Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on ex at fbr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today are some of the best reporters and
editors in the business. I know firsthand. I have the
great pleasure and I have the great honor of working
with them. Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullman, writer and Federalist
Radio Hour producer Extraordinaire Jordan Boyd, and Federalist Editor Extraordinaire
Joshua Montington, or Bonesy as we like to call him. Today,
we'll figure out why we call him Bonesy, and we'll
discuss the year that was and what a year it was.
It began with a bang and the explosions kept coming.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us in this edition
of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank great to talk with
you all. The time, and I love listening to your voice.
Speaker 1: Oh well, as you know, my contract stipulates that this
is audio only because I have a face for radio. Again,
just an extraordinary year. I want to go around the table,
and I want to start off by asking this question,
because you guys have written a lot of stories, edited
a lot of stories, seen a lot of stories, read
a lot of stories. What do you think think was
the most impactful story of twenty twenty five? Joy, I'll
start with you.
Speaker 4: Well, it's hard for me to pick number ones because
there's so many top things. So I will kind of
punt on that by picking several of them, and I'm
sure other people will have other things to add.
Speaker 3: So I think one of the big.
Speaker 4: Stories of the year that kind of feels very far
in the rearview mirrors is the whole.
Speaker 3: First hundred days of the Trump administration.
Speaker 4: You know, that was really its own season and really
a major part of the year, you know, in terms
of news, in terms of political effects and so forth.
I also think, obviously the immigration sort of policy in
the first I mean, having a closed border to illegal
immigration and the first time really almost in my lifetime,
is really consequential and there's a lot under the hood there.
Speaker 3: I mean, those those probably would be some of my
top two.
Speaker 4: I also for me, I'm personally extremely interested in the
Arctic cross sorts of things. I think they do have
some ties in with Spygate, and so that's kind of
a whole connected ball of wax with the FBI, you know,
and d OJ corruption, with the kind of struggles you
know that have been going on mostly under the scenes,
you know, but you're seeing like little elbows and feet
pick up, you know, poke out here and there from
under the rug with whatever is happening under the hood.
They're obviously Dan Bongino announced, you know, he's going to
be leaving from there at the turn of the year.
So the kind of the continuous I guess we might
label that, you know, deep state, you know, Intel agency,
sort of machination, whatever you label you give that, that
kind of whole ball of wax continues to be extremely important.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, we've known about the corruption for some time.
As a matter of fact, the Federalist had this year
and we're proud to say won an award for the
Russia hoax collusion report. Over years and years won the
Dow Award the prestigious Dow Award, and I think what
we're seeing now, Joy is the potential. We're not there yet,
in fact, I feel sometimes I feel we're farther and
farther away from it. But we have the potential of
holding deep staters accountable. And I think that was part
of the big story that came out of Arctic Frost
and some of these other.
Speaker 4: Invests James Comy right and kind of really grasping it.
Efforts to hold anybody at all accountable. We're still really
waiting on really any preventative enforcement having strongly occurred, really literally,
you know, against having an intel state coup of the
electoral process for the presidency, and who knows how far
that extends. Obviously Arctic Cross, we're talking about election interference
much broader than just the presidency at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, scary stuff. And if we don't get this thing
right here in the matter of the next few months,
we may never get it right. We may never be
able to hold people accountable for this. Jordan, what to
you was the most impactful year? You did a lot
of reporting, of course on life issues, and let's face it,
it all begins there life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
but it begins.
Speaker 5: With life, absolutely, And I think going all the way back,
it's been a long year, but going all the way
back to January, we saw this really key pardon that
Trump issued for the twenty three pro lifers that the
Biden administration weaponized the Face Act against, and I found
that to be a very pivotal moment. I think it
would be an easy one for people to overlook. Oftentimes
the pro life stuff is easy to cast aside and
only pull into the center when it's politically convenient. But
that really did set the tone that, along with the
j six part, and set the tone for what this
Trump administration came in here to do, and that was
to not only wrecked some of the damage done by
the weaponization of the Biden Justice Department, but also wipe
it out and restructure and really try and fix this
two tiered system of justice. And like Joy was saying,
there's a lot of work still to be done, but
I think setting that tone for the next four years
and Trump committing to it is something that people can
now hold him to because he did these pardons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: And I think about twenty twenty five where we began. Remember,
we were coming off I think a lot of hard
work and exhausting twenty twenty four. So much happened, so
much was at stake, and obviously it ended for conservatives
with huge, sweeping victories that were so critical to get
to twenty twenty five. And then we thought, well, may
we're here. We made it through twenty twenty four, and
then all of a sudden, it was drinking from a
fire hose on a daily basis, because it was all
about in the the you know, the opening one hundred days,
as Joy had mentioned, flooding the zone. That was the
term that everyone liked to use about just how energetic
and it seemed so such a departure, of course from
the auto pen presidency of Joe Biden, but just how
energetic the first one hundred days and this this entire
first year of the Trump administration. I just wanted to
get your thoughts, Jordan, on that pace that the Trump
administration set and of course how dizzying that was to
the left and the accomplice media.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, I think there was a lot going on,
and what we saw, especially at the beginning of the
year was sort of corporate media and Democrats sitting there stunned,
still trying to process the end of twenty twenty four.
And that was really a key moment I think for
the sort of movement for the Trump administration and for
media on the right to seize, which the corporate media
loved to use that as you know, the right seized
on this moment to do something that we don't like.
But they really did and they moved forward. And like
I said, there's still a lot of work to do.
I'm sure we'll get into it later, specifically on the
life issue. You know, we've seen a lot of activity
or buzz around the miff at pristone stuff, the abortion
pill and immigration and you know ice enforcement there and
then of course this rise of left being violence which
culminated in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But yes, more
work to do, but a lot going on, and I
think for a while there there was there was a
stun silence, and it was kind of refreshing.
Speaker 1: It was very refreshing to see these smug members of
the corporate media and you know, the Democrats who held
sway for so long and really pushed this country in
the worst direction that you can imagine, Joshua, you have
read a lot of stories in twenty twenty five, you
have edited a lot of stories. You have done the
lord's work in prettying up our copy, and we appreciate
that immensely. What do you see as the most impactful
story of twenty five?
Speaker 6: Yeah, obviously I've covered a lot of ground at the Federalist,
and as you said, there have been many, many important stories.
To me, the biggest story, hands down, is the assassination
of Charlie Kirk. What that means about the state of
our country, what it means for the future of the
conservative movement. I think the conservative movement and in fact,
the country breathed the sigh of relief when Trump escaped
the assassin's bullet by God's grace in Butler, Pennsylvania. Your
letter escaped a second assassination attempt, and I think some
of so. I remember watching Charlie's podcast on election night
when it was clear that Trump had won.
Speaker 2: He was brought nearly to tears.
Speaker 6: He said it was all God's grace, but he had
put in a whole lot of.
Speaker 2: Work in his organization and its efforts.
Speaker 6: At turning point, we're a huge factor in Trump winning
the White House, and so to see Charlie Kirk assassinated
as he's on campus, as he interacting with young people,
as he's articulating conservative ideas and indeed Christian truths, was stunning.
And I think it points to this larger theme that
we've covered, which is left wing political violence, whether it's
things like transgender violence like the Enunciation Catholic church shooting,
or the Tesla bombings that we saw at the beginning
of the year.
Speaker 2: Yourself did a.
Speaker 6: Story where you reported on fifty five percent of self
identified left to say killing Trump is justifiable.
Speaker 2: We had the Jay Jones texts where he was wishing.
Speaker 6: Death upon his political opponents and their children and saying
his political opponents were worse than Hitler and Poulpot.
Speaker 2: To me, that's the biggest story of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Charlie Kirk assassination was as heartbreaking as it
was breathtaking. There he is this young conservative icon, young
caught forever at that young age, assassinated in front of
his two young children and his wife, and it really
drove home exactly what you just talked about the violence
of the left. We're going to get into twenty twenty
six and what's ahead. But let's jump a little bit
because I'm sad to believe that I know the answer
will as we head into the midterm elections, the violence
of the left grow more intense. From what you are
seeing out there today, I.
Speaker 2: Think, unfortunately, the answer is yes.
Speaker 6: A lot will say that, you know, not everyone on
the left is violent, and that's true, but the movement
and the ideology foster violence, encourage violence.
Speaker 2: The media continue to accuse, accuse many on.
Speaker 6: The right, even Charlie Kirk after his death, of racism,
of being Nazis, which are sort of seen as the
pinnacle of evil in our culture. And obviously if those
things are true, that would be terrible. But the people
on the right, generally speaking, are you know, we're not
Nazis and racists and these slanders do lead to violence,
and I think the administration Trump administration has talked about
dealing with Antifa, but we.
Speaker 2: Haven't seen.
Speaker 6: Necessarily a full flight effort to take them down, and
we haven't seen the results. So unfortunately, I think because
of the underlying leftist ideology that now is in the
driver's seat of the movement, we are going to continue
to see left wing political violence Swie.
Speaker 1: What do you think of the fascistizing of everyone from
the left Everyone is a fascist, everyone they don't agree
with is a fascist or a Nazi. What does that
do to those terms? And I think about that, especially
in a year where we have seen so much anti
semitism in this country and the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it cheapens the terms, right.
Speaker 4: So I actually have a personal interest in the Holocaust
in World War Two. My grandfather was a fighter pilot
in World War Two. I have Polish ancestry, you know.
So I did my one of my senior anors thesis
about Gulag Archipelago Eli Visel's Night, you know, so looking
at some of the literature of basically people being tortured for.
Speaker 3: As victims of communism and victims of fascism.
Speaker 4: So that's something that I have been reading up about
since I was a teenager and very interested in both
just personally and intellectually. And I do think Joshua's absolutely
right that they're not only is leftist ideology pro violence,
and it's pro violence because their entire kind of motivation
is the will to power. They don't believe in a
supreme being who sets the standards for what is right
and wrong, and they are willing to and they so
all that's left to them really is power for its
own sake, for the ability of them to wield it,
and so they're willing to do anything to get that,
especially if you don't believe that a god is going
to punish you for murdering, for doing other evil things.
That takes off kind of one of the guardrails for
curbing the natural human lust for violence and destruction and
hurting other people when you don't get your way.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure, go ahead, yeah, go ahead, Yeah, So
I do.
Speaker 4: I think that's inherent to the you know, like the
leftist ideology. And the other part of that is, as
Joshua also pointed out, we haven't had effective deterrence of
political violence from the left, and we have very very
strong public you know, deterrence to any sort of political
violence from allegedly the right.
Speaker 3: No, just look at the January sixth sort of investigation
and all that. You know, I'm aware that a lot
of that was.
Speaker 4: Manufactured, but you know the amount of efforts spent, you know,
kind of shutting down and investigating and embedding you know,
federal informants and so forth, with people on the right.
It's just magnitudes of difference compared with the infrastructure kind
of combating that, you know, against the left wing violence
right we have you know, there's these suspicious you know,
transgender murders for example, not a lot really coming out
about those, a string of those this year, and there's
you know, it kind of indicates that there may be
some coordination or a backward around network essentially a terrorist
networks kind of enabling this sort of behavior. And there's
not clear indication that our FBI really is focused on that,
you know, and is really getting some good information out
preventing these sorts of you know, acts from happening. So
I do think those are two major areas of concern.
But and so and so the problem with so with
the fascist and Nazi language is that basically, you know,
as as we're pointing out, it legitimizes you know, acts
of terror and violence either from the state when leftists
control it, or from vigilante sort of terrorists in the streets,
you know, when.
Speaker 3: They are not able to use police and the military to.
Speaker 4: End the Department the enforcers of the Department of Justice
to kind of go after the left's enemies.
Speaker 1: I think about as you mentioned, joy, the the leftist
and the accomplished media treatment of January sixth, twenty twenty one,
to you know.
Speaker 5: The.
Speaker 1: Throwing under the carpet in the ignoring of the violence
directed at conservatives and members of the right. Maybe that
is their idea of equity in comparison. I'm not sure,
but Jordan, I was going to ask you. You cover a
lot of faith issues. We mentioned Charlie Kirk, We mentioned
these violent times. What we saw in the wake of
Charlie Kirk's assassination was both trying very sad from the left.
Their response to that, their hatred and again they're more
violent rhetoric. But we also saw something that I don't
think we've seen in a long time in this country.
Not to this magnitude, I hope it's sustainable, but this
turning away from the flesh and toward the spirit. A
lot of people saw this watershed moment in American life,
American culture, and they said that there is an emptiness
here and I want to fill it with the right things.
I'm turning to God. What do you think about all
of that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think seeing the Charlie Kirk memorial service and
how many people tuned into that was really incredible, And
just on a personal level, the amount of people that
I've talked to or received email from saying the same thing,
where they saw that Charlie was this figure on the
conservative right and they recognize his accomplishments there, but more importantly,
a lot of people saw that he was a good
and faithful servant and that he ran his race well.
And I think that's inspiring and I think it's something
that we can't continue to ignore, especially on the right.
Is this Christian foundation and the Christian principles that really
shape not only who we are but where we're going.
And I think it's really key to some of these
fundamental conversations coming up about the policies that drive us,
what makes us a Christian nation. All of that is
encompassed here. And I think it's one of those things,
once again, kind of like the life issues, it's easy
to parse out. I mean, you put on the side
or just assume we're all on the same page about
but we're not. And it's more increasingly evident now than
ever that there's a spiritual war going on here. There
is good and evil, and the effort to dirty the
water there. To muddy the water and not show what
is good is good and what is evil is evil
is very concerning and I think especially for truth tellers
like us at the Federalist, it's just very important that
the truth ring clear here now because the effort to
disguise it to soley it is stronger than ever.
Speaker 7: Could this latest jobs report be an election decider who
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show that numbers fell way below expectations and small businesses
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Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 7: Check out the Watchout on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Our guest today are some of the best reporters and
editors in the business. Over the last twenty minutes or so,
you've heard why I say that Federalist Executive editor Joy Pullman,
staff writer and Federalist Radio Hour producer Jordan Boyd and
Federalist editor Joshua Mining, or Bones as we like to
call him. Perhaps we'll get an answer to that nickname
coming up a little bit later on in the episode.
But Joshu, I want to turn to you to begin
our segment on the most interesting story of the year. Now,
that could be the you know, the most impactful story.
Oftentimes it is not, though we have seen a lot
of interesting stories in these extremely interesting times. What say you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so hard to choose, and I'm probably going to
pull a couple of different stories together, but I think
it there's a number of things that sort of come
back to young men, and specifically young men becoming more conservative.
I think during the first one hundred days of the administration,
there was an excitement, there was a sense of anticipation.
Speaker 2: There was talking about, you know, retaking control of the.
Speaker 6: Panamacamanal and becoming heavily invested or somehow taking control of greenland,
so evoking these ideas of.
Speaker 2: Exploration and expansion. And then Elon Musk was, you know,
coming into the White House. He was going to fix government.
Speaker 6: With those but there was this theme of like building
things and progress and accomplishing big things, things that people
would would think would be impossible, And I think that
really appeals to young men. And we've seen this shift
where young men have become more conservative sort of The
sort of downside concerning aspect of it is that young
women haven't necessarily followed, And so we're seeing where young
men are considering marriage more desirable than women would consider it.
They want to have children, women young women maybe not
so much. So a big question is how do we
bridge that gap in things like the US in all
new low infertility rate really makes that a pressing question.
Speaker 2: So I think if we.
Speaker 6: Are going to see our America, our country continue to
make a comeback, I think a lot of that's going
to have to do with young men and the strength
and the energy that they bring to the table. So
I think it'll be interesting to see how that story
progresses in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I think that is a fascinating story and I am
very interested to see how it progresses. But do you
think some of this we know some of this what
happened in twenty twenty four with young men coming out
in droves to vote for Trump and the MAGA movement.
They have been let's face it, disenfranchised from their country
in so many ways by the leftist movement, which ties
into the decades upon decades of leftist indoctrination. And I think,
quite frankly, that's why we have the issue that you
mentioned with young women. We have so many young women
who have absolutely bought into this indoctrination and as you know,
instead of thinking about families and raising children, they're you know,
living alone with cats, and so you know, you're right.
I mean, this is this is a very seminal moment
for the future of this country. Where do you think
it's going to go? Because sustain that's been a problem.
Speaker 6: Right, So there's sort of three trajectories that you might anticipate.
And so related to the issue that you talked about,
there's been this discrimination against young men. There was a
whole lot of discussion about a compact magazine Arcle recently.
I think jd Vance tweeted about it. But basically where
young white men specifically, we're discriminated against unemployment settings where
they weren't able to get jobs that they ordinarily would
have been able to get because employers immersed.
Speaker 2: In dei ideology.
Speaker 6: We're looking for everything, but a white male and that's frustrating.
So I think it could go one of three ways.
Young men could just I should say. The other factor
is sort of this me too movement inspired ideology where
everything about young men, their masculinity, their energy, their willingness
to struggle and argue, and everything about young men has
sort of been attacked in our culture. And so young
men can either become sort of lazy and disillusioned and
maybe lived in their parents' basement because it's too hard
to get a job and they just play video games,
where they can become frustrated. They can sort of become
anti a female and just be angry at all women,
or there's sort of the Christian path, where it's like, Okay,
there is discrimination, there's adversity. How can I respond in
a way that still is honoring to God, advances culture,
honors country, and yes, look for political solutions to these problems,
but also take individual responsibility and do all that I
can on my own.
Speaker 1: Joey Joshua had mentioned a very interesting story, a compelling
story that dominated a lot of the headlines this year,
and that was DOGE, you know, the Department of Government Efficiency.
Elon Musk coming in and saying we're going to save
taxpayers all this money because we're going to deal with
all the waste, fraud, and abuse in government. I want
to add Skew along with your most Interesting Story, because
I personally think that's a very interesting story. I would
rate that as my most interesting story. But was the
Doge effort a success or failure or is it too
early to write, you know, the final chapter on that.
Speaker 4: I think it had some successes in some failure, so
some of the unfortunately, I mean I think, I mean,
there there are a lot of things cut out of
the federal government right now because of DOJE and I
am grateful for every single you know, one of the
couple hundred thousand federal workers who now needs to look
for a more productive job in the private sector because
of Doche. I mean, it's where our federal government is
completely unsustainable. And you know the things that Doche found.
We're talking about fraud, we're talking about incompetence, We're talking
about just things that no American taxpayer would support, you know,
any of their our money, let alone.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of millions of dollars of our money.
Speaker 4: And I know people who you know are struggling to
run businesses, to run nonprofits you know who are like man,
you know, with a rounding era of some of that money,
what I could do to provide jobs, you know, for
food on the table for people in my community, you know,
and they're sending it to you know, some stupid de
I you know, person in Paraguay with whose transgender you know,
you know, et cetera, et cetera. So so, I mean,
there are absolutely have been some on the ground successes,
but I also think there you know, for Congress really
failed to really live up to all of the energy
and excitement that doses were generated. As Congress has really
completely disappointing that I actually was thinking about making that
one of the stories of the year is that Republicans
you know, have the House, the Senate, and the presidency
and the you know, they're a build. They discipline, the unity,
the delivering on you know, the policy priorities that President
Trump won on, how been lackluster to say the least.
Speaker 3: And so I think that.
Speaker 4: The lack of you know, codifying, for example, the president's
executive orders, the lack of codifying the cuts that does
showed us you know, all of this waste, broad and
abuse and completely unjustifiable you know spending. You know, we
haven't seen Congressional action on that, and that's really needed.
Speaker 3: To fulfill that mandate. So it's not.
Speaker 4: Dog's fault that Congress stinks, but that is obviously a
major factor in its success. That's you know, outside of
its ability there. So I also we wanted to kind
of comment on man. I just loved listening to Joshua
talk about the young man issue. And I do think
there was an aspect to the Dog team that was
really inspirational in that, you know sort of way.
Speaker 3: So I cannot say, you know, the on air.
Speaker 4: I am still too modest to say, you know, uh,
the nickname for the young man who got beat up
in Washington, d C. You know, it's big, you know,
and then a word for men's genitals. I just can't
say that on air.
Speaker 1: That's a family program, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, and I have, you know, a family mentality, right.
Speaker 4: So, but but that young man, you know, watching him
defend his girlfriend, you know, and he's so I'm at
this point you know where I have my oldest child
as a teenage son, and so I look at a
young man like that, and I think I would be
so proud if that was my son, right, And and
you know, just to see someone who looks, you know,
not very old, you know, not only doing you know,
doing more than most people do to help out their
country with the skills and talent that he has, and
he is overcoming obstacles because of his skin color obviously,
you know, so having motivation, drive and putting it to
service for his country. But then just standing in between
a group of thugs and a young woman that he
cared about. I found that extremely inspiring. And I think
that's a part of the dough story as well, is
the sort of young men that it put, you know,
back at the forefront of the American mind. And let's
face it, young men need more inspirational figures big brothers, fathers,
uncles to look up to. And it's an important part
of a man becoming a man to have mentorship from
older men and examples to look up to and live
up to. And so I also appreciated that aspect of
what that team brought to the national conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we also know this year was the year of
the chuck HOGI or subway sandwich. As stupid as that was, again,
it showed there's no accountability in Washington, d C. In particular,
in government in general, and Jordan, I wanted to bring
that up with you because we touched upon that earlier,
the accountability for all of these deep state crimes. But
the big story I think of the year, one of
I would say the top five stories of the year
would be the judicial coup that has been going on.
You want to talk about, and Joy, I'm very glad
that you because I was going to bring that up
as well. The fact that we have in this country,
Conservatives had a window of opportunity and the Republicans in
Congress basically said, well, we'll just watch what's going on
outside the window. We won't do anything with that opportunity.
But Jordan, what do you think about the judicial activism.
We've known that's been the case on the left, but
it has reached coup levels against the President of the
United States and the executive branch this year. What happened
and where do we go from here on that front?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean what we saw was a coordinated effort
to keep the commander in chief from governing, which is
wild and should be wilder, but it's not as wild
when you know that his first term they tried to
impeach him over several different hoaxes. So yeah, it's insane.
It's something that higher court judges, including justices on the
Supreme Court, have called out year after year, maybe more
subtly than they should have at this point, and have
sort of been warning about this incoming wave of just
ridiculous cases in front of ridiculous people and then ridiculous results,
and it all goes one way, which should tell you
everything you need to know about it. By what's increasingly
concerning is that it's just not being punished, it's not
being corrected. We're having to jump through all of these
bureaucratic judicial hoops to get things worked out that should
have just been easy to deal with on the first level,
the first ring, of course. So it is a symptom
of a country that is getting sicker, and if we
don't treat the root cause, which we see very much
is on the deepest levels of the judiciary, we're going
to have some serious problem, more so than we're already having.
So I think I wish I could sit here and
lay out this five step plan, but it almost feels
insurmountable in a way. That there's going to have to
be some really serious and swift action to get this
curved before it's completely out of control.
Speaker 1: No, you're not going to get that action unless you
have a Republicans who are committed to doing something about it.
These are impeachable offenses, and we are once again you
have the left that is that will if they get
back into power in the House in twenty twenty six,
it's going to be, you know, an impeachment orgy for
the next two years. They are going to try to
impeach the President of the United States and will probably
be successful in that if they get a big enough
majority over and over again. And so as we look
ahead to twenty twenty six, joshuaan to ask you that
tied into, you know, some of the major disappointment of
twenty twenty five. In twenty four you had people coming
out and voting low propensity voters who have not voted
in a long time or at all, and they came
out to vote for Donald Trump. He's not on the
ballot Republicans and a lot of Republicans who did very
little to advance what these people voted for. How much
is that going to impact the twenty twenty six mid
term elections. Absolutely critical.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's going to have a huge effect.
And one of the big discussions right now is affordability.
And let me just say this, if we were in
a situation where the Republican majority in the House was
putting forth a reasonable, workable solution to the Obamacare crisis,
or you know, would be the Unaffordable Care Act, and
they just they passed it, but they just couldn't get
it through in the Senate because you know, couldn't get
that two thirds majority. I think people might be able
to understand that, but when they can't even come up
with a workable solution, that's that's people are frustrated with that,
and understandably so. And healthcare is one of the biggest
costs and one of the biggest factors making things affordable
for families. And so the fact that Congress doesn't have
solution things like that, hasn't really taken action on impeaching
these rogue judges, hasn't, as Joy said, hasn't codified Trump's
executive orders, which everyone knows would just go away if
another Democrat, as if a Democrat president were.
Speaker 2: To be elected.
Speaker 6: Failures in these areas are really going to hurt Republicans
in mid terms if they can't reverse course. And we've
seen signals of this with you know, Democrat victories in
New Jersey, in Virginia race that was closer than it
should have been. In Tennessee with the Democrat candidate that
was quite extreme, but was a lot closer to the
Democrat or to the Republican congressional candidate than she should
have been. So, yeah, if there's not a change in Congress,
I think the twenty twenty six midterms are going to
not be good for the GOP.
Speaker 1: Jordan, what do you see looking at your crystal ball
as the biggest issue facing twenty twenty six. Obviously we're
talking about the critical midterms, but the biggest issue facing
twenty twenty six that may have the biggest impact on
the things that we'll be reporting on and talking about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Joshua mentioned one, and it sort of
ties into what I would say is the second, which
is the affordability thing. Americans genuinely don't care who's in
office if they can't afford to live.
Speaker 3: They just don't.
Speaker 5: At that point, all politicians sort of become moot and
void and they're not going to be very motivated to
go elect the people who are already in office. So
I think that affordability crisis we really need to get
a handle on it. Obviously, a lot of damage was
done to our economy under the last administration and it's
going to take a lot to build back. Similarly, with immigration,
we've seen a lot of damage done that. Frankly, even
if every single person on the planet became an ice agent,
we would still have problems fixing all of that, you know.
So I think those two will still continue to be
top of mind. You know, they were top of mind
in the twenty twenty four presidential election. And while there
was some temporary resolve and a little bit taken off
the top, there are deeper routes here and they need
to be addressed. And I think, yeah, unless Republicans start
moving on it, they're going to lose their seats. And
you know, some would say they deserve that after everything
they put everyone through this last year. But yeah, the
affordability crisis, for sure. One thing that's interesting. You know,
we heard a ton of talk about all the tariff
stuff this last year. You know, a lot of corporate
media hubbub about how, oh gosh, tariffs are the worst
and it's gonna worse in inflation, and we really just
haven't seen that fear mongering come true. So I think
that's another thing to keep an eye on, is what
economic policies are actually working. You know, the good news
never gets the attention it deserves, so looking at the
things that matter, making sure that the good gets elevated
and that bad we continue to hammer it is really
I think what twenty twenty six will be about.
Speaker 1: Joy the Minneapolis Somali's who benefited immensely from what could
prove to be the worst fraud scandal in American history.
They don't seem to have to worry about the afford
ability issue, although at least some of them are now
wards of the state. Where do you see that story going?
And again, what do you see as the issue that
will most impact twenty twenty six?
Speaker 4: Well, I think that is really that's crazy amazing story.
That's one of those where you look at and you go,
I can't believe this is the real story.
Speaker 3: There have been so many of those.
Speaker 4: Since Trump came down the escalator, almost like I'm living
in you know, it's like tabloids became reality sometimes. But
I think it actually speaks a lot to the affordability
conversation that we're having because you know, there is so
there are so many people who who is living is
subsidized by taxpayers in debt, and debt really causes inflation.
Government spending above its means is the core reason for inflation.
This is well proven economically, you know, it's a fundamental reality.
Speaker 3: And so if people look around and see that.
Speaker 4: Things are too expensive, they have to realize that we
have to vote for, for example, more doge. Congress should
you know, get their butts in gear and doze it up,
because that is really what's going to you know, we're
dozed up through healthcare, you know, through every single other
aspect of the economy because it takes money out of
the productive part of the economy and gives it to sycophants,
right the people, just people who are giving them money
for the re election campaigns. And that's really you know,
what's the elephant sitting on, you know, the throat of
the American taxpayer. The people who in the middle who
are too wealthy to be subsidized by the government and
not rich enough to be subsidized by the government, and
so those people still you know, Trump really is elected
to fight for those people, and he's doing a lot there,
you know.
Speaker 3: But there is a lot that he can't do.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I think about is, you know,
the for example, housing affordability, immigration is really a big
deal enforcement to loosen up kind of the housing situation.
But also, you know, President, the lot of the you know,
what drives up the costs for housing is locally controlled.
It's a lot about policing, you know, if you do
if you have police pulled back, if you have neighborhoods,
or people don't want to live because there's weed smells
coming out of the doors because there's you know, a
petty crime happening.
Speaker 3: Their kids bikes are stolen.
Speaker 4: You know, there's people you know, riding down their streets
blaring ugly music.
Speaker 3: People don't live in those neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: That would be perfectly nice, you know, if there were
some ordinances that were very well policed and enforced by
the local police. And that's something you know, the president
doesn't have a lot of control over besides maybe a
bully pulpit. So so the Somali situation I think is
just an encapsulation of the idea that Americans still have
that I think is really resonating, which is that government
cares about everybody but the people who are drowning while
they're trying to bring you know, while they're trying to
push the wheelbarrow up the mountain. Sorry to mix my metaphors, right,
but you know, there's too many people in the wheelbarrow.
Speaker 3: And not enough people pushing.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think the Somali's sort of situation
is indicative of a government that really puts the interests
of everyone their donors, you know, basically, you know, someone
who scratches their backs head of the people who actually
vote in the elect you know, to put them in office,
and really are expecting fulfillment of something of their promise
as an elected representative to safeguard our rights to property,
to life, liberty and happiness, and really have been feeling
to do so.
Speaker 3: And that's why they're we're in the situation now.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the Somalley situation, I think what twenty twenty
five did, particularly the last few months in particular, is
it did shine a very bright light on what a
dufist Tim Walls is for so many reasons, the governor
of the far left governor of Minnesota, as he has
been indelicately nicknamed tampon Tim for reasons, I think this
audience fully understands he is caught in an absolute hornets
nest here of his own making. I might add, I
think twenty twenty six is going to I don't know
if it's going to show any accountability, but at least
it's going to expose tims and Is a fellow leftist
in Minnesota for the corruption that they caused, at the
very least by looking the other way. All right, real quick, real.
Speaker 4: Quick, Yeah, Matt, you know, mentioning Tim Walls makes me,
you know, think of another thing related to him that
which is I mean, I think it's pretty clear at
this party that the Democrat Party really is, you know,
in office by means of fraud. And by that I mean,
I'll just they just support Frauda every single way possible
in order to get into power. So for example, you know,
the reason that that we have this revolving door of
you know, Somali sort of votes for you know, for
sale that's available to be purchased by government welfare benefits
apparently is because Democrats benefit.
Speaker 3: From that, right, right, and that's just you know, a
greater phenomenon.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So we have Tim Walls in power.
Speaker 4: And how does a guy that stupid get to be
the governor of a beautiful, wonderful state where I have
relatives living.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's gorgeous. It's got all four seasons.
Speaker 4: It's been you know until you know, the last kind
of generation really well managed a wonderful place to live
and just run into the ground, you know, as we're
incresently finding all these layers of essentially cheating, scamming, fraud,
and so that kind of way of life that is
used to being you know, or as it is still
it's a third world sort of way of life. Well,
that third world way of life is being important to
the United States, and it's you know, really adopted. As
I mean, Republicans also are you know, really into the
you know, the donor revolving door game as well.
Speaker 3: But Democrats do it better.
Speaker 1: Yes they do. They have excelled at fraud. I think
that it's a very very good point. And by the way,
every time I think of Tim Walls, I think of
the seventh grade after wrestling practice, my best buddy's mom
took us to a Chinese restaurant and I got horrible
food poisoning, and I got really sick. And that's that's
how I feel when I think about Tim Walls. All right,
let's go around the table. We'll wrap this very very
interesting discussion up by maybe I'm putting you on the
spot here. Who do you think the worst person of
two thousand and twenty five was? Jordan? I'll start with
you on that.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, there's so many men.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm constantly.
Speaker 5: Disappointed in people. Let me just put it.
Speaker 1: The older you grow, by the way, the more you
will be disappointed with people.
Speaker 5: I will say, what was interesting this year and what
sort of took the edge off a little bit edge
disappointment off a little bit is knowing that Joe Biden
didn't sign everything his autopen did, so the contempt moved
a little bit off of Joe Biden and to the
auto pin or the people who were, you know, manipulating
that for him. That was pretty bad. I think there
was this this lady who's kind of made the news
recently as more reporting on IVF and Trump's rhetoric around
it comes up. She runs a company that claims to
sequence genomes and sort of tests and eliminate undesirable genes,
essentially eugenicsy stuff, and they pitch it to parents as
something that is useful, you know, and they can have
healthy children and happy children for their families. And really
what it is is they cull undesirable embryos for various reasons.
So I think that's pretty despicable. And the fact that
corporate media continue to elevate her and other eugenic startups,
that's alarming to me.
Speaker 1: That is sickening and alarming. It's something to watch, certainly
in the year and years ahead. Joshua, I want your
worst human being of you know, the Time always has
the time person of the Year. We're giving the Federalist
worst human being.
Speaker 2: Of the Year.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, we have to resolve this
most important question. Where'd you get the nickname Bonesy?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, Matt, I wish I could say I had
a little side business in piracy is where I got
that nickname.
Speaker 1: But well, you knew we're an eyepatch, so that, yeah,
that's what.
Speaker 6: I thought if you were our listeners can't see that,
but yeah, proudly no, Yeah, as a young lad I
was pretty fairly muscular, I'll say, and then I ranted
some sort of health issue and was recommended to a
certain type of diet, which I pursued, you know, with
everything I had, and ended up losing like twenty five
or thirty pounds and then changed my appearance, and my
mother affectionately dubbed me Boonesy. So yeah, no career in piracy,
just a little weight loss.
Speaker 1: So one of these days, one of these days, we'll
have to have the Federalist team together just to talk
about the nicknames that our family and friends subjected us too.
Let's stay with us to this day. All right, Who's
the worst, worst person, the worst human being of twenty
twenty five?
Speaker 4: Mmm?
Speaker 6: Wow, that's a difficult question. I'll go with I'll go
with worse performances and name it. Few people in the
spirit of Christmas, just recommend them toward a better path.
Speaker 2: But I think of.
Speaker 6: Gavin Newsome with his cutting twenty twenty eight presidential campaign,
that this seems to generate more cringe than actual momentum,
and his he sort of, you know, pretended like he
might be backing away from the radical trans ideology, but
then he really wasn't. I think also of Kambala Harris.
You know, I think maybe Owding, someone who supposedly said
she was one of the most qualified presidential candidates or
the most qualified presidential candidates of all time, which clearly
wasn't true.
Speaker 2: I think recently of Candice Owens.
Speaker 6: She's obviously as a big a lot of talent and
a big following, But the whole asserting that Charlie Kirk
was betrayed by everyone, particularly people at Turning Point, is
obviously something that she shouldn't be saying. So of course
redirected there would be welcome, I think. But yeah, really,
if you want to look at the true villains of
twenty twenty five, elgain come back to left wing violence
and it's perpetrators, and it's really just a very dark
side of humanity. And so we don't necessarily expect that
to abate, but we hope and pray that it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want to see evidence the historical record
of that dark side of humanity, just read the Federalist
coverage of what was said by leftist online professionals, many
of them in academia, about what they said about Charlie
Kirk's assassination. Joy We'll end with you worst person of
the year if you could.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe you all could help me vote on this
because I'm trying to decide between several we've got Probably
probably Charlie Kirk Shooter is the worst, but you know, I.
Speaker 3: Might you know, pick whoever is you know, not accelerating.
Speaker 4: You know sort of uh the investigation into the network
that may have you know, been behind or encouraging, you know,
the kind of people people don't you know, just go
out and shoot people randomly. There's a lot of things
that led up to you know, you adopting the beliefs
that would make you willing to shoot somebody over something, right,
and so that includes the American media, Hollywood, but you know,
there may have been you know, Reddit, you know, chats
or whatever, some kind of subculture, you know, group that
we don't know about. Because I think it's just better
to go after people who have authority and are not
exercising it well, because those sort of people just need
to like just either do the job or get out.
And so that's actually why I was trying to decide. So,
I mean, so I think obviously a murderer is a
really bad guy, and I'm not saying his name, because
I don't like to say the names you know of murderers,
especially you know, public assassins. But that was also think
the funny idea that came into my mind was a
living and nuzzy the vanity fair, you know, sort of lady.
But I also think you just like a waste of time,
you know, stupid gossip, and I'm not really into stupid gossip.
So then I was trying to decide based on my
criteria I just mentioned right, who has authority and is
really not wielding it well and really should be able
to do better. So I was trying to decide between
Mike Johnson, John Thune, and John Roberts. So because the
sort of court situation that we talked about in the
podcast here, and I've talked with legal observers who say
that John Roberts could you know, really solve that situation
or at least, you know, a dress it more quickly
by slapping down lower court rulings more quickly and with
less hesitation, making it work through the process, and so far,
you know, and so forth, and so far you know,
John Roberts has failed to do that, basically allowing you know,
the court system to lose its validity in the eyes
of American people by becoming transparently political, you know, and and.
Speaker 3: I mean it has been political, but just the love.
Speaker 4: Of the politicization is something that he is not choosing
to use his power to you to rein in at
this moment. And so I guess I've just talked myself
into naming him. I think the worst person of the year.
Speaker 1: Who John's and a mic sounds like a recipe for prostitution.
We'll have to end it there, because well, I want
to tell you all I very much value your time.
I know it is in short commodity this time of
the year, and we got a lot of stuff to
accomplish before the Christmas season. We're in the Christmas season,
but before Christmas, and I want to wish you all
a very merry Christmas, a very blessed Christmas season, time
with your family and your friends and the people who
have nicknamed you, and God blessed the good work that
you all do.
Speaker 4: Thanks Matt, same to you. We love your family, we
love your work. It's a pleasure to work with you.
And have Merry Christmas to all of our listeners and
are wonderful readers and supporters as well.
Speaker 1: You bet absolutely thanks to my guest today, Federalist Executive
editor Joy Pullman, staff writer and Federalist Radio Hour producer
Jordan Boyd, and Federalist editor Joshua Monington Bonesy, as his
mother likes to call him. You've been listening to another
edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior
elections correspondent at the Federalist. We will be back soon
with more you can guarantee. Until then, stay lovers of freedom.
I'm anxious for, friend,