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I'll tell you the ground shakes.
Yeah, pull let me know. Ask

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not what your country can do for
you, ask what you can do for

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your country. Mister Garbachoff, tear
down this wall. It's a Rick j

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podcast. I'm Rob Loong and New
York, joined by Peter Robinson in Palo

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Alto. Our co host Jamesilence is
once again a wall south of the border.

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Stay tuned. We got Matt Continenting
a lot coming up. Let's have

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ourselves a podcast. All of us
felt, in some way or another,

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the earthquake that hit our city around
ten twenty three am. We felt the

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impact of this four point seven magnitude
earthquake when New Yorkers should go about their

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normal day. America is a nation
that can be defined in a single word.

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I was gonna put him. Welcome
to the Rick JE Podcast, number

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six hundred and eighty six. It's
insane. No no, no, just

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lop off one digit one finger,
six eighty six. I'm Rob Long in

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New York, co founder of Ricochet, and with me as always is Peter

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Robinson, my co founder. Peter
in Palo Alto. How are you in

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California? Well, I am suffering
a kind of Bizarro moment the Californian.

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The Californian is about to say to
the New Yorker, how bad was the

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earthquake? And I don't know,
because I didn't feel it. I don't

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know what I was. Actually,
I was either in it, kill you

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to make something up. I was
either in the subway, meaning like somewhere

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in the in the subway system,
either on a subway train or summer.

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Or I was walking on the street
and I just didn't feel it. But

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then, you know, I'll tell
you, I live in a very old

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house in very old part of town, and when a truck goes by,

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the whole house rumbles, and so
you know, for a second, it

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probably would had I felt it,
I probably thought I was just a tructed

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very old. You're you're done in
the village. Very old is now second

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half of the nineteenth century, first
half of the nineteenth century, first half.

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Oh really, Oh okay, all
right, all right, you're in

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the village proper. I'm in the
I'm in the village village proper. In

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fact, so weird. I am
in this fantastic house, which you know,

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I just trust everybody not to,
like, you know, camp out

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front of my house. When I
tell you where I live, I live

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very close to, in fact,
next door to the house that I think.

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I've said this more that Obama's friends
blew up Are you serious? Idea?

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And you could always tell the right
wingedness of the people I'm talking to,

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because the right wingers when I say
that, go, oh yeah,

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I know that house. Yeah,
and the left wingers say, what are

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you talking about. Obama didn't know
anybody who blew the house. Well,

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he did, of course he did. In fact, one of his dear

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friends, Bill Airs, was in
the whole, the whole twisted story of

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those The weather underground is so infuriating. Give us the date ish in the

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early seventies, now the early They're
going to blow up a RTC recruiting center,

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armforce to recruiting center, and they
were going to blow up a bank

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and they were going to kill They
ended up killing a comper security guard for

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which they did. So it's a
couple of burniting dorn Ato time and so

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Bill and so did she just died. I forget her last name. It's

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a weird last name. Boudin.
Yeah, Chessa Boudin's mother, Chessa Boudeen

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was the far left, progressive do
nothing da and San francisco Is were called

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and they would committed murder and they
went to prison and they got out and

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one of them became a tenured professor
at Columbia. So in Columbia University,

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if you say to somebody, if
you're a professor and you say to a

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student, hey, nice shirt,
you will be arrested and fined and fired

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for a sort of microaggression. If
you miss gender somebody, that's out,

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you're out. If you commit murder, you're in. You're a tenured you

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get Yeah. So why did they
blow up the house because they were go

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ahead and tell the story. They
were trying to build a bomb and they

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were barring their their grandmother's house.
Because you know, this now is a

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very, very fancy neighborhood, but
at the time it was really not,

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and it had always been in New
York City kind of a working class,

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you know, not working lass,
middle class, upper middle class neighborhood.

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It was never the fancy neighborhood.
But it's just fancy enough that people at

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the top floor Garrett, where I
lived, was where the Irish maids would

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hang out and or hang out.
That's a nice way of putting it.

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They would live, they would suffer, they would swelter in the summer and

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freeze in the winter. And so
you know, over time, people's grandparents

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decided they can't keep up this house, so they just left it. And

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a lot of these houses were empty
for a long time. And so this

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grandchild, you know, hippie grandchild, so you imagine her grandmother, her

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grandmother must have been, you know, born maybe in the eighteenth nineteenth century,

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right, she built up. They're
building the bomb. But of course

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they're dumb kids, and there's stupid
dilettants, stupid hippies, and they just

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did it wrong, and they blew
them up and they killed I think one

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or two of them died. Unfortunately
they all didn't, honestly considering they went

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on to kill other people. And
they blew the front of the building off,

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and then the side the wall behind
me is you can see that wall.

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That's what's rebuilt in the seventies,
early seventies. And you can always

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tell this building, this house,
because it's the one house on the street

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that doesn't look at all in this
sort of neo federal style or the federal

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I guess the federal style. They
call it. It's got the because the

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facade was redone in the seventies.
You couldn't do that now. If if

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there the terrorists blew up their mom's
grandmother's townhouse today in a historic neighborhood,

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they would have to sort of rebuild
it according to sort of historical standards.

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But back then you could make it
a seventies facade, which is what they

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did. But you can still see
people if you google it Grantwich Village bombing

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Dustin Hoffman because dusn't Hoffan lived in
the garden department. Here, apparently you

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can see dusn't Hoffan. It's a
very picture of dodsn't Hoffin, who was

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by dad there, you know,
pretty much a movie star looking at absolutely

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stunned and shocked at the at the
with his back to all the trouble,

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and there's like fire trucks and rubble
and stuff. It's pretty it's pretty interesting.

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Well that was better than the earthquake. Yeah, so the better the

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earthquake. In fact that I was
walking home and I talked to the guy

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who wants the family who lives downstairs, they owned the house. I said,

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you know, he said, oh, I we got out. The

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insurance people come in to check something, and we're trying to figure out time

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for them to come in, And
I said, what are they worried about?

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This house has been through hell,
including an earthquake. It's fine at

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this point. You know, don't
touch it, don't don't mess up,

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don't don't look to don't look out
of the hood. That's for sure,

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because it's something. Whatever's holding it
together is working so far well. Last

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note on the earthquake. I have
a daughter in here's beginning, her senior

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spring in Hannover, New Hampshire,
who did feel the earthquake. It couldn't

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have been much of a rumble up
there. I have a feeling she may

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have been having trouble getting into getting
her mind into her studies. Yes,

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she's looking for a natural disaster.
To think it was that an earthquake.

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You can just see the saying,
oh great, we have something to talk

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about this morning. Yeah, we
don't have to study. Well. I

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mean it is true. I think
if you are a Californian, I should

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say, well, your kids are
native California's basically that you you kind of

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have this. I mean, I
think you kind of have this attitude where

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you wait, you hear the ground, feel the ground and shaking, and

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you just kind of wait, let's
see, Okay, what's happening now?

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Like is this going to stop?
Is going to keep going? I think

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it's going to come falling down.
I mean, that's the yes. When

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I was when I was in business
school, there were a number of little

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tremors, and I would, because
I was an Easterner at coming to business

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school out here at Stanford, the
first thing I would do is look at

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the Native Californians and see if they
looked worried. And during the nineteen eighty

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nine earthquake, I was in the
office of an accounting professor whose course I

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simply could not follow. I was
stopping to buy to beg for help,

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and he had lived in California for
thirty years. And oddly enough, the

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first thing that I recall is a
kind of sound you could hear the rumble

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before you could feel it. And
his face went instantly white, and he

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said, oh, this is a
bad one, and disappeared under his desk.

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Okay, where do I Where do
I disappear do? I really didn't

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have much of a place. There's
a little table I climbed under the table,

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and that whole building bucked and rolled
and rocked, and the books came

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off the bookshelves. That was an
unambiguous earthquake back in nineteen eighty nine.

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Oh God, yeah, I remember
it. But I was slightly slow to

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get under the table because I thought, wait a minute, I've been through

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these little tremors before. When his
face went white, I knew it was

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different. Yeah, it's also not
a terribly I mean, at least my

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my in my animal reaction to it. I was just trying to remember that

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I was in LA, and then
I was in the LA for eighty nine

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a quake, and then I was
in LA for the ninety four the really

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big one, really really big one
that collapsed the freeways and did a lot

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of damage, The Northbridge quake we'd
call it. Happened at five in the

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morning or four p thirty some early
times, and I woke up because a

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glass of water that was on my
bedside table I sort of a higher shelf

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above the bed. It fell over
and fell on me, and I woke

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up soaked like my woke up because
somebody had splashed cold water in my face

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and then dropped the glass on my
nose, and that was but my then.

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Of course, we were I think
we're in production at that moment.

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I'm trying to remember. And there
was a massive series. It was a

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big quake, so huge aftershocks.
So they were telling us now that they're

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going the aftershocks today too, there
are apparently, yeah, and we were

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in the stage and now the stage
was built nineteen twenty something, Stage twenty

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five at Paramount Studios, and it
was originally built they shot that They shot

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the original King Kong in there,
and so this place had been retrofitted to

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a fairly well. When they first
built the sound stages, obviously they were

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built not as sound stages as they
were built as just silent stages. They

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didn't have roots, and they would
string they would like they would put a

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white canopy, a white silk over
the roof to kind of diffuse the sun.

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And they called it, they call
it silks. And then sometimes if

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you're shooting outside just a side,
you're shooting outside and it's and it's just

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cloud cover. It's perfect, you
know, right right right right, They

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called God's silk. We're gonna use
God's so they put us and but no

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ins instance, over the time they
you know, put they fixed the roof

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and they do the two pipe and
chain the roof so they can hang the

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lights. And there's heavy lights everywhere. This is where they shot is Love

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Lucy when they shot is of Lucy
in the in in when they moved to

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La and we were in an earthquake
and everything was shaking, and I stood

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there and I thought, okay,
don't panic. And my assistant was standing

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next to me, and I could
tell he was panicking, like what do

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I do? What I do?
And I just grabbed his arm and I

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held it. I said, it's
like, look up, look up,

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look up. And then it was
over and we waited a minute and then

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we said one about our business.
But everybody else scurried to the side.

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And I thought I was being very
very, very very smart, and in

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fact people told me later like you
idiot, that was the worst I can

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00:11:03,279 --> 00:11:07,039
be able to It's just stupid,
dude. Don't stop there, go to

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the side. It's okay to run
to the run to safety. But I

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thought, oh, I don't want
to panic. But in fact that was

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dumb and it could have gotten me
and my poor assistant horribly, horribly named

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and disfigured, and I don't know
how we don't have James. James is

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in Mexico, so James would do
a segue. At this point, I

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we thank Shopify for sponsoring the Ricochet
Podcast. Next, we have an old

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friend from the on the site that
He wrote on the site for many years

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and has gone on to be the
founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon,

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which has caused trouble up and down
the line for since it's exception, Thank

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God. He is the author of
The Right, The one hundred Year War

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for American Conservatism, which is a
wonderful, sweeping story of the conservative movement

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in America. He is the director
of Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise

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Institute. He's an old friend,
and we welcome him. Matt COTTENETI,

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Matt, welcome, gentlemen, Thanks
for having me. We are obviously going

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to have to get an to the
things the wars abroad. But why do

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the wars abroad? Can we just
talk a little bit about the war at

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home and specifically the Internst. Sine
War. For I guess the heart,

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the soul, the direction of American
Conservatism. I find more conservatives yelling at

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each other about where there who is
the real one and who is not a

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real one than I have ever encountered, I think in my long life,

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which is I hope could go longer. But still I don't recall that who's

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right? Rob. That can't be
quite true because I've been calling you a

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rhino for three decades. Yeah,
I've been a rhino. Was still still

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on the right, all right,
all right, fair, I've been working

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on a little toast I have to
give to Ed Fulner, one of the

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co founders and longtime president of the
Heritage Foundation, in a couple of weeks

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and reading about Ed Fulner, listening
to him, you get a sense of

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an individual who really came of age
knowing what it meant to be an American

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conservative and what it meant to belong
to the American conservative movement. And Fulner

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tells a story about encountering Russell Kirk's
The Conservative Mind and reading about Russell Kirk's

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traditionalist conservatism and the different canons of
conservatism that Kirk presents in that text,

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and then reading Barry Goldwater's Conscience of
a Conservative published in nineteen sixty, where

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Goldwater really talks about what it means
to be a conservative in politics in the

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national life. And he said he
got theory from one book and practical applications

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from another. And I wonder,
sometimes, is it possible for a young

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person to do that today? What
would be the texts that they would look

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at for what it means to be
a conservative. Who would they be turning

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to So many people get their information
and their news and opinions from social media

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today. Yeah, but you know, they'd be looking at Tucker Carlson.

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I hope many of them would look
at Ben Shapiro, who I think does

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come closest to continuing in the tradition
of the American conservative movement. But there's

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so many different options, and it's
so easy to kind of kind of pick

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the suite of political views that you
like that I think it's very hard Rob

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to say, oh, this is
the true American conservatism in the year twenty

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twenty four. Yeah, but it
feels to me like that's the high note.

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It's going to start to get gloomy
soon. Yeah. It feels to

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me like the problem is that each
whoever claims to be the conservative not only

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doesn't think the other people are sufficiently
conservative. Right. So it's not like

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just screaming at old Rob that he's
a rhino squish, although that's always reward,

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which is always been fair, but
it's sort of like saying, well,

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you're the enemy, right that the
person who's who agreet with you seventy

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percent of the way or sixty percent
of the way needs to be purified.

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So may I may ask a subset
of this question, and Matt is,

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the author of the right, is
the perfect man to answer this. Actually,

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I can't think why now, why
I haven't just gotten on the phone

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and called you, because this really
is a question in my head. When

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jd Vance attacks Ronald Reagan and says
he started illegal immigration, which is nonsense.

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But we have a highly intelligent,
sitting United States Senator attacking Ronald Reagan,

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when Ross Dow that uses the phrase, uses the phrase zombie Reaganism,

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which seems to become a kind of
standard phrase with Ross, again, highly

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intelligent, articulate. These are the
annoying bit about all this is that you

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can't dismiss these people. I can
see part of what might be going on,

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and part of what might be going
on would be I can remember back

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in the eighties when I was a
kid, there were Democrats around who still

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talked about FDRs the great figure,
and Democrats my age were sick of it.

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It was purely generational. They wanted
their own time. They wanted this

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huge figure from the past whom they
didn't even remember. They wanted it gone

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that's fine, that's normal, that's
perfectly human. I get that. What

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I don't get, though, is
zombie what exactly to the extent that there's

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substance to what they're saying, to
the extent that they're saying we are inventing

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something new. Are they saying,
ay, Reagan was mistaken, he made

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one mistake after another. Or are
they saying times have changed and we have

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to adapt Conservatism to the new circumstances. And if that's what they're saying,

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then why do they seem so angry
and so insistent about it? I do

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not quite get it. Well,
it's a great question, and I can't

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speak for either advance or doubt it, but I'll come at it this way.

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At first, I think it's always
important to note and you both remember

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this. Reagan came under a lot
of criticism from parts of the right throughout

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his career, including while he was
president. Various parts of the rights.

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Some of my neo conservative friends thought
that he was too dubbish when he started

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the I and F negotiations with Gorbachev. The social conservatives felt that he was

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just paying lip service to a lot
of their agenda, and there was always

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a suspicion among some traditional conservatives that
Reagan was really at heart just a cold

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warrior and interested in economic growth and
cutting taxes, not so much about preserving

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traditional American culture and mores. So
that happened at the time of his presidency,

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it's persisted ever since. What I
think you're pointing to, Peter,

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is that in the way that the
Right talks to itself today, there is

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close to zero interest in coalition building. One of the major strengths of the

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conservative movement in the sixties and seventies
was that figures like William F. Buckley

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Junior looked around the scene and said, Okay, you know, I got

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a group of kind of weird ex
communists libertarian thinkers around me. We can

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barely fill up a room. Our
message is starting to catch the energy of

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young people. But in order to
actually convey my ideas into the national scene

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and to have an effect on American
politics in the world, I'm going to

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start need I'm going to have to
make friends. And so he reached out

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to populous conscerservatives, to neo conservatives, to the religious right when it began

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to emerge, and instead of that
type of coalition building today we have almost

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a efficient rather than a fuchie,
where people don't want to build bridges or

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connections between the various factions of Conservatism, but are much more interested in expelling

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people from the movement, whether that's
on the basis of ideas or whether that's

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on the basis of their views on
Donald Trump. Say so, Matt,

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follow up on that one, to
what extent? Grant entirely what you say.

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And Donald Trump, although he's been
leading in poll after poll after poll

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for six months now, still has
not broken fifty percent. He's still in

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the forties. Now, maybe that'll
be good enough. Bill Clinton won the

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presidency with forty three percent of the
vote. If Bobby Kennedy you on and

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on a go. But what I'm
wondering is to what extent has the nature

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of the game changed because of technology. In the old days, it was

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extremely difficult to know exactly how to
reach your base, how to energize them,

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So you were constantly trying to increase
the pool because you really couldn't quite

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control the pool. And today we
have technology. Neighborhood by neighborhood, ward

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by ward. I can remember a
friend out here telling me that Barack Obama

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as long ago as Barack Obama's campaign, they had developed software that they could

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put in the hands of volunteers and
within six the volunteers would go door to

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door and read questions off their iPhones
and all they needed was six questions to

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know if this person was going to
be voting for Romney Off, we don't

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spend money on them. If they're
already committed to Barack Obama, we don't

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spend money on them. But if
they're a swing voter, we know exactly

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what. Okay. The point is, you can identify by name and address

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exactly who your base is, and
now you can work on them. Now

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you can concentrate on getting them out. And the political consultants will say,

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that's where the return on your campaign
dollar is best spent, getting to the

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polls, energizing the people you already
know are on your side. And that's

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because technology has changed. That is
a pure hypothesis on my part. Well,

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cell phones and social media, the
iPhone, all of that makes what

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you're describing ever more important. It's
not just your base, it's a sliver

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of your base. It's the super
fans. John Ellis has written about this

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phenomenon on his news items substack is
it's the core of the core, the

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real fanatics who are going to go
out and basically you crawl through broken glass

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in order to support That's who.
That's who everyone is targeting right now.

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And the damage done to I think
conservatism and to just our politics national is

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very real. I just want to
say one more thing about some of the

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critics of so called zombie Reaganism.
What some of them are trying to do

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is move American conservatism away from its
belief in freedom and its traditional defense of

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the American legacy of liberty. And
for so much of the history of conservatism,

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the conservatism that I adhere to freedom
is at the core correct Your individual

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freedom accompanied by personal responsibility is the
core of the philosophy. And there are

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some people for whom that is dangerous
philosophy. They look around the world today

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and they see actually too much freedom
in the world, and so they're trying

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to kind of cast off Reagan not
just as someone who only talked about the

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Soviets and tax but also as one
of the great champions of freedom in American

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history. And that I think is
a dividing line within the movement that needs

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to be fought over because American conservatism
without individual freedom is not a philosophy I

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would want to belong to. We
just talked about nuts and bolts for a

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minute, because you're I know,
it's now wrote that we say things like,

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well, of course, with technology
and the abilities to slice up the

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electorates so closely, you can pinpoint
your ads, you can pinpoint your message.

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We sort of assume that that's going
to be successful, but oftentimes it's

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not. I mean, it just
it seems to I'm what I'm baffled by

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is that these are very smart people
running the Democratic Party in the Republican Party.

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They're not dumb, and their goal
seems to be to win the White

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House by one vote, or if
they can win by half a vote,

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right, because for one reason,
they think they can do it right.

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They think, actually, that's doable. That's this technological precision that they can

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get. But also then it frees
them up from the messiness of having to

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sort of appeal to that middle deciding
ground at ten eleven to fifteen percent,

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because but I think an elections pass
that ten or fifteen percent has been what

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we call undecideds. They're unaligned undecideds. The wait and see. I think

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that if you look at the American
electorate now, the ten or fifteen percent

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in the middle hate both of the
candidates with a passion, and instead of

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trying to win them over what they're
really the only absolution they have is to

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try to make the other guys seem
like a dangerous lunatic who's going to be

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the end of America. So Joe
Biden is saying vote for Trump, and

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you're voting for the end of America
by and Trump is saying exactly the same

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thing. This just feels like market
failure to me. It feels like Hertz

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and Avis got together, Coke and
PEPSI got together and decided to ruin the

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business. Right, what's it all
take? It started with the of course,

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the rise of the attack ad.
Right, politics is the only business

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where you go after your competition and
the nastiest, nastiest, you know,

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most low down way other companies.
If they were to do that other industries,

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it would be the end of their
industry. I don't know if there's

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a solution, to be honest with
you, Rob, I mean, I

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think your diagnosis is actually correct.
This election will be determined really by the

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double haters, voters who hate both
Trump and Biden, and it's just a

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question of where do they fall.
You know, in twenty twenty two,

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a lot of those double haters ended
up voting for Democrats despite their dislike of

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Biden. But Biden wasn't on the
ballot in twenty twenty two. He'll be

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on there this time. And it
is a mystery to me. That's not

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really a mystery. I mean,
it's in character with Trump. But you

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know, every time Trump spends his
rallies talking about the January sixth, quote

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unquote hostages, I think that's a
reminder to those double haters, do you

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really want to live through another four
years of Trump? And every time Biden

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kind of ties himself into notts ober
foreign policy, or you know, keeps

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cheerleading this economy, or it seems
to deny the outright deny that he issued

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the trans Day of Visibility proclamation on
Easter Sunday, then the double haters are

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like, oh, my god,
can we live through another four years of

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Biden? Right? So I continue
to believe that this election will look like

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a toss up until pretty late in
the game, and it will just be

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something happening in the final weeks where
enough of the voters who are those double

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haters say I can't live with the
other the other guy and Matt. What

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do we make of Bobby Kennedy Junior. Yeah, I think he's a real

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danger to Biden, to Biden.
Yeah, he has swung against Biden.

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Now it's unambiguous. Now he's going
after Biden, isn't that? Yes?

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Yeah? I think so. I
mean, you know, he the messages,

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the messages he's promoting are pretty progressive. His vice presidential selection, his

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running mate is very progressive, more
progressive than he is. And I look

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at a recent poll out of Pennsylvania, actually pretty good poll for Biden if

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it's just Biden v. Trump,
But you add the three independent candidacies or

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RFK, Cornell West, and Jill
Stein in there, and then Biden's margin

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00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,839
narrows within the margin of error against
Trump. So I do think RFK Junior

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is hurting Biden more than Trump.
There's a lot of celebration about the fact

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00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,519
that No Labels has announced it won't
feel the candidate, so there won't be

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a No Label's candidate. But in
truth, the way that the No No

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Label's movement was heading, I think
no labels would have hurt Trump more than

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Biden. And with them leaving the
field, you have three left wing to

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far left independent candidacies who, if
they combine for over three percent of the

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vote in states, are nationwide.
I don't see how Biden can win.

405
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,039
And I'm struck in the last First
of all, I was very struck by

406
00:30:23,039 --> 00:30:27,440
Bobby Kennedy's choosing the running mate,
because that made it unambiguous that he's going

407
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,440
after Biden. And now I'm struck
in the last few days he seems to

408
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:37,880
have settled on this with real anger. Biden's denying him Secret Service protection,

409
00:30:37,799 --> 00:30:42,640
and I get these kind of overtones
of don't you understand my family made the

410
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:48,319
Democrat the modern Democratic Party. Don't
you understand I lost my uncle, I

411
00:30:48,359 --> 00:30:52,559
lost my It's personal, it really
feels personal. And so now you have

412
00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:59,759
not just Donald Trump saying Biden attacking
Biden personally. Now you have someone who

413
00:30:59,799 --> 00:31:04,880
has to his left in many ways
saying this is not just an effective man

414
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:10,160
a dement but this is a bad
man. That's new, and that strikes

415
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:15,640
me as a serious danger. He's
to the left of Biden some ways.

416
00:31:15,319 --> 00:31:19,720
He's also in a way kind of
more solidaristic in his rhetoric than Biden.

417
00:31:19,839 --> 00:31:23,640
Is you talk more about our national
purpose and our national community than Biden.

418
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,799
So I think he's been underestimated throughout
this process. I couldn't agree more.

419
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,759
I think it's remarkable the level at
which he's polling consistently. His real challenge

420
00:31:33,759 --> 00:31:37,960
is ballot access. Will he be
able to be on all the ballots,

421
00:31:38,039 --> 00:31:41,920
or especially the ballots of swing states, the seven states which will decide the

422
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:48,440
election by November. If he is
on those ballots again, I find it

423
00:31:48,559 --> 00:31:52,920
very hard to see Biden pulling this
off all right now, from politics to

424
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:59,680
something that really matters is the state
of Israel. Yeah, we have October

425
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:06,240
seventh, unbelievably brutal, vicious attacks
that cost Israelis. I don't know what

426
00:32:06,279 --> 00:32:08,640
the sort of settled number is,
but it's around sixteen twelve hundred, twelve

427
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:14,839
hundred, I'm sorry, twelve hundred. We have hostages still in tunnels beneath

428
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:22,440
Gaza, six of whom are American
citizens. And we have images day in

429
00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:30,119
and day out of a kind of
healthscape in Gaza. And now we have

430
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:36,240
I'll just name three items. Chuck
Schumer gives a speech on the floor of

431
00:32:36,279 --> 00:32:40,799
the Senate saying it's time for a
change in leadership in Israel, and breathtaking

432
00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:45,640
thing for a member of the United
States Senate to say about a democratic ally.

433
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:52,440
Last I think early this week,
we have Benny Gantz, a member

434
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,319
of the war Cabinet, calling for
early elections, and we have a renewal

435
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:01,559
of massive protests in Israel, several
tens of thousands of people protesting outside the

436
00:33:01,599 --> 00:33:07,359
Kanesset at time of war, and
then in the last forty eight hours or

437
00:33:07,359 --> 00:33:13,480
so. It seems to me we
have to distinguish between American policy and the

438
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,960
Biden administration's rhetoric. But at some
point rhetoric becomes policy. And we have

439
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:21,880
the President having a phone call with
bb Net and Yahoo in which he demands

440
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:27,519
the BB engage in a cease fire, make new concessions, offer get the

441
00:33:27,559 --> 00:33:32,160
hostages out. We have Anthony Blincoln
putting pressure on bb and then Kirby,

442
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,759
the White House spokesman, summed it
up yesterday. As I recall, I

443
00:33:36,799 --> 00:33:40,079
think I'm quoting him almost exactly.
Unless there's a change in Israeli policy,

444
00:33:40,519 --> 00:33:46,960
there will be a change in our
policy. What is to be done?

445
00:33:47,279 --> 00:33:52,279
Well, my takeaway from the past
several weeks and especially the last twenty four

446
00:33:52,319 --> 00:34:00,000
hours, Peter, is that Biden
has lost the plot on the Israel hamaspital.

447
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:05,160
The most important thing in this war
is to maintain one sense of moral

448
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:12,440
clarity, to be able to distinguish
between Israel and Hamas. Israel and which

449
00:34:12,519 --> 00:34:16,280
was at a state of peace with
Hamas a tenuous piece, but a peace

450
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:22,639
nonetheless on October sixth, and Hamas, which invaded Israel on October seventh,

451
00:34:22,679 --> 00:34:29,199
twenty twenty three, committed all the
atrocities you describe, makes no distinction between

452
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:37,000
uniforms, soldiers and civilians, murders, indiscriminately holding the hostages, is stealing

453
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:42,239
the food into these convoys. One
has to always remember that Hamas is ultimately

454
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:49,719
responsible for everything that happens in Gaza. And I think because of domestic politics,

455
00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:58,360
because of a progressive inclination to believe
some of the information warfare that's being

456
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,719
waged on Israel on the internet and
in the media, the Biden administration,

457
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,480
the president himself has just lost that
sense of moral clarity, and so it's

458
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:15,639
leading us to this place where if
Biden administration policy were followed today, Hamas

459
00:35:15,639 --> 00:35:22,480
would remain intact and BB Netting Yahoo
would fall. So, no matter what

460
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:28,559
you think of Netting Yahoo, he's
Israel's longest serving prime minister. He's an

461
00:35:28,599 --> 00:35:36,960
extremely controversial figure. He is the
democratically elected leader of an ally, and

462
00:35:37,039 --> 00:35:43,119
yet the one consistent through line in
Biden Israel policy has been hostility and opposition

463
00:35:43,159 --> 00:35:49,719
to him. And so that that, I think shows you the ridiculous situation

464
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:55,360
in which America finds itself. And
that's why I just urge all Americans to

465
00:35:55,480 --> 00:36:00,960
follow the example of a democrat,
John Fetterman, a man who you know

466
00:36:02,159 --> 00:36:08,119
the label progressive because he was he's
too concerned about what that label means these

467
00:36:08,199 --> 00:36:10,599
days, but who is speaking a
lot of sense on a lot of different

468
00:36:10,599 --> 00:36:16,039
issues, no more so than on
Israel, where he has said, in

469
00:36:16,079 --> 00:36:22,840
response to this debacle involving the attack
on the AID convoy, look, Hamas

470
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:28,119
will be the party that ends this
war when Hamas surrenders or when Hamas is

471
00:36:28,159 --> 00:36:32,880
defeated. And the best way to
end the civilian casualties and to restore humanitarian

472
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:37,719
aid and limit the risk to AID
workers is by defeating Hamas. Everything John

473
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:44,039
Fetterman says on this issue is a
display of the moral clarity that we so

474
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:45,840
utterly need in Washington. By the
way, we should say he seems to

475
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:51,320
have recovered entirely from the stroke.
He's amazing and his depression, right,

476
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:57,280
remember it, because he entered Walter
Reed just last summer and yet something happened

477
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:01,199
to him. I think he has
recovered and he he under has a sense

478
00:37:01,199 --> 00:37:07,159
of mission, and his mission here
again is to just point out who is

479
00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:14,840
the enemy and who is the heroes
of this story. Yeah, I mean,

480
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:19,639
whatever he's taking, any depression or
his stroke, get us out.

481
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:24,719
I mean, it's true that if
ten twelve key Democrats just went on betterment

482
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:30,320
meds, they'd have a much better
shot at regaining the House, the Senate,

483
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,880
in the White House. Uh,
I guess I'm you know, the

484
00:37:34,079 --> 00:37:38,920
politics aside of it. It just
seems to me that the that's the brutal

485
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:49,880
truth is that if Hamas Hamas in
October seventh attacked Israel, attacked unarmed civilians

486
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:53,280
in the most savage way. It
was the Manson family, murders times every

487
00:37:53,280 --> 00:38:00,679
household, and then they came back
to Gaza and they hid behind civilians and

488
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:07,800
hostages, that if we let them
get away with that, it's over right.

489
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:09,119
I mean, once you say that
you can do that, because that

490
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:15,639
is the that is not hard to
do, and it means you don't really

491
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:19,559
need to that many. I mean
you you could have accomplished all of what

492
00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:23,360
they accomplished in on October seventh with
knives and machetes. They did in a

493
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:29,119
lot of ways. You don't need
to go be a client of the Iranians

494
00:38:29,119 --> 00:38:30,800
for advanced weapons. You don't need
to do any of that. You need

495
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:35,639
to cause mayhem and then you retreat
and hide behind civilians. So but I

496
00:38:35,639 --> 00:38:39,760
guess what my concern is that that
not so much that the Biden has lost

497
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,159
the plot, but that we may
have lost the plot. That it is

498
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:51,480
true that what happened to the the
world global kitchen workers was horrible, and

499
00:38:51,519 --> 00:38:55,199
it is true what is happening in
Gaza to these people, in innocent people

500
00:38:55,280 --> 00:39:00,519
or whatever dozen's is horrible. It
is true. All that is true.

501
00:39:01,039 --> 00:39:06,639
But it seems like we need to
gird ourselves for that, as that's the

502
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:12,599
inevitable price that you pay and it
absolutely can't go any other way. But

503
00:39:12,679 --> 00:39:16,320
I don't see anybody making that.
We're looking for the solution. The ceasefire

504
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:21,079
solution is so attractive because it means
that maybe it'll all go away. Yeah.

505
00:39:21,119 --> 00:39:23,519
And the problem is that if you
yeah, but it's which we'll think,

506
00:39:23,519 --> 00:39:28,159
it leads us down a path where
it's not a ceasefire, it is

507
00:39:28,199 --> 00:39:31,119
in fact a capitulation to the strategy. Well, and that Hamas is done

508
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,480
right, So how do we get
out of that? The upshot of so

509
00:39:34,519 --> 00:39:38,039
many Biden policies has been more war
and more violence. I mean the withdrawal

510
00:39:38,079 --> 00:39:45,360
from Afghanistan's thirteen US servicemen killed Americans, drone a family in response to the

511
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:52,159
terror attack and called Kapol Airport.
Isis K reconstituting itself in Afghanistan most recently

512
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:57,920
launches this attack in Russia. The
policy in Ukraine, Biden's fear of providing

513
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:04,880
the Ukrainians with long range weapons platforms
has extended that war. It undercut the

514
00:40:05,199 --> 00:40:09,159
offensive, the counter offensive that Ukraine
planned. It's now putting Ukraine in a

515
00:40:09,199 --> 00:40:15,519
position where Russia's massing forces and most
likely to gain ground in the coming months.

516
00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:17,760
And what are we doing. We're
telling the Ukrainians, Oh, don't

517
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:22,480
target Russia Russian energy supplies because we
don't want the price of gasoline to go

518
00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:28,360
up higher now we were in Israel
and what are we doing in Israel?

519
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:32,199
Well, I think Peter's absolutely right. At some point the rhetoric becomes a

520
00:40:32,199 --> 00:40:38,480
policy. And even though Biden has
continued to supply Israel and to protect Israel

521
00:40:38,639 --> 00:40:45,679
somewhat in international institutions, that began
to dissipate when the US abstained from the

522
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,559
UN resolution calling for an immediate cease
fire the other week. The rhetoric at

523
00:40:49,639 --> 00:40:53,239
some point is going to lead to
just another one of these situations where Biden's

524
00:40:54,039 --> 00:41:00,159
ties himself in knots and the result
is more war, more terrorism, not

525
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:08,360
less matt Israel again. Up until
the sixty seven war, France supported Israel.

526
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:16,559
Until two weeks ago, Germany for
good reasons, supported Israel. Israel

527
00:41:16,599 --> 00:41:22,599
has lost Europe, and now Israel
has lost the Democratic Party. John Fetterman,

528
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:28,519
notwithstanding, we're so astonished, and
we rally to him the way we

529
00:41:28,599 --> 00:41:35,119
do, precisely because he's an exception, no Europe, no Democratic Party.

530
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:43,639
Will the Trump Republican Party stand firm? Who are the good guys, Tom

531
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:52,039
Cotton, yes, JD. Josh
Hawley. What is your feeling there?

532
00:41:52,000 --> 00:42:00,840
Well, I think that the Republican
Party still will have a sense of responsibility

533
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:07,119
and affection for Israel will continue to
be pro Israel. I've been watching what

534
00:42:07,159 --> 00:42:10,800
Trump has been saying about the conflict. His most recent comments to q Hewitt

535
00:42:12,119 --> 00:42:15,079
just the other day was that,
look, Israel's got to finish the war

536
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:20,960
quickly, and Israel's losing the pr
war. Both of those statements. That's

537
00:42:21,039 --> 00:42:24,679
correct, just correct. They're empirically
true, right, So I'm not reading

538
00:42:24,679 --> 00:42:30,880
them as a distancing from Israel in
the way that some others have. So

539
00:42:30,639 --> 00:42:37,039
I still think the Republican Party,
for various historical reasons, for religious reasons,

540
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:42,199
will remain pro Israel. I do
worry, though, Peter, about

541
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:47,639
the lack of religious faith in the
United States and religious affiliation. So many

542
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:54,599
Republicans who are Christian are pro Israel
because for them, Israel proves the Bible

543
00:42:54,679 --> 00:43:00,239
is true. The existence of the
state of Israel is a miracle that shows

544
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:06,880
the Bible is true. If Americans
become less religious, less tied to the

545
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,559
Biblical traditions, I think there are
going to be less likely to have that

546
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:16,079
sense that Israel is there for a
purpose. Israel has a special place among

547
00:43:16,119 --> 00:43:22,280
the nations in America as another conveinental
promised Land has a special relationship with Israel.

548
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:27,159
That's a trend that I worry about. I think it's very much visible

549
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:31,320
in polls of young people turning against
the state of Israel, and I do

550
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:37,559
worry eventually that secularization that's already affecting
the Republican Party one day down the road,

551
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:43,760
it could also affect the GOP's view
of Israel. Rob will not take

552
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:45,760
us out with tap dancing and a
joke. All right, yeah, all

553
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:50,239
right, but you're surely finding that
now. With sorting out what America First

554
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:54,679
means and what America's national interest means
and what it doesn't mean. That does

555
00:43:54,719 --> 00:44:00,119
seem to be a very serious debate
that we're having in a very unseerious ways.

556
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:08,840
That's as we seem to be absolutely
destined to do. I'm trying to

557
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:13,559
find something funny. Well, there
was something funny in that Trump interview with

558
00:44:13,639 --> 00:44:16,039
Hugh Hewitt, because right before he
made those statements on Israel, he was

559
00:44:16,079 --> 00:44:20,320
going on a rant about Biden.
It was a pretty effective campaign rant,

560
00:44:20,559 --> 00:44:24,199
but he ends up not with any
of the policy disasters, but Trump ended

561
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,480
up by saying that you know what, that thing about Biden. He's also

562
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,119
a horrible golfer. And there's no
way Trump said that his handicap as as

563
00:44:32,199 --> 00:44:37,840
high as Biden says his handicap is. And it was just it was just

564
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:43,679
a classic Trump moment. And you
know, start girding yourself. We might

565
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:49,440
have to have at least four more
years of them. Yeah, if twelve

566
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,480
percent of Americans decide that they despise
Biden and they repelled by Biden, but

567
00:44:53,480 --> 00:45:00,159
they despised and are repelled by Trump, just a little bit less. It's

568
00:45:00,159 --> 00:45:02,719
not really something you can put on
a bumper sticker. Matthew. You have

569
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:07,920
to promise to come back, because
we didn't even touch your wonderful work on

570
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:14,960
the realignment that's taking place. Why
are Hispanics moving to This is fascinating material.

571
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:20,280
But our producer told us that on
your side, you made him swear

572
00:45:20,519 --> 00:45:22,599
that we'd only keep you for half
an hour. And I see you're in

573
00:45:22,639 --> 00:45:25,960
a jacket and tie, which must
mean that you're headed to the green room

574
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:30,039
at Fox. You've got to run, so I'm afraid we'll have to release

575
00:45:30,039 --> 00:45:32,679
you, but I want you to
promise on the record for listeners that you'll

576
00:45:32,679 --> 00:45:37,760
return. I'll be here, Peter, Thank you, matt thanks, Matt,

577
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:45,400
thank you. Yeah, it does
seem. There was a we had

578
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:51,000
a little little discussion group on Thursday
nights, and when somebody asked like,

579
00:45:51,039 --> 00:45:57,199
well, what consolations do you tell
yourself? What do you tell yourself so

580
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,760
that you can look at the front
page of the newspaper every day, meaning

581
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,679
it's filled with bad news. What
how do you what's the consolation for your

582
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:07,920
bad news? And I would just
say I think I said this last week,

583
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:13,239
but I really do mean it.
I'm obsessed with the pilot of the

584
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:19,199
containership in Baltimore who went thirty seconds, yes, saved lives and did it

585
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:23,679
and nobody, you know, unsung
hero, local guy works the works the

586
00:46:23,679 --> 00:46:29,079
port of Baltimore and probably not the
only pilot there, not the only,

587
00:46:29,079 --> 00:46:32,159
but certainly there's the every every port
has many of them, and they're all

588
00:46:32,199 --> 00:46:36,719
real. They all have to be
really good. We only notice things when

589
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,360
they go wrong. And in case
things do go wrong, I don't know

590
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:43,719
what yet. You know, I
could tell you something. I'll give you

591
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:50,920
something to cheer you. And that
is the new Dick Wolf documentary series Homicide

592
00:46:51,199 --> 00:46:54,760
New York. Oh great, it's
it's it's Dick Wolf. So he's a

593
00:46:54,880 --> 00:47:00,920
total professional, and of course they're
beautifully produced and paste and takes old murder

594
00:47:01,039 --> 00:47:06,840
cases in the eighties and the nineties
and what you get, and it goes

595
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:12,639
back and talks to the cops and
the detectives who work the case, and

596
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:20,840
you see in every single one of
these you get this notion of good human

597
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,119
beings who are just working hard and
never expect to get their names in the

598
00:47:24,159 --> 00:47:29,559
press, and are doing it to
raise family. They can't afford to live

599
00:47:29,599 --> 00:47:32,199
in Manhattan, even though they take
the train into Manhattan to investigate all these

600
00:47:32,199 --> 00:47:36,639
crimes. But they've got to get
when the when the phone rings, he's

601
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:42,079
coaching his kids softball team out in
Queen's and you just you're just reminded.

602
00:47:43,079 --> 00:47:46,280
For me, it's especially effective because
I think of New York as just this

603
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:51,440
overwhelming and of course, in fact, what it comes down to is New

604
00:47:51,519 --> 00:47:58,400
York is a town of neighborhoods and
overwhelmingly good hard working people. It's the

605
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:02,079
same sort of thing as we know
that Pilot, if there's ever a documentary,

606
00:48:02,119 --> 00:48:05,119
you know that we know that Pilot
is just going to be a good,

607
00:48:05,559 --> 00:48:08,400
hard working guy. Right Yeah,
Okay, so the country is still

608
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:12,719
filled with people like that. I
think it's very true. I think it's

609
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,719
very true. They're just just nothing. We're running for office. You and

610
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,000
I are one. You and I
are not among them, of course,

611
00:48:19,639 --> 00:48:24,159
right Well, it's always nice talking
about Continetti. He's incredibly smart and has

612
00:48:24,199 --> 00:48:29,519
writes is. His columns are terrific
and I recommend that you follow him and

613
00:48:29,639 --> 00:48:32,119
listeners of course the commentary magazine podcast
every day. He's co host of that,

614
00:48:32,199 --> 00:48:38,000
which is not an easy job.
I guarantee you. And if you're

615
00:48:38,039 --> 00:48:44,119
listening to this podcast, it means
you're listening to a Ricochet production. And

616
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:46,440
Ricochet is a website. You can
find it on the web ricochet dot com.

617
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:50,880
It's a conversation site. We also
do podcasts, all sorts of podcasts,

618
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:52,920
but we also do one other weird
thing. Our members every now and

619
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:58,679
then get together. Last year Ricochet
members got together at the on the National

620
00:48:58,679 --> 00:49:00,239
Review Cruise, which is an or
later this year. They could do it

621
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,199
in National viewkers June. As much
going on in June, if you think

622
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:06,920
there's still spots, So if you're
looking for something fun to do in June,

623
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:08,800
that'd be a great thing to do. Uh, there's a meet up

624
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:13,760
in July and Milwaukee, and in
October in Saint Louis. And then there's

625
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,599
a are going to do the last
call for April eighth, which is Monday.

626
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,639
It's Monday, Monday, Yes,
some clay clips Clips Day, which

627
00:49:22,679 --> 00:49:27,199
of course after the earthquake, earthquake
Day, Yes, Omega Palette and one

628
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,079
to remember at Mega Paladin, and
it is hosting uh in Dallas a watch

629
00:49:30,159 --> 00:49:36,159
party to watch the Total Sol because
so the it's a and there's a creepy

630
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:40,360
name for where it's in the total
effects, something like when you're in the

631
00:49:40,679 --> 00:49:47,719
part of the zone, in the
zone where yes, yeah or just look

632
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:52,599
up. Who cares? But it's
happening on Monday, April eighth, So

633
00:49:53,119 --> 00:49:57,559
join Ricochet. Go to Ricochet,
figure that out and enjoying anyway, because

634
00:49:57,559 --> 00:50:00,679
these things are happening all the time, and of course we need or support.

635
00:50:01,679 --> 00:50:05,639
I have a question for you for
for a couple of last minute banter,

636
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:08,719
for a close showing banter. You
are still at work on a documentary,

637
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:14,440
I believe a radio yes, an
audio documentary, yes, on a

638
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,639
couple of weeks. Okay, So
tell us tell us that how has that

639
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:22,039
changed your thinking? What have you
learned give us the topic. The topic

640
00:50:22,119 --> 00:50:24,159
is really you're well into right now. I don't know how you yeah,

641
00:50:24,199 --> 00:50:29,199
yeah, yeah, yeah, So
the topic is really First, what I

642
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,280
wanted to do was do a very
deep dive TikTok into COVID, right seen

643
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:37,960
through the eyes of our friend doctor
j Batichari. And then I realized that

644
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:45,519
the story really is that pretty much
everything we needed to know about COVID we

645
00:50:45,599 --> 00:50:51,840
knew, we knew in March of
twenty twenty, and we just chose not

646
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:52,840
to pay attention to it. And
so now it's a question of what do

647
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,039
we do to the guy who was
saying, hey, wait a minute.

648
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,159
And Jay's position has been some character
time like hey, lay wait a minute,

649
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:01,800
let it rip, Hey wait a
minute, just let it go.

650
00:51:02,199 --> 00:51:05,880
And in fact it's much more nuanced
than that, much more smart than that.

651
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:07,719
He wasn't asking us to do nothing. He was asking us to do

652
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:13,199
something very specific. And just the
way and the pattern at which we as

653
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:20,000
a culture and a political culture and
a bureaucratic culture and a media culture just

654
00:51:20,039 --> 00:51:25,039
went bananas is kind of interesting,
and it's sort of now is the time

655
00:51:25,079 --> 00:51:28,480
take a deep breath four years later
and figure out what happens, so they

656
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,599
can never happen again. But the
problem is is that it's gonna happen again

657
00:51:31,679 --> 00:51:36,280
because we are going to have just
the way the world works, it's going

658
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:40,119
to be another contagion of some kind. And the great thing that I don't

659
00:51:40,159 --> 00:51:44,519
see us recovering from. I mean, I'm just investigating my own heart.

660
00:51:44,559 --> 00:51:52,039
Here is the legitimate lingering skepticism.
I mean, that's, to put it

661
00:51:52,199 --> 00:52:00,920
nicely, of our bureaucratic public health
officials and their political bosses and then their

662
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:08,880
accolytes in the media. So that
little, that tripod of power, it's

663
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:15,800
really kind of has really lost the
confidence of most Americans, and that is

664
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:19,199
not a good place to be.
And so it's it's highly possible that there's

665
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,400
gonna be a contagion that in which
you do have to stay at home and

666
00:52:22,519 --> 00:52:25,639
we should close the schools for a
little That's possible that this don't It wasn't

667
00:52:25,679 --> 00:52:29,480
as if that never happens. That
just hasn't happened yet, And it didn't

668
00:52:29,599 --> 00:52:32,119
and it wasn't necessary for COVID.
But when when that happens, When and

669
00:52:32,159 --> 00:52:38,480
if that happens, who are you
gonna believe? I'm gonna call it Jay

670
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:43,599
right, right, But because I
feel like Jay is sort of willing to

671
00:52:43,599 --> 00:52:45,599
look at the at the number and
then come up with an answer that may

672
00:52:45,639 --> 00:52:49,360
not. You know, I saw
a great debate. We have some audio

673
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:53,119
of that debate, and one of
the arguments he kept kept saying was like

674
00:52:53,159 --> 00:52:57,159
he was a focused protection. He
was for something called focus protection. I

675
00:52:57,159 --> 00:53:00,880
know, I we don't go over
this too much. And the focused protection

676
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:01,960
idea was, you know, you
pick the people who are most vulnerable and

677
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:06,079
then you protect them, and you
don't shut down businesses and schools and things.

678
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:08,239
We let other people go in with
their lives, but you focus on

679
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:13,639
the people you can help. And
because you've limited it and you focused your

680
00:53:13,679 --> 00:53:16,320
protection, you're much more effective at
it. So if only the people who

681
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:22,960
need to wear masks, really the
most vulnerable, are wearing the right mask,

682
00:53:22,159 --> 00:53:25,960
the N ninety five mask warned the
correct way, and you focus on

683
00:53:27,039 --> 00:53:30,360
that, you actually can affect some
kind of protection, not a lot,

684
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:35,199
but some. But if you just
say everywhere a mask, then everybody kind

685
00:53:35,199 --> 00:53:37,320
of wears a mask, and you
at you get as a D minus kind

686
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:45,760
of protection. But the argument against
that was, well, how are you

687
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:49,119
going to do that? Well,
how would you even do how would you

688
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:52,199
even protect old people? Just can't
be any harder than shutting down the whole

689
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,960
country for good. Well, well, that's the problem is that actually turns

690
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:04,400
out that, yeah, shutting down
the country's easy. Now, the economy,

691
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,639
the country, schools, they all
have an off switch. They just

692
00:54:07,639 --> 00:54:10,760
still have an on switch. And
that's the problem that we have. Without

693
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:15,639
an on switch, you can't turn
it off. So it just was the

694
00:54:15,639 --> 00:54:20,599
easy solution, and it also seemed
to blanket the country. And you know,

695
00:54:20,639 --> 00:54:23,840
in my view, not Jay's view. Jay's very scrupulous. He does

696
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:30,000
not endorse my crackpot vision. In
my view, the reason why nobody wanted

697
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:34,760
to hear what his you know,
the whole story for me is the Santa

698
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:38,239
Clair County study that Jay did in
March, right, in which he discovered

699
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:43,400
that there was an enormous that we
had underestimated the number of people who've been

700
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:49,880
infected by a by COVID by some
giant factor, which proved that it was

701
00:54:50,079 --> 00:54:53,079
much less deadly than we thought.
Exactly, the denomin is already too late,

702
00:54:53,199 --> 00:54:57,679
and that it was already out there. The denominator was much larger than

703
00:54:57,679 --> 00:54:59,960
we thought. But the numerator was
the same, same number of people were

704
00:55:00,199 --> 00:55:02,199
the many non people effected. That
is actually great news, that's the news

705
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:06,679
you want. And nobody wanted to
hear it. And I think they didn't

706
00:55:06,679 --> 00:55:09,000
want to hear it because they kind
of knew that this was something special,

707
00:55:09,639 --> 00:55:15,199
this virus, and that this virus
was going to be mysterious in some ways,

708
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:20,079
and they knew that because they paid
for it. Now Jay doesn't say

709
00:55:20,079 --> 00:55:22,880
that, but you know, I'm
put on my Hercule Piro hat and you're

710
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,960
like, well, why somebody's giving
you good news and you're not listening to

711
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:30,719
it. Why aren't you listening to
it? And then and at the Santa

712
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:31,760
Clara study, I mean I make
fun of it with him, and he

713
00:55:32,119 --> 00:55:35,480
Jay is such a nice guy.
He's like kind of takes it like you're

714
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:39,760
saying, you're el cheapo. You
know grade z bucket shop study that you

715
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:45,559
did in Santa Claric because it didn't
didn't cost that much. Nobody did another

716
00:55:45,599 --> 00:55:52,360
one. It's not like the CDC
and FAUCI and the collective bureaucrats when they

717
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:54,840
attacked his study or they criticized it. They did some unfair criticism, but

718
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:58,199
they just a fair Christmas, which
is like, you know, you didn't

719
00:55:58,199 --> 00:56:00,280
spend enough money and a sample.
You didn't do this, you did that.

720
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:04,199
Oh that's true. They could have
done and read one that study I

721
00:56:04,199 --> 00:56:07,800
couldn't agree with anytime. That's almost
the point and the whole story at which

722
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:14,079
I myself just lose it. The
CDC has a has a budget of ten

723
00:56:14,159 --> 00:56:17,519
limits of billions a year, and
in a crisis like that, it was

724
00:56:17,679 --> 00:56:24,039
just unlimited, absolutely unlimited, and
they should have had a thousand studies underway.

725
00:56:24,119 --> 00:56:28,599
Oh thanks, you're done. One
a week exactly a million dollars a

726
00:56:28,639 --> 00:56:30,320
week, two million dollars a week. What do we care? That's what

727
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:32,880
That's good money to spend, right, And they didn't do it. They

728
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,880
didn't do it. Why didn't they
do it because they didn't want to know

729
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:39,599
the answer because the answer they pretty
much figured was going to be the answer

730
00:56:39,639 --> 00:56:44,880
that j came up with, which
meant that it's going to be without a

731
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:46,800
giant. You know, look,
if you it's the old I mean,

732
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:51,920
this is completely unfair what I'm about
to say, but it's the same kind

733
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:53,880
of idea, and I've written it. I don't think I'm gonna I don't

734
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:58,679
know what I'm gonna say I'll say
it here. The best way to commit

735
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:07,920
a murder is to kill somebody and
then burn the house down, right,

736
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:15,880
true. The best way to cover
up a lab leak that was I don't

737
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,320
think it was I don't think it
was evil. I think it was just

738
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:23,639
incompetent, because that's what happens is
create a giant crisis. So it's not

739
00:57:23,679 --> 00:57:27,000
about the lab leak. It's not
about where it came from, Peter.

740
00:57:27,079 --> 00:57:31,000
It's about, you know, protecting
the young people in schools, which you

741
00:57:31,039 --> 00:57:35,760
can do what you can only do
once because eventually people learn the truth and

742
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:37,199
then they never believe you again.
And that's not where you want to be

743
00:57:37,239 --> 00:57:40,159
with doctors. And when will when
can we expect to hear this? When

744
00:57:40,159 --> 00:57:44,920
will we start to do? You
know, I will I'll do some seak

745
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:51,199
previews. Oh, I'll do some
sneak previews for Rickechet podcast listeners. Maybe,

746
00:57:51,719 --> 00:57:54,000
but we're going to release them because
we're doing it. You know,

747
00:57:54,039 --> 00:57:57,519
we're doing our new initiative, which
is the Ricky Step Productions, which would

748
00:57:57,519 --> 00:58:00,559
be long form, multi episode podcast
on a topic. And we've got a

749
00:58:00,559 --> 00:58:05,480
bunch of them in the you know, in Developer We've got one which I'm

750
00:58:05,679 --> 00:58:08,320
absolutely can I'm super excited. Boy. We have one which Charlie Cook is

751
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:12,639
doing on the Second Amendment. We
have one about called war stories, which

752
00:58:12,719 --> 00:58:14,920
is going to be dynamite. I
just have to like convince a bunch of

753
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:17,519
people to tell me stories that may
or may not get them arrested for revealing

754
00:58:17,639 --> 00:58:22,280
national secrets. But I'm close.
We were working on one about school school

755
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:25,320
or form school choice from the parents
perspective. Parent, these are not these

756
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:30,360
are not issue. We're not talking
about issues here. Talk about stories,

757
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:34,400
American stories. That's how we're telling
our That's how we're telling stuff. So

758
00:58:34,519 --> 00:58:37,039
I want to make sure that when
we release these things, it's like released

759
00:58:37,079 --> 00:58:39,119
like you know. We We've got
another one ready to go, right,

760
00:58:39,239 --> 00:58:45,639
so we promoth the previous are coming. It's It's been super fun, uh

761
00:58:45,679 --> 00:58:49,960
and I'm excited about the stuff.
That's stuff that we're we're guiding but I'm

762
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:51,679
not doing. But I think it's
going to be great. You know,

763
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:53,920
Charlie Cook is doing Second Amendment.
And it's the funniest thing you ever heard

764
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:59,039
is this english Man talking about guns
and in Florida buying a gun. And

765
00:58:59,079 --> 00:59:02,199
we've we've found in our budget enough. I hope we may not. It

766
00:59:02,239 --> 00:59:06,559
depends on how much these are.
I was with a Rickchet. We had

767
00:59:06,559 --> 00:59:10,000
a Rickchet meet up not that long
ago in New Orleans and it was loads

768
00:59:10,039 --> 00:59:12,960
of fun, and Charlie came.
We all had a good time, and

769
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:15,920
then we're having dinner and we're sitting
around and then we start talking generally,

770
00:59:15,159 --> 00:59:17,760
so it's like there's a lot of
people there. We have a general conversation.

771
00:59:19,559 --> 00:59:22,639
And because Charlie knows a lot about
the Second Amendments, somebody says to

772
00:59:22,679 --> 00:59:25,679
him, what's the deal with the
Second Amendment and what do you think about?

773
00:59:25,679 --> 00:59:30,599
And Biden said, you know,
something somehow came up that Biden recently

774
00:59:30,599 --> 00:59:32,239
said, Hey, some of these
gun nuts think you should be all up.

775
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:35,679
You should be able to go out
and buy a cannon, right,

776
00:59:36,039 --> 00:59:39,840
And Charlie was like, he's like, head exploded. But that just makes

777
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:44,519
me so mad. He's sputtering raguous, because of course you can already do

778
00:59:44,639 --> 00:59:49,400
that. You always could do that. A cannon is not a firearm.

779
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:52,920
A cannon is ordnance, and that
has been legal forever. It is not

780
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:55,079
illegal to buy a cannon. It's
perfectly legal to buy a cannon. You

781
00:59:55,079 --> 00:59:58,880
can go out buy a cannon today, And so we found some money in

782
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,920
the budget for Charlie Cooked by a
Cannon, and that's kind of what we

783
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:05,519
want. That's the title of the
series, that Charlie buys a cannon.

784
01:00:06,599 --> 01:00:13,239
And as you would imagine, the
people selling cannons are mostly in Florida,

785
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,960
so it's gonna be geographically convenient for
Charlie go by a cannon. So that's

786
01:00:16,119 --> 01:00:19,800
okay. I'll leave you with that, and he will start firing it at

787
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:25,400
sunset every day. Yeah, exactly
right, exactly right after he passes his

788
01:00:25,599 --> 01:00:30,800
five day whatever, the five day
background checked by you. Okay. Now,

789
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:31,920
of course you don't have to have
because you're allowed to buy a cannon

790
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:37,920
in America. This has been the
Ricochet Podcast brought to you by Shopify.

791
01:00:38,639 --> 01:00:44,360
Support them please for signing up at
ricochet dot com and take him into leave

792
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:46,199
a five star review on Apple podcast. That is important. I know it

793
01:00:46,239 --> 01:00:50,039
sounds dumb, but it really does
matter. It like allows the listeners to

794
01:00:50,079 --> 01:00:53,760
find us. He keeps the algorithms
happy and keeps this show going. We

795
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:58,679
would love to see you at ricochet
dot com as a member along with us

796
01:00:58,719 --> 01:01:00,079
and a bunch of other members.
Out of other members around the country,

797
01:01:00,079 --> 01:01:05,679
around the world, talking and having
great conversations about every topic under the sun.

798
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,760
Kind of like this podcast. Have
a good weekend. Drop next week.

799
01:01:10,039 --> 01:01:17,159
Next week, Ricochet Join the Conversation.