Hello everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of You Were Wrong with Molly
Hemingway and David Harsani. Just as a reminder, you can email to Show
It Radio at the Federalist and if you enjoy our work here at the Federalist,
you can share your support by visiting our website and joining the Federalist Community
for an ad free website experience and access to exclusive content you don't want to
miss. Yeah. Thanks David, and thanks to everyone who already signed up,
and for those of you that haven't yet, please do so now.
It's four dollars a month. It keeps the Federalist thriving, and so I
encourage everyone to sign up to support our work if you're able. So,
David, did you see the news about the Biden family business and Joe Biden
and personally benefiting from it? I did, But please, Molly, can
you explain it to me him pretend I don't know anything about it? Yeah,
well we Margo Cleveland wrote up a really great explainer for us about what
happened. But I think it was over the summer that Joe Biden was being
asked about the Biden family business, where members of the Biden family like lots
of members of the Biden family take money from foreign oligarchs and people connected to
foreign governments. It's a little unclear like why they're doing it other than because
they're related to Joe Biden, or what people get out of it other than
they're related to Joe Biden. And so that helps these businesses or individuals.
And he said something like, where's the money. Huh, where's the money?
So last week or the week before, they were showing how a domestic
part of the Biden family business resulted in two hundred thousand dollars I think going
to the Biden to Joe Biden. But now we have news of a straight
up transfer of forty thousand dollars from a Chinese company to Joe Biden, funneled
through various different mechanisms, and they actually followed the paper trail. So there
was this five million dollar release of funds from a Chinese company to a joint
venture between Hunter Biden and China, and then from that came four hundred thousand
dollars to a Hunter Biden like account. So four hundred thousand dollars. Keep
in mind, what is ten percent of four hundred thousand dollars forty ten percent
to the big guy. So ten percent to the big guy. So four
hundred thousand is given to Hunter Biden's checkbook. He sends one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars to his uncle, Joe's brother James, and his wife Sarah.
From that, they take out a fifty thousand dollars cash withdrawal, and then
they write a forty thousand dollars check to Joe Biden, now our president.
This was all done in twenty seventeen. And interestingly enough, did you remember
when there was this like WhatsApp message between Hunter Biden and this Chinese chairman of
a company and he's and he sounds like whatever the mob in Delaware sounds like,
you know, not quite New Jersey mob, but very similar to it,
where he's like, hey, buddy, I'm sitting here right next to
my father, and we want to know where the money is and we have
been very helpful to you. Nobody is better for you people than the Biden
family. And then a few days later or maybe even like the next day,
they get the five million dollar transferred in or yeah, I think that's
right. And then and then like within a few weeks we've got the money
going straight to Joe Biden. So I think maybe Joe Biden saying where's the
money reminds me of when Senator Gary Hart was like, follow me if you
think I'm cheating on my wife, and then the media did and he was
in fact cheating on his wife on the boat the monkey business anyway. Yeah,
but unless the check says shakedown of Chai Coom businessman, I don't think
Philip Bump's going to accept this as actual evidence. So that's what I actually
I got joy thinking about Philip Bump. So Philip Bump is this propagandist at
the Washington Post, someone that, as we always note, I've been on
top of him being a bad journalist for ten years now, but now everybody's
kind of realizing, oh, this guy is a really bad propagandist. And
it was a few months ago that he was talking to a like a liberal
like podcast host who was saying, doesn't this look bad? And Philip Bump
was like, I see no problem at all whatsoever, And it's insane to
think so, so I kind of got like a pleasing thought of is Philip
Bump just going to straight up ignore this, or is he gonna say,
I don't think there's anything here about this ten percent from the funds from the
Chinese company going to the big guy. I don't think there's anything to see
here. What do you think will he ignore it or will he explain it
away? I think he'll explain it away in a lot of words, like
a thousand words, will explain why it doesn't mean anything. You know,
the no evidence. They're always like, where's the evidence? Now? I
think that the evidence is piling up again. I don't even know that this
can be called circumstantial. Now you're talking about people who say ten percent,
you have the ten percent. The timing lines up. But again, let's
just take a step back and remember that Joe Biden said on numerous occasions that
he hadn't even spoken to anyone about any of this business, which it's clear
was a complete lie to the American people over and over again. Oh,
he also said there was no money from China. And here we have not
just money from China, but money from China being delivered into Joe Biden's checking
account. And one thing that was great about how the House Republicans looked into
this is they showed that these various accounts that were being used launder the funds.
Prior to the funds going in, they had literally like a buck twenty
eight in there, or nine dollars and thirty seven cents. So there's no
question that this These fess are just traveling through these different accounts to get to
Joe Biden, and nothing else was in there. My favorite defense of Joe
Biden, and he does it himself, is like they're like, can you
believe that they think that I would do something like I'm Joe Biden. I'm
just Joe Biden, you know, from Delaware, from Scranton, just this
honest moderate you know, Senator is always you know, it took amtrak for
years. But it is clear that he is a bad guy. That he
is He's always been a bad guy, and he is it is completely plausible
that he is a corrupt guy. And I see the poll show that most
people now believe he is somewhat corrupt, And I you know, what do
you think how much do you think this is gonna matter in the election?
By the way, stuff like this, I think it matters a great deal,
mostly because Joe Biden is using his Department of Justice to go after his
primary political opponent, Donald Trump. So it all just kind of fits together,
like every time we learned something about the Biden family, it's not great.
It's not just Joe. It's his son, it's his brother, it's
his daughter, it's his nieces, like they're all kind of in this grift.
And also right now he has to do something like this is the second
time that money has gone to Joe Biden that claims to be a loan repayment.
And there are two issues here. One, it doesn't matter whether it
is actually a loan repayment or not. He's benefiting from these Chinese funds.
You know, he would not have been repaid even even if say, oh,
he just loaned his corrupt brother a huge amount of money and he was
just getting paid back. Well, he wouldn't have been paid back if they
didn't have this Biden family business where they trade on his name and his position
or his future positions in order to get the money. But the other thing
is if he's getting loan, if he's giving out loans, I think we
need to know what those loans were, what they were for, how much
you know we have now in a matter of two weeks, two examples of
payments to Biden that are claimed to be loan repayments. Are there more?
How does he get the money to loan out like hundreds of thousands of dollars
to his brother? Like, it just brings up more questions rather than answers,
and he can't evade them. Well, I guess he can evade them
because we have a press that has zero interest in pursuing it, or if
we do have like a few reporters, we're interested in pursuing it. They're
also interested in pursuing Oh, I don't know the other thousand scandals that are
going on with the Biden administration or failures on a global scale. So we've
got like a tiny handful of reporters to pursue one of the most monumentally horrific
news cycles we've been in, you know, in modern history. I think
if he was, if he could prove that he I'll play Devil's Advocate with
you and just say that if he could prove he was paying, you know,
these were repayments for real, actual loans, this plausible deniability for him
to say, listen, my brother's in business. I don't know what he
does. He's just paying me back or whatever. But he hasn't right,
correct, he has not actually shown the loans going the other way yet.
Correct, Like, there's no we've gotten I don't think there's any evidence.
And depending on when the loans were made, these are things that he would
have needed to disclose. You know, at various points in his career he
actually had to disclose things like loan payments or loan repayments. Now this happened
in twenty seventeen. He's this particular distribution from the Chinese government related company to
his checkbook that happened entirety from like August eighth, twenty seventeen to September third,
twenty seventeen, So he wasn't in office during that time. But there's
just one example of how the Biden family works over you know, a one
month period in twenty seven. But I'm not wrong in saying that these relationships
by Hunter and that company company that shakedown outfit began when he was vice president.
Didn't Hunter take a bunch of two trips on Air Force two to China.
Didn't actually Joe Biden meet with one of his business partners. I mean,
it is clear that these are relationships that were formed while he was vice
president, and he must have knowingly he knew that he had met these people,
So he is knowingly involved in a relationship like that. David, I
think we can say that the relationships certainly took that there were developments in the
relationship while he was vice president. I think it's possible that the relationship began
earlier. We don't totally know. I mean, it could have happened when
the Biden family business was trading off of Joe Biden's role in the Senate instead
of the vice presidency. You know, all of these other issues that are
in play, like him wrongly taking classified information when he was that might have
been related to the Biden family business. Then, so we know that there
were these corrupt interactions while he was vice president, that Joe Biden brought his
son on these trips, or that he got involved in Ukraine while his son
was involved in Ukraine, that he helped his son's financial interests in Ukraine while
he was the point meaning we have all that, but it could have been
much longer too. The timing always by happens, complete happenstance always lines up
perfectly with helping his family make a ton of money, like the Ukrainian thing,
which you could maybe say, hey, you know, it could have
maybe he didn't know. Maybe the timing is just luck for them. But
now you have more and more luck, and that it's getting pretty suspicious,
right, amazing luck that the Biden family has on how to make money.
This reminds me of something related which Elon Musk was on a podcast with Joe
Rogan this week, and one of the things he was talking about was how
Soros is really good at arbitrage and how he like figured out that if you
took over district attorneys and made it so that they didn't prosecute the law,
you didn't actually have to change the laws. You just changed the enforcement of
the law. And this person on Twitter was pointing out, isn't it interesting
how we like we all have no problem understanding what the Soros game plan is
for prosecutors. For local prosecutors in the United States, you know, he
replaced all of them with these radical left wingers who do not prosecute the laws.
We all know that. Nobody denies that. Some people think that's good
on the left. The rest of the country is horrified by what's happening with
the surgeon crime. But when George Soros with Joe Biden wanted to get rid
of that prosecutor in Ukraine, Everyone's like, oh no, he wanted to
do that for good reasons, Like that was that was the opposite. He
actually wanted someone who enforced the law in Ukraine. He wants people who don't
enforce the law in the United States, but in this other country he has
a completely different approach, And it's just kind of worth pointing it. I
wish I could remember some of the specifics of that Ukrainian moment, but one
of the things that I do remember is that there were the europe had been
pushing in the United States for a bunch of reforms. One of the reforms
was to get rid of that prosecutor. But there were many others that Biden
did not seem that interested in, did not push for with the same you
know, you know, I don't know pressure, you know it did not
apply the same sort of pressure to get done. That was the one that
he was very interested in that he bragged about later, and the timing itself,
even if he was doing it for the right reasons, was a massive
conflict of interest. If he knew where his son worked, which he almost
surely did in just a few years. The deep state has pushed radical policies
that undermine families, destroy the economy, put safety at risk, criminalize free
speech, and make it difficult for conservatives to govern actively. That's where Project
twenty twenty five comes in, equipping the next conservative president with what they need
to turn America around on day one. The next conservative president needs to be
ready with trained staff and solid policies. More than seventy five organizations, led
by the Heritage Foundation have come together to make this possible through Project twenty twenty
five with a policy agenda, presidential Personnel Database, Presidential Administration Academy, and
one hundred and eighty day playbook. Go to Project twenty twenty five dot org
to learn more. So also related to that, we had a story in
Time last week which went through how many major problems there are with the war
on Ukraine, but the war yet with prosecuting the war on Ukraine, I
guess, And one of the main points that was made was just how corrupt
the country is. It's just widespread corruption at every level of the government.
Zelensky has no control over it, even like after he tried firing a bunch
of people who were stealing money, stealing American tax payer money. And I
bring it up just to note that Joe Biden said his signature policy achievement in
Ukraine was fighting corruption. And the proof of this is that he fired the
guy going after his son's company, and we have one of the most corrupt
countries on the face of the earth. Like, interesting, are you sure
it's your signature policy achievement, Joe Biden, his signature policy achievement is enriching
his own family. Yes, that's definitely part of it. It reminds me
just that since you brought it up that you know, now Democrats want to
tie Ukrainian funding to the Israeli funding, like it's exactly the same thing,
like it's exactly the same war, that it's exactly all the you know,
the uses of that money go towards the same thing. And that's just completely
not true. Israel, for all its problems, is not corrupt in that
way, and Ukraine is, and to pretend that it isn't is really really
annoying. Whatever you think about about that war. So I was on Fox
News Sunday on Sunday and Mike McCall, the chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, was on right before me, and he even he was saying,
like, we're not voting on these things together, and he would be of
the camp that wishes they were voting on it together, but he understood there's
just no market for it. You have with Israel a country that people buy
and large want to support, even if they don't want to support it,
like hugely financially, they would like it if maybe the US just got out
of the way and let Israel do what it needed to do. They certainly
are not all the American people are not all in on this Ukraine funding,
particularly how it's unchecked, unverified, unaudited, like that's not going over well
with the American people. But I was intrigued by this new speaker, Mike
Johnson, and he was talking about the bill where they are tying the Israel
funding to a cut in IRS funding. So in order to help pay for
the Israel funding, they're cutting some of what's happened at the IRS. And
you might remember that Joe Biden had this whole idea to what was it,
add eighty thousand agents or something to the IRS to go after middle class taxpayers.
Well, who you're going to get a fact check, a pedantic fact
check about how they're not all technically agents. Some of them will just work
in customer service. So maybe twenty thousand new agents to go after people who
have over six hundred dollars transactions on like the PayPal you know, But anyway,
go on, sorry to interrupt, right, And Joe Biden said he
would veto such a bill. He cares so much about increasing the number of
personnel to go after Americans or I'm sorry, to help Americans deal with the
IRS, that he would put Israel funding at risk rather than lose that misstunning.
It's the kind of thing that when the Republicans did it, I'm sure
they thought, there's no way the Democrats will like take this bait, and
then they promptly did your janet yelling out there being like it's actually a matter
of national security that we take more of your money unfairly by like beefing up
the police force at the IRS. It just was stunning to watch. Yeah,
I have a couple of things on that. One. They were talking
about this IRS funding as if it was like foundational in the American experience,
like we could possibly live without it. They haven't even spent the money yet.
The cuts wouldn't even eat into anything. But they treat every new spending
bill like it's a sacred baseline that must go on in perpetuity and you're not
allowed to cut a dollar out of it. Is it's so hilarious. They're
like, actually, if we get rid of this, we're going to lose.
You know, the deficit will go up. We're not offsetting it because
you know, all the rich people keep cheating on their taxes. I don't
want to. I hate break the breakdown news to people. Rich people get
accountants who don't cheat on their taxes, Like they make sure they don't want
to cheat on their taxes. But I'm not going to get into that.
The second thing I wanted to talk about was the Israel Ukraine thing you mentioned
on funding. There's another difference there. Israel is in a neighborhood by itself
where people want to destroy it. They are an ally of the United States.
Ukraine has the richest countries other than US in the world. Right behind
them France, Germany, all these places that don't really want to help them,
and we are stuck with helping them. It's a completely different situation.
We defend all of Europe through NATO. We pay for that. Germany can't
even meet a three percent threshold to help pay for it. We protect Turkey,
we protect you know who's like anti American, anti Israel all that like,
it is a completely different situation. Israel is surrounded. I obviously,
if you want to cut funding for other countries and foreign eight them, all
for it. But let's do it in tiers of like people who hate America
first and then work our way down to the country that is our best ally,
which in my opinion is Israel. Okay, I'm just on the Turkey
thing. They are one of our longest allies. I know they are very
troublesome ally, but sometimes that's why you need to have alliances with people who
are difficult, because they are key figures. Like keeping Turkey in the general
project of civilization is more important than adding Switzerland to NATO. I think,
yeah, I'm not I agree, it's an incredibly important country, but you
know there are other countries in Europe and in NATO that need to And you
know, Donald Trump wasn't the first president to say pay up like Obama did
that too. There are other people who have to step up and help you
c the first to say it and actually mean it or put any teeth too.
Trump Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean I wrote
about this in my European book. I mean they do not, They do
very They are a lot of their wealth and success happened under the umbrella afforded
them by the American taxpayer and our mill terry. And what do they do
and show they show you know, they now they have something happening right there.
They're all supposedly very upset about it. Putin could march all the way
to Paris if you want it, if we don't fight this war or you
know, proxy war. But yet they don't. Still don't really step up
in a way that they should. That's my point is it's just a separate
situation. It's a completely different situation. Yeah, but people show you how
serious they are by their actions. And so definitely when they're looking for US
money and US resources, all we hear is like, if we don't stop
Putin, who's going to march through pooland and he's going to take over Europe?
If you really believe that, and I'm totally open to you believing that.
Shouldn't you act like you believe it. Shouldn't you be putting up way
more of your resources to defend Europe since you're right there. The fact that
they don't makes me is like the number one. It's like when people talk
about people who talk about global warming but they're jetting all over the world.
It's like, I'll take it seriously. When you take it seriously. You
clearly don't take it seriously. So doesn't seem like I need to. And
if you want to have a debate over that Israel funding in Congress, and
I think you should have a debate over that, have the debate about that,
then have another debate about Ukrainian funding and tell us why you think that's
important and how much and where's the end and why we're doing it. Maybe
there are very good reasons for it, as you know, I'm in the
middle of this that somewhere, But they're separate debates with separate dimensions and separate
reasons and separate histories, and put them together I think is a huge mistake.
Apart from the money going to Israel or potentially going to Israel, I
have not loved how the US has talked about the situation in Israel. I
was thinking about this thing, Dave ray Boyce said, when Joe Biden came
out and gave this excellent speech on Israel, and he sounded all the right
notes, and immediately reboy was like, I don't like this. I feel
like this is the kind of speech you give right before you shive Israel by
not actually supporting what they need to do. And it turned out to be
rather prescient because we're getting all these reports that the US is interfering heavily in
how Israel is deciding to prosecute this situation. So I'm I just kind of
want to talk about it because you see a lot of people, including people
I like and admire, who are very opposed to the manner in which Israel
is responding to the October seventh genocide against against israelis Sorry, I don't like
the term genocide, but like I think it's like silly to use it in
this context, or not silly, but it's like unseerious way to deal with
the context. But like there was a slaughter of how many people, is
it like fourteen hundred israelis thirty Americans? Yeah, but brutal to attack on
something these are genocidal people who can't do what they want, so they kill
as many as they can. So I think genocidal is the right word to
like put in there. But this was not a genocide. It was just
a massive slaughter of the clutter of civilians. Yes, and so is Israel,
which has always, you know, it's kind of like gone a little
bit there, but always has this feeling like it needs to balance or back
off. It seems like it's being more aggressive in de haamosifying the Gaza Strip.
And you have all these people who are complaining that they are slaughtering innocent
children in Gaza. And I, like I mentioned, a lot of these
people are people I admire and I even agree with on certain issues, and
I do also hate to see the killing of all these Gosins. I feel
for these people. What I'm confused by is why this is Israel's problem,
per se. So Israel says to the to Gosins, get out of the
northern part of the Gaza Strip, and they said that what like three weeks
ago, Yeah, like a lot of day too of this whole thing.
Yeah, yeah, and so and yeah, we know that Hamas was restricting
the movement of its people, So right there and right then and there,
how come the global cry isn't Hamas stop keeping your people captive and let them
go to the southern part of the Gaza strip that would be a good thing.
Or how come it's not Hamas. How about you unconditionally surrender so that
we don't see the death of these you know, civilians who you're keeping trapped.
There's not that kind of pressure. The pressure is like Israel, how
about you do a ceasefire. It's like, I get the concern for these
children, women and civilians in Gaza, many of whom of course support Himas,
but also a significant number who don't. And either way are civilians,
you know, Like I get the concern. I just don't get why the
problem isn't placed on Hamas. It's like they're the ones who organized the attack.
They're the ones who say they will never stop doing this attack. You
just saw this maybe this week that a leader of a mass was like,
we will always do October seventh type attacks. Well, there's no negotiating with
people like that. You just have to get them to surrender or die,
basically, And why isn't the global community marching against them? Marching for the
freeing of two hundred and thirty hostages, children, elderly people. You know,
like, why is the pressure on Israel? That's what I don't understand.
You understand, right, You know that these people are pro Hamas.
They think that Hamas is justified in doing this because they're occupied now the governing
I spent a week, I've spent three weeks trying not to lose my you
know what on all you know on this issue which is driving me. It's
making me angry in ways that I don't like. But it is a moral
imperative for Israel to remove Hamas from existence. They are now the governing authority
of Gaza. Governing authorities in a civilized world. Their first thing they do
is protect civilians. They didn't build any bomb shelters. They build tunnels to
go into Israel. They get concrete, they use it for terrorist activities.
They get sewage systems they take get out of the ground and make missiles with
it. If Israel allows Hamas to use human shields to defend themselves, they're
going to incentivize Hmas to do it again. They're going to incentivize others to
do it again. You cannot allow it. Now, I am just saying
that. I think Israel goes out of its way, despite what people believe,
to try to save civilian lives. But they cannot handcuff themselves from defending
their own people in that way. No country in the history in history,
no responsible government in history, has ever allowed that to happen. Proportionality is
not It does not mean that you can't that a civilian can't die in a
war. You know, first of all, if it was a real proportionality,
and the way people talk about it when they like compare numbers and stuff
like that, I mean Israel would go in there and start raping and killing
children and targeting civilians, which they never do. It's Hamas who uses the
biggest hospital in Gaza as its headquarters. It's Hamas who purposely uh puts us
offices in journal you know, in western gournalists, you know, next to
Western journalist offices because they think it's going to protect them. Israel cannot allow
that to happen. They have a moral imperative to their own citizens to dismantle
Hamas. They let them exist for too long. And you know, it's
like think about nine to eleven, I mean Americans, I think, you
know, they engaged in shock and awe after right. I mean, I'm
not saying what we did after nine to eleven was all right, but the
idea that after nine to eleven we wouldn't have gone after al Qaeda is insanity.
No citizen in America basically other than maybe Michael Moore or someone like that,
would have abided by some you know, that sort of policy, and
Israeli citizens don't have to. Yeah, I think there's confusion about what the
appropriate amount of response means. It doesn't mean literally, Okay, they killed
fourteen hundred women and children, therefore will kill fourteen hundred Hamas leaders. Which
first off, right right off the bat, you have like a disparity there
in as you know, you know, like one attack civilians or this one
targets them and one doesn't. Technically, having a proportionate response means you you
do not do more than you need to eradicate the threat or to respond to
the threat. So if that means that by killing one person you have eradicated
the threat, that's fine. If it means you're killing you know that would
you shouldn't do more because doing more wouldn't benefit the situation that doesn't that would
be a proportionate response. If you have to take out like an organization that
has tens of thousands of members, then you do that. So people should
understand what proportion it means. And Israel could if it felt like it,
they could carpet bomb and kill basically almost everyone in Gozup they felt like it.
They are sending in troops, putting themselves in danger, honestly, and
they're going to lose lives. I see Israeli soldiers are dying. I mean,
I think that what held them up frankly was yes, like you,
I don't. We haven't gotten into what I haven't gotten into what you said
about the Biden Biden administration, which I quickly want to say, is so
politically ridiculous. So they pretend they're all pro Israel, so all they are
like pro Hamas or I shouldn't say that, So all they're you know,
a big chunk of of of Democrats are now mad at them over that.
You know, progressives are mad at them. But on the other hand,
they're not really pro Israel or helping Israel. They're inhibiting Israel from doing what
it needs to do. So they're you know, there are a lot of
pro Israel people are mad at them as well, and have Biden's numbers have
like crashed after this, even farther than they have before. Is like the
least popular president since I don't know who anyway, I don't even know what
I was talking about. So I think that Israel's going to do it has
to do at this this time because for many reasons, but also because the
government, by the way, which is now a left and right when coalition
government of like every major party in Israel, they all agree that Hamas has
to be taken out. So you know, they're they're they're actually a democracy
no matter what people some people here think, and they have to. They're
going to react to what the people want, and they're going to react,
you know, and they're acting in the way that they should in any responsible
you know, country should, if I can just mention, you know,
Jack lou was just made ambassador of our ambassador to Israel, which he was
a huge Iran Deal proponent, which is he is partly responsible for why these
terrorist proxies have the capability, the money, the logistical support to do and
kill Americans. And he's the one who sent there. He's the one who
said that Benjamin Netta was beyond the pale when he, you know, when
he criticized Obama for that deal Jack lou who was corrupt, who took a
million dollar check from bailout money before going to work as budget director for Obama
and stuff like that. But whatever, This is what the administration really thinks
about Israel. They didn't send someone there who's going to, you know,
help them. They send someone there was going to inhibit them from doing what
they need to do, which is really quite annoying. From the studio that
brought you Sound of Freedom and The Chosen Comes. After Death an unprecedented deep
dive into the phenomena of near death experiences, which I'm fascinated by and I'm
sure many of you are fascinated by. Two This movie, After Death by
Angel Studios explores the ultimate mystery of what happens after we die from the perspective
of individuals who have visited and studied that realm. The unique film uses first
person accounts, careful research, scientific knowledge, and philosophy to paint a fascinating
picture of life in the next realm. It is rated PG thirteen and it
features experts in the fields of science, philosophy, and medicine, each with
unique insight into the phenomenon of the near death experience. And these nationally known
individuals, some of them have been spotlighted by NBC, BBC, National Geographic
and OPRAH, include everyone from Don Piper, who's the author of ninety Minutes
in Heaven that was a life changing book for me. I can say he
was involved in a head on collision you may remember, with a semi truck
while he was on his way home from a church event, and he was
pronounced dead at this to doctor Mary Neil. She's the author of To Heaven
and Back and she was on a kayaking excursion in South America when disaster struck.
She drowned. Before regaining life, experienced heaven and a life changing conversation
with Jesus, according to her book. Now After Death hits theaters on October
twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. You can get your tickets in advance.
You can purchase them online at angel dot com. Slash the Federalist. I
just watched the trailer. I'm so excited to watch this movie. As I
said earlier, I'm fascinated by near death experiences. Our culture is fascinated by
near death experiences, but these stories are so often told in a secular context
that can't really explain them, and it can't really account for everything that people
tell us they experience when they've been pronounced medically dead. Now after death is
going to tell you these stories, is going to give you this insight in
a way that is compelling and in a way that will make sense to so
many people. And these kinds of stories are persuasive, they're inspiring, and
they are amazing. They can bring us closer to Jesus. They can help
our faiths thrive. So make sure to get your tickets once again at angel
dot com Slash the Federalist. Leave your preconceptions at the door and prepare for
a never before seen glimpse into what the next life could entail and after death.
So to get your tickets today or to pay it forward, visit angel
dot com Slash the Federalist. That's Angel dot com Slash the Federalist After Death,
The End is only the beginning rated pg. Thirteen. So I've also
noticed all of these stories where people are talking about the world being on fire,
as if it's this thing that's happening to the Biden administration without recognizing that
the Biden administration very deliberately chose to reject pretty much every aspect of the Trump
administrations forign policy. You just mentioned the Iran Deal. That was something where
Biden very strongly felt that we needed to get back into that, just like
the Obama administration had put us into it, to move away from this Saudi
Arabian posture, to give Palestinians that veto authority that we had let them have
for decades that had caused so many long term problems in the Middle East,
which was different than what the Trump administration had done, really ramping up the
using Ukraine as a proxy in our disputes with Russia instead of being focused on
China. And so now we're looking at all of these things that are breaking
out all over the world, and people are like, Oh, isn't that
weird that it's all happening. It's not weird. It's deliberate, and it's
the natural result of the Biden administration foreign policy. But I'm also concerned about
what's happening domestically. It has been deeply alarming to me to watch some of
these attacks verbal verbal or philosophical attacks on Jews that you're seeing on campuses throughout
the country, and this thing in particular where you have Jewish people putting up
posters sort of in protest of what Gaza did. They are these missing posters
of some of the hostages that have been taken by Hamas, and then you
have jew haters tearing down the posters. And I don't know if it's because
they don't want to deal with the reality that they support people who kidnap women
and children, who brutally murder women and children, and so they don't want
to be confronted with the reality that they are supportive of monsters, or if
it's just straight up jew hatred or whatever. But I've also you have a
lot of these videos going around where people are showing people tearing down these posters,
and people just videotaping them and saying stuff like why are you doing this?
And one or more robust response to these people than just asking them why
they're doing this? What do you think? I mean? Did you see
that video of the Queen's construction worker giving a more robust answer. I think
I would love to put you in a hospital right now. His friends are
like pulling him off. Well, I love that because it was a robust
defense of freedom of speech. You know, he said, you are allowed
to say you hate Jews in this country, but you are not allowed to
tear down someone else's speech, which is exactly right. And that it took
a queen's construction worker to say what we all used to know as our birthright
as American citizens. That makes me sad too. Why aren't college presidents saying
that. Why aren't Republican leaders saying that. Why aren't the people on the
street saying that when they encounter these anti Semitic bigots and supporters of Hamas,
Because that dude loves America and college presidents do not love America. It's that
simple. Let me read you a line from the New York Times today about
the poster thing. But removing the posters has quickly emerged as its own form
of protest, a release valve and also a provocation by those anguished by the
Israeli government's treatments of Palestinians in the years before October seventh and since the bombing
of Gaza began. So it's just a release valve to tear down a picture
of some woman or child who has been kidnapped. And incidentally, Israel is
not Gaza, it's a free place. Maybe a lot of those hostages were
against the Israeli government's supposed terrible treatment of Palestinians. We don't even know where
those people stood. And yet you know, this is the kind of justification
and rationalization there is for tearing down a poster of possibly American citizens who are
being held hostages. We don't know what that number is. It is it
is gross to see, but you know what, you know, I think
it's anti Semitic probably ninety percent of the time or whatever most of the time.
And you know, I like, you know, I think these people
are moving closer and closer to violence against Jews. It's not a new thing.
It's happening in Europe, and it's you know, I hope it doesn't
happen here, but it is what it is. And you saw in Harvard,
you know, just even now the other day, they just surrounded these
Jewish kids. They wouldn't let one of them even move. And you know,
I don't know, I don't really know what to say about it,
but it's a bit it's a bigger part I believe of the left wing progressive
coalition than a lot of people think. I mean, you have these presidents
of universities pretending like they didn't see it coming. Like the Berkeley law dean
of law school, I forguys named Edwin Cherminsky or something like that. But
whatever. Last year there were no jew zones put up by anti Israel protesters,
but he didn't see that as a warning that there's anti Semitism on campus.
So what is that famous? Is it? Martin Eimul or the you
know, first they came for this group of people and I did nothing,
and now they're coming for me. It's interesting to see that first these Marxist
movements came basically for America and America's founding. They also created this racist idea
that white people are oppressors and that non white people are victims, and that
ravaged the country in the last five to ten years. Ravaged, and it
got the support of major corporations and people like Irwin Tcherminsky and all these people
who are like, yeah, I like this idea that white people are oppressors
and that if you can have some kind of identity apart from white, then
you're a victim. You had corporations basically paying reparations in the form of racist
programs or gifts to racist organizations, or for racist programs at organizations, all
in the name of this BLM movement. And the idea that we didn't see
this coming is absurd because there were quite a few people, very smart people,
saying this is horrific and an attack on this country. And it remains
disturbing to me that once it goes after Jews in particularly horrific fashion, people
are like, well, I didn't see this coming, but you didn't.
Like it really would have been helpful to have had people being brave enough to
stand up against the mobs and hysteria of the BLM evil people and I'm sorry
they're just racist, evil people. A few years ago. Yeah, just
a quick thing on that. A lot of times people will tell me like,
you're nuts, you know, or they'll make fun of like Queers for
Palestine, But I think they're missing the point Queers for Palestine or whatever.
These movies movements of like decolonization, intersectionality, all kinds of identitarian stuff.
They're all connected because they're all anti Western civilization basically, so they are the
same movement. They don't They know that they can't go to goz in March.
Those are their allies. They don't care. There the same enemy,
which is the Constitution, Christians, Jews, the Enlightenment basically in my opinion.
And you know, so they're on the same side, not because they
want to lift together. They're on the same side because they hate the same
people. And that has always been the case. Anti zion Is wasn't actually
about Zionism at all. When the Soviets created that idea, it was used
against Jews within the Soviet Union. The same people like Angela Davis who praised
them are now heroes of those anti Semites. And you know, I think
that Jews themselves. I hope they wake up. We talked about this last
week. I'm highly skeptical in the long run it's going to change mus here
in America, but I hope it does. I hope it does. And
the best way for to start is by these philanthropists who are Jewish to stop
giving money to organizations that want them dead and hate them, including higher education.
Now, good luck stopping it. After you gave hundreds of I mean
tens of millions of dollars to them. I mean you got to start at
some point out of it might be too late. Yeah, And every time
something like this happens, you just it gets worse and worse, you know,
more potentially violent, more nasty. And by the way, in Columbus,
Ohio, I have a picture on one of my pieces in Columbus,
Ohio, there's a big march, you know, anti Israel, I think,
anti Jewish march. Let's call it a Paul Palestinian march with the giant
sign that says from the river to the sea. It's just genocidal slogan,
right, So you're talking about people who hate Jews, and to conflate it
at criticism of Israel and stuff, it's just dishonest, and people know it.
No one says you can't criticize Israel. Israelis criticize Israel all the time.
But if your whole position is that the Jews there shouldn't even be allowed
to exist until they're in the sea, well that's a different story. You
know. I tweeted about this, have been like angry for what is it
that three weeks, four weeks just constant rage, and I'm like this cannot
be healthy for me at all. You know, I try to watch like
Terrible Tea to take my mind off a bit, but you know, I
mean as an American, it upsets me. As a Jew, it upsets
me. I think that this could be a very important pivotal moment in history
actually in many ways, to see how we come out the other end of
this thing. Yeah, so I agree, and I will say I think
a lot of people are having moments of realization that are important for people to
have, even if I wish they would have had them a few years ago.
Hey, y'all, this is Sarah from the Sarah Carter Show. Thanks
for listening to the Federalists or Radio hour. We all have a heartfelt reason
to support our blood pressure. In fact, more than half the US population
would benefit from blood pressure support. Superbeats hartshoes 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. And believe me,
I know because I'm traveling all over the country covering stories and frankly, sometimes
all over the world, and it's so easy. I just keep my super
Beats in my handbag, in my pocket wherever, and I've got amazing energy
and guess what, they taste really good. So supporting healthy blood pressure comes
with a bonus Superbeats heart Choes support healthy circulation. So you not only get
blood pressure support, you also get a productive heart, healthy energy without the
crash. Double your potential with Superbeat heart Choes. Get a free thirty day
supply of Superbeat heart Choes and fifteen percent off your first order by going to
get superbeats dot com and using promo code Sarah. That's Saar. Get super
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 feel like there
are other things I kind of wanted to talk about, but they're very different.
Is it okay too, Yeah, let's talk about some other authoritarians out
there, Okay. So Democrats on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate have been
waging war against the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. And we know that Democrats
claim that attacks on legitimacy of institutions or attacks on like Congress, that's unacceptable,
But they've been running a long term campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the
Supreme Court. You had Chuck Schumer standing on the steps of the Supreme Court
while they were hearing oral arguments on a case threatening Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
You had a few years later someone taking him up on that quite literally
with an assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh, his wife, and his children.
You have had this very well funded, well coordinated campaign to allege that non
lefty justices on the Court Court are unethical, with this Pro Publica funded or
this pro publica journalism. ProPublica is funded by dark money, meaning we don't
know exactly who's behind their attacks on the legitimacy of the Court or what their
financial interests in play are, but they have been, you know, questioning
things that are they'll admit in their pieces technically there's nothing wrong with what was
done, but we want to make it seem like something is wrong. These
stories have been done in collusion with the Senate Democrats, who are now subpoena
ing three of the friends of Supreme Court justices to attack them for that friendship
that they have with these justices, including Leonard Leo, who is the guy
who like is kind of responsible for building up the Federalist Society into a really
big, powerful organization, not the guy one of the guys who was and
who's done a lot to improve the court system. And then also this like
never Trump Republican who oddly enough is very good friends with Clarence Thomas and clearly
has had zero effect on his jurisprudence. I don't even know if he's never
Trump Republican anyway's like a never Trump bitter clinger, Harlan Crow who they're going
after. And then another guy who was the one who paid for a trip
that Samuel Alito took. Again, nothing is alleged that this was particularly like,
no one, no one's saying this was against the rules of the court
or anything like that. But they're using these stories to undermine legitimacy. And
now they are subpoenating these people who had previously refused to turn over like sensitive
information to their political foes. And it's to me, it's a really big
ramping up of the war on the court, and it's you know, people
should be aware of it. It's just a massive abuse of power there is
no illegality. Even if everything they said was true in all those Pro public
stories, there's nothing illegal about it. And to call these people in treat
them like criminals, it's a complete abuse of powers just to create the perception
that something's wrong. But you know, democrats do this with Liberals do this.
I don't want to call them liberals. Progressives do this with so many
issues. Did you see the story in NBC News the other day where they
were like they framed something innocuous, sound terrible. It was about Republicans And
I don't know if you know this in Virginia, Republicans are getting into these
groups and they're going door by door knocking on them and saying mean things about
Democrats to people who open it, which they used to just call campaigning,
but now there was this like thousand words story about how weird it was that
this was happening. So that's how they do it. And the truth is
that these we've spoken about these stories, not in one instance as Pro PUBLICA
or whoever's pulling their strings ever come up with a single case where Thomas Lido
or anyone else has changed or altered from their long held philosophical beliefs about the
Constitution to change and benefit themselves. Never right. Actually, you're exactly right,
and I'd actually argue that's why the attacks are happening exactly because they haven't
because they are so reliably consistent in their jurisprudence. Now, I do think
these attacks are designed more less like they know they know that Clarence Thomas and
Sam Alito are not changing anything about themselves. They literally accused one of those
men of horrific crimes in order to keep him off the court. They cannot
tolerate he's a black man and he doesn't share their left wing politics, and
they will never forgive him for that. Right. The thing that they're thinking
is, oh, well, maybe some of these other justices are more like
a John Roberts who can be pressured through political campaigns. I bet you know
Amy Cony, Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. They wouldn't want their children to be
considered pariahs, would they. So we'll go after Alito and Thomas, two
men we know we can't control, less about going after them, and more
as a warning shot against these other justices. Yeah, it's really horrible.
They're worse. They are doing more damage to the Republic and quote unquote democracy
than any j January sixth rioter. They are destroying one of the foundationally important
parts of the of the governance of the United States and independent court. It
is, it is is just a terrible thing that they're doing. And you
know they're not going to stop obviously, you know, unless Republicans take the
Senate than perhaps it could be different. But you know, the media helps
some with this stuff. I remember Political writing a whole story about Leonard Leo
talking about the most innocuous, normal advocacy stuff that that's done all over the
place by everyone, and making it sound like he was involved in some kind
of like mafia endeavor, you know, like he held Donald Trump name these
you know these judges. Yeah, they you know, he did, and
that was great. But the funny thing about that was Donald Trump, for
the first time any president ever did this. He literally gave a list of
people he was going to name to the public before he was elected. There
was no surprise there. It was not shady, it was not a secret.
The court in fact, was a big reason. I think a lot
of evangelicals at least voted for him, but others as well. I wrote
a book on this. So it was one out of every four Trump voters
said they voted for him because of the Supreme Court and how important that was
for them. And also I would just point out that while Leonard Leo was
a key part of the list, as we tell in the story of Justice
on Trial, Don McGann, who was general counsel for the Trump campaign and
is obsessed with a good judiciary, he was a key figure in that,
and there were a few other key figures. And so to put it all
on Leonard Leo, who does know a lot of people and has obviously a
powerful voice in these conversations, is somewhat absurd. Well, it's kind of
like how to go after the NRA, because they don't want to actually go
after the people who own guns and who make the NRA powerful or I don't
even think they're that powerful, but to make them, you know, a
player, all right, Molly. Before we get to our cultural section,
the cultural segment of our show, I wanted to just quickly talk about Mitt
Romney, who has a new biography out by written by a guy named I
think he's an Atlantic writer named is McKay Coppins, and he has a lot
of he has a lot, He has a lot of scores to settle.
I guess in that book is I haven't read it. So I have read
it, and so did my husband, and my husband wrote a hilarious,
admittedly long takedown of not the book so much as Mitt Romney. McKay coppy
is this sort of left wing Mormon who is thereby allowed to work at the
Atlantic, and he is so obsessed with Mitt Romney that it almost feels like
he's got Daddy issues related to Mitt Romney. He adores and worships Mitt Romney.
He views everything like that is his ideal man. And so I'm not
sure I'm dealing with this right now in a book I'm writing, so like,
it's hard to write a book about someone you admire and have the emotional
distance that you need to have to do it. And Mickay Coppins writes a
good story and either and despite himself and despite his love, I think he
manages to paint a really awful picture of Mitt Romney. And my husband pulls
on some of these threads, and I would highly recommend it, just because
Mitt Romney's not a very super interesting person like McKay coppins will tell stories like
he's alone in his time million dollar Capitol Hill townhouse that he lives alone in
because his wife doesn't want to be in DC. Don't know why he needs
such a large town townhouse given that he doesn't have anyone living there. And
then he'll like make salmon sandwiches and he doesn't like the taste of salmon.
He got him from I think Lisa Rakowski or something like that, these filets
of salmon, and so he slathers them with ketchup and he sits there and
watches Ted Lasso reruns on his ninety eight inch television, and it's sad and
so unself aware about who he is. And he seems to be this person
who you know, was born on third base and very strongly believes that he
earned his way to third base and proceeds to just rip on everyone, including
allies, like including Paul Ryan, who was his running mate, or you
know, just everyone. He thinks he's better than everyone, and it comes
off horribly. So if you don't want to read the book, and he
probably shouldn't, I would recommend the article to get a feel for it.
And it's very funny, oh for sure. Pierre de Lecto used to follow
me on Twitter, so consider us friends, remember that his little Twitter things?
Yeah, you know it's funny. I want to tell you, Yeah,
this one. This one senator told me that there's this character in thirty
Rock who's played by John Hamm. Do you remember this character? And he's
like really handsome and a complete idiot, but he doesn't know that he's an
idiot because he's so handsome, he keeps getting men and women saying nice things
to him. And that was all the senator said, meaning like, we've
got that character in the Senate and he just like too stupid for words,
but doesn't know it. And then, of course, because he's anti Trump,
when he feels like it, the media adore him, and so he
keeps getting these like accolades. So long as he's not a threat to Democrats
and he's not right now, then he gets accolades. I whenever I saw
that character, I thought of John Harwood, but except that John Harwood's not
good looking. Well, but he looks you know in Diehard, the guy
who says Helsinki, Sweden or whatever. Do you remember that scenes? No,
he like interrupts to anyway, forget that. I thought, mit Romney
would be a good president. Actually, I still believe that. Yeah,
I just I wish the presidency was less ideological and more competent. I think
those days are gone. I'm not going to pretend that you know the way
the executive branch runs. It's just not that way anymore. But I thought
that he would compared to Obama, he would have been a great president,
and you know, in that sense. But the more I hear about him
and see how he really is, did he Did he ever apologize for marching
with BLM yet? I wonder, I don't know, apologize. It's one
of his proudest moments. I think, Yeah, I know, you mentioned
that he's very, very very proud of marching with the Marxist BLM writers.
He just felt so compelled he had to put his mask and get down there
and help them burn down a church and attack the White House, and then
a few months later claim that attacking government buildings is the worst thing you can
do in the history of mankind. The man is the man is okay?
Sorry, yeah, I know, but listen, I realize now that he
is not a political or a ideological He is sort of a left winger.
I saw him you know, I saw him defending I mean, he's like
a Democrat from nineteen ninety five, you know, that's what he is.
I saw him protect, you know, defending the irs spending the other day,
and you know all he does. And now that he's going to be
free to speak about this, he's just going to be a left winger completely.
So I do want to say that when I had written something critical of
him, also based on a passage I read in the book, I get
all these emails from people and they are so so nice, and I actually
like, because I'm a gen xer, I like getting emails that also disagree
with me. And this one person wrote an email where he was very defensive
of Mitt Romney, but he he actually had kind of a good point to
make, and I won't be labor you know what the particulars were. So
I responded to him and we ended up having like a great conversation and going
back and forth. And it turns out he's an adult convert to Mormonism,
and so he's got a little bit of a feeling that, you know,
Mormons are attacked unfairly. And my husband is an adult convert from Mormonism to
Lutheranism. So we were just kind of sharing family histories, and it's just
a reminder that there are people in this world that you can disagree with and
still have a perfectly lovely civil conversation. And I wish we had so much
more of that. You know. I met Romney twice, and one time
I got to sit in on a meeting with a bunch of people, not
a bunch like May four other people, where he'd spent some time with us.
And I have to say, I don't think he's dumb, obviously,
and I don't I actually think he at one point in his life he was
a good person I see living and his wife is just a wonderful person,
you know, the two times I got to be around them. But I
think he's a massive disappointment, you know, as a political person. So
anyway, all right, now that we've done, we're done with that,
let's talk about collet You have you watched anything interesting, David? Every week
I tell you that I'm busy with my book and I can't read or watch
other things. So this week I read another book about music, which I
did not enjoy. It's Thurston Moore, who is a sonic youth wrote a
memoir. It's called I Think Sonic Life or something like that, and it
was really disappointing. Gets bogged down in like his record collection and stuff,
and doesn't really give you much insight into his life. And maybe there isn't
much insight in his life. Maybe you didn't do you know, maybe it
was not as interesting as I thought. Anyway, I did not enjoy that.
Do you want to go back and forth? Or do you not have
stuff? Or I know you're peace as well. I was traveling last week
and I did get I've finished Song of Solomon and I'm through maybe fifty chapters
of Isaiah, and I mean, I just continue to very much enjoy this
journey through scripture and my Lutheran study Bible that I'm using to do it.
It began, well, one thing that I thought was interesting. I learned
about Song of Solomon that it's not it was used a ton in the early
Church. You know, it's considered you know, so erotic and is this
appropriate, but that early Christians certainly understood how to read it and understand its
multiple meanings. And then with Isaiah, Luther had said that there was so
much, you know, prophecy about Christ in Isaiah, which is just beautiful
to read that we should properly call Isaiah the fifth Gospel. And it has,
you know, the different parts to it's telling us doing different things with
the prophecy. But what a powerful writer. Just the it's it's been fun.
So that's my culture is the Bible. Did you see you did you
really just roll your eyes at me, David? Yeah? I shouldn't.
I've been told that I rolled my eyes a bit too much. Stop doing
that, did you see? Not not that us do with Solim, book
Solomon or anything else, but but does that have to do with the Old
Old Testament? Did you see Natanya who mentioned the Amalekite when he was talking
about Hamas, which is it's interesting because the Amalakite did things to Jews and
there's like rape involved in the killing of children and coming from behind and like
surprise attacking them and stuff like that. So I don't know that people understand
that that that there's actually some thought put into that that analogy. Yeah,
I actually wanted to review exactly what Danyahu had said because I was just because
I'm right there right now reading and so I wanted to see what he was
thinking about the Book of Isaiah. So I do have a bunch a few
things. I have like five things. That was one. I have five
more. I watched the movie Living that you suggested. What was that one
about the English? Uh? Yes, what did you think? I liked
it very much. It was written by the guy who wrote Remains of the
Day and I can't remember his name, a Japanese writer with British. I
liked it. It was it was nice right, it felt it was.
It was uplifting. Is it is she guru? Is? I think so?
I think that's right. He wrote. Also, never Let You Down?
Was that about the cloned kids? So I like that. I watched
the final Harry Potter movies and I have to say that the first half of
the series I disliked. The second half of the series I thought was fantastic.
The the the moral clarity of the fight against evil and good, which
is sometimes sort of diffused in movies you know who's good who's not? You
know, was very clear there and I liked it quite a bit. I
thought the last two movies were great, and Ralph Fines or whatever his name
is, was fantastic. I write it back, I put, I put
little you know, I talk about it on Twitter a bit, and there's
so many like passionate reactions to it. People take that series very seriously.
I don't care that much about it, but it was okay. I watched
there's a show called Lessons in Chemistry. Oh what is her name? Oh?
Yeah, what does that show about? So it's about the it was
a book and it's about the fifties. There's this woman's scientist and played by
Breed Larson, who I've only seen. I guess there's three episodes or two
I forget, but so she's treated, you know, like she can't be
smart because she's a woman in all this. I mean, it's a little
bit like I'm sure that this sort of thing happened, don't deny it,
but it's a little bit like lesson Lessony, like they're you know, every
man is either stupid or like a jerk, and you know, it just
gets a little bit. It's just a little simplistic so far from me,
but it's well done it. She does a good job. I would recommend
it, I guess. And the last thing I watch, which I've seen
before but I'm a big fan, is it's called two twenty thousand Days on
Earth. It's like a documentary sort of thing about Nick Cave. Are you
a Nick Cave fan at all? Yep? So Nick Cave is one of
these people that I really admire actually, but I don't always love his music
very much, so it's weird. But I saw an interview with him on
a podcast called Unheard, which is a you know, publications pretty interesting in
Britain. He is a really interesting person who has whose disposition is conservative,
thinks about the world in ways that are interesting, not very tribal at all.
Started, you know, he was like one of the inventors of like
the goth movement with the birthday party and stuff like that, and then he
but his it's just an interesting guy, very pro free speech, very sort
of liberal in the in the classical sense of the word, though he has
opinions all over the place, defends Israel sometimes, you know, not not
afraid to uh to take stance. And this was so his son, one
of his sons tragically died in an accident, fell off a cliff, and
he he talks about it in these interviews. And he has a book called
Love, Faith and Carnage where he talks about God. So what made what
made me think? What made me want to read this? As he says
that he is not you know how people say they're spiritual but not religious all
the time. It's kind of annoying trope. He says he's religious but not
spiritual. I say that, yeah, which is which is how I feel
about it. Yeah. So like he's like, yeah, of course I
love the structure of Christianity. He goes to church all the time. And
they asked him, do you believe? And he's like, I don't know.
He's like, but I love reading and thinking about Jesus. I love
thinking about scripture. He's you know, so he's just a really interesting guy.
And this is an interesting documentary about his creative process. And so he
wakes up every day and from nine to five thirty he writes and works.
He's like, I need structure. Religion gives me structure. Work gives me
structure. Marriage gives me structure. It's not what you would have thought if
you were listening to Nick Cave and the Birthday Party in the eighties. I
can tell you that it is a real right turn. But a really interesting
guy. Anyway. There's three documentaries. There's a documentary after his son died,
which is too it's not the kind of thing I can really watch,
but actually two of his sons died, so he's really gone through a lot.
And anyway, that's what I watch. I think it's pretty interesting for
fans of his and that's it great. I will say I did start learning
how to listen to podcasts on my phone. Yeah, good, And that
has helped me because I do listen to this one podcast, Issues, et
cetera on my computer, but I didn't know how to do it on my
phone. Husband is starting to get really annoyed with me, and I hate
I do not want to annoy or disappoint or anger my husband in any way.
And he I could tell it was getting bad that my inability to know
how to turn on a television or listen to podcasts like he's just he has
this like disappointment in me that makes me feel bad. So I learned how
to do podcasts on my phone and grasps, congrass you. And it's been
helpful for learning, you know, just listening to like some Supreme Court podcasts
or just while I'm working out, to be able to listen to my issues,
et cetera. There and I would say. It made me realize,
like, oh yeah, because I always get confused, like so many people
listen to this podcast of ours and prominent people and they'll tell me that they
were listening to it, and I'm like, this is embarrassing, But now
I kind of get it. It's fun. Yeah. I don't know how
you deal with that, because whenever someone comes up to me and says,
remember when you said this, and I'm like, I can't believe. I
forget that people actually read my stuff or listen to me sometimes and like right
now, you we were just having a conversation. It was fine, and
I'm reminded that I must have said a lot of crazy things today and someone's
going to know and they're going to come back at me. I ride my
bike quite often as exercise, you know. I do like ten miles a
pop, and a podcast usually is the perfect you know, time, you
know, length for me to listen to when I do that, and I
like them a lot because I like depth to hear people just have in depth
conversations rather than sound bites and stuff like that. No offense to you know,
to cable news. I think that plays an important role. Frankly,
but for me longer conversations are more interesting. So that's why I like podcasts.
There was this piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday that was about
like how awful cable news pundit panels are and I was like, oh ah
man, and I almost tweeted it out and I was like, this is
this not something I did you? Did you push control f heming away or
no? But it was kind of about how you just don't get really substantive
debate about issues that matter, like it would be fun to have a discussion
about something where it's not red team and blue team, and people are so
you know, they're just so conditioned in cable news to be like, is
this a good guy or a bad guy? Can I trust this person or
not? And I understand. I totally understand why that is, and I
understand how important it is to actually care about your team and advocate for them.
And I find it annoying when people are like, oh, I'm above
it all. I'm not. I'm not tribal. I only care about like
my personal image. Like I don't like that either, But I really wish
we had some more substantive debate, and I wish there was a hunger for
that. It's difficult. The feedback loop. It's you know, it's difficult
to I think each side and notice it on Twitter and elsewhere. It's just
you know, it's just the feedback loop, and it's not good. But
I have to say, in some sense, we like Democrats like they think
you're or I am just a racist, you know, misogynist democracy. So
for them, there's not anything to debate anymore, you know what I mean.
It's just a bunch of that homine hominems and smears I've noticed. So
sorry to go back to politics, but you know how for the last few
years, we were told that it's okay to punch Republican voters because they're Nazis,
and it's okay to get up in their face at restaurants because they're Nazis,
and if you support like free markets and limited government, then you should
be punched in the face because you're a Nazi. And right now we have
the same people who were saying that out there literally advocating for hamas and killing
of Jews, and they're not getting punched. I'm just saying all of a
sudden, like also, cancer culture is a terrible thing that we shouldn't you
know, Listen, I have to say something about this. There's a difference
between going after some random person who wore a Maga hat somewhere and pointing out
that someone signed an open petition, a public petition celebrating people who killed pregnant
women open and took out their babies. Like, there's a difference there,
and the idea that you should be under some you know, you have some
responsibility to hire someone who's twined in law school in Harvard law school knows the
world that you have to now hire that person after this, like a Jewish
law firm for instance. That is insane, although I will say I think
there is some truth here that the issue is not cancel culture or not cancel
culture, but believing what is right. And I am reminded of a piece
I wrote ten years ago or so when brendan Ike was being canceled for giving
money to retain a definition of marriage that is based on the capacity of men
and women to create babies. And he was canceled and a lot of people
were like, you shouldn't do that. He has the right to be wrong,
and I wrote a piece that was like, yeah, he also has
the right to be right, and he's right, and this is why it's
right, and this is why it matters. And arguing on the grounds of
like religious liberty or not being canceled or freedom of speech, that's actually weaker
ground than just arguing for the thing that's right. Like your point here is
they support a terrorist organization that is killing babies and women. That's wrong.
So the canceling is like sort of secondary to just we can't have this.
We can't have like a civilized world with people who support this, And so
I would encourage people who have the right ideas about things and who are moral
to not just retreat to this weakness of speech or cancel culture, religious liberty's
those are important things, but they only hold together if we all, generally
speaking, have the right views on whether it's okay to behead children. I
totally agree with that. I've argued for a lot. I'm not a big
I've never argued that people need to hire or associate with people who disagree with
them. But I think it is fair to argue and say that there's a
difference between disagreeing someone on tax policy and disagreeing with someone who wants you dead,
Like you know, what I'm saying, there's a substantive difference. Now.
I think it's bad generally to go out and fire people who you disagree
with, or not hire people because you're some kind of political disagreement. That's
bad for civil society. We don't need that. But it is good and
a moral imperative for civil society to shame and people who are pro actual who
are actual real life Nazis, or basically agree with them. I think that
that's a there's a moral difference there, and I'm glad you made that point.
I've never been one of these people who thinks that anyone should have to
hire someone they disagree with, you know what I mean, Like, you
don't have to or say things they don't believe. You don't have to associate
with people. I don't associate with anyone except you on a weekly basis.
And we'll be back next week. Until then, the lovers are freedom and
anxious for the fray. Just then go across the trail.