You. Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly
Hemingway and David Harsani. Just a reminder, if you'd like to email the
show, please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We love
to hear from you. Molly, Happy well, Platonic. Happy Valentine's Day
to you, and also is it happy ash Wednesday or just just I mean
you say blessed ash Wednesday. It's the beginning of Blent for Christians, and
Happy Saint Valentine's Day to you too. Did you do anything to celebrate?
Yeah, my wife and I have made a tradition of going out the day
before so we don't have to worry about the crowds at the restaurants we like
and stuff like that, which seems like a shortcut. But yeah, so
we had fun. How about you, anything big planned? No? But
I was at church this morning and I was sitting next to this awesome little
girl by the way, little girl whose mom is pregnant with her third and
she came up with the name Sarah Tortalini for the baby's name, and I
think it's kind of catchy. The three year old came up with the name.
But She was also asking me why my ASH cross was so big,
and I'm looking at it here as we're talking, and it's absolutely ginormous.
You have you ever seen that meme that goes around where it gives like different
it gives names for different types of crosses that you get on Ash Wednesday,
So like if it's a really faint one, it's called toner refill, like
you need to refill the toner. But I always seem to get, you
know, priests revenge, Pastor's revenge with first in line, First in line
is always like, really it's a cross, like you can tell it's a
cross, it's well done. And then the priest's revenge seems like they're a
little angry when they're doing it. So I think I have one of those
look like you're about to head out on a crusade. We'll just put it
that way. You're You're you're marked. That's good. The bigger the cross,
the more you know, the more you care about God. I think
I told the little girl that it meant I was a bigger sinner. See
see what she thinks of that. Well, whatever you do, have a
good day doing it. Let's jump in. There's so much news past week.
So let's start with Tucker Carlson heading over to Moscow to interview Russian President
Vladimir Putin. I'd say that a lot of people immediately started calling Tucker,
you know, a trader or or you know, just how dare you interview
one of the world's most important men? Right? What do you think journalism
is, sir? Now? It depends, right. I mean, if
you go over there and you don't ask the guy any tough questions, it's
not journalism either, you know, if you're just sort of setting up with
softballs, and I don't think that's what he necessarily did. I don't know
what were you how did what were your full disclosure? I've been traveling so
much. I did watch forty minutes and was completely riveted by the first forty
minutes. And I'd heard, you know, some of our colleagues were like,
there's too much history from vlad Putin, and the history was inaccurate in
parts, but like, still very interesting to hear what the Russian biased history
perspective is. And it was also the same night that Biden came out and
gave his angry press conference asserting that he was totally mentally competent before confusing Mexico
and Egypt. So to watch like forty minutes of Vlad Putin giving a history
lecture with dates and names and nuance and like perspective and then having our president
kind of stumble out and yell at people, it was an embarrassing comparison.
Yeah, I thought it was some I thought it was pretty warring. Frankly,
I wasn't really that riveted. But I will say this, I think
that that interview shows you that many Europeans, good one, you know,
the good guys and the bad guys, they care about history a lot more
than Americans care about history. Or what I mean is that these when we
go over the ocean and save someone, we're just like, we're saving democracy,
right, But they're thinking about thousands of years back often or a thousand
years back, and they're thinking, you know that the Ukrainian Russian problem is
not something that just began the other day. You know, there's a there's
a lot of history there. Whoever's right or wrong, it matters, and
obviously Putin knows his history on that Wait, did you do you remember the
part where Tucker's like, so, where are you know he's giving this detailed
lecture going back to, you know, explaining religious differences and how they evolved
over time and what the borders were at different places, and Tucker's like,
where are we right now? Like I'm totally lost, and Putin's like,
we're in thirteen hundred just like this. I don't know. Well, I
thought it was really compelling to watch. He didn't answer questions, a lot
of filibustering. Yeah, sorry, Just one other thing I want to say.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, one of the talking points that our intelligence community
put out there and had regurgitated by political pundits all over was that Blad Putin
had done this because he was crazy. He was near death, He had
Parkinson's. His cancer treatments had made him crazy, and so he was about
to die and we were dealing with a mad man and we might have to
do like really crazy stuff to deal with this mad man. So that was
the talking point that our intelligence community put out there. And so two years
later, to watch this interview from someone who does not appear to be unhealthy
in any way. You know, he might be wrong, but he's not
unhealthy. Certainly isn't dying from any of the things that our intelligence community claimed
he was doing. At the same time, that same intelligence community saying Joe
Biden is as sharp as could be. He's a super sharp guy. He's
got a total focus and handle on everything. And I just I just have
to say, like that was a really jarring thing to watch him be so
sentient when we were told that he was near death. Yeah, and we're
going to get a bit into into the Biden part of the part of that
comment soon. I just want to talk a little bit more about putin in
that I don't know that we learned anything from the interview that's very important to
geopolitical what's going on right now. We don't know really when what his I
mean, I know what his goals are. We don't know when the Ukrainian
War is going to end. We don't I don't know that we learned anything
that important. But I don't really think Tucker was the fault of that.
It's just it's very hard to pin down world leaders. They're not going to
answer your questions, they're not going to give away stuff. David, Yeah,
you understand this might have been boring for you, oh, because you
actually have fun reading about Russia. In your spare time, you are sitting
in front of a wall of books, many of them history related to different
wars in Europe, Like you know this stuff. This thing got millions of
views from people who have been told that there was no reason whatsoever for vlad
Putin to do anything in Ukraine. So all of that was like brand new
for a lot of people. And I know that's true because I was just
hearing people like casually talking about it. I was in Florida on Friday and
Saturday, and just like the normies that I was talking to, like the
lady blowing out my hair, the uber driver, the coffee maker, like
they were all talking about it. I don't think those people not to be
stereotyping or anything. They don't seem like people who are reading Sleepwalkers in their
spare time. My dad gave me a two volume Ukrainian introduction history from like
the seventies. It's amazing, it's right here. Yeah, I think that
what we if we're building up two books, like two thick books, one
with a yellow cover, one with the blue to look like the Ukraine flag.
What makes me laugh is that it's just an introduction to history. It's
not even the history. Yeah, my dad read a lot of history books.
So I think that when you boil down the entire Putin argument, it's
that he doesn't actually think Ukrainian people are a people themselves and distinct people.
He thinks they have a different dialect than they're just Russian. So but in
any event, I just quickly wanted to say, but I don't think there's
anything wrong with going and interviewing these people. One of my favorite and I'm
not comparing Tucker to Oriana Falacci, but she was the greatest at these interviews.
She interviewed calminy R like she would interview anyone, and she would give
him a really tough time demand answers. I think, you know, Tucker
did a commendable enough job. I don't you know, he wasn't you know,
I think he's not like he's not a particularly tenacious interviewer. Yeah,
so I was actually agreed when when it came out that he was going to
be interviewing him, I'm like, oh, no, is this going to
be like a puffy thing, because like, also, he's been doing so
many really, I mean, I find them interesting, but it seems like
the theme of his interview show is like people you're not supposed to interview and
just letting them talk, and there is value in that. But when it's
a guy who's, you know, causing major unrest throughout the world, you
want someone asking tough questions. And I thought, you know, from what
I heard, because I only got the first forty minutes, which was the
history Lesson, that he did ask some tough questions. I think it was
fine. You know, I don't. I don't think he I don't.
Yeah, I think it was fine. I think he did a fine job.
It's you know, Houton is a very competent person. If you like
him, you know, or not. I hope not. But he's competent.
And I don't mean you, I mean you out there listener, but
uh, any good any world leader, it's going to be hard to pin
them down on major questions anyway, you know. So he filibustered a lot
of the time. It's I guess the history you're saying was interesting to some
people. I think he went on a bit too long. It was like
a castro of speech, you know, one of those like five hour deals.
That's what I felt like listening to him. I don't know, I
just kind of I feel like having that length of time enabled you to just
kind of get a sense for his persona too, seeing the way he handled
each you know, handled the questions or where he wanted to take the interview.
Also, he hands a binder of information to Tucker. Did you see
that part? He's like, this is information from our archives and I wanted
you to have it, And I'm like, what's in there? I'm super
curious what's in there. The funny thing was, you know, everyone who
you know, was calling Tucker a trader and all of that, and a
Putin stooge. I don't think why listening to Putin in a I believe,
uncut, uncensored, you know, interview is a problem. He wrote,
He's written Putin has written op eds for the New York Times. I mean
he used to be interviewed by the West quite often. So any event,
it was funny when he when Tucker's like, he was, no one in
the West will interview him, and then honestly a lot of people are trying
to interview him and can't. But anyway, then I Tucker went off to
some conference of like plutocrats and theocrats in Dubai where he said that Moscow was
nicer than any city in the United States, a wonderful place to live.
And then I got a lot of blowback already for disagreeing with him in a
column, And you're telling me that I'm wrong. This is what I heard
from you this morning. So I was just looking up to make sure that
he had said it was nicer than any city. It was so much nicer
than any city in the United States. That's a direct quote. Okay,
well, I won't disagree with So you wrote a piece saying how wrong Tucker
was for saying this, And I'm more broadly how there's this trend of kind
of like diminishing what we are and comparing us to other people in ways I
think are misleading. In general, I do believe there are nice cities in
the United States, but I have been to Moscow, and I have been
to many cities in the United States that are nowhere near as nice as Moscow
in terms of just it being a you know, part of this is that
Moscow's an old city, and old cities kind of build up organically in ways
that are pleasant, you know, that are more based around walking than driving
or whatnot. Moscow's also a massive city, So there are a lot of
parts to it, right, Like there's the there's the historic area. There
are historic areas, but there's also a lot of like old Soviet buildings that
are ugly. You know, there's there's a wide variety of stuff. But
just like as far as a city that's nice to be in, it's definitely
nicer than like New York or Boston or Chicago. Definitely San Francisco, Definitely
Portland, Definitely La You know, there are a lot of bad cities in
the United States. But I do think Tucker's hyperbolic. But I think there
is this issue that our cities are kind of failing, and they're failing because
of Democrat policies that have embraced crime, that subsidize and an advance homelessness,
Like there's a whole homeless industrial complex. Does our border have turnstiles and velvet
ropes? Watched out on Wall Street Podcast with Chris Markowski. Every Day Chris
helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet.
Some Republicans are chouting a bill with a limit of five thousand migrants per
day. That's still one point eight million per year, an amusement park doesn't
let more people in when it hits capacity. 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. So even you go to a place like you know,
is Stanbul, which has twenty five billion, I mean twenty five million
people or whatever, and it has some things about it that are nicer than
some cities in America. We have bad policies in our cities, It's true.
And they're describing cities do people. I read a book about this.
I'm just going to say, let's talk about Budapest for a second, which
is one of the most beautiful central you know, in their central one of
the most beautiful cities I think in Europe. People sit there, you know,
these new conservatives, they sit there on the Danube. They look around.
It's beautiful. They want us to be like them. In Moscow,
and I haven't been to Moscow, I'm gonna just say that I don't know,
but from what I've read and what I've heard from people, there is,
of course a nice section it is an old city. Most people live
in those Soviet blocks of apartments that you're talking about. They don't get to
live where Tucker hangs out when he's there as a tourist, or where people
go for tourism. Let's just compare the tourist Francisco and New York is beautiful.
Have you walked around Central Park? You don't think that's beautiful for people
to go to New York once a month, and I even enjoy it.
I'm just saying it's kind of not great in many most people. I like
Central Park, and I like various parts of New York, but it's not
an aggressive homeless population. It's got massive drug problems. I've seen people defecate
in the street in both La well actually in La Las Vegas and New York.
I saw someone just take a dump in the middle of the street.
Everyone's high by nine am with that really skunky weed. Like it's not it's
not great, David, And there's a real problem. And also I think
that when you look at where the vibrant cities are in the world, they're
kind of not in the US or Russia. You know, like it's a
lot of stuff happening in the global South where you're seeing growth and excitement and
entrepreneurship, and I think we should be really worried about it, because this
is like our claim to fame, and we should reclaim it. There is
no country well, first of all, American, many Americans. Most Americans
live in suburbs and live in the middle of city centers, which are for
the rich and poor basically. But I'd say this as well, there is
no country that has come close to the innovation of the United States, no
Asian country, no one. Russia innovates nothing. Incidentally, there's no innovation
there at all. Capita GDPs like twelve thousand dollars. Everyone is poor in
Russia compared to the United States, but the claim that we don't innovate compared
to these other China is the only one who even comes close, and they're
not really that close. So I don't know. I guess I just feel
there's a larger, broader anger about the United States that it makes people lose
perspective of how good many things are here. For instance, Russia. You
say the drugs here, it's true, I know, but Russia has a
massive alcoholism problem, like massive people seem to embrace death like they're just kind
of like death is one with them. This I mean, they have a
massive suicide problem. They're always near the top. Though. I think it's
been getting better, do you know. I was. I learned this yesterday.
That and whatever, the divorce rate in Russia seventy four percent, it's
the highest in the world. It is not you know, and also not
Moscow is probably one of the nicer cities at maybe Saint Petersburg's nice. Peters
Yeah, you don't live in Ufa or Yakatirenberg or one of these industrial places.
Trusts me, no one wants to live there. You'd much rather live
in a Phoenix, David. It'd be so pollyanna ish about higher the situation
is in this country. Like, that's what I'm talking about. The strength
that we have had over the decades. It's because we've had a strong rule
of law, which is by the way, being attacked beyond belief right now,
even in things like these ridiculous judgments against people who say wrong things or
whatever. It is a strong free market economy that gave people the opportunity to
thrive, which is being squashed through decades of regulation and a bureaucracy and an
administrative state that would rival Soviet unions. You know, there are. It's
also like through a strong religious culture that is clearly waning right now, and
we shouldn't just be like, oh, we're the best, We're always the
best, We're always going to be the best. We have serious problems and
we should take them very seriously. I never said we're the best. I
said we suck the least. There's a difference, but I just want to
say that we are more religious than Russians by so much and all that,
and it's just quickly going to say, you at the rule of law.
You know, from the seventies or even the sixties to the nineties mid nineties,
at least, the rule of law was terrible in these cities. Cities
are better now than they used to be, not worse. They're going backwards
unfortunately. Anyway, My only point was that I think he's being pollyannish about
these places because he only sees the nice things. He doesn't see like when
people go to Paris, they're like, oh my gosh, Paris is so
beautiful. I'd love to live here. But they if you travel ten minutes
out into one of these basically ghettos of immigrants who live where there's anarchy and
lawlessness. Then it's not as nice and we only I would yeah, I
would put Paris as like a declining city too, and even like again in
the United States, it is so interesting to be down in Florida, which
under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, became the cultural center I feel like of
the country during COVID because people could go there and live freely, and so
you feel this excitement and people are being interesting in the arts and politics,
and they're being more entrepreneurial down there. You also see this in certain parts
of Texas, which is a freer state, and you see it less like
I feel like Paris was a great artistic center and now it's like a little
yeah that might. That's my point is that, of course, if you're
wealthy, any city is going to be nice for you, but if you're
not, is a big difference how you can live in America and how you
can live in a lot of these countries anyway, So thank you for that
disagreement. Let's talk about yeah, oh sorry, go on, no,
no, please, what do you want to talk say? Let's talk about
Joe Biden. You know, we talked a little bit about how the same
night that blad Putin's interview came out, we had Joe Biden come out,
and that was because a Special Council report had come out earlier in the day
which said, yes, obviously Joe Biden grossly mishandled classified documents, but he's
a Democrat, so he's going to get away with it. And the way
we're going to let him get away with it, though, was kind of
mean, and I actually don't think it was okay for the Special Council to
do this, but he did it. He said, the guy is too
incompetent. We think like if we charged him, a jury would find him
to be incompetent essentially, and so we're just going to let him get away
with it, like we always let democrats get away with it, even while
we also at the same time prosecute our political opponents for doing things that aren't
bad. There's so much unpack here, So I want to get to you.
I saw you elsewhere saying that you didn't think it was all right how
the report was written. But a lot of people compared this to what Comy
did to Hillary on the left, it's true both of them should have been
charged or recommendations should have been made to charge them, because Hillary clearly broke
the law and Joe Biden clearly broke the law. If the precedent is what's
going on with Donald Trump? Though I don't know if you saw. Richard
Hurr in the report says that Trump is worse because he didn't hand back the
documents, which I don't really understand, because you're allowed if you disagree about
something, you're allowed to get a lawyer. Basically, he's pronouncing him guilty
before you know there's even been a trial. I just want to also say,
yeah, Joe Biden was accused and credibly accused and found like guilty in
a report of mishandling classified documents from a period in his political career where he
did not have the right to have those documents. Whereas what they're going after
Trump for is having documents that he obtained while holding declassification authority as president.
It's insane that you would go after Trump, who was the one who does
you know, letting Hillary Clinton slide she didn't have declassification authority, letting Joe
Biden slide, he didn't have declassification authority when he took these documents and then
going after Trump, it's just and by the way, going after Trump when
you've also done coup attempts against him and gotten exposed and shown no humility and
taken no responsibility. Well yeah, well I just wanted to say so.
Obviously there's people are going to see this as a double standard. It doesn't
matter what they say. But there was this misconception or this lie basically that
Joe Biden cooperated. He was forting documents from the seventies in the Senate days
right, and he never cooperated. A lawyer ran across the box with this.
The FBI was going to get a search warned if he didn't let them
into the house. This is like committing a crime, like you know,
stealing something and then after your caught saying yeah, I stole it. Here
it is back. That's not operation. That's getting caught. And there's really
no reason why Biden should slide here unless he is a feeble minded old man
who can't be prosecuted because he can't stand up for himself. Though many lawyers
have pointed out that that is not an excuse for criminality. That is a
that's for the sentencing phase where you talk about whether someone is dementia and can't
really serve their time, not that they having committed the crimes which Biden did
before supposedly he had dementia. I never you know, it's never exactly been
His mental acuity has never been anything to write home about, right, So
you never been the brightest bulb of the intellectual chandelier. So here's my argument
with you. I guess I don't see how her doesn't take this route,
because if he doesn't take this route, now, either Biden is an elderly
man who can't stand, you know, up to these charges, or he
needs to recommend that Biden be charged for criminality because he said as in the
report, I forget the exact language, but I believe he says that he
committed a serious felony. So how is he supposed to go about it?
Charge him but not? You know, I don't understand how what else he
could have done here. I feel like my answer to this is kind of
what I think about when I think about Ukraine, the war in Ukraine,
like my problem with the Russian invasion with Ukraine. You have to start back,
like thirty years prior and how we handled the entire dissolution of the Soviet
Union, which I think was handled really well, except that Ukraine was always
going to be kind of a problem, and one side said it had to
be a buffer state, and the other side said, no, let's use
it as a vassal of our country and kind of use it to poke and
prod and push our agenda. And then the people who said you got to
keep it as a buffer said someday Russia might invade Ukraine if you go along
this path, and then it did. And so when it happens and people
are like, which side are you on? And I want to be like,
I'm on on people's side from thirty years ago that we should not have
done things the way we did it. And that's what I would say about
this situation. This I actually get. I completely get why the Department of
Justice did not want to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her obvious mishandling of classified information
and lying about it. I can get why they didn't even charge anyone associated
with her for it, because like, you don't want to get involved in
presidential politics, but then to run the Russia collusion line where you're spying on
the Trump campaign trying to unseat him maliciously lying and leaking about him. Is
like, well, what happened here? I thought we were kind of trying
to be prudent about not prosecuting politicians. And then I could understand, you
know, if like in a vacuum, why you wouldn't go after Joe Biden.
But I don't understand smearing him as in competent, Like it's basically a
jury of one. It's it's Robert Hurr just kind of deciding that he sees
what everybody else sees, that this guy's incompetent, and then at the same
time they're going after at the same time they're going after Trump. Well,
it is kind of a smear to do it without like, who's he to
say? Prosecutors make these kind of judgments all the time, and there's no
other way to do it. I mean, he sat down for a five
hour interview with the president, who didn't know the years he was vice president,
who did know when his son died, and he and probably didn't know
a bunch of other stuff. I'd love to see the transcripts, And then
he made a decision what other reason could he have for not recommending charges.
I don't even know what other reason exists, Well, like they should Basically
my answer is they should not have rated Mara Lago. They should not have
gone with raised Democrat activists at NARA who were trying to like put their political
opponent in prison, because if they hadn't done that, then they could have,
like let they wouldn't even had to start special Council on Joe Biden.
But because they keep being deranged with madness over their hatred of one man and
his supporters for making their lives like not as cushy in the bureaucracy as they
are under everybody else, they're destroying the entire country. Like the whole thing
is a joke. It is an absolute, unbelievable joke that Joe Biden,
as Senator and as Vice president took documents so he could like make money writing
books, you know, and shared them with his and shared them inappropriately with
his ghostwriter and is not being charged with it when every single other person in
that circumstance who's not a president would be prosecuted. And then they take the
one guy who is a president and they raid his house and they like are
trying to get him imprisoned before election, And you had Joe Biden leaking to
Axios that he's super angry at Merrick Garland for not doing the political prosecution of
his top of their shared top political opponent in a timelier fashion, and how
he's going to punish Merrick Garland for not getting it done in a timelier fashion
by firing him in the second term should he be reelected, and like he
this is not the first time he's talked to the Department of Justice about what
he wants them to do in terms of imprisoning his political opponent. That he
does this like through the press when when Donald Trump said of the lie that
was fueled and created by the Deep State that he was a Russian who had
colluded with Russia to steal the twenty sixteen election, when he said that was
a lie, they added like eighteen months to the Special Council and tried to
go after him for obstruction of justice. And we have a president right now
who's going to Axios and saying like, I'm really angry that Merrek Garland hasn't
gotten you know, well, no one rid me of this meddlesome Trump.
And everyone's like, oh, huh. I'm no big deal. It's not
a violation of norms. It's insane, you know. Speaking of the leak,
there were more. There was more than one leak from the White House
that talks about how mad Bien is and he's like cursing about Neta Yahu and
he's mad at this when of he's angry, and I think they think that
this shows that he's you know, youthful and exuberant and you know, involved.
But actually people with who have dementia often get angry a lot and lash
out at people, and they often do the things that Biden does almost every
day, so for instance, confusing memories and getting days wrong and conflating memories
and things like that. But it makes me laugh that who said it.
Someone said this was an isolated you know, just because of these isolated incidents
during this interview, doesn't mean that by an overall aside. So the Washington
Post ran out, I think it was the Washington Post ran out and got
a bunch of neurologists to say that the report is wrong and you can't make
ascertain these things and so on. We have a four year a four year
history of Biden doing this stuff. I mean he falls, he can't walk.
I mean he's an eighty what is he eighty two? An eighty two
year old man. This is normal for an eighty two year old man,
right or not normal? But many eighty two year olds lose. I'm loose.
I can't remember things as well as I used to, and I shouldn't
be president. David. Yes, there was. Oh, I know,
probably you don't like John Stewart and I don't really either. But he's back
with his Daily show and he was doing this thing about how both Trump and
Biden are too old to be president or whatever. But the stuff on Trump
kind of didn't land, didn't really stick, but his stuff on Biden was
actually kind of funny. So he's talking about how he shows some image of
Biden being decrepit, and then he and then he shows clips of all of
his praetorian guard out on the Sunday shows, saying, actually, he's very
focused and vibrant, and he handles things better than any of us combined.
And they're all kind of saying the same thing. So it sounds like that
was orchestrated talking points, and it comes back to John Stewart and he was,
like, you didn't buy any chance get any of that on video.
Did you like of him acting focused and competent. He's like, because we
got a lot of video of the bad stuff, but it would be kind
of like, to make your point, it would be good if any of
that were captured on video. And it was just like, it made me
feel badly for Democrats that they every single day they're going to be verbal flubs,
trips, anger And yes, you're actually one hundred percent right. Anyone
who has family members who've had dementia, we know that anger is a dementia
thing. Like you could have the sweetest, most amazing person in the world
who during the dementia actually gets quite testy and angry. So when they're like,
he's super mad about stuff, it's like, yeah, that's kind of
what we would assume for someone with dementia. Yeah, I mean the campaign
to make to pretend that he's this super lucid, super competent guy is going
to backfire because he has to get out there this time. Someone wrote a
column for us. I'm not sure if we ran it yet or not,
but they talk about how you cannot have another basement campaign. Now this blows
that up because people are going to want to see him. Listen, a
bunch of Democrats are going to I mean, people are going to vote from
anyway. They're going to care. Oh, this is what I want to
say as well. Yeah, Trump, I think has slowed down, right,
But when you see both of them, it's clear that Trump isn't a
lot better mental. You know, he's like he basically always was, whereas
Biden is rapidly declining rapidly. I think, aren't you just politics aside?
I feel kind of bad that his family allows this to happen, frankly,
but more for the country that what if he wins four more years of him.
I just don't see how he's going to be able to survive that,
Frankly, Is that a mean thing to say? Uh No, I mean
he might survive, like literally survive, But the thing is, it's not
really him running things anyway. Well, Okay, I've got so many thoughts.
One is I completely agree when I feel anger about the situation that the
national security threats posed by having a dangerously incompetent president. I don't get mad
at Joe Biden. I do get mad at every single person who's not taking
care of the situation to get him out of there. That could be his
own family, it could be his top advisors, it could just be even
prominent democrats. It's definitely the corporate media who have just lied for years about
his Oh no, he's great, you know, and they ask such gentle
questions sir, what kind of ice cream? Oh? You got the good
chocolate chip ice cream? And you know, versus how they were with Trump,
like why do you sleep with prostitutes in Russia? You know that kind
of thing. Remember when they used to ask George W. Bush, who
like the Undersecretarary of thy Tye like commerce was you know, if you didn't
know, they were like, he's not prepared. And now this guy forgot
Hamas the name of Hamas during a press conference about Hamas the other day,
and that's fine for everyone. Sorry, he said, every innocent life in
Gaza is a tragedy. He confused Mexico and Egypt. By the way,
what is wrong with our White House press corps? I don't answer. That
is so many things. But like he comes out and they should have just
said, you know, who's the Prime Minister of the UK. Remember when
he at the end of a speech, he's he yelled out God, God
saved the queen after the queen was dead. I mean, that's not a
normal thing to do, and no one's like, well, that's kind of
weird. I mean, he forgot Winston Churchill's name. But when we was
speaking to the British Prime Minister, I was going back to try to like
put a list together, and it's so huge that it's not you know,
I don't even think it's worth doing. Sorry. Another thing, suppose this
was the initial excuse that he was stressed out because this interview happened right after
the Israeli the attack by Hamas Israel. Because President totally unless he's stressed,
when he's stressed, when the world is in a dangerous place, that's when
he struggles. So don't worry. It's only when World War three is about
to break out that things get bad. So so color me skeptical that he
was that upset that day. I'm sorry, I know that sounds awful.
Another one thing her said that I didn't like was that he was a well
meaning, elderly, feeble minded man, well meaning. I don't think he's
well meaning. I don't think he has any principles. I think he's a
bad guy that he said the jury. He said he felt like the jury
would consider him a well meaning man. Well he is. I mean,
first of all, now they're attacking him as a clandestine political operative, Like
didn't Garland put him on this when Trump says things like that it's the end
of democracy, and now the White House itself is leading those attacks and all
the you know, the Morning Joes of the world or whatever are leading that
attack. It's literally the thing they say is bringing Nazi Germany to us.
If I pointed out failures by Bob Robert Moehler over the course of his career,
I got so many people angry at me, and I was like strongly
discouraged from saying anything publicly. And I was so gentle about it, like,
hey, that anthrax investigation or whatever that wasn't so hot. But yeah,
now you can say Robert Hurr is a partisan activist who's trying to destroy
America, and everyone's like, yeah, that sounds that checks out the guy
who let you off with no charges. They did the same thing with Komy,
but forget like he was enemy number one. Paul Carterman wrote a column
with any that said the election was rigged because Comy let Hillary go. I
don't Again, I don't know what he was supposed to do in that instance
either. Really, I think there's an argument that what Komi did was really
uncool on both fronts. He should have just charged and not defamed her.
He did the not charging but kind of defaming her. That's fine by me,
Yeah, but he can't. What they want is they wanted to be
put under the rug and not investigated. They don't want Biden basically investigating basically
wasn't. On that note, did you see that Tony Bobolinski, a guy
who unlike the Russia collusion hoax, where you'd have made up people saying made
up things and you'd have twenty four to seven news coverage of it, you
had Tony Bobolinski who came out on Fox News with his name with emails with
evidence saying, of course, Joe Biden was involved in the Biden family business.
And I know because I met with him and I was super involved in
the Biden family business. And this week he comes out and says, yeah,
the FBI, Department of Justice never asked me like anything about it,
and I was totally available. Who's the slight difference in how they treat Trump
versus Biden. Who's the Democrat who wore the head band. I think he
had maybe he had cancer or something. Jamie Raskin, Yeah, so,
Jamie Raskin the other day. I didn't know Bobolinsky was going to be,
uh, you know, in front of Congress. He's just smearing the guy.
And I'm like, everything he said so far has been true, has
all checked out. He put his name out there, he was willing to
testify, unlike like you say, virtually anyone in the Russia clusion stuff,
and they just smear him in the media. I don't even think they like
even mention him, you know, other than Fox maybe so so. And
I will say, like in the when the Tony Bobolinski thing came out,
there were some names associated with that, like business names that I saw,
and I called these people up and said, like, can you tell me
what you think about this guy? And they all said the eyes like a
stand up, like you know, did business with him. He did what
he said he was going to do kind of thing. So unlike the crazy
people that they used for the Russia clusion line. So, speaking of Russia
collusion collusion, there's this story, and I think we have a piece today
at the Federalist about how the CIA essentially asked foreign you know, foreign spooks
basically to look into the Trump campaign as well, which seems it seems weird.
Well, it seems weird, actually, I Margo Cleveland wrote a piece
for US Today that looks into this, and in part what she points out
is this is what I was always saying, that the story that was told
by the FBI never really made sense. You know, there was this dossier,
dossier that Hillary Clinton's campaign had paid for, and it clearly seemed to
launch the Russia collusion hoax, and the FBI said, no, no,
no, no, no, we had nothing to do with that, just
like completely. Surprisingly, one day, an Australian tip came in through the
UK of a Trump official saying something, and we decided this spring up a
whole, big, massive investigation spying on the Trump campaign and trying to allege
that he was a Russian stooge. And what this reporting from Michael Schallenberger and
Matt Tayebi and one other guy says is that basically our government asked the Five
Eyes, which are the you know, we were part of a intelligence cooperation
you know, intelligence gathering cooperation agreement that they put the word out to the
Five Eyes, which would include like Australia and the UK, that they were
looking for info on these twenty six different Trump officials. And so what happens
then is that their intel people just try to bump into, as they call
it, these different Trump related officials. And so that explains why Stefan Halper
was getting involved with different Trump officials and reaching out to them, and how
Carter Page gets invited into places where then the UK can kind of like get
involved in the intelligence gathering. Why this Australian guy says that he had a
chat with George Papadop and that it was like disconcerting even though there was nothing
really disconcerting about it, and it springs up this whole investigation. It's a
pretty horrifying thing. It's massive news. Our intel community tried to take down
tried to keep Donald Trump from winning the presidency, and then when they failed
to do that, they tried to destroy him as president. And they are
still going. It is such republic threatening behavior. It's insane. It's insane
what the left's hatred of one man has resulted. In and then when they
come, you know, when they gain power, they bring people like Rob
Malley into the administration, a bunch of people who have promised to help Iran
with their efforts, and literally no major news organization even talks about it.
I still don't know why Rob Malley is not working for the government. No
one will tell us. Where's that investigation. Yeah, let's talk now about
So last week we were going off on the alleged border bill, the so
called border bill, which had Ukrainian, Israeli, Palestinian funding in it and
some other stuff. It fell apart. So obviously what you do then is
not move forward with a border bill, but move forward with the Ukrainian funding
bill in the Israel you know there's Israeli funding in there as well, and
stuff in Palestinian EID. I think it's bad, Setting aside everything else,
I just think it's really bad politics. It's people do not understand. The
Republicans obviously do not understand their voters now agree with them or not. It
looks terrible that what's going on at the border you ignore, and then you're
just sending money to Ukraine like it's not like a zero something like a lot
of people like to frame it like if we're giving money here or not here,
but it is for the normal voter, it seems like a zero sum
proposition. And then Romney's out there and a bunch of others basically just I
don't know what to say, smearing their voters as people who don't care about
read him in democracy when they were the ones ignoring the border. It is
just terrible politics at the very least. Yeah, So, Mitch McConnell says
the most important policy priority of Republican voters is endless funding of the war in
Ukraine. I think he's wrong given polls and logic, but he cares a
lot about it. He had this idea that if he pretended to care about
the border, that he could get a border slash Ukraine funding bill through And
it was a one hundred and eighteen billion dollar bill that gave green card amnesty
to tens of or just millions of illegal border crossers, and which is not
border security. It's kind of the opposite of that. And all sorts of
other bad provisions that had nothing to do with border security were basically like in
Fleeing the Doors Open immigration bill and then sixty billion dollars for Ukraine. So
more than half of his bill idea was Ukraine, and he worked really hard
on it, and everyone was like, are you kidding me? This is
ridiculous, and so he's like, oh, I guess we can't do border,
but we can do my number one policy priority, which is funding the
war in Ukraine, so that the people who I actually represent, who are
not Republican voters, we're not Americans, who are not Kentuckians, they are
the military industrial complex, like they're going to be happy, and we needed
this to like war to just continue. We don't care how many hundreds of
thousands of Ukrainians are killed, how much property is destroyed. Our real goal
here is to avoid a negotiated settlement and keep the funding going for years.
And so Mitch McConnell and other like really old decrepit anti statesmen, they're like
the opposite of statesmen. They're fools and idiots. They pushed through this order,
this Ukraine funding, and now the only thing keeping anything from happening is
the House, which has a majority of like two Republicans. And everyone's worried
because even the House leadership is pretty brittle. I would say so, but
we'll see, but it was it was seemed like, sorry, just that
was a really long thing, and I'm sorry, but Tom Tillis said voters
are too stupid to understand what he knows. And Mitch McConnell said, you
know, people who oppose endless wars that that don't have a plan for strategy
are dim and apparently Romney said something about it too. I talked with a
senator who was saying, you know, the first thing they tell you when
you become a senator is that Russia is the only country that could destroy America
in a matter of minutes, so like you have to take them seriously.
And he was like, so, what's their strategy for winning the war against
you know, what's the strategy if Russia can destroy us, what's the strategy
for how we're going to win this war for Ukraine? And he said that
when he asked people, don't people do not have an answer, Like they're
they're like, what you're asking about? Strategy for success? That's weird.
And then the North Dakota senator, I forget his name, comes out today
and attacks Eric Schmidt because Eric Smitt was like, guys, sorry, you
know we did every cause there were a bunch of really good senators who tried
to stop this from happening against the American people, and they failed, but
they tried really, really hard. And so he was like fifteen of the
seventeen people elected in the last few years fought to end this, to stop
this endless funding. He's like, change is happening, It's just not happening
soon enough. And then this guy, what is it, Kevin Kramer from
North Dakota, a state that really should be sending a much higher caliber of
Republican said basically like you're a Russian or something. Well, I can I
say this. I mean, I don't agree with what you're saying completely.
You know, in the way that you're framing things to sort of put that
out there, you know that this is against the American people. So and
I think plain people think that funding Ukraine's a good idea thirty something percent of
Republicans probably or something like that. But if you have a stalemate right now
and you want to send funding there, we're basically in a proxy war there.
I wouldn't be against it if we were also pushing to end it somehow.
But it seems to me this is just an endless, an endless cycle
there of violence, ID even use that term, But what is the endgame?
We never hear about that, We never talk about it. And there's
a stalemate pretty much there now, which is a big, huge victory for
Ukrainians in my opinion. I think, you know, they could have been
overpowered pretty easily. Initially everyone thought that would be the case. So why
continue this forever? What is the point? What is going to happen here?
I never get a straight argument on that, and that bothers me,
even as someone who thinks that Ukrainian like everyone says, oh, like McConnell
wants Ukrainians to keep dying in this, But Ukrainians make that choice for themselves.
We're not forcing them to fight this war just because we're giving them weapons.
We're allowing them to defend themselves. I think that that's a fair thing
for a nation to do. I just don't know that we should what the
American of you know, how this helps American foreign policy to keep this going
on and on forever. This reminds me that I was top talking to,
like a top foreign policy analyst who is saying very like, just matter of
fact, did you know that the corruption in Ukraine is kind of worse now
than it was a couple of years ago. I was like, gosh,
how weird After we have sent tens of billions of dollars to an already corrupt
country, you're telling me that that flow of money has led to more corruption
in Ukraine? Like what will they tell you next? How weird is that?
Anyway? I want to just complain about one more Republican senator do so.
Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of Texas and the George W. Bush
Carl Rove team tried to take him out by impeaching him, and it was
always kind of like a weird case. And he ends up like totally winning
that impeachment battle, and he goes after John Cornyn, who is a border
state senator from a very red state, Texas, who had worked so hard
not to secure the border, but to secure Ukraine's borders. And so Paxton
goes after him like unbelievable that John corn would stay up all night to defend
other countries' borders but not America. And Cornyn responds by basically doing that thing.
Who was it was it Schumer who said I can't remember with Schumer or
Brennan, who right before Trump was inaugurated and he started like questioning the intelligence
community, like not nearly enough, it turns out, but he started questioning
it, and then he says like, oh, yeah, I think it
was Schumer. The intel community has six ways from Sunday of responding to your
compliance. You know, I remember that. Yeah. So Cornyn does that
to Paxson. He's like, hey, buddy, why don't you care more
about the law fair we're planning against you than critiquing me for my inane policy
decisions. It's unbelievable. Like he's like, yeah, your criminal defense lawyers
are calling to suggest oh yeah, it was even worse. Your criminal defense
lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time
defending long standing felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal
grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges.
It's like, oh, yeah, you're buying into the lawfair that they're doing
against any effective Republican and you're saying that if you care about America's borders,
you're pushing Russian propaganda. Like these people hate you. They hate your country,
they hate the idea of borders and sovereignty, And I really want to
know what in God's name Texas Republicans are doing allowing this, Like why are
they rewarding this man for his hatred of their country? Like do they hate
their country? Why are North Dakota and permitting Kevin Kramer to be the person
that they send to the Senate? Like what's wrong with you people? I've
always noticed that Texas Republicans aren't as often aren't as conservatives as you think or
as they're portrayed as a state. There are plenty of like rhino type conservatives
there. I hate to use that word too, but you know I've noticed
that. But whatever, I mean, the border thing just is perplexing to
me. Even if you're a big immigration person, you should want to shut
it down and control who's coming across. I just don't even understand why this
is a major debate even but it is so anyway, things are going poorly.
I would say for the Republicans, you know, this kind of thing
just depresses I think enthusiasm on the right. So there's a lot of enthusiasm
as primary voters and corps voters for Trump but there isn't a corresponding like excitement
about Republicans at all, you know, and it's because of stuff like this.
But it's also it just seems like Trump's a party on to himself in
a weird way. So no, it's not. I mean, he's like
a party unto himself along with the majority of Republican voters. But yes,
the establishment's like, gosh, what do we have to do to get rid
of this stranglehold that Trump has on the party. And it's like, I
think it's not really this. It's just people in the Republican Party care about
certain things, and almost nobody in the Republican Party at a high level also
cares about those things. So problem the big issue is the establishment, like
the the sort of like decaying decrepit. See now, part of the establishment
either needs to die or just move on or accept that like they can no
longer continue the game playing they're doing on things like war and borders. Yeah,
people today I was on Twitter and people got mad at me. I
think there's there are other problems here too. You have to create this party
where you win national election, and you need to bring in people who aren't
necessarily that excited about Trump. But the choice that you get is the McConnell
wing or the Trump wing. So for a lot of people, that sucks.
That keeps you know, I mean, you know, I don't like
either very much. And I don't know where this goes. Republicans lost in
election New York. I don't know how much it says the other. You
know, yesterday for George Santos's seat, just remind people there's a George Santos
in the in the White House right now, and you know, throwing him
out was nuts. If you're not going to throw out Adam Shift, if
you're not going to throw out other liars and other people. They lost the
seat, and I don't know that they're going to get that seat back.
I'm from that area, you know, and it's going to be a tough.
It's going to be tough. So I don't know. There's a snowstorm.
It's an off you know, it's an off season. You know,
it's an off year election. All that. I get it, but I
don't think it bodes well for Republicans in general. I feel like we're always
right before culture. I'm always like beat down right for our card. I'm
always like, oh, let's just talk about movies. It's the worst,
but you know, it's a lot going on. How'd you do on culture
this week? I was just thinking when you were talking about going out with
your wife for Valentine's Day dinner. I like Valentine's Day, but I don't
like it as a romantic holiday. I don't know how to explain that my
mom always gave us each cards and I still have them, Like, I
love all the cards she gave me. I guess she and my dad,
but you know it was her. And so I did put together like little
things for the children, and I enjoyed it and they seemed very happy.
But I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day romantically. And then I was also thinking
about how I was talking to my mom and I told her I made jumbalaya
on Sunday for the Super Bowl, and she asked if anybody was coming over,
and I was like no, And like, my really close friend moved
away with her family a few months ago, and she's my mom's like ever
since they moved away, it seems like you don't have any friends. Well,
every thanks mom. Longtime listeners of this show know that I don't have
any friends about trying to make friends, but so I think it's underrated.
But uh yeah, it's the Super Bowl. Super Bowl was exciting, Huh.
I liked it. I thought it was a great game. I like
both teams. I like both quarterbacks. I couldn't believe San Francisco's child quarterback.
I forget his name, but he looked like he was twelve, and
he was so good and I loved like, I just it was a fun,
fun game to watch, and I was happy. I only watched one
professional football game a year at best. People. Uh, I was watching
online, you know, on Twitter, and people thought it said it you
know, it was a ring game and all that. I'm like, do
you know how hard it would be to rig a tie game in the Super
bo Bowl. That would take a lot of work and a lot of people
would be involved in that. So I do worry about the corruption that comes
from gambling. And it does seem weird how much gambling has become a part
of professional sports and the amount of money that must be on that. You
know, because there are lots of ways to quote unquote rig. It could
be about the number of tackles that are allowed, or you know things like
that, and so I don't think. I mean, there's so much betting
going on on both sides of all issues. It's almost like hedging stocks,
you know, in a way that like, you know, you'd have to
really be some kind of mastermind to pull it off. I'm not that upset
about the gambling stuff, though, it is incredibly weird. In the middle
of games. I'm a big hockey fan, they'll give like the announcers will
give you the odds on the game, and You're like, this is really
weird. I grew up gambling was like illegal, and now it's just becom
ingrained in sports so much so I don't know, we'll see what the long
term implications of that are. But she who will be not named the pop
star that everyone talks about in relation to football, and I'm happy that that's
over for now for a little bit. But so anyway, what'd you do
you watch anything? I did? I watched I watched a movie. It
was called American Fiction. Did you see that? Oh? Is that the
one with uh I forget his name, but about the African American author and
all that his name is Jeffrey or something. Yeah, right, right,
Yeah, it was you know, I can give it like a slight recommendation.
It had so many problems, Like in the one hand, it's like
kind of a mess, but it has a lot of redeeming qualities too,
and he's very good in it. I just wish that maybe they would have
put like other people on the project to clean it up a little bit.
It was which way so like just the story just like, for example,
you're supposed to think that the original family from which the author is from is
like a complete mess, but it's never really explained why or how or why
it's so traumatic for them. It's really question. Yes, so it seems
like this is sort of a contrarian movie in a weird way against sort of
the cultural forces of like identitarian race and all of that stuff. Right,
does it really lean into that or is it kind of a fake? So
I think the way to look at it is it's a very strong critique against
white liberals and their embrace of identitarianism. And in order to do that,
it has to do a lot of stupid stuff to enable white liberals to watch
it without being angry. And so like one sister is an abortionist and then
one brother is super gay and you know, it's like to me at Red,
like, don't get mad at us for critiquing you for your awful ideas.
But then on the aspect of identity, for like how people try to
boil down black identity into like something very simple and stupid. I liked that,
I liked how I liked how it explored that, and even how it
resolved in the end. But the end is a bit of a cop out.
There's like a I won't give it away, but there's like kind of
a big cop out at the end. And I don't know probably, but
I would say again, the performance by Jeffrey Wright I thought was very good
and believable, and he's a very talented actor, so I think he's up
for an Oscar and I would not be totally shocked for him to get it.
Was it something you saw in the theater or was this a streaming I'm
not going to ask you which streaming service, but was it on your TV?
It was on TV okay, because my husband and I don't leave our
house, so we did have to pay like full price. You know,
it was like a twenty dollars got it, got it, got it?
So it was a movie. Yeah, all right, anything else? Yeah,
I'm waiting for you to tell us what we're going to flip. Okay.
I watched a movie called Self Reliance. Have you heard of this?
No? It is on Hulu and it's directed and stars Jake Johnson from The
New Girl. Do you know that actor? No? Oh? Wait,
I do? I do know who he is? I think? Yeah,
yeah, I like him. I like him. Yeah, he was funny.
And Anna Kendrick like her too. She's in it. And it is
a movie about Oh yeah, it's like a game show and like you're running
through the dark where yeah, people are going to try to kill you unless
you're with someone else. It was it was okay. I didn't hate it.
I didn't particularly love it, like we're a first outing as a director.
I thought it was interesting enough and I like him enough to watch it,
and so I would give it a soft recommend, as you did with
American Fiction, which is an Oscar nominated movie. This will not be Oscar
name nominated. Okay, do you want me to go on or do you
have something? I don't have anything else, So that's it. Okay.
I'm reading or I almost finished reading a book this week about a new Oh,
I don't have it in front of me. Kubrick Stanley Kubrick biography that
came out. So because that came out because I was reading it, and
because I had watched his early movies earlier this year recommended them. I watched
two thousand Want a Space Odyssey, which I hadn't seen in years, and
I would say that for modern viewers it's probably a little boring to watch.
But when you think about it in the context of when he made it,
I think he began making it in nineteen sixty five and finished maybe sixty eight.
I forget exactly the years. It is an incredible technical achievement. It
is basically the template for like all good science fiction moving forward, and if
you watch it with that in mind, I think that it's something that it's
quite enjoyable. And it deals with AI as well, which is just you
know, topical. I mean, hal is basically AI gone nuts, So
that's an amazing thing. Then I was watching on HBO. I had never
watched the full You ever have a series where you give it like a shot,
like numerous times, but never takes you know, it's like your two
episodes, and so Boardwalk Empire is one of these shows for me. Terrence
Winter, I think, is the writer and creator and he was with soprano.
So I'm pushing through and it's beautiful. It's really cool to look at.
Though they make Warren Harding a bad guy in this show, so I'm
a little bit put off by that, but so I'm pushing through with that.
And the last thing I wanted to say that I'm watching some episodes cleaning
up the show is Colombo, which is I think the greatest show ever made.
And I actually started writing an appreciation. It's already like three thousand words
that will probably run in the Federalist at some point. Great, you wait
for that. You know that I'm always right on that edge, to the
edge of culture, and everyone's talking about I'll be piling up on that one.
I don't know. I think people should more people should watch it.
It is just so innovative and amazing. I'm going to explain why I think
that's true. That is all I have. So I think that's all we
have. Okay, Great, So kind of quickly ask you one thing,
So you don't do anything on Valentine's Day? Is that what you said before?
You don't celebrate at all? I put things together for the do you
do nothing with your with your husband? Mark Hemingway. Though Mark and I
have an amazingly happy and healthy marriage, I have to preficit with excuses.
I'm just askings not he doesn't really like give things or he looks. I
did write him a card today and he's looked kind of confused. When I
gave it to him, he was like, what is this? It's like
my wife, right, So I learned over so this is our thirtieth Valentine's
Day together dating included. Yeah. So I learned probably twenty five years in
that I should occasionally write down if she says she like wants something or like
something, so I'll write it down. But then I noticed if I buy
it, she's like, why are you spending so much money on this thing?
You know? Just because I mentioned it doesn't you know. So I
don't know what to do. I feel like there's nothing I can do to
win, so I just try to be nice to her all Day's a lesson
for the kids. Lesson for the kids. Yeah, okay, well,
nice speaking to you, Molly. I hope everyone enjoyed the show. We'll
be back next week. Until them be Lovers of freedom and anxious for the
fright. Well, I'm glad I'm not in Russia. That's a terrible place
to be. I'm glad I'm not in Russia, and Russia's not in me.
The people were in Russia, they just ain't free. I ain't going
to Russia. Russia,