We're back with another edition of The Federalist for radio hour. I'm Emily Tishinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the
show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to
the premium version of our website, The Federalist dot Com as well. Today
I'm happy to be joined once again by Christopher Bedford, who has a new
job title, and I'm hoping Chris, you can tell us just a little
bit about what you're going to be up to at the Blaze, where you
are now the senior political editor. Tell us what's up at this new gig.
Oh thanks, You got a nice little sketch of yourself at the Blaze.
If you subscribe to The Blaze, you see there's an actual sketch of
a rendering, an artists rendering of Christopher Bedford. I obviously not have to
replace all my social media profiles with its good. I like it. I
like it a lot. Yeah, you made fun of me, someone else
made fun of you, and I piled on. I love a good pile
on. I don't blame you for that. Yeah, a senior politics editor
means I'll be writing the twice weekly newsletter. I was usually gonna do once
weekly and start it's like, why not twice and just commit yourself to the
work right now. So doing that, which is going to the kind of
format is going to be one big thing that I'll write, and then maybe
some links and things that you can do to follow up on that, and
then a bunch of a couple other stories you can read through that, and
links to our site and other sites. Who's got these interesting takes? And
then finally something that's not this is mostly it's gonna be politics. It's going
to be kind of people who don't read Punchble every day not quite as interested
how what's really playing out behind the scenes. It seems like a lot of
political newsletters these days basically either tell you a Democrats thing or just tell you
a Republican and Democratic leadership thinks they don't really like. I don't think I've
ever read a single newsletter that even tried to understand. And the Freedom Caucus,
for example, it's just these hard right wingers, that's it, No
no understanding. I was reading Political Playbook today, which is like I had
to start reading it again because of this newsletter, and I was reminded why
I stopped. This is the first place. It's the blog in Northern Virginia.
Yeah, it's a little pamlet in Northern Virginia, the political dot com.
Like the first half of it was how evil Donald Trump is and all
these trials and stuff and all these unindicted conspirator stuff that's coming out now on
Arizona. Not without a single moment's reflection. I'm like, are we the
bad guys here? There was a bug on the microphone by the way,
sorry, pensive, so weird. It should have let it go. It
was a neon green bug that Yeah, So anyway, go on. It
was all about to tell Trump bad and how and you watch Red punch Bowl,
Like. It was all about how Republican senators have gone very right wing
in the age of Trump. You sure it's not the age of Obama and
Biden. I got an issue the US senators don't actually listen that closely to
Donald Trump. This was a huge problem just over the course of the last
week. And I know we're going to talk about that, so I'm going
to put a pin in it for now. And then the second half of
playbook was about how excited they are for White House Correspondents Center weekend, which
is like insufferable, insufferable, yeah, insufferable, yeah, and no matter
why I don't like it. But the one editorial stance at the Federalist is
against the White House Correspondent Center. But your newsletter is not going to be
the type that is drooling over the champagne toasts. You know, every there's
like three parties a night. No like the old line, which I don't
do anymore obviously because I'm a family man. But their food, drink their
boosts, sleep at their women, and vote against them in the morning.
It's like, now I don't even go to the parties anymore. Christopher Bedford
family man, family man, a business card. The idios to do politics
for folks who maybe don't cover it for a living, but also are going
to have things that for folks who do cover it for a living. So
an insider perspective on some of the things that are actually driving Speaker Johnson,
driving Rich McConnell, what's coming next, what's going on now? Do that
as the top, and then at the end kind of wrap it up with
something that's broader about our culture, because I mean there's a lot of really
important things going on that you write about, we talk about is. I
think that's your specialty, is tying news of the day on Capitol Hill into
some of these deeper cultural questions. That's what I'm trying to do. Thank
you, that's the hope. And yeah, politics, the broader culture is
my passion, but politics is I thought it was graphic design. Graphic design
is your passion. I am a whiz with ms pain. No. You
when you discovered the iPad, the iPad pro, I walked you through it
for like five minutes, and ten minutes later it was like the student has
become the teacher. I love my iPad. I'm a boomer with my iPad.
But actually so no, I think this is fantastic. And you know,
there was a time on the Blaze was really heavy on sort of like
aggregations and those quicker pieces. But now what you guys are trying to do
over there, and it just speaks fimes that they brought you on board is
real, A high quality, longer, deeper, more thoughtful stuff. That's
actually that's the plan. Matt Peterson. It was a claimont for a long
time. Uh is editor in chief over there, and he's been working with
some friends of ours we've known for a long time to try and shift the
Blaze from something it's always been a publication that has reached a broader swath of
the American people, but to also try and they've shifted. They've shifted models
for a subscription model, which I think is really important going into twenty twenty
four as we go into another big tech crackdown. Yeah, to hack their
base, to have your readers. But it was also always yeah because the
old they were masters actually of the old model. I mean they expanded really
quickly when the old model was a click based Facebook. When Benny Johnson was
at the Blaze. Yeah, I forgot about it before BuzzFeed. Yes,
that's right, I forgot to Blaze. I always wore Glenbeck's clothing lines they're
gonna say he always wore Glenbeck's clothes and like a silence of the Lamb situation,
because I would also sort of be like, oh, yeah, Benny,
Yeah, sorry, Benny, we should get any on for an episode?
Yeah, down, I'll be seeing him next weekend. All right,
got a wedding there? You go. Well, so no, I actually
think this is all really cool. Make sure you subscribe to Chris's letter newsletter
over at the Blaze dot com. Yes, you can go to the Blaze
and sign up for the newsletter or email USO will send you the link.
And people might not know. Blaze does a lot of really good I mean,
their video content is extremely popular, but I always think of them as
a news website meds because I work in news. But the video stuff is
super high quality as well. That's that's their bread and butter. Yeah,
the studios are super impressive and they put out a lot of great shows.
I'm looking forward to joining some of those shows, and we're going to be
launching in the next few months a DC news show excellent where I get to
be DC correspondent check in. Yeah, out here hanging out at CPI studios.
Yeah, doing some good work which will be exciting cool. Well,
actually, on that note, I should also mention that Ryan Grimm and I
are launching a Friday edition of our show Counterpoints, so over with our friend
Saga at Breaking Points, my friend Crystal Ryan. We're all going to be
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Over at Breaking points now,
which I think they launched two years ago, so it's pretty amazing that they've
been able to expand to five days a week. Our first guest they already
announced this morning. Ryan and I interviewed Don Lemon yesterday, so if you
want an early version of that tonight, you can ascribe regufile about the sor
Bet. I didn't ask about Sorbette. I asked about his boomer Rubs comment
with well it wasn't hint Rick Wilson said it, and Don Lemon just laughed
along and asked him about that. We played a Nome Chomsky clip for him.
That's one of my favorite moments. It gets contentious. Yeah, he's
alive. He's very much and he lives on her heart. Oh he is.
He is a vigorous at two hundred years old. He's like an old
testament and bearded stage at this point. I rememberhen I found out that Gord
died. I was liked was alive. Yeah, my friend, my buddy
Dame was sitting He's like, yeah, I was with him. He lived
on our street. He's like I used to there was like he went over
to Garvetdelle's house. Don't worry. He was little Sus. Yeah, little
sus anyway, so breaking points dot com for that. No, Chris and
I actually kind of wrote similar pieces this week. Did you did you notice
that you wrote blaze Everyone? Course, I know it's a genius h But
actually, to this point the broader media conversation, I think this is so
important. There's been basically no media criticism of how we ended up with this
ninety five billion dollar foreign aid pack because they're all for it, but because
Putin fringes against it. Well, this is the thing. So they put
Marjorie Taylor Green on the cover of the New York Post, which generally I
love the New York Post, but in a like what did they What was
the cover? Do you remember? It said something like Putin basically implying that
she was a Russian stooge haplessly, not even intentionally, but that she was
just sort of like walking into Putin propaganda territory. And it's just I think
one of the biggest problems in this entire debate is that nobody in the New
York Posts like joining everyone else and talking about like the ghosts, the phantoms
of ghosts of Kiev, like all these fake Ukrainian military victories that. I
mean, American newspaper is printed. Everyone did that. Everyone I didn't do
that. Well, you weren't in charge of a newspaper. Who knows what
you might not have done that. So but I mean, really it's been
how did we get to the point? And I think a lot of it
stems from them not understanding the Freedom Caucus, Like the New York Times,
it's incredible. Brendan Buch, who you know from his time working as communications
aid to speakers Bayner and Ryan wrote an op ed in The New York Times
basically accusing the Freedom Caucus of undermining their own goals. But part of it
was predicated on this idea that Marjorie Taylor Green was part of the Freedom of
Caucus, and he also alluded to the idea that the Freedom Caucus had gummed
up the works on the Rules Committee, which he's talking about, like Chip
Roy and Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey is also not a member of the Freedom
Caucus. But Marjorie Taylor Green had this hugely public divide with the Freedom Caucus.
She's constantly exchanging's hostilities between the chairman of the Freedom Caucus other members of
the Freedom Caucus and herself, and this went to print. Not only did
he write that, but it went to print in the New York Times.
Like, if he's your communications consultant, fire him because he doesn't know what's
happening on Capitol Hill. And I know that's a small thing, but it's
a really important distinction, because if you knew what the Freedom Caucus's negotiations were
like in this, you would have known that it had nothing to do with
Marjorie Taylor Green. Not that she wasn't a powerful voice against the package.
She of course was, but you would have known because you would be understanding
the Freedom Caucus. And to have something so basic and obvious wrong, I
think speaks to the fact that they don't in the New York Times fact checkers
that missed it. So not only did he write it, the Times,
the Times printed it. It's absurd. But anyway, all that is to
say that consider your what's your goal is when you're when you when you to
write something that criticizes people on your right or in your general camp. And
he's obviously a Republican, Choose your publication very carefully, First sleep on it
and decide if you actually do you really need to go out there and like
attack people who are kind of on your side and the partisan divide, which
I guess maybe is becoming. And two, if you're going to are you
going to tack them on in New York time? Who are you talking to?
But this is their times? But this is the new partisan line.
He's completely with the Democrats. I mean, he wrote in his op ed
he celebrated that leadership was able to pass the dead Deal, was able to
get Ukraine funded. Well, that's not the Democrat position. That's also McConnell's
position, that's Johnson's position exactly. Flesh out a little bit from Braso.
Interesting. I thought the Senate votes were really interesting. I mean, again,
if you lose ten Cruz on an Israel funding package, you know,
Marco Rubio, who's typically very hawkish, you lose Marco Rubio on a foreign
aid package. And it all came down really to the border. I mean,
there was these questions about the funding for Palestinian territory and whether that was
going to end up in the hands of Hamas that prevented some of them from
voting for a Ted Cruse sided that when he didn't vote for it. But
Anyway, Chris flesh out for us a little bit what you wrote about over
the Blaze. Why did you start with yours so I can got them my
thoughts. I was listening so intently. Yeah, well you're and also you're
shy, especially when it comes to your political beliefs. I get it.
You need to be sort of coaxed a little bit. Yeah, But I
mean, for me, that was really I wrote a lot about the Brenda
buck Point. I wrote about Zahel Kapoor saying quote all caps, how it
happened and basically writing out this. I think it was like six step process
of how the Freedom Caucus was left with nothing, and not just the Freedom
Caucus obviously also members like Mike Lee. I mean, so many senators voted
against this. I don't know if Molly and David talked about it yesterday seven
and had a chance to listen to voted against it last time essentially, right,
But I mean it was interesting because Molly, I think, did the
math and like a ton of Senators that have been voted, who have been
elected just in like the last ten years, like that was a really good
showing on the bill from that contingent. But you know, Sahil Kapor walks
through the process of how it happened and said, Republicans in the House and
Senate demanded a border bill. Then when McConnell gave them a border bill,
they just rejected automatically false. Your narrative has already gone off track there,
and they blamed I'm sure he blamed Trump for that, right, idiotic,
idiotic they did. They blamed Trump exactly, They blamed Trump. I mean,
it's absurd that no, if Donald Trump had said to vote for the
bill, if he had actually come out and expended his political capital, he
basically said Mike Johnson was doing a tough, a good job in tough circumstances,
which I completely disagree with. I agree that circumstances are tough, but
oh my gosh, that bill was intentionally designed to fool the media into thinking
Republicans were dismissing the media and the public. As a consequence, we're dismissing
a border compromise bill. It was nonsense. It was full of carve outs
to exemptions, that carve outs and exemptions about it, like there were some
concessions from Democrats in it. Some more libertarian conservative immigration people have pointed out
that there was some real asylum differences, but oh my gosh, they were
full of exemptions. Biden could just decide not to go with them. So
it's it was designed intentionally for the media to take the bait, and the
media took the bait, just took the bait. They weren't they were part
of it. They were part of it. They were already central aspect of
it. Yeah, I agree with that, but this is again, you
can't have the you can't have a media that is so disinterested in the perspective
of like what half the country the Republicans represent roughly like half the country right
now, quite literally, the House of Representatives Representatives is split basically in half.
The Senate is split basically in half. That reflects the country, which
is split basically in half. Joe Biden's brain is split. Basically he doesn't
know who he is on any given day, like much like is he the
guy who's like, you know, super pro nets and Yahoo? Is he
the guy that's super pro like college campuses? Like with the activities his political
on things defer pretty dramatically from his staff's yea and half like the rest of
the country. I think, I mean his political instincts are generally on point,
but I mean did but his staff are very against the kind of political
instincts he has, right, and he ends up making some really bad political
decisions, moral decisions, of course, political decisions. So my piece was
basically on like who Johnson was in this and that it was based on his
twenty eighteen Daily Beasts article let me pull up. Oh my gosh, it
was so interesting. I had not seen that article in years. Meet the
double Agent who now controls House Conservatives. That was the headline quote. The
spy's mission was simple, gain their trust, become one of them, and
eventually take them over. And it describes him as the perfect ball and a
clean cut politician hungary for power and influence. That was about Mike Johnson,
who had then just become chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which is like
was started as a very conservative group and kind of became like a Republican club.
I was taken over in the teens, one of the big sort of
eruptions and the relationship between post Tea Party conservatives and the Republican establishment of jan
leadership takeover that right and then. But it's about how he's kind of two
face. He's just power hungry. But so I wanted to follow up on
that and follow up with his Freedom caucusing this, This whole article is positive
that he was a secret hard right conservative who visited the leadership by acting that
way. He went to all the Freedom Caucus meetings, but he never paid
his dues. By the way, that's that's a faux pile. You're not
you're not supposed to do that. Like the Freedom concass dues are probably harder
to collect than being like a fraternity treasurer in college, but they go to
paying the few shared staff that you have, you know, executive director or
constructor of the Freedom Cancass is not a huge staff, and those people earn
their paychecks forgetting having to like take the calls of the couple dozen congressmen and
congressmen who are in there. It's not an easy job. So paying dues
is important. But he didn't do that, and the Daily Beast thought it
was so he could pretend that he was more amenable to Leadership's demands. But
it kind of turns out if you look at it, that they had him
right in that there's some pretend and there's some willingness to bend the truth.
But he's actually is really amenable to leaderships demands. He never actually was the
winger that people thought he was. He's got basically impeccable socially conservative bona fides.
He's got the right friendships Tony Perkins also from Louisiana, the Family Research
Council. But at the end of the day, he votes when leadership put
pressure down. He always voted with leadership. He would back them up on
a defense re authorization for example, that set women up for the draft.
Really with how much argument. He voted for the Deficit Reduction Act. You
know that that Republican leadership and Joe Biden wanted that, didn't them Yeah,
the McCarthy wanted that didn't reduce the deficit. There was a whole list of
things he did, but doing interviews with members of the Freedom Caucus and conservative
senior staff who'd worked closely with him at the time that that was written,
and still the picture that was painted to me is someone who's like a good
man, not a bad man. But he one quote was a phenomenal capacity
for self delusion. Like he he really does think that he's a man of
faith, faith principle, but his principle tells him, his faith tells him,
you know, you need to send ninety five billion dollars abroad from the
US. And that's like he justifies that he can justify that U sat his
faith, which is kind of a strange thing to do. And yeahs apparently
he's he's he's very comfortable, well one person to work with them closely with
lying, with making reasons for I had to lie to get something done.
Basically, he is extremely self justified, capable of deluding himself on that and
capable of reinforcing whatever things he's pushing for with that. What this comes from
my faith? I think that describes basically everyone in power in Washington, DC.
It's a capacity for self delusion. I love that quote because one of
the things I've learned from being here is when you get to know people in
these positions of power, it's not a complete phoniness so much as it is
self delusion. They sleep at night because they are mostly convinced, entirely convinced
that people would really wrestle with this, and it sounds deeply unpleasant to be
in those positions because of that reason that they are convinced that they're on the
quote right side of history, that they are doing term and you actually heard,
uh, you heard Johnson using it too. I want to be in
the right set of history on God Judge Judge's history history. Judging history is
just kind of a weird philosophical thing. I know, I'll probably take off
some listeners with this, but he just kind of reminds me of a megachurch
leader. No, I actually think megachurch leaders in the sort of stereotypical caricature
since are actually a lot of times fully phony and like they're better at acting.
And Mike Johnson, I think he has like a theater background, right.
I think he's done his uh Trump impressions and everything, so I think
he was in high school theater. But I think for him, he didn't
even this. I partially wrote about this in my piece. He didn't even
do a good job of playing the part of somebody who empathizes with his allegedly
fellow conservatives, the people you know. He would say I'm friends with Marjorie,
and then Marjorie Taylor Green would say I'm not friends with. He was
very ham fisted in his negotiations with the people who were apparently were supposedly his
ideological bedfellows. And what you know the Mike Lees and the Bob Goods do
isn't even you know, some of it is purely stylistic and temperamental. And
Kevin McCarthy, who voted in a lot of directions that we would not be
happy with, also was so good of as at least making those folks feel
heard, you know, the important human need to feel like you were.
The federal so got called in. I had a vacation in between jobs,
so I was really enjoying it, and Ben started like adding things to my
calendar. It took me off, but one of them was to go in
with like him and Molly. Were you there? I was supposed to be
that. I couldn't make it to meet with McCarthy. Yeah, he was
likable, very likable, and he was very interesting. I couldn't stop giving
him heck over his billion trees idea. We're going to get the youth vote
by planting a billion trees? How stupid are you? He talked about that
and like you would talk about this stuff in good faith though probably, and
I imagine with like Freedom Caucus people too. He just had you know,
he wanted to be in leadership so badly that and he was smart enough that
he had really good relationships with those people. And my read on Mike Johnson
is he thinks that it's important for him to be in leadership so that he
can, you know, force people into principled positions. But the tell for
him should be that as soon as he got in leadership, he changed and
you wrote about this, he changed his positions, but even before then if
you looked at it. So this was kind of an argument between different more
conservative members of the House and whether or not to support him. There were
a lot of people that took him at his word. He said, you
know, Mike Johnson's a man of God. This is we did, and
I think that's I wrote a piece saying that we're going to have the first
socially conservative speaker, and we did by the way we did, because he's
he's on the record with all of these socially conservative views. The question is
how he acts, and that has now been answered. Yeah, And there
were some other people who are more skeptical, saying, well, look at
his record when pressure comes, and we talked about that. I think we've
talked about that before. With grace curly, but the leader, it's kind
of easy to snipe from the back and say, well, I'm not going
to be I'm not going to send more money to Ukraine. I'm not going
to vote for this bill that kills babies. Leadership is very difficult because you
have to not only make those hard decisions, but you have to face down
your enemies and you're going to have people coming at you from all sides.
And the skiffs saying Americans will die. They should have more skiffs about the
border. By the way, Americans will die if you don't do this,
and the country will fall apart if you don't this, and America a fault
if you don't kill more babies. The harvest will come if we don't sacrifice
the child. And it turns out you need to be kind of strong on
that. And the defining character astlict that I can tell from Mike Johnson is
he may be a good guy, but he's a total woosie to use a
radio okay word. Yes, these negotiations are like playing poker. I think
that's why the temperamental dispositional stuff is such an important part of it. That
if Mike Johnson were out there saying my members are representing the American public,
which sees millions and millions of people pouring across the border, and this bill
is nonsense and you're not going to get us to fall for your trick.
Another thing Kevin McCarthy turned into being spectacularly adept at doing was just attacking the
media. Mike Johnson, instead of doing that, was attacking follow Republicans,
which you know McCarthy did. Is for your share of that too. But
if you're smart, if you're smart, and you do a good job of
this. And I think Kevin McCarthy genuinely had a transformation after the January sixth
Committee, after his negotiations with Nancy Pelosi and impeachment, and he was he's
talked about this, he told us about this and the Federalist but I think
he did, you know, suddenly come to have his eyes open up to
how radical a lot of people on the other side of the aisle are,
and that pushed him to be way more critical of me. But you would
think you would think that Mike Johnson socially conservative Mike Johnson, you know,
McCarthy probably felt like he could do it because he had the credentials, like
he he knew all the lobbies. He'd been here for a very long time.
He was a young gun. You know, they all kind of knew
him. Mike Johnson probably is now suddenly getting. Imagine the pressures this guy
is getting from suddenly from the media, from the special interests, from leadership,
from people like Mitch McConnell, all of that, and he caved.
He caved. There was a point made on Twitter by a guy who I
don't generally agree with n't anything. We called it the Johnson maneuver, and
he said, this is the same thing has taken place in government funding and
impeachment fis on Ukraine. It's first, when confronted with the major decision,
change your mind a lot, and then delay a decision as long as possible,
and then slightly tweaks something that you previously oppose to sell it as a
win right, and then depend heavily on Democrats to get you out of the
jam. Right. That is the Johnson maneuver. Democrats staffer was posting that,
and and it seems correct. Although that's perfect. I've been getting some
pushback from some friends of mine on this, but I actually think that going
to Columbia University yesterday was smart. Okay, so tell me about that because
I might disagree. So that the criticisms that I got from friends are one,
it's a shiny object that Johnson goes and waves into the Columbia Hammas protests
and that are illegal that have shut down the university and gives a speech about
how you're an American. That's my perspective. And then the other one was
why get in the way of a really public divorce. I mean, this
is not like Charlottesville, where there's like a small fringe of people who are
neo Nazi gun runners who don't vote Republican, who are fighting a bunch of
like this is Democrats civil war. Here, this is a large swath the
Democratic Party that really doesn't like Israel and we're willing to shut down campuses,
and a large swath that also donate money to Israel and our supporters of it.
And this is civil war. So while get in the middle, I
thought it was really smart politics because it's easy to I think a lot of
people, especially in the American left, and we saw this in twenty twenty.
It was wild. We're completely able to disassociate the race wars and the
riots and the looting and the murder and the chaos and the spread of crime
throughout our cities from Democrats who've done it and didn't give Republicans credit for resisting
it, and the unique Republicans that they want to me on the side.
They can't just say we should fund the police and put the flag out and
give a speech from the rotunda. That needs to wade into it, like
like Trump that time walking through the White House with the tear gas was a
great, I think scene, but we need a lot more. You hold
the Bible upside down. I don't know if it was upside down. Trump
at the bodega was very good. Johnson out there chat telling these lass protesters,
you're on America and you're portraying your country and its ideals made him look
kind of brave and it was It reminded me of Richard Nixon, who was
who very much like democrats can't really honestly be said at the time like stood
for chaos, anarchy and disorder and drugs, but Nixon made them do that.
Nixon went out there and it's like, this is the party of anarchy.
Uh. Nixon had charisma, though Mike Johnson did, oh, oh,
I think this is I despised the strange new respect for Nixon movement that's
growing and sort of the new right. But our colle exams are like,
because he's a strange new respect for Nixon guy. But I think one of
the things that people forget about Nixon because of that famous Kennedy debate is he
really was very good, very good social People like, yeah, so who
lacks a lot of social grace? On mean, Donald Trump, he won
an incredible victory. Was it like five hundred and seventy seventy to seventeen or
something, his luctoral Win, Yeah, I mean he had this, except
he had a commanding voice. And again this is why people who watched on
the radio, who listened on the radio to the Kennedy debate didn't have the
same perspective with people who like, yeah, he had a commanding voice.
He was. He was. He was a strange person, disliked by a
lot of his colleagues at the time, right, But the public liked Nick.
President the public liked him. I mean Eisenhower didn't like him. A
lot of his colleagues and their GOP didn't like him. I'm just saying curious
whether not Nixon really liked himself. Well yeah, but I'm just saying he
had more gravitas than like e offense to Mike Johnson. I just don't think
the optics. It looks very cynical, he looks. I don't know.
I disagreed, just that anesthetics of him there against disorder. I agree.
I agree that I got there and put himself in the middle of it,
and to yell at them and not just like put a sum in the air
and say no, we're for freet space, Like this is wrong. Police
just should dismantle this. The national God should be considered kid should be able
to get an education. He also believes there's like a religious it sounds like
dispensationalism reason for us to be sending all this money to Israel and passing the
bill before we have an order bills. It's definitely a lot of render under
Caesar what is Caesar's and render under God God. So I don't know that
he's the right person for this message. Also annoying that the GOP is like,
oh, the campus is a pros Israel. We should defund them.
It's like the Campus of Post America that. So it's frustrating. But for
for sheer politics, I think appearing as the face of order amidst the mob
is smart, especially suburban voters, and an elect four years should do that.
You've made a good case. You've made a good case. But you're
right. I mean I actually scoffed, and he's like, we could consider
defunding Columbia. I'm like, why haven't you done that? He looks I
think he just looks soon scripted and diminutive, and the object is just for
me, like the hornroom ground. He looks like a nerd, and it's
not like he's one of the nerds that like speaks again like Nixon, like
he had this commanding, the sort of bellowing voice. And for Mike Johnson,
it's like, listen to the public. Polling is not where those of
us on the right want it to be on this issue, you know what
I mean, Like the public is pretty concerned about what they see is an
overzealous prosecution of this war. So he needs to make that case. I
get making the student case, but I'm just saying I don't know that it
comes across the public the way that it comes across to us. Bad messenger
to some people. He really he could have been a good messenger because he
did understand, like if you talk to people sort of an HFC. They
had genuinely good relationships until recently. You know he didn't know them. There
was but he's just you know, he doesn't have it. Chris, if
he was an auditioning for Speaker of the House on American Idol, I'd say,
it's a not for me be a man. But hey, when Kevin
McCarthy was being ousted, we were just sort of like, eh, you
know what, can I get much worse? Yeah, And it seemed like,
okay, maybe it can actually get better. And I don't think either
of us was like it's this is great and it's definitely go badly for Kevin
when Kevin McCarthy is getting outed. But then when this guy came in,
it was funny to see Gates his team and be like, this is what
we always intended, and I want to go back to that. So let's
talk about what that thing he pretended to always intend. Great stuff, great
stuff, just great stuff all around. All right, Christopher Bedf I can
tell you're itching to get to lunch. I am all right, Well,
thank you so much and congratulations on the new job. Thanks everyone. Make
sure to sign up for the newsletter The Blaze dot com. You can get
it there, yeah, the Blaze. All right, well, you've been
listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Edician's key culture
editor here at The Federalist. We will be back soon with more. Until
then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray