Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist and
David Arsani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, if you'd like to email the show, please
do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We'd
love to hear from you, Molly. Have you heard the
big news what David Jeff Bezos just dropped a tweet
which I think is a pretty long tweet. You thought
it was kind of a short tweet about how he
is reimagining the edit page to have two pillars, basically
philosophical pillars that it will defend. One is I've got
how he said it, individual liberty, personal liberty, and the
other are free markets. He brought this up to the
current or recent recent editorial page editor David Shipley, and
David Shipley was not.
Speaker 2: Interested in defending those two pillars, and he quit.
Speaker 3: Well, that's not quite accurate. What he said about David
Shipley was that he strongly encouraged him that unless the
answer wasn't hell yes to the new vision for the
edit page, that it had to be in no. And
it says he gave it careful consideration and decided to
step away. So it's not quite that he out and
out was a monster who refused or anything, but just
that it didn't seem the right fit.
Speaker 1: But there's some liberties and capitalism are not the right
fit for an American editorial page.
Speaker 2: It's weird.
Speaker 3: Well, even before we got to that part, I thought
it was really funny. He says. There was a time
when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly,
might have seen it as a service to bring to
the reader's doorstep every morning a broad based opinion section
that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does
that job. And it's like, Okay, if you thought that
what you were doing at the Washington Post was bringing
a wide variety of like all the views to the
reader's doorstep with a broad based opinion section, you are wrong.
The Washington Post has never been seen as as doing that.
But yes, he says, now they want to focus. I
thought it was a bit nebulous, Like, I will be honest,
when I saw that free markets and personal liberties was
where he wanted to take things. That does sound like
your brand.
Speaker 2: Right, It is my brand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I don't want to be at odds with
what I'm about to say, which is, I'm not quite
sure what he means by personal liberties, and like, how
does this work out on an editorial page? Free markets?
What does that mean? Exactly? What does the focus on
personal liberties mean exactly? Like does this mean? Like how
does that? How does that play out?
Speaker 1: I would me, I don't not him. Free markets are
probably you know, free markets mean you know, you know,
low regulations, probably low towerffs. The ability of people to
make their decisions, uh, you know, their economic decisions without
the state state interference probably helps him.
Speaker 2: He's a free market guy.
Speaker 1: I assume personal liberties for me, I assume on from
his end might mean free expression rights. I'm sure it
won't mean Second Amendment to protections, though perhaps new you know,
new people come in will allow at least for there
to be dissent on that issue.
Speaker 3: Process we just stop on the on the free speech thing.
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon famously, which does digital book burning
for titles it does not, like, you know, Ryan Anderson
wrote an excellent book on the radical trans agenda that
was digitally book burned for five years by Jeff Bezos.
So like this idea that he suddenly cares about people
being free from censorship or that he cares about free
expression is very hard for me to believe. So I
like the phrase, but like, he doesn't really seem like
someone who cares about personal liberties. And then I'm worried
he means it in the way that is like I
think you should have the liberty to end the life
of your unborn child, or something like that.
Speaker 2: I look at it this way. You're right about all
of that. He's had a terrible record.
Speaker 1: Washington Post, in my view, is one of the worst
papers in America. It has I'm not even exaggerating legit
racists pro hamas voices on its edit page. Right, and
that's bad. His history of banning books on Amazon is bad.
But isn't it better that we have someone at least
trending in perhaps the right direction.
Speaker 3: Really, that's why I'm not I'm more asking questions than
just being right Hostyle. I think it is a better.
Speaker 1: Move if they even balance that page to some extent.
Speaker 2: I think that's that's great, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean their foreign policy views. Everybody fits into one
of two categories, right, they're either neocons or they're literal
terrorist supporters sometimes both.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I mean that the neocons are kind
of left over. They hired Concern even Crowdhammer who's hired there,
and George Will has been there since nineteen seventy two,
I think, I mean, I wouldn't call him a neocon actually,
but you know they come from a different time. Well,
I mean, you made a face, George Will. I mean,
I've read a lot of his books and stuff. I mean,
he came out he what must have been the first
conservative who said the Iraq War was on a major
edit paid saying the Iraq War was wrong and mistake
and all that whatever. I'm just saying, I don't think
he's like a full fledged neocon type Crowdhammer was, and
I honestly, I don't even know what other concernstives are
on their page right now.
Speaker 2: But I think it's good.
Speaker 1: I think it shows that he realizes that there's something
wrong with a paper in Washington. And I work in
a paper in Washington as conservative, but you know that
there's a paper there that doesn't really reflect the views of.
Speaker 2: The country at all. Right, I just want to race
for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and years ago, I'm still stuck on George Will.
He was all in on the Iraq War until the
one thing. So I'm still sore and bitter about everything
because I suffered the slings and arrows of being opposed
to the Iraq War, which led a lot of conservative
people to say that people like me were unpatriotic conservatives.
You are right that you always pointed out that everyone
loved the Iraq War at the beginning, and then later
they all turned against it. George Will is one of
those people. But the moment that he turned away from
it was at the one moment that I actually think
the war effort was going well. So he decided to
turn against the Iraq War during the surge, which in
my view was more like, well, if we're going to
be there, we might as well be there for real.
I'm stuck on this.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't remember the timeline anymore. Too much has
gone on since then.
Speaker 3: But having now, he's back to like, you know, putent obsession.
Neocon's testyle so well, he's like, he's like, probably not
even writing much.
Speaker 1: Anymore, he writes, I've read him for a long time.
I think he considers he does never considered himself a
Neocon I think he's more you know, he always has
considered himself. I would say more of a I mean
he talks about Toryism and stuff like that, you know,
in the British sense. I don't even know who's there
writing from a conservative viewpoint. Certainly, I don't know anyone
who's there writing vigorously in defense of personal freedoms or
free market. They're, like I was saying, there are Hamas
apologists on that page.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a is there.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't even know if there's a pro Israel
voice in the whole paper, And that's not an.
Speaker 2: I don't know it is. Tell me who named them?
Speaker 3: Mark Tison, Mark Tieson, who loves to write about foreign policy,
is a very strong voice.
Speaker 2: I forgot about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he I would consider probably more of a
Neocon than George will Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. I don't read much of the Washington Post
opinion page anymore, just because it's not worth it. But
I do read Mark because he's a colleague and friend
at Fox, and I like, you know, like to fight him,
so I like to know what he's saying. And then
the only person I actually like find his opinions interesting,
like separate from personal relationship or anything like that would
be Jason Willock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is not regularly.
Speaker 1: I I stopped subscribing because I what is her name,
Karen Attila or whatever her name is, is on there
and others like that, and I just couldn't in good
conscience give them my money anymore. But he seems like
a guy who is actually I would say probably a
free on the free market defender side, right, He's kind
of more on the economic side usually. So Yeah, I
like his writing.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for people who think the Washington Post is a
legitimate paper, that it would be good to write it,
and I don't put myself in that category. They should
hire you to do this. You are like the answer
to the Jeff Bezos job placement ad. Well, you've got
the track record to prove it. But I wouldn't want
to work there if my life depended on it. Sorry,
I do not have any respect or regard for that publication.
They're Russia collusion hoax and other things like that that
they win Pulitzers for what they did to Brett Kavanaugh,
Complete Information Operation, what they did about COVID, Complete information Operation.
They are government toadies like regime toties of the worst kind.
They cheerleader.
Speaker 1: I have an excellent job, so you know that's that.
Speaker 2: I want to say this.
Speaker 1: I did work at a paper where I was basically
the only conservative, and it's a lot of fun poking
your finger in the eye of people colleagues you work with,
who are I think not just wrong, but often dishonest
or corrupt. There was a funny uh, if I can
read this quick Jeff Stein, who writes there he's an
economics writer tweet. His tweet says, massive, massive encroachment by
Jeff Bezos into the Washington Post opinion session today?
Speaker 2: Does he not realize that the.
Speaker 1: Owners of papers decide the philosophical position of the editorial page,
meaning that is the paper's official position. It's not reporting.
I mean, there can be reporting an opinion, but that's
not the point. When I was at a paper on
an editorial board, the owner would come down and veto
things I wrote.
Speaker 3: I want to know who does that person think should
be in charge of setting editorial policy. I'm serious.
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party obviously.
Speaker 3: Think hired him. Who does he think hired the person
who hired him? Does he think the purpose of the
paper's editorial section is like, there's such you realize these
people are not deep thinkers about things. They have these
very silly little statements that don't mean anything upon even
a moment's inspection, Like we should have independence from the
person who pays me.
Speaker 2: Now, I wait, can I.
Speaker 3: Just say Philip Bump also did this? Philip Bump, who
got his start writing for left wing union publication.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: He tweeted out what the bleep? And it just made
me happy. Like he's opposed to personal liberty and the
free market, so he's he's in trouble.
Speaker 2: He hates personal freedom.
Speaker 3: Girl, you're in danger, Philip Bump.
Speaker 1: I mean there's an aspect of this is that it's
just business. When you have a big paper that you
know has a story, history and all that, that you've
run into the ground because it's become this progressive propaganda outfit.
It's bad for business. The Washington I don't remember the
exact numbers, but didn't it lose like seventy mil last year?
I mean, you know, he doesn't want to prop up
something that's losing him seventy million. I don't care how
much money you have. That's just bad for business. So
part of that is this too.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm.
Speaker 1: Critical of the pundit class these days. I'm not listen,
I'm part of it. Whatever, But there's too much group think,
there's not enough good writing, there's not enough contrarianism, there's
not enough intellectual debate about real issues. And the Washington
Post has been a big part of that problem.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that's so weird about our
current moment is that we are jumping headlong into AI
and chatbots, and this is going to dramatically reshape the
news industry. But also we're moving away from print modes
of receiving information into much more like audio visual stuff.
But that's been something that's been happening for a long time.
But I think we used to just do all the
different kinds of communication. And I'm a little worried about
people no longer reading their news and also how that
shapes the depth of they're thinking. So I'll be curious
to see how everybody handles this. But dangerous interesting opportunities ahead.
Speaker 4: Buster Poindexter is back because inflation is hot, Hot Hot.
The watch Dout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
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inflation is not going away. Whether it's happening in DC
or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, I do have to say about more than ten
years ago, I was working at a publication that was
once also Storied, but you know, I guess it still
actually exists in a different form, but it was called
Human Events, and the editor there, or one of the
people running it was like, you know, we're moving towards video.
I just want video. I just want you know, short
like you know, five lines and video. But I think
there's always going to be I hope, at least a
portion of the population that just likes to read good
writing and likes to read things. And it's obviously not
as big as it was, and it's going to change
the news industry and all that, but it still exists.
I think podcasts have had much a bigger effect on
how we consume news, like just straight videos and stuff,
don't you think?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And certainly in this last election. I after the
during the inauguration weekend, one of the funnier things was
that Spotify had all these different events and it was
clear that they had started their company as a way
to make money off of people sharing music, and much
to their surprise, they'd become a major player in domestic
politics as people were making decisions on who to vote
for based on some really high profile podcasts and the
decline and strength of legacy media, it's palpable. Now. I'm
not saying they don't have a decade or two left
in them, or that they might pull a rabbit out
of a hat, but we're really seeing changes and that
is reflected I think also in what happened this week
with the White House Correspondence Association.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I quickly before we get to that, say
one quick thing I forgot to talk to Sorry, did
you see that MSNBC laid off a bunch of people?
Now there, I believe some in the legacy media, and
I think Bezos maybe has made the biggest splash right now?
Do realize what you're talking about? And are trying to
balance and fix maybe situation a little bit to save themselves.
I don't know where where MSNBC is going. I'm sure
they're going to hire ridiculous, ridiculous people. Actually, they just
hired the head of the Washington White House Press Association.
Speaker 2: Did you see that? Even though they fired Joy Reid.
Speaker 3: Eugene Daniels.
Speaker 1: Who isn't he the one who smeared Rich Lowry with
the N word thing? Was that him?
Speaker 3: Yeah? He's a bit of a clown, Eugene Daniels. He's
at Politico and is this has nothing to do with
the journalism per se. But he is an interesting cat
in that he likes to dress like an aging He's
a black guy, but he likes to dress like an
aging sort of white female senator. He wears these sort
of frumpy suits.
Speaker 1: But ladies, why can people be normal?
Speaker 3: Whyre And it reminds me of I had a friend
whose uncle was cross dressing, you know, decades ago when
she was a little girl. She count came across him
and she kind of scowled, and he got mad at
her about tolerance, and she said, Uncle Tim, it's not
that you're wearing a dress, it's the dress you're wearing.
And that's what I feel about Eugene Daniels, like, it's
not that he's wearing a dress, it's the dress he's wearing,
and it's distracting. But that has nothing to do.
Speaker 2: With you're going to do this sort of thing. Do
it right?
Speaker 3: You're saying, right, you're gonna wear a dress, Like, let's
work on what we're conveying with that, but not that
there aren't you know, problems also with that. But the
White House Correspondence Association is a cartel that has controlled
for like one hundred years, or maybe not one hundred years.
I don't remember when they started, do you know, I
do not. So there's a challenge of covering the White House.
There are all sorts of newspapers, radio stations, TV stations,
other people who want to cover the White House, and
there's a limited amount of space at the White House
and you have to have some kind of order to it.
And presidents used to handle thing, you know, the administration
used to handle things on their own, and then they're
developed a White House Correspondence Association, which was a cartel.
To bring order to the whole process, you could have
everyone take turns being in the pool. So the press
pool is a group of people that cover the president
when he's in town. There's also an out of town
pool that cover him travel with him when he's away.
This becomes important, like not to be macab but you know,
a JFK getting shot, you want to have press with
the person so that they can cover and report on
what's happening in real time. So these these are really
important functions, the handling of the pool. And it's also
the means by which the White House Correspondence Association has
been allowed to survive, because when it comes to their
handling of the operations in the correspondence room, in the
press briefing room, they've been pretty much a disaster for decades.
They have, you know, traditions on who gets to ask
questions and where those people get to sit. And if
you're an outsider, you are shunned, snubbed, mocked, ridiculed, or banned.
And so if you're these legacy outlets, you know, think
Associated Press or you know the big legacy outlets that
have become cartoonishly left wing, you have outsize amounts of power.
And you see how this is reflected in the coverage
of the first Trump administration, when you had you know,
umichh Alsendor just being a crazy person screaming at the
president or asking like ridiculously biased questions. All of the
bias in the questions, like the a range of viewpoint
that was allowed by the White House Correspondence Association was
so narrow and so stifling, and so much about pushing
left wing narratives and propaganda and all that. It was
really damaging to the republic the way they kept out
any other way of thinking, which was mostly affecting conservatives,
but also even like fringe leftists or other people or
religious groups or you know, there's all different kinds of
media in our country, and they kept such a tight
control over it. They were able to give so much
power to the lefts to the left. Their political agenda
was able to be pushed through in large part because
of what the White House Correspondence Association was doing. And
so yesterday Caroline Lovett said it's done, like we're no
longer going to have them handle this issue, and people
are melting down. What did you think of it, David.
Speaker 2: I?
Speaker 1: Don't love it. I understand it, I guess I would
say so. I do think the the was it WHCA
is basically a partisan, you know, hack, you know, corrupt
group that it's kind of like a clique, right of
people who have a certain outlook that act like ultra
aggressive when there's a Republican president, especially Donald Trump and
Grant Stand and then when Democrats are in power, they
cover up things like the mental acuity of the president,
you know, just cratering. So that's a problem. I don't
love the idea of the state deciding who gets to
cover them. The solution to this would be the White
House Correspondence Association having diverse leadership and trying to be
less biased about who they allowing to cover the president
and get rid of these dumb traditions. Remember when what
was her name, Helen Thomas or whatever would ask the
first question why she was a complete, you know, ridiculous
person in a hack. But I don't know what the
solution is, so I don't love it. I don't like
the idea of an administration getting to hand pick because
obviously the next Democrat is going to do the same now,
and I don't think that's great one last thing and
then you can go off on me. I don't think
it's that important. Like I don't think sitting in the
White House, I don't think that I've ever heard big
news reported from a pool reporter sitting, you know, asking
a press you know something got a press conference, because
they're always such a canned answer. So I don't think
it's like as important as everyone thinks. Sorry, go on, okay.
Speaker 3: I would like to address both points. First, on the
idea that it's not good for the president to handle
his own press pool because a Democrat would then handle
their own press pool. If I could break that down
into two parts, one, I actually totally agree with you.
I would love to have an independent press association that
took care of it so that it wasn't like a
president gets to ask his favored people to call on
him and gets to ban those other people. I would
not be surprised if we see an alternate correspondence association develop,
one that doesn't have all of the fatal flaws that
the current White House Correspondence Association has. Just even on
the handling of the pool, it would be good. You
know who wants to handle that, Nobody, and it's just
a bunch of loser reporters like myself, you know, like
jockeying for time time to cover the president in town
or away from town. I'm sorry when people say, well,
if a Democrat were president, then they wouldn't call on conservatives.
Welcome to the last one hundred years, which is where
we saw that in action. We had under Biden working
with the White House Correspondence Association. They cleared questions and
wrote out the questions with the handy picture of the
reporter that the person would. You know, Biden would call
on the reporter, knowing the question that would be asked
and have his response prepared. And that was all done
in collusion with the White House Correspondence Association. So don't
give me this like if a Democrat became president, it
would be bad. It's been bad. That's what the White
House Correspondent Association is. It's a gatekeeping cartel to help
out democrat presidents. There's also the issue that our corporate
media are, you know, and even if Jeff Bezos he's
going to like slightly open the door to free markets,
it's still overwhelmingly left wing. So you don't have to
do anything and get a huge advantage there. So I
just it like enrages me when people, first of all,
Democrats would do this. That's what they've been doing, that's
all they've been doing.
Speaker 1: I didn't say it in that tone of voice. But
also I prefaced everything I said by by saying that
they are a partisan hack group and it's ridiculous and
they brought.
Speaker 2: This on themselves. I agree with.
Speaker 1: Everything you're saying now when you say the point, the
point is though that the next Democratic White House might
do the same it was doing, or it could even
get worse.
Speaker 2: It might get worse.
Speaker 1: It might get worse, It can get worse, it can
get worse.
Speaker 3: So current situation with Democrats in office or otherwise is
no access for any non regime supportive reporter. How does
it get worse than that we haven't washed these.
Speaker 1: I watched these Biden White House press conferences and there
was a I forget his name right now, there was
at least a Fox reporter there bringing things up that
they didn't want to talk about constantly. That might be gone.
Now that's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think about this, actually think about this. What
if allowing Fox and Pete Deucy is awesome, Jucy to
ask a question or two every one hundredth press conference
wasn't just a means to keep the cartel going that
if you did have a bunch of North Koreans without
the one Pete Doocey when it should have been ninety
percent Pete Doocey's not one. Everyone should have been Pete Deucy.
Everyone should have been asking the questions he was asking.
But by letting him in, it made it seem like, well,
the normal thing is for all of us to be
left wing activists, but we're okay because we let Pete
Doucy ask one question every three months.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree, but that's why I take it quick.
Christ is wrong for it. That's all I'm saying. Having
the state decide who gets to ask it questions is problematic.
Don't you don't you agree with that statement on its own?
Speaker 3: Do you think I thought James Toronto had a great
way of looking at this. When the AP sued Trump
over not getting to be riding on Air Force one,
he said, I interviewed Justice Samuel Alito twice last year.
If after the first interview he decided he didn't want
to speak with me, again, would that be a problem,
And that's basically the question that's the state.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yes, he's right on ap But an open
press conference and open forum like that where you have
just reporters from every you know, you're supposed to have
reporters from every major and even not exactly major outlet,
I don't think the state should be able to say,
you know, I think it's problematic that the White House
gets to decide who asks the questions. That's all I'm saying.
I don't disagree with any of the things that press
that came before it.
Speaker 2: You're right about all of that.
Speaker 3: I don't totally agree. And that's why I said I
wouldn't be surprised if we see a move for a
better White House Correspondence Association, one that's not so corrupt
is the one that we had for the last few decades.
But it's also not healthy to have a situation where
your national security is compromised by the incompetence of the
press Corps, by the corruption of the press corps. So
you're to say, like, okay, yes, during the first Trump term,
to give just a few examples, the entirety of the
press Corps that was allowed into the White House, pushed
the Russia collusion hoax the entirety, which could have led
to nuclear World war because of how much it was
leading into hysteria in foreign policy. You had an information
operation pushed by Jeff Bezos's Washington Post to falsely accuse
a federal judge with a stellar record of secretly being
a serial gang rapist. Had the moment the COVID virus
was released, that press corp blaming Trump, calling anyone who
mentioned the Wuhan Institute of Virology that studies coronavirus is
a conspiracy theorist that was also Jeff Bezos's company. I
have something to say about this.
Speaker 2: Two.
Speaker 3: Actually, I just want to do a quick sidebar on
the Jeff Bezos thing. Jeff Bezos claims he's for free markets, right,
yet his paper pushed the COVID hysteria. The COVID hysteria
led to the shuttering of so many businesses that provide
in person goods and services so that people would be
moved to the Amazon platform, where he made so much
money during COVID. I love hearing him say that he's
for free markets again. I think his interests were aligned
to make people more hysterical about a COVID virus for
business gain, but point just being I agree. I don't
like the idea of any president completely deciding who gets
in or not, but it's not a complete decision of
his meaning there is way in from other people. The
reason why they're they're breaking up the White House Correspondence
Association cartel is because of outrage from the American people.
No institution on Earth has a lower approval rating than
the American media. They've done this to themselves. The American
people are outraged at what the media have done to
this country their support of censorship. And that's another thing
I was screaming about a moment ago when I personally
was censored when the Federalists went through. It's horrific censorship,
which is still the latent issues are ongoing. Nobody in
the White House Correspondence Association said a word that the
White House was working to censor us. So when they
claim they care about free independent press and freedom of
the press and freedom of speech and all this like
First Amendment stuff, they're liars. They've had opportunit unities to
demonstrate it and they failed. They receive awards from Joe
Biden while he's censoring the press. They're just they're beneath content.
Speaker 1: As you know. I don't disagree with any of that.
We've gone over it. This is a reflection I believe
of or it's kind of like the same thing that
goes on in all institutions that no one believes in anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, they've just the Left has destroyed have destroyed
these institutions.
Speaker 1: So it's like public health or you know, we don't
believe anything they say, it's hy RFK, juniors in the administration,
or you know, tons of other areas. All I'm saying
is that it's like after nine to eleven. This isn't
a perfect analogy. After nine to eleven, everyone was scared
of everything. We passed the Patriot Act. I just think
sometimes you have to think about the solution that you're
coming up with, how it's going to impact things in
the long run, and what kind of presidents you're setting.
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Let me just say this, speaking for the Federalist we
have been barred from We've done better reporting than anybody
out there on all the big issues of the day,
and we've done it with no resources and no access
that all of these cartel members have. Because of these changes,
we will be in White House press briefings. That's a change.
I like, you were fine with keeping us out, You
were fine with us like not having access there. But
it's actually a hard thing to be barred from doing
reporting in the White House. You said it wasn't important too.
That was the other thing I wanted to come after
you for.
Speaker 1: I put a little just add something to that. I
don't think it's as important as people think. I'm not
saying it's completely unimportant. I'm saying we rarely learn anything
in a White House press conference. It's different being on
Air Force one, it's different going with the president to
Germany or whatever. But in that press conference is grand
is press is a report? Is grandstanding?
Speaker 3: Going agreed, we rarely learn anything in a press conference.
But that's an argument against the White House Correspondence Association. Take,
for example, the story of Joe Biden being too mentally
unfit to be president. Did we ever learn from the
White House Correspondence Association about that situation there? Or did
the White House Correspondence Association collude with other Democrats to
violently attack anyone who raised questions about Joe Biden's mental acuity.
We didn't learn. And that's the problem. We didn't learn
during COVID because we were too busy getting a message
of hysteria pushed in the press briefings by the White
House Correspondence Association members. Like we didn't. We don't learn
anything because all they're doing is pushing narratives. They're not
reporting news. Opening up the White House press briefings to
actual reporters from a variety of ways of in places
and you know, ways of thinking will certainly bring more
news than we got from this decrepit decaying like evil,
awful organization.
Speaker 1: So you're telling me, first of all, again I agree
with what you're saying about the press. You're telling me though,
that Donald Trump decides or someone whoever is in charge
of deciding who gets to go in there, and and
let's brite bart In and all these other you know,
pro Trump outlets, they're going to start asking tough questions
of the president.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. So you're saying the only outlets that
should be in there are pro Democrat.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that. I am not saying that. I'm saying
I want to miss I'm saying Trump.
Speaker 3: Is so it's so ridiculous. Like the New York Times,
the Washington Post, all of the media outlets, they are
pro not just Democrats, but like the worst part of
the democrat part.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry I picked up why do you pick
any pick if you put yes, But if you give
the power to the state, in the end, they're not
going to have a variety of journalists asking tough questions
of them. They're going to pick lackeys you could get
as man as. That's what was happening and that's what
will happen moving forward.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, David, we had the White House Correspondence
Association deciding who got to ask questions, and the result
is no diversity of thought.
Speaker 2: You're arguing against something.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying if this happens, then we won't have
diversity of thought. We already haven't had diversity.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying that the prescriptions no better, That's all
I'm saying. I'm saying we need to come up with
a better idea. You're saying there's going to be a
new association that's going to bring in diverse voices. That's great,
But if the state alone is going to decide who
asks us questions. Trust me, In the end, that state
will not have any kind of competing ideological viewpoint out there,
and it will never go out of its way to
bring people in who are going to ask tough questions.
Speaker 3: It's just never, by the way, it just doesn't. It's
just not true. Okay, Donald Trump loves talking to left
wing press because that makes him work. I'm not saying
today every other Republican is a coward who's too afraid
to say no to the New York Times. So they're
all going to be like hungry for that kind of stuff.
The danger is not with people on the right not
being open to left wing media, but with institutions that
enable Democrats to be detected from any tough questioning whatsoever.
And so you are right, that is a concern. But
we're not in a worse place now than we were yesterday.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying we are.
Speaker 1: And actually I think Donald Trump benefits from that, those
kind of aggressive questions and grand standing of journals. I
think his best moments are pushing back against those people.
But that's not what the future holds. I don't think
everyone is going to you know, other administrations is going
to act the same.
Speaker 3: I do want the right to get out of this
mindset though, which is well, actually we're helped by a
left wing press because we're able to tee off. There's
truth to that, like how I get animated when I
disagree with you, I make more sense than when i'm
when I'm we're agreeing or whatever. Like, I get that.
But it's also true that when like one hundred percent
of the questions are framed so that the Republican has
to dig himself out of a pit before he can
advance his agenda, that decades of that accumulates into well
what we've experienced for the last few decades, which is
just the left rolling over everything and advancing its agenda.
It would be fun to have questions, for instance, at
the White House. Look did you see when Trump was
like Elon's doing all right, but he's not doing enough.
And I think it would be great to have questions
from people who are like, Doge is all right, but
I'm a little nervous, You're not doing enough, instead of
having one hundred percent of the questions being like the
federal employees are nervous, you know it just it would be.
Speaker 1: I just want quickly and say, you keep misrepresenting my position.
I'm pretty mad about that. I'm angered by that. I
didn't say that we need a left wing media or
you know, to make us better, or whatever you said
I said. I mean, I'm saying that I want a
media that is aggressive and that is antagonistic to those
in power. Want that all the time, just against Trump.
And so I think we agree on that. We have
a good segue.
Speaker 3: We agree, but we like fight on our way to agreement.
Speaker 1: Listen, whether it's Donald Trump in there or Joe Biden,
whoever's next. I think we should be skeptical of power.
That's it, you know, and that's what the media I
should say. I think the journalists should be skeptical of power.
They're not half half the time, and that's a huge problem.
Speaker 3: I can't say what I think should happen to the
media because I'm just I'm done.
Speaker 1: If you're listen, and if you're just going to be
a lackey for power people in power, then you're not
really really a journalist anymore in my estimation. And so
you know, when I say media, I just say what
we consider the media and not what I actually think
the media would look should look like.
Speaker 3: So I just want to also say that The Federalist
has taken one editorial position during its entire history, and
it was that the White House Correspondence Association dinner should
have should be destroyed, and so should the people who
love it. And so that was eleven years ago that
we published that at our Soul editorial, and I could
not be happier that after eleven years of working to
make people understand how evil the White House Correspondence Association is,
that we have finally got it on the chopping.
Speaker 1: Was that editorial, and obviously I was working at the
Federalist at the time. Was that White House Correspondence editorial,
the one where where Barack Obama mocked Donald Trump?
Speaker 3: You know, it was in twenty fourteen, and the Barack
Obama thing was twenty eleven, But it was at the
heyday of the White House Correspondence Association dinner where, because
of Barack Obama, everyone in DC, all of these like
grade you know, just like low level, ugly people who
aren't that smart, thought that they were celebrities and they
would invite celebrities and they would treat it like it
was a really cool, awesome dinner as everyone talked about
how much they loved Barack Obama and couldn't possibly have
anything critical to say about him, and it was just
a great example of how the organization had been co opted.
Speaker 1: But the twenty eleven Correspondence dinner's the fulcrim of history.
That's the day that that Obama made front of Trump,
and Trump's like, all right, now, I'm going to destroy
your legacy. And that's why we have Trump today. It
is this central pivoting point of all modern life.
Speaker 3: I really encourage everyone to watch that if they haven't
seen it. You can see Donald Trump's face and you
can read it. You can be like, oh, he's deciding
that he will have to become president now, and then
here we are fourteen years later in the second term
of Trump. It's just an amazing story.
Speaker 1: There's this great meme where the guy has these huge dominoes,
starts out with the little one, but ends with this
huge one, and you know, in the little one you put,
you know, correspond to twenty eleven Correspondence dinner, and then
the end you so Gaza, you know Trump Gaza Casino.
Speaker 2: You know. So did you see that video he put out?
Speaker 1: No, Oh my God, you put it out an ai
VI video c called Gaza's Trump or something Trump's Gaza.
Speaker 2: And it's this.
Speaker 1: It looks like an ad for like a resort, like
a Sandals resort, and there's a huge cold statue.
Speaker 2: Of Trump and there are like deli dancers and casinos.
Speaker 3: And I did when he first proposed this idea, I
did have a vision of vacationing on the Mediterranean there,
you know, like you could almost see it happening. It's nice,
nice real estate there. I do want to say this
other thing, which is, did you ever go to a
White House Correspondence Association dinner?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know. I don't ever go to any
parties associated with it.
Speaker 2: In with the with the Association.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, like there always parties before and after. I
don't know, but I was telling Sean Davis about we
were proud of ourselves for never having gone and having
you know, escaped it a variety of years. But Michael
Bloomberg used to host parties after I think it was
after the Correspondence dinner that were crazy. They would be
at the Russian Embassy. There would be like almost naked
ladies with sushi on their bodies and celebrities. And I
have no idea why mentioning this, except that time I
fell down like a few stairs at the at the
Russian Embassy holding a glass of champagne and did not
spill my champagne. When I think about great things I've
accomplished in life, for some reason that not spilling my
champagne when I like tumble down the stairs is just
it makes me feel really good, like I've accomplished a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you had champagne at the Russian Embassy and
not vodka at the Russian Embassy.
Speaker 3: Had I remember they had like vodka ice towers where
you could.
Speaker 1: Like years ago, I worked for a years and years
ago I worked for an agent, an NHL agent who
represented Russian players, and we went out to dinner in
Brighton Beach, which is like Russia in America. And I
sat down at a table to eat and there was
a you know, and everyone got their waters and I
pick up the water to take a sip and it
was a big glass and it was not water. So
that was an interesting night for me. So you had
mentioned earlier that and I had mentioned it that one
of the sort of pivotal. I think corrupt moments of
the press in recent years is their cover up of
Joe Biden's inability to speak, you know, to make decisions,
you know, just like I said, collapse of his mental acuity.
And fortunately for us, there's a book coming out that
will tell us what happened. It's called Original Sin. President
Biden's declined, its cover up, and his disastrous choice.
Speaker 2: To run again. It's coming out May twentieth and its
authors are Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Speaker 1: Alex House with Axios, and obviously Jake Tapper's with CNN.
Now when I saw this, I immediately looked up what
Jake Tapper had said about Joe Biden, and there's this
instance I forget what year it happened, where he is.
Basically he reprimands Laura is it Laura Trump for mocking
Joe Biden's stutter when she pointed out that.
Speaker 2: He can barely speak.
Speaker 1: He this is like, this is like someone involved in
Watergate doing an investigative journalism book on how Watergate was
happened after the fact. I don't even know if that's
a good analogy.
Speaker 3: No, I thought it was like oj Simpson writing a
book called If I Did It, you know, like we
in a way, they're perfectly placed to cover this story
because they did it. They did the cover up. And
Alex Thompson was someone who I thought was all right,
by the way, until he went whole hog into the
conspiracy theories surrounding the Madison Square Garden rally at the
end of the twenty twenty four campaign, where he just
kind of lost the plot and I realized, like, oh,
he's not who I thought he was. He was just
deranged with conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: I think he's actually quite good. I mean, I get
what you're saying. I don't think he's always good, but he,
in my view, at least in that world, is sort
of brave. I mean, he did I forget the stories
on Kamala.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 1: He talked about Biden at the time. I suspect he
wrote this book for the most part, and Jake Tapper
kind of like piggybacked onto.
Speaker 3: It, you know, Okay, well, here's an argument against Alex Thompson.
He thought it was a good idea to write a
book with a noted unrepentant conspiracy theorist on multiple issues.
Of course, Jake Tapper was the original author of CNN's
story about how the Christopher Steele dossier was so legitimate
that it had been brief to the president. He was
being used as a conduit to get the dossier out,
and then he continued to push the Russia collusion hoax
for years, with hundreds, probably thousands of mentioned. So not
just that, he also was a Kavanaugh rape hooxer. When
Julie Swetnick, who claimed that Brett Kavanaugh and his buddies
were running a serial gang rape cartel that had like
repeatedly raped her and her friends, he treated that like
a legitimate news story. So for Alex Thompson to say
that's who I want to be associated with tells you
everything you need to know about Alex Thompson, and it
is not good.
Speaker 1: I can't argue with that. I mean, obviously this is
about the fish snagels or the bling. You know, Jake
Tapper's a big name. It's probably going to sell a
lot more with his name on it, and I think
that's a bad choice for him.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to do a few more on Alex toms.
Speaker 2: I keep going. When the.
Speaker 3: You know Semophore News Ben Smith, the guy at Orosfeed
he asked, Alex Thompson, do you think the media missed
the story of Biden's family. And yes, obviously, the massively
lucrative Biden family business where you took money from foreign
oligarchs to to get access to DC was a big story.
But in Alex Thompson's view, it was a family tragedy
and a love story.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm sure you can go on and on. I'm
just saying that in that world he's better than most.
That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 3: And his story on Madison Square Garden said the beginning
of Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden showcased opening
speakers who made racist, sexist, and crass remarks about Vice
President Kamala Harrison Puerto Ricans. That was straight up, unfiltered
Democrat Party messaging at the close of the campaign. And
just because Donald Trump one decisively does not change the
fact that that was intended to help out Democrats at
the close of the campaign. So sorry to be so
obsessed on Alex Thompson here, but it's a family tragedy
and love story. The Biden, the corupt family, Biden family business,
and he's pushing Democrat talking points and now we're supposed
to trust him that he's going to tell the story
correctly about how he and his buddies decided to cover
up the biggest scandal of Joe Biden not being having
mental acuity.
Speaker 2: Well, let me put it this way.
Speaker 1: Then I believe that he's a lot better than Jake Tapper.
Oh yeah, and on this story he had, he did
not participate in that cover. I don't have it in
front of me, but I remember him talking about the
issue on numerous occasions.
Speaker 2: I will say one thing.
Speaker 1: Also, this book is about what's that like and his
disastrous choice to run again. Now that sounds like they're
speaking for the Democratic But why is it disastrous? Because
Donald Trump won the presidency obviously, right, So I believe
that even Joe Biden with declined acuity would have done
better than Kamala Harrison the election. So I don't know
how disaster disastrous it really was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though that they wrote this book. Are
you going to read it? Do you have any interest
in peaking in?
Speaker 3: I will wait for Ace of Spades to do a
dramatic reading of the best parts. So Jake Tapper also
writes fiction stuff that is not winning any literary awards,
I don't think. And sometimes Ace of Spades does dramatic
readings of it, and I like to listen to that. No,
I will probably not. I don't know. I might. I
Reading books is like a secret reporter trick that more
people should follow. You get so much information and you
realize how few people read books, Like do you remember
the guy who did the biography of Barack Obama in
which he revealed that Barack Obama was telling multiple women
that he fantasized about being gay, and and it like
didn't become a news story for four or five years
after it was published.
Speaker 2: Rising Sun is the book.
Speaker 3: People really don't read these things, do they.
Speaker 1: I think reading books is good. I'll read it quite
a bit of myself anyway.
Speaker 3: Jake, you're absolutely right. Despite I just I got set
off on the Alex Thompson thing. You are absolutely right.
He is much much better than Jake Tapper. But Jake
Tapper should be ridiculed and mocked for the audacity of
this bleeper bleeper writing a book about a cover up
when he was not just a willing participant soldier in
that cover up but kind of a field general.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's one of the worst characters
out there in the sense that not that he is
says the worst things is that he pretends to take
this unbiased stand and he, for many years, as we've
spoken about here, would try to mold his public persona
with you, and you know, he would, especially on Twitter,
direct message you to try to have you not be
as critical of him or you know or whatever it
was that I find that really off putting. All right,
I think are we ready for culture? I don't even
know how long we've been going.
Speaker 3: Was that it hold on Jake Tapper? Yeah, I think
we got everything.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: I mean we could talk about other SEFs. We can
save it for next week.
Speaker 2: It's a full blown media episode.
Speaker 3: It's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I again, I wouldn't really call them media a bunch
of propagandists.
Speaker 2: What do I have here? Oh?
Speaker 1: Can I make an announcement before we get to culture?
Something personal, professional, professional about me?
Speaker 2: A person?
Speaker 1: I'm having another child. I started a substack do you
know those things?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And where I collect all the things I wrote and
some random thoughts. But also this podcast will be on
it can listen to it there if you're interested. It's
at David Harsani dot substack dot com slash subscribe.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about it.
Speaker 3: I'm also glad you said it was professional. People always
say I have personal news. I'm moving from this job
to this job, and I'm like, that could not be
less personal and more professional.
Speaker 2: I have some personal news.
Speaker 3: Personal news I'm getting married or I'm having a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am not.
Speaker 1: This is not This is not an attack on anyone,
if in case someone's listening. But when people leave their
jobs and write like these, long, like fifty paragraph goodbye
is like mentioning everyone. I really can't stand those. Now, listen,
I love I love jobs too, but you know you
should take that offline. We don't all need to participate
in that. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: Well, my least favorite is when someone gets a lateral
job from one corrupt media organization to the next, and
people all congratulate that person publicly and talk about how
great they are when they're not great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I wrote about that this week. I tweeted
about that this week because I forgot who was out
there saying that at MSNBC.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow went on TV and said you know, this
is really because they fired a bunch of people, including
racist dem wit Joy Reid, and she said, this is
really hard on the supports staff. You know that they're
worried about their jobs. Welcome to the real I work.
I mean, I've had a lot of jobs in media.
I've been fired from jobs. You know, places have closed down.
Like how let's used to be competitive with each other.
They'd celebrate when the other people were losing. Now it's
like a wayward at home for Oberlin polysci grads to
like sit there forever and spread their propaganda. It's ridiculous, Thank.
Speaker 3: You, No, I agree. I was talking to someone who
I was asking where their kid is going to work
when they finished college, and they said, well, not what
we thought for years, which was the federal government. It
won't be there. And I was like, okay, so where, Well,
we don't know because this is all so disruptive, and
it's like, well, what a weird dream to have first off,
And I mean I had dreamed of things like being
a park ranger, so I guess it's not like the
craziest thing.
Speaker 1: But you're a park ranger. You put up an upside
down American flag. Now at Yosemite.
Speaker 3: I loved that. Okay, so there are fifteen hundred employees
at Yosemite. Chris Bray wrote about this, and eleven of
them were let go and they threw it. They flew
an upside down flag over it. And also they claimed
that like they didn't know how to unlock or lock
bathrooms anymore.
Speaker 2: There's only one I'm not joking. There was a reporter.
Speaker 1: There was only one person who had a key and
quote an institutional knowledge.
Speaker 2: Bathroom. I had a.
Speaker 1: Great idea, they should make me King of Yosemite, make
more keys and hand them out to all the people
who work there. And you don't even need a thound
some people. You maybe one hundred people with keys I
think would be fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, heck, maybe maybe twenty would do it.
Speaker 1: Well, happened when this dude didn't come to work or
this lady? Yeah did did no one get to go
to the bathroom? Probably like shut down everything.
Speaker 3: So the other thing I loved about the upside down flag,
You know that they had time to do it and
all that, and that it was treated as beautiful by
corporate media. They were like, we saw the most beautiful thing,
an upside down American flag. This is a cry from
the heart about how important it is to make sure
there's never any oversight or accountability of any federal agency,
no matter what. And of course, it was a couple
of years ago that The New York Times was asserting,
without any evidence, that there was only one reason anyone
in the world would ever fly an upside down flag,
and that was because they were a J sixer. Because
when Martha Alito, who's like a big flag enthusiast, flew
her flag upside down in response to a conflict with
a neighbor, like, Nope, that's not true. There's only one reason,
and it's this. The New York Times did a series
on symbols of j six where they were, like, we
exhaustively cataloged every sign and symbol associated with January six.
They did it like in January of twenty twenty one
or February. They did not have an upside down flag there.
But then when it was used as a cudgel to
write their seventy stories against Martha an Alito, and they
also got mad at her for flying the Appeal to
Heaven flag, which was you know, commission during the Revolutionary War.
They also said that the only reason you would fly
that was because you were a J sixer and they
just were obsessed with it. But suddenly, now Yosemite upside
down flag. It's a miracle.
Speaker 1: I did a bit of research on this, actually npr YE,
but almost all of the all sort of lib outlets
ran stories about how upside down flags were sort of
the new symbol of far It actually said far right,
you know whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just so funny. Yeah, I don't message either.
Speaker 3: I think they send a message of distress where you're
where you're actually supposed to be your The way I
was taught was that it's physical distress. So like if
someone's flying upside down flag, what they're saying is come
help me.
Speaker 1: I think people are being melodramatic, I would say, but
you know, yeah, I loved Appeal to Heaven flag though.
That's one of my favorites. It's just beautiful, you know.
I love that flag, and it is.
Speaker 3: That at my house to make sure my neighbors love me.
Speaker 2: Very popular in your neighborhood. I'm sure I.
Speaker 3: Am the secret right winger in the name, like not
so secret right winger. So all of my neighbors, oh,
we have a neighbor who's who's adding a level to
his house? And I was telling him I lived, you know,
down the street or whatever, and he was like, which
house And I was trying to describe, but we live
in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same.
And I was like, oh, oh, we're the one that
had like the political sign associated with the right. And
he was like, oh yeah, and he kind of grimaced,
like this is painful that I'm talking to a right winger.
But because of that the J.
Speaker 2: Six house, that's what you should tell him.
Speaker 3: My neighbors all know that they that I'm a safe
person to talk to if they are on the right.
And so I get just dumps of information from people
who are like telling me they voted for Trump or
telling me about what's happening at their federal agency. That's
so insane and it's great.
Speaker 1: Have I mentioned on the show that someone graffitied my
house once after Donald Trump won the election? This last time, Yeah,
right in front of my house a pornographic image.
Speaker 3: What if it was just like kids being stupid, That's.
Speaker 2: What I thought it was.
Speaker 1: So I talked took to like the head person in
the association here, and I'm like, was there any other
graffiti anywhere in this entire neighborhood that happened yesterday? And
she's like, no, it just seems I'm still not sure
a thousand percent sure, but it was very suspicious or
what were we doing? Oh yeah, culture, I'm going to
ask you again, did you do anything? I know you've
been busy with their book and so on.
Speaker 3: And I'm not reading anything or watching anything. I have
two things that I want to talk about, though. One
is that I took my kid to the doctor this
morning for a sports physical and it needed to be
done today so that they can practice tonight. We walk
in and they hand us an iPad that has a
series of questions and you're supposed to fill it out.
And I had done it once before and it wasn't
as bad as it was today. But i'd done it before,
and so I was kind of not wanting to do it,
but then I wanted to see what it said, and
it was so bad. The first question was like, are
you trans male to female? Are you tran This is
my kid, by the way that they're asking are you
trans male to female? Are you trans female to male?
Are you gender non conforming? Are you something else or
are you male or female?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And then then it was are you first option homosexual,
gay or lesbian? Second option queer, pan sexual? And are questioning?
Then we get to straight or heterosexual or bisexual? My kids? Yeah,
And then they asked about twelve questions related to how
much do you want to kill yourself today?
Speaker 1: Which, after reading that that's gone up.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the part that we'd seen earlier. And I
remember that my kid had said I had never thought
about it once until I got the forty eighth question. Here.
It is so intrusive and so awful, and they're trying
to normalize permanent harm to children. So first I told
the nurse how upset I was, and then I told
the doctor, and the doctor was saying, well, this is
the guidelines put forth by the Medical Association. I'm like, well,
you should fight back against it because it destroys you know. Also,
the doctor was like, I would now like to talk
to your kid privately without you here, and I was like, well,
that's not going to happen because a I wouldn't really
want any doctor to be talking to my kid without
me there anyway, you know, just there's no need for it.
Be the idea that I'd let a bunch of people
who are trying to groom my kid into some kind
of gender cult to have time alone with them. It's absurd.
It also makes me not trust anything they say about,
you know, what's needed in terms of vaccines, or you know,
just like whatever the actual medical issue is. It's like, well,
I don't trust these people. They don't even believe in
biological reality. So it's just frustrating badly that cult is.
Speaker 2: Also leaders of that cult also teach in public.
Speaker 1: Life high schools across the country, and you do have
to leave your kid alone sometimes, and I think it
is just destructive. And I remember going to with my
kids to college tours and the college tour head would
ask me what my preferred pronouns were and stuff, and
I'd insane, my name's David.
Speaker 3: I think people should also say it makes me really
uncomfortable true this way, or like it makes me feel
unsafe that you are doing this, just kind of get
them to short circuit that way. Okay. The other culture
thing was more cheerful, but also caused by a sad thing,
which is ROBERTA. Flack dying this week, And I pulled
out I've always loved ROBERTA.
Speaker 2: Flack.
Speaker 3: I have loved her voice and her song selection, and
I loved that she used to sing at mister Henry's
on Eighth Street in d C, where it seems like
it wasn't eighth Street.
Speaker 2: But oh, she a DC native or not a.
Speaker 3: DC native, but she started at Howard when she was
like sixteen and worked in and around DC for a
long time, and so she's kind of a DC girl.
And I pulled out these albums and I was listening
to them again, and I think I've reached the age
where now it really hits me how beautiful for music
and her voice. It just it was giving me NonStop chills.
Speaker 1: I mean, I only I have to say, I only
know was it killing me softly? Or I don't know
what the title of the song is.
Speaker 3: But yeah, there's yeah, there's so much more, so many beautiful,
like heart wrenching songs, and she's just yeah, well what
about you.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: I watched this show called Reacher, which is I think
it's it's third season or something. Yeah, it's fine. I
like the guy who plays Reachers like this really big dude.
And it's funny because in this season there's another guy
who's like twice his size, like this, like this, this
can't be real, this has to be cgi. But I
look it up and it's Danish bodybuilder who's seven too.
I just it's it's hard to fathom someone that big,
but yeah, from Denmark. I also watched another because I
had enjoyed the Harlan Coben series The Stranger, I watched
another one called Fool Me Once, which I didn't think
was as good, you know, soft recommend if you're really
into that stuff. And then I watch something interesting, a
movie called Panic. I think it's the Panic and Needle Park.
I forget exactly what it is, but it's from nineteen
seventy one and it starts it's al Pacino's first movie.
It's about this couple that sort of gets addicted and
are on the streets of New York. Now I am
a big It was written by Joan Didion, was one
of the co writers of the screenplay with John Gregory Dunn,
who I think is what's his name the other Dunn's
father who was in After Hours. That's Orsese movie anyway, Griffin, Griffin,
Griffin Done or maybe that's his nephew.
Speaker 2: I forget what.
Speaker 3: John Gregory Dunn, that's Joan Didion's husband, right, Oh was
it were they married?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dominic Dunn is the other is
the brother and yeah, Griffin. Anyway, it was nice. I'm
a really big fan of movies that are like realism
is part of it, and that they're on the streets
of the cities of New York in the seventies. It's
really fun to look at how things were back then
and look back then and how people dressed and the
cars and all that. I'm a big fan, so I
enjoyed it. I'm sure many people have seen it already.
It's been around forever, obviously. I think that's all I have.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about this. I was reading that Justice
Alito when he studied in Italy in college, he got
a summer fellowship to study the Italian Supreme Court. And
he'd know born and raised in New Jersey, so he'd
spent a lot of time in Trenton, Newark, New York City,
and when he went to Italy, he was just stunned
by how beautiful the cities were relative to what he
was seeing, you know, on the East coast of the
US in the seventies and those nineteen seventies movies really
bring that home. You see the you know, they're just
clearly shooting on real streets. It's not like they're adding trash.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no it is.
Speaker 3: And so, but it's also kind of reminder like we
went from that and then we had a big clean
up effort in the eighties and nineties, and then we've
had this very dramatic reversion to you know, nineteen seventies
style filth. But sometimes people think that you're inexorably going
in one direction and you actually can change. And I
think of that with the you know, with patriotism or
with even like understanding what the role of men and
women are. You know, it's not like it's just a
one way to bog and ride to hell. You can
you can change your direction.
Speaker 2: No, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm older, and I remember people just
throwing their trash out of their car windows onto the street,
you know, I mean there was just garbage everywhere, and
at some point it just became there was a societal
It wasn't just laws. I think there's just this societal
movement towards making things nicer. When I go to major
cities now, try not to go that often, but when
I do, it's always it hits me that we're headed
and it seems like we're headed back in the wrong direction.
Speaker 3: That's one of the thing I want to say, DC
is DC. Downtown d C had been a bit of
a ghost town, not because of anything Republican or Democrats
so much as because of COVID and then the BLM riots,
and so everyone had moved out of the city and
it feels like maybe things are getting back a little
bit to a vibrant nightlife. And I had some meetings
downtown this week, and just everywhere I went, I was
seeing people I knew and it just felt nice.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have one musical note that. So I was
listening to some new music. It just kind of popped
up on my Spotify. When you know your album runs
out like it keeps going to other things. And there
was this band called Domi and JD Beck right.
Speaker 2: I looked them up. They're just very young people.
Speaker 1: They play stuff that sounds like the Weather Underground or
like fusion jazz from the seventies, kind of a modern
update of it.
Speaker 2: And it was really impressive.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff I heard, and I just wanted
to mention that since we don't talk about.
Speaker 3: Music that often, totally going to check that out. That's okay,
like my speed.
Speaker 1: And for the first time in months, I'm going to
remember right now to say that people can email the
show at radio at the Federals dot com. We love
to hear from you, and we will be back next week.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the
Frame
Speaker 4: Two.