1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've had people say they want me to

2
00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:06,200
get at least two good Charles CW. Cook rants out

3
00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:10,080
of you with a Molly Coddle in each one or

4
00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:11,320
something or it's equivalent.

5
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:14,400
Speaker 2: Right, I'm trying to find some what that mocks me out.

6
00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask

7
00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:22,239
what you can do for your country.

8
00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:30,000
Speaker 3: Mister Gorbacho, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast.

9
00:00:30,079 --> 00:00:33,439
Speaker 1: Steve Hayward sitting in the host chair today, joined by a.

10
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:37,560
Speaker 3: Recovered Charles CW. Cook. So let's have ourselves a podcast.

11
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,439
Speaker 4: And you know, it's not like I agree with everything

12
00:00:43,039 --> 00:00:47,079
the administration does. So it's like there's I mean, I

13
00:00:47,079 --> 00:00:49,799
agree with much of what the administration does, but we

14
00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:51,039
have differences of opinion.

15
00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:52,560
Speaker 1: So then I'm a little.

16
00:00:52,399 --> 00:00:55,679
Speaker 4: Stuck in a bind where I'm like, well, I don't

17
00:00:55,679 --> 00:00:58,719
want to, you know, speak up against the administration, but

18
00:00:58,799 --> 00:01:03,600
I don't want to also don't want to take responsibility

19
00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:05,000
for the administrations doing.

20
00:01:05,359 --> 00:01:08,680
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast, number seven hundred and

21
00:01:08,719 --> 00:01:12,480
forty four. It's Steve Hayward sitting in for James Lilax today,

22
00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:15,079
who is comforting somewhere over in the wilds of Italy.

23
00:01:15,719 --> 00:01:19,239
I am in the North Atlantic, where it is snowing

24
00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:21,879
at the moment. I'm so far north, but I'm pleased

25
00:01:21,879 --> 00:01:25,959
that we are joined by the fast recovering Charles C. W. Cook,

26
00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:30,400
who's been down with the bubonic plague or something like that. Charles,

27
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:33,719
how are you feeling and what have you been going

28
00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:35,120
through the last couple of weeks?

29
00:01:35,359 --> 00:01:38,280
Speaker 2: A man, I don't quite know what it is. I

30
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:40,480
thought it was strap because I work up with a

31
00:01:40,519 --> 00:01:44,719
horrendous razor blade esque sore throat, and then it wasn't

32
00:01:44,719 --> 00:01:46,799
strapped because that went away pretty quickly. But all these

33
00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:48,879
other symptoms came along and now I have what is

34
00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:52,560
really a glorified cold. That's the best part thus far

35
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:55,560
of my journey. I feel like I'm on the exit ramp. Aha.

36
00:01:56,599 --> 00:01:58,599
Speaker 1: Well, sounds like I'm about to put to sea. When

37
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:00,799
the sound of that horn blowing in the background, I don't.

38
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 3: Know if you heard that or not.

39
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:06,439
Speaker 2: On the exit round then no, I am not right.

40
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:08,719
Speaker 1: Well you sound good, Charles, so it's good to hear

41
00:02:08,719 --> 00:02:12,000
your voice again. I don't know whether you've been, you know,

42
00:02:12,039 --> 00:02:15,719
in bed, in your cozy your sheets, perhaps avoiding all

43
00:02:15,759 --> 00:02:19,680
the news, but The thing that is amazing me, and

44
00:02:19,719 --> 00:02:23,039
I think everyone is the I think what some people

45
00:02:23,039 --> 00:02:26,479
thought was the inevitable divorce of Donald Trump and Elon

46
00:02:26,599 --> 00:02:28,000
Musk has finally occurred.

47
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:31,840
Speaker 3: Who knew that the long prospected civil war.

48
00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:34,120
Speaker 1: For America would turn out to be between the forces

49
00:02:34,159 --> 00:02:38,080
of Duke Elon of Musk against the Viscount Donald of

50
00:02:38,319 --> 00:02:41,960
trump Landia. But here we are, and I don't know

51
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,479
where you want to start. I'll give you one of

52
00:02:44,479 --> 00:02:47,960
my opening observations, which is I long expected something like

53
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,159
this for reasons that I think are obvious but maybe

54
00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:53,919
are worth discussing. But one of the blows that Musk

55
00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,479
threw down, which I thought was quite outrageous, was saying

56
00:02:58,080 --> 00:02:58,879
Trump is.

57
00:02:58,719 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 3: In the Epstein.

58
00:03:00,879 --> 00:03:01,280
Speaker 2: Yeah.

59
00:03:01,759 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 1: First of all, I'll say this, I don't think there

60
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:06,680
are any Epstein files or an Epstein list, or if

61
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,319
there was one, it was long ago destroyed and recreating

62
00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,400
it is a difficult thing. And second, if there was

63
00:03:12,479 --> 00:03:14,639
such a list, I don't know how Elon Musk would

64
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:17,319
know who was on it. So that's my first observation,

65
00:03:17,599 --> 00:03:19,319
and then I have several. But I want to hear

66
00:03:20,199 --> 00:03:22,080
what do you have to say about this? Which I'm

67
00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:23,719
sure you may have expected.

68
00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:28,120
Speaker 2: To well, unless that is true, which, for the reason

69
00:03:28,199 --> 00:03:31,039
jee outline strikes me as very unlikely. That is a

70
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:34,560
truly outrageous thing for Musk to have said, and we

71
00:03:34,599 --> 00:03:37,319
ought not to lose sight of that, purely because the

72
00:03:37,439 --> 00:03:41,080
drama is so interesting. You just do not accuse people

73
00:03:41,879 --> 00:03:44,800
of being a sex criminal in the midst of an

74
00:03:44,879 --> 00:03:52,360
argument for giggles, I think that Musk is on a

75
00:03:52,439 --> 00:03:57,319
manic episode. I mean, the closest analogue that I can

76
00:03:57,360 --> 00:04:01,319
find to the last twenty four hours of Musk is

77
00:04:01,439 --> 00:04:02,240
Kanye West.

78
00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:02,960
Speaker 4: Now.

79
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,560
Speaker 2: I say that as somebody who admires Musk in many ways,

80
00:04:05,599 --> 00:04:10,360
as a great American eccentric inventor of a long line

81
00:04:10,439 --> 00:04:16,680
of such people, all of whom are crazy. But the

82
00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:20,000
behavior yesterday struck me as being redolent of someone who

83
00:04:20,079 --> 00:04:23,920
has got to be in his bonnet and is now

84
00:04:23,959 --> 00:04:26,279
looking for any weapon at hand. In the course of

85
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:32,279
yesterday's trade, Musk suggested that Donald Trump is a sex

86
00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:35,959
criminal and is on the Epstein list. He said that

87
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:41,720
he was going to dismantle SpaceX's program. He said that

88
00:04:42,319 --> 00:04:44,600
he wanted Donald No, he didn't say, that's not fair.

89
00:04:44,639 --> 00:04:51,160
He retweeted the suggestion that Trump be impeached and replaced

90
00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:56,920
with JD. Vance. I mean, these are extreme rhetorical positions

91
00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,000
to take, and he just did it one by one,

92
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:01,319
and I think it just struck me as being manic.

93
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:05,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, now, if I have this right, he made

94
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,120
his formal exit a week or more ago, which I

95
00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:09,959
think was on the way anyway. I mean, he was

96
00:05:09,959 --> 00:05:12,959
always going to be a temporary government employee, and there's

97
00:05:13,759 --> 00:05:16,040
like specified in the law of how long you can

98
00:05:16,079 --> 00:05:19,120
be such a person with aut all kinds of complications happening.

99
00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:22,720
But then it was shortly after that he criticized the

100
00:05:22,759 --> 00:05:26,720
big Beautiful bill for I think rightly. I think you'll

101
00:05:26,759 --> 00:05:29,000
agree that that it didn't cut down the deficit. That's

102
00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:31,319
really uh. I forget what he called it a travesty

103
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:34,519
or worse, And it seems to be Charles. He's right

104
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:36,879
about that, isn't he. I mean, we talked about this

105
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:39,399
before and should say more about it, but that seemed

106
00:05:39,439 --> 00:05:40,279
to set off Trump.

107
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:42,839
Speaker 2: One caveat with that. I think he is right about that.

108
00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:45,480
Donald Trump doesn't care about spending, he doesn't want to

109
00:05:45,639 --> 00:05:49,199
reform entitlements, and he has different political imperatives than Musk

110
00:05:49,319 --> 00:05:52,800
Musk is more of a free marketeer. But the one

111
00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:55,240
thing Musk has done on this that I found irritating

112
00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:00,839
Steve is that he will not say aloud the truth

113
00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:06,680
about our fiscal problems. He will not say that this

114
00:06:06,839 --> 00:06:13,000
is being caused by unfunded entitlements, that without reforming Social

115
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:17,120
Security or Medicare, you cannot fix the budget. He's still saying,

116
00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:20,639
as he did throughout his fora with Doge, that this

117
00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:23,040
is the question of pork. That's the word he used

118
00:06:23,079 --> 00:06:25,600
in his tweet criticizing the bill.

119
00:06:26,199 --> 00:06:26,560
Speaker 1: Pork.

120
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:29,360
Speaker 2: No, there is pork, of course there is. There is

121
00:06:29,399 --> 00:06:32,000
discretionary spending that should be cut. There's also some ways

122
00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:33,920
for auden abuse, although there's not that much of it.

123
00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:38,000
There's also spending that the executive controls, as in, for example,

124
00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:41,279
USAID that absolutely should be cut by a Republican administration.

125
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:43,560
But that's not why we're hurtling off the cliff. We're

126
00:06:43,639 --> 00:06:46,399
hurtling off the cliff because however much we raise taxes,

127
00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:52,040
we cannot outpace the growth in Social Security and Medicare.

128
00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:54,879
And it's just telling to me that Musk won't say

129
00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:58,720
that either. In that sense, he's being Trumpian while criticizing Trump.

130
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:01,319
But generally, yes, I am on Musk side with this question.

131
00:07:01,439 --> 00:07:05,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a good warm up rant, Charles. Listeners

132
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:09,639
will appreciate that you clearly your vigor is returning in

133
00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:13,000
a rapid clip. Well, let's linger on this for a minute.

134
00:07:13,759 --> 00:07:16,120
I thought one notable event of the last ten days

135
00:07:16,399 --> 00:07:20,360
was Jamie Diamond, the very capable chairman of JP Morgan.

136
00:07:20,439 --> 00:07:22,800
Let's remember JP Morgan is one of the only big

137
00:07:22,839 --> 00:07:25,279
banks that was not in serious trouble back in two

138
00:07:25,319 --> 00:07:28,079
thousand and eight, and I think Diamond deserves a lot

139
00:07:28,079 --> 00:07:28,759
of credit for that.

140
00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:33,160
Speaker 3: As any CEO should. And he's a Democrat.

141
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,639
Speaker 1: He was widely rumored to have been on a short

142
00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:39,360
list to be Treasury Secretary for either candidate, but especially

143
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,839
if we had had God forbid President Harris. And he

144
00:07:43,959 --> 00:07:45,879
made this speech last week out at the Rank and

145
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:51,720
Library significantly perhaps that Gosh.

146
00:07:50,639 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 3: We can't keep going on like this.

147
00:07:52,920 --> 00:07:55,399
Speaker 1: The spending is so far out of control and the

148
00:07:55,439 --> 00:07:58,399
debt is piling up so fast that sooner or later,

149
00:07:58,439 --> 00:08:00,319
And I think he said he thought sooner the bond

150
00:08:00,319 --> 00:08:02,839
market was going to make this clear. Yeah, I guess

151
00:08:02,839 --> 00:08:04,839
my gloomy view has been all along is nothing is

152
00:08:04,879 --> 00:08:07,399
going to happen until we have a crisis, at which

153
00:08:07,399 --> 00:08:10,040
point the solutions will all be much worse than what

154
00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:13,279
could be done now, no matter how difficult things are now.

155
00:08:13,399 --> 00:08:16,319
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right. It's also worth noting that

156
00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:18,319
while that crisis might come in the form of a

157
00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:22,600
rebellion within the bond market, there are automatic cuts to

158
00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:25,279
social Security that will kick in if we don't fix this.

159
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:28,480
So some of the rhetoric you hear, especially from the Democrats,

160
00:08:28,959 --> 00:08:33,360
that we should not do anything. Hillary Clinton said when

161
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:36,559
she was running for president we should decrease the age

162
00:08:36,759 --> 00:08:39,840
of which one is eligible for Social Security and Medicare.

163
00:08:39,919 --> 00:08:43,559
That is certainly a popular idea among the Alexandria Acasia

164
00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:46,879
Cortes types. Well, that's not an option that is not

165
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:52,399
going to happen. If we do nothing, we don't move

166
00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:55,879
into sunlit uplands in which everyone keeps getting Social Security

167
00:08:55,879 --> 00:08:58,960
in Medicare, and we just risk some sort of default

168
00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:02,200
the law asset stands that would have to be executed

169
00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:04,440
by whatever president is unlucky enough to be in office

170
00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:08,559
at that time will do the cutting for Congress unless

171
00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:12,200
it is amending. So yeah, I think we're headed for

172
00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:14,279
either a crisis in the bond market or some sort

173
00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:18,279
of catastrophic economic catastrophe you know that that is caused

174
00:09:18,279 --> 00:09:24,039
by debts being unable to be repaid, or we're going

175
00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:26,879
to see exactly what it is that those who don't

176
00:09:26,919 --> 00:09:31,399
want to cut entitlements say is a crisis because it

177
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:32,080
has to happen.

178
00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:36,639
Speaker 1: Well, now, another aspect of this fight that's been going

179
00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:39,799
on is Trump saying, well, I know how we could,

180
00:09:39,919 --> 00:09:42,279
you know, balance the budget or reduce the deficit, and

181
00:09:42,320 --> 00:09:44,600
that's to cut off the billions and billions of dollars

182
00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:48,320
of Tesla subsidies. So, first of all, I don't think,

183
00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:50,840
I don't think it amounts of billions and billions.

184
00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:51,159
Speaker 3: I don't know.

185
00:09:51,159 --> 00:09:52,840
Speaker 1: I haven't looked at the numbers for a long time.

186
00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:56,799
Second of all, you know I'm thinking about the electric

187
00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:59,840
car market. Is if you go back to before the election,

188
00:10:00,159 --> 00:10:04,120
I remember distinctly Musk telling I think the Wall Street

189
00:10:04,159 --> 00:10:06,440
Journal that got should be fine with me. If we

190
00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:08,720
got rid of all the subsidies that Biden laid out,

191
00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,639
it might actually be good for Tesla because, as you

192
00:10:11,759 --> 00:10:14,960
probably know, and many listeners may know, Tesla is actually

193
00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:18,720
able to produce their cars profitably with one caveat I'll

194
00:10:18,759 --> 00:10:21,720
come back to. While I think GM and Ford are

195
00:10:21,759 --> 00:10:24,360
still losing something like thirty or forty thousand dollars for

196
00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:28,399
every single electric car they produce, which and they're not

197
00:10:28,440 --> 00:10:29,799
making it up on volume, as.

198
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,240
Speaker 3: The old joke goes, right, And.

199
00:10:33,919 --> 00:10:37,679
Speaker 1: So I think what I think Musk realizes that he

200
00:10:37,759 --> 00:10:40,320
has a competitive advantage, having been at this now for

201
00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:43,799
more than fifteen years of making the electric cars that

202
00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:46,200
the other companies are not able to catch up with

203
00:10:46,519 --> 00:10:49,120
and haven't been able to and it gets worse, and

204
00:10:49,159 --> 00:10:52,200
this is the caveat. So we talk about the subsidies

205
00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:56,840
which the Biden budget blowout tried to limit or to

206
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,759
middle income people and strip away from hir income people

207
00:11:00,759 --> 00:11:03,360
who were collecting most of the tax credits for electric

208
00:11:03,399 --> 00:11:07,519
cars beforehand. But it turns out that Tesla makes a

209
00:11:07,559 --> 00:11:12,399
lot of money selling emission credits to the other automakers

210
00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:15,039
who aren't able yet to meet some of the ambitious

211
00:11:15,039 --> 00:11:18,360
targets for lowering the emissions or the mileage requirements of

212
00:11:18,399 --> 00:11:22,120
their car fleets. So you know, that's actually a more

213
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:24,360
important subsidy in my mind, because I think that's a

214
00:11:24,399 --> 00:11:27,679
more reckless and dumb subsidy anyway that starts the market.

215
00:11:27,759 --> 00:11:30,399
So and I haven't seen any acknowledgment of that in

216
00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:34,159
the in the media coverage or the social media.

217
00:11:34,679 --> 00:11:36,039
Speaker 3: A fury about what's going on.

218
00:11:36,679 --> 00:11:39,480
Speaker 2: No, and I think Trump is being really unfair here

219
00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:41,679
to mask This is a line that has been picked

220
00:11:41,759 --> 00:11:44,120
up in Congress as well. He's just against this because

221
00:11:44,159 --> 00:11:46,240
he doesn't want to lose his subsidies. He's been pretty

222
00:11:46,279 --> 00:11:50,080
consistently opposed to those subsidies. The one thing that he

223
00:11:50,159 --> 00:11:53,879
has said alongside opposing subsidies for evs is that he

224
00:11:53,919 --> 00:11:57,320
doesn't want any subsidies for oil and gas either, so

225
00:11:57,399 --> 00:11:59,639
he'd like a level playing field. But it's just not

226
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,759
the ca that he is angry with this bill because

227
00:12:03,879 --> 00:12:07,000
it kills the subsidies. It should kill more subsidies. Steve,

228
00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:09,879
I think Republicans are missing an opportunity. I have said,

229
00:12:10,559 --> 00:12:13,039
and I always miss out the border funding. So that's

230
00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,519
my fault because I do support that. But the bill

231
00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:17,480
I would like to have seen and will adding the

232
00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:21,399
border funding as well, would have said. The twenty seventeen

233
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:25,440
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is hereby renewed permanently. The

234
00:12:25,559 --> 00:12:30,080
twenty twenty two Inflation Reduction Act is hereby repealed in

235
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:34,320
its entirety. There's no reason Republicans should be allowing any

236
00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:36,279
of these subsidies to go through. And the left ha's

237
00:12:36,279 --> 00:12:39,360
got this idea that we simply can't compete with China

238
00:12:39,399 --> 00:12:43,120
technologically without the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a preposterous

239
00:12:43,159 --> 00:12:44,879
thing to think, given that we were doing pretty well

240
00:12:44,879 --> 00:12:48,840
at competing technologically with China prior to twenty twenty two.

241
00:12:49,159 --> 00:12:53,039
So I don't think that Musk is basing his opposition

242
00:12:53,279 --> 00:12:57,440
to this on eve subsidies or mandates or what you will.

243
00:12:57,519 --> 00:13:01,200
I think he's genuinely worried about the name since fiscal situation.

244
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,879
But as with Doge, he is mischaracterizing a little bit

245
00:13:04,919 --> 00:13:08,679
what is causing that, and that's going to be a

246
00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:10,159
problem for him in this fight.

247
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:11,200
Speaker 3: Right.

248
00:13:11,399 --> 00:13:16,240
Speaker 1: Well, now the subsidy question, the Biden people were dabblishly

249
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,159
clever in directing a lot of the money to rip states.

250
00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:21,240
Speaker 3: Yep. And so you know, you know what happens.

251
00:13:21,279 --> 00:13:23,639
Speaker 1: It's just like the whole ethanol game in Iowa all

252
00:13:23,639 --> 00:13:24,120
over again.

253
00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:24,440
Speaker 3: Right.

254
00:13:24,519 --> 00:13:28,639
Speaker 1: Republican presidential candidates are always petrified against coming out for

255
00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:32,399
the ethanol mandates and subsidies because that's the first the

256
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,000
nation primaries we all know, or caucus every four years,

257
00:13:36,519 --> 00:13:40,000
and this has now expanded that idea. So you have

258
00:13:40,039 --> 00:13:42,159
a lot of these red state senators in the Midwest

259
00:13:42,159 --> 00:13:44,840
who love these subsidies for wind and solar power because

260
00:13:44,879 --> 00:13:48,879
it's you know, creating the phony government funded jobs there.

261
00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:51,759
It does turn out I did a calculation on this

262
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:53,840
a long time ago now, but it turns out that

263
00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:56,320
one mischievous proposal will put an end to a lot

264
00:13:56,360 --> 00:14:00,000
of this, which is all right, let's have uniform subsidence

265
00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:05,200
the East based on not the technology, but on the

266
00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:09,159
energy output that you're able to produce. Because it turns

267
00:14:09,159 --> 00:14:11,879
out that even if you say the oil and gas

268
00:14:11,919 --> 00:14:16,200
industry get x millions of dollars in subsidies, they produce

269
00:14:16,279 --> 00:14:20,320
eighty percent of our energy, right, and so the subsidy

270
00:14:20,519 --> 00:14:23,240
and you can argue about what qualifies as a subsidy,

271
00:14:23,279 --> 00:14:28,279
but if you go by the subsidy for per BTU

272
00:14:28,639 --> 00:14:31,440
or water or whatever energy measurement you wish to use,

273
00:14:31,799 --> 00:14:33,879
you find out that the subsidy for oil and gas

274
00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:38,159
is iiny, it's minuscule. And if you got rid of

275
00:14:38,159 --> 00:14:40,519
all the subsidies, oil and gas wouldn't change their output

276
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,440
a bit, whereas if you reduce the subsidies or made

277
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,759
it linked to the energy output wind and solar in

278
00:14:46,759 --> 00:14:49,559
particular would have a really time. I do think the

279
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:51,679
one wild card here, and sorry to ramble a bit,

280
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:55,960
is a nuclear power. I'm very frustrated with this whole subject,

281
00:14:56,679 --> 00:14:59,519
and I don't understand why we have not been able

282
00:14:59,559 --> 00:15:02,639
to figure out over all these years how to drive

283
00:15:02,679 --> 00:15:06,159
the cost down. And so there the argument as well,

284
00:15:06,200 --> 00:15:09,960
if we really want big baseload power, it might, by

285
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:12,559
the way, still survive. When are my theoretical proposal of

286
00:15:12,559 --> 00:15:16,120
having a uniform subsidy for a unit of energy produced,

287
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:17,159
I'm not sure.

288
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:19,679
Speaker 3: I'd have to do some advanced math on all that.

289
00:15:20,039 --> 00:15:24,000
Speaker 1: But that's the other caveat about And apparently it's been

290
00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:26,799
a big argument among Republicans in the House and the

291
00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:30,399
Senate as to how to treat the nuclear subsidies in

292
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:31,559
the big beautiful bill.

293
00:15:31,639 --> 00:15:34,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, nuclear is an odd one in the I almost

294
00:15:34,399 --> 00:15:37,519
feel that we should subsidize nuclear just to offset all

295
00:15:37,559 --> 00:15:41,000
of the crap that those who want to put nuclear

296
00:15:41,039 --> 00:15:42,960
power into effect I had to deal with over the

297
00:15:43,039 --> 00:15:46,879
last fifty years. You know, we had a small look,

298
00:15:46,919 --> 00:15:52,440
I'm not big on great national plans. You know, I

299
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:56,039
am romantic about the highway system because I love cause,

300
00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:59,519
but I do take the conservative criticism of it, which

301
00:15:59,559 --> 00:16:02,440
was that it was ultimately a federal program. But I

302
00:16:02,559 --> 00:16:06,440
would be much more open to a grand national project

303
00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:10,120
to nuclearize all of our power than to almost anything else,

304
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:14,360
So I can see some sort of room for that.

305
00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:23,519
The system you just described, though, with subsidies, does make

306
00:16:23,559 --> 00:16:27,320
the case for abolishing the minuscule oil and gas subsidies, right,

307
00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:31,559
because if they wouldn't output any less energy as a

308
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:36,399
result of it going away, then why do we need it.

309
00:16:36,399 --> 00:16:41,360
It's just a small distortion in the market. But yeah,

310
00:16:41,519 --> 00:16:49,679
I I think that the bill is a problem if

311
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:52,960
you are worried about our fiscal situation, and it's a

312
00:16:53,039 --> 00:16:58,240
problem if you want Republicans to do more. Where Trump also, Steve,

313
00:16:58,279 --> 00:17:00,480
and I wonder what you think about this, where Trump

314
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,000
also has the upper hand, is just as a matter

315
00:17:03,159 --> 00:17:08,200
of elemental political gravity, it is the case that we

316
00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,000
have what one two votes to spare in the House

317
00:17:12,039 --> 00:17:15,200
of Representatives, and that a lot of the people who

318
00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:19,119
are going to be expected to push this over the

319
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:25,079
line are squishes. Now yesterday, Elon Musk tweeted out, should

320
00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:32,279
we create a new party, a third party for the

321
00:17:32,319 --> 00:17:35,279
eighty percent of people in the middle who don't feel

322
00:17:35,319 --> 00:17:37,559
represented by the geopy or the Democrats. I think that

323
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:40,039
is an exaggeration. I don't think it is quite eighty percent,

324
00:17:40,079 --> 00:17:42,000
But of course there are a lot of independents who don't.

325
00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:44,720
What I think is unusual about this suggestion, though, and

326
00:17:44,799 --> 00:17:50,160
does demonstrate a certain naivety on Mask's part. Is Number one,

327
00:17:50,599 --> 00:17:53,119
we have what was a fairly decisive victory from Donald

328
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,880
Trump in twenty twenty four, and still he can't get

329
00:17:57,079 --> 00:18:00,759
half of what Republicans would like to do. On why

330
00:18:00,759 --> 00:18:03,640
does Musk think that would get better if you created

331
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,799
a party in the middle? And second, is he really

332
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:11,000
under the impression that the middle of the political spectrum

333
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,240
in the United States is desperately in favor of cutting entitlements?

334
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:15,960
Because I don't think it is.

335
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 1: Is it right? Well, this is one of those cases,

336
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:22,079
and I've experienced this from Silicon Valley and tech people

337
00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:25,759
for years now. Is they they tend to not understand

338
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:29,200
why social and political problems can't be solved exactly like

339
00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:32,599
an engineering problem. And look, Musk is in some ways

340
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,559
the perfect median voter. Let's recall that fifteen years ago

341
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,599
he was all in for Obama and I don't remember

342
00:18:39,599 --> 00:18:41,640
if he was for Biden or not eight years ago

343
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:44,680
or whatever, but or four years ago, and now he's

344
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,880
then he flipped to Trump, and now he's slipped somewhere

345
00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:49,680
in the middle. And I think that's just someone who

346
00:18:49,759 --> 00:18:53,279
doesn't really understand politics. I think that's exactly right that

347
00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:56,519
we've been hearing about the angry middle is going to

348
00:18:56,640 --> 00:18:59,079
rise up and organize for at least since Ross Parrot,

349
00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:01,759
if not earlier. It never happens. It doesn't work that way.

350
00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:06,839
So well, let's get out on this, you know the way.

351
00:19:07,799 --> 00:19:10,079
You know, we're sort of known now that Trump's insults

352
00:19:10,119 --> 00:19:12,759
often have an expiration date or can be turned around quickly.

353
00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:17,720
It's entirely possible that by the time this episode goes

354
00:19:17,759 --> 00:19:19,519
live they will have kissed and made up.

355
00:19:21,319 --> 00:19:22,640
Speaker 3: Stranger things have happened.

356
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,559
Speaker 1: The other one is is people think that there's people

357
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:29,440
there's some conspiracy theorist saying this is all fake news.

358
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,960
It's professional wrestling, which they both attend, and this is

359
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,480
to distract the Median Democrats from something. And in fact,

360
00:19:36,559 --> 00:19:39,119
some Democratic group did call for now for releasing the

361
00:19:39,119 --> 00:19:42,839
Epstein list, which I think is pretty darn funny. Anyway,

362
00:19:43,079 --> 00:19:44,880
do you have any predictions on how this is going

363
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:46,480
to unfold? Is it just going to go away in

364
00:19:46,519 --> 00:19:47,960
a few days or are they going to kiss and

365
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:48,319
make up?

366
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:48,960
Speaker 3: What do you think?

367
00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:50,880
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of those two things. I certainly

368
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,680
don't think that it's going to have catastrophic consequences for

369
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:55,720
the Republic. I've seen some people say this is it

370
00:19:55,759 --> 00:19:58,440
for the right, this is it for America. No, I

371
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:00,759
don't think so. I think we'll get about it in

372
00:20:00,839 --> 00:20:03,519
six months. I don't think the space program is going

373
00:20:03,559 --> 00:20:06,759
to be set back by it. Donald Trump is already

374
00:20:06,759 --> 00:20:10,720
sounding somewhat consideratorly, orbeit from a condescending position where he says, well,

375
00:20:10,759 --> 00:20:13,160
that guy's crazy. I don't want to talk to him,

376
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:15,079
but I hope he gets the help he needs. And

377
00:20:15,079 --> 00:20:17,359
the mask started to back off yesterday. I don't know

378
00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:20,599
if you saw this. There was some user with seventeen

379
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,240
followers who said, you know, like a mother to the

380
00:20:24,279 --> 00:20:26,440
two of them on Twitter, come now, this is silly.

381
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:28,880
I don't like this, we don't need this, and Musk respond,

382
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,519
all right, fine, I won't cancel the space program. So

383
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,880
some guy on Twitter with seventeen followers may have saved

384
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,680
the future of the United States' presence in space. I

385
00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:42,839
don't think that ultimately this is going to cause big

386
00:20:42,839 --> 00:20:45,359
problems for America. I suspect they'll either make up or

387
00:20:45,519 --> 00:20:49,119
or just go away. But look, they are both very rich,

388
00:20:49,519 --> 00:20:54,119
successful men with egos. They don't agree on everything, and

389
00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:57,759
this was inevitable as a result. So those of us,

390
00:20:57,799 --> 00:21:00,119
which was everyone who said I can see what it's

391
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:03,000
going to happen, shouldn't be shocked that has finally come

392
00:21:03,079 --> 00:21:03,559
to fruition.

393
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:04,599
Speaker 3: Right.

394
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: Well, I think this kind of the intensity of this

395
00:21:07,759 --> 00:21:10,240
is something that could only happen in a social media age.

396
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:11,240
I think, I don't know.

397
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:12,359
Speaker 2: Agreed.

398
00:21:13,599 --> 00:21:13,880
Speaker 3: Well.

399
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:18,400
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, while while we were all distracted by this great circus,

400
00:21:18,759 --> 00:21:20,559
a couple of interesting things happened this week on the

401
00:21:20,599 --> 00:21:25,119
legal front, which I know is you're Baileywick first, another day,

402
00:21:25,279 --> 00:21:30,319
another Trump decision, another federal district court judge blocking it.

403
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:33,119
And it's twice this week, maybe or maybe more than that.

404
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:35,160
At this point I yawned, it's you know, what else

405
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:37,720
is new? But unless you want to comment on that,

406
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:39,319
I was going to move on to something I think

407
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:42,920
more interesting that is getting glossed over. And that was

408
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:47,920
the Supreme Court this week issuing two nine zero decisions

409
00:21:48,599 --> 00:21:53,039
with the opinions written by the liberal justices, the two

410
00:21:53,079 --> 00:21:57,640
most recent Soda Mayor and Katanji Brown Jackson, that take

411
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:02,000
not exactly a conservative point of view, but reject implicitly

412
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:05,559
the progressive you about civil rights and religious liberty. Did

413
00:22:05,599 --> 00:22:07,880
you follow those? Yes, raise your eyebrows as much as

414
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:08,960
I did at that result.

415
00:22:09,599 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 2: Sorry, which one are we talking about here?

416
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 3: Sorry?

417
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,920
Speaker 1: I should explain for listeners who may not know this. Yes,

418
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:18,200
they're following the Musk Trump feud. The first case a

419
00:22:18,279 --> 00:22:20,119
nine zero case. I forget the name of it, but

420
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,279
it was the case out of Ohio involving a woman

421
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:27,559
who had sued under Title seven aims the Aimes case.

422
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:31,559
She had sued alleging reverse discrimination, saying that she passed

423
00:22:31,599 --> 00:22:33,920
over for promotion and I think by a state agency,

424
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:39,039
by your supervisor, in favor of lesser qualified gay employees,

425
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,680
and lower courts had ruled no, sorry, because she's a

426
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:45,160
member of a majority group, meaning she's a white woman,

427
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,599
left standing to sue for civil rights because the assumption

428
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:51,680
there is that civil rights laws are only meant to

429
00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:59,119
protect the officially protected classes of minorities, and was that

430
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,920
the one sodo My wrote the I don't remember which

431
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:04,920
liberal woman justice wrote.

432
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 2: Which James Jackson wrote that one. That's the Aims case.

433
00:23:08,319 --> 00:23:09,079
Speaker 3: That's right.

434
00:23:09,559 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: And I think what's very significant about that is for

435
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,680
at least forty years, I mean, I can remember the

436
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,640
civil rights community back in the eighties when Reagan was

437
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:22,039
contesting some of this, saying, no, you don't understand. I

438
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,799
know the language of the Civil Rights Act as neutral

439
00:23:24,839 --> 00:23:29,519
and speaks of individuals, but really the intent was to

440
00:23:29,559 --> 00:23:31,880
apply it to minority groups have been oppressed, and so

441
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,200
it doesn't actually protect white people.

442
00:23:34,759 --> 00:23:35,799
Speaker 3: They were open about this.

443
00:23:36,039 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember the woman back in the eighties

444
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,559
who made this argument quite brazenly and openly. And now

445
00:23:42,599 --> 00:23:46,400
for the court to rule the three liberals on the

446
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,359
Court to go along with the older plain reading of

447
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,400
the text, I think it's quite significant. And I'm going

448
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,200
to be waiting to see people on the left react

449
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:58,640
with some degree of dismay about this.

450
00:23:59,279 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 2: Well, I was ably thrilled about this. I'm going to

451
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,079
take the opportunity which you offered in passing just to

452
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:10,000
quickly comment on the judge trying to prevent the deportation

453
00:24:10,319 --> 00:24:13,960
of the Soliman family just because on this podcast. In

454
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,319
the past, I have been critical of some of the

455
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:20,599
legal positions that the Trump administration has taken on deportations.

456
00:24:20,599 --> 00:24:24,000
Not the deportations themselves, which I thoroughly support, but I

457
00:24:24,039 --> 00:24:28,359
have thought that the strategy was ill conceived and likely

458
00:24:28,599 --> 00:24:32,599
to provoke activist judges to jump in. This time, Trump

459
00:24:32,599 --> 00:24:35,279
is one hundred percent right. This judge who has tried

460
00:24:35,319 --> 00:24:37,920
to jump in here is crazy, has not offered a

461
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,359
single legal argument, and the briefs that are being filed

462
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,359
are just funny. There was one this morning I read

463
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:48,319
the habeas brief that didn't offer a single argument based

464
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,359
in statute or precedent, and just said that deporting the

465
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,480
family of this jihadis was a bit like Nazi Germany.

466
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,559
So Trump's right on this judge is wrong on the

467
00:24:57,599 --> 00:25:02,720
Ames case. You know, it's interesting, Steve, that you say

468
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:09,400
that the prevailing progressive view of civil rights law is

469
00:25:09,759 --> 00:25:14,920
that it doesn't apply to minorities majorities. Sorry, because that

470
00:25:15,079 --> 00:25:18,079
is true, but it is also inexplicable if you've ever

471
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:23,559
gone back and read the text, If you read the

472
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:28,640
Fourteenth Amendment, if you read the congressional debates that led

473
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,279
to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in Congress and

474
00:25:31,319 --> 00:25:34,400
in the States, if you read the eighteen sixty six

475
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,559
Civil Rights Act which preceded it, and indeed the to

476
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:40,640
Friedman's Bureaus Act as well, and then if you read

477
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,839
the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act and all of

478
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,720
the attendant discussion, you will see that it is quite

479
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:51,119
clearly in text, in intent, in original public meaning, even

480
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,400
in legislative history, which we don't like, but is there.

481
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,799
It is a law that applies to individuals. The discrimination

482
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,079
attaches at the individual level. And what was so great

483
00:26:01,079 --> 00:26:05,559
about the Supreme Court decision as written by Justice Jackson,

484
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,359
probably the most progressive member of the Court, is that

485
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:13,720
she sounds like Justice Scalia when she is explaining the text.

486
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,799
She says this in no uncertain terms, over and over again,

487
00:26:18,319 --> 00:26:20,839
that there is no such thing as a majority group

488
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,559
or a minority group, that there's no reverse or forward racism,

489
00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:27,079
that there's no caveats in the law. If you are

490
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:34,920
discriminated against based upon your sex, your race, your national origin,

491
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,480
and so forth, you are able to lodge a complaint

492
00:26:39,839 --> 00:26:43,839
under the Civil Rights Act, and this was a repudiation

493
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,640
of all of the nonsense that has built up for

494
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,519
forty years, both in the courts, but especially in academia

495
00:26:49,559 --> 00:26:53,160
and in elite opinion, and has been unchecked. So for

496
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,640
this to be nine and nothing is wonderful. It's also wonderful, incidentally,

497
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,480
because each justice only gets a certain number of opinions

498
00:26:59,519 --> 00:27:01,519
each term. When we got to use a justice Jackson

499
00:27:01,599 --> 00:27:03,240
opinion on our outcome.

500
00:27:03,039 --> 00:27:05,799
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

501
00:27:05,799 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: So then the other case was out of Wisconsin and

502
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,000
involved a state agency or I guess it's a state

503
00:27:13,079 --> 00:27:16,039
tax official denying the tax exemption to a Catholic charity.

504
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 3: And their argument was, as well.

505
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: As Catholic charity, these activities are really secular purposes or

506
00:27:21,519 --> 00:27:25,160
not related to the religious mission. And the Wisconsin State

507
00:27:25,279 --> 00:27:28,039
Supreme Court agreed with that by a four to three split.

508
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,279
It turned out to be the four Democrats against the

509
00:27:30,279 --> 00:27:35,000
three Republicans. And essentially I haven't read the decision. I've

510
00:27:35,039 --> 00:27:38,359
been traveling and goofing off, but again, a nine zero

511
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,319
decision was so to my orn the majority, and what

512
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,599
I gather from the brief news squibs I've read is

513
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,920
that essentially what the opinion says is no, the state

514
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,839
does not get to decide what is or isn't anchored

515
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,240
in the religious mission of a bona fide religion like

516
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,480
the Catholic Church, which has been around a while together.

517
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 3: And I think that's another.

518
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: Blow for religious liberty and against the the definite undertone

519
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,799
of the secondar left for also for several decades now

520
00:28:04,839 --> 00:28:07,119
to try and marginalize and squeeze religion out of the

521
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:07,839
public square.

522
00:28:08,279 --> 00:28:10,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I haven't read this one either. I'll confess

523
00:28:10,559 --> 00:28:13,720
I read AMS and I read the Mexico gun case,

524
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,799
but I haven't read this one. What I find so

525
00:28:17,279 --> 00:28:22,279
encouraging about this case is that it is yet another

526
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:29,559
chipping away at this completely fake jurisprudence that has obtained

527
00:28:29,599 --> 00:28:34,799
in America, starting with the war in court that invented

528
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,680
this so called wall of separation between church and state.

529
00:28:38,079 --> 00:28:40,799
It is, of course the case that the United States

530
00:28:40,799 --> 00:28:43,839
can't and shouldn't have an established religion, and there are

531
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,039
a few consequences of that that trickle down into other areas.

532
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:52,440
But generally speaking, most of the rules that have been

533
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:59,759
imposed since what nineteen sixty five, Yeah, nonsense, they're completely

534
00:29:00,119 --> 00:29:02,200
Maybe you think they should be that. Maybe you think

535
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:03,839
that's they're a good thing, or if we were right

536
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,480
to a constitution from scratch, we would insert them. But

537
00:29:06,559 --> 00:29:09,799
they are totally a historical, that's totally a textual. And

538
00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:12,799
this was too. I'm just surprised that it was nine

539
00:29:12,799 --> 00:29:15,000
to nothing. I'm shocked. Thoughts of my old wrote this one.

540
00:29:15,559 --> 00:29:18,039
But you know, the courts moved to the right and

541
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:19,039
that is a good thing.

542
00:29:20,079 --> 00:29:22,559
Speaker 1: Well, I can go back now or a decade or

543
00:29:22,559 --> 00:29:26,000
more when sus Kagan said we're all textual us now,

544
00:29:26,079 --> 00:29:29,200
which is for you know, of accommodation of originalism, and

545
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,519
I think that was actually quite significant, and it seems

546
00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:35,440
like that view has taken hold in ways that I like.

547
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:36,519
Speaker 3: I say, this has to be.

548
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:41,759
Speaker 1: Giving a heartburn to liberal jurisprudes and the all the

549
00:29:41,839 --> 00:29:43,440
law schools you mentioned.

550
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 3: I didn't put this on the list.

551
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,119
Speaker 1: The Mexico gun case that was the Supreme Court saying no,

552
00:29:47,319 --> 00:29:48,079
we're not gonna hear a.

553
00:29:48,079 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 3: Suit from Mexico about guns. Is that? But I got

554
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:51,160
that basically right.

555
00:29:51,839 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 2: How long have you got ob my area? But this

556
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:03,240
was maybe the crazy lawsuit I've read in a long time.

557
00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:06,079
But I want to go back a few years. First,

558
00:30:06,119 --> 00:30:08,279
just to introduce this because this is a hobby horse

559
00:30:08,319 --> 00:30:13,720
of mine. In two thousand and five, while George W.

560
00:30:13,839 --> 00:30:19,279
Bush was president, Congress passed a law that extended certain

561
00:30:19,319 --> 00:30:23,400
protections to gun manufacturers in order to stop a whole

562
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,759
host of lawsuits that had been brought to try to

563
00:30:26,799 --> 00:30:30,240
create through the courts gun control that could not be

564
00:30:30,359 --> 00:30:35,400
achieved legislatively. Now this is pre hella, So there's no

565
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:40,400
prohibition on gun control at that point, in quite the

566
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,039
way there is now, although it should be said at

567
00:30:43,039 --> 00:30:45,680
that point forty four states did have state level right

568
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,839
to keep them bear arms. But the left had got

569
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:54,759
into the bad habit which started really in earnest under

570
00:30:54,799 --> 00:31:00,359
the Clinton administration and Andrew Cuomo as hud director of

571
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:05,680
bringing court cases against gun manufacturers on the grounds that

572
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,799
their products were dangerous to do what they couldn't do legislatively.

573
00:31:09,839 --> 00:31:11,680
So they would say this gun is very, very dangerous,

574
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:13,799
it can kill a lot of people, and therefore, commercially

575
00:31:13,839 --> 00:31:18,680
it should not be available. And Congress said, no, that's

576
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,559
not how this should work. The liability does not attach

577
00:31:21,599 --> 00:31:23,559
in that way. And it passed this law, and it

578
00:31:23,599 --> 00:31:26,759
was a bipartisan law in both the House and the

579
00:31:26,799 --> 00:31:30,039
Senate Bernie Sanders voted for it in two thousand and five.

580
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,519
The National Association of Manufacturers was very much in favor

581
00:31:33,559 --> 00:31:35,720
of it, despite having no great interest in the gun

582
00:31:35,759 --> 00:31:39,279
control debate, because it understood the threat that was being posed.

583
00:31:39,759 --> 00:31:43,039
It did not, as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden have

584
00:31:43,119 --> 00:31:48,079
both lied about relentlessly, It did not make gun manufacturers

585
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,680
immune in such cases as guns are badly manufactured or

586
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,160
go wrong. What it did was it said, if you

587
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,960
kill someone with a gun that works, you can't sue

588
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,960
Smith and Wesson. In the same way if I drive

589
00:32:01,079 --> 00:32:06,000
my car into you, you can't sue Forward if the

590
00:32:06,079 --> 00:32:08,640
breaks go wrong in my car. Of course I can

591
00:32:08,759 --> 00:32:12,720
sue Ford if a gun goes off, which doesn't happen,

592
00:32:12,759 --> 00:32:14,680
by the way, But if it were to happen because

593
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:17,880
of a manufacturing defect and kill someone, of course you

594
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:19,720
can sue Smith and Russon. But you're not allowed to

595
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,440
use the law to get what you can't get. Politically,

596
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,160
that law has been on the books now for twenty years,

597
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,799
despite the Democrats' obsession with getting rid of it. If

598
00:32:30,839 --> 00:32:35,039
you look back at the twenty sixteen and twenty twenty elections,

599
00:32:35,119 --> 00:32:40,279
the Democratic candidates went on and on and on about this. Well, Mexico,

600
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,200
the country of Mexico, the sovereign state of Mexico, a

601
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,680
couple of years ago, decided that it might try to

602
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,640
affect gun control in the United States as well, and

603
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,599
so it brought this case that argued, in effect, that

604
00:32:54,839 --> 00:32:58,799
American gun manufacturers knew that the guns that they were

605
00:32:58,839 --> 00:33:02,400
making and marketing would make their way into the hands

606
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,039
of the cartels, that they wanted that to be the case.

607
00:33:05,119 --> 00:33:07,720
Not just that they were negligent in the usual way

608
00:33:08,039 --> 00:33:11,559
of not caring about whether they did, but they actually

609
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:16,839
wanted the American gun cash to go down south, and

610
00:33:17,039 --> 00:33:20,359
they tried to impose all manner of restrictions on what

611
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,599
guns you can and can't buy through this lawsuit. And

612
00:33:23,799 --> 00:33:26,000
this went to the Supreme Court. It was considered under

613
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:30,880
this two thousand and five law and uniformly nine to

614
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,279
nothing in a decision written by Justice Kagan, of all people,

615
00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:37,559
the Supreme Court said, you just can't do that. That

616
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:42,440
is exactly what this law was designed to stop. I

617
00:33:42,559 --> 00:33:45,079
find it amazing that anyone ever took this seriously, Steve,

618
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,799
and they did. The gun control groups were all over this.

619
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,279
They pretended that this was a meritorious suit, and so

620
00:33:51,319 --> 00:33:54,640
on and so forth. It was, quite honestly the stupidest,

621
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,039
most cynical pretextual laws I've ever read. And I think

622
00:33:58,079 --> 00:33:59,720
it's a good thing for America that this was.

623
00:33:59,759 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: You know, Well, I've got one that may equal it

624
00:34:03,079 --> 00:34:04,680
or exceed it that I'll come to. Well, I'll just

625
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,759
say that I think we file these three cases as

626
00:34:07,839 --> 00:34:10,440
legitimate entries in the so much winning file.

627
00:34:10,679 --> 00:34:11,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

628
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,079
Speaker 1: Here's the corollary case just out in the last ten

629
00:34:16,119 --> 00:34:18,559
days or so. It's a state case out of Washington State.

630
00:34:19,519 --> 00:34:23,320
The climate crazy people have brought a wrongful death lawsuit

631
00:34:24,159 --> 00:34:27,039
against the fossil fuel man you know, oil companies essentially.

632
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:33,559
And the circumstances were a woman essentially died of heatstroke

633
00:34:33,679 --> 00:34:37,400
in her car on a hot summer day. Now what's

634
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,480
left out of the story is why is she in

635
00:34:39,559 --> 00:34:42,360
her car on a hot summer day with the windows up.

636
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:45,320
There's something they're not telling us here. Was she passed

637
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,480
out from fentanyl? What she drunk? Was she homeless? We

638
00:34:48,519 --> 00:34:50,760
don't know that, but my suspicions are on.

639
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 3: High alert here.

640
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: But even even if it was just someone who fell

641
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,000
asleep because I was just tired of something like that,

642
00:34:57,079 --> 00:35:00,000
And none of those factors come into play. The idea

643
00:35:00,159 --> 00:35:03,320
that you can now attribute the hot day to the

644
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,519
oil companies who sold their and a woman who apparently

645
00:35:06,639 --> 00:35:09,559
bought their product for her car, Well, that suit has

646
00:35:09,599 --> 00:35:12,679
been filed, and I think what both these suits say.

647
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,480
You know the guncases, which you know I've been aware of,

648
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,119
but these climate suits have been following for a while that.

649
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 3: Want to hold the oil companies liable for global.

650
00:35:20,639 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: Warming, even though the big oil companies in the US

651
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,840
and Europe account for such a tiny amount of emissions

652
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,119
on the global scale going back decades. As if you

653
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,800
actually do the math on this, it shows you that

654
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:33,679
the impulse on the left to try and use the

655
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,639
judiciary is the primary mode to get what they want

656
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,400
still runs very strong. But boy, it's sure hitting a

657
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:41,559
wall right now. I think that's absolutely right.

658
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 2: For a very long time the left has done that,

659
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,159
and look, sometimes it's been legitimate. You do need to

660
00:35:48,159 --> 00:35:50,960
be able to take cases to court that are unpopular

661
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,639
in vindicating your rights if those rights exist. Unfortunately, the

662
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:59,280
left has recognized for decades that if it gets the

663
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:01,159
right people on the court, it can go to the

664
00:36:01,199 --> 00:36:03,719
court and ask the court to make up rights that

665
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,519
don't exist, abortion, gay marriage, and so on. And that

666
00:36:08,639 --> 00:36:10,719
era does seem, at least for now, to be coming

667
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,119
to an end at the Supreme Court.

668
00:36:12,119 --> 00:36:14,679
Speaker 1: Do you agree, yes, I think so, yeah, yeah, And

669
00:36:15,559 --> 00:36:18,280
a lot of things to be unwound or modified. So

670
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,760
I have a lot of work ahead of them, not

671
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,840
to mention all these crazy district court injunctions. At the Court,

672
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,280
we'll see what they do here. We're now down to

673
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,119
the last several weeks. The big case we're all waiting

674
00:36:30,119 --> 00:36:33,679
for is Scurmetti. That's the one about Tennessee's law restricting

675
00:36:34,119 --> 00:36:38,199
your transgender surgeries on children and so forth. So we'll

676
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,679
see how that all goes. I don't have anything else

677
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:43,679
in legal news, is there. I know that you know

678
00:36:43,679 --> 00:36:45,679
you're running law talk these days, and it's something you

679
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,840
like to follow. There's something else of your mind, A.

680
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,199
Speaker 2: Question for you, but it's not a law talk sort

681
00:36:51,199 --> 00:36:55,119
of question. Sure, how much on a scale of one

682
00:36:55,159 --> 00:36:57,599
to ten, are you looking forward to reading care and

683
00:36:57,679 --> 00:37:00,199
Genepa's new book Independent.

684
00:37:01,119 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to bring that up. I had

685
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:03,559
it on my list.

686
00:37:04,159 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't see this coming, right, I mean

687
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:10,679
there's all these books about Biden right at original sin

688
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:11,119
and all.

689
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:11,559
Speaker 3: The rest of that.

690
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 1: And so now the Democratic firing squad, a circular firing squad,

691
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,320
is reforming with Kareem John Pierre in the middle saying

692
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,280
I'm an independent. Now, by the way, maybe she can

693
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:23,480
go to work for Elon Musk on that independent party

694
00:37:23,519 --> 00:37:27,360
he wants to put together. Right, And I mean, boy,

695
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,519
this has only been in the last forty eight seventy

696
00:37:29,519 --> 00:37:33,320
two hours about the story. And I mean, just as

697
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,800
Biden's sinility was obvious to anyone, her incapacity in the

698
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,480
job as press spokesman was obvious to everyone. That she's

699
00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:45,639
a complete mediocrity was an identity politics higher full stop.

700
00:37:45,679 --> 00:37:47,159
Speaker 3: I mean, this was obvious to everybody.

701
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: And now you're seeing you know, anonymous sources and axios

702
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:52,519
and elsewhere saying.

703
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:54,119
Speaker 3: Oh, she was terrible at her job.

704
00:37:54,199 --> 00:37:57,039
Speaker 1: So the knives are out for and here I just

705
00:37:57,119 --> 00:37:59,400
have to get even fatter than I'm already am on

706
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,199
another sixty four gallon drummer popcorn.

707
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:05,519
Speaker 2: You know, I think Mark Hemingway pointed out that this

708
00:38:05,599 --> 00:38:10,119
is the definitive proof of the Left using the immutable

709
00:38:10,199 --> 00:38:14,239
characteristics of people to deflect criticism because some of the

710
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,960
same people who are now saying, right, she was an idiot,

711
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:21,199
we never liked her, were telling conservatives who criticized her, oh,

712
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,360
you only say that because and we would say, no,

713
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:26,559
we're not saying that because she's a lesbian, saying that

714
00:38:26,599 --> 00:38:28,079
because she's black. We're saying that because she's just not

715
00:38:28,119 --> 00:38:29,960
good at her job. She has to open a binder

716
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,960
every time she's asked her name. And they would say, no, no,

717
00:38:33,039 --> 00:38:36,159
you just hate powerful women. Well, now the same people

718
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,199
are acknowledging that she was a liability to the White House,

719
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:41,599
that they didn't like her, and that she'd been hired

720
00:38:41,639 --> 00:38:45,760
purely for the the nature of her being, and that

721
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,519
is absurd, I think. But I just think that this

722
00:38:48,679 --> 00:38:56,320
is the most cynical and astonishing shift that I have

723
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,679
ever seen, Steve. I mean, this would be like me

724
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,199
coming out tomorrow and saying my new book is called

725
00:39:02,639 --> 00:39:05,480
why All Guns Should be Banned? And in not accounting

726
00:39:05,519 --> 00:39:07,559
for the shift, people would say, hang on a minute,

727
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:10,119
we were watching you day in, day out make the

728
00:39:10,159 --> 00:39:13,639
case for the Second Amendment. When did you what she

729
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,960
stood on that podium and this is her job, This

730
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:19,880
isn't a criticism. You have to do this if your

731
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,960
White House Press secretary. But she stood on that podium

732
00:39:23,039 --> 00:39:26,239
day and day out, and she made the case for

733
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,960
Biden and the White House. She said what she was

734
00:39:29,039 --> 00:39:33,079
told to say. She defended the party line. So every

735
00:39:33,159 --> 00:39:34,960
day her line is Biden is right, Biden is right,

736
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,559
Biden is right, Biden is right. And then the first

737
00:39:37,559 --> 00:39:39,840
thing we hear from her the moment she leaves that

738
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:41,960
job is actually, I'm kind of an independent.

739
00:39:42,599 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 3: Are are you kidding?

740
00:39:44,119 --> 00:39:45,559
Speaker 2: How cynical could you get?

741
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:46,039
Speaker 3: Well?

742
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 1: I mean well, just as it was appalling that the

743
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:52,880
media would avert their gaze from Biden's obvious incapacity, I

744
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,360
couldn't believe that self respecting, seemingly self respecting reporters would

745
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,000
sit there every day and swallow and not beat back.

746
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,920
I can hurt up appallingly mediocre and often ridiculous and

747
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,480
visible answers. I mean it was I thought, this has

748
00:40:06,559 --> 00:40:09,840
to be a rejected Aaron Sorkin script, doesn't it.

749
00:40:10,079 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, they would end up asking these Obama style

750
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:18,480
questions of per So they would say things like does

751
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:24,960
the President find it hurtful when Republicans say? Or what

752
00:40:25,119 --> 00:40:28,199
did the President like the most about his recent trip

753
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:32,039
to Italy. That's how they got around it. They didn't say, hey,

754
00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:34,239
you who's supposed to tell us the truth? What about this?

755
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,760
They would say, what do you find most enchanting about

756
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:38,840
working in the White House?

757
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:42,039
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it reminds me a little bit. And

758
00:40:42,079 --> 00:40:45,039
maybe this is an apt parallel, but back in the

759
00:40:45,119 --> 00:40:47,960
battle days of arms control talks with the Soviet Union

760
00:40:48,039 --> 00:40:51,519
or any summits for that matter, the Soviet negotiators will

761
00:40:51,559 --> 00:40:55,039
always come in with big thick notebooks, and our team

762
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:57,280
or sometimes our president if it was face to face

763
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:02,400
with Brezhnev or somebody would say X, and the Russian

764
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,079
translation would go through, and then that all the Russians

765
00:41:05,079 --> 00:41:08,039
would be pouring through their notebooks to find a prescripted

766
00:41:08,039 --> 00:41:12,079
answer to a question they had anticipated. So that's why

767
00:41:12,599 --> 00:41:15,559
a lot of those negotiations, aside from the substance of them,

768
00:41:15,639 --> 00:41:19,960
took forever to get anywhere, because then so it became

769
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:21,559
a game for our side to try and think of

770
00:41:21,599 --> 00:41:23,400
a way of putting a question that they wouldn't have

771
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,920
had a pre cooked answer for, and then then they

772
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,159
would on take a break, is what the Soviets would do.

773
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,440
So I kept thinking back to that when I'd watch

774
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,679
a kreem John Pierre pour through a notebook and oftentimes

775
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,639
give an answer that was often not even tenuously related

776
00:41:37,639 --> 00:41:40,039
to the question, and it was just embarrassing to watch it.

777
00:41:40,079 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe the media put up with it.

778
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you've ever come across this

779
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,000
story as a historian, but I heard it related on

780
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:51,199
the old Cold War series that Ted Turner commissioned for

781
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,800
CNN that is narrated by Kenneth Branna. Yeah, that during

782
00:41:55,880 --> 00:42:00,480
the I guess early seventies, Nixon went to a meeting

783
00:42:01,079 --> 00:42:04,639
with the Chinese and he wanted something from them. I

784
00:42:04,639 --> 00:42:06,840
forget what it was. It could have been arms control,

785
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:13,719
but anyhow, the meeting involves a dinner. Everyone's getting along. Famously.

786
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,360
Of course, Bill Buckley hated this. He would go on

787
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,159
a tear whenever he saw this. But Nixon is being

788
00:42:20,199 --> 00:42:28,480
diplomatic and a great statesman, and then the Chinese premiere

789
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,440
just starts tearing into the United States for forty five

790
00:42:33,519 --> 00:42:38,239
minutes and describing their crimes as he puts it in Vietnam,

791
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:43,039
and Nixon just sat there and he sensed that this

792
00:42:43,199 --> 00:42:45,280
was for internal consumption, that they were going to release

793
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,280
it in all the newspapers, and so he just sat

794
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:49,000
there and then when it was over, everyone sort of

795
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:50,840
looked at each other and he raised a toast and

796
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,320
they just carried on. You know, I watched this story

797
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:56,280
and I thought, well, I understand that's probably what you

798
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,639
have to do sometimes in these situations, but I don't

799
00:42:59,679 --> 00:43:02,719
think Trump would do that. I just don't think Trump

800
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:07,280
would be berated to his face by the Chinese premier.

801
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,199
Speaker 3: Do you no, Nope, that's for dark Sure.

802
00:43:13,039 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 1: Well, look, I think we ought to move up to

803
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,880
a couple of things of foreign affairs, because I also

804
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:22,360
think the Ukrainian attack on the Russian bombers in the

805
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,039
week is really stupendous. I mean, people are saying it's

806
00:43:25,039 --> 00:43:27,079
on the level of what the Israelis have done over

807
00:43:27,119 --> 00:43:32,000
the years, and one wonders how much they how many

808
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,800
other things they might have up their sleeve, because although

809
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,079
I think it's a thrilling thing for supporters of Ukraine,

810
00:43:37,119 --> 00:43:40,960
and I do still think that the underlying correlation of

811
00:43:41,039 --> 00:43:44,639
forces and the ambivalence, if you can put it that way,

812
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:47,480
of the Trump administration still makes me rather pessimistic about

813
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,599
the scene. How do you size it up right now.

814
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,119
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's still of war of attrition, and

815
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,440
that does seem to be hurting Russia slightly more, but

816
00:43:57,559 --> 00:44:02,239
I'm not sure. Peutin Kaz the drone attack was incredible.

817
00:44:03,119 --> 00:44:06,639
It had the effects of both thrilling me as somebody

818
00:44:06,679 --> 00:44:10,519
who wants to see Ukraine win, but also as a

819
00:44:10,599 --> 00:44:13,679
human being, terrifying me because I could see those drones

820
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:15,800
coming over the American border and I wondered if we

821
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,719
had the capacity to repel them. If this is how

822
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,039
wars will be fought, we have some catching up to door,

823
00:44:23,079 --> 00:44:25,880
or at least I do in my understanding of warfare.

824
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,079
The analogy I drew on the Editor's podcast when we

825
00:44:28,119 --> 00:44:34,000
talked about this was if you go to a meeting, sorry,

826
00:44:34,039 --> 00:44:39,480
a museum of World War One, the exhibits tend not

827
00:44:39,559 --> 00:44:44,519
to start in nineteen fourteen, but in the American Civil War,

828
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,000
and then they run through the Franco Prussian War and

829
00:44:48,039 --> 00:44:51,199
possibly the Russo Japanese War of nineteen oh five. The

830
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:56,639
point being that the technologies that eventually came to dominate

831
00:44:57,159 --> 00:44:59,880
World War One and make it such a meet go

832
00:45:01,159 --> 00:45:05,599
had been evident if you'd been looking carefully since the

833
00:45:05,639 --> 00:45:09,599
American Civil War, and I just wondered, if this is

834
00:45:09,599 --> 00:45:13,559
what we're now going to see in the future, that

835
00:45:13,639 --> 00:45:15,400
in fifty years time we'll be saying, well, of course

836
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,719
where this started was Russia Ukraine in twenty twenty two

837
00:45:20,159 --> 00:45:23,880
to whenever it ended. It worried me a little bit,

838
00:45:24,079 --> 00:45:27,360
just because it seems so difficult to stop. But its

839
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:32,000
application was incredible. I mean, to do that much damage

840
00:45:32,039 --> 00:45:34,199
to the Russian air force was it one third of

841
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,360
the planes taken out? But I don't know if it

842
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,079
changes the fundamental problem on the ground, which is that

843
00:45:40,119 --> 00:45:44,440
you have two dug in armies, you have a defensive advantage,

844
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,559
and you have prerogatives on both sides that make it

845
00:45:48,599 --> 00:45:52,239
difficult to stop. The Russians want to take Ukraine and

846
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,679
they're led by a madman, and the Ukrainians quite rightly

847
00:45:55,679 --> 00:45:58,159
don't want to give up Ukraine. So did that really

848
00:45:58,239 --> 00:45:58,840
change much?

849
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the same worries that you do.

850
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:05,039
Speaker 1: I mean, years ago, I might have been more confident

851
00:46:05,159 --> 00:46:08,639
that our defense establishment was more forward looking and anticipating

852
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,679
and developing countermeasures that we didn't know about. There are

853
00:46:11,679 --> 00:46:13,480
lots of examples of that in the past. But I

854
00:46:13,599 --> 00:46:17,320
kind of worry that our defense establishment may have gotten

855
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,800
sluggish in recent years. I'm reminded a bit that you

856
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,800
mention some of those precursors to World War One. I

857
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,840
do know the story of Churchill, I think before he

858
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,079
was First Lord of the Admiralty, maybe way before that,

859
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:34,360
but sometime, you know, the submarine was being developed and expanded,

860
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,960
and the British Navy, as I recall the story, rightly,

861
00:46:38,079 --> 00:46:40,440
said well submarine, Yeah, we've looked at him, and they

862
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:44,599
might be useful for coastal defense. And Churchill said no, no, no,

863
00:46:44,639 --> 00:46:47,079
you don't understand. As these things get better and scaled up,

864
00:46:47,079 --> 00:46:50,440
they're going to be used for interdiction of shipping out

865
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,079
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which is exactly

866
00:46:53,079 --> 00:46:55,559
how Germany started using it, as we saw in World

867
00:46:55,559 --> 00:46:57,880
War One and especially World War Two. So you know,

868
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,599
it takes some imagination and some buddy to push the subject.

869
00:47:02,079 --> 00:47:04,360
There's more can be said about Churchill and technology like

870
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:05,440
the tank and so forth.

871
00:47:06,119 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 3: So I'm I don't know.

872
00:47:07,199 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: I'm worried about this, and a lot of the research

873
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,199
would be classified, of course, so we won't hear about it.

874
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:16,159
Speaker 3: So I don't know, but it is something to worry about.

875
00:47:16,519 --> 00:47:19,119
Speaker 2: You know, Churchill said a few days after the war

876
00:47:19,159 --> 00:47:24,000
in Europe ended, one of his friends or colleagues asked

877
00:47:24,039 --> 00:47:30,000
him if he'd been worried, and he said, no other

878
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:34,840
than the German submarine War. Now that wasn't quite true.

879
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,119
He was worried. He at one point thought he was

880
00:47:37,119 --> 00:47:38,559
going to have to fight his way out of Downing

881
00:47:38,559 --> 00:47:40,639
Street with a revolver and would die on the floor

882
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:41,679
choking on his own blood.

883
00:47:41,679 --> 00:47:42,639
Speaker 3: But he.

884
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,559
Speaker 2: Seems to have been most worried about exactly what you

885
00:47:46,639 --> 00:47:50,119
described because he saw it so early. He understood the threat.

886
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:51,039
Speaker 3: Oh well, you know one of it.

887
00:47:51,159 --> 00:47:52,639
Speaker 1: Well, we'll keep going on this because I'm you know,

888
00:47:52,639 --> 00:47:55,360
I'm a huge Churchill fan. It was one of his

889
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,719
first speeches as a member of the House of Commons.

890
00:47:57,719 --> 00:47:59,840
So I'm going to say nineteen hundred and nineteen oh one.

891
00:48:00,639 --> 00:48:03,280
And remember he'd seen some of the some of the

892
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:05,599
things that you described a moment ago in his own

893
00:48:05,639 --> 00:48:08,000
experience in the Boer War and in the River War

894
00:48:08,039 --> 00:48:12,480
in Sudan, you know, the mass killing of autumn mechanized warfare,

895
00:48:12,519 --> 00:48:14,760
and wrote very movingly about it in his lesser known

896
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,480
books like The River War, and one of the speeches

897
00:48:18,519 --> 00:48:21,679
he said paraphrasing here, So you know, there's all us

898
00:48:21,679 --> 00:48:25,800
optimism that were now people like Theodore Roosevelt was saying

899
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:28,239
that war is a thing of the past. The twentieth

900
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,039
century be a century of moral progress and material progress,

901
00:48:32,119 --> 00:48:34,480
and utter leading thinkers said, no, there won't ever be

902
00:48:34,519 --> 00:48:37,519
another big European war. And Churchill, and one of his

903
00:48:37,599 --> 00:48:40,039
memorable phrases said, the wars of peoples are going to

904
00:48:40,079 --> 00:48:42,280
be worse than the wars of kings, and they will

905
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,880
involve entire populations. Is very prescient, right, He was having

906
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,360
none of this facile optimism.

907
00:48:48,599 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you just look at the casualty figures,

908
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,239
and especially World War two, more people died in the

909
00:48:54,239 --> 00:49:00,000
civilian population in the world than in ominously right.

910
00:49:00,079 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: Well, last topic, perhaps the Tenan House biography of Bill

911
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:06,079
Buckley is out this week.

912
00:49:06,199 --> 00:49:08,559
Speaker 3: I have read it and have a long review forthcoming.

913
00:49:09,039 --> 00:49:09,599
I don't know if.

914
00:49:09,559 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: You've had a chance to read it yet. I know

915
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,360
it's been a subject of course at the National Review Circle,

916
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,280
and there have been I will say, some what do

917
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:22,559
you say, disparate reviews on the site. You know Neil Freeman,

918
00:49:22,639 --> 00:49:26,280
who was close to Buckley forever and was very skeptical

919
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,039
of the idea. Rick brook Heiser had a more favorable

920
00:49:29,119 --> 00:49:30,199
review of the book.

921
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:31,519
Speaker 3: Have you had a chance to read it yet?

922
00:49:31,559 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 1: And what are people around the office saying if you've

923
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:34,400
been able to talk to him?

924
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 4: So?

925
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,159
Speaker 2: I haven't read it yet. I have read a lot

926
00:49:37,159 --> 00:49:39,599
of reviews of it. I've read the two you mentioned,

927
00:49:39,679 --> 00:49:44,840
I've read Matt Continetti, I've read Helen Andrews, and in conversation,

928
00:49:45,079 --> 00:49:48,119
I've spoken to Rich Lowry about it. He's read it

929
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,400
the floor in it, and you've read it, so I

930
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,480
should give you the floor spelled differently. But the flaw

931
00:49:54,639 --> 00:49:59,639
in it that I have most commonly heard related is

932
00:49:59,679 --> 00:50:02,239
that it it doesn't seem too interested in the main

933
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,719
achievement of Buckley's life, which was the creation of the

934
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:07,760
modern conservative movement. Is that true?

935
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think that's right.

936
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:14,239
Speaker 1: And he's I'll give you this one very particular sentence

937
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,440
from the book that I thought gives away that I

938
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,599
don't know what penan house purpose was or what his

939
00:50:20,639 --> 00:50:24,719
disposition is, but he refers to Reagan's and here's his words,

940
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:30,760
Reagan's foolhardy invasion of Grenada in nineteen eighty three. I think,

941
00:50:31,119 --> 00:50:34,639
why was that fool hardy. You know, it actually deposed

942
00:50:34,639 --> 00:50:37,559
a communist regime. There were no real threat to America.

943
00:50:37,599 --> 00:50:41,519
But still there was not nothing foolhardy about that, unless

944
00:50:41,559 --> 00:50:44,159
you're somebody deeply on the left who thinks that any

945
00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:47,280
use of military force or this is adventurism.

946
00:50:46,639 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 3: Or or who knows what, boy what.

947
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: I can't believe an editor didn't raise a flag about

948
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,960
that sentence. But I'll add that that's part of the

949
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,159
oddest part of the book is the book goes for

950
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:01,119
I think the count has eight one hundred and twenty pages,

951
00:51:01,199 --> 00:51:03,800
taking a story of Buckley from his birth in nineteen

952
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:07,239
twenty five to the election of Reagan in nineteen eighty,

953
00:51:08,079 --> 00:51:11,360
and then the period of time from nineteen eighty to

954
00:51:11,519 --> 00:51:14,159
Buckley's passing in two thousand and eight.

955
00:51:15,519 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 3: Is only forty four pages.

956
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:19,679
Speaker 1: So it's like what he rushed to finish the book,

957
00:51:20,039 --> 00:51:23,000
he lost interests, because that's when some of the most

958
00:51:23,039 --> 00:51:26,840
interesting things happen, is when Buckley's favorite president is in

959
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,920
office and they have a frequent communication. Buckley had the

960
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,000
private address that Reagan gave him to send notes to

961
00:51:34,039 --> 00:51:37,159
get directly to Reagan and not through some filter. And

962
00:51:37,199 --> 00:51:39,360
we also know that there was a lot of disagreements

963
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,960
between them, especially on arms control and the openings to

964
00:51:43,039 --> 00:51:46,599
the Soviet Union in the second term. And Buckley himself

965
00:51:46,599 --> 00:51:49,000
published some of the excerpts of letters he had with

966
00:51:49,119 --> 00:51:52,400
Reagan during those years, but none of that appears in

967
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:55,559
Tannenhouse's book, So I don't know if he was, like

968
00:51:55,599 --> 00:51:58,320
I say, lost interest in the thing. The publisher lost

969
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:02,360
his patients after twenty seven years they expected the book,

970
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:06,039
or he wanted to get it out in time for

971
00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:08,519
one hundred anniversary of Buckley's birth, which is this year.

972
00:52:09,039 --> 00:52:12,039
But it's very peculiar that way, among the other defects

973
00:52:12,079 --> 00:52:15,000
of the structure of it and the ideological treatment. And

974
00:52:15,039 --> 00:52:16,360
certainly I could go on a long time, and I've

975
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,960
written a long review that I will flag for everybody

976
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:19,599
in due course.

977
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:21,559
Speaker 2: I do think it's good that it came out after

978
00:52:21,599 --> 00:52:26,119
Buckley had died. Yes, it's not comfortable. I'm sure to

979
00:52:26,159 --> 00:52:30,360
write an auto a biography of somebody who is still

980
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,960
living twenty seven years that strikes me as a bit excessive.

981
00:52:34,079 --> 00:52:36,920
It's funny you mentioned the disagreements between Reagan and Buckley,

982
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:39,719
because National Review was very pro Reagan in many ways,

983
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:43,559
but people forget how cauistic the magazine could be in

984
00:52:43,599 --> 00:52:46,239
the later Reagan years, especially as you say, on arms control.

985
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:50,639
There was some nineteen eighty five editorial on an arms

986
00:52:50,639 --> 00:52:53,760
control treaty that the Reagan administration was working on that

987
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,559
started this would never have happened if Reagan was still alive.

988
00:53:00,079 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I have had several biographers. Jean Edward Smith,

989
00:53:04,079 --> 00:53:06,760
the late Geen Edward Smith, told me this once that

990
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,960
you should never write a biography of a living person

991
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:13,559
because while they're alive, there's just going to be too

992
00:53:13,559 --> 00:53:14,679
many different camps.

993
00:53:14,679 --> 00:53:16,079
Speaker 3: And uh oh.

994
00:53:16,119 --> 00:53:19,519
Speaker 1: William Manchester found this out way back in the sixties

995
00:53:19,559 --> 00:53:22,840
when Jackie Kennedy asked him to write an account of

996
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:26,159
the assassination of JFK. And then they didn't like the

997
00:53:26,199 --> 00:53:28,599
result and hounded him for it. And I've heard of

998
00:53:28,639 --> 00:53:29,599
some other biographers.

999
00:53:29,639 --> 00:53:31,079
Speaker 2: So on the.

1000
00:53:31,079 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: One hand, I'll bet Tannon House always intended to wait

1001
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,719
until Buckley died, and I think disappointed apparently that he

1002
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:37,800
didn't finish it in time.

1003
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, especially given the Buckley asked Tannon House to

1004
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:43,000
write the book. I mean, it's one thing to write

1005
00:53:43,039 --> 00:53:46,239
an unauthorized biography of a person who is still alive.

1006
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,760
But it's quite another to deliver the manuscript having been

1007
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:50,599
asked to do it of somebody who is still alive,

1008
00:53:50,639 --> 00:53:52,280
because if they hate it, the book's dead.

1009
00:53:54,079 --> 00:53:54,360
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1010
00:53:54,599 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, Nancy Reagan never allowed Van Morris's Dutch, which

1011
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,239
someone said should have been called Botch, to be sold

1012
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:05,400
in the Reagan Library bookstore, even though she was one

1013
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:07,840
of the persons, along with Mike Deaver, who picked Evan

1014
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:09,840
Morris to write the official biography of Reagan.

1015
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 3: It turned out so strangely.

1016
00:54:11,079 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 2: So I haven't there you go that book, Steve, you

1017
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:15,239
can tell me if this is true. So daneshtises A

1018
00:54:15,599 --> 00:54:17,840
twenty five years ago said that the problem with that

1019
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:20,920
book is that the author wasn't as interested in Reagan

1020
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:23,079
as he should have been, so he starts writing by himself.

1021
00:54:23,159 --> 00:54:23,599
Is that true?

1022
00:54:23,679 --> 00:54:27,159
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a good summary. I mean, I'll tell you again,

1023
00:54:27,199 --> 00:54:29,599
there's one sentence that tells you the defect of the book.

1024
00:54:30,599 --> 00:54:33,840
Morris had great access to Reagan, interviewed him lots of times,

1025
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:38,079
and towards the end of Reagan's presidency, Morris asked him,

1026
00:54:38,159 --> 00:54:41,599
what do you consider to be your greatest achievement? And Reagan,

1027
00:54:41,639 --> 00:54:44,400
who wasn't introspective in that way, but he said, I

1028
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,119
think it has to be my tax cuts and the

1029
00:54:46,199 --> 00:54:49,760
changes in the American tax policy. The next sentence in

1030
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,480
the book is Morris saying at that at that point,

1031
00:54:52,559 --> 00:54:56,519
I closed my reporter's notebook, So he wasn't interested in

1032
00:54:57,000 --> 00:54:59,159
representing what Reagan isn't it.

1033
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:01,320
Speaker 3: I thought that just betrayed.

1034
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: The problem with Morris in that book, just in that

1035
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:06,599
one sentence, Just like it's similar to Tannanhouse saying, you

1036
00:55:06,599 --> 00:55:09,760
know Reagan's fool hardy Invasion of Grenada, which is tone

1037
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:10,920
deaf and wrong and so forth.

1038
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:12,559
Speaker 3: So there you go.

1039
00:55:13,159 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always a problem with a biographer who well.

1040
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:18,840
I wrote a piece actually for the Civitas people recently

1041
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:21,480
about what makes a good biography, And one of the

1042
00:55:21,519 --> 00:55:23,800
things that makes a bad biography is people who think

1043
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:26,719
they're smarter than the subject or or understand their subject

1044
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:29,480
better or differently than they ought to be. They become

1045
00:55:29,519 --> 00:55:33,719
Freudian or some other nonsense, and those are usually the

1046
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:36,000
worst biographies, and the best ones are the ones that

1047
00:55:36,079 --> 00:55:40,239
try to understand their subject as their subject understood themselves,

1048
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:42,480
and that's not always easy to do.

1049
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:45,159
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like I'd better read this, although nobody

1050
00:55:45,159 --> 00:55:47,039
who has told me that they have read it has

1051
00:55:47,079 --> 00:55:49,639
said you must go and read this, so it's.

1052
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:52,760
Speaker 1: Well, god, well it is almost a thousand pages. I

1053
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,199
have to say the wealth of detail is amazing, and

1054
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,719
some of it's too much detail and extraneous, but I

1055
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:00,599
have to say that the wealth of detail, at least

1056
00:56:00,679 --> 00:56:03,039
until you get to nineteen eighty when he loses interest

1057
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:05,679
here and there you learn some really interesting things.

1058
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 3: So for that.

1059
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,599
Speaker 1: Reason it's probably worth reading if you are as devoted

1060
00:56:10,639 --> 00:56:12,719
to Buckley this memory as I have been from my

1061
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:13,480
entire life.

1062
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,280
Speaker 2: All right, well, I will put it on a list

1063
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,519
of books that I intend to read that are very long.

1064
00:56:18,559 --> 00:56:21,599
That is already itself slightly too long for comfort.

1065
00:56:22,039 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have that problem too. Anyway, Charles, glad you're

1066
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:28,800
feeling better. Welcome back. Do you have any closing thoughts

1067
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,360
or have we worn out what's little little of.

1068
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:32,639
Speaker 3: Your voice you have back so far?

1069
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:35,079
Speaker 2: I think we may have wanted out, but we've won

1070
00:56:35,159 --> 00:56:37,719
it out in an enjoyable way. So the next thing

1071
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:39,840
for me today is Steve is start drinking wine again.

1072
00:56:40,519 --> 00:56:41,559
Speaker 3: Oh well, right, well.

1073
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,679
Speaker 1: I'm about to because I'm several hours later than you.

1074
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:46,760
My next stop is going to be the bar after.

1075
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,719
I remind listeners if you haven't all ready to sign

1076
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:53,079
up as a Ricochet member, join our great community of

1077
00:56:53,159 --> 00:56:57,760
good hearted and civil people, and we will be back

1078
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,920
again next week and in the time will look for

1079
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,639
you in the comments of Ricochet four point zero.

1080
00:57:03,679 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 3: Bye Charles, Bye bye.