matcki's just
helped them. Everyone keeps talking about how he stood up and Republicans revolted,
and then New York Times called it a far right revolt. Donald Trump didn't
even support this. His most of his biggest supporters in Congress didn't participate in
this. Nancy Mace did, Ken Buck did. Who's going probably going to
CNN and Nancy Mace who. I don't know if someone's going to have to
explain her to me. I don't know what she's doing. And anyway,
so I guess we can. That's my starting point on this. I probably
have a lot more to say. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah from
the Sarah Carter Show. Thanks for listening to the Federalist Radio Hour. Healthy
blood pressure is so important. In fact, more than half of the US
population would benefit from blood pressure support. Superbats heart shoes are an easy and
convenient way to support healthy blood pressure and promote heart healthy energy paired with a
healthy lifestyle. The antioxidants and superbats are clinically shown to be nearly two times
more effective at promoting normal blood pressure than a healthy lifestyle alone. With my
busy schedule, superbats choes are a quick and convenient way to do something good
for my heart. They taste great and give me peace of mind about my
health and overall wellness. Effective and clinically studied, Superbats is the number one
pharmacist recommended beat brand for cardiovascular health support. It's blood pressure support you can
trust. Get a free thirty day supply of Superbeats hardshoes and fifteen percent off
your first order by going to get Superbeats dot com and using promo code Sarah.
Get super Beats B E E T S dot com code Sarah to get
fifteen percent off your first order. Get Superbeats dot com promo code Sarah.
I woke up today and I was actually like a little sad about it,
which is weird. I don't even it just I have so many conflicted feelings.
I think that Kevin McCarthy for not being an idiologue, like no one
would say this is a super conservative guy. That he did a really good
job of being much better than most other Republican leaders that voters have had to
deal with for like the last fifteen years. He's much better. I talked
with a lot of members of Congress yesterday, including people who the vast majority
of whom actually support McCarthy. They voted against the or they voted for the
motion to table a vote on him, then they voted to keep him.
So these are people who there revealed preferences show that they supported McCarthy. Nevertheless,
there was quite a bit of grumbling that I think is worth discussing.
So you point out it's eight Republicans and Democrats who did this. Let's not
act like this was even a majority of Republicans. It's a pretty tiny number,
and that is true. It is also true I think that there has
been some discontent and the two things. Maybe let's talk about three things that
I heard from people. One widespread frustration with how he handled the debt limit
negotiations, so they felt they had a pretty strong hand going into those debts
limit negotiations, and that he folded way too early. That happened many months
ago, I think in June or something like that, but it really soured
things and made people not trust his leadership as much as they had before.
They all kind of were pleasantly happy with how things were going. The other
thing is that they had worked really hard when he got the speaker bid to
put in there that they would be passing appropriations bills one by one rather than
doing the stuff. We just talked about the absurdity of this shutdown theater and
the continuing resolutions, and they feel that he did not push that enough,
did not provide leadership enough on that that more could have been done over the
past many months, and there just wasn't pressure or leadership in that area.
And then the third thing I heard was that they again they're pretty happy with
him by and large, but that they feel that there is this responsibility on
the Republicans in the House, even though they have a tenC tiny majority,
to really move the conversation, and that while he was good at that,
they felt that they needed someone who would be great now. The reason why
they kept supporting him is who, I'm sorry, who's the other person who's
going to come in and be better? You know, you don't trade out
someone that you're that you feel is pretty good, even if you want someone
better Without having the better option ready to go right. Yeah, it was,
yeah, gone. But the point being, I think people are being
a little hysterical and freaked out about this, and that they could all calm
down a little bit. And then, contradictorily, I woke up sad because
I actually think it's kind of a shame that we have Mitch McConnell, a
man who hates the Republican voter and does everything in his power to sabotage them
other than on a few key issues, and he's like, like fine for
this world. All these senators think the only way he's leaving is in a
pine box, and he's fine. And then McCarthy, who actually does try
to blend establishment with voters, like he's the one who gets punished. He
was also the one who had the trouble getting getting elected speaker. Mitch McConnell
had no trouble getting elected Minority leader at the same time. So, well,
I'm not a young man. I've been around a bit and i can
remember every single uh speaker. You know, they're being grumbling because you're dealing
with a lot of disparate ideas people play, you know, different people with
different concerns from different geographical areas and different ideologically you know, ideological areas,
and so it's a tough job even when you have a decent majority. And
I you know, I'm not really defending you know, I'd say he did
an okay job. But the thing thing is, I just feel like there
and it's even hard to say this now because most people didn't join in with
Gates, but there's this idea that it's a UNA party and you know,
this is what the attack was on me yesterday. I'm just part of the
UNA party and the establishment and this and that at some point someone has to
be has to run stuff, who's competent and who can bring together different kinds
of factions. You know, I don't understand. I mean, I just
think Matt Yates this is all just some personal vendetta for him. I don't
know what goes on behind the scenes, which it seems like to me.
And I don't even know why a lot of these other people joined in.
But not only is everything true that you said, where who's going to do
it now? Who's going to do it better? Now? All it did
was take take the allow the media and it's not you know, they have
to cover it to take the attention off that clown pulling a fire alarm,
or the Hunter Biden stuff that went on yesterday, or you know, all
the other stuff that went on, and to frame this as some kind of
big revolt in the Republican Party that's falling apart, that can't govern, you
know, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's a legitimate frustration and
worry. I also think, though this, I keep thinking about this thing.
One person said to me yesterday, which is they liked Kevin. They
think he's done a good job, and they also thought that it was such
a thankless job. The same person said that they thought that they should give
the job to Matt Gates because it's that bad of a job. So if
you really are angry at someone, you give them the speaker job. But
what he was saying is it's two minutes to midnight. The situation is like
Congress is completely broken, the appropriations process is completely broken, the oversight process
broken. The country is hurling off a cliff in in the view of this
person, and so two minutes to midnight, Kevin McCarthy is not got the
attitude of like, this is our last chance to save things. Now he
was recognizing that it's probably too late for everybody anyway, The amount of work
that needs to be done is overwhelming, and so maybe just keeping things running
slightly better than they've been run in the past is the way to go.
But in the grand scheme of things, as bad as it is that we
have political persecutions of the j six writers versus what happens in Congress, and
that is an important story. If something could be done to fix Congress in
a big and dramatic way, that would be more important, which you know,
potentially could happen with something like after what we just went through yesterday.
The lack of a plan makes it likely that it won't happen. But I
just want to throw that out there. And another thing, you know,
is that in my this is obviously this is good for Democrats. Two hundred
and eight of them voted one way and only eight Republicans Democrats with the help
of a few Republicans over you know, throughout the speaker and caused have you
know, chaos on the right. And yet all these like people online are
telling me and obviously these are just you know, people online that Gates is
the one who represents the base that you know, by voting with two hundred
and eight Democrats, he's the one who's who's who's you know, finally shaking
it up and this and that. And there are too many people like him
in Congress. And it's not about ideology, because I went yesterday, I
went through what he believes in, how he votes. He's he's fine.
Most of the things he believes on and I believe in. But he's just
these kind of demagogues and grand standards do not help get anything done. And
it's just it's just frustrating because this action right now, I can't think of
a better time for Republicans to be running. Right. The economy is terrible,
the border is terrible, the you know, there's just a you know
what other you know, the Democrats are defending mutilation of children, and they're
defending you know, stripping parents of a choice to you know, and defending
pronography in schools. Crime is up all over. The president is a doddering,
incoherent mess with a growing corruption problem, you know, And this is
what Republicans are busying themselves with. Because I think a lot of these guys
who are you know, who consider themselves populous, hate other Republicans more than
they hate Democrats. That's fine. I'm not that political in the sense of
being partisans, so that's fine. But this is not going to get you
anything, and it's not going to go anywhere anyway. A lot of people
were focused on how this is personal for Matt Gates. He denies it's personal.
That was a big talking point of Kevin McCarthy's you yourself point out he's
a principled He's principled in how he votes. Right, Yeah, because it's
easy when you're out of power to vote principled. But anyway, go on.
No, No, I think this is a guy I have personally disagreed
with him, you know, face to face. He thinks I'm one of
these like Christian. No, He's that's not very Uh. He has a
different stand He has different ethics about sexual ethics than I do or than I
aspire to so, and he's very open and honest about that. He's very
public about how he kind of thinks a bunch of people are hypocrites and prudes
and stuff like that. So he and I have personally sparred on some of
these issues. I have always found him to be a principled voter. I
mean, yeah, like a principled member of Congress. He is a fiscal
conservative. He's pretty supportive of social conservatives despite not you know, personally being
one. But the personal issue I think we kind of need to tell talk
about because I do believe it plays into things despite him denying it. And
the issue there is that the Department of Justice ran an operation against him.
Basically, they knowing he's vulnerable on some of these issues because of his personal
life. They claimed that he was a child sex trafficker. They later admitted
after like two years that they had no evidence to support that. In the
meantime, they had leaked this false claim to the Washington Post, and it
made him suffer a great deal, a great deal, and it was very
hurtful and very harmful and really one of the more disgusting things that has happened
out from the Department of Justice. Yes, he was an outspoken critic of
their other false claims. He was one of these people who was pointing out
that they were falsely claiming that Donald Trump had stolen the election by colluding with
Russia. He stood very strong. He did things that were difficult at a
time that few people had courage there, and so they paid him back by
falsely accusing him of being a child sex trafficker when that happened. I do
believe that Matt Gates feels that Kevin McCarthy was not where he should have been
on that issue, that he maybe delighted in that operation run by the Department
of Justice. Ken McCarthy was really good at working with people that didn't like
him, you know. I think Emily Jishinski wrote about how when Marjorie Taylor
Green was on her Twitter feed just talking about how much she didn't like Kevin
McCarthy, he did not get mad. He called her every day four weeks
until he won her over. He's really good at doing stuff like that,
and it's sort of one of the benefits of not being in ideologue. He
just is willing to work with people no matter what and win them over.
He did not take that approach with Matt Gates. He kind of took an
opposite approach, and I think that was probably a strategic error as we see
now. So whether that's a personal or a matter of principle, you know
which side you are on when the DOJ runs an info op is up for
debate. Probably but I do think when the DOJ, you know, regardless
of whether you fell for that operation or not, the DJ is not supposed
to be leaking stuff to the Washington Post or New York Times, and they
do it all the time against Republicans, and you have to fight against that.
The Washedoutal Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski Every day, Chris helps unpack
the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your walle Every crisis
is an opportunity for government to take our freedoms away. The Wall Street Journal
reports that the Security and Exchange Commission has created a database to track every single
stock transaction in your portfolio, whether it be nine to eleven, the Patriot
Act? What is this going to end? Whether it's happening in DC or
down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out
the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or
wherever you get your podcast. Yeah, you're right about You're right about how
he was smeared in that way unfairly. I think I might have written about
it. However, McCarthy mentioned something yesterday about an ongoing ethics investigation. You
know what it is. It's that so Glynn, he said he saw it,
okay, going no go on same way. I'm just saying, he
said, I've read these texts and you haven't. So maybe it is leaked,
and maybe it isn't as bad as they say, but maybe there's something
there that is pretty bad and that I don't know for that for sure at
all, but I'm just saying that there might be a reason he didn't,
you know, coddle him or help him, because maybe he knows something's coming
that's going to be really embarrassing. I don't know that that's true, but
that's what he sort of insinuated yesterday, at least to me, that to
my years. So the ethics investigation arose after the Department of Justice ran its
info op against Gates through the press. That's how the ethics investigation arose,
I believe, meaning it was because of what the dj was doing. I
find it somewhat hard to believe that the DOJ, which seeks Matt Gates's destruction
and has amazing investigative powers, would not be able to ring Matt Gates up
on anything, but that the Ethics Committee in the House. Would. But
I'm glad at least, like you know, I feel like there was a
little lum people weren't being honest that McCarthy does take that position. So I'm
glad that he at least he did say that publicly. And I am not
a fan of Marjorie Taylor Green at all, but I don't have to be.
You're going to get weird people in Congress. It's always been that way,
and the speaker is going to have to corral these people, especially when
he has what is there, what is their majority five seats or something six
seats, five seats. They you know, you're going to have to do
that sort of thing that you know, they're elected by the people. You
don't have to like them, but you need them their votes. That's fine,
so you know that's what you do. So you saying that and expressing
you know that that's the sort of thing he does, and him not doing
it with Gates tells me that it is somehow personal and that something else is
going on there, right, And maybe yeah, So I don't buy Gates
is Listen, if you're a good politician and there is really all this discontent
about McCarthy, you go and you get a sizeable at least minority together before
you do this, to show that there's something wrong within the if you're going
to do it anyway, there's something wrong within the conference and within you know,
and there's no consensus on a leader and this and that, and you
bring together I don't know, you bring together fifty sixty people. He got
eight, and two of them, in my view, are not at all
Gates. Like in fact, Nancy Mace last time Gates tried to do this,
called him a fraud. But yet she voted with him this time and
hasn't I believe, explained even why she did that. And ken Buck,
who reportedly is about to leave and go to CNN, there's a complete squiesh.
And let me tell you another Gates did yesterday. He went after Republicans
on stuff that is good, Like he started going after them for having failure
theater over the Hunter Biden Joe Biden stuff, which is a lie. Yeah,
what he's saying there is that when you're dealing with a weaponized Department of
Justice, the proper thing to do is have an appropriations debate where you actually
look at the money that you're giving them to destroy the country, and you
make sure that they don't have that money. You punish them for real,
you take the money away for real. And rather than doing an appropriation's battle,
they're doing this sort of like impeachment process of some kind that we all
know will result, even in the best of circumstances, will result with Democrats,
probably joined by a bunch of weak Republicans, exonerating Biden in the end.
So that's what he means by theater. We can actually do something about
the Department of Justice, because Congress is a constitutional branch that has authority and
it keeps giving it away and then doing like theater stuff instead of actually looking
at the problems and taking the money away so that they can't destroy the country.
And that's actually a good argument. And I'm totally in favor of the
impeachment process as well, and what can be found out that way. But
really what matters is taking responsibility as one of those branches of government that is
a real branch of government that has our authority and like be doing things not
just at the Department of Justice, but on the border, dealing with crime,
dealing with you know, all sorts of issues, whether it's like our
military caring more about trans issues than waging winnable wars. These are real things
that goes. There's tons of issues there. I just want to go back
to the initial thing you said. I don't think he's making a good argument
because I believe that laying out a really strong case meticulously against Joe Biden gives
you far more ammunition to start taking money away from people and you know,
political ammunition, and without that, it just seems like it's revenge or whatever,
and it isn't a great case. And more than that, this does
not the way you really get all the stuff you just spoke about done.
Yes, the House has all this power, but it's to win elections,
and you're not going to win elections by making your party look like there's chaos
in it for no tangible, ideological or principled reason that anyone can think of
or come up with. Yesterday, he was on the floor, first of
all, commiserating with the other side on the floor, talking about, you
know, just ripping Republicans for stuff that's been going on for decades, like
Kevin McCarthy's supposed to stop. You know, it's Kevin McCarthy any more fault
for our debt problem than Donald Trump or a bunch of other Republicans. Know,
it's just it was just okay, so silly. Again, we have
a bunch of people who are like, well, this is a really difficult
and intractable problem. Let's just keep doing things with like slight marginal improvements.
And I think you were disparaging how Matt Gates makes donor dollars off of small
dollar donors. He also addressed that actually someone was complaining about it, and
he's like, right, you all have big money brought in through corporations and
special interests and I through the actual voters. And you know, there is
something to be said for that. Appealing to the voters of your party is
not a problem. It's a good thing, you know. And the fact
that money controls so much of this and let's you know, talk about it
with the big thing that people are freaked out about is Ken McCarthy is very
good at raising money from big corporations. There are costs associated with that.
It does make you less bold, it makes you less beholden to your voters.
Might be just the price you pay in order to have a major political
party. But as corporations have increasingly turned against the interests of the country and
the Republican voter. There is a tension there and leadership. You know how
you always talk about, David, how leadership isn't like finding where the people
are and then rushing over to them so you can lead the way. That
is also true in the donor context. Leadership is not about being beholden to
donors. It's about doing the right thing. We have a dangerous lack of
statesmen in this country who instead of being like, well, I can't do
this because this corporation would get mad, or the military industrial complex will get
mad. I mean, our whole Ukraine policy is about we can't make the
military industrial complex mad. And Eisenhower really did write beautifully about this. You
might I always think about how his original speech was not about the military industrial
complex, General Eisenhower. President Eisenhower's farewell speech talked about the military industrial congressional
complex. He took that word out for political reasons, but it's an important
thing to remember that that's how he viewed it, how military and the industry
worked with Congress to have these ways of fighting wars that were at odds with
actual strategic victory. We could use leadership that thinks about the situation that we're
in in this country, realizes that it might cost something in terms of donor
support, and still uses like the strength of the position and of the political
position to lead the way. Well as I'm sure you know, a congressman
in a safe seat in Florida doesn't have to take money from big corporations.
He can pretend to be pure. But a big national party, a real
national party, can't. They're going to need a lot of money to compete.
It's not only about money, but they need to compete. I don't
care about this taking donors from everything's a special that trist I would like to
push back against this. In twenty sixteen, one of the big arguments against
Donald Trump having any hope of winning a national election was that he had no
donors, and he also had, by the way, no political consultant ground
game. And there was that guy I think he died. He was on
Twitter and he was roundly mocked for saying the ground game is in our our
hearts. Trump did manage to get a few donors, but nothing like what
most people running for office get. What he did was provide leadership that is
this quality that we are lacking in too many people. He spoke honestly about
problems facing the country. I think it was a big reason why he did
well in twenty sixteen, was just speaking honestly about the situation on the border,
the corruption of our elites, the rigging of the system. Like he
didn't have money, he didn't have consultants, but he had something else,
And I think that that would be a good model for the Republican Party to
follow. Thinking about other people who might have those same qualities. They might
not be able to raise the money, they might not be responsive to what
the Republican consultants say you have to do to win a race, but they
have some other ethereal leadership quality. Did you just roll your eyes? Donald
Trump is a unique case because he was a massive celebrity, and yes,
I think he tapped into something that the that the establishment was not talking about,
especially in my view, the border. I think that's a much bigger
issue than people believe. I don't think it shows up in polls because I
think people who are polled are scared to talk about it. Honestly, he
also had the benefit of running against the most dislike presidential candidate probably in history,
Hillary Clinton. We can't forget that either. But anyway, setting that
aside, mad Gates doesn't need to take big dollars. It's fine. I
mean, you know, corporate dollars, special interest dollars, whatever, But
you're not. Let's be honest, a national party is not. You do
agree that a national party is going to have to raise a lot of money
to be competitive. I'm not just talking about putting ads on TV. I'm
talking about ground games. I'm talking about getting out there. I'm talking about
all the infrastructure that goes into a political party. There's just no other way
to do it now. I don't care where politicians get their money from.
I only care how they vote in what they do. And I'd rather have
people who are stable who take big donor dollars than people are who listen,
who are very online and basically listen to the bunch of people who are yelling
online. That's not the base either. There are plenty of people who aren't
that involved in politics, who who who the Republicans should be representing it as
well, who they don't quite often when they do things like this, So
I don't even know. I was rolling my eyes. I was a little
upset, So I don't know what I was going to say exactly, but
I think we should have different another you know, talk about that at another
time. Yeah, no, I actually kind of I'm just thinking this stuff
out loud myself, like in response to what you're saying. I do think
there was one other thing which bothered me about yesterday. There were all these
people who kept saying, this is embarrassing. It was the same thing they
said during the leadership battle for Kevin McCarthy, this is embarrassing, and I
don't quite understand. I get all the arguments that you laid out, David,
and I actually find them very a lot of them very compelling about the
idiocy of what happened. But I don't think it's embarrassing to see people fighting
on the floor of Congress. I actually like watching it happen in parliamentary systems,
and we don't have a parliamentary system, and this kind of felt parliamentary.
But nobody looks at like those debates that they broadcast on c SPAN or
PBS or whatever it is from the House of Commons and says like this is
embarrassing to watch these people insult each other from the floor. It's not.
It's okay. We have big divisions and fights about what it means to be
a leader and what the right strategy is to save the country, and we
are in really serious times and it's okay for people to fight. In fact,
I wish there were far more fights. I wish there were far more
deployments of parliamentary procedure that were fun to watch and you know, weird and
without president, and I just don't like when people find the chaos of the
moment to be somehow like unacceptable. I agree with all of that. I
think the word civility is usually deployed to shut people up and not have them
debate, not have them be honest. I enjoy the parliamentary debates as well.
I think though that in this case, or I should say it like
this, I want to see that sort of stuff when it matters about things
that matter about you know. It's like when Donald Trump's out there tweeting something
differences like, oh my god, I can't believe you said that. It's
so authoritarian, and the Democrats very very politely go about actually instituting policies that
are authoritarian. To me, I'd rather have an open debate about why that
is a big problem for the country. And the Constitution. So I agree
with all of that. It's democracy, you know, and as people say,
you know, it's messy. Yeah, it gets messy, but not
when you have you know. But also people can point out that what you're
doing is messy and also stupid and irrelevant and actually counterproductive. Yes, yes,
if Magne Gates, who I think is one of these Trumpian figures in
that he doesn't really care that everyone's saying things about it, I mean,
obviously cares if he's being smeared as some kind of you know, you know,
immoral person whatever if he isn't, But I don't think he cares.
And it would be great if he used that kind of you know, that
personality trade or political trade to engage in things that really mattered in a more
effective way. But instead I think he just used it to By the way,
I think that he's going to be in trouble now in some sense,
I just don't. I mean, he was probably not very not like very
much in general, but I mean I just can't see him having any effect
anymore. I just don't even see. I mean, there's going to be
revenge here, right There are a lot of people who like Kevin McCarthy even
though they were grasping about him. Right. Yeah, I have no idea
what the effect will be, but I do think that a weird thing about
both Matt Gates and Kevin McCarthy is that neither of them well, I think
Matt Gates would be happy to be out of Congress, so when people were
threatening him with expulsion, it's like, don't threaten me with a good time,
like I think he wants. I think he thinks it's very, very
broken. In the same way the Victoria Sparks has been talking about this,
like she came to Congress, she's very frustrated by how little can be done
by someone who actually cares about the Constitution and stuff. Likewise, I think
Kevin McCarthy, beginning several weeks ago, was like, this is a thankless
job as speaker, Like this is just ridiculous. Necessarily, yeah, I
don't think he's necessarily like broken hearted about being ousted. Could just quickly interject
and say that I am happy things can't get done easily, even though I
realized lots of times that means the things I want to get done can happen
easily, because it is a problem if things could get done easily. I
think I hate to sound like one of these people who talks about the founding
all the time, but I think they wanted things to move slowly, and
I know that gets frustrating. Listen, it took fifty years to overturn ro
Right. You had to build a legal infrastructure, You had to change people's
perception of the Constitution again or re you know, bring it back to its
original intent, and all of that, and then you had to have the
political will to put in the right people, and on and on. Things
happen slowly. And this, I think because there's so much demagoguery about how
I'm going to do this tomorrow and I'm going to do that tomorrow. A
lot of voters have fooled themselves into believing that things can just get done.
It doesn't work that way. And it don't get me wrong. There's a
lot of abuse of bureaucracies and executive power that do get things unfortunately done right
away. But it's not supposed to be that way. I don't know,
so, you know, I know people get frustrated, but I just you
know, right enough on that, right, Molly, Let's talk about something
else real quick. We've mentioned this Atlantic piece that came out right before the
election in twenty twenty presidential election twenty t twenty many times. In it,
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote that Donald Trump on a trip
to was it where was it? France? Paris? Yea, to France,
Harris did not you know, but basically he called uh dead American soldiers
suckers and losers and said something like, why would they even you know,
do this. They're just a bunch of suckers and losers. We've always I've
always thought that it was probably made up. Obviously, the journalistic integrity of
that piece is not strong, to say the least. It was not reported
in the normal way that reporters would report things to sources. So on this
week. This week, John Kelly was interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN.
I would it's it's kind of framed like a news story, but he just
lets the guy talk and Kelly as well. Anyway, So we interviewed him,
and The Atlantic ran a story about how John Kelly has confirmed our story
and all these other things that Trump has done as true. But then I
read the story and he doesn't really do that, right, He says that
he look, you've heard it. Also, he says, he like you
know, prefaces it with that kind of wording, and then he goes into
all these things and he doesn't actually confirm them. So I'm a little bit
confused. What do you think? Yeah, the actual story so okay,
I actually want to kind of tell it a different way. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Jeffrey Goldberg puts out a story and he claims, he says,
you heard it said that when Donald Trump went to France in twenty eighteen,
that he couldn't go to einmarn Cemetery at Bellowood because of the rain,
And that's a lie. In fact, he harbors secret hatred for dead American
soldiers and for anonymous and on willing to be named people say that they personally
heard him say that dead American soldiers contrary to his public persona of caring so
much about the military and his like dramatic you know, how much he loves
the theater of it all, he actually secretly hates them and calls them suckers
and losers. Okay, when that story comes out, it was like unlike
anything I'd ever seen in that something like twenty four sources contradicted this account that
includes things like government documents saying stuff like we cannot move the President because of
the rain. So unless you think like the government the Pentagon was in on
this secret hatred of dead American soldiers, you have all sorts of people,
including people who hate Donald Trump, who were in the room when this allegedly
happened, people like John Bolton saying and there were a lot of people in
the room when this allegedly happened, But people like John Bolton saying like I
hate Donald Trump and I think he's the worst human in the history of mankind.
He never said anything like this. You have the fact that the next
day he went to a World War One cemetery filled with American soldiers dead American
soldiers and gave a speech there. You have other visits to World War One
and other American cemeteries where he's clearly all into the pomp and circumstance. You
have his stated beliefs. I mean, it was an overwhelming onslot, and
yet nobody in the media could be convinced that this was a false story,
despite the anonymity, despite all of these issues with it, it gets put
into a debate. I think Chris Wallace is like, well, as we
know, sir, you have harbored secret hatred for dead American soldiers. When
I interviewed Trump and asked him, like, was the what was the fake
news story that bothered you the most? Without hesitation, he said it was
this one. He's like, first of all, I said, I supposedly
said this in a room full of generals. Do you think like they would
have said something if I had, you know, to me in my face.
So, in this context where Atlantic gets very excited and CNN says John
Kelly has confirmed this story. What John Kelly says, Jake Tapper says like,
is there anything that you want to say about Donald Trump? And he's
like, what can I say other than what's already been said? Right?
And so then he basically so what he confirmed? I mean, I do
think he kind of confirmed he was one of the people who ran this operation,
this info op to spread false information. But what he confirms is that
he believes, or he claims to believe, these things that were said about.
He mentions half a dozen things that happened before he took the job,
like that Donald Trump went after that gold Star family that during the Democratic twenty
sixteen convention. They bring out they bring out a gold Star family, a
Muslim gold Star family, and they're like, this is the worst person in
the history of the world. You can't vote for him America. And if
he did his like punching them back thing, and John Kelly claims to believe
that that's awful. He also defends Mark Millie, one of the worst generals
we have ever had, who has done horrific things, including by his own
admission, he claims he communicated with China to warn them about something that the
civilian control of the military was thinking about, which is not okay, you
know, and John Kelly defends him. Are you kidding me? Anyway?
This is my this is my this is my problem that I have with with
politics right now. It's like, why do you you can dislike Trump?
Why do you have to defend Millie? Like it doesn't you don't have to.
You could. You could be critical of both if you want to,
but but it just seems people are incapable of doing that. Yeah, anyway,
So I thought that was interesting, right, But the Atlantic when with
the story that said he had confirmed it, which I which I don't think
is right, you know, but obviously no journalists an't going to say anything
about that. Can we talk about culture now? Yes? I tried to
raise my voice there, like it's not all been a downer again, let's
talk about culture. Such a good sign before we started, and you said
something like is there enough to talk about? And I laughed because it just
seems like every day is a tsunami, Like there are so many things we
could have talked about that we didn't, the Trump trial and stuff. But
yeah, let's talk culture. What did you watch this week? Well,
let me first say that if people want to reach us, they should email
us at radio at the Federalist dot com. Whenever I listened to Emily Joshinski
doing her show, she's so professional in like laying out what people should do.
I have to get better at it, so I just wanted to do
that tell people that I have not done much. I'm working on a book
as well. It's taken up a lot of my time. But I do
want to talk about I did watch two things. One was Band of Brothers,
which is on Netflix now. It's an HBO show. For my think
twenty ten, No, two thousand, I'm sorry, two thousand and one.
It is blow my mind. It is so great, and just these
interviews they have the start of each episode with paratroopers who landed on you know,
in Normandy and who fought Battle of Bulge, and then juxtaposing that with
like the clowns that are running the country now and the people around there.
And I'm not one of the you know, I hate to romanticize people in
the past. I'm sure we're very we're very alike, but the bravery they
showed these young men is just it's mind boggling. And I know it's dramatized
and all that, but still, I'm sure the truth is actually far more
interesting, and I mean, I know it is, so I just if
people haven't seen that, I just I think maybe it's one of the best
mini series ever made, or like television shows ever made. It's just historically
accurate, doesn't gloss over a lot of things that kind of the war movies
often do, where they make them more like action movies than realistic. So
I watch that and then just quickly, because I have been watching The Big
Bang Theory, I've got a lot of people talking about that with me.
I tried to Young Sheldon, which is like a prequel to that show,
and I really strongly disliked it, so after like three episodes, I quit
moved me wrong listeners. So I did get to watch a couple of things.
I'm doing a lot of interviews for my book on Justice Alito, and
sometimes I do so many interviews in the day that my brain is a little
fried by the end. So I've been enjoying watching something, you know at
the end. So I watched a movie with Matt Damon and it was about
how he was like this young struggling attorney and how he takes on an insurance
company. I don't remember what it was called. It was like The rain
Maker or something like that. Correct, Okay, you know what, Okay,
it's a Francis Ford Koppola movie. Yeah, the man who made that
movie called The Godfather you enjoy so much. Well, this was no Godfather.
But it was good, I thought, And you know, we're like
Danny DeVito and maybe or something. Yes, and he's really good in it
too. And then I watched this other movie I have no Oh, Flora
and Son, and my first impression of it was that it was not good.
And then I realized. The next morning I woke up and I kind
of liked it. So it's made by that guy who made the movie Once
you know about the Irish Troubadours or whatever, you don't, No, I
don't know that it's a good one. I would highly recommend Once Well involves
a Czech lady and okay, this is about an Irish woman by the way,
played by Bono's daughter, oh uh, and she is about her relationship
with her son. She's not stablely employed. She has some drug issues,
but they're not like considered a big part of the movie, just more that
she's had them. It's kind of just made bad decisions and is feeling the
weight of that. And her husband and she he lives separately. He's moved
on to another woman, and the son is a mess. But it's like
kind of a cheerful movie despite all this stuff I'm saying, And I do
think it was interesting. And also his movies are always about music, and
this was a movie about music. She ends up taking guitar lessons and you
don't want to give everything away, but it was a nice movie about harmony,
both musical and you know, family wise, and about there was this
part where she's asking for help from a friend, so that she can do
something for herself. And the friend is like, I am not going to
help you with your son, and she's like, I've never asked for any
help, and she's like, listen, you made that decision when you didn't
take the boat to London, meaning when you got pregnant and you did not
kill your baby. You made your bed. Now lie in it and don't
ask other people to help you. And I don't know it just people talk
about how being pro life isn't just about keeping babies from being violently murdered in
the womb, but also about what happens the whole life. And it's also
true for mothers that you know you could take this easy way out of killing
your child or you don't, and what the costs and benefits of that are.
And so I just thought it was kind of beautifully told in a weird
way. It sounds like something I would want to watch, even though I
will not blame the daughter of Bono for Bono's music, and I will watch
this movie. I would also quickly like to say that pro life thing you
just said is interesting because I was watching Big Bang Theory and in it,
one of the characters is pregnant, and as soon as the characters know that
she's pregnant, they, especially the husband, talks to the baby all the
time. Like these shows are instinctively people act like pro lifers without even knowing
it, you know. I know, I'm not the first person to point
this out, but you see it instantly on in culture. And even though
they tried very hard sometimes to make abortion a norm, even in movies where
they make it try to make it a norm, it's always some sort of
like traumatic thing that a person does. They can't avoid it because it is.
And I mean, sorry, you know, if you're a moral person,
it is. And I just find that interesting. So I'll add to
that then that there was this other show that we had watched. I'd mentioned
it previously. It's called Daisy Jones and the Six And in terms of rock
royalty families, the main character is played by Elvis's granddaughter, and she's really
good Riley k Kiah for I don't have to say their name. The show
is about a band that has two women in the band and it has a
wife of the lead singer. The wife of the lead singer gets pregnant early
on, and they that child is like a huge part of the story and
it's a beautiful thing. And there's this other member of the band who gets
pregnant later and she wants to have a career, so she kills the baby
the father the way that shows the effect on the father. So when she
tells him she's pregnant, he is so happy and so excited about this life
they're bringing into this world, and she's like, no, I was planning
on killing the baby for my career, and so he has to kind of
deal with that. And I thought it was an honest look at how men
are involved in how men hurt when children are killed against their will. And
also it wasn't like heavy handed at all, but it did kind of show
the sadness of this woman's life that she traded. You know, she was
willing to kill her child so she could have this like thriving career that's not
that thriving and not that great, and you know, it's not that flourishing
and just sort of the costs of so, you know, it's hard to
know what to do when you live in a country that supports killing children,
you have a lot of pressure to do it. You know. It was
not a pro life book or TV show, but it was at least a
little more honest about these things than a lot of the propaganda in supportive abortion
is there's such a disconnect from the reality of that situation, at least for
how I view the world, then the politics of it. It's almost not
even like you're talking about the same thing. And you see it in cultural
depictions, but in real life how people treat pregnant women all the time,
and it doesn't connect. And I don't understand what some people are thinking who
go along with this. So anyway, all right, good discussion, Molly.
I will be back next week, and until then, please be lovers
of freedom and anxious for the fray