We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts into the premium version of
our website as well. I'm joined today once again by Christopher Bedford, executive
editor over at the Common Sense Society. Chris, Welcome back. Do you
ever wake up in the morning and just say it's Bedford Day. It's like,
look, I could jump up with a song in your heart. This
is the background information is that we do typically record on Thursdays, so it
is really Bedford Day on Federalist Radio Hour. Sometimes the podcast doesn't air that
Thursday because of the schedule. There are lots of dates that we have to
work around, but Thursday really is Bedford Day. It's exciting, it's a
routine. It's been auteen for a couple of years now. Even though you
don't even work here anymore, we still let you in. It's not constructs
hold us back. He just makes himself at home in the office still with
there's a we have sort of a madman esque like, I know I need
a drink. Yeah. He One time I walked in it was like eleven
thirty in the morning. He just had a glass of rum. Nothing makes
it into it just rum. I mean no, I mean I've already accomplished
a lot by the time I see you here. I've dropped Chris Frawford school
or camp. I've today, I've gone to Jiffy Loup to fix a jeep,
made it to confession, haven't I had a cup of coffee. I'm
I'm ready for a whiskey. You've read. I'm just gonna actually keep talking.
Well, you pour yourself a whiskey and we'll air all of this.
Not a big poor Chris. No, it's a morning. A man has
to draw a line somewhere. I'm one of those people is very prone to
suggestion, Like I can see someone let light a cigarette in a movie.
I'm a cigarette smoke. I just want a cigarette. If someone there has
one, I'm probably gonna grab on ours. Like someone has a drink like
that does look good. I'm I'm the people that the government text us from,
like you're not allowed to advertise us anymore. On Hollywood movies or the
Coaches. You just watch boogie nights and get all kinds of weird ideas in
your head. Yeah, I want to do that. That does look good.
Yeah, well, we're not going to talk about actually, we are
going to talk about cocaine, aren't we again? Yeah, no, we're
not gonna talk We're not doing that. We did, we did enough of
that and then you went on a bender and you just we can't talk about
cocaine ever. Again, no one's allowed to do cocaine anymore, and nobody's
allowed to say cocaine because as soon as they say cocaine, chrisus like,
oh, the beast is held by frail and fragile bars. But the good
news is that it's it's morning. So you're you're sort of limited by that
important boundary. You've had to do your own life. But Chris, you
have an article out in the Telegraph with the headline Biden's foulmouth outbursts can't change
reality. He's lost it. It was fun to get my first British headline.
They have that special style of writing. Yeah. So there's an article
on actually us that came out that was I think it was a bunch of
seriously, perfectly well coordinated from inside the White House leaks called Old Yeller,
and it was about Joe Biden's awful temper, which is not a secret in
washing in DC. It's been known for decades. He's got an awful temper.
If you're a justice on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, you know
that he's got a pretty vicious streak to him. If you're his granddaughter,
you know he's got a pretty vicious streak his seventh granddaughter, who he refuses
to acknowledge just by pushing himself as a family man all the time and has
his age to say that if you've been on the other side of him from
political political negotiations, or if you've been back in the day in line waiting
to go to your cell out when he would shove past you and say something
rude, you get out. No. It happened to my friend Daniel Turner,
who's been on this podcast many times, got pushed aside. He's got
I'm a senator and the consummate gentleman, by the way, the most polite
man you'll ever meet, yes, but also a New Yorker from Queens So
I push too far well, absolutely lose it. You also even know this
if you're an Irishman at that Yeah, true, well Turners an Irishman,
but he's also Italian, half Italian half Iris self loathing. Now, yeah
he's got he's got our looks and they're cooking the But you also know that
if you're Hunter Biden and one of the one of the WhatsApp messages that was
leaked to think to Naomi Biden, where he was saying, I just you
know, granted he was in the throes of things, it's like, I
just hope that you don't have to make money for this whole family. You're
lucky debt Pops is not going to take half of your salary away from you.
I hope that never happens to you. Thanks. So Joe Biden the
only person, the only people this is a surprise to that Joe Biden is
a vicious son of a gun, would be the American people, because he
sold himself completely and totally as a grandfatherly consoler in chief. Right, It's
like your average just guy hugs you, who takes some of the awful tragedies
he's experienced, losses he's experienced in his life, and allows him to empathize
at a very high level with these folks and just be that the hugger,
be someone who's there for you and make you feel good. That's kind of
a they've sold, but now they're trying to bring it back, like no,
this guy's with it now that NPR and a headline earlier the Spring is
saying a quote significant majority of the American people think that Joe Bridon's brain function
is a serious cause of concern for him to be president. They want to
say, not only is he high functioning, clearly not true, but he's
so high function he's angry. I mean these quotes about how he's, how
he's how he's got a temper if you read the the article, or like
the problem is he knows more than the briefers. Yes, he likes to
play a game called stump the dummy or stump the dump up something. Stump
the chump was one of them. Whi's like, he goes in there and
he's going to interrogate you deeply. It's like the way they talk about it
is the way people talked about briefing. My grandfather talked about briefing Robert McNamara,
where like you could go through one hundred and ninety two slides and he'd
be like, wait a second, that one doesn't seem to work with slide
three, right, And like this is a guy who had just a brilliant
mind and was in his youth. That ain't Joe Biden. The idea that
he's like the whole idea is that he loses his temper. But actually it's
a sign that he respects you in this op ed or in this article that
was leaked, and that it's really just because he's burdened by his genius.
He knows so much more than his staff, who, by the way,
literally tell him when to talk and when not to talk. Yeah, where
to stand when not to stand. How they have to move the bags around
on the stage it's bad to make sure it doesn't fall down and get a
face bruce, which happened. Yeah, we we have a leadership that's so
old, like so old it is face bruise old, which is a very
ancient style. I don't even mind old leadership so long as like, for
instance, do I think you know is an ideal that we have so many
leaders who are in advanced age and seem to be clear older than the oldest
member of the oldest the oldest premieer of the Soviet Union. That's an interesting
statistic. But I will say there's something about the wisdom gleaned from so many
years spent in public service that you know, you go into the Senate and
there are people who've worked there for a really long time who have these like
this vast institutional knowledges, and it's incredible. But that's obviously not what's happened
with if people who are clinging to power because power. Joe Biden is the
best example of this. Is their tether to money is like they have camped
out in the swamp and are fastly clinging to that power because it's all they
have. And that is I think incredibly pathetic and means that they're doing it
with no sense of virtue, like it is long past their due date right
like they do not they do they lack the faculties to continue serving. That
is abundantly clear. When it comes to Joe Biden, his family knows it.
They still encourage allowed him to run. Dan Feinstein is an example of
that obviously as well. I would say, even you know, you can
maybe make that argument about Nancy Pelosi and then you have Done Trump and Bernie
senators coming out and no, according to like playbook and you know, girl
girl Boss coverage of DC, Nancy Pelosi is just the queen. But to
compare her tenure under Barack Obama to her ten year under Joe Biden and Donald
Trump is it's just just doesn't work well. And so this is like again
not comparable, barely comparable her level her ability to succeed earlier in her career,
and that's just natural. Yeah, you have. But then you have
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who again are older and obviously very different political
backgrounds, but they're clearly competent, like you can see it in public.
They do still have the faculties to govern like they can still they have the
the physical and mental capacity to do the work that they need to do.
It affects us all differently, it does, and it's just a stark,
stark contrast too. Like you you know who's got it, you know who
doesn't, and it's just abundantly clear that Joe Biden is not in that situation.
I want to ask you about this theory, which is based on this
Axios story that you wrote about in your piece. I imagine what happened.
Aton has this story, gets a bunch of aids on background, goes to
the White House with it, and the White House is like, this is
actually what's happening. It's a sign of respect. We're going to send some
people who will tell you on background that when this happened to them, it
made them feel like they this was their moment that they were really part of
the White House staff. It's a rite of passage, etcetera, etcetera.
Just it's his way of showing respect. And this story turned out that way
because access was bullied by the White House into adding and massaging this story by
adding that framing. That's possible, but there's really no there's no real complaints
about Joe Biden anywhere in it. There's some people say that they get worried
about going into that meeting, but it's if that is the case, then
it's really expert press handling. But I honestly think that, well, no,
it's not. It's not expert press handling. It's them being pathetic.
It's it's actually as being very willing to massage a story, or being very
willing to get by the White House. The White House may not have even
hand to bully them. They may have just been able to say, well,
okay, we're canceling this interview, or that we're trying to show how
intense the president is. How do you think they intentionally planted a story about
Biden being quote old yeller. I don't think they shows a headline about the
dog that got put down at the end. Pretty awkward, right. I
didn't write that, and I didn't write that in the article because I don't
want to know how a call from Secret Service. But it's like I know
the end of that movie. The British tabloid headline would have just been like
put them down, exclamation boy and exclamation point. When I was studying in
London and internet readers, digests and everything, they had this show out because
everyone in everyone in London hated Joke W. Bush with a passion, like
a really unseemly passion for the Dixie Chicks had their moment if you heard,
if they heard your accent in a bar, somebody like guaranteed would get in
your face right about like what a global warming? And Iraq? The thing
is the English, you know, is that buy and large. There's two
types of Englishmen emaciated, skinny ones and globular fat ones. So like an
American boy who's gone at the gym and played a sport can throw them over
a table. Like there's some big Englishman out there, but not a ton
rugby. You say, yeah, yeah, exactly. It wasn't difficult to
get out of those situations, but they were really demented about it. And
there was all these advertisements in the subway that had an obvious look alike.
It was for a series in England. It was called like Killing the President,
and it was like a dramatization. It was obvious George w. Bush
getting shot and black and white on all these ads. And I was so
picked at that, so annoyed sitting there as an American, like it made
me more more pro Bush to be there, which I'm not. You started
dressing like George Washington style hat, my style of dress and my ugly mug
made it so that I could walk into any pub with all my American friends
and the bounce would nod to me and say hey, and they just stopped
my friends. Okay, here's the rule for Americans. And when I spoke,
people are shocked because no one thought I was American, which is not
a compliment if you're seeing like elbow patches. Yeah, like I wore like
fred Shermans and stuff like cap that like weird, pinkish like balding thing.
That's basically the entire Ireland, England and Scotland is US. I was shocked
when I went to say, it's like Euros of Wisconsin in South Dakota and
stuff that, like everyone all the men are over six feet, the women
are five to eleven. Everyone can go out in the sun, a lot
of blonde people. I'm like, what are this strange muscular people, And
it turns out it's just where the Germans went. Massachusetts is like not even
white people, it's like pinkish people. And the sas level the Sandavian is
the Germans. Yeah, they're not even eating corn syrup. They're eating actual
corn. You don't put that stuff in a syrup. I'm like, gosh,
how could you so actually, no, they're definitely eating corns. Well,
you get down in Nebraska. It was noticeable. We get down from
South Dakota down in Nebraska. South Dakota like women who could be models in
New York just selling socials of coronic gas. Stations in the Brandon Omaha,
I would say conservatively forty percent of the people I saw were limping. It
was the health disparity was wild, but also so was the accessor It was
in Cris incredible. Well, yeah, that's the It is truly the double
edged sword. On that note, that's why I'm always healthy, no poison
in my body. I was going to say, just just tobacco, whiskey,
and meat. You don't even vape. I'm not a vepist. The
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Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. I still
don't think that's I would be really surprised at the White House planet the story.
My impression of it is that it's gossip that was sort of it was
becoming impossible for somebody like Alex Thompson not to report the story out, like
so many people were telling these anecdotes, and then when you go to the
White House for comment, the White House was like, well, we've seen
it on the campaign shown. Why didn't they report in the earlier when he
got in that steelworker's face for asking him about the Second Amendment, right and
whatever he asked him. I'm sure he was like, you're gonna take our
guns away, but he said it such a measure tone it wasn't even picked
up on the audio. Yeah, and Joe Biden told him he was full
of expletive. And then when his aid said okay, it's enough, he
put his hand in her face, right in her face, and said hush,
yeah, hush, And I sorted the ranted him like we saw that.
We saw him caught on a hot mic calling Peter Doocy one of the
only people which possibly challenges him a dumb son of actually son of a gun.
We've seen over and over in his main streak, So for like I
don't know. In twenty twenty three, for actually, like we can no
longer ignore this story. Joe Biden's a jerk. Yeah, Mike, no
way, I just I woke It's like I woke up and started to write
that story on it. Now. I guess maybe it's possible, but it
where's the breaking news? Everyone seen? How's it? Well? So in
this this is the This story was published Monday, which is the day after
I think Marine Dad's columns or Sunday columns, the day after her column about
Joe Biden ignoring cruelly ignoring her. His seventh grandchild from London Roberts and Navy
Joan Roberts is the name of the baby. I think it is almost four
years old. An hour is four years old now that Hunter Biden had with
London Roberts, a stripper, and has has fought tooth and nail not to
allow that child to use the last name Biden. I don't know how you
win that. It must be part of a settlement, because I could.
I think it could change my name to Hunter Biden tomorrow at a court.
Yeah, he didn't own that name. I think he's the father, so
he probably has some say and not you can change people's names. Well,
so his argument is people find this out in divorce court often it's like you
actually don't own your name. The argument is that Hunter Biden's argument as the
father of the baby, and they've been fighting over child support as well,
but as the father of the baby, Hunter Biden says that name will just
cause the baby pain. And you know they're dueling. There is a question
of the motivation of the mom. Maybe the name is part of an attention
or as part of the child's support bids thing, whatever it is. I
don't know. It's discussing that this baby's life has been litigated literally in the
court since she was born because the father will not come to terms with his
responsibilities as a father, and neither will his family and particularly his own father.
It's all just pathetic and sad. But Alex Thompson's story coming out the
day after Marine down story there, I am actually curious because Biden's entire pitch
the American public is, as you write, grandfatherly right. He says,
this is he was going to restore normalcy, sability, decency. If anybody
is rude to anyone in my White House, that person will be fired that
day. He made the promise. There you go. I was out on
the base stage in the mc donald Trump and he said, anyone who raises
their voice or a big little someone will be fired that day. We're not
right. So if you run in the kindergarten, they're going to get on
yellow light and then they're gonna get on the a red light and I'm going
to move their safety pin from one to the other. Well, but this
is a good I'm glad you can still at least yellow people in one workplace
in America. That is so true. That is so true. Biden is
restoring hostility to the workplace where it belongs. Style places with low air conditioning
in dress coach and without the no feminine rules of engagement. And you should
be a smoke inside. That would double the productivity of newsrooms. Yes,
no women, No, I'm not gonna we can be secretaries. But the
thing is man. That is not a men's job. So there was this
bishop, I think he was in South Dakota who didn't want to actually get
rid of the a dispensation had been given by the Vatican to allow for female
ultraservers, which he wasn't too into he wanted. He wasn't gonna say no
women because he thought that would alienate the parents. So what he said was
no makeup. Everyone must wear these same shoes, which are like plain black
shoes, and everyone must like this is the way the people. It's two
acceptable modes. One from any one for women to wear your hair to get
the buzzy. Don't say like I'm in the workplace the air conditioning to start
smoking inside it is it's freezing in here, but it's nasty outside. Of
course, igut, I guess it's accepted about the ultraservers I agree with that.
So this is actually, though, the one of the big I think
implications of the story as you write about, is Joe Biden's main pitch to
the American public about normal cy, civility, and decency increasingly going to be
undercut by the reality of Biden's presidency, no matter how hard the media tries
to keep it under wraps. And this is where I want to turn to
Christopher Ray. That may seem like an Olympic level gymnastics move to transition from
one to the other, but I actually really think Joe Biden's pitch as it's
not just about him being grandfather, That's part of it. It's also about
normalcy, right, Like, there was something about the calm grandfather entering the
Oval office after the erratic reality television show host that he wanted to impress on
the public. This was going to feel like the America they knew before Donald
Trump. And so if you thought Donald Trump sullied the White House that we
had to be talking about Stormy Daniels every day, and uh, if I
thought that was too much, here we have this normal, kind, decent
grandfather and at the same time, you know, you now have these Marine
Dowdy of Alex Thompson's story. And on the political level, so that's the
personal level. On the political level, we have nothing close to normalcy.
And it is certainly not Donald Trump's fault. It is plainly at this point,
fairly even Joe Biden's fault, Joe Biden, the dj and the FBI's
fault. That you have Christopher Ray in front of Congress yesterday, and it
is a disaster. It is a disaster for the administration. I mean,
I think Joe Biden might have restored some sense of normalcy had we lived in
a pre progressive state and something before Woodrow Wilson. Essentially where a president as
demeanor like Calvin Coolis can really kind of define the actions of their administration.
But we don't have that. We've got we have a war state administration bureaucracy
that is a war footing bureaucracy that is actively under Since Donald Trump, they
got their courage to really be very open and the agendas that they push and
absolutely wild things and push boundaries everywhere. And Joe Biden has won his White
House as zero interest in controlling it because they like it. Yeah, And
I don't think even if Joe Biden did have an interesting constraining I don't see
him having the capacity to actually do so. A much more vibrant and younger
Joe Biden would not have the capacity I think to do so at least would
be very pushed very hard. So. But whether or not the American voters
care or reject that, it still is thanks a lot suburban Republican women a
lot about feels the vibes of these different guys, and Joe Biden still has
still has probably significantly better vibes than Donald Trump does to a more sensitive soul.
Although the senility I think has has gotten to a point where it was
bad in twenty twenty, but it's much much worse now. Not gonna even
to hide him as much on the campaign trail as I previously. But if
it's just scripted events, I mean, then there's a certain sector of society
that's just kind of close off entirely to that. I was having dinner unfortunately,
probably my life, and I was some old family friends a few weeks
ago, and I was actually complimenting Biden on something talking to someone else,
and I said, well, you know, he was just too senile to
get this warning. So we actually pushed it through, talking about the withdrawal
from Afghanistan, that where the generals had lied to Obama, they'd lied to
Trump and again and Joe Biden's ignored them. And our host flipped, absolutely
flipped. One's a doctor, retired doctor, one's a nurse, saying you're
not a doctor, how dare you? Joe Biden is perfect. You will
not be insulted in this home. It got really ugly, but it was
a glimpse into a set of people who just really hate Trump so much.
Well, the view, I mean, did you see the view actually defending
vigorously defending Joe and Hunter Biden's treatment of Navy the seventh grandchild. It was
exactly to your point, that's awful. It was utterly brain dead. They
were blaming conservatives for making an issue of it. Marine down is obviously not
a conservative like known conservative marine doubt, but that was their line, Like
it was, their brains could not compute, and it was just reflexive.
You know, they made COVID partisans, they made masks partisans. Seems partisans.
So the doctor taps on your knee and you reflexively kick out. For
so many people, that's what it is. You criticize Joe Biden when he's
in this binary Trump versus Biden, you're immediately just going to kick out and
say Rebublican's bad, when in fact we're talking about a man who who claims
to be so decent and claims to be I mean, he talks all the
time about how he loves being a grandfather, ignoring a child that is his
own flesh and blood, his son's flesh. Another reality, aside from the
fact that most American families, almost all American families have seen close hand the
effects of age on loved ones and how it changes people, which is why
we all recognize it. And Joe Biden, a lot of American families know
the reality of children born out of marriage or unexpected children. It's this is
it's the sad reality of our modern society that that's it's become more and more
and more common and parents. It does strike a chord with people who reject
the idea of rejection as opposed to I can't believe you did that. What
were you thinking? Where's the baby? I can't wait to cuddle it.
Think it's like the reaction, maybe a more sane reaction so people can feel
it, but we're just so tribal at this point. I don't I don't
really know if people are going to vote on it. This was an interesting
So I was watching Molly on Special Report last night, so Wednesday after Ray
testified, and they went to one Williams First and Special Report and asked about
race testimony, and one Williams trotted out a line of defense about Christopher Ray
being a member of the Federalist Society and being how could you possibly it is?
It's sort of laughable to imagine Christopher Ray as this arch anti Republican villain
who is sitting atop his purchase, this kind of guy and and pulling the
strings. What do you mean by it's kind of true? I don't think
he is an arch villa, and I think Republicans are kind of going up
to the wrong people or it's the DOJ this play, and it's just Christopher
Ray is probably a company man in a stude who's not prepared to fight back
against the fully politicized FBI. But that makes him he's not an arch He's
not pulling strings. I don't think I think he's I think he's a company
man. I think he's a people pleaser. I don't think he's like raided
the pro life doctor. Yeah. I don't think there's any answers behind that.
And we saw that when he kind of pushed back on Adam Shift to
be like he's like, you know, there was domestic parism before January six,
And when he pushed back on another Democratic congresswoman, she said, actually,
the attacks on abortion centers haven't been happening. We've been seeing attacks on
pro life center now. I love Ship Roy's line of questioning on this when
Ray said when he was hacking, He's like, how about this obvious abuse
of power. What about this obvious anti Christian targeting by the FBI, what
about this crack down? What about dropping this case? He's like, I'm
not going to question the judgment of my allegians, and ship Roy goes,
that's your job, hired. What are you talking about? Like, your
job is to oversee and question the judgments of the people who work for you.
I think that Christopher Ray is very much just a company man who's gonna
he was he was, he was cut out of the loop on the anti
Catholic stuff out of the Richmond office, and he cracks down and of course,
you know disciplinary measures, you're never actually going to see those. I
don't think he's remotely capable of writing the ship of the FBI and rooting out
the partisanship in it and getting it back to where it should be. But
I don't think that's He's not a comy. He's not those guys who let
it down that path. He's not an America Garland of the DOJ. He's
just kind of a stooge. That's very much the person that should be the
target of conservative approbrium, though because increasingly the idea of being a company man
at the FBI means rubber stamping instigations, and that is in some ways,
it's like, it's interesting because to the point that one Williams was making about
Christopher Ray, it's it's laughable to think of him as the sort of anti
conservative arch villain. And Molly had a great response to that, by the
way, But what did she saying, because I'm sure she thinks that might
just gave you like a really cucky answer. I don't know, I don't
know. I mean she she laid out the case, you know that the
sort of thirty thousand foot big picture case of what Christopher Ray has overseen,
since it's what he's overseen a is awful. Yeah, I just don't know
if he's I don't think he's ordering it, and I don't think he's controlling
it. And I think he's just trying to So I think that's what's interesting,
right, I think that's what's interesting because actually it is true that a
lot of the leadership like call me or whatever at the FBI probably did vote
for like both bushes, um, you know, right, like they really
probably are like generally supportive. Ine, Yeah, did you read his book?
Did you? Okay, you didn't read the whole thing. Oh,
then I would be like, Chris is insane. There was just at the
beach. There's this one part where he's writing about his first day at the
FBI and his predecessor had this rule, like only white shirts. That was
his rules. We're gonna be very traditional. And he's like, on my
first day at the FBI, I wore a blue shirt. No one said
anything, but they noticed. It's like you fruitcake, you absolute fruitcake.
Be careful, your head's gonna hit the ceiling fan if you floating higher.
Unreal And that's like the I think this the ridiculous way he's he's a whack
out. I don't think you'd ever see chrispher Ray talking like that. Well,
Christopher Ray has overseen the collision between big tech and the FBI, which
has been pretty pretty immense. And yeah, but this is I actually think
that's a really interesting point because there is this class of elite leaders in Washington,
DC. Some of them are lobbyists, some of them work for you
know, the FBI, the DJ just like the pull political class is probably
the best way to put it. And a lot of them probably are like
registered Republicans or they'll they'll vote for you know, Evan McMullin if they're forced
to, or they vote that maybe they know, voted for Mitt Romney.
Those kinds of people, Um, they voted for Obama and oh wait and
then they got upset about the economy and they pulled the trigger for Mitt Romney
in twenty twelve. There are a lot of those kinds of people who are
now making decisions that feel totally normal to them, like, of course we
should work with of course, of course Facebook and Twitter should be meeting every
single week with the FBI. Actually, what we saw after the Missouri v.
Biden ruling on CNN and MSNBC, one of the one of the people
I think this was on MSNBC that was saying, this is not really you
know, if this censorship stops or this collusion stops, that's not really a
world we want to live in. That is a totally normal, seemingly nonpartisan
or even like transpartisan viewpoint among the political class, among the whether you are
like saying, sort of deranged anti Trump weirdo, or you are just the
yes man, like a Christopher Ray, that seems obvious to you at this
point, and so even I think that's what's so dangerous about this time in
history at the FBI is like, these people have immense power and they are
convinced that the other side, you know that it's Republicans. It's the shift
of the Overton window is so massive, saying Republicans and Democrats versus the unwashed
unwashed masses, and the unwashed masses are becoming so dangerous they need to be
controlled. Where you're having weekly meetings with the FBI and Twitter and Facebook,
and they're sending FBI agents over to Twitter, which thank goodness Elon Musk got
rid of. Yeah, the windows shifted so much on that. I remember
one of the last press conferences of the Obama presidency after Trump had won the
election, was this fast reporter after reporter for reporter begging the White House Press
secretary, I can't remember it was Gibbs or somebody, what do you going
to do about this? This information the obvious lives on social media. That
obviously got the worst dictator in the world ever elected president. And it was
to his credit the spokesman was like, there's a First Amendment. Government cannot
do this. Well, I have been seeing the Press secretary of the White
House having to remind the press over and over again that he's not allowed to
control their speech. Was just creepy and weird to watch. And the future
White Houses were like, but what if? What if we actually do it?
Jensaki like commanded Facebook, Yeah, just censored, you must do this.
Yeah, but the windows shifted. I mean I wrote a piece for
the for the Common Sense Society substack on Friday, which everyone subscribed to immediately,
the about the shift in just a few years ago. There is interesting
stuff on it. I've been reading it. Yeah, there's a few years
ago. The idea of we need to call our cattle herds because farts are
leading to cow farts are leading to global warming was like a really stupid thing
that maybe would say, but everyone has laughed at. The New York Post
would mock Fox News, wo run a couple of numbered segments on it and
make fun of it. Move on the Five would talk about it. And
now you see it from the ostensibly moderate mayor of New York City, mayor
of the world. You see it not just in Europe, in the Netherlands,
where they're forcing cattle farmers to cull their hords or herds or shut down
their business because they say that nitrogen emitted by literal life and the food that
we eat is going to kill us all with a global warming. And you're
seeing it from the American moderates, and people are just saying, Yeah,
we're gonna band pizza upns now no more, We're not going to burn wood
anymore. These are these are stone age technologies heat eat meat and cooking it
with fire. But we're gonna get rid of it because and so the what
was wild, I'm not even gonna get into the trans stuff is now so
normal that people just The New York Post makes fun of it, Fox News
makes fun of it, The Daily Color makes fun of it, The Federals
makes fun of it, California does it, and ten you're lighter law of
the land, right right. It's a rapid, rapid shift. And that's
where I think the Christopher Rays of the world are so dangerous. Yeah,
you know, let's say, for the sake of argument, he is not
on that sort of level of weirdness as James Comey. But he's just you
know, this rubber stamp yes man. People aren't fighting back, they're not
rolling back. If he is a rubber stamp yes man, it's because he
fundamentally shares the worldview that so many people in elite circles who don't send their
kids to the same school, don't worship in the same places, aren't in
the proverbial bowling leagues or the modern equivalent of that, with the so called
unwashed masses, that they are able to sort of brush aside, cast aside
the Trump. Anybody who voted for Trump that they know in their life is
probably a wealthy Trump voter, and probably they don't know many of those to
begin with, but they really don't. They've probably read one of these books
or they listened to a podcast about why rural disenfranchised people, Hispanics, whites
are interested in Donald Trump, but they don't fundamentally respect those people or see
their dignity because they don't spend time immersed in the same communities with people around
the country. You're just normal, decent folks who have been screwed over by
the system, lied to by the media, as we all have been over
and over again, and see Donald Trump is the answer to that, and
are good, fundamentally good people who just happen to have a disagreement with them.
They don't see them that way. Anymore because they're insulated from it.
Charles Murray writes about our transition to super zips that you know, we don't
share the same spaces, we don't share the same taste interests anymore, and
that is a change from earlier times in American history. And when you have
powerful people isolated in those super zips, you're going to have exactly what we
see at the FBI right now. It's it's like not just a class issue,
but it's now sort of been translated into this Sorr'm already talked about that
and responses Supreme Court. We'reing you got attacked a lot in social media,
but you actually read the articult super interesting about how great we've gotten read of
the affirmative action thing. But we haven't solved the problem of American colleges being
elite institutions at the higher levels that produce basically elite bug eating warm people have
nothing to do with the normal. And you know, Jeffersonian America classles America
is absolutely a gas at the society that we've built. Ben I think Ben
wrote it. Had a good article in the Spectator about earlier this week about
two viral moments from two America's Yes, I loved that. And one was
the picture from Jimmy Kimmel's eight million dollars Idaho fly fishing lunch, you know,
which is a pretty cool thing to have. And then the picture I
don't even know those people Jennifer Anderson, Jimmy Fallon, Courtney Cox and O
those people, John Mulaney, Olivia Munn, Adam Scott, Jason Bateman.
Wasn't he an American psycho? Jason Bateman? Patrick Bateman is the care Yes,
Shirley Applebee, a guy from snow Patrol. Jake Tapper was there for
some reason, Like it's like I'm going fly fishing in then Idaho. M'st
to invite Jake Tapper. I mean I could see inviting like according coxs mallivery
amount of Jennifer Aniston, But I don't know about the rest of those guys.
Uh. And then you compare that to you know, Donald Trump at
their UFC fight. Oh that taking pictures like Joe Rogan's there, guy like
like Guy Fieri is like shaking hands in the president. What's that awesome comedian
who was there taking taking pictures of them? Are good? Up? Bro?
Uh, that's the tale of two completely different Americas and the moral scorn.
Did that table of like unhappy wealthy people has Yes, for all those
people who are an absolute blast at UFC is wild. I want to know
if they actually fly fished at the Idaho Lodge. Probably. I mean I
used to go on these trips and I really had a good time on them,
where there's a lot of if you have enough money, you can do
these awesome trips that are basically stimulated manhood. Yes, yes, they're like
the Rutaporia. But fly fishing is difficult. Yeah, I got But if
you had pretty bad fly fishing, she probably has a like a property caretaker.
Who I hope someone warned, Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah,
I hope someone war them because first time I went fly fishing in Wyoming I've
been fly fishing, showed up in like a bathing suit in a T shirts.
So if she weared the beach not again. All all my guys are
dressed like Tuskegee Sandman, Like, just's not an ounce of skin showing.
Yeah, I'm like hey, and like I like your style, dude.
And I didn't have bold move, I didn't have the right glasses. I
can see through the water yeah, so I'm just I'm just looking at broad
reflection. I got hooked by Alex Pappas like five times. I got zero
fish and I got sun poison name so bad that I was like under a
hot water shaking with cold and dry heaving in the shower, and no one
believed I was sick because I wasn't complaining. I was like, I'm gonna
skip the guys drunk again. They dragged me out to dinner, and they
only realized when you went to the million dollar cowboy bar afterwards, and I
didn't even order a beer. I just sat there. They're like, oh,
man, Bedford must be ill. So if you do, go fly
fishing at Jimmy Kimel's lodge, dress appropriately, get the right sunglasses. We
hope you're listening, Olivia Month. And in fact we know you're listening because
something tells me when you think Olivia Moun, you think conservative podcasts, Well
she turns in for a Bedford Day. Yeah, well, oh that's right
she does. In fact, I think she sometimes drops us a line at
radio at the Federalist dot com and says, this is Olivia Month. Really
enjoyed Chris Bedford's recent appearance no, no, tell him to keep being him,
never gonna stop. Let Chris be Chris. All right, well,
Chris, thank you so much for joining us. You can read Chris's article
over at the Telegraph, and you can follow his work at the Common Sense
Society sub stack, where he's the executive editor. Absolutely all right. Well,
you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emilija
Shinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, people lovers of freedom and anxious for the prey held o