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's senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just
as a reminder, if you'd like to email us, please
do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We'd
love to hear from you. Has it got Molly? Where
are you?
Speaker 2: I'm in New York, and I do want to apologize
for the twenty minutes I spent trying to set up
my microphone and failing, so I hope everyone can hear me.
And but yeah, I'm in New York doing some stuff
for Fox this week, and also a not a debate,
but like a discussion with Doug Shown, who's a Democrat
pollster and strategist type.
Speaker 1: That'd be interesting. Let's first start with I think the
big news this week was Vance's speech Munich for this
Munich Security Council. Correct, so he basically attacked Europe, right,
I mean, you know, I wouldn't say an attack on Europe.
He said that really the main danger, or the central
danger is from within, not from without. So I think
he's speaking about Russia probably and even China. He's saying
that the two main reasons are censorship and mass immigration, right,
is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think the censorship component was partly about
freedom of speech. It was also about freedom of religion
and attacks on freedom of religion. But everyone goes to
this Munich security conference for back paths and everyone being
told that what we're doing is great. And so for
the last several years it's all been about how Russia
is an existential threat to the rest of the world
and now we all need to fight this proxy war
in Ukraine if we love democracy, and so he goes
and he says, so, if you love democracy, you need
to start respecting elections. He mentions the Romanian election that
they just decided not to accept based on a very
flimsy claim that turned out not to be true of
Russian interference. There was a sort of election interference in Romania,
but it came from like a third party that thought
they were playing the system very well and it turned
out to backfire against them. And then he talks about,
you know, the threat of censorship restrictions on speech and
it wasn't to me an attack on Europe. Since he
also was pointing out that much of what had been
done had been done with either the TACIT approval or
the support of the United States. It was really an
attack on illiberalism in Western democracies. I took it that way.
Speaker 1: Well. One of the for me it was I wrote
a book called Eurotrash a few years ago where I
went over a lot of these problems I think in
some depth, and I obviously agreed with the central focus
of his speech. Though the pushback was ridiculous, and the
pushback came from European elites. One guy I think it
was some kind of German under secretary. Actually it was
like tearing up whilst talking about this. I don't know
if you saw that. I also have to say I was.
Speaker 2: Doing TV yesterday with Rich Lowry and Randon Divine, and
when they showed that, we all spontaneously laughed at the
tears because, of course, that German dude was the same
one who mocked and laughed at Trump's UN speech when
he said that Germany should care about energy independence, and
of course he was right after somebody we don't know
precisely whom blew up the Nord Stream to pipeline, which
really put Germany in a world of hurt. So nobody
was laughing.
Speaker 1: Then let's talk about the censorship part of it. So
here the next day or two days later, maybe I
forget exactly. Mark or reviews being interviewed by Margaret Brennan
on CBS News and she asks him or she it's
not even asking. She points out that Advance was standing.
This is quote standing in a country where free speech
was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with
the head of a political party that has far right
views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context
of that was changing the tone of it. I don't
know what that means. And then she ends with this,
and you know that the censorship was specifically about the right.
A lot of people zoomed in, I think rightly on
the claim that free speech was weaponized to conduct genocide. Now,
Marco Ruby immediately pointed out that there was no free
speech in Nazi Germany. There was no political opposition in
Nazi Germany. But what he should have also pointed out,
obviously he didn't expect such idiocy I assume in this
interview was that the Weimer Republic, which preceded the Third Reich,
also had all kinds of hate speech laws on the
books that they shut down the newspapers of the Nazis.
De Schumer was shut down like a dozen times within
ten years. The propagandists of the Nazi Party were arrest
did constantly, and it did nothing. It made the martyrs
and just showered attention on them. And I'm not saying
this right wing German party today is the same as
the Nazi, but I'm just saying that that also is
part of it.
Speaker 2: So anyway, well, just to take a step away from
the Munich thing, I've been thinking about this as it
relates to domestic politics. There are all these reports of
the Democrat Party and disarray and people the Democrat donors
are very frustrated with what they got for their billions
of dollars they gave in the last election to achieve
very poor results. And I think part of it is
because we reached the limit of their political activism. And
what I mean is they built this censorship complex that
was helping Democrats a lot. People have noted that Donald
Trump's genius as he picks the eighty percent side of
eighty twenty issues, you know where eighty percent of Americans are,
He's there. Well, that's what's been true for the right
for a long time is that they generally are with
the majority of the country. So why have they been
losing so many elections. I think it's because the media
take that twenty percent and they weaponize it. To use
Margaret Brennan's favorite word, you know, they act like, they
act like they're a majority, no matter how radical the issue.
So they make it so you can't even talk honestly
about what trans radicalism is, you know. And so it
all worked really well to keep Democrats in power and
to thwart the will of the electorate for decades, and
then something happened recently where we finally reached the end
of that and the media no longer have credibility, and
so they kind of got hoisted by their own censorship petard,
their own information complex petard, and they're not able to
achieve the results that they kind of thought would happen
in perpetuity. I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it makes sense. I just one quick thing
about what she said at the end that people haven't
really pointed out that much as far as I've seen,
was that she says to Mark Rubert, and you know,
this was specifically about the right. This wasn't just about centience,
was about the right. Well, is it the right the
only political movement that is a danger to freedom? Because
I think the left is as big a danger. In fact,
I think that the illiberalism of European, of the EU
and others is a leftist kind of you know, it's
not that simple, but I think it comes from the left,
not the right. For the most part. To me, I
think Hungary is in a liberal place. But I also
think Germany is in a liberal place coming from the left,
you know. So, But for people like Brennan, the only problem,
the only illiberalism, can only come from the right. This
was just about the right. Why can't we just censor
the right? Well, I mean, I've detailed this in that book,
you know, in eurotresh But the right here, the left here,
I'm sorry, The New York Times, CBS News and elsewhere
they want to adopt those liberal policies here they completely
agree with the European censorship that goes on in Europe.
If you read the Bible out loud, you know, and
someone teams at homophobic you can be arrested. There's a
guy in jail, has a four year sentence for he's
a fascist, no doubt about it. But he's in jail
for four years. So the Democrats who call you and
I a fascists, right, would we be in jail? Then?
You know we're an existential threat to democracy supposedly.
Speaker 2: So I loved jd Vance's speech, talking about big ideas
about freedom of speech and freedom of religion and the
need to accept election results and listen to what the
people want and need when you're governing them. I liked
all of that, but I will admit that I thought
that who could possibly oppose this? You know who? Yes,
it was kind of an in your face speech, but
if you hear what he's talking about, it would be
very difficult to say, actually, we're on the other side.
And our media heard that speech and they were like,
we're on the other side of free speech. They all
started in mass defending restrictions on the press and on speech,
and I'm just thinking, this is insane. I I don't
know what they're The.
Speaker 1: New York Editorial Time, the editorial page of the New
York Times constantly has pieces saying this exact thing. I
would say that I disagreed with something he said, or
how he framed it. And I get that he's a politician,
and I get the politicians do this, but conflating democracy
and liberty is a big problem. Most people in Europe
probably do like some sort of censorship right, so what
that doesn't That doesn't I don't want to give the
people what they want. I want to protect individual rights.
This is why I always kind of get squeamish when
I hear common good or you know, phrases like common sense,
even because I don't care about that. Every we have
a neutral, you know, right to free you know, how
can I say an impartial right to free speech. So
this idea that we have to give the people what
they want, I think it's it's can be.
Speaker 2: It's also I actually I love you get into your
anti democracy tirades, but I don't disagree with you. Just
because a majority of people say that someone should be
killed doesn't mean that that person should be killed. Or
just because a majority of people don't love freedom of
religion doesn't mean that you don't have a natural right
to practice your religious beliefs. At the same time, it
is true that governments derive their legitimacy from the consent
of the governed, and I think the reason why the
European leaders had their little emergency session in Paris is
that they're terrified. They have been able to thwart what
their people want for a really long time, mostly in
pursuit of mass migration, and I think they're worried they're
going to lose some elections, as they should be.
Speaker 1: Well, I should say that there's a key philosophical difference
between you just alluded to, between each place and people
who don't really believe in free speech. If you believe
in God, but even if you don't, you believe that
the state is here to protect your free speech rights,
not bestow it on you. But the Convention of Human
Rights in the European Union does it the opposite way,
and then gives like fifteen exemptions for why you can
stop free speech. Can I read you a couple national security,
territorial integrity, public safety, disorder or crime, health or morals,
the reputation of other people. So in essence, there is
no free speech right there, and that I think is
the difference. That was my only problem with his speech.
I think he assumes, like people in the Middle East,
that everyone's just yearning for freedom. I don't know that
Europeans are yearning for freedom. I don't know that Germans
are yearning for freedom. History tells me otherwise, to be
honest with you, and so that was my only problem.
Speaker 2: With his speech, David, that's actually a really important point.
I think what you're seeing with the leaders at the
Munich conference, they're freak out over being told that they
are bad in how they deal with free speech and
freedom of religion and honoring elections. They're freaking out, and
our media are freaking out because there's something like at heart,
some of our elites aren't super into America or what
makes us different from other countries. They genuinely support the
censorship industrial regime. They genuinely think that they should be
the arbiters of what you're allowed to talk about. And
it's a very un American idea that you would limit
someone else's right to debate you or speak their mind.
But you're seeing a lot of our media are completely
in agreement with these these European leaders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, that's been going on for years. It
is an American But they will argue that the Internet
era is different and that these principles no longer whole.
We can't just let disinformation flow freely. And let's say
they were right, right, Let's say I'm right. I say, yeah,
that's a danger to democracy. But they have they call
every they don't like disinformation misinformation, so they can't be trusted.
This is why the state can't be trusted, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2: So you know, well, did you see you mentioned the
Margaret Brennan interview, but did you see the sixty minutes
segment where they interviewed the three Germans who were talking
about how great it is to limit what people say.
Speaker 1: You know, you say, it sounded better than the original German,
like we got it in the original German there. Yeah,
they were just little authoritarians. I mean, first of all,
one of the women says, we can't just have people
saying whatever they want. They have to be limits because
you're intimidating people. There are already rules against that every
Western country. You're not allowed to, you know, intimidate someone
or threaten someone to her and to many young people
in the United States, unfortunate, and many on the left,
words are violence to them. There's no real difference between
those things. That's why that's such a dangerous idea, as well,
that sixty minutes piece was just terrible. They couldn't find
a single person in the entire country to defend free
speech and the entire world, in all of Europe, in
all the United States, not one.
Speaker 2: The most embarrassing part of it was the questions were
the questions didn't in any There was no pushback, there
was no effort to challenge them on this.
Speaker 1: I we grew up right, everyone agreed free speech was great.
Like in the late sixties, the free speech movement was
sparked by the left, you know, and now you know
it's incredible. You know, when you look at Poles, I'm
sorry of young people. Many of them don't believe in
free speech. That if you ask them, should a pro
life would be allowed to come to your college and speak,
like twenty percent say yes. On the other side, seventy
percent say yes. So that's I think a problem. And
when you have all the elites in colleges who teach
them in media, in our government, unless Elon Musks is
a way and sweeps them away, they also believe in censorship.
So I mean, how do you feel about the future
when it comes to speech? Right now?
Speaker 2: I'm I'm much feeling much better right now than I
have in ten years. Like I am someone who actually
was personally on a government censorship list. This was revealed
by the House Judiciary Committee. I'm envious a few years ago.
And of course the Federalist has experienced extreme censorship for
pushing back against regime propaganda, and it felt very lonely
to be battling this, and even Republicans weren't very helpful
on it, like the vast majority of them were not
very helpful, with some notable and wonderful exceptions, such as
Jim Jordan, who's been fighting the free speech fight and
the freedom of the press fight here a somewhat lonely
battle for him sometimes. So to finally have someone on
a global stage saying censorship is wrong, I feel represented
in politics in a way that I haven't felt represented
since like Reagan. I mean, it's just wonderful to have
someone talking about these really important foundational issues and advocating
for them on a global stage.
Speaker 1: Someone online mentioned that the AP which is not allowed
to participate in press conferences now because they won't accept
Golf of America edict, that is a you know, the
press axis, if that is like the biggest attack on
free speech. Ever, the AP has a god given right
to be in the White House press room. But then
when it comes to vance talking about this, the entire
media complex all of a sudden defends European censorship of normal,
regular people who are powerless. Like if in Germany the
police will show up at your door or rage your
house if you have mocked leaders, you know, in an
ugly way usually, but still, and that that doesn't bother
them at all. I think they'd be all for that,
you know what I mean. Like they have such a
distorted view of what free speech means, just.
Speaker 2: From a strategic messaging perspective. The idea that all of
the media would be defending the Associated Press here while
simultaneous calling for restrictions on speech debate, Like it just
doesn't work to try to do both of those things
at the same time.
Speaker 1: They don't care. They don't have any sort of limiting principles.
They this is what their whole democracy democracy stick. It
doesn't really mean anything.
Speaker 2: By the way, the Associated Press, I don't get why
they're not calling a legal name thing by its legal name.
Speaker 1: I have to say, I find it a little bit
silly to me. What I believe is that the associated
depression being there at all. Anyway, they are a propaganda outfit.
I don't mean that in some sort of like that
they're biased. They shared, for instance, a building with Hamas,
they let Hamas dictate the things they wrote, but they
can't say Gulf of America when the United States government
switches it up. Yeah, it's just you're trying.
Speaker 2: To understand their logic. Period Like, did they refuse to
call Denali or Mount McKinley Denali for the few years
that it was den No.
Speaker 1: I'm sure not.
Speaker 2: Did they do they call the Redskins the Redskins or
the Commanders When when trans people change their names, they
always honor the new name, and in fact they will
pretend like the old name never existed. They'll take it
so far that they deny the reality that a man
with a woman's name is a man. So I don't
I actually don't care that much about Golf of America.
I mean, I'm totally fine with the name change. It's
I don't care. I just don't care. But it is
a legal name change, so on the grounds, are you
not Billy? But also it's not saying Gulf of the
United States it's Gulf of America, which is very ecumenical,
or whatever you would say for South America, Central America,
and northwork.
Speaker 1: People always got mad when you call the United States
America because they're like, you know, it's all America and
this and that. So yeah, and it's fine.
Speaker 2: I just I wish the AP were kicked out for
all of the other things it does other than that.
But also I don't think they're kicked out. I think
that simply they're not getting Oval office access, which of
course is limited to very few people, so I don't
see why they should get to be there. And then
they are also I think limited on Air Force one,
which is true of most reporters are limited on Air
Force one. And particularly given how they do nothing but
straight propaganda all the time, I'm fine with them, you know,
just applying for a day pass every year or there.
Speaker 3: There's a specific reason why some of these politicians hate
Elon Musk. Elizabeth Warren claims she doesn't accept donations from
big Pharma. Not only does she collect money, she collects
more than anyone else does. And the person next in line,
Bernie Sanders. Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast
on Apple Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Molly, one thing that just ran across my feet. I
just want to mention Hamas is releasing some hostages, and
it's releasing some people who have been killed by them
to the Israelis for hundreds of you know, terrorists. Here's
the ABC headline, Hamas will release the bodies of four
deceased hostages on Thursday. Deceased hostages like, how did they die?
I wonder two of them? By the way, babies. This
is kind of the distortion of headlines that are super
important in the age of social media, because that's what
a lot of people see. So let me read you
another headline that people were upset about the other day.
It's from the Wall Street Journal. Exclusive Dvance pledges to
hit Russia with sanctions and potentially military action. It's a
mistake if Putin won't agree to peace deal that guarantees
Ukraine's independence. People were quite upset about that because they
claim that, you know, he hadn't actually pledged to do
those things, and I agree with them. He had said
that military tools were on the table. But I wanted
to ask you, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: First off, on the four murdered Israeli hostages. I mean,
unless these people truly died of natural causes that had
nothing to do with being taken hostage by Hamas, it's
just an inaccurate headline. And the fact that it does
include these little Babis children, which were some of the
children I was praying for this, you know, many months.
It shows how ridiculous it is. You know, you can't
even not that the adults are any different, but there
is no argument for murdering these children or treating them
as enemy combat on enemy combatants and headlines that downplay
the horrific nature of what's been done. You don't need
to be like quote unquote taking size to just be
honest about it. These people killed by Hamas.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were on the side of the Palestinians,
you would be more honest about what Hamas does anyway,
because you'd want you know, this undermines their cause in
many ways, obviously, And I'm not on the side of
the Palestine. So I saw Paul recently that showed like
nine percent of Democrats are sympathetic towards Israel and the
other percentage or either don't care or sympathetic towards the
Palestinian cause. So obviously everyone at ABC, all the editors, everyone,
they're not sympathetic with Israel, so they're always trying their
best to distort what is actually going on there.
Speaker 2: As for the Wall Street Journal headline, and that is
the only newspaper I subscribe to, the only daily newspaper
I subscribe to, So I'm constantly screaming about various editorial
choices they've made. It just was an inaccurate way to
describe what JD. Vance is saying. So he's talking, I mean,
first of all, the entire Trump Vance administration is about
ending the war in Ukraine and talking to Putin as
part of that, Like you're not going to get an
agreement with Putin without talking to him. And in the
course of that conversation, he's talking about how for Donald Trump,
you have to put everything on the table in order
to come to a result that you like, including that
would be you know, economic sanctions and you know, even
potentially military stuff. The way that the headline was written
was as if Trump was threatening Putin with war with
like an all out war, as opposed to the proxy
war that that he's trying to get out of. And
even there was a question there about like what you know,
Vance said something like Trump really does not want US
troops in Ukraine. So even if you could say, well,
technically he said everything was all on the table, that's true,
but it's just makes it seem like the reporter and
the editors were too stupid to understand what Vance was saying.
Speaker 1: Well, the word I think that is misleading his pledges
to do something right, because he's not pledging that, he's
saying it might be on the table. But just outside
of that debate, I do find it interesting that he
is essentially saying that the proxy war could continue if
Putin doesn't give Ukraine, you know, guarantee its independence. I
don't even know what that means, because it's obviously going
to lose territory in any kind of settlement. It already
has lost territory, you know, in twenty twelve or whenever.
Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen, and Veberina pet hekset. They were really upset
with him for a few minutes because he said, well,
obviously Ukraine's not going back to pre twenty fourteen borders,
which is just a statement of fact. Russia invaded that
part during the Obama administration. It's not going back to Ukraine.
You know.
Speaker 1: Did he say also that they wouldn't be part of NATO.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he didn't say it as strong as
I would like, but he was saying basically like, in
the short term, there's no way that Ukraine's going into NATO.
The idea that we would even be taught talking about
that as if it were a realistic thing blows my
mind and says how unserious a lot of these foreign
policy people are. Yeah, I mean, but just think about this, like,
how would the United States have taken to Mexico or
Canada joining the Soviet Union during the Cold War? How
would they have handled that? Would they have viewed that
as provocative? Yes, they would have viewed it as provocative.
It would have almost certainly led to an all out
nuclear war. If you know, the George H. W. Bush
era was really smart about understanding Ukraine needs to be
a buffer between Western Europe and Russia. They should kind
of be steadfastly neutral. We've been losing just the smart
minds that understand if you don't want war in Europe,
you do have to kind of acknowledge reality and not
be overly provocative to the two sides.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was walked back because I think that's
something you put on the table as far as negotiations go. Right,
he says it here that president doesn't want Nate doesn't
think it's a good idea, probably, but that's something you
hand Russian and say, Okay, if you give us this,
we'll make sure NATO's not you know, I mean, Ukraine's
not in NATO. It seems that's the way to approach this.
I also just quickly want to say that I don't
think we should make a moral equivalency between NATO and
the Soviet Union. I get your overall point that it's
infringing on their sphere of influence in a way, but
it's not the same thing. NATO doesn't threaten Russian sovereignty.
They're not gonna invade Moscow. No one wants to take
Russian land.
Speaker 2: David, there was a period of time, was it Clinton?
I think it was Clinton was thinking about letting Russia
into NATO. I'm not making a moral judgment, like things change,
I'm just talking about alliance. Oh, I get it now
it's viewed as this hostile situation. But when the Soviet
Union fall apart, there was some question like should we
let Russia into this Western way? And we're seeing the
opposite extreme right now of driving Russia into China's arms,
which is an unwise thing for US since China's much
bigger threat to US than Russia. And you don't but
they're to get whenever they're together. It's bad news for
the United States.
Speaker 1: They rarely can't have been able to get it together.
But yeah, I hear what you're saying. It's a big topic.
Speaker 2: We can not but okay, well let's talk about domestic stuff.
Speaker 1: Though, Yeah, let's talk about you agree.
Speaker 2: We're in a constitutional crisis, That's what I heard. Everybody's saying.
Speaker 1: Well, we spoke about that. So now the new phase
of the constitutional crisis is that the executive branch is
no longer working how it should. There's a shadow presidency,
Elon Musk, and the president is undermining what they call
independent agencies, which I say, actually are concocted agencies that
work under the umbrella of the executive branch. And if
you don't want them there, rewrite the constitution. But as
long as they're under Donald Trump's purview, he gets to
do what he wants. So Elon Musk is marching through
the agencies, right, I think he's about to head towards
the SEC. He's in the irs now, I believe, and
so on, and this is very upsetting to people. They
I don't know if you saw sixty minutes also at
an interview with like fired you administration people, and you
would have thought like the sky was falling. It so worse,
Like normal people lose their jobs we talked about this
last week, lose their job all the time. We don't
you know, there is no certainty in your job. And
they act as if they should have a guaranteed job
towards to retirement. But anyway, Ezra Clin I saw the
other day, had someone on and they were talking about
how the executive branch isn't working the way it should.
Something is wrong, molly with how government functions. And I
just quickly want to say, I've been following Ezra clines
work a lot. And when the House wouldn't vote for
Obama stuff, he said that the Congress wasn't working. Then
he said the Supreme Court wasn't working when he didn't
get his way. Now the executive whenever things don't go
Downmocrat's way, that institution no longer works that you know,
that needs to We need reform. We need fillibus to reform.
You notice no one's talking about that. Is anyone talking
about packing the courts anymore? Where's that bill on packing
the courts? Why don't we put that forward? Now? See
what happens? You know. So it's just such transparent hypocrisy,
and it's so corrupt. The arguments are corrupt anyway.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, I have been waiting for
this moment for a very long time. If you're a conservative,
you get taught about the bureaucracy and the administrative state
and the threat that those things pose to our constitutional
order from the time you're young. And we are finally
having an all out battle about whether this fourth branch
of government should be able to exist independently. I love
our constitution. We have three branches of government in the Constitution.
Congress is the most important one is the Article one branch.
I think they have completely fallen down on the job
over the last one hundred years. So I agree with
Ezra Kline on that the Congress is broken.
Speaker 1: That's not what he doesn't agree with you?
Speaker 2: And why Yeah, but they delegated all of their authority,
this administrative state, and then the executive During a Democrat
presidency or someone who's aligned with Democrat values, the bureaucracy
works very well as an arm of that president. During
a Republican presidency, particularly for Donald Trump, you actually have
these people saying claiming they are running a resistance. And
when you are a bureaucrat and you're running a resistance,
that means you're resisting the constitutional order, which is the president.
The only way it works for the bureaucracy to be
constitutional is if it's under the executive branch, so when
you're resisting it, you're resisting the constitution. And then of
course the third branch, the judiciary. So lots of wise
people have been talking about the threat posed by this
fourth branch of government that in some ways is far
more powerful, far bigger, far more resistant to the people
than any of the other branches. And it's not anywhere
included in our constitution. And the progressives who started this,
you know, Woodrow Wilson types, they were very open in
what they wanted to do, which was they thought the
constitutional system was broken and they wanted to create their
own ruling experts who would control everything, and so we
are finally, after one hundred years, having the battle that
we always should have had over this permanent bureaucratic state,
and so I'm just loving every minute of it. In fact,
I was just thinking today that I remember eight years ago,
during Trump's first year in office, first month in office,
I think he was at Seapac and in his speech,
which of course I loved and nobody else in media loved,
he talked about the threats posed by the administrative state.
And at that time I was on a panel at
CNN with a bunch of other report but like left
wing reporters, and the host was John King, if I
recall correctly, and it was just this roundtable, and nobody
knew what the administrative state was, except for me, because,
like I said, you feed on this at your very
first conservative meeting when you're a teenager. And to go
from that eight years ago where nobody knew what the
administrative state was, to now doge doing an audit of
these administrative of this administrative state, it's just a wonderful transformation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people like Ezra Kline want a centralized federal government
that is perpetually run by Democrats. That's what they want.
That's why nothing else works, and that's why this scares them.
If you told me twenty years ago or whenever I started,
that Elon Musk would be how can I say, is
that a tech billionaire would be in the government auditing
all the administrative state, firing people left and right, trying
to you know, save money. I don't think we should
over overdo how much money he can in discretion or
spending whatever. I would say as a small libertarian, that's amazing.
I would be just so happy about that. But yeah,
the Congress, I just you know, if you don't like
that Donald Trump is just putting tariffs on everyone, maybe
Congress should take back its tariff powers. You know, if
you don't like that Donald Trump might use as emergency powers,
maybe rescind that law. And if you want to shut down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, On the upside, I actually think, no matter what happens,
this is not going to work unless Congress asserts its authority. Sure,
and so even when you look at some of the
battles that are happening in the courts, they could be
rendered very quickly by Congress weighing in on on what
it thinks about these administrative state agencies. The bureaucracy and
to make it permanent, they really need to be involved.
And so Republicans and American voters. I don't think they
just want one man or three men to know the
problem and solve it. They would like every elected official
on board. And maybe that's not going to be the
Democrats right now, but Congress should reassert its authority, and
the Republicans in Congress should be an active part of
this effort since they have the majority.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you really want to shut down the
Department of Education, you're going to have to do it
through Congress. If you really want to shut down even USAID,
I think you need to do it through Congress because
there's a lot of money in bills pass there that
need to be spent. You can't just say I'm not
spending the money like Obama did with Obamacare when heever
he felt like it. I think a lot of these
lawsuits we spoke about them last week, though I was
thinking about this, have it will as often they do
backfire on Democrats. They will accelerate the process of the
Supreme Court saying actually, the executive branch has this power
and the judicial branch doesn't.
Speaker 2: I'm actually I totally agree with you when we were
talking about Ezra Client saying every branch of government is broken.
I sometimes think that myself, except for the judiciary, which
the Supreme Court seems to be operating pretty well. And
I always get nervous when people want to blow it up,
as has been a celebrated cause on the left in
recent years. But yes, you've had some really bad rogue
district judges ruling like against Trump. But as they as
these things work their way through the courts, I'm less
nervous about some of it, just because, again, in a
constitutional system, you can't have an independent bureaucracy. That's just tyranny.
Independent means independent means accountable, not to the people. And
in our system of government, the people have the power,
and if the people have no say, and we've all
been feeling this right like you, you'll work really hard
to change the Senate or change the nature of the
House or you know, the makeup of the house. You
work really hard to elect someone, and then nothing ever changes.
The reason why nothing ever changes is because this bureaucracy
is unaccountable. And I really have a hard time seeing
smart judges and smart justices saying yeah, we're going to
just let an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy run things. I just
don't see that happening.
Speaker 1: Can say, yeah, yeah, yeah, quest no, no, please.
Speaker 2: Well, there are all these other interesting issues too that
are happening through the courts. So it's conventional wisdom that
you cannot appeal a temporary restraining order. Have you heard that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 2: They're usually for a very brief period of time, and
it's just kind of gives everybody a chance to make
their arguments in a better form, and so you're usually
not able to appeal a temporary restraining order against like
a government agency. Well, all of these different judges have
implemented temporary restraining orders, which is thwarting the work of Doge.
One of the cases involves a guy who was removed
from his position I think was the Merit Systems Protection
Board Merit Protection Did I just seeh I think? And
so he sued over it and a district judge instituted
a temporary restraining order. The Trump administration appealed that, and
the DC Circuit had a panel of three judges. It
was Florence Pan who's husband literally runs like the bureaucracy
defense organization, the Partnership for Public Service. He also totally
forgetting his name all of a sudden, But he also
was one of the fake Kavanaugh accusers. Do you remember
a Max Styr. That's his name, Max Styr. He after
Carrie Savareino and I wrote our book on Cavanaugh, there
were these two New York Times reporters who wrote a
book on Cavanaugh, and when they were rolling it out,
they claimed that they had another accuser. But Carrie and
I had gotten advanced copies of the book, and so
we read the book and saw that the accuser was
actually this guy named Max Steyer. He claimed there was
a woman and he wasn't sure what had happened, but
something had happened, and he, you know, so he just
felt it was his job as a left wing person
to say this about Brett Kavanaugh, and so they report it.
They actually also acknowledged that the woman in question was like,
I have literally no idea what you're talking about. So
Max Steyer is that like radical? And he was also
on the Bill Clinton defense team during Monica Lewinski, So
he's a Clinton knight anyway. His wife, Florence, I just
know how much the left cares about the spouses of justices,
so I'm sure they care that the spouse of this
judge is completely compromised in this debate. But anyway, Florence.
Speaker 1: King then recused themselves. If they had that kind.
Speaker 2: Of you know, I think they have to be recused
or immediately impeached according to the left. So I'm sure
they're consistent in this Florence plan and Michelle Chiles, they
vote to uphold the temporary restraining order. But this other judge,
Greg katsis who I think was put on the court
in twenty seventeen, and he's that judge on the DC
Circuit that constantly gets upheld at the Supreme Court. So
Harry Reid packed the DC Circuit with left wing judges.
It's like a ridiculous circuit, how crazy left it is,
but it frequently their cases get moved up to the
Supreme Court. And Greg Katz's is that guy who is
just so good that he keeps on getting upheld. And
in his dissent from upholding the temporary restraining order, first off,
he goes into how you know, actually the executive branch
does control the executive function, and then he also kind
of puts in there about how a limit on constitutional
authority for even a moment is intolerable, and so kind
of lays out the case for an immediate appeal of
a temporary restraining order. And I just saw, like before
we got on this call, that John Roberts asked for
a response. So the Trump team appeals the temporary restraining
order to the Supreme Court, and John Roberts was asking
for the two sides to weigh in immediately.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Supreme Court has a responsibility
to step in when its own, when the judicial branch
is overstepping its bounds below it right. I mean, I
think it has like a special responsibility to make sure
the separation of powers works and is working and things
are working constitutionally.
Speaker 2: And I think actually this is where the things that
frustrate a lot of conservatives about John Roberts they will like.
And what I mean is you have all these rogue
judges who are going well beyond their actual authority to
issue nationwide injunctions. This is something that happens a lot
with left wing judges, but it also happens with some
conservative judges where they'll issue nationwide injunctions against some federal action.
And you have heard murmurings for years among the justices
that they think that this should be checked more, or
that it shouldn't be allowed. It's just greatly exceeds their
actual authority that these inferior judges are doing it. And
so I think you probably will see one of these that,
in one of these cases that makes it to the
Supreme Court. I would not be shocked if you see
a slap down of nationwide injunctions. And John Roberts, who
sort of always fancied himself a great chief and who cares,
like all chiefs do, the legitimacy of the court, you
are risking a situation where these rogue judges are so
out of control that you're going to start seeing the
executive branch just not heeding what they say, or you're
risking that. I'm not saying that it's under Trump. I'm
saying if this type of thing continues, because Trump has
shown himself very willing to adhere to whatever the courts
say on these nationwide injunctions. He's explicitly said that. But
you could imagine a future where people just start not
following the nationwide injunction or saying or just challenging it.
And I think the Chief is aware of that and
wants to preserve the legitimacy of the judiciary. And so
I would just not be shocked to see a majority
of justices saying enough on the nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 1: Trump explicitly yeah. The other day, he explicitly came out,
he said, we we listen to the courts, but we
will be vindicated. But yet the constitutional crisis story are
all over the place. When when Joe Biden said, yeah,
the court said no, but we did it anyway. That
was fine for everyone. You know, It's just I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Do I do want to kind of point out there
that he didn't completely flout what the Supreme Court had
said in that he found another way to do the
same thing. And you might say, well, that's just playing games,
except it still recognizes the authority of the Supreme Court
on the special decision.
Speaker 1: The only oath that all these people take is to
a constitution. Okay, so when you were purposely changing a
few words and your edict to do something that is
clearly unconstitutional for me, it's basically the same thing. I
get it that on the technicality, he wasn't telling the
Court you know, I'm not listening to you, but in
essence that that's what he was doing. And just because
he's a little or not him, people work for him,
we're a little more creative in doing it does not
make it okay because you could Trump could do that too.
Trump could write another EO, change a few words. He's
doing it differently, And then I mean, in essence, it's
the same thing at least from you know, that's what
I feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it still is at least honoring and respecting
the different branches and the rights therein. So I do
think back to this. Why I think John Roberts might
join with a majority of justices to push back on
nationwide injunctions is actually actually related to the Marbury versus
Madison ruling, which is like the most famous Supreme Court
ruling ever, which was I'm totally going to butcher this,
but I feel like it was okay. John Adams was president.
He pushes through a bunch of judges last minute. His
party controls Congress, and they do know some like Judicial
Review Act or something pushed through a bunch of judges
and their commissions were supposed to be given by the
Secretary of State, but then Adams leaves office and.
Speaker 1: James Madison won't well.
Speaker 2: Madison is the Secretary of State, yeah, and he won't
deliver this commission. And so it goes to the Court
because then they sue for manament, like they sue to
require the guy who one of the guys who didn't
get his commission says, please make Madison give me my commission.
And they did this whole solemn monic, you know, splitting
the baby kind of thing, where they ruled the ultimate
law unconstitutional but also that Madison should have turned it over.
It kind of made everybody happy, but it mostly made
the Court very powerful, and I just very much think
John Roberts cares about the supremacy of the Supreme Court
and it's legitimacy, and it might tamp down these nationwide
injunctions really as a way of preserving the health of
the Court going forward.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a big fan of that decision because
we need it today more than ever. The Court is
the only institution upholding the Constitution, making it a coequal branch,
though with different jobs to do, and allowing it to
to render things that Congress does or the executive branch
does on constitutional I think is incredibly important Right now.
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Speaker 1: The last topic on politics, I think we wanted to
touch on the DOJ dropping charges against New York City
Mayor Eric Adams. So I don't know a lot about this,
but my initial feeling was that it seemed a like
favor trading and that it was I mean, openly, we
dropped the charges. You help us with immigration, or you
help the administration do what it wants to do. At
least that's what I think it would seem like to
a lot of people. It might be more complicated. I
don't know what's your take on it.
Speaker 2: I think that's actually like a legitimate question. And the
reason why people think that is because the charges were
not dropped with prejudice. They were just dropped, which seems
to sort of be a sword hanging over Eric adams
head that he really better helped the administration with its
anti illegal immigrant efforts or else the charges could be refiled,
but it was interesting to see, well the people who
are running DJ, like when they were going through their
Senate confirmation hearings, like Pam Bondi said that they were
very opposed to the weaponization of DJ to go after
political enemies of the as opposed to just a polding
rule of law. And the Public Corruption Unit at DJ
has really a an abysmal track record compared to other
groups within DJ. They routinely go after people and then
end up getting overturned at the Supreme Court like nine
to nothing, and they seem to be very drunk on
their power to go after people. So the concern with
the Eric Adams' indictment was really about the Eric Adams
investigation itself. So it's not necessarily that Eric Adams as
pure as the driven snow, which I don't think many
people would say, but that the evidence suggests that the
investigation into him ramped up dramatically after he started criticizing
the Biden administration. And when you do that, when you
go after people unequally based on their political criticisms of you,
that's the whole problem with the Department of Justice. And
so when Pam Bondi and or the other people I
think it was evil BOV had to drop this indictment.
There were other issues too. They did it in the
and you know, makes it hard for him to communicate
with people while he's mayor because he's under indictment and
effect security clearances. It also makes it hard, like he
felt they felt that he had to pick an untimely
court date because if he took as much time as
he needed to go through all the documents that they have,
that it would put it past the election, when he'd
like to be done with this before his next election.
You know, all these sorts of political considerations which are
always in play. So they tell the Southern District, New York,
which is a notoriously left wing district, that they need
to drop the charges. And they that thus began like
a series of people resigning and broadcasting to the media
their letters of resignation where they claimed that, you know,
there was no justification for dropping these charges. And I
think it's been oddly enough like a good way to
root out some of the problems at DJ, because you
don't have to agree completely with your bosses at DJ.
But if they say we're going to stop weaponizing the
Department of Justice and doing these political prosecutions. Yeah, you
can quit. You know, you can quit if you really
really think strongly that they're wrong. But the like sort
of dramatic way in which they're going out and you know,
trying to become martyrs over it is a good indication
that they shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: I'll just say, he's on TV talking to administration officials.
What was the guy the name of the guy who's
doings heading up immigration enforcement? Holman? Is it? Yeah, he's
on there joking with him, like you better do what
we said. You know, it's like such a quid pro quo.
I get that a lot of the people who are like,
you know, grand standing and stepping down are not great people,
though some of them seem okay to me. But I
don't know, I don't know. It just seems a bit problematic.
Speaker 2: First of it's not like the first time in history
that someone said, if you like help with this other thing,
your charges will be lowered, or.
Speaker 1: To help someone go after a bigger target or something
as far as a legal I mean.
Speaker 2: So the charge with Eric Adams, who is like notoriously
like all Democrats in New York, not the cleanest person
I think, is that he took plane upgrades, and you
can say that you really think that's an important issue,
more important than securing the nation's borders or fighting, you know,
the craziness of what's happening in New York. That's an argument,
but it's not like a totally settled thing. I do
want to say one thing about the woman who made
a big show out of quitting rather than dropping the
charges and forgetting her name Sasoon, Danielle Sassoon, And everyone
was like, she was a Scalia clerk and therefore you
cannot criticize her. And they were also saying she was
a Federalist Society member. And the Federalist Society, not to
be confused with the Federalist is an organization for liberty
Arrian and conservative lawyers. But you can anyone can join
by paying dues. And I'm not one hundred percent certain
she is a member. They would link to her profile
on their website and it says quite clearly like if
you're pictured here, it means you've spoken at a Federalist
Society event or done something like that, or been published.
And the Federalist Society is known for having debates. You
know they'll have a left winger and a right winger
come on a debate. That does not mean they're all members.
I mean they'll had a left winger person a right
wing person debate. And in her case, she was on
with Harvey Wilkinson, which was the very good judge she
clerked for before Scalia, talking about something I don't even
remember what it was, the nineteen sixties or something. Anyway,
I tweeted that out, and all of a sudden I
started hearing from a ton of people about how they
were surprised that anyone was defending her letter, saying she
would never, you know, drop these charges, and how a
gas she was at it. And my favorite thing that
someone pointed out to me is so she kept on
saying like did I mention I worked for Scalia? And
Scalia said this, and did I mention? You know? These
she would let drop different names. Robert Jackson, former Attorney
General an emil Bow, in his response to her, pointed
out where Scalia would have been a gast at her argument,
and also Jackson, but someone pointed out a third problem.
She cited Posner Judge Posner, the great libertarian judge out
of the Seventh Circuit, saying that he would have opposed.
He would have made a court not drop a charge,
not tolerate dropping a charge if he thought there was
a quid pro quo about it or something. And so
she links to his argument, but if you read his argument,
he actually says the opposite. It's very originalist. It's very
much about who has the authority to prosecute. It's clearly
the executive branch. So if they want to drop, they
should drop, even if you don't agree with their logic.
And she messed up the Posner's citation and you had
to read it to you anyway. That was exciting to me.
Speaker 1: But board of course I'm not bored. Elena Kagan spoke
at Federalist Society events.
Speaker 2: Then she must be their best member.
Speaker 1: Let's do culture, Let's just do it. Did you watch
the USA Canada game, by the way, well.
Speaker 2: A little bit of it, the important parts, which I
think you know happened in the first nine seconds at.
Speaker 1: The three fights. Yeah. Now, I was so excited that
everyone got a little you know, because there aren't a
ton of hockey fans out there, and you know, I'm
a massive hockey fan, so it was nice for people
to get a taste of the speed, the excitement, and
quite frankly, the violence of hockey. I mean there were
three fights. I'm a New York Rangers fan. JT. Miller's
on our team fought a six to six Canadian defenseman
that was exciting, and the Tuck brothers both fought. I
have to say, so all year I'm like, this is
a money grab. I hate it. You know, I hate
All Star games. I just I can't stand them. And
then when it happened, I was just like charging up
the hill with the flag. I was so excited.
Speaker 2: I loved everything about it. So I loved that Justin
Trudeau was there with a camera on him. I loved
the booing, meaning it was like, Okay, if you're going
to do this to your very good friends to the south,
the United States of America, this probably isn't going to
go well for you. And then I love that they
waited until the moment, you know, the whistle blew or whatever,
and then it was just take off the gloves and
go for it. I like that there are ethics to
fighting in hockey. I like that they allow it to happen.
It reminds me of you know, in baseball, So like
if you show boat. If you get a home run
off of a picture and you show boat, the picture
is required to being the very next person who's up
to bat, and then the team is required to get
out of the dugout. And you know, there are these
rules you're supposed to follow to keep order in the game.
And hockey has so many fights. That's why they have
no teeth. But I like that they do it. I
don't know, it's just this nice.
Speaker 1: They don't fight as often as they used to, by
the way, and a lot of times they are so
called enforcers on a team that keep the piece or
fight each other so that others don't do it. So
in hockey, if you don't have fights, you know, there's
frustration builds and you start using your stick and stuff.
That's much more dangerous. But the thing here was that
these are all all stars, like, these are top players fighting.
These are real players fighting. Brady Kuchuk and Matthew Matthew
Kachuck's a Stanley Cup winning players like an elite player,
he's fighting, and that makes it much more emotional and real,
you know what I mean. There's not like a set
fight where two you know, goons go at it. These
were real players playing for their country, not even the
team that pays them. Really, you know, that's what.
Speaker 2: I loved about it, and it reminded me very much
of the Miracle on Ice thing. You know, I play
for the United States of America. Wait, is that what
it's called Miracle on ice today?
Speaker 1: Miracle is the movie? On Ice is the event? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Thanks, I highly recommend Mierica.
Speaker 1: I love that movie. But k Russell plays her Brooks,
the coach, and he does a fantastic job. Obviously, That's
one of the pivotal moments of my youth watching the
USA win gold.
Speaker 2: But yeah, oh, because I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that, like Naty, I'm a little older eighty it
was ten?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I liked also the learning that they had
a group chat where they plotted what to do if
they booed the if they booed our anthem, even just
that this like American pride. We went from every lame
athlete in the country kneeling for the national anthem to
having people fight over another country disrespecting our national anthem.
And I just love that.
Speaker 1: So I got to tell you something that never infiltrated hockey.
You know, what I mean that stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean they tried, but hockey was very resistant.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, for people don't follow hockey, this Canadian team
is amazing and beating them was a big deal. But
there's a championship game Wednesday, and it's going to be
a tough one.
Speaker 2: Who are we playing.
Speaker 1: Canada? So Canada beat Sweden I think it was, and
they'll play the United States on Wednesday for the championship
of the Four Nations. Now there, I'll give you two names. Okay,
there's like McDavid and McKinnon. Those are two plays. I
think they're the two best skaters who have ever played hockey,
and they're on like play together on the power play
for Canada. So it's going to be a tough, tough game.
Speaker 2: I wish yeah, we won that last game in part
because to me, it seems like in Canada hockey is
almost a religion, whereas for us it's like the fourth
major sport if yeah, football and basketball and baseball. So
that we beat them, even if it's just that one game,
although it just seems like if we could beat them,
then why can't we beat them again?
Speaker 1: No, we can. Don't get me wrong. America has made
like when I was young, there are very few good,
really good American players. Now there are tons of great
American players, but you know.
Speaker 2: It's still the and it is going to be so upset.
They're going to come back with all they've got.
Speaker 1: It's going to be tough, and they haven't want to.
I liked hermind. Canadians they haven't wont to Stanley Cup.
None of their teams haven't won one since nineteen ninety four.
So they're very frustrated and these things are important to them,
and I understand that. But anyway, I'm happy that people
got to see some hockey and hopefully create some new fans.
What you what else? What else? What else? Are we?
Where are we going to talk?
Speaker 2: I don't have much to report. I've been traveling a lot,
and I'm sorry about that. But I did watch a
little bit of the Saturday Night Live fiftieth anniversary thing.
Did you see that? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't even really underst and what it was about.
Is it one show or was it like segments?
Speaker 2: You know, fiftieth anniversary of the programs. They had a
star studded like audience. Everyone was in black tie and
they were all former former hosts or cast members that
were in the audience, and then they just did yeah,
kind of a retrospect, something between a retrospective and a
current show, some new musical work that paid homage to
other people like Miley Cyrus sang nothing compares to you,
you know, good try she had there. But last week
I was in Hillsdale and Scott Bertram is the guy
who runs Radio Free Hillsdale and he also has a podcast.
Oh you know, someone was saying that they wanted recommendations
of other podcasts, which I'm not the right person to
ask about that. I always mentioned Issues, etc. Which is
my favorite, but I don't really listen to a ton
that nobody would have heard of. But Scott Bertram is
doing this fifty year retrospective on Saturday Night Live where
he goes through each season and kind of evaluates each
season with its own special podcasts. And we were talking
and he said something last week about Michael Chay, who's
one of the weekend update anchors, being undervalued. I am
totally forgetting what his argument was, but he said that
he always felt like Michael cha was the one that
would seem to understand. He said, he seems to understand
conservatives a little bit better. So I'm walking in on
SNL last week end, and he was talking about all
the awards that SNL had won over the last fifty years,
you know, Emmy's this and Emmy's that, And he said,
and we have fourteen guys named Tony on staff, you know,
so like a Tony Award. And it shows a picture
of all the production crew, and so he's praising them,
and he says at the end that he'd also like
to congratulate them on their JA six pardons, which I
just loved, like it was and I was like, oh,
Scott's right, you know, like that's a joke that has
layers and humility associate you know. I don't know, I
just like loved it. And then Scott was saying also
that he was the one who did the original Black
Jeopardy thing that Tom Hanks was on. Oh.
Speaker 1: I saw that everyone was upset about that, but I
think they miss I think they misunderstood the point of
that at least five Yeah, I didn't see.
Speaker 2: It this weekend because I'll try and catch it later.
But that whole skit is about how MAGA voters and
black people have a lot in common. That's the whole
point of it, and it's a Michael creation. So I
was like, oh, maybe I should be giving Michael Chay
another look here. I don't really want Allan Jost, who
would presumably be a relative of mine because that's my
mom's maiden name. I find him a little smug and
difficult to listen.
Speaker 1: He's a merit to Scarlet Johansson. That one.
Speaker 2: That's a good. That's that's a that's he must be
a pressive in other ways that I have not been
revealed to me.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you a story about me? So in
nineteen ninety eight or ninety nine, I forget which when
it was there. I was working at Associated Press in
New York. Yeah, you know, in sports. I wasn't yet
in the political world. And when you work in sports,
you work late night, you know, two, three, four am,
and that's when you go home. So after a long
I think it was Saturday, and it was definitely Saturday night,
after a long day and night of work, me and
my friends co workers left there. We were going to go
get a drink at the bar there and I'm walking
the AP offices were in Rockefeller Center and I'm walking
out and that day was a twenty fifth anniversary of
Saturday Night Live. So I walk into a crowd of
like people. You know in New York there's always weird
stuff going on. People are in tuxedos. I look up.
There's Steve Martin, there's Pharrell, there's Al Franklin, there's Tom Hanks. Like,
I'm in the middle of a group of people like
that who had just come out after you know, it
must have been like three am or whenever. It was
from the twenty fifth anniversary of SNL. It was a
surreal moment in my life. I wanted to share that
with you and everyone else is listening was that? So
I actually, have you ever watched Alone?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I saw you tweeting about it and I was like,
I need to know what he's talking about. I have
no idea.
Speaker 1: It's this show where they just drop these people, usually
in Alaska, right, So they'll drop them off in the
middle of the wilderness. They have ten items, and whoever
survives the longest in the wild without any help wins.
Now typically it's just a basically a contest of starvation.
So I did bring just here Alone Australia recently. But
the funniest thing is and someone pointed this out to me.
Is that the guy who comes in like I'm a survivalist,
you know, I was in the Marines. This that big guy.
They often will last one night before they're on the
phone crying to be taken out for some reason. Like
the toughest guys have a trouble lasting. And even I'm like,
I call them candy asses because literally I feel like
I can last more than one night. I just sit
there and not eat for a day and last. But
sometimes people call it one day. Anyway. The woman, Oh,
I don't want to give it away. Actually women do
very well. They're like picking berries, you know, and stuff
like that. Yeah, and they can so anyway, I enjoy
the show a lot.
Speaker 2: So do you get any You don't have like a
gun or a fishing rod or anything like.
Speaker 1: That, you know, but you will get like hooks so
you can make your own rods. It depends where you
are in the Alaska. Once you're like, there are grizzly
bears around and stuff. So I get why people get
a bit nervous. The Australian one. There's nothing. There's no
other wallabies, like that was the worst animal. I don't know,
poss some So anyway, I.
Speaker 2: Watch that interesting.
Speaker 1: I just want to really recommend to show The Stranger,
which I mentioned last week. I went to the end.
Harlan Coben is this writer and he produces and it's
based on his book and it was just a really
fun eight episode mystery.
Speaker 2: So this has nothing to do necessarily with a loan.
But my sister and I were reminiscing about this time.
It was my parents' fiftieth anniversary and we all got
together and we decided that we would hike from Breckinridge
to Frisco. There's like a trail you can take that
totally seemed manageable and doable. But some of the smarter
people in our group made it about like a half
mile and they were like, we're going back, and the
rest of us were like, Oh, what's the big deal?
You know, no big deal. Anyway, it was it I
think that I'm thinking about this because I was like,
what's the big deal? A nine mile hike in no
big this is going to be fine. And by the
end we were kind of near tears and very hungry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Also, in Colorado,
you have to be careful because a lot of people.
People go out on these like innocuous hikes and then
all of a sudden, there's like a snowstorm in April,
you know what I mean, and they're stuck and like
the helicopters have to go get them.
Speaker 2: And I do remember when we came into Frisco that
there was a moose near the trailhead and people were
freaking out about it. And I mentioned this because I
have talked with Alaskins about this. People are always freaking
out about bears, but they say that if you're local,
you're more likely to freak out about the moose, like
it's much more like dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm I'm at two with nature.
I'm the indoor type, so I have no interest in
being around moose. Is it mease or moose's no clue?
Or bears? And I did actually steer that I'm two
with nature from Woody Allen. And I want to say
there's a new Woody Allen biography out that I think
is the best one ever written. I've read them all,
I'm a massive, massive fan. It's called Demochery of a Sham,
which is a line out of bananas. Just so detailed,
so it's just a great book. I'm kind of surprised
that it was published, considering his position and culture right
now and how people treat him in what they think
of him, But it is just if you're a fan.
I think it's fantastic and I highly recommend it. And
that's all I have.
Speaker 2: I just want to say on that point, I'm hoping
we're coming out of this era as well. You think
about like Elon Musk who's fathered yet another child who
is not raising in an intact family, and there are
all these problems, and Woody Allen and his behavior and
blah blah blah. I really hope we get to the
part where we can handle people being sinful men and
also recognizing when they have artistic value or other greatness.
And I don't mean by that to excuse any of
the bad behavior, but it's just gotten. Like if you
look throughout history, a lot of the people who accomplished
amazing things also work complete rex personally, and we should
be able to hold two thoughts in our mind at once.
Speaker 1: I think Nick Kve, the singer, has a I guess
an email list where he answers readers questions, and someone
sent him in an email this week saying, you say
you love Kanye West. You say that this song by
Kanye West is what you want played at your funeral.
What do you think? Now, he's a Nazi, he's an
anti semit and all that, and he gave this just
really thoughtful answer about Listen, you can't really separate people
from the art. I think he's like, that's ridiculous. If
they're bad people, you have to acknowledge that. But you also,
in life are trying to find beauty. And if you
find beauty in a weird place or in a place
that has something evil associated with it, even that doesn't
mean that the thing isn't beautiful, And you can make
that distinction in your mind, like you were just saying,
I mean, you don't have to pretend that it's not
a bad that it doesn't come from a bad place,
but it's still beautiful. So I think that's a good
way to look at the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, like on that one in particular,
if you Thinkanye West is in his right mind, you're
too stupid to like function.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, I mean it is.
Speaker 2: Not an issue of like Kanye West put a lot
of thought into it and decided to become an anti Semite,
Like I think Kanye West is not well and so
when and also that he seems to maybe at different
parts of his life beyond his meds or not. And
so when the idea that you would judge someone's entire
work and creative output based on the fact that they're
nuts right now, it seems just again it's like a
ridiculous inability to understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of art, you know, writers for instance,
who are I would say anti Semites, Roald Dall or someone.
I mean, so first of all, how long That's.
Speaker 2: What's challenging, because he like really is right or he
really was Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wasn't he meant that? And yeah, I mean there
are people who or like Richard or Wagner himself, Like,
I mean, there are people, so you just you know,
you take it one by one. I don't think, incidentally,
the Woody Allen falls into the Kanye West or even
you know, Roman Polanski school. I think it's more complicated
than that. You know, we don't have to get into that.
But yeah, I mean, I think you can appreciate our
things that are beautiful and acknowledge that people are flawed
and sometimes evil even and that there's still beauty. I
don't know. It's just a weird, a weird thing to
have to deal with, I guess. But Kanye West, yeah,
he's mental. I think he's mentally ill, right, and no
one really takes them serious. I mean, it doesn't excuse
what he's saying, but he's still not something we should
take very seriously. Right, all right, that was a good
way to end. Please send us mail. We're at radio
at the Federals dot com. We love to hear from
you until we see you next. Be lovers of freedom
and anxious for the pray.
Speaker 3: That's great. It starts with the nerds.
Speaker 4: Great bird snake scenario.
Speaker 3: Way Lenny Bruce is not