Speaker 1: Me.
Speaker 2: I've got some tallisker going today.
Speaker 3: And John wis sippy cup, well whiskey.
Speaker 1: Come and take my pain, the moneys, my ry, oh whiskey.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all in with.
Speaker 4: Ricochet's three whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 4: John Yu and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Speaker 2: Where they slapped it up. It'll live it ain't you
Speaker 2: easy on the shoulder?
Speaker 1: Tap you got to give.
Speaker 2: Me and let that whiskey goo boy. I don't know
Speaker 2: you guys if we can even do a show.
Speaker 4: Listeners, we are coming to you this week having just
Speaker 4: received the dreadful news of the passing of Roger Mandigo.
Speaker 4: Roger Mandigo was the inventor of the McRib, so this
Speaker 4: is a mortal blow to John.
Speaker 2: You John, I don't know how you're gonna carry on.
Speaker 2: I mean, are you Are you okay? John? How are
Speaker 2: you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call for a moment of silence. It's you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the Eagles won the Super Bowl last week,
Speaker 1: and now we have this terrible news that's kind of
Speaker 1: balancing everything out in the world. You should also give
Speaker 1: the man credit because not only the McRib. But chicken nuggets.
Speaker 1: Now that if that had never been invented, that could
Speaker 1: have ground American civilization to a halt.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm having a hard time.
Speaker 4: I was going to add that we're going to call
Speaker 4: a temporary ceasefire in our unlimited total war against commentary.
Speaker 2: For dissing the McRib. But you know, it is kind
Speaker 2: of amusing.
Speaker 4: He was a professor in the Department of Meat Science
Speaker 4: at the University of Nebraska.
Speaker 2: I didn't know there was such a thing, and darn it,
Speaker 2: I could have gone there. But of course.
Speaker 4: His specialty was restructured meat, which just sounds a little dodgy.
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you know, there was years.
Speaker 1: Steve that was almost you, because if you looked at
Speaker 1: the bio he grew up in Pomona, the son of
Speaker 1: an aerospace engineer in the defense industry. Steve, if you
Speaker 1: had only picked up nick Rib at the right moment
Speaker 1: instead of Plato, who knows what a great life you
Speaker 1: could have had.
Speaker 2: I think I've told you this story.
Speaker 4: I had a big rib in February of nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: two when they were first test marking it, and it's.
Speaker 2: The last one I ever had. But I didn't like it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of my favorite Jay Leno routines from a million
Speaker 4: years ago now was him making jokes about chicken McNuggets
Speaker 4: and about how it's you know, compressed meat that lasts forever.
Speaker 2: And he said, you know, you could put a.
Speaker 4: Chicken mc nugget in front of a chicken and the
Speaker 4: chicken would say, I've seen nothing here that defends me
Speaker 4: because it's fake.
Speaker 2: Right. That was funny.
Speaker 4: Way, But if that isn't bad enough news, Luke Kreesha,
Speaker 4: it's also a sad news for.
Speaker 3: You, very sad that Kentucky happens to have a democratic
Speaker 3: governor and that old bastard didn't just retire today. That's
Speaker 3: my sad news. Don't even go there.
Speaker 4: I can't even make Fox mock's sadness about Mitch McConnell's
Speaker 4: thing is not going to run.
Speaker 3: Because I'm sad about the democratic governor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I know by the way he'll be
Speaker 4: if he decides to run to the seat, he'll be
Speaker 4: a formidable candidate.
Speaker 2: That's a seat they could actually win, which is not good.
Speaker 2: But we'll see, no, no Kentucky.
Speaker 1: How much Trump win Kentucky by.
Speaker 2: Well a lot.
Speaker 4: But remember the Basher won re election against a strong
Speaker 4: Republican candidate backed by McConnell, and uh, you know, he's
Speaker 4: one of those moderate Democrats.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: The rumors are that Obama and some of the other
Speaker 4: party elders were trying to promote him among the two
Speaker 4: or three candidates to replace Biden, but then Biden jumped
Speaker 4: in and said it has to be Harris, and that's
Speaker 4: when they said, Okay, we're screwed.
Speaker 3: Okay, what about Cameron? Uh uh, I mean the guy
Speaker 3: that the Repartment. Yeah, and he's a lot I mean
Speaker 3: he he is something of a McConnell accolade, but he's
Speaker 3: a hell of a lot more sound than McConnell. I
Speaker 3: could go for him, but it looks like it's just
Speaker 3: might be a race between Thomas Massey and Cameron, and
Speaker 3: they're not going to vote for for pretty boy mcsheer
Speaker 3: sorry this year whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, I still don't get why you hate McConnell so much.
Speaker 4: Well, we've tried this before, John, without success. But right,
Speaker 4: I'd like to say that it is. I can praise
Speaker 4: him for all my wonky, you know, Senate Majority Leader reasons,
Speaker 4: but he's the person who said we're not going to
Speaker 4: have Merrick Garland a Supreme Court and we are going
Speaker 4: to have Amy Cony Barrett.
Speaker 2: I don't care if the election is just three weeks.
Speaker 3: Away and it's only been a tiny bit better because
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Oh what Really?
Speaker 3: Garland convinced me that Garland wasn't an absolute unmitigated disaster
Speaker 3: as Attorney General, and he would have at least been
Speaker 3: reined in on the Supreme Court. Number number two, You
Speaker 3: don't get to spend forty years of your life in
Speaker 3: a corrupt position, drinking at the public trough, making millions
Speaker 3: off your Chinese wife, and take credit for one bold
Speaker 3: act in your entire forty year career. Sorry, the rest
Speaker 3: of it was come he did.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Why are we finding out that there's so much waste,
Speaker 3: fraud and abuse in the government. Where have the damn
Speaker 3: Republicans been?
Speaker 4: Huh?
Speaker 3: Where's Mitch McConnell, who's been in power all these years?
Speaker 3: Why wasn't he cleaning it up? Because he was corrupt
Speaker 3: as the damn Democrats. I am so glad he's leaving.
Speaker 3: I cannot tell you.
Speaker 2: So, John, I think we'll well.
Speaker 4: Mark Lucreaty Down is undecided on the question of McConnell's legacy.
Speaker 2: And I'll move.
Speaker 4: On to our third item before starting a round robin,
Speaker 4: which is, if you think we're having a bad day.
Speaker 2: Because of all this horrible news, how do you like
Speaker 2: to be a liberal? Right now?
Speaker 4: He realized that we're now one month into the Trump presidency,
Speaker 4: in other words, one month down, forty seven months to go,
Speaker 4: and you think the liberals could make it? I mean,
Speaker 4: I think their mental health problems are only going to
Speaker 4: get worse from here. And of course, going with this,
Speaker 4: and we might spend some time on this in the end,
Speaker 4: is the Trump administration understands something better than any Republican
Speaker 4: administration maybe ever, which is always be on the attack.
Speaker 2: That's the first rule of politics.
Speaker 4: And they're great at it, and they're going to make
Speaker 4: some mistakes, but but you never lose when you're on
Speaker 4: the attack.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I'll just throw that out there that our poor
Speaker 2: liberal friends are.
Speaker 4: They work themselves into a lather and they've got forty
Speaker 4: seven months to go.
Speaker 1: So should we invest in drug companies that sell antidepressants? Yes,
Speaker 1: and alcohol companies.
Speaker 2: Because yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to see four years from.
Speaker 3: Now, Javier Xavier Milier is that how I say his
Speaker 3: name gay to Malaya to uh elon today. Yeah, Cherry
Speaker 3: Fancy united him with the chainsaw. It's so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's you know, you you really do get the
Speaker 4: feeling that some of these Trump people are having fun
Speaker 4: doing this. Certainly what's her name, Caroline Levitt, the Press secretary.
Speaker 4: You know, she's got that twinkle in her eye when
Speaker 4: she smacks the press around every other sentence.
Speaker 3: You know, they made it so easy for her, though,
Speaker 3: because they've been so disingenuous, so duplicitous, so orthodox, and
Speaker 3: you know, ugh that it's so easy to just smack
Speaker 3: them in the face because they're just not expecting it.
Speaker 3: You know, they don't think they have to know the
Speaker 3: facts or they just have to repeat the talking points.
Speaker 3: And she's way way ahead of them. It's amazing to watch,
Speaker 3: and so is Jadie Vance.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, something is happening that I expected. And we'll
Speaker 4: hear a lot more of this in the coming weeks
Speaker 4: and months. And you saw this play out in the
Speaker 4: Reagan years. You'd have an announced program cut. The Reagan
Speaker 4: cuts were really pretty modest, but that didn't stop the
Speaker 4: hysteria and the TV networks, in the newspapers, would go
Speaker 4: and find some person whose benefits for being cut off
Speaker 4: for eligibility or other reasons, and how they were going
Speaker 4: to be hurt by this.
Speaker 2: And it was a terrible SOB story.
Speaker 4: And CBS News US ulsters might remember this, John, you
Speaker 4: were too young. They did a week long special series,
Speaker 4: you know, like an hour every night, called People Like Us,
Speaker 4: and it was always the people like us that Reagan
Speaker 4: is hurting with his dastardly policies. And Reagan, who had
Speaker 4: the discipline to ignore the media, was furious and called
Speaker 4: Dan Rather on the phone and yelled at him about it.
Speaker 4: The point is, they never did a story about, oh,
Speaker 4: welfare fraud, they never did a story about waste fraud
Speaker 4: and abuse in the government. They're totally incurious about that
Speaker 4: side of things. So now we're getting the stories about
Speaker 4: federal employees losing their jobs and isn't a terrible and
Speaker 4: it's causing plane crashes and you know, measles outbreaks and
Speaker 4: everything else, and that's not working out well. Partly it's
Speaker 4: the new media landscape, right there was it was hard
Speaker 4: to you know, back in the early eighties, Nation Review,
Speaker 4: Human Events, the American Spectator. They published articles pointing out
Speaker 4: why this was wrong and distorted it and all the
Speaker 4: rest of that. But that was always Day's letter at best.
Speaker 4: Now you can do it on Twitter in.
Speaker 2: Real time, and okay, so a lot of fun to trust.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Democrats are trying to uh broaden their
Speaker 3: horizons a little bit. But when they go and put
Speaker 3: on CBS Samantha Powers, Ugh, the woman has been beat
Speaker 3: with an ugly stick inside and out. I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: say that. But her speech writer goes and claims to
Speaker 3: be just some poor little little servant who's dedicated her life,
Speaker 3: but now she's gonna pay a mortgage and take her
Speaker 3: kids to chther And of course, you know it takes,
Speaker 3: as you pointed out on on X five seconds to
Speaker 3: point out that this woman is lying through her tee.
Speaker 3: She's not a civil service, he's not this. And then
Speaker 3: they're just so stupid. But it's worked for them for
Speaker 3: so long they can't think any other way, and it's
Speaker 3: not working. You want to you want me to feel
Speaker 3: sorry for a civil servant whose job is guaranteed and
Speaker 3: they're you know, they're gonna have the most amazing retirement
Speaker 3: and they sit at home and watch porn all day.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what the American people are thinking about.
Speaker 3: These people.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: No, at the EPA, they watched climate porns. What I've
Speaker 4: been saying for a long time. But that's a different thing.
Speaker 3: And do it outside. But whatever.
Speaker 4: All right, let's get to the main event. Another big week.
Speaker 4: But John, what's on your mind this week?
Speaker 1: My issue is President Trump's comments about Ukraine. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm all for you know, as I've written in some pieces,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to uh match American strategy with the
Speaker 1: limited resources we have, which may require reordering of what
Speaker 1: our goals are, like Trump refocusing on the Western hemisphere
Speaker 1: and the Monroe doctrine. But you know what, I think
Speaker 1: what he said about Ukraine was unfortunate, and I used
Speaker 1: to don't. I think it was just the wrong thing
Speaker 1: to say about our ally.
Speaker 4: But which which specific John, I mean he said about
Speaker 4: to read this, Yeah, I'm going to read the quote.
Speaker 1: So he uh he said just Wednesday that you know, mister,
Speaker 1: you know that Zelensky was you know, quote unquote a
Speaker 1: dictator who you know, wasn't wasn't having elections during the war.
Speaker 1: He also said that that he had tricked the United
Speaker 1: States and supporting a war here's a quote that couldn't
Speaker 1: be one that never had to start. That Zelenski refuses
Speaker 1: to have elections, is very low in to Ukrainian polls,
Speaker 1: and the only thing he was good at was playing
Speaker 1: Biden like a fill.
Speaker 3: So, I what do you disagree with about that?
Speaker 1: John Well? I, first of all, I don't think Zelenski
Speaker 1: is a dictator. I don't think it's wrong to suspend
Speaker 1: elections during the war. That's trying to destroy your national existence.
Speaker 1: You know, Churchill didn't have elections during those World War
Speaker 1: two either, right, but that was an agreement amongst the
Speaker 1: leading you know, it's a parliamentary system, and you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not really I'm not finished.
Speaker 1: Well Lincoln, Lincoln chose to have elections, But I don't
Speaker 1: think that it makes you a dictator to say we're
Speaker 1: not going to have elections during war. I also, I mean,
Speaker 1: Trump is implying that Ukraine started the war. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think this is I mean, I just think that's
Speaker 1: factually erroneous. And I mean, here's you know, they are someone.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a country that we you know, the
Speaker 1: United States has pledged to support now Trump and we
Speaker 1: have spent billions of dollars to help them defend themselves.
Speaker 1: They are not the aggressor in this war. Now Trump
Speaker 1: can come along and say, Okay, this is a war
Speaker 1: that started under President Biden, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to draw to a close. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: wrong to have a conversation with Putin and a foreign
Speaker 1: minister of Russia. And I don't think Zelensky has to
Speaker 1: be at the table. I don't think the Europeans have
Speaker 1: to be at the table. But you have to start
Speaker 1: talking to someone the other side if you want to
Speaker 1: bring you know, negotiate to bring the war to an end.
Speaker 1: But I don't think you should treat Dar. I don't
Speaker 1: think we be treating our allies this way. And I
Speaker 1: worry that if we would, you know, end the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine really badly, it would be just like Biden
Speaker 1: the way he handed the war in Afghanistan. He could
Speaker 1: have said, you know, I didn't start this war in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: I campaigned to bring it to a close. But if
Speaker 1: you bring the war to a close, even though it's
Speaker 1: not your own, in a bad way, it could really
Speaker 1: be the thing that tarnishes your presidency. Biden's fall started
Speaker 1: because of the way we left Afghanistan. I do not
Speaker 1: want us to leave Ukraine in that way. I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave I think it would be a terrible
Speaker 1: disaster for US to leave Lukraine in a way that
Speaker 1: would allow Russia right to continue its fighting or to
Speaker 1: start encroaching on NATO. And that's what really, that's what
Speaker 1: really worries me.
Speaker 4: Just one short point of order, our question, John, and
Speaker 4: then I'm gonna let Lucretia maul you to death, which
Speaker 4: I think she's all coiled and ready to do.
Speaker 2: About the elections question, you're quite right to.
Speaker 4: Point out, and actually pointed it out in some email
Speaker 4: to people today, that yes, there were no elections in
Speaker 4: World War Two in Britain or World War One, but
Speaker 4: in both cases, like Israel right now, you had a
Speaker 4: government of national unity that all parties were part of.
Speaker 4: I don't know if Zelensky has done that in Ukraine, don't.
Speaker 4: I think it's just him and his party. I don't
Speaker 4: think it's an all party government.
Speaker 3: He has abolished all other political parties.
Speaker 4: Guys, Well, that's why, That's what I understand, and so
Speaker 4: I think that's that's a problem. If he had done
Speaker 4: the British route or the you know, the other national
Speaker 4: government National Unity wrote, then I would absolutely cut him
Speaker 4: some slack, but I think that there are some questions
Speaker 4: about his democratic legitimacy. But John, let me introduce another
Speaker 4: statement of Trump's that you left out.
Speaker 2: That was startling to me. But the more I think
Speaker 2: about it, I think I get it. It makes sense.
Speaker 4: It's back to the old tap Trump literally and serious
Speaker 4: lead dichotomy. And that's when he said and repeated apparently
Speaker 4: later in the week, that I demand that Ukraine give
Speaker 4: us essentially fifty percent of the revenues from mineral and
Speaker 4: oil development in their country once they have their country
Speaker 4: secure again. There's tribute, right, This looks like old fashioned
Speaker 4: you know, Roman or imperialist tribute. And I mean it
Speaker 4: seems outrageous on the surface, and I found it shocking
Speaker 4: until I stopped for a minute and thought, oh, like
Speaker 4: so many other things Trump does, like the Gulf of
Speaker 4: America and you know other things he does, like that,
Speaker 4: he's trying to reset things in a radical way instead
Speaker 4: of trimming around the edges. So just give you one example.
Speaker 4: We know that there's people have been talking about this
Speaker 4: since the war started. Well, there's going to need to
Speaker 4: be billions of dollars in international aid for Ukraine to
Speaker 4: rebuild when the war is finally over.
Speaker 2: And you know how that.
Speaker 4: Would have gone in the past. They'd say we need
Speaker 4: a hundred billion dollars and we'd say we'll give you ten,
Speaker 4: and that meant we'd end up giving them forty or fifty,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter the number. But that's the way that
Speaker 4: game would have been played. And Trump saying, no, you're
Speaker 4: going to pay for it. And by the way, you know,
Speaker 4: whether you think the aid is corrupt just to our
Speaker 4: own defense industry, however you want to characterize it. At
Speaker 4: least Roosevelt had the wit in the in the len
Speaker 4: Les program before World War.
Speaker 2: Two of getting written to give us some of their bases.
Speaker 4: I mean, we got something from written for that aid
Speaker 4: in that desperate hour they had, right. So I think
Speaker 4: that this puts into a larger pattern to what Trump
Speaker 4: is really about. It's a grand strategy, or I call
Speaker 4: it the Great reset. He's now overturning essentially a century
Speaker 4: of the character of American involvement in the world. And
Speaker 4: I'll stop there and just say I'm all for it.
Speaker 4: I could go through the whole I'm gonna write a
Speaker 4: piece on this at some point. I'll just stop right there.
Speaker 1: Actually, I actually don't when I read about this idea,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump has about getting essentially some kind of
Speaker 1: reparations from Ukraine, I actually thought that Ukraine should rush
Speaker 1: and Embraceist's idea as fast as it could. And this
Speaker 1: actually was This actually shows to me the way Trump
Speaker 1: thinks about Ukraine is not really strategic, because that actually
Speaker 1: would strengthen the relationship with between the United States of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It would make it harder for us to pull up right.
Speaker 1: We would have an interest then in Ukraine remaining an
Speaker 1: independent country, and we would have to send a lot
Speaker 1: of Americans and American companies to Ukraine to develop all
Speaker 1: these resources. But to me just says, oh, but you know,
Speaker 1: the think about Ukraine's not co here, because he shouldn't
Speaker 1: want to do that if he really wants to cut
Speaker 1: off Ukraine and pull us back, and we don't want
Speaker 1: to have a steak in Ukraine after So, if you're
Speaker 1: someone who actually likes America supporting Ukraine, this idea is
Speaker 1: actually a great idea.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, I like that, Lucretia.
Speaker 3: Okay, John, I listen I will concede that you could
Speaker 3: be right and I could be wrong. I promise you
Speaker 3: nobody is going to sue me for libel on this
Speaker 3: because in six months or less, I believe I will
Speaker 3: be proven right. And there is a lot of evidence
Speaker 3: of people getting filthy rich all across the entire elite
Speaker 3: Washington swamp on Ukraine and you, I believe that you'll
Speaker 3: have to, just like you did with JD. Vance and
Speaker 3: other things, confessed that I was right.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 3: I'll just leave it at that way.
Speaker 1: Other than Advance, when did I have to concede to
Speaker 1: or right? Steve's keeping score because also asked to keep
Speaker 1: track of whenever he has to say you're.
Speaker 2: Right, I don't even hear him.
Speaker 3: I won't press it.
Speaker 1: And I just make one one point, just I totally
Speaker 1: buy that. I mean, look, you guys are right that
Speaker 1: Trump is trying to reset form policy, and you know
Speaker 1: it does involve right like the Monroe doctrine. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the only way to make sense. Like if you
Speaker 1: wanted to say things like the Panama Canality, saying things
Speaker 1: like green Leve what he's saying, they make sense. They
Speaker 1: actually kind of make a strategic sense. For the United
Speaker 1: States to reassert himself there because of the Monroe doctrine,
Speaker 1: and so you could say, because of the threat China
Speaker 1: poses to us, he is trying to write pull back
Speaker 1: our commitments in the Middle East. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: Actually it seems like might be ramping up the Middle East.
Speaker 1: He should pull back from the Middle East is less
Speaker 1: important than Europe.
Speaker 3: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: Wait strategic anymore. If you just I don't measure power
Speaker 1: in the world by the number of people and the
Speaker 1: size of the economies. The Europe is like a whole
Speaker 1: order of magnitude more important than the Middle East. Asia
Speaker 1: is more important too than the Middle East. Africa is not.
Speaker 1: But you know, like if you look the point, you know,
Speaker 1: American strategy for one hundred years has been we don't
Speaker 1: want anyone to be in the Western hemisphere and we
Speaker 1: don't want any power to control Europe and Asia because
Speaker 1: the wealth and power of those two parts of the
Speaker 1: world are the only ones that pose a.
Speaker 2: Threat to us.
Speaker 1: The Middle East poses no serious threat to us. There's
Speaker 1: not enough people live there Thereomy sure it.
Speaker 3: Was Europeans who launched those planes against the Twin Towers
Speaker 3: and so forth. We don't have anything to worry about.
Speaker 3: What the Middle East, They don't have any resources, they
Speaker 3: don't that we care about, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean, but they're they're not nation states. Look,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, one of the people who was
Speaker 1: involved with nine to eleven. I mean, if that was
Speaker 1: the only kind of threats we had in life, that
Speaker 1: would be great for our countries, that we had to
Speaker 1: worry only about terrorists. But nations like the ones in Europe,
Speaker 1: like the ones in Asia, the ones that can really
Speaker 1: inflict harm on us, I believe.
Speaker 3: But who in Europe is going to inflict harm on us?
Speaker 3: They can't even protect themselves, that's what they need us.
Speaker 1: Well, this is all of Europe. This is all of Europe.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have an interest like not having I mean,
Speaker 1: during the Cold War, would you have been happy the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union had taken over Western Europe war anymore?
Speaker 2: Well? I well, okay, we're starting to lose the threat
Speaker 2: here a little bit. I might say.
Speaker 4: I'm astonished to say these propositions, John, you know, we're
Speaker 4: were leaving Europe.
Speaker 2: In the dust.
Speaker 4: Economically. I don't know if you've seen the economic growth
Speaker 4: statistics of the last ten fifteen years.
Speaker 2: It's really shocking.
Speaker 4: But more than that, I mean when I describe the
Speaker 4: Great Reset, it's not just trying to break the Cold
Speaker 4: War mentality. I can do a storyline and will later,
Speaker 4: but it will start with Theodore Roosevelt mediating the Japan
Speaker 4: Russell War of nineteen oh five, which we didn't have
Speaker 4: a particularly close ally there, I don't think. But then Wilson,
Speaker 4: of course, Wilson's the original center of the mistakes of
Speaker 4: a modern American foreign policy. Then Eisenhower stops Britain in
Speaker 4: France and Israel from a season control of the Suez
Speaker 4: Canal that would be their Monroe doctrine, and we foolishly
Speaker 4: stop them, and it's all been downhill from Europe ever
Speaker 4: since then.
Speaker 2: They've Afterpeat become weak.
Speaker 4: They depend on us to go to the bathroom practically,
Speaker 4: And part of what Trump is doing here saying, you know, Europe,
Speaker 4: you say you want American leadership, Well, here's still American leadership.
Speaker 4: Oh you don't like it, Well you need to step
Speaker 4: up and get your act together. He wants to make
Speaker 4: Europe great again. Indirectly, I think that's one way of
Speaker 4: putting it. And you know, we saw in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 4: You have this dreadful war.
Speaker 2: In the former Yugoslavia.
Speaker 4: Europe was helpless to do anything in their own backyard,
Speaker 4: and we had to go in and and bomb Serbia.
Speaker 2: Right, I think it was Serbia. Whoever it was Melosavi,
Speaker 2: It's right, we bombed the heck out of him. Okay.
Speaker 4: I think it's time for tough love, not saying please please,
Speaker 4: will you spend a little more on defense? And would
Speaker 4: you be a little tougher on these No, he's I'm talking.
Speaker 2: Like, and I'm going to stop and just.
Speaker 3: Say I think that's and I'll be okay with it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can't do that. It's anyway. I think that's
Speaker 2: what's going on. And I'm a Europhile, John.
Speaker 4: I want Europe to be strong and robust in our allies,
Speaker 4: but they need to grow up.
Speaker 2: And you know Georgia, Oh she's the one good one there, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know Business past week. They're no longer democracies, they
Speaker 3: are no longer allies sharing the same values. They're as
Speaker 3: bad as the Middle East.
Speaker 2: By the way, a little a little trivia point for you, John,
Speaker 2: you may know this.
Speaker 4: You know, we never we never forgave the World War
Speaker 4: One war debts from Britain, which they did not pay
Speaker 4: off until the late nineteen nineties. Hardly anybody knows that
Speaker 4: we were still making them paying their ward debts. See,
Speaker 4: they didn't pay him off I think till like nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but probably not taking inflation into account.
Speaker 2: I'm sure not. But there was interest involved.
Speaker 4: So but still we made him pay it back, you know.
Speaker 4: So same thing goes for years now.
Speaker 1: To my just one last little thing in my defense
Speaker 1: is I wasn't saying the United States has an interest
Speaker 1: in controlling Europe. Our interest is just not letting anyone
Speaker 1: control Europe. That's been a point of American strategy for
Speaker 1: a long time because.
Speaker 3: If someone organized out whatever.
Speaker 1: All right, I give up. I will stop talking so
Speaker 1: I can't be interrupted.
Speaker 3: That was a good life Europe right on its own.
Speaker 1: I can't believe Steve is arguing for forty years is
Speaker 1: not thought of that.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, that's because Churchill thought of it in
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: He held it round. I don't in.
Speaker 3: Trouble if I don't stop you saying ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Churchill at dinner yelled at Randolph stop interrupting me when
Speaker 4: I'm interrupting you. Yeah, well, all right with that, Let's
Speaker 4: turn to you, Lucretia, what's on your mind this week?
Speaker 3: About so many things on my mind? I do want
Speaker 3: to talk for a moment about Gaza, because you know,
Speaker 3: I get that they're just, you know, one little partial family,
Speaker 3: two little tiny kids and their mom being kidnapped by
Speaker 3: subhuman There are not enough adjectives for me to describe
Speaker 3: the despicable people that not just are the Palestinian terrorists jumas,
Speaker 3: but the entire Palestinian people who are out there today
Speaker 3: cheering and dancing, and the caskets of these tiny little
Speaker 3: children and their mom. And it turns out it's not
Speaker 3: their mom. It turns out that after DNA evidence has
Speaker 3: been investigated, it's not the mom, it's some other strange woman.
Speaker 3: They are just and Trump, to his credit, said after
Speaker 3: he saw the videos of that he believes Gaza should
Speaker 3: be leveled. And I couldn't agree with him more. If
Speaker 3: any person in the West is so lacking it any
Speaker 3: moral standards, any moral compass, that they could take sides
Speaker 3: with that scum of a excuse of people they don't
Speaker 3: deserve to live in the West. They should go live
Speaker 3: among the gossens. That's my belief, and I'm angry about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know little children are killed all the time.
Speaker 3: It's a very sad thing. But if you're a parent,
Speaker 3: something like that happening is worse than your worst nightmare,
Speaker 3: you know, five hundred plus days of not knowing what happened,
Speaker 3: and then they're dead and the scum are celebrating their coffins.
Speaker 3: So I do see our our show, we call it intervention.
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to intervene in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to intervene in Israel. We
Speaker 3: just need to let them do what they need to do.
Speaker 3: That's you know, maybe we let them buy all the
Speaker 3: weapons that they want to buy. That's flye. They don't
Speaker 3: need our money, that's fine too. Just don't get in
Speaker 3: the way and let them destroy that place. That is
Speaker 3: my big thing for today, And I have cannot have
Speaker 3: respect for anybody who takes a different position, not after
Speaker 3: what I saw. I mean, we've known it's that bad,
Speaker 3: but it was just thrown in our face today.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it ratifies the longtime contention that Hamas
Speaker 4: is a death cult. I mean, who would or I mean,
Speaker 4: if I want to be not exactly flipping, but if
Speaker 4: I want to be sarcastic about it, I'd say Hamas
Speaker 4: clearly isn't using Fentom communications for their pr strategy.
Speaker 3: Fans that left make jokes about this is too Seriously, I.
Speaker 4: Said it was sarcastic, right, but really, I mean, this
Speaker 4: has to enrage the Israelis and build support for going
Speaker 4: back to war to finish it.
Speaker 3: I want here's one interesting thing. I'll try to sort
Speaker 3: of tone down the rhetoric for a moment. But two
Speaker 3: different leaders of Arab countries in the Middle East, right,
Speaker 3: came out and said Wan Saudi Arabia and I forget anyway,
Speaker 3: came out and said, this has brought shame upon Islam.
Speaker 3: Yeah they were embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I happened to.
Speaker 3: Think that Islam leads to that, but we can leave
Speaker 3: that one aside for today. Good for them that they
Speaker 3: were at least willing to call it out, and they
Speaker 3: get my praise for that.
Speaker 4: But well, I think that I caught that too, and
Speaker 4: I think that's significant because look, I think we know
Speaker 4: privately most of the other Arab nations hate the Palestinians.
Speaker 4: That's why they won't take any of them in. But
Speaker 4: they're useful to them for a bunch of domestic political
Speaker 4: reasons and other things. And so for them to publicly
Speaker 4: put some distance between them suggests that they're giving up
Speaker 4: on the Palestinians, and then maybe a signal that you know,
Speaker 4: you know, our patience with you guys is quickly disappearing.
Speaker 4: I do wish who am I talking to you about
Speaker 4: this recently?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: It was Eli Lake last week that I wish in
Speaker 4: addition to talking about Iran, we would talk about the
Speaker 4: Kataris and say some very tough things to the Kataris
Speaker 4: because they have a lot of influence with Amas in Gaza,
Speaker 4: and you know, we could threaten them with all kinds
Speaker 4: of things that would be very trumpiing to do my
Speaker 4: two observation, one observation of one question. Sorry, John, I'll
Speaker 4: just finished, and I have no more to say. You know,
Speaker 4: even in World War Two there were Germans who helped
Speaker 4: protect Jews. I'm not aware of any evidence any Gossens
Speaker 4: have helped any of the Israelis who were in captivity.
Speaker 2: Quite the opposite, I think.
Speaker 4: And then I also wonder, I mean I know there's
Speaker 4: been a lot of pressure in Israel to not only
Speaker 4: get live hostages out, but also the bodies are the
Speaker 4: ones they knew who were dead, because the families would
Speaker 4: like to have them for proper Jewish burial rights and
Speaker 4: so forth. But I'm starting to wondering how many I'm
Speaker 4: starting to wonder how many hostages are still alive, and
Speaker 4: that maybe the next shock we get.
Speaker 3: And I want John to speak. I don't want to
Speaker 3: interrupt him, but I just want to say that the
Speaker 3: condition of the hostages that have come back alive is
Speaker 3: so awful. I'm not sure that Israel cares anymore well
Speaker 3: or should care right anyway, Sorry, go ahead, John.
Speaker 1: So, I you know, connect it to the last discussion.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that the Trump administration is not a cold
Speaker 1: bloodily realist. There are people in their administration who are,
Speaker 1: you know, taking important positions, who have said that we
Speaker 1: should pull out in the Middle East and focus on China.
Speaker 1: But that would yeah, that would be the realist thing
Speaker 1: to do. Actually. But I'm glad that we defend democracies
Speaker 1: in the world, and that's the reason we support Israel
Speaker 1: is because because of its domestic political structure and that
Speaker 1: they're like us there. I mean, I've been there. It's
Speaker 1: it's like more America than a America. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of the best features of America are
Speaker 1: even more pronounced there, I think, especially now, not so
Speaker 1: much when it was a socialist country in the nineteen fifties, right,
Speaker 1: but you know, once it was a you know, and
Speaker 1: the United States wasn't so friendly to Israel in the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, so you know, I saw but you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the cold realists and all this were you know,
Speaker 1: the Democrats, you know, Obama and Biden. You know, they
Speaker 1: were the ones who are saying, oh, Iran is the
Speaker 1: really the powerful country in the region. Why are we
Speaker 1: supporting the smallest country with the tinest population that everybody
Speaker 1: wants to destroy. We should write this is the realist approach.
Speaker 1: We should reach a deal with Iran and settle, you know,
Speaker 1: settle our differences so that we're not always on the
Speaker 1: you know, defending the little guy. But I'm glad we're
Speaker 1: defending the little guy because the little guys at democracy,
Speaker 1: at capitalist democracy, like us, and we have such deep
Speaker 1: cultural ties with them. So I actually think that there
Speaker 1: is is now you know, it's not Wilsonianism, but because
Speaker 1: we're not going everywhere in the world trying to you know,
Speaker 1: support democracies even in unstable countries, so that we always
Speaker 1: have this mix of realism and realism and idealism. So
Speaker 1: I you know, so this is the other weird thing.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why Trump. I mean, I hope he's
Speaker 1: changed his mind now. I didn't understand why Trump would
Speaker 1: want to take over Gaza, you know, displace the Palestinians
Speaker 1: and then turn it into some kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: American run territory. I agree we should just I would
Speaker 1: I think the best way to you know, align our
Speaker 1: limited means with the you know what our strategy would
Speaker 1: be to just fully army Israelis and stop trying to
Speaker 1: tell them what they're allowed to do with our weapons,
Speaker 1: and then let let them defend themselves. They're going to
Speaker 1: take care of Ron if we give them the weapons
Speaker 1: we don't need to take care of you know. Let
Speaker 1: let you know, let the nations there pursue you their
Speaker 1: self interest and defend themselves. And I think we should
Speaker 1: defend We should arm Israel to the hilt. I don't
Speaker 1: think we should ever intervene there again where there are
Speaker 1: troops and forces, and I don't think, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: would ever have any intention to. So I always think
Speaker 1: like this idea of developing Gaza, because you'd have to
Speaker 1: send troops there and Americans there. I just think that
Speaker 1: was some kind of fantasy that he had. But it
Speaker 1: can't be serious.
Speaker 2: Oh well, wait a minute, jo, I mean, ah, I
Speaker 2: can't believe I have to you must know this.
Speaker 4: That what he said about redeveloping Gaza and moving the
Speaker 4: Palestinians out.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Once again, that's you take him seriously, but not literally.
Speaker 4: Again, Look what that did was implicitly with a capital
Speaker 4: I implicitly say there's not going to be a two
Speaker 4: state solution. Let's just shut up about the stupid idea.
Speaker 4: That is the fantasy of our state department in the
Speaker 4: international elites. And it exposes the hypocrisy of the Arab
Speaker 4: nations who say, oh, we're all for supporting Palestinians, but
Speaker 4: we don't dare want to take them in and help them.
Speaker 2: And I think it's wonderful. I don't think I.
Speaker 1: Would be even more minimalists than that. I would just
Speaker 1: say we're going to arm the Israelis yeah, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: much as much as they want to buy, and we
Speaker 1: don't care about what the diplomatic solution is. Let the
Speaker 1: Israelis and the Saudis and the Iranians fight it out
Speaker 1: and then they can have whatever settlement they want. I
Speaker 1: think it's been a mistake for us to continually think
Speaker 1: that we, like the every American president thinks that they
Speaker 1: have to have some kind of solution to the Israeli
Speaker 1: Palestinian problem. It's not our It really is not our problem.
Speaker 2: Noah.
Speaker 3: I think I don't know why they're not, and Ukraine is,
Speaker 3: but that one alone.
Speaker 4: I think Trump is again implicitly embracing the old Reagan
Speaker 4: strategy on the Cold War. When it comes to Israel's enemies,
Speaker 4: Israel wins and they lose, and that's all we need. Okay, Well,
Speaker 4: huckemy his ambassador isn't an interesting choice. Not usually both
Speaker 4: parties send someone who's Jewish to be our ambassador Israel.
Speaker 4: His sensus evangelical Christian, who, of course, because of that fact,
Speaker 4: is like more pro Israel than many Jews are. I
Speaker 4: think you might say, I'll get in trouble for saying that.
Speaker 2: But and he's the.
Speaker 4: One He's the one who said, you know, maybe israelogist
Speaker 4: the next the entirety of the West Bank, it's their
Speaker 4: historical land from biblical times.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, nobody would say that in the past.
Speaker 4: That would get you fired from the first Bush administration
Speaker 4: if you said something like that out loud, I think,
Speaker 4: But all right, nothing.
Speaker 3: That went alone, because I've got something that I want
Speaker 3: to tell John. I don't know if be seen. I
Speaker 3: think this is actually very new, the latest. I think
Speaker 3: this is the latest presidential executive order. The Constitution vests
Speaker 3: all executive power in the president and charges him with
Speaker 3: faithfully executing the law. Since it would be impossible for
Speaker 3: the president to single handedly perform all the executive business
Speaker 3: of the federal government, the constitution also provides for subordinate
Speaker 3: officers to assist the president in his executive duties. We're all,
Speaker 3: I'm sure in agreement so far. And he goes on
Speaker 3: and basically what he says is, however, previous administrations have
Speaker 3: allowed so called independent regulatory agencies to operate with minimal
Speaker 3: presidential supervision, so we don't need to overturn Humphrey's executor,
Speaker 3: including the stupid quasi legislative CALAUSEI judicial rationale behind it.
Speaker 3: We just need to see Trump's claiming. And this is,
Speaker 3: I think what you're always saying, John, in areas that
Speaker 3: are clearly within his executive discretion, he doesn't have to
Speaker 3: answer to anybody. Get rid of those damn independent agencies
Speaker 3: and put them under the complete control of the president.
Speaker 3: And then, of course the other part of Lucretia's die
Speaker 3: tribe about this is then hold him accountable, right, And
Speaker 3: you can only hold him accountable if he actually has
Speaker 3: the ability the responsibility to control those agencies.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I agree, And in fact, the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is even Humphrey's executor wasn't an order by a court
Speaker 1: that Humphrey had to go back to the job. It
Speaker 1: was only that Humphrey's estate because he died, gets back pay.
Speaker 1: So I agree, Like, the president is still going to
Speaker 1: fire somebody if he wants, and I think I don't
Speaker 1: think courts are going to try to reinstate people. They
Speaker 1: might just say, oh, the federal government has to pay
Speaker 1: whatever salary you would have made for the rest of
Speaker 1: your term in office. So I know, I completely agree
Speaker 1: that I actually find that not that controversial. The one
Speaker 1: that is more controversial I think is there's another executive
Speaker 1: order that issued I think maybe today or yesterday, where
Speaker 1: he ordered all the agencies to re examine all their
Speaker 1: regulations to determine which ones are beyond their constitutional powers,
Speaker 1: which ones are not supported by statute, and which ones
Speaker 1: are not in the public interest. That is, that is
Speaker 1: a much bigger threat to the administrative state.
Speaker 3: What do you mean my question? I just one when
Speaker 3: you gave those three criteria, are they one of the
Speaker 3: three or all of the three?
Speaker 1: No? No, it's just one of the three. And also
Speaker 1: when you say they aren't in the public interest the criteria, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the other two but that means you but no, No,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a much greater threat to the
Speaker 1: administry of state, even then attacking the independent agencies, because
Speaker 1: then the president could give an order next. The next
Speaker 1: order would be now all regulations that you know been
Speaker 1: reported to me as falling into oney three buckets, are
Speaker 1: are are not valid? Regulations will not be enforced. Well, right,
Speaker 1: so suppose you know Steve's favorite statute, Right, suppose the
Speaker 1: e p A, the current e PA director says those
Speaker 1: are all not covered by the commerce clause. Right, maybe
Speaker 1: only things that go across right, state borders are covered.
Speaker 1: So what if you know? The EPA director says, a
Speaker 1: lot of the Endangered Species Act is not within federal
Speaker 1: power because the animals don't cross state borders. About that,
Speaker 1: But the thing if you apply that across the administrative state,
Speaker 1: that's you know, if you know, but if you so,
Speaker 1: if you are real, you know, progressive, this is the
Speaker 1: order you should really be freaking out.
Speaker 2: Well, by the way, but wait a minute. I mean,
Speaker 2: first of all, the EPAD notice well they're not the
Speaker 2: EPA is.
Speaker 4: Not the lead agency for endangered species. I think it's
Speaker 4: Interior but fish and wildlish, fish and wild, but I
Speaker 4: mean they have a role in it. But remember it
Speaker 4: was you know, what held up John Roberts from confirmation
Speaker 4: was his saying in the appellate court about the hapless
Speaker 4: toad in California who doesn't cross state lines, and can
Speaker 4: the dangered species accurately reach the species?
Speaker 2: So that's been out there for a while.
Speaker 4: Mike Consicle is the Trump administration ought to think carefully
Speaker 4: about issuing some guidelines of some degree of specificity about
Speaker 4: what qualifies as public interests because that's such a vague
Speaker 4: phrase through which the bureaucrats will demand all kinds of
Speaker 4: stuff and in other words, try to constrain them and
Speaker 4: channel them in a certain way that will resist them
Speaker 4: and put them, make them put themselves in a box.
Speaker 2: I think that requires some thoughts.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you, Steven John, if you think that
Speaker 3: Trump did that more or less successfully with the DEI stuff,
Speaker 3: as in, did he make it clear that the reason
Speaker 3: why he could ban DEI across the federal government and
Speaker 3: then across universities and schools and so forth that take
Speaker 3: federal funds and contracts and so on, because he claimed
Speaker 3: that any attempt to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion,
Speaker 3: alien status, sex, et cetera violates the Civil Rights Act
Speaker 3: of nineteen sixty four. And that's how just so, I
Speaker 3: just want to say this because I'm dealing with this
Speaker 3: every day for about fifteen hours a day, because of course,
Speaker 3: the angst at my university is palpable because we haven't no.
Speaker 1: Mood.
Speaker 3: I am dealing with it. I mean, part of me
Speaker 3: is happy, but but you know, dealing with anyway. By
Speaker 3: next Friday, everything has to be certified that yes, we
Speaker 3: have either turned it in or we have gotten rid
Speaker 3: of it. By next Friday. So you know, there's all
Speaker 3: this stuff about hiding it and what can we eat
Speaker 3: this and that, but but it's pretty clear really, I mean,
Speaker 3: you don't have have to have a law degree to
Speaker 3: understand that we're not allowed to one race versus another
Speaker 3: are are unconstitutional under Harvard, the Harvard case, under this
Speaker 3: Rights Act, etc. I'm just wondering.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a theme I think that
Speaker 1: that Steve has been suggesting in other areas, but I
Speaker 1: think it's true here. This is something that Reagan people
Speaker 1: thought of, but they didn't have the political right balls
Speaker 1: to try it, and Trump is But it goes all
Speaker 1: the way back to Lincoln, right, because you know Lincoln's
Speaker 1: theories about the Constitution or that the president gets interpret
Speaker 1: the Constitution to do and gets to implement that understanding
Speaker 1: in his sphere of authority. And that is also Jackson,
Speaker 1: that's also Jefferson, that's also Washington think this. So I
Speaker 1: think that's right. If the president thinks that these race
Speaker 1: based programs violate the Fifth Amendment, right, it's the Fifth
Speaker 1: Amendment here, he's that would be violated because it's the
Speaker 1: federal government acting. He only he has to actually stop, right,
Speaker 1: So the thing. But I think that's true if all
Speaker 1: these other regulations too. If what if President Trump, you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to share the broad reading of the
Speaker 1: Commerce Clause that the Supreme Court has. What if he
Speaker 1: thinks the Commerce Clause should be narrower and so the
Speaker 1: regulatory state much of what's doing is unconstitutional, then I
Speaker 1: think he has the power to say I will not
Speaker 1: enforce regulations that go beyond the proper reading of the
Speaker 1: Commerce Clause. And I think in your case, christ say,
Speaker 1: I don't think that I have to have I will
Speaker 1: not not will I not enforced, but I'll make sure
Speaker 1: no federal dollars are spent to violate the Constitution, which
Speaker 1: would be to create race based preferences. I mean that
Speaker 1: that does follow. But this is not Trump didn't invent this,
Speaker 1: like people should understand. This is like the Reagan administration
Speaker 1: thought about this, but they didn't pull the trigger. And
Speaker 1: Lincoln did do this, Jackson did do this, Jefferson did
Speaker 1: do this. It's I think it actually makes sense because
Speaker 1: you have to enforce the law. The president has to
Speaker 1: enforce the law, and the Constitution is the highest form
Speaker 1: of law.
Speaker 2: We want to conclude this and move on.
Speaker 3: I just want to say, and that is it.
Speaker 2: Hold on.
Speaker 3: This is important. That the reason that this particular subject
Speaker 3: is so call it poignant, is because this is the
Speaker 3: thing that divides the right from the left more than
Speaker 3: anything else. Call it wokery, call it whatever. The idea
Speaker 3: that the left wants to pick and choose victims and
Speaker 3: then reward those victims, reward themselves in the process of
Speaker 3: handing out goodies to those victims. That's what it really
Speaker 3: comes down to, of course, and that has been I
Speaker 3: can't tell you what an orthodoxy. You guys know this.
Speaker 3: You're in a university. You know you've said, you've given
Speaker 3: us examples John that the university wokeer elite can't even
Speaker 3: fathom that. There's another interpretation to say, the Civil Rights Actor,
Speaker 3: the fourteenth Amendment or Fifth Amendment, that might say, yeah,
Speaker 3: you really shouldn't discriminate against people on account of their race,
Speaker 3: whether that race is white or black.
Speaker 1: The universities. The universities are where the massive resistance is
Speaker 1: coming from YEP, to the Harvard case to the end
Speaker 1: of DEI you're going to see I agree, You're going
Speaker 1: to see you You're going to see all kinds of
Speaker 1: efforts to right to get around all these directives. I
Speaker 1: think though this, So here's the thing that might be different,
Speaker 1: because I always thought that it would be really hard
Speaker 1: for the federal government to actually beat back all the
Speaker 1: clever ways universities are going to cheat. But the thing
Speaker 1: that the you know, if Trump goes and is setting
Speaker 1: if you don't cooperate, we're going to cut your science grants, right,
Speaker 1: like you know the federal funding you know for student loans,
Speaker 1: like those are the two big sources of funding right
Speaker 1: for the federal government and universities is you know, research
Speaker 1: funding and student loans. Right, then you're going to have
Speaker 1: constituencies that are going to be really really upset and
Speaker 1: don't have to say, oh, yes, the sociologists get to
Speaker 1: run the university and we are going to die on
Speaker 1: the hill of sociology to the tune of hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. So I think that's very clever. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if Trump deliberately thought of how universities
Speaker 1: kind of have science people who kind of let the
Speaker 1: humanities people run wild as long as it doesn't interfere
Speaker 1: with their work. But now it interferes with their work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean this was a problem.
Speaker 4: By the way, the Reagan people did actually assert themselves
Speaker 4: in a few specific areas, but they didn't have the manpower,
Speaker 4: they didn't have the clarity of how bad the problem was.
Speaker 4: They learned too late what was going on, and we
Speaker 4: benefit from those failures. There's always a problem of playing
Speaker 4: whack a mole, and there's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 4: that going on here with a lot of Trump efforts.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of a metaphor where when you've
Speaker 4: got a problem with moles, you know, you start using
Speaker 4: heavy weapons and blow up the whole tunnel system at once,
Speaker 4: which would be denying them funding right on the commerce clause, John,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I have to do this. Under that certain statute,
Speaker 4: you can't aim. It seems to me, it seems to
Speaker 4: me that you could nuke all of the climate change
Speaker 4: regulations by simply saying CO two is produced globally. But
Speaker 4: this is true if you have complete compliance with all
Speaker 4: these crazy plans of Biden's settings, no difference, It makes
Speaker 4: no difference to global temperature fifty or one hundred years
Speaker 4: from now. I mean, that's using the unci the basis
Speaker 4: of it well, but never but never mind that by
Speaker 4: their own processes that they set in place to evaluate
Speaker 4: these things, that they admit this, so using their own
Speaker 4: weapons against them, you don't have to even challenge the
Speaker 4: basis of it.
Speaker 2: By the way they are going to challenge the basis
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 4: That's a long story I know all about and I'll
Speaker 4: say more more than.
Speaker 2: That, but that's when that shoot.
Speaker 1: Right, here's a terrible proposal for a podcast is we
Speaker 1: should have a special podcast without Lucretia, where it's just
Speaker 1: Steve talking about the Cleaner Act. Oh god, you said
Speaker 1: for like two hours, three hours?
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, we shouldn't.
Speaker 1: We should record how many people actually listen at the
Speaker 1: beginning and how many people make it to the end.
Speaker 3: So, John, there was a whole thing in the comment
Speaker 3: section on one of the platforms I forget, which about
Speaker 3: what is the statute that can be named? And then
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: See how success said, man is so awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3: I love it be named. And my answer to it
Speaker 3: was because whenever Steve starts talking about it, sales of
Speaker 3: ambient fall precipitously.
Speaker 1: So the people that do the readers, when the listeners
Speaker 1: want know. The real story is that when Steve first
Speaker 1: came to Berkeley, we taught, you know, classes together. We
Speaker 1: taught a class on the Presidency, and he mentioned the
Speaker 1: Clean Air Acts so often I forbade him from mentioning
Speaker 1: the statute again for the rest of classics. This is
Speaker 1: a class on the Presidency, not on the clean Air
Speaker 1: and he worked it into every single class. We'd have
Speaker 1: a class on the war power. Steve would want to
Speaker 1: talk about how the pollution was so terrible from drop bombs.
Speaker 1: I don't know what, but in class he found a
Speaker 1: way to mention the clean X I said, is ver boten?
Speaker 2: Okay, I assert that this is all fake news.
Speaker 4: But since I brought up, since I thought up brought
Speaker 4: up fake news, let us now turn to Lucretia to
Speaker 4: give us our weekly fill of the good Babylon bees.
Speaker 2: Did you not get my cue on that? I thought,
Speaker 2: But it's okay.
Speaker 3: I have it up here. I just have to get
Speaker 3: to it. I just haven't gone through.
Speaker 2: I well mentioned.
Speaker 4: While you're getting them in line and picking out the
Speaker 4: ones you want. I got to have dinner last week
Speaker 4: ago with David Diebel, my stand up comic pal who
Speaker 4: lives mostly in Germany, and he writes a lot of
Speaker 4: items for the Babylon Bee.
Speaker 2: I've kind of forgotten that. But he has a lot
Speaker 2: of fun.
Speaker 1: Some of him as a guest on the podcast that
Speaker 1: was stand up Comics, very funny.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I had him.
Speaker 1: Don't do politics, stand up a little bit, not much,
Speaker 1: but he can't have him come.
Speaker 3: On his His tweets on x are usually about politics,
Speaker 3: but sometimes just you know, normal things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess anyway, Okay, what do you got for us?
Speaker 3: Clinton says he doesn't want Ukraine anymore now that it
Speaker 3: has all these holes in it. Oh, I gotta get
Speaker 3: down hold on delta, adds a little hanging tennis ball
Speaker 3: to end the runway for female pilots.
Speaker 1: Was it a female pilot who landed?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually an airplane, an airline. John that that
Speaker 3: their their motto is unmanned. It's not talking about drones.
Speaker 3: It's talking about the fact that there's no male pilots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's not that's not the whole airline. It's
Speaker 4: just that's a promotional Look. I heard a cockpit recording
Speaker 4: today and the pilot answering them Plaine is clearly male.
Speaker 2: So there may be a female.
Speaker 4: Coat pilot, but make these it is bad that they're
Speaker 4: not releasing the names of the pilots and so forth.
Speaker 4: I don't know why that's a mistake, I think, but
Speaker 4: I think it's not true that's an all female airline.
Speaker 3: But okay, so all passengers fear dead after plane crash.
Speaker 3: Survivors given free Canadian healthcare. I thought you left that
Speaker 3: he's for my two favorite nerds, geeks, whichever you want
Speaker 3: to call it. Elon admits he's Luke Skywalker's real dad.
Speaker 2: Well that's good, since Mark Hamill is such a woos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I have to end there because what
Speaker 3: what what's happening now with the with the Babylon b
Speaker 3: is wonderful and I encourage everybody to go there. But
Speaker 3: instead of these cute little clever lines, they're they're asking
Speaker 3: you to, you know, click on it and I'll give
Speaker 3: you one example, uh, Facebook memories or mind man men
Speaker 3: of his men of his embarrassing libertarian phase. And then
Speaker 3: there's a whole list of things, and say with the
Speaker 3: first ten things, Cash Betel's FBI will investigating first, and
Speaker 3: if you go into them, they're really really funny. I'll
Speaker 3: leave it at this. Well promises full investor into why
Speaker 3: she was allowed to become la mayor.
Speaker 4: All right, because she said I'm having an investigation of
Speaker 4: why I was allowed to go to Ghana.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, she really said that. It's mind not
Speaker 2: nothing stupid.
Speaker 4: I'll just give you Dave Deebels and then toss to
Speaker 4: you John and I have a new exit line.
Speaker 2: You're gonna love it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Dave Diebels this week, which had a story going
Speaker 4: with it that was very funny, but the headline was
Speaker 4: something like a German arrested for firing twenty five means
Speaker 4: in crowded marketplace?
Speaker 1: Can I throw in Mike yellmanism. I don't know if
Speaker 1: we've mentioned this, but for those who don't know, Mike
Speaker 1: Yelman was a professor at Claremont Graduate University, where Stephen
Speaker 1: Lucretia went. But also he has a wonderful ratcontour and
Speaker 1: a scholar and a significant figure in the Reagan administration
Speaker 1: and in the seventies in the US Senate. So he said,
Speaker 1: if you ever want to test whether something is a
Speaker 1: good idea, like a law or a regulation, read it
Speaker 1: out loud in a German accent. Right, Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: a really good advice.
Speaker 2: Sure is, because I don't.
Speaker 1: Even though I defended Europe earlier, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be read to be at all sympathetic to the German
Speaker 1: the political or legal system. Right.
Speaker 3: I do want to encourage listeners to go to the
Speaker 3: Babylon b and read the read the whatever you call
Speaker 3: it the joke, it's actually a story, an article, and
Speaker 3: it's the trumpet admin says Department of Education should be dismantled.
Speaker 3: This is why they're mistaken. But you have to read
Speaker 3: it understand why, because it is the most ungrammatical, uh
Speaker 3: infelicitous use of the English language you will ever read.
Speaker 3: Why it's so important for us to keep the Department
Speaker 3: of Education teaching our children how to read and write.
Speaker 1: So Steve, we'll always drink your whiskey knee And Steve,
Speaker 1: what's your new exit line?
Speaker 4: Well, remember that for several years we use the line
Speaker 4: supplied by someone the power who was mentioned earlier by
Speaker 4: the Acre Show. And I've updated that and uh changed
Speaker 4: it around. And the new sign up, which I'm going
Speaker 4: to keep for a while because I think it works,
Speaker 4: is don't forget to milk the Margaret Brennan dividend. Bye bye, everybody, Ricochet,
Speaker 4: join the conversation