WEBVTT

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Well, obviously I'm using old style
wired stuff today like Battlestar Galactica. 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 gerbuschaf tear down
this wall, read my lifts. Either

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you were with us or you were
with the terrorists. I mean the trip

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that President Biden to Kiv, as
many of you reported on, was historic,

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it was brave. Many of you
talked about how we heard the sirens

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wailing in the background as the President
was on the ground. It's the Ricoche

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Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilacs and our guest eventually

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is Eli like and we'll talk about
Ukraine for that a whole lots of stuff.

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So let's have ourselves a podcast.
We never get bored. It's the

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Ricoche Podcast, of course it is. Why wouldn't it be that it's number

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six hundred and thirty one. How
do we get this far, this many

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podcast? Well because of people like
you, as they say on National Public

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Radio, people like you who joined
Ricochet at rocochet dot com and discovered the

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most stimulating conversations in community on the
web. Haven't gone there yet. Ah,

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what's stopping you. We'll talk about
that a little bit later in excruciating

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detail, but for the moment,
Hello, Welcome Peter Robinson in cant Lafournia,

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which is not sunny and rob long
peripatetic as he is possibly in Gotham.

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I'm James Lilacs in Minneapolis, which
somehow survived the epic storm that did

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not exactly turn out to be as
epic as we wished, and oh how

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disappointed we are for that, gentlemen. Welcome. How's your day going.

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I am in Santa Barbara, which
three five days a year, nine years

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out of a decade, is the
most beautiful place on the planet. I

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happened to be here the one day, two days maybe in a decade.

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It's flood warning. I went to
dive three. They're calling what's happening up

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in the mountains a blizzard. Our
friend the Blue Yettie was planning to drive

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over from Ohai but is sucked in
and Ohai, and honestly I'm loving it.

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I'm in a hotel just a block
from actually not even across the street,

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is the Pacific Ocean, and it
makes me feel nostalgic for the East

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Coast because for the first time since
I've lived in California, the Pacific looks

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Atlantic. There are some rollers coming
in. It's that deep, model,

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slightly threatening green instead of the usual
sapphirey blue of the Pacific on a sunny

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day out here. So I suppose
most of the people who came to Santa

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Barbara this weekend aren't getting their money's
worth. But I'm loving it. It

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was like that when I was there
a while ago, too, really love

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that. Yeah, I mean it. The sea was choppy, it was

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angry that morning, my friends.
But what interested me more was finding the

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original Sambo's restaurant, which is on
the street the ocean. It's not Sambo's

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anymore, but it's where the chain
began. And that's a little piece of

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childhood nostalgia that I can't. Can
we give up? Rob, you are

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on the other side of the continental
United States? I am but speaking.

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I mean, I remember when um
they changed the name of that restaurant.

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Well, they really just SAMs.
Well it's it's a complicated story and no

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one understands it. But it's a
woman. But yeah, they had a

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problem because Sambos was a contraction of
the two owners names put together. Um

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but they did. It's not but
it's sound. No, let's say I'm

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b E a U X yeah,
right, the French version. Um.

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But even in the decore of the
place itself, they did not reference the

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little Black Sambo story that a lot
of people grew up with it. He

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was Indian, that's right, and
he had a he had a turban,

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and he was up against a Bengal
tiger and the rest of it. And

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there are various pictures the show.
Didn't they turned into butter right, right,

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right, but the right so they
turned him into gee but yeah.

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But eventually they just couldn't get past
the name, and the whole thing fell

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apart, and they a lot of
them that rebranded as Denny's. And if

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you're a fan of commercial archilty,
you can spot an old Sambo's restaurant to

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this day by the shape of the
sign or the particular googie style. California.

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And that was the great thing,
was when they built Sambo's in Fargo,

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North Dakota or Cleveland or anywhere they
imported to these places embassies of California

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futuristic sixties optimistic architecture. That was
fun. And I drive around now and

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I look at what the fast food
restaurants look like, and they're all black

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boxes. Taco Bell is a black
box. McDonald's is a sober black box.

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Steak and Shaken whatever is a black
box. There's no fun and whimsy

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in these places anymore. But that's
just me. So yes, he is

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a place. At least come here
in La Um James, there is a

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place as you're leaving a quick kind
on the way to the airport on the

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west side called Dinas d I nah
okay Uh. And Dinas still has that

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kind of architecture. Dinas still has
like fried Chicken still has this gigantic snaky

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s shaped counter that goes all around
a Dinas is still pretty much the last

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one. There was a place in
la called La was like a headquarters of

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these plays called Ships right, and
Ships was famous because the owner of Ships

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decided, I think in nineteen fifty
two that you know, everyone wanted their

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toasts done a certain way, and
they wanted a hot and there's no way

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to get hot toasts the way you
want it at to your table, so

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he's he put a toaster on every
table. So the corner of Olympic and

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the Lasianaga and they tore it down, and there was a minor protest.

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I think now they wouldn't be allowed
to tear it down. And uh and

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I don't even I don't know what
they put up, like a gas station.

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Now, well, what's the same
as what's the name of the famous

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burger place over on Pico. That's
still sort of old timey, or at

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least it was five or six years
ago. Less on the apple pan Yeah,

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yes, yes, yeah, still
good, yeah, good, right,

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And that's still there, right,
yeah, it's still there. That

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applants still there. Yeah. There
was ships. There was Googie, which

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gave the name to the style of
architecture. There was coffee Dance. There's

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a whole bunch of these, and
there was one architect who did most of

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them, who had this vision,
sort of the Morris Lapidus of the West

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Coast, of what the future restaurant
should look like, and it spread nationwide.

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Eventually. It just defined a particular
tailfin optimistic jet age space age aesthetic

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that I just absolutely adore. And
it wasn't it wasn't valued for many years,

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and hence most of them were torned
out and replaced him with gas stations

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or in and out or something like
that, so' tis a pity. Well,

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should we get to the news of
the world before we get to our

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seeking of changing Sambos to Sam's Yes, Rold Dahl, the author beloved by

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many of James and the Peach and
the Fox and all the rest of it,

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and the big monster guy and got
boutlerized by the usual im moral skulls.

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Apparently I didn't know this. There
are actually companies that you can hire

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to pour over your work to ensure
that no harm, no violence is given

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by the text. And these people
went through and removed a variety of things

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from Doll's work, most of which
had to do with taking out the word

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fat and replacing it with something that
wasn't as judgmental and fat Poe again the

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rest of it. So surprisingly there
was pushback by people who said, I'm

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sorry, it's literally Orwellian, you're
changing the texts. And as it turns

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out, the company and the reason
this happened was because the Doll estate had

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sold rights to Netflix, and apparently
Netflix wanted to prevent itself from pickets by

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the Blue Hairs and the Nose.
The company that was doing this has announced

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that readers will actually now be able
to choose between the original and the edited

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versions of Doll's work, which is
again, one more time, Read America

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has one set of books and Blue
America hasn't. I mean, it's better,

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I suppose, than extirpating all future
references to his original text, but

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I still don't like it. This
is I don't know. I want to

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say this is serious, but I
mean we stand in a kind of torrent

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of this kind of thing. So
on. My immediate thought was, this

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is if Raoul Doll heard of this, he would rise up and smite Dolly.

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I mean, it'd be just.
But it also undermined the part of

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what's going on with Doll in my
view. I was thinking back to reading

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him, and I came to him
late. He didn't penetrate Upstate New York,

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my little town, until I was
I think early teens, and an

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event. Part of the pleasure was
that you and Doll were in on it

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together. That other books might be
saccharin, but Doll knew the way the

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world really was, and the world
wasn't always all was nice. It wasn't

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always sacharin. There was a dark, little underside, and Doll knew that,

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and he was letting you in on
it. He was the world was

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horribly anti semitic. Well that as
was he Yea said if Raal Doll was

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alive today, Rall Doll was alive
today to hear this, he blamed the

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Jews. Yeah, I mean,
he was not a nice guy. There's

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also stories of him, like you
know, when he was married but deact

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patrician Neil and she had a stroke
and he was uh and she was in

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the hospital recovering from a stroke and
he would come in, and this is

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the legend too. He would come
in and he kind of yelled at her,

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get up, get up, come
up, and he bullied her,

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but he sort of we're kind of
was trying to restrain him. My god,

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let her cover. But even she
says, he bullied me into recovery

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and he was a tough guy.
Um. What's the good news here is

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that there's enormous amount of pushback on
this from not from the usual suspects,

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from people who are sort of general
he kind of left wing, and but

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also like people a pen in places
like that. Um, that is really

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that's good news. Um. The
weird news is like, I don't know,

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I don't know how you begin to
fix a book like the you know,

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the Charlie and get the name the
actual book, not the movie.

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It's like the Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory. Um, I don't know how

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you actually fix it if you're trying
to boulderize it or updated it is in

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fact, mean, it's it's in
the marrow of the work. Oh my

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god, it's so deeply embedded.
And these children are so awful, and

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their punishments are so just, and
some of them you just get a sense

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that they're not there. They're they're
they're not gonna They're not a lie anymore.

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And it is an interesting thing.
It's the idea that you have to

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shield children from this so weird because
they're gonna do it anyway. It's like,

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have you ever gone to one of
those kids' soccer games where they're not

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supposed to keep score. You know, we're all just playing soccer, and

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then you ask any kid, any
kid, what's the score, and they

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will tell you the score is before
to zero or killing them right. If

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you ask any parent what the score
is is, oh you know, well,

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I don't know. Just everyone's having
fun. They're just playing the game

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that kids like there's one there's one
group of human beings alive today that no

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matter how hard you try, you
will not woke afy, and that is

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a child. You will never get
a child to not notice a fat person,

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to not notice a stupid person,
to not notice a glutton, to

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not notice people's infirmities, even embarrassingly
like to not notice the guy in the

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wheelchair, the person with a funny
lip, or you just what, you'll

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never You'll never accomplish that. And
the idea that you're going to try so

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ridiculous. No you can't. But
they don't want it. It's not that

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it's not that they don't want them
to notice. They want to internalize from

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the very possible earliest point in their
lives that certain things are not to be

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said, and these certain things that
should not be thought. I mean,

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you can think it, but you
can't be aloud in your head. And

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so you have everybody internalizing all of
these things that must not be said,

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and you have a people who are
compliant. When you know I mean I

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mean when we say literally Orwellian by
that, I mean you know the fellow

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was talking with Winston Smith and the
cafeterias, it's you know, it's a

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wonderful thing, the destruction of language. Remove the words and you remove the

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ability to conceive the ideas behind them. And so the whole thing about taking

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out the fat seems to be like
like the revenge of people who themselves might

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be a tad on the xx excess
abudapas side and are part of the whole

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fat excesson's body healthy, all the
rest of it, which is amusing because

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we've gone from the President's Council on
Physical Fitness, where JFK wanted everybody you

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know to be out there doing jumping
Jack's to chicken fat, and to now

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to the point where you know,
we're encouraging people to applaud as stunning and

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brave the people who show up in
fashion shots as grossly morbidly obese. So

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it's it's an odd turn of events. But you're right, right before we

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leave ro all doll in the bobblerization
of language, right, not just Doll,

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It's happening in a more insidious way. And I will tell you a

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story, but I cannot name names, and i'd better keep it pretty general.

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But I know a let us just
say that there is a major academic

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figure who has written a textbook,
and this textbook is the basic textbook and

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has been for over a decade in
its subject. And it turns out that

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now the publisher is submitting this textbook
to the little ants who go through and

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take out any thing that's politically incorrect. And the major academic is stunned by

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this, but he calls around and
finds out, Oh, yes, that

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happens to all textbooks. That's just
the way it is these days. And

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it's breathtaking. So this is it's
just this kind of it's like the tide

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coming in and effacing it is making
a stupider. Yeah, I also,

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can I just go one more one
more spin in it? And probably this

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is one spin too far. One
of the things we're doing in our Ricochet

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enterprise is we're doing we're putting together
some longer form podcasts series, right,

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And one of the ones I'm working
on now is about really just a TikTok

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of COVID, you know, what
we knew when and how it happened.

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And I have a couple of controlling
you know, metaphors I'm working on trying

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to like figure out how to describe
this. One is sort of like a

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general countrywide panic attack, and the
other is forgetting things we know right.

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Well. The other one I'm just
thinking of now is the idea that once

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you say especially fat right, once
you say that, once you remove those

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words and the power of those words
and you kind of sand off the edges,

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you end up looking at COVID.
I mean, this is I'm going

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too far, but I'm not going
that much too far. You end up

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looking at COVID and the people who
are gonna get COVID and gonna die from

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COVID, and you can't describe them
because it's your I'm not allowed to say

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obese people and old people. You
have to come up with, well,

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senior citizens, our nation's seniors.
You have to come up with all these

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euphemisms that I mean, I guess
they're nice in a social setting, and

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they might you know, you might
want to kind of like make a hilarious

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acid children's book into some problem.
I mean, I suppose there's there's some

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damage cultural damage there, and that's
bad, and I'm against it. As

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somebody who writes for living, I'm
really against it. But on the other

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end, there's also like this sort
of dangerous other side of it. Which

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is like, I do need to
be able to describe the people who do

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not who should not be getting COVID, who should protect themselves from COVID,

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and I need to be able to
describe them in a specific and as even

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alarming way I can, And if
I can't do that, if that's not

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allowed, then we're all in big
trouble. Right, old people, people

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who do, people who lack chronological
privilege. You're right that you might want

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to put it right right, you
know, and I you know, you

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think about this and you say,
well, do I want to be old?

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You know I want I'm gonna go
to the gym after this, for

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example, And the studies said that
people who went to the gym had a

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much better chance of not having a
bad COVID reaction and have a much better

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chance of not being hospitalized for stuff
because frankly, they move around, and

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00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.879
it's good for you to move around. But then you think, I'm gonna

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00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:56.960
add ten years to my life and
they're going to be those ten years or

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00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.960
I'm sitting dadding around walking around with
a walker. Well, you know what

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00:17:00.039 --> 00:17:04.319
if it was possible to extend your
lifespan and to feel younger at the same

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00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:08.160
time, while according to a Harvard
scientist and a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough,

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00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:12.920
it is absolutely possible, how you
say, come on, how by lengthening

234
00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:18.200
your telomeres heard of those? Your
telomeres protect your DNA and they play a

235
00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.079
critical role in the aging process.
But many of us, you know,

236
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:26.480
you struggle with shortening telomeres a little
tiny, not as long as they should

237
00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:29.440
be, thanks to stress into unhealthy
food and obesity. There I said the

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thank youth Switch for sponsoring this the
Ricochet podcast. We thank Rob Long for

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00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:36.319
giving me the most effortless segue ever. Well before our guest shows up and

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we talk about the other side of
the world, we should stay close at

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home and look at East Palestine.
The story maintains. But a judge finally

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showed up. Did I pronounced his
name right? Uh? Did he?

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Did he do what the Secretary of
Transportation such things is expected to do.

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And I say that because I've never
known the Secretary of Transportation to show up

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and do something like this. He
was pushed into it, wasn't he.

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I mean three weeks politics of well
trauma made him do it. Yeah,

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yeah, yeah right. It is
a you know, it is a sign

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that you um, it's one of
those stories that takes on a greater symbolic

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importance politically than it may may in
its details and his details. It looks

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like, you know, disaster looks
like a combination of sort of regulatory and

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I don't know, I'm not malfeasance, but sort of incompetence, that kind

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of thing, and everyone's trying to
assign blame to it and trying to assign

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blames it sort of lacks regulations that
were that were eased during their most recent

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Republican administration, which sort of something
we've heard before. Um, but it

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does. It also represents its crystallizes
in a way I think would be unfortunate

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for people on the left that we
are obsessed currently with things happening many many,

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many many thousands of miles away from
from us, from economies that are

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happening there are thousands of years a
thousand miles away, and we are ignoring

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a thing that's happening right here.
It's like almost if you were writing a

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novel about it and you said it's
going to happen in a town called East

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Palestine, you know your editor would
say something like, come on, five

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more minutes on the name of that
town. It's a little too on the

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nose, but you know, sometimes
the world in truth is on the nose.

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So UM, it suggests two things. One to suggest that the regulatory

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environment is something that UM Democrats can
run on and Republicans can run on too,

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because once you start marching through East
Palestine and saying, look what happened

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here, you're going to find it. Probably you're you're making an argument for

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a more for a more stringent regulatory
state, good or bad. I think

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that's going to happen politically. But
you're also making the argument you walk through

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here that where what are you focusing
on? Where is your attention? And

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I was just noticing today just sometimes
students one really in the paper looking trying

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to find a thing that doesn't have
anything to do with the climate and trying

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to see how the climate is described
in it. So the selection of the

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new head of the World Bank about
two paragraphs in, I mean, it's

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sort of interesting characters. He's a
seat keeper born in India, and you

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find it. Now we're talking about
the World Bank. Now we're talking about

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climate change as part of its mission. So if you just add up all

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the words the people have spent,
certainly Biden cabinet officials have talked about climate

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change and how it should be part
of your The Secretary of Treasury's talking about

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it. And then you go to
the East Palestine. You say, what's

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your biggest concern. They're not going
to say, well, my really biggest

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concern is to point one percent chance
that the temperature is going to rise in

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the next six years. It's going
to be. My biggest concern is a

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train derailing in my neighborhood and toxifying
my home. Climate change in d EI

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have to be applied to absolutely everything, regardless as to whether or not it

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has anything to do with our missions. Right, But then you have a

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giant train exploding in chemical fire and
you think yourself, please, just for

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ten seconds, let's not talk about
the climate. And I feel like that

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is a that is something that I
think the conservatives on the people on the

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right should be reminding us, is
that we have been concerned with trivial things

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instead of the actual nuts and bolts, the potholes, as it were,

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of life in America today, and
that what do you consider the t what

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do you think is the trivial thing? Climate change? The diversity? No,

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you know what the Republicans are.
I thought you said that the Republicans

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were concerned with with trivial things.
No, No, I think it's a

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culture we have and our policymakers have. They're obsessing on these sort of like

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rich people's like tiny little bits to
call them, like a high class problems

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to have, you know, um
uh, And we sort of, you

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know, like, what are the
every debate we have now and they lusen

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the educational establishment is diversity and what
we're going to teach and blah blah blah,

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all the stuff. None of it
has to do with mastery of English,

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the language that we speak, and
mastery of complicated max which is going

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to be even more important, and
mastery of the science science it could be

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even more important going to forward.
Not has to do with master your rigor.

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Oust do was sort of this weird
massaging of your social whatever your social

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concerns are at that moment. Lu, we have a gigantic environmental disaster in

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East Palestine. It is an environmental
disaster. And if you ask anybody twenty

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minutes before that train derailed to describe
an environmental disaster, they would say something

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like, well, you know the
climate. Well, no, if you're

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leaving East Palestine. The climate is
the least of your troubles. So Rob

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and James. Now that Rob is
saying in effect, although Rob is,

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of course he's saying it in a
much more elegant way. But what he's

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saying in effect is I'm mat as
Helen. I'm not going to take it

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anymore. And you know what I
had that moment. My first thought was

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who does this kid think he is? And my second thought was, oh,

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and that. And I'm referring now
to the declaration that he is running

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for president of the United States,
all right by Vivic. And I'm not

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even sure I can pronounce his last
name, Vivic Rama Swamy. As I

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recall that, I forgive me,
mister President, if I mispronounced it.

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But listen, so what has he
got. He's a thirty seven year old

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son of him at Grinsey, went
to Harvard undergrad, Yale Law school.

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Both of those are counts against him. But he seems to have sent the

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rest of his life repenting. He's
founded a company, He's now founded a

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00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:29.039
fund so that you can invest in
nondei companies. And now he has come

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out swinging, just swinging. Let's
see what have we got here? The

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00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:41.599
Supreme Court is about to overlooks as
though maybe overturned affirmative action. As President

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of the United States, I will
issue executive orders stories eliminating affirmative action.

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The next time bureaucrats such as Anthony
Fauci overreached the limits of their job,

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I will do what a president is
entitled to do, fire them. It's

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so I don't know that he doesn't
know a thing about Paul politics because he

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hasn't run for blah blah blah blah. But it is refreshing, isn't it

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to hear somebody just say it?
Say it. He wants to shut down

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the Department of Education, which which
is viewed by many progressives as proof that

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the Republicans want stupid workers to go
slouching off to factories like the workers in

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the underground world of Metropolis, and
that they want to fund all religious private

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schools, that they want the government
to put everybody into religious private charter schools,

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etc. Which is not it's not
even close to it at all.

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But defunding the Department of Education is
just to them, you can't do that

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because it does such necessary work.
And I'm I'm keen to know precisely what

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it does, how many students I
want. This is years ago. I

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once had breakfast with Bill Bennett,
not long after he'd become Secretary of Education,

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00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:00.799
and I said, how is it? And he said, well,

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the Secretary's office is on the I
think it was the eighth floor of the

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building, and he said, I
get in the elevator and on the way

359
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from the ground floor to my office, I passed floor after floor after floor

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of people who are doing nothing but
writing checks, sending other people's money to

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other people. That's what the Department
of Education does, said Bill Bennett.

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It just sends out money. And
on the top floor there's a bully pulpit,

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and I, Bill Bennett, intend
to use it. But all it

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is is a system for transferring wealth
to the two teachers, to the education

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bureaucracy across the country. Furthermore,
since Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education,

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can you name any any way in
which education America has gotten better?

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It was just the whole thing is
ridiculous. He also wants to, and

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we're talking about vivic here, make
political expression. From his tweet, make

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political expression a civil right. What
do you think he means by that,

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00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.720
I thought it was, but I
thought it was meaning. Is he meaning

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that people can bring civil suits if
they're who knows, he may be making

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a legal point. I don't know. It could be that that you have

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the right to speak what you want
without consequences, which you know we all

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like, but more don't work that
way. There are there are social consequences

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that are perfectly illegal to that.
So but I but you you sense something

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00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:29.039
in that that is that you know, it's like you want to say,

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do go on as opposed to Roy. Actually he also wants to use our

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00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:37.400
military to secure the border. How
do you feel about that? That is,

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we want to secure the border.
For sure, it's a complicated one.

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00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:42.400
I mean, there's a constitutional issue. But I'm not sure if you

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need the military. I mean,
the question is whether they I think that's

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00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:49.440
a dumb a dumb way to put
probably a smart idea and a dumb way

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00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:55.279
to do what needs to be done. You don't want the military under United

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00:27:55.279 --> 00:28:03.000
States military commanders to be to Floyd
domestically, which would be by definition where

385
00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:08.079
it would be deployed. You don't
really want generals um commanding troops in the

386
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:17.160
United States you do want a robust
and um fully funded and held to account

387
00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:26.279
border force to enforce the border.
That's what's supposed to do. UM So,

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00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:30.079
I think he's probably in artfully describing
what he wants. My guess is

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00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:33.960
that's what he wants. My guess
is also I really don't know. My

390
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:40.440
guests is also this guy Vivic Ramaswami
also feels that we need to be strategic

391
00:28:40.519 --> 00:28:45.519
in our immigration policy. Uh you
know a nation, you know, a

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00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:49.440
national economic and cultural interest, which
I think is a completely legitimate way.

393
00:28:49.559 --> 00:28:53.160
Absolutely so, there's nothing, there's
nothing nativistic about it. There's nothing there's

394
00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:57.799
nothing, there's nothing phobic about it. There's nothing xenophobic or immigrant hating about

395
00:28:57.799 --> 00:29:03.240
it. It's to be crazy,
this is I mean, look, it's

396
00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:06.640
America Inc. Right, I mean
partly what we have is a one gigantic,

397
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:11.880
fractious, bumpcious chaotic company that we're
running America Inc. We all shareholders

398
00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.279
in it. And in many ways, the immigration of arms should be two

399
00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:19.359
things. One is border control,
meaning how you keep people out and how

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00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:22.799
do you keep the order in?
And the other is hr like who do

401
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.680
we want to hire? Who do
we want to bring into our big bumpshous

402
00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:29.599
company. You know. I like
to bring in people, probably like Vivic

403
00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:32.720
Ramaswami. I want to roll them. More people come in here, invent

404
00:29:32.759 --> 00:29:37.039
more things, make more businesses grow, do all good sorts of good stuff.

405
00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:41.240
That's that's a good thing, and
it's a good thing that somebody like

406
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:44.880
that who's been extremely fortunate. I
mean, I'm sure he's worked very,

407
00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:48.920
very hard, but he's also been
fortunate to be born and to live in

408
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:52.160
a time and in a place like
the United States and this in the twenty

409
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:57.200
first century that rewards entrepreneurial risk taking
and vision. I'm also kind of thrilled

410
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:00.240
that he wants to sort of do
this jump into this thing. There's no

411
00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:06.319
way that Bibic Ramaswami is going to
come out of this process not bruised and

412
00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:10.160
battered. That's what the political process
is. The fact that you will need

413
00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:11.400
to do it is served. That's
great. Good for him. I talk

414
00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.559
more, I say, and hold
everybody else to account. How greatly.

415
00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:21.720
The other part in my eyebrow went
up spot like when it was end affirmative

416
00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:26.839
action by executive action. I hate
executive actions, and I hate that we

417
00:30:26.920 --> 00:30:29.759
get to the point where we're so
impatient with the things that need to be

418
00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:32.359
changed that we applaud somebody who says, well, with a stroke of a

419
00:30:32.359 --> 00:30:37.160
pen, I'll make it so right. I don't like that the way that

420
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:45.039
this this huge, waddling, fat, lint sticking ball of legislation every year

421
00:30:45.200 --> 00:30:48.960
rolls through without anybody actually reading it
or interrogating the details. This is the

422
00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:53.599
problem is ruling. We don't seem
to sit down and craft laws as we

423
00:30:53.720 --> 00:30:59.599
used to or as we should.
So I don't like that. I'm always

424
00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:04.400
on the watch for caesarism, mainly
because everybody was saying when Trump the year

425
00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.200
the Trump was elected, was well, we need a caesar. We're going

426
00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.680
to get a caesar no matter what. So it should be one of our

427
00:31:10.759 --> 00:31:12.759
seasons right over the American greatness.
That was one of the points they were

428
00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:15.400
making. Go on. But in
a way, the president of the United

429
00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:22.279
States is a caesar of about two
million employees, right he the executive branch

430
00:31:22.359 --> 00:31:26.920
the federal government has about two million
employees. Um, he could do a

431
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:34.119
lot by the stroke of a pen, just in the just in the scope,

432
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:38.680
in his scope of work he could
do that. I mean, I'm

433
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:41.440
not necessarily making a law for everybody
else. That's that has to be leg

434
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:45.920
I totally agree with you. But
as as the admitted to the chief executive

435
00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:49.519
of the ministrative branch, he could
do a lot about how we run how

436
00:31:49.559 --> 00:31:52.240
the federal government hires and fires,
and I think that, you know,

437
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:56.519
I mean, mostly it should be
firing and hiring. Uh, you know

438
00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:01.200
what, boys, This whole thing
Vivic partly, But I'll tell you another

439
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:07.559
thing in a moment, has reversed
my thinking about the presidential election. My

440
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:14.880
thought maybe a week ago, was
cheapers, I really want to Sandis to

441
00:32:14.920 --> 00:32:17.200
win. Everybody else stay out of
the field. Let it come down to

442
00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:21.960
Trump into Sandis, and let I
believe De Santis can take him. We

443
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:25.240
can move ahead, We can get
past just those two. And now I

444
00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:30.160
think to myself, Oona, is
Vivic actually going to make a serious run

445
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:36.279
for president? He might, he
might, But even if he doesn't,

446
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:40.960
he's saying things that are so sharp
and so pointed and elicit such deep and

447
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:47.119
immediate support from the Republican Party that
even if he doesn't become a serious candidate,

448
00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:52.240
even if he doesn't win a single
primary, everybody in every debate,

449
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:59.319
reporters again and again debate moderators are
going to be taking vivic quotations and reading

450
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:02.079
the back to Donald Trump and saying, excuse me, mister former president,

451
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:07.279
or just Sands, or excuse me, Governor Florida. You say you're running

452
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:10.279
as a conservative. It sounds to
us as though vivic Ramaswami is to your

453
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:15.000
right. What do you make of
that? This just by running and running

454
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.039
with such intelligence and forthrightness, he
will tone up and make the whole tone

455
00:33:20.119 --> 00:33:22.839
up the race and make it smarter. The second person I want in the

456
00:33:22.960 --> 00:33:29.400
race is Tim Scott. I have
now come. I want I want all

457
00:33:29.480 --> 00:33:32.720
these guys in. Tim Scott.
I didn't know much about him, but

458
00:33:32.759 --> 00:33:38.640
I've looked into him a little bit. He's smart, he's upbeat. Yeah,

459
00:33:38.680 --> 00:33:44.279
he is an African American who represents
South Carolina, and so in his

460
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:49.119
very being he represents one of the
thrilling, one of the most thrilling chapters

461
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:53.359
of renewal and reform in American history. I want him in. I want

462
00:33:53.440 --> 00:33:57.559
him. I want to let him
all speak. Have you ever heard him

463
00:33:57.559 --> 00:34:00.240
speak Tim Scott in person? No, I haven't heard him in person.

464
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:05.640
Actually, he's he's really good.
Like you watch him and you can see

465
00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:07.200
some people and you think, oh, you know, I can see why

466
00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:09.480
that guy's there. He's really good. He's got um, you know,

467
00:34:09.559 --> 00:34:15.079
he's he's he's got a lot of
heart and a lot of story and a

468
00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:19.840
lot of religion. I mean he
is. He feels like an old timey

469
00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:22.679
American politician. And I don't mean
that in a fake way. I mean

470
00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:25.360
that in a real way, Like
he can he can do the stem winder.

471
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:29.559
He's got a story to tell,
he's got there's them, you know,

472
00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:31.480
right when we, you know,
we feel like everything's lost, usually

473
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:35.159
something comes and corrects it, because
the market kind of works that way.

474
00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:37.400
And it feels to me like there's
a hunger. I mean, maybe I'm

475
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:43.320
wishfully wishful thinking here for sort of
some kind of real like yes, to

476
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:47.239
be real and to not be h
One of the reasons people like the Santists

477
00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:50.360
so much, I think one of
the reason why to like Trump. He

478
00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:53.079
just seemed fearless, right, this
sort of string of presidents who are kind

479
00:34:53.079 --> 00:34:57.960
of cowed by the media and cowed
by the TV camera and like trying to

480
00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:00.760
like weirdly pass what they say over
and over again. I remember this wonderful

481
00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:07.760
moment and man I absolutely respected,
and in many ways was. I still

482
00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:10.960
think it was an underrated great president. George HW. Bush. He is.

483
00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:16.760
Someone asked him, I'm like,
he's eighteen shot down over the Pacific

484
00:35:17.679 --> 00:35:23.119
and he's floating in shark infested waters, waiting to get rescued, not even

485
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:27.880
sure if he's going to get rescued, clinging to some kind of debris to

486
00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:30.960
for his life. He's eighteen,
nineteen, I don't know, nineteen,

487
00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:35.360
just just graduate from high school.
And someone says, what were you thinking?

488
00:35:35.880 --> 00:35:37.000
Because well, you know, you
think about everything about your family,

489
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:42.719
he said, you think about um, your life, you think about you

490
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:46.599
think about God. And then he
said, and separation of church and state.

491
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:52.880
Like what you were not floating the
Pacific circle by sharks thinking about the

492
00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:57.559
separation? You just realize you said
God, and then you need to say

493
00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:01.559
I'm not not God like kind of
like yeah, nah, and I and

494
00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:06.760
that that It was an emblematic episode
of the ways certain and mostly these were

495
00:36:06.920 --> 00:36:12.000
like very competent guys who were not
used to speaking in public or having or

496
00:36:12.039 --> 00:36:15.880
campaigning in any sense in any kind
of wild way. Uh. Generationally,

497
00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:20.159
they were not used to a camera
everywhere. And then you have some politicians

498
00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:22.360
You're like, you know what,
I'm just gonna say it, and I've

499
00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:24.039
thought about it, and having thought
about it is the most important thing.

500
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:28.519
So um, you know, we
might have an elevated, really kind of

501
00:36:28.519 --> 00:36:35.480
interesting conversation going into like which is
right right on time about what America is

502
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:39.519
going to be in twenty twenty thirty
and not beyond what what what we need

503
00:36:39.559 --> 00:36:45.239
to invest in, what we need
to stop investing in? What we need?

504
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:49.320
More of what we need? No
more of? Uh, how we're

505
00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:52.880
gonna I mean, my offer still
stands for everybody the education, all the

506
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:55.679
woke education crafts, which is like, you can teach all the trans stuff

507
00:36:55.679 --> 00:37:00.679
you want. You could teach critical
race theory all you want. That's going

508
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:07.840
to be your reward for your students
achieving and proving a level of rigorous mastery

509
00:37:08.599 --> 00:37:14.840
the most important things for the future. Once you've accomplished the mission, then

510
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:16.639
you can have your dessert with your
cherry on top. And if that means

511
00:37:16.679 --> 00:37:22.559
that high school seniors all over America
know about computer science and engineering and advanced

512
00:37:22.559 --> 00:37:27.760
map and they speak and write English
and maybe even another language with proficiency.

513
00:37:27.960 --> 00:37:30.199
If you want to make senior year
in high school, the groovy year where

514
00:37:30.199 --> 00:37:34.000
you learn all about the other stuff
that you know what I'm I'm in,

515
00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:38.559
go right ahead because they have achieved
something. No, if I know,

516
00:37:38.639 --> 00:37:45.400
I know, James, if it
does not like that, now new I

517
00:37:45.559 --> 00:37:51.119
do? I would say, I
would say to the teachers, just exactly

518
00:37:51.119 --> 00:37:54.199
what you say. You get to
teach whatever you want, woke, this,

519
00:37:54.440 --> 00:37:59.519
that, and the other from the
morning bell until the kids go home

520
00:37:59.559 --> 00:38:04.400
to school the afternoon. And you
get to teach that to all the students

521
00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:09.280
whose parents want them to learn it. But you don't get to hold anybody

522
00:38:09.320 --> 00:38:14.519
hostage. And the parents who who
do not want their kids to learn it

523
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.960
get Foucher programs and they get charter
schools, and you get to teach and

524
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:24.840
change that to whoever shows up in
your classroom. But I guess what I

525
00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:29.639
mean is that I use this,
Yeah, I do. But I guess

526
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:31.760
I'm just trying to tie in my
general theory that we have, you know,

527
00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:37.039
big problems on the front burner.
Yeah, and East Palestine is an

528
00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:40.079
example of that. Right. We
have trains running around with you know,

529
00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:44.360
stuff going on, and we have
kind of a rail system in the country

530
00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:47.199
that we haven't probably made enough attention
to or invested enough in, and instead

531
00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:50.960
we invest in stupid things. And
what we need to do is they're like,

532
00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:54.920
let's accomplish the mission. First,
Let's make sure that the environmental disaster

533
00:38:55.039 --> 00:39:00.679
or East Palestine has been mitigated and
has been now prevented in the future.

534
00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:07.039
And then once that's happening once everybody, when once there's plenty of plenty of

535
00:39:07.079 --> 00:39:10.639
like a industry happening, and maybe
once we don't have to worry so much

536
00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:15.880
about importing for an oil and like
can we have nuclear power or whatever,

537
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:21.599
then I'm all ears, let's talk
about the climate change that you are so

538
00:39:21.719 --> 00:39:24.599
obsessed with, because we'll have accomplished
the mission. Now. You and I

539
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:28.639
both know I'm being disingenuous because we'll
never really accompt there's always going to you

540
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:31.400
know, we're never really gonna do
that. But the the obsession with the

541
00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:38.079
trivial is is what rich people do
when they're just so like and they're just

542
00:39:38.119 --> 00:39:44.920
so bored and everything is so wonderful
that they just they can't you know,

543
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:51.239
like I'm so bored, I'm gonna
you know, make a caviare omelet or

544
00:39:51.639 --> 00:39:53.920
you know what I mean, Like
it just feels decadent. This obsession with

545
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:59.360
like these weird filigrees and the idea
that turning those things into a crisis.

546
00:39:59.360 --> 00:40:04.320
Meanwhile, as a city police Palestine
sort of like belching black fumes and toxifying

547
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:07.480
itself. I Meanwhile, the children
are going through school and learning. It's

548
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:14.039
learning things that are irrelevant to their
lives, to their earning potential. But

549
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:19.320
that's the new mission. It's not
accomplishing the mission per se, it's it's

550
00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:22.880
redefining what the mission is is the
mission to move the entire nation to a

551
00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:28.920
point where we are energy poor,
where we have no gas stoves. And

552
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:30.599
again that was a big conservative freak
out, except it's what they want to

553
00:40:30.599 --> 00:40:35.800
do, and you know they banned
the appliances new construction. I mean,

554
00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:39.159
it's not a freak out at all. Where people are paying a huge percentage

555
00:40:39.159 --> 00:40:44.679
of their income income to keep their
home at sixty eight degrees, where they

556
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:50.280
have to take shorter showers, where
they have to their entire life is built

557
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:54.159
around accomplishing the mission of moving us
to a sustainable grid, which is a

558
00:40:54.199 --> 00:41:00.000
preposterous idea at this point. Or
is the mission to ensure that Americans are

559
00:41:00.039 --> 00:41:04.519
warm in their homes without having to
pay all of this money, that American

560
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:09.239
jobs are being created in the industry
field, that the safety like East Palestine

561
00:41:09.320 --> 00:41:13.960
is guaranteed because we don't have tanker
trucks rolling around, We've got pipe we've

562
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:19.079
got pipelines, which which they would
have. In other words, refocus.

563
00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:23.840
The mission is not to electrify and
change everything about your world and go to

564
00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:29.440
this other standard. The mission is
to keep doing what we were doing before

565
00:41:29.519 --> 00:41:36.159
this priesthood of fanatics and timorous souls
started insisting that the world was going to

566
00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:38.960
end because of climate change. And
it's not. It's just not. And

567
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:42.360
if that makes me a denier,
that makes me a denier. That means,

568
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.559
you know, Bjorn Lomberg, we
those of us who say it's not

569
00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:49.639
a problem can work on the same
page Lomberg who says that it is something

570
00:41:49.679 --> 00:41:52.000
to be concerned about. There is
a coalition there to be done. But

571
00:41:52.079 --> 00:41:59.599
there's more in public praising all of
these wonderful and new initiatives because they're sustainable.

572
00:42:00.159 --> 00:42:02.719
Joy and the thrill you get in
your heart when you drive across the

573
00:42:02.719 --> 00:42:07.519
prairie and you see those silent turbine
things spinning, to me, it's the

574
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:10.480
dark satanic mills of you know,
the old song. But that's another point.

575
00:42:10.639 --> 00:42:15.920
The other mission is not in education
to let them have a year telling

576
00:42:15.960 --> 00:42:21.320
them that everything about their culture is
that I hate. It's because, right,

577
00:42:21.639 --> 00:42:23.360
I get what. I get what
you're saying. Teach the basics first.

578
00:42:23.880 --> 00:42:28.599
But first of all, that assumes
that even the basics that they are

579
00:42:28.639 --> 00:42:34.000
taught haven't already been infiltrated and tainted
by the DI and the CRT and all

580
00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:37.159
the rest of the little alphabets we've
got going on here. If you say

581
00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:40.000
you have to read, it's important
to know what they're reading, is what

582
00:42:40.039 --> 00:42:45.199
they're reading part of the cultural heritage
that actually they do require it to function

583
00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:50.440
in your questern society, Is indeed
the math that they are learning, actual

584
00:42:50.519 --> 00:42:53.360
true math? Or is it math
that even in itself and its presentation has

585
00:42:53.400 --> 00:42:57.679
been infected by the way by by
by CRT and the way these things are

586
00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:00.039
in the way the questions are posed. You know, Johnny as six Melons?

587
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:05.719
Did he get them through historical privilege? You know? I mean it's

588
00:43:06.039 --> 00:43:08.239
so, I mean, if you
want to say they have to be able

589
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:14.719
to read and they know the culture
in which they exist, and yes,

590
00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:16.239
they know the math, and yes, they got a basics on stamin the

591
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:20.320
rest of it. Then you can
spend the last year filling their head at

592
00:43:20.360 --> 00:43:24.599
their most intellectually precocious age with the
worst sort of anti American poison you can

593
00:43:24.639 --> 00:43:28.880
remember. No, I think that's
an extremely bad idea. I mean,

594
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:31.239
I understand what you're saying. I
just think that when you have a large,

595
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:35.599
a large big thing is the schools
are failing. I don't think the

596
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:39.440
schools are I don't think they are
effective in teaching woke ideology. I don't

597
00:43:39.480 --> 00:43:44.679
think they're effective at all. A
kid that fails to pass a course on

598
00:43:44.719 --> 00:43:49.119
the sixteen nineteen project and that's all
the history he ever gets has been sitting

599
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:53.320
in the classroom listening to the sixteen
nineteen project for the whole year. The

600
00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:59.559
terms what they're failing at doesn't mean
that they're not absorbing something. Speaking of

601
00:43:59.639 --> 00:44:01.280
absorb being something, that's what Russia
has been trying to do with Ukraine.

602
00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:05.800
And now we have the anniversary of
the invasion coming up. Story, Are

603
00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:07.920
you doing an ad I don't know. No, I'm grinding the gears.

604
00:44:07.960 --> 00:44:10.480
I'm grinding the gears to get to
the guests, to just show showed up.

605
00:44:10.880 --> 00:44:14.960
You know, we have limited time, so yes, yes, we

606
00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:17.880
got to with alacrity get to our
guest, Eli Lake Uh, and we're

607
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:22.880
glad he's here. Contributing editor for
Commentary Magazine, host of the re Education

608
00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:24.920
podcast. Sounds familiar to what we've
been talking about. He was our guest

609
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:30.400
the day after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Well, it's been a year and we

610
00:44:30.840 --> 00:44:36.880
didn't really think it'd get to the
point where it's now a bloody slog.

611
00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:39.320
But let's figure out exactly where we
are. Eli, Welcome to podcast.

612
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:45.280
Thanks so much for having me.
So where do things stand in the war

613
00:44:45.400 --> 00:44:51.960
right now? Which one? Right? Yeah? Well, no, I

614
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:55.199
mean I think that the answer to
your question is far better than anybody had

615
00:44:55.239 --> 00:45:00.800
predicted a year ago. From the
perspective of you Western civilization and Ukraine.

616
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:08.519
It's pretty remarkable that we've relearned the
lesson that I think, you know,

617
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:15.679
sort of taking a big step back, that tyrannies and dictators are not ten

618
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:20.920
feet tall. That you know,
I think a year ago most of the

619
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:25.239
experts looked at this and they said
Russia had been a master of hybrid warfare.

620
00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:31.159
That they looked at the experience of
the last the first kind of Ukraine

621
00:45:31.159 --> 00:45:35.880
War, which wasn't really much of
a war at all. They didn't give

622
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:37.760
the Ukrainians much of a chance.
And most importantly, we still had the

623
00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:45.159
hangover of the chaotic and terrible withdrawal
from Afghanistan, where the elected president fled

624
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:49.559
in the middle of the night.
And so, you know, looking back

625
00:45:49.559 --> 00:45:54.239
out of the year, it's remarkable
that not only does that Zelinski has survived,

626
00:45:55.039 --> 00:45:59.079
but that, you know, the
Ukrainian military, with our support,

627
00:45:59.480 --> 00:46:05.199
has proved been capable of blunting,
you know, the invasion of a much

628
00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:07.360
larger country that we thought, you
know, would sort of walk through it.

629
00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:13.519
Okay, so what next, Well, what do you mean by that?

630
00:46:13.960 --> 00:46:16.679
Well, here's what I mean.
Russia is still there and they're not

631
00:46:16.880 --> 00:46:22.760
backing out, and Putin doesn't seem
to be now apparently sometime today, maybe

632
00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:25.800
as we speak. According to the
news yesterday, the State Department said that

633
00:46:25.840 --> 00:46:32.360
they're expecting China to float some sort
of peace plan this very day. I

634
00:46:32.360 --> 00:46:36.360
don't know if that has happened yet, but the question is, you've got

635
00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:42.079
Zelinsky saying we want to reclaim every
bit of territory the Russians have taken including

636
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:45.880
the Crimea. And you've got Vladimir
Putin saying, excuse me, we have

637
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:51.360
the Crimea and we also have a
good piece of eastern Ukraine. And not

638
00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:54.360
only are we not leaving, we're
going to move on to Kiev and people

639
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:59.480
are getting killed every day. How
does it end? Well, I mean

640
00:46:59.519 --> 00:47:02.280
it's even what next? What should
we do next? What should Zelensky do

641
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:07.960
next? If you were advising him
in the next month, Well, if

642
00:47:07.960 --> 00:47:13.000
I was advising Zealinski, I would
say, I mean, continue to fight

643
00:47:13.079 --> 00:47:15.719
back against the invasion. I do
think that there's something that we can't possibly

644
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:24.280
know, and that is what is
the effect of a war where lots of

645
00:47:24.280 --> 00:47:29.199
people who are being sort of thrown
into this meat grinder from the Russian side.

646
00:47:30.559 --> 00:47:34.039
You know that they have families,
they have you know, people who

647
00:47:34.079 --> 00:47:39.119
care for them back home. And
what is the effect on the legitimacy of

648
00:47:38.840 --> 00:47:44.159
of Putin's regime at this point?
We can't see it, because it is

649
00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:49.719
at this point probably in terms of
individual liberty, back to almost Soviet times.

650
00:47:50.320 --> 00:47:52.440
But we know from the beginning of
the war that there were lots of

651
00:47:52.559 --> 00:47:55.760
unusual voices that we had heard,
even from some old regards that were saying,

652
00:47:55.760 --> 00:48:00.719
wait a second, I don't know
about this, and slowly, but

653
00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:05.239
surely, you know, Europe has
proven to be more resilient in this in

654
00:48:05.280 --> 00:48:10.199
this respect, the fact that the
Europeans didn't cave over the winter even though

655
00:48:10.199 --> 00:48:15.320
it was a mild winter, for
sure, So there are certain kind of

656
00:48:15.400 --> 00:48:19.000
questions that, you know, how
long can this necessarily keep up? And

657
00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:22.559
like, we'll see what happens to
the Chinese because the other report we heard

658
00:48:22.559 --> 00:48:25.519
about China was that they were going
to start arming Russia in this which would

659
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:30.400
sort of enter them into this conflict. They haven't done that yet. I'm

660
00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:34.800
surprised they haven't done that yet,
So we'll sort of see. But I

661
00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:37.320
mean, this was a I think
that it's a blunder, and I don't

662
00:48:37.400 --> 00:48:40.159
know that we know the full extent
of how much of a blunder it was

663
00:48:40.159 --> 00:48:44.280
for Vladimir Putin. Hey, Eli's
rob long, thanks for joining us.

664
00:48:44.280 --> 00:48:46.239
Can I ask you a question like, um, just because you mentioned China,

665
00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:54.519
why why are you surprised they haven't
It feels to me like if I

666
00:48:54.559 --> 00:49:00.039
were Chinese that with my Chinese strategic
hat on, I don't know if I

667
00:49:00.159 --> 00:49:02.679
want to throw my hat in the
ring with Putin at this point, I

668
00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:06.840
might want to sit this one out
and just kind of be hey, listen,

669
00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:08.360
nothing, we're not we got nothing
to do. And the meantime,

670
00:49:08.440 --> 00:49:15.639
make my quiet inroads when we're not
paying attention in places like Africa and the

671
00:49:15.800 --> 00:49:20.000
border with India, and go about
my business. Well, what's what's in

672
00:49:20.039 --> 00:49:22.559
it for them? It's a good
question. Let me, let me,

673
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:25.400
let me sort of explain why I'm
surprised they haven't done it yet. One,

674
00:49:25.679 --> 00:49:31.280
we have at least a pageantry,
the diplomatic pageantry of summits between Gee

675
00:49:31.400 --> 00:49:37.039
and Putin, and you know,
long I don't know documents to claim that

676
00:49:37.119 --> 00:49:42.719
there are all these mutual cooperation between
the two countries and that those have intended

677
00:49:42.760 --> 00:49:45.760
that that we had that on the
eve of the war, when it was

678
00:49:45.800 --> 00:49:47.920
clear that he was going to invade. So that's the first part of it.

679
00:49:49.320 --> 00:49:51.480
And the second part of it is
that I do think that to a

680
00:49:51.519 --> 00:50:00.360
certain extent, China has already cast
its lot with Russia and Iran and the

681
00:50:00.519 --> 00:50:05.400
kind of rogue tyrannies in the world, because it's better, I think,

682
00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:13.239
from the Chinese leadership's perspective, to
have a world where the international system kind

683
00:50:13.239 --> 00:50:17.159
of remains in their favor, and
that you know, a world where in

684
00:50:17.159 --> 00:50:22.719
the United States and European countries are
determining kind of the rules of the international

685
00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:24.679
system is ultimately not a world that
the Chinese want to live in. Despite

686
00:50:24.679 --> 00:50:29.119
the fact that for the last I
don't know, almost fifty years, if

687
00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:34.280
you want to count Nixon's visit to
China, you know, the United States

688
00:50:34.360 --> 00:50:39.199
has has repeatedly sort of said,
please join, you know, become a

689
00:50:39.239 --> 00:50:44.719
great power and couragees with us.
So in that respect, I kind of

690
00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:46.159
felt like, well, the Chinese
have already cast their lot, so why

691
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:52.000
wouldn't they. But then you're right, um, this looks like a kind

692
00:50:52.039 --> 00:50:58.239
of incompetent move. And I mean, who would have predicted how bad the

693
00:50:58.559 --> 00:51:02.079
Russian military is. I wish I
would have remembered all of the lessons that

694
00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:06.519
we learned at the end of the
Cold War, the collapse the Soviet Union.

695
00:51:06.920 --> 00:51:10.199
It was corrupt, there were all
these reports that you know, nobody

696
00:51:10.320 --> 00:51:15.000
was getting the serious information going up
the chain when they came in. I

697
00:51:15.119 --> 00:51:22.320
love this story. When the Russians
first invaded, their secure communication system didn't

698
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:24.000
work, so they were basically using
cell phone towers, even though when they

699
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:28.400
were they were attacking the cell phone
systems, and so it was very easy

700
00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:32.440
for the Ukrainians to pinpoint the locations
of senior generals who were being killed at

701
00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:36.519
a high plamateur hour. Well,
I mean so, so, I guess

702
00:51:36.599 --> 00:51:38.880
my question is like this feels to
me like Turkey coming in at the end

703
00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:43.559
of World War One on the side
of the Kaiser. No, that's interesting.

704
00:51:43.880 --> 00:51:46.159
Um. I mean, we'll see
what happens with the Chinese, whether

705
00:51:46.239 --> 00:51:51.239
they actually do it or not.
Um. You know, but I don't.

706
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:52.880
I mean, I think that there
there are serious problems. I mean,

707
00:51:53.079 --> 00:51:59.440
what is the quality of Russian forces
now that they're what conscripts? We've

708
00:51:59.480 --> 00:52:04.480
seen reports that they're being recruited from
Russian prisons. Is that how's that going

709
00:52:04.519 --> 00:52:07.159
to work out? I mean,
America learned a painful lesson. We never

710
00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:08.960
had to do anything like this in
the Vietnam War, which is that at

711
00:52:08.960 --> 00:52:12.840
a certain point, one of the
problems was because we had conscription, we

712
00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:17.360
had a draft. The morale of
every day kind of soldiers on the front

713
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:21.280
lines it was so bad that there
were these incidents are known as fragging and

714
00:52:21.400 --> 00:52:24.679
things like that that happens, you
know, especially when it's kind of a

715
00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:30.000
hopeless fight like this, where you
know where's the where you know who's How

716
00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:34.119
would a Russian if you're fighting this
in the you know, day to day,

717
00:52:34.159 --> 00:52:37.599
how would you be motivated when you
feel morally like you have a right

718
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:40.599
to this war or anything like that. I can't see right So, because

719
00:52:40.599 --> 00:52:43.559
you could just stand it for a
little bit, to leave China for a

720
00:52:43.599 --> 00:52:47.159
second, it feels to me like
the strategy is this. Each person's strategy

721
00:52:47.320 --> 00:52:55.000
is We're gonna keep going because we
have if you were putin and the Wagner

722
00:52:55.079 --> 00:53:00.159
group, and we have people and
convicts and conscripts. We can keep throwing

723
00:53:00.199 --> 00:53:08.039
a mat trenches until the other side
gets tired. And the other side is

724
00:53:08.039 --> 00:53:10.679
saying, well, listen, we
have these rich friends and they've got you

725
00:53:10.760 --> 00:53:16.679
know, Leopard tanks and no planes
yet the planes might come and we can

726
00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:21.360
keep asking them to send stuff,
and we have people and we are motivated

727
00:53:21.400 --> 00:53:23.280
to fight. I mean, the
most interesting thing to me about the uk

728
00:53:23.800 --> 00:53:28.679
the Ukraine and Russia war is that
the Ukrainians are motivated to fight. They

729
00:53:28.719 --> 00:53:34.519
are not given in and we can
keep going until you're tired. And the

730
00:53:34.679 --> 00:53:37.679
real question we have to ask us. The only thing, it seems to

731
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:44.360
me, the only variable yere,
is are the Russians or the Russian leadership?

732
00:53:44.760 --> 00:53:51.119
Are they tired of Putin? So
my question is how bad is the

733
00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:55.880
information coming to that big table where
Putin sits. Is it still as bad

734
00:53:55.960 --> 00:53:59.840
as it was a year ago or
six months or a year and six months

735
00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:01.880
ago when he thought he could just
kind of like Waltz's way into Kiev?

736
00:54:02.400 --> 00:54:07.000
Or is it getting better and darker
and better and darker? And I guess

737
00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:08.440
what I mean is, um,
you've seen the movie down Everything, the

738
00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:13.360
movie Downfall, right, Yere's that
moment the movie Downfall where they come in

739
00:54:13.480 --> 00:54:15.320
and the Furer sitting there at his
table and he stands is shaking and stuff,

740
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:17.199
and he goes, well, you
look in the mac goes, you

741
00:54:17.239 --> 00:54:21.039
know what, Steiner's counter attack,
he says, pointing to the map of

742
00:54:21.079 --> 00:54:23.559
Berlin, which is sort of encircled
by the Allies coming in, the Russians

743
00:54:23.599 --> 00:54:28.920
coming. Steiner's counter attack is going
to turn this all around. And then

744
00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:31.639
someone's got to say, my furor
I'm sorry to tell you that there's no

745
00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:37.119
Steiner and there's no counter attack,
and there's no there is his he's in

746
00:54:37.199 --> 00:54:42.400
command of nothing. And then that's
when the great you don't believe Internet is

747
00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:45.920
exploded with memes of this. But
this seems like I'm doing a little shaking

748
00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:50.159
hand. This seem it's a great
scene. If you haven't seen, if

749
00:54:50.159 --> 00:54:52.800
you listen to podcast, you have
not seen the scene. Just it's fantastic.

750
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:58.320
This seems like we are waiting for
that moment to happen somewhere in the

751
00:54:58.400 --> 00:55:06.280
Kremlin. Is anyone of the Kremlin
that moment? I wonder if that moment

752
00:55:06.639 --> 00:55:13.400
is less determined by some military maneuver
in Ukraine and more determined by the reaction

753
00:55:13.599 --> 00:55:16.400
in Europe. And what I mean
by that is look at, for example,

754
00:55:16.840 --> 00:55:20.960
every month, it seems a few
weeks we have a Russian official who

755
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:24.360
will say we might have to use
our strategic arsenal, which is code word

756
00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:30.400
for nuclear weapons. We saw the
big announcement to take away from Putin's you

757
00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:36.440
know, delusional speech this week to
mark the one year anniversary, was I

758
00:55:36.639 --> 00:55:44.320
am suspending participation in the remaining nuclear
treaty with the United States. So there

759
00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:46.480
are all these efforts to try to
say, wait a second, you don't

760
00:55:46.480 --> 00:55:52.000
want this to get even worse,
and they're counting on either Democratic administration or

761
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:57.039
the Germans, you know, the
French, the British to basically kind of

762
00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:00.280
say uncle, and you know,
say okay, we can't let it get

763
00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:09.199
this far. I am pleasantly surprised
that the Biden administration and the Europeans,

764
00:56:09.719 --> 00:56:14.199
you know, it hasn't been perfect
that I would have liked for them to,

765
00:56:14.440 --> 00:56:16.760
you know, not had an open
debate about sending tanks. But they

766
00:56:16.800 --> 00:56:21.519
eventually land on the right square.
And that's great. And I think that

767
00:56:21.639 --> 00:56:23.639
that's the thing that you're seeing where
you know, Putin can see all of

768
00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:30.360
that for himself because he's used to
getting his way in other sorts of things.

769
00:56:30.400 --> 00:56:32.679
I mean, like, you know, there was a when he invaded

770
00:56:32.760 --> 00:56:37.039
Georgia and you know, took up
Kazia and North Sessia. In two thousand

771
00:56:37.079 --> 00:56:40.719
and eight, there was an election, Barack Obama came in and the first

772
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:45.880
thing Obama does in foreign policies announced
a policy called the Reset, which is

773
00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:47.400
where we're going to ignore what you
just did and try to have a good

774
00:56:47.400 --> 00:56:52.159
relationship with you. Why so we
can have this treaty known as a news

775
00:56:52.199 --> 00:56:54.119
Start, which Putin just announced that
he was no longer going to be complying

776
00:56:54.159 --> 00:56:57.480
with, which, by the way, he hadn't been complying with. So

777
00:56:57.679 --> 00:57:01.000
he's betting on the sort of old
Europe, the old Democratic Party, to

778
00:57:01.559 --> 00:57:05.360
you know, emerge and say,
um, all right, all right,

779
00:57:05.400 --> 00:57:07.360
all right, all right uncle,
all right, fine, it can't get

780
00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:10.800
too bad. The irony, of
course, is that the Democrats have stood

781
00:57:10.880 --> 00:57:15.280
starn much, you know, much
to my surprise in some ways. And

782
00:57:15.639 --> 00:57:19.960
it's this new republic in the nationalist
wing of the Republican Party, if you

783
00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:22.239
want to call it that, JD
Vances those are the ones that are saying,

784
00:57:22.320 --> 00:57:25.360
let's stop throwing good money after bad
in Ukraine. And it's none of

785
00:57:25.400 --> 00:57:30.000
our business. Okay, So let's
take on if I'm going to put an

786
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:35.840
argument, and the argument runs as
follows. Zelinsky wants to fight, as

787
00:57:35.960 --> 00:57:38.079
Rob noted. As you noted,
one of the surprising things is that they

788
00:57:38.119 --> 00:57:44.440
are not tiring. And Zelinsky says
he wants to regain every inch of territory

789
00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:50.440
that includes the Crimea, that includes
Sebastopol, which has been Russian, even

790
00:57:50.480 --> 00:57:57.039
if technically Ukrainian it's been Sebastable has
been Russian since seventeen eighty three, five

791
00:57:57.159 --> 00:58:01.360
years before we ratified the constitution.
Okay, so if sorry, I'm putting

792
00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:06.320
an argument here. You can count
on Zelinski to fight as long as we

793
00:58:06.559 --> 00:58:08.920
arm him. You can count on, as you've just established, you can

794
00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:13.159
count on the Europeans to be willing
to fight as long as we give them

795
00:58:13.280 --> 00:58:19.079
cover, as long as we lead
the way. So what Houton is counting

796
00:58:19.119 --> 00:58:22.599
on When you say he's counting on
the other side to tire, he's counting

797
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:28.039
on us to tire. It all
comes down to the United States, all

798
00:58:28.159 --> 00:58:32.599
right. Now, then let's take
the art. Let's take this scenario under

799
00:58:32.639 --> 00:58:37.639
which we continue to arm Zelinski.
We want to push push push, because

800
00:58:37.719 --> 00:58:42.519
so far they they keep bluffing about
nuclear weapons. And now let's return to

801
00:58:42.760 --> 00:58:47.679
Rob's moment in the bunker and imagine
it this way. Mindfure I'm sorry,

802
00:58:47.719 --> 00:58:52.280
I have to tell you there is
no Steiner, there will be no conventional

803
00:58:52.360 --> 00:58:59.880
counterattack. But mind Furr, you
still have tactical nuclear weapons. That strikes

804
00:59:00.199 --> 00:59:05.400
me as something we off we are
forced to take into account. We can't

805
00:59:05.440 --> 00:59:07.559
just dismiss it. Oh, they're
bluffing. They're bluffing, They're bluffing.

806
00:59:07.559 --> 00:59:10.119
They keep saying these dropping out of
a treaty they keep seems to me we

807
00:59:10.239 --> 00:59:14.960
need to take that into account,
don't we. If J. D Vance

808
00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.079
and David Sacks and other highly intelligent
people say wait a minute here, let's

809
00:59:19.119 --> 00:59:22.960
not get ourselves dragged into a nuclear
exchange, they're not wrong about that,

810
00:59:23.199 --> 00:59:27.280
are they? Well, well,
okay, hey, nobody wants a nuclear

811
00:59:27.320 --> 00:59:32.039
exchange, obviously obvious, and um, I don't know that. Um.

812
00:59:32.599 --> 00:59:37.559
I think it's it's a it's a
difficult proposition. I disagree with David Sacks.

813
00:59:37.920 --> 00:59:38.760
I had a tweet the other night
thing, I don't understand how you

814
00:59:38.760 --> 00:59:40.760
can take Russia as side of the
way. I wasn't talking about him.

815
00:59:42.119 --> 00:59:44.719
I think there are plenty of people
who can make principled arguments, even though

816
00:59:44.719 --> 00:59:45.480
I disagree with them, and I
don't want to say that they are on

817
00:59:45.559 --> 00:59:51.440
Russia's side. And it's, as
you know, that's a nasty, um,

818
00:59:51.639 --> 00:59:57.039
an unfortunate development in our politics.
And yeah, David, David Sacks

819
00:59:57.079 --> 01:00:00.400
and jd Vance, those two at
least are highly intelligent, good people who

820
01:00:00.480 --> 01:00:06.039
are also our friends. We stipulate
that, but I think they're wrong.

821
01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:09.039
They're wrong in the find stance because
even let's say that we sort of deter

822
01:00:09.239 --> 01:00:12.400
ourselves in this in this regard and
we say, all right, you know,

823
01:00:12.480 --> 01:00:15.760
eventually they might use attach their weapon
and there they might be bluffing,

824
01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:17.559
you know, the last twenty times, but the twenty first time they won't

825
01:00:17.559 --> 01:00:21.559
be bluffing, and then it's a
real problem. Um, well, then

826
01:00:21.599 --> 01:00:25.760
we've established a new world in which, you know, nuclear powers that are

827
01:00:25.800 --> 01:00:31.039
autocrats get to basically blackmail their way
to what they want, and sooner or

828
01:00:31.159 --> 01:00:34.719
later we're going to have to confront
them unless we're willing to give way a

829
01:00:34.800 --> 01:00:37.440
lot more than just Ukraine. So
that's the first point, which is that

830
01:00:37.760 --> 01:00:39.800
you don't want to establish that president
that that's how you get to win the

831
01:00:39.880 --> 01:00:44.679
wars because you play the new card. But the second thing is this,

832
01:00:45.039 --> 01:00:51.800
I don't know that it makes if
you think that Putin is rational and he's

833
01:00:51.880 --> 01:00:55.440
making decisions here that are in you
know, his best interest is he sees

834
01:00:55.519 --> 01:01:01.800
it that hurts him if he uses
a nuclear weapon like that, I think

835
01:01:01.840 --> 01:01:07.519
it hurts him. With China,
China has an interest itself being a nuclear

836
01:01:07.559 --> 01:01:09.719
power of not having this. You
know, they have to worry about India.

837
01:01:10.199 --> 01:01:14.320
I mean, there's a lot of
things there where he's opening his own

838
01:01:14.400 --> 01:01:17.440
Pandora's box. If he does that, where you know, if China was

839
01:01:17.519 --> 01:01:22.000
to say, really turn on Russia
because it's been economically supporting the Russians in

840
01:01:22.079 --> 01:01:28.039
this period, well then Prutin probably
really is finished, you know. So

841
01:01:29.239 --> 01:01:31.920
I don't know that it's that we
have to assume that he would use the

842
01:01:32.039 --> 01:01:36.199
Tacolo nuclear weapons, even though I
am aware that it is part of this

843
01:01:36.719 --> 01:01:38.760
Russian military doctor that they would lose
it if they were, you know,

844
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:43.280
and that there are all these sorts
of important distinctions that we have to understand

845
01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:46.159
that Russians believe that if they have
to de trend their own territory now that

846
01:01:46.159 --> 01:01:51.000
they've declared the oblasts that they you
know, took over in the war as

847
01:01:51.039 --> 01:01:53.119
part of their territory, they could
then use you know, all of that.

848
01:01:53.199 --> 01:01:57.920
I understand that that serious kind of
Cremlinologists will like, think about all

849
01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:01.599
that I'm taking take a step back
looking at it. I think that it's

850
01:02:01.639 --> 01:02:05.840
not entirely clear that he would do
that. Then there'll be huge, huge

851
01:02:05.960 --> 01:02:07.760
problems, not just from America,
from the entire world, I think,

852
01:02:07.800 --> 01:02:12.519
including China, if he did so, I don't I would not want to

853
01:02:12.559 --> 01:02:16.039
give into it. And to my
surprise, even though Biden did have this

854
01:02:16.199 --> 01:02:20.280
lapse at a fundraiser a few months
ago, and remember this, like in

855
01:02:20.639 --> 01:02:23.599
September he said something about the lines
like they don't be world War three will

856
01:02:23.599 --> 01:02:29.039
be terrible. For the most part, the Biden administration has been really good

857
01:02:29.199 --> 01:02:32.079
in not being rattled by these threats, which is clearly part of the Russian

858
01:02:32.119 --> 01:02:37.039
strategy. Or as one gaudy,
jolly Russian general said the other day on

859
01:02:37.079 --> 01:02:42.079
Russian state television, that at this
point they have to reduce Kiev to rubble

860
01:02:42.159 --> 01:02:44.800
and plant the flag on the top
of it, so you know, they

861
01:02:44.840 --> 01:02:46.840
just knew Kiev and call it a
day before we let you go, Eli,

862
01:02:47.519 --> 01:02:52.079
there is now there are now reports
that Progosian is being a persona non

863
01:02:52.199 --> 01:02:55.400
grata in the Russian state media.
They will no longer mention any thing that

864
01:02:55.480 --> 01:02:59.559
he says unless it's the report of
a victory. Because he went in this

865
01:02:59.719 --> 01:03:06.400
law long diatribe about how the Wagner
group is having a ammunition famine, that

866
01:03:06.519 --> 01:03:10.639
they're not getting supplies, that they're
not being supported, and apparently this isn't

867
01:03:10.639 --> 01:03:15.800
going down very well with the guys
up top of course he's he's replaceable.

868
01:03:15.840 --> 01:03:20.440
They all are. But what I
read as I have recently that the group

869
01:03:20.559 --> 01:03:25.760
is actually having trouble recruiting in prison, then perhaps the manpower and the shell

870
01:03:25.840 --> 01:03:32.199
drought happens a little earlier than people
expected. Uh, you know, I

871
01:03:32.239 --> 01:03:37.119
don't want to I don't know what
to make of that, because my you

872
01:03:37.199 --> 01:03:42.559
know, history would teach us that
Russia has a very huge supply of bodies

873
01:03:43.400 --> 01:03:45.719
and it can't it can if it
wants to extend this war, just because

874
01:03:45.760 --> 01:03:51.079
it's willing to accept far more casualties
than a lot of other countries. Um.

875
01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:58.000
But it's interesting to see, you
know, Putin's important allies maybe breaking

876
01:03:58.079 --> 01:04:00.880
with him. Um, it's always
good to see. And you know,

877
01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:04.480
I thought, my hope is,
I don't think anybody really knows, but

878
01:04:04.599 --> 01:04:11.400
my hope is that the CIA and
the FBI right now are using the Karen

879
01:04:11.559 --> 01:04:15.840
environment to go after other oligarchs that
are close to Putin and sort of seeing

880
01:04:15.760 --> 01:04:19.159
who might want to hedge their bets. Um. I mean, now is

881
01:04:19.159 --> 01:04:21.760
the time to do that. And
so you know, slowly betruely, and

882
01:04:21.800 --> 01:04:26.599
it's something I just did stress.
I mean that this is not revelatory or

883
01:04:26.639 --> 01:04:32.039
anything. We cannot know. We
cannot know what the real situation is like

884
01:04:32.360 --> 01:04:39.679
in his inner circle and what what's
happening inside that black box inside the Kremlin

885
01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:43.599
and his regime. At this point, we can speculate it, but we

886
01:04:43.719 --> 01:04:45.960
really just can't know. But I
just would say, I mean, let's

887
01:04:46.119 --> 01:04:49.880
I don't I do not assume that
that everything is running smoothly and that everything

888
01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:55.079
is okay. French warfare, war
in Europe and Putin shuttling back and forth

889
01:04:55.159 --> 01:04:59.760
in his private car on a railroad. It's it's just like the last hundred

890
01:04:59.840 --> 01:05:03.679
years never happened. Eli, thanks
for joining us. I hope, I

891
01:05:03.719 --> 01:05:09.719
hope we're not talking to you at
the second anniversary of the war. Yeah,

892
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:15.840
all right, thank you so much. And generally, before we go,

893
01:05:15.079 --> 01:05:17.679
and we have been blathering on here
for a while, we should probably

894
01:05:17.760 --> 01:05:21.440
mention, as Rob loves to do, to remind people that Ricochet is actually

895
01:05:21.480 --> 01:05:27.679
an enterprise that has a real world
analog. It's not just one of those

896
01:05:28.360 --> 01:05:33.880
cyber things. That was a hint
Rob to talk. I was just agreeing

897
01:05:33.880 --> 01:05:36.280
with you and nodding, yeah,
it's right. I mean, look,

898
01:05:36.800 --> 01:05:40.599
there's this is fun and all.
We love to have you listened to the

899
01:05:40.639 --> 01:05:43.800
podcast. We'd love to see you
on site. We'd love to have conversations

900
01:05:43.880 --> 01:05:47.960
with you virtually on the site.
But it's also fun to get together.

901
01:05:48.480 --> 01:05:50.960
So we have meetups. They really
do happen and they're fun. And we

902
01:05:51.079 --> 01:05:55.400
have a bunch coming up. You
can meet the actual king of stuff,

903
01:05:55.480 --> 01:05:58.920
John Gabriel. He will be an
event he's hosting in Phoenix in mid March.

904
01:05:59.400 --> 01:06:00.639
A bunch of us are going to
be in New Orleans for French quarter

905
01:06:00.719 --> 01:06:04.920
Fest. And that's also I think
it's in early April. Uh, and

906
01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:10.400
there's there's a member Flicker has set
April twenty second as a date for the

907
01:06:10.480 --> 01:06:14.519
Stillwater, Minnesota meet up. I
hope I can make it if i'm yea,

908
01:06:14.920 --> 01:06:19.480
if I'm not in Bartholona, as
I have to say now. But

909
01:06:19.639 --> 01:06:21.880
look, those are just what's coming
up in the next I don't know,

910
01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:25.639
eight weeks, ten weeks, twelve
weeks, and if they're toothbar away or

911
01:06:25.679 --> 01:06:28.280
for whatever reason you can't make it
you want to, here's a solution.

912
01:06:28.320 --> 01:06:31.320
You just join join Ricochet, put
on the put on a member fee that

913
01:06:31.320 --> 01:06:33.280
you want to have a meet up
its closer to you on on a date

914
01:06:33.280 --> 01:06:39.199
that works for you, and guess
what something one will happen. Because people

915
01:06:39.280 --> 01:06:42.000
who are remembers the Ricochet likes travel, I'd like to get together. It's

916
01:06:42.039 --> 01:06:47.800
always a good time. Details of
everything I've just described quickly are more specifically

917
01:06:48.159 --> 01:06:53.599
illuminated at Ricochet's just go to ricochet
dot com slash events. You can look

918
01:06:53.599 --> 01:06:57.000
at it on the sidebarts right there. And if you want to come join

919
01:06:57.159 --> 01:06:59.639
and we will be happy to see
you. In fact, if you join,

920
01:07:00.679 --> 01:07:03.920
if you joined because of this James, think of a secret word.

921
01:07:05.599 --> 01:07:10.079
Secret think of a word and then
and then say it on the podcast.

922
01:07:10.199 --> 01:07:12.800
Is that what you're saying? Do
you want? Okay? If you joy?

923
01:07:12.800 --> 01:07:15.000
If you hear this and you join, and I see you and in

924
01:07:15.079 --> 01:07:18.800
New Orleans, would I'll be there
at the French Quarterfest. If you say

925
01:07:19.039 --> 01:07:25.480
to me James told me to tell
you to buy me a drink, I

926
01:07:25.559 --> 01:07:30.159
will buy you a drink. But
don't know if you're already a member,

927
01:07:30.199 --> 01:07:32.199
don't you know I'm not. I'm
not a mister money banks here. Just

928
01:07:32.320 --> 01:07:40.159
if you join, um to say
that secret code word and I'll buy you

929
01:07:40.159 --> 01:07:44.000
a drink. If you joined Ricochet, I want you to tell Rob to

930
01:07:44.119 --> 01:07:46.559
buy you the twenty four year old
McCallan. Yeah, that's not happening.

931
01:07:47.400 --> 01:07:51.280
The hurricane out of the hurricane or
the shark attack out of the freezer.

932
01:07:51.360 --> 01:07:56.519
Machie. I mentioned a Spanish city, and you say, I, that's

933
01:07:56.960 --> 01:08:00.960
that's h right there. We're gonna
get complaint. It's actually not a Spanish

934
01:08:00.960 --> 01:08:04.719
city, of Catlonian city. I
suppose Barcelona. You know that. That's

935
01:08:04.760 --> 01:08:06.599
what we have to say now that
I mean, I was informed of that

936
01:08:06.719 --> 01:08:12.320
by a Barcelonian, but I guess
that's that's how it's pronounced. Well,

937
01:08:12.440 --> 01:08:15.239
you know, it depends. That's
actually kind of controversial change because people in

938
01:08:15.440 --> 01:08:18.640
who can speak Catalan they say Barcelona. They don't say Barcelona. To people

939
01:08:18.680 --> 01:08:23.159
who are not from Barcelona say Barcelona. People from Madrid say that, so

940
01:08:23.319 --> 01:08:25.439
like I, when you're there,
you can say. But it depends on

941
01:08:25.960 --> 01:08:30.399
what your your origin is. But
the Catalonas Scelona, my very Catalona,

942
01:08:30.760 --> 01:08:33.239
very Catalonian exchange student. I'm sure
my wife is seated right behind me at

943
01:08:33.279 --> 01:08:36.800
the moment and she's shaking her head
in disbelief at this conversation. Let me

944
01:08:36.840 --> 01:08:41.720
get a ruling on this from someone
who actually knows Spain. Well, how

945
01:08:41.880 --> 01:08:49.720
is Barcelona pronounced? My cousins who
are from Barcelona layla from people? But

946
01:08:49.880 --> 01:08:55.159
I tell you la my wife right, well, I far be it from

947
01:08:55.199 --> 01:08:59.399
me to I will never contradict missus
Robinson. But however she does admit that

948
01:08:59.479 --> 01:09:04.399
that is the Spanish right. I
had a cattle Catalonian living in my house

949
01:09:04.439 --> 01:09:06.640
for five months. God bless her
so to this. You know, I

950
01:09:08.079 --> 01:09:11.560
know from what I speak. She
made me the pie? Am I pronouncing

951
01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:14.399
that correctly? I always feel like
I'm leaving on a couple of syllables.

952
01:09:14.520 --> 01:09:15.680
I'm from North Dakota, where things
are playing and simple. We don't have

953
01:09:15.760 --> 01:09:19.399
words like pie. No, but
you do call it North Dakota. It

954
01:09:19.439 --> 01:09:26.880
could be right. We've been North
Dakota, North Dakota. North Dakota would

955
01:09:26.920 --> 01:09:30.680
be perfect. N O r se
Dakota was telling you, I just googled

956
01:09:30.720 --> 01:09:36.720
it the correct pronunciation of Barcelona in
Catalan, Okay, not Spanish. Catalan

957
01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:45.479
is Barona? Okay in Spanish,
it's Barcelona. Well, they may disagree,

958
01:09:45.520 --> 01:09:46.920
but that's taken up with Google.
Well, then I got a job

959
01:09:47.000 --> 01:09:50.000
to do when I go there,
informing each and every one of them that

960
01:09:50.119 --> 01:09:55.359
the Google informs them if they are
all incorrect. Can't wait. However,

961
01:09:56.039 --> 01:10:00.680
um, I have to say that
we're done. Podcast brought you by youth

962
01:10:00.720 --> 01:10:03.800
Switch. Support them by supporting us, and support us and support them vice

963
01:10:03.920 --> 01:10:08.239
versa. Nice one hand washes the
other thing. And we mentioned that you

964
01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:12.560
can indeed join Ricochet. Go there
find out why. And also if you

965
01:10:12.640 --> 01:10:15.399
could just take a minute, no, I'm sorry, if you could take

966
01:10:15.560 --> 01:10:19.520
forty eight minutes to craft the perfect
five star review on Apple podcast would really

967
01:10:19.560 --> 01:10:23.720
appreciate that. I'm not going to
tell you that you should just dash something

968
01:10:23.760 --> 01:10:26.000
off in ten seconds. I want
you to give it a lot of thought.

969
01:10:26.039 --> 01:10:28.920
I want you to be like here
in Rob Long Senior year after everything

970
01:10:28.960 --> 01:10:31.319
has been fixed, and you're writing
an essay on something like that, and

971
01:10:31.920 --> 01:10:34.319
that's all I got, Peter,
Rob, It's been great. We'll see

972
01:10:34.359 --> 01:10:40.239
everybody in the comments at Ricochet four
point zero four Now next week, Next

973
01:10:40.279 --> 01:10:47.880
week, boys, next week Ricochet. Join the conversation