Welcome back everyone to a new episode. If you're wrong with me, David
Harsani and Molly Hemingway. If you'd like to email the show, please do
so at radio at the Federalist dot com. Molly, how's it going great?
And how are you doing? I'm okay. We're back, just like
Mitch McConnell is back, just like John Fetterman is back on our step,
that's right, but not like Diane Feinstein is back? Is it Feinstein or
Finds Stein? I think it's Stein. So I actually don't understand why she's
gone. I know people keep like, I'll read stories and I'll be like,
she needs to come back or resign, and I don't know where she
is or why haven't we had Well, first of all, she's old as
dirt, so she's like ninety five years old. That's why she's not back.
But can I quickly say that haven't we had people in comas who don't
show up? And Santa keeps going? I mean, why does she get
there? My ideal Congress would have everyone in a coma, believe it or
not. Well, actually, I think she's asked for something. She's asked
for someone to take her place. Temporarily on the Judicial committee, was it
or shary committee? She wonts someone else named, or so her office claims.
And so the debate is whether Republicans should go along with this plot in
order to help the left confirm more of its judges. And perhaps shockingly,
perhaps because Mitch McConnell has also been absent, no, he would be good
on this too. They're saying they're not inclined to help out Democrats with this
effort. Guys, first, say about Diane Feinstein. I know she's a
crazy lefty liberal all that, but when Carrie Savorina and I were writing the
book on Justice Kavanaugh, we got really interesting information about her, and more
than that, her office. So there's widespread belief that her office was involved
in the orchestrated like takedown plot of Justice Kabanaugh. You know, they they
had knowledge of this letter, this some sort of like Clarence Thomas Anita Hill
style letter that the left had planned for Kabanaugh. They were involved in the
rollout of that. But all the all the senators we spoke to on the
right, the Republican senators said that they actually enjoyed working with Diane Feinstein a
great deal they found her to be a woman of her word. Reasonable,
you know, you take something like even I think Chuck Grassley was negotiating with
her about just precisely how much paperwork the Judiciary Committee had to review of Justice
Kabanas, and because he had been White House Secretary, his name was on
like millions of documents that weren't that were more like a paperwork thing than a
this is Brett Kavanaugh's legal thinking. And so Chuck Grassley and Diane Feinstein had
negotiated how many papers had to be turned over, and it was like still
way, way, way too many, like it was kind of absurd.
Then her office came in and behind her back claimed that they needed all the
paperwork, and it was such an extreme view from her office that it ended
up just souring all the Republicans. And they were like, oh, we
thought we were dealing with sane people, and if we're dealing with insane people,
we'll just drop it down to what we want more close to what we
wanted to deal with anyway. And there would be stories like that all the
time, where Diane Feinstein was kind of like a normal person who could be
reasoned with and dealt with, and then her office was filled with the worst
of the worst, most crazy left wing people. Her office is the one
that has been claiming for years that she's like not in control, and is
absolutely true that she sun sets. You know, if you have a meeting
at night, she can't be part of it, like she's clearly too old
to do her duties. But on the other hand, they're always like,
I don't know, there's something there's something weird about the extremism of the people
in her office and how they think that they're the Senator and not her.
It seems like that from the outside because she seems like she adheres to sort
of send a tradition. She cares about them a bit, you know,
when she's talking. But then the way her office acts, especially during the
Kavanaugh thing, was very different from what you heard coming out of her.
So probably she might not be in control anymore. I don't know, But
I did want to just touch on one thing I constantly hear, especially from
younger writers, about the gerontocracy that runs DC and how it's problematic, and
I it's off putting to me as well many times. But the idea that
if we got younger people and there, things would be better, or they
were bringing a fresh set of ideas. That is insanity. Have you seen
the young people? I mean, is illan Omar better than whoever came before
her? Is you know any of these people? And the writer left?
There are a lot of young people there there there, they're no better than
the older people who are there before them. Now, at some point you're
too old to function and do your job. But this idea that younger people
are going to do a better job or be more effective, or negotiate better
or get you more. I think that maybe they'll be more energetic, But
other than that, I just think that that's a myth that people have believe.
Yeah, you're probably right, but I mean it is It is interesting
just how old some of these people are, and even the young ones aren't
in great health. Like John Fetterman just returned to the Senate after taking a
few months for mental health reasons. And wish him the absolute best. With
that, I wish him the best, I just want to quickly say,
and says that I wish him the best personally, I don't want anything.
But it is irresponsible. It was completely irresponsible of him to run for the
Senate and the people around him, were completely irresponsible to put him in that
position, and they did it all for political power. So it's very difficult
for me to feel bad for him, I'm sorry to say. I mean,
obviously I don't want anything bad to happen to him, But if we
had a similar situation on the right, and I think in some ways the
similar situation might be who's that guy? Who's that guy from New York who
made up his whole life story? George Santos my favorite Santos. Yeah,
so I'm not saying it's exactly analogous or anything like that, but that's another
situation of a person who probably shouldn't be there for long, but in any
event, they make a gigantic story about one or the other. You were
about to defend, George Santos, hold on about your supposed demonstration of Republican
Democrat partisan bias in the media. I don't think it's Republican Democrat. I
mean, we just had Mitch McConnell out for many weeks and nobody really knows
why. Like the claim was that he fell was a very very long recovery
from the fall. Nobody said a word. I didn't even say a word.
I was like did he have a stroke or like what I didn't know,
and it just seemed towards although I did, I have been hearing so
he came back. I won't read it word for word, but I just
got a note. Yeah, basically I got some some sometimes I chat with
members of Congress or the Senate, and I got word that the Republicans really
enjoyed Mitch McConnell's like six week absence. I thought everything ran very smoothly,
like really smoothly. Everything was great. There was like less of the petty
vindictiveness, but without his dark, brooding omnipresence. Everyone thought the conference ran
much smoother and healthier, like they all just got a long better. They're
definitely like widely different views in the Republican conference in the Senate. You know,
you have like hardcore right, hardcore left, and all the mushy metal.
But they said that they all just seemed to like get along better and
be more open and honest with each other about what they wanted to do.
Well, Mitch McConnell was gone, for whatever it's worth. That's a good
example. For instance, where Mitch McConnell is is elderly and but who's going
to replace him when he leaves? I mean, is the replacement going to
be any better? It seems likely to me, actually, but let's have
a chat about it. So I've been thinking about this a lot, Like
I don't know why I felt this way, because in November, when he
won his eleventeenth term as Leader of the Conference, there was something about it
where you were like, oh, this guy's on his way out. I
mean, they'd had a bad perform they had, they'd had just a bad
few years. They didn't exactly have stellar years during the Trump era. They
seem to be more like fighting the Republican president than working with him to get
as much accomplished as possible. But then the first two years of the Biden
presidency they were they were just more like helpers too. I'm sorry, the
first two years the Biden presidency, if it's not what I said, they
were helpers to Biden, as opposed to what you saw with Senate Democrats during
the Trump presidency, where they're like, we're going to make this guy's life
a living hell. From Russia collusion hoax to fighting every single person he nominates.
Republicans were sort of limp and weak, and how they bought him.
They had no coherent message going into the election. Miss McConnell famously said that
they would have no message, like they didn't think they needed one. They
thought that Biden being awful was sufficient to reclaim the majority. And then in
addition to not having a message or reason for people to vote for Republicans,
Miss McConnell also said that Republican voters were the worst people in the world and
that they were nominating bad people and just like it was a mess. But
after the election, he wins yet again as leader. But I don't remember
how many people voted against him. It was like ten or twelve or something
like that. It's actually not nothing to have that level of rest in you
know, less like one fifth of the conference. And so you could kind
of just tell his power was weakening, and he cracks down on people.
He starts punishing people who had criticized him for some of his less wise decisions,
you know, like Rick Scott or you know, he kind of was
like sniping at him in the press, and he was removing people from committees
just out of spite to try to like secure power. And whenever you're doing
that is sort of like a weak move, and then he has this fall.
We're told fall, we get no details on the fall. He's out
for six weeks. I think he's probably on his way out. Maybe not
today, maybe not this year, but I would say this might be his
last run as leaders. So then you see who's been jocking, and you're
right that the three big names who've been jocking for it are just like him,
Barosso, corn In, and Thune, particularly with the last two are
just like not It's like, would you like Mitch McConnell, but with less
charm and less skill. You know, it's not like great ideas there.
But if I were the Republicans, I would pick someone who's kind of in
between that class of Republican and the more exciting new Republicans, someone who can
work with both and think about how to execute on the Republican voters desires.
I think they're pop. I would love to hear an example of an exciting
Republican in the Senate that you think would be good at this job. Well,
let me just say quickly say no, no, yeah, okay,
hold on. I was saying, someone who can work with both the base
and the squishes. That's what I'm saying, I I think it's good to
have a charismatic leader in the Senate, but it's more important to have someone
who's effective in dealing with the parliamentary you know, process and all that stuff.
Right, It's important to have someone who who thinks long term comes,
you know, can I don't know. There are many skills you need to
be a Senate leader more than charisma, right, So we've been existing without
someone. Oh, I just gotta know that a friend is pregnant. That's
very sorry. Okay, um, So we've been dealing without charisma for a
long time now, long long time. And really, you know, in
a perfect world, you wouldn't need the top Republican in the Senate to have
any charisma at all. But given the hostile media environment, I do think
it's important that your leaders are able to articulate a compelling message to voters that
they're able to engage with the media. The only time Miss McConnell engages with
the media is when he's like working with them against his Republican foes. That's
not really appropriate. So I think someone who has basic media skills so that
Miss McConnell doesn't have, is important. That's not like in any way the
most important. You need someone who understands how to play Senate ball on a
wide range of issues, how to be ruthless but like effective. And so
I don't know exactly it's to me, it's almost like you need someone with
that desire more than anything else. Like one good thing about miss McConnell.
He came to DC as a bureaucrat and all that political pointing, kind of
wanting to eventually become Senate Majority leader. Like he had that vision. He
didn't want to become president, he didn't want to become a judge. He
wanted to become Senate Majority leader. And so he set about on his goal.
A lot of these guys in the Senate want to be president, and
they are not going to become president. They might run for president, but
they're not going to become president. So the sooner some of those guys accept
that reality, I think the better, and it could start jockeying to replace
Minch McConnell. I mean, it's going to happen soon, right, So
at some point, I don't know, he's like eighty one. I think
he's around the same McConnel. He's going to be here forever, and he's
in perfect health and it's great. And he released a video showing himself shuffling
through the Senate Joe Biden style. So, um, all right, since
we're on the topic of effective messaging and charisma and making good, solid arguments
and compelling arguments, I wanted to talk about um Ron de Santis and the
issue of abortion. Now. He just signed a six week abortion restriction in
Florida, and the medium informs me that this is it, this is it
for him, He's finished. The country is against it. There was a
Wisconsin election for a judge and she won and she was pro abortion, and
that tells us everything we need to do. But the national you know,
the national mood on abortion, I think that that that's not the case.
I think that when you when you, I think that a lot of Republicans
run away from the issue. They're kind of cowardly on it, they don't
want to engage on it. I think this is a huge mistake. So
I'm not denying that abortion has hurt Republicans in certain places, but we should
remember that what's his name camp in Georgia signed a six week abortion ban years
ago and he won rather easily. That Juncn was targeted on abortion relentlessly in
Virginia and he won that. Dwine in Ohio signed a six week ban and
he wanted jd Vance ran, you know, from an abortion ran he won.
Like so there are many instances of people doing if Abbott ran this time,
he signed the same thing he ran one. Yeah, exactly. So
abortion wins in many places in the country. And I don't know how.
I mean people that we know, we have people from Wisconsin, you know,
on our staff and stuff like that, and they tell us that,
yeah, abortion was a big part of that run, but it was an
off year race for judge. Thirty six percent of people voted. I don't
think that tells us everything we need to know. I don't think that DeSantis
is somehow undermined by this at all. And maybe I'm just fooling myself because
I'm pro life, but I don't know. I have a lot of thoughts
on this issue. I just so anyway, I wanted to bring it up.
What do you think? So? I do think abortion is a tough
issue, and it's like always been a tough issue, and it's one where
the advantage went to the people who were fighting against Roe v. Wade.
That was such extreme juris prudence that it was just like very easy to argue
against allowing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy with no ability for the people
to weigh in, and with the DABS ruling it returning to the people,
the issue of abortion law returning to the people. It's just it's a much
more complicated, complicated issu you and the sort of like energy and passion right
at this moment, like this particular year and last year, and you know,
maybe in the next couple of years, is really with the radical pro
abortion type people. But I think it's easily brought to a draw, like
easily brought to a draw even now by simply joining the game. So all
these examples you have of people in the radical pro abortion left having wins,
they were outspending pro lifers in some cases I'm not even exaggerating here, like
fifteen to one. And in political campaigns, money is everything and messaging is
everything. And so you had pro abortion radicals claiming that all they wanted to
do was like allow hardship abortion or something like that, and in response,
you were getting basically nothing from the pro lifers, and you cannot win this
issue. You can't even get it to a draw if you don't play the
game. So Number one is Republicans who happily took pro life money and votes
for years. But maybe some of these people didn't actually believe what they were
saying. They need to get some help immediately on how to talk about it,
and then they need to talk about it. They need to be forced
to talk about it. Their current approach of like let's bury our heads in
the sand and hope it goes away is political malpractice. But your examples are
great. Are there are things that are so pro life it's like unbelievable.
They've passed that caused nothing but political benefit to the people who did them.
And that does not happen in a world that the media has created of like,
oh, if you want to protect babies, we're you know, that's
a political nightmare. It's not. The vast majority of Americans support at least
some protection for unborn children, Like it might be all the way, it
might just be in the third trimester, but it's like, the vast majority
support at least some protection for children. That's a Republican position. Democrats support
not one Sintilla of protection for any child, like if your mom wants to
kill you because you wanted a boy and you're a girl, or you're a
girl and you wanted boy and it's nine months in. They think that that's
fine. And that's not like a radical Democrat position. That's everybody, every
single Democrat thinks that's okay. So if you can't message in this kind of
environment, you should not be in politics. I agree completely, and I
don't think there's an issue none zero. You might disagree that the media is
more invested in misleading people or obtu skating the truth than on abortion constantly,
and that includes posters who constantly ask idiotic questions like do you believe there should
be access to abortion? Like a twenty week or a fifteen week band doesn't
give you access to abortion you. I'm saying that the poll questions themselves are
misleading, and I just want to go through the Democrats voted. Every single
Democrat in the Senate voted for a bill that a lot allowed abortion unrestricted for
any reason into the ninth month. It's a position that aligns with places like
North Korea, China, Vietnam. That bill would have banned states from banning
sex selective abortions, from instituting parental notification, it let non doctors do abortions.
And on another end, Democrats are trying to undermine conscious rights of people
who don't want to participate in this, eliminating the High Amendment, all this
stuff. Jenny Yellen said, we need abortion because they're, you know,
too many poor people are having babies and the one you know, and we're
going to have too many unemployed people. I mean, this is like nefarious
stuff. It's just Malthusian, you know, an immoral So I just want
to say, even if we lost, and we even if Republicans lost every
single race in the entire country over this, it doesn't change the facts of
what abortion is and what Democrats believe. So I just I agree with you
that I don't Publicans don't know how to speak about this. They are scared
to speak about it. I think that more Republicans were more horrified by Dobbs
than anyone else in this country, including the pro choice Democrats. Honestly,
the way they act, you know, they just raised money on it.
They pretended to be pro life because there was never any consequence in doing so.
And now they actually have to do something and they basically all hired,
so not all, some don't obviously I just mentioned them. But on a
national level in the Senate, you know, when Lindsay Graham wanted to pass
that, we're not big fans of his generally, I am not. At
least when he wanted to pass that twenty week ban, it was obviously just
to contrast against what Democrats were passing in a national level, and everyone had,
oh, it's a states rights thing. I agree, but I mean,
what you can't fight a battle. They're fighting a war and you're fighting
some small scale battle. It doesn't work that way anyway. No, so
yeah, Lindsay Graham offers up a twenty week protection and the idea is,
well, if Republicans can at least say they support it twenty weeks, which
is like so overwhelmingly popular, it's unbelievable. This will change the debate at
the national level. And instead of getting behind it, Miss McConnell was like,
oh, don't know what, who wants to talk about babies? Don't
news is a good? Do you like? He sabotaged his own member,
who's not even like, I mean, it's just unbelievable, and everyone knew
it wasn't going to pass. Joe Biden's not signing that bill. It would
just gave Republicans a national position that is popular. When you actually ask people
what they believe in. Specifically, when it comes to abortion, most people
are for saving babies who are unborn, babies who are viable. It is
we are in the Democratic position is extremist, like North Korea and China.
It just boggles my mind that you get and listen, let's say most people
disagree with Republicans, you know, a long time ago, and once upon
a time in politics, you went out there and you convinced people to change
their minds. You didn't just chase voters everywhere, the little bit poll everywhere.
Yeah yeah, And this is why and in general populism doesn't appeal to
me. Sometimes you need to change people's minds, not just to follow them.
And so anyway, I do want to mention, like Marco Rubio in
the midst of this midterm elections, the media we're going after him for being
pro life. I think it was Marco Rubio. I think this is right.
Okay, So he responds with like a questionnaire that he were going to
require them to fill out before he answers their questions, and it was just
like, please list every time you've asked a Democrat to defend abortion on demand
through all nine months of pregnancy, and it had like you know where you
could fill it out and then like once you sat, once you answer this
to our satisfaction, we'll go ahead and respond to your questions. And the
reporter like posted it on Twitter. They were like, we don't understand what
he thinks he's doing here, and it was hilarious, like they were so
stupid and so I don't know, so a partisan that they didn't see the
brilliance of saying, Okay, yeah, i'll answer your question about my views
on abortion as soon as you show me that you have asked. You know,
like one Democrat a tough question on abortion and they couldn't do it,
and so he didn't respond. Yeah, I mean they never asked that question
because fact checkers go out and pretend that that's not the case. Oh you
can't, that's not the democrat's position. Well, ask a Democrat what limitation
do they support any on abortion? And they will tell you that it's none.
Do you remember Philip Bump, who's this left wing activist at the Washington
Post who like came from left wing politics union, some kind of union dude.
Yeah, Now I think he like resents as if he's a political analyst
or something. He once tried to fact check Marco Rubio because Marco Rubio had
said something about like, oh, you these people who claim they believe in
science, but like human life begins at conception. It's almost like a tautology,
right, like human life begins when it begins, and he was like,
actionilling, it doesn't a lot of people think it happens like some time
later. And it was hilarious, like he literally didn't know where babies came
from. I think he's married, I think he might have kids. That
I was like, this dude literally doesn't know how babies are made and he's
a functional human being. Kind of well, they do this all the time.
They change the science to match up with their politics. The science changes
politics. I remember there was a big piece in the New York Times like
where does life? When does life begin? You know? And basically the
answer was whenever it's convenient for us to decide when it begins. But how
many people think that life doesn't begin after vibe? You know? Viability meaning,
and viability keeps getting earlier and will for you know, for a long
time. But twenty five weeks, let's say, like no one thinks that
that's not a viable baby or not a life, and yet they still want
abortions for that. So I don't understand why no one ever asks them.
I mean, I do understand why no one asked him that question. You
remember those T shirts and bumper stickers and like the eighties that said life begins
at forty That's still a bump, you know, but like actually takes it
literally, life begins at forty Actually, I mean it is, it is.
It just boggles my mind. And anyway, so I don't think this
is First of all, de Santis could take the position very easily if you
felt like it. And I don't think it's a terrible position. That every
state is different, and Florida, the third most populous state in the country,
wants a six week band. I think the vote was seventeen. California
wants to get in your womb and kill your baby eating exactly. So I
don't want to I would like I am four pro I'm a pro life candidate,
but I think that every state's different, but we should be pushing for
a pro life stuff. So did you happen to watch Elon Musk on Tucker
last night? No? I only if I know Molly hemingways on while I
watch right and even then, No, Um, we don't even have cable
TV. I don't know if I should say that. I think I do
on like Sling or one of those things, but don't know how to get
there. Yeah, I mean I feel like there are ways to watch them
anyway. Yeah, I'm actually traveling. So I was out last night,
but I saw this clip from part one of the Elon Musk interview, and
I find Elon Musk so interesting and fascinating. And he has like a Twitter
gift. I know he owns Twitter, but like just as a person who
tweets, he has like Donald Trump like powers with Twitter to say funny things
and anyway, but he was being asked by Tucker about whether Mark Zuckerberg's stated
claim to not want to be too political was legitimate or not, and Elon
Musk was just kind of ripping on Tucker for saying that he took him at
it, took Mark Zuckerberg at his word, and he said, like the
thesis of my book Rigged, how the media, big Tech, and Democrats
seized our elections. He said, it is my understanding that Mark Zuckerberg spent
four hundred million dollars ostensibly on get out the vote programs, but in actuality
to help the Democrat Party. By the way, I hated that he said
it better than I say it. You know when I when I speak,
when someone does your job better than you do, it's always like kind of
embarrassing. But I'm so happy that the thesis of my book, my best
selling book, was said by you know this powerful wealthy man on national rings
now on sale at all reputable book outlets. I mean, is it's it's
I think we've sold out all the copies. Just kidding. You can totally
get um. Yeah, yeah, I did not watch that. I like,
I like. I mean, I think, as far as Twitter goes,
Musk hasn't done as good a job as I hoped he would do.
In many ways, I just enjoy it less than before. I feel like
I have less reach and all that. But just as a person, I
find him fascinating. Um, you know, so I'm happy that he I'm
too bad he to mention your book Oh, I don't know. I mean,
I I actually write books to get the ideas out there, so I
mean it's great if it's worth the thing. But I really have done well
with it. And I do want to say really quickly that when I wrote
that book, I wasn't particularly eager to write a book about election disputes,
and I was sure that I would just anger all sides because it's an actual
reported look at like what really happened, and I have literally like a hundred
pages of footnotes to back everything up, so it's real stuff. It's not
like I think maybe there was this algorithmic manipulation of a voting machine out of
Venezuela, Like it's none of that. It's all just like how they actually
did it. And I thought that would anger the right, who had been
like trafficking in some of the more extreme conspiracy theories with voting machines, and
that it would anger the left because you're not allowed to say that the way
that we changed our elections to allow hundred million unsupervised ballots into the process,
like that there was anything wrong with it. And I'm really happy with how
it turned out, like nobody had any problem with any of the facts,
which you know that there was probably like an army of people looking to have
a problem with any fact in the book, and it was I definitely got
some pushback about not being more open to the voting machine problems, but it
went well. Sorry, I just had to now since I had that,
you know, on this topic. I was thinking about something this week that
I've written about in the past. It's that I see, you know,
there were some stories in the news about big donors, big republic you conservative
Republican donors, and I simply can't understand. And also this last week,
in the week before, pro Publica has been writing these this hit job on
Clarence Thomas just areposterous, completely partisan. Why I just I know the Federalists
exists in others, but why I don't understand why these donors keep pumping money
into think tanks that already have tons and tons of money and that you know
are important in some ways, you know whatever, but not creating their own
pope pro public as, not creating their own media organizations that you know,
not not giving money more to sort of the on the ground, Uh,
you know, election infrastructure that that that you know Democrats have that you write
about often it just perplexing to me, or even why they give so much
to lost cause candidates or candidates who are going to win rather than putting their
money where it matters more. And I'm not an expert on this stuff,
you know, I'm more interested in the ideas behind the stuff than than like,
you know, I wish I was more interested in the inner workings of
elections, but it's just it's perplexing to me, always has been. No
if I if I had money to give, like big money to give,
those are the two areas that I would do it in election related efforts,
because the Left has like just done so much to take over election systems and
like basically turn it from a person suasion contest into a ballad harvesting operation,
and so I would put money to counter some of that or to play on
that same level field, and then it would be all media, like that's
what moves things, that's what moves opinions, and we are in an information
war. And so if anyone wants to take my advice, please do yeah.
And I'm not even saying that we should that conservatives or people who believe
in the things I do should be out there creating pro public as in the
sense of outlets that just make things up or you know, cancoc, these
hit jobs. I'm saying that you can use the facts to aim your fire
at people who are given a free ride right now, certain people, certain
industries, and etc. I just talked to someone yesterday who said that she
was asking about a publication what they'd done for the cause of election integrity,
and was given back like four op eds that they'd run from people who care
about election integrity, And she was like, thank God that you guys actually
do report, Like we go on the ground and we look at what you
know. We'll hear reports of something happening in Pennsylvania and we will send someone
there to look into it and report facts. Based on facts are what moved
these debates and discussions and what help in court cases, not an op ed
about how you feel elections aren't also important. They are also important. We're
happy to run those as well. But yeah, I mean, yeah,
I'm not diminishing the work people people do at the faros and elsewhere. Obviously
I love what we do. I just think I'm not sure people understand how
much money is behind these kind of organizations sort in the New York Times,
where we have four byline stories that I took what you were saying to mean,
we do such great job with so little money that people can get more
money so we can do more. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, And again
I think the other parts important too. The war of ideas is super important.
That's what I've been involved in my whole career, almost but reporting drives
that. It gives the ammunition to be able to have that kind of war
of ideas. So let me move on to another. Media isn't really this
is our bread and butter, and there's and we only cover a sliver of
it. You know. Let's talk about this dude who's twenty one. He's
I think he was a reservist. I'm not sure. I think his name
is Jack Taschera. He leaked a bunch of Pentagons secrets classified documents on Discord,
which is mainly know about because of one of my kids. Is sort
of like a social media, and it called social media, I guess,
but you know, it's just you know, there's social media. So anyway,
what's amazing to me about this story is that the media and I think,
you know, the New York Times and other and maybe the Washington Post
and others help basically the government and others ever in about this, but help
the government track down this guy, whereas if he had leaked to them,
they would go to jail to protect him. Now, obviously I don't think
these people who release indiscriminately release documents are heroes all the time. But I
do think that those documents, whether classified or not, are the property of
the United States and the people of the United States, and in the end,
we should have a right to see all that stuff. There's stuff that's
classified now for fifty sixty years that we haven't been able to see. So
I just find that interesting because I can't remember another case. Maybe Snowden they
did it too, but I don't think so. Where media actually helped the
government track down a leak or like this with such glee is the interesting thing
too. I don't know. I'm not entirely sure what the overarching principles how
they should guide people. So there was that New York Times reporter who flat
out said on Twitter before he deleted it, had this person leaked to us,
we would protect him. But because he leaked elsewhere, we're going after
him. But what is the principle that's being violated by that. How do
you mean which why isn't that wrong? Why is that wrong for The New
York Times to say if you came to us, we would protect you,
and if you go somewhere else, we will destroy you. Well, I
think that the principle is that The New York Times wants as much information out
in the public or you know, if they were actually journalists there, they
would want as much out there as they want. Like I am a big
believer in for instance, there was a story or if you remember during the
Iraq War where they where the government wanted to ban photographers from taking pictures of
caskets and things like that. I'm totally against any kind of limitation on journalists
from trying to get to the truth. Obviously, there's sometimes a pipe price
to pay because you're breaking the law, but I don't think that they should
make it a top priority to out people who are guess so many people more
informed. The New York Times purpose is to advance the Democrat political agenda.
That it didn't seem hypocritical to me at all. No, I know,
we're so the Overton window has been moved to a place where I don't even
think we can remember or fifteen years ago a journalist used to be about,
right, journalism used to be about I just think that the job of journalism
is to bring as much information to people as possible. Now that you know,
if you get too much information they call it misinformation or or they all
say it's right. Even now, the Pentagon says, oh, this is
just you know, concocted Russian distance, This isn't actually a Pentagon, and
the media just apes it rather than investigating to see if that is, if
the Pentagon is lying or not, which it lies all the time. Right.
So it's just such such a there's such a vacuum in truth, and
when it comes to the media that we can't trust anything they say as if
you've pointed out if they say something, actually now you have to lean towards
probably lying about it, so it's probably true when they say it's not true,
and that is really bad for the country. And the perfect instance of
that just a week ago, just one week ago, Reuters ran a story
saying that their sources in the Deep State said that the leaked material that that
was probably a Russian operation. Yeah, I saw that story. How come
when your sources tell you things that make you look like complete idiots, Like
Ruters looks like if you care about reality or facts or news, Ruters looks
like the last place you would go to learn about that. They could preserve
themselves by outing who their sources were who gave them bad information. Hey,
not running a story if people aren't willing to provide any kind of substance to
back it up would be rule number one. But if you put everything on
the integrity of these sources you have and they misled you, and they did,
then why not out them? Burn So I mean, they should have
done that during the Russia collusion stuff a million times over, and they never
did, even though probably there were like two sources for like most of those
stories. I'll give you some other examples, just since we brought up the
medium we hate them so much, reading an apiece or yesterday that says the
NRA had its conference even as there was just a mass shooting the other day,
and yet the NRA is having a conference, as if the NRA is
pro mass shooting or has anything to do with it. It's like the whole
framing of every story is exactly how Democrats like it. I'll give you two
more quick examples. I read two stories this week I don't remember where,
big big outlets. One is Republicans are really nervous about how or Republican leadership
is really nervous about how Republican and the Republican base and other you know,
congressmen and things like that are moving forward with abortion issues. You know,
how many people were quoted in that story with their name is zero? Zero
people. It could have just been one. Mitch McConnell aide saying this.
And there's another story about Club for Growth and how Republicans hate Club for Growth.
Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, because they are demanding actual conservatives
run for Senate in Montana and other places rather than some you know, how
many people were quoted? Zero people? I'm saying, Mitch McConnell, and
these people aren't, you know, don't hate Club for Growth or whatever,
which is this sort of anti tax group, which I happen to think it's
fine. But it's just interesting to me that they basically have turned and this
is I think also a Reuter's story. They basically have turned into just the
pr PR for Democrats. It's just an you know, establishment Republican. I
want to I was on a show at Fox last week where they give you
the topic beforehand, and so it must be this ap story that they sent
but it wasn't. I didn't see where the story came from. And I
actually wrote back to the producer, like, what communist wrote this topic up?
But I think the n Yeah, So let me tell this year's NRA
convention is taking place on the heels of two mass shootings. Yet all of
the major twenty twenty four declared or hopeful presidential candidates planned to speak at Friday's
annual Leadership Forum. And then it gave like the details on who these people
are, and say, this comes growing. This comes among growing questions from
within the Republican Party over its strident messaging on gun control. So I wrote
back, I was like, who wrote Like, seriously, whoever wrote this
needs a crash course in the Constitution and conservative politics because this person clearly has
no idea about either anyway. Yeah, what's strident about it? I mean
I can't even read it anymore. I forgot. I wish I could remember
what starts reading a New York Times story about something. And I just said
to myself, I don't know why I do this to anymore. I don't
know why I read these stories. I can't trust this. This is just
it used to just be biased. I've read the New York Times since I'm
a kid, you know, and I used to read it through the filter,
knowing that they were biased in certain ways. Now I can't even trust
the words that were saying at all. And it is how many times have
I said this on our podcast already? I mean, I don't know why
I'm do it to myself, but oh, I want to just mention really
quickly. In Colorado, after the Columbine shooting, the n RAY was poised
to have its national convention there like very quickly thereafter, and pretty much every
major Republican political leader just backed out. And the Secretary of State of Colorado
was this black woman, Vicky Buckley, was the top ranked Republican in the
state who was willing to go to the convention, and she gave this amazing
greeting to the people at the n Right. They had to walk through throngs
of like far left protesters just to get to their convention, and she gave
this greeting and it was about the Second Amendment and about the importance of gun
rights. And she also told the story for the first time, so she'd
run for office and this had not come out, that she had been the
victim of gun violence, like domestic gun violence. And to have someone who
was personally a victim of gun violence give this beautiful defense of the Second Amendment
and do it when all these like cowardly Republican men couldn't you couldn't show her
face. It was really impressive. I liked her a lot. That was
the one where Charlton Heston said, like from Mike cold dead fingers or whatever,
it wasn't Yeah, I think so, yeah, he was the president
then, I believe or whatever. Yeah. I mean, you know,
they just call the NRIA terrorist organization. I mean literally politicians do that.
It is just so over the top, and it just shows that's you know,
there's no real debate. It's just an incremental effort to ban guns.
I had one other topic I wanted to mention, Actually, maybe you wanted
to mention pomp Mike Pompeo. Yeah, yeah, so he's not going to
be running for president. I think a lot of people expected him to do
so, I don't I don't really know that there was any sort of big,
you know, push from the base for him to run. That's what
That's what's interesting though. Okay, So Mike Pompeo was widely regarded as a
very good Secretary of State during the Trump administration, very popular member of Congress,
very smart guy, probably one of the smarter people I've easily one of
the smartest people I've met in Washington, d C. And enjoyable and great
guy. But yeah, he tested the waters and his big lane push was
foreign policy. He wanted to kind of capture that portion of the electorate who
really cares about foreign policy. And what I think is interesting is that it
failed completely because he as a member of Congress, he definitely had been in
neocon so many Republicans kind of were unthinking in their acceptance of Neocon interventionism.
So there's like a lot of forgiveness for people who went through that. But
as a Secretary of State, he articulated a very good realist foreign policy.
He took the Trump philosophy and really ran with it. But then as soon
as Trump was out of office, I don't know why he ran back to
the neo kon interventionism. It was a really foolish move, I think,
and so he was kind of like, I'm going to be the guy who
pushes the war in Ukraine, and there was like less than zero appetite for
that. I know a lot of good people who are working on his candidacy,
who really wanted him to run, who really have high regard for him,
and in many ways I have high regard for him. But the fact
that he could not gain traction, I think is yet another reminder that Neo
Khan, you know, Wilsonian progressive foreign policy that took over the Republican Party
for that brief period, you know, like Bush era and a little a
little after that, there's just no appetite for that among actual voters. Now,
it could be the case, or it could be that I don't even
if there was appetite, I just don't think he was. You know,
if he's running, it's probably just to be in an administrator, in an
administration VP or someone else, don't you think. I mean, I just
don't see I think you're going to be president. Yeah, it's not going
to happen. Sorry, all right, that's enough with that. Let's talk
about culture. And I just quickly want to say that I sit here some
days and I'm like, I need to watch more stuff because I have this
podcast and I literally am not watching anything. I'm busy with, you know,
doing other things or engage in really boring cultural activities that no one will
care about. And I'm embarrassed. So I have to do more TV watching.
I have one show, Yeah, I have one show this week.
It's called I've been watching. It's called Lucky Hank. Have you heard of
this? I never heard of it. It's with Bob oden Kirk, who
was better called Soul and Stuff, and it's about he's an English professor and
it's like I would like, you know, I don't know, you never
like anything I tell you to watch, but I think you might. It
is not it's sort of how can I say it's it's just a mellow show.
It's not, you know, it's sort of funny. I like it.
Fine. It's on AMC, I think, so I like that fine.
Other than that, I don't think I've done anything. I'm watching.
I'm rewatching The Expanse, which is a science fiction show. I don't think
you like science fictions, so, but that's a good show. And that's
all I have. How about you. I have seen two excellent films.
One was a rewatch, but the first one is Black Narcissus. Have you
ever seen this? I don't think so. From nineteen forty seven. Do
you know who Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are. There's like British directing duo.
No so it's like their movie. I don't know how. It's funny
because like when we started watching at the AMC, guy says at the beginning,
like, technically, this is a film about English nuns trying to set
up a school in the Himalayas, but that doesn't really describe it at all,
and that's I would totally agree with that, Like technically that's what it's
about. It's this really like compelling, powerful psychological drama about these five nuns
who go to set up a school in the Himalais but they kind of like
break down. And it is beautifully shot, like you're just right there.
It's like the cinematography is amazing. I think it might have wanted an Oscar
for that. And the acting is great. There's this one so it stars
Deva Kurr and she's great, but there's this other woman. I don't know
what her name is, and she gosh, I don't really, it's just
it's just really almost want you to watch it. Just sweek. I have
a few of your other movies on my list. I'm still going to watch,
like The Triangle of Sadness or whatever, but I'll. It sounds terrible,
but I will. I really wanted people to watch that so I could
discuss with them. Weird. It was not because I loved it or even
liked it, but it is. I think it got Oscar nominations and stuff.
So yeah, that's like almost an argument against it. Others I'm gonna,
Okay, I usually don't watch old movies, but I will watch this
one. You should only watch old movies. No, they're terribly There's more
female character development in Black Narcissis than in like the entirety of the twenty twenty
two UVRA, like the skill, and like the fact that ninth Mark said,
my husband says, I mean like Black Narcissis reminds me if The White
Lotus were a movie in nineteen forty seven. All right, did you watch
that TV show? No? I was hoping, Yeah, No, I
know I need to watch that as well. It's on my list. Okay,
So the other movie I watched was She's the Man. Holy Talito.
Is this like from the eighties the two thousands find it's like a remake of
twenty Yeah, they had they remake this movie like every few years, right,
yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What was the one in the
eighties called That's Funny? They I don't know, I don't remember anyway,
Yeah, it was interesting, and you know, it's kind of like sad
how gender bending stuff was kind of like delightful in the Shakespearean era and now
it is just like so fraught, Like it's pretty transgressive, no pun intended
movie, but it's also just fun and funny. Well, the one in
the eighties, it was like I was a kid when I saw it,
a teenager, and I was like, no one would ever believe this woman
is a man. This is an attractive woman, and this is just nonsense.
It reminds me of movies that you know, every generation has where you
know, girl meets boy and the girls a geek and she's a geek because
she has glasses on. Yeah, so it's obviously an attractive woman. Yeah,
who is glasses, which are not unattractive by the way to men.
It's just stupid. But except for crying game, even though I did guess
that movie early spoiler, don't give it anyway, I haven't seen it for
real. He's serious. That's an old one. Yeah. Um, I
guess I just gave that away. But I think most people, I think
there's a ten a two decade limit on worrying about spoilers, right, yeah,
okay, all right, that's it. I think that it's nice to
speak to you. Hope we speak again this week. Everything goes well everyone
else? Yeah, well, you drink shallow Pain and Natasis slack Coca co