I'd like to talk a little bit about toilet seats. Ask not what your
country can do for you, what you can do for your country. Read
my lips. Today, I am directing our House Committee to open a formal
impeachment inquirers to President Joe By. Welcome to the Rick Shaye Podcast over six
hundred and fifty eight. I'm Rob Long, joined by Peter Robinson. Our
guest today is the great Andy McCarthy. I agree, let's have ourselves podcast
you'll never get bored with when we never get born. Hello, and welcome
to the Rickshay Podcast. This is episode number six hundred fifty eight, which
unbelieving, unbelievable. You're just making that up. You are cheating, making
it up. I don't know if I'm making it up, but I'm certainly
reading it. I am Rob Long, coming to New York City and with
me as pretty much as usual, but for at least five hundred consistent consistent
of eight is Peter Robinson in Palo Out to Peter, how are you.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I was a little better until I heard the
number six hundred and fifty eight, eight one per week. Yeah, that
implies that we've been at this for a while. Yeah, you'd think that
we'd be rich, but no such luck. We are usually joined by James
Lilacs, who sort of just runs the show here. He's off this week,
which means, unfortunately, I am gonna do that stuff. I'm already
sure that I'm going to be bad at him. And we have a guest
today, an old friend, one of you know, Look, can we
just get this out now so we don't have to get out when he's here?
Sure? Really one of the great American writers, Andy McCarthy. Wait,
I'm sorry, I just had a a I just had kind of a
brain aneurysm. Yes you did. You're confusing Andy McCarthy Andy Ferguson exactly because
I kept thinking Andy Ferguson, who is a great writer. I mean,
Andy McCarthy's a great writer too. But I was just for summer. I
don't know why I did that. That's that's not a good sign. I
don't know I can I could probably mentally deteriorate even more and still be more
mentally alert than the This is current and perhaps next president United States. This
is Joe Biden's America after all, right, right, Actually, come to
think of it, come to think of it, I hope he gets re
elected because you know, the benefit of Joe Biden for you and me,
Rob, he gives us cover. That's true. That's what Jeff Bush said
that on a podcast we had him on just a while ago. He said,
like, she's like, I'm sixty seven years old. I go to
Washing DC, and I'm like, I'm like a young guy exactly like that.
All right, So, so Andy McCarthy, we have a lot to
talk about because apparently there's been some indictments in the news. But meanwhile,
before we get going, and of course we want to thank our sponsors today
Zibiotics and Shop if I will get to those later. You have a topic
you want to talk. Yes, I do have a topic I want to
discuss, and I want to discuss a raise. I should say, yeah,
I would like to except nicely put nicely put. You know where this
is going. There are some who stick up for the defenseless. I stick
up for the unmentionable. I rise, mister Chairman, to speak to speak
in praise of toilet seats. And here is why we had to replace one.
Here. I live in an older house and the toilet seat cracked and
we went to the hardware store and bought a replacement, cheap replacement, just
a typical toilet seat. And do you know what has happened? Do you
know what the latest marvel of free markets? It is now standard, even
on a cheap, cheap toilet seat, that they lower themselves slowly somehow or
other some engineers somewhere, they don't slam down anymore. And so I've sort
of been noticing this in restrooms across America. This is capitalism, as Milton
Friedman used to teach us, is the benefit of living in a free market
society is the hundreds and thousands and the compounding of small improvements that make our
lives just a little bit better. And I raised five children, three of
the males, and the slamming of toilet seats used to be one of the
banes of my existence. Now the kids are older, they're but they'll be
back for Christmas, and this time there will be no slamming. And so,
mister Chairman, in honor of Milton Friedman of two hundred years, is
a mostly free market, I bring to your attention toilet seats. I'm done,
that's right, Although I have to say it took him a while,
right, I mean that as as I don't really mean that as a kind
of crism of capitalism, but it does seem to me that every now and
then, I mean, we all notice this every now and then. I
mean there's an old joke, right, two economists were walking down the street
and one of them looks down and says, hey, look, there's a
twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk, and the other doesn't even look down and
says, can't be someone would have picked it up by now, right,
right, And so sometimes you're like thinking, like, you know, I
bet you they were like fifty people, maybe a hundred people. I'm just
being conservative estimate here. Who before the guy invented the toilet seat that doesn't
slam, But you know what, we need me a toilet he doesn't slam.
That's what I should do. I should do that. Well. But
you know what, if there was any someone's got to have tried it already.
And I think it's not just capitalism, but it's a certain kind of
entrepreneurial risk taker that says, I even if they did it, they did
it wrong, and I can do it better. You know, Sometimes,
like you notice that there's a business somewhere you didn't even know there was a
business there. I mean, you know, you look at Starbucks, right,
there's no reason why. At no point did anybody really say, you
know, I just I drink this stuff, but I don't like it.
There should be a coffee shop on every corner in the America. Nobody ever
said that. No one ever said that, And yet he just made a
better cup of coffee and charged you more for it, right, I mean,
like I'm so old. I remember when the best cup of coffee you
could get on the road was that McDonald's right, Right. I would go
into the office in the morning at my first job, and I would have
a I would have gone through the drive through to get a big, big
thing in McDonald's coffee. People with the oh Man McDonald's coffee. I love
that coffee. And that was before Starbucks supposed so anyway. The other example
Paul Romer, the economist Paul Romer, whom I knew, We were friends
when he was here at Stanford. He's gone off to I think he was
the chief economist at the World Bank. He's a big time economist. And
the insight that made him famous was that there was all was I'm putting it
very crudely. He put it mathematically as best I understood it. What it
came down to was this, there was always room for innovation. All was
room for innovation. And the great example of that. This isn't Paul's example,
but this is my example. Wheels have existed for what five thousand years,
and suitcases have existed since at least the middle of the nineteenth century.
Sure, but it wasn't until sometimes I'm in the nineteen eighties when somebody said,
wait, wheels, suitcases, wheels suitcases. I know, I'll put
wheels on suitcases any day. Everybody's life better all all of a sudden.
Okay, that's a very good point, because it did, I think.
But then you had but then someone now you're going to find the dark cloud
in the silver inside. But even that was half done. Somebody put wheels,
two wheels, two sets of wheels on one side of the suitcase so
you can kind of lean it and drag it with the wheels. And then
someone else said, wait a minute, we're gonna put two on, we
might as well put four on. And that made airports so much more pleasant,
yes, for everyone. So so I don't know what. I guess
What I mean is that there's like what I guess what that's what urban developers
or urban theorists call in fill. Right, There's there's always this idea that
you're gonna you gotta go out and find something on the edge, right,
move out of the city to the suburbs, and move out of the suburbs
with the excerbs, keep moving out. And then there's people say, wall,
wait a minute, you could do infill by making the city itself nicer.
There's opportunities where we don't look for opportunities. So I guess that what
I that's what I would say about that your your your ode to capitalism.
I would say I would add to it, only you have to have it
also an ode to a society that rewards and encourages risk. Yes, you
used to be an all statistic. I know we have to get run here,
but I used to be a statistic about the when when Forbes is a
real magazine? The Forbes four hundred four was four hundred right was? I
think it was fo Yeah, so the four hundred richious people in America,
and I think it's Malcolm Forbes Junior, who I once heard say that the
best thing about that list to him was that thirty percent every year of the
names were new turned over exactly, and that thirty percent weren't there anymore.
And he said, that's how you can She said, you will know that
we'll have a really healthy system when it's eighty twenty. Right, Well,
it's been a nuffler wonderful podcasts. Boy, we really do need James to
keep it moving, so we do. We have Andy McCarthy coming meanwhile,
before we go, before we jump to him, a couple of non Andy
McCarthy ish topics. Mitt Romney retiring, and there's a whole lot of speculation
about that. I'm like, well, he could do this, that and
the other. But I mean, I take him at his word. He
is seventy six, he is rich, he's clearly out of step with a
Republican Party. He doesn't really want to run again and then be as senator
when he's eighty two. I think every single seventy six year old in government
should follow Mitt Romney into a splendid and peaceful retirement. I will also say
this, I look like bitt Romney at seventy six when I'm seventy six.
I mean I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm sitting here
drinking a cup of coffee and I'm going to have a couple of glasses of
wine tonight, and I'm thinking, like, Bam, maybe maybe maybe the
Mormon's got something. The Mormons have a lot, I think. Okay,
Now, am I allowed to sound peevish about Mitt Romney? Sure? Because
I read the profile in The Atlantic, which apparently is the sort of was
his teaser article about a biography of him that's going to be coming out next
year, written by McKay Coppins. McKay coppins make Kay Coppins, I'm not
sure how he pronounces his first name. Beautifully written, and he said that
he and Mitt Romney have been spending time together for two years. And here's
what emerges. Mitt Romney has spent two years telling McKay Coppins how he Mitt
Romney is a far better human being than the ninety nine other members of the
United States Senate. It is so sanctimonious that it just sort of took my
breath away when you recall, as Michael Brendan Doherty recalled on National Review the
other day, that Mitt Romney, for reasons of pure opportunism, became pro
choice when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, and then became pro life when
he ran for president of the United States. What I recall, because this
irked me in particular given my early jobs in my life in the White House,
was that when he ran for Senator, he lost that election, But
before he ran for governor, he ran for the Senate in Massachusetts, and
he couldn't say enough bad things about Reagan and Bush. I'm not Reagan and
I'm not Bush, he said in a debate with Teddy Kennedy. And then,
of course when he was running for president, he couldn't say enough good
things about Ronald Reagan and George Bush. None of this makes Mitt Romney a
bad man. He has a wonderful family who was a huge success in business.
What it makes him is a working politician and the idea that he somehow
achieved some kind of purity. Of course, I can understand his position on
Trump, but the way in this one, this one profile, he dissed
his fellow members of the Senate working politicians, including Mitch McConnell. You could
put Mitch McConnell's accomplishments in the Senate again, Mitt Romney partly, I think
because he adopted this stance of such sanctimoniousness. Mitt Romney has accomplished nothing in
the United States Senate, and Mitch McConnell has accomplishment after accomplishment after accomplishment,
including the current composition of the Supreme Court. So I it was time for
that good and remarkable man to go home some time ago in my humble opinion.
Now, I don't like sounding peevish, but real good, thank you.
I don't disagree with any of that. I will only say this that
you don't. I thought, well, no, no, I mean I
defend toilet seats. I thought you would defend Romney. I think that the
general decline in I think that often people accurately diagnose a problem or deignos a
disease that they themselves have. His argument about the Republican Party now that it
doesn't really stand for much and doesn't really do anything, and it's kind of
fake and a lot of you know, kabuky kind of outrage, I think
it's absolutely true. I mean, to me, the the symbol of the
Republican Party today is Josh Holly m shaking his fist in solidarity with the protesters
on January sixth, on his way into the Senate and then running like a
terrified, terrified cat. Uh you know an hour later. That to me
is emblematic of the Republican Party. A lot of talk, a lot of
talk, and no action or no no conviction. Put it that way.
So I think he's right. I'm not. I'm not comparing them and contrasting
them negatively to the Democratic Party, which is sort of uh specialized in this
kind of behavior. For slugs. I've been alive. I'm just everything seems
to be reverting to the to the really the lowest common denominator. But that
said, the one product that Mitt Romney doesn't need that I need and enjoy
is zebiotics, because, let's face it, after a night when you had
a couple glasses of wine, is it's Friday night. I'm gonna a couple
glasses of wine. I don't bounce back the next day like I used to.
I apparently even have memory trouble. I have to make a choice.
Are you can have a great night or a great next day? That is
until I found zbiotics. Zbiotics pre alcohol probiotic is the world's first genetically engineered
probiotic It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And
here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic
byproduct in the gut, and it is this byproduct, not dehydration, that's
to blame for your rough next day. Zebiotics produces an enzyme to break this
byproduct down and it's designed to work like your liver, but in your gut
where you need it the most. So just remember to drink zebiotics before drinking
alcohol, drink responsibly, and get a good night's sleep and feel your best
the next day. This Halloween, you can pare your candy and cocktails with
zebiotics to avoid a spooky next morning. So go to zebiotics slash ricochet and
get fifteen percent off your first order when you use ricochet at check out.
You can also sign up for a subscription using our code. So that's zebiotics
dot com slash ricochet so you can stay prepared no matter the time or occasion.
Zebiotics is back with one money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for
any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions ask So head to zebiotics
dot com slash ricochet that's z. Just the letter biotics all one word dot
com, slash ricochet and use the code ricochet at checkout for fifteen percent off.
We thank zebiotics for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast and for reminding me when I'm
gonna have to do at six o'clock tonight. I should especially be so proud
of that bad but I am our next guests, our only guest today.
Thank god, Andy McCarthy. We've known Andy long time. He's an old
friend of this podcast. He's a senior fellow at the National Review Institute NRI,
contributing editor there as well as Fox News. He is here to explain
all the latest stuff going on in uh in politics and criminal law, which,
by the way, are now the same thing. Andy, welcome,
Where are you wait? You're downstairs in your own house, aren't you.
I am, And I am in Bucolic New Jersey. That's right. And
you've got but you're doing a kind of Oprah Winfrey stand up Mike there.
Oh yeah. I can never make this work, and I keep like knocking
it over whenever I try to put it someplace because I'm just I'm a mess.
Sorry, guys, I need the zbiotic. That's other two. That's
clearly the problem here. Okay, so we gotta bunch of things to talk
about, but let's first talk about impeachment. So when when when Democrats impeach
President Trump? Everybody said, Nancy Pelosi said, did it? Everybody said,
you didn't even have a vote. You didn't even have a vote.
You just open the inquiry, didn't have a vote. She said, I
don't need a vote. And then when Kevin McCarthy opened impeachment inquiry, some
people said, you didn't even have a vote. Why don't you have a
vote, and he said, I don't need a vote. Who's right,
the Speaker of the House, either one or the people complaining either one.
Well, it really depends up on what they want to accomplish. If you
want to actually have an impeachment committee where you not only designated under the House
rules, but importantly you establish the jurisdiction for the committee and the scope of
what it's allowed to investigate and what a conserved subpoena is on, then you
need a vote. And in point of fact, when Nancy Pelosi did not
have a vote in twenty nineteen, the Trump administrator, the people like Kevin
McCarthy not only went nuts over that the Trump Justice Department, under a turn,
General Barr ended up issuing Office of Legal Counsel guidance to say that the
probe, as long as it wasn't supported by a vote in Congress, was
illegitimate and therefore the administration didn't need to comply with its subpoenas. Now,
you know, you have to remember, I think always with impeachment that it's
a political process, not a legal one. So for example, the OLC
in the Trump Justice Department could take that position, but when the Democrat controlled
House impeach Trump, the second article of impeachment was for failure to comply with
the subpoenas. The complication there is that about six or seven weeks after Pelosi
unilaterally authorized the inquiry without a vote, they took a vote. So eventually
they did take a vote. But I do think that it was that this
move to have an impeachment inquiry or to actually change the name on the door,
because it's basically the same inquiry it was the day before, but now
they're going to call it an impeachment inquiry. I really think it's an unforced
error because you know, a week ago, if Chairman Jamie Comber and the
Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to some component of the Biden administration and they didn't
comply with the subpoena. That would have been a lawful Oversight Committee subpoena,
and the defiance of it could be an article of impeachment down the road.
Now, by having this this exercise where you call it an impeachment inquiry but
you don't vote for it, they're giving the Biden administration the out to claim
that the that the investigation is not legitimate and just given the reason not to
comply. Kim Strassell has it exactly backwards in Today's Wall Street Journal. Kim
said, an effect would have been better to have a vote yes, but
the Speaker doesn't have the votes. He only has a majority of four,
and they're going to be more than four Republicans who get queasy about this.
But still designating this an impeachment inquiry gives Comber greater legal I beg your pardon.
I can't quote her, but the idea was that it gives Comber's subpoenas
greater weight, and that's just wrong. I think it gives them greater political
weight, Peter. It doesn't give them greater legal weight. Now, now
let's just put aside the trappings of an impeachment inquiry. Today, just like
last week, the Oversight Committee still the Oversight Committee. Same with Ways and
Means, same with the Justice Department. They have the same legal jurisdiction to
issue subpoena as they did. You know, they do now that they did
before there was a designated labeled impeachment inquiry. So I wouldn't want to suggest
that this is a big deal because they have sweeping jurisdiction in those committees.
Yeah, and I think what Kim is. The point that Kim is making,
I think is the same point I heard. Well, I've heard a
number of people say that we you know, now we have some up in
our subpoenas. It's what they're saying is publicly, you look worse if you
defy something that's called an impeachment inquiry subpoena. Maybe that's true. On the
other hand, I was I was on a program sometime today right before or
right after Nancy Mace, who's on the Overside Committee, and she said,
you know, now that we're now that we're an impeachment committee, our subpoenas
have broader jurisdiction and we can really go after this stuff. And I don't
see that at all. I just don't think that's true. By the way,
let the record show I start talking this way whenever you're on, Andy,
let the records show that although it's not quite twelve thirty back east in
New Jersey, this very day, Counselor McCarthy has already appeared on so many
shows that you can't remember quite when, or quite what, or who the
host was, or who the other guests were. It's all a jumble already.
And the man hasn't even had lunch yet. Hey, so, Andy,
what further on impeachment? Then we have to get to Trump, because
we just have to. I'm afraid it's sort of mandatory. We are of
an age, the three of us, and I remember being taught when I
was a kid about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson just after the Civil War.
I don't remember whether any teacher ever used these words, but I remember having
the feeling that that would never happen again, that it was part of the
upheaval of the Civil War. It was an extraordinary and singular moment in the
life of the nation. Impeachment proceedings began against Richard Nixon. And this again
I don't remember, I remember watching it, and but what I remember,
what stands out in my mind is how shocked my parents were that a president
of the United States was being impeached. It was just in our little home
in Vestal, New York, upstate New York, ordinary Middle America. It
was a shocking event. And now we've had Bill Clinton, Donald Trump twice,
Joe Biden. Is it seems to me, I mean, I just
want to hear is the whole procedure? Clearly this overuses the procedure? But
is it also debasing the Constitution? Is it debasing the country itself? Something
just feels badly, badly wrong, doesn't it. Yeah, I mean it's
debasing something that we're not be in the Constitution. If it weren't very important,
the Madison thought that the impeachment clause was indispensable in terms of the ability
of Congress to respond to potential ruinous abuse of power by this very powerful executive
branch that they were creating. And look, I have the same memory that
you do. I remember, you know, running home from someplace I'd probably
school. I don't maybe it was the summertime. But I remember running home
to watch Alexander Butterfield testify and shocked the country by saying that Nixon had these
tapes. So but but I actually think you guys, both of you,
in your coming at this your own way, are suited to no no from
your own experience. I mean, but I think you're better suited to address
this than I am, because my belief, for what it's worth, is
that this media age that we are in has changed a lot of things,
and impeachment is just one of them. Like, for example, Peter,
I'm sure that speeches get written differently today than they used to, and Rob,
just like the messaging that goes into conveying a political campaign or initiative or
whatever is vastly different today than it used to. And what I'm afraid of
is that impeachment, having been now cheapened into something kind of like censure,
is just another arsenal in our political theater. I mean, everybody knows that
Biden is never ever going to be impeached, and in point of fact,
the Republicans don't want to impeach them because that we get President Harris. So
you know, even if they even if they could they wouldn't. But this
just seems to be a media strategy driven by mainly the pro Trump Republicans in
the House because they and Trump would like to have a parallel political trial proceeding
going on the Capitol Hill while Trump is undergoing all these other, you know,
criminal trials in the justice system. I get all, but come in
robbed Well, no, I don't want to invite him to come in because
he always disagrees with me. But oh no, the politics of that I
get, and I and it's it's sort of cheap and trod to me,
but it does. Yeah, that seems to be what the moment demands.
And maybe okay, but within this there is I think I'm putting this to
you as a question something substantive and important taking place. And I who thought
watching him on Fox News that James Comer, the chairman of the committee that's
conducting these investigations. I thought at first he was a pure showman. But
that committee has uncovered important and real information about Hunter Biden, his father's participating
in telephone calls, that the barisma that Joe Biden had tried to the White
House had tried to portray Joe Biden's participant as Vice President, his participation in
the effort to get the prosecutor in Ukraine removed. They were saying all the
Europeans wanted that because the prosecutor himself was back crooked. Turns out that's just
not so. The other the Europeans didn't, they weren't involved, all right,
All of this has come out of sort of old fashioned, almost Peter
Rodinho style, good staff work, tough chairman, a certain relent relentlessness.
So there is something honorable and important taking place? Or or is it?
Am I wrong about that? No? I think you're not only right,
I think it's all so the only game in town. Uh, you know,
too much of what we now want in the way of political accountability has
been uh, basically delegated to the prosecutors at this point. And I think
the Framers would have thought it was laughable that prosecutors, who are executive branch
subordinate officials could could possibly keep the executive branch in check, and the president
in particular. So in this particular instance, we have a prosecutor for the
Biden Justice Department because they wouldn't get a real special counsel, a real independent
person, and he dawdled for the five years that he's had this case,
not only Hunter, but the but the broader family corruption investigation and all of
the a lot of the stuff that you just alluded to, Peter, that
happened in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, in twenty sixteen, those are the
most important years because those were the years that Joe Biden was vice president and
when they were trading on his influence as a criminal justice batter. All that
stuff is gone now because he waited. Weiss waited until the statute of limitations
has run, and so far as we saw yesterday, the only thing he's
brought is the one thing he could bring that Joe Biden is not implicated in
Hunter's bad behavior. So that's the gun charge. Yeah, but I think
that his job. He's called a prosecutor. But basically his job here is
to disappear the case against the president. And if you don't, if Comber
doesn't make the case, then no one's making it. This is one of
those I have a question that's an anti question. And here's why it's an
anti question. You grew up in New Jersey. You know something about politics
where elbows get thrown. I keep trying to talk you into running for governor,
and I still think it's not too late. But that's a never matter.
You know, politics in the raw. You were the United States Attorney
in New York, in Manhattan. You tried terrorists, You tried people who
wanted to blow us, blow up Americans and kill SI. You have seen
life, politics and the legal system in the raw. Does what has taken
place in the Dubiden Justice Department? Excuse me? The other piece I want
to give background two is that a number of points over the years, I
have seen even Andy McCarthy, not a cynic but a realist. I have
seen even Andy McCarthy shocked. You knew or I don't know that you knew
him deeply personally, but you knew Jim Comey, for example. And there
was a moment when Jim Comey was first coming to our attention. What is
that six or seven years ago now when you said, no, no,
I think he's a good guy, He's an honorable guy. And Jim Comey
shocked you. The behavior of the FBI shocked you. Is what's happening in
the Biden Department of Justice or what has happened shocking even to Andy McCarthy or
do you look at that and say, nah, that's the way it happens.
Well, it is the way it happens, but it's atrocious. I
the only reason I fight on the word shock, Peter, is I'm beyond
shocking now for some of the reasons that you've described. And I you know,
look, I've been one hundred and eighty degrees wrong about some of this
stuff. I mean, I you know, I when people first suggested to
me that the FBI might have taken uncorroborated opposition research and basically thrown a caption
on it and brought it to the FISA Court to get surveillance warrants, I
said, you know, you're gonna you guys are gonna end up looking like
the tinfoil hat crowd at the end of this, because what we're going to
learn is that the FBI did what the FBI always does, which is it
may have taken some opposition research, but it scrubbed it for the three or
four things it needed to make probable cause. It would have done its own
investigation on it, and by the time it got to the FISA court,
it would no longer be a docier. It would be FBI evidence that they
had run down, and it turned out that they did exactly what I said
could never ever happen. And the reason I said it could never ever happen
is this came out of an argument that we had during the Clinton Justice Department
about the thing that became known as the Wall, where you know, they
put in these procedures where the law enforcement side couldn't cooperate with the intelligence side,
and I made the argument in house at the time that that was an
irresponsibly dangerous policy to have. Bec was if you had a criminal who was
a rational actor, it would be much easier, or a rogue agent who
was a rational actor, would be much easier to make up evidence to sustain
a criminal case than to make up a national security angle and go buy FISA
because there was so many rungs of you know, supervision and sign off on
PISA that it would it'd be too easy to get caught. No one would
abuse Fieser that way. And what happened. They ended up doing precisely what
I said would never ever happen. So, yeah, I've been you know,
there's a lot of things that have happened in the last ten years that
are not the Justice Department that I remember, and I'm not trying to be
so idealistic about it that nothing bad ever happened in the Justice Apartment. Yeah,
bad things happen. You know, it's a it's a human institution.
But the politicization of it and the blatancy of the politicization of it. I
mean, when you when you have democratic prosecutors indicting Trump four times, and
I'm not here to carry a brief for Trump. I actually think the moral
Lago case is a pretty strong case and he should get convicted on it.
But you know, these especially, this is the Biden Justice Department bringing these
cases, and it's elected progressives who happen to hold district attorney's offices in states
throughout the country, who are now incentivized to use their prosecutorial power against their
political enemies. I don't really think they even care how the cases come out.
I think situate they don't. They're not using their power to actually it
forced criminal law. I mean, they got a lot of free time.
These DA's not putting, you know, shoplifters behind ours, right, what
are you gonna do? All the office supplies, computers and stuff you have
to do you have to prosecute somebody? Is civilization distegrates? You really want
to be with Rob Long, He'll find a way to get a laugh out
of every catastrophe. I got a question, though, a two questions.
Really. One is just a just a strategy question. Is it possible that
a few months from now, maybe six months, maybe a year from now,
that you will be saying, you know, the best thing that happened
to Joe Biden is that Hunter Biden was indicted and maybe convicted on that gun
charge. Yeah. So here's here's my problem by I guess you guess,
well, but it's being that you're skeptical of my theory. Well, but
I'm skeptical, not as as a as a political analyst or a lawyer,
no as a human being. What I try to wrestle with is if this
warm one of one of my sons, that this would never happen, I
would use if I had the power of pardon, I would never allow one
of my sons to be put through this ringer. Now. It would be
a gross abuse of power, and the only honorable thing after doing that would
be to resign and step aside. But I just you know what the best
thing for Joe Biden politically, I don't you know the fact that he's allowing
his son, at least to this point to be indicted so that they can
run around and beat their chests and say, see, we prosecuted the president's
son without fear or favor. I don't think they can actually make that argument
credibly because the stuff that really matters, which is the foreign corruption stuff,
the millions of dollars that came into the family coffers that has gone unaddressed,
and the prosecutor they assigned to it, to my mind, willfully sabbage todge
the case. So I don't think they're going to be able to make a
very convincing argument that Biden, you know, let the Justice Department run independently
and they just prosecuted his son like he was every like any other defendant,
because it's obviously not true. Yeah, But I guess what I mean is
that here's my theory that he's going to get indicted for something, right,
and so stonewalling and having Hunter Biden walked free is is just a bad look,
right, because there's just so much stuff on him. In the same
way that I kind of think I could be wrong that the impeaching. Impeaching
Joe Biden kind of helps him in a way, right, because the whole
argument is you're singling out one family and one guy, and you're making it
trying to like all these liberals are attacking Trump and now the conservatives are attacking
Biden. It feels to me like the bigger mess helps the incumbent. Is
that, Yeah, Well, I think I think you're you're right on You're
right to this extent. When Peter before was alluding to the Nixon impeachment and
how shocking it was at that point in time, it was shocking, right,
and therefore the fact that Nixon was in the crosshairs was very bad for
him, right, if we flash forward, I think the thing we can
say about the impeachments we've seen, I want to put the January sixth impeachment
in a different category because it's so sue generous coming up, you know,
when Trump was virtually out of office, so it's hard to make an assessment
of how that helped or hurt him. I think ultimately we'll be able to
make that assessment is going to hurt him, But we'll see how that plays
out. But I think it helped Clinton to be impeached, and it didn't
hurt Trump at all to be impeached over Ukraine. In fact, the Ukraine
was such a nothing burger that the Democrats didn't even run on it in twenty
twenty. They barely mentioned it. So I think there's a lot. There's
a lot to be said for the idea that there's a certain sympathy factor that
that well maybe it's tribal, I don't know, but but there's a certain
rally around our guy effect that that happens here regardless of emeritus. Didn't give
an answer though, Hey, mister President, how come your son and the
laptop and all of your son seems to getting away scot free? And then
Mr President says, you're kidding me. He's on trial right now for a
gun charge that could put him in prison for you know, ten years,
whatever is thirty years some some giant number. I don't think he's getting on
scott free. Okay, let's you know, Hey, how come the you
know, you went after Trump for all this stuff and nobody went after Biden.
Are you kidding me? There's a house in quiry right, impeachment and
quarry open right now. I mean in a way, this is kind of
the cesspool that we're in right where we don't ever we don't talk about things
like trade with you know, Asia and American defense or the border. We
talk about is I'm going to hire a guide to put you behind bars,
just like Olivia. I think that's all right. And he's got the media
at his the wind that is back, which a Republican wouldn't. So those
as you laid them out. Because I've been watching this stuff closely for a
few years, I wasn't impressed by the arguments, but I think most people
will be. You know, most people are not going to be as informed
about this stuff as we are. They're not going to know all the things
that haven't been prosecuted and have been left on the table. So the counter
argument seems to me, I'm just going to mention this, and I may
be wrong, and you can. Then I'd like to ask a bigger question
of Andy, and I know Rob is going to push back on the bigger
question anyway. The counter argument me seems to be that for an ordinary voter,
say, well, Trump's a crook and Biden used to be able to
I like Biden because at least he seemed like a decent person. Now he's
a crook too. Yeah. In other words, it removes one of the
Biden's one of the strongest points in Biden's favor, which was that he was
he was at least a decent person, and Biden will Biden risks. Biden
not risks. He's going to lose that anyway. I may be wrong about
that, but that seems to me that if you've got two dirty candidates,
what's the choice. So here's the larger question, the case for Trump,
for supporting Trump, and I want to note that first time around, when
seventeen candidates were running in six years ago, I guess it was now six
and a half years ago, Donald Trump was my seventeenth choice. I have
hoped and hoped and hoped that Ron De Santis would catch fire and replace Trump.
In other words, I'm still a Republican, I'm still a conservative,
and I'm still casting about for alternatives to Trump. However, the case for
Trump is coming into focus, and the case runs as follows. He is
a loudmouth and a braggart. He showed very bad judgment and worse on January
sixth, But he even he at his worst engaged in no assault on our
institutions that even begins to equal the corruption that is taking that the Democrats are
affecting now, when the United States Department of Justice is obviously corrupt, When
a prosecutor two bit prosecutor in New York with his case in Atlanta, every
case except the Mara Lego case are obviously political, how dare they? They
are moving us in this great country into Banana Republic territory. Now the press,
the press has been totally corrupted. The press is saying there's no evidence
that Biden. There's better evidence against Joe Biden today than there ever was in
the Russian Dosier case, the corruption of the all of this corruption, and
I as an ordinary, and in the Marilago case, they've got him.
Okay, he broke the law by sticking a pile of documents in his bathtub.
But here's what Hillary Clinton did. She put classified material on a private
server. Every person I've talked to who knows anything about intelligence takes it for
granted that the Chinese, the Russians, and probably the Israelis all broke into
all hacked that server, and all that information went to foreign intelligence. Don
Trump stuck stuff in a bathtub. There's no evidence at all that any intel
that he misused ended up in foreign hands. And furthermore, the Justice Department
didn't need to the raid. They didn't need to do that. I grant
that it was illegal. They've got a case, but as a small board
case by comparison with the corruption that has been taking place in the Democratic side,
and in particular by comparison with Hillary Clinton. So as an ordinary voter,
what can I do to push to say this is outrageous? I'd like
to, I'd like to be able to support Ron de Santis, but it's
not doesn't seem to be working. I still have hopes for Nicky Halley,
but it may come down to Donald Trump, and he is as much as
he has sinned, he is still more sinned against than sinning. That's the
case, Andy Well, I mean, it's the case he'll make, and
it's it's the best case for him. It doesn't resonate with me, just
because I've already made up my mind that you know, I thought he should
have been convicted in the impeachment trial and disqualified the second impeachment trial. Right,
Yeah, But I don't know how you support somebody who you say should
have been disqualified from ever running for president again. And I guess, just
to be hardheaded about this, Peter Ye, I've taken the position Trump can't
win, and I even though I see what Biden's problems are, I think
this is a dynamic situation where they're actually the Democrats are getting exactly what they
want, which is he looks like he could win now they've done. That's
true. Just to be clear, Mitt Romney was of Obama. True.
True. And the plan here for the Democrats has always been use the indictments
to rile up the base so that they cling to Trump. And then when
the audience during the election is not the Republican primary electorate but the general electorate,
that's when you have the trials and the hearings and all the really bad
stuff comes out and they dump stuff on him like no one's ever seen before.
And the backdrop for that is he won by a miracle in twenty sixteen
in a two person race with forty six percent of the vote. He's never
gonna sniff forty six again as the incumbent. He couldn't get forty seven in
twenty twenty. I'd be stunned if he gets forty four. I think was
elected three. Well, but they had to be. They had to be
Pero, I mean they had You're right, if you if you get a
third incredible third party threat, you're right, all bets are off. But
if it's if it's a Trump Biden election, which is what you're hypothetical,
is, yes, that's just don't see how we can win. I don't
see how we can win. Yeah, I don't think the Republicans are making
an effective case that he can't win because they're tiptoeing around it. The only
one who's not tiptoeing around it is Christie, and Christie can't win. So
I don't want to say about that, you know. So how do we
conduct our lives as we watch this? I mean I remember, I remember
the Dole campaign and it was just this slow motion catastrophe. It was it
felt to me like watching a redwood fall and slow motion. Everybody knew this.
So how do we conduct our lives as journalists, as citizens in this
this this weird Biden's going to be their nominee. Trump It's going to be
our nominee. It looks unavoidable. Nobody wants this to happen. How do
we conduct our lives as journalists and human beings and Americans in this weird circumstance.
You know, Judge Bork used to tell this story about I wonder if
he's in a faculty lounge but watching the watching the the Clarence Thomas Anita Hill
hearings, and Irving Crystal is there and is about to hand him a martini,
and he says, how's it going, And Bork says to him,
it's the end of civilization, And Crystal hands on the martini and says,
well, it'll take a long time and it's still possible to live. Well,
I think I think that's the answer. Unfortunately, you know, I
think there's a lot of ruin in the system. Here's on a serious note,
what has always bothered me about the January sixth commentary, particularly from Democrats,
and this whole narrative about how our constitution was hanged by a thread and
our democracy was almost the thing. The hero of the day on January sixth
is the Constitution. It was never in any doubt, it was never in
any danger. There was never any doubt that Biden was going to be Yeah,
that's I agree, and That's what always one of my problems with the
January sixth. You know, the overreaction is, you know, we have
a constitution. It's not captured the flag. It's not like, well,
if you can get to that gabble, then that person gets in the president.
I what I found dismaying about January six actually really wasn't Trump. I
mean, I've always I felt that Trump was emotionally and mentally unstable and therefore
unfit to be president. I thought this in twenty sixteen, and I think
I am right in that. What was surprising to me is that ordinary traditional
conservative intellectuals came up with some utterly, utterly the idiotic scheme by which the
vice president United States could do something that day. Where if Vice President Al
Gore had done that in two thousand and one, or if Kamala Harris does
it in two twenty twenty five, they will their heads will explode. Right.
So, you know, if if Vice President Kamala Harris decides that she
kind of on in retrospect after reading the Claremont Review, she kind of agrees
with their position about what the vice president can do, what are they going
to do now? So a lot of this is just just everybody took a
stupid pill at some point. I date that to the stupid pill to be
right around two thousand and four, when the wheels came off the bus and
people decided that George W. Bush, though wrong about the Iraq invasion,
utterly wrong, was somehow evil and destroying, you know, concentrating the Constitution,
and almost anything we did about him to him was justified. I mean,
they get it that with Reagan too, So you know, there was
only one side of the bust. The wheels came off, and then now
the wheels come off on the other side to the Republicans of the same thing.
I guess here's my sort of larger I mean, I don't want to
be existential about it, because I is it possible that these things go in
waves? And if you look in American history, you see lots of lots
of dirt and dirty politics and name calling, and you see a lot of
chaos. Right, it wasn't the stately progression of bearded gentleman who had been
educated in the Judaea Christian Western tradition and then all of a sudden it,
you know, it all went nuts around whatever. Isn't it possible that people,
if the people decide they don't want to take this anymore and they don't
want the the critonization of American society and politics to go forward, or isn't
it possible that just people will get tired of this, or the people involved
will get tired of this, or am I just fantasizing. Well, I
think it's possible. But I do think that making it a new routine or
a new norm that the incumbent side uses the criminal justice system against the other
side changes the dynamic. It's a it's a it's an evolution or a devolution
of the process that you've been talking about. And I don't if that becomes
a norm, I don't know what's left of the country. And I don't
I don't need to. I don't want to sound hysterical, but I really
think that if you don't have a perception based on a reality that the laws
are even handedly enforced, and I fear for what happens to us, Well,
I guess I guess what I'm asking to use this? Should we just
say, you know what we're going to bring back dueling? I'm almost half
serious, right, because that is house. You know, we're almost exactly
two hundred years ago, that seemed to be how I mean, how many
presidents were involved directly in a duel. I mean Andrew Jackson bullet in his
body all his life from a duel. Yeah, he killed me. He
waited for the other man to fire, took the bullet, and then killed
him. Right, that's on. But that was also considered kind of ungentlemanly
at that. Yes, yeah, but I don't know who would win at
the duel. I mean, I would love to see the duel. Well,
while Andy, while Andy is thinking about the duel, I have a
slightly subversive but on on the other hand, kind of a and here's what's
happening here. I see kids at stand for the Bright Kids take a look
at politics and say I want nothing to do with that. I'm going into
business. This could be good for the economy. Rob Well, yes,
I mean it could be. I mean there, I mean it is also
possible that we we we took the certainly the chief executive in this country,
and we haven't made it an imperial position. Over time where they play Hill
to the chi forever. He walks, you know, down the street,
and there's a motorcade and and people in government do seem to be grandees the
way they wouldn't have been before. I don't know this for a fact,
because I couldn't get a glimpse of her. But I walked out of my
house Monday, and suddenly there was a There were like black SUVs on the
street, and there were little flashing lights and they closed the street off.
And then there's somebody at one of the houses there, and he stood up.
He stood out and as some old lady who looked like Nancy Pelosi.
I don't know if it's Nancy Pelosi, but it could have been. And
she goes up and she greets this person, and it's a kind of a
president of the new schools across the street. So I don't know who's I
don't know. This is the kind of fancy neighborhood peopleho in these houses,
right, And it looked and I thought, of course, the former Speaker
of the House gets a motorcade. Maybe it's time for everybody to be taking
down a pig andy, what do you think, I know, you gotta
run. I think I'm just too I'm too worried about the point of the
exploitation of law enforcement. And maybe it's because I'm too close to it.
I just I if you don't have a system where people think that, you
know, you get a fair shake out of the justice system, and where
it becomes a regular thing where the attorney general is expected to exploit the power,
you know, the administrations expected to use the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus
against the other side. We're done. We're just ruined. On that happy
note. Well, Andy, thank you for joining us. Please can you
come back later and give us some good news. Got to work on that,
work on your work on my dueling skills, shring back dueling. That's
what I say. All right, guys, thanks Andy, Andy, take
care. I know we got We're gonna we have plenty to talk about,
Peter, But before we do, I want to talk a little bit about
Shopify. Shopify's already taking the cash register online, helping millions sell billions around
the world. But did you know, Peter, that Shopify can do the
same thing at your retail store, give you point of sales system that give
your point of sale system a serious upgrade. You can do that with Shopify.
Shopify's point of sale is your command center from your retail store, from
accepting payments to managing inventory. Shopify has everything you need to sell in person.
You get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in person and online
sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one
place and know exactly what's in stock. You can connect with customers inline and
online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug and play tools built for
the mark getting campaigns like the ones in TikTok or Instagram and beyond. You
get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet
into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's pos point of sale go
mobile device for a battle tested solution. Plus, they're awarded winning twenty four
seven. Help is there to support your success every step of the way.
Do retail write with Shopify. Sign up for one dollar per month trial period
at shopify dot com slash ricochet. That's all nowercase shopify dot com slash ricochet.
Go to shopify dot com slash ricochet to take your retail business to the
next level today shopify dot com slash Ricochet. We thank Shopify for sponsoring the
Ricochet podcast and since we started talking about capitalism and entrepreneurship. Shopify is actually
one of those things that has made it easier to get into that business.
So there's it's your job to bring us out on it. I know,
on a happy note, I don't. I don't have that happy except except
I think that I'm right. I think these things tend to burn themselves out.
I think that we go through a little crazy every down. Then it's
Americans to say American style, and that we people decide, they turn.
And the great thing about the public turning is it turns faster than anybody at
the top can predict. Before you know it, you're shouting to empty theaters.
You remember, in American history it was a lot of talk about Father
Coughlin. Father Coughlin, Yes, yes, yes, the firebrand priest on
the radio was considered an early kind of demagogue and very dangerous Peter. He's
very dangerous radio personality, and he was very conservative. I note that his
most biggest years, I think most popular years coincided with the New Deal and
the socialization of a huge portion of American economy. I'm not sure Father offline
had any of the power people ascribed to him. That's a contrarian view that
you can take issue with at a later date, because we got a wrap.
If you're if you've enjoyed this podcast, it comes to you from ricochet
dot com. Not only do we offer you terrific discounts on all of our
great advertisers, we also have a terrific site. Please go ricochet dot com.
Please join. The reason we want you to join and pay a little
bit of money and be honest with you is because if people need to have
skin in the game to keep the conversation polite, civil and interesting. We
also meet up regularly in person. There's a chattanook A, Tennessee meet up
on January fourteen, twenty twenty four, and of course we're letting you know
early on April eight in Texas. Somewhere in Texas. I know that doesn't
really narrow it down, but somewhere in Texas in twenty twenty four, the
American Eclipse is going to be viewed by Ricochet members and that's going to be
a fun thing. More meetups are going to be scheduled, More meetups will
be done. If you want to go to a meetup and one of these
doesn't work for you, join Ricochet. Just put up a note saying how
about meet up here and here and when, and people will show up because
Ricochet members show up. This podcast is brought to you by Shopify and zbiotics.
Support them, and that will support us. And take a minute to
leave a review on Apple podcast. I know it's everyone always says this,
it actually really does matter. So if you do it, it helps us
bump up and then every important algorithm. Peter, this has been a lot
of fun. It has been fun. I don't quite know why because here
we are watching everything slide south, so just sleep, but it has been
fun. I feel watching one of those YouTube videos of some title waves sweeping
over some island in the Pacific. But still right still, as long as
we're watching from a distance and swirling olives and our martinis. What could be?
But why why wouldn't it be fun? Things have a way of working
out. That's my that's my lame optimism. Everything kind of get sorted out.
And the benefit of the of a Yale education. Next week, Rob
next week, take care Ricochet Join the conversation.