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Speaker 1: We're just getting a couple of scratchy notes when you're

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especially emphatic or loud.

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Speaker 2: I promise not to be emphatic. This entire pod.

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Speaker 1: Not what your country can do for you and what

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you can do for your country.

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Speaker 3: Mister gorbitchaw tear down this wall.

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Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast, but Steve Hayward sitting in for

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James Lilac, joined by Charles C. W Cook and Rob Long,

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and we're going to kick around the news ahead of

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Christmas week.

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Speaker 3: Let's have ourselves a podcast.

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Speaker 1: They're a five hundred plus pages related to healthcare policy,

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which doesn't.

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Speaker 4: Have anything to do with keeping the government open.

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Speaker 2: There's a one hundred billion dollars of disaster relief in here,

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which is desperately needed, by the way, but should be

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its own standalone bill.

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Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 3: As you know I'm in the final weeks of my presidency.

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You don't have to clap for that.

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Speaker 4: You can if you want.

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Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast, Episode seven one. This is Steve

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Heyward substituting for the usual dulcet tones of James Lylyax,

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who's not with us today.

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Speaker 3: But I'm joined by Charles C.

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Speaker 1: W cook and some wandering stranger named Rob Long wandering

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past right, wandering mendicant, and so welcome, gentlemen.

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Speaker 3: We don't have a guest today.

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Speaker 1: It's just going to be us kicking around some holiday thoughts,

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going over some news of the day. But I do

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I think want to start by saying, Rob, you have

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just finished your first semester in seminary on your way

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of taking fully orders, and I'm interested in that. This

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is this venture, this quest of yours in general terms.

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But also I sort of remember my first semester in

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graduate school a long time ago now, and how much

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more intense it was than being an undergraduate.

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Speaker 3: So I don't know how's it gone. Are you done yet?

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Are you learning? Ara Maic? What are the highlights for us?

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Speaker 2: I have learned. Here's what I've learned. I've learned it's

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been a lesson of humility, right, which is good, right,

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because that's the sort of the especially an advent. He's

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good to remember that. And the humility comes from two things.

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One the humility of stepping away from politics for a

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while and then being humbled by the fact that I

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had to shell out one thousand dollars from a bet

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I made two years ago saying there's no way Trump's

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gonna win.

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Speaker 3: Was that with Anne Coulter?

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Speaker 2: No, I think Ann Culter actually, I think she actually

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agreed with me two years ago. And it is like

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constant cycles and is like always iterating. She's like a

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you know, kind of a web app. She's always getting better.

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I just thought it's just not gonna happen. And also

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just that I discovered that, you know, I'm I'm a

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man of a certain age, and at a certain point,

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your brain, the human brain, my brain anyway, cannot understand

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how to memorize biblical Greek. Oh, I just can't do it.

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And I'm old enough to know I can't do it,

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old enough also to be mad about it, not at myself,

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but the idea that I'm supposed to because I because

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I can't do it. I mean, I just been a

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giant disaster for me. I kind of feel like, wait

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a minute, I have a book. Just give me a

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class where you teach me how to look this crap up.

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I'll look it up. That and Hebrew. Just give me

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cocktail party Greek and cocktail party Hebrew. And I'm sad.

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There's always a book I'm well enough for every When

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people said to me when in math class, well, you're

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not always going to have a calculator, Well, no, I

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get I literally always have a calculator. There's always a

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I got this. There's an app for Biblical Greek is

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an app for Hebrew. I don't need to memorize anything.

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I can't memorize anyway. So that that is the that

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that has been very humbling. On the other hand, what

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I discovered is that it's really fun that that I

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recommend it to people. If you've ever had this sort

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of sense that wouldn't it be great if my job

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today was to read do it?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 2: Anybody tell you you're too old, because you're not too old.

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You're too old probably to memorize Greek, but you're not

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too old to do a lot of other great things.

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So that's money.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I am. They're still saying that youth

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is wasted on the young.

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Speaker 1: I've I've well, I've long ago concluded that education is

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wasted on the young in many cases too are uh

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and uh, you know I well, so you're I'm guessing

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probably the oldest person in your graduate class.

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Speaker 2: Excuse me, back off, buddy, I am one of them.

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Speaker 3: Okay, but uh, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that my observation as an undergraduate,

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and I had a lot of you know, older Vietnam

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war vets who had come back to college, they were

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always that this is in the seventies. They were always

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the most interesting people in class, always the best at

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drawing things out of both the faculty and us fellow

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students who were just right out of high school and stupid.

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Uh and and and and then you know, now that

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I'm a classroom teacher again myself, I observe the same thing.

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The older students are always the ones who have it

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together more. Just a little bit of real world experience

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makes a ton of difference in educate facial venture. One

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quick question then I'll see if Charlie has any theological

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increase for you.

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Speaker 2: I'm available Charlie to be your spiritual guide.

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Speaker 1: Is there any one particular aspect of this is too broad,

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I wish I could do more specific, rob But is

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there any one particular thing that has caught your attention?

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You weren't anticipating or that's a surprise.

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Speaker 2: Studies, you're just the idea of being a student.

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Speaker 3: No, in the studies such a matter.

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Speaker 2: As a Christian, there's just a tendency. You know, obviously

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it's a you know, come you can get, you come

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to it in good faith. But there's a tendency to

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read the Hebrew Bible as like a preview of coming attractions. Ah, right,

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are they okay? This is a spoiler alert. It's a

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giant drum roll. And anytime I'm confused or I am

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reacting in a weird way to something in the Hebrew Bible,

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I can say, well, you know, here's the problem. You

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all need Jesus, that's the problem, and he's on his way.

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And I think that's a that's a mistake. And I

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you know, I luckily I have two professors in Old

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Testament ex Jesus, who are you know, fairly devout Christians.

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One is the fact of practicing minister. And I'm gonna

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say this can sound horrible and racist in one of

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those Korean churches that I just can never keep straight right,

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And they've both been really great about never doing that.

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And it's amazing when you never do that, and you

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just that's the thing that's a tendency you always fight

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how much the whole thing kind of explodes this. There's

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a really there's a reason. I know, I'm going on

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and on and on. Although it's ad event, there is

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no reason in Western political social thought that can explain

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the explain the persistence of the Hebrew Bible and the

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New Testament and their persistence. There is no reason for it.

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There should be no Jews in the world if we

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believe in the patterns of history crushed by empires to

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the Egyptian Empire and the Syrian Empire and the Babylonian Fire,

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and the Persian Empire, then the Greeks and then the Romans.

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And nobody's going to worship Raw or Jupiter or Zeus

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or Zoraster or anybody like that. Well, yeah, very few.

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And there's how come there's going to be a reason.

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And I think the reason is, you know, that's why

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the Hebrew Bibles so fascinating that the reasons.

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Speaker 3: Well, funny story for you on that, Rob.

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Speaker 1: I remember remarking some years ago now that the Florida

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two thousand election was so close that any group could

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claim to have been the swing vote that put Bush

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over the top, Theoroastrian vote. And the young lady I

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was telling us to says well, actually I'm sorrow Astrian.

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Speaker 3: It turned out I met the only she was from

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that part of it.

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Speaker 1: Rod and themmigrants, who is now now a federal judge

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by the way, appointed by President Trump.

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Speaker 3: Will just add that little detail for the fun of it.

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Speaker 1: Charlie, do you have any theological curiosity you want to

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draw out of Rob?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to win back the fire worshiping. Wow.

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Speaker 3: If he's going to find the grayil for us or something.

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Speaker 4: Well, the first thing I would say is I would

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strongly advise Perry against using the pull quote from your

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last there should be no Jews in the world. You

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paused after you said it, and I thought, O, where's

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this one go?

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I get accused of two positions on religion that I

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don't hold. It's a strange existence. One is I'm reflexively

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accused of being an evangelical because I'm pro life. The

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other is that I'm accused of hating religion or being

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annoyed by it or opposed to it in some way,

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which just isn't true. I just don't have it. I'm

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a very literal atheist. I'm married to it about Catholic

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My children are being raised Catholic. I like religion. I

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wish I had it, but I don't, and I'm not

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going to say I do until I do, out of

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respect for myself and others. I was raised culturally Christian.

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I'm pleased about that. I had a guy on my podcast,

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Catholic Priest, and we talked about the existence of God

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a few months ago. It was very good. And someone

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said to me recently, you know there was a good

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conversation because you didn't scoff, And I said, well, I

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didn't feel tempted to scoff. I'd have to scoff at

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my own wife. I think that'd be bizarre, and most

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of my colleagues. So I don't know if I have questions,

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but I'm certainly interested. And also, you can't escape, and

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I don't use that word to imply that I want to.

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You can't escape the poll of this time of year,

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even if you don't believe in the metaphysical parts of it.

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If you were raised with it, which I was, and

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the schools I went to were Christian and the culture

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was Christian, you just can't escape the power of it.

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So I just wanted to throw that in there, because

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even though I don't believe that it is Troo, at

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least not yet. My friends keep telling me, Ah.

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Speaker 1: The.

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Speaker 4: Power of the story is extraordinary.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'll just two quick observations and then we'll press

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on to some of the current headlines. One is, Charlie,

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you mentioned that people assume you must be a religious

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fanatic because your pro life. You know someone who is

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strongly pro life, although it didn't seem to come up

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that often in discussions, was Christopher Hitchins. It was not

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just an atheist, but very hostile to organized or even

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disorganized religion.

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Speaker 3: Right, he was very strongly. He's not the only one,

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I believe.

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Speaker 1: The late nat Hentoff was also pro life. Yeah so,

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and by the way, they both said it on logical grounds.

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Speaker 3: Human life has to begin.

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Speaker 1: Somewhere, well the most logical places, added in your conception, okay.

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And Hitchins was blunt about that whatever came up, as

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he was on all things.

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Speaker 3: Second, you know, I think I'm with you on you know,

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organized religion.

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Speaker 1: Maybe he's an oxymoron, maybe not, But I do sometimes

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like to draw people's attention to something. C. S. Lewis

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wrote in his book Surprised by Joe, which tells about

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him becoming a Christian, and in there he really does

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confess that, gosh, I really don't like organized religion. I

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don't often like going to church. I find it sort

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of stuffy and clunky. And so even someone as pious

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and metaphysically inclined as Lewis has some of your disposition

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about that.

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Speaker 3: So you're not so much aboutwire. I'll just I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I just can I make a pastoral note, Charlie, Sure,

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I go to church because of something that I need,

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not something that I have, So you don't have to

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have it to go.

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Speaker 4: What do you mean by that?

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Speaker 2: I mean I feel like that there's something there that

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I need, and I probably need it more than once

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a week, and that's why I go. I don't go

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as a There's a whole there's an argument now, sort

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of a big debate, and I'm sure we don't have

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to get into this theological debate here, because there's like

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as important politics to talk about. There's a department of

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the Second Day of the Interior or whatever. But the

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big debate is who gets to who gets to receive

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the Eucharist at a church, And the traditional word is

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you have to be baptized and confirmed or baptizing coff

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in some way, so you'd have to be not so

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that church, but sort of very conservative. And I'm cerifically

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talking about the American Episcopal Church, Anglican slice. I don't

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really know any other denomination. The argument as well, okay,

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well if you don't have to be if you haven't

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been confirmed, maybe at least you have to have been baptized.

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And they say the phrase they use is font to

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table baptism, font to the altered table, to the Eucharist table.

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That's the direction you're supposed to go in. And there's

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a bunch of other like Lucy Goosey, progressive weirdos like me,

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who think no anybody can come and receive because it's

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not our feast, it's not our table, it's not our invitation.

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We're just the caterers, and the invitation doesn't come from us,

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and the person the invitation comes from famously had an

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open door policy. So sometimes you go, and sometimes I go,

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and I and I feel absolutely nothing, and I simply

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sit there in the pew and I organize my week.

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And sometimes I go and I think, why am I here?

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I had a bunch of reading to do, and I'm hired,

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I'm going to homegoing to take a nap, or I'm

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hungry or whatever. I wish I had had that third

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glass of wine last night. And sometimes I go and

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I get close to experiencing what I'm supposed to experience

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or what is what is? What is what I've been

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invited there to experience, whether I've been there or not.

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So you know, that's why I go. I go for something.

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I don't go as an expression of faith. I go

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because I need it. So that's a different way to

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look at it. Just that way be my pastoral note

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to you.

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Speaker 4: But doesn't it you know, well, I do, and so

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I go with my wife and kids. And then there

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are parts of it that are not canonical, if you will,

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but nevertheless powerful. For example, the music I grow up

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that too, So that's partly a matter of reminiscence. The

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thing that really matters to me is whether or not

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I believe the claim at the heart of it, And

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you mentioned C. S. Lewis. He is pretty big on that.

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So I can do what you just described, although I

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don't get the experience that you described unless I'm confusing

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it for music sometimes I suppose. But it matters to

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me that I don't believe the core claim that it's

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being made in the sermon or in the texts. Does

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it matter too much? Do you think? Do you think

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I'm over thinking?

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people feel that way. I

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think that's that's legitimate. I mean these are hard things

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to believe, right, I mean it's filled with miracles and

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weird events, right, so yeah, that should be very hardly.

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I don't I'm not. I don't think that's a problem.

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I just want to I want you to. I went

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to Israel a little while ago, a couple of years ago,

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before before October seventh, but I went. It was in Jerusalem,

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and I spent the first few days doing this kind

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of thing where I looked around and I was like, okay,

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well I had a guide and the guide was like, okay,

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here around here is probably where this or that happened.

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And so I spent at least three of the days

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that I was there just doing this kind of like

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CSI Jesus, right, there any evidence? You're like, of course,

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there's no evidence, right, because it's like what happened twenty

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feet below whatever? You know, it happened. You know, Jerusalem

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has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. And then I

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stopped doing that, and I said, Okay, what if I

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just didn't worry about that part? And what is the

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faith that this what is this faith actually asking me

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to do? And I think we are stuck sometimes in

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the idea that the faith is asking us to believe

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a set of principles. We have a nice in Creed,

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we have apostles Creed. It's interesting with nice in Creed.

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It lists the very very specific aspects of Christ's birth,

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the very specific aspects of his death, the very specific

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aspects of Chris Christology, which people been fighting over for years.

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It doesn't really say anything about the stuff he did

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or said or taught. It's like you're getting a sandwich

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with just the pieces of bread and no meat inside.

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And I think it's kind of easy, actually not easy,

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but it's easier to believe or convince yourself, or convince others,

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or believe even truly believe in all of those events.

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It's much easier to do that than it is to

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actually live the way he told you to live. Yeah,

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which is one of the reasons why we well, we

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focused on them.

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Speaker 3: Well, there's a reason that's called faith.

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Speaker 1: Charlie and Rob and I some other time, you and

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I can argue about salvation by grace alone or other

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aspects of it.

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Speaker 3: And for the listeners who haven't chased away, who came to.

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Speaker 2: We're just don't you know, hot.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to extend the metaphor divine intervention because

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maybe the House Republicans could use some divine intervention right now,

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having completely flobbed the continuing resolution to keep the government open.

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Speaker 3: And I mean there's a whole lot to be said

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about this.

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Speaker 1: The usual people in the chattering classes are aghast that

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Elon Musk and Twitter may have whipped up the mob

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to prevent the House from passing a resolution. Other people

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in the grassroots are pointing to a lot of a

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technical term is crap that was in the bill.

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Speaker 3: We could list some and you know, Charlie may one

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list a few of these.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what I make about this, Charlie, I'm

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sure you're following this, probably more closely than I am.

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Speaker 4: I have a big problem with the tactic that we're

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now seeing, which is to wait until the end of

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the year, throw everything into one bill against the deadline,

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then focus in on one part of it that you

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think is the most politically popular and claim that those

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who don't want to pass the bill as is are

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opposed to that. They do this every time, they push

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it and push it and push it, and then they

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come up with this behemoth of a bill, one section

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of which is the Saving Kittens Act. And then you say,

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I don't think we should do this because of all

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of the other things that are in the bill, and

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they say Representative Cook opposes the Saving Kittens Act or

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is blocking the Saving Kittens Act. And now they've added

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on to this blame for Elon Musk. Now it's Donald

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Trump's billionaire friends are blocking the Saving Kittens Act. Well,

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you know, Congress could right now, literally right now, on Thursday,

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December nineteenth, take that part of the bill, bring it

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to the floor, and vote on it. The argument here

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is that there are portions of this continuing Resolution that

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have overwhelming bipartisan support that would never be fit lebusted.

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They wouldn't even need a full chamber in either part

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of the legislature.

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Speaker 3: So do it.

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Speaker 4: If it is imperative that we have disaster Aid, which

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is this year's Saving Kittens Act. I think there's a

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lot of pork in there, and a lot of problems

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by the way that it's been structured. But if that

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is imperative right now for North Carolina, for Florida, for elsewhere,

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go do it. Just pull it out, do it, and

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then keep arguing about the rest of the stuff. But

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of course they don't want to do it. Now. You

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are going to have some degree of that in any

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democratic system because people horse trade and they should. You

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can't have politics without it. I would love it if

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every single part of every bill were voted on separately,

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so we could see who voted for what. But you're

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never going to get that. You are going to get

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quote pro quote, but this there has to be some

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space right between every part of every bill being voted

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on independently and yes or no at the end of

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the year. So I really object to this tactic, and

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I think it is a good thing. Irrespective of the

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motivations or whether or not there's a plan. I think

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it is a good thing. That's someone has finally said no,

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just to make the argument against it. Even if we

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end up with a bill that looks very much like

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this continuing resolution and then we have to have the

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same fight next year.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, oh gosh.

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Speaker 1: I could go on all day about the incompetence of

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this whole scene.

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Speaker 3: The fact that it doesn't follow the law, which.

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Speaker 1: Is now almost fifty years old, about how Congress is

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supposed to pass the budgets every year. And then second,

401
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I mean, but even if you're saying, oh gosh, we've

402
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once again fritted away an entire year and we have

403
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to do a continuing resolution to keep the government going,

404
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it seems to me that if you had any wit

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about you, you would pass a budget resolution that reduced

406
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spending by even a small amount.

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Speaker 3: Spread the pain around. Second, I don't understand why.

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Speaker 1: Somebody is an alert to all the things being snuck

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into this bill so or another one.

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Speaker 3: I take some hostages.

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Speaker 1: What I've said was is, look, if I was a

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member of the House and unhappy about things, you can.

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Speaker 3: Have my vote.

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Speaker 1: If you gave me five budget cuts, cut funding the

415
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Planned parenthood, cut funding, the NPR cut the State Department

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grants to leftist NGOs around the world that are essentially

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subsidies for left wing activism.

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Speaker 3: It wouldn't amount to much money.

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Speaker 1: But you take it this time, then you go and

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do it again the next time, and that would be

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some progress. Oh there's also some definitional changes. Some people

422
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have flagged this on Twitter, where the language in the

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bill says, for like the appropriation for the Justice Department,

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They're want to change the definition of defending.

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Speaker 3: To justice involved individuals.

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Speaker 2: It's always, you know, woke euphemistically involved individuals.

427
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Speaker 3: I mean, how in the world, how do Republicans run

428
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the House? Let this slip through. No one's reading this,

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no one's paying attention.

430
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Speaker 1: I have theories about why the capacities to do that,

431
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even mentally have an atrophy to almost nothing.

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Speaker 3: But now I'm with you, Charlie. I'm delighted they're turning

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it down.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, last point, government shutdown we always

435
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hear well as we know, if you pay attention, social

436
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Security checks still go out, Care and Medicaid still get paid.

437
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The military is still on watch and getting paid. Oh,

438
00:22:04,559 --> 00:22:07,359
by the way, is your local police department still patrolling

439
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:10,440
the streets? How about your local public schools? Is Governor

440
00:22:10,559 --> 00:22:13,480
Newsom sadly still on the job. In California, we have

441
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something like thirty thousand governmental units in this country, and

442
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only one is partially interrupting its business for a couple

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of weeks. This is Washington media theater is what's going on.

444
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And you know, I think most people wouldn't notice. I

445
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don't think maybe in some small ways you know the mails,

446
00:22:32,039 --> 00:22:35,160
but even the mail gets delivered. So this whole government

447
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shutdown to what's the end of the world has become

448
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a real farce, and I can't believe we haven't figured

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that out by now.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think that's the feature of it, right. I mean,

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if I just have cut out the date of the

452
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newspaper and just started reading articles about the eminent government

453
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shutdown and the budget sealing debate, you would know what

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year we were in. You would know you were in

455
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twenty twenty four. I think that we were in nineteen

456
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,799
ninety five for that matter, because we had this conversation

457
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nineteen ninety five. This is actually the way it gets done,

458
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and it's the worst way possible, and we sort of

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can't bestir ourselves to fix it. I mean, this is

460
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what you do when you put everything off the last minute.

461
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You then can't be blamed for the fact that it's

462
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all crap, because of course it's crap. We did it

463
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in forty eight hours before we all want for Christmas.

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The downside of a government shutdown is the shutdown. The

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downside is what it turned when they eventually turn it

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back on. And when they turn it back on, they

467
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pay everybody in the arrears. Everybody gets paid and they

468
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get paid even more. It costs more to shut the

469
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government down. That's the problem. The other problem, I think

470
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is that we don't we don't have a real sense

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of what it is we want this federal government to do.

472
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And it was much easier when we thought, here's what

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we want them to do. We want them to make

474
00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:55,519
sure the Soviets know we're going to obliterate the Soviet

475
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:57,720
Union if they try to obliterate the United States. That

476
00:23:57,839 --> 00:24:00,200
was the goal. And if without that then we're kind

477
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,160
of a drift. And so I'm always I'm always surprised

478
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,720
when I read the America First Crowd, which is, by

479
00:24:06,759 --> 00:24:08,799
the way, a philosophy that I find very compelling a

480
00:24:08,839 --> 00:24:11,599
lot of ways, but also arguing to make the military bigger.

481
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,079
It's like, well, wait a minute, we're not going to

482
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,000
have those wars, so we're not going to fight them.

483
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,319
We let other people fight them. We should just be

484
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,079
protecting our borders. We it's a much smaller we need

485
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,119
a much smaller military. We're going to do that. So

486
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,319
there's all sorts of big decisions we just don't want

487
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:32,279
to make, notwithstanding the fact that it still is about entitlements,

488
00:24:32,279 --> 00:24:34,559
it's still about Medicare and social security, and it's not

489
00:24:34,599 --> 00:24:36,799
it's not going to change until we have a big

490
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:38,640
I mean it may it may end up that we

491
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:40,279
all look at each other and say, you know, that

492
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,559
president that we didn't really like very much that got

493
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,480
us into a stupid war in Iraq, George W. Bush

494
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,319
turns out he was right about social security, and we

495
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,119
pass social Security reform when we had a chance, we

496
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,279
would be in a much different fiscal place than we

497
00:24:53,319 --> 00:24:53,759
are now.

498
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:56,759
Speaker 4: So can I give you the devil's advocate on that?

499
00:24:56,799 --> 00:24:58,960
Because I agree with you? So I just want to

500
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:00,960
steal man this. I I agree with you. If you

501
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,240
think about where we would be now if social security

502
00:25:05,079 --> 00:25:07,960
had been privatized, if you look at the gains of

503
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,400
the stock market over the last twenty years, it would

504
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,119
have fixed the problem. Here's the one worry that I

505
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:19,440
have with the counterfacture two thousand and eight. We know

506
00:25:19,599 --> 00:25:22,279
this now, yeah, but in two thousand and eight, when

507
00:25:22,319 --> 00:25:26,039
all of the markets crashed. Bush would have gone from

508
00:25:26,039 --> 00:25:31,240
approval eighteen twenty eight percent to two. The Republicans would

509
00:25:31,319 --> 00:25:35,240
have been wiped out in greater numbers than they were,

510
00:25:35,799 --> 00:25:40,279
and the Democrats would have renationalized Social security. I just

511
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,440
can't see any other outcome. They would have looked at

512
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,279
it and said, not only do we have all the

513
00:25:45,279 --> 00:25:47,640
problems that we had in two thousand and five, which

514
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,559
is when they would have changed this, we're now in

515
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,240
the hole. The outlook for it is impossible. That's the

516
00:25:53,279 --> 00:25:56,000
problem I've got. I just don't think it can sustain.

517
00:25:57,319 --> 00:25:59,079
Maybe now it could because you'd have had twenty years

518
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:00,920
agains back COVID. It would have been another one you

519
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:05,000
remember that day in the stock market where it went Yeah.

520
00:26:05,039 --> 00:26:08,519
Speaker 2: But I mean there's there are ways. There were solutions

521
00:26:08,559 --> 00:26:11,119
to that. They may may may may have been a

522
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,319
danger zone in the early days of it. But the idea,

523
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,720
what look, if you if you could, if you can

524
00:26:16,839 --> 00:26:20,440
convince the lenders, all the lenders, not just worldwide but

525
00:26:20,519 --> 00:26:25,759
in markets every day, that in thirty years, in forty years,

526
00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:30,160
this won't be a problem. You will feel the effects

527
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:34,119
today in the economy. Positive effects. We're talking about fifteen

528
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:40,640
thirty year notes section. So there's there are ways around it.

529
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,960
The problem is you just you you. Nobody really wants

530
00:26:44,039 --> 00:26:47,440
to do it because everybody likes big government. Even people

531
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,559
who say they don't like big government, they just don't

532
00:26:49,599 --> 00:26:52,160
like your big government. They like their big government. Now

533
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:53,839
you are I remember that great. I saw what once.

534
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,759
This is a million billion years ago. I was driving

535
00:26:56,799 --> 00:26:59,359
through a town, a small town in California and Central Valley,

536
00:26:59,559 --> 00:27:02,400
and it was a tea party rally. This is before

537
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,480
the tea parties became sort of a basically a political

538
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,240
grip based in Washington, when it was still a bunch

539
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,519
of old people marching around with signs, and one of

540
00:27:09,559 --> 00:27:13,359
the signs said say no to socialism, hands off my.

541
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:14,599
Speaker 3: Medicare medicare right.

542
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 2: Okay, well I'm not sure these are all right.

543
00:27:18,279 --> 00:27:22,079
Speaker 4: I'm going to defend that too. Yeah, I'm serious.

544
00:27:22,799 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 3: No, I get agree.

545
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:29,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree that there is a complete paradox in

546
00:27:29,319 --> 00:27:31,160
the way a lot of people think about big government.

547
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,559
I agree that we have big government because we want it.

548
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:35,960
I agree that nobody wants to fix it. It hasn't gone

549
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,079
a miss on me that the Republican who has won

550
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:43,200
the last two times has explicitly run against fixing entitlements,

551
00:27:43,319 --> 00:27:49,039
so totally agree. Here's why I'll defend that sign. The

552
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:56,119
Obamacare debate was in full flow. Obamacare took money out

553
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:04,799
of Medicare, which annoyed people. The Democratic Party, since Social

554
00:28:04,839 --> 00:28:09,640
Security was passed and then thirty years later Medicare was passed,

555
00:28:09,799 --> 00:28:15,039
has told people erroneously and dishonestly that it is just

556
00:28:15,079 --> 00:28:17,640
an insurance program. There was actually Supreme Court case about

557
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:24,599
this where Social Security was taken to the Supreme Court

558
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:31,279
and the government had to admit that it was not

559
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,599
in fact an insurance program, that it was a welfare program.

560
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,160
The reason that I have some sympathy for the person

561
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:38,799
who held up that sign that thought some of the

562
00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:42,240
mockery was unfair, was that that person has been told

563
00:28:42,279 --> 00:28:44,759
over and over and over and over again that they

564
00:28:44,759 --> 00:28:49,759
have paid in to an insurance program for their retirement

565
00:28:49,839 --> 00:28:53,160
fund and for their retirement healthcare, that it's their money

566
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:55,640
that they're not getting out anything they didn't put in,

567
00:28:55,839 --> 00:28:58,000
and that it's unreasonable for people to take it away,

568
00:28:58,119 --> 00:29:01,440
and they believed it. What trolled me about that incident

569
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,759
was that those people who have been told this at

570
00:29:04,759 --> 00:29:08,599
that point for seventy eighty ninety years then turned around

571
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,319
to the Democrats who were trying to change this with Obamacare,

572
00:29:11,359 --> 00:29:13,759
and said, hands off my Medicare. I paid into it's

573
00:29:13,759 --> 00:29:17,039
an insurance program. And the Democrats started mocking them for it.

574
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:17,599
Speaker 3: Right.

575
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 4: I just thought that was sort of deeply unfair. Of

576
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,279
course it is silly, but for the Democrats, not Europe,

577
00:29:23,319 --> 00:29:25,160
for the Democrats to do what they did when they

578
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:26,920
saw that science, I just thought it was.

579
00:29:27,279 --> 00:29:31,599
Speaker 1: Like, come on, well, the important thing is I think

580
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,240
the case you're referring to charity, if I remember, right,

581
00:29:34,359 --> 00:29:34,920
is hel Ring v.

582
00:29:35,079 --> 00:29:37,359
Speaker 3: Davis from a long time ago. And what it means is.

583
00:29:37,799 --> 00:29:41,119
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about social security, medicare as, entitlements.

584
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,839
Speaker 3: That case means it's not an entitlement.

585
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,759
Speaker 1: Strictly speaking, it can be taken away from you by

586
00:29:46,759 --> 00:29:47,480
the legislature.

587
00:29:47,559 --> 00:29:49,359
Speaker 3: You don't own anything now.

588
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:53,599
Speaker 1: I think an additional difficulty is a lawful lot of people,

589
00:29:53,799 --> 00:29:56,720
probably a majority of Americans, are risk averse. If you

590
00:29:56,759 --> 00:30:00,000
tell them we will guarantee you, quote unquote guarantee you

591
00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:02,640
two thousand dollars a month, or we can have this

592
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,279
private account system where you have a seventy five percent

593
00:30:05,359 --> 00:30:07,519
chance of having thirty five hundred dollars a month, and

594
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:09,759
you retire a lot of people are going to opt

595
00:30:09,799 --> 00:30:12,200
for the first one because it's certain and the other

596
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,640
one has And then add in, as Rob points out,

597
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,319
a couple of crashes. Now, I'm a contrarian. Every time

598
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,319
the market tanks like I did this week. Not so

599
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,359
much this week, but the supervious ones, I get greedy

600
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,480
and I buy like crazy, handover fists and yes, but see,

601
00:30:27,519 --> 00:30:29,480
you know, if you're contrarian thinker about these things, you

602
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:32,720
do very well on markets like that you bought the day,

603
00:30:32,799 --> 00:30:35,599
if you bought an October twenty, nineteen eighty seven, you

604
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:39,359
did really, really well. And you know, Okay, I'm not

605
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:41,519
going to brag about my I mean, I'm not Warren Buffett,

606
00:30:41,519 --> 00:30:43,880
but I've done very well by being You got.

607
00:30:43,759 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: An nice house in the you got an nice house

608
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:46,000
on the coast.

609
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 3: I knew.

610
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,559
Speaker 1: I'm looking out the ocean right now out my window.

611
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,720
So there's that problem. And I do think that even

612
00:30:51,759 --> 00:30:55,400
if you have some shock absorbers, a robort of suggest

613
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,200
that you could solve this problem by sort of reinsurance.

614
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,240
In a certain way of it, I still think the

615
00:31:01,279 --> 00:31:04,039
mass psychology of a crash and the uncertainty would make

616
00:31:04,079 --> 00:31:05,880
it politically fraught to try and maintain it.

617
00:31:06,039 --> 00:31:07,839
Speaker 3: I would see the government would regulate it today.

618
00:31:07,839 --> 00:31:10,599
Speaker 2: I would also say that probably our and I think, Charlie,

619
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:12,839
that's a very good distinction, because I think even our

620
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:18,240
language of calling them entitlements is wrong, right, Because there's

621
00:31:18,279 --> 00:31:22,799
a retirement savings, old age savings, rainy day fund, which

622
00:31:22,799 --> 00:31:25,400
is sort of what SO security is in general. It's

623
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,440
a rainy day fund for some people. It's got disability

624
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,640
insurance associated with it, it has early retirement, has like you know,

625
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,240
dependent and orphan widow stuff, and it also has retirement

626
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,000
fund all wrapped up. And that's a financial instrument essentially,

627
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,039
or more than one about three different financial insurance. And

628
00:31:41,079 --> 00:31:43,359
then there's health Insurancehreich is Medicare, which is not a

629
00:31:43,359 --> 00:31:47,039
financial instrument by any means, and isn't really insurance in

630
00:31:47,119 --> 00:31:51,319
any meaningful way. It is simply an account with which

631
00:31:51,359 --> 00:31:54,519
we as a culture and a country, fund each other's

632
00:31:54,519 --> 00:31:58,480
health in some ways. And we often, and this always

633
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,319
bugs be when people say things that, well, you know,

634
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,920
Americans spend x percent of this on that I they

635
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:04,839
shouldn't spend that much, Like, well, what on earth you're

636
00:32:04,839 --> 00:32:07,279
spending your money on. If you're not spending your money

637
00:32:07,279 --> 00:32:09,759
on your health, actually, what are you spending it on? Well,

638
00:32:09,759 --> 00:32:11,680
we don't have the same outcomes. We have worse outcomes

639
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,000
than they do. That's because we do more, and maybe

640
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:15,720
we do too much. Maybe people are going to the

641
00:32:15,759 --> 00:32:18,200
doctor too often, or maybe they're taking antibe autist when

642
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,160
they shouldn't, and that may be another problem. But we

643
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:27,920
actually have a very very very aggressive and innovative and

644
00:32:29,039 --> 00:32:32,119
incredibly flexible health system in this country. And if you'd

645
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,279
said ten years ago that I would be able to

646
00:32:34,319 --> 00:32:36,960
go on my zoom and go to a doctor and

647
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,480
get my you know toe looked at, and get a

648
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,720
prescription at the and the CBS would down there around

649
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,279
the corner would send me a push alert telling me

650
00:32:46,319 --> 00:32:48,799
that the prescriptions ready for me and within ten minutes.

651
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:50,759
That's an amazing thing. You don't have that in any

652
00:32:50,799 --> 00:32:54,359
other country. And so I always think of like, well,

653
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,680
maybe we're not spending enough on help, Maybe we don't

654
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:59,480
need to keep the cost of health insurance down. What

655
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:01,680
we what are you going to spend it on? I

656
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:02,559
can spend it on that.

657
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,359
Speaker 4: One reason that we spend so much is that Americans

658
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:13,319
simply won't put up with the outcomes that you get

659
00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:18,359
in say, Britain. My parents are experiencing this at the moment.

660
00:33:18,759 --> 00:33:23,160
My dad had a knee operation recently before they had

661
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:27,240
a hip replacement. Get to go private because the hip

662
00:33:27,279 --> 00:33:30,640
replacement would have taken three and a half years. Americans

663
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:36,000
won't accept that. And so both within the government spending

664
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,240
and the private spending, we don't have the rationing that

665
00:33:40,279 --> 00:33:42,279
we have in other systems, which means we spend more money.

666
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,119
We're also a lot richer, and as you say, when

667
00:33:44,119 --> 00:33:46,599
you're rich, you spend money on healthcare, because why wouldn't you.

668
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think that's absolutely true. But I think

669
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,359
also just in terms of how we just the accounting

670
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:59,559
for outcomes, you don't have a bad outcome for hip replacement,

671
00:33:59,599 --> 00:34:03,039
you didn't yet, and you don't have a bad outcome

672
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,640
for a procedure that you will get somewhere else. So

673
00:34:06,839 --> 00:34:08,800
in France you don't have these bad outcomes because they don't.

674
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,960
You don't get it. Same thing in Britain or in Canada.

675
00:34:12,039 --> 00:34:13,239
You're in line. You don't get it.

676
00:34:13,639 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 4: When you come to America, you're really sick, Yeah, come

677
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:18,519
to America.

678
00:34:18,679 --> 00:34:22,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you get and you may and that outcome mean. Look, look,

679
00:34:22,639 --> 00:34:25,360
spending more on health, health insurance or health care doesn't

680
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:27,960
mean that you're not going to die of a disease.

681
00:34:28,079 --> 00:34:29,559
It just means that we're going to probably spend a

682
00:34:29,559 --> 00:34:31,360
whole lot of money making sure that trying to make

683
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,199
sure that doesn't happen. Well, and that's gonna mean, that's

684
00:34:34,199 --> 00:34:35,880
gonna that's going to mean your outcomes aren't as good.

685
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:39,159
But but I still say, like, I hate it when

686
00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:40,840
people say, well, we should be spent we should not

687
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,280
be spending as much as we spend on healthcare, and

688
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:44,800
I don't know, well, what else are you going to

689
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:45,239
spend it on.

690
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,159
Speaker 1: Well, we might be able to spend it better, But

691
00:34:48,159 --> 00:34:51,400
that's uh, well, I'd be two things here. At least

692
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:56,320
one is I thought Obamacare fixed all this right, and

693
00:34:56,519 --> 00:35:00,880
this has been conspicuously missing, uh amst for gun control

694
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,119
out of this terrible episode of assassinating the head of

695
00:35:04,159 --> 00:35:07,440
United Healthcare. And then the second one is you still

696
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,679
hear people like aoc I guess saying we ought to

697
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,039
have Britain's National Health service here. But Charlie, my understanding

698
00:35:13,119 --> 00:35:15,679
is I mean you and I know and people are

699
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,960
informed know that it's dreadful service. But I understand it's

700
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,039
widely unpopular in Britain right now. People are mad about it.

701
00:35:22,039 --> 00:35:25,400
It's a huge political issue for whatever parties in government.

702
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:27,639
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, a couple of things on the health service.

703
00:35:27,679 --> 00:35:29,920
First off, the British have a very odd relationship with

704
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,079
the National Health Service, which is that they hate it,

705
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:34,079
but also it's a national treasure.

706
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,079
Speaker 2: And these two things very British response. By the way.

707
00:35:37,639 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, so if you're an American then you criticize it,

708
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,320
they will immediately get their backs up and say no,

709
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,679
it's the end of the world. But between themselves they

710
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:51,039
will accept that it's not good. The American left's love

711
00:35:51,079 --> 00:35:53,679
for the British National Health Service is and I think

712
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,639
many Americans don't understand this. It is extreme even in

713
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:01,440
world terms, because the National Health Service is usual within

714
00:36:01,559 --> 00:36:07,840
Europe in that it is a government organization that is

715
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:12,719
run directly by the government. Every single hospital is owned

716
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:16,639
by the government or the doctors and nurses work for

717
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:21,719
the government. It is quite literally a nationalized health care system.

718
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:26,400
Both the funding and the provision are the government. That's

719
00:36:26,519 --> 00:36:31,320
not how most systems, even those with single pair work.

720
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,639
France does not work like that. France has a system

721
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:38,320
of private health insurance and private hospitals and doctors and

722
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,519
so forth that is mostly, although not all, funded by

723
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,880
the government. The same is true of Germany. The same

724
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,920
is true in most prosperous countries in the East. The

725
00:36:50,199 --> 00:36:54,480
British model was contrived in nineteen forty eight, and I

726
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,320
will try not to go on here, but I think

727
00:36:56,360 --> 00:37:00,400
this matters when the Labor Party that had won after

728
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,480
World War Two had a huge mandate and mistook the

729
00:37:05,519 --> 00:37:12,079
public's desire for much more equality economically for a desire

730
00:37:12,199 --> 00:37:15,400
for nationalization. If you look back at the election of

731
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,880
nineteen forty five, it is true that people wanted a

732
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,480
national health service. It's no point pretending otherwise. What they

733
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:22,920
mostly wanted was two million new houses built because we've

734
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,000
just been bombed to Smithy, inspy the Nazis. That was

735
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:26,960
the main thing that got that government elected. But the

736
00:37:27,039 --> 00:37:30,760
national health service was popular. But the popular part was

737
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,599
the payment. People said, I don't want to go broke

738
00:37:34,679 --> 00:37:37,159
if I get sick, I don't want to pay to

739
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,440
go to the doctor. I don't want to pay if

740
00:37:40,639 --> 00:37:45,320
my children need an operation. That was the principle that

741
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,039
people liked. No one cared how it was done. They

742
00:37:49,039 --> 00:37:51,880
didn't say I need the government to run all of this.

743
00:37:52,199 --> 00:37:54,920
But because the Labor Party of nineteen forty five was

744
00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:00,400
extremely left wing, was quasi Marxist patriotic. That was a

745
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:05,440
good thing about that party, patriotic, but quasi Marxist. It said,

746
00:38:05,519 --> 00:38:07,559
we have a mandate to nationalize everything. And so when

747
00:38:07,559 --> 00:38:11,199
Winiston Churchill comes back in nineteen fifty fifty one, the

748
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,480
Conservatives reprivatize quite a lot of industry. They just can't

749
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,199
do it with the National Health Service for a couple

750
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,960
of reasons. First off, the footprint of the NHS in

751
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,760
the fifties was actually quite small, in that it really

752
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:26,719
was covering doctor's appointments and glasses and that sort of thing. Second,

753
00:38:27,199 --> 00:38:31,199
by that point you had a whole bunch of infrastructure

754
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:33,719
that had been placed into the government, that had its

755
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,960
own interest groups, and it was very, very difficult. But

756
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,719
I just wanted to point out that when AOC says this,

757
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,360
what I always think is, no, you want France's system,

758
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,079
that's what you want. You don't want Britain system where

759
00:38:45,079 --> 00:38:47,360
the government literally runs everything, or at least I assume not.

760
00:38:48,679 --> 00:38:51,800
Speaker 2: Well, I mean and we have we do have templates

761
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,159
for this. I mean, not that we want to recreate this,

762
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,159
but the government issues food stamps. They didn't think go

763
00:38:58,199 --> 00:39:02,360
out and yea farms. They didn't go into the food

764
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,159
making business. I said, here, use these little stamps and

765
00:39:05,199 --> 00:39:07,519
go you buy food. You can go to supermarket. They

766
00:39:07,519 --> 00:39:11,920
didn't open a supermarket. There's ways to do this. And

767
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,000
I just kind of my general point on about healthcare,

768
00:39:15,159 --> 00:39:18,239
just separated from retirement and other financial instruments, is that

769
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,440
what do you spend it on. I think it's great

770
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:25,639
that rich people are spending a lot of money on healthcare.

771
00:39:25,639 --> 00:39:29,239
It's fantastic. This is good. The innovation trickles down, everybody

772
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,000
makes it cheaper. That's good. First the first adopters always

773
00:39:32,039 --> 00:39:34,079
make it cheaper for everybody else. We should encourage that.

774
00:39:34,599 --> 00:39:36,800
But what does it matter to us that A that

775
00:39:36,559 --> 00:39:39,440
a that A that a hospital. I mean, it doesn't

776
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,760
matter to me at all. I mean, I think this

777
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:43,760
is something that we should be encouraging. And I don't

778
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,599
think the expenditure on health insurance or health care is

779
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,440
by defect, by definition, something that we need to stop.

780
00:39:50,519 --> 00:39:52,599
Speaker 1: So you know, Charlie, I'm going to file away Rob's

781
00:39:52,679 --> 00:39:55,400
argument here, which I understand, but I think it could

782
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,480
also be misinterpreted along with his.

783
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:02,280
Speaker 3: Remark on Jews earlier here today. Charlie, Right, but look,

784
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:03,760
this is you know.

785
00:40:03,679 --> 00:40:06,079
Speaker 1: Now for the for the for the listeners that we

786
00:40:06,079 --> 00:40:08,840
didn't lose with theology and now haven't lost with health care.

787
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 2: Yes, we're hitting all the hits today.

788
00:40:16,159 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 1: Look the other I mean this is all absurd, not

789
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,599
the theology part, but the other thing that happened this

790
00:40:21,639 --> 00:40:23,159
week that I think a lot of people might have

791
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,360
missed because it went by really fast. It was Kirsten Gillibrand,

792
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,280
the Senator from New York, demanding that President Biden direct

793
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,280
the Archivist of the United States to enroll the Equal

794
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,719
Rights Amendment, defeated forty years ago by the States. But

795
00:40:37,599 --> 00:40:40,760
for this quirky reasons, demand of the archimist enroll the

796
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,880
Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution and deem it ratified.

797
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,639
And this is a backdoor way of trying to revive

798
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:48,920
Roe versus way without having to pass it through Congress

799
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:53,000
or a constitutional amendment. And the Archimist, to her credits

800
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:54,320
a woman now said.

801
00:40:54,119 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 3: We can't do that. Sorry.

802
00:40:56,079 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: The law, this is very clear legal opinions are very clear,

803
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,320
and we're not going to do that. Charlie, I know

804
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,679
you've been following this and related matters. Do you want

805
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,519
to add to that minoritive which is very brief and

806
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:09,480
whatever GLOSSI want, because I have a few of my own.

807
00:41:09,559 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 4: But well, you say it's illegal. That's why the archivist

808
00:41:15,079 --> 00:41:20,719
said no, this is yet another attempt to circumvent the Constitution.

809
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:25,400
The era is in a strange way that as well,

810
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:27,519
because if she say the aim of it is to

811
00:41:27,559 --> 00:41:29,719
resuscitate Roh, it always has been, which is why Ruth

812
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:31,880
Bedagins both liked it so much. She thought that if

813
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:33,440
you could get the ra in they even though it

814
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,800
doesn't explicitly mention abortion, then the court could say, while

815
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:38,920
we have this equal right to memdment, men and women

816
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,280
have to be equal. Women can't be like men unless

817
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:45,760
they have abortions. Therefore, but this, irrespective of whether or

818
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:47,800
not that would happen, is just an attempt to circumvent

819
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:51,559
the rules. And the original rules for the ratification process

820
00:41:51,599 --> 00:41:56,559
were that the ratification had to succeed by nineteen seventy

821
00:41:56,679 --> 00:42:00,320
nine or nineteen eighty two, depending on which version of

822
00:42:00,519 --> 00:42:04,480
the rules you pick up. But either way, I mean,

823
00:42:04,519 --> 00:42:08,119
the nearest one is forty two years ago. Then it died.

824
00:42:08,199 --> 00:42:10,639
If it wasn't done by then, it died. And it's

825
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:15,159
just a fact that not enough states ratified it. In fact,

826
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:19,400
since then, although others have ratified it outside of the timeframe,

827
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,880
other states have rescinded their ratification. The thing that I

828
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,079
find the most instructive about this is that no one

829
00:42:27,119 --> 00:42:31,639
in nineteen eighty three said, aha, we can keep going.

830
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,199
It was universally understood by the advocates of the era,

831
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,639
by the opponents of the era, by the Senate, by

832
00:42:38,639 --> 00:42:42,840
the States, by neutral observers, by everyone that this was dead.

833
00:42:43,079 --> 00:42:46,480
So what this is now is law fair. But this

834
00:42:46,599 --> 00:42:48,360
time the Constitution is the victim.

835
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

836
00:42:49,039 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's another lesson to me that when the progressives

837
00:42:52,599 --> 00:42:55,280
want something, they'll get it by any means necessary.

838
00:42:55,559 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 3: But by the way, I mean, I was surprised.

839
00:42:57,960 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: I didn't see people coming on as there seems a

840
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,880
four on their logic that the ERA would revive abortion

841
00:43:03,039 --> 00:43:06,800
because we now know that men can have babies, right right,

842
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,239
The bi deministration now refers to birthing persons, and so

843
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,239
it seems to me that the ERA would be no bar

844
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,079
to prohibiting abortion since it applied to all fifty seven

845
00:43:17,159 --> 00:43:17,800
genders equally.

846
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean we laugh at this, but this is

847
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:22,360
what the left also thinks at the same time.

848
00:43:22,519 --> 00:43:25,119
Speaker 4: Right, So, yeah, but that went out of the window

849
00:43:25,159 --> 00:43:27,320
and row was overturned. Do you remember the day before

850
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,360
Row is overturned, men could have babies. The day after

851
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:32,800
Row is overturn, if men could get pregnant. The day

852
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:37,280
before Row is overturn, men and women are interchangeable. Everyone

853
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,440
is on some fluid spectrum. The day after over you, right,

854
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,280
this is an attack on women which we can now

855
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:43,480
conveniently define.

856
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Suddenly, well that's why. Yeah, I think that always

857
00:43:46,519 --> 00:43:53,159
happens after these watershed political events. Suddenly suddenly everything's recalibrated,

858
00:43:53,199 --> 00:43:55,119
And it sounds a lot like the argument that we

859
00:43:55,119 --> 00:43:57,239
were making all along, I say saying this before that.

860
00:43:57,559 --> 00:44:00,480
If you ever want to know what's really happening in America,

861
00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:05,239
just read the newspaper two weeks after a Republican has

862
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,159
been elected, because that's when they print the news.

863
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 4: Of that I used to write in my head. The

864
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,760
New York Times news reports, the Associated Press news reports

865
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,880
about inflation. If the president were a Republican because you

866
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,559
could see them in front of your eyes. Literally. You know,

867
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:28,239
Manny Hernandez is a construction worker in the Bronx. All

868
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,920
he wanted is to live the American dream, but inflation

869
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,960
has been killing his family. I can't afford conflicts, many said,

870
00:44:34,039 --> 00:44:35,440
I am so angry. But they didn't run it.

871
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 2: They didn't run it.

872
00:44:36,599 --> 00:44:38,519
Speaker 4: Instead, they pretended it wasn't happening.

873
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, but can you imagine it? Am I jumping the

874
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,639
gun step? Just today in the Wall Street Journal there

875
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:52,719
is this riveting and i'm an astonishing article about everything

876
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:56,039
that you knew already, which was that Joe Biden was

877
00:44:56,079 --> 00:44:59,480
an adult, out of it president, surrounded by a bunch

878
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,360
of sort of alice guards who kept his own cabinet

879
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,760
from calling him directly, who reshaped and rescheduled crucial national

880
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,760
security meetings during a time in which there are there's

881
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,800
a there's a war with half a million casualties raging

882
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,760
in Europe and a war with I don't know how

883
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:21,840
many thousand casualties raging in the Middle East. And some

884
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:23,960
days he is a bad day for him. Can we

885
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,079
reschedule to tomorrow?

886
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:26,079
Speaker 3: Yeah?

887
00:45:26,119 --> 00:45:29,679
Speaker 2: And it's something that we all knew was happening, and

888
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:32,039
they and they probably knew was happening, and they just

889
00:45:32,079 --> 00:45:35,159
didn't want to print it. And it seems to be

890
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:42,360
no sense of the lack of the lack of surprise

891
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:43,679
in the part of most Americans.

892
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 3: Well, can I add rob that the I mean, the.

893
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: Maybe the most startling thing of that story was the

894
00:45:51,119 --> 00:45:54,639
clear implication. It's worded very softly, but the lead of

895
00:45:54,679 --> 00:45:57,559
that story in the opening made clear that the problem

896
00:45:57,599 --> 00:45:59,800
of Biden was a parent of the people around him

897
00:46:00,119 --> 00:46:03,639
during the twenty twenty campaign. This didn't start in twenty

898
00:46:03,679 --> 00:46:06,400
twenty two. And then one of the telling details was

899
00:46:06,639 --> 00:46:08,639
I forget the name of the House Democrat, but it

900
00:46:08,679 --> 00:46:11,679
was the chair of the Foreign Relations or Intelligence going

901
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:16,360
to me, and he said, I tried to call the president.

902
00:46:16,679 --> 00:46:19,039
This is before the bug out in Afghanistan. I tried

903
00:46:19,039 --> 00:46:21,800
to call to express my concerns about what they were

904
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,119
saying they thought was going to happen, and why I

905
00:46:24,159 --> 00:46:26,159
thought there were things they weren't thinking about. He said

906
00:46:26,159 --> 00:46:28,239
he could not get through to Biden. They wouldn't let

907
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,000
him talk to the president. And he said, I've always

908
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,559
was able to talk to Obama, was easy to get

909
00:46:33,559 --> 00:46:34,159
a hold of him.

910
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 3: I can talk to.

911
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:37,639
Speaker 2: The House.

912
00:46:38,559 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, now is this has ought to be a scandal

913
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:41,199
for the media.

914
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,559
Speaker 1: By the way, we're now being told that the Politi factory,

915
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:47,840
the lie of the year is Trump and uh uh

916
00:46:48,199 --> 00:46:50,840
and Jade Vance saying dogs and cats are getting eaten

917
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,719
in Springfield, Ohio. Okay, that was sort of a ridiculous exaggeration,

918
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,000
I suppose, But it seems to me the lie of

919
00:46:57,039 --> 00:47:00,239
the year is the media covering up what they had

920
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,800
to have known was true about Biden and the White House.

921
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,800
And this is my hypothesis. I want to spring on

922
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,400
Charlie see what he thinks. I actually think a sycophantic

923
00:47:08,559 --> 00:47:12,039
media is the worst enemy of the Democratic Party. They

924
00:47:12,079 --> 00:47:14,039
want to blame Biden for sticking around too.

925
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:16,119
Speaker 3: Long and not getting out of the way. But if the.

926
00:47:16,079 --> 00:47:20,199
Speaker 1: Media had done its job and reported on this, Biden

927
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,800
would have dropped out a year sooner than he did,

928
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,400
and they would have been a whole, whole different circumstance.

929
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,679
And oh all that had one other thing. Chris Silizza,

930
00:47:28,119 --> 00:47:31,440
formerly of CNN and The Washington Post. Today he posted

931
00:47:31,599 --> 00:47:35,840
on x an apology just one sentence. As a journalist,

932
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,960
I should have pushed harder on the very real questions

933
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,320
about Joe Biden's physical and mental health as president.

934
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 3: Well, I would like to.

935
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:46,159
Speaker 1: Ask you why didn't you Is it because you're a

936
00:47:46,199 --> 00:47:47,760
coward or an idiolog which.

937
00:47:47,599 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 2: Isn't, because the implicit question from that administration would have

938
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,679
been to any reporter who asked that question who wasn't

939
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,599
already aligned with a conservative outlet have been like, hey,

940
00:48:00,639 --> 00:48:01,519
whose side are you on?

941
00:48:02,679 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 3: Right?

942
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it was that.

943
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 1: It wasn't even yeah, but Charlie I pitched a question

944
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,639
to you and then rambled on pitched to Rob But

945
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,280
you know, is it the media the Democrats worst enemy?

946
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,199
Speaker 3: And what are they going to figure that out? Probably never?

947
00:48:18,519 --> 00:48:22,559
Speaker 4: I think it is, and it isn't. There's clearly a

948
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:28,119
problem for the Democrats here in that they lost the

949
00:48:28,159 --> 00:48:30,599
last election in part because of the media. As you say,

950
00:48:32,199 --> 00:48:35,400
their ability to debate the Constitution as atrophied because of

951
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:39,400
the media. Conservatives got busy building the Federalist Society, and

952
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:43,440
the Democrats in the media just talked about consequences and outcomes,

953
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,440
and they're now absolutely outmatched where it matters. And I

954
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,000
think much of the failure of the Biden administration was

955
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:54,760
attributable to the media in that the press absolutely loved

956
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,280
that American rescue plan so called. We've spent two trillion

957
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,199
dollars and it led to the worst inflation in forty

958
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,480
years and Biden never recovered from it. Where I think

959
00:49:04,679 --> 00:49:08,719
the media is not good for conservatives or not bad

960
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:14,159
for Democrats is that on the average issue, I think

961
00:49:14,199 --> 00:49:20,320
it's probably responsible for three to five points to the left.

962
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:23,320
Timothy gross Close has written about this.

963
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, his work is terrific.

964
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 2: Yes, it is very good. And Ricochet member Timothy Grok

965
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:30,360
was a contributor for a long time.

966
00:49:30,559 --> 00:49:33,679
Speaker 4: Oh, it was interesting. Well, his book on this is fantastic.

967
00:49:35,039 --> 00:49:39,559
I think, for example, about the first presidential debate where

968
00:49:39,599 --> 00:49:42,440
Trump ended up arguing not only against Kamena Harris but

969
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,239
the media. Now you could say what he won, he did.

970
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:48,760
But because the press behaves like that, it makes it

971
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:52,079
quite difficult to make progress on issues in a way

972
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:57,840
that I wish were not the case. All issue debates

973
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:02,079
seem to get corrupt and waylaid by a press that

974
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,480
is invested in helping the Democrats or the progressive side

975
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,199
of it. And if the point of politics is to

976
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:12,760
advance issues and policies and not to win elections, that's

977
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:17,119
got to matter. Yes, when you put people in the

978
00:50:17,159 --> 00:50:20,440
sanctity of the voting booth, they will say, screw it,

979
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,960
I'm voting for who I want to. But does that

980
00:50:23,079 --> 00:50:25,400
happen in quite the same way at work? Does it

981
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:27,880
happen in quite the same way in social situations? If

982
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,920
people are constantly being told only widows, think that that's

983
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:36,559
a minority position. You're insert ist here. I worry that

984
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:39,440
the press corrupts our society in that sense. So I'm

985
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,599
a half yes, I suppose yeah.

986
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 3: And I agree with all that.

987
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,039
Speaker 1: And I'm actually been meaning to reach out to Tim

988
00:50:44,079 --> 00:50:47,960
Grows close to see if he's updated his estimates of

989
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,119
these matters in light of the way the media is

990
00:50:50,119 --> 00:50:52,559
fragmented in the rise of social media and Twitter and.

991
00:50:52,599 --> 00:50:54,519
Speaker 3: Muscle and so forth, And maybe you should do that sometime.

992
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,079
Speaker 1: I made okay, last subject, since we have Rob here,

993
00:50:59,079 --> 00:51:02,119
a couple of things from the Hollywood world. And though

994
00:51:02,119 --> 00:51:04,039
even though you may not be following it day to day,

995
00:51:04,199 --> 00:51:06,840
you know you'll have obviously some insights on this one

996
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,639
a quick story, and then the two news items. It's

997
00:51:09,679 --> 00:51:11,320
a couple or three years ago now. I was talking

998
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,039
to a young screenwriter. I know a closet conservative in Hollywood.

999
00:51:15,199 --> 00:51:17,440
It's actually written for National Review Online a couple times

1000
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,679
under a pseudonym, And he said, it's a little like

1001
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,119
you hear about New York Times editors. Everybody in Hollywood,

1002
00:51:23,159 --> 00:51:25,840
all the suits are terrified of the young Wolkesters they've hired.

1003
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,079
But everybody really wants to get back to writing stories

1004
00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:32,360
with pretty women in short skirts and boy meets girl

1005
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,840
because that's what people want. And I know this guy

1006
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:37,880
has sold it, you know, a few scripts shows here

1007
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:40,400
and there. But then the news items out in the

1008
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,519
last few days is that Disney apparently has a disaster

1009
00:51:43,639 --> 00:51:45,639
on its handles to the remake of Snow White, and

1010
00:51:45,639 --> 00:51:48,119
it have been extensive reshoots. The budget has belonged to

1011
00:51:48,159 --> 00:51:51,159
two hundred and fifty million dollars. And then on top

1012
00:51:51,199 --> 00:51:52,639
of that, I don't know if you saw this, but

1013
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,440
Justine Bateman, you know everyone remembers from Family Ties in

1014
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:59,519
the eighties, has come out as a very ferocious anti Wolkester.

1015
00:52:00,599 --> 00:52:03,039
I'm saying, maybe she's going to be our first woman

1016
00:52:03,119 --> 00:52:05,719
president elected some day. I don't know, but I don't

1017
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,360
do you get the sense that that Hollywood, like some

1018
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,719
other precincts are starting to shake off their torpoor and say, boy,

1019
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,679
we really made a mistake with all the wokeism.

1020
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:17,239
Speaker 3: What do you hear? What do you think? What are

1021
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:18,159
your instincts on this?

1022
00:52:18,599 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: Well?

1023
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:21,519
Speaker 2: I mean there's two ways to look to some two

1024
00:52:21,559 --> 00:52:26,159
separate tracks for Hollywood, right There's there's their own HR problem, yeah,

1025
00:52:26,199 --> 00:52:29,000
and then there's the content problem and the content and

1026
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,920
they were linked in this case. But I think the

1027
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:35,000
tide is turning slightly, mostly because there are fewer people

1028
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:37,840
working at these studios. They've had massive layoffs they're going

1029
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:40,119
to continue to have. I mean, twenty twenty four was

1030
00:52:40,119 --> 00:52:41,840
actually not as bad as twenty twenty three, but twenty

1031
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:43,400
twenty five I think it's going to be going to

1032
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,360
be worse than twenty twenty three. And that is actually

1033
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,000
a good thing. I mean, I hate to be a

1034
00:52:49,039 --> 00:52:51,760
total free market conservative or a libertarian, but the truth

1035
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,599
is that Hollywood is never better than when it's broke.

1036
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,440
When it's broke and against the wall and falling apart,

1037
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,119
which it does to itself about every thirty forty fifty years.

1038
00:53:02,119 --> 00:53:04,599
For the forty years, at least it gets good. It

1039
00:53:04,639 --> 00:53:07,199
figures it out, figures out what the problem is. And

1040
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:09,880
usually what it figures out is, oh, oh oh right, right,

1041
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:14,760
I forgot people like movies where the bad guys are

1042
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:17,519
clear and they get taken care of and then the

1043
00:53:17,679 --> 00:53:21,440
people the romance gets together and I can project myself

1044
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:26,280
onto one of those two people on screen. I'm either

1045
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:34,159
carry Grant or I'm you know, even Recaint. And that's right.

1046
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,320
When they figure that out, you know, they still you know,

1047
00:53:39,559 --> 00:53:42,199
what's that the regions say is like, do not attempt

1048
00:53:42,519 --> 00:53:46,639
to grow a brain. This is Hollywood. You don't need

1049
00:53:46,679 --> 00:53:49,239
a roadmap. This is what just a simple movie, like

1050
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:51,079
a simple show. We need a beginning, middle, and the end.

1051
00:53:51,079 --> 00:53:52,760
And the end's got to be something somewhat satisfying and

1052
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,400
so people like and and it'll get back to that.

1053
00:53:55,519 --> 00:53:57,320
What needs to happen is what's kind of happening. What

1054
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,800
needs to happen in Wall Street is that Wall Street

1055
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,519
needs to start having you know, tough earnings calls with

1056
00:54:02,599 --> 00:54:06,119
these studios and say you're in big trouble. Uh. What

1057
00:54:06,199 --> 00:54:08,039
needs to happen is a lot of private equity people

1058
00:54:08,079 --> 00:54:10,360
need to go broke, which is gonna happen probably next year,

1059
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:12,119
who have invested a whole lot of money in these

1060
00:54:12,199 --> 00:54:16,199
ridiculous valuations of these ridiculous production companies that have done nothing.

1061
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,239
That's going to collapse, and then there's gonna be no money.

1062
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:20,599
And when there's no money, you gotta fire people. When

1063
00:54:20,599 --> 00:54:22,280
you fire people, you get smaller. When you get smaller

1064
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,199
than there's enough, not enough people to start overthinking whether

1065
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,199
in fact we should have whether one of the kids can't,

1066
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,719
can't one of the kids be trans like you. That's

1067
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:32,880
a conversation you have only when you have plenty of

1068
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,920
time to think about it. So I suspect that that's

1069
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,639
all gonna that's all gonna change, because what people don't

1070
00:54:38,639 --> 00:54:44,519
want to see is revenue and revenue which does not matter.

1071
00:54:44,599 --> 00:54:46,719
It has not mattered in Hollywood for ten years. With

1072
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,480
interest rates at zero and everybody trying to spend money

1073
00:54:49,519 --> 00:54:53,320
just to build up this their streaming library, that's gonna

1074
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:59,480
it's like going broke is embracing mind, focusing back to basics,

1075
00:54:59,559 --> 00:55:02,440
kind of zesty feeling for Hollywood. It's a good thing.

1076
00:55:02,519 --> 00:55:04,920
Last time Hollywood really really really went broke was in

1077
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:07,760
the late was in the sixties late sixties and ushered

1078
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:10,880
in one of the greatest years in entertainment in American

1079
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:13,639
entertainment ever, which is the seventies, which are incredible, incredible

1080
00:55:13,679 --> 00:55:17,320
box office years, TV years, amazing that could happen.

1081
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean one little data point on this that

1082
00:55:19,519 --> 00:55:22,280
I noticed and just recalled is I've been watching this

1083
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:26,079
Netflix series with Kerrie Russell called The Diplomat, and it's

1084
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:29,280
very lavishly produced and very well shot. And Carrie Russell

1085
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:32,440
is compulsively watchable. She was always she plays this sort

1086
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,440
of hard as role. So that's all fine. But the

1087
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,639
first season they had a conspicuous trans character who was

1088
00:55:37,639 --> 00:55:39,880
only there to plant the rainbow flag, had no real

1089
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:44,079
plot point and conspicuously missing if you're paying attention, from

1090
00:55:44,079 --> 00:55:47,199
the second season, which just wrapped, so that was quietly

1091
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,480
dropped from the from the production.

1092
00:55:49,599 --> 00:55:50,599
Speaker 3: So you know, maybe that's one.

1093
00:55:50,639 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 2: I will still tell one story, and I want to

1094
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:54,599
tell you who said it to me, because he eventually

1095
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:57,639
had me too trouble, so that you know, I'm already

1096
00:55:57,679 --> 00:56:00,119
deep in the hole here in this podcast by I

1097
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,679
uh like easily missed the street comments. Uh, we were

1098
00:56:03,679 --> 00:56:06,000
casting a show. Uh it was the head of the network.

1099
00:56:06,039 --> 00:56:09,679
We're casting a show, and there were two two actresses

1100
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:11,159
were testing the Usually they come and they test in

1101
00:56:11,159 --> 00:56:12,639
front of all of us. So we would do all

1102
00:56:12,639 --> 00:56:15,119
the additions, and we bring two choices to the network

1103
00:56:15,159 --> 00:56:17,039
in the studio and we'd say, look, here's where we are,

1104
00:56:17,679 --> 00:56:19,760
here's kind of who we like, here's who we you know,

1105
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:21,760
here's what you like. But we got to decide in

1106
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,920
this room together. And it was an actress. She's really good.

1107
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:26,960
She went on to do great stuff. She was incredibly good.

1108
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:31,079
She's very talented, and and she was just a little

1109
00:56:31,079 --> 00:56:37,119
prettier than the other one. And and there was silence

1110
00:56:37,119 --> 00:56:38,960
in the room and like nobody wants to say that

1111
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:42,519
because it's like it's like it's you know, you don't

1112
00:56:42,519 --> 00:56:44,639
want to say that. So I but I said, I

1113
00:56:44,639 --> 00:56:46,719
don't know, I kind of like her. I just feel

1114
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:51,199
like she's more she's more appealing in some way. You know.

1115
00:56:51,199 --> 00:56:52,800
It's got to wheel the wording it, you know, and

1116
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:55,000
she feels like she's like, I don't know, I could

1117
00:56:55,039 --> 00:56:57,199
kind of like feel it. I gotta feel this vulnerabiling

1118
00:56:57,559 --> 00:56:59,840
it just it was just it was just nonsense words

1119
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:02,239
just to not and the pad of the network. It

1120
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:04,519
was sort of an old style guy who like he

1121
00:57:04,639 --> 00:57:08,000
was alone at that point, even a rare character. Then

1122
00:57:08,079 --> 00:57:12,320
he said, yeah, you know, it's never a bad idea

1123
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:13,519
to put a pretty girl on TV.

1124
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 3: Rob.

1125
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that's that's really true. Let's just that's

1126
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:22,599
just you said it. Let's go. I like that that

1127
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:25,800
these seems it seems very simple and everybody watching it knows,

1128
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:27,679
but people making it don't often know that.

1129
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, all right, We've got about maybe two minutes

1130
00:57:31,239 --> 00:57:34,119
of slack time to see if either one of you

1131
00:57:34,159 --> 00:57:38,119
want to say anything about ABC's settlement. ABC News settlement

1132
00:57:38,159 --> 00:57:40,079
with Donald Trump over the libel case, which I think

1133
00:57:40,199 --> 00:57:43,719
is hysterically funny but also significant in a number of ways.

1134
00:57:44,159 --> 00:57:48,639
Speaker 4: Charlie, I think that there was a conversation that was

1135
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:52,719
probably recorded in some way, likely over email that would

1136
00:57:52,719 --> 00:57:55,639
have come out during discovery. ABC was told by its

1137
00:57:55,679 --> 00:57:59,360
insurance company settled this now or the jury will give

1138
00:57:59,679 --> 00:58:01,280
some Yeah.

1139
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we went through discovery in the Fox

1140
00:58:04,519 --> 00:58:07,800
News dominion lawsuit, and that settlement ended up costing seven

1141
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:11,440
hundred and eighty million dollars. So ABC got off easy.

1142
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,519
But you do hear these stories that there's mayhem inside

1143
00:58:13,559 --> 00:58:17,360
of ABC. Stephanoppholops is very upset and so forth. There

1144
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,599
was a little tidbit as gets the legal geeking men.

1145
00:58:19,639 --> 00:58:21,440
There was a little tidbit in the Wall Street Journal

1146
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:26,559
account of the dissension in ABC saying Disney's lawyers, remember

1147
00:58:26,599 --> 00:58:29,719
Disney owns ABC. Disney's lawyers were worried that with the

1148
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:34,360
current Supreme Court, this might reopen the New York Times

1149
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,760
versus Sulliban libel standards, and they were afraid this might

1150
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:40,440
happen and be open season on the media. But you know,

1151
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:43,039
Trump is, he's not sick everybody else in sight.

1152
00:58:43,519 --> 00:58:46,480
Speaker 3: By the way, a little slat tangent here.

1153
00:58:47,079 --> 00:58:50,079
Speaker 1: This talk of investigating Liz Cheney, I think is a

1154
00:58:50,119 --> 00:58:52,880
psy o patrolling operation. I think what Trump wants to

1155
00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:56,159
do is provoke Biden into giving a pardon to Liz

1156
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:59,079
Cheney and faut cheat everybody else, and then Trump can

1157
00:58:59,159 --> 00:59:02,840
say pardons for it. They didn't do anything wrong, cleterally,

1158
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:05,639
they're guilty. You know how this is gonna play out? Right?

1159
00:59:05,719 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 3: Something like that? Is that the storyline? You're right?

1160
00:59:09,039 --> 00:59:13,239
Speaker 2: Rob? Yeah? I mean I don't. I mean, I would

1161
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:16,639
like I'm an as you know, I'm an optimistic pessimist, right.

1162
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:22,639
I would like the House Republicans and the President and

1163
00:59:22,679 --> 00:59:27,840
the House and the Senate Republicans to get clear on

1164
00:59:28,079 --> 00:59:30,840
how American politics works, which is that you really don't

1165
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:33,360
have a big window at this moment. You really don't.

1166
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,119
It doesn't work that way. There's gonna be another electually,

1167
00:59:36,159 --> 00:59:39,000
gonna be a midterm. Someone's gonna mess up, there's gonna

1168
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,039
be trouble. You got a moment, you have some runway here.

1169
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:45,760
Pick five important things. Just do those five things right.

1170
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:48,480
Do not attempt to boil the ocean. Just do five things.

1171
00:59:48,679 --> 00:59:51,960
Do not get distracted with all of your little Twitter

1172
00:59:52,119 --> 00:59:55,360
maga stuff. We're gonna get Liz Cheney in prison and

1173
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:58,039
all that stuff. Just do the five big things you

1174
00:59:58,079 --> 01:00:01,679
need to do and live to fight another day. What

1175
01:00:02,159 --> 01:00:06,559
often happens with these these sort of moments is that

1176
01:00:06,599 --> 01:00:09,280
the reprobagans go in all different directions and decide what

1177
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:10,440
they really want to do is they want to have

1178
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:13,320
fights on Twitter and on Hannity and on Tucker, and

1179
01:00:13,639 --> 01:00:16,000
those never get you what you want. And then you

1180
01:00:16,159 --> 01:00:19,280
end up after four years of a Trump administration in

1181
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:22,840
twenty sixteen, without a wall and with a lot of

1182
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:24,639
a lot of the stuff that he promised. Because you

1183
01:00:24,679 --> 01:00:27,679
spend a lot of time just talking nonsense and you

1184
01:00:27,679 --> 01:00:29,760
want to put Liz Cheney in prison, go right ahead,

1185
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:33,159
but make that number one hundred and ninety seven on

1186
01:00:33,199 --> 01:00:35,239
your journey. Don't have that much time.

1187
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:39,119
Speaker 1: Well, well, there's the Rob Long of hope and forgiveness

1188
01:00:39,199 --> 01:00:44,840
at the Advent season. Charlie, I don't forgive, Charlie, you

1189
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:46,679
are not politically agnostics.

1190
01:00:46,719 --> 01:00:49,199
Speaker 3: Certainly, I'll give you the last word before we have

1191
01:00:49,199 --> 01:00:50,000
to get out for the day.

1192
01:00:51,239 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 4: Well, I will say Merry Christmas, which I celebrate with

1193
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:55,400
my family and love.

1194
01:00:56,679 --> 01:01:00,079
Speaker 1: Oh excellent, All right, Well, this podcast was brought to

1195
01:01:00,119 --> 01:01:02,760
you by ricochet dot com and as James likes to say,

1196
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:04,119
and I will try to do it as well as

1197
01:01:04,119 --> 01:01:06,440
he does and will fail at it. Please help the

1198
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:10,480
keep the podcast going in twenty twenty five by joining Ricochet.

1199
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:14,119
It's the best place for civil center right conversation. See,

1200
01:01:14,119 --> 01:01:15,639
we don't even make fun of Rob for being the

1201
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:17,920
rhino squish that he is.

1202
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,159
Speaker 2: I'm I'm diversity, I'm the d hied here.

1203
01:01:21,519 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 1: That's right, right, And as always, please, if you have

1204
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:25,480
a minute, leave.

1205
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 3: A five star review for us on Apple Podcasts.

1206
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: Uh.

1207
01:01:29,320 --> 01:01:31,000
Speaker 3: It turns out that's really an important metric.

1208
01:01:31,119 --> 01:01:35,079
Speaker 1: It you know, it boosts the podcast brings us more listeners,

1209
01:01:35,159 --> 01:01:38,679
which brings us more sponsors. We are sponsored free this week,

1210
01:01:39,199 --> 01:01:42,599
but this helps us keep the show going and so

1211
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:46,199
we will see you in the comments. Everyone at Ricochet

1212
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:48,320
four point zero. I think that's what we call it, Charlie,

1213
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:52,000
I think it is right all right. Next week, guys, Merry.

1214
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 2: Christmas, Ricochet, ye

1215
01:01:58,920 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 3: Join the conversation.