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Speaker 1: Welcome back. Everyone's a new episode of You're Wrong with

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Molly having Away, editor in chief of The Federalist and

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David Harsani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as

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a reminder, if you'd like to email us here at

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the show, please do so at radio at the Federalist

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dot com. We'd love to hear from you. I'd love

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to hear from you, Molly. How's it going.

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Speaker 2: It's going great? Another great week here in America?

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Speaker 1: Is was it a great week? Let's start with something

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I thought was pretty great Elon Musk and kind of

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doge leadership, i'd call it, though I don't know how

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the hierarchy exactly works. There did a two part, pretty

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long interview with Fox News Brettbaar in the last week.

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I was fascinated by this interview, and I just want

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to preface it all by saying I wish they had

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done this earlier. I think articulating the mission in this way,

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getting into basically refuting some of the things that people

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have said about them, but getting into where the real

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waste and inefficiencies were was to me, and I followed

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the news pretty closely, pretty fascinating and interesting. Did you

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watch those interviews. I hate to put you on the spot.

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Speaker 2: I did, and I also thought it was really interesting.

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This is so much stuff that we can talk about

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with Doge and the media response to it. But i'd

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seen a reporter with The Hill. I think the White

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House reporters say that if someone responds to a question

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you ask by saying I'm so glad you asked that question,

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then you're not doing journalism right. And I was thinking

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about that, and it's there's a truth to that. You

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don't you're not there to make the subject of your

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interview feel comfortable. But there's also a lie in that,

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which is so many times the media are only interested

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in gotcha questions or provoking a response that will anger

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people or please people, rather than illuminating what's going on.

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The brettbar interview was fascinating with these Doge people because

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I learned so much, and I learned so much in

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so many different ways. It didn't feel like he was

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there to attack them, no, which is not to say

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that he didn't ask some challenging questions or raise areas

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of concern that other people had brought up. But if

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you wanted to know about Doge, who's doing it, who's

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behind it, what their theories are, what they found. It

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was just a really interesting interview. You're allowed to have

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your own thoughts about their answers, but you cannot deny

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that you've got a lot of really helpful and interesting

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information to assess their project.

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Speaker 1: We have to concede, though, that A lot of times

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politicians or whoever say thank you for I'm happy you

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asked that question, but they don't really actually mean it

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at all. You know, it's just kind of a thing

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they learned to say. I'm happy you brought that up, Molly.

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That means I'm unhappy that you brought that up, Molly.

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But yeah, I agree with you.

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Speaker 2: By the way, I'm not a politician, but if I'm

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doing a Q and A and someone asks me a

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question I don't like, I always say like, oh, I

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don't know what the answer to that is, Like I

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never respond the way you're supposed to, which is what

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you just said, Well, that's a good question. Well here's

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a way of looking at it. When I say that's

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a good question, I mean that's a good question usually

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because it kind of stumps me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, because we're normal human beings, not

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pod' happy.

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Speaker 2: Oh sorry, I don't mean to.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Sometimes you're happy.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm happy if I gave a speech but I

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didn't get to say something that I wanted to say,

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and then someone asks me a question that allows me

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to say the thing I always wanted to say. I mean,

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I'm like, oh, thank you, I'm so glad you asked that,

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because I couldn't figure out how to shoehorn that into

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the speech, but I would like to yell about it now.

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Speaker 1: I don't obviously give as many speeches as you do,

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but I you know, I give speeches, and I've done

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it for you know, over a decade, I guess. And

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I've always preferred the Q and A part and in

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fact or for Q and A without any speech, which

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I think is always more informative because a lot of

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times you're when you're speaking, you're not really you know,

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people in the crowd have different ideas or they have

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a different focus, so they want you to talk about

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something else that's more important to them. And so for me,

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that kind of interaction is always more informative for me

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and more interesting and you know, intellectually than just or

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most of the time than giving a caned speech, which

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I think can be worrying at least when I give them.

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I don't know about you if you feel that way too.

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Speaker 2: I completely agree, in part because I usually get it

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wrong when I just give a speech, meaning I'll be thinking,

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I bet they want to hear about this thing, and

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it turns out they didn't want to hear about that

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thing at all. When you have a Q and A,

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the good part about that is you are being really

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responsive to the desires of the audience in a way

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that makes everybody happy. The downside is that sometimes there

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are people in the audience who are not completely mentally balanced,

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or you know, they'll ask a question or they won't

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let something go, and so you have to have some

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kind of moderation. This is so far afield from Doge,

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so we should probably give back.

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Speaker 1: No, you definitely need someone to control the crowd because

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there's always one person tries to take over the Q

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and A or is a little bit yeah off. So

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anyway back to back to a Doge.

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Speaker 2: So speaking of people who are a little off, back

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to Doge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they are interesting people interviewed there. They're exactly the

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kind of people I want doing an inventory on what's

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going on in government, frankly, But I guess I'd divide

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the conversation into a few different sections, and one would

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be some of the instances of waste and inefficiency that

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are mind blowing. Now I might get the specific numbers

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slightly wrong, but one instance that Elon Musk spoke about

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was that the National Park Service had spent I think

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eight hundred a million on a survey system that had

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no feedback loop, meaning it existed and people would lodge

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their complaints or whatever, but there was no one actually

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looking at it.

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Speaker 2: You were right, I mean, Musk said, and I'm reading

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this from Joy Pullman's excellent piece six unbelievably scammy federal practices.

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Does staff revealed in the Fox interview a nearly one

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billion dollar survey for no reason. He pointed out that

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survey could have been done for ten thousand dollars. Also that, yeah,

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they were taking survey results and then doing absolutely nothing

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with them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And he claimed, and I think he's I don't

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think he's lying that he would routinely come across, you know,

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programs or whatever projects that were a billion dollars of

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just pure waste. Now, Democrats have been saying, and I've

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heard others say, you know, a billion dollars is nothing

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in the big picture, and that might be true, but

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a billion dollars is objectively a lot of money, and

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the only way to save ondiscretionary spending is to go

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billion by billion probably. But these other things just blew

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my mind. The federal government has four million credit cards

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but only two point five million workers, Like, something's wrong

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about that. There are a thousand, four hundred people in

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the IRS who hand out who are in charge of

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handing out laptops and cell phones. But anyway, so these

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are how can I say? These are tangible kind of

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things that I believe that people can no exist, But

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hearing it in specifics, I think we'll maybe change their mind.

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On DOGE. I saw some polling that doge wasn't doing

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very well, and sometimes I feel like maybe credits are

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getting away with claiming that, you know, Musk wants to

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destroy social security, media and all this stuff. That's just

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simply not true. As he pointed out, he's actually, if

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you know, he's actually making social Security for instance, more

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efficient for users.

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Speaker 2: Seeing the people behind doge was really interesting. They seemed

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very patriotic people at the top of their fields in

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high level professions, willing to take a few months or

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a year to serve their country and to save the country.

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That is very different from the image painted by corporate

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media in their doge stories of you know, twenty two

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year old kids who know nothing about anything going on.

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The people that were featured in the Brett Barry interview

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were of a variety of different ages, but they were

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career professionals at the top of their given line of work.

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And even the way the one guy talked about asking

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his wife if he could sort of deploy to do

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this work, which he really believed in. You never think

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of accounting or auditing as super manly, you know. Activity Wait,

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that didn't sound right. I do think of those as

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like very manly things more than womanly things. But I

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mean the idea that they're trying to save the country

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from this horrific rot, this unaccountable fourth branch that's unconstitutional,

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that threatens the republic itself. It felt very early America

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Founder era inspiring.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about a few of those people, because

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I actually wrote about this this week. I just pulled

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it up so Brat Smith, I forget what he was

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he the guy who was like, I don't know. He

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was a billionaire, I believe, but he This would really

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blew my mind. The National Institutes of Health RIGHTIH has

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seven hundred separate IT systems and none of them can

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speak to each other. They have twenty separate different sub agencies,

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and each of those agencies has a chief operate Information

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officer making I'm sure a very good salary. Another guy

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that I thought was really interesting was and I'm going

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to brutalize his name, I'm sorry, but it's Aram Maga Dasi,

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I think. And he was a computer engineer, and he

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was saying that it costs around one hundred billion dollars

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a year to keep the computer systems going for the

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federal government, and some of them have been and the

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systems themselves have been around for fifty years. The retirement

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papers of a federal worker that they fill out when

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they're leaving government are done by hand, all by hand,

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and they are stacked and held in a mine in Pennsylvania.

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They are not digitized. So these guys, I think it

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was Bradsmith, was saying that how they were going to

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digitize them within a few months. And we've had this

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system going fifty years. But anyway, the problem with I

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just thought this was interesting, of it's not boring, But

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the problem between the problem with not having these systems

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speak to each other is that there are I forgot

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how many fifteen million people over the age of one

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hundred and twenty who have still you know, living social

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Security numbers. So someone or even young people who have

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Social Security numbers, Someone went to the Small Business Loan

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Administration or whatever and took out a business loan for

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a toddler who was nine or is a nine month

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old a toddler using their Social Security number, and there

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was no way for these agencies to speak to each other. Now,

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I just it's just incredible that we have allowed this

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to go on so long. And I don't understand why

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DOGE can't exist past one hundred and thirty days or

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whatever they said. I think every administration should have a

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doze looking into efficiencies. And finally, I for me, you know,

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mus says they're going to cut a trillion dollars in

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discretionary spending. That's a lot of money. I'm slightly skeptical

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that that's actually going to get done, and it's definitely

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not going to save us as far as our spending goes,

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because it says a lot to do with other programs.

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But that's a that's a great accomplishment, and if he

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does it in one hundred and thirty days, I was

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thinking he might be the first government worker to ever

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accomplish a task on time and get it done right right,

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But the history of government.

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Speaker 2: On that note, I do remember reading about the claim

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he made on the survey costing nearly a billion dollars,

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that both he and Doug Bergham had said that it

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was like eight hundred and seventy million dollars for survey

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work like that, and some media people, you know, rushed

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to the federal government's defense and said they didn't they

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couldn't find contracts supporting this idea. One of the problems

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with everything in life is that I do want people

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to check claims made by Elon Musk and other people.

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And I think the last people on Earth I would

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trust to report accurately on the budget of the federal

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government is anybody in the media. I don't think they

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understand it. I think they play games. I think that

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they if someone tells them, oh, this thing, Elon Musk said,

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isn't true. They'll find some kind of factor figure to

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justify claiming that, But that probably misses a thousand other

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facts that are more important. And I'm not saying that

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Elon Musk doesn't say things that aren't true, or that

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any human says things that aren't true. But it's just

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frustrating how much our media think their job is to

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defend federal employee unions and not to report the truth

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about the problems in our federal government. Uh, can't you

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say something about the federal employees again?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: And I'm very sympathetic to how difficult this must be

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for them to have, for the first time in their

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lives have their jobs be considered something other than lifetime

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gear and tees. But I was looking at all these

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violent protests at TESLA. Yeah, And I don't know how

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to say they all look like federal employees. They were

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seemingly educated, older people who didn't seem to have different

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jobs than that. I don't I'm just like, are these

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protests just antifa of working with federal employees and one

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hundred percent of the people there are one or the other.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there's a lot of just

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ridiculous anger at him that manifests in acts of violence.

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But some of it is definitely it seems to me

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a concerted effort.

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Speaker 2: It is so obviously a coordinated operation. And I do

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think that people who engage in this kind of violence

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and coordinated violence that's clearly well funded and marketed not through,

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they should be held accountable for it.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean this is in many ways.

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I'm not saying every single instance is Sometimes they are

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just people who lose it, you know, I'm not saying

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they don't deserve to be punished. It lose a temper.

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But a lot of this is I would say a

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form of terrorism. I mean, this is a political this

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is a political act, and you're trying to threaten and

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intimidate people who you disagree with. Can I quickly say

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something about that too. You know, we went through years

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and years of FBI warnings about the right wing terrorists

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and MAGA terrorists and you know, nationalists who are terrorists

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and all this stuff. And yet from the beginning of

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the nineteenth century, when you had anarchists and communists blowing

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up Wall Street and all that, until to this day,

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the left wing has been the predominant, you know, group

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that uses terrorism and violence for political means. I mean

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throughout the sixties all the way into the eighties, you

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had all kinds of terroristic acts. In the seventies, they

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were happening weekly, and you know, and and the left

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never takes any responsibility or ownership for that in the

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way that like I was supposed to take ownership for

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the Charlottesville march or something, you know. I mean, they

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support BLM explicitly, and BLM engages in terrorism, and they don't.

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You know, no one ever, you know, in the media

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ever says, oh, the left wing is you know, is terroristic?

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Speaker 2: Well, why yes, No. It's a point of major frustration

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for a lot of Americans. We saw this most notably

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in the twenty twenty situation when you had violent riots

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throughout the country that caused more than two billion dollars

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in insurance claims, arson, looting, you know, destruction of property,

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more than a dozen murders, maybe more than two dozen

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murders or deaths associated with the rioting, and the response

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from the media in corporate America was to give one

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hundred billion dollars to BLM, not to criticize, but to

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actually give them such a transfer of wealth and permanent wealth,

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permanent programs to be racist in hiring or racist in

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promoting people. It was unbelievable. And then you had the

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riot at the Capitol, which was also bad, lasted by comparison,

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about a millisecond compared to the summer of violence. You

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had people, some violent, some not all of them charged

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with felonies, sometimes put in prison for years. The disparity

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is what was so frustrating to people. I will never

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forget that. The attacks on the other branches of government,

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including the White House and the judiciary. There was a

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month's long siege at the Marco Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland,

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and our DOJ said there wasn't much they could do

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because the people were targeting the building during the night time.

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And then compare it with what happened with the rioters,

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where anybody who was in or near Washington, d C.

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Had their credit card information like voluntarily turned over, and

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they lost jobs, and they lost their families, and they

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lost their court cases, and they had couldn't get a

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decent attorney to save their life. And this disparity is

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very frustrating. So I saw Pam BONDI said something about

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how someone who committed an act of terrorism against a

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Tesla dealership would be they'd be seeking twenty years for

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that person, and everyone was like, twenty years for a

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little bit of tiny, little bit of terrorism, And yeah,

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it does seem actually kind of a lot, except that

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nobody said anything when we just went through all of

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the ridiculous. In fact, people did say stuff about the

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January sixth protesters, and what they said was fafo and

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you know, I don't want to do the time, don't

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do the crime, like they were so callous about that,

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And that was you know, much less coordinated or planned

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than what we're seeing here with the nationwide Tesla situation.

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Speaker 1: I would say, just in the same way that not

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every act you know against the Tesla is the same.

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Not every you know, person who participated or whatever in

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January sixth stuff deserved the same. So I agree. I mean,

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twenty years seems pretty pretty steep for an act of

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you know, vandalism on a car. But if you're you know,

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you know, you're destroying a lot of property, as I've

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seen has happened, you know, burning down an entire you know,

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dealership or something. I mean, that's a serious, serious crime.

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So I don't know, We'll see.

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Speaker 2: It's also just a testament, Like there are so many

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problems I have with Elon Musk, mostly related to how

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he believes that you can create children and intentionally deny them.

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You know, I'm a happily married rental unit. But that

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he's willing to do all this is really remarkable for

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the country. You know, he's facing the left. Loved him

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when he was a Lefty, loved him, and he's doing

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what he's doing even though they are trying to destroy him.

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Speaker 3: Now, is Bernie really grassroots or another presidential push? The

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00:20:35,319 --> 00:20:38,200
Watch Dout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every

349
00:20:38,279 --> 00:20:41,000
day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the

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00:20:41,039 --> 00:20:43,920
economy and how it affects your wallet. Bernie and AOC

351
00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:47,400
have gone on a full propaganda gamut blitz for their

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fundraising rallies, but some of these attendees were.

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Speaker 1: Actually paid to be there. Who's really getting paid?

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Speaker 3: Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,

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it's affecting you financially.

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Speaker 1: Be informed.

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Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski, Apple, Spotify,

358
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or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Do low energy today, Molly, I don't Maybe you need

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more coffee.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I can have more coffee. I'm shaking

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right now. You know what I did, Oh my gosh.

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I took my coffee where you know my we grind

364
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the coffee, and I put half decaf in there, in half,

365
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just to like save me from like shaking. I don't

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know what to do. Too much coffee. Can you kill yourself?

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Can you overdose on coffee? Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, you want to be careful also, really so,

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I'm in a family where I'm the only coffee drinker

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and my husband drinks tea, and you know, he's a

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little bit snobby about that. He doesn't really drink that

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much of it to begin with, and then he acts

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like he's a better person than me because he's not

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addicted to haffee.

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Speaker 1: A bunch of hate tea drinkers. They're all they're fancy

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flavors and you can only do it with a certain

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temperature on the water.

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Speaker 2: And oh my god, I will say, I have daughters

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who like tea, and I find that so charming. It's

380
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so cute. You know, they like the whole process and

381
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they really do get into the ceremony of it all,

382
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:14,119
and that's very charming cute. But I need coffee to exist,

383
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and I get headaches if I don't have it. And

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I also just love the taste. So I will say

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I have decreased how much caffeine I have.

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Speaker 1: At the risk of boring our listeners even more, may

387
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I ask, how do you take your coffee? So?

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Speaker 2: I bought an espresso machine from one of my neighbors

389
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ten years ago. It was one of those like little

390
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tinin espresso machines, had never been used. Was in the box.

391
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Got it for eighty bucks. That is a beast. It's

392
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just working so well. So I just make an Americano,

393
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which just an espresso drink with water, and then I

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do add a little bit of.

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Speaker 1: Sweetener and sweetener like one of these non sugar replacement yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like Stevi or Splendor or something like that. Yeah, or sugar.

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I mean, I don't really care. I just I like

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a little bit of sweeter, not much. I can also

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drink it black.

400
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I take milk and a little milk, splash

401
00:23:10,759 --> 00:23:14,640
of milk and some sweetter myself in case any listeners watering,

402
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All right, whatever, I probably should have added more coffee.

403
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,720
Let's let's move on to something I think is interesting.

404
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I don't know. I always sense like when I wrote

405
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a whole book on Europe. Listen, I'm interested in it.

406
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But I always feel like Americans don't really give a crap, right,

407
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I mean, they don't really know or care very much.

408
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But I think it is interesting this next story because

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it speaks to the kind of authoritarianism I think, at

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least that exists in the Western in Western Europe, that

411
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people forget about when they're bashing Hungry or Russia or whatever.

412
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And trust me, I bash those places too. But the

413
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other day, a French court sentenced marine is a marine Lapan,

414
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I forget it. First thing, I think she is now

415
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on the types of jail times. She may, I forget,

416
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but she's gonna be barred from seeking any public office

417
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for I think five years, and she I believe, is

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leading the polls right now in France. The I would say,

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the populist right in Europe is popular. You know, it's

420
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making headways in Germany, Austria, obviously Hungary, but also in

421
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places like France. So I did not know what was

422
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going on with this case. Actually, blindsided me. But so

423
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I went and I read up on it and listen,

424
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it feels like probably La Penn and some of the

425
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people in her party misappropriated money. It wasn't a ton

426
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of money, but it looks like they misappropriated here. It

427
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would probably be like an offense. Who governs that sort

428
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of thing? I forget, but it would be like FC. Yeah,

429
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I think it would be like an FEC offense. Probably

430
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be a fine involved, certainly there would be no jail

431
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time involved. And let's just face it, France is an

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incredibly corrupt place as far as government goes. It always

433
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has been. Much of Europe is that way, with some exceptions.

434
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So but it feels very much like lawfair. It feels

435
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like what was the kind of lawfair that was launched

436
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against Donald Trump here? Did you agree with that?

437
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Speaker 2: Yeah? I believe all politicians are probably corrupt, or so

438
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such a high percentage of them that you can just

439
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round it off to all of them. So I'm not

440
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even interested in the underlying allegation about Marine Lapen. It

441
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sounds like people in her party may have used funds

442
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in a way that the equivalent of the FEC didn't want.

443
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I could not care less. It is so obvious that

444
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the people who claim to care about democracy really care

445
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about power and the rules based order, and any threat

446
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to their way of doing things is punishable by criminal processcution,

447
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or prosecution of some kind. It is obvious that she

448
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has gotten too powerful, that our party has gotten too powerful,

449
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and that people don't want to relinquish their power and

450
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they don't want to face their voters, and so the

451
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only way they can handle it is by doing what

452
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democrats in the United States did, which is lawfair, and

453
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it's disgusting. Also, it's disgusting that there are so few

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political parties in Europe who care about the massive problems

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caused by unchecked immigration and the destruction to the societies

456
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that that can cause. The reason why her party is

457
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rising in influence is because they're willing to talk about

458
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these things. But it does concern me because Jason Willich

459
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had this really interesting tweet about how the only thing

460
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that constrained Democrat law fair in the run up to

461
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the twenty twenty four election it was not the judiciary,

462
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it was the Supreme Court. Every other court was more

463
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,839
than happy to play along with this, like this seems

464
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,920
like legitimate. That's not quite fair. I think Aileen Cannon,

465
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the district judge in Florida, the moment she got that

466
00:27:10,839 --> 00:27:13,960
classified documents case, she was like, well, I'm not going

467
00:27:14,039 --> 00:27:16,160
to roll over here. I'm going to make I'm not

468
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,799
going to accept things just because the government says them.

469
00:27:18,839 --> 00:27:21,319
I'm not going to be deferential to them. And just

470
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that level of oversight at the district court level basically

471
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killed the case until I'm sorry, not.

472
00:27:29,039 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: Just kidding, but also the judge in the Hunter case

473
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where they tried to give him immunity, right, Marlene Norika,

474
00:27:37,599 --> 00:27:38,960
she kind of stepped up also.

475
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Speaker 2: Yeah, when they were like, we have an amazing deal

476
00:27:42,759 --> 00:27:44,720
that we worked out, she was like, this doesn't make

477
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:49,119
any sense at all. Yeah, good on her. Following Margo

478
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,680
Cleveland's reporting, I just went to always remind people of

479
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,039
Margo was the one who reported on that plea arrangement

480
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:00,079
and how atypical it was and outside the norms of

481
00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:05,759
of such federal prosecutions, and that definitely caught the right

482
00:28:05,759 --> 00:28:11,559
people's attention. I hate law fair, I want people. I'm

483
00:28:12,519 --> 00:28:16,559
so okay with people having differences of opinion on everything, immigration,

484
00:28:17,599 --> 00:28:22,319
you know, markets, whatever, the way to manage those debates

485
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,559
is by fighting them out politically, not by putting your

486
00:28:25,559 --> 00:28:29,160
opponents in jail or tying them up with lawsuits, or

487
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,480
making them spend time in a courtroom, or bankrupting them.

488
00:28:32,599 --> 00:28:35,680
You know, it's not that that is not the hallmark

489
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,319
of a free and open society. And the fact that

490
00:28:38,359 --> 00:28:40,279
these people who claim to care about a free and

491
00:28:40,319 --> 00:28:44,599
open society are the ones imprisoning or or banning from

492
00:28:44,599 --> 00:28:47,440
the ballot their political opponents, it just disgusts me.

493
00:28:48,119 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: Well, I obviously agree with you that, you know, the

494
00:28:53,039 --> 00:28:55,480
law fair that happened to Donald Trump was bad for

495
00:28:56,119 --> 00:28:59,480
the Republic, and hope it never happens again. But it

496
00:28:59,519 --> 00:29:01,799
should be noted that this kind of stuff has gone

497
00:29:01,839 --> 00:29:03,519
on in Europe for a long time. In fact, it

498
00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:06,880
happens all over the place. In Israel, for instance, the

499
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,519
judicial branch, which is completely untethered from any kind of oversight,

500
00:29:11,599 --> 00:29:14,519
meaning there is no even constitution they could look to

501
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,640
or anything, has been engaged in lawfair against Natanya, who

502
00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:22,640
I'm not saying is perfect or anything like that for

503
00:29:22,759 --> 00:29:25,880
probably two decades, you know, just trying to get that

504
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,960
guy and put him in jail. In was it Romania?

505
00:29:29,039 --> 00:29:34,839
It was Romania, The EU pressured the government to disqualify

506
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,279
a candidate I forget his name, Georgescu. I think it

507
00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:39,920
is who is, you know, a far right figure. I

508
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:41,759
don't really know how far right he is, because in

509
00:29:41,839 --> 00:29:44,039
the parlance of the New York Times and so forth,

510
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,279
everyone on the right is far right in Europe, so

511
00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:50,400
you never really know. It's the norm in Europe. And

512
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:52,519
I don't see it getting any better because the people

513
00:29:52,559 --> 00:29:56,119
in power, I mean, unless it's some sort of violent

514
00:29:56,759 --> 00:29:58,559
revolt in France over this, I don't know.

515
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 2: You moved on from the Roman But he won a

516
00:30:02,039 --> 00:30:07,599
runoff election, much to everyone's surprise, in December, and they

517
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,359
then declared that that runoff election was invalid because they

518
00:30:11,359 --> 00:30:15,799
claimed that there had been Russian disinformation that tried in

519
00:30:15,839 --> 00:30:19,839
true tactic. And then they removed him from the May

520
00:30:20,039 --> 00:30:24,839
presidential ballot altogether on similar grounds, like he had violated

521
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,480
some election norm.

522
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: Well, the claim was that eight hundred accounts on TikTok

523
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,119
eight hundred. Now, just to put that in perspective, I

524
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,720
assume there are billions of TikTok accounts, right, eight hundred

525
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,200
of them they said had been planted by Russia, which

526
00:30:42,319 --> 00:30:44,119
might well have been there's nothing that you can do

527
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:44,400
about it.

528
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 2: Love that, but also was probably not true. I want

529
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,079
to point you to Matt Taibi's reporting on this, where

530
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,240
we had sometimes foreign groups, sometimes groups supported by our

531
00:30:56,279 --> 00:31:00,839
own government, making claims that there were various accounts that

532
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:06,440
were controlled by Russia, and he looked into these accounts

533
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,240
and it turned out just to be a complete nutter lie.

534
00:31:09,359 --> 00:31:13,400
Sometimes they were people who just disagreed with Neocon foreign policy.

535
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,920
Sometimes they were like farmers in Iowa who also disagreed

536
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,759
with Neokan foreign policy. You can't just make a claim

537
00:31:21,119 --> 00:31:23,200
that things are controlled by Russia and have it be

538
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,559
accepted as fact, particularly after we've gone through years of

539
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,799
having those claims be shown to be completely false. To

540
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:34,039
just accept them uncritically at this point means you're part

541
00:31:34,039 --> 00:31:34,400
of the path.

542
00:31:34,519 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: But okay, true. But even if they are, so, what,

543
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:40,680
there's nothing you can do about that. I mean, Russia

544
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:42,640
can buy some TikTok accounts, what are you going to

545
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,960
do about it? TikTok's owned by China, you know, chicoms.

546
00:31:46,519 --> 00:31:48,759
I recently saw there was some kind of scam here

547
00:31:48,799 --> 00:31:53,839
by Russians to enlist, kind of like right populist Twitter influencers,

548
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:58,279
which there was like four levels removed from the Russians themselves,

549
00:31:58,319 --> 00:32:00,720
as I think that people should fooled. So he is

550
00:32:00,759 --> 00:32:02,440
it with money, but you know, there was no way

551
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,400
for them to know. So what they're involved now and

552
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,160
those people are pro Trump, So now we have to

553
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,559
invalidate candidates. I mean, it's just it's preposterous and we

554
00:32:09,599 --> 00:32:12,000
would never do that even if it were true. And

555
00:32:12,039 --> 00:32:15,039
obviously Russia tries to get involved in elections, especially in

556
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:18,359
places like Romania, Moldovia, you know, in Eastern Europe. But

557
00:32:19,279 --> 00:32:22,359
this is ridiculous. Yeah, you're right, they removed him. I

558
00:32:22,359 --> 00:32:24,440
think his party can still run and I think they're

559
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:26,960
in the lead, but you know, who knows if they're

560
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:28,599
even going to be allowed to take power. I don't

561
00:32:28,599 --> 00:32:29,799
even know, right, I.

562
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:31,359
Speaker 2: Mean, like if you had said, oh, we're going to

563
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,319
get rid of Donald Trump off the ballot, but we'll

564
00:32:33,359 --> 00:32:36,200
let Republicans, you know, we'll let the Republicans pic Nicki

565
00:32:36,319 --> 00:32:38,720
Haley or whatever, that doesn't mean that you haven't just

566
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,240
completely destroyed the integrity of the election.

567
00:32:41,559 --> 00:32:44,359
Speaker 1: You have, Sue, I lived in just so now. I

568
00:32:44,359 --> 00:32:46,640
lived in Romania for six months when I was a kid,

569
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:54,839
buk Yeah, it felt weird. Quick from America nineteen seventy six.

570
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 2: Wait where were you born?

571
00:32:58,839 --> 00:33:00,799
Speaker 1: Queens New York? An American?

572
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 2: I just realized. I was like, wait, was he born

573
00:33:04,079 --> 00:33:06,920
in Hungary? No, your parents came here.

574
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: But Romana. Oh my god, this is gonna be so boring.

575
00:33:10,359 --> 00:33:13,160
So Romania my parents came. Yeah, they defected from Hungary,

576
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,799
but Romania was not was though communists was not was

577
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,160
not as strict I guess as how you'd put it.

578
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,440
You could go there and other people from other communist

579
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,519
countries can visit. So we went there to visit family

580
00:33:25,519 --> 00:33:26,680
and we stayed for a long time.

581
00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 2: Oh that's so interesting. I love it, and so people

582
00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:30,759
and you had to see family members.

583
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: Yes, so it was the first time I had ever seen,

584
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,960
you know, my extended family, and it was the first

585
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,000
time my parents had seen their family. Not all of

586
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,400
them could get out of Hungary. But yeah, so it

587
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:42,880
was I.

588
00:33:42,839 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 2: Think about that all the time, like people who are

589
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,200
willing to leave. I was having dinner with someone who

590
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,359
was from London and when she married her husband, they

591
00:33:52,559 --> 00:33:55,640
moved here and she just doesn't see her family that much,

592
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,640
and that was hard and that's totally free country that's

593
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:00,559
a six hour plane with it's.

594
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:02,559
Speaker 1: Even it was even harder in a weird way because

595
00:34:02,599 --> 00:34:04,920
when you leave, you have to escape, you can't really

596
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:06,960
tell a lot of people. Maybe you tell close family,

597
00:34:07,039 --> 00:34:09,199
you don't want to give it away. So when my

598
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,480
parents got out, they left a lot of family behind.

599
00:34:11,559 --> 00:34:14,079
And those people, frankly, are probably going to be punished

600
00:34:14,079 --> 00:34:15,719
in some way, like they're not going to be able

601
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,039
to get out and go on a vacation Italy or whatever.

602
00:34:18,159 --> 00:34:20,880
You know, So there's sometimes there's hard feelings about that,

603
00:34:21,039 --> 00:34:22,760
and you know, so it's a little bit difficult.

604
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, the checks have made amazing films on that subject

605
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,760
of what it's like for the people who remain behind.

606
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,440
And my I have a really, really good friend. She's

607
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,440
American now and she grew up in Czechoslovakia and some

608
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,480
of her aunts escaped. And one of the weird things

609
00:34:39,519 --> 00:34:41,400
I remember about it is that one of the I

610
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:43,559
think one of the aunts escaped when she was a

611
00:34:43,599 --> 00:34:47,239
young when my friend was a young girl, and she

612
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,280
had said something at school that she shouldn't have said,

613
00:34:50,639 --> 00:34:54,519
and so the family just stopped telling her things because

614
00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:57,360
you know, she couldn't be trusted to completely keep a secret.

615
00:34:58,559 --> 00:35:02,400
And I mean, thinking about all the communism destroys families

616
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,159
and privacy, and just like the intimacy, it's just so sad.

617
00:35:06,199 --> 00:35:11,119
Speaker 1: They definitely use children to turn them against families, you know,

618
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,599
I mean, I have a lot of stories about that.

619
00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:17,480
But yeah, so I mean I just to say I

620
00:35:18,599 --> 00:35:21,280
have tremendous respect for my parents for doing that. It's

621
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,239
a scary thing to do. But also I'm just happy

622
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:25,559
they did it so I didn't to be born in

623
00:35:25,599 --> 00:35:27,719
those hell holes and I could be born here queens.

624
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,679
Ain't that nice? But you know, we moved up. But also,

625
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,159
you know, it's this is just about immigrants who come

626
00:35:33,199 --> 00:35:36,239
here legally. I'm not talking about illegal immigrants that a

627
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,639
lot of times people will call them slave labor and

628
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,559
this and that. But the truth of the matter is

629
00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:43,840
that people do it because there's a generational you know,

630
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,079
there's a generational fight to improve your life. You know,

631
00:35:46,119 --> 00:35:47,519
it's going to be tough for you when you first

632
00:35:47,559 --> 00:35:49,280
get here. My dad was a chemist in Hungary and

633
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:50,880
he came here and he worked in a warehouse, you

634
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,880
know what I mean. So the idea that you should

635
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,960
just get stuff right away and have everything right away

636
00:35:57,079 --> 00:35:59,000
is not how the world works, and it's an expectation

637
00:35:59,039 --> 00:36:05,039
I think underminds good immigration policy too. So what on

638
00:36:05,119 --> 00:36:06,760
earth were we even talking about?

639
00:36:07,159 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: Sorry, there was one other thing I wanted to say

640
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,679
about this election interference, which is I don't necessarily even

641
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,480
have a problem with it. I think it's just normal

642
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:18,400
governmental action, the type we've seen for thousands.

643
00:36:18,079 --> 00:36:19,159
Speaker 1: The way, What do you mean you don't have a

644
00:36:19,159 --> 00:36:19,840
problem with it?

645
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,679
Speaker 2: Well, but with meddling in other people's elections. And I

646
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:26,079
just wanted to say, we also care about who gets

647
00:36:26,079 --> 00:36:30,760
elected in other countries, and we also try to advantage

648
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,880
those candidates that I want, and I don't have like

649
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,639
a huge problem with that. I you know, it's good

650
00:36:37,679 --> 00:36:40,000
to have good candidate, good to have good politicians that

651
00:36:40,079 --> 00:36:43,159
you can have good relationships with other countries, or to

652
00:36:43,199 --> 00:36:46,079
have a weak person so they can be controlled. But

653
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,760
did you read the New York Times story on the

654
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,679
proxy war against Russia being waged by our government?

655
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:57,119
Speaker 1: I did, Molly, because you mentioned it, and I read

656
00:36:57,159 --> 00:36:59,960
everything you suggest I read, so I thought it was

657
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:02,679
really well done journalism. I want to say, I just

658
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:04,880
feel like maybe it's a few years late to read

659
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:06,679
a story like this. Would you agree with that.

660
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 2: So every time there's a New York Times story of

661
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,199
that length and it was literally like twenty five thousand words,

662
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:16,599
I'm assuming that there's something in there that's hidden, that

663
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,320
is explosive, there's like a reason for it being published.

664
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:23,400
I learned this during the Russia collusion hoax, that they

665
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:27,000
would do these stories where they were actually the purpose

666
00:37:27,079 --> 00:37:29,760
was to drop a little bit of information deep into

667
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,199
the story so that later they could claim that this

668
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:34,800
was old news, you know. And so I learned to

669
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,360
read it like you learned to read Pravda. But I

670
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,840
also thought it was, oh, this is really interesting. Clearly

671
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:41,679
talked with a lot of the people involved in the

672
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:47,119
proxy war with Russia using Ukraine. And then I realized

673
00:37:48,679 --> 00:37:50,840
I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal, and so much

674
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:55,000
of the story was about the bungling of various different

675
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:59,440
campaigns and how that happened due to internal conflicts in Ukraine.

676
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,039
But I kept thinking about how the Wall Street Journal

677
00:38:02,119 --> 00:38:05,639
every day, every single day, they'd be like, Ukrainians are

678
00:38:05,679 --> 00:38:09,079
on the verge of defeating Russia, and it was absurd.

679
00:38:09,119 --> 00:38:12,239
It went on for years. They would then they would

680
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:13,920
like every few months be like okay, so it turns

681
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,280
out Russia gained a lot of territory, but the Ukrainians

682
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:21,880
are feeling better than ever. Really read like propaganda, and

683
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:24,360
the New York Times also was doing stories like that,

684
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,760
and I realized this was the New York Times explaining

685
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,639
to its readers that this was a proxy war, which

686
00:38:30,679 --> 00:38:34,559
most of us understood for a very long time, for years,

687
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:37,920
but you probably didn't know if you were just reading

688
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,719
the New York Times. And I think they were also

689
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,000
trying to say, since this is our war, since we're

690
00:38:45,039 --> 00:38:47,079
the ones who gave the weapons, we're the ones who

691
00:38:47,079 --> 00:38:50,400
gave the intelligence, we're the ones directing the strikes, we're

692
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,719
the ones doing this war. If we were to end

693
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,960
this war, this would look like an American loss. I

694
00:38:58,079 --> 00:38:59,960
was kind of like the subtext I picked up from there.

695
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,079
And the thing is, I don't think Americans view it

696
00:39:03,119 --> 00:39:05,519
that way. I don't think they view ending a war

697
00:39:05,639 --> 00:39:09,840
that is three years in and still has no strategy.

698
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:10,679
Speaker 3: Is a loss.

699
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 2: I do think they might think that people who were

700
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:18,320
cheerleading that war are losers, but that doesn't mean it's

701
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,199
an American loss. Does that make sense?

702
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: Makes sense? What you're saying. My perspective is that I'm happy,

703
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:28,880
and I think the Ukrainians did far better than most

704
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,920
people expected in that war because of us. Obviously, after

705
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,800
reading that piece, it's clear and that I'm happy that

706
00:39:35,519 --> 00:39:37,880
Russia has been bled in a way, and I'm sorry

707
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,639
lives were lost, but they started this war, not the

708
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,880
Ukrainians in that sense. But also, how deeply are we

709
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:46,800
going to be ameshed in this thing? And does that

710
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:50,559
help you know our interests? And what interest do we

711
00:39:50,639 --> 00:39:52,719
have there? And how long does this go on? And

712
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:55,480
what is the endgame? All those are really legitimate questions

713
00:39:55,519 --> 00:39:57,119
that for many years, or for a few years, you

714
00:39:57,159 --> 00:39:59,920
weren't even allowed to ask without being called a putin.

715
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,480
I'm definitely not. I would say, I'm kind of I

716
00:40:03,519 --> 00:40:05,320
hate to be in the middle, you know, take the

717
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,159
middle position, but that's where I am on this, and

718
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,280
I think maybe many Americans are that way. They just

719
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:12,760
want it to be over, They want to know what

720
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:14,599
the point is, they want it, you know, and all

721
00:40:14,639 --> 00:40:17,480
of that, and I just I don't This answer is

722
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,599
a lot about why and what was going on during

723
00:40:19,639 --> 00:40:22,800
the Biden administration and why they you know, I don't

724
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,639
know why it was so important to them, I guess,

725
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,880
but it also speaks to a lack of transparency that

726
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,440
most Americans did know we were that involved in this war.

727
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:34,840
And if it reminds you of Vietnam and stuff like that.

728
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:36,559
And I'm not saying that's where we're headed, because I

729
00:40:36,599 --> 00:40:39,760
don't think the American people are there, but that's what

730
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:40,519
it reminded me of.

731
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 2: It definitely, I was thinking about, like this was very reckless.

732
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,920
It's all about how well. It also tries to say

733
00:40:47,119 --> 00:40:49,840
Biden did this and Biden did that. The one thing

734
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,159
we all know is that Biden may not know that

735
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,960
Ukraine is a country. Well, he does, obviously he cares

736
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,320
a lot about Ukraine. His family made so much money there,

737
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,840
but he by this point was not really in a

738
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:02,760
position to know what day of the week it was.

739
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:05,119
So when they're like Biden wanted to do this and

740
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,480
Biden decided to advance here, Biden did not. That was

741
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,239
not Biden. I wish that the article would have explained

742
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,639
who at the White House was running this war. But

743
00:41:14,679 --> 00:41:17,840
I also thought it's not just Biden. You had a

744
00:41:18,039 --> 00:41:20,679
ton of members of Congress on both sides of the

745
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:24,480
Aisle who were clearly very involved. I mean, they were

746
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,760
headed over to Ukraine like it was a commuter shuttle

747
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,719
all the time. They were just constantly dropping in and

748
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,000
coming back, and who knows what they were doing. There

749
00:41:34,199 --> 00:41:36,960
was Republicans and Democrats, and you're right that there was

750
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,880
a lack of transparency. And the reason why that's so

751
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:42,639
much worse than normal with what our government does to

752
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:47,960
meddle is that Russia is a nuclear power with six

753
00:41:48,039 --> 00:41:53,639
thousand nuclear warheads, and when you're butting up against nuclear war,

754
00:41:54,119 --> 00:41:56,559
you kind of want a little more transparency and buy

755
00:41:56,599 --> 00:41:57,840
in from the American people.

756
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,280
Speaker 1: It's weird thing to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

757
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:04,400
I just I know they have nuclear weapons. I don't

758
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:08,280
think they're getting into a nuclear war over Ukrainian provinces,

759
00:42:08,559 --> 00:42:12,400
nor are we. It is dangerous, though, and we need

760
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,519
to be smart about it. And you're right, President Biden

761
00:42:15,639 --> 00:42:17,440
is not someone even though I don't think he was

762
00:42:17,519 --> 00:42:19,280
running the country, it is not someone we can really

763
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,599
rely on to make good foreign policy decisions. So that

764
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:27,400
that was problematic. I feel like now though, Putin, because

765
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,559
of how it went down with Zelenski and Trump and

766
00:42:29,599 --> 00:42:31,320
all of that, Putin feels like he has the upper

767
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,559
hand and it seems like he's going to kind of

768
00:42:34,559 --> 00:42:37,519
now be more reluctant to sign any agreement. That's why

769
00:42:37,519 --> 00:42:39,800
I feel like, with the latest news I've read about him,

770
00:42:40,159 --> 00:42:42,760
I wish there was a way to pressure them just

771
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:44,880
as strongly as we are pressuring Ukraine to make a

772
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:46,920
deal and get this thing over with, even if they

773
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:48,679
lose some land.

774
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, welld on on the nuclear front, I do agree. Actually,

775
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,280
that was one of the other things that was sobering

776
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,760
about reading this twenty five thousand word piece in the

777
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:04,199
New York Times was how the big reason why things

778
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:09,000
didn't get hotter is because Russia seemed disinclined to get

779
00:43:09,039 --> 00:43:11,519
too much hotter. Like you just pointed out, they're the

780
00:43:11,559 --> 00:43:14,199
ones who invaded Ukraine, they're the ones who started this war.

781
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,920
Absolutely true, they're you know, finding out what happens when

782
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:23,719
you do that. But they also didn't respond, you know,

783
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:29,039
when US, when the US led strikes in Russia, they

784
00:43:29,039 --> 00:43:35,480
did not respond too hot of a manner. And I

785
00:43:35,559 --> 00:43:38,320
mentioned that they have the six thousand nuclear warheads because

786
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:43,440
it deals with the actual strategy of the war. So

787
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,000
right now they're not going to deploy nuclear warheads over Ukraine,

788
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,480
mostly because they can probably get what they want without

789
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,360
without coming anywhere close to that. But if this war continued,

790
00:43:55,559 --> 00:43:59,440
if the interventionists had their way, and this was now

791
00:43:59,559 --> 00:44:04,000
a twenty year war and we were going much more

792
00:44:04,039 --> 00:44:07,039
into Russia and we were trying to decapitate Putin and

793
00:44:07,039 --> 00:44:12,079
stuff like that, then you start considering whether to ramp

794
00:44:12,159 --> 00:44:17,159
up your response. And that's why. Actually I saw someone said,

795
00:44:17,639 --> 00:44:21,760
strategy is for things where you want to win. If

796
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,119
you don't want to win, you don't need strategy, And

797
00:44:24,159 --> 00:44:26,360
I think that explains a lot about our foreign policy

798
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:28,400
right now. We don't want to win. We just want

799
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:33,199
to spend money and time in places, and so the strategy,

800
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,360
such as it is, is to spend as much money

801
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,400
and time as we can in a given conflict like

802
00:44:38,639 --> 00:44:42,159
this war started four months after we left Afghanistan. If

803
00:44:42,199 --> 00:44:44,639
we end this war in Ukraine, we're just going to

804
00:44:44,679 --> 00:44:47,280
start somewhere else four months later. You know it just

805
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,280
there's this beast that needs to be fed and you're

806
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,039
not allowed to question it, and it just keeps going.

807
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,039
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but I do want to

808
00:44:57,039 --> 00:45:00,840
know what the endgame is, and if America this involved,

809
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,519
we should be having a much more transparent debate in

810
00:45:03,559 --> 00:45:08,559
Congress and elsewhere about what's going on. I don't know.

811
00:45:08,599 --> 00:45:10,800
This Ukrainian thing I've been reading about, it just doesn't

812
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,320
seem like it's coming to an end yet. And what

813
00:45:13,599 --> 00:45:16,239
do you think that Trump, the Trump administration will continue

814
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,639
just keep funding their weaponry until there's some kind of

815
00:45:18,679 --> 00:45:21,079
agreementment or are they going to leave them leave it

816
00:45:21,119 --> 00:45:23,559
to Europe to do? I don't you know. They say

817
00:45:23,599 --> 00:45:25,119
a lot of things, but I'm not sure there's been

818
00:45:25,159 --> 00:45:29,000
any real policy. I mean, maybe there's been a slight

819
00:45:29,039 --> 00:45:32,039
pullback in that in funding, but there's we're still providing

820
00:45:32,039 --> 00:45:32,599
them weaponry.

821
00:45:32,679 --> 00:45:34,159
Speaker 2: Und I don't think there's any I don't think there

822
00:45:34,199 --> 00:45:37,119
really has been any pullback in funding. I don't know,

823
00:45:37,199 --> 00:45:39,000
and I think we'll know more in the coming weeks.

824
00:45:39,039 --> 00:45:41,920
I actually expect to have a meeting here soon with

825
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:45,119
some people that will keem me into some more of

826
00:45:45,159 --> 00:45:47,519
the strategy and I will bring it back to the

827
00:45:47,559 --> 00:45:49,400
faithful listeners of your wrong.

828
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,199
Speaker 1: We look forward to hearing about it. Would you talk

829
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:53,880
about culture?

830
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 2: Let's do it?

831
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: I have to oh wait, did you watch anything?

832
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 2: I watched a few more episodes of White Lotus, which

833
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,519
I continue to enjoy, although it's like, I can't watch

834
00:46:08,559 --> 00:46:11,239
all of it because it's so not naughty, not he's

835
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:15,719
not even anywhere near the right word for it. Absolutely horrific.

836
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:21,079
But the storyline I'm continuing to enjoy in many ways,

837
00:46:21,159 --> 00:46:22,760
and so I'm looking forward to the end of that.

838
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:25,840
And then I rewatched for like the four hundredth time

839
00:46:26,079 --> 00:46:28,239
with my kid rear window.

840
00:46:29,039 --> 00:46:30,559
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you mentioned that last week?

841
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 2: Wait I did.

842
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: It? Just says when I was talking about adolescens the show,

843
00:46:36,039 --> 00:46:39,800
about the continual the one shot that's.

844
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 2: Not real window, that's rope.

845
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might have. Okay, Sorry, I mixed them up. Okay,

846
00:46:47,679 --> 00:46:48,079
that's it.

847
00:46:48,519 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 2: That's it.

848
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: That's so unfair. Sorry.

849
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 2: I'm also like, while rowing, I watched some of that,

850
00:46:57,039 --> 00:46:59,840
say anything, I don't have anything exciting to say. Please

851
00:47:00,079 --> 00:47:02,320
please help us out with the culture section by having

852
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:03,000
something interesting.

853
00:47:03,039 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: Well, the last two weeks I talked about adolescents, and

854
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:09,880
people will continue to send me stories. Apparently the British government,

855
00:47:10,039 --> 00:47:11,920
you know, is using it to push some kind of

856
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:17,079
left you know, identitarian left wing and you know Islama foe.

857
00:47:17,159 --> 00:47:19,360
I don't know what they're doing and I don't even care.

858
00:47:19,679 --> 00:47:23,639
I told I was telling this to someone before I

859
00:47:24,639 --> 00:47:27,480
liked it on its own in a vacuum. I thought

860
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,360
it was a great show. I can't get involved in

861
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:31,440
the politics of it. Stop writing me letters about that.

862
00:47:31,519 --> 00:47:34,760
I just don't care. Okay, I watched The Residents. Have

863
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:37,119
you heard about the show it's on, not folks. It's

864
00:47:37,159 --> 00:47:40,920
about I would say, very similar In fact, I believe

865
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:46,800
it mocks it mocks the similarity. It's it's almost satirically

866
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:51,920
so called Knives Out that you know, or those kind

867
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,880
of the Agatha Christie setup where Hercule Puro would solve

868
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,559
a mystery. It star as a woman named Azu Aduba.

869
00:48:00,159 --> 00:48:03,480
She's excellent, and I liked it better than Knives Out.

870
00:48:03,519 --> 00:48:04,800
I thought it was fine. I thought it was good.

871
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:07,280
It's about a murder that happens in the White House

872
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,599
during a state dinner North Australia, and everyone is a suspect,

873
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:13,559
you know, staff and so on.

874
00:48:14,079 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 2: Okay.

875
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,559
Speaker 1: Second thing is I would say one of the strongest

876
00:48:18,559 --> 00:48:22,599
recommends I've ever made on this show. Okay, I feel

877
00:48:22,599 --> 00:48:25,199
weird that I've been recommending things so strongly lately, but

878
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,960
this is a series I would maybe I have to

879
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:29,760
think about it a little because it's very important. Put

880
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,280
in my top ten of all time. It's called Patriot.

881
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,639
It's on Amazon. It's not a new show. Have you

882
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:37,880
ever seen or watched this or heard about it?

883
00:48:38,079 --> 00:48:39,679
Speaker 2: Watched it all? How far are you in?

884
00:48:40,039 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: Oh? You have? Oh? I'm in the second season, I

885
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:47,440
guess in the middle. Are almost done? Did you love

886
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:47,880
the show?

887
00:48:48,559 --> 00:48:51,159
Speaker 2: Well? I did. I thought it was amazing and I

888
00:48:51,199 --> 00:48:53,599
was kind of surprised there were only two seasons. It's

889
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:57,119
very weird, I mean, not really weird, but it's not

890
00:48:57,159 --> 00:49:01,039
for everybody. I don't think the character development is amazing.

891
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:03,519
The storyline, so we should.

892
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:03,800
Speaker 1: Talk about it.

893
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 2: So we've got a guy whose dad, he and his

894
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:11,000
dad are both in the Special Services.

895
00:49:10,559 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: CIA, and he has a brother who's a congressman.

896
00:49:14,519 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 2: It was very funny Texas congressman.

897
00:49:18,079 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: And he he joins an industrial engineering firm in Milwaukee

898
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,519
because that's the way for him to get to Luxembourg

899
00:49:26,559 --> 00:49:29,000
where they are making deals with Iranians and so on.

900
00:49:29,079 --> 00:49:31,599
Because he is involved in trying to stop the Iranians

901
00:49:31,599 --> 00:49:33,920
from doing something. I have to be honest with you,

902
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,400
that's kind of the foundation of the plot. But it's

903
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,719
almost not even that important to the movie because it's

904
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:45,960
actually very character driven, right, Yes. The star's name is

905
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:51,800
Michael Dorman. He is a new from New Zealand. People

906
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,119
kiwi's I don't know. You would never know that. Yeah,

907
00:49:55,119 --> 00:49:58,000
you would never know because his accent isn't there. But

908
00:49:58,639 --> 00:50:02,960
what so would you say? Like the show has the

909
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,159
sensibilities of an indie movie in a way, you know,

910
00:50:06,519 --> 00:50:07,760
it's quirky.

911
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,599
Speaker 2: One of the things about the guy is that he's

912
00:50:10,599 --> 00:50:11,360
a folk singer.

913
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,840
Speaker 1: So he's a folksinger on the side, and he's constantly

914
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:19,280
singing about his missions and stuff. It is so funny.

915
00:50:19,639 --> 00:50:22,760
It's so so funny. So he'll like do something terrible

916
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:24,360
and then he goes to an open mic night and

917
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:26,440
he's singing about like the stuff that he did, but

918
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:29,480
no one is really listening or taking it seriously. He's

919
00:50:29,519 --> 00:50:32,960
talking about murders and you know, plots against the arians.

920
00:50:33,079 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 2: He does not have good operational security. I can't remember

921
00:50:37,159 --> 00:50:41,280
how things ended, but I remember thinking that I was

922
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,039
frustrated that it only lasted two seasons, and then I

923
00:50:44,079 --> 00:50:46,320
also thought it kind of ran out of gas and

924
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:47,719
that they didn't know what to do with it.

925
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: Well, it was not popular, so not a lot of

926
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,840
people have watched it, but I've learned since mentioning this

927
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,800
on Twitter that the people who don't do like it

928
00:50:57,159 --> 00:51:03,960
love it. Yes, there's a podcast that goes through every

929
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:08,719
episode and it's been going on for years, and some

930
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,639
guys showed me that you can actually buy the book

931
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,000
Integral Principles of the Structural Dynamics of Flow, you know

932
00:51:17,039 --> 00:51:19,159
the book He's Got to get his hands on. There's

933
00:51:19,159 --> 00:51:23,559
a fake version of that. Yeah, and you can. You

934
00:51:23,599 --> 00:51:25,639
can listen to the songs now if you want to

935
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,199
check it out. Just in a little snippet, I would

936
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:32,960
recommend watching the song called French Gun. He sings about

937
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:34,719
how he has to get a gun, how he has

938
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:36,719
to get his hands on a gun in France to

939
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:41,159
get strapped in France. Anyway, I just you know, it's

940
00:51:41,199 --> 00:51:43,119
not a perfect show, and sometimes it gets a little

941
00:51:43,159 --> 00:51:45,519
slow here and there, but I say overall, I just

942
00:51:45,559 --> 00:51:47,440
have you know, I have a good time watching it.

943
00:51:47,519 --> 00:51:49,440
I want to see the next episode. I care about

944
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:51,239
the characters. I want to see what happens to them,

945
00:51:51,559 --> 00:51:54,679
including the people he works with, including his dad, including

946
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:59,280
his his friend. He makes. It's just fantastic. Yeah, I

947
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,760
wasn't very popus. There's only two seasons. One of them,

948
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:04,480
I think sort of short, and the.

949
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,400
Speaker 2: Second season is shorter. I am a little concerned that

950
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:09,599
you and I agree. I don't think that's happened before.

951
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:14,159
Speaker 1: It has happened. Okay, I'm happy. I'm happy like this show.

952
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,840
Can I say this without sounding like a smug or

953
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,320
pompous or something or whatever I sound like here? But

954
00:52:19,599 --> 00:52:21,559
don't you feel like it has The show's just has

955
00:52:21,599 --> 00:52:25,199
a gen x show, very gen xy sensibilities. Oh interesting,

956
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,159
Like even the second season starts with the Beastie Boys

957
00:52:28,199 --> 00:52:30,519
flute from whatever that song is, And you're like, I'm in,

958
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:31,519
don't stop.

959
00:52:32,039 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, So how did you come across it?

960
00:52:34,039 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 1: If I'm ask you know, I believe I started watching

961
00:52:37,039 --> 00:52:40,199
it years ago and then forgot about it or something,

962
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:44,360
and then I was I was looking for working on

963
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:46,320
a project. I don't want to talk about that exactly,

964
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,440
but I was looking for sort of spy shows and

965
00:52:50,119 --> 00:52:53,000
things about spies, and it came up on a list

966
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:59,079
and and I thought I'd give it a shot. Oh wow,

967
00:52:59,079 --> 00:53:01,960
we agree, And that's a strong recommend And I'm sure

968
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,719
I'll hear from people that how terrible it is. All right,

969
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:09,800
that's all I have, It's all you have. All right.

970
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:14,599
We'll be back caffeinated next week. But until them be

971
00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:17,840
lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. The Jankie

972
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:23,679
Plan begins today. Today I started to make my way

973
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:25,159
to a friends guy

974
00:53:27,639 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 3: Do