Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You Were Wrong with Molly Hemingway
and David Harsani. Just a reminder, if you'd like to email the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We love to
hear from you. Molly. This is an exciting day for you, but
also a very exciting day for me and everyone at the Federal List. I
think it's the first time that you or anyone at the Federalist maybe has sat
in front of Congress. And yeah, no, I'm sure we've had writers
for the Federalists. We've done it, probably quite a few dozens, pon
dozens, but I don't think we've had anyone on staff do it. Yes,
so well tell us about it. So I forget what the committee's name
was, but concerned the the private what is it whether they called Zuckerbus or
box or something. Yeah, So first off, I will just say I
get asked to testify in front of committees all the time, and I always
answer very quickly, no, I don't want to do that. I'm not
going to do that, just like not my thing. I'm a journalist,
I'm not an advocate for you know, I'm not like a whatever lobbyist or
research, you know, it just doesn't seem to make sense. But for
some reason, when they asked me to do it on the topic of zucker
Bucks, which is sort of the colloquial term for the private takeover of government
election offices, I was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to
do that. And then I said, you know what, let me think
about it for a minute. And so I did it. So it was
my first time, and I am glad to have gone through the process and
I learned a lot. So I have a few thoughts. I watched,
of course I watched it. Were you riveted by the House Administration Committees hearing
on election administration? Uh, I have a few thoughts. I'm just going
to quickly say, so you were there with I think how many people were
testifying another three people experts? I think it was maybe or four. I
forgot were total were total? I actually from from the witnesses learned learned some
interesting things like how funding was divvied out by the you know, but by
the by by Zuckerberg and you know what you know, and how many counties
just some interesting numbers. You made a very you know, compelling case about
elections. And the problems with them. But you know it was riveting,
Molly. But I've heard it before, Like I know, I know that
case. I've heard it from you. You you you presented very eloquently.
But then on the other side of it, I think people need to watch
House Committee hearings to understand what the quality of person who I don't know if
I should do this. Actually you're just on this gide the quality of person
who is sent to the House of Representatives to represent the American people, it
is not high. We do not have any kind of rigorous vetting. There
were two or three people who were just some of the dumbest people I have.
I mean, am I wrong about this? They were just the questions
were dumb. The cases they made made you know, they tried to sort
of equally One guy, who's the guy's name, Morel is that his name,
who tried to equate private money in an election with private money like in
normal like transportation and normal things that I'm all over the place. But I
think that that guy wants to privatize every elections and make everything else public,
right, that was the privacy. The ranking member Morelli also called him Morel,
which is probably why you just miss misspoked. Well, everyone got your
name wrong at least once was like nobody knows. It's not like your name
is Tarsani or something else. Anyway, But the ranking member, which means
the top Democrat member on the committee, at the end, he said,
you know, I don't get this whole idea that Mark Zuckerberg was trying to
affect elections by doing this like whole takeover of elections through nonprofit groups. Like
why didn't he just give his four hundred and fifty million directly to the candidates?
And I was like, did the Democrat just recommend that Mark Zuckerberg violate
campaign finance laws? And like, doesn't understand why he didn't violate campaign finance
laws and instead came up with this like a elaborate plan to take over elections.
I mean, does he not know that there are limitations on what you
can give a candidate? I don't even know. Maybe he doesn't I don't
know, but yeah, I think I think that part was interesting, Like
these are people who are not well prepared. I've always noticed this, Like
when you cover committee hearings, there's a lot of grand standing, but in
this case, there were some people who were not terribly well informed. And
before I went yesterday, I was talking to someone about like if she had
any advice, and she said, oh, yeah, I'm a professional at
these things, and gone. I've testified in front of a lot of hearings,
and what I learned is they're called hearings because you go and listen.
You hear what these members of Congress have to say, Like you think you're
going to give your expert testimony, and instead you're just hearing what they have
to say. And in our case today, hearing what they had to say
was not always illuminating. You know how bad I am with names, So
I'm going to mess this up. But there were a few people I want
to talk about, and then I want to talk a little bit more about
the experience that you had. So Seewell Sewell, her name Sumiss Sewell,
Miss Sewell, who smeared the our publication, our grand publication smeared us.
And then you were not allowed to talk. And knowing you, I could
see like energy popping off you. You know, you wanted to answer.
I think you might have even tried to and someone stopped you. I asked
to respond, and I was not a stone too, So I'm like,
now Molly's asked she just to stew and listen to the like three people before
she gets to say anything that was completely out of line. She just read
some stuff off the Wikipedia page or something, I think, and then left.
I'm like, she left, Molly's not going to be able to dunk
on her. Yeah, she attacked journalism, she embraced censorship, and then
she also falsely claimed that if you care about election integrity, that you only
care about election integrity as a means of suppressing votes. And actually that's just
statistically not true. You can pass election and integrity reforms and see an increase
in voter participation as was seen in Georgia and Florida, which had increases in
voter participation, including from minority groups. You know, voter suppression is a
conspiracy theory, I'm sorry to say. And you know, she went on
and on about that, and then you made that great point about for instance,
I think it was Georgia where I think they saw a record members of
early voting among minorities and just voting overall by my minorities. And then there
was the last person I want to mock. I think was her name Gomez
from California. I think so boy, I couldn't even cobble together what she
was talking about. I mean, it was and she also just smeared anyone
who had anything to say about election integrity. So all right, bores norma
torres tores. Yeah. And people were telling me that that was like the
most capable she had seemed, you know, they they were agreeing with you
about it not being her finest moment or not, you know, not that
she's not I'm not doing everything in the best way possible, but they said
compared to her normal procedure, she did pretty well. Then there are a
bunch of geeks in the audience, so many young people there are like,
don't you have anything better to do? Like standing room only was I think
the committee was a little surprised, like they're not used because you were there.
It was clearly yep, clearly that you're mocking if but it's true.
But I don't remember the name of the member, and so forgive me,
and I hate it when I don't, you know, remember these people.
But after the one of the Democrats on the committee just did character assassination after
character assassination of the witnesses and said, she was like appalled to have to
be in the same room as these, you know, people who had PhDs
and had written books and were experts in this, and it was like really
inappropriate and appalling comments from her. They go over to the Republican and the
Republican is like, we're all friends here, Like I'm not friends with that
lady who just lied about me, Like why are we? Like glad you
get along well with her, but maybe you should care more about it,
or like I don't think that person's voters want you to be friends with people
who lie and like go after election integrity. And I know, I know
they're all friends. I know, I get that. Like I work with
people at Fox and we you know, yell at each other on set and
then we're like having fun afterwards. I get that, But like in the
hearing setting, when people lie, or when they cast dispersions on people who
care about election integrity, or when they do things to harm election integrity,
you shouldn't care about the friendship. You should care about the truth. Yeah.
I was taken aback by that as well. I know they do this
all the time, they're all buddies, but it was a completely bad faith
smearing of us and others on that you know you and others on that panel
collingos racists and extremists and all this stuff. And he's like, oh,
you know, we're all really working hard up here, and we're all,
you know, making a good faith effort. I mean, I don't think
you are. I'll tell you what I hate. I hate when I see
it done at debates. I hate when people try to do it to me,
raise your hand if you believe X or y, and like, it
puts you in such a bad spot because things are not that simple, right.
So one of my favorite moments in a previous debate was when Rohnda Santis
was asked to like raise his hand for the seventeenth time, and he'd already
kind of bristled about doing it early on, and he was just like,
could you stop treating me like I'm a kindergartener here like this raising the hands
thing. But I did have a little bit of the spree day escalator whatever
they call it, the where you wish you had said something that you hadn't.
And so the ranking member was, what did he say? Do you
believe Donald Trump won? Lost? Field lost the election in twenty seven I
don't know. He was like, raise your hand if you think such and
such, And first of all, I don't like I'm not like a hand
raiser period. But on that I was like, I wanted to say something,
and I didn't say something so well, But I am aware that Joe
Biden is the president, and I think we're all aware every day that Joe
Biden is the president. We may wish he weren't the president. So overall,
do you think it was a good experience for you? Would you do
it again? Was it worthwhile? Oh? I'm glad I did it.
I'm glad I got the experience, and I certainly think if I did it
in the future, I would be much better prepared. By the way.
It's not like I haven't attended in person a thousand of these things. I'm
like a longtime reporter in Washington, and so I used to have to go
to committee hearings like multiple times a day and write them up for publication.
So it's not like I didn't know. But it's just different when you're sitting
there and you're trying to be careful with what you have to say and you're
trying to make certain points. So I don't think there will be a need
for me to ever testify again, but I'm glad I did it, and
if I have to do it again, now I know what I'm doing.
Oh can we talk? Though? Also one thing I learned from that is
I would pore over the reports when I was covering hearings, and people provide
these like ninety page written testimonies and they're full of facts and figures and they're
really interesting. But you get five minutes to give an opening statement. And
so I had some test money on zuck Bus and plus I wrote a book
on zuck Bucks, so I hope someone would like actually enter that into the
record or the chapters, chapters that deal with zuck Bucks at least, And
so I've got all that like written stuff. But my opening statement, what
I wanted to kind of emphasize is zuck Bux is just like one of many
ways that we're attacking election integrity, and it's getting worse and it's a real
problem. And I'm always struck by this fact that when we're evaluating other countries
election integrity, you're not just looking to make sure like ballots were counted properly.
You're looking at all sorts of things, like were they counted quickly?
Did it take a long time for the results to come in? Were ballots
treated the same across different jurisdictions. Is there a free and independent press environment
or is it propaganda? Is their censorship? Are people bullied away from political
participation? Are their political prosecutions are upon oonents allowed on the ballot or not?
Or do they have to fight like in ways that are ridiculous to be
on the ballot. Incidentally, tomorrow the Supreme Court is hearing the United States
Supreme Court is being forced to hear a case on whether the odds on favorite
of the American people to win the next presidential election can be kicked off the
ballot by Democrat activists in this country. We're going through that, so,
like I think people need to put like, yes, Zuckbox is important.
Private takeover of election offices is extremely important, and that's why I put it,
you know, put so much work into that in my book. But
right now we're having to deal with things that, for a lot of people
are more reminiscent of Soviet Russia, you know, jailing political opponents, bankrupting
political opponents, harming the families of political opponents. The watched out Real Wall
Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between
politics and the economy and how it affects your while did your own tax dollars
help pay for the massacre in Israel? As the federal government continues to give
billions to fund most of the United Nations. Turns out ten percent of members
on their active payroll helped perpetrate amasa's attacks in Israel. Whether it's happening in
DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed.
Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I think you made that point in
your opening statement pretty well. Yeah. Here, I want to talk about
a few things that you just mentioned that we can go through relatively quickly.
But it makes me laugh that these people are fine with the Zuckerberg doing this.
But as you and I think others have mentioned, if the Koch Brothers
or whoever was doing the same thing, they would have a heart attack.
Clarence Thomas goes on vacation with the rich person. They want to destroy the
judicial system, but they're fine with this kind of targeted privates, like one
of the few, you know, I want to privatize basically everything except elections
would be the one thing I don't. But I do worry, and I
worried when I heard one of the other guys talking on the one of the
other people who had testimony there about how this leads perhaps to nationalizing elections.
And I fear that because in some ways it makes sense to people because then
you can have the same standards all over. Those standards are going to suck
right in the end. You're going to have activists You're going to because those
are the people that run elections, you know. So what do do you
worry about that? What do you like? How do how do we deal
with that? I worry about everything involved with takeover of elections. So I
do think there is a role that Congress could play in terms of banning,
you know, having laws that help support free and fair elections. But yes,
anytime you start having funding you can have and I try to get at
this in response to one of the Congresswomen's questions. Different people vote in different
ways, so just by way, by way of example, Republicans are overwhelmingly
more likely to vote in a secure way, and Democrats are more overwhelmingly more
likely to vote in an insecure way. So Republicans they will go vote in
person, you know, with established identification, and Democrats. I mean,
a lot of Americans really love unsupervised mail in voting, but there are partisan
distinctions in how many people do it. And so even something as simple as
like oh we're going to fund mail in balloting, well that's like a really
huge gift to the Democrat party because Democrats like to vote that way far more
than Republicans do. Likewise, if you were to do it, you know
you did, or you know, there are all sorts of little decisions you
can make where it just seems like you're being helpful, but actually you're giving
gifts to political parties. And so I will also say that the disenfranchised groups
of the moment, the Democrats have done a really good job of caring about
elect administration for decades, and they did have some strategic advantages to that as
well. Like I put in the book about how it's almost unbelievable but Republicans
were not allowed to do election day oversight for forty years and election day,
of course, now being election season. You know, there was a huge
strategic advantage that Democrats had that Republicans didn't have. And there was this really
partisan judge out of New Jersey who did an injunction against Republicans. So all
Republican legal efforts were spent on making sure that no Republican basically did any oversight
because every time they did any amount of oversight or anything that like, it
would trigger this extension of an injunction. And it lasted for more than thirty
five years. It was so sensitive that Sean Spicer nearly got them in a
mess because he was on the wrong floor of Trump Tower on election night in
twenty sixteen, like just a crazy thing. It took the judge who was
overseeing it dying literally dying to get the Republicans out of this. And so
during that time Democrats just kind of like ran crazy and took out you know,
they just like, we're having fun with changing election laws and doing all
sorts of things, and why am I going off on this Just there's a
there's a huge strategic advantage Democrats took advantage of that. Republicans are catching up,
but very slowly, and it's an important thing because you want to have
free and fair elections, and free means like not. It doesn't refer to
cost. It's about like, no no undue outside influence. How much you
know one of the one of those guys went on on and on about funding.
Do you believe that funding is is would make elections more secure? In
anyways? I love about it. We've decided to change from like pretty simple
voting situations. People go, they vote, count the votes, you alert
the low regional authority, and you're done into these like really complex things.
We're like, no, see, we're gonna we're gonna use unsupervised mail in
balloting, even though the one thing we know about balloting is that that's the
one that's most open to fraud and it's almost impossible to catch. I know,
we've had a bunch of cases recently with people being caught for committing fraud
with that unsupervised voting, but it's actually really hard, and even the cases
where it's happened recently, it took years to figure out what was going on,
and it's difficult to catch even on a good day, but particularly because
people who are going to commit fraud are probably going to commit fraud in jurisdictions
where the incentive is to not catch them. So just like by way of
example, you know, Philadelphia is notoriously corrupt when it comes to elections,
but it's also almost exclusively Democrat, So if Democrats commit corruption in a way
that helps Democrats, there's not like a huge incentive to help. A lot
of what we found out from fraud being committed through mail in balloting happens because
of primary primary races. So you'll have like one Democrat running against another Democrat,
and one Democrat cheats by mail and fraud mail in vote fraud, and
that angers the other like section of the same party that's in that town,
and that's how they catch it because there's an incentive to catch it. But
we've made things so complex and then we're like, and we need a lot
of money to deal with it, because we're gonna have to pay money for
the postage and for the ballot curing and for the like all the people to
manage the ballots through all this part of the process. So we make it
more complex and then we're like, we need more funding, when probably we
just need I don't know, we need some simplification, and we need also
a lot of volunteers. You figure with mail and balloting that counting would be
faster since they come in early most of the time, right, But doesn't
seem that way. Just want to say, just I remember in Colorado where
they have where they were like leading the charge. I think in mail in
ballots might be all mail in ballots now I don't even know, but I
knew a guy had a bunch of kids who had left his home, and
he just got a stack of ballots for all them in his house, you
know, for his kids, and he could just if he wanted to fill
them out and send them in, right, I mean, of course,
So yeah, I think about like Nevada actually is to me this great example
of it, because it's also a state that's known for corruption. I'm not
sure if you've heard. I don't want to be mean, there's some mob
issues there. Union Control very helpful to Harry Reid over the years, and
in Nevada they have like mass mail out balloting and there are a lot of
people who moved to Vegas for like two months, get a driver's license,
are automatically registered to vote, and then they're on to the next town.
Not the most stable population and By the way, it's something like fourteen percent
of the country moves every year anyway, So even if it were a more
stable population, it's still like an issue where we have people who are automatically
registered to vote, then they automatically get a mail out ballot, and then
like the fifty eight people who lived there over the previous twenty years all get
a bat even though none of them live there now. But you get all
of a sudden, you get a ton of ballots hanging around, and then
you also have like a really active no offense union situation there where like there's
like ability to round up ballots, and it's just interesting. You know.
Last thing on this issue I think is that you mentioned the Colorado I think
is it the Colorado case going to the Supreme Court? It is, yeah,
so taking Trump off the ballot. So leading the charges This woman called
Norma Anderson, right, so everyone says, former Republican, you know,
conservative, she's leading the charge. I wasn't lived in Colorado and covered Norma
Anderson. She is one of the worst legislators I have ever covered. She
was a complete fraud. Now listen, you know, I don't love Trump
and all that, but nothing she does I think is on the level right.
She destroyed Tabor and Colorado. She helped destroy Tabor in Colorado. She's
just I was like gobsmacked when I saw that she was leading this charge that
they kept saying this former Republican, former conservative, like she was more liberal
than most Democrats in Colorado. Just so people know, who care about this
story? Also, I never get what people like. It was one thing
to say that in twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen, Oh, this lifelong Republican
Bill Crystal doesn't like Donald Trump. Okay, fine, yep, we got
it. After multiple years of Trump being at war with the establishment Republican party,
I don't know if it's really news or noteworthy that some top Republicans up
to and including Mitch McConnell would like to see him die a fiery death.
Like it's not really like, are you what are you supposed to get from
that? Oh, he takes on the Republican establishment. Well, golly,
g I guess that's bad. Yeah, I mean, I you know,
even if you hate him, I just don't see how anyone who believes in
American democracy can start taking him off a ballot. I guess I just I
don't know. I feel like I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I
just don't I don't understand how you can go out there every day and talk
about democracy and then try to take a guy off about who has been convicted
of nothing. By the way, have you do Have you ever gone to
the United States Supreme Court to hear oral arguments? I have. I was
there the day that Roberts stuck a knife in everyone's back on Obamacare. Wait,
do you mean the day that that was argued or the day it was
handed down? The day was handed down? Okay, oh you said argument?
Sorry, Yeah, I was there the day was handed down. But
I'm going going Are you going to stand in line hope to get in?
Can you not get a press I mean this is from our discussion for the
podcast Can you not get a press pass? There are press credentials for the
Supreme Court, and there are very few given each year. I think,
I don't know. I just never bothered. I mean, I feel like
I always thought I'll never go here in oral argument, particularly since you can
broadcast them. But I will do it now. I think I was at
human events when I was there, and a magazine that existed a long time
ago kids, and I remember being so happy as Roberts was talking and that
my mood shifted suddenly and that was that. By the way, I have
to say, at the hearing today, I met there were a bunch of
really competent staffers, which was nice pleasant surprise, not surprised, but as
pleasant to deal with. But anyway, I met two people who mentioned you
me and uh huh. And one of them was like, was David Harsani,
like, you know, very like interested? And then another like top
staffer was saying something about, you know, I bet David Harsani would think
this or that. I was like, I got the David Harsani fan club
here. You always meet these people, and then I never meet these people.
But maybe I need to leave my house to meet these people. Okay,
let's you want to talk a little bit about politics. Let's talk about
the border bill fiasco that went down. Yeah, you have something else to
Saiday, I say, everyone has been so nice about the testimony, and
I've gotten so many nice notes and emails, and I just wanted to thank
everybody for that. You were great. I'm not just saying that you were
great. A lot of unfortunately I've watched many of these House hearings as well,
and people are usually either in articulate or nervous. I would probably be
that way myself, but you were really just really good. I think do
make faces. I know you don't like compliments. Talk about the border bill,
the terrible border bill. So I don't even know where to start with
this. But how long? Now? For two weeks Republicans were negotiating this
two weeks. It's been like longer, it's four months or something. Oh
when they say all right, secret negotiations went on for months. I think
Mitch McConnell came up with the plan, you know, months ago, and
then he also came up with the plan to have James Lankford quote unquote lead
the negotiations because I needed a person who kind of came off as conservative,
because like, the whole goal was not The whole goal was to come up
with a bill that would give Mitch mcconnad sorry, it would give Ukraine as
much money as Mitch McConnell wanted and that Chuck Schumer wanted. But they kind
of knew that Conservatives weren't going to go for it unless they got border security
and so they were like, this is actually a border security bill, and
so it was kind of builled and pitched as a border security bill for months
upon months, and it was secret and they wouldn't reveal what was going on,
and then it finally came out on Sunday night. I have to say,
I am not against secret negotiations in the sense of if you're first building
a big bill like this, which shouldn't all these issues should be separate,
by the way, But if you're building something like this, even just a
border bill, it's okay to negotiate first and lay down the groundwork and stuff
like that. If it's every step of the way is out in the media,
everyone's jumping on you, it's impossible to get anything done. So I
get that part of it. What I don't get is then, you know,
you basically give people almost no time to read bills, to debate the
issues, and you just push forward with it. And the I just want
to say, I am pretty I'm a big lib on immigration. I would
never even as a demo. I just don't see anyone votes for a bill
like this. A The thing that bothered me most right off the bat is
that it gives the president the power to simply ignore the only provision in the
bill that actually does anything to stop what's happening at the border. My first
question was, would any Democrat ever sign onto a bill that allowed Donald Trump
to cite national security to ignore or the national interest, which is just this
malleable, nonsensical term. Really, you know, I mean it just means
it can mean anything to just ignore the bill for forty five days. No,
they would never do that. Yet Republicans are like mad that Conservatives aren't
excited about a bill like that. It's just insanity, right. Actually heard
some Republican members say that it made more sense to view the bill as an
effort to constrain Donald Trump than an effort to constrain Joe Biden, because there
were so many things that were moved into difficult to you know, sort of
codifying some of the more insane things that Joe Biden has illegally done at our
border. That was the net effect. I mean, every single enforcement provision
in that bill was riddled with very vague language, loopholes. All anything the
President wanted to do he could do. It's clear that the only thing that
they wanted there was the Ukrainian funding, and that's it. They didn't really
want to. They want a border bill so they can say they're doing something.
Now they're happy that Republicans said no. They trying to flip the script
and say, oh, look, Republicans want you know, they don't want
to do anything good. Yeah, that's a heavy lift because no, you
know, person of the brain real quick. I want to make a little
point on the secrecy issue and whether it's okay to do things in secret or
not. I think the problem for the people who wanted the bill to pass
is that they kept it secret from the members themselves. So it's like not
about keeping it secret from the American people even but there was a lot of
pressure to get Republican senators to agree to sign off on this bill, but
they weren't actually showing them what was in the bill, and that's I mean,
obviously it didn't work out well for them. I did love that Democrats
were buying large, like super super happy with it. Yeah, I get
what you're saying about that. My assumption is they don't want to do it
because people who get mad will leak the specifics and then it gets crazy.
Yeah, but I did notice that there was the tone of a lot of
senators kind of changed with this bill, right. I saw Mike Lee out
there just going right after McConnell and others who you would not expect to be
critical even of his leadership right on this bill. Though he abandoned the bill
himself. But we'll talk about that in a second. So do you think
his time is coming to an end soon or what's happening? Well, you
know, it's interesting because when the last Congress came into session, he was
challenged. He was challenged for the minority leader position by Senator Rick Scott from
Florida. I think he only got ten votes from Republicans, So it's always
kind of worth remembering. Like you may hate and statistically speaking, you almost
certainly do, Mitch McConnell. He's the least popular politician in America and he
kind of like has earned that in different ways. So it's not just that
Democrats dislike him, but really Republicans are frustrated with him. But he did
get like nearly forty votes from the members of his conference. So he's got
a lot of power, and he should because he controls most of the money
that deals with reelection, He controls committee assignments, and he wields his power
extremely forcefully. So it was super fascinating to see so many people openly going
after him and the way he handled everything here. And he's clearly weak,
you know, he's had, you know, the glitches of his brain,
whatever's going on there where he is asked a question by a reporter and he
doesn't know how to respond. His team is still running their like sort of
anti Trumpist campaign, but he's pretty quiet. They have to kind of keep
him away from too much public speaking. And it's at a time when Republican
voters and even Republican senators are thinking, Wow, the entire country is super
broken, and our top Republican, our top elected Republican, is like completely
out to lunch. He has publicly said that he thinks the top policy priority
of Republican voters is to give more money to Ukraine, with like no end
in sight. And I just want to say I mentioned this earlier, this
so called border bill that did nothing to secure the border, but did do
some stuff to codify rampant illegal immigration. It was one hundred and eighteen billion
dollars and sixty billion or more than half, was to fund Ukraine and then
we're talking about funding Ukraine even as stories are coming out every day about rampant
corruption there. That's sort of like nobody has a plan for how to win.
Nobody's ever had a plan for how to win, you know, just
it's like a total, total mess. So I think people are frustrated that
Mitch McConnell like was like, I have the perfect plan and it'll totally work.
We'll do this Ukraine funding, will pretend it's a border bill and nobody
will know, and instead everybody knew. Everybody saw that. It was like
a total sham, And so yeah, I was also interested. You had
actually a press conference with you know, Ted Cruz coming out and being like,
this guy is not doing us any favors. Ron Johnson sent out that
meme where he had Kirsten Cinema as Lucy with the football in Charlie Brown and
and Mitch McConnell on his back as Charlie Brown like mocking basically the incompetent leadership.
But there is you know, this man has a lot of power in
Washington, d C. And even as he's clearly on his way out,
it could be a very long period of time before the country finally has a
Republican leader who's doing things more in line with what Republican voters want. I've
always defended Mitch. I think a little bit, you know, his effectiveness
has waned, even in the ways that he wants to move forward. Right.
What I mean is it does not reflect what many people who like Trump
want to do. But at least he was good at what he used,
you know, certain things that he was good at, dealing with judiciary stuff
and all that. I don't even think he's very good at that anymore.
But I think people's expectations, though, of what a Senate leader does are
off though. I mean, it's not a guy you want banging the table,
you know, banging the dais like, I mean, it's a guy
who you want to be able to pass things, to pull together opposition,
to run things. Right, I see you making faces. I just want
to say, Yeah, the Republican Party doesn't have much here. Democrats control
the Presidency, they control the Senate, and they almost control the House.
They control corporate media, they control big business, they control like a lot
of stuff. So if you're in a position of power, you got to
use that power. And yes, obviously being an effective opposition leader using legislative
jiu jitsu or whatever like. That's important, but having someone who can articulate
a coherent thought is also important, particularly for the world's greatest deliberative body.
And you know Glitchipooh is up there mumbling about something or other and thinking he's
being like super crafty. He's not so crafty. He can get out on
the floor and say some stuff that's like better. He's like obviously not able
to do television really anymore because of his mental decline. But even that step
aside and let someone who can lead lead. We should point out even some
of the people who are viewed as the likely successors. These would be people
like Barasso came out against the border bill, that why am I calling on
a border bill? The Ukraine package that Mitch McConnell negotiated, and Mitch McConnell
himself. You got Chuck Schumer out there saying I've worked with Mitch McConnell on
many things, I've never worked as closely with him on anything as this Ukraine
package that he calls a border bill. And then Mitch McConnell is like,
I vote, I recommend a no vote, which was totally uncool to James
Langford, not that I've been his best friend. Well, his reasoning was
that the environment right now is not ready for it, you know, or
that the Republican Party in the environment, within the movement is not ready for
it. But they haven't been ready for something like this since two thousand and
six or whenever the last one failed. No one wants this kind of bill
on the right. And again Mitch thought he was being super cute. He
was like, gosh, I think Donald Trump could cruise to reelection on the
back of the border crisis. So I'll do my buddy Joe Biden as solid
I'll pass something, will claim that the border is closing up. That way,
I necap my mortal enemy Donald Trump, and I won't actually do anything
to fix the border because obviously I don't care about that. So he's like
thinking he's being really crafty. He wasn't. And then he's like the mood
has changed, Like, buddy, you just misread the entire situation. Yeah,
well that's my point. I just don't understand why he would believe that
something like this would have a chance at all. And I think they fooled
themselves into believing that in some sense. It seems to me a lot of
these senators thought that and they were wrong, right, So, but I
wanted to just talk about the bill itself in the same that Joe Biden said
now that he would veto I wrote about this, but he said he would
veto any kind of standalone a to Israel, but he would not. But
yet tructionmers moving forward with a standalone funding bill for Ukraine, so that is
the main priority he has. Do you agree with me that Joe Biden would
have veto a standalone border security bill one hundred percent? He would. So
the only thing they really care about and they really want to pass is Ukrainian
funding, And you know, I have mixed feelings about that. But I
can't believe that Mitch McConnell thinks that this is the most important topic on the
minds or the you know, of Republicans, or that they even want I
honestly believe that Republicans would go along with that kind of funding if there was
a legitimate border bill attached to it. But there isn't, So then I
don't understand what they're even doing and wasting their time doing here. Things seem
very broken the country seems extremely broken, whether it's in terms of how we're
handling foreign policy or the economy or you know, anything, crime, ability
to tolerate other opinions and free speech, like things are very very bad.
And the House can do anything either because honestly, they've like with people not
being there and open seats and stuff. They have like four seats right right
away, you have like ken Buck. Ken Buck's like, no, I'm
not going to do anything that Republicans want to do. Right there's one right
off in call CNN and asks them, how do you want me to vote?
And then he just does whatever they want yes, And then there's a
bunch of other you know, there's three or four other people. So they
don't really really there's nothing for them there either. It's going to be very
tough for them to get anything done, not that it would even matter because
the Senate's not going to take it up. On this point, though,
they could have impeached my Orcis. I mean, I think you should have
been impeached like a year ago, but they could have impeached him last night
from the one we're taping this and one of the people who didn't vote for
it was Mike Gallagher, and he was like, I'm just worried that if
we start impeaching cabinet secretary for behavior like opening up the border and not following
the law, that other cabinet secretaries could be impeached. And I'm like,
sounds like a great idea. I'd like to impeach every cabinet secretary who refuses
to defend the country's borders or doesn't follow the law, wouldn't you. They
talk about these people like they're regal, Like there's some kind the cabinet secretaries
grow on trees. You could find one anywhere in DC if you really want
one more competent than him, what does he care? Also like precedent,
Like the country's kind of falling apart right now. Do you think that if
ma Orcis, if they get rid of him, you're going to get someone
in there who's going to actually fix the border. No, they're not.
It's just sending a message. I assume you agree, right, I don't
know. I think you are the one who turned me on to the idea
that impeachments are good and should be used on everybody, you know, like
all parties, revengeable whatever is it? Yeah? I do keep them on
their toes, you know, in a weird way. I think I have
like the opposite view of Mike Gallagher. And again I have no idea what
Mike Gallagher was thinking with it, Like I cannot imagine his constituents are like
in any way feeling that he handled that use of power that he had well.
But I almost feel like impeachment of cabinet secretaries makes more sense than presidents
because, like with the president, you always have a chance to vote them
out or they're coming out, you know, soon, you're directly voting for
them. With cabinet secretaries, it's kind of a way to send a pitch
at the head of the president without going full impeachment. But I don't know,
I'm not sure. I haven't really thought about the whole thing. But
I do think that opening up the border is absolutely scandalous behavior. And it
just cracks me up that, like in Washington, d C. They get
so upset about someone saying something mean or whatever, and meanwhile the American people
are getting savaged in ways that are not fun to be savaged by people just
complete dare election of duty on the border. And that's fine, no big
deal. Wouldn't want to use our power to stop anything there. I actually
listen. I agree theoretically with what Gallagher is saying. But here's the problem.
I mean, you have Democrats right now using the fourteenth Amendment to try
to take people off the ballot. You think they're going to care about your
stupid precedence. You think that if you don't do this, they're not going
to do it? What on earth makes you think that Democrats aren't going to
abuse that power once they get a chance to do it. They'll do it
whenever they can. Right, You're not on Twitter? Right, like I
need affirmation for my There's a guy on Twitter named Yosi Ga Stettner or something
like that that I just make up that name. Do you know how it
sounds familiar anyway? He has this whole theory that it's not that Republicans are
stupid, it's that stupid people are Republican maybe, And you know, first
I was like, huh, that's kind of interesting. And then sometimes you
encounter these Republican leaders You're like, you know what, I think they are
stupid? You know? So, yeah, I don't. I don't know
that an impeachment would matter very much. I think I've saw this poll that
shows that a lot more people are tuned out of politics right now than they
were, you know, in previous elections at this point. And you know,
I just think it becomes noise after a while. So I'm not sure
our impeachment would change much. I think once Donald Trump is out there every
day campaigning, people are going to start paying attention again. But I gotta
tell you, Molly, I do not look forward to this election at all.
I mean, maybe I've ever looked for you know, how our propaganda
press refuses to show Donald Trump. They have this whole thing where they're like,
we cannot report the news accurately and honestly because if we did, we
would be participating in Donald Trump's lies, and so we can't report news as
if we were a legitimate news organization. But I have this kind of crazy
thought that this is helping out Donald Trump. No one's getting tired of him
because nobody shows him, and then when they do see him, they're like,
oh, yeah, I remember that guy. He was the best.
That was such a fun, like nice, economically prosperous era of peace.
And then also because the whole promise of Joe Biden was that he would be
this era of competence and that unlike Donald Trump, who everything turns bad,
he was going to unite the country. And so when you see Joe Biden,
he's just this like angry, muttering fool who can't articulate a thought.
And then you get like Trump out there and he's doing like sort of weird
stand up stick. It's kind of like funny to watch. It's like my
theory went when he was staring off Twitter. That actually helped him a whole
bunch because he couldn't just be insane on there. And then they also have
there as if they are like Vladimir Putin times ten, they are trying to
imprison their political opponent. By the way, I said this like on Special
Report last night, and everyone's like, what are you talking about? What
am I talking about? What am I talking about? They got court cases
up and down the Eastern seaboard, and you know the result of these would
be prison in some cases, Like am I'm breaking news by telling people that
the Democrat strategy is to imprison their political opponent, who by the way,
is super popular right now anyway, or even just get a conviction because they
think if they can get a conviction that they can win. They don't want
to win on the merits. They don't want to win on the issues.
They're like, what if we imprisoned our political opponent? This is absolutely horrific,
and people acting like it's no big deal is the kind of thing that
is very disorienting and unsettling. But I saw that Ben Rhodes and others are
starting up these groups that will like juxtapose what Obama and Biden had done in
foreign policy and what Trump dangerous Trump foreign policy. And I still can't understand
how anyone could fall for that, or why you would remind people that there
were the Abraham Accords and now there is near, you know, regional war
in the Middle East. Why would you do that? Doesn't seem like a
good Yeah, I want Axios throwed it up like it was a good idea.
They're like, these top Obama officials are going to compare the Biden foreign
policy with Trump, and I was like, top, like, why would
Obama people be sabotaging their candidates so badly? Biden was handed was handed a
situation where Israel and Saudi Arabia were on the verge of normalizing their relationship right
and instead of doing that because of this counter productive animosity they have towards Saudi
Arabia. And I don't like these theocrats either, but I mean those are
our friends there. They picked Iran and look where that they sent money to
them. They opened up their bank account. I don't know if you saw
this. There's a they've made around ten billion dollars more in oil sales,
which suppose it sanctions in place since Biden came in than when Trump was there,
going back to the earliers of the Trump before COVID. And there's war
with the huti Is, who they took off the terror list. There's war
with Hamas who they funded with Hezbella probably, and Americans are getting sucked into
this. I mean, I don't understand how anyone could situation. Yeah,
foreign policy people, and one of the things they were saying is like,
you do not need to go to war with Iran to constrain them. And
the Biden administration did so much to remove all of the careful economic issues that
were in play that were helping keep Iran from funding terror everywhere. When when
Trump took out Solmani, Iran ostensibly did something that that like they fired some
rockets, which it was really not much. And after that they were very
quiet. Are they quiet now? No? And let's talk about this.
And we talked about this last week. We spent a week, Bine spent
a week talking about how we were going to respond to an attack on Americans.
It was just perplexing. And then they do something. It's going to
be this day, it's going to be this time, and it's going to
be in this area. Anyway, I'm happy that bill border Bill died so
we could talk about better things. I do want to say, just because
the American people successfully killed that border Bill, all the worst parts will be
resurrected one way or another. So, you know, Mitch is like,
hey, then I'm just going to do my standalone. Give all the money
to Ukraine. I think Chruck Schumer's moving forward with something like that today.
I'm not sure. Yeah. So just you don't ever actually win. You
just win like little battles, and then they come back and try to well.
Last thing, I've noticed this when I started out. You know,
you think you win some battle in politics, but you never do. It's
just the same battles over and over again. We're still arguing about the same
economic stuff we're still arguing about. You know, It's just it never ends,
so it's you have to be vigilant. Talk about a letter. The
guy wrote us this letter and he said that both you and I had said
that we hate politics. That he was like, why are you Yeah,
I meant to I thought that was a great letter, and he was basically
saying, like, you guys talk about how you hate politics. We're counting
on you, you know, kind of to care about it, and it's
very frustrating to hear you say it. And I think about this all the
time because I'm really not the most political person, but I have found myself
working in politics. But I care deeply about the country, and I understand
that you have to fight politics. Like I'm always thinking about people who are
poorly served by their current leadership or who have lost a way of life that
embraces freedom, and I care very deeply about that, and that's why I
do what I do. So I didn't want to give the impression that I
don't care. I couldn't care more like, I really care about the country.
I just don't like politicians and politics and all that stuff. I have
chosen to fight in those spheres because it matters, but it's just in my
perfect scenario, I wouldn't be doing it. I would say that for me,
it's I don't like horse the horse race part politics. I don't like
writing about rape who's going to win races? Or I don't really love writing
about polls. I don't like listening to politicians. I like ideas. That
makes me sound pompous and sanctimonious, but I like the ideas behind and arguing
about that sort of thing. I think I don't think either of us write
a lot of Like maybe we criticize politicians are not acting correctly, but we're
never like writing a lot of horse race stuff, right, I don't think
you do it all, so I occasionally you have to, but it's it's
not like the main focus of what we do here. And I actually think
if you're going to win big arguments, that's not what you should be involved.
And that's more like sports, that's not you have to win the big
ideas, like take abortion, Like in the end, it doesn't matter what
happens in politics, you have to win over people to the big right.
But I do hope that what we're doing helps those people who are doing the
little incremental things. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say so.
Did you see the letter from someone who was asking for moving advice?
I want to actually respond to that one Colorado. I have thoughts. I'm
going to respond to that at some point, I hope. Well they were
talking about Virginia, all right, go come to Virginia. I think,
yeah, twenty years ago I would have said go to Colorado, but now
not anymore. And I thought she was picking a good city. So anyway,
and we do get some interesting mail. Let's talk about culture. People
like that too. I love when people write and give us the exact percentage
they want us to do culture. They're like, only twenty percent is acceptable.
Some people are more specific. Let me start. I saw a movie
I think you had mentioned it maybe a few weeks ago, and Justice for
All with al Pacino? Did you mention that? I don't know. I
forget both. I like I always have to, like try to remember what
the name of a movie I just saw was, because I well forget it
quickly. What's it about? It's like me with committee hearing politicians. It's
al Pacino. It's such a weird movie. Norman Jewison, who did like
you'd learned the roof and stuff directs it like it's kind of a comedy.
It's the one where he yells like you're no, you're out of order and
you're not me. Oh really Okay, So al Pacino's in it, and
it's it's it's fine. It's from nineteen seventy nine. It's like a courtroom
drama and it's I thought you mentioned Jack Warden's in it and stuff. Okay,
but it was interesting in that It's like sometimes in the seventies things are
supposed to be kind of comedies, but you're never really sure, Like it
seems too serious to be a comedy. But I don't know. I think
you went an oscar for that movie. It could be wrong, but it
was pretty good. You do you want to trade off or just do our
whole list each? I don't have much, so go ahead. Okay.
Wait, no inner Space? I saw inner Space? Wait? Wait,
don't say anything. Is that with like Martin Short and Dennis Quaid. Yes,
not Meg Tilley, someone that want Meg Ryan Meg Ryan? Yeah,
And I get all those Meg Ryan type people confused. You know, there
was like a thing at that period of time, the mid eighties, where
there were a lot of women that looked like that. She was great,
Dennis Quaid was great. I love There were a couple at one point,
weren't they. Yeah? Yeah, And I think I mentioned this previously once,
but I was like once at a dinner party with fancy people, and
the women were in one place and the men were in another, and I
was talking about how much I love Martin Short and that's when I learned that
well, like every single other woman was like, oh, I him,
like, cannot stand him. It's so stupid. And I realized, like,
oh, it's not very female to like him, but I find him
to just I find his physical comedy and everything to be really hilarious. I
was not a fan until I saw that character he does in the Fat Suit
Jimmy Interview Jimmy Glick, Yeah, which I found very funny, like when
he asked mel Brooks what his problem with nazis? Did you see that the
comedian Shane Gillis is going to be hosting Sury Night Live. Oh, I'm
so glad you brought that up. So I was doing the Weekend Show,
a weekend show on Fox, where we were talking about Shane Gillis hosting suren
Live. So of course Shane Gillis was going to be a cast member,
but he was kicked off because he had done satirical humor on a podcast,
like making fun of different races or whatever, and that was viewed as something
you can't do anymore, Like could do it in comedy for decades upon decades,
but you couldn't do it if you're Shane Gillis. And so you know,
he got fired by Lauren Michaels and now he's coming back to host.
And I made a comment on the weekend show about how Saturday Night Live,
which is a show I have long you know, loved that a few years
ago they embraced identity politics over humor, and they did. There's a cast
member. She calls herself like a non female but also not a male.
I don't even or you know, what is that? What is that called
non binary or something non binary? And she is awful, like so not
funny. Others, you know, like they just kind of would like brag.
They wouldn't say like, oh we have this funny person or that the
funny person. They say, this is the first gay Asian. Now in
his case, he's not like winning any you know, he's not the funniest
person in the world, but he's actually like hard working and funny enough.
But like, who cares, you know? If it's all women and they're
hilarious, who cares, you know? But anyway, yeah, that would
never happen because women are funny. It's not true. But anyway, I
was one of my friends was a stand up comedian and she would always incorporate
women are funny jokes into her routine. It killed anyway. I don't watch
that I laugh ava in many years, but I'll probably check out his opening
monologue. They had Nate Bargatsi on there a few months ago, and he
was he was pretty funny. So I don't know, maybe they're coming,
Maybe they're coming to their senses. Maybe things are turning around. Speaking of
comedians, there's this comedian named Shane Smith. Have you ever heard of him?
Nope? So this guy is completely tattooed, like it's on his face
and his neck, all over his arms, just crazy. He used to
be in a gang, drug addict, all that stuff, but he recently
converted to Catholicism. And there's an interview on a podcast called Pints with a
Quietness, which I have never heard of before, but apparently it is really
pretty popular, probably with the Catholic listeners. And it's about an hour and
a half or more, maybe two hours, and it is really good,
so I would recommend watching it. I'm talking about not getting face tattoos because
I feel like that's a bad life decision. He talks about they do.
He talks about his tattoos and how he had basically satanic tattoos on him that
he's covered up and tried like converted into like religious ones and stuff. But
he's not anti tattoo. He says it like sort of represents his life and
it reminds him of of where he's been and all that kind of stuff.
It's interesting. It's an interesting I don't find him like particularly hilarious or anything
as a comedian, but I do think he's an interesting character and a guy
who, you know, he thinks about the world in ways that maybe people
who are religious since they're born may not, you know what I'm saying.
Like, it's interesting people who convert usually are more zealous than non converts,
but they're usually view the world a little differently. It's interesting. I think
I don't know why this reminds me of anything. But did you see Tablet
Magazine, which is an online publication. I really like had a thing about
the people behind the Chosen and how there are a bunch of Jewish consultants on
the Chosen. I was like, I'm going to send this to David Harsani
Chosen fan. I am a Chosen fan. And I think the New Seasons
like in the theaters or something I heard see, Yeah, I am well,
I mean it's about a Jewish those people are Jewish still, right,
so in the show, right they choose? Yeah. I watched a kid's
movie. Oh, I'm not going to remember. It's on Netflix, Ryan
and the Dark. Ryan and the Dark, written by Charlie Kaufman, who
wrote like that John Malkovich movie. Ye. And I would like to say
that I watched this kid's movie because there were kids in my house, But
no, I just we just watched this kid's movie because it was on and
I thought it started out really strong, like it was very It's about a
kid who's really scared of everything basically, and I thought it was really good
and then it went on like an hour too long. But I still would
recommend it if you have kids. I think they would enjoy it. Shyness.
And did I mention that I Am David film we watched a few weeks
ago, Yes, but I don't remember. Yeah, it's kind of a
kid's film, but it was also totally just a family friendly film about a
kid escaping a camp in some Soviet country and oh yeah, yeah, his
journeys. I think it was called I Am David on Outnumbered this week.
I was so proud of myself because I am as bad as you're being right
now on name recall and stuff like that. I'm so much worse. Actually,
I never remember anything like particularly on live television. And Emily was trying
to remember the name of a TV show about kids, you know, and
I was like Stranger Things and she's like yes, and they had that music
that kind of had a comeback, and I was like Kate Bush. And
I was so happy that, like, for once, I could actually remember
something, but mostly because I loved did you So Kate Bush is big because
of that show? Is that what brought her? Like? So it was
kind of we were talking about the Tracy Chapman thing from the Grammy, So
Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs. I think his name is. They did a
duet of her song fast Card that he did a remake of that went really
successful, and then for the Grammys they came out and sang a duet and
it was really well done. And I love Tracy Chapman. And I'll just
say that, like not on air, I had said that I wasn't sure
Luke Combs had is that his name? It brought much to the song,
like he didn't really change it up. He just kind of sang her song,
but just did it very so there wasn't like to me, I would
prefer to hear the Tracy Chapman song. And the other women on the set
were like, well, here's something he brought. He brought me knowledge of
that song because I didn't know who Tracy Chapman was, because I was too
young to know that song, you know, like they literally might not have
been born at that time. And so they were saying like, just the
beauty of him doing a cover introduced them to Tracy Chapman and now they like
her other music as well too. Well. I got in some trouble this
week because I ree did out what I thought a lot of people would agree
with, is that I unfortunately was alive when Tracy Chapman's song came out and
I was bombarded with it constantly, and I hate it. I hate folk
music, hate it, and now I have to go through it all again,
and it just annoys me so much. And then I made a crack
about how the gen Z like they should find their own music and stop taking
stuff that was terrible in the past and bringing it back to me. Then
I said something bad about Kate Bush, and then I remembered, I'm like,
I hope Molly doesn't see this on the chat the world? Did you
say bad about Kate Bush. I don't like that music, but I don't
hate it that much, but I do hate that I have to hear it
again, like you go through this. One time, I was talking about
like that Peter Gabriel song with the claymation that they used to play every five
minutes on the TV, like they exactly they made you hate these songs because
they would not stop. And one of them was fast Cars, and I'm
like, I can't believe this is the song they picked, like they can
go back and bring the Ramones back or something. They went back and they
got you know, folk music, which is terrible. Next thing, you
know, they're going to have the those two women, those two gay women,
that band. Oh I can girlize the Indigo Girls. My girlfriends and
I we would drive around in the car and we'd all take different parts and
we would go to Lilith Lilith There I did. But I just want to
say I have that Indigo Girls album. I have a couple of Inego Girls
albums, have more than one album. I like our lesbian themed culture selection
for this week, but they don't. I don't know doesn't. Well,
someone accused me and said, I don't like Tracy Chapman because she's a woman
of a queer woman of color, like that is that? Yeah? You
were like, uh, if she was a purple Martian, I would still
hate that song. I actually, I'm not saying I'm surprised, Like if
you tell me she's gay, I'm not gonna say I'm surprised by that.
But I never I don't ever remember her talking about it or making a big
deal out of it. And she seems to me like a real professional musician
who just takes her craft seriously but doesn't like get all involved in drama of
Who's Dayton whom or whatever. I couldn't care less what I mean. It's
not like you see a lot of bands are like involved in debauchery. It's
like, I don't you know, this isn't no more. I'm not not
following them down some moral road. I just want the song to be good
and to the guitar to be plugged in, so workay stuff. I will
say that on Monday, a bunch of people were really upset that at the
Grammys, Taylor Swift won an award for something or other. Lana del Rey
was robbed anyway. She comes up and Celine Dion was the woman giving her
the award, but she didn't acknowledge her. And my gay friends felt that
she should have like basically not you know, bowed down, but like really
honored Selene Dion. That's a oh my gosh, this is like stuff that
I shouldn't be saying publicly. I'm not a big Selene Dion fan, but
you know, she is a she's a big star, and people felt that
she deserved some respect from the young the younger crew. I hate that I
have to know any of that, any of this is happening Selene Dion.
I only know that Titanic song. Did you know she was having medical problems
or something or health ish? Yeh, I heard about that. Did her
husband die? He was like a lot older right, No, no clue.
Sorry, I know more about her than you. I don't even know
anything, all right. That's it for me. Anything else, No,
I hope you have a great rest of your week. You too, hope
everyone else does as well. Until them be lovers of freedom and anxious for
the friend f