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, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just
as a reminder, if you'd like to write the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com.
We love to hear from you. How is it going, Molly,
It's going great.
Speaker 2: Today is a big day for you, Right.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty big day. I have my new book
coming out. It's released today. It's called The Rise of
Blue Anon, How the Democrats became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists. Obviously,
you know, you know, writing a book is a lot.
It's like two years of your life at least, right,
and I put a lot of work into this one,
So I'm happy it's finally out.
Speaker 2: Take us through it, or how about this? Tell us
why you it?
Speaker 1: Well? As you know, there's a consensus basically in the
media and elsewhere that the right wing is susceptible to
disinformation and misinformation and conspiracy theorists and theories and so on.
And obviously it's true everybody, every group has its conspiracy theories.
But I was thinking a lot about how they differ,
and I think on the left, conspiracy theories are far
more dangerous because they're laundered through media, because they are
calibrated for plausibility, because a bunch of experts who are
supposed to trust come forward and spread them. So like
with Russia collusions, something you know a lot about the hoax,
it was far more effective. It was probably the most
successful conspiracy theory of all time. It hobbled the It
was like a soft coup. It cobbled that the administration
could barely do anything because it was deflecting charges that
the president was an asset of Russia. I laugh whenever
I say that now. But it was something that most
people believed. A poll in twenty eighteen I think it
was showed like fifty eight percent of Democrats believe that
their votes had been changed, not that Putin put up
a you know, Facebook ad, but that they literally had
moved their votes and changed their votes. So, and this
is not new. I just my book is you know,
gives a total history of this. It starts, not a
total history, but starts with Hillary Clinton claiming that there
was a vast right conspiracy against her husband during the
Monica Lewinsky thing affair is that they also you know,
try to gaslight you and project and claim that you
are the conspiracy theorist, like with COVID or whatever, when
it's really about them. So anyway, I go through all
kinds of different strands of paranoia. It's really about paranoia,
paranoia about for instance, voter suppression. Convinced seeing Black Americans
that they have no agency in politics. It's a pernicious
lie and a conspiracy. It's easier to vote than ever,
too easy, some might say, you know, going through how
women you see them today breaking down on camera, how
they believe that Handmaid's Tale is a real story or
a good book. You know, fascism, that whole entire concocted
idea that was spread by media that Donald Trump was
going to be Hitler and so on. So obviously there
are cynical people who spread them, and there are credulous
people who believe it, and it's very dangerous and it
has become almost the until very recently. We'll see what
happens moving forward. It was the argument of the of
the left. It was constantly conspiracies and paranoia and you know,
accusations of sedition and so on. So anyway, that's basically
what the book's about.
Speaker 2: I think it's important because, like you said, we have
a media complex that keeps trying to pretend that conspiracy
theories have overtaken the right half the time when they
talk about conspiracy theories, and our own listeners had made
this point when we were talking about conspiracy theories a
few months ago halftime, they're not even talking about you know,
it's not about a conspiracy because we do know that
criminal conspiracies exists exist, or even that large groups are
not tiny groups of people can work together to undermine government,
or you know, something like that conspiracy theory, which is
a term that's often used to deride people who think something.
It's just not the asymmetry of the way the media
talk about it, where they'll take like random people in
the middle of nowhere on the right who have some
theory about something they act like that's dominant in the
conservative space. Meanwhile, they're trafficking in some of the most
insane conspiracy theories known to mankind with no self awareness.
And so I'm just great eight that you have cataloged
some of this, that you've gone into detail about why
what they're saying is not true. And also I just
think that the cover is very hilarious. It's my favorite cover,
The Handmaid's Tail. But there's also UFO ships and flying cows.
Speaker 1: And well, I want to quickly say that you're right
about the nut picking that the left does. There'll be
a Quanon story and they'll have like some randos on there.
Think about this in the you know how, Now, George
Bush is this great statesman that the whole left loves,
but in the two thousands he was actually called a
Nazi all the time. Over fifty percent of Democrats believed
that George Bush had known nine to eleven was going
to happen and he benefited from it. But set all
that aside. There was a guy named Michael Moore for
young people might not remember him. He had documentary. He
made documentaries and one of them, Fahrenheit nine to eleven,
was that what it was called is one of the
top grossing documentaries of all time. The dude had a
standing ovation at the Oscars from all these actors. That
movie is the most it makes out. It would make
Alex Jones blush. Okay, it is insane what's in that movie?
And it was completely mainstream so the idea that this
is something new, you know, or on the right is ridiculous.
And another thing I just quickly want to mention election denialism, right,
that was the big conspiracy going on. I mean, that's
the big, you know, accusation, you're against democracy, denying elections.
We've discussed how dumb that term is. But before this election,
the left had not accepted in any election in this century.
In two thousand, if you ask any major Democrat, they'll
tell you Al Gore one and the election was stolen
from him. People forget now. But in two thousand and four,
virtually every major Democrat claimed that diabold machines had been hanky,
that something was going on in Ohio that they needed
to be an investigation. Thirty something Democrats tried to stop
the election from being certified, and obviously in twenty sixteen
they didn't accept that. Virtually every Democrat said that Donald
Trump was not a legitimate president. So they have nohing.
Speaker 2: I would like to say something about this because if
you read my book Rigged on the how elections have
changed over time, you'll know that I am not a
believer in theories about machines being taken over as an
explanation for what happened in twenty twenty, I lay out
the case of things that actually happened using private funding
to take over government election offices to help drive up
the vote for Democrats in the blue areas of swing states.
It's not as exciting as some of these other theories,
but to me, it's much It's something you can stand behind.
But everything I learned about machines came from Senate Democrats
who had been holding hearings every single year since two
thousand and four to complain about how Carl Rove had
controlled the voting machines in Ohio to steal the election
for Donald or for George W. Bush. And they were
carrying on these hearings all the way to twenty sixteen,
and every prominent senator on the Democrat side was participating
in them, up to and including Barack Obama. So it
became and also, of course because it was Democrats saying it,
all these people in the media also said it up
until like the day before the twenty twenty election. You know,
PBS and other major media trafficking in all sorts of
things about the unreliability of voting machines. And I don't
want to dismiss it completely. I'm not saying that Democrats
were wrong to express those concerns. They are, in many
cases legitimate concerns. I just think they're not the explanation
for the problems in our voting system. But then the
moment Donald Trump lost in twenty twenty, then it just
turned into something you weren't allowed to say. And that's
precisely to me why this is important what you're going into.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, and we discussed this. I think people should.
In a free country, you're allowed to question an election
to make sure it was run, right, to take legal recourse.
But here's the thing. In two thousand, for instance, George
Bush won Florida. There were three independent recounts. He expanded
his vote total in each of them, but yet they
will not accept it. So once the facts are in,
if you're not willing to move forward, that's a problem.
Last couple of things, you know, I just you mentioned
the media before, and the New York Times, for instance,
is willing to entertain any left wing conspiracy theory about
elections that you want. Last year, it ran a long,
long piece about this eighty year old man who claimed
this is new York Times who claimed that Ronald Reagan
had stolen the nineteen eighty election, in which he was
a massive landslide because he had made a secret deal
with the Iranians not to release the hostages until he
became president. You know what I'm saying. So they will
entertain revisionist histories to try to create paranoia about this stuff.
So yeah, anyway, so I tried to explain this stuff.
Maybe the fever has broken with this latest election. I
don't know, We'll see. I still think that there's a
culture of paranoia on the left. It has to do
with aggressivism and stuff like that I explained in the book.
I'll give you one more quick example, the Jewish question. Right,
there's anti.
Speaker 2: Nervous When people use that.
Speaker 1: As it came out of my mouth, I was like,
is that the phrase I want to use? You know
what I mean? So obviously there's anti Semites on every
all over the place, on infringe movements specifically, but there
is rampant to anti semitism on the left, mainstreamed anti
semitism on the left, and it's driven a lot by
paranoia about Jewish power, about Jewish money, about apac about Israel,
you know, and colonialism and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you pointed out that anti Semitism exists in
all different political contexts, because I hate when people act
like it's a problem only with their political opponents. But
I was talking with someone, a Jewish friend, who was saying,
you know, yes, it's obviously it's everywhere, but it's not
very well checked on the left, you know, So there
are different places where it occurs and it needs to
be dealt with. On the left, it's not really dealt
with very well. And so you saw it even with
the twenty twenty four presidential campaign where the Kamala Harris
campaign was running. There's nothing wrong with this necessarily, but
running different ads for different people in different contexts, sort
of downplaying any support for Israel in one place and
elevating elsewhere. Not being able to pick Josh Shapiro because
he's Jewish. These things are not like if that again,
if that were a Republican Party decision, it would have
dominated the news, presumably.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Even Jewish Jewish Democrats are scared to say anything
about anti Semitism on their side because they don't want
to upset certain factions of their constituencies and that's a
sad place to be. So anyway, I hope people will
give it a shot. It's obviously available anywhere books are
available and by to answer questions. Yeahs day if you can.
It's a good day as any into it.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of conspiracy theorists, what do you think about
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzynski, the co hosts and married
couple who run Mourning Joe on MSNBC. That was sort
of ground zero for some of the most insane and
deranged conspiracy theories over the last eight years, not just
the Russia collusion hoax, but also all of these other
things that people were saying, like this campaign cycle about
Donald Trump going to be rounding people up and women
needing to be scared. They recently, it was reported, went
down tomorrow lago to sort of bend the knee and
apologize and try to reshape their relationship which had once
been quite good prior to the twenty sixteen election, prior
to Trump getting the nomination, I should say, and they
were trying to kind of reset the situation. What do
you think about them?
Speaker 1: Well, in my book, I make a distinction between cynical
people and credulous people. They are cynical people, obviously just embarrassing.
First of all, I have no respect for them for
even going back to Donald Trump in that way. I
have no respect for them after what they did. But
Joe is all over my book. He says the craziest things.
He says journalists were going to be rounded up and executed.
Mika not but two three weeks ago, said that Donald
Trump had already began killing women. I think she was
referring to the Amber Thurman story that Pro Publica ran
about a woman who tragically died because of an abortion pill.
But they blamed the Georgia abortion laws. And let's talk
about their Guess what is that historian's name, Michael something?
Speaker 2: Wow, yes, I do, okay, but I forget his name.
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's okay to forget his name. So he said
that children were going to be rounded up in camps,
that they would never be able to learn about the
history of slavery of Donald Trump. Yeah, bechlass. So he
so morning enjoyed a lot of these guests on spreading
conspiracy theories and paranoia. So how do you I don't
even know, I don't know. I guess i'd ask you.
I don't even know how you can turn around from
one day to the next and then go and try
to meet with Hitler. I don't even understand how someone
can rationalize or justify something like that.
Speaker 2: It is better to walk away from your conspiracy theories
than to stay with them. And I just want to
mention this other thing I watched this weekend part of
research for a book I'm working on, where there was
a conference hosted by a people called Society for the
Rule of Law, and it was started by George Conway
and those types of never trumpers, so presumably left wing funding.
They had a conference right after the election, paltry attendance
where people were talking about what a threat to rule
of law this second Trump administration will be. And I
only watched two panels, but one of them it was
really interesting to me. I have a lot of disdain
for people who were never trumpaloo radicals, but I didn't
necessarily think they were stupid, and watching this panel, I
was shocked at how unintelligent they were. So these are
people like Barbara Comstock, George Conway, the once mighty judge
Loutig who famously did not get picked for a Supreme
Court slot under George W. Bush and then basically lost
his mind. They were willing to believe any crazy conspiracy
theory about Donald Trump, no matter how extreme. They were
repeating things about how his family hates him and how
Malania is divorcing him, and I'm not you know, who
knows what the future will bring. But it didn't seem
based in reality. They were whatever they'd heard, whatever crazy
thing they'd heard on MSNBC they took as the gospel truth.
And then there was this panel discussion with three former
general counsels whit sorry, three former White House counsels. So
one was Obama's guy, one was Al Gonzalez, you know,
Bush's guy, and then also Don McGann, who was Trump's
first White House counsel. And I'm kind of looking like,
why did Don show up here? This is not a
group that you should really be associated with, this crazy
anti Trumpist group. But it was hilarious because as they
were talking about things, the two Trump haters on the
panel are saying, Oh, they're so scared and worried about
the Department of Justice and what's going to happen under
Donald Trump, who's promised to go after his political enemies,
and Don McGann just very quietly and calmly keeps cleaning
their clocks, pointing out, for example, that if you care
about law fair, which you're claiming you do, you people
just did law fair for the last four years and
you probably elected Donald Trump as a result. It was
a major issue during the campaign and people made a
decision about it, and they hated Democrat law fair, and
they did want someone who would clean up the Department
of Justice. And it was interesting to see one person
and Don mcghn's not like the world's biggest Trump fan obviously,
but just to see one person pierce through the conspiracy
theories of these other people and they had to kind
of sit there and listen to it and deal with it.
And so it's important to speak the truth about these things.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of Scott Jennings on CNN. I love
those clips of him, not only because he I think
wins a lot of those arguments, but that quite often
I think the things he says comes as a complete
surprise to the other panelists, like they have never even
heard this, Which brings me to my next topic. This
cloistered way that the left deals with life. So have
you heard. I'm sure you've heard about this Blue Sky
thing where it's like a Twitter type site and all
the leftists are supposedly going over there. So I made it.
I made an account over there, and I took a peek,
and it's amazing. They want to speak without anyone pushing
back and listen. I know most people don't really want
to argue all the time, but it is going to
be one of these places where conspiracy theories are constantly
reaffirmed by these people in their little siloed website, and
it's going to get worse for them. I don't know
how the rest of media will act, but these kind
of like big never Trump accounts and leftist accounts I
think are making a mistake. I try not to say
anything because I heard they ban you if you say
something they don't like. It's not a Twitter type place,
like if I said there are only two genders, I
would get banned apparently, So try to stay out of
trouble just so I can see.
Speaker 2: What you're centsoring yourself over on Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: Well, I figure I'm not going to have any conversations
with anyone. It's just more of me taking a peek
to see what other people are saying. I try to
keep up on all my opponents arguments so I can
fairly debunk them if possible.
Speaker 2: The only way I knew about Blue Sky was that
there's people I wrote about this. Actually, I live in Alexandria, Virginia,
which was the site of the shooting that nearly killed
Steve Scalise and a bunch of other Republicans who were
practicing baseball for the congressional baseball game. They were gunned
down in my neighborhood. And then further jd. Vance is
from Ohio, obviously, but it had a DC area residence
in this same area, and my neighbors who all have
signs like Kate has no home here and all these things.
They ran campaigns to make jd. Vance and his wife
and young children feel unwelcome in the neighborhood. I'm sorry
this was on Blue Sky, and they coordinated on Blue Sky.
That's my point is that I didn't really know about
Blue Sky. I get overwhelmed with social media apps and
so I had never really heard of it until some
concerned neighbors explained to me that they were coordinating these
these efforts to make Jdvans feel unwelcome and to organize
protests in front of his kids and stuff like that.
They were doing that over on Blue Sky, So it
seems like a place where left wing authoritarians gather to
coordinate efforts like that.
Speaker 1: What's funny about it is that there are journalists there,
so called unbiased journalists from Washington Post. I've seen in
other places, and they lose themselves a bit there, you
know what I mean, They lose themselves in the I
think it would be a good story for someone to
go over there, take a peek at some of the
journalists that claim to be unbiased and see exactly what
they're saying because they lose themselves. What I do is,
whenever there's a new social media site, I always go
there and make an account for myself just in case
I don't want someone to take my name I guess,
you know, or whatever, and then possibly send out ideas
that are not mine to the masses or the few
people follow me. So anyway, it's interesting. It's interesting if
they want to remain siloed or if they want to
engage in debate. And that's part of my book as well,
not to always go back to this, but this whole
thing where I start my book talking about myself and
how I can no longer debate people on the left
because they just accuse me of things. So if I
and Donald Trump, they accuse your sedition. If you defend
women's right to be safe in sports, they call you transphobic.
If you know what I'm saying, there's no debate. It's
always just an accusation. And all those accusations are driven
by paranoid understanding of the world. So I don't know
how Blue Sky's going to help with that. Do you
want to discuss RFK and Matta? I think, yeah, yeah, you've.
Speaker 2: Been out there. You've been out there critiquing RFK.
Speaker 1: Junior critiquing I would call it just angry Twitter raging.
Speaker 2: You would like me to phrase it that way, So
take us through. So for the backstory, of course, RFK
Junior was running for president, trying to run as a Democrat.
The Democrat Party was not allowing anyone to run against
Joe Biden, so he was running as an independent. He
had this huge uphill climb to get on the ballots
in all fifty states, did so, but still was getting
iced out from any media discussions and so eventually surprises
a lot of people by stopping his race and endorsing
Donald Trump. And then he also campaigned with Donald Trump.
And it was RFK and his team that did a
lot to help to help Trump. Willian. It was not
just bringing in a different type of supporter, including some
Hollywood types, but also with the resources of his running
mate Nicole Shanahan and her advertising team that made some
really interesting videos. Because we're dealing with not just a
victory for Donald Trump, we have this seismic mood shift
in the country of openness and ability to say that
you're a Trump supporter, something that hadn't happened previously. So
it's not shocking that RFK Junior was rewarded for his efforts,
but still some surprising that he was given the slot
of HHS Secretary Health and Human Services. And this concerns
you based on his track record of how he's talked
about various things. So I just want you to kind
of tell us what you're concerned about.
Speaker 1: It's a very large topic. I mean, I am concerned
about everything he says. First of all, I think he's
a left wing authoritarian, a guy who listen people change
their mind on issues. But he's an anti He was
an He wanted to put people who were climate denies
in jail. That's one thing. Another thing is that he
is anti vaccine. Now. I understand what happened with COVID,
and I understand people's anger about the COVID vaccine and
how it was mandated and how it was pushed on people.
But that doesn't mean that we have to tear up
all the science of the last century and start from scratch.
Because JFK, who has zero expertise in this issue, is
a junior FK junior. Sorry, so for instance, only not
that long ago. He speaks very differently in private and
on podcasts and with people that record him than he
does you know, publicly, which I guess every politician does.
But he did say only last year that no vaccine
is effective and no vaccine is safe, which is of course,
nothing is completely safe, but it's just simply untrue. He
he he believes our water causes people. He believes in chemtrails.
I mean, he is just an unhinged, absolute nut who
should not be near any government agency. Now everyone always
thinks about his you know, his case for being healthier
and of course, there's nothing wrong with being healthier, but
the idea he calls every ingredient he doesn't like poison,
which is just scare mongering. If you eat things in
you know, occasionally, you're not going to die from it.
He he is a nanny who wants to tell corporations
what they should be doing, wants to tell pharma what
they should be doing. He has no he has no
scientific background for that. And he has no and he
is the opposite you know, everything. He most of the
things he believes are untethered from reality. I just don't
even understand if someone like this can be put up
for a serious position. The only reason he's there is
because he endorses Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't care about
you know. I mean, actually, maybe he dabbled into autism
vaccines cause autism you know theory as well, but I
think he stopped doing that once the report came out
that that the that the study on that was fraudulent.
I don't exactly know. But here's the last thing on
this and why I think. You know, he's a personally
not a good person either in my view, But it
is vile to convince millions or hundreds of thousands of
parents that they have hurt their own children by doing
the right thing and inoculating them. And I find that
how many people now are not going to do that
and how many kids are going to suffer because of OURFK.
I don't know, but it's if it's more than one person,
it's too many. I guess. I don't know. I was
all over the place because there's a lot for me
to digest there with him. Do you like him? Oh? Also,
he's a complete abortion fanatic. He said there should be
no limits on abortion. And now we're going to put
him in HHS, which is charged with Medicaid and Medicare
stuff as well. He's a charge This is normal? Is
this conservative?
Speaker 2: So you just stole what I was going to say.
It's not that I disagree with you on concern about
some of his approaches on these other things. But my
big issue is that, you know I just was talking about.
I understand that you're going to reward RFK Junior with
a with something for all that he did to help
secure this election. That's how it works. But HHS has
always been the prize given to social concerns for their
work getting people elected, and that's because of what you
just say. There's so many issues dealing with conscience, protections,
abortion issues, trans radicalism, all these things that social conservatives
such as myself care about a great deal. So I've
been worried that the top guy is so pro abortion.
It is my understanding that there's a possibility that top
people at HHS will be pro life if it's sort
of demanded, like people need to make sure that they
get that, but that there might be some kind of
arrangement put in place, which would be good. And I
don't think he should be confirmed without that kind of
agreement to not be hostile to effective appointees who are
good on these topics, but on the other stuff, I
feel also kind of in the middle, which is I
hear I you need a lot of people who were
just so hostile to vaccines, big pharma, and I do
agree that some of those things absolutely should be critiqued.
I just think also they do great things. I mean,
prior to a few years ago, I would have said
vaccines were one of God's greatest gifts to mankind. Like
when you look at some of the diseases that have
been eradicated and how widespread they were and how harmful
they were. I just get a little nervous when people
are reflexively anti vacs. They've done such great work for
so many people. At the same time, the vaccine schedule.
As a parent, I remember going through it where you're
just getting vaccine after vaccine, and some of the vaccines
were produced in ways that I had trouble with ethically,
and trying to manage it all with newborns and thinking
it through. It's just kind of seems a bit much times,
And there's a difference between generally liking vaccines and thinking
that there's no room for criticism of how we approach
these vaccines. And then likewise, I love that pharmaceutical companies
are motivated by profit. I think that's a really good
way to come up with great advances in medicine. It's
also true that their control over these agencies has been
awful and it can keep out effective treatments because powerful
companies do a really good job of writing regulations to
hurt other companies. There are also sometimes ways in which
pharmaceutical companies, because they're motivated by profit, which is a
wonderful thing, that they are more concerned about making profit
than actually making people healthy.
Speaker 1: Okay, Molly, listen, I have to calm down. I was
ranting a bit there about OURFK. I realized that I
have a lot to say. There's a column I've written
if people are interested to see what I sound like
when I gather my thoughts. But I will say this
about big Pharma. Big pharma is big because it's the
only way to create life changing drugs. It costs billions
of dollars to bring a drug to market. It takes
a decade on average. It's very difficult. All the distrust
there is a big Pharma. Some of it is earned
by big Pharma, but most of it, in my view,
is earned by the public health officials who who lied
to people, who mandated they take something that wasn't didn't
go through that kind of rigorous process. I see a
lot of people online who are just now completely anti
pharma and not thinking about all the lives it saves,
all the pain reduction it provides, and the other things
that it does, and it just drives me crazy. And
I don't think RFK is a person who's going to
be tempered on that issue and help us get through
to the other side of this.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's where I would like to kind of make
a defense of him when you take something like COVID,
which is the public health crisis that most people have
familiarity with, and we can all agree, no matter how
radically libertarian we are, I think that there was a
government role in the response for a global pandemic unleashed
out of the Muhan Institute of Rology, most likely, and
that was causing chaos throughout the world. And what should
have happened. The actual health prescription that should have been
issued from the government was basically, get outside and get
some exercise, be outside in the sun and move your body.
And there is no money to be made in that prescription,
and instead we spent who knows how much money on
rushing a vaccine, which, by the way, I'm a big
fan of that. I actually think that governments should engage
in that kind of Manhattan Project style of approach to
tackling something the end result of which was not that
impressive vaccine that wasn't even what we would conventionally think
of as a vaccine, and people were not given the
right to resist this, They were fired, they were treated
horribly if they didn't want to take this experimental non
vaccine that we called a vaccine. They were kicked out
of the military, they were nearly kicked out of the
federal government. There was so much governmental pressure they censored
places like The Federalist permanently for hosting debates about whether
this approach was the right way. I mean, it was horrible.
The idea of having someone who's critical of this in
as the head of the agency is a good thing,
I think, particularly given how impossible it will be to
change anything. You need someone that extreme to push back
against some of the insanity. The thing that made me
excited was the idea that Jay Bodicharia might be in
at NIH. He was horrifically treated for accurately noting the
profile of COVID as a flu style thing that should
be treated as such. And having someone who let the
science lead the way like he did would be great,
I think.
Speaker 1: But he has credibility. He has credibility and expertise and
doesn't have a history of being insane. The problem with
RFK is if you put someone in there to fix it,
they need to be a credible person. I agree with
everything you said before, I just don't agree he's the
prescription for it. I don't think you know anyway, I
don't know if he has the votes. I don't know
if you know, I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, it's kind of interesting. I was just seeing.
I don't think that cabinet appointments matter in terms of
public opinion, but I was just seeing that he's the
most popular poly Tian in America right now, so that
might help him. Of course, the same interests that do
not want him at the head of HHS also are
big funders of the senators themselves, so they might have
more of a sway. We were talking about this because
when you were expressing criticism on X you were getting
all these people saying that you were in the pocket
of big Pharma, which you and I I think agree
that whenever we're told we're in the pocket of someone,
it would be nice if at least we were being
paid by those people.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, yes, the funniest person. Someone asked me
what Big Cereal was paying me, what Kelos was putting
in my pockets?
Speaker 2: You're like, can I get paid by Big Seal?
Speaker 1: I would love to be they pay me? And I said,
they pay me an all brand, which is very healthy,
has no ingredients other than bran all his his insanity
with scaring people. First of all, the two things that
everyone's mad about now are like we're with him, is
big pharma. We've gone through that. And industrial farming. There
are three hundred and fifty million people in this country.
If we didn't have industrial farming, you would all be
You think inflation is bad now if he had his way,
you'd be paying a ton for everything. And the idea
that a person can't I'm trying not to get worked
up Molly rants again. I'm just saying, the idea that
a person can't be healthy in America today is insane.
You can, I keep saying insane. It is wrong. You
can go out there and you can be healthy. There
are plenty of things for you to buy. If the
beef talo versus seed oil debate is a really big
thing in your life, you're going to McDonald's too often.
There used to be this, There was this onion piece
once that had the headline was I wish someone would
do something about how fat I am. That is exactly
what make America healthy again reminds me of the government
cannot make you healthy. You can only make yourself healthy.
And I think we've lost this. People sound like nannies
again on the right. I just anyway that bothers me
as well. It's very calm there.
Speaker 3: As soon as Trump got elected, liberal cities tightened up.
The Watchdout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every
day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the
economy and how it affects your wallet. After Trump, on
Eric Adams stopped giving cash to migrants, a six person
household was receiving seventeen hundred dollars a week, while American
families ravaged by hurricanes were receiving a seven hundred and
fifty dollars FEMA. Check whether it's happening in DC or
down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yes, people need to take responsibility for their own health.
Also true that government programs, regulations, and subsidies have dramatically
affected what people are eating the way they're eating. And
this idea that when the government tells corporations what to do,
that that's some free market libertarian ideal is not accurate,
and so looking into some of these subsidies regulations, what
you can do, what you must do, what you you
know in no situation can do. We already are in
a tremendously regulatory environment as it relates to our food supply,
our system of farming. The idea that you're not allowed
to look at it at all or to change it
at all is a non starter to me.
Speaker 1: That's not what he's talking about. He's claiming, for instance,
that ingredients and fruit loops are killing Americans, and it's
when the ingredients he is talking about are completely innocuous
and he is in he is a conspiracy theorist about
that stuff. Now, there are a million options for you
not to have that kind of food. The idea that
we need government to go in and make sure that
they're making fruit loops healthy for you, I think is
more than libertarian. It's just nanistic in a way that
I I don't think the market should be regulated.
Speaker 2: So you have a powerful friend in the New York Times,
which this weekend got very mad also at RFK Junior
for talking about the ingredients in fruit loops, and I
just want to read what they said. You'll probably agree
with this. Mister Kennedy has singled out fruit loops as
an example of a product with too many artificial ingredients,
questioning why the Canadian version has fewer than the US version,
But he was wrong. The ingredient list is roughly the same,
although Canada's has natural colorings made from blueberries and carrots,
while the US product contains red dye forty, yellow five
and blue one, as well as beutilated hydroxy two hydroxy
toluini or BHT, a lab made chemical that is used
for freshness according to the ingredient label. And people mocked
this by the way, they later had to correct it
because they had said that he was lying and he
had not been, but also just that paragraph itself, it
seemed like we're speaking in two different languages. There are
people who are reasonably concerned by the processing and refining
of ingredients that go into our food supply and people
who are like, Oh, if you don't like it, just
buy organic and with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not organic. There are plenty of Kellogg cereals that
are or other brand post cereals that are hell made
to be healthy. I think that was a silly fact
check though. Those ingredients that sound so horrible. Study after
study shows that they are not harmful. But that's fine.
You don't have to eat anything you don't want. But
the problem with RFK is it's not this one thing
or that one thing. It's a lifetime. It's a lifetime
of authoritarianism, a lifetime of being pro abortion, a lifetime
of bad decisions, really bad decisions, and a lot of
kookie stuff. And I think it's fair to talk about that.
So do you want to talk about this? Actually, first
let's talk about some other appointees. Did you want to
talk about Matt Gates or do you want to also want.
Speaker 2: To talk about Matt Gates, although I'm open to others
if you want to talk about him as well.
Speaker 1: So, I.
Speaker 2: I have to say I have been surprised by these
cabinet picks and how aggressive they are with their given agency.
Tulci Gabbard at DNI when she's been the victim of
a variety of intelligence operations, Matt Gates as a g So, I,
like many Americans, think the Department of Justice is dangerously corrupt,
perhaps irredeemably corrupt, in the sense of it might need
dramatic action to change it in order to bring it
back to being a Department of Justice, but Matt Gates
as the nominee. I think it's fair to say it
shocked Washington d C. Shocked and appalled Washington d C.
Of all the people who don't have friends in Washington
d C, Matt GZ is right up there with Donald Trump.
You know, he probably surpasses Donald Trump. It's fair to say.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: It's just been interesting to follow that. What do you
think of him as the pick?
Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's a terrible pick. Obviously. I don't
think he has any qualification for the job. And I
don't mean he needs to have gone and run an agency.
I just think the only qualification he has is that
he is loyal to Donald Trump, which should be part
of the equation, no doubt, and that he he wants
revenge on the Justice Department. Now that alone isn't a
problem for me either, But if you really want to
change things there, as people's claim, they would get a
far more competent person. He is a backbencher in the House.
He's never proven himself in any other way other than
taking down Kevin McCarthy for for some personal reason, not
for the good of the country or the good of
his party. So I don't really understand why what makes
him a good choice other than that he is has
the esthetic and attitude that you know, maga folks like,
and I'm not even against that. Let's talk about Telsea
gabbert for a minute now. I yeah, yeah, no, I
just wanted to make a comparison between the two to
explain why I don't like him. Telsa Gabberd is not
someone I agree with on foreign policy in a lot
of ways, Like I think she's too susceptible to defending
people I don't like. But here's the thing with her,
She served her country. I think she's a patriot. I'll
disagree with her, but I think she is a person
who is confident enough to have that job and to
move forward. I don't feel that with Matt Yates at all.
That's it, okay, So.
Speaker 2: First of all, it actually bothers me when people talk
about vengeance or retribution when people are pushing for justice.
So there's a difference between these things. We have a
department that has behaved horrifically and threatened the very existence
of the country. They ran the Russia collusion hoax, They
leaked like sieves against a duly elected administration. They did
it in a criminal way. They were, of course the
people who should have been investigating these criminal leaks, but
they were doing the criminal leaks. The level of mendacity
and sabotage is almost unfathomable. Take James Comy. Then FBI
had telling Donald Trump that there's credible intelligence that he's
controlled by Russia solely so he could leak that to
CNN and they could launch the Russia collusion hoax. They
all knew it was lies, they didn't care. They just
did it for years and they made people insane. They
made them believe in these conspiracy theories, and they were
in positions of trust. They were doing it about everyone,
to everyone. The Moler Probe which was designed to cover
up what they had done and to further go after
the Trump administration. And then when Trump is defeated in
twenty twenty, they then start launching all of these ridiculous
attacks on him, legal lawfare attacks on him, and co
Op and helping other people, other Democrat prosecutors in New
York and Atlanta go after these people. They tried to
imprison and bankrupt and remove from the ballot their political
opponents and most of Washington, DC is like, yeah, so what, like,
what's your problem? And a lot of Americans are saying,
we can't have a country with this level of corruption
at the Department of Justice. But the idea that wanting
a department of justice instead of this corrupt bag of
injustice that we have, that that's retribution or vengeance instead
of justice. That's what I have a problem. It is justice.
Speaker 1: I agree with almost every single thing you said there.
I don't disagree with any of that. None of that
makes Matt Gates the right person.
Speaker 2: But you said he wanted by cleaning these things up,
he wants injustice. You're saying no.
Speaker 1: Yon Musk says that one of the reasons he's there
is because he has an axe to grind. Those literally
his words, what does an ax to grind mean? I
don't want someone with an extra grind. I want someone
to fix it. When I say this, when I tweet
this out, people tell me, well, he's going to break things.
That's what we need someone to break things if you
also have to fix things, and there needs to be
a person who is competent to run this incredibly powerful organization.
Speaker 2: So the reason why people think that Matt gee. By
the way, I have no idea how far Matt Gates
will get through this process. I've talked with people who
say it won't be far. I've talked with people who
say he's that Trump is absolutely insistent that he make
it all the way through. I have no idea, right
But the reason why people are saying that Matt Gates
would have what's needed to do it is because most
establishment GOP of the type that would have the qualifications
that you want for this position, are nowhere near having
what it takes to go into this hornet's nest, and
they care way too much about their credibility, their future
earnings prospects, these types of things. Matt Gates has shown
himself to stand up against the Department of Justice already,
So this relates to I don't remember what year this happened,
but the Department of Justice did what it always does,
which is criminally leak details of an investigation in order
to harm political opponents. So they did that. As it
relates to Matt Gates, they said they were looking into
credible allegations that he had trafficked underage children for sex reasons.
Now that was a kill strike, like you can't say
that about someone and have them survive it. That is
the worst thing you can say about a man, right,
And Matt Gates had this reputation as being a ladies
man in DC, dating anything that moved while he was
a single person. He got married several years ago, but
prior to that, I mean, people kind of knew he
was a player. So it was like and that he's
a young man. He was a young man and he
was dating young women, and so this idea that maybe
it went into Epstein territory was easy to sell. And
Matt Gates responds immediately by going on primetime television and saying,
it's a damnable lie. Okay, he did not hide, he
did not avoid the press. He came out there and
he was like, that's false. Well, a couple of years later,
the same DOJ leaks again that it turns out that
he didn't do that. You know, they're like, well, the
two key witnesses lack credibility. By that time, the damage
was done. He's the butt of jokes about this because
people don't read or study, and so they're just kind
of like joking. I saw National Review recently traffic in this.
They said something. It was a joke about how he
wouldn't make it through Senate confirmation and you would need
to count to fifty to get through, and they were like,
but he can't even count to seventeen.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha.
Speaker 2: We just accused someone of being a child sex trafficker,
aren't we funny? You know it's not funny. Actually, it's
a really horrible thing to do to someone without evidence.
And that's why people think he might be able to
take them on because everyone else succumbs to it, everyone
else falls to it other than basically Donald Trump, and
most people wouldn't be able to survive that level of
attempted character assassination.
Speaker 1: I believe the presumption of innocent is innocence is incredibly important.
I think I don't know what to do with this,
but I do think that if the roles were reversed,
you would want to see the ethics report, just so
we can see if what's going on, if it's true,
if it's not, if people are credible, if they're not.
I don't know what's in it. I'm not going to
accuse the guy of doing it. Doing the things that
people go on.
Speaker 2: Did you read did you read my piece?
Speaker 1: I didn't know you wrote a piece on it. I've
been a little busy.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Okay, I understand you're busy with the book coming out.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So here's the deal, the ethics report. Okay, it's
all kind of convoluted, and I oddly enough have respect
and also disrespect for both Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gates
for their role in this. So it is believed that
Kevin McCarthy was a player in some of these allegations
being spread around, Okay, And Matt Gates I think definitely
believes that, and so when he did that and had
started I think he believes that Kevin McCarthy might have
been involved in starting ethics probes into Matt Gates. Matt
Gates being someone who is disliked on the Hill, not
just for his politics, but because you'll like call people
out for insider trading, including fellow Republicans, and he just
doesn't care. So he's won no friends. But Kevin McCarthy
did such a great job with his narrow majority in
the House of reaching out to everyone who didn't like
him and making them into a friend. Every single person
except for one, Matt Gates. We kind of just I
don't know exactly what the source of all this is,
but they just kind of had never gotten along. And
I think the team Gates thinks that Kevin McCarthy was
intimately involved in spreading some of these rumors and that
therefore Matt, you know, felt it important to take him
down and succeeds, as you note, maybe not for the
best of the country. That's a big point. At which
point then Kevin decides it's his mission in life to
destroy Matt and anyone else who was part of the
process to remove him from Speaker. And so they kind
of have this like it's not the best start to things,
but they both feel that their honor has been put
in doubt, and so they're going to war with each other.
But the ethics probe. What people want relief in this
ethics report are these claims that the Department of Justice
looked into and found lacking incredibility. And I say, David,
that if you were accused of raping a fifteen year
old or something like that and it wasn't true, but
that your enemy is put together all the information in
the manner that made it look like it was credible,
would you want that report released that hadn't gone.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you. Let me ask you a few questions. One,
are you saying that the Republicans on this committee that
Kevin McCarthy is purposely framing met Gates for these actions?
And do you believe it's implausible considering a very good
friend of his was involved in this sort of thing,
that it's impossible that mac Gates could be involved in
this sort of thing. Okay, So it's not like a
Kavanaugh situation where you have someone just completely making something
up out of it.
Speaker 2: Actually, no, the Kavanaugh situation would be far more credible
than this. And I wrote a book about how it
was not credible, okay, with Carrie Savarino. But in fact
it was more credible than this. So here's the actual
situation that happened. There was an elected Republican official in
Matt Gates's district. I forget his name. I think it's
Joel Greenberg or something like this. He ran for office
as the tax collector, which is a very unregulated type
position where you're literally just collecting millions upon millions of
dollars of taxes and then you can kind of control
what gets reported or not. So he apparently was skimming
millions of dollars from this But he was from a
prominent family in the region, a prominent Republican donor family,
and he was a Republican elected official, and he had
lots of friends who were down there, okay, including Matt Gates.
And he ends up he's currently serving a prison sentence
for eleven years. He was facing twenty six years, and
it was very bad for him. He had committed so
many different crimes that at his sentencing, Mark Caputo, who's
like a never Trump reporter at the Never Trump dispatcher
bule Work, one of those said this guy was the
most legendary criminal in Florida history, which I think we
know means something. I don't remember exactly how he put it,
but he was saying like the crime spree was unbelievable
and it involved everything from the skimming of the money
to one of the things he pleaded guilty to was
falsely accusing someone of sleeping with a minor. He is
literally currently in federal prison for making false accusations about
I think a fellow Republican there.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who was friend who is good
friends with Matt Gates, right, I mean, this is the
same guy, Okay, going.
Speaker 2: So uh as so people he was a criminal mastermind
of a kind, although one who got caught fairly quickly.
But before this is going on, before he gets caught,
I think generally speaking, people didn't realize he was this bad. Okay,
then as it all starts unraveling, people are like, oh
my goodness, this guy is a nightmare and he's just
doing all sorts of bad things, including he was charged
with trafficking a minor, and so that situation is a
result of I don't know if that's technically what it was,
trafficking a minor, but here's the situation. This guy was
married with kids. He's since divorced, although his wife is
still funded by his family. Okay, so he was picking up.
So have you heard of sugar daddies and sugar babies?
Speaker 1: I know what they are, I think, so yeah, Okay,
So there.
Speaker 2: Was a site I think it's called Seeking Arrangements or
something like that. So you have wealthy older men and
women who are willing to have sex and need money,
which sounds like prostitution to me, and you have to
be nineteen to register on the site. So he thinks
everyone there that he's paying for are the These are
all legal people. But it turns out that one of
the women that he gets involved with was lying about
her age and she was seventeen, okay, And so she
lived with this girl who was nineteen, and I think
they might even still live together like their longtime friends
and roommates. And so this is really what the question
is about. So as he starts going down, he says,
I need a pardon, and I know Matt Gates is
close to Trump, so he's going to get me a pardon.
And everybody explains to him that's not how pardons work.
You know, like you might be able to get a
pardon if you were friends with Donald Trump and you
had been wrongly accused or you had gone through something,
but like this, this is not where you get a pardon.
So everybody tells him, you're not getting a pardon, and
he says, well, if I don't get a pardon, you're
all going down with me. And he's like literally tells
someone he's in a holding cell with that he's going
to frame people using evidence that they were friends against
them as if they were engaged in the criminal enterprises. Okay,
And so he does say, yes, these things about Matt Gates,
but also all these other people, some of whom have
filed defamation lawsuits, Like Matt Gates wouldn't do that because
he's a public figure, so you can't really get very
far with that probably, but these other people. So I've
read through these lawsuits and looking at the lies and
the deception. But the guy is in prison for lying
about one of his political rivals having sex with an
underage person. He pleaded guilty to doing that. And the
alleged victim here is his own girlfriend that he was
with for a while, whose lawyer he was also paying for,
and he admitted to that in texts. So when I
say these people lack credibility, I mean they really lack credibility,
and they're just engaged in some pretty and affair action,
so reporters, so when you say, okay, sorry, So the
Department of Justice then says, obviously these people are nightmares.
It's also reported that the two women in question, then
the former seventeen year old and the former nineteen year old,
their stories did not line up with each others. They
could not really tell a consistent or clear story about
what was going on. So DJ says, we're not indicting
on this obviously. Then the House Ethics Committee, according to
the New York Times a year later, says, you know what,
we think they're credible. We'll look into it. And they
bring these people in to tell the story, and now
they want to release that report. Do you honestly think
that's a good like that's a good way to do justice.
Speaker 1: I think Matt Gates should be ag but it's not
because of this.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think that's a totally legitimate, fair thing
to say, but people do willing for information operations worries me.
Speaker 1: My main problem is I think he is more would
be more loyal to Donald Trump that he would the Constitution.
That's just what I think, and that's the reason I
don't think he should be at the Justice Department. It's
that simple. Maybe senators disagree with me, and that's fine,
but you know, that's my main case. I didn't want
to really get to you.
Speaker 2: Do you have any examples of him not being loyal
to the content. I don't, because one of his claims
to fame is that he actually is pretty principled as
a conservative.
Speaker 1: Was that his claim to Famby. I think his claim
to FAMI I think he was unknown before he became
a very big defender of the president. That's his claim
to fame, don't you think.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, his time in Congress aligns with Trump's time
as president, but he was a prominent member of the
Freedom Caucus or Conference, whatever you call it, which are
the people who are very principled about their approach to
the Constitution. I think that if people want to talk about,
you know, other things related to Matt, that's one thing
Matt gates. But as far as this goes, that people
should know their facts before they accuse Hi want of
being a child sex trafficker.
Speaker 1: I didn't accuse him of anything. I just want to
make that clearer. But I did I accuse him. I'm
saying that in a hearing a confirmation here, which we
should have by the way, on all these folks. It's
a legitimate to put him on the under oath and
ask him about it and have him deny it again
under oath if he's going to be the top cop
in the whole entire country.
Speaker 2: And the other thing I would say is that while
I do think personal ethics are very important for cabinet officials,
and that's something people should look into. It's also true
that people's adherence to the values has been weaponized against conservatives.
It's what you're referencing with the Kavanaugh confirmations and how
it has affected people's looking at this and what they
want now is an Attorney general who will stop DOJ
destroying the country. That's what they want. They don't care
so much about. I don't know who will be the AG.
I don't know if it's Matt Gates or someone else,
but the American people want the Department of Justice to
be stopped before it destroys the country. That's the character issue.
They're looking for is someone who is willing to stand
up against them. And unfortunately, because of how powerful DJ
is and the FBI are, that group of people who
have the courage to take them on is extremely small.
So whoever is AG, whether it's Matt Gates or someone else,
they need to be aware of what's going to face
them and do what's necessary to tackle it. I do
want to see one other thing really quickly, which is
the amount of outrage that people have for Matt Gates
is so loud and so overwhelming relative to the outrage
people have had as DOJ tried to destroy the country.
Like most of DC was kind of fine with it.
Even when they were bringing these ridiculous cases against Donald Trump.
Most people in DC were like, well, this sounds very serious.
One of the things I love about Will Sharf, who's
going to be the staff secretary for Trump in the
next White House. At a moment when everybody was coming
out and so well, this seems very legitimate. He wrote
a piece for us at the Federalist actually about all
the reasons why that case was not legitimate. But it's
like one of those to a thousand of the people
who are just scared to take on the DOJ. And
we need more of the Will Sharf types.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a lot of cabinet picks and advisor
picks of Donald Trump that are both loyal to his agenda,
that believe in him and that are very competent and
very smart. But some of them aren't. And I think
it's okay to say that and to have confirmation hearings
where Republican Senators ask tough questions of their cabinet members.
I agree with you completely that the law fair and
all of that is horrible, and I actually want to
Justice Department that dispenses justice equally to all Americans, not
one that becomes this politicized place, though of course we
am I kidding, right, It's been politicized for decades, and
maybe it's been politicized since since the beginning. So all right,
let's move on from all this nonsense and talk about culture.
I have three things I want to talk about right. One.
I finished watching the show on Max called The Penguin
Colin Farrell. I thought it was great. Actually, I mean, listen,
it's not a family show. If you're violence and stuff
like that. It's dark. It got really dark at the end.
I don't want to spoil it. I want do you
want to go back and forth? Do you want me
to just do the three?
Speaker 3: Go three?
Speaker 2: Or three?
Speaker 1: I watched a documentary on the Elvis nineteen sixty eight
special on NBC that was very famous. It was this
comeback special. I'm into this kind of stuff. I was.
I thought it was great. I was fascinated by it. Obviously,
Elvis had his rise, and then he came back and
did all those movies which kind of made him a
joke and this, and then he had this special. And
initially the special was going to be all tacky also
with like all these numbers, but one of the producers
had after the day was over, he would jam. Elvis
would jam with his band in his in his uh
in the back room. And one time a producer saw
it and he was like, that needs to be the special.
That needs to be the special. It's amazing, And that's
what it was with some other numbers. And so this
goes through that history of that and is really well done.
Then I wanted to ask you, did you watch the
Mike Tyson fight a.
Speaker 2: Little bit.
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I watched on the bootleg Anthony Brown streaming because it
wasn't I was working at that hour, even though it
was late, and so I just kind of listened and watched.
It went exactly as I thought it would.
Speaker 1: I know me too. He's fifty eight year old man.
I'm a fifty four year old man. I understand that
you're not the same you were when you were young. Now,
I was a teenager when he came up. I used
to remember watching him on HBO. He would fight and
the fights would last like a round or two, and
he would decimate the opponent and it was very exciting
to watch. And I don't think i've ever seen anything
like that. I'm not a big boxing guy or anything,
but just in sports in general, I've never seen such
a domination. So when he lost to Buster Douglas, I
think it was in Japan, it was like impossible to
believe having seen what he had done. So I was
not happy to see him in this fight being basically
beat up by some young man who, from what I gather,
doesn't really fight any good fighters. He used to be
a YouTuber or whatever, Jake Paul let My. I think
he could have knocked Mike Tyson out. I think the
last two rounds he kind of held held back from
really hurting him and it was just a money grab.
And I kind of think, you don't want to sound
like a frude or a prig, but I kind of
feel like it was a money grab and kind of
despicable to use an old man in this way.
Speaker 2: I don't feel that way at all. I thought it
was a wonderful evening. I thought it was unifying for
the country. I thought it was fun to have a
moment that everybody was kind of sharing.
Speaker 1: Did you watch the pre fight the fight before with
the two women like the women. I don't like watching women.
The crap out of each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't believe they should. There, you can cancel
me for my views.
Speaker 1: I agree it was very.
Speaker 2: But in a way I think Sean Davis or so
I think it was Sean Davis, but I can't remember,
was saying that he almost wondered if Logan Paul hadn't
organized the whole thing as a way to give Mike
Tyson like a glorious send off. You know, he got
twenty million dollars. I thought Paul did a really good
job of like doing the fight but being respectful, and
I went it actually went better than I imagined. I
thought it was going to be much messier. So people
who were disappointed, I'm like, what did you think was
going to happen?
Speaker 1: But I like guess a lot of people in my
generation just held that hope that Mike Tyson was just
kind of like you can, as fifty year old man,
that you can regain the power of youth and the
strength of youth, but you can't. You can't. And so
maybe it was just I was sad about it. Maybe
that's maybe still my own reflection of my own mortality
in what was going on. Right anyway, I liked it,
But all right, that's it for me. You have anything?
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I thought you had a third thing?
Speaker 1: That was three? It was the tight the Elvis thing,
the penguin. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only other thing I wanted to mention was the
UFC fight that Trump went to with Elon Musk and
other people, and how it just very much feels like
there's a cultural shift going on where the people who
had almost like held the country hostage with their paranoia
and fear and nervous breakdowns, that there's been some kind
of break in that and people are just openly supporting
the United States, and they're having fun with the silly
Trump dance, and they're just having fun moving past the
suppression of free speech and the thought control that has
dominated not just politics but all of life for several years.
So we'll see who wins. But I'm more hopeful now
than I have been in a while. I remember eight
years ago being on special report or something where Donald
Trump had said that he thought it was wrong that
Colin Kaepernick was kneeling, and I think everyone agreed that
Donald Trump was evil for saying so he shouldn't say
that about an American who has every right to kneel
for the flag, and I think a lot of Americans
were beginning to feel that something very wrong was happening
with this attack on patriotism and hatred for America, belief
that we're irredeemably corrupt and all these things. And it
just seems right ahead of our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
there's this return to loving America. That's nice to feel,
and patriotism, I do think is a virtue and one
that has been suppressed.
Speaker 1: It does remind I think you're right. I think the
fever broke in a way and almost that we're back
to normalcy. You could in the past simply say you
were a fan of a president and you wouldn't have
to fear that you would be canceled forever. There was
a yearning to return to some sort of normalcy. And
the last thing I'll say about this election is here's
I think that this was the normy election, that it's
not an ideological election. Donald Trump is not even really
a Republican in my view, in the eyes of many voters,
that people just wanted to get rid of the social
science quackery that was being shoved down their throats. It
wanted to come back and be able to be normal,
and Donald Trump was the normal candidate, and I think
that's good for America. Even if you don't like Donald Trump,
I think it's good for America. So anyway, I tried
to end on a positive note, Molly, because I'm such
an e r on everything.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I look forward to next week when we
hear how everything went with this week's book launch, and
I just want to remind people to go ahead and
buy David's book, and today would be a good day
to do that.
Speaker 1: I would be, of course, very appreciative of that. Thank you, Molly,
thank you everyone else, and we'll be back next week.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.