Welcome back everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway and David
Harsani. So, Molly, if you were taking a mug shot, would
you be like one of the people who smiles and pretends nothing is going wrong
for you? Or you would you be a scowler, you know, a
person sort of standing up against the man. I have thought about this a
lot for obvious reasons, and I do love a smiling mug shot. I
expected the former president to be smiling in his mug shot. He was not.
He nailed it like he nailed that, like I'm coming for you look.
But I think I would do a smile. I liked when Tom Delaye
did it. I thought David Schaeffer in the Georgia Republican Party chair, I
loved his mug shot and he knew he nailed that one. He was smiling.
He turned it into his profile pick. And I thought Jenna Ellis also
did a great job with her mug shot. What would you do? I
think I'd have to be a smiler because I think my scowly I'm coming for
your face would just be comedic, right, It wouldn't. No one would
be scared of it, right, and I would look at you know,
I would look ridiculous, so I would I would smile. That would be
my way of doing it. Do you expect Do you expect to be jailed
for anything? Or it be well, the way things are going, perhaps
both of us will find ourselves there day. Yeah, I'm just preparing for
it. I have no idea what the chumped up cause will be, but
I'm just assuming that that will happen. I think if you're effective, you
get arrested, you get fired, you know, stuff like that. Yeah,
I don't because I hardly leave my house. But never know, we'll
see. I will smile if it happens. I'll be you know, I'll
be low on the list, right, so by the time they get to
my muck shot, I'll just be like one of one of those in one
of those pictures where they have like a hundred of people's muck shots. I
don't think it's going to be anything, you know that's spectacular. It was
interesting. So let's talk about this muck shot for a minute, because I
think it was the moment that you know, so many people have been waiting
for. They was so excited about it. I honestly I should have maybe
I did say it. I'm not sure if I did. I expected it
to sort of backfire a bit. I just it is a now just this
picture that people use in defiance of what they see and rightfully, in my
view, see as a political prosecution. And obviously I think Trump pulled in
like seven million dollars that day or some huge number. It was more than
any other day of the campaign. Do you think, you know, what
did you think of it? I mean, did you did you think that
it backfired? Do you think it's going to matter for the general or things
like that, or do you think it's just sort of for his fans or
primary voters. Does a change anything? I thought it kind of clarified some
stuff. So first off, you need to acknowledge the power that the Democrats
have right now. They are jailing their political opponents. They are arresting and
charging their political opponents for political reasons up to it, and including the former
president of the United States who's also the head Republican He's the top Republican guy,
he's the odds on favorite to be the nominee, and he has a
really good chance of winning re election of being reelected president. In that split
term sense, that's so much more important than the morale building of the mug
shot For the right, you know, like they're using their power to accomplish
their goals. But I thought that the mug shot was interesting for two reasons.
One, it definitely was this thing where I think people thought that once
there was a mug shot, it would decrease Republican support for him, and
that's definitely not happening, as evidenced by the fundraising and other issues. I
also think the left thought it would feel better to get the mug shot than
it did. Like, when you're jailing your political opponents, you're in a
class of people with Stalin Hitler Mao putin like that that's your tribe now,
and that doesn't feel very good. It is very reminiscent of the are We
the Baddies sketch from that British comedy Troupe, where they're they've played the part
of Nazis who are suddenly realizing that they're the bad guys. They're like,
we have scary looking insignias and we kill people. Are we the bad people?
Are we the bad ones? Well? I wouldn't go as far as
you just went, but I will say that, I think that you give
them the opposition too much credit. I don't think they very much feel bad
about it. I think that they're less excited because it and have the effect
that they hoped it would have. It wasn't as embarrassing for the president,
who I don't think can be embarrassed really a former president. But I will
say this now, whatever you make of the charges, whatever you make of
the indictment in in in Atlanta or whatever, it is clear to me,
at least as a person who is not a Trump fan, that this is
a political prosecution because of the timing of the trials and the timing of the
indictments and all of that stuff. Like Jack Smith had what two and a
half years to come up with a crime, and he could only push this
indictment six you know, what is it, six months before the primaries or
or whatever it was, and now you have what's her name, Tanya Chutkin
setting setting a trial on this kind of massive, you know, case,
a historic case, and for what is it the trials the day before the
Super Tuesday or something like that. I mean that's not an accident, you
know, I mean, these are these this is meant to interfere with the
election. I think, unlike you that I believe they think Trump can be
beaten, but they want to make sure by completely weakening him or even throwing
him in jail. I think it'd be happy to do that too, And
that's what this is about. At least that's how I see it. No,
I think it's not interference in the election. It's actual rigging of the
election. This is designed to control the outcome of the twenty four election.
By the way, not just for the presidency, but when you do this
type of thing, it affects everybody. The actual goal is to do the
show trials quickly. Any reasonable judge would have set this well down the line
so that people could go through all the documents that Jack Smith had been able
to go through for years and years and years. The Democrats have been working
on this case for years and years and years. So Trump the victim of
this, which Hunt needs that time to go through everything, and he doesn't
have the resources of the federal government. It's a big thing. Any reasonable
judge would have set the case for after the election, just full stop.
The idea is to have the show trial result in a conviction. That's why
it's happening in DC, so that they could charge him with anything, and
regardless of the facts, he would be convicted and get him thrown off the
ballot in certain states. That's why you also saw people start to like openly
talk about this very interesting legal theory that's ridiculous where they can keep him off
the ballot in California, keep him off the ballot and other sapphire blue states,
and by doing that they will also hurt his coat tails, so you
might lose some seats, some congressional seats in California and other otherwise. Yeah,
and everybody for the entire election is going to have to answer questions about
Trump's trial and what's going on with Trump. I mean, that is going
to be the center of attention for the vast majority of media. See.
Isn't that good for Republicans? Though I don't know about that. I think
the center of attention should be the Biden presidency and the Biden failures and the
Biden maybe impeachment, right, I mean, those are not going to be
talked about. Well if you are a Republican elected official and you can't turn
a question about the political prosecution of Trump into the protection that the DOJ is
giving the Biden crime family. You don't deserve to be reelected, Like every
single question should be pounding the DOJ and Biden. If you can't do that,
like you just should get out of politics. Here. Here's a thing
that I think will affect some folks who are not Trump you know, fans,
but are Republicans but or not even the Trump fans but not politically inclined
to think about politics all the time, is that they're going to be worried
that this thing is going to and it will because if Trump's found guilty,
he'll take it to the Supreme Court. It will be a case about immunity,
it will be a case about the presidency and the executive in the power
of the executive and all that they'll be worried that this will just take over
his whole presidency. I think that's part of it as well, just to
create this fear that, you know, to first make you defend someone who's
being you know who as a muckshot, as susandicted who's on trial, but
also then think about the long term implications of this. And I do worry,
you know, setting outside of everything, you know, the fairness and
all that that that will be something that hurts all Republicans, especially Trump in
a general election. Do you how do you think this stuff plays out with
kind of like the middle of the road independent voter who might be inclined to
vote for Republicans. I think it honestly depends. We are crossing so many
lines here that never should have been crossed. The what Democrats are willing to
do because of their hatred, Like they're just so consumed with hatred that they
are losing their minds and they're willing to sacrifice the country over it. So
I do think this will require some courage from people. Like part of the
reason that contributed to the twenty twenty election turning out the way it did is
that a lot of people are kind of weak and cowardly and not able to
take fights that come to them. And I do worry about that, like
the country also just seeing like how much people were willing to roll over for
a lot of like COVID pandemic response. We're not in the healthiest place for
the body politic, But when people try to destroy your country, and they
are, I mean, they're coming after freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, right of the people to petition their government for a redress of grievances,
the right to an attorney, like all these things that we thought were
so okay because because they're in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, we
didn't really worry about. Even if you have political opponents who are a little
carried away, we didn't think they would quite go as far as they're going
right now. So if you it's got the same thing. If you're not
willing to fight for your country when it's pretty easy all you have to do
is vote the right way, you basically have given up the country yourself.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with that, But also it makes the
Trump factor makes it somewhat difficult for people. And you know, I know,
it's just the reality. I mean, because everything becomes about him and
it's difficult for people to separate those two issues. I will say he's been
given great opponents. What I mean by that is if you're even just like
moderately reasonable, you look at this and you go, wow, have they
lost their minds? And are they doing really horrible things? So beyond appropriate
what Jack Smith is doing, what Fanny Willis is doing, And it's not
just that they're going after Trump and anyone who supports him, it's that they're
protecting their political tribe with we all see open corruption. I was just thinking
about how Joe Biden will probably go down as one of the most corrupt presidents
we've had. It's weird, you know, like you just sort of thought
of him as a middle of the road, average grifter type politico. But
because of what a few whistleblowers and a few congressional committees have been able to
expose, you see that he's emblematic of just massive DC corruption that the DOJ
did not. You know, I keep thinking about Jack Smith. Jack Smith,
the guy who's trying to kill Donald Trump, is the guy who was
in charge of investigating corruption of public officials during the Obama presidency when Joe Biden
and his family were bringing in millions upon millions of dollars. I'm going to
get to that Obama stuff and then yeah, in a minute, because I
think it does tie in in a certain way, and it's interesting. Just
I'll just say this about Biden is that you're right, the perception of him
and sort of just this middling, a middle you know, sort of moderate,
you know, every day middle class person has always been a complete mythology.
He's been a terrible person. He's been an incredible pathological liar, not
just about politics, about himself, and just a creepy person and a very
also a middling intelligence, I'd say so, like he's always been that way.
And when the more I think about how the American people were fooled by
him and his and his campaign because he didn't really have the campaign, that
is itself almost a hoax on the American people, right, I mean,
he is not the person that they've voted for, because that person has never
existed. That's besides all the corruption stuff. I quickly wanted to mention.
Trump was on with Glenn Beck the other day and Glenn asked him about this
issue where, you know, he had said during the twenty sixteen campaign that
he was going to prosecute or lock up or whatever he said, Hillary Clinton,
and then when the time came that he had the power to prosecute her,
he didn't. And I think he said something at the time like,
you know, that's not what we do in this country. Apparently it is,
but he said that things would be different next time and that he would
he would he has no choice but to go after her and his political enemies,
and he has to lock them up too, meaning you know, they're
trying to lock him up. And across left wing media, you know,
this was you know, the headline of this quote was, you know,
Donald Trump threatens to lock up political enemies, not that his that his enemies
are trying to lock him up as well. What do you what do you
think of this kind of thing? Worries me. I know that most Republicans
are all on board, and actually I think Hillary Clinton does belong you know,
did act in a criminal manner and deserves to be prosecuted. Actually,
but this idea that we're just going to go after each it's just a set
of ratchets up stuff in a way that I think could destroy the Republic.
Do we need a president who's going to calm things down in anyway or do
we need a president who's going to like exact revenge on these Hey, y'all,
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Trump's saying that there's no option but to go after political opponents who deserve to
be in jail or whatever. I do think Unfortunately, the only way this
stops is if Democrats are jailed for any number of things. It was I
think we talked about this on the show a few weeks ago. A lot
of people voted for Trump in part because they didn't like the corruption of Hillary
Clinton, who was credibly accused of mishandling classified information, among other things,
and people do always say lock her up. When he was elected, He's
like, Nam, we don't do that. We don't go after political opponents,
like we just have to like lower the temperature. And in response to
him being that way and being like completely hands off with the Department of Justice,
despite everything you heard about how he wasn't that way. It was given
very good counsel by his White House counsels on what not to do, and
he was not. He had a Department of Justice that never operated as his
I mean, to begin with, he had Jeff Sessions, who wanted to
be Attorney General, didn't tell Trump he was going to recuse himself from reigning
in a corrupt department of Justice when he took the gig. So you had
years of just corruption at DJ undermining the Trump administration, going after political allies
of the Trump administration, protecting political opponents. It was very, very bad.
They ran the Russia collusion hoax out of the Department of Justice during the
Trump administration. That's bad. That's a really bad situation. But I don't
necessarily read him as saying like he would do it, but just that Republicans
need to start responding forcefully to this. They should impeach every single person they
can who's involved in things like impeach Tanya Chuckin, the daughter of communists communist
revolutionaries in Jamaica. I think was what the New York Post reported, who
is making a mockery of rule of law. Impeach her, prosecute Barack Obama
for all his shady money deals. Just find a place where he did a
shady money deal and have the local DA jail him. I think once you
start jailing Barack Obama or you know, other high level people, maybe Democrats
will say, Okay, this was not a good approach. I don't know.
Maybe, what do you think, how do you get out of this
mess? I don't really know, I am you know, I'm a I
just feel like once you open these doors as they have, it's difficult to
come back from it. And you know, if you, if you one
of your key campaign promises, I'm going to lock them up too. I'm
not saying they don't deserve it, right, I'm not saying they don't deserve
to be I'm not necessarily locked up, but even indict or prosecute or investigate.
But then again, I keep hearing no one's above the law, so
helor should be above the law. Joe Biden shouldn't be above the law.
Barack Obama shouldn't be above the law. So it becomes but you know what
happens, it's I don't think like you do that. Then the left,
which is getting more and more progressive and more radical, it is going to
say, oh boy, wow, we got to be careful. I think
they're just going to just go for it even more the next time they attain
power. So I don't know, is my auntswer I really don't know?
Can we just's like it's like another conflict though you know, you're in a
war and the one side is killing your people and raping your women. You
know, you might not respond by doing crimes, but you might respond with
force, because if you don't, you're just letting them destroy everything. Typically,
in a American politics, when a party gets out of lawn or someone
gets out on let's just talk about Richard Nixon, there's a heavy political price
for that party to pay right through through the elections. That doesn't happen anymore.
I think that there's such a partisan divide now that people don't really punish
their own party for acting in ways that undermine the Constitution or whatever it is.
So yeah, I don't know. Now, you're right, I don't
know how. I don't know how you fight this war other than playing their
game, and that gets pretty dangerous for the Republican general. So to me,
I don't know, as I was just wondering. I mean, I
think it's a pretty bad situation right now. What you need is you need
some leadership from people on the left as well to bring back some kind of
normalcy. But have you noticed that there's not like there are never Trumpers,
whatever you think of them. There has always been a faction of the right
that's sort of rising up against whatever the prevailing candidate is or notion. You
never see that. On the left. There's no one ever challenged Barack Obama's
attacks, and no one ever challenges Biden right now. In fact, they
cheer him on. They want him to, for instance, just take student
loans. They cheer him on to circumvent Congress literally where they are the institution
they're supposed to be protecting, and they cheer him on to just ignore the
Constitution. So how can you fix something like that. I don't know how
you can fix it. You need new people in Washington, and that's you
know, all the new people going to Washington are more radical and more partisan
than the people who leave. I mean, it just becomes really a difficult
situation. Can we just go back last week we previewed the debate, but
I don't think we spoke about it. Was there. Did you have any
big any insight into that or takeaways? Idn't. I didn't think it.
I didn't think it really that much of an effect or matter. No,
I think it was it was like a good step to get through the fact
that it didn't have much of an effect is still something that people need to
absorb and come to terms with. I think when you have it just reminds
me so much of twenty sixteen, how Donald Trump was like always ahead in
the polls and people would be like, yeah, but who was really gonna
win? He's up what like fifty points in the point. I mean,
it's just it's it's absurd how much of a front runner he is and how
he keeps solidifying his support. And you saw this. He didn't show up,
he didn't do the debate. He did drop a little bit in the
polls, which is not completely surprising, but what happened to everybody else I
thought was interesting. So it had been like Donald Trump at fifty six and
then Ramaswamy and the Santists both at ten, and then everybody else just battling
in the like ones and twos. After the debate, one of those polls,
Emerson came out. It showed Trump dropping the fifty. But the second
place, it's not like someone broke out there. The Santists I think,
ticked up to twelve, Ramaswamy was down to nine, and then it was
like two others I can't remember who they were who were at seven. So
now that's second place has gotten to be a little bit more of a race.
Yeah, do you know what I mean, like you've got four now
contending between seven and twelve points. That's interesting. That probably helps Trump to
have a tight like a bunch of people in the race for second. I
just you know, as we move forward, it's just seems very difficult for
me to even imagine scenarios where where where Trump loses if he if he sticks
in it. The only thing I can think of is perhaps someone really you
know, surprising him in Iowa or but he lost Iowa in sixteen, or
New Hampshire, you know whatever, and then maybe people start to take a
second look at the other candidates. I just don't I just I just think
it's it's a tough spot. Trump is eats up all the you know,
he is in the lead for the things we've mentioned that he was the president
obviously, but also you know, he is just knows how to bring attention
to himself. You know, every people having a debate and he's on with
Tucker and you know, getting a tons of people watching him. I don't
know how you can overcome that, just thinking about it. You know,
there's a hurricane that's going to hit Florida or maybe it already has, and
desantists in my view, is doing a good job, you know, and
he's just a good governor. And to me, I think this is not
the kind of race that he can win because for him, the kind of
race to win is one where you can talk about issue. Does hit talk
about your you know, just have these debates with with the with the front
runner and maybe awig at him. But he doesn't even have an ability to
do that. This actually, that actually kind of annoys me. This is
a race on issues. It's clearly a race on issues, and there's not
much disagreement in the Republican Party on the main issues. Like you look at
the top three people, Trump, Ramaswami and Descantists. They are all Ukraine
War skeptics or people who want a more realist approach to that war than the
one being waged by the neo Khans. In the Democrat and Republican parties,
you have broad agreement on the need to control the southern border. You have
agreement on the need to take on China. So and they're all good on
judges, Like if they're they're not, I'm sorry. They're all there in
the top because of issues. Yeah, but everyone in every presidential race in
a party generally agree on stuff. It's how would you get those things done?
Where you know, what is your record on that, what is your
record on when we did have lockdowns or whatever it is. I just think
more specifics on it. Yeah, Yeah, DeSantis can't chip away a Trump's
record in any way because Trump, first of all won't even really engage in
any kind of ways. I'm just saying it's just too difficult for him.
But I do think his campaign like what he should do. I sort of
think it's not a great year for him to run, but that he's running.
He is the nation's best governor by far, and so his entire campaign
should just be continuing to be the nation's best governor. He does well when
you see him, like, I would not be surprised to see him tick
up a little bit more. They're they're definitely spending money now. They're working
on things right now because they kind of know that it's now or never.
And he will presumably manage this hurricane as well as he has managed the previous
ones under his governorship. And he's very confidence inspiring, he's very competent,
and he's exactly who you want at the head of a government operation. So
so I think this is not like it's a horrible it's horrible when tragedies hit
and whether it's you know, this is not but that's when like good,
good, good, good governance actually matters more than eighty or ninety percent of
the other times, you know, for for normal people just want to say,
I don't know, I think that Glenn Youngcan's pretty close to being as
good a governor. Do you disagree with that? The way he navigates a
pretty difficult state for Republicans typically, and he you know, he's pretty popular.
He is a conservative, and he does a really good job in presenting
those issues in a palatable way, I think for independence and moderates. I
just think he's a pretty good governor doing a great job. He was on
Maria Barter Romo on Sunday, I think it was, or maybe it was
her morning show, I don't know, and I was watching a clip from
it, and I know a lot of people want him to enter the race.
I think people need to be realistic that just like inside the Republican Party,
taking on Donald Trump is a very difficult thing to come out on the
other side in a better position. I just don't think, yeah, this
happens every race. You know, everyone's always looking for some outsider to break,
you know, to break the whole the monopoly basically of the of the
front runner. But who I mean, all he's gonna do him and to
Santa's are just going to end up splitting the c fifteen percent. Like no
one is going from Trump, who has rejected to Santis is saying, oh,
what you know, Younkin's pretty good, Like it's just doesn't make sense.
It's really to me. I do think sometimes people enter the race for
different reasons, Like Mike Pence is not running to be president. He might
be running to get on corporate boards, or maybe his top advisor, Mark
Short is making Mike Pence run so he can get on corporate boards where you
can make a lot of money and you can have increased money for speaking gigs
and things like that. He's not No one thinks Mike Pence is going to
be Like literally nor probably including Mike Pensing. You run for different reasons.
Tim Scott kind of just viewed him as actually running for vice president. I
think Glenn Youngkin might get in to run for vice president because of the situation
with both de Santis and Trump. Being from Florida, even though they would
be an amazing duo, one would have to leave and it would be hard
for the governor of Florida to leave Florida to get those electoral votes. So
it's true, But I think Nkin doesn't have to run to be tapped as
a VP. I think it'd also be a mistake for him to do that.
I just I think you can run for president next time and you don't
really need to be VP. When was allowed, you know, you know,
yeah, I guess Biden was VP, but it was a weird situation.
It's not like you need to be in there. In fact, I
think it kind of sidelines you in many ways. And it's just like I
don't think the Santas or you Kin should do it. Republicans have this issue.
Though Donald Trump is likely to be the nominee, it's going to be
a binary election. The fate of the Republican presidential race will dramatically relate to
the fate of Republicans controlling the Senate and the House, and so the quicker
the Republican Party kind of unifies around what's reality and happening, the better.
But to do that, you kind of need you know, you pick a
VP for a very particular reason at the moment that you need them, like
you need them to win the race. Right, But I could see Trump
needing someone like young Kin or Scott, you know, someone who's conservative and
liked by people and also very friendly with establishment GOP. Yeah. I mean
you also have to think about states, even though it doesn't always work out
that way. But I mean Trump to win needs to win Virginia, right,
I mean, he needs to probably win Arizona or Pennsylvania or one of
these other states like Michigan, whatever. I don't want to get into this.
Oh my god, just even thinking about the map right now is frustrating,
but so I don't know. Anyway, Let's I quickly want to mention
one story I wrote about and I saw you tweeting about it as well.
Since we're on the Descantis issue, did you see all these AP reporters and
NBC reporters essentially blaming, intimating, insinuating, but almost more than that,
that DeSantis has something to do with the shooting in Jacksonville of the black customers
at the dollar store or whatever school Dollar General. I mean it is,
there's just another reminder that it doesn't really matter which Republican is running or not
running. They're basically going to be treated with the same, you know,
disdain or same. I don't even It was just vile. So you know,
the reason of course that this shooting happened, according to Matt Dixon at
a at NBC News, is that you know, uh, de Santist doesn't
like diversity, you know, officers and schools or that, you know,
he he doesn't think he should be taught pseudo history about you know, pseudo
American history and schools things like that. It's just so vile, and I
it hit me that it happened so often that sometimes I think we forget just
how commonplaces have become and how violent really is. When you think about it,
it's like an unfalsib viable thing to be called a racist, and they
do it all the time and in the most just devious ways. Anyway,
you know, I know we've talked about this before, but when I was
young, you know, AP was like the gold standard for just straightforward journalism,
and now that place is just it's just garbage. You know, they
forgot guy's name, but he wrote a story like this as well. Steve
Peoples is his name, and I saw that he did that at the same
day that the RNC announced that they had rewarded the Associated Press for their propaganda
against Republicans by having them host a GOP debate. Probably you're not going to
get much change when you respond to a group that calls you racist and says
and campaigns constantly for your political opponents, and you give them a big prize,
they're probably not going to change. So I think propulsions they get what
they ask for. Here the Washed Auto Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
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Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I
mean this kind of ties into my constant complaint that all these big donors should
be forming journalistic institution or funding journalistic institutions on the right. But also a
nice way to give people a lift, and I'm not saying the Federalist,
it could be other, whatever outlet is to let them host these debates,
especially in the primary. They're going to ask the questions that matter to primary
voters, not some AP reporter who's gonna ask you about are They're gonna have
an AP reporter asking questions. I mean, he's gonna ask about climate change
and you know all that. Actually, let's talk about the debate for a
second. Didn't there wasn't a single quote, Wasn't there Like, didn't the
Republican debate not have like questions on super important issues? I forget, it's
been so long a week, so much happens in the Trump era, but
do you know what I'm talking about? Didn't they not ask a single question
on like a bunch of important issues. I forget which ones anyway, I
don't know. But the first question was asked by a YAFF person. It
was Climate Americus Foundation, and it was on climate change. Because I think
you really have your finger on the pulse of the conservative young person when you're
asking questions about climate change. I don't know, every bad question is an
opportunity to turn it around into a good question. But conservatives are interested in
different Republican voters are interested in different things than most corporate media are. So
yeah, they might all agree, except for Chris Christy, who loves the
Department of Justice and recommended Chris Ray to Donald Trump. So he's kind of
responsible for that. He vouched for Chris Ray to be the best like FBI
head. Everyone else recognizes that the Department of Justice is a big problem.
But like we just talked about the question Glennbeck asked Donald Trump, like,
are you going to imprison political opponents? I would like to know what is
their plan for taking on what the Department of Justice has done to our country?
Not do you agree that it's they're bad. Well, they're all going
to agree that they're bad, But what's the plan? What are you going
to do? What are some ideas you have for how to save the country
while the DOJ is going to war against Americans? And I don't think that
I don't know. That's what I would ask. No, you articulated what
I was thinking in my rant. I think, you know, it's not
any politicians are good at what they do. They typically can avoid any question
or say whatever they want. It doesn't really matter. But for during primary
season, we want to dive into It's like what I said before about the
santis and issues. How are you going to change this? How are you
going to fix this? What are you going to do? It's easy to
just you know, go off like Ramaswamy does in my opinion, but if
you have to sort of drill deeper into how you're going to fix these things,
I think it's important or any candidate, I don't want to pick on
him, even though I don't think he's I Also, I'm not a big
fan of Nikki Hayley's because she's sort of like that tired Republican person of the
past whose ideas I think have been roundly rejected by the best majority of Republican
voters. But I will say I thought she did very well in the debate
to kind of kick out some of those other people who are fighting for that
you know, twenty percent establishment friendly vote. Yeah, when you mean tired
ideas? Are you mainly talking about Neo KHN intervention form poll and stuff?
See. I think obviously foreign policy is usually important, and I think all
this stuff we like to talk about or we don't like to, but we
talk about the DOJ. The abuse is all important. But I kind of
feel like there's not enough about the economy and for me, at least,
helping the middle class and inflation and these are things I think that a lot.
Maybe in the primaries it's less important, but I think in the general
you want someone who's really going to hone in on those issues. Again,
I think you know, a lot of people think Trump has support because he's
a personality. Well, he's also articulating when he know, when he does
his campaign events and he's putting out policy papers. He's very focused on the
economy. He has the benefit of having had a good having done things in
a verly smart way when he was president, in a way that affected people's
bottom lines. And I don't think he's got enough credit for the deregulation,
which you always elect Republicans in the hopes that they will mount some kind of
deregulatory approach. He made that rule that you couldn't have a new regulation without
getting rid of two others. And also he had people at the agencies that
were just trying to get regulatory decisions made quickly, even if they weren't decisions
that companies or the regulated industry wanted. Sometimes it just helps to know what
the decision is going to be so you can build your business around it.
And the economic health that we had under the Trump administration, I think relates
a lot to how he handled how his people handled regulatory issues. How you
notice everyone says economy is like their number one issue. Aren't they talking about
it more? Yeah? But you notice that there's a full court press,
you know, full court press from the from journalists trying to convince everyone that
the economy is actually like the best it's ever been. Look At the unemployment
rate, look at you know, inflation is down. They keep saying,
we're not thinking that. You know, there's a you know, cumulative effect
of inflations and down at all. It's still up and most it's not not
rising as high as quick exactly. It's like spending cuts. It's like the
fake spending cuts. You know. But but it also hit me when you
were just talking that, you know, Donald A lot of what Donald Trump
did that people like that were his best accomplishments are just like old fashion e
Republican conservative things, tax cuts, deregulation, being you know, judges,
oil, you know, energy productive. These are just but people always talked
about it, but they never really followed through. When Donald Trump got out
of the Paris Climate Accords, I remember Mitt Romney, and I mean,
now it's not surprising at all, but Mitt Romney was calling on him to
not do that. That was the immediate previous presidential nominee. And so you
say, like, oh, he's doing stuff that anyone would do well.
Mitt Romney wouldn't know. And I think we all know Mitt Romney would not
have gotten out of the parish. No, I'm not saying that, actually,
I'm I'm actually not saying that. What I'm saying is that a lot
of people took his presidency to me and that there had been a complete realignment
in the thinking of voters. And I'm just saying that the most the things
that he did that people like, that he was the most successful at were
things that were promised by Mitt Romney and George Bush, etc. So what
I'm saying only is that maybe that those issues actually matter to people and he
should be talking about them more. I'm not saying there isn't some kind of
realignment going on a little bit, But I just don't know. It's this
earthquake that everyone thinks it is. And the more I think about Donald Trump's
success, the things he did well, they're all very traditional things that Republicans
have promised forever. Yes, And like you talk to these people who are
like, oh, well, Reagan would have gone after the Soviet Union,
so we need to go to war against Russia. It's like, okay,
if you really want to be Reaganesque, understand that the Soviet Union doesn't exist
anymore, that the dominant communist regime is read China. They're very powerful,
they want to destroy us, and that's the heir to the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying that Russia does not have late, you know, the lagging
problems from their time as head of the Soviet Union, but it's really China.
So we're told by the neo Khans that focusing on China is not Reaganesque
and that doing the proxy war against Russia is, and it's clearly not the
case. I think that that's a very debatable. Their point is debatable.
I don't think Reagan was an adventure adventurist when it came to foreign policy very
much at all. In fact, after the Beyrut bombings, he really pulled
back even more. I don't think, you know, he went and spoke,
you know, he forged peace agreements for the first time with Soviets,
things like that. I think their conception of that is wrong. But also
I think that what Reagan did was strengthened the US military in a way that
that's threatened and destroyed the Soviet Union or at least help help finish them off.
Made the economy strong, which was also important. Like I keep thinking
about China, people kind of go straight to like, oh, we should
go to war, but China not a great idea. Also, if you're
not even willing to do anything other than war, you're not willing to do
war, like if you're not willing to do tough stuff with economic issues.
And yeah, I think China is as far weaker in the sense of their
economic strength, and people think, I hope militarily they're very dangerous. Obviously,
they're a nuclear power, they were a communist sort of whatever you want
to call them. I just think they're sort of status you know, kind
of dictatorship. But but yeah, so I think we could get another thing.
I think absolutely. I should say another thing that I view as tired
is this like identity politics politics Republicanism, Like, oh, if we have
someone with the right identity saying these conservative things, then we'll win over the
kids. And Nikki Haley keeps being like men suck and women are great and
men just talk and women do. First of all, it's not even my
experience. I'm not saying women just talk and don't do. But if you're
going to have a sexist stereotype, is that really true? Men don't Men
have never done anything in the history of the world. I just it just
like totally turns me off and reminds me of Hillary Clinton. And I know
a lot of women really love Nikki Haley, like it makes them very excited.
But I just think the identity politics is something the Republicans tried and failed
with a few years back. I mean, you think if there's an organically
people of different you know, a woman, a different minority, and they're
successful in the Republican Party, I think that that's good because it just shows
that they have wider appeal. But to specifically talk about it and pretend that
that's some strength you have. That's kind of a dumb way to go about
it. I was thinking the other day every movie I watched, whenever like
the middle aged white dude shows up with the gray hair, I'm like,
oh, there's the villain, you know, like it's just like the you
know I it's yeah, it's we're oppressed. My brother and I used to
go to dollar movies that were like old movies. They would bring back out
and every time, and it was the type of theater that interaction was encouraged,
and every time like yelling at the screen like yeah, like okay,
So every time the cop would show up in the movie, he'd be my
brother would be like, oh great, it's the cops. That's this is
this will go well. You know, we're like, oh good because it's
always the bad guy. Okay, yeah, it's actually let's just talk about
culture. Are we done? Yeah? Okay, I just want to mention
one last thing. I actually Joe the Plumber dine, you were right,
yes, oh thank you? So yeah. He famously, for people who
are younger might not know, he famously sort of challenge Barack Obama on his
leftist economics. You know, and he was where the media had never really
done it in any way, and Obama had to explain himself and he did
as usual you know that bid platitudes and straw men and all that. But
it reminded me, and I think that you would probably agree with me.
I think we've spoken about this that a lot of our problems are political problems.
The way the abuses of government, the way we talk about how government
should work, goes back to Barack Obama's presidency, which I think was one
of the most destructive presidencies in memory, maybe you know, one of my
three least favorite presidents with FDRN. Wilson just changed the way. He was
sort of the counter revolution to Reagan, right he you know, whereas Reagan
promised you that you could do things on your own, that you didn't need
the government, he promised you the government would be there from you know,
your birth to your death. Remember that Julia The Life of Julia and stuff
like that. So he was just the president of dependency. And now really
Joe Biden's his third you know, it's a third term of Obama. And
I don't mean that Obama's pulling the strings that maybe is I don't know,
but just as far as making his dream or reality come true, I think
that you're seeing that happen right now. Anyway, just on the pulling the
strings, there were all these polls out showing that not just Republicans and independence,
but even like seventy percent of Democrats think that Joe Biden is too old
to be president. And people are making a really big issue out of this.
But I feel like, whoever his handlers are aren't eighty, you know,
whoever's actually doing things isn't eighty, And for their purposes, having a
senile and competent fool like Biden actually helps them accomplish their left wing agenda.
All the more, I do think Barack Obama is heavily involved. I think
it's weird that he lives in Washington, DC, and that he's never left,
and that he's said things like he would really like to just have a
puppet in place so he could be president but not actually have to go do
the speaking in public stuff. He and his team are all over yeah,
White House are everywhere, So I mean it's it's the say, it's the
same people all over the place within the administration. It's not a you know,
I mean, I guess that happens when you have you know, parties,
But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I just don't know for sure,
and it doesn't really have a matter to me. And also the old
thing, I'm sort of bye. I was trying to figure out why I'm
bothered by that. Sometimes I think it's true he is too old to be
president and he's sort of senile, but he was never better. He was
never better when he wasn't senile, you know what I mean. I feel
like it's an excuse to give him for being a terrible president and a liar
and a fabuloust and a radical who has no principles. You know, he'll
essentially take on the positions of whatever his handlers have to tell him. And
he's been that way since he was helping segregationists in the seventies, you know
what I mean. So it's not an excuse for why he's terrible. I
don't pick numbers of ages and have flat rules on them, like I go
to church with Ruth Ring, who famously kicked me off of Alter Guild about
twenty years ago. But anyway, she's ninety five now, she's super like
she drives and nobody is worried about her driving. She's so alert, like
she'll wave at you while she's driving and you're walking on the side of the
you know, on the side of the road, like she sees you before
you see her. She's very competent, great and whatever. And eight is
different for different people. There are people who shouldn't be president at sixty.
Other people it's fine, But I don't know, I just like a weird
thing. It's a weird thing to avoid talking about what's actually a problem with
Joe Biden, which the age is, as you said, not the actual
thing. I remember I got to this huge argument on an editorial board once,
unsurprisingly, and the person kept talking about the Supreme Court justice is like
they were going to die in sequential order of age. Like that's not how
the world works. You know, some people on the Court are really old
and sharpest can be. And you know, I mean, how old is
Judge Thomas. I mean Justice Thomas. He's got to be like eighty years
old, right, I mean, he is sharp, and it's not always
the same. So I agree with that. And I also a kind of
a little bit contrained on this issue of you know, everyone complaining about how
old senators are you think are the younger politicians better? Is AOC better than
Chuck Schumer? Is? You know? I just don't think that that younger
people have better opinions are going to do even a better job. I think
that that's just wishful thinking in a way. Oh any who, let's talk
about movies. I actually did see a few. The first one I blame
my wife for really was really mad at her when I was watching it.
It's called The Whale. Have you seen it? Brendan Frasier won the Academy
Award. I know what it's about. I know all of what it's about,
and I had zero desire to see it. Me too, So I
did. I was so angry. It is so depressing, and it was
really, you know, not something I would recommend for anyone wants to be
happy. Finally finished watching I finally finish finished watching The Bear, which I
liked. Finally got over that that episode because the very next one was great.
Right. Also, a listener to the podcast pointed out that without that
horrific episode that you and I both hated, the conclusion wouldn't have had the
same punch. Yeah with Wildiana, Yeah, and also the moms showing up
and that scene what you didn't want to go inside, I think, you
know, wouldn't have existed. I think that was a really nice scene.
I kind of felt a little cheap at the ending for him to say something.
These are spoilers to say something and his girlfriend over here is it and
everything. Sometimes that show has a lot of It creates this tension that is
uncomfortable, but I think in the end it's worthwhile. I just again,
I love that it's a show about people were working super hard and getting great
at something and trying to succeed. I just love that angle. It's rare,
you see that. That's what I loved about the first season. This
last thing was very proud of itself in a way that annoyed me, but
I still would recommend it. Still worth it. Right. Finally finished watching
Justified the reboot, and I wrote a review for us which was very negative,
and I stand by that, and I just this is spoiler so if
you haven't seen it, you know, I don't know, sorry, but
that in that review I wrote, I wrote, if they had just taken
have you seen the show? Nope. So there's a character named Boyd Crowder.
He was amazing, and I said that the show would have been better
if they just had let him, you know, escape from jail, or
just had a camera on him talking in the jail. It would have been
more exciting, immeasurably more exciting than the show. And what did they do?
And like the last five minutes of the show, he escapes from jail,
he makes like a surprise appearance and escapes, and that should have been
the first scene in Justified, and then the show should have been those two
characters. It would have been amazing. Because it was terrible, all right,
that's it, Unjustified. I saw the flash, which is a superhero
move, which I want to say I did not. I don't enjoy superhero
movies anymore. I just I find them so stupid and boring. But this
was actually I thought it was pretty funny. I know the guy and it's
like nuts. I forget his name, Miller, I think is his last
name. It was funny. It was pretty funny and well done. Okay,
one more. It's a Heart of Stone, which is with Galgad.
I think our word maybe our maybe our worst actress. Yeah, now listen,
she's Israeli, so I like that about her. She is good,
isn't it. It looks like you know, but coin waiting for a galgha
dot and I she's very pretty and all that, but she has the range
of a cucumber, like she cannot act right. And this movie it's like
a mission impossible kind of movie in another movie where women are just beating the
crap out of giant men, constantly realistic. No, I don't. I'm
always like the physics of what I'm seeing do not work. This is not
right anyway. I thought it was, you know, a middling movie.
Okay, thank you. Those are the things I've seen. Did you see
anything well? No, I was so busy with debate stuff and work.
And I went up to New York this weekend this past weekend to do some
TV posting for the big weekend show. And I went with a friend and
we did all sorts of stuff in New York. We were kind of like
tourists. Guy Benson recommended, so strongly recommended that my friend and I go
see MJ the musical about Michael Jackson. And he said that if we didn't
like it, he would venmo the cost of the tickets. And I don't
think I'm a musical person, is mostly what I'm going to say there.
It was like fine, but we also had to leave early, so maybe
that maybe maybe that affected how well we were able to appreciate it. Also,
we were doing the Sunday matinee, and I think everyone was the understudy
in effect. Maybe the fact that he was a pedophile also is kind of
off putting. I don't even it doesn't get into that, so I didn't
even think about that. I do like Michael Jackson music, and I don't
even know. I don't even know enough about that story to agree with you
or pushback with you. I'm sorry, So I don't even want to talk
about it, if that's okay. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Oh, that's awesome. Wait is that right? Did you go to
the MAT or the MoMA? Sorry, we went to Museum of Modern Art.
I'm like, wait, that wasn't the met I love, mama,
love it. It was great and I saw some really great things photographs.
It's just mind blowing how many like famous pieces that people know, you know,
just iconic works of art or in there. And I like modern art
better than a classical art. Oh, I do not so I don't find
modern art to be very beautiful. Bothers me because I think that's like one
of the primary functions of art. But there were some beautiful things in there,
and the photography in particular, I really liked. But I don't like
the it seems angry and dehumanizing what some of the you know, like some
of the art. So I did go by the way, my friend took
me to Keyne's Steakhouse. Have you ever been there? No been around since
like eighteen I'm not a steak steakhouse. We had a wonderful, wonderful time,
and then we also saw at bird Land, which is a place I'd
always wanted to go, Vince Gerdano and the Nighthawks and it was this eleven
piece band doing jazz from the twenties and thirties, and it was so good.
I highly highly recommend anyone who's in New York on a Monday night.
They do two shows on Monday nights, one at five thirty and one at
eight or something like that at Birdland. Highly highly recommend. Great show.
I've never I don't think I've ever been in Birdland, which you know,
and I'm a jazz fan, so that's weird. But maybe I couldn't afford
it when I lived in New York. It's not it's not exactly cheap.
You know. Sometimes I have all these movies I bring up and I'm like,
you're my boss, right, You're the editor in chief of the Federals.
I'm like, this seems like I'm watching a lot of movies. I'm
not worrying, but you know that's not true. I'm I'm always writing.
But I'm like, should I say that I saw five most six movies this
week? Well? I mean, I'm I'm assuming this is like at night
when you're not leaving your house and you're just hanging out. Yeah, yeah,
I just I just watched movies at night. Okay, all right,
Well, I wonder what's gonna I wonder what's gonna happen this week? As
far as indictments or new muck shots. Have you noticed, like I think
the last four or five weeks, every time we speak, it's some new
uh, you know, indictment against Trump or some legal something legal against you
know, against him. Oh, and I wanted to talk about the Biden
impeachment stuff. You know what, I could say that for next week,
I a lot to say on that. Yeah, and until then everyone should
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray h