Speaker 1: Morning. Can you hear me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're really loud.
Speaker 1: Too hot, too hot. I will adjust.
Speaker 3: I will adjust that.
Speaker 2: Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask
Speaker 2: what you can do for your country.
Speaker 4: Mister garbachow, tear down this wall.
Speaker 1: It's the Ricorship Podcast with Stephen Hayward and John You
Speaker 1: sitting in for Charlie. I'm James Lylyas. Today we talked
Speaker 1: to Matt Connnetti about a new edition of his book
Speaker 1: End what twenty five is all about? So let's Saffrasel's
Speaker 1: a podcast.
Speaker 5: Has your Attorney general told you this was a hoax?
Speaker 2: One evidence?
Speaker 4: Jerry Jeneral, No, I know it's a hoax.
Speaker 1: It's started by Democrats. It's been run by the Democrats
Speaker 1: for four years.
Speaker 4: You had Christopher Ray and these characters and call me before.
Speaker 2: Him, and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into.
Speaker 3: The net and so they try and do the Democrats work.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody, It's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine. Hey you, why don't you go to ricochet
Speaker 1: dot com. Join up and be part of the most
Speaker 1: stimulating conversation and community you'll find on the web. I'm
Speaker 1: James Lilyx in Minneapolis. Stephen Hayward is in California, and
Speaker 1: also in California, sitting in for Charles C. W. Cook, or,
Speaker 1: for all I know, permanently replacing him by some sort
Speaker 1: of palace Who is John Woo Coo Woo you?
Speaker 3: And a name is you? When when you bow down
Speaker 3: before your robot over lord, you better get their names right?
Speaker 1: You got that straight? Well, gentlemen, I hope your next
Speaker 1: are okay and haven't been whiplashed too much. But apparently
Speaker 1: we have another Epstein twist story which I have been
Speaker 1: sort of minimally following because I don't know what to think.
Speaker 1: I have had many opinions and they have drained away
Speaker 1: in importance over the years. But why don't you tell
Speaker 1: me exactly where we are now? A letter was released,
Speaker 1: supposedly in a well supposed letter by Drumm and the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, threats of suits, threats of consequences. Trump
Speaker 1: says it's fake and now we're going to release the files.
Speaker 1: I say that with hesitation because by the time somebody
Speaker 1: listens to this, they may discovered there's no files whatsoever.
Speaker 1: They've been burned, and they have been sent into a
Speaker 1: pit in the year.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So where are we now?
Speaker 2: Well, all I was going to say is what I've
Speaker 2: said before, is that I don't think there's any There
Speaker 2: was never any list, or at least not a list
Speaker 2: kept by Epstein, and any reconstructed list is probably unusable.
Speaker 2: I suspect we've reached the Keystone Cops phase of the investigation.
Speaker 2: There's just all kinds of problems with it. And I'm
Speaker 2: more interested in the Richard Epstein files, which could be
Speaker 2: even more.
Speaker 4: Tedious in some ways.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. This is now just a giant distraction.
Speaker 2: And this new wrinkle of Trump sending a birthday greeting
Speaker 2: to Epstein twenty two years ago, is that right? Something
Speaker 2: like that? And Trump is now apparently this morning the
Speaker 2: news is out He's going to sue the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Churn for publishing what he says is made up. And
Speaker 2: I don't know. There is this great debate going on
Speaker 2: on Twitter about whether there's a certain word Trump used
Speaker 2: in the letter that someone said no, Trump would never
Speaker 2: use that word. I forget what it is now, But
Speaker 2: then someone found video I'm using a you know, a
Speaker 2: slightly recondite term. I can't believe I can't remember it.
Speaker 2: But so we're now down to the you know, parsing
Speaker 2: out what words are in Trump's vocabulary from twenty two
Speaker 2: years ago. And so it's silly season.
Speaker 1: You're saying it's a distraction, John distraction. Who's being distracted?
Speaker 1: Are you distracted?
Speaker 3: I'm terribly distracted, as it seems America and our political system.
Speaker 4: I have to say, I enjoy reading about this, just.
Speaker 3: In the way you might like reading about how your
Speaker 3: former employer the workplace is all screwed up. Now, I
Speaker 3: guess I used to work at the Justice Department. And
Speaker 3: first idea of people like Cash Pattel and Dan Bongino,
Speaker 3: who are wonderfully entertaining TV and radio and podcast hosts
Speaker 3: actually in charge of the FBI. FIRSTUS shocking. Then they
Speaker 3: made part of it careers by saying that the government
Speaker 3: had somehow covered up or conspired to kill this Jeffrey
Speaker 3: Epstein fellow. And then they get into the FBI and
Speaker 3: then they say there's no evidence of that, and then
Speaker 3: all their fellow travelers are now piling on them. The third,
Speaker 3: I gotta say, there's no way that President Trump can
Speaker 3: order the release of the Epstein files. Someone you shouldn't
Speaker 3: release anything in the Epstein files. And if you've ever
Speaker 3: seen a raw law enforcement file, you know, to prepare
Speaker 3: for prosecutions, could be filled with gossip in you window,
Speaker 3: people you know, getting back at other people, lies, mistruths.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the transcript of a podcast. Then, so
Speaker 3: the purpose of this is you don't release that in
Speaker 3: the public because you're going to besmirch the reputations of
Speaker 3: all kinds of people. Usually the only way the justice
Speaker 3: departments should be speaking is when they indict someone, and
Speaker 3: the indictment speaks for itself. You don't go around releasing
Speaker 3: all the gossip and rumors. You come cross. Second point
Speaker 3: I'll stop here is the really sensitive material has been
Speaker 3: sealed by a grand because it was presented to a
Speaker 3: grand jury for indictment.
Speaker 4: It has been sealed by a federal judge. The President
Speaker 4: can't order it released.
Speaker 3: The only people can release it would be the judge
Speaker 3: or Congress would have to change the law about how
Speaker 3: we keep those things secret. Congress isn't going to do that.
Speaker 3: So I don't think we're really going to know unless
Speaker 3: people who are in the files themselves go to the
Speaker 3: judge and say I want my name to be released.
Speaker 3: I want to prove my innocence. Perhaps that's only where
Speaker 3: we're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: Highly unlikely, highly unlikely that's going to happen. I can't
Speaker 1: see anybody. I mean, I can see somebody volunteering to
Speaker 1: be on a cold Play JumboTron with their mistress before
Speaker 1: I can.
Speaker 3: Well, any way, that just sounds like another cabinet interview
Speaker 3: with President Trump.
Speaker 1: Well again, you know my whole I don't know what
Speaker 1: we're supposed to find out from these things. I think
Speaker 1: what a lot of people. There's sort of nations and
Speaker 1: numbers of q about this, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have gone down to the Epstein file as
Speaker 1: part of the proof that there's this large satanic conspiracy
Speaker 1: of trading children around. And I have no idea that
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that there are people in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In power and finance everywhere who have absolutely
Speaker 1: appalling records of behavior when it comes to the youth
Speaker 1: of America or other countries. But whether or not that
Speaker 1: there's some actual, you know, Pizzagate style thing going on here,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Anyway, that's just my naive belief
Speaker 1: sitting here thousands of miles from anything important. Moving right along,
Speaker 1: we've got McMahon versus New York. This is interesting, John,
Speaker 1: You being the legal guy, why don't you tell us
Speaker 1: what this one's all about.
Speaker 3: So McMahon versus New York, this is the case about
Speaker 3: just recently decided by the Supreme Court about whether the
Speaker 3: president can continue to go forward with his reductions in force.
Speaker 3: This is at the Department of Education and how to
Speaker 3: explain it. So the Supreme Court did not issue an opinion.
Speaker 3: The only opinion we saw were from the dissenters. This
Speaker 3: was just to lift a district court's ban on carrying
Speaker 3: out the reductions in force. So this is really the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court saying, hey, you chriald judges. There's a thousand
Speaker 3: of them. Hey you guys, did you not read our
Speaker 3: opinion from two weeks ago in the nationwide Injunctions case?
Speaker 4: Do we need to spell it out for you? Let
Speaker 4: us repeat ourselves.
Speaker 3: A district judge cannot stop the entire federal government from
Speaker 3: carrying out its policies unless it goes to the US
Speaker 3: Supreme Court. That's all this case says. It's actually not
Speaker 3: a review on whether President Trump ultimately will win. I
Speaker 3: think that's going to go back up to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime, the Court said, no single judge
Speaker 3: in Boston or New York or Maryland is going to
Speaker 3: sit there and sort of sit and be the onwoodsman
Speaker 3: or the micromanager of the executive branch. Now, the important
Speaker 3: thing that people didn't observe in the news reports is
Speaker 3: that the government promised that it would not shut down
Speaker 3: the Education Department unless Congress said so, And in fact,
Speaker 3: it's said in its pleadings to the court, we're only
Speaker 3: getting rid of the fat We're not going to fire
Speaker 3: anyone who's essential for the core operations of the Department
Speaker 3: of Education. We understand that when it comes down to
Speaker 3: shuttering the place, only Congress can do that. And so
Speaker 3: all these claims in the media of you know, out
Speaker 3: of control president defining congressional orders, shutting down agencies left
Speaker 3: and right, it's just not true. It's just not true.
Speaker 3: Even the Trump administration is court papers says, we understand
Speaker 3: Congress is preeminent. We're just getting rid of people who
Speaker 3: are not necessary for the core functionings of the department
Speaker 3: and try to save money for the taxpayer.
Speaker 1: Stephen We've been told that the State Department is now
Speaker 1: non functional, that war will break out everywhere because because
Speaker 1: they went through with the with a meat cleaver, with
Speaker 1: a wood chipper and just absolutely cleaned out the place.
Speaker 1: Is that what happened?
Speaker 2: Of course not I don't have the headcount numbers in
Speaker 2: front of me, but the State Department's total headcount has
Speaker 2: gone up by something like ten thousand people over the
Speaker 2: last fifteen years. And so this twelve hundred thirteen hundred
Speaker 2: laid off last week is a reduction force of less
Speaker 2: than two percent. But beyond all that, what do all
Speaker 2: these people do? Mostly bad stuff? And I've been ranting
Speaker 2: for quite a while now about three particular places. We
Speaker 2: spent over a billion dollars to build an embassy compound
Speaker 2: in Bagdad. It's the largest US embassy compound in the world,
Speaker 2: has a very nice reflecting pool by the way, and
Speaker 2: some nice architecture. And we spent seven hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: on a huge embassy compound in Kabul, Afghanistan that's now
Speaker 2: the largest office building for the Taliban. And we're also
Speaker 2: in the process of building, or may have finished, a
Speaker 2: billion dollar embassy compound in Beirut. Now I'll just submit
Speaker 2: to you that the Israelis did more for the progress
Speaker 2: and improvement of Lebanon by taking out Hesbola than a
Speaker 2: billion dollar State Department footprint in Beirut is ever going
Speaker 2: to do. Why these huge, expensive palaces and the huge
Speaker 2: staffs that go with them, Well, because of.
Speaker 1: Still fair to be fair staved in Beirut. You're going
Speaker 1: to want the walls to be about fourteen feet thick,
Speaker 1: so I think.
Speaker 2: That's cost Well, yes, but you're going to put hundreds
Speaker 2: of people in it. And I bet we could do
Speaker 2: our essential business with maybe fifty people or one hundred
Speaker 2: people and still have adequate security. You don't need to
Speaker 2: spend that kind of money. You only spend that kind
Speaker 2: of money if you have this grandiose presumption that you
Speaker 2: are there to run the country and run the world.
Speaker 2: Why do we want to have a big footprint in
Speaker 2: Kabul Afghanistan, even if we're going to keep some military
Speaker 2: force there, which we didn't. It just you know, the
Speaker 2: shocking waste of all this and presumption of it is
Speaker 2: to my mind unconscionable. And I think Trump didn't fire
Speaker 2: enough people from the State Department. I think that you
Speaker 2: get rid of another ten percent. Oh, Steve, yes, I know,
Speaker 2: I'm they can all go to work for NPR.
Speaker 1: Haha, which brings us to the great cries and lamentations.
Speaker 1: As I was reading my local subreit about Minnesota and
Speaker 1: they caught an old lady who lives in the Sticks,
Speaker 1: who loves the polka show that they run, and now
Speaker 1: she's not going to have her polka show anymore. I
Speaker 1: feel for her. I remember the days when AM radio
Speaker 1: was absolutely full of poker when you drove around the
Speaker 1: rural parts of the state. But A, it's possible that
Speaker 1: locals may pick up the slack if they wish, and
Speaker 1: B it's possible that she has access to something called
Speaker 1: the Internet, where one can find in abundance poka of
Speaker 1: all manner, sort, shape, and variety. We've been told that
Speaker 1: the cuts are going to destroy in PR and PBS,
Speaker 1: but A, no, they're not. And B the whole notion
Speaker 1: of state media in the first place ought to seem
Speaker 1: a little un American to people. But we've been living
Speaker 1: so long with the holy ghost. The whole presence of
Speaker 1: PBS and NPR held up as a model, an absolute,
Speaker 1: shining beacon of non partial, essential cultural commission that without
Speaker 1: it there would be no Masterpiece Theater, there would be
Speaker 1: no Sesame Street Therapy. Now that'd be a bit true
Speaker 1: at one time in the past, but it isn't anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's a small cut and it's not going to
Speaker 1: destroy these things. And I'm not sure why it's as
Speaker 1: controversial as it is, unless, of course, James.
Speaker 3: I love PBS. I love NPR, actually I do. I
Speaker 3: really enjoy listening to them. It's just like sitting around
Speaker 3: at the Berkeley Faculty Club meetings and it's just like
Speaker 3: on the radio instead. It's great. But look, I actually
Speaker 3: love Masterpiece there. I love all those British TV shows.
Speaker 3: I love watching all these ways that the British think
Speaker 3: of murdering each other. They're so clever at it. They
Speaker 3: should be killing more of each other. Every British TV
Speaker 3: show seems to be about who done it? Murders but
Speaker 3: loved like watching I Claudius and Brideshead Revisited. But now,
Speaker 3: if you get a streaming service and you pay I
Speaker 3: think I paid ten dollars a month, I can watch
Speaker 3: almost every BBC TV show that was ever filmed, you know.
Speaker 3: I can watch Steve Hayward's favorite show Doctor Who where
Speaker 3: the reptilians show up and you can see the floppy
Speaker 3: arms have human beings in them, and it's really just
Speaker 3: fake clothes they got on it. It's wonder in black and white,
Speaker 3: it's wonderful. But you know what, I've never given a dollar,
Speaker 3: not a single dollar to NPR or PBS, even though
Speaker 3: they run these you know, campaigns endlessly because the government
Speaker 3: paid for it. Now you've put me in this terrible
Speaker 3: situation where I have to decide where I'm going to
Speaker 3: give money to keep it going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but John, you really are behind the times. I
Speaker 2: mean all of the I'll put this way, costume dramas
Speaker 2: these days are not appearing first on PBS. You know
Speaker 2: Bridgerton and you know Rome twenty years ago, they're on HBO.
Speaker 3: Steve, I don't want you know, you're just watching the
Speaker 3: ones that you just watch, the ones that have nudity
Speaker 3: in them. I mean, come on, you can admit it.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that was my joke of I never could
Speaker 2: get into a Game of Thrones because there wasn't enough
Speaker 2: sex and violence in it for me. I just I
Speaker 2: actually did find it boring, I have to say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all right, of course I understand exactly what
Speaker 1: you mean. When I when I was growing up, PBS
Speaker 1: was the source for Monty Python on Sunday Night, for
Speaker 1: the Prisoner, for all of these shows, none of which
Speaker 1: they made, none of which they made, but they brought
Speaker 1: them over and that was fine and well good. I
Speaker 1: remember when I was a seed salesman in the South
Speaker 1: Downe in nineteen seventy nine, I would try to time
Speaker 1: my weekends for a city that was big enough to
Speaker 1: have a PBS reception so I could watch I Claudius.
Speaker 1: But that was a very long time ago, and things
Speaker 1: have changed.
Speaker 2: Can I say a quick point of order changing? I mean,
Speaker 2: I think this is relevant if I recall this right.
Speaker 2: National PBS was offered Monty Python. They said, no, this
Speaker 2: is too weird. It was a Dallas affiliate that picked
Speaker 2: it up first, and then it spread from there, so
Speaker 2: it was a local station and said, actually we think
Speaker 2: this is pretty funny. I think that's how it went.
Speaker 1: I think I think you're absolutely right, and we've been
Speaker 1: told a different story, perhaps because we've been lied to.
Speaker 1: Are you being lied to? More friends? Are you being
Speaker 1: lied to? You know they tell you to defer paying
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Speaker 1: sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. And now we welcome back
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Matthew KANINEITI, director of Domestic Policy Studies
Speaker 1: and the inaugural Patrick and Charlie Neil Chair in American
Speaker 1: Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. And of course he's
Speaker 1: a columnist at Commentary Magazine and The Free Press, and
Speaker 1: he's the author of The Right, The one hundred Year
Speaker 1: War for American Conservatism. Matt, welcome back.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, you completed The Right in nineteen or nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: two points worth. Sorry feel a little old to I
Speaker 1: retired in twenty twenty two, and you, of course were
Speaker 1: aware the story was ongoing. I've thought about how the
Speaker 1: final chapters your book would look if you were wrapping
Speaker 1: it up today because right keeps getting redefined underneath us,
Speaker 1: doesn't it?
Speaker 5: It does? And I think a lot about that question.
Speaker 5: If I were to update the story to the summer
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty five, what would I cover. When the
Speaker 5: paperback edition of the write came out, it included a
Speaker 5: new chapter that I had written and sent to press
Speaker 5: right after the midterm elections of twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 5: if you recall, that was really the low point of
Speaker 5: Donald Trump's political strength in the Republican Party. The midterms
Speaker 5: had not gone as well for the GOP as they
Speaker 5: had expected. A lot of that was because of Trump's
Speaker 5: endorsing candidates who the electric just didn't really like. Trump
Speaker 5: announced his presidential campaign, his third presidential campaign for the
Speaker 5: GOP nomination, shortly after the midterm election, and the event
Speaker 5: at Mar A Lago did not go very well. People
Speaker 5: weren't really excited by it. All. The energy was on
Speaker 5: Ron DeSantis a side. Ron de Santis, who had done
Speaker 5: very well in twenty twenty two, seemed to represent the
Speaker 5: next iteration of Maga Mago, perhaps without Trump's baggage, And
Speaker 5: within six months of the paperback coming out and me
Speaker 5: saying that there was a chance that the Republican Party
Speaker 5: might move on from Trump. Trump had solidified once again
Speaker 5: his position as leader of the GOP and leader of
Speaker 5: this MAGA movement. One was one reason for that was
Speaker 5: his just natural political talent. But the second and main
Speaker 5: reason I think was shortly after the midterm election is
Speaker 5: when the law fair campaign against Trump began, and then
Speaker 5: in the spring of twenty twenty three is when the
Speaker 5: New York indictment came down as well. That had the
Speaker 5: effect of rallying the Republican Party to Trump's side, and
Speaker 5: it has not left him ever since. So that was
Speaker 5: the main unanticipated event was the revival of Trump, a
Speaker 5: revival that only accelerated from twenty twenty three through the
Speaker 5: assassination attempt one year ago, this past week and into today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my realization that I know absolutely nothing came to
Speaker 1: me when I thought Thissaners was going to just walk
Speaker 1: away with it because I thought it was palatable. I
Speaker 1: thought that he would cross body like he had this
Speaker 1: proven record of governance and just died on the vine,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, that's it. My instinct's I'm never
Speaker 1: going to trust him again. Stephen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Matt, you're lucky today that we have John
Speaker 2: Hu sitting in for Charlie Cook. Because you may not
Speaker 2: know this, but John's nickname or acronym is og NC,
Speaker 2: which stands for Original Gangst the Neocon. And that brings
Speaker 2: me to you guys at Commentary. I do tune into
Speaker 2: your daily podcast fairly often when I'm home and on
Speaker 2: a walk on the afternoon, and I've noticed something. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's not put too fine a point on it, but
Speaker 2: Trump has never been a favorite of John Putt Hart's
Speaker 2: an abe and your colleagues. I mean, you're the one
Speaker 2: person who's always said the nicer things about him. But
Speaker 2: now suddenly, starting about three weeks ago and maybe more,
Speaker 2: it seems to me that you guys have signed up
Speaker 2: for MAGA. And now is it just because he bombed
Speaker 2: the forid of Nuclear Side, which you know John said
Speaker 2: on Twitter a couple of times that's enough for me.
Speaker 2: He's great, right, But I have to say there's been
Speaker 2: a real change in tone and looks to me like
Speaker 2: it's going to last. And so what say you to
Speaker 2: that provocation?
Speaker 5: Well, I can't speak for my colleagues on the Commentary podcast.
Speaker 5: I have noticed that my friend and leader John pod
Speaker 5: Hortz has been very positive about Trump's decision to join
Speaker 5: the Israeli campaign against Iran and bomb the three nuclear
Speaker 5: facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer. And that is because John
Speaker 5: and others in our Orbit and Commentary magazine have argued
Speaker 5: for exactly that sort of military intervention in order to
Speaker 5: prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for decades, and
Speaker 5: it was Donald Trump who actually did it. So Trump
Speaker 5: deserves to be commended for that. I still think my
Speaker 5: friends on the Pod are going to have criticisms of
Speaker 5: Trump now and then, and there are a few things
Speaker 5: that Trump has done in this administration that I disagree with,
Speaker 5: but I think overall, what we've seen in this second
Speaker 5: administration is, first, Trump has advanced conservative priorities, long standing
Speaker 5: conservative priorities, along with the new MAGA agenda, not all
Speaker 5: of which we agree with. But second, and perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 5: the left's reaction to Trump and the radical swing of
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party toward socialism, toward anti semitism isolationism is
Speaker 5: something that my friends, commentary, my colleagues, and I strongly
Speaker 5: condemn and oppose. So you know, as you know, Steve,
Speaker 5: in politics, it's often what you're against matters more than
Speaker 5: what you're actually for. And when you look at the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party today, or at least when I look at it,
Speaker 5: I see everything that I'm against and nothing that i'm for.
Speaker 2: Well, let's take another domain. Let's leave Israel aside for
Speaker 2: a moment. And so just this week, the Republican Congress
Speaker 2: finally defunded NPR and PBS. You know, people back as
Speaker 2: far as the Reagan years want to do that. New
Speaker 2: Gingridge took a run at it, right, and people said,
Speaker 2: I remember one interview with Nude in nineteen ninety five
Speaker 2: and someone said, oh, but you'll kill big Bird, and
Speaker 2: Newt said, back, big bird makes money. Why I think
Speaker 2: the army. But he didn't get anywhere with it, right.
Speaker 2: It took Trump and the Trumpian moment. You might say,
Speaker 2: to do that as well, and I can think of
Speaker 2: there are a few stronger care of that whole domain of
Speaker 2: state run media. Then again, the commentary crowd. So it
Speaker 2: seems to me you've got to give Trump and the
Speaker 2: Republican Congress's galvanized just huge props for doing things that
Speaker 2: they were always too chicken to do previously.
Speaker 5: That's right, you know, not only were they chicken to
Speaker 5: do it, but they just didn't have the consensus within
Speaker 5: the party. They weren't prepared to do it. This is
Speaker 5: a paradoxical advantage of having such narrow congressional majorities is
Speaker 5: there's less room for that marginal member to hide and
Speaker 5: to throw a wrench into the congressional agenda or to
Speaker 5: the president's agenda. And Trump has been able to exercise
Speaker 5: incredible leverage over the Republicans in Congress. That's partly because
Speaker 5: Trump is so popular in the Republican Party. It's also
Speaker 5: because Trump has changed the Republican Party so that people
Speaker 5: who have been vocally against him or his policies just
Speaker 5: aren't there anymore. And then it's also I think a
Speaker 5: result of the twenty twenty experience, the pandemic experience, the
Speaker 5: great awokening that happened in twenty twenty that had the
Speaker 5: effect of making many Republicans much less tolerant of taxpayer
Speaker 5: subsidized leftism. And whether that was in the schools, whether
Speaker 5: that's in the universities, or whether it's at PBS and NPR,
Speaker 5: Republicans as a rule just don't have the tolerance for
Speaker 5: it any longer. They don't want to continue to spend
Speaker 5: taxpayer funds propping up anti American, anti Western ideologies.
Speaker 4: Hey, Matt, good to see you.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to revise any details, but Matt and
Speaker 3: I were at one of the last remaining as Steve
Speaker 3: calls them, neo conclaves. I think they were just the
Speaker 3: two of us there and all these other constr heard.
Speaker 3: It was great. It was like it was like Back
Speaker 3: to the Future two thousand and six edition. That was wonderful.
Speaker 3: I got to see the CONTINENTI family struggle at pick
Speaker 3: a ball at pick a Ball as Dick Cheney slammed
Speaker 3: on them with his aeriel Michael Jordan reverse back slam
Speaker 3: on the pick a ball court. So, actually, I got
Speaker 3: to ask you about something I just don't get, which is,
Speaker 3: why is this Epstein thing causing such a disruption in
Speaker 3: the Trump I don't know if you can call it
Speaker 3: a coalition or explain why this is so important. It's
Speaker 3: totally I think killed Trump's political momentum. He spent the
Speaker 3: last week talking about Epstein instead of the passage of
Speaker 3: his tax bill, instead of the recision package, and it
Speaker 3: seems to be flooding both conservative and liberal media.
Speaker 5: What explains this well killing Trump's political momentum explains why
Speaker 5: the Democrats are so excited by the Epstein story. They
Speaker 5: have finally found a story. They finally found an issue
Speaker 5: that puts the administration on its back foot, and that
Speaker 5: divides the Republican MAGA coalition. It's been months since they've
Speaker 5: been on the offensive the Democrats. So that's the Democrats,
Speaker 5: that's easy. The question is the Republicans and MAGA, and
Speaker 5: in particular the MAGA influencers, the podcasters, the kind of
Speaker 5: activist crowd that, at a recent conference held by Charlie
Speaker 5: Kirk of Turning Point USA, went after the Trump administration
Speaker 5: for covering up the Epstein case. Is what's going on here? Well,
Speaker 5: I think the writer Park McDougall had a very good
Speaker 5: piece in The Free Press speaking about how what's happening
Speaker 5: is some of Trump's podcast base has been alienated from
Speaker 5: the administration in the second hundred, whether that was Operation
Speaker 5: Midnight Hammer, which they had argued against, whether that was
Speaker 5: the One Big Beautiful Bill which Elon Musk famously left
Speaker 5: the GOP over and other figures like Steve Bannon felt
Speaker 5: should have raised taxes instead of keeping them low. There's
Speaker 5: an ongoing debate inside the administration right now about whether
Speaker 5: there should be some sort of immigration arrangement that either
Speaker 5: legalizes or at least kind of puts safe caps on
Speaker 5: safeguards around the migrant worker population or even the hotel
Speaker 5: worker population. So for on those three axes, you see
Speaker 5: that the new right wing, the Bannons, the Tucker Carlson's,
Speaker 5: they are very much on the defensive and they have
Speaker 5: real problems with certain policies of Trump. How does this
Speaker 5: manifest itself, Well, it manifests itself, I think in going
Speaker 5: after the administration on Epstein. Now, a couple more things.
Speaker 5: The first is the administration hasn't helped, and that is
Speaker 5: Attorney General Bondi did over promise and under deliver. Whether
Speaker 5: it was saying that the Epstein files were on her desk,
Speaker 5: Maybe I'm sympathetic, she may have misspoken on TV, but
Speaker 5: you know, when you're ag you have to be careful
Speaker 5: with what you say. Whether it was that photo op
Speaker 5: where they brought the influencers into the White House and
Speaker 5: then they gave him these binders where it turns out
Speaker 5: that it was pretty much previously disclosed information about Epstein.
Speaker 5: To have those two moments followed a few months later,
Speaker 5: by this just pronouncement that the investigation was over and
Speaker 5: that there was no list, there was no blackmail, and
Speaker 5: there was no foul play in Jeffrey Epstein's death really
Speaker 5: antagonized a lot of people who look at other stories,
Speaker 5: whether it's the JFK files that have been released, or
Speaker 5: whether it's the UFO story where Caroline Levitt came out
Speaker 5: and she said, we looked into this, what we found
Speaker 5: that the strange lights in New Jersey that we were
Speaker 5: following last year turned out to be all domestically made right.
Speaker 5: Whether it's the president's health, you know. Just yesterday, in
Speaker 5: response to people who had been noticing that Trump's ankles
Speaker 5: had been swollen and the bruise on one of his hands,
Speaker 5: the administration came out with the letter actually from his
Speaker 5: physician saying that he has a typical condition for people
Speaker 5: of his age that leads to ankle swelling. Epstein, there
Speaker 5: just hasn't been that same amount of transparency and even
Speaker 5: though there may be no there there, and I'm very
Speaker 5: skeptical that there is a there there, that's led to
Speaker 5: additional question students as well. So it's a combination john
Speaker 5: of opportunism by the Democrats and never Trumper's, along with
Speaker 5: a mishandling of the way in which this information was
Speaker 5: presented to the public on the part of the administration,
Speaker 5: which then has produced this kind of revolt. I will
Speaker 5: just say this finally, the Wall Street Journal story that
Speaker 5: broke today July eighteenth, before what broke on the seventeenth.
Speaker 5: We're recording this on the eighteenth, with the alleged letter
Speaker 5: that Trump sent Epstein on for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, that
Speaker 5: has had the effect, it seems to me, of rallying
Speaker 5: MAGA together, because yes, a lot of MAGA pundits want
Speaker 5: transparency and they believe in kind of these theories that
Speaker 5: powerful people are shielding one another from accountability on sex crimes.
Speaker 5: But they hate the mainstream media even more, and so
Speaker 5: if Trump was able to focus on the media as
Speaker 5: the common enemy, then he might be able to bring
Speaker 5: the band back together.
Speaker 1: I was provided by a producer a quote from your
Speaker 1: recent piece of yours, James Burnham. I like this quote.
Speaker 1: I hate it, but I like it. Quote when the
Speaker 1: Western liberals feeling of guilt and his associated feeling of
Speaker 1: moral vulnerability before the sorrows and demands of the wretched
Speaker 1: become obsessive. He often develops a generalized hatred of Western
Speaker 1: civilization and of his own country as part of the
Speaker 1: West End quote. And we've been seeing this everywhere. You
Speaker 1: see it in stories every single day on Twitter, of course,
Speaker 1: if the algorithm has figured out that you kind of
Speaker 1: like these things. One of the most notable to me
Speaker 1: the other day was they were having a cultural enrichment
Speaker 1: diversity celebration event at a school in England and a
Speaker 1: girl wore a Union jack and she had a speech
Speaker 1: about englishness and how it was wonderful and she was
Speaker 1: proud to be She was sent home because I was
Speaker 1: the wrong. We're not going to celebrate that. Somebody else
Speaker 1: pointed out that a quote that talked about suicidal empathy,
Speaker 1: referring to I think it was a New York Times
Speaker 1: piece which talked about how empathy became a toxic subject
Speaker 1: on the right and the rest of it. The idea
Speaker 1: that one should become a globalist, a global philanthropist before
Speaker 1: a national philanthropist, because the West has committed so many sins,
Speaker 1: has done such evil is so uniquely inherently intrinsically bad
Speaker 1: that the only enlightened position is to detest it and
Speaker 1: to seek to tear it down, or at least to
Speaker 1: acquiesce in its destruction. So you wrote that, Explain how
Speaker 1: you used that quote in your piece and how it
Speaker 1: applies today to let's say, the campus situation.
Speaker 5: Sure well, the quote comes from James Burnham, the Titanic
Speaker 5: intellectual who exercised such a remarkable influence on William F.
Speaker 5: Buckley Junior in the National Review. The quote specifically comes
Speaker 5: from Burnham's book Suicide of the West, first published in
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty four. And what I like about that quote,
Speaker 5: and what I like about that book is this is
Speaker 5: James Burnham really diagnosing the liberal mentality decades before I
Speaker 5: was born, and you know, some sixty years before what
Speaker 5: we've seen on our college campuses after October seventh, this
Speaker 5: guilt drive that seems to explain a lot of liberal views,
Speaker 5: in particular their obsession with the victimizer binary and always
Speaker 5: identifying with the victim, and the victim is always the
Speaker 5: victim of Western society or systemic racism or the patriot barchy.
Speaker 5: That it can be identified throughout the history of the left,
Speaker 5: in more radical forms, but also in the mildier forms
Speaker 5: of American liberalism. So it's a very stunning quote, and
Speaker 5: I recommend the book, which is still in print. Encounter
Speaker 5: brought out an edition about a decade ago that you
Speaker 5: can get to understand liberals, and there are some dated parts,
Speaker 5: but really that fundamental diagnosis holds up, and we, like
Speaker 5: you say, we see it on campuses today, and we
Speaker 5: see it in the anti Semitism, the anti Zionism that's
Speaker 5: coming from campuses today. This guilt over Israel, the guilt
Speaker 5: stemming from this idea that Israel is a Western colonial project,
Speaker 5: which it is.
Speaker 4: Not, saying God, I hope so.
Speaker 1: The whole.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 5: This tendency to always fall back on oppress or oppressed uh,
Speaker 5: and this guilt complex that motivates, I think, a willful
Speaker 5: blindness among liberals towards the enemies of civilization. This is
Speaker 5: something that has been present for a long time. In
Speaker 5: one way, it's reassuring because it means that even though
Speaker 5: our technology changes, the names and faces change, the fundamentals
Speaker 5: of politics remain the same. The argument remains the same.
Speaker 5: But what I think we need more of today are
Speaker 5: people who will stand up for the Western civilization, stand
Speaker 5: up for Biblical civilization. Judaism Christianity, Zionism, and Americanism, the
Speaker 5: principles and institutions of the American founding, and say that
Speaker 5: we're proud of these, we are not ashamed. And if
Speaker 5: I have to identify one source of Donald Trump's political longevity,
Speaker 5: I would say is that he does proudly say he
Speaker 5: is for all these things, and he's certainly not afraid
Speaker 5: when the left or others try to delegitimize him, demean him,
Speaker 5: or kill him.
Speaker 1: It is refreshing. I mean, because when politicians are the
Speaker 1: left talk about how much they love America, either the
Speaker 1: words just sort of turn to ashes in their mouth
Speaker 1: you don't believe them, or it's a theoretical America that
Speaker 1: they like. It's one that's never existed that will be
Speaker 1: perfect if and or when they're particularly I mean like
Speaker 1: New York's mayor in a year may say I love America,
Speaker 1: but that's just because he's successfully nationalized every corporation in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Stephen Well, one of the other things you mentioned I
Speaker 2: can send your book is that Bill Buckley, much more
Speaker 2: back in the news because of the Townhouse biography, once
Speaker 2: kind of equivocated about his famous remarket it's better to
Speaker 2: be governed by the first two thousand names in the
Speaker 2: Boston phone Directory than the faculty of Harvard University. Okay,
Speaker 2: so maybe Buckley is at his core an elitist. They
Speaker 2: used to say, look, when I want heart surgery, I
Speaker 2: want an elitist doctor. So of course, so you confess
Speaker 2: to that. But I've always thought that that phrase should
Speaker 2: be modified, that it'd be better to be educated by
Speaker 2: the first two thousand names in the Boston phone directory
Speaker 2: than the faculty of Harvard University. That I don't think
Speaker 2: he would dissent on at all. Now, I'm not following
Speaker 2: the machinations at Columbia at a granuar level, like your successor,
Speaker 2: the Free Beacon, el Eanla Johnson is, But you're a
Speaker 2: Columbia graduate. What's the latest on that? Are you optimistic
Speaker 2: that for all the blunderbus that Trump is using, much
Speaker 2: of which I like, maybe all of which I like,
Speaker 2: are you optimistic that we're actually going to see some
Speaker 2: fundamental changes at Columbia or anywhere else.
Speaker 5: Well, the Free Beacon has been reporting that the administration
Speaker 5: and Columbia maybe close to a deal, and many in
Speaker 5: the pro Israel community, many critics of Columbia University. Columbia
Speaker 5: University are a little bit alarmed at the details of
Speaker 5: this deal, which has not been finalized. They feel that
Speaker 5: though Columbia would pay a very large fine and make
Speaker 5: some changes to its governance, the underlying problems will not
Speaker 5: be treated appropriately. So we'll see that what happens. Of course,
Speaker 5: the deal would have to be authorized by Trump, and
Speaker 5: he hasn't done so yet. I think, Steve that Columbia's
Speaker 5: problems run really deep, and they think that there are
Speaker 5: many decades in the making. And I always have to
Speaker 5: say I was a little bit shocked when Trump suspended
Speaker 5: the foreign student visas to Harvard. There was a flurry
Speaker 5: of articles about the percentercentage of foreign students at ar
Speaker 5: Lee University's Columbia, if I recall correctly, was somewhere around
Speaker 5: forty seven percent of the student body comes from overseas.
Speaker 5: And that was not the case when I graduated there
Speaker 5: twenty years ago. And I think what's happened over the
Speaker 5: intervening years is that Colombia really decided to become Edward
Speaker 5: Sayid University really decided to become the institutional body that
Speaker 5: represented the views of one of Columbia's most famous professors,
Speaker 5: Edward said, the author of Orientalism and a supporter of
Speaker 5: the PLO, a critic, vociferous enemy of the State of Israel,
Speaker 5: and someone who was a stylish literary writer, but who
Speaker 5: used that verbal ability which he did have to advance
Speaker 5: a very anti Western, anti American, anti Israel perspective. That
Speaker 5: mindset has been slowly embedded into the institution over time
Speaker 5: because of different decisions by the administration successive administrations. Let's
Speaker 5: not forget that. When I was there, we welcomed Lee Bollinger,
Speaker 5: the famous defender of affirmative action, from the University of Michigan.
Speaker 5: He came and became president of Columbia University. I think
Speaker 5: in my final year there two three, and just a
Speaker 5: few hours years after I left, he ostentatiously invited Mahmud
Speaker 5: Ahmadinijad to address the campus, the man who had called
Speaker 5: for the destruction of Israel, destruction of America. You know,
Speaker 5: a radical Iranian politician. And to get that word radical
Speaker 5: in front of you, when you're an Iranian politician, you
Speaker 5: really need to be radical or it's not. It's not
Speaker 5: just an ordinary anti American mola. I mean, I'm aninjod
Speaker 5: if you remember, as I know you do, he was
Speaker 5: he was out there and yet here he was at Columbia.
Speaker 5: So this deal, you know, making Columbia pay is important,
Speaker 5: But if we really want to change Columbia, I always
Speaker 5: prefer the Carthaginian option.
Speaker 1: You Know's well, you know, it used to be said
Speaker 1: that we want foreign students to come here so they
Speaker 1: can learn about America and love America and spread their
Speaker 1: love of America when they go back home. And now
Speaker 1: it's just like, well, you know what, you can hate
Speaker 1: America from a distance. From now on, Colombia is only
Speaker 1: going to be for American kids, so they can so
Speaker 1: our kids can learn how to hate America the Columbia way.
Speaker 1: Johnny got something, I got a last one from that
Speaker 1: before we go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just curious about So this split you were
Speaker 3: talking about before within the GOP that you see reflected
Speaker 3: in the response at Epstein files, what do you think
Speaker 3: that shows about the struggle inside the administration? You know,
Speaker 3: is this is this the JD. Vance wing versus the
Speaker 3: Marco Rubier wing? What does suggests for what's going inside
Speaker 3: the administration? And uh, you know, if you I mean
Speaker 3: so early, but you know, how do you think this
Speaker 3: plays into handicapping who you know Trump's successor is going
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's less about
Speaker 5: a struggle inside the administration because it's clear from the
Speaker 5: past several weeks that Trump is the decider. Trump is
Speaker 5: the most powerful force in the administration, and even if
Speaker 5: people are counseling alternate approaches, they really don't bring their
Speaker 5: their differences of opinion to the public. So there really
Speaker 5: is Trump that he he defines what that administration is
Speaker 5: going to do. And as we were talking about in
Speaker 5: his true social posts this past week, he said that
Speaker 5: the critics, the outside critics of his position and appin
Speaker 5: were former supporters. He doesn't want their support. I think
Speaker 5: where this really comes into play, though, John is the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty eight stakes, and clearly JD. Vance is the
Speaker 5: front runner for the Republican nomination in all the polls.
Speaker 5: He's far and away ahead in first place. He is
Speaker 5: the incumbent vice president, which always counts for a lot.
Speaker 5: But I do think that Vance is has his kind
Speaker 5: of eyes over his shoulder at a potential candidate from
Speaker 5: the more online wing of MAGA, the podcaster wing, if
Speaker 5: you will, would Tucker Carlson decide to run for the
Speaker 5: Republican nomination. That would present a political challenge for Vance
Speaker 5: and how he formulates his policies and message. At the
Speaker 5: same time, though, I also think that what's been revealed
Speaker 5: over the past few weeks is these podcasters don't have
Speaker 5: much influence. You know, we're looking at polls of Republican
Speaker 5: support for Trump. Republican support for Trump went up during
Speaker 5: the Epstein scandal, even as the public says the administration
Speaker 5: should be handling it better and should disclose more information.
Speaker 5: So the same thing with Operation Midnight Hammer. By the way,
Speaker 5: all the polls we have showed that Republicans really support
Speaker 5: Trump's peace through Strength approach on Iran. So I do
Speaker 5: think there's more bark than them bite here. But it's
Speaker 5: one reason that Vance is very circumspect about how he
Speaker 5: handles these more controversial issues for the podcast.
Speaker 1: Right, the idea that podcasters are not influential is one
Speaker 1: of those ridiculous statements.
Speaker 5: Men, well the other podcasts.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, And it's the same thing with people
Speaker 1: who marinated on twitter x all day. You become convinced
Speaker 1: of a certain line of thought that it's the dominant
Speaker 1: line of thought. It shapes everything that you hear, and
Speaker 1: you're completely unaware that most people don't agree, don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, and don't care, or.
Speaker 5: They view it as entertainment.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people just watch these podcasters
Speaker 5: and it's just something to do. It's better than what's
Speaker 5: on TV, that's for sure, But that doesn't mean they're
Speaker 5: going to believe everything they say or act on what
Speaker 5: they say, and.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean that they even listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1: They may see a video clip that shows up on TikTokers.
Speaker 1: They're scrolling between a million different feeds. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for being on with us today. Man. I have to say,
Speaker 1: you had the opportunity to write an extra chapter to
Speaker 1: that book about twenty two that ended with twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and you did not go back and redcon the rest
Speaker 1: of it so that you could be proven absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: It's a marvelous opportunity you've missed. But it shows that
Speaker 1: you are an ethical man and we admire that also.
Speaker 2: Lazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Well, we'll look to see what your next
Speaker 1: prediction is and then we will go on and bet,
Speaker 1: perhaps in a contrary wise based on that so we
Speaker 1: got to get that average out there. Matt Conanetti, follow him,
Speaker 1: Mariam wherever you got them, And it's been a pleasure
Speaker 1: as ever to talk to you today. Have a great
Speaker 1: rest of July you too, Thanks again back by. So
Speaker 1: we need to tell you about a couple of things
Speaker 1: before we head out here, and one of them is, well, well,
Speaker 1: we got Ricochet meetups. That's right. Ricochet is not just
Speaker 1: a website with a bunch of guys who gam are
Speaker 1: away on podcasts. It is a community and if you
Speaker 1: go there and you sign up for the member feed,
Speaker 1: which is cheap, you get access to all kinds of
Speaker 1: new friends. Frankly, that's what they become quite quickly, and
Speaker 1: then they get together sometimes periodically in person and talk
Speaker 1: about generally anything except politics. The Ricochet meetups I've been,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can talk about that,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more to discover about each other
Speaker 1: and share it and talk. Hey, you're into old coins
Speaker 1: from Rome too, so am I? And if you go
Speaker 1: so we got three coming up here, we think. Matt
Speaker 1: Ballser holding the annual German Fest meet up July twenty
Speaker 1: fifth to twenty seventh, In of course, Milwaukee, Randy Wilva.
Speaker 1: I never pronounced your name right, Randy, And as a
Speaker 1: guy who's been Lilix all of his life instead of
Speaker 1: the correct Lilacs, you have my sympathy anyway, Randy. Long
Speaker 1: standing members assembling a group to meet in Detroit August
Speaker 1: fifteenth through the eighteenth. Huh, I wonder if I'm going
Speaker 1: to be anywhere close and Red Herring, I am so tempted.
Speaker 1: Just posted about a Ricochet at Sea cruise meetup to
Speaker 1: tour the Caribbean in December. If you're a fan of
Speaker 1: the old National Review cruise is you know what that's like.
Speaker 1: It's a great ship. Actually, it's one of the new ships.
Speaker 1: I haven't been on it and just bobbing are on
Speaker 1: the Caribbean for a week, having good meals, enjoying the
Speaker 1: buffet and the shows and the conversations and nights up
Speaker 1: in the Crow's Nest. I miss it, I really do.
Speaker 1: And I am tolutely tempted anyway. So that's that. So, John,
Speaker 1: what's on your mind that you would like to leave
Speaker 1: us with. I'm curious about your take, since you are
Speaker 1: a Californian, and you since you know the state intimately,
Speaker 1: whether or not. People there are more upset about the
Speaker 1: funding of the train to nowhere, or upset about the
Speaker 1: fact that Ice, cruel mean Ice is apparently keeping pot
Speaker 1: farmers from using illegal migrant children to.
Speaker 3: Grow the weed.
Speaker 1: Where are we as a country, for Heaven's sakes.
Speaker 3: Well, since Steve is the only one who's ever likely
Speaker 3: to see either Sings in person, high speed rail or
Speaker 3: the pot farms right given where he lives down in
Speaker 3: the center of the state. But I can tell you
Speaker 3: up here in San Francisco people are pissed off about
Speaker 3: the pot They don't they We're never going to see
Speaker 3: the high speed rail up here. Although I have to say,
Speaker 3: and I think Steve agrees with this, people san Francisco
Speaker 3: are suddenly turning optimistic because we have a mayor who
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be a left wing radical. Crime is dropping,
Speaker 3: the streets are becoming safer. I think businesses are returning.
Speaker 3: And it's all because we put the guy whose family
Speaker 3: made Levi jeans in charge.
Speaker 4: Now that's where.
Speaker 3: That's you know, that's when I hope we can get
Speaker 3: the guy from Wrangler to come next, because.
Speaker 4: They are turning the city around.
Speaker 2: Right right right, So on the by the way they're saying,
Speaker 2: I'm surprised James that you didn't Maybe you did think
Speaker 2: of the link between high speed rail and getting high
Speaker 2: on pot. I mean they want to run the rail
Speaker 2: through the pot farms. I think one thing. You know,
Speaker 2: I am not far away from those pot farms in Camerio.
Speaker 2: I drive by there when I head down to Pepperdine
Speaker 2: every week during the semester, and I watched the TV
Speaker 2: news coverage and it was all hysteria. You know, they
Speaker 2: kept interviewing the protester around the corner saying this is
Speaker 2: the Gestapo, this is fascism, all the rest of that. Well,
Speaker 2: I know a few people in the egg business down
Speaker 2: in that area, and they all hate the pot farms
Speaker 2: because they're some smelly and intrusive, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them got their permits during COVID. I have a sneaking
Speaker 2: suspicion that the media will never investigate that a lot
Speaker 2: of those other people in the egg business are the
Speaker 2: ones who dropped the dime on them to ice. I'll
Speaker 2: bet some of those people called up Eisen said, you
Speaker 2: know who's got a whole lot of illegal farm labors
Speaker 2: and children working or this this this farm Otherwise, how
Speaker 2: did Ice know to go, you know, ninety miles north
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles to conduct those raids. I am convinced
Speaker 2: that is what happened, and you heard it here.
Speaker 1: First listeners entirely possible, or drone surveillance using some sort
Speaker 1: of height calibration devices. I mean, who knows, who have
Speaker 1: absolutely no idea, But yeah, I mean I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't like the pond farms either, But dead generally
Speaker 1: has to do with my dislike of the stuff today
Speaker 1: because it is absolutely everywhere. The guy who stole my
Speaker 1: car was reeking of the stuff, and when I got
Speaker 1: in my car it actually went. After it was recovered,
Speaker 1: it still had that faint skin. No, No, I had
Speaker 1: a driver on for a day with the windows open
Speaker 1: and the AC blasting full, just to get it out.
Speaker 1: I mean, just the guy had spent maybe thirty five
Speaker 1: minutes in my car, and it was permeated with weed smoke,
Speaker 1: and downtown when I work downtown, which I don't anymore,
Speaker 1: you would just smell it wafting off people as they
Speaker 1: and it's just I don't remember it from my youth
Speaker 1: smelling that bad. As a matter of fact, I remember
Speaker 1: having an almost attractive aroma to it. But there's something
Speaker 1: about modern pop culture and modern pot strength and the
Speaker 1: rest of it that I don't think it's a good idea.
Speaker 1: I really don't. I don't think that you can't.
Speaker 3: Afford the good stuff back then. James. That's what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Minnesota, ditchweed is what we're talking talking about. You.
Speaker 1: That stuff that they brought up from from the south
Speaker 1: of the state in black plastic garbage banks, bushels.
Speaker 2: It like tumb me anyway now, James, Yeah, So since
Speaker 2: you you brought it up briefly, how was your first
Speaker 2: two questions? How was your first week of retirement? You
Speaker 2: may have talked about the diner, which I have not
Speaker 2: caught up with, but how was your first week of retirement?
Speaker 2: And secondly, after my dad retired and started working from home,
Speaker 2: my mother said they should have changed the wedding vows
Speaker 2: to for better or for worse, but not for lunch.
Speaker 2: My dad drove my mother nuts. So how is missus
Speaker 2: Lilacs adjusting to your new retirement regime?
Speaker 1: Fine? Because I get into the house the first week.
Speaker 1: The first week was great. First week seemed to be
Speaker 1: primarily paperwork because getting your pension on your social security
Speaker 1: and all these things requires phones and forums and the
Speaker 1: rest of it, because, as I said in the podcast before,
Speaker 1: everything that came to you as part of your employment
Speaker 1: was just this gravy that naturally flowed from their bucket
Speaker 1: to yours, the paycheck, the health insurance, all the rest
Speaker 1: of it. And once that's gone, you have to get
Speaker 1: it yourself and clawed in and fix all these things
Speaker 1: and dot the eyes. I ended up calling Social Security
Speaker 1: on Monday morning, being the first in the queue, and
Speaker 1: it was expecting two hours of gruesome wait time and
Speaker 1: then some an indifferent bureaucrat who didn't care about my story,
Speaker 1: the whole Brazil movie thing, And what I got was
Speaker 1: a kind, pleasant, easy to understand, a helpful woman who
Speaker 1: really wanted me to get my money and really wanted
Speaker 1: to help. And it was the first experience I'd had
Speaker 1: with the system, and I was I was impressed with its.
Speaker 4: Professionals, except your creation. After you, what is this social security?
Speaker 1: You speak of nothing, John, You don't have to think
Speaker 1: about it, you don't have to worry about it. Boom
Speaker 1: us boomers will just sop it up and then pull
Speaker 1: the gate, pulled the bridge, you know, the Drawbridge up
Speaker 1: with us. So there was that and that was nice.
Speaker 1: But it's been finding a new gym. It's been doing
Speaker 1: stuff around the house that I've been putting off. It's
Speaker 1: been realizing that I don't have to sort of subject. Well,
Speaker 1: the funny party is really is that the last thing
Speaker 1: I did before I left the paper was to file
Speaker 1: a piece that was the antithesis of the thing that
Speaker 1: they'd wanted me to write. When they took away my column,
Speaker 1: the idiots in charge of that said, now we want
Speaker 1: you to write, but we don't want you to write opinions,
Speaker 1: and we don't want you to write humor. So the
Speaker 1: last thing I did there was to hit send on
Speaker 1: a piece to the op ed section. And the op
Speaker 1: ed section, of course, can do whatever it likes. And
Speaker 1: I sent them a humorous piece with opinion about being carjacked,
Speaker 1: and they not only published it, they put my name
Speaker 1: in the headline as if to say, hey, everybody, that
Speaker 1: writer you liked, he's right here. And it did baffo business.
Speaker 1: So that's that, and that was the end of the paper.
Speaker 1: But I've been writing tons. I've got my substack to do,
Speaker 1: I've got a new video series. I'm ramping up. I've
Speaker 1: got the bleat, I've got a book that I'm putting together.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's been wonderful and I've been relieved of
Speaker 1: the opportunity to go downtown and to be frank. I
Speaker 1: don't miss it a bit.
Speaker 2: So Yl's unleashed, Lileox unleashed, I'll call it. And by
Speaker 2: the way, James, you you know, I should have known
Speaker 2: that you would make a fleeting reference to the greatest
Speaker 2: anti bureaucratic movie ever made, that being Brazil from nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six. So I have to tease you. Did you
Speaker 2: see the director's cut or the theatrical release?
Speaker 1: I've seen both.
Speaker 4: God, I'm gonna shoot myself.
Speaker 2: I don't see. That's why I brought it up.
Speaker 3: I thought I kind of escaped the three whiskey hap
Speaker 3: how and all these crazy references by coming to this podcast.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, Michael Baylon is a friend of mine
Speaker 1: and so I think he did really well. No, but yes,
Speaker 1: but no, we we had dinner together in London a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago. Wow, we have mutual friends.
Speaker 2: So did you say John stepped on your line? You
Speaker 2: say he liked the theatrical or the kid?
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. We never got around to it. I never
Speaker 1: asked him about his work. I asked him about this
Speaker 1: stuff you talk about, this stuff that other people don't
Speaker 1: ask about. And when we did a show, my friend
Speaker 1: and I who knows him, did a show in London
Speaker 1: last he came to the show and it was a
Speaker 1: highlight of my life to look out at the audience
Speaker 1: and see Michael freakin Peylins sitting there smiling at our
Speaker 1: at our bits and our routines, and he remembered me.
Speaker 1: After we I got to introduce him to my wife
Speaker 1: and daughter. My daughter was absolutely thrilled. He's about the
Speaker 1: nicest man on the planet. He really is just a
Speaker 1: decent guy. I gave him a bag of swag from Minnesota,
Speaker 1: including spam. I mean, you can't not make a spaw
Speaker 1: way for a time, so I gave him. I gave
Speaker 1: him spam from the source, from the absolute source, and
Speaker 1: a copy of my book that with which he could
Speaker 1: do as he pleased.
Speaker 4: Another kind of spam.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, Brazil Is Brazil is a great movie.
Speaker 1: I think DeNiro is miscast in it somewhat. But and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Price apparently, you know, he had his difficulties the woman,
Speaker 1: Kim Kim. What was her name, Alistair Kim. She was
Speaker 1: apparently a pain for everybody, but she was a great
Speaker 1: eighties heart throb with that short hair and that sort
Speaker 1: of go to spirit. Great movie depressing ending. I love
Speaker 1: Terry Gilliam. He's another Minnesotan and a brilliant man. But
Speaker 1: that's probably his highlight, I guess. And it's been a
Speaker 1: while since I've seen it. I'll have to go back
Speaker 1: and give it another look.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that'll be it.
Speaker 1: Unless you, guys want to talk about a movie or
Speaker 1: television show that you think the viewership should listen to.
Speaker 1: So you've got about a minute, John, what are you watching?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I just watched the third seed final season of Squid
Speaker 3: Game and I'm about to start the course. I'm just
Speaker 3: about to start a Foundation on Apple TV. I've been
Speaker 3: I love this series. I mean I love the books
Speaker 3: when they came out. I mean I wasn't around when
Speaker 3: they came out, but I read them.
Speaker 1: John, have you heard have you heard anything about that
Speaker 1: Foundation television show?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It's bad.
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean it's so different from the books, but
Speaker 4: I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the books. And then I watched the
Speaker 1: first couple of episodes, and I said, I hate everybody involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a different story, but I'm kind
Speaker 3: of curious how they changed it or updated it. You know,
Speaker 3: it's I think, isn't it directed by the guy who
Speaker 3: has done a lot of superhero movies and so on.
Speaker 3: It's it's certainly got that take on it. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then I'm about to start watching Star Trek, you know,
Speaker 3: the Star Trek series on Parallel Plus. I think that's
Speaker 3: starting in a week or so.
Speaker 1: Be very careful for If it's Discovery, don't watch it.
Speaker 1: If it's strange New Worlds, You're absolutely going to love it.
Speaker 4: But why would you make a New Worlds?
Speaker 1: But I don't get it. We're going to make a
Speaker 1: movie about the Foundation books that everybody loves, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to be that story. It's like we're going
Speaker 1: to make Lord of the Rings, but it's actually going
Speaker 1: to be about a couple of women traveling around Southwest
Speaker 1: America in a car. I don't make It's not that hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, the first book is episodic from what
Speaker 1: I understand, because asthmov cobbled together various stories, yeah, stories,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know that's what Raymond Chandler did
Speaker 1: with his novels. But that's fine, go episodic. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Just give me those stories please. But yeah, I understand,
Speaker 1: I understand. So I didn't watch. The second was the
Speaker 1: season of Squid Games because I just figured that it
Speaker 1: sort of left the story where it was and it
Speaker 1: was such an appallingly violent show in the first place
Speaker 1: that I really did not want to go back to
Speaker 1: that world ever again period. But then again, I watched Mobland,
Speaker 1: So what do I know, Steven? You Yeah, I've I
Speaker 1: have to stop saying Johnny's on the podcast.
Speaker 2: That will confuse him.
Speaker 4: Right, I finally got my last name, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The only thing I've watched lately because I've been
Speaker 2: too busy to watch anything, is the Netflix documentary about
Speaker 2: the Ocean Gate Titan submersible. And the amazing thing there
Speaker 2: is it's almost an hour and forty minutes long. The
Speaker 2: amazing thing is that a Stockton Rush guy was such
Speaker 2: a megalomaniac that apparently had either a film crew or
Speaker 2: people's cameras constantly, so you have footage of the whole saga,
Speaker 2: which now looks very bad, of course, right, And then
Speaker 2: I interviewed the engineers, he fired, and so forth, so
Speaker 2: that I found the interesting. You know, you knew what
Speaker 2: the ending was going to be, but it was still
Speaker 2: fascinating watching. Otherwise have been too busy to take in
Speaker 2: anything except for John when he appears on Outnumbered on Fox,
Speaker 2: where this week he outdid himself by engaging in fat shaming.
Speaker 2: So I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that fat shaming was a thing.
Speaker 3: I thought you to make fun of the fat kidding class, Like,
Speaker 3: what under that rule change? I still do it when.
Speaker 1: I teach I was the fat kidding class. What did
Speaker 1: you do? What did you say?
Speaker 3: Oh? So the you know this Outnumbered show, you know
Speaker 3: you're the guy in the middle. There's four Fox four
Speaker 3: women have Fox hosts on the couch with you, and
Speaker 3: half the show's about current events. But then the second
Speaker 3: half of the show where I really unprepared his popular
Speaker 3: culture and lifestyle. So they said, the use of ozepic
Speaker 3: has gone up amongst children because there's a juvenile you know,
Speaker 3: outbreak of juvenile obesity. So they said, what do you think?
Speaker 3: And I said, I know a secret, you know, recipe
Speaker 3: for weight loss.
Speaker 4: It's called sports.
Speaker 3: And I say, just get the fat kid out there,
Speaker 3: make him play sports every day.
Speaker 4: That's what I had to do growing up.
Speaker 3: I went to school, I had to play sports every
Speaker 3: single day. I hated it because as a good Asian kid,
Speaker 3: I just wanted to go back for preparing for the exams,
Speaker 3: but they wouldn't let me. So I learned these sports
Speaker 3: and I'm glad I did. I was forced to, and
Speaker 3: I still play some of those sports today.
Speaker 4: But then we don't need.
Speaker 3: Know of zempic. Just get the kid, kick the kid
Speaker 3: in the butt and make him go play sports.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly so.
Speaker 3: Steve immediately says, I'm shaming fat kids right because he's
Speaker 3: so sensitive to the plight of the week and underserved community.
Speaker 1: Let me make this then a promo John Woo's promo
Speaker 1: for The Diner, which discusses the trials and tribulations and
Speaker 1: humiliations of being the fat kid in junior high in
Speaker 1: gym class which I was more grade school, but the
Speaker 1: last guy to be struck in battleball, the last guy
Speaker 1: to stagger across the finished line of this.
Speaker 3: It worked, James, because now you're in great shape because
Speaker 3: of humiliation.
Speaker 1: That's precise. That's exactly why. Because I was shamed, and
Speaker 1: I was ashamed of myself, and I was determined not
Speaker 1: to be that kid, thinking someday it'll be the fiftieth
Speaker 1: high school reunion and I'll come back and I'll walk
Speaker 1: in fit and all of the old jocks will be
Speaker 1: dead or have a big you know, or be out
Speaker 1: of shape.
Speaker 3: So yeah, tell me it wasn't that satisfying? Did that
Speaker 3: make you warm and fuzzy inside?
Speaker 1: I haven't hit it yet, but yet, fiftieth anniversary. I
Speaker 1: think that's next year. Oh good old. Anyway, with that
Speaker 1: cheerful note, we would like to thank bank on yourself.
Speaker 1: Go there and find out exactly what they're talking about
Speaker 1: for these investments and these opportunities for you support us
Speaker 1: also by becoming a best part of the best place
Speaker 1: for civil and center right conversation. That would be Ricochet.
Speaker 1: And am I going to ask you to do a
Speaker 1: five star review on Apple Podcasts? Or am I not?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's Shortinger's into the show thing this week,
Speaker 1: so just leave it at that. Thank you, John, It's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure, Stephen. Always good to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Next week, John, I hope you're back. You know, it's
Speaker 1: because it's.
Speaker 4: I'm always available.
Speaker 3: You know. I've been waiting and waiting to get a
Speaker 3: call back from the Bush leagues to play in the
Speaker 3: MLB within the show the show. I finally made the
Speaker 3: show again and.
Speaker 1: We're happy to have you here. So we'll see everybody
Speaker 1: next week, and we'll see you possibly tonight in the
Speaker 1: comments on Ricochet four point zero. Bye bye,