Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of Your Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist and
David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, if you'd like to write the show, please
do so here at radio at the Federalist dot com.
We love to hear from you. Molly. How are you
holding up? How you holding up with this shutdown? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, we're in We're in the middle of a shutdown.
I like situations where it's win win or what you're
working on, And I was thinking about how for Trump
in particular, but Republicans in general, this is a total
win win situation. Either they were not going to have
the government shut down by Democrats, or if they did,
they had a whole plan of fun things to do
once the government shuts down. Things you can permanently end
in government only by means of shutdown. So russ Vote,
the head of the Office of Management and Budget. I
think he was viewing this as well, wouldn't be the
worst thing if you shut us down, because then we
can do other things. What are you thinking about it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: I always like a shutdown. It's just it's just kabuki
theater usually right, federal workers, non essential federal workers. Is
government the only place where there are hundreds of thousands
of non essential workers. I think, so they take some
time off, they come back to back pay, and you know,
we all go back to what we were doing. I
think this one could be better for Republicans. So I
was surprised to see this, I wrote, I wrote a
column on and I found this out that there have
been twenty one government shut down since the passage of
the Congressional Budget Act in nineteen seven. And since you know,
some of them are very you know, some of them
are longer, some are very short. But never once until now,
has there been a shutdown where the opposition party wasn't
controlling at least one House of Congress or the White House.
When Republicans, let's be honest, instigated shutdowns, and I thought
for some of them were for fine reasons, others were not.
They were they controlled either the Senate or the House
or both. So Democrats have incredibly little leverage here. And
you remember, through the Obama years, it was always about
the obstructionism, and there were just one story off the
next about how government was breaking, and all of that,
but I think obstructionism is a legitimate tool of government
if you're in the minority, if you want to do it.
I just don't see what the upside here is for Democrats.
They're not going to win. There's just no way. I mean,
I hope that Republicans would give in, and their demand
is that Republicans preemptively extend Obamacare subsidies that are sun
setting that were sold at the time they were passed
in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two as temporary
programs to help people get through the pandemic at the time.
So I think it's just a blame game thing. Who
are the voters going to blame? And usually they blame Republicans.
But I don't know. I don't know, So what are
your feelings are?
Speaker 2: Well, I do think Democrats are in a bit of
a pickle. They so, as we all know, when there's
one party that controls the government, the out party does
very well in midterm elections, and so Democrats are expected,
if history is any guide, they should do incredibly well
in the midterms. The fact that it's not a foregone
conclusion that they will do well is a little bit weird.
It's partly related to support for Republican policies, and I
think actually also a lot of dislike of Democrats in Congress.
There was a poll recently showing that Democrat voters had
rated their members of Congress extremely low relative to history,
while Republicans, for reasons that I have no idea why,
are rating their members of Congress fairly high. What that
means is that you're going to be battling a lot
of primary challenges, you know, from little guys all the
way up to Chuck Schumer who might be facing a
primary challenge from AOC, and so the theater is partly
to stem that effort to oust all of the incumbents,
and so they have to just look like they're doing
something and this is what they've decided they want to do.
But as you know, leverage isn't great. The issue on
which Republicans keep pointing out is we don't want to
actually be paying for the healthcare of criminal illegal aliens.
It's not going to poll beautifully in a way that
these things tend to pull better in the past. And
then the other thing is the whole point of a
shutdown is that you can do all sorts of silliness.
I had a student whose mom, when they would pull
up to a store that was closed, she would say,
this is shut down and tighter than the Washington Monument.
During a government shut down, you know, they would shut
down the Washington Monument, they would shut down Yellowstone Park,
they would stop picking up trash, and then the media
would run these stories about the government shutdown means kids
can't go to the Washington Monument, the trash isn't being
picked up. But Republicans control the government right now, so
they're not going to play those games with it. They're doing,
like I mentioned, these other things where they're saying, well,
if you shut down the government, we would be happy
to revisit all sorts of authorities that are only in
play during funding periods, and so it just doesn't I
don't know how. I don't know if it'll go as
well for Democrats as they have in the past.
Speaker 1: I have three things to say about what you just said.
One is the reason they have to shut down the
parks and things like that is because most Americans wouldn't
even know this was going on at all, which tells
you a little bit about our government and how much
we need it to be this size. I think if
the media didn't get into hysterics over these shutdowns, most
people wouldn't even notice. I'm not saying it doesn't affect anyone.
There are real human beings, you know, who work there
whose jobs might be in danger, and that's not an
easy thing. But the government is too big. The second
thing is there is a danger for Democrats here I
think that Republicans dealt with, and that is you remember
they were shutdown. I think I forget which one it was,
or the almost shutdown where Republicans demanded that the Democrats
like overturn Obamacare or whatever. What I'm saying is like,
you're over promising. You have to show your base that
you're fighting, but you're over promising them and under delivering.
And if you keep doing that all the time, the
base is going to turn against the party at some point.
And that's what I think happened to the pre Trump GOP.
Quite often, they were always promising they were going to
overturn Obamacare and all this stuff, and maybe most of
them wanted to do it, but it was not going
to be possible. And the same thing now I think
Democrats are doing trying to appease the AOC branch of
their party. But as a specific event, I don't believe
these shutdowns have any real effect on the upcoming midterms.
In twenty thirteen, there was a very big one, you know,
and contentious one. I went back, I looked at all
the stories at the time. The Washington Post had this
big story that said this had done major damage to
the GOP in their future. In twenty fourteen, the GOP
when the Senate expanded their House majority by the year
after that, Donald Trump won the presidency. I just I
went back to all of them. I don't think. I
just don't think. I think Americans know this is largely
theater motors. I don't think it's very important to them.
I don't think anyone's changing their part affiliation because of this,
you know, it's just it's something for us to do
and talk about. But I just I think what most
Americans just go about their day now. If the Trump
administration actually uses this to trim government a bit, you know,
and some of the truly non essential people in government,
I think that would be great, all the better, But
it might just be a bluff. I don't know, especially
over Obamacare that's something we should talk about as well.
This is about the GOP bailing out Obamacare again. Like
we pay taxpayers pay ninety percent on the member You
remember in the marketplaces that were supposed to be these
little engine these exchanges that were supposed to be engines
of capitalism in the states, and all these the state
competition was going to bring down prices. You know, they
were just fabricated marketplaces. It was ridiculous to begin with.
The taxpayers are on the hook for like ninety percent
of those premiums, so essentially it's just a welfare program.
And if this program sunsets, taxpayers will be on the
hook for eighty percent of the premiums. I mean, we're
still paying eighty percent of premiums in markets that often
just have one company offering insurance, so there's no competition.
I just don't see why after twenty years near not
twenty years, but fifteen years of failure with Obamacare, we
have to bail them out again. I hope. I think
if for like lasting on this for me, if Republicans
are in this fight and they're losing public opinion, I
don't think it will matter in the long term. If
they bend and give in on anything doing with Obamacare.
I think that's going to hurt them a lot more politically,
especially with their base than writing this out. There are
already two defections from Democratic senators, I believe last night.
So this thing I think will be over in about
a few days or a week. So anyway, I do
like them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a libertarian holiday for you there are.
There is this other thing, though, which is how frustrating
it is for a lot of normal Americans to see
all these problems created over the course of decades of legislation,
you know, just waste and fraud and abuse and poorly
designed programs that exist mostly to keep certain people voting
certain ways, and then the voters give Republicans complete and
utter power the presidency, the Senate, the House, and the
most they could get you is maybe to win a
shut down battle, like where's the actual where are the
actual wins? And if there are wins coming out of this,
it's going to be from omb not from Congress. So
I do think. I know you mock this idea that
Congress is broken or how people used to say that
during the open era, And I think the reason why
you mock it is because it was precisely during a
period when Congress wasn't broken that the media we're saying
it was, you know, when they were standing up to
some of the excesses of the Obama administration. But one
does get the feeling that, you know, we send all
these people to Congress and they really don't do a
good job of there's no incentive for them to actually
solve problems, tons of incentive for them to just go
along with all the corruption, and then we see it
year after year, and that is a little frustrating to me.
Speaker 1: I guess I disagree with you. I don't think that
they I can't think of anything problem Congress has ever solved, honestly,
and you know, if there is a minority and they
want to filibuster these things, that's there right as I
like when government moves slowly. That was my problem with Obamacare,
which I think broke American politics. I really think that
was a pivotal event where one party steamrolled the other
steam world half the country passed a massive reform that
people really didn't want at the time, and abuse their
abuse the government Obama Obama Care pass. Then Obama, you know,
decided to institute some of the law. Other parts of
the law he didn't like anymore. He didn't because it
was all just such a poorly written, poorly functioning law.
And I think that's when people felt like you, that
Republicans felt like, no matter what happens, they're always losing,
no matter how many elections they win. The problem is
that the parties are so far apart they can't compromise
on stuff really because there's no compromise to be had.
So this is the this is the organic result of
people being very far apart and not having the federal
government do things. I know it's frustrating when they're not
doing things that we like, but I think this is
better than having the executive or Congress steamrolling the other
side all the time. But I don't know. I mean,
we'll see what goes. Oh, I would say, somebody.
Speaker 2: You were talking about how during the period when Obama
Care was being passed or updated, there would be all
these claims made by people about how it was going
to work out, and then when it doesn't work out
that way, you're the only person basically out there kind
of pointing it out. But I'm also sick to death
of this happening. With our media. I was talking with
Catherine Herridge, who's I'm here at Hillsdale College right now,
and she's out here as a visiting fellow polan fellow,
and she was talking about national security reporting and all
these different examples where someone with qualified national security reporting
experience would know to call shenanigans on claims that were
being made by different people. I mean, whether it's like,
do you remember the Hillary Clinton server scandal, and then
she had her people come out and say, oh, they
weren't more aked classified or they weren't classified until later,
and then all these reporters would just kind of eat
it up and say, oh, it's a big deal because
they didn't know anything about classification systems, or you know,
with the cope with James Comey, there would be him saying, oh,
he if he leaked, he didn't leak classified information, but
like no knowledge about how that classification worked. And with
the Hunter Biden laptop, like people just coming up with
excuses for why that censorship was okay and didn't relate
to corruption. Just like time and time again, you see
the media operating one hundred percent as Democrat operatives or
operatives of some kind rather than journalists who are trying
to understand the intricacies of a situation and reporting it accurately.
And the Obamacare thing, to me is a great example
of that. They didn't care if it were true about
these promises made by Democrats surrounding Obamacare. They did not
care if they said it was going to to cost
this much. They would just regurgitate that. They wouldn't critically
analyze it. If someone said, well, that's not true, this
is not going to work that way, they would call
that personal liar. They would point back to the Democrat
talking points. And I know probably almost everyone who's listening
to this show really understands that propaganda role that the
press play. But it is really frustrating when you say,
like fifteen years later, you come back and you look
at what these promises were, what these claims were, how
they weren't true. It's kind of cold comfort to be like, well,
see I was right, they weren't true, because it's like
fifteen years of water under the bridge. Yeah, at the time,
it was a good mixed metaphor.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was still it's hard to imagine
this now, but at the time there was still some
trust in the media I think we thought of it
as a biased media, but we didn't think of it
as a complete propaganda media, which it was, and Obamacare
was when we first realized that they would just chills, right.
And frankly, it is often young people who they now
just throw into these major roles and they have no
real understanding of the topic. They haven't spent the time.
I see this, I know it doesn't matter anymore because
like everyone's a columnist now everyone is, you know, it's
completely democratized and people are pundits. And I think that's fine.
There are a lot of great voices, but there are
also voices who clearly have not spent the time to
understand the topic they're writing about, and just you know,
feed people things they want to hear. And with Obamacare,
I mean, they throw around these terms like bending the
cost curve and everyone would like, oh, yeah, that's what
we need to do, and then yeah, they bent the
cost curve. The premium since twenty ten are up eighty
percent for a family of four, right, But they yeah,
they just they didn't understand the topic, just like they
didn't understand foreign policy, classified information, all this stuff, and
they were used by the Obama administration to sell everyone
this ridiculous bill that has failed on every level, from
the exchanges to the pricing. Like everyone remembers, Obama said
you can keep your insurance if you like it, and
then that was a big lie and like seven million
people lost their insurance before he was out of office.
But he also promised that premiums were going to go
down two five hundred dollars. He said this hundreds of times,
and it went in the opposite direction. You'll remember he
just ignored like employee mandates. Remember the whole individual mandate,
which is a Supreme Court to save Obamacare, pretended was
a tax. Now it's just a conceptual thing. We don't
even bring in any There's zero revenue being brought in
by the individual mandate or the employee mandate, all these
things that were Remember like if you said it was
going to cost more than a trillion dollars, a swarm
of fact checkers would the send to tell you that
you were lying. But yet it's cost us way more.
In fact, right now I believe Democrats won another one
point five That was a ten year estimate, but right
now Democrats want one point five billion in subsidies. I
think and remember they gave us that ten year estimate.
It was ten years of taxation and eight years of
actual obotmacure services. Like they even lied about the cost
right at the very beginning. And these were the same
people who lied about like later about foreign policy in
the Iran deal for Obama, and later lied about classified information.
And they're all probably doing very well in the media
right now. Yep.
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Speaker 1: I really I rarely read pieces in the Newer Times
or Washington Posts where you know, honestly, sometimes I have
to go because they do cover more of their big organizations,
and I feel like, wow, this reporter really knows their stuff,
and this is just not a repeat of a press
release somewhere. And that's why have you noticed? Like when
we were young, there used to be a reporter. He
was an expert on his beat and he wrote a story.
Now they're like ten bylines on every story, three four
by lines. I just think that they don't really have
expertise and they need each other to kind of I
don't know, they like fill these stories with journal with
jargon and bias and then you know this serious language.
But these stories could be like two paragraphs usually, or
I could just go and look at a press release
and know what's going on. Same thing goes on with
these Israel Gaza thing right now. I just there's so
many of the people covering it do not understand the
history of this or don't care. And I don't understand
everything either, and so I'm trying to find information, like
on the Komby indictment. If we're ready to move on,
James Comy was indicted for lying to Congress in twenty twenty.
I thought, and this was going to be a be
about Russia Gate incident and his actions there, which I
think we're slimy and dishonest that the least. But it's
about it seems, or most people believe it, or no,
we know it goes back to the Hillary Clinton investigation,
you know, for the illegal server she had, and his
leaks through other through intermediaries. I believe it's a little
bit related.
Speaker 2: You are correct that the story that he's indicted for
lying about authorizing leaks over was a story about Hillary
Clinton's server, But the actual classified information that's in there
is from the Russia collusion HUX, so it's it's interrelated.
So you might remember there were things that were undeclassified
in August that related to something that we'd already known
a little bit about. We already knew that Obama's Director
of National Intelligence, Clapper, had gone to the White House
in July of twenty sixteen, and one of the things
he'd told President Obama at the time was that Russia
knew about Hillary's plan to tie Trump to Russia. This
is really interesting date for this to be happening, July
twenty sixteen, because most of America didn't realize there was
like a whole plot to falsely accuse Trump of colluding
with Russia to steal the twenty sies sixteen election until
many months later, But in late July twenty sixteen, Clapper
goes to the White House tells Obama that a well,
and then we learned through these declassified documents from last
month or two months ago that what happened. What happened
was there was a third country for some reason. I
like to think it's the Dutch, but I don't remember
where that came from and why. I think that who
had gained access to Russian internal chats about America and
shared it with us. Now, the first thing that's interesting
to me about this is that the day after this
third country tells us that they have found out information
from Russia, Clapper calls a Russian counterpart, and according to him,
he says, and I told them to knock it off,
which is like a weird thing to say. Anyway, that
day they closed this lipole that was allowing the Dutch
or whomever to read their internal communications. So it almost
seems like he called them to let them know that,
to them, to let them know that they had this loophole. Anyway,
in that tranch of documents that the third party country reviews.
They're all sorts of interesting things. He might remember. The
media ran interference when this came out because some of
the documents were probably originally in English, translated to Russian,
translated to Dutch or whatever, and then translated back to English,
and so they didn't match perfectly, and they said that
was proof that they were fraudulent documents. In all reality,
it was not just the translation issues. It was also
probably that they were summaries. You know, at some point
they became summaries, and so then these things inflicted with
the original documents that had been stolen by Russia. And
some of the things that they said were directly related
to the Russia collusion hoax. As I just mentioned, like
this is actually a major part of the Russia collusion hoax.
Is this third country telling us that the Russians have
this information. But also they said that they the Russians
knew that or it believed that Attorney General Breda Lynch
was compromised. And it's that information that gets put in
the New York Times story that James Komy later lies
about that's classified and he does it also related to
the Russia colusion hoax. The whole point of the story
is for him to get Democrats, I think back on
his side. So if you remember what happened in twenty sixteen, again,
James Komy is trying to protect Hillary Clinton, but does
it in the slimiest, meanest possible way. He goes out
accuses her and convicts her in a court of a
press conference instead of a court of law, but then
says that no reasonable prosecutor would go after her, and
so he's not gonna he's not gonna recommend that she
be charged with anything. Well, then do you remember Anthony
Wiener's I'm sorry this is taking so long with such a.
Speaker 1: No no I was I was gonna mention this as well.
I think that's exactly right. Yeah, Anthony Wiener was married
to Huma Abadeen ory Clinton server.
Speaker 2: You know, according James call me. Instead of every country
in the world swimming around in there, no countries did,
and there's no need to press charges. But then later
they find out that this server was so not locked
down that Huma Abbiden's husband at the time, Anthony Wiener,
who's being investigated, I think for childborn, but I can't
remember exactly.
Speaker 1: He was conversing with a sixteen or fifteen year old.
But that was I believe, but that was it was
a cop. But yeah, he was doing that.
Speaker 2: So he's being investigated for that. And while they've got
his computer, they're like, wait, why is Hillary Clinton's entire
server on this computer too, which reminds me that one
of the people who had hacked into it, or had
one of the people who had hacked somewhere had said
that it was like being the last person in the
swimming pool. It was just like so polluted, so many
people had been in there in the server that nobody
got into it.
Speaker 1: I believe she had sent him, the wife had sent
him classified documents through email. She wanted to print it up,
and I believe that was there a bunch of them.
I think it's been a while, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I have the printer at my house, so I'm
the person who gets emailed documents from ready, but instead
of classified documents, it's like the study guide for ap
history or whatever.
Speaker 1: I can't even I have a printer and I can't
get it to work. I never can. I don't understand.
I know this is cliche, but I don't know why
they can't do better with the printers.
Speaker 2: So James Comey had said when he was trying to
help Hillary Clinton in July twenty sixteen or try to
do a slimy thing, that if any new information came
to light, they would reopen the investigation. But as such
it was closed, well almost immediately thereafter. They're in Anthony
Wiener's laptop. There's tons of stuff the investigation should have
been reopened. The Southern District, New York guys working on
her like, well, obviously we need to reopen this. And
this is big, and they're they're getting weird contact from
FBI headquarters and there are also is like weird stuff
happening where they're not taking this seriously and it starts
to become a major issue. And so then James Comy
does the meanest thing ever for Hillary Clinton, which is
he is forced into reopening the investigation into her emails
days before the election. And that was a close election.
So I think there's an argument to be made that
James Comy, through his corruption, ineptitude, everything was way too
involved in that election, not even on the Hillary Clinton's side,
to say nothing of his Russia coclusion hooks. There's an
argument to be made. Literally, no one disagrees with that argument,
and so he real and then that hurts her in
the closing days of the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say, I mean, everyone blames Komy,
and I think he will go over a little bit
more of that. But I think he acted terribly, like
you say, and you shouldn't have been, But she brought
it on herself. She lost that election because she actually
should have. She did break the law, and that letter
that Comy sent simply reminded people of what she had
actually done, you know what I mean. So, yeah, call
me acted poorly, but I think that Hillary just arrogantly
and recklessly did whatever she wanted and it finally caught
up to her.
Speaker 2: Now, No, I agree. I've actually always said that I
can understand trying to not get involved in an important
election such as a presidential election through investigation, and I
could I would be able to totally feel for the
FBI and James Comy about the Hillary Clinton situation if
at the same exact time they weren't create aiding an
imaginary collusion thing to destroy Donald Trump, like if they
were just trying to be like, we don't want we
don't want to get involved in this right now. It's yeah,
she probably broke the law, but we're not going to
get into it if they hadn't also, at the same
time been trying to claim that Donald Trump was a
Russian asset.
Speaker 1: Hillary was above the law and Trump was below the law,
going all the way into the law. Fair that happened,
you know later.
Speaker 2: Okay, So then he comy starts doing his really doing
his Russia game, playing publicly, telling people different things at
different places, lying to Trump, lying to Congress, lying to everybody,
and so Democrats kind of want to support him, but
they're still angry about what he did to Hillary. That
April twenty seventeen story, I think is his attempt to
get Democrats back on his side by pointing out, by
bringing back to light what the Russians knew about Loretta Lynch,
that she she was compromised, and so that's the classified
information he's in trouble for lying about. But I think
when people say it's not about the russiacclusion hoax, that's
not quite right. In multiple ways. It's sort of all
about the hoax.
Speaker 1: I always thought, or I think now that or I
believe now that Clapper and Brennan were kind of ideologues
in a way, but I never really I don't believe
that Komi was Initially. I think it was more about
self preservation and he was kind of thrown into this
position where he gave Hillary a pass while pointing out
that she had broken the law numerous occasions. He had
given all her staffers who had clean literally smashed phones
a pass so that you couldn't get in trouble, and
he thought it was over. But when this thing happened
and with Wiener, he didn't like think about what Democrats
were asking him to do and mad about they wanted
him to bury evidence until after the election to help
their preferred candidate win. Like, isn't that a precursor to
what came later where they were just like, your job
is to defend democracy against Donald Trump, no matter what.
Comy wrote a letter to Congress. Comy went in front
of Congress, he said, and promised them that if new
information emerged that he would tell them about it. They
wanted him not to do that and break the law essentially.
So I think the Hillary part of this, meaning the
investigation into her server, really was a precursor to a
lot of the craziness that went on in the way
that law enforcement agencies had been politicized. It was just
like a little taste of how crazy it was. Everyone
said that Comby had heard Hillary when I think he
did everything he could to save her because he was
always just a person who cared about as himself. I
think later on he pretended to be this fighter, you know,
for democracy. You'll remember, I wish I had the quote
in front of me when when Donald Trump had, you know,
when they raided his home and looking for classified information
and all that, he had said, you know, no one's
above the law and all that, but people were above
the law under his watch. So I you know, but
here's the thing. Is he going to be found guilty here?
From what I've read, it seems like that's pretty unlikely.
Speaker 2: David, I genuinely don't know what to say about this.
I mean, first off, I would caution everybody that it's
possible they indicted him for something. You know that, I mean,
the grand jury indicted him. It's very easy to get
a grand jury indictment, although very difficult to get a
gran jury indictment against a Democrat in the DC or
Northern Virginia suburbs. So there is like even that it
made it to that point is a little bit like surprising,
and it's probably related to just what a blatant and
brazen and continuous liar. James Comey has been including about this.
And Chuck Grassley, who does more at age ninety than
most people do at age twenty, was out there pointing
out that when Komy was lying to Congress about this,
he was running an oversight investigation into the FBI like
this was one of the things that made it so
difficult to hold people accountable in real time for what
Komy and his other people had done is that he
was lying about it just openly, and also to get
back to it, that the media were helping him along
with his lies. But you can do a superseding indictment
as you find out more, and they might be able
to do it. But one of the main issues is
the obstruction was so effective that the statues, the statutes
of limitations are all like past for almost all of
these guys, So you really have to lean into the
obstruction angle. And then even on that front, all they
had to do was obstruct for another five years or
you know, past the five year statute and then you're done.
So it's frustrating.
Speaker 1: You remember there, and they had to get an indictment
I believe in under the wire here anyway, and that
might have been the reason. I mean that probably is
almost surely the reason they did this now. But you remember,
I think there was an IG report in like twenty
twenty or twenty nineteen that said Comy had acted unprofessionally,
ignored norms of his agency, et cetera, et cetera. So
he's always been Uh, there's.
Speaker 2: A lot of slaps on risks, and there's a way
of seeing a lot of the problems that we're having
right now is directly related to James Comy, the Russia
closuon hoax, and the failure to hold people accountable for
what was done there. That was that was, you know,
an insurrection against a duly elected government, and it was
really run by elites and powerful people, and and it
did a lot to enable people to think they were
justified in not recognizing Donald Trump as the legitimately elected president,
to say that people should not normalize him or Republicans
anyone who voted for him. A lot of the violence
and the anger that is coming to fruition now traces
back to that point and the idea that you wouldn't
hold people accountable. I mean, these people absolutely should be
in prison at the very least, and that they might
skate is not good for the health of the republic.
Speaker 1: Well, I agree, but these people all became like consequentialists
that you know, they gave themselves permission to do whatever
they wanted to save the country from Donald Trump. But
we also have to acknowledge that a lot of these
people in the CIA, FBI where you know, and other
agencies are given tremendous amount of leeway and power, and
it's really difficult to hold them accountable, which is why
we should be putting people there who are who are honest.
Just very difficult to do in DC. But this wasn't
the case and hasn't been the case for a long time.
All Right, The next story we should talk about is
Donald Trump announcing a forgetting Now was it a twenty
point or twenty one point? I think it was initially
twenty one and now it's twenty point piece plan to
end the Gaza Israeli Gaza. I should say to Hamas
Israeli war in Gaza, right now. I guess I should
start by saying I think it's a It is a
good plan. It would be a great plan if you
were dealing with normal people, or Western people, or people
who had the same outlook about the future and their
lives as we doers the Israelis do, as many others do.
I don't think that's the case. There is the number
one thing. The first thing everyone has to do here
is Gaza will be you radicalized, a terror frey zone
that does not pose a threat to its neighbors. This
has been the only demand made by Israel from the beginning.
It's the only you know, Israel in two thousand and
five gave Gaza autonomy and this was their hope, and
it never really happens. If it did, Gaza would be
rich by now. You know, the whole world wants to
help Gaza. All they do is funnel money through all
kinds of international organizations to Gaza. No one cares about
the DRWS, No one cares about the Kurds, No one
cares about the tons of minorities all over the world
who don't have states. No one, I mean not no one,
but very few people in the West, but Palestinians or
the object of everyone's affection, and they could be very successful,
but they're not. So I am a little skeptical that
this will work out in this way. Putting Tony Blair
in charge of it fine, you know, but I don't know,
So I'm kind of skeptical. I hope it works. I
hope the hostages are returned. I hope the war can end.
I hope the suffering of gods and civilians can end
brought on them by Hamas. And I hope they start
voting for people aren't Hamas in the future. But you know,
and I should also say this plan falls short of
saying that there needs to be a state there, which
I'm happy about. I don't think there should ever be
a state there. I mean not in the near future
at least or you know, in my lifetime hopefully. And
I don't know. Those are my impressions of it, just
off the bat.
Speaker 2: I think I've just completely lost any belief that these
people can live near each other. So what I want
is for neighboring countries to come up with a plan
to bring the people of the Gaza Strip and maybe
the West Bank to them.
Speaker 1: That is the answer. Just so you know, the answer
is annexation. Right, people are all you know, Israel's this
Israel that no one mentions, or very few people mentioned
that Egypt has a border with Gaza that's completely shut down.
They don't want Palestinians in Egypt because Hamas is Muslim brotherhood,
and they would. They are a big problem for Egypt.
The Jordanians don't want them for the same reason. Here's
the thing everyone keeps I see. I keep saying everyone,
I'm sorry. There are people I see many people who
write about the Arab Israeli conflict, when indeed, at this
point in the history, there is no Arab conflict. Israel
has no conflict with Egypt. Israel has no conflict with
Jordan or Saudi Arabia or most of the Gulf nations
other than Qatar, and that is a very limited conflict.
In a way, it has a conflict with the Palestinians.
If Palestinians were when Palestinians were in Jordan, there was
a conflict. When the PLO was in Jordan, there was
a conflict with the Jordanians. When the PLO and Hesbala
or in Lebanon, there's a conflict with Lebanon, when they're
with the Muslim brother in Egypt. There's a conflict there.
This is a Palestinian problem. No one wants them, so
you know, you're right, that's the solution, but it's not
going to happen. So you know, I actually don't know
what the solution is with them. Even now there's terror.
You know, there's terror going on in Jerusalem occasionally. Today
this morning I saw rockets were fired again. I just
I don't buy that that people there are searching for peace,
but you can't build a terror state next to your nation.
It doesn't matter how many Americans are mad at Israel,
what the Poles say. No country would do that because
there it's a democratic country and they would immediately vote
out the people in charge and then change it because
no one wants to live next to a terrorist state
threatening its citizens. So we'll see, we'll see what happens.
I also do want to say that I do think
Donald Trump has made an earnest effort here. This isn't
like some pr stunt. This is the plan that normal
people would agree to to end a war typically, and
obviously Qatar is on board. Now maybe Nata Yahu was
in the White House and he called the Katari Prime
minister or whatever they have over there, and that cheek them.
And most newspapers said that he had apologized to them
for bombing, but I read the readout and he didn't apologize.
He said he regretted that a Katari died. He never
apologized for going after Hamas, but I think he had
to say that. Probably Donald Trump told him to say
it to move this forward. So everyone seems to be
on board. I think Guitar has had enough of Hamas.
I think they don't want Hamas there anymore. I think
it's hurting their their credibility and all that. So we'll see.
Speaker 2: H so it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Just this last story on the news, I think
it was a Fox News exclusive. They unearthed more of
these cards that Joe Biden used to use to well,
initially it was about journalists, so he would get the
questions in advance. There would be a picture of the person.
I don't know why I'm laughing. He was an old
man and he couldn't remember these things and then it
would give him the appropriate answer. But now we know
that there were cards also that identified people like Hillary
Clinton and those he knew. So Obviously this was hidden
by the people in the administration, and I believe most
of the people in the media who knew who knew
what was going on in general at least, if not
all the specifics. It's and it's a massive scandal that
we just kind of have gone past and it's nothing
we can do now. But I think history is going
to remember that presidency is one of the worst and
worst in history and one of the most dishonest administrations.
Speaker 2: So I remember Hunter Biden gave an interview after the
election where he was really upset with George Clooney because
George Clooney had said that Joe Biden didn't know him
and had to be told who he was in a
photo line, and Hunter Biden was like, this is so ridiculous,
Like it was a photo line where Biden didn't know
a lot of people, but they just literally say everybody's
name as they're coming up, And if you've been in
one of those, that is how they go. Your mom
could show up and they could be like, this is
your mother, you know. So I think that sometimes people
might overstate, like even I'd like to know more about
the Hillary Clinton card to know whether that was just
like a literal here's a reminder of who you're in
a meeting with, so that you don't be like, you
know that. The media cards are what I find so alarming,
not because they're not just about Biden's dementia. They are
mostly about the media's the media going along with it,
because if you remember what these cards show, it'll be like,
here's the picture of the person you're going to call on,
here's the order you're going to call on them, you know,
like they're number three, here's the outlet that they're with,
here's the question they're going to ask you, and then
those are the questions that they ask, Well, how does
that happen?
Speaker 1: They're complexity for sure.
Speaker 2: It means the media are telling that, oh, that world's
stupidest press secretary, what was her name? Kareem John Pierre.
It means they're saying, here's the question I want to
ask there. In order to be called on, you have
to ask a sympathetic question or something that allows him to,
you know, talk about his favorite ice cream or whatever,
or why the Republicans are bad. This is not how
it's done normally in a non Democrat white house. And
when the media were busted dead to rights doing this.
They were like, I don't see what the big deal is,
and then later they were like, who could have known
he had dementia? It's it's the people who are supposed
to be holding the Biden White House accountable that bothered
me more than him having a card about Hillary Clinton
or the like.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I think it's I know that it
undermines your journalistic integrity and ethics of the of the
profession to do that. I have to say occasionally, when
I used to be on an editorial board and i'd interview,
you know, we talked to Mitt Romney, we talked to
other you know, McCain and Obama wouldn't talk to us.
But the if someone asked for questions beforehand, we would
just have said no. I mean, and these were and
I was working with Democrats, and they would definitely have
said no. You know, I remember McCain coming in with
no notes. You'd ask him about you could you know.
I know a lot of people don't like him now
or Republicans don't have a favorable view of him, but
he sat down. No one told me what I was
allowed to ask or not to ask. I asked him
some tough questions, he answered them, yeah, because he understood
what he believed. Then he was you know, give you
coherent answers. There's simply no way Joe Biden could have
done that. And if a person can't sit down, doesn't
know what they believe, can't answer questions, I don't even
care if they remember your name or remember the name
of their cabinet members or whatever, that is not a
person who should be president. They're simply not competent mentally
to be in that position, which is the hardest job
that there is, or if not the herd I think
it is, probably is. But it's also the most important
job in the world. I'd say, so there could have
been another Democrat running the country. Didn't have to be
Joe Biden, you know. And then we're supposed to believe
that they once they found out, they were horrified and
everyone turned on him. No, they were trying to save
the White House from Donald Trump, and they realized that
now everyone knew what had happened. That's all that that
it was all right, Molly, have you ever heard of
bad Bunny?
Speaker 2: I mean, sure, yes, I am not an aficionado. Have
you heard you have not heard of him.
Speaker 1: Okay, well maybe in passing, but someone your wonderful husband
Mark had mentioned that he was not a fan. He
did I don't think he thinks he should be the
super Bowl halftime UH performer next year, which she was named,
and that someone said they can't wait till you and
I debate Bad Bunny, but I pointed out that I
don't know any songs of Bad Bunny. I know nothing
about him, so I don't think it's going to be
a very long debate.
Speaker 2: I don't care. I mean I tried to care, and
I couldn't care. I saw people being upset about it,
but it just wasn't working for me to be that
upset about it. I don't like him much. I don't
hate him. His music relies heavily on auto tune, which
is not something I respect or like to listen to.
And yet he also is a big stadium tour kind
of got he's I think he's might even be on
world tour. What I'm interested in is he said he
would not come back to the United States to perform
because he was worried that the criminal illegal aliens who
go to his concert might be arrested by Ice. So
is that not a concern for were his was his
courageous stand on behalf of lawbreaking and disrespect for borders.
Did that go away when the money floated for the
Super Bowl halftime show. I don't know. But he's you know,
he's a darling of the left. He's a gender bending
like flirts with maybe he's gay or maybe he's queer baiting,
I don't know. And so Saturday Night Live likes to
have him on as a performer. And there is this
weird thing. By the way, I'd love Spanish, the language
of Espaniel, but it is weird that when Saturday Night
Live has him on, they just kind of do half
the show in Spanish.
Speaker 1: And it's like, Okay, I think you can a lot
of people, performers, for sure, can be bought. Did you
see this that there's this Saudi comic festival going on
with like all the big name comics and all, you know,
many of them are libs, you know, some of them
are not, who are always very offended by alleged a
creeping authoritarianism here, but they'll go to Saudi Arabia. And
apparently they were offered like a ton of money, probably
over a million bucks. Many of them, and I was
happy to see. I saw an interview with Shane Gillis,
who I think is very funny, and he said that
he had said no because he doesn't want to be
in Saudi Arabia. Then they came back and doubled doubled
the money for him to go, and he said he
wouldn't go be because they did nine to eleven and
you don't nine to eleven your friends. So I thought
that was really funny. But obviously you can be bought
to come back to the country and perform at the
Super Bowl. So culturally speaking, have you done anything, You're
still on your little I don't.
Speaker 2: Necessarily have a problem with people going to Saudi Arabia
for a comedy tour, and I totally respect what Shane
Gillis did there and said there. But you know, sometimes
these kinds of cultural exchanges can be for the benefit
of other people too.
Speaker 1: I do have a problem with it if there are
any restrictions on what you can say. So if if
you if you sign a contract that says I won't
make fun of the country or the royal family or
something like that, I think that's a big problem. If
you're a comedian, because I do respect comedians, and I
think in a way it's a very it's one of
the most truthful mediums I guess, or whatever you'd call
it that exists. But we'll see. I'm sure there'll be
reports on that. Okay, So culture, I know you haven't
been home in a while. I don't think, but.
Speaker 2: I have not been home in forever. I mean, this
month has been insane. I've been on the road. I
will continue to be on the road. So I did
go to the wedding of two of my very good
friends in Nashville this past weekend, and that was just wonderful.
These are two very very close friends. There's a beautiful
Lutheran church downtown with beautiful hymns and scripture readings, and
then we did the reception at the Bell Tower, which
is a nice venue also downtown, and then we walked
over to Eric Church's bar afterward on Broadway. I'm not
a big Broadway in Nashville person, but it was fun
to be there with the wedding party. And yeah, that
Nashville thing, it is overloaded with bachelorette parties. I think
people are aware of that, but it's just awful and
then it.
Speaker 1: Is Broadway, that street that has all the bars where
everyone's playing twenty four to seven. I was there in
the middle of Nashville. I don't know Nashville that well.
Speaker 2: That's the one. And then the day of the wedding,
or the day before the wedding, I can't remember what
it was we did, or it was the day after
the wedding. We went to the Lane Auto Museum. There
were some kids in our crew, and that is a
wonderful or Lane Motor museum. It's called so it's just
in Nashville. It's a normal guy's collection of automobiles and
it's they're grouped by which country they're from, and it's
a really well done museum. You can get through it,
like in an hour. There's also a vault downstairs of
of additional vehicles and they rotate them, I think, but
I would recommend it. And I like cars. And they
had all different kinds, like you know, scooters and and
amphibious cars, just all sorts of things. It was great.
What did you do?
Speaker 1: It's like fun. What did I do? I didn't do much.
I watched some things. One show is called The House
of Guinness. He is I believe it's produced by the
same people who made Peaky Blinders. It definitely has the
same feel and tone, less violent. It's about it takes
place in the eighteen hundreds, about Guinness Beer a company,
and it's about Catholics and Protestants and America and bringing
the product America, and it's pretty good. I saw a
horrible movie called Karate Kid Legends with Jackie Chan and yeah,
Danny Larussa's in it from the old movie. Was like,
I remember seeing that the original, you know, when I
was a kid. So I tend to watch them and
then I don't know if you know. Slow Horses has
started up again. I think it's season five or six.
I don't even remember.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it?
Speaker 1: I just like watching Gary Oldman. The story seems kind
of dumb, to be honest, but I'll just watch it.
I am a fan of that show. I think previous
seasons have been very good. This one's not. I don't
believe this one's getting reviewed as well, but we'll see.
I think that's all I have. Okay, so are you
headed home soon?
Speaker 2: I am, and then I'll be on the road again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had Tampa and I'm headed back to Phoenix. I
will be guest hosting the Charlie Kirk radio show next week. Nice,
so we can talk about that next week.
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, you belong to the world. You're out there.
They want you.
Speaker 2: But I'm in Hillsdale, Michigan right now. I teach here,
and I spoke last night to the lo In Student
Society and sure enough people came up and they're like,
we're faithful listeners of the David Harsani Molly Hummingway podcast
and everywhere I go people love you.
Speaker 1: We got to move my name to the front many
Did you see this email from a friend of yours,
see Wallace de Witt.
Speaker 2: He's the best, Yes, but read it.
Speaker 1: Well, He writes to Register complain about the cover design
for the podcast pictured below, and I don't know if
people have seen it. Puts the picture of me and you,
as you can see, Molly, he writes, is placed to
your right and in red shading, whereas you are placed
to the left and in blue. The unsubtle messaging, together
with the show title, unfairly suggests to casually casual listeners
that you are left liberal, whereas your more astute listeners
understand that you are quite notoriously right liberal, which is correct. Moreover,
if I am correct to my suspicions as to the
podcast esthetic, it continues a grievous reversal of the proper
party Hughes, as remains the case with the Tories blue
and Labor red. Republicans have always sported the Royal Blue,
while Democrats were radical red with all its communist associations.
This was lamentably reversed at the insistence of the Democratic
Party in time for the two thousand election, the prolonged
aftermath of which cemented in the public's mind a historically
inaccurate political palate. Now I don't listen. I don't know
if this guy writes for the Federalist or whatever, but
you should definitely have him rite for the federal Yeah,
his language is beautiful and he is he is great.
He's correct. I never noticed this. You guys have put
me on the left.
Speaker 2: You guys, wasn't us doing it.
Speaker 1: Together in blue and red. I did not notice and
think about this at the time. If someone just pops up,
it looks like I'm a lefty and you're on the
When I am I am? I think I am. This
is unfair.
Speaker 2: It was done by Emily Jushinsky. So it certainly would
not have been to harm you.
Speaker 1: Not to harm me, to pay me in a certain light.
Speaker 2: Perhaps she's not the most conservative person herself, So.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means. People tell me
it doesn't mean anything anymore. You know, it's all mixed up.
There's a realignment. But we should redesign this at some point.
First of all, this picture is like ten years old
of me. We need to put old Dave Harsani up there.
You look the same, but I do not. I wish
I was still this young, and but I don't know.
I kind of like the design. I like blue, red
and white for obvious reasons. But I just think it's
not all boxing gloves. I think people do not understand
the title exactly. Now. Yes, part of it is that
you and I disagree on issues, but obviously we agree
on many things as well. I think it's also us
saying to people who listen or group thinkers out there
or whatever that you're wrong as well. It's like a
shout out to the world to say you're wrong about this,
or to the media. Do you know what I'm saying?
Because we came up with this name because we real
to each other. You're wrong, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it. I have no problem being like,
if you tell me I'm wrong, it does not anger me.
It's the whole.
Speaker 1: Point is that that's the only reason this can happen. Yeah,
it's funny because I can't do this with a lot
of people because I've noticed in the world they take
things very personally when you disagree with them, and I'm
a little insensitive in how I think I approach things
when I get worked up. So I do this online
and I think I have You know, there were people
I was friendly with who don't seem very friendly with
me anymore. But I'm sorry. We're not in this to
make friends. We're in this to try to get to
the truth. I guess. So that sounds a little bit dramatic. Yeah,
all right, Well we will get to the truth again
next week, hopefully. Until them be lovers of freedom and
anxious for the dawauk Avason Jarganelno Contiana