Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist and
David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, if you'd like to mail us, please do
so at ready at the Federalist dot com. We love
to hear from you, Molly. I just want to tell
you one thing. I forgive you for all the things
you've done to me in the past ten years. Even
though I can't think of anything bad that you've done,
but just in case, I'm going to preemptively pardon you
for all your wrongdoings.
Speaker 2: Good you say ten years, If we can get closer
to eleven, that would be good.
Speaker 1: It was a little over. It's basically how long I
know you, actually, So I forgive you for everything I
think we met in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I had made as much money and
had as much fun partying as Hunter Biden did during
those years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't. No, I can't forget. I have no
pardon powers to forgive you for writing off krack and
hookers on your taxes.
Speaker 2: Also, so yeah, so much to talk about here with
the Hunter Biden pardon. A lot of people seem to
be focused on one of the things that I didn't
think was the most important thing, which is Joe Biden.
And many people in his administration promised America that they
would not that he would not pardon Hunter Biden for
the very few things he was charged over of all
the things he had done, and it was a main
talking point during the campaign. You know, it was a
great example supposedly of how how much Joe Biden upholds
rule of law even when it hurts him personally, versus
Donald Trump, who was complaining about these politicized prosecutions. And
so when he parted and a lot of people were saying,
the man is going to pardon his son, Like it's
going to happen. I thought maybe Kamala would pardon him
if she were elected, or Trump would maybe even pardon him.
It was not outside the realm of possibility, given how
Trump feels about political opponents and how you let bygones
be bygones after you win a tough election, or that
Joe Biden would pardon him. And we got the Joe
Biden pardon, and we got it early before sentencing. Usually
pardons are issued on the way out the door.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this was all predicated on the mythology
that we're talking about, you know, an honest person in
any way, he's one of the most he's one of
the shadiest, you know, most mendacious people who's ever been
in Washington, Joe Biden. You know, it's not I didn't
know that he would do it, honestly, but I because
I actually hadn't wasn't thinking about it. But it wasn't
surprising to me at all. Right, I mean, he's always
been a liar, not a fat you know, but also
a liar. But I think it does There are many
levels to this one one just because you mentioned what,
you know, what the left was saying about how you know,
what a great character Biden had, because you know, he
let his own son be prosecuted. First of all, that's
BS two. But here's the thing. Maybe this is why,
maybe he knew he was going to be part and
this is why his lawyers kept rejecting like the the
the plea deals that were just these sweetheart deals, and
that he wouldn't even take them because he knew in
the end they were already talking about this. I don't
you know, that's just speculation, obviously. But what made me
laugh the most is that people say, if you know,
and they've been saying this forever, if he didn't have
a last name of Biden, he never would have been
prosecuted at all. Which the opposite of that is true
in the sense that if he didn't, yeah, if he
didn't have this last name. First of all, he would
never have been able to set up his multimillion dollar
lundering you know, favor trading, you know business. He never
would have had been able to peddle and launder his art,
you know, for millions of dollars, or write a self
serving memoir about his horror mongering, or you know, drop
a gun next to a high school and get away
with it. Essentially, he wouldn't have done those things, but
he would have been He would have faced decades in
jail if his name wasn't Biden. And the if it
wasn't and the thing is that David Weiss and prosecutors
wanted to give him a pardon already. The deal that
they had in place was a pardon. And if it
wasn't for this judge Marlene I forgot her last name Norika,
maybe if she hadn't been like Noriaeika, if she hadn't
been like whoa Can you give me an example ever
of someone basically, you know, giving immunity for a case
that isn't even in front of the court too. They're
like no, and she's like, this is ridiculous. Go back,
and then two piddling charges and then you know, and
then we're here. And by the way, a lot of
people frame this as a pardon on gun and tax charges. No,
he gave him an across the board immunity on bribery
and corruption and anything else going back over ten years.
Speaker 2: It's under age sex trafficking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, completely unprecedented in history. And don't get me wrong,
I think a lot of presidents abuse their pardons. I
don't think I've ever seen anything like this. And my
last point just before we move on, is that people
have to remember this is also for Joe Biden. He's
doing it for himself. The reason that the Justice Department
would never allow Hunter to get, you know, be in
front of a jury in any real way or be
prosecuted in a real way is because every question leads
to Joe, and leads to his uncle and leads to
the whole business, every one of them. I know I
sound like I'm being a conspiracy theorist, but we have
tons of circumstantial evidence, if not more, really that this
is the case. Anyway, that's my take on it.
Speaker 2: Well, all very well said. I want to add a
few other things. One that the Biden family business, which
involved Hunter being one of the primary bag men, but
not the only one, involved a lot of different members
of the Biden family, and the whole business like people
never stop and think what was this business providing? Why
were they bringing in millions of dollars? What did they provide?
And the lack of curiosity about the answer to that
question from many in corporate media is infuriating. The lack
of curiosity from investigative bodies is infuriating. But just the
sort of big picture look at it is they got
money in exchange for access to Joe Biden. So you're
absolutely right. If Hunter Biden's last name were not Biden,
he would not have made this money and he would
not have engaged in this particular type of law breaking.
But that whole business, family business was very unseemly. And
if Hunter Biden's last name weren't Biden, but were instead,
say Trump, corporate media would have run over every little
morsel of that and made it into a massive story.
And we know that because the Trump family was legendarily
involved in international business. They were known for being in
international business with properties all over the world, and our
corporate media dug into every single one of those properties
and transactions trying to find nefarious wrongdoing and were unable to.
But they dug They just didn't do the digging with
Hunter Biden, and then you talked about Weiss. I don't
think that enough has been said about how bad of
a special counsel he was, so he knew he had
access to so many of the issues in play here
during the Trump presidency and went out of his way
to bury it. I would highly recommend reading Margot Cleveland's
ground breaking work on this for us at the Federalist,
where she showed what was known and what he hid,
and some of what he hid or downplayed it actually
expired under the Statute of Limitations. So he was a
recipient of politicized justice, but not a victim of it.
He was a beneficiary of it because everyone involved at
the Department of Justice, and a lot of the people
at the IRS. You you have the two whistleblowers who've
laid it out without debate, basically how much the IRS
worked to cover up for Hunter Biden at the State Department.
Whatever the agencies were, they were going out of their
way to not flag or not hold accountable Hunter Biden
for his role in this corrupt family business. So Weiss
is a bad guy. I love what people say. He
was appointed by Donald Trump. Yes, among many weak or
bad people at the Department of Justice, appointed by Donald Trump,
and his reputation among people who actually cared about investing
gating was horrific. And as you pointed out, he tried
to arrange the basically, he tried to arrange a pardon
for Hunter Biden through the courts. It was Marco again
who highlighted a lot of the problems with this and
that Judge Norieka found too troublesome to sign off on,
and he ended up being charged on like Pittily anti
stuff instead of the actual crimes. And so Joe Biden
coming out and saying he was this victim of politicized
justice A I love the admission. I love it truly
that his Department of Justice is corrupt and politicized. It's
helpful because it's true, but he's wrong, exactly one hundred
and eighty degrees wrong about how that affected his family.
Speaker 1: Unlikely he wrote that letter to be honest. I saw him.
Have you seen him in Africa? They can barely like
put together a sentence, so he's just really Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about how I feel like Donald Trump
is being president through space and time right now, like
he's doing things to kind of help the country and
he's not even president yet, you know, telling Pierre Trudeau
and Claudia Shinbaum that they need to close their borders
with the US and explaining to them that if it's
not done by day one, there will be problems. It
kind of reminds me of how Reagan was able to
affect the Iranian hostage crisis before he was even president.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get to some other stuff he's
done that is basically presidential actions of a president not
being president. But I just want to touch on a
few things that you reminded me of. If it weren't
for those two irs whistleblowers, there would have been no charges.
There would have been no charges. Probably they ran out
the statute of limitations on a bunch of the more
you know, serious charges for him. The doj did. I
just want to mention something Jonathan Chait wrote that made
me laugh. He says, first of all, let's remember that
four years everyone was like Biden had nothing, that Joe
had nothing to do with this. It's nothing to do
with Joe, you know, the president himself. Joe Biden himself
lied during a debate and other times saying that he
never once spoke to son about anything that had to
do with this, which was a lie. So it's not
surprising that he lied about this. I love how, you know,
I see writers from the Atlantic, they are shocked. They
feel like trade by Joe Biden had lied. He literally
guide lies about everything anyway. The other thing is this
whole idea that as a father, you know, the love
of a father makes him, you know, have to pardon
pardon his hunter retroactively for eleven years, exactly to the
point when he started working for the Ukrainian Energy Concern
for fifty k to eighty K a month. Right, that's
a weird, weirdly specific time and also.
Speaker 2: At the point that Joe Biden was taking over being
the Ukrainian point man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: It's not a loving pardon for a son. It's a
self part for himself. And it's also not loving. I
get so annoyed about people talking about how there was
that Axios reporter and he's not even the worst one.
I think his name is Alex Thompson or something, where
he was saying this is like a tragic love story. Okay,
if your son is an addict, one of the things
a loving parent would do would be to not put
him in charge of the corrupt family business that requires
him to travel all over the world, be doing high
risk activity, putting him in locations where his demons are
more likely to flourish, whether that's paying young women for
sex and abusing them and drugs, and you know, that's
not what a loving father does. A loving father probably
wouldn't run for president, by the way, And you see
this actually on both sides of the aisle, and it
really bothers me when people put personal or professional stuff
above caring for their children who are in crisis. Not
that I can understand writing Hunter biden off or making
it where he's unable to affect the rest of the
family because of his addictions, but that's not what was
happening here. It's not loving, and that a man who
will not meet his own grandchild, his own granddaughter, who's
probably like seven now or how old is she, I
don't know, four.
Speaker 1: Or five whatever he I mean, he did not acknowledge
her existence. I mean, that's just what.
Speaker 2: He acknowledged her existence for years and still has not
met his own grandchild. I can understand not liking her
mother and not wanting to have a relationship with her,
but how can you do that with your own grandchild,
no matter the circumstances of our birth. It's not loving,
and it's not what a good person does.
Speaker 1: He's a bad person. And let me give you another
example of how he's a bad person. He uses his
son's death from cancer constantly, for you know, he politicists,
politicizes it and uses it to push whatever, you know, whatever,
whatever self aggrandizing speech he's giving. And you wouldn't do that.
A good person wouldn't do. I've never seen a good
person talk about their children in that way. If he
was a good dad, he never would have ran for
president knowing what his son had done. Even the Obama
administration knew something wrong was going on there. There are
stories from those years when the Times was trying to
undermine Joe Biden because they didn't want him to run
for president. They want someone more left wing, I think,
even though I'm sure they got what they wanted with
him in the end. But now, if here's what John
Shay read I was going to tell you, he says
Hunter right, Biden ran a business quote based on selling
the perception of access to his father. Now, first of all,
we don't know that that's true because we've never investigated
this at all. But if that's the case, isn't Joe
how could Joe Biden has to let that happen. There's
no way he's not allowing that perception to exist, because
we have evidence that he met he met with the
Ukrainian businessman, we have evidence that he had Hunter on
the plane going as vice president going to China, and
a bunch of other stuff. So that makes him a
bad person and a corrupt person. Even if it wasn't illegal,
it would be corrupt. And like you said, no one
cared enough really to take a deep dive on that
in the media.
Speaker 2: So well, I have a question. Yeah, there was also
a commentary about how pardoning your son for these things
is what anybody would have done. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Listen, I would do a lot for my kids, but
I know that I would never put myself in that
kind of position to begin with. I don't think that
makes me any great person. I think it makes me
a normal person. They say it's because Trump is going
after his enemy is and seeking vengeance and all that.
I say, he might.
Speaker 2: Use the Department of Justice the way we did, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly, but it's not. It wouldn't even be in the
way they did. In my opinion, I think that the
lawfair stuff against Trump, for instance, was bogus, whereas I
don't actually think this is bogus. And if Hunter Biden
broke the law and we have evidence and the Justice
Department can find that evidence, you know, put him in jail.
I mean, you know so.
Speaker 2: And you say that someone who doesn't even believe he
should have been charged on the gun issue because you
think that's unconstitutional that he was lying on a form
about whether he was using drugs. You think that's a
non constitutional question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's. I think it underminds the Fifth Amendment.
I think it's self incriminating, and it undermines first of all,
I'm not even sure why you should lose a right
just because you've broken the lawn and misdemeanor right. But
I actually think the whole forms on constitution. I think
people should be able to go buy guns.
Speaker 2: I had this fantasy that there would be a US
versus Biden case that would overturn these unconstitutional It.
Speaker 1: Was a dream. It was a dream. I wrote a
column of that, Yeah, Biden v. Biden in the Supreme
Court on the gun chart, you know, to Underiden.
Speaker 2: Took it away from you. Well, I was thinking about
it because everyone just was saying, oh, he did the
right thing. He pardoned his son. That shows that he's honorable.
And I distinctly have this memory in my young twenties
of my mother telling me apropos nothing like this is.
I'm out of the house. There's no indication that I'm
a lawbreaker of any kind. And she just kind of
decided to share with me that if I ever broke
the law, she would personally take me down to the
authorities and.
Speaker 1: I would bury the body for my kids, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2: So well, my mom would not and I think about
it all the time with my own kids, because we
have you know, different family members or different people. We
know where the kids, including adult kids, are engaged in
bad behavior, and how the parents react to that is different.
And I've always assured my children that I am not
going to be an enabling type mother in case they,
you know, have problems with addiction or anything like that.
I'm just like letting them know I'm not the one
like it's going to be hard, but I am going
to let you be on the street. So I think
I'm very much in my mother's footsteps that way, but
I also push marsh I also posted a picture of
a very famous scene in Roman history of when Brutus,
not the Brutus you're thinking of, but Lucius Junius Brutus
oversees the execution of his two sons because you know,
he he had done all the hard work of creating
the republic and then his sons engaged in a coup
to restore it to the monarchy, and so he was like, well,
then they have to be killed, and he oversaw it,
and he it's sort of this you know, moment where
you uphold certain principles above family issues justin hibarious.
Speaker 1: But let me just tell you something I don't know
even know if that's real, but it could be. I
think it was just a lesson to like, let's I'm
not challenging what you're saying. I think it's it's in
you know, it's Roman. Can I say, it's part of
like Roman lore and you know how Roman statesmen conducted
themselves and all that. But I think it was a
warning to people.
Speaker 2: But I just want to say that it's almost certainly apocryphal,
like didn't actually happen, and yet it's still a major
story in Roman history and there's like tons of art
done about it and there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's like Cincinnatus, you know, like I mean,
it's important and like to the Roman ethic and all
of that, these stories are super important.
Speaker 2: Anyway, going side, we should have a piece on this
issue at some point this week at the Federalist on this.
Speaker 1: But it's really wow.
Speaker 2: By your wrong listener. No less.
Speaker 1: Everyone say you're a wrong listener.
Speaker 2: Who matters?
Speaker 3: They allow irs agents to go after you even though
they don't pay their taxes. Watched out on Wall Street
Podcast with Chris Markowski. Every Day, Chris helps unpack the
connection between politics and the economy and how it affects
your Walt the irs A agents audered in you oh
a lot in back taxes six thousand IRS workers oh
a total of fifty million dollars. Whether it's happening in
DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Quickly. Another topic that's sort of related to this is,
you know, so you can't have a country like this
where you know, I keep hearing remember when Joe Biden
said no one was above the law. Everyone keeps pointing
out that he said that. Now you know his son
is above the law. But you know, James Clapper is
above the law. John Brennan's above the law. Eric Holder
is above the law. Andy mckaye, the Obama folks are
above your law, yea. And all the Bidens are above
the law. So you know what, I do not like.
Speaker 2: It when people say, oh, we can't have retribution. No,
we shouldn't have retribution. We should have justice. And when
you're engaged in coups and when you're lying about people
and running smear operations or using the rule of law,
manipulating it to destroy political enemies. You should be held
accountable for that. That doesn't mean it's retribution. It means
it's justice and restoring the Department of Justice to justice
and making it clear that you can't do these things
that put the country on the brink of disillusion. That's
a good thing for rule of law. So I don't
want to actually burn it down, but I do think
so long as people aren't held accountable, this will continue,
and you.
Speaker 1: Have to I don't want to. Yeah, I don't want
to punish innocent people. I want to go after the
guilty people. There used to be sort of a mutually
assured destruction sort of idea in Washington. If we kill
the filibuster, they'll kill the filibuster for us. If we
go after their guys, they'll go after our guys. You know,
I'm not saying that's always great, because sometimes it leads
to sort of you know, institutional corruption in a way
by looking the other way, you know, against political enemies
and stuff like that, but are political opponents. But at
this point, I don't see how else we can move forward.
You can't just have one team come in every time
they come in. They just you know, do the Russia
collusion thing, to go do the law fair thing, and
then the other side's not supposed to do anything. I mean,
I don't really know how you can have a country
like this, But any who, do you think this sets
a precedent in the future. I mean, do you think
Trump's gonna be like, yeah, I'll just have all my
kids and giving pardons ten years back just in case.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. But I don't know, I have
I could be totally wrong, and I could be very
pollyannish about things, but I feel like a fever has
broken in the country. And what happened over the last
four years in particular, but really leading up to the
last four years, this use of the Department of Justice
to keep the establishment happy and to hurt the country.
There was a resounding rejection of that. We also had
because of the hubris of Merrick Garland and Jack Smith.
We had some decisions from the Supreme Court that clarify
the role of presidential authority. Like I was just thinking,
pardoning your son to protect yourself is exactly the kind
of thing that would have been viewed as possibly prosecutable,
you know, prior to when Jack Smith does these renegade cases,
and the Supreme Court is like, we're not going to
let official acts in any way be investigated, you know,
and so even if they help yourself. And I think
it was almost a question in orl argument or something,
or maybe I just read something about it, like what
if you're using the pardon authority corruptly? I was like, well,
but you do have that constitutional right anyway, My point
just being I'm hoping we're going to see some justice here.
Maybe that's maybe I'm very naive and a return to
law and order probably very naive, And therefore there are
no pardons of children. On the other hand, I don't know.
I don't know. I just don't. I just sort of
don't see it happening. But I'm not totally sure.
Speaker 1: I had noted on Twitter or I thought that the
pardon I think pardons have been abused for a long
time by presidents, to be honest, and I thought that
was maybe one of the things in the Constitution that
I don't like, and it could be one of the
things that would be wide agreement on to amend, in
the sense of saying you can't pardon family members. You
can't you know that sort of thing, but some constitutional
scholar types, you know, they kind of pushed back on it,
and I think the founders hadn't My case was that
the founders didn't know what low character or presidents would
have moving forward.
Speaker 2: But I actually I do not remember exactly, but I'm
pretty sure that this was a point of debate with
the creation of the Constitution and that people were worried
that corrupt people would abuse this process. I tend to
be a fan of pardons, like I feel like sometimes
injustice just rises to the point that nobody can take
care of it other than the president. And I'm not
or you know, enough years have passed that you just
want to allow something to go. I kind of like
the mercy shown in those last minute pardons. There have
been a lot of examples of bad pardons. Sorry, did
you see the story about the view co host Anna
Navarro saying that FDR had pardoned his brother in law Wilson.
Speaker 1: So Will said, I think wasn't it the Butts?
Speaker 2: She'd gotten it from AI, and just that AI is
playing games and telling people that FDR had a secret
brother in law named Wilson de Butts and he was pardoned.
Speaker 1: So es Squire said that Neil Bush had been pardoned
by the first Bush presidency, which is untrue. He was
not pardoned. But they bring up Charles Kushner, which is
Trump pardoned his son in law's dad. It was involved
in some wacky stuff, you know, but he's yeah, he
served his time. He did not. It wasn't a blanket
pardon of all things he might have done going back years.
And the other one was Clinton's brother, and he also
I think served his time or like paid paid his price,
whatever it was. Those are very different, though I don't
love them either, I have to say, but you know,
they're different, and just on the on the pardons, I
want to say, I have changed my mind a little bit.
You know. Someone pointed out to me that they didn't
there were no term limits on presidents, so they didn't
really think about impeachment. Was the prescription for bad pardons?
You know, they thought and they didn't think about lame
duck congresses and things like that. I would like to
I think they should impeach uh Biden just as they
did Trump after his presidency. Didn't they impeach him after
his presidency? Hum? You know, I'm always up for an impeachment.
So you know, what I.
Speaker 2: Wanted to say was that I do hope. I mean,
I would love if if Biden underage sex trafficker, drug user,
FARA violator.
Speaker 1: You know, was it underage because I tried to like
get find that for sure, but it wasn't positive on that.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that's just I actually don't
think any of this stuff has been investigated to the point,
so I should say alleged, alleged to have engaged in
some shady prostitution practices if he deserves a pardon. I
would love to see Joe Biden pardon the pro life
men and women grandparents that he has in prison for
praying outside abortion clinics. I think the j six protesters
have gone through enough, so he should pardon them and
maybe commute the sentences of anyone who was violent again,
They've served their time. This has gone on long enough.
What about other transition people? What are you thinking about
the transition situation? My colleague, my former colleague, Pete Hegseth,
has been getting a lot of pushback from corporate media.
Speaker 1: I mean this, listen, I'm just upfront, I've never met
the guy. Maybe he's the worst guy on I don't know.
I don't know anything about him. I just know that
people I trust i'm friends with like him personally, But
I don't know even people you like could do bad,
you know, stuff that isn't great. The problem for me
is that the that I don't trust anyone in the
media who's reporting on this stuff at all. These are
the same people who did Kavanaugh and all of that.
This story in NBC News about how he's drunk at
work and everything has ten anonymous sources. I don't understand
why you get to be anonymous if you're a former
worker there. So I don't trust that. And here's why
I really don't trust it. Did anyone call you you've worked
with him? Did anyone call Will Kine he worked with him?
They don't. You don't call the co hosts of the guy,
but you call some third rate, you know, line maybe
cub producer about this. So and also that story links
to Jane Mayer, who is a known liar in my end,
any one who earnestly links to her should never be trusted.
And that story doesn't need to be you know, I
don't trust that story. That said I don't know, I
mean there's a report that Trump is looking into maybe
having DeSantis in that role. I don't think that. I mean,
that doesn't seem like something DeSantis would want to do.
It doesn't seem like Trump to me very much either,
But I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, Okay, So just to me, there are different
issues in play here. One are the nature of the
attacks on Pete haig Seth, And the second thing is
what the actual opposition to Pete hagg Seth is. So
on the nature of the attacks, they're just like completely
made up. You're absolutely right. There were two dozen on
the record Fox employees, by being one of them, who said,
this just does not This is no way matches with
what we know him to be. This guy who's had
to get up at like three am four years to
host a very early morning show. If he were a drunk,
his two co hosts sitting inches from his face would know,
and they both say, it's just a complete nutter lie. Also,
I have I mean, I work out of DC and
he works out of New York. But we've you know,
so I don't know him like super well, but in
so far as I know him, it's just not true
in any way. And I have done TV at MSNBC, CNN,
and Fox, and so I've certainly encountered people who are
drinking in drinking on TV or prior to doing TV.
You can smell it, you can sense it, you can
you just you know, you know what it's like. And
it's just not Pete at all.
Speaker 1: Now, I honestly TV would be TV would be a
lot better if people drank a little more, probably, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry, And it is true that Pete has you know,
complicated marital history, and he has completely owned up to that,
you know, and it's in my view not in fact, Like,
one of the things I know about him is that
he is very honest about his failings and very humble
about them and repentant. And so it really annoys me
to see some of this stuff also because it has
nothing to do with why people actually oppose him. The
military industrial complex does not care about marriage or drinking,
neither which are live issues for him. They do care
about continuing their particular method of controlling the Pentagon, and
they do view him as a threat that way. And
so that's one of the things I find so annoying
In Washington, d C. This is a town that does
not care about infidelity. I cannot tell you how many
times I've been kind of made fun of for caring
about it or drunkenness. It's sadly a town that is
full of alcoholics, people with serious problems, and they don't
care about it. What they care about is continuing the
way things have been for decades. You have this change
election where the people are pushing for not having the
military be the way it is and having it instead
be like a world class fighting force. It's ready to
defend the nation's interests wherever we need to, and that's
what the opposition is about. That's why Joni Earnst and
Lindsey Graham are sort of secretly leading this opposition. Other
people in that military industrial complex operation are doing this.
I just wish they would be honest about why they
oppose him, or Tulsi Gabbard or Cash Betel or you
know what I mean. They're not being honest about the
actual nature of their disagreement, and I find that dishonorable.
Speaker 1: I do want to add something to what I said
about how I want people to fix things. I don't
want them to fix all things. I want them to
fix the Department of Defense, the Justice Department to some extent,
but I want them to destroy the Department of Education, Department,
you know, the agg Department, the Energy Department. These things
should not exist at all. And anything Doge or anyone
can do to shrink them or destroy them or limit
their power, I think is good for the United States
because Democrats are going to come back at some point
and start trying to rebuild it again. So I think,
you know, I saw that Elon Musk sent out this
amazing video of Milton Friedman being interviewed where the Hoover
Institution person's asking him which departments should be Peter Robinson.
He's like, no, no, no, no, no, accept the Department
of Defense, I guess, and some others that are actually
constitutionally necessary, you know. Anyway, So that that is my
position on that. I I have some hope that that
that that that that will happen to some extent. Obviously,
I think clearing out the swamp or whatever is going
to be a lot more difficult than people think. So
you had mentioned earlier that the that Trump is already
basically acting as a de facto president right when he
had Trudeau and told him apparently that if Canada, if
he destroyed Canada with tariffs, that they could become the
fifty first state, and he could utch it could be
the governor of the fifty first state. I don't know
if people know this, but the per capita income of
a Canadian is lower than that of a per capita
income of a person in Mississippi. So Canada would be
our poorest state for sure. But I was really taken
aback by what he said about the hostages in Israel,
and I have his wait just real.
Speaker 2: Quick on the Canada thing. I thought it was funny
that Canada, which is slightly larger than the United States
and has many provinces ten right, I don't know how many,
It doesn't matter, thirteen doesn't matter. He was like, you
could become the fifty first state. Like they don't even
get the honor of each of their provinces becoming a state.
Speaker 1: Well, I saw someone say Trump probably couldn't even name
all the provinces. Yeah, that's true. Most Americans probably can't
because we don't.
Speaker 2: My bro married a Canadian woman, and when he was
courting her, her father was quizzing my brother with all
sorts of things, you know, Canadian related, including you know,
naming the provinces and their capitals, and he totally aced it.
And then my brother asked him to name all fifty
states and he couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot about Canada because I'm a
big hockey fan, so I have to know about where
like Edmonton and Calgary and Winnipeg are. I would move
all those immediately, move all those you know, those teams
from those fake cities to real cities like Dayton or
Jacksonville or whatever.
Speaker 2: Have you spent time in Canada.
Speaker 1: I've been a Toronto Montreal, so I feel.
Speaker 2: Like it is the Uncanny Valley of the United States.
Like it almost seems like you're in your own country,
but you're not. You know, there are these like slight differences,
like yeah, if they were trying to convince you that
you're in America, but then they you know, it sort
of works and like they sort of sound American and
a lot of the same things are up there, and
then you'll just encounter things that they the algorithm got
it wrong. This is not what I could expect.
Speaker 1: It's like when they film movies in Toronto and pretend
it's New York and you're like, something is off here.
Something's too nice about this, you know. Yeah, I mean
I think Canada is sort of a parasitic state, honestly.
I mean, I think it's economy is completely relying on ours.
I think Trump's wrong with this thing that they're ripping
us off. We're far wealthier than they are. If we
didn't have a trade and balance, it would mean that
we're equals, which were not. But I do always appreciate
anyone dunking on Canada. So even though I disagree with
the underlying argument, I'm off for it. But anyway, what
do you call a truth social tweet? Like? Is it
a a truth? A truth? Truth? That's excellent every I'm
just going to read it. Everyone is talking thinking about
the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanly and
against the will of the entire world. Can just say
when you read his writ you know, when he actually
tweets something out or when his staff does right like
you know it. It's the capitalization and all that stuff,
but it's almost the best way to get into his mind,
you know, and how he's thinking when you read them
out aloud. It's kind of fun. Anyway, Everyone is talking
about the hostages who are being held so violently and
humanly and against the will of the entire world in
the Middle East. But it's all talk and no action.
Please let the truth serve to represent that if the
hostages are not released prior to January twenty twenty five,
the date that I proudly assume office of the President
of the United States, there will be all hell to pay,
all caps in the Middle East, and for those in
charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity, those responses will
be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the
longest storied history of the United States of America. Released
the hostages. Now. The best tweet I saw on this
is someone said that Trump speaks Arabic because this is
the kind of thing that that world to understands. There,
don't your whole blink in. You know, let's talk and
let's forge a cease fire, and all this cease fires.
To them, it's just a time to retrench. It's not
an actual time to make peace. They do understand power
and Trump. I think I was very happy to see this.
I don't know how you feel about it. And we'll see.
Maybe some of the hostage I think they may be dead,
but hopefully maybe someone will be released.
Speaker 2: I just in general, anytime an American is held hostage
or in harm's way, I want our country go into
bat for them, you know, if at all possible. And
it has been confusing to me why so many Americans
care so little about the American hostages that Hamas took.
And I just I was happy to hear someone finally
speak the way that it seems to me we all
should be speaking about it. No, I don't want to.
I don't want to like get involved in a's crazy.
Like my main foreign policy idea with Israels is like
to let them do what they need to do. Not
that we need to be super involved in that effort,
but I just like the putting the fear of God.
Speaker 1: Now, well, the only Americans that has died in this
conflict other than hostages are is a soldier who died
putting up that ridiculous floating doc that you know that
we're supposed to bring supplies into Gaza, you know that
Hummas constantly hijacks anyway, Yeah, I mean this is how
we should listen. I mean it's a little you know,
it's a little over the top, I admit, but I
mean people should fear. It's like, I can't remember the
exact instance, but one time Ronald Reagan said something like
very normal, and then on the hot mic, you know,
he I think purposely said something like the missiles will
be in the air in like five minutes or something. Remember,
So it's like having a president who's a little bit
like a little bit off and a guy who may
actually punish.
Speaker 2: The bombing starts in five minutes. I believe he.
Speaker 1: Starts in five minutes. Yeah, So I think Trump is
like that, but he doesn't pretend to. You know, he
doesn't do it on a hot mic. He just tweets
it out or truths it out for the world to see.
Speaker 2: Not to be big in bombing in five minutes is
the last sentence of a controversial off the record joke
made by US President Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty four
during the Cold War. It is, by the way, a
reminder of how much things are the same even as
they change. How much resistance Ronald Reagan had for his
foreign policy, how they would always claim it was reckless,
and you know that no decent person supported it in
any way. The more things change.
Speaker 1: All right, That's all I have anything. No, No, it's
actually relatively slow weak for the Trump era.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know that pardon was pretty big news.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I do want to say one more thing about the
transition and all we're talking about Trump governing across space
and time for his upcoming presidency. But I think with
his nominations, he needs to, like the Senate won't be
seated and tell what is it the third Is that right?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And he needs to force a vote on some of
these nominees, even if Mitch McConnell is opposed to them.
I think forcing people to vote up or down is
like a worthwhile exercise and standing behind the nomin like
you should pick who he wants after he has vetted them,
and then once he does that, he should stick with them.
I'm saying this in part because I think he might
not do that in all cases, and it's just not great.
It's not a great sign of leadership to nominate and
then not like at least force a vote on it.
Speaker 1: I feel like, I don't know how quickly people usually
give the names for these kind of namies. It seem
pretty quick to for me. Definitely might it might have
helped him to take a little time first and do
whatever vetting within his own organization. However he's doing. I
think he did hand it over to the FBI in
the end. I saw a story about that. But whatever
he's doing, he probably should have done it a little,
you know, he should have thought about it more. Maybe
I like some of them, I don't like some of them.
As I said, I think the Senate's an independent, you know,
institution that needs to vet to its own vetting and stuff.
But well, yeah, I mean, you're right, he has every
right to do to push for that and see what happens.
Speaker 2: I mean, and the Senate has the right to reject it,
but they should at least have to go through the
exercise of rejecting it. And there's some way that they
are also held accountable for their own decisions when you
don't pull it before.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, I mean, I think it should all
be transparent. If they have a problem with the president's pick,
they should say it out loud. I mean, a lot
of these senators, you know, everyone says, oh, they're threatened
by Trump, and yeah, so every president is going to
have the power to make life difficult for you. But
these people are winning their Senate seats by huge margins.
It's you know, they're pretty safe, most of them, and
they don't have a lot to worry about, and they
act like a bunch of cowards sometimes I can't take it.
But do you want to talk about culture?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: Oh sounds like you have something to talk about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I want to hear what you have to say.
I don't really have exciting things. Get did you see
that listener email asking for what we sang on Advent one? No,
this reminds me, thank you for reading our listener email
so carefully.
Speaker 1: David, I see Advent and I probably just clicked my
eyes glaze over, but gone.
Speaker 2: First off, I know we're annoyed. We're all annoyed by this.
But in church on Sunday, the person sitting behind me
said that he was listening to our post election analysis
and it occurred to him that you had never upheld
your bet wager. I don't know from the twenty sixteen
election of a to come to church with me, and
I don't want I just I agree with this person,
and I don't want the first time you're at a
Lutheran service to be my funeral. So let's try to
make this happen before I die.
Speaker 1: Okay, I hope that happened. I hope I don't live
to see that happen, and maybe I'll never have to go. Yeah,
of course I had forgotten about it.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that me Trump wouldn't win in twenty sixteen,
and the price he has to pay is that he
gets to come to church with me. And it is
twenty twenty four, dear listener.
Speaker 1: So and it's not because I don't uphold bets. It's
because I'm lazy and I don't leave my house. But
I will say this, I once.
Speaker 2: We're in my house on a Sunday morning, I'm just
going to point that out.
Speaker 1: That's true. At least put it this way. That was
a traumatic event in my life, I have to say.
And now it's you know, it's eight years ago. But
since then, I have avoided making anything that even sounds
like a prediction. I go out of my way always,
and when I'm on a podcast or whatever to say
that was not a prediction. Those those are just my thoughts.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the proper humility to show about.
I wish it's okay that we all are wrong on
certain things, but then to not learn from it is
what I find so annoying.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's humility, but was hard hard. I learned it
the hard way by betting Molly having away on whether
Trump was going to win or not.
Speaker 2: Okay, So here's the actual listener email. Dear Molly and David.
By the way, you got this email, subject line wake Awake,
it's the beginning of Advent, and I'm guessing Molly is
excited for some of the best hymns and music of
the church here if the church is still bold enough
to sing it. It sounds like you have a great congregation,
and I'd love to hear what you're singing today or
what preludes, postludes the organist is playing, et cetera. Is
there anything better than box walk it off? I don't
know how to speak German. I'm so sorry. It's like
my worst trade is a Lutheran well, okay, or a
congregation singing the hymn itself. On a different topic, have
you to ever discussed the movie High Fidelity on the show?
And so we can we can talk about that later.
But first the preludes.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it now.
Speaker 2: Well, can I just I have my bulletin here, so
I'm just going to go through it. The preludes box
Nooncomb Deir hide in Highland and Hawwie's hark the glad sound.
Then we sang, Oh Lord, how shall I meet you,
which is a great hymn. And then we had a
baptism of two baby girls, and they were so precious
Mary and Madeleine. We also sang come Thou precious Ransom,
Come and hold on, Savior of the Nation's Come, which
is an excellent hymn. And then the bach collegium did
BWV sixty two lobes segot dem vater gaetone. I know
I'm offending everybody with my horrible pronunciation. And then inso
Lord Jesus quickly come, the choir saying by months and
the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord, O bride of
Christ rejoiced. And then the final hymn was the Advent
of our King, and our post lude was Veny Emmanuel
by Hailstork. So there you go.
Speaker 1: I'm believe I'm missing all that. I gotta go.
Speaker 2: Not a bach, it is actually one of the coolest
things about my congregation is the bach collegium does a
piece of bach every single week. It's it's I go
to church for the doctrine and for receiving the Word
of God and receiving the sacrament, but it is so
cool that we get to hear a beautiful bach piece
literally every week during the offertory. I mean, it's just
our congregation is so talented and we have so many
professional musicians and professional singers, and it really adds to it.
I came from like country churches where I was in
the choir and it was not I mean, I love
that too, I really do. But I know to be
grateful to God for what we get to hear each week.
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a good time. Yeah, I don't know what
to say.
Speaker 2: Now do you want to talk about I want to
just explain. Advent is the first season of the church
here and it is where you prepare for Jesus' birth
but also for the second coming. It has multiple things
you're dealing with. It is a penitential season. So it
is one of these weird things because it occurs at
the time of greatest partying in America. Everyone's partying during
Advent in America, and they call it Christmas, but we
call it we are celebrating or marking Advent. And then
Christmas starts on December twenty fifth, which is precisely the
moment that most Americans have decided to give up on Christmas,
and then we do twelve days of Christmas beginning that day,
and then it leads into Epiphany, and so it's just
it's a really big season in the Lutheran Church, and
it's one of those times when you feel a little
bit at odds from the Americans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have one of those Advent calendars somewhere around here.
Well I don't have it, but it's around here somewhere. Okay,
that's that's nice. It's a fun time, fun time of
the year, right. Or did you want to talk about
High Fidelity? I know you brought it up.
Speaker 2: I need to prepare for that. We can do that later.
I haven't seen it or read it in a long time.
I mean, I feel like it was twenty years ago
that I read that. Or yeah, I do remember this
one part of High Fidelity, which was based on someone
I remember because someone was talking about it this week.
But where a guy comes into the store, and Jack
Black is working in the store and he wants to
buy I Just Called to Say I Love You by
Stevie Wonder, and Jack Black yells at him and says
it's like the worst part of his musical ouver and
that he's not going to sell it to him.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I don't remember the movie exactly. I don't
know if I ever read the book, so I will
revisit this.
Speaker 2: Those Nick Hornby Little books are the easiest things to read,
so if you're just looking for something, you know, at
the beach, they're usually pretty enjoyable.
Speaker 1: All right, is that is? Do you have anything else? Well?
Speaker 2: I have been really really hunkered down working on this book,
so I haven't had a ton of time. But I
always try to watch something while i'm rowing, and I
have recently watched Man on the Inside. Have you seen
that Man.
Speaker 1: On the Inside? Note? What is it?
Speaker 2: It's clearly done by the exact same people who did
The Good Place, which was.
Speaker 1: Oh this is yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the guy
who's in the nursing home, Ted Danson and all that dancing.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the same people, And it's fairly enjoyable.
It's not like groundbreaking, but it's fine.
Speaker 1: Oh good. Now I was thinking about maybe watching that.
Speaker 2: Oh and I think like last week finished watching The
Diplomat Kerry Russell. We'd already talked about that, which was
pretty good.
Speaker 1: I watched a movie called Nutcrackers with Ben Stiller on Hulu.
Have you heard of this? It's kind of like a
Christmas movie. It's about these kids who are orphaned. I
think there's four boys or three boys. Four boys, three
Boys has a sweet story I think at the end
in Christmassy kind of movie, and it's very nice. Then
I watched something amazing HBO or whatever it's called. Max
has a documentary on yacht rock.
Speaker 2: I love yacht rock. I'm totally gonna listen watch this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it starts with, you know, it gives the
history of yacht rock. Obviously, so one of the big
one of the main groups in the in the documentary
and characters are is Steely Dan and Dan Volgelberg. Now,
I don't know, I don't really like that music very much,
So I don't know who should be considered yacht rock,
but it is in this in this documentary, and I'm
I don't want to give it away, but Dan Volgelberg
strongly disagrees with that, with that with including them in
this genre, but it has you know, Kenny Loggins, who
I didn't realize I'd written all these seventies like soft
rock songs and yacht rock songs, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald,
you know, the Doobie Brothers, all of this stuff. And
you know, I will watch basically any documentary about music.
So but I thought it was well done and I
think you'll enjoy it because Steely Dan is a big
part of the story. And I know I think you're fan, right,
I know you're a Dan Folgelberg fan.
Speaker 2: Maybe No, I'm a Donald Fagan fan.
Speaker 1: Is Donald Fagan not in Steely Dan? Who's Donald Fagan?
Was he in another band? Or he's just a solo artist?
Speaker 2: Do you really not know who?
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about this movie music? Yes, he
was until this moment. Have confused them my whole life.
Wait confused whom Donald Donald Fagan and Don Folgelberg? What's
his name? The Gyerg? I've confused those two people. I
thought they were the same person. So explain to me.
Speaker 2: Donald Fagan did one of my favorite albums of all time,
The Nightfly, which just was one of the first albums
I listened to in the when I was pretty young,
and I still listened to it and I love it.
One of my friends, I don't know if you remember this,
had said that listening to you and Me is like
listening to her parents be confused watching a movie. And
I feel like today's episode, really we hit that mark.
Speaker 1: So it's okay for you, okay boomer episode. Well they're
all okay boomer episodes probably, but in any event, it
was fun to watch and that was pretty much it
for me again. All Right, I gotta I'm gonna have
to research this. I apologize for confusing them. They're listening.
That's it. You're not gonna say anything. You're done. Sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna check out the yacht Rock documentary. It sounds
perfect for my.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. They may mention him too, but
since I confused them in my mind already know if
they had done. But Michael McDonald, you know, he the man.
Speaker 2: Is incredible and totally just like been incredible for decades.
Speaker 1: Go On and Christopher Cross had this album and everyone
knows the songs and he you know, and could it
was just massive, you know, massive album. I think it
was nineteen eight. He won all the Grammys, everything, and
it was just he talks about how hard it is to,
you know, once you hit the top right away, how
hard is to replicate that. He never could obviously, And
so it's just interesting about the people and it's just interesting.
The story was good recommended. All right, that's it. Well,
I'll have more confusing. I'll be confusing the celebrities again
next week, I'm sure. And until then, Lots of Freedom
mixed for the Fray