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Speaker 1: Bye bye bye, bye bye bye.

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Speaker 2: We hadn't agreed what key we were in, and James

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didn't give us any indication a tool.

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Speaker 3: Like usual, you always leave me stranded.

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Speaker 4: James, ask not what your country can do for you,

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ask what you can do for your country.

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Speaker 5: Mister grbach Off, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochete

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Podcast with Charles C. W. Cook and Stephen Hayward. I'm

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James Lylyx, the David town depend dolink who sat down

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with Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: And he's gonna tell you what he said.

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Speaker 5: So let's ellis as a podcast.

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Speaker 1: So you're familiar with this because you watch the game.

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There's big this whole debate about the meat slay that

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they run. Tush push.

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Speaker 4: I wouldn't ban it, but what I would ban is

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this horrible kickoff rule of this new kickoff rule that

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is so bad. It is so terrible. You know when

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in football when the bullbars, you're supposed to be loving

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this ball.

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Speaker 5: Is up in the air and Troll said, it is

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so horrible. Welcome everybody, the ricochet poncast number seven hundred

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and forty and James Lelax in a beautiful, gorgeous may

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day here in Minneapolis.

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Speaker 1: Charles W.

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Speaker 5: Cook at the moment is dealing with a water emergency,

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as he put it, which is not a British euphemism

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for anything. Apparently he's got some water where it ought

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not to be in his house. He's probably right now

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putting it on bounty towels, soaking it up and strewing

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sawdust so he can get to us as soon as possible,

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because of course this takes priority. Stephen Hayward is with

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us as well. See when are you in California?

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Speaker 4: I am It's a beautiful sunny day here after several

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days of heavy fog along the coast, so I am

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welcoming my chance to replenish my vitamin D levels.

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Speaker 1: Good.

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Speaker 5: I understand the gas is going to hit something like

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eight bucks in California. I read that they're taking a

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couple of refineries offline, because why would you need refineries?

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And then consequently they expect gasoline prices to spike to.

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Speaker 1: An absurd look.

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Speaker 5: Gasoline will be one of those prices that you see

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on a sign in a dystopian post apocalyptic movie, you know,

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when they cast deep into the troubled future and gases

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nine dollars? Is this true? Do you drive a lot.

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Does something like that affect anything the way that people

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live or do they just growl and pump and snarl

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and go on their way as usual.

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Speaker 4: Well, California is testing the limits to how much pain

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you can exact from people. I mean, Californias have gotten

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used to gasoline being much higher than the national average

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for quite a while. But now as that's saying goes,

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the calls are coming from inside the house because it's

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some of the you know, I forget it's the state

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auditor or whoever, but it's official estimates from California State

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Agency saying, hey, wait a minute, if we keep doing

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some of these crazy things, we're looking at the realistic

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possibility of eight dollars gasoline within say, twelve months from now.

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I think that would be a tipping point to use

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that dumb old cliche, right, And even Newsome apparently has

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put out the word as regulators, we need to back off.

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I should back up for listeners who won't know what

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the approximate costs. This is California has its own special gasoline.

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You cannot sell it anywhere else in the country, and

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no one else can make it for us. Well, what

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happens is if you have a maintenance problem or a

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fire at a refinery, suddenly the supply gets hit, the

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price goes up. And so what was the answer, Well,

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price controls, of course, and reserve requirements and all kinds

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of other stupid interventions that aren't working. And you've had

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a couple of refiners. Valero's one conical Phillips another is saying,

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you know what, we're just going to close a couple

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of our refineries. They're not very profitable and so forth.

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So suddenly in a real crisis of gasoline supply in

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the state for our boutique gasoline that, by the way,

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we don't need any more. But that's a technical subject

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for another day. So even Newsom is now putting out

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the word, we need to back off on this because

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this is going to kill my chances to be president.

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Well he doesn't say the last part, but that's clearly

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what is on his mind.

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Speaker 5: Eight dollar gas, eight dollar gas. It's just extraordinary. And

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of course your refinery schedules affects the rest of us too,

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because everybody has to shut down or reformulate. I mean,

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it's great that we don't have that. Nobody else can

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make it for you. But the rationale behind this is

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because of the special ecological needs of California, and that

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what does this go back to nineteen seventy three, they

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were concerned about too much lead and sulfur being belched

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out the back of the pipe, so they said you

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got to do this, this and this.

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Speaker 1: And none of those things apply anymore.

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Speaker 5: But like most of these things, it staggers on and

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on and on, a zombie regulation that can't be killed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I mean most people think if you ask

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people how many kinds of gasoline do we have in

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this country, they'll say three, you know, eighty seven octane,

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eighty nine and ninety one. The answer is more like

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seventy five. In fact, actually in your neck of the woods, James,

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there's a special blends for the Minneapolis Saint Paul area.

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I'm pretty sure I've seen the color coded map for this.

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And what it goes back to is you're close to

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being on it. It was really the Clean Air Act

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of nineteen ninety that said, you know, we got to

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have a lower The technical term is you want to

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have lower read vapor pressure in the summer, so gasoline

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isn't evaporating in the old days, that meant out of

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cars with carburetors. But ever since we got catalytic converters

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and fuel injected engines, the cars are much less of

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a source of air pollution. And so now it's just

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evaporation out of gas pumps. But it is so minor.

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Now that these regulations are obsolete, we can go back to, well,

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you could just have sort of a lower volatility gasoline

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in the summer, but there's no reason not to have

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a nationwide blend for it. And finally, I can geek

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out on this all day, and I don't want to

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board listeners. But you know, after Hurricane Katrina and then

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was it Hugo was the second one in two thousand

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and five. So ten years ago now, President Bush waived

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the gasoline blending requirements because you know, half of our

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refiners were shut down in the Gulf and there was

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no increase in air pollution. The Environmental group said, oh,

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we understand it's necessary, but this is terrible. Well that

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showed you that twenty years ago these regulations for gasoline

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were obsolete and we're still stuck with them because like

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other environmental rules, they're almost impossible to get rid of.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, the evaporation thing. There's that seal on the pump,

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and there's the new gas caps that at least in

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the car that I have, which form a tight seal

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with the hose and the nozzle and all the rest

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of it. It's not as though you come up to

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a gas station you are beset by an ice stinging

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miasma of the evaporated gasoline. As a matter of fact,

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I don't even smell gas when I'm at the pump anymore.

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But of course we don't have the pipes that we

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had in the battle days of the sixties, where black

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smoke would come out of the back. Now speaking of

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black smoke, white smoke, We've got a pope, and this

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is Pope Leo the fourteenth, and I have been not surprised,

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I guess, but I've been really sort of dismayed by

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the quantity of memes that this has spawned, and none

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of them are very good. There seems to be an

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intersection between Catholicism, Pope renewed, Pope's Leo Chicago that just

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didn't catch fire this time. That, of course, is the

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most important issue of the day. But no, I'm not Catholic,

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so I have no canem in this fight. But Stephen,

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you're probably more theologically astute than myself. What are we

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looking at here? Are we looking at more of a

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return to what some people want in terms of traditional Catholicism.

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I think if that had been the case, they would

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have got somebody from Africa or somebody who's going to

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sort of continue along the path of his predecessor, or

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be like Lee of the thirteenth and you know, be

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in the office forever. I think he was the fourth

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longest serving pope.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well.

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Speaker 1: Right now.

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Speaker 4: My first guess is he's going to be halfway between Francis,

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who was pretty progressive in a lot of ways and

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equivocal and confusing, and Benedict the sixteenth. And two things

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give me hope about him at least. One is that

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on traditional Catholic moral questions he looks pretty solid. He's

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made some strong statements against the sort of gender identity madness.

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He's pro life, he's co condemned, as he put it,

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the homosexual lifestyle and same sex marriage. So far, so good.

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He has retweeted a lot of progressive stuff on climate

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change and immigration. But I know it's two things about him.

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He's not unlike Pope Francis, who used to traffic in

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the old days in Argentina with a lot of those

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liberation theologians who I liberation theology in short, is just

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Marxism with salsa what.

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Speaker 1: It was back then.

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Speaker 4: But Bob, Pope Bob, I'm still calling Leo. He is

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Augustinian by background, which I think is very interesting. Second,

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he was a math major as an undergraduate at Villanova,

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and one of his scholarly publications after he went through

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you know, theology school and whatnot, was Bayesian statistics applied

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to theology. In other words, he's as far away from

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sort of Marxism and goofy phenomenology as you can possibly get.

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I think I take those as somewhat hopeful signs that

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he's a more grounded guy.

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Speaker 1: Good.

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Speaker 5: Well, in that case, if he's Augustinian by training, it'll

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be great to have somebody come out in thunder against Manicheism,

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the Pelagian heresy, and all of these things which remained

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to this day actually relevant topics if you want to

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drill down into it and consider that human nature doesn't

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change and these issues continue to be devil us. But

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so there's that, Well, we'll see how it goes. Another

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thing that might might be of interest to people that

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have been chewing over the stats and figures and shape

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of the world is the fact that Charles is now

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with us. And I say that in the most commanding

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voice possible.

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Speaker 3: Charles has entered the chat.

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Speaker 5: And Charles has entered the chat.

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Speaker 1: Are you are you? Are you in dampened? Well?

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Speaker 2: You did worrying me a bit when you started talking

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about pipes and evaporation. I thought this was a microaggression.

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Speaker 5: No, we don't do microaggressions with we do macroaggression.

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Speaker 3: Just straight up aggressions.

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Speaker 5: We were casting our eyes or about to Europe, where

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an interesting thing has happened in Germany. We're being told

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again with the parameters of possible political discussion should be

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The German intelligence agency said that this party over there

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extremist right wing organization, and they're going to watch them.

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Speaker 2: I love any sentence that begins an interesting thing has

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happened in Germany, and I love I love reading Germans

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excusing their authoritarianism. I love it because obviously, and for

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good reason, historically, they don't want to say yes, we

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are authoritarians. So what they do is they say yes,

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we did it, but then explain why. So recently, when JD.

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Vance criticized them, they didn't say, no, no, we don't arrest.

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Speaker 3: People for speaking on the internet.

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Speaker 2: They said, oh, no, you have to understand, we are

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not We're not censoring you if you're just making sure

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your opinions are as good as they can be according

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to our guidelines. And with this one it was even better. No,

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it's not an attack on democracy, you're not. We're not

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attacking democracy. If you have just enabled the secret services

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to look into you, and if you do not like you,

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then you cannot run for office. And VI will not

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tell you if we found things on you that you

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might dispute, because that would just feed into your extremism.

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You see, It's amazing. They just they just they just

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they go yeah, yeah, yeah, we did that. We did that,

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but we did it for your own good. They are incorrigible, James,

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they are unsalvagable.

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Speaker 3: The Germans, it, if I.

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Speaker 4: Can jump in, it's an amazing thing to me that

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the Alternative for Germany Party AfD, they got twenty one

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percent of the vote in the last election, so they

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came in a close second. They're now polling at twenty

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six percent in the latest round of polls, the number

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one party. I think because more and more Germans are saying,

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wait a minute, we keep wanting change and we don't

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get it. And the question I have to ask is, oh,

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they say AfD is a neo Nazi party. Is there

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anybody who really thinks that twenty five percent of the

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German population are want to be neo Nazis?

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Speaker 1: I mean.

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Speaker 4: You no, Come on.

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Speaker 1: The last thing.

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Speaker 4: The last final thing is the German Intelligence Service. Our

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producer points out to us, is called them German. I

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can't pronounce it right, but the.

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Speaker 1: For fashiong Schultz.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, my favorite German technical term is veltwer Schlechter,

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which means world worsener, and that ought to be the

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title of their intelligence service.

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Speaker 5: If you ask me, well, does it seem to you, gentlemen,

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is if they are what they are doing?

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Speaker 4: Is?

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Speaker 1: I mean? I don't, I am not there. I don't

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know whether.

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Speaker 5: I'm sure that there are some people in the organization

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who have appalling views about this, that and the other.

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But it seems to me that what has set them

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apart is their criticism of demographic shifts in Germany and

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that they are expressing an idea held by a not

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insignificant number of Germans that the general you're in project

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to reorder, rejigger the demographics of Europe is not beloved

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by people who would prefer their country stay as it

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was before that. And I don't know does energy feed

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into it as well, because it'll be interesting to find

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out whether or not advocating for nuclear power and and

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and and casting an eye as scance at windmills is

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now a signifier for Nazis. We we all know, I mean,

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if you look at the right, but.

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Speaker 2: We all know, how's the last four ending new clear?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: And now you want to bring that back to the world.

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Speaker 5: I mean, because if you're against the transgender agenda, you

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are regularly called a Nazis. So the word is appended

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to anybody nowadays who doesn't follow the parameters of the

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standard progressive beliefs. And but is this is this what

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is this part of it? I don't know what I'm asking.

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Is energy that much of a component of the a

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f D or are they basically just seen as the

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guys who will probaly probably do something maybe down the

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road about reducing the increase in the rate of migration

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into Germany.

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Speaker 2: Look, we're joking about this. English people cannot help but

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joke about the Germans. But I really do think that

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this is ultimately a sign of very low self confidence.

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And I've been making this argument in different context for years.

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When I was at Oxford, we had all manner of

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people come and speak, and in two thousand and eight,

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the year after I left for the first time, I

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think maybe in the history of the Oxford Union, which

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was set up as a free speech debating society in

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the Victorian era, the invitation to someone who was truly

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aw for was canceled. We're supposed to have a debate

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with a guy called Nick Griffin who was the leader

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of the British National Party fascist and David Irving, who

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really had gone crazy in his later years, and they

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rescinded the invitation. And I remember saying at the time

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that this was actually not a sign of civilization or

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self confidence, but the opposite. That is to say, did

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you really think that four hundred and fifty Oxford students

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were going to go to this debate with this too

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silly people and goose step out? And I think the

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Germans do suffer from the same thing, which is they

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do wonder at the back of their minds whether if

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the wrong political party is allowed to speak, or the

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wrong internet influencer is left unmolested on Twitter, whether they

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will go back into it. I'm not here doing my

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stick anti German thing, which I know I do as

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a running joke. I do think they have that fear

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somewhere in the psychic.

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Speaker 5: Much a running joke as a goose stepping one. Gentlemen,

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it's time for our guest. Ben Donick, editor in charge

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of Editor in Lawrench at Charge, who Knows Spectator World,

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a Fox News contributor and the host of the just

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released podcast insert sound effect from London here, The Big

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Ben Show. Ben Welcome, Hey, It's great to be with you.

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You know, Big Ben was also it was also a

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name of a product by West Clocks, and it was

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one of their most famous and enduring domestic clocks that

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they sold absolutely millions of them. So you're going for

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that ubiquitous in the house of every good American or

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the symbol of something loud, sonorous and historic in another country.

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Speaker 1: I was thinking a little bit more of that, and

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frankly a nod to the fact that as enter at

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large for The Spectator, the oldest English language magazine in

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the world. As Charles Cook is currently nodding, it was

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designed to make a nod to the fact that I

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have to put up with a lot of Brits.

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Speaker 5: Well I will. I will only know it as a

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Minneapolis chauvinist that the Minneapolis City Hall, where I'm a

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block away from, has clock fases on its tower that

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are actually larger than Big Ben. So if you want

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to extend your reach, you might want to call yourself

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the Minneapolis City Hall Ben Show. Well, but it's not

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as euphony.

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Speaker 1: I will take that under advisement that I believe, as

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Charles will probably know, it's actually the bell, it's not

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the clock. Yes, yes, of course, yes, you're right.

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Speaker 2: You're absolutely English people's favorite panantic point to make, and

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they do it with Paris I.

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Speaker 1: Know, and it has been made to me on several occasions.

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Speaker 5: And there are so many of them from which to choose,

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by all the people.

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Speaker 1: All the people who I thank for bringing me dun

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Hills at the end of the year when they go

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back home for a holiday.

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Speaker 5: Well, I'm you know, I'm heading off to blighting myself.

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I can bring you back some players, some triple fives.

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Speaker 1: What do you want? Fantastic all of the above.

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Speaker 5: I'll just broad to bring you twenty Rathlins.

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Speaker 1: All right, So here we.

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Speaker 5: Are quick sketch Trump so far, I guess as a

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world start, we're a third of the way end of

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the year already for twelve and how's it looking?

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Speaker 1: Well? I think you know you have to give it

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an I mean with this is always you know, sort

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of a random point. Everyone has their columns tied to

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you know, how you assess things. But it's incomplete in

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so many ways. The degree to which that he's moved

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fast has been eye opening for me, and I really

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do believe, especially after and I hope that you had

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the time to read and consume the interview that I

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did with him in the Oval Office, which was first

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magazine interview yet. Oh thank you so much. Steve always

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be selling. See Steve holds up the actual physical copy. Yes,

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I only have a few left, so I need to

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make sure that I hold on to one. He You know,

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different politicians take different lessons from near death experiences. My

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friendship Roy, who I worked with back when I was

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a speechwriter for John Cornyn, had a you know, the

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stunning thing of being diagnosed before he was forty years

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old of lymphoma and beat it and is now obviously

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a member of Congress, a fire breathing member of Congress.

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And he went from being sort of a vaguely centrist

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Texan Republican to being what he is today. I think

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in part because of that experience, it sort of shortens

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your time frame. It says life is short. I have

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to fight as hard as I can for the things

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that I need to do. I think that the President

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has taken a similar lesson here and applied it via

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the people that he's named. The only problem that I

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think that comes with that, though, is that you've named

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a bunch of people to these jobs who are front

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facing public faces. They are used to doing TV, they

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are used to doing podcasts, they are used to being

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out front. That's not necessarily the skill set that it

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takes to run bureaucracies. And especially you know, as I

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look at you know another former boss of Mind, Jim O'Neil,

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who's up for the secondary that basically the second in

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command position at AHHS and hearings this week. Getting him

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in at HHS is critical because he actually knows the place.

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He knows the way that bureaucracy works, knows the way

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to get things done. You know, the problem when you

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have someone like Pete Hegseth who goes into the Pentagon,

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is that, as much as you might like him as

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a spokesperson, my brother, who's an army major, said, it's

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so unreal to have a Secretary of Defense who can

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actually go on TV and be cogent. The problem is

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he also brought with him a lot of his advisors

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who were clearly at odds with each other and feuding

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over different things. You had essentially a slew of firings

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in the wake of Signal Gate that really had nothing

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necessarily to do with signal Gate, and that, to me

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is an indication that when you hire these front facing people,

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they don't necessarily bring people with them who have the

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cognizance of how to steer the ship of state, and

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I think that that's been the real challenge for them

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in this early going. I also think tariffs are silly,

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and that the fact that we are having the kind

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of reaction from Capitol Hill of just not knowing on

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a daily basis of what's going to happen to major

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industries in states across the country is not a position

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that Republicans want to be in going into the midterms.

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So that has to be sorted out in short order,

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because essentially the midterms start in September, you know, realistically.

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And also just one last point, living in Virginia, the unfortunate,

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I think Virginia is going to be the Candida of

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this election. Michael in November, I had to say, because

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win some sears, wonderful woman, great candidate, you know, think

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that she would in a normal year, I think that

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she would be able to best a Democrat, especially one

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as completely in the swamp as that they are on

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pace nominate. But in this situation, the backlash from the

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bureaucracy toward the Trump administration is probably going to lead

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to a Republican bloodmath in the fall here in Virginia,

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which is of course a bell weather election that people

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take their cues from, and it's going to have I

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think Capitol Hill Republicans quite scared going into this next

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year about the midterms and the White House itself, and

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I've had numerous people within the White House tell me this.

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They view this as being an existential threat, meaning that

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if Democrats take the House the way that they did

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the first time around. For Trump, it essentially puts the

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stops to their entire agenda, and that's something I think

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that they have to be concerned about at this point.

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Speaker 5: I want to get back to tariffs. When you said before,

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I too, am not a fan of them. I grew up,

439
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you know, with the specter of smooth Hawlly hovering over

440
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my brain having been told that it was passed, and

441
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the next day the stock market crashed and stockbrokers jumped

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out of windows. Don't like them, though, But here's the thing.

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If we are to have a more equitable trade position

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with China and do something about their ip thievery and

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general commercial skullduggery, is there something in the toolbox behind

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a whim digious one hundred and forty five percent tariff

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to get their attention and force them to the table.

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Or would you have preferred that we just concentrate on

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China while not doing the whole blanket thing around to

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the world as somebody who has an unequal trade balance

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with us and talk about Britain as well, Well, there

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you go, You've got you've got ninety seconds go.

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Speaker 1: Well, what I think is there's there's a difference between

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understanding something as being strategic ambiguity, you know, an actual

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choice that you've made, versus the lack of a strategy.

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And I think that that's really the question going on here,

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which is that you know is strategic ambiguity, which sort

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of says, I'm going to throw these things out there

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just to get people to the table talking about various things.

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I actually that I did a rant on my podcast

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the other day on these Hollywood tariffs, which I'm sure

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you probably have opinions about too. The thing that is

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actually true about them is that Hollywood is losing a

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ton of business overseas. You know, a Maria has lost

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Star Wars, America has lost the next two big Marvel movies.

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You know, America is losing all this stuff to Canada

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and to overwhelmingly to Great Britain because they have a

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support for filmmaking that is to the tune of a

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forty percent rebate, and competing with that is very difficult,

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even if you're competing with it from Atlanta, which is

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where most of the Marvel stuff has been made recently,

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including Thunderbolts. The thing that is interesting though about this

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is that you sparked a conversation about what would it

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take to bring this type of movie making back to Hollywood,

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And to be honest, the answer to that is have

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Gavin Newsome undo every single thing that he's done. And

477
00:24:49,079 --> 00:24:53,000
that's the actual answer. Unfortunately, Instead, what he wants to

478
00:24:53,039 --> 00:24:56,119
do is charge us for the stupidity of his policy,

479
00:24:56,240 --> 00:25:00,400
so to the tune of a multi billion dollar package

480
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,160
of rebates to make up for all of these stupid

481
00:25:03,279 --> 00:25:09,119
union rules in California regulations. Personally, I think tariffs only

482
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,200
work as something that can force a conversation that the

483
00:25:13,279 --> 00:25:15,960
other side doesn't want to happen. You never want them

484
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,319
as a long term solution because they are attacks on

485
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,640
your own people and they are wrongheaded. But I do

486
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,799
think that there is a lot of wiggle room in

487
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,480
this space. And just because the President thinks of things

488
00:25:27,519 --> 00:25:30,480
in terms of tariffs, is that that's his go to.

489
00:25:30,799 --> 00:25:33,079
You know. John Voight, by the way, who was behind

490
00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:39,000
apparently this policy, when he was interviewed about this, said

491
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,359
I wanted something that was a tariff paired with a rebate,

492
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,200
And it seems clear that the President just loves the

493
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,720
tariff part of that, you know, and so he just

494
00:25:48,759 --> 00:25:51,160
goes in that direction. We'll see how it plays out.

495
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,960
But one thing I do think is clear. He has

496
00:25:54,039 --> 00:25:57,319
responded to the pressure that he's had from a number

497
00:25:57,319 --> 00:26:00,440
of other Republicans who say, look, you know, you can

498
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,680
go after China all you want. That's fine with us.

499
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,960
We don't like going after nations that we view as

500
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,720
our allies and punishing them in situations that do not

501
00:26:11,839 --> 00:26:15,680
benefit the people. And that's what he's going to continue

502
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,799
to hear, I think, including from members who are very safe,

503
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,519
you know, from Katie Britt in Alabama, you know, that

504
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,400
kind of thing. And that's something that I think he

505
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,359
does listen to, and just like every other decision that

506
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,240
he makes, he throws it out the table. He sees

507
00:26:30,279 --> 00:26:33,200
the people debate, he listens to what they say, and

508
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:36,000
then he picks a side or picks a person and says,

509
00:26:36,079 --> 00:26:37,920
you know, they won this argument. I'm going to stick

510
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:38,200
with them.

511
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,079
Speaker 2: Well, I want to ask about that, because I agree

512
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,200
that they need to get rid of the tariffs pretty quickly.

513
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,920
But also I agree that Trump really likes tariffs. That's

514
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,400
what he focuses in on, and I just wonder is

515
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,920
this one different, because this is something he has believed

516
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:56,039
for forty years. Yeah, a lot of political topics. He's

517
00:26:56,079 --> 00:26:59,880
something of a chameleon on not because he's necessarily on principle,

518
00:27:00,039 --> 00:27:03,440
because he doesn't care. Is this something he can fix

519
00:27:03,799 --> 00:27:07,319
quickly or is this one going to be his undoing.

520
00:27:08,799 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: I think that more than anything, he responds to pressure

521
00:27:13,759 --> 00:27:19,279
in this moment that connects to his popularity and to

522
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:24,559
his understanding of what the people who love him love.

523
00:27:25,759 --> 00:27:28,880
And so from my perspective, the big thing that's kind

524
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,200
of the open question on this, and Charles you're probably

525
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:37,039
aware of this, you know, one of the biggest aspects

526
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,880
of going in a terraf regime like this is how

527
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:45,480
much it hurts American working families. And I think people

528
00:27:45,559 --> 00:27:49,160
underestimate the fact that we're not talking about dolls. We're

529
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,359
not talking about two dolls and thirty dollars. You know.

530
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,319
What we're actually talking about are things that you are

531
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,720
required as a parent to buy, such as even in

532
00:27:58,759 --> 00:28:03,079
New York City, you are required to when you take

533
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,599
your baby and leave the hospital, first prove that you

534
00:28:06,599 --> 00:28:08,440
can put them into a car seat. Even if you

535
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,279
don't have a car, you have to have a car seat.

536
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:16,039
Car seats. Ninety seven percent of them in America come

537
00:28:16,039 --> 00:28:20,240
from China, and that's because China has produced these car

538
00:28:20,279 --> 00:28:24,839
seats in a way that lines up with America's overwhelming

539
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,400
regulatory state. They even have offices there. There's one county

540
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,279
in China, by the way that does this. They have

541
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:34,000
offices there to assess, you know, what they do and

542
00:28:34,039 --> 00:28:35,559
make sure it lines up. And by the way, you know,

543
00:28:35,599 --> 00:28:38,039
if you are not a recent parent, you know, car

544
00:28:38,079 --> 00:28:42,359
seats have expiration dates. Now you can't gift there's no like, no,

545
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,160
you can't work it. They're perfectly good. Yeah, So it's

546
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,279
not like a crib or something like that where you

547
00:28:47,319 --> 00:28:50,519
can you know, donate it. It's it's you know, ridiculous.

548
00:28:50,559 --> 00:28:52,759
And then that same county, by the way, also produces

549
00:28:52,799 --> 00:28:56,240
an overwhelming number of American bicycles and of you know,

550
00:28:56,279 --> 00:29:03,000
for for youngsters and of strollers, the most popular like

551
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,119
mid tier stroller. Band Up a Baby announced that their

552
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,039
most popular model was going to go up and cost

553
00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:14,720
by three hundred dollars about four weeks ago, which means

554
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,039
that they now took that into an area where middle

555
00:29:18,039 --> 00:29:21,839
class families will be paying one thousand dollars for a stroller.

556
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,920
That's ridiculous, Like I mean, we should not be in

557
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,480
a position where that. But that's the thing. That's not

558
00:29:27,839 --> 00:29:30,599
like a decision about whether I get the doll for

559
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,400
the kid or not. It's like I need a stroller.

560
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,000
I have to have one, you know. And so I

561
00:29:35,039 --> 00:29:38,559
think the problem for the president is that if those

562
00:29:38,799 --> 00:29:43,759
impacts are felt at the middle class level, everyone's going

563
00:29:43,799 --> 00:29:45,720
to be looking around and saying, this is not what

564
00:29:45,759 --> 00:29:48,480
I voted for. And that's where I think the rubber

565
00:29:48,519 --> 00:29:50,839
meets the road and you actually have to have a pullback.

566
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:55,000
But that hasn't happened yet, and until it does, I

567
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,799
think this is still kind of in that uncertainty space.

568
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,279
Every poll that I've seen, and I'm sure you all

569
00:30:00,319 --> 00:30:03,319
get you know, sort of leaked stuff behind the scenes

570
00:30:03,359 --> 00:30:06,119
as well, but every poll that I have seen from

571
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,799
people who have sent them to me in terms of

572
00:30:08,599 --> 00:30:14,960
the breakdown, basically show Trump supporters as being cautiously optimistic

573
00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:20,920
but nervous, essentially saying I trust the president, not sure

574
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:21,640
this is going to work.

575
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 4: So, Ben, I want to draw you back to your

576
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,880
terrific interview with Trump and the Spectator. I love the headline,

577
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,160
by the way, clear and present Donald. I think that

578
00:30:31,279 --> 00:30:35,920
works both for his fans and his enemies. Look, I

579
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,519
mean there's a lot of news in this. I mean

580
00:30:38,559 --> 00:30:41,480
some stuff that's familiar and fun, like him saying let's

581
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,519
get rid of the NFL's horrible kickoff rule. I'd love

582
00:30:44,559 --> 00:30:48,759
that one building the ballroom at the White House, like Marloco.

583
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,160
Some of this has been out in the press, But

584
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,559
what really struck me about it was what you drew

585
00:30:54,599 --> 00:30:57,160
out of him, which I've been wondering about for a

586
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,839
while now, about the difference between his first term and

587
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:03,759
his second term, and did you explicitly ask what he'd

588
00:31:03,799 --> 00:31:06,279
learned from that experience, because you get into it here

589
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,319
and culminating, by the way, those very interesting comments about

590
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,240
Nixon that I gather you did ask him directly about.

591
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,000
And so here's my hypothesis, which was what came through

592
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,599
in your article, and either confirm or clarify this, is

593
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:22,000
that is it really right to say that in the

594
00:31:22,039 --> 00:31:27,440
first term he really underestimated how vicious the attacks on

595
00:31:27,519 --> 00:31:29,119
him are going to be once he won the election

596
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,519
and took office. That came through at one point where

597
00:31:31,799 --> 00:31:33,480
it I mean, this is this guy's been around New

598
00:31:33,519 --> 00:31:35,160
York real estate and all the rest of that that's

599
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,039
a pretty rough and tumble world. But even with all

600
00:31:38,079 --> 00:31:40,400
that experience and what happened in the campaign, it sounds

601
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,039
like he was admitting that he underestimated how insane and

602
00:31:44,119 --> 00:31:45,759
off the chart vicious it was going to be.

603
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,119
Speaker 1: He totally did. And one thing I would say is

604
00:31:50,119 --> 00:31:52,440
the interview, and we do have the audio version that

605
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,519
people can go and find at the Spectator dot com

606
00:31:55,599 --> 00:32:01,960
of our conversation, which is consistent with our transcript. But

607
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,440
I will say the audio version is about an hour long.

608
00:32:06,079 --> 00:32:08,000
He talked to me for more than nine minutes, so

609
00:32:08,039 --> 00:32:11,200
it's long. I actually think it's the longest interview that

610
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,880
he's given other than like Joe Rogan or something like that.

611
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,160
And you know, he just goes off the record all

612
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,799
the time, which is I mean, it's fine, but it's

613
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,440
kind of funny because usually it's it's like he goes

614
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,480
off the record and it's because he wants to insult

615
00:32:24,559 --> 00:32:26,079
somebody's wife or something like that.

616
00:32:27,279 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 4: Oh his good qualities, right right, yeah, exactly, she was

617
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,640
a mess, you know, that kind of thing.

618
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,559
Speaker 1: So so he actually told me a phenomenal anecdote about

619
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:43,160
Bob McDonald's wife that that I you know, couldn't put

620
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:44,839
in because it was it was off the record, but

621
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,000
it was just very, very funny. But the thing that

622
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,279
is he also says serious things, and in fact, I

623
00:32:51,319 --> 00:32:56,880
would say I emerge from that interview believing that he

624
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,599
understands Mexico a lot better than I I thought necessarily

625
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,039
going into it that he did. And I think that

626
00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:08,319
this whole idea of his administration being kind of a

627
00:33:09,799 --> 00:33:18,359
Western hemisphere foreign policy, you know, polk influenced admin is

628
00:33:19,119 --> 00:33:21,799
definitely something that comes from the top and is not

629
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,599
just being you know, something that's being said by Yeah.

630
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 4: Well, there's a rare moment of circumspection that you quote

631
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,799
Hims about Mexico saying, you know, I'd rather not tell

632
00:33:29,839 --> 00:33:31,359
you what might have to be done. I think you

633
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:32,279
everyone knows, but.

634
00:33:32,759 --> 00:33:34,559
Speaker 1: He says, I'd rather not tell you, but but you

635
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:36,559
know it has to be done, and then he went

636
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,720
off for about another fifteen minutes off the records. Anyway,

637
00:33:40,279 --> 00:33:42,880
unfortunately the best thing you know, but you can't say it.

638
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,359
But the thing that is really interesting about him, I

639
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:50,680
think on the second term versus first term thing is

640
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,640
I don't think he anticipated being surrounded by haters the

641
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,039
way that he was the first time around, I think

642
00:33:57,039 --> 00:33:59,400
he thought of this as being I'm going to walk

643
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,359
in there and to be able to do business with

644
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,680
Chuck Schumer and do business with Paul Ryan, you know,

645
00:34:04,759 --> 00:34:08,639
and basically, you know, adjudicate that, and there was sort

646
00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:11,599
of a glimmer of a moment. I mean, Charles probably

647
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:13,760
remembers this because I think you may have written a

648
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:18,199
piece responding to it about that Ezra Kleine take that

649
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,199
like it was like a Democrat should work with Trump

650
00:34:21,599 --> 00:34:25,920
to fix Obamacare like that that was his take about

651
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,960
two weeks before inauguration. That all went out the window

652
00:34:29,079 --> 00:34:31,599
when you had the Women's March and when you had

653
00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:34,559
the Russia Gates stuff and everything else that came after that.

654
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,559
And I think this time around he has a clear

655
00:34:38,599 --> 00:34:40,920
eyed view of it. But he also feels vindicated. He

656
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,920
feels like they threw everything that they could at me.

657
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,000
They threw the kitchen sink at me. I fought through

658
00:34:47,039 --> 00:34:49,000
it all and I came back. They tried to you know,

659
00:34:49,119 --> 00:34:51,480
someone tried to kill me, you know, and multiple people

660
00:34:51,519 --> 00:34:54,559
in fact, and you know, and because of that, I

661
00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:58,079
think he just has this this sort of the difference

662
00:34:58,079 --> 00:35:02,199
between I interviewed him before in twenty when he was

663
00:35:02,599 --> 00:35:05,920
about to start his re election campaign. You know, same

664
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:07,760
kind of thing. You know, in the oval, I got

665
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,000
less time than I think it was an hour, but

666
00:35:11,599 --> 00:35:13,840
at that point he was kind of surrounded and he

667
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,199
was leaning forward on his desk, you know, he was

668
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,119
he was just like, you know, he was just really

669
00:35:18,199 --> 00:35:22,239
in it and kind of you know, angry and frustrated,

670
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:26,679
and you got that vibe. This time around, he's sitting

671
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:30,239
back in his chair. Yeah, very relaxed. When I got

672
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,760
the when I got kind of got the high sign

673
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,360
that like we needed to, you know, bring things to

674
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:37,119
a close. I asked him a question about the I

675
00:35:37,119 --> 00:35:39,079
asked him about the tush push because I had been

676
00:35:39,199 --> 00:35:42,280
that was. You know, whenever you go into an interview,

677
00:35:42,679 --> 00:35:44,400
you have kind of or at least this is the

678
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,079
way that I approach interviewing. When I approach interviewing the President,

679
00:35:47,079 --> 00:35:50,280
because I've done it now three times. The thing is one,

680
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,039
you interrupt him if he starts repeating himself or going

681
00:35:53,079 --> 00:35:54,719
in a chain that you kind of know where he's going,

682
00:35:55,519 --> 00:35:59,639
which he does respect. The second thing is ask him

683
00:35:59,639 --> 00:36:02,719
some quest questions about celebrities, because he always has opinions

684
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,039
about celebrities. The one question that I forgot to ask.

685
00:36:06,159 --> 00:36:08,119
I'm kicking myself for this is I was going to

686
00:36:08,199 --> 00:36:09,960
ask him if Stephen A. Smith would be a good

687
00:36:10,039 --> 00:36:13,480
kar right, I only forgot to do that. And then

688
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,559
the third thing is I always go in with like,

689
00:36:16,679 --> 00:36:19,400
what's your last question? You know, like, because because you

690
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:21,519
never want to end on a like sour note, you

691
00:36:21,559 --> 00:36:24,039
always don't want to have something that's a little interesting.

692
00:36:24,079 --> 00:36:27,159
And so I because it was currently during the NFL meetings,

693
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,000
I asked him about his perspective on the touch push

694
00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:33,239
and then we talked another half an hour about sport.

695
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,159
Speaker 4: And I mean it come it comes through in your

696
00:36:37,199 --> 00:36:39,679
ride up that he is more relaxed. I think he's funnier.

697
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,119
This is my observation from Afar is that it's a

698
00:36:43,159 --> 00:36:46,119
different person in some ways. In other ways, he's the

699
00:36:46,159 --> 00:36:48,800
same Trump as always, but a different person from the

700
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,039
first term, more confident, more purposeful.

701
00:36:51,559 --> 00:36:53,639
Speaker 1: Well, but he also I would just say one more thing,

702
00:36:53,679 --> 00:36:57,599
which is that he has a much much savvier team

703
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:00,960
in terms of his like especially in terms of his

704
00:37:01,119 --> 00:37:04,920
media team around him than he did before. They're much

705
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,119
more cognizant of all the different elements going on there,

706
00:37:08,119 --> 00:37:13,119
and that's not a slight against you know, those past people,

707
00:37:13,159 --> 00:37:17,039
but it's detectable in terms of their awareness and situational

708
00:37:17,159 --> 00:37:18,840
sort of perspective on things.

709
00:37:19,159 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 4: There is one topic missing from your ride, more than one,

710
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,119
but one particular one that's missing. Now maybe it's in

711
00:37:25,119 --> 00:37:27,840
the complete interview that you say is online, but I

712
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,320
didn't see any discussion or about what is the centerpiece

713
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,559
of his legislative agenda or ought to be, which is

714
00:37:33,599 --> 00:37:34,559
the tax cut bill.

715
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:35,599
Speaker 1: And you know, in the.

716
00:37:35,519 --> 00:37:37,800
Speaker 4: First term, he essentially farmed out to Paul Ryan, and

717
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,159
that's basically fine, and I get the feeling he may

718
00:37:41,159 --> 00:37:43,119
be doing the same thing this term. What is your

719
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:45,280
Did you talk about it at all, and what's your

720
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,480
sense of how engaged he is in the tax package

721
00:37:48,519 --> 00:37:52,440
other than just wanting something past.

722
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,760
Speaker 1: We talked about it very briefly, and it wasn't all

723
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,360
that interesting. It was not that different. It was the

724
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:59,079
only the reason it's not in the article is because

725
00:37:59,079 --> 00:38:01,559
he basically said the same things that he's been saying publicly,

726
00:38:01,639 --> 00:38:03,840
and so it was not something that I included for

727
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:08,239
that reason. But the thing that is, you know, interesting

728
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:12,239
about this moment for the Republican Party is you know,

729
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,400
they've made all these promises about, you know, the kind

730
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,559
of party that they're going to be. But I feel like,

731
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,440
you know, and feel free to disagree with me, you know,

732
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:26,199
Steve or Charles or James. You know, I don't know

733
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:32,360
that they have a consistent perspective on tax policy that

734
00:38:33,079 --> 00:38:35,199
is a through line, because everybody seems to be just

735
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:40,320
gnawing at their own personal priorities, especially these moderates currently

736
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:46,159
who for whatever reason, you know, salt is more important

737
00:38:46,159 --> 00:38:51,000
to them than almost anything else. And I mean, I

738
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,719
don't know about you, but I personally think it's a

739
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,599
bad thing to take Medicaid dollars and give them to

740
00:38:57,679 --> 00:39:01,239
someone like me versus someone who is disabled or a

741
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,719
mom or a kid, you know, and and basically send

742
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,280
that money to a hospital at a higher you know,

743
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:10,920
percentage coverage rate. You know, that was something that was

744
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,920
always messed up about Obamacare and the fact that suddenly

745
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,039
Republicans are like, no, no, no, we have to defend

746
00:39:16,039 --> 00:39:19,119
that because otherwise we'll be seen as as horrible people.

747
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:21,679
I think, if you're an able body American, you know,

748
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:23,920
you should be you should have to work for that.

749
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:29,719
And that's you know, been a Republican priority essentially until yesterday.

750
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 2: So what else did you get the sense that he

751
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,360
really cares about if he doesn't care about this and

752
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,480
it wasn't a great part of the interview and he

753
00:39:39,519 --> 00:39:41,480
said what he said in public and so on. I mean,

754
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,639
are there topics this might not come across on a

755
00:39:44,639 --> 00:39:47,000
transcript so much as on a tape or in a video.

756
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:49,320
Are the topics where he lights up and you can

757
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,320
just tell, yeah, this is why he's there.

758
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: He lights up when he is talking about building anything.

759
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,639
You know, it's it's like a it is just in

760
00:40:00,679 --> 00:40:04,320
his core. I mean, he was so interested in like

761
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,159
hearing my opinions about the new Redskins I mean Redskins

762
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,519
Washington Stadium thing, and he was just like, it's so

763
00:40:11,639 --> 00:40:13,920
beautiful when you come in and the road splits and

764
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:15,920
it's you know, it's a fandom. Like he was like

765
00:40:16,119 --> 00:40:18,719
he had strong he has strong opinions about that. And

766
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:25,280
then I think he also he's his own political consultant,

767
00:40:25,599 --> 00:40:27,599
you know, in the way that like there are certain

768
00:40:27,639 --> 00:40:30,599
members of Congress as you know, who self staff, like

769
00:40:30,639 --> 00:40:32,599
they read their own stuff and then they come up

770
00:40:32,639 --> 00:40:36,360
with their own ideas, which is often frustrating the staff

771
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,039
for Trump. One of the things that he kind of

772
00:40:43,079 --> 00:40:45,360
it's clear about him is that he thinks that he

773
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:49,400
understands Americans, I think, more than his own consultants and

774
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:54,239
staff do. So when he says things like, do you

775
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,320
think the the election was about inflation? You know, do

776
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,320
you think it was about that? Well, you know, he thinks,

777
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:02,920
you know, he thinks it was about the border. He

778
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,800
thinks that the border was a bigger issue for people

779
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:10,920
than the polls or than the consultants necessarily understood. I

780
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,440
have to think he's probably right about that, just in

781
00:41:13,519 --> 00:41:17,440
terms of the determining demographics. But you know, it's he

782
00:41:17,559 --> 00:41:20,920
thinks that he has a better gauge on where people are.

783
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:28,519
And then he also he thinks Democrats are crazy, but

784
00:41:28,679 --> 00:41:32,519
he likes that they're crazy, Like he doesn't he sort

785
00:41:32,559 --> 00:41:35,840
of doesn't want to say, you know, it doesn't work.

786
00:41:36,079 --> 00:41:37,920
It's like he wants to be able to point at

787
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,719
them on a daily basis and say, look at these lunatics,

788
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,880
you know, and but he kind of, uh, I think

789
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:47,320
he kind of respects the crazy because he thinks they're

790
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,119
making like a play for a certain you know, demographic

791
00:41:50,199 --> 00:41:53,599
of their own party, which is kind of forward looking.

792
00:41:54,280 --> 00:42:00,719
Uh and so I wouldn't you know, uh, we to

793
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,039
the degree that I would say he sort of is

794
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,079
is aware of this. It's almost like he doesn't want

795
00:42:08,119 --> 00:42:13,599
Republicans to actually past policies that change some of the

796
00:42:13,639 --> 00:42:17,400
craziest transgender stuff because he likes being able to play

797
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,039
off of it. He he brought up the main governor

798
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,079
who he had had an interaction with about two weeks

799
00:42:23,079 --> 00:42:28,519
before the interview, and uh, and you know, just oh insane,

800
00:42:28,639 --> 00:42:31,559
insane stuff that they're doing him there. And but I

801
00:42:31,559 --> 00:42:33,880
think he actually enjoys that they're doing it, because he

802
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,679
thinks it's like an admission on their part of of

803
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,119
how crazy they are. Uh. The the Maryland Dad stuff

804
00:42:40,159 --> 00:42:44,159
hadn't happened when I interviewed him, but I imagine that he

805
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:46,679
that that would fall in the same category like he

806
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:49,519
would he his reaction would be, I love that they're

807
00:42:49,519 --> 00:42:52,400
going to hell. Go to hell, so we make this

808
00:42:52,599 --> 00:42:53,199
here whole thing.

809
00:42:55,079 --> 00:42:58,360
Speaker 5: I would love to tug building with Trump frankly, not

810
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,199
football stadiums, but like as him about the JP Morgan

811
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,480
building in New York, which I think is just a dark,

812
00:43:03,559 --> 00:43:05,079
glowering obscenity.

813
00:43:04,559 --> 00:43:08,760
Speaker 1: In the sky ops about that stuff. And I know

814
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,760
it's it's like he's I imagine if he was a

815
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,480
little bit younger, he would be like a sim City obsessor.

816
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,519
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, ask him, ask him about Trump,

817
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:23,039
about the comed the Trump Hotel and the Commodore location

818
00:43:23,119 --> 00:43:25,079
next to Grand Central Station. Why didn't you choose that

819
00:43:25,159 --> 00:43:26,719
kind of window? Do you like that kind of window?

820
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,840
Missed that kind of glass? And what's the problem with it?

821
00:43:30,199 --> 00:43:31,880
Why haven't they started the Commodore tower yet?

822
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: Stuff like?

823
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:34,199
Speaker 5: I mean, I would love to I don't think that

824
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,719
necessarily his opinions would be all that. I'm not interested

825
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:39,960
in his static opinions because I don't think it's the

826
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,039
set extent is all that sharp. But when it comes

827
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:44,920
to just the app the sheer.

828
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: The last line and the last line of the piece

829
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:48,760
is about you know, nothing shines like gold.

830
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,559
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, you know, he says, yeah, okay, well all right,

831
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,599
it's a big gim cracking, I know.

832
00:43:56,639 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: And you know, and when they when they did.

833
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,599
Speaker 5: The Plaza hotel, everything God gilded, got it, got it,

834
00:44:01,679 --> 00:44:04,599
got it. But so let's look at something else, though.

835
00:44:04,599 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: We'll leave you with this.

836
00:44:05,639 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 5: So let's say the worst happens for Trump and that

837
00:44:09,119 --> 00:44:10,760
you lose the control of the House, and the agenda

838
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,599
is stymy that gives them at a narrow window here

839
00:44:13,599 --> 00:44:15,719
in which to do an awful lot of things, and

840
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:17,679
some of these things in order to be I mean,

841
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,239
it's not like somebody coming into office and cutting the

842
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:22,480
budget of something for fifty percent and then the Democrats

843
00:44:22,559 --> 00:44:24,920
waltz back in and increase it by one hundred and twenty.

844
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,960
If you eliminate things, if you get rid of things,

845
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:29,679
if you pass laws that say, you know what, you

846
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,159
can't have any more petroleum based dyes in your food,

847
00:44:32,519 --> 00:44:36,719
it's the party that comes after you is required then

848
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,800
to rebuild, not just not just wake up, but to

849
00:44:41,159 --> 00:44:45,039
reconstitute the things that were taken away. If the Department

850
00:44:45,079 --> 00:44:49,760
of Education is zeroed out, I mean food, you know,

851
00:44:50,199 --> 00:44:51,679
what do they do. They got to make the argument

852
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:54,079
that we have to restart this whole thing USA. They

853
00:44:54,119 --> 00:44:56,639
have to make the argument is necessary for us to

854
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:59,239
establish a procedure to get money to peruve and l

855
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,079
pack of farmers for diversity and general awareness. I mean,

856
00:45:02,079 --> 00:45:03,760
they got They're going to have to make that point.

857
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:09,400
So energy is good speed, all these things, breaking things,

858
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,760
all this disruption. Do you think at the end of

859
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,079
two years of drump that a little four, but at

860
00:45:14,079 --> 00:45:17,280
the end of two he will have significantly reshaped a

861
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,760
great deal of how the government actually spends, operates, et cetera.

862
00:45:21,639 --> 00:45:25,599
Speaker 1: I do, but a large part of that is, I

863
00:45:25,639 --> 00:45:32,800
think because the decrepit nature of the current bureaucracy is

864
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:37,440
one that lends itself to significant change. Meaning that you know,

865
00:45:37,519 --> 00:45:39,199
a lot of the things that they've been doing in

866
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,719
terms of these doage situations, and I know several people

867
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,239
who've taken the buyout here just living in the in

868
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:51,199
the Washington, DC area, that that's something that I think

869
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:58,679
lends itself to to catering to these reform based projects.

870
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:04,320
When when it comes to education, certainly I'm optimistic about it,

871
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:08,519
but I don't know. I don't know how far they'll

872
00:46:08,559 --> 00:46:11,000
be able to get in that timeframe because there's a

873
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:14,440
lot of things that need to happen. Our next issue

874
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,800
at the Spectator is actually about reviving the American mind.

875
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:21,039
It has an interview with me with Chris Rufo. It

876
00:46:21,079 --> 00:46:23,519
has a piece from Amy Wax, has a couple of

877
00:46:23,599 --> 00:46:29,239
other things as well, and certainly the Higher ED is

878
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:33,480
under their target lens and you've seen the clash that

879
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,559
they've had with Harvard as being something that they're choosing

880
00:46:36,639 --> 00:46:39,920
to have, I think at this juncture because they believe

881
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,880
that the wind is in their sails on it. One

882
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:44,679
thing though, that I think is going to be a

883
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,719
real problem for them is that as long as they're

884
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,280
doing these things through executive actions, emergency based actions, etc.

885
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:59,079
They are also things that can be undone. And you know,

886
00:46:59,199 --> 00:47:01,880
the one of the things I do think that they

887
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:05,320
are smart about this time is that they have teed

888
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,920
up so many of these questions early on in his

889
00:47:08,039 --> 00:47:12,079
first one hundred days that are going up through the

890
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,320
legal processes. We will have some resolution on some of

891
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:19,440
these questions before the end of the year. It won't

892
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,880
be something that is just a lagging issue that comes

893
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,960
in the tail end of his term, and that I

894
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:28,280
think was a smart move. I think that Stephen Miller

895
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:32,400
did this within the immigration space on purpose because he

896
00:47:32,519 --> 00:47:34,599
believes that he has the better of the argument. I

897
00:47:34,639 --> 00:47:38,519
disagree with him on certain points, especially the birthright citizenship point,

898
00:47:38,519 --> 00:47:42,440
because I think that the court will reject their opinion,

899
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,000
but it is also something that hasn't been resolved, and

900
00:47:46,039 --> 00:47:48,360
so they want resolution on a lot of these questions

901
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:51,199
earlier rather than later, so that they can try to

902
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:52,800
do what they want to do and then you know,

903
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,440
operate around it. So look, I do think that this

904
00:47:56,599 --> 00:48:01,960
is already a significant presidency in terms of the policies

905
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,039
that they put in place, the shift on foreign policy

906
00:48:05,079 --> 00:48:08,599
in particular, we see, you know, he's on his first

907
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:12,400
trip other than the Vatican trip obviously, which was unanticipated

908
00:48:12,519 --> 00:48:15,679
to Saudi as he did the first time around, and

909
00:48:16,199 --> 00:48:18,920
you're going to see those interactions there play out around

910
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,639
so many different issues, Israel, Iran, the Hooties, the everything

911
00:48:22,679 --> 00:48:27,079
that's related to energy policy in the world. And I

912
00:48:27,119 --> 00:48:30,320
think that, you know, this is a dramatic, dramatic shift.

913
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,639
I'm not sure that you know, we are going to

914
00:48:32,639 --> 00:48:34,920
be able to fully grasp it until we've had some

915
00:48:35,039 --> 00:48:39,920
remove But one thing I do think is without having

916
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,920
the legislative policy that is necessary to put these things

917
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:48,480
in place permanently, Republicans run the risk of celebrating too

918
00:48:48,559 --> 00:48:51,599
much about wins that are temporary and that can be

919
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:57,000
swept away by you know, whoever you think you know

920
00:48:57,519 --> 00:49:01,920
is quite on. I think it's Gretchen Whitmer right now,

921
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,840
you know, like she's the one who's playing this moment

922
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,000
the best, but like if she ends up you know

923
00:49:07,079 --> 00:49:10,840
in there after this, uh you know, or you know,

924
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,239
pick your poison. Uh the what was the line from

925
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:17,719
Jasmine Krockett today, the safest white boy they can find.

926
00:49:21,119 --> 00:49:22,920
You're gonna be one of the favorite members of Congress.

927
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:25,519
Speaker 5: Yes, if you're gonna be one of those old style

928
00:49:25,559 --> 00:49:27,679
people who think that we ought to pass laws and

929
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,280
debate boring.

930
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:36,599
Speaker 1: No, we're gonna we're gonna move that's terrible. Yeah, we're

931
00:49:36,599 --> 00:49:37,480
gonna do eos.

932
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 5: We're gonna concentrate power in the executive because it'll never

933
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:42,079
come back to bite us in any possible way. The

934
00:49:42,119 --> 00:49:44,039
Big Ben Show is what you want to listen to,

935
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,320
and it can be heard on all of your favorite

936
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:50,000
platforms and podcast streaming places. And Ben, we thank you

937
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:51,599
for joining us today. It's been a great pleasure with

938
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:53,880
It's always great to talk to all of you. And

939
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:57,679
I just have to say Steve Hayward again, the writer

940
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,559
of one of the greatest lines about any presentident ever.

941
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:06,079
Jimmy Carter got elected promising an executive as good as

942
00:50:06,119 --> 00:50:08,880
the people, only to discover that the people were no good.

943
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:16,960
Thanks Ben, All right, Ben, Thanks, we'll talk to you later. Gentlemen,

944
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:19,679
before we go here, we have a few little minutes. Oh,

945
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:23,960
we could talk about what could we talk about? We

946
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,320
could always delve into popular culture and do a brief

947
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,119
one minute roundup of anything that you think that other

948
00:50:29,159 --> 00:50:32,400
people should be watching on their streaming services. Not an

949
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:34,480
in depth review, but you simply give them a little

950
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:36,760
heads up or thumbs down. I'll start with you, Steven.

951
00:50:37,159 --> 00:50:39,840
Speaker 4: Oh, you know, I don't watch much TV or streaming,

952
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,480
although I did, at the recommendation of John O'Sullivan take

953
00:50:43,519 --> 00:50:46,280
in this show out of Britain that Charles probably knows

954
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,440
about that was made way back in twenty nineteen about

955
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:53,760
the Brexit referendum. Has Benedict Cumberbatch as right. It's called

956
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,480
Brexit the Movie or something like that. It's on Amazon

957
00:50:56,559 --> 00:51:01,480
streaming and it is very well done. And I've enjoyed

958
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,400
that because you know, it's a great political drama, very

959
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,159
well cast. The person who plays boris Johnson. I don't

960
00:51:07,159 --> 00:51:08,920
know who the actor is, but he's a dead rigger

961
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,760
for Johnson. He's absolutely fabulous. I imagine you've seen that.

962
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:13,840
Charles will probably have your own opinions about it.

963
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 2: I have.

964
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 3: I watched it on a plane. I know it was terrific.

965
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 1: Charles, what are you watching?

966
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:21,519
Speaker 2: Well, I just finished a show that it is not

967
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:26,880
New Justified, not the but the older one from twenty

968
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:27,639
ten to.

969
00:51:27,679 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 1: Fifteen Timothy Oliphant.

970
00:51:30,119 --> 00:51:33,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started watching this in I think twenty eleven

971
00:51:33,679 --> 00:51:35,840
and I just never finished it. I think I had babies,

972
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,440
and you know, but well, I know we had babies.

973
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,599
I think that's why. But I loved this show. I

974
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:45,800
was just really well written. The performances are good. It's

975
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,239
light enough that you can watch it after a long day,

976
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:50,880
but it's not mindless.

977
00:51:51,159 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 3: I just loved it.

978
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:55,280
Speaker 1: I'm finishing up this weekend. Land man.

979
00:51:55,559 --> 00:51:57,639
Speaker 5: I'm not a big tailor shirtan guy, although I've always

980
00:51:57,679 --> 00:52:00,840
enjoyed everything of his. I've watched, primarily watched Billy Bob

981
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:03,920
Thornton smoking off a lot and and say cruel things

982
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:05,239
about renewable energy.

983
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 1: I love that.

984
00:52:06,199 --> 00:52:08,199
Speaker 5: But I've also been watching a Paramount Plus show called

985
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:12,559
mob Land, which was it's basically your mob drama, except

986
00:52:12,599 --> 00:52:15,519
it's set in England where the people live in munch

987
00:52:15,559 --> 00:52:16,320
tonier houses.

988
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:17,920
Speaker 1: But it's fantastic.

989
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:22,760
Speaker 5: Pierce Brosnan is Helen Mirren plays one of those Livia

990
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:27,039
style moms and mothers who's absolutely horrid and vicious and

991
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:30,480
it's just great fun, possibly because of you know, the accent.

992
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,320
And then somebody also it was Hugh Hewett told me

993
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:35,280
that I should watch The Agency, which is based on

994
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,519
the Bureau. Perhaps it's The Bureau which is based on

995
00:52:37,519 --> 00:52:38,039
the Agency.

996
00:52:38,079 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: I don't know.

997
00:52:38,599 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 5: It's a French show about intelligence services and it's set

998
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:45,079
in the UK. It's the CIA. Richard Gear, isn't it?

999
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,000
And that's sometimes sometimes that's the only pleasure you get

1000
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,119
out of a streaming service show is an actor that

1001
00:52:50,159 --> 00:52:53,840
you remember from the nineteen eighties popping up and still

1002
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:56,960
alive and able to speak and doing a credible job.

1003
00:52:57,320 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 4: You know, if I can jump into that's an important

1004
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,000
point that I mean, Richard Gear is not completely over

1005
00:53:02,039 --> 00:53:04,719
the hill. But the reason, the reason you don't see

1006
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,639
him cast is that he's been an outspoken supporter of

1007
00:53:08,079 --> 00:53:10,760
Tibetan independence and I think maybe the Felon gone the

1008
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,760
Hut and the Chinese will not allow any movie that

1009
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,599
has Richard Gear in it to be screened in China,

1010
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:18,480
and we put up with this. That's why you don't

1011
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:19,320
see him very often.

1012
00:53:20,679 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 3: Do you know?

1013
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,199
Speaker 2: I sat next to Richard Gay on an airplane about

1014
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:23,960
five years ago.

1015
00:53:24,039 --> 00:53:26,119
Speaker 5: Did you did you start a conversation with him?

1016
00:53:26,199 --> 00:53:26,719
Speaker 1: Leave him alone?

1017
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:29,280
Speaker 2: I did make conversation with him, but I never acknowledged

1018
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:32,400
that I know who he was. And this is my Yeah,

1019
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:34,679
that's how I always do it. If I find myself

1020
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,320
sitting next to someone who's extremely famous, I never say,

1021
00:53:37,519 --> 00:53:40,360
my goodness, I just said, and I swear that we've

1022
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:42,119
been having and maybe they bring it up, but they

1023
00:53:42,159 --> 00:53:45,920
never actually do. And then I go on and it's

1024
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,000
it's just between us that I knew, because I assume

1025
00:53:48,039 --> 00:53:48,760
they know that I know.

1026
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:50,119
Speaker 1: I know I do too.

1027
00:53:50,199 --> 00:53:52,280
Speaker 5: I never tell them, you know, I just I let

1028
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,599
them eventually, you know, all say yes, I am James

1029
00:53:54,639 --> 00:53:59,159
Ladox and then I get a glassy bovine stare.

1030
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,519
Speaker 2: James, I have to something you said twenty Rothmans in

1031
00:54:02,559 --> 00:54:04,039
the conversation about cigarettes.

1032
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 3: Why did you say that?

1033
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 5: Because of a money pin sketches?

1034
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:11,199
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, that's.

1035
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 5: What Bret, Yes run down of the store gave me off.

1036
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:17,599
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's why.

1037
00:54:17,639 --> 00:54:19,159
Speaker 3: And there's a but in the book.

1038
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,639
Speaker 2: In the Monty Python and Papa book, the story about

1039
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:27,639
the the medieval woman who has betrays to the guy

1040
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:29,199
kills the dragon read this.

1041
00:54:29,079 --> 00:54:30,760
Speaker 5: Well, that's the one where he's he's always playing this

1042
00:54:31,119 --> 00:54:32,079
m dummy.

1043
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,199
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, Okay, okay, that good, the same thing.

1044
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:36,679
I just thought, Wow, that's so random.

1045
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:37,639
Speaker 3: He must have seen it.

1046
00:54:38,079 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 5: Well, you can also get them in smaller packs of ten,

1047
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,880
which I've learned later at the time, and hence the question,

1048
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,840
and hence requesting twenty Rothmans.

1049
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:48,039
Speaker 1: Was a specific size and product.

1050
00:54:48,039 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 5: Otherwise you just say, give me a pack of Rothmans,

1051
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:51,400
butter say twenty.

1052
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 1: Was to indicate that. Yeah.

1053
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 5: So, and also last before we go, we don't do

1054
00:54:56,159 --> 00:54:57,000
enough pitching.

1055
00:54:56,679 --> 00:54:57,639
Speaker 1: Of our own stuff. Here.

1056
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,280
Speaker 5: We pitch ricochet, we pitch all kinds of other people's works.

1057
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,480
By Heaven's sakes, we should offend. We should pitch our own. No,

1058
00:55:04,119 --> 00:55:09,480
I understand, Charles, you are spreading the Gospel of Ai

1059
00:55:09,559 --> 00:55:12,000
in a recent piece, and you hear out Ross Daufit

1060
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,360
on matters of faith. Where can people find these pieces?

1061
00:55:16,039 --> 00:55:18,519
Speaker 2: Yes, so I spoke to Ross Daft about his new book,

1062
00:55:18,559 --> 00:55:21,840
which is about why everyone should be religious. And I

1063
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:23,400
asked him about the book, and I asked him some

1064
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:25,400
metaphysical questions, and then I asked him to tell me

1065
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:27,679
why I should be religious. It was a very interesting

1066
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,159
conversation which you can find on the Charles C. W

1067
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:34,039
Cook podcast, which you can google or find on Apple

1068
00:55:34,119 --> 00:55:36,400
or Spotify or what you will. And then I had

1069
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,880
a piece about AI helping me fix a grill, which

1070
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,800
really was heartfelt in that I am incredibly impressed with

1071
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:48,639
the strides AI has taken. The ability to identify problems

1072
00:55:48,679 --> 00:55:52,519
with machines based just on a photograph is something else.

1073
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 5: I was using AI the other day for some self soothing.

1074
00:55:56,519 --> 00:56:00,360
I was asking some questions about websites, hoping sort of

1075
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,039
coily that it would get around to mine, and it

1076
00:56:03,079 --> 00:56:05,920
did because I'm asking you questions about match book, match

1077
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:07,840
book collections and the rest of the Eventually it came

1078
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:09,960
up with my site, and when I asked it to

1079
00:56:10,039 --> 00:56:12,880
say more about it, it was just fulsome and complimentary

1080
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,119
and I felt great and I felt so good about it,

1081
00:56:15,119 --> 00:56:17,119
and I kept asking you more questions, and it was

1082
00:56:17,159 --> 00:56:20,239
praising me and saying all these things people said. When

1083
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,360
I asked it the next day, I didn't know me

1084
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:26,079
at all. It was it was just remarkable, as if

1085
00:56:26,119 --> 00:56:28,960
your childhood best friend had been taken on piths in

1086
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,920
the back of the neck, Steven, you've been talking. Well,

1087
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:35,360
I'm sure you have any pieces you talk about Damon

1088
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:38,920
Linker's hit piece against the Straussians that we know is

1089
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:40,599
a box office.

1090
00:56:41,599 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, well yeah, well well, I've started my own substack.

1091
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,480
You can find it Steve Hayward dot substack dot com.

1092
00:56:49,519 --> 00:56:53,239
It's partly me, but I've also recruited a few other contributors,

1093
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:55,880
and I'm using it for longer form things that are

1094
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:58,800
somewhat more academic. It's not for everybody, but I try

1095
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,079
to make the writing lively. I carry on these interminable

1096
00:57:02,079 --> 00:57:04,199
debates with John yu about all kinds of things that

1097
00:57:04,199 --> 00:57:06,960
are fun, so we snipe at each other. I've got

1098
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,920
a Max Cossack, which is the non the plume of

1099
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,800
a novelist, writes every Thursday on music and movies and

1100
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:16,880
popular culture, and he's turned out to be a big

1101
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,880
hit with readers. So I'm doing that. I'm writing a

1102
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,159
fair bit for the Civitas Institute people down in Austin

1103
00:57:23,239 --> 00:57:26,199
at the University of Texas, where I may be taking

1104
00:57:26,239 --> 00:57:30,280
a larger and larger role as that whole thing unfolds.

1105
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:33,199
They were just given another one hundred million dollars by

1106
00:57:33,199 --> 00:57:37,119
the Texas legislature yesterday, So follow that story.

1107
00:57:37,119 --> 00:57:40,440
Speaker 1: It's going to be fine as that unfolds. Well, I

1108
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:41,880
suppose I should pimp my own stuff on.

1109
00:57:42,119 --> 00:57:45,039
Speaker 5: You can find it at two places at James Lilacs

1110
00:57:45,119 --> 00:57:48,239
dot substack dot com. We're Monday through Friday. There's something

1111
00:57:48,239 --> 00:57:51,559
for the paid crowd. Monday always a free Callumn Tuesday

1112
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:54,800
there's always a little bit of Joe Ohio, a fictional story,

1113
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:57,280
long running story, short story collection about a man who

1114
00:57:57,320 --> 00:57:59,199
who actually is a match book designer in Cleveland in

1115
00:57:59,239 --> 00:58:02,199
nineteen fifty. Wednesday a lot of outtakes where I riff

1116
00:58:02,239 --> 00:58:03,880
on the things that I take out of my columns

1117
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,559
and explain why. Thursday the gallery Regretable Food. Friday another column.

1118
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:10,400
So all that is there at lilax dot com. You

1119
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:13,360
can find Monday through Friday the Bleat, which will update

1120
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:16,440
and has an extraordinary amount of content that I have

1121
00:58:16,559 --> 00:58:20,880
been putting out for years, and I am seriously considering

1122
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:23,320
that after twenty twenty six I might cut it back

1123
00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:26,119
a little bit, because between the Substack and the Bleat

1124
00:58:26,199 --> 00:58:30,840
there's ten pieces, ten fifteen, shall we say, pieces that

1125
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:32,880
I put out a week, and that's a lot. National

1126
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:35,840
Review of course, I've got a piece coming up in Discourse,

1127
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:38,119
the discourse dot com, which.

1128
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:39,079
Speaker 1: Is a great website.

1129
00:58:39,079 --> 00:58:42,159
Speaker 5: I've got a piece there about the ghost American habit

1130
00:58:42,239 --> 00:58:44,039
of asking where are you're from and what do you do,

1131
00:58:44,119 --> 00:58:45,960
which I think are perfectly sensible questions.

1132
00:58:46,039 --> 00:58:47,079
Speaker 1: What else are you going to talk about?

1133
00:58:47,679 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 5: And other things, And of course then there's that's my

1134
00:58:50,559 --> 00:58:52,239
interesting writing. Then there's the stuff I do for the

1135
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:54,880
newspaper here that ought to do it, that ought to

1136
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:57,639
cover it. For this podcast number seven hundred and forty,

1137
00:58:57,880 --> 00:59:01,960
James Lilex, I'm thanking you for listening. IM thanking Charles CW. Cook,

1138
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:04,559
who can now get back to bailing out the living room,

1139
00:59:05,079 --> 00:59:08,800
and Steven Hayward and gentlemen, it's been great. We'll do

1140
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:11,079
it all again next week. We'll see everybody in the

1141
00:59:11,079 --> 00:59:13,599
comments at Ricochet for Bye Bye