Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You Were
Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the Federalist,
and David Harsani, a 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 love to hear from you. Quite the debate last night, Molly.
Speaker 2: That was a wonderful debate. I really mean that. Actually,
I felt like I got to know both candidates better.
And I do not mean by that that the moderators
should ever be allowed in public ever again. But I
enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Yes, we need to go through it. Yeah, I did
watch it. I would say that Tim Walls to me
clearly is he proved that he's just not very bright a guy.
I'm not saying I'm not saying this to mock him
or anything, but he's just not I don't think he's
capable of debating someone like JD. Vance. He just does
not have a command of the facts in the same way.
He's just not as smooth as you know. And part
of that is being nervous. I listen, I've spoken in public.
I get that you can be nervous, but I just
don't think he's on this level, Like I think he's
a triple A guy playing in the majors.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I actually think that's the big takeaway and
it's very important to discuss. So I have a few
thoughts on this one. Did you notice that all the
people in the media were trying to lower expectations for
Tim Walls, which is a common thing to do, you know,
people tried to lower expectations for Kamala Harris and before
her debate, but there was something about the way they
were doing it that was so over the top that
it was clear that they really really wanted people to
have creators expectations, you know, like CNN said, CNN said,
he's super nervous, and he said that he's even more
nervous than when he told Kamala Harris he was a
bad debater before she picked him. I was like, oh,
sure he did. Meaning do you remember their very first
time together at a rally. He said that he couldn't
wait to debate jd Vance, who was so weird. He
said that is if he'll get up off this sofa
to do it, which referenced some like bizarre conspiracy theory
or that's actually it's just a lie that Democrats were
telling at that time. So he was so braggadocious at
the beginning. He could not have been more confident at
the beginning. That was like a big part of his appeal.
He's so masculin, supposedly, and he's gonna beat jd Vance
to a pulp. And then by the end CNN is saying,
we talked with ten of his closest friends and advisors
and they say that he's terrified of letting Kamala down.
So it was like way more than normal expectations setting.
Speaker 1: I remember them saying that he is good on TV,
he can speak to the working class men especially, and
so forth and so on. I mean that was part of,
supposedly the gut reaction that led Kamala to pick him
as VP.
Speaker 2: Condition And on the intelligence thing, I do think there
is a basic level of intelligence that you should have
in order to be president or vice president and to
be just completely straightforward. I don't think Kamala, Harris, and
Tim Walls have that level of intelligence. I'm not saying
like I'm a big fan of Barack Obama or Mitt
Romney or John McCain or George Bush, but they all
had enough intelligence to be president. You can disagree with
their politics, but you could see that they could synthesize information,
have a strategy, and execute on that strategy. The IQ
problems we're dealing with, or Kamala Harris and Tim Walls
are dangerous and threatening to the country. I want to
say that I saw this funny clip of a reporter
asking Donald Trump why he's so mean about Kamala Harrison.
Why does he insult her and call her stupid? He
was like, well, see, I actually do think you have
to be smart enough to be president, and I don't
think she is. It was such a straightforward, hilarious answer,
and it was also like, that's actually true, she's not.
Or you know, you think Barack Obama picked someone who
was kind of goofy and dumb Joe Biden, and then
Joe Biden had to pick someone who wouldn't threaten his presidency.
It didn't work out. It's so great, but by picking
someone who nobody would want to be president, was kind
of goofy and dumb, and then that person she's had
one decision she's made this entire time since she's been
coordinated the presidential nominee, and she picked someone who wouldn't
make her look so bad by comparison. So that's why
she didn't pick Josh Shapiro. You would also say, because
he was Jewish is Jewish, and so we're just we're
getting to this idiocricy level with the candidates right now.
On the Democrat side.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think we're living in any deocracy
in many ways. I will say this right off the bat.
I didn't like a lot of what Jdvans had to
say about economic stuff, but it is clear that he's
a serious person and that Tim Walls is not a
serious person. Tim Walls Hunt. We can talk about the
debate that JD. Vans had with the moderators in a moment,
but I mean, anyone who's telling and I've seen people
say this that this was some kind of draw that
Wallscott better as it went on, they're fooling themselves. Listen.
I don't think VP debates matter that much, but it
was pretty bad.
Speaker 2: I think I want to fight you on that. Yeah,
just briefly. But can I first say I actually do
think there's something to the idea that Tim Walls improved
with over time in the debate. I mean to me,
his best answers were right at the end, like the
last two. The problem is his first answer was disqualifying.
You know, the questions about do you have what it
takes to have leadership on a global stage, and he
had a Biden like response. Do you remember in the
last Biden debate. Within thirty seconds, people realized, Oh, this
man can't be president anymore, and he certainly you can't
be less important issue, He can't be the nominee, and
so people freaked out. That was the quality of the
Tim Walls answer, whereas jd Vance, his first answers were
maybe the most perfect I've ever seen in a debate,
and under unbelievably difficult circumstances. Having said that, I do
feel like by the end of the debate jd Vance
was because of the strategy he'd chosen, which was not
a pugilistic one. He was leaving a lot on the table,
and Waltz had gotten a little less nervous, and so
he wasn't looking one hundred percent terrified. He was just
looking like forty percent terrified. So it was like an
increase for Waltz and a decrease. For so, maybe jade
Vans went from one hundred percent and he was a
hund one hundred percent for a while, then he kind
of drops off to seventy percent. Walt started out at
zero percent and maybe made it up to forty percent.
So there's still a disparity, but there was improvement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, they're definitely he had He was nervous
in the beginning. Clearly he got he lost, you know,
he got better in that regard. But I just don't
think many or any of his answers were very good.
When he was asked about his lying about team and
square and being there when it happened, Oh wow, the
answer game started out started out with the words, I
grew up in a small, rural Nebraska town of four
hundred people, like it had nothing to do. It was
an embarrassing answer. But more than that, I was taken
aback that they didn't ask him about his lying about
his rank, his lying about his deployment, his lying about IVF,
Like there were many other questions that could have been
rolled into that one, like why are you constantly lying? Right?
Speaker 2: That's to me more of a moderator thing, which will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought the moderators were worse than the ABC moderators.
I thought they were worse than the ABC moderators.
Speaker 2: I don't think they were in part because of what
you said that I wanted to fight you on, which
is VP debates don't matter. So there is a truth
to that. Presidential debates do matter. VP debates don't matter
nearly so much, and so even as bad as the
moderators were, it just didn't matter as much because the
stakes were lower. But I want to kind of make
a case for VP debates mattering in these really esoteric
kind of ways. Like I thought Mike Pence's performance in
twenty sixteen was stellar, And what I mean by that,
in part is that if you go back to where
that debate happened in twenty sixteen, it was after I
think the Access Hollywood stuff, and it was at a
very low point for whether or not Christian Conservatives, which
are a big important part of the Republican Party coalition,
whether they could support someone like Trump who was so
personally morally deficient in the minds of a lot of people.
I kind of think a lot of politicians are morally deficient,
and that his virtues were undervalued, but that was the moment.
And so you take Mike Pence, who's whatever else you
want to say about him. He's known as this big
evangelical Christian type, and he came out with hostile moderators
and made the case for how someone like him, why
someone like him would be supporting Donald Trump, And it
was really effective at helping other Christians see how they
kind of identified with Mike Pence and the way he
talked about supporting Trump was the way they started talking
about it. So I don't know if it shows up
in polls. I mean, Mike Pence, I think was widely
regarded as having won that debate against my Senator Tim Kaine,
which I think is funny because we all forget that
he ran for VP. But it was more in these
nebulous ways that it mattered. And likewise, I think what
happened last night is Jady Vance showed himself to be
an incredibly likable person. And this is going to make
no sense to the men listening or to you. He
actually appeared attractive for the very first time that I've witnessed.
Speaker 1: Like I've always found him attractive. It's the beard.
Speaker 2: Well, I do like beards, but I've I've never thought,
you know, I just being attractive was not one of
the one of the things I would have said about him.
He had really good lighting, really good camera angles, appears
to have lost as someone said, all he did was
lose four pounds and now he's hot, you know, but
he didn't lose that much weight, but he's like lost
a little bit of weight. And he just had this
kind of confidence and manliness about him, and it was
really attractive. Also when he talked about it was like
paid leave for women or something. And the way he
talked about women as not being this block the way
democrats frequently talk about women, like women need this, And
he said, you know, some women want this and some
women want that. It showed, you know, it's like the
difference between showing and telling. It showed that he understood
that women are individuals that are valuable and that they
have different needs and desires. And it just came off
very attractive, and I don't know, it just made him.
He was just very likable. And he chose that approach
of not being you know, he can be someone who
could like eviscerate Tim Walls on a stage, and he
chose not to. He chose instead to be like the
guy who's nice, who women might like, and I think
it worked. It's why he left things on the table
toward the end of the debate. You know, you can't
you can't switch your approach midstream, and so he just
stayed with the I'm this, I'm not who you've been told,
I am kind of approached. But I thought it was
really effective.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole he's weird thing, it was always
just anyone who had watched him for five minutes would
know it was just nonsense again, you know. I mean,
you can disagree with a guy on policy, but but
the idea that he's weird or not smart or any
of those things, it's ridiculous. But the thing with him
also is obviously like he prepared for the debate. He
prepared for a lot of the questions. He knew they
were coming, and very he had to sink smart to
the point answers and tim Walls was sometimes just incoherent,
you know, And I don't know if if it was
that he was nervous. Again, I just think he's playing
out of his league. I do want to say quickly
that I agree with you on the Pence debate I
think was super important at the time because for Donald Trump,
he has to convince some people that it's okay to
vote for him that they were going to you know
that if if you see someone who is more responsible
or more responsible is not the right word, but perhaps
more even keeled around him, I think that that maybe
gives you permission to vote for him. I'm not sure
that this debate holds the same, you know, the same importance,
but we'll see. There were some interesting things to talk about.
I think a great moment in this debate was when
Jade Evans got Tim Walls to admit that he doesn't
believe in free speech. Did you see that moment where
he talked about yelling fire in a theater?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So jd Vance says, you said that you thought misinformation,
which is the left's term for information they don't like,
You said that the First Amendment didn't protect it, and
he was like, you're right, I did. And I also
don't think it protects hate speech, which is described which
is the left's way of talking about other information that
they don't like. Both of those things are horrifying to
think that in the First Amendment you're not protected from
saying things unless people like Tim Walls agree with what
you're saying.
Speaker 1: Well, can I just say ad a quick thing? Even
if it was actual hate speech, it would still be
protected by the constitution. There is no exception for hate
speech censorship in the Constitution. But yes, they use it
as a y euphemism for stuff they don't like. And
he brought up he brought up this case from nineteen
nineteen about a nineteenth about a pro anti war protester
being thrown in jail, and this analogy made by I
forgot which Supreme Court justice that you can't yell fire
in the theater, which was overturned by Blandenberg or whatever
in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: I think it was ilicitly overturned or explicitly rejected. I
should say so.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't someone who is one breath away from the presidency
potentially know this? And shouldn't it be a massive story
that the vice the potential vice president of the United States,
a governor of a state doesn't believe in free speech.
I mean, to me, that is like a huge story.
But anyway, it wasn't. I had another point I wanted
to make. If we can move on unless you have
something to say on that. I saw a lot of
people attacking Vance, David Axelrod and others saying, does he
know that the vice president doesn't make policy? Like, does
he know that the vice president? Listen, Joe Biden just
the other day on the View said that she was
involved in every major decision he made. She talks about
her important role in the administration. She is running for
the presidency because she was a vice president. So you
can have it both ways. Now, either she has this
experience or she did nothing. I think you know, maybe
she did nothing. I don't know, But you can have
it both ways.
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Speaker 2: She has done nothing to stop the Biden administration's bad policies,
but she's claimed credit for being in charge of policy.
Whether it's broadband policy here, border policy, or State Department
sorry space policy. There are all sorts of things she's
claimed that she was setting policy for, even if her
actual overseeing of those projects has been nothing short of
a disaster. But I just don't like it because it's
not true. There are two main issues I have a
problem with, and before I get to those, I'll say
David Oxelrod is saying this because the debate was such
a disaster for Democrats, just needs to be said. They're
downplaying the role of vice president because they know Tim
Walls is so unimpressive that people can't imagine him in
the office of the presidency. Now we have had two
assassination attempts against Donald Trump, the presidential nominee, in the
course of two months. The idea that the vice president
doesn't matter at a time when Democrats are trying to
murder Donald Trump is insane. I mean, he might not
make it too, he might not make it to November
if they have their way. DJ announced a bounty on
his head. Things are very fraught, and likewise something bad
could happen to Kamala Harris at which point people are
going to be voting for either jd Vance or Tim Walls, Right,
So it absolutely matters at times like this when they
are trying to kill President Trump. But it's not just
Kamala Harris being an important vice president or having a
role of setting policy. I mean, Mike Pence was in
charge of the COVID response. That was one of the
most important things in our country's history. I don't think
he did a particularly great job with it, but it
was an important role and he held that role. So
even on the idea of like, oh, vice presidents don't
handle policy well, the two most recent vice presidents did.
Joe Biden's claim to fame was that he had a
very robust vice presidency. I know all the things we've
heard about the vice presidency not being worth a bucket
of warm spit and all that, but it's not totally true.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, just to go back to my comment, I'm
not saying that the vice presidency isn't important. We shouldn't care.
I'm saying that a lot of voters don't base their
vote on how a vice president doesn't the debate. That's
all I'm saying. I think a ton of I don't
think a ton of people change their minds. I do.
I do think it's important also to see this sort
of thing, because, I mean, Jadvance might be running for
president at some point, and you know, maybe Tim Wallas
is going to run prepared. I don't know. So it's
important to know what they're about. And I think this
was a far more policy specific debate than the presidential debate,
where Kamala didn't even bother to answer a question.
Speaker 2: I did feel like on that that jd Vance was
had a higher IQ than the three other people on
the stage combined.
Speaker 1: Well, I thought that. I thought I thought that their
fact check was bad enough, especially because apparently the rules
were that they weren't going to do that. But we'll
talk about that in a second. But they are cutting
off the mic when being corrected, was completely out of
line and made them look terrible, made them look in
their tone, made them look like they were just in
the bag for Democrats, which they were. Every question is
framed in a way that democrat, you know, to stress
the democratic concern the questions themselves, climate changes, like the
second or third question, No one cares the note before
inflation before did they even ask a question about Russia
and Ukraine? No, I don't even know. So, like, you know,
it's just idiotic to have these debates, not only because
of the bias, because I think jd Vance handled himself
very well, but rather that you're not talking about the
things that most Americans actually care about enough. So I
don't know. That's how I feel on it.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the moderators because it really is.
It's a situation that cannot continue. There was the Lady
in the Navy and the Lady in the Pink. Remind
me of their names, Margaret Brennan and Nora o'donnald.
Speaker 1: That's right, Nora o'donald, Right.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they This is such a petty thing to
talk about, but it really weirded me out. When I
first started doing TV. It was on this special show
that britt Hume was doing. I should say when I
first started doing Fox, I'd done a lot of CNN
and MSNBC, but I was really nervous in the presence
of brit Hume, such a great guy, and he had
me on a show and I didn't know which camera
to look in. It was so disorienting and difficult. And
I remember at the end of the show and he
was said, you know, do you want to come back tomorrow?
And I was like, yeah, but I was I can't
believe you want me back because I was horrible. And
he was like, oh, no, you really you need to
learn some TV skills. But I can teach you those,
I can't teach you how to think, and I need that,
so come back tomorrow. And so every night he would
tell me how to sit and which camera to look at,
and it was really wonderful. I cannot thank him enough
for this. But these two ladies have been in TV
for like thirty years, right, how could they not? How
did they not know which camera to look at constantly?
And even like the cameramen seem to be a little
off on where to do their shots. And then they
were tripping over what they were saying, as if they
didn't understand the questions. They felt like people who didn't
understand the questions that they were being told to ask,
which might have been part of the problem. And then
as you note the focus of the questions, the angle
of the questions, this is another like thing would be
Tim Walls, yes or no is two plus two four
and he'd say I grew up in Nebraska and he
wouldn't answer the question, and they'd say, thank you, jd Vance,
you're evil. Explain and then he would explain that he
wasn't evil, and they'd say, I don't understand what you're saying, like,
could you explain that? Again? So would say something completely
incoherent one hundred percent of the time, and they never
asked him to explain himself.
Speaker 1: Jd.
Speaker 2: Vance would say something that was perfectly coherent, perfectly articulated.
They'd be like, but what are you talking about? Where's
this idea that immigration might affect housing prices? As if
they'd not even taken econ one oh one in college.
You know, it was weird to see people that stupid
being in a position of such power.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to say, the ostensibly tough
questions they asked of and you alluded to this of
Tim Walls were more like there was a discrepancy in
something you said, not you're a liar, and can you
explain it please, like those are softballs that they assumed
he was prepared to answer, because everyone on earth should
have known. But I just want to say a lot
of people have said this, and I agree with it.
I think part of the problem for Kamala and for
Tim Wall's and other Democrats is that they're never asked
tough questions. They don't know how to answer tough questions.
They are coddled, they are bubble wrapped, they never have interviews.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, okay, so take to take two examples.
Instead of asking Tim Walls about his pathological lying, whether
it's that he was that he blamed his dui on
being deaf not which he wasn't, or not knowing the
circumstances of his children's conception or lying about it, or
lying about his military service, they asked instead about lying
about whether or not he was in Hong Kong during
Tianeman Square. It's kind of like a weird the nicest
version of what they could have asked him, and he
could not answer it because he's he had a reasonable
expectation that he wouldn't even be asked, whereas JD Vance
is asked like really brutal questions about how he didn't
always love Donald Trump. But it's like the moderators didn't
understand that when he ran for Senate in Ohio, a
state that Trump won probably my like eight or ten points.
I have no idea what the actual margin was. That
meant that every single town hall he went to, of
which there were probably like two hundred, you had people
being like, I'd like to vote for you, but I
don't like the way that you treated Donald Trump. So
he was asked, he was answering that question over and
over and over again, not to mention with hostile media,
and so he was He gives this like beautifully articulated
answer to that, in part because he's got experience dealing
with hostile media and people who disagree with him, and
he's not so cloistered.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're not embarrassed about your beliefs, it's
not hard to be asked tough questions because you have
answers for them if you're hiding those. So I think,
for instance, his worst answer in some not all of it,
but part of it was on abortion, where he sort
of like backed away and he said democracy, I forget
what he said that. You know, politics basically compels me
to take this position or that position, but Tim Walls can't.
He lied completely about the abortion Billy had. He sounded
like a liar to me. And there was no fact check.
There is no follow up, there's nothing. He just lies.
And it is almost as if JD. Walls not just
has to debate him, but he needs to be the
JD vance needs to be the fact checker, you know,
in these debates.
Speaker 2: Basically, of course, okay, so let's talk about the abortion thing,
but I don't want to forget the fact check issue.
So I also thought that, I mean, I was frustrated
by JD's approach on abortion, not completely, but mostly because
I'm pro life and I want someone to articulate a
strong pro life message and he didn't do that totally,
and just it was yeah, it seemed kind of weak,
but it was also good in a way that he
focused on the extremism of the Democrat position. And Tim
Walls did sign into law this is, you know, just
to do the fact checker right now. Tim Walls signed
into law a bill that rescinded an obligation on doctors
to care for children who were born alive after abortion,
and in the first year after that took place, there
were records showing any thing. It was like eight eight
children survived and were left to die. And then they
just changed it so you don't. You no longer have
to report when you when you're allowing babies to die.
So that was something that if the moderators knew anything,
then they cared about being honest, then they would have
fact checked him on that. He claimed it wasn't true
that it allows abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
That's a that's a damned lie. That is a that
is a horrific lie. And I thought JD could have
pushed little harder on it. Again, he chose this different
approach which was not going to be like brutalizing his opponent.
But it's just frustrating with the fact checks on the
fact check angle. So they had a rule apparently that
they wouldn't do live quote unquote fact checks. I hate
to even call them that. They're not checking facts, they're
just doing Democrat propaganda one hundred percent of the time.
So they had a rule. The Navy suit lady, I
think it was broke the rule on that by saying
that she wanted to point out that all of the
Haitians that have overtaken Springfield, Ohio are there legally, and
Jade Vance is like, okay, so since she broke the
rule on fact checking, I'm going to have to correct
you here because you said something you know incomplete here.
So he goes into how this is a gross abuse
of the law to allow like this one, that the
Biden Harris administration had exploited this you know, loophole type
thing to allow them to single handedly bring all of
these tens of thousands of Haitians over to take over
this town. And they were so embarrassed by that they
cut off his microphone. I liked how Biron York said,
was there something in the rules that said you had
to cut microphones? The moment anything got interesting, like why
would you do this? And then they did this really
condescending sort of passive, aggressive, very female thing of saying
thank you, thank you for saying what I said said
was right, or something like that, which came off for
horrifically bad. These women took womanhood down several notches, I
felt last night, And can.
Speaker 1: We talk about that for a second. This martyred him
that women engage in sometimes on TV or wherever with
the man's splaining or whatever it makes. I've never once
been offended as a man over something a woman does
to a man. I assume they're individuals and the act
in certain ways. Does this resonate with women in general,
because to me it just seemed obnoxious. It also treats
women as a monolith, at which they aren't, And I
just this always completely escaped me. I thought he was respectful.
He just pushed back. He mentioned that what is it
the you know, this asylum seeking is basically a shortcut
for illegal immigrants to be in the country, and you know,
people I don't know, they're not illegal immigrants anymore technically,
but obviously there's a lot of context there that's important
when you're going to say that, And it just seemed
to me it was completely repeful. He's just explaining himself. Also,
they fashed him.
Speaker 2: He is the nominee and is Tim Walls. These two ladies,
the one that had the demon eyes and the other lady,
they're not anything. They're just servants. Supposedly, they're supposed to
be moderating the debate. They're not the star of the show,
although they tried to make themselves the star. They are
like the idea that they are owed some unbelievable deference
by virtue of being Democrat propagandists is just insane. Like,
if anything, he was far too nice.
Speaker 1: So Molly, let's talk about Hurricane Helene for a minute. Terrible,
terrible pictures and videos from western North Carolina and elsewhere,
just horrifying, And obviously everything is about politics in some way.
I just want to quickly say, the government that we
have and the politicians we have involve themselves in speech,
in all kinds of things that are no know their
business in our personal lives, but when we need them
to help us with something serious, like a natural disaster,
they just completely suck at their jobs, you know, every time,
And this is part of why people don't trust the
government and why people are so mad. I don't know
if that's an overreaction, but I just seeing those people
in the lack of action from the president and the
Vice presient and so on, it was just I think heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: It's actually like the entire regime too. I think I
was a little surprised. So this is a horrific hurricane
and one that I don't think people would have reasonably
been planning for that far inland. I mean, some of
these worst hit areas are in completely landlocked states and
in the far western part of North Carolina. And you know,
when there's like there's like a hurricane hits New York City,
it's major news for weeks and there's the planning for it.
Then there's the posts stuff. You know, it's just major news.
Or if there's a fire in New York City or anything.
When there are fires in Tennessee or Colorado that take
out entire towns, it just barely makes a blip on
the news. And I understand that that's because of the
New York DC focus of our media, but it seemed
particularly bad this time. The death toll is currently I
think one hundred and sixty, with expectations that it will
go up. This is you know, this is a horrible
situation and there are a lot of people missing. There
are a lot of people who survived, but they are
unable to make it through roads to get healthcare or
groceries or for people to come check on them. People
are without electricity, without safe drinking water. I mean, this
is a humanitarian crisis, and you just don't see it
being discussed that much on the news or in the papers,
or from the president of the country or the vice
president the president. And it was at the beach, at
his beach home the weekend after Helene hit and Kamala
Harris was on a fundraising tour. But even like Josh
Shapiro was doing fundraising in North Carolina with the governor
of North Carolina or the person running to be the governor.
I mean, it's just like people, there are more important
things than sitting at the beach or raising money here.
You should be as the president and vice president and
state leaders or want to be state leaders, you should
be you should be just dropping everything to take care
of these people. And it seems like we have people
who are willing to drop everything to take care of
people in other countries, but they're not willing to do
it for their own citizens. And it's infuriating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, when there's a natural disaster like this, there
is going to be It's not solely the fault of
government that it's happening. Obviously, you know, there's some people.
It takes a while to rescue people, It takes a
while to get them all the things they need. But
when you looked at how flawed reacted to this where
there's good governance, and then North Carolina and the federal government,
it was obviously a huge disparity. So yeah, that's that's
just off putting. And I'm not saying I want Joe
Biden and a helicopter in the middle of this, but
it should be at the White House at least showing
some leadership, you know, pulling it together. I mean, I
you know, it's just it's mind boggling that he'd be
sitting on a beach when this was happening.
Speaker 2: And again, do you remember so after Katrina, which was
one of these things where they said, if it hits
New Orleans, it's going to be a disaster, and everyone's like, yeah,
probably won't hit New Orleans. It hit New Orleans. It
was an absolute disaster, and you had corrupt state and
local government who weren't doing their jobs, and immediate immediately
blame like who wasn't Michael Brown of FEMA and George W. Bush.
They got mad that George W. Bush visited the disaster
area without getting out of his helicopter, even though that
would have been way too dangerous for all involved. Meanwhile,
here now with Helene not even like a mild request
that Biden pretend to be interested in the people who
lost their lives or the people who are suffering, and
it's just enraging to me.
Speaker 1: I think, I think you're right that part of it
is the New York centric, DC centric press. But I
also think that it's right before presidential election and these
sorts of things have a lot to do.
Speaker 2: What was that one that hit right, Remember when Chris
Christy was out there waddling on a beach hugging Barack
Obama right before an election after a hurricane hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm saying it's because the poor reaction from
the administration leads them to talk about it. Yeah, I
think that's part of it, you know. You know, obviously
Louisiana that was covered by everyone because it put George
Bush in a bad spot.
Speaker 2: I do want to say Ron DeSantis, who continues to
be the best governor in America, he had all this
preparation for the for the hurricane to hit Florida, and
it did hit Florida, but not as badly as it
ends up hitting these inland states. And so as soon
as he gets everything fixed for Florida, which is in
a matter of hours and a day versus what most
governments do, which is spend years trying to fix these things.
He sends people to North Carolina to help them out.
I mean, that's amazing leadership. It gives me chills just
thinking about it. It's so beautiful and wonderful. How competent
he is on those basic government services that nobody else
seems to be able to deploy. I want to say
something really quickly though, So the FCC, like on your
cell phone build there's some very small fee that you
pay monthly that's like a dollar or two, and it
goes into this massive slush fund that the FCC uses
to supposedly, you know, help out other people. And so
they have this huge fund for rural service. And in
twenty twenty, the FCC awarded Starlink an eight hundred and
eighty five point five million dollar award to provide Starlink
access to like all the rural parts of the of
the entire country. And in twenty twenty two, Joe Biden
asked federal agencies to start going after Elon Musk and
they all immediately complied, you know, the FTC, the SEC,
the DOJ, the Southern District, New York the Fish and
Wildlife Service. Like everyone's going after him in multiple ways
because of course Elon Musk bought Twitter and supports free speech,
and these are at odds with the Democrat Party, which
wants to control Twitter and violate free speech, so he
must be punished. The FCC cancels this award to Starlink
on the grounds that he can't act provide the service
specifically in North Carolina, by the way, and they replace
it with nothing. And then there's this other government program
through the Commerce Department that is run by Kamala Harris. Incidentally,
that's an even larger program to provide broadband in rural areas,
and they specifically wrote the guidance to prevent satellite service.
So they're supposedly going to lay fiber optic cables in
some of the most difficult parts of the country to
lay fiber optic cables.
Speaker 1: There's always three technologies behind the government, you know what
I mean, And it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Like an eighty five billion dollar program or something insane
like that. Forty five billion. I mean, it's all magical
numbers at that point. And that was implemented and she
was put in charge almost as soon as she became
vice president. And not a single American individual, family, or
business has in any way gotten broadband through this program,
this very expensive program, nor has any project even begun.
And I think it's like expected in a very polyannish
way to begin in twenty thirty or something like insane,
by which point the technology will be totally different.
Speaker 1: So right after the California speed Rail is finished, I
think that the.
Speaker 2: Broad and on budget. And so as soon as this
disaster happened, private individuals started sending starlink kits to rural
North Carolina so that people could get in communication with
each other because they're just completely out of communication, which
is crazy because the cell phone towers are sketchy and
you know, the electricity is down. And so the technology
that the FCC said wouldn't work is what is actually
being used by so many private individuals. You had Elon
sending stuff, you had Donald Trump sending stuff, and you
even have the federal government bragging that they're sending a
few dozen starlinks down there when it was, by the way,
supposed to serve seventeen thousand houses and businesses in the
original plan. But so their entire justification for punishing Elon
by canceling this contract because they said, oh, it wouldn't work,
is belied by the fact that all these federal agencies
are using starlink in all over the world. And I
just want to point out that when you're out of communications,
it's a life and death matter. It's something you do
in wartime, you cut people off from communication. And this
was done by the FCC intentionally because of their hatred
for Elon Musk And it's just it's a horrific situation.
And the FCC basically has blood on its hands because
of its politically motivated cancellation of a comms project.
Speaker 1: There, So, last thing before culture just wanted to touch
on Israel's taking out of Nozraala the has Balah had
He basically created Hasbala. He was behind the killing of
two hundred whatever it was American marines and in Beirut
years ago, he was part of that, and Israel took
him out and took out a bunch of the leadership
in one of the most targeted military operations in the
history of mankind. Of course, all the Israel haters are
still calling you genocide and so forth. And then Iran
attacked Israel with one hundred and forty somethingter missiles and
of drones and ballistic missiles. A few people died. Thank
god for the technology that started in the Reagan era
that all Democrats mocked Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a little surprised yesterday when the attack
on Israel happened, and there were all these people who
were like, has anything like this ever happened before? And
I'm like, sorry for saying like so much, and I'm thinking,
we just had this happened in April, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I mean this was more serious.
This was definitely more serious, but yeah.
Speaker 2: I just worry that people are forgetting things that were
quite recent.
Speaker 1: Well, it's shocking that the administration then said, I think
Joe Biden said take the win to Israel, you know,
don't retaliate. Israel retaliated very limited to show them that
they could target TYRN if they felt like it, but
didn't do it. I think this time will be different.
A lot of these leftists say, well, it was a victory.
No one died or very few people died. That's not
how it works. They were trying to kill you. Someone's
trying to kill you. It doesn't matter that they missed
and that you have defenses. Israel cannot allow themselves to
be constantly under attack. And I think they're going to
do something. I think it's going to be major and impressive.
That's just my prediction.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is this reminds me of one of
the worst questions from the vice president. Not one of
the worst. This was not even anywhere close to one
of the worst, but it just bothered me from last
night and the vice presidential debate. The pink Lady, vampire
eyed lady said Iran attacked Israel, but it failed, And
I thought, that's just a weird way to say it. Miraculously,
due to this great technological investment of missile defense, they
shoot down all the things that are directing, like coming
in on their heads. What if the goal of Iran
was to deplete that anti missile defense resource, you know, like,
how do we know what their exact objective was in
order to call it a failure even And also it's
just it's still a terrifying moment to be under fire
like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not even I'm sorry, it's not even just that,
it's it's a way to see where the missile defense
is located. You know, there's a lot of intel you
can gain from an attack, so there are many other
more serious, you know, things to worry about as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sorry, So you think about how in April when they
did that attack, they started off with drones. Tho was
all got shot down, but it gave Israel much more
advanced warning of what was about to come, whereas this
time they just went straight to the straight to the missiles. Now,
having said that, I get a little annoyed when people
are like, well, there must be a response. The idea
should be that Israel needs to do whatever it needs
to do to protect itself, which may be a response.
It may not be a response, or it may be
something where like when you're least expecting it in six months,
there's a response. The idea that you just have to
retaliate immediately. That seems like an input rather than an output,
like your goal you want.
Speaker 1: You're one hundred percent right and Israel, I mean, listen,
we know that there are smart people there, you know,
whatever you think of Israel, and they're not just going
to bring a hammer. Now. They have planned for this,
They have planned for this retaliation. I don't know what
they're going to do, but I bet you it's going
to be somewhat surprising and it probably won't be what
Iran expects to happen. But they have to re establish
de terrence. You can't just have people firing missiles at you.
You have a three front war against you. That is
just and it's all Iran, by the way, which I
just want to mention quickly, there has no geopolitical rational
reason to be enemies with Israel. None. It's completely driven
by theology, this crazy ideology that they have there. There
is no reason. I saw someone I forgot who's saying
that Israel, you know, is never going to be able
to kill all its enemies is and that Israel is
a piece and partially because of the last administration, helped
forge that piece with the Sunni Arab nations and their
enemy is Iran. Iran is who funds Hamas, iranis who
per funds his Bolah, and the Hutis, who incidentally are
constantly firing missiles in America ships and we do nothing
about it. It is insanity to me. So once Iran
is finished, I think there's going to be a I'm
not saying this is gonna be complete peace in the
Middle East, but there's gonna be a lot more piece
in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: And that reminds me of one thing I didn't like
about Netanyahu's speech before the UN. So he says something
about how they are surrounded on all sides by people
who seek their destruction, and clearly he's referring to Gaza
and the West Bank and his Bowl and Lebanon and Iran.
But I saw something where the Jordanian Foreign minister was like, like,
we're happy to be at peace with Israel, and I
was thinking that Netnaho should have emphasized kind of what
you were just saying, there is a lot of peace
in that region that has been very hard fought and won,
and you've even had some of these countries helping out
with the effort to go against Iran. And he should
have mentioned that more instead of just being like, we
are complete victims here of our entire neighbors.
Speaker 1: NATAGNAO and Israel deserve a lot of criticism for underestimating
Hamas and allowing that massacre to happen, But boy, they
did not underestimate Hezbala and they have not underestimated Iran.
And I think this is their time. They see this
as their window to take care of business. There's no
country on earth that would allow another nation to and
it has ball is not even Lebanon, by the way,
it's just this independent group within Lebanon WoT missiles that
at civilians and fire them constantly at civilians. They killed
thirteen children on a soccer field not long ago. We
would never allow this to and know children by the way,
yeah Drew's children. Yeah, not even Jewish children, but still
citizens and it matters. So anyway, that's enough on that.
So you want to talk about culture, sure, can I
quickly mention that we asked last week we got into
a conversation at the very end of the podcast about
conspiracy theories, and we said, please send us your conspiracy
theories or the one conspiracy theory that you do believe.
And I think maybe we've gotten more email on this
than any other episode. Would you say that? That's right?
Speaker 2: I loved it and it's such interesting email, Like sometimes
it was about a particular conspiracy theory. Sometimes it was
about the notion of conspiracy theories and whether that's an
appropriate term to use or not. I mean, it was
just some people are such good writers and so interesting
and I loved reading it all.
Speaker 1: So we have not forgotten about any of those emails.
If you'd like to send more, please do at radio
at the Federalist dot com. You send us your conspiracy
theories or ideas about conspiracy theories. I think we're going
to put them aside and then maybe have an episode
or part of an episode where we go through it
and discuss it. Yeah, because there was there were a
lot of interesting things in there that I think are
worth talking about, and I think obviously people or listeners
are interested. All right, So did you watch any movies? Music?
What's going on with you?
Speaker 2: And I just do one. I have a little tiny
thing that's still political that I just want to talk
about because it just occurred to me.
Speaker 1: I will allow you see.
Speaker 2: Did you see this story I think it's in the
Daily Mail about how Doug m Hoff slapped one of
his ex girlfriends in public because she was flirting with
another man.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was recently talking to people who are friends
or in the larger em Hoff friend group. Okay, and
this I don't think they intended this to be written
about or anything like this. And these people knew the
m Hoff's fairly well and I mean by that dog,
his ex wife and their kids, and they were saying
that they're just shocked at this persona that Doug has
adopted of being like a supportive male because he was
he had a reputation for being very toxic toward females.
That would include the teacher at the school that he impregnated,
but also all his other relationships as well his lack
of fidelity, and that also they were saying that the
this is like in the larger friends set that Doug
has just talked about how difficult it has been to
play the part that he's playing right now of being
this you know, Kamala devote and how he's felt like
his identity has been washed away. And I just thought
that was interesting. When the story came out, I was like,
this sounds very much like what they were talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I first detected what a fraud that guy was
when he was talking about Jewish issues and speaking for
all the Jewish people and you know, and all of that.
I don't know if this story is true. There's a
lot of evidence there in that Daily Mail piece, so
it's not just some accusation. There's reporting there and it
seems like something happened there. I just, you know, I
just try to be careful when it comes to these
kind of things.
Speaker 2: I agree, but I just want to say there were
three friends who were told on the night it happened.
So that's not like an egen Carol, like I'm going
to imagine something thirty years later and claim that it happened.
And then also they had the picture of the woman
who was slapped as sort of a go ahead and
try and challenge this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm not. This is a This is more
better and deeper reported than any of the accusations against
for instance, Bred Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2: So like a billion times better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not even close.
Speaker 2: Sorry, that was not cultural.
Speaker 1: No one will mention it though, right. It will not
be mentioned in the New York Times. It will not
be mentioned on CNN. Do you think that they will
report any of this. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: No, But I was wondering also, like I do hope
that he's not physically abusing his current wife. I don't
know abusers abuse. I'm just saying, okay, I did. I've
watched some stuff and I would like to talk about it.
So first off, I want to say that I've stopped
watching Hacks, which was something that I stuck with for
multiple seasons. Do you know Hacks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Smart.
Speaker 2: But there's always been this problem in the show in
that there are two main characters, Jean's Smart and then
this like bisexual comedy writer who's so annoying and awful,
like every time she's in the scene, you're like, oh sad.
So her big thing is wokeism. And the episode that
I was watching most recently, I just turned it off
in the middle because it was so bad. She wants
Jeane Smart's character to apologize for comedy that she did
in the seventies or something like that, and Jeane's like,
I'm not going to apologize. And then the part where
I turned it off and I was like, I'm done
forever is she's in a struggle session at Berkeley where
she says I was going to have some things to say,
but I think what I really need to do is
just be quiet and listen. And I'm like, this is stupid.
It doesn't match your character. It's not funny, it's not interesting,
and it's like embracing the worst cultural Marxism. And I
was like, well, I'm out, so I'm done with that.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, I think we. I meant,
like maybe two years ago I had brought up this show,
and it's as a example of how when you have
these television shows or movies where there's one boomer, let's say,
and one woke you know, millennial or whatever, that they're
both learning from each other and accepting it's really just
the boomer who always has to evolve and learn, never
the woke person never, and it's always just this insufferable lesson,
you know, in struggle session, exactly a struggle session for
you to watch. I don't know if any if this
who this is supposed to appeal to, I just don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's not me. So I also watched a
movie that I'm kind of surprised that I liked so much.
It was Bye by Bertie I think from the would
that be the early.
Speaker 1: Sixties, I think, so, I'm going to look it up
right now.
Speaker 2: It stars Anne Margaret and Janet Lee. Have you seen
it right now?
Speaker 1: Maybe years ago? I don't remember anything about it now.
Speaker 2: So it was clearly a play on Broadway before it
became yeah, before it became a film. Dick Van Dyke
is in it. There's some other people you don't it's
all Lynn's as Sullivan's. But it's a musical. I don't
like musicals, but Mark had suggested it for our family
movie night and it was I thought it was like
really oddly interesting, and I was captivated by Anne Margaret,
who incidentally I got to meet once because she's a
fellow Missouri Sinnid Lutheran and she was getting it done.
And she's not a young lady, I mean super hot,
but in this movie she's like a revelation. Oh my gosh,
so so hot and so interesting and like full of
life and just great.
Speaker 1: And you have you ever seen the skit with Kristin
Wig playing and Margaret no so where where so whatever
they ask her to do, like can you throw away
this paper, she'll do like this dance number she like
like looks at the camera and so it's like, you know,
doing that type of dancing she does. It's very funny
if you can look it up.
Speaker 2: On YouTube, and it's like the whole I'm sure everybody's
seen it but me, so Bye by Bird. It's about
an Elvis like character when he's going off to war
and how it affects you know, but it's sort of
also about family dynamics and those baby boomer kids and
how out of control they are and blah blah blah.
I really liked it.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: And then I have one more, which is that I
started watching while I'm rowing this TV show with Kristin
Bell and I forget the name of the guy, and
it's called No One Wants This and a rabbi yes,
And I am shocked at how much I'm enjoying it.
I will warn everybody it's raunchy and there's like lots
of premarital premarital looking at each other. But it's really
well written and interesting and I'm I'm a fan. I
was hoping to watched it too, so.
Speaker 1: I probably won't.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try Nobody Wants This?
Speaker 1: Sorry, Yeah, reminds me just from the trailer. Reminds me
of a movie from the nineties where Ed Norton was
a priest and Ben Steeler was a rabbi and they
were vying for the affections of a woman. But I
forget who it was, I forget the name of the movie.
Speaker 2: I think part of the reason why I like it.
I'm sure it's going to end up with something super disappointing.
But as a Lutheran and having parents were converts. My
dad's a convert to Christianity. The most important part of
my identity is being Lutheran. And from a young age,
we my brother, ma, sister, and I all understood that
our lives would involve like if we're married, we're marrying
a Lutheran, and each one of us married people who
are converts to Christianity or basic or like yeah, and
so it was not an easy path to find our spouses,
and there were some struggles along the way. And also
like one of the people that I always felt the
most compatible with was was this Jewish guy who wouldn't
marry me or he like broke things off because I
wasn't Jewish, you know. So I just find it for
people who for whom religion is very important, and also
dealing with the struggles of dating and finding someone who
you're compatible with.
Speaker 1: It's just spoke to me, Well, I don't know what
this movie is about. I haven't seen it. I mean,
I know it's about TV show. The idea, the very
idea that any rabbi or real rabbi would date a
woman who is in Jewish a shiksa is.
Speaker 2: He's not a real rabbi, Like he's in one of
those like barely Jewish situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's what I feel. So yeah, all right, maybe
I'll give it a shot.
Speaker 2: Is it Adam Brody? There are two Brody's, right, Adrian
Brody and Adam Brody.
Speaker 1: It's Adam not Adrian. Yeah, okay, great, that's it.
Speaker 2: I just also mentioned I'm going to see Soul Coughing
this weekend in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Oh you told me with your friends from the from
high school? Was it? Yep? I have a very boring
set of movies I watched. I'm really into the new
season of Slow Horses. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you watch
that too? Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2: Everyone should watch that. That's like, actually really good television
for everybody.
Speaker 1: My only complain about it is that Gary Oldman isn't
in it enough. He should be in it much more.
Speaker 2: And also I love when he's so offensive. Yeah, you
should be more offensive.
Speaker 1: He really embraces that role. Then I watched Logan Lucky.
Do you know this movie?
Speaker 2: Nope?
Speaker 1: So Logan Lucky is Stephen what's his name? Sondberg, the
director who did Like Ocean's Eleven and all that. This
is very similar has Chatting, Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and
Daniel Craig is in it. He's actually quite funny. It's
basically like Ocean's eleven, but in a hillbilly sense. I
guess say it and then you know, I didn't think
i'd like it, and I did. It's okay, it's not great.
Speaker 2: Oh and it's old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not so old. Someone who just came up
with Bye Bye Bertie is calling a movie from twenty
seventeen old. Then I watched too, Believe it or not,
Christian Bale westerns Hostiles, which which was a very well
made movie, a bit of a downer if you're into
like a lot of shooting in a Western, that's not
for you. It's more of a moody rumination, you know,
on violence. And the other one was three ten from Yuma,
which is an old one, a remake with Russell Crowe
to Ums sorry, three ten two with Russell Crowe. I
think an excellent western. And that's that's all I did.
I will have a longer report. I've been I've been
working on watching a bunch of Michael Kine movies from
the sixties. So but I need to save that and
then I will have a more in depth report on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so hey, this is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Quickly, I want to say I have a new
book coming out, the Rise of Blue and on. If
anyone is interested, they can pre order on all the
sites that allow that, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and so on.
That's all I have, right, anything else, you know? All right?
Speaker 2: Well, but I do, I do. We We got so
much email. I'm like, not sure anyone else will have
anything to send, but if you do, it's always appreciated.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the reminder that's at radio at the
Federalist dot com. I always forget it at the end,
and I think it's helped. Well. We seem to get
more email when I do. Nice speaking to you, Molly.
We'll see the rest of you next week. Until them
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fraid kids.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's wrong with these kids do today?
Speaker 1: Kids who can understand anything they say.
Speaker 2: Kids they a