Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You Were Wrong with Molly Hemingway
and David Harsani. Just a reminder, if you'd like to email the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We love to
hear from you. Molly. I want to start today's show with a quote
from Donald Trump, president, former President of the United States, presidential candidate
for the presidency g OP. Molly Hemingway is a very smart woman exclamation point.
I can't really do any impressions of him. This is a show trial.
There is no actual crime or evidence. Molly Hemingway respected by everyone.
By the way, it's so weird to read it because without his like intonation,
right, smart women. Yeah, by the way, that was the
President of the United States outside of his trial, quoting from a column I
believe you wrote, or maybe it was a Fox appearance. I don't know
what he was quoting. Actually, yeah, I actually don't know either because
I've kind of talked about this show trial so much, but I assume it
was from Outnumbered. That day I was on Outnumbered up in New York talking
about it, because that was the day that Michael Cohen like admitted that he
had stolen all this money from Trump, and then they brought him back for
redirect and he explained that yes, he had stolen the money, but only
because he hated Donald Trump. And it was like the worst redirect I've ever
heard, and you know I've heard of. Are you surprised that crazy?
Yeah? That's what congratulations? I mean, Lesson, that's a president of
the informer president talking about you. That was just did you ever dream as
a young child that the president would be quoting you to make his case?
Well, I don't have to dream it, David, because he did it
as president sometimes. And one thing that I did that I think is really
funny. I don't remember who I mean when you were younger, are not
now? Go On? Oh yeah, no, that's very it's very odd.
But I actually that sounded weird the way I said it. But I
was just going to say when he used to tweet, and I do miss
those days. You know how every sane human being says, thank god Donald
Trump's not tweeting anymore. I actually missed the tweets. That's how weird I
am. But they just repeat all his tweets from truth social on Twitter,
so we do get a taste. It's different. I don't know, but
actually I'm pretty sure Sean Davis taught me this. Yes, you take the
tweets where he mentions you, and you frame them in cheap gold frames.
And so I have a bathroom in my house that has tweets from Donald Trump
framed in gaudy gold frames. And my favorite version of this is one time
he insulted Brett Baer somehow he or he complimented him, but like not really.
I don't remember exactly what it was, but I framed it in a
cheap gold frame and gave it to Brett Baer. He thankfully has a very
good sense of humor about it. I remember, I think it was twenty
sixteen or twenty seventeen, and I was like bashing him all the time,
but I wrote a column defending him. People find that weird that you would
do that, but I try to do that anyway. He retweeted it,
and I think it got like a million hits, Like it was just incredible
his Twitter, like not just his followers, but the activity his tweets would
produce as far as like mentioning you would be huge. Anyway, I think
it's awesome and it's funny, and it just must be so surreal because it's
Donald Trump, Like, it's just so weird. Anyway, he was at
the Michael Cohen he was at the trial. Oh wait, can I say
what? Yeah? Yeah, I did find it interesting because sometimes I don't
watch TV news so much. I get my news by reading that. Immediately,
my phone just completely lit up, and I didn't understand what was happening
at first because it was just all these people with OMG or oh wow,
this is insane, and I'm like, what is going on because I'd just
gotten off a train and was headed to a dinner. But then my mom
called me and she explained it. I jumped into action and insulted your movie
pics. Thank you. Yes. So my sister, my older sister,
is the best sister in the whole world, and we have a very good
relationship. But one time she told me that she at her place of work
encountered someone who figured out that I was her sister and complimented me and said
that I was just so thoughtful, and she just when I talk, she
stops and listens. And my sister said, that's not my experience. So
when you ripped on me on Twitter, I was like, oh, David
and my sister the only ones you know keeping eye. I believe your sister
from what And this is not to brag. I believe as a fan of
mine. Oh huge, Yeah, so she knows what she's doing. Can
I talk about the trial lately? Lately? Whenever I started talking, You're
like, one more things. I just want to make sure clear the decks.
So the trial, Alvin Bragg's trial, which is just such a debacle,
continues to go on. And we learned this week on Cross right on
Cross, that Michael Cohen had stolen I keep I see varying reports as at
thirty thousand or sixty thousand dollars from the Trump worked out to be sixty k.
But I don't know exactly how it worked out to be sixty k.
Now for what I got to thirty k. Yeah, from what I gather,
he sort of bragged about it. Right. The crime of stealing sixty
embezzling sixty thousand dollars from your employer is, in my book, a worse
crime than putting your name on the even if Donald Trump was guilty of putting
your name or aang for something, an NDA or whatever, you know,
with the wrong pot of money, which is money's fungible anyway, So the
whole thing's ridiculous even if it were true. And yet, do you think
now that Alvin Bragg is going to press charges against against Michael Cohen and put
him on trial. I shouldn't he made it under oath? I don't know.
I don't even know if it would be under the statute of limitations.
I don't think he would press charges even if it were. And you might
remember that to get around the fact that the non crime that Donald Trump is
as alleged to have committed, in order to charge it, they charged it
in a different way to get around to statute of limitations issue there too.
But yeah, embezzling money from your boss is far, far, far,
far worse crime than supposedly not marking where an NDA arrangement was itemized in your
business documents, Like, it's not even close. And so the idea that
he can come in there and just admit to embezzling money and that's their star
witness, the only witness they have to corroborate whatever they're trying to claim.
What a disastrous witness I mean, And I don't think that that should surprise
anyone, and you know, the guy like reeks of Shyster, you know,
and to make him your lead witness seems problematic. Though. Let's be
honest, this jury is probably going to convict anyway. But I used to
think that it was like maybe five percent, you know, there was a
five percent chance they wouldn't convict. I think I'm putting it up now to
like fifteen or twenty percent chance that they will not convict Donald Trump. So
I assume that the entire show trial is about answering the question do you hate
Donald Trump? And I think the people who went in there hated him,
and they're coming out of there hating him. I do wonder if engaging in
a show trial and sort of being a willing participant in that, even with
this horribly corrupt judge. And I'll just point out he just gave jury instructions
that were designed to secure a quick and easy convictions, soh uh. You
know, it makes it even harder to imagine what I'm about to say.
But like maybe someone there says, I just don't feel good about myself by
being part of this show trial, and I'm not gonna go along with it.
But would that person be willing to withstand all the pressure from fellow New
Yorkers. You just want to see a conviction. It's for me, it's
the dream. I would love to be on that jury. It would be
the dream to be the one of twelve saying no. I mean that used
to be the American dream. That's the why there were movies and plays and
books written about that one juror who's like no, who turns everyone around.
So for me, it would be the dream. But I don't think it's
going to happen. No. Yeah, and I assume in fact, my
question to you would be how long will they take before they return the guilty?
Pretty quick? Pretty quick? Pretty quick? I mean, I just
don't know what the what is though? Is there a punishment phase in this
trial or something like encin phase. I don't know what is the I know
they just want to say he's a convicted criminal. Right. This will be
two reasons or three reasons to do this. One is just that law fair.
Regardless of the quality of what you're going with, it just takes time
and money, and time and money when you're running for president are incredibly important
things. And just keeping him in a courtroom and keeping and making all of
his funds have to go to like a defense on this insane show trial thing.
That's one reason. Two is so that they could bring out all the
lurid details of the alleged like activity that led to this. And I'll just
point out the judge said Smoky Daniels could come out and talk at length about
every little thing about this supposed encounter, and even though that encounter has literally
nothing to do with the charges that haven't even been really identified. But when
Bradley Smith, former FEC chairman, was wanting to come in to talk about
election law, which does relate to this trial, the judge said it wasn't
relevant and he couldn't come in and talk about any of that all the Then
the third thing, though, is so that they can say he's a convicted
criminal. I just want to quickly see if you'll be overturned on appeal.
They'll be able to say that soon for sure. For sure, I just
won't quickly say on the sexual stuff that Smoking Daniels was talking about, it
was just completely meant to try to embarrass Don Trump. I mean, that's
all that was about. There is no imagine this, imagine the reverse imagine
a man going up there and talking about a sexual relationship he had with unco
cooperated right, we don't know if even if it's true. Just talking about
all the specifics, you know, it's just lurid on purpose and meant to
embarrass the former president. I read your quick headline from MSNBC. Did you
see this one? No, it's how Michael Cohen's past lies make him a
more credible witness. I like it by Hayes Brown. Yeah, yeah,
something. Although I saw something like that from another media outlet. It might
have been The New York Times. And again, am I naive? Like?
I totally get that there are different feelings about Donald Trump, there are
different feelings about politics, and that they're legitimate and deeply held. But how
could you write something like that and feel and like look yourself in the mirror.
I got to be honest with you. I don't know how people write
a lot of things they write today and look themselves in the mirror. But
I will say this, the left has convinced themselves that Donald Trump is hitler.
So anything you need to do to stop Hitler now has moral standing.
You know, in your mind, you've convinced yourself that you can do this,
and that's why you say columns like this, That's what I think.
Why do you not see more people coming out and doing the are we the
baddies? Thing? You know? From that mitchellin web Look, I actually
yeah, I actually explained that that the the There are these Nazis and they're
talking about how they're firing on someone, and then one of the Nazis is
like, wait a minute, are we the baddies? And he starts thinking
through like what they're doing, and he's like, are we the ones who're
bad? It'll give you two examples actually of this that happened that I saw
this week. One is Joy Behar of the view being challenged by Bill Maher
on how even when she believes that Bien is doing something wrong, she will
not criticize him because she's nervous that that might convince one of her viewers to
vote for Donald Trump. So giving an inch now on Donald Trump is impossible
for people who are so wrapped up in whatever, you know, his success
or failure that they cannot they just simply cannot give an inch, no matter
what the other was, Bill Crystal, I forget what the issue was.
Oh it was about the Supreme Court Court and Clarence Thomas, and he,
you know, someone pointed out that he was once a big fan not long
ago, and he says I was wrong. Now, the problem here is
with him is that if every single thing you believed in the past changes to
comport and align with everything Democrats are now saying, you know, just because
of Donald Trump. I think that's like the perfect kind of exemplar of how
not exemplar, but the perfect example of how Donald Trump can can corrode your
principles and everything. Don't get me wrong, I think he can work both
ways, but you know, the Bill Crystals of the world think it only
works one way when he is the perfect example of how it can just destroy
you. So this is a minor thing, but I'd seen that some left
wing reporter had deferred to my comments on the show trial as a defense of
Donald Trump. And I have no problem defending Donald Trump, obviously, I've
spent years doing it when it's called for. But in my view, defending
rule of law is so much more important than defending Donald Trump. And might
you know again, I think Democrat law fair runs the risk of destroying the
entire country once you successfully use the courts to destroy a political opponent, which
is what their goal is. There's sort of no going back, and we're
already in such a fragile state that I think this is an existential threat to
the country, and so I don't mind it being called a defense of Donald
Trump. I don't. I think it's like silly that people get upset at
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miss shout out to Eddie Scary. I don't like Donald Trump, and I
am perfectly willing to defend him here because his trial is a joke, and
anyone who actually looks at knows it's a joke. And the thing Democrats are
doing with this law fair is a joke across the board, even the one
trial where there might be a crime. In my opinion, the classified document
case has been proven a joke right now, not just because they won't prosecute
Biden for the same thing, but now we're hearing about how you know the
CIA perhaps helped set him up. I mean, there's no way around that.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist but that is what happened. So I
think anyone who cares about the rule of law and process and norms and all
that knows this is nonsense. Which brings me if we're ready to the next
topic, sure, which is similar in my opinion in many ways. I
wonder if you'll agree, is the campaign of the left, from the media
to politicians to institutions to delegitimize and destroy the Supreme Court because they don't like
some of the decisions that are coming out there. And now, obviously they
have focused mostly on Clarence Thomas in this effort. They've smeared him in every
way. They've called him corrupt, even though the guy does never deviates from
his judicial philosophy to help anyone, much less himself or anyone else on you
know. But now it's Alito. So there were two stories that came out
last week smearing Alito. One was incredibly stupid. The other one was,
I don't even know what to call it, one of the dumbest things I've
ever seen. So the first one was about the upside down flag that flew
in front of the Alito household. I think, briefly, I don't know
how briefly it was hard for me to figure that out, which they say.
The New York Times says, oh, here's the headline from New York
Times hip piece at Justice Alito's house, a stop to Steal symbol on display.
We learned that that stopped to steal steel symbol was a revert like an
upside down flag, which is actually used by left and right. It just
means distress, right, countries in distress something. I forget the exact wording
they use, but I think I have that right right. So, there
are multiple problems with this New York Times hit piece by Jodi Kant. So
the first one was that she invented something that's not true, which is to
claim that the upside had flag was a symbol of stop the steal. And
I would highly recommend people read Margo Cleveland's piece at the Federalist. She was
a permanent law clerk for a federal judge and one of her jobs for like
six or eight years was about the judicial code of conduct. So she's an
expert on judicial code of conduct. So she wrote a piece about that experience
and how in analyzing this story. But the first point she makes there is
that at the time you had a bunch of left wing media outlets talking not
just about stop the steal symbols, but stop the steel flags, and CNN
did a storyline hear all those stop the steel flags. At no point did
they mention an upside down American flag, which is traditionally flown as a sign
of distress. I learned this actually after the twenty sixteen election, when a
bunch of my neighbors in my neighborhood started flying the flag upside down as a
sign of distress. By the way, I do not love that. This
is gonna sound so simple, but like if you're if you see that,
that's supposed to be a signal like that person needs help. And so you
don't want to like tell your neighbors like we need help in this house,
if that's not actually what you're trying to say. But so the whole like
sort of like exciting headline of the piece was false. It was a lie.
It was made up by Jodi Cantor and her editors. But the second
issue is that they said the fact they actually like downplayed what actually happened here.
If you know Justice Alito, or know anything about him, you know
he's like the most sober minded individual you may ever encounter the you know,
he had nothing to do with this. He's married to a really like,
super smart and interesting woman who who's you know, got a fiery personality.
And she had a negative encounter with one of her neighbors who called her the
C word and other things and was just being very very political and charged,
and she responded at some point by flying the flag upside down. Nobody dies,
I just interject quickly. And there was a big supposedly sign that said
f Trump, like right there in front of where kids went to school and
so forth right, absolutely so, So nobody disputes this, except that,
like the New York Times kind of downplayed it to make it seem like just
as Samuel Alito, and I cannot convey to you how out of character this
would be, was like wasting himself up the flagpole to like fly the flag
upside It was for a few hours because when it was discovered that she had
done this, she was encouraged to not do that anymore. It was like,
I would say, it's imprudent for her to do that, right,
absolutely, yeah, yeah, but it is not a violation of the judicial
code of conduct for your spouse to do something that you shouldn't do. You
can ask your spouse not to do something, but they don't have to comply
because they are their own person. So the idea that he would have to
recuse based on the behavior of his wife is insane. But if if we're
going to hold to that standard, that would be very good for conservatives,
of course, because there are all sorts of left wing spouses of federal judges
who are engaged in like crazy activity and crazy activity that even comes before the
court. And then there are also all sorts of like crazy left wing judges
in this country period. Like if you want to talk about judicial code of
conduct, let's talk about march On up in New York, who's just making
a travesty and like potentially destroying the entire country and nobody's really saying or doing
anything. May may I just say a few things here though the wife.
Let's just assume it's true that the wife did it. There are many justices
and judges in the past and now who have siblings, siblings who have a
husband or a wife who are actually involved in politics, work for political organizations,
raise money for opposing candidate, stuff like that. So but more than
that, even if Aledo did this himself, I actually don't think he should
have would have had to have accused himself. Anyway, this was after Donald
Trump had already stepped aside. I think he did it on January seventh,
right, This was like this stuff happened like at the end of January I
believe, like seventeenth to the twenty first. He happened, yes, shortly
before the inauguration, so he didn't have to. But more than that,
it's not just spouses who do this thing. These kinds of things are Ruth
Bader Ginsburg said that if Donald Trump was present, the country was going to
go to hell or something like that. She is just recuse. She never
accused from a single case and that was she herself saying correct and not a
single editorial board or pundit said that she should, And honestly, I don't
think she should have to. The justices are allowed to have political opinions.
They should not the Code of Ethics, if you read it, they're allowed
to engage in non legal activity like justice. Scalia used to talk about his
Catholicism, used to talk about, you know, the importance of free markets
and things like that. He's allowed to talk about what's going on in the
world. He's just not supposed to talk about cases. Now what I prefer
they didn't do that, Yeah, of course, But I don't think there's
any standard that a leader should have to recuse himself here, not in the
New Code of Conduct. Having said that, the real issue here isn't the
fact that The New York Times was posting pictures of the Alito's house a short
period of time after Supreme Court justices have faced assassination attempts in their own homes.
That's not even well, actually, that is the issue, right like
the issue is the left is going to war against the one institution we have
that works right now. Listen, I think if there's a legitimate story and
the New York Times wants to follow it, even if there are assassination attempts,
even if there are, you know, they should follow that story if
it's real. But Jodie Canter is just an anti court activist. She was
at Slay or where that, you know, wherever she was. This is
not This is a it's not it's not a real news story. And that,
to me, that's the real problem with it. It's just it's I
feel like they just kind of there's a stream of stories against the justices,
you know, the originalist justices that compound and create the perception among people who
aren't paying attention that much that there's something wrong, you know, there's something
corrupt going on, that there's something well funded and coordinated campaign to destroy the
Supreme Court. Yes, right, from the left. So even if you're
not paying it, regardless of how that's going to affect the country. Again,
right's the worst thing going in my opinion, and it's even worse maybe
than the lawfair I'm serious. They want to destroy the judicial branch of this
country so that President Biden can do whatever he wants without any kind of President
Biden. I mean, it's a long term strategy so that the left in
general can control everything, all the agencies, all that. You know,
they just want power and this has just been terrible. But anyway, what
I mean though, is that it's not people think like, oh, we
debunked this one, it's fine, but no, their whole point of this
is to just continue to pile on the stories. With a crush of stories,
you create perceptions, and you can see the Supreme Court's standing among Americans
this has fallen, so it's working, so you know. But anyway,
there was another story. I forgot the guy. I think it's Chris Grinder
Grider who used to be a BuzzFeed He has a blog or something, and
everyone picked it up. The ethical the problem was that there was an ethical
standard or scandal with a leado because he sold an iSER Busch stock in August
of twenty twenty three in the midst and the height of the bud Light boycott
over Peasant's name. Does this person have like a sixth grade education? Like
what is what is the claim? I don't even understand the claim. So
the claim is participating. He's shown that he's anti transgender person because he's participating
in the selling of stock and then on the same day buying another stock,
which proves that it was political. Well, I did do a little dive
into this, and August fourteenth is when he sold between one thousand and fifteen
thousand dollars worth of the stock. So that is not the height of the
boycott. In fact, that was the low. Alito held onto the stock
way too long. He should have sold it way earlier. It was already.
Yeah, that's the scandal. He's already rebounding here the boycott again in
eight role August. By August it was petering out more than that. I
don't know why he maybe he bought he bought what was the stockyboard, Corse
stock, because he thought that their prospects were better because they didn't you know,
they weren't upsetting half the country or whatever. But the idea that you
can't sell there is literally nothing in the ethics Code that says you're not allowed.
First of all, if Aldo came out tomorrow and said, yep,
I sold that stock because I didn't like who they were employing, that's a
completely normal ethical thing for him to do. There's no, he's not.
There's there's no bud light case in front of the Supreme Court. By the
way, you have left wing justices getting four or five six million dollars in
book deals and then overseeing cases that include you know that that have to do
with companies that were involved in giving them that money, and yet no one
asks them to accuse. So I don't know. I so just you know,
though, when you do old stock, buy stock, sales stock,
as a Supreme Court justice, you do, that can cause recusal issues.
So if Anheuser Bush were to come before you and you held stock on it,
you know, you have to you have to make a decision about whether
that affects whether you can hear the case or not. Yeah. But if
you're holding a ton of stock for an oil company and that oil companies for
the Supreme Court, yeah, that might be a need you might need to
refuse yourself for sure. One of things that's challenging about this again, though,
is that in some of these federal judge families, you have a wife
who owns stock and you own stock, and you file taxes together separately or
whatever it is. But like it still can cause issues and it's a challenging
situation. I'll give you an issue. Elena Kagan, who helped craft Obamacare
policy and the defense of Obamacare policy being put on the court and then hear
in cases about Obamacare just to recuse herself. I mean, she might have
recused hersel from one specific case where she was actually had like so obviously participated.
But I mean this is just a new That's the thing all of this,
all of this stuff, including the trial Alvin Bragg trial, is that
the left just creates new standards for conservatives that have never existed and definitely will
never exist for the left. So they just hold people to standards don't exist,
that are completely made up, right, And you know, it's like
how they It always reminds you of how they call everything. If there's something
they don't like and there's no law to stop, but they call it a
loophole. It just becomes a loophole, not an existing, normal legal thing,
your ocasional loophole. So this is just the same sort of thing,
but more and more dangerous. I think they're going to succeed. It's really
a downer. I mean, I think they're going to destroy the Court,
which, as you mentioned, is the only properly functioning institution in America right
now, and that is going to be disastrous because then there will be no
limiting principle on governance in the United States anymore. It's going to be it.
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Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I read your tweet,
Molly from Bette Midler, singer and actress. Yeah, can you imagine
what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had claimed the election was stolen? Oh?
I saw that tweet and I was like assuming that it had to be
fake. You know, sometimes people pretend to be celebrities on social media and
it was a way of making her seem really really stupid, And then I
realized it was one hundred percent real. She really tweeted that, Like,
we don't have to imagine bet because we lived through it and it was really
damaging and really awful. And it does also show like, wow, these
people are in echo chambers, media echo chambers that I mean, I've unfortunately
run across her tweets before. She's not very bright, but as I know,
there are a number of times, a number of times where Hillary Clinton
claimed that the twenty sixteen election was not on the level that it was putin
had won it, that we still don't know what happened. And you know,
that makes sense since she literally came up with the whole Russia coclusion oaks
herself, I mean, not by herself, but she was behind it.
So she was just spreading the conspiracy that she Yeah, yeah, she and
the Democratic National Committee. Oh. I was actually thinking about this relating to
the Alvin braggtrial, because the Hillary Clinton campaign was actually in New York,
wasn't it, like famously headquartered out of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, And one of
the things they did is that they to orchestrate the Russia collusion scam. They
funneled money through their law firm. They claimed that it was legal expenses.
Then Perkins Cooey, their law firm, hired the Fabulousts who fabricated the Russia
colusion scam. And they didn't just fabricate it, they fabricated and spread it.
So these were people who like went to the media and tried to get
everybody to write about how Donald Trump was secretly a Russian spy. And at
no time did Alvin Bragg bring charges. And you even had there that the
FEC did find Hillary Clinton for that lying about what she was doing with the
legal expenses. I think she was fined like one hundred k. But anyway,
the Russia collusion scam, paying one hundred k is a bargain for being
able to run a soft coup against the guy who beat you, by the
way, like anyone would pay that at that level. But I was noticing
also that they're running the Russia collusions scam again, and it's, you know,
so exhausting to like look at it. But last week Joe Scarborough and
his Morning Joe show spent like a half hour on Russia collusion and they're claiming
now that his Republicans in Congress who are coordinating with Russia to hurt Joe Biden.
And the entire basis of their claim was this story from the New York
Times, sourced completely to anonymous current and former CIA officials about how Russia is
running these like high level scams, and they had one example of it.
They had no evidence to support that this example even existed, by the way,
but I will just grant that this one example may exist, and it
was featuring a woman who claimed she was in Kiev, say that they used
to run Russian or they used to run troll operations against Russia. But then
people came they were probably with the CIA, she says, and they asked
the Russian or they asked the Ukrainian troll farm to start sending out messages against
Trump to help Biden, and they were like, and none of that is
true. Now, first off, I think we all know that our own
military and other agencies are involved in like high level propaganda in the Ukraine War,
and we, by the way, are completely winning the propaganda war.
They're not winning the physical war maybe, but we're winning the propaganda war.
So it's not like even completely insane to talk about how that propaganda war works.
But so this isn't true, and so therefore we need to ramp up
efforts to fight disinformation suppressing American speech and debate. Because this Russian woman was
claiming to be a woman from Kiev and then claiming that people probably with the
CIA, again, very convincing stuff here in this video that may or may
not exist, told her to go after Trump. It's like the threat posed
by the censorship complex is a gazillion times worse than the threat posed by even
like if this type of stuff is true, which is a huge if there's
like not even much supporting for it. And and I sort of remind people
like in twenty sixteen, we were told that we had to destroy the country
over one hundred thousand dollars spend in Facebook ads from Russians. But what was
left unsaid was like how much of that spend had nothing to do with the
election, Like the vast majority had nothing to do with candidates issues or election
or anything. A lot of it was happening in twenty fifteen when it was
geographically targeted. It was like in Texas and places that didn't matter, you
know. And they called it a digital pearl harbor and that we had to
set up this disinformation complex censorship complex to fight it. And it was really
not a big deal. But the boys at Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe's show were
just like going off like crazy, and they brought on Jennifer Palmiery, who
was Hillary Clinton's communications director. Did not talk about how she set up the
Russia collusion scam. They had her talk about how frustrating it was that when
they did the scam, people didn't always believe that Russia was like the super
bad entity. Oh my gosh, I have five things I wanted to ask
you talk about now it's fine. One is the most important question. Are
we supposed to say Kiev? Now? I thought it was Kiev? Am
I wrong? Is a Keiv? Is that the way Ukrainians say it?
Ukrainians say Kiev, Russians say Kiev. Oh so if I say Kiev,
I'm on the wrong side of history. And it kind of annoys me because,
for you know, many hundreds of years we've said Kiev like chicken Kiev,
and now we're supposed to change it. But it's policy at one of
the places I work at. So I just, oh, interesting, I'm
going to continue to say Kiev and Qatar instead of cutter. That's my policy.
Okay, that's okay with the federalists. I don't care about any of
that. By the way, even if it were true. Although there's always
going to be Russian Russian medaling. There always has been some Russian meddling,
And like you say, I used to care somewhat, but now I don't
care because it's an excuse to censor Americans. Moreover, I want to meet
the single voter first who has ever changed their mind on who they're going to
vote for because of some Russian Facebook ad or video or tweet. That person
does not exist. It is a completely concocted, you know, scare speaking
of Qatar. They spent they drop like, and I'm not kidding, six
hundred five hundred million on these universities where we create these cretans and these ignoramuses.
They are a far bigger threat to American life, to speech, to
everything than Russian interference. And no one cares because these people fund a lot
of the institutions that the left, like the Brookings Institution, the you know,
Harvard whatever. So that's and finally, Morning Joe is he's so hilarious.
I mean, that guy, well, there is nothing you could say
that will stop him from simply saying that the Russia colllusions hoax is true.
So I don't think there's much credibility there, and I don't worry too much.
It's kind of like just a real echo chamber there, right, I
mean, MSNBC. No one's changing their mind there, it doesn't. I
mean, it's fun to like bash him, but no, actually I would
push back on that. So the New York Times piece ran like one morning
last week and it happened to be And so it's this like CIA mouthpiece kind
of piece. They ask this report, could you write up this thing about
how there is all this Russia disinformation and make sure it comes out by this
morning? Is kind of how I imagine it's going. Because Senator Mark Warner
had a hearing that morning, where would you believe it he quoted from that
piece that just happened to run in the New York Times that morning. It
isn't that just amazing that a piece sourced exclusively to the CIA ran the morning
of a hearing on the need to fight disinformation in the twenty twenty four election.
So it's not just mourning Joe, it's like the regen And I also,
I do want to say that this New York Times piece had the most
hilarious quote ever. It was so everything's like anonymously sourced except for this quote
from this CIA spokesperson who's denying that they were the people in this video that
may or may not exist, going and telling this woman who's not from Kiev
but claiming to be from Kiev to target Donald Trump. And he's like,
this is an outlandish lie. Take very seriously, the laws restricting us from
doing anything to involve ourselves in domestic political operations. And I literally laughed out
loud when I read that, Like, do you remember people inside the CIA
helped coordinate the former CIA officials all lying about how the Hunter Biden laptop was
Russian disinformation which dramatically affected our elections and also affected like our relationship with Russia.
Didn't someone it was CNN or MSNBC say you don't want to You don't
want to upset the like Donald Trump's upsetting the CIA. You don't want to
do that there. You don't want to get on their bet side, you
know, And yeah, I don't. Here's the thing they're going to say.
If Donald Trump wins there, it's going to be another like you say
in your piece, there will for sure be another Russian hoax, Like I'm
positive of it. It's it's saving democracy and Russia are the only two,
you know, bullets they have right now, and because everything else is going
very poorly for them, whenever, Joe, any poll will show you that
people just do not trust bind on anything. So their only hope is basically
to to you know, to tap into that anti Trump sentiment and you know,
this is how they're going to do it. I don't know how effective
it will be this time, but we're going to see for sure. Yeah.
I just quickly, one last thing on this is that I used to
constantly try to balance because I don't like that other countries get involved in our
elections at all. But it's gotten to the point where I prefer that to
anything that the censorship you know, what do you call it, the censorship
industrial complex is doing to Americans, Like I would rather have Russian ads on
billboards than have the United States government censoring an American from being able to say
whatever he wants in an open forum. You know. Well, and as
Matt Taby has shown in his reporting, so frequently, when they claim that
it's Russian metal, it'll be like a farmer in Iowa who posts a tweet,
you know, and they'll be like, this guy is tied to Russian
military and it's not. You know, they just kind of make the claim.
There's no no substantiation for the claim, and then the media run wild
with it, and other Democrats run wild with it, and then next thing
you know, we've got like massive censorship of the farmer in Iowa. And
everybody who agrees with him, and the art, the media and a lot
and the government has lied to us so many times that we have no real
reason to trust them on this stuff right now. I mean, it's going
to take decades to rebuild that trust. So Molly, I was reading that
in Ukraine President Vladimir Vladimir Zelansky blew past an election again and just disholding power.
And I was just thinking, what would happen if Benjamin Natanaw was like,
we're not going to have elections because we're in the middle of a war
this time, Like, do you think the American government would react to that
favorably? Do you think we would do nothing about it? How do you
think the world would react to something like that? We kind of already know
what's going on here with the US is pressuring Israel to hold elections, so
talking about meddling in other countries elections, Joe Biden is like, I think
that natna who should hold elections so that maybe he can be ousted. And
they're in like the middle of eradicating Hamas right now, so it's not like
the most perfect time to hold elections. I think probably Natanyahu will be done.
You know when, Yeah, but if if the government fell apart,
they would because they actually live in a real democratic system that would impel him
to do it, which other places do not. Okay, but last week
Anthony Blinken goes and visits Voldemir and has a press conference and he's like,
yeah, by the way, we're not having elections here in Ukraine until every
single person can vote. And what he meant by that was that until they
eradicate Russia from these various territories, including Crimea, which is just like nobody
articulated a plan whereby that will happen. And also, by the way,
that was like, to me, really stupid, because Ukraine's problems have always
been that they have these territories that are kind of Russia friendly, then they
have territories that are more Western friendly, and so when they have elections sometimes
the Russian friendly territories dominate. They should totally hold elections while those people can't
vote if they want to shore up efforts against Russia. But anyway, he
announces that there will be no elections held, and then like literally five minutes
later, he's on stage playing with his guitar. Neil Young's rocket in the
free world low point for Neil Young that song, but I also thought it
was maybe not maybe it was totally appropriate because do you remember the context in
which Neil Young wrote that. I assume it has something to do with the
golfer or something, but I don't remember what do with what it was something
of It was something very critical of George H. W. Bush. I
don't rem were the exact context, but it was George HW. Bush,
and George HW Bush and his team of foreign policy experts did a really good
job of handling the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And when that happened,
you had like all these republics that had been just sort of like vassals of
Moscow who were having to get set up and be managed and be incorporated into
the global environment. And I personally believe that George H. W. Bush
and his army did a great job with that. And they warned that like
the one area that hadn't gone as well, or that might be a problem
if it weren't managed properly, was Ukraine. And they said, like,
if you don't keep this as a neutral barrier between the West and Russia,
if you try to take it over as a proxy to like poke the bear,
then you might see Russia invading Ukraine. And so maybe it's a totally
appropriate song for Anthony Blincoln to be playing because Neil Young hated George H.
W. Bush hated his foreign policy, and Anthony Blincoln clearly did too,
and all of his people. Not an expert, but I don't think there
was any real good way to deal with that situation. In the end,
there's just the going back in history. You know, the Russians that live
in Ukraine. There's just a big problem there that I don't know any like,
I don't know that you can hold keep that new traged going. But
anyway, that's not the point here. The point for me is that you're
right. I was going to mention that where Russians are those areas and have
taken those areas are largely Russian ethnically Russian, or there was a big,
you know, majority ethnic Russian population, So having elections and now would actually
help him. But moreover, having an election during wartime is actually very important
because you want to know if your policies are supported by the people. You're
engaged in a war, maybe the people want someone who's more of a you
know, Peacenik, you know who wants Maybe they want to make a deal
with Russian, maybe they want to end the war. This is when you're
supposed to have elections the Israelis. If that government falls apart, which it
may in two weeks, they're going to have an election and they're going to
see what the people really want, how they want to move forward. Do
they want to eradicate Hamas, do they not want you know whatever? And
you know, I just don't think that. Excuse flies, I don't know
if you're totally right there. I mean, I do think it's a well,
I think the real problem with holding elections in Ukraine right now is that
Selensky would probably be ousted, or that they worry that the war is not
as popular among the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying as the media are portraying
it as well. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm saying, but
I just want to say, more than anything, it's just kind of offensive
to be told that you have to do this proxy war with no strategy for
success. Nobody's even like trying to articulate a strategy of success, that you
have to do that in defensive democracy. While also saying we are not going
to allow democratic elections in perpetuity. Basically, I just I'm sympathetic to the
Ukrainian cause, but the problem for me is that we have a government right
now in the United States who treats Israel with us, which I do care
about more than Ukraine. Is what it is in ways that it does not
the state that's supposed to be the bulwark of democracy in the world. And
you know, I just I find the I find their arguments just really hollow
and in destructive in many ways. So anyway, that's that's that's something we're
gonna have to watch. Let's talk about culture. I don't have much this
week, how about you. I don't either. I had to work up
at Fox this weekend in New York, and then also work on stuff when
I wasn't working there, so I didn't have much. But I do.
I don't know if this counts as cultural, but you know, I'm Lutheran
and I go to church every week and up in New York. I have
been visiting New York frequently on weekends for like twenty five years, and it's
just crazy how long I've been up there, and I have visited a ton
of different churches up there, and even when I find one that it has
a beautiful liturgy and good sermon and you know all that, it's like so
hard to get to from from Midtown where I stay. And I was making
preparations to go up to this great church in the Bronx Redeemer for Pentecost because
Sunday was Pentecost. But it's just like the thought of spending an hour and
a half getting up there and then an hour and a half getting back was
just it was a little it was just hard, right. But there's this
church that's kind of nearby that's a Chinese Lutheran church, and I was like
realizing that they had an English speaking service. So I went and it was
fantastic. It was awesome. It was a beautiful sermon, beautiful liturgy,
wonderful congregation. I met all these nice people, like tons of people came
up and made me feel welcome, and it was great. It was in
China, Chinatown. Wow. I didn't I mean not that there shouldn't be,
but I didn't realize there would be enough Lutheran, you know, Chinese
Ethic Lutheran church. It's actually been a church there since nineteen thirty five or
something. So they were very proud of their history too, and I'm just
so happy to have found a place. It is amazing. Like I'm not
a big guy on you know, everything needs to be diverse, but it
is a lot of fun when you're in New York to see like there's a
Lutheran Chinese church, like that's just really gives the flavor of like, you
know, it's cross pollination of all American culture and stuff. You know.
I love Chinatown too. And also it's actually like right across the street from
where the Trump trial is, so there were all these barriers set up like
right at the intersection of the church. I was like, what's going on
here? And they were like, are you serious. I'm like, yeah,
why are there all these barriers? And they were like, there's a
very famous trial happening with former President Trump. And I was like, oh,
oh okay, I'm going to let you use that as your cultural input
there. It's close tona being cultural anything else. Listen, you don't have
to we have no there's no pressure here. I feel like there's got to
be something. I went to Friending Prizes last night. Oh that's a it's
a conservative journalism award zone it's journalism. I was honored to receive at Bradley
Prize. Oh, congratulations twenty year, twenty twenty one. And last night
there were that you could just say last night I was congratulating on winning an
award last night that you didn't win. No, no, And then but
last night the three award winners were fantastic, and Jay Boticharia in particular,
I really loved what he had to say. Uh, and he gave a
very courageous speech against censorship, calling out Francis Collins in particular for his personal
role in censoring and or in squashing the important stuff jay Botichario was saying,
which was basically that the response to COVID should be focused on vulnerable populations as
opposed to what we did do. That's not very cultural either. I'm sorry,
that's pretty good. I tell you a short story about me And when
I worked at a newspaper, we used to have awards, Like journalists live
for awards. It's like basically the most important thing in their lives. So
when the Colorado Like Press Association would never give me any awards, I think
because I'm a conservative, camp couldn't be because I'm not talented. But when
we used to send it out, like you used to farm it out to
a different state to judge, and we would judge there. As I always
want an award, I would always send I would always send non part like
non political pieces that I wrote to see if I can like this writer is
amazing. I don't know if they said that, but I did. I
did. Okay, Sometimes that was not a humble brag. I don't think
a journalistic awards mean very much at all. I watched there's a new John
Mulaney show on Netflix. It's kind of like a weird, weird talk show
called Everyone's In Everybody's In La. I think it had Jerry's ironfeld on and
just this weird stuff I had to say. I just I didn't love it.
Don't know why I bring up things that I didn't love. I just
want to warn people. I didn't think it was that funny. I watched
with my kid some of the Lord of the Rings extended versions. It's like
an extra like hour and a half on them and one and they actually backfill
some of the story lines that and it makes the movie make more sense.
Obviously, it's a big commitment of time, like four hours long. But
I enjoyed that. And of course, most importantly and lastly, I want
to mention that my New York Rangers, my favorite sports team of all time,
longtime fan, maybe thirty five years, are in the conference finals of
the NHL one round away, hopefully not to chrinx them from the Stanley Cup
finals. And that is a very exciting thing for me. Congratulations to you.
That's great. Yeah, you're not a hockey fan, but I just
want to say, sorry, there's something bothering me. I said, particularly
Jay Boticharia. But I don't want to give short shrift to the other two
award winners, who were Samuel Gregg and William barclay Allen, who also gave
great speeches. And Samuel greg he's like the econ guy. I'm a big
fan of his. Yeah, so it was great all around. And are
you familiar with William barclay Allen? A lot of times I jo I'm not
great with names. No, tell me a lot about I loved his speech.
He's just a longtime academic. He was like born in the Deep South,
one of twelve children, and his sounds like this when he talks.
It is so delightful. I mean I could have just listened to him for
hours. But he gave a speech on American character and how it's built on,
like whether you come here as an immigrant or you're born here, you
accept this idea that you are to be self governed and that that really is
what American character is and should be encouraged. And I loved it. It
was just great and he gave it. I mean, lots of evidence for
that from the founders. I mean, I've really changed my mind about that,
and I think immigration only works if people accept that idea, and we
are school systems and everything else have of not taught that to immigrants, do
not teach it to immigrants, and that's a major problem with them. You're
right on the immigrant issue, but it's also not being taught to people who
are born here. It's one thousand percent true. Yeah, there is no
civics education in schools. In fact, there's like a contra civics education in
school that demeans American life and American values. So one of the biggest problems
are public schools, and it's a big difficult problem and the other institutions.
So we have gotten some excellent questions from people for the podcasts will be taping
where you can ask us anything, but definitely make sure you get your questions
in before next Wednesday. I would say, uh, and we've we liked
the ones we have, but like, if there are any others that you
that are burning in your mind, make sure you get them in, So
send an email right now to radio at the Federalist dot com and they'll be
back next week. Until then, the levels from an anxious kid affront now
abits are peace loving folks you know, were never in a hurried