Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You Were
Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the Federalist
and David Arsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just
as a reminder, if you'd like to contact the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com.
We'd love to hear from you. Molly, Tomor's Thanksgiving excited.
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm home alone working while my family is off
visiting grandparents. But other than that, yes, actually you're my wife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, going have some.
Speaker 2: Really good friends who sent me a smoked turkey from Texas.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm going to have turkey hello but delicious. Yeah,
it's nice to spend some alone time Sometimes doesn't mean
you don't love your family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I missed them, but I have gotten
so much work done. It's i No one tells you
that teenagers take as much time as infants.
Speaker 1: It's a different kind of time. It's more stressful time
in a way, but it definitely is time.
Speaker 2: It's just the weird like just at the exact wrong
moment coming in and being like, Mom, I have an
existential crisis that I need you to talk me through.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, now you have some alone time to get
some work done, so it's nice. Let's jump into something here.
Let's talk about the Democratic Party. Did you see that
video of Kamala Harris. She seemed to me like she
wasn't okay, I don't, you know, I don't. I'm not
going to do a psychological evaluation. Maybe she was maybe
a little tipsy in this video where she's telling people
to hold onto their power, telling them that despite losing
the election, they they should not give up their power. Power, power, power.
It didn't make much sense to me. What do you
make of it?
Speaker 2: I don't, No, I don't. What is confusing to me
is that a whole team of people would have been
involved in getting that out the door, so she's one
of them, and she doesn't look good in it, but
it doesn't make the Democrat Party look good. And there
was someone videotaping, someone writing it, someone pushing you know,
send at it. No point did anyone think this is
not the best thing to be putting out while there
are still two months left in this presidency. I mean,
speaking of power, Kamala Harris is the sitting Vice president,
and her run for office. She kept saying that in
the future should she be elected president, then she would
do things that she right at this moment could greatly
influence the doing of and she just seems to not
understand the power she has right now as vice president,
or if people were looking for answers, they might be
looking for answers about who's running the foreign policy of
the administration right now, or who made this bad decision
or that bad decision. So for her to just crop
up after her Hawaiian vacation, which totally, I mean, you
run a campaign and lose, you get to go away
for a little bit. But it just was weird. I
did see someone photoshop a bottle of Jamison's into her
hand because she's kind of gripped. She kind of got
like a grip in the video, and so they put
a bottle of Jamison's in there. And it really did
make more sense if she were in a dorm room
late at night talking about girl. Just because you got
your you know, just because you got dump don't mean
you don't have power. Girl. You're still beautiful.
Speaker 1: You're fine. Unrelated but related. James Carville was speaking I
saw the other day, and he said he blamed I
think this is I don't think this is true, but
it's interesting he blamed twenty three year old progressive campaign
workers for her loss. Now, in the end, she's making decisions,
so it doesn't you know, just because you have a
twenty three year old telling you not to go on
Joe Rogan doesn't mean that you shouldn't go on Joe.
In the end, it's her fault. But it is interesting.
Do you think twenty three year olds are holding the
camera here for her? Do you think twenty three year
old aggressives think that being this kind of, you know,
having this kind of emotional outburst basically on video is
a good idea? Or is it just that she's terrible
in that or books? You know, what is it?
Speaker 2: I think that's actually great question. And I remember seeing
that picture of Kamala's digital social media team and they were,
in fact, all twenty three year old women, and the
campaign made a lot more sense that way. I get
a little annoyed by James Carville's shtick, but I did
see that and I enjoyed it. One of the things
I love that he said is that if a twenty
three year old came and said, you can't do Joe
Rogan because our campaign has to have progressive values and
that is not in alignment with it. He said, I
would have fired that person, and then I would have
found out who hired that person, and I would fire
that person as well. And I thought, this is exactly
what you need to do to get rid of the idiocy.
There is a problem that we all have of thinking
we're more important or that our experience is universal, and
there are some it's not my experience. Actually, with the
young people I have worked with, they all tend to
be very capable, hardworking, totally aware that they are not
the center of the universe. But there is that problem
with some of those people that age, and they need
to be dealt with seriously. It's actually a gift you
give them to explain to them how the world works.
And that was not happening on the.
Speaker 1: Comment the ego centris like. So, for instance, I realized,
if I was helping run a campaign, that my opinions
are not the opinions of most Americans or how I
view the world and how I experience the world. That
is not the way that a person in Ohio and
in Pennsylvania does. But it seems like these progressives can't
grapple like they can't grapple with that. They just want
people to think like them, and they think if they
continue to just shame them or accuse them of being
phobic of this or that, that it's going to work,
and it doesn't. There's another interview. I couldn't find it
right now, but carbon I think he was on CNN
and he had said something like the problem is that
too many women are running these campaigns or something like that,
and I forgot which who on CNN was like, you
still stand by that? That's terrible? You know, He's like, yeah,
I actually do you know? And obviously you know you
want to appeal to women. Not that, by the way,
just because you're women immediately you know what all women think,
it's kind of dumb. But maybe you know you need
some men in there too to give you some advice
on how to reach men who went pretty significantly towards Trump.
And I don't think Tim Walls was the answer there.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things when we started the
Federalist was being aware that a majority of voters or women,
and yet you looked at all of the general interest
like cultural political publications, and they were overwhelmingly written and
edited by men. And we love men. And that's one
of our mantras at the Federalists about standing at thwart history,
saying men and women are different. But we were not
as hostile to having women writers, including What that meant
was that a lot of women, a lot of women
are not well represented even by the women in media,
because the women in media work in DC or New York.
They're either not married or they have very few children.
They're really into working full time, and that's not most
women's desire or experience. And so we made it so
that we could get a lot of pieces written by
women who might write, you know, once a week or
once a month, and have really valuable things to say,
but they don't want it to be their full time
life and that they have to live in DC or
New York. So one of the things that I find
interesting is that I never agreed with a lot of
people on the right about a lot of stuff. I mean,
now is kind of my moment, but for much of
my adult life I didn't agree with people on major issues,
and so it didn't occur to me to have a
lack of friendship with people because I didn't share their viewpoints.
And so my point being that it's not just on
the left that you see this, you know, twenty three
year olds thinking that they know everything about how to
run a campaign. You also see it on the right,
where people have found themselves unable to deal with a
political moment where they're not in charge. That's the story
of my life is dealing with a political moment where
my views are not holding sway. It's the entire story
of your life, right.
Speaker 1: Most of it, especially now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like that's just the way life is. And
you don't lose your mind over it, right, I.
Speaker 1: Don't lose my mind over it. But I do feel
like I'm going to lose friends over it. I mean,
or I wouldn't say friends, like a friendship of someone
I know very well, like yourself. But I mean, I
think there are people out there who I have sort
of you know, you know, a relationship within the sense
of place stuff where it's going to be hard for
them to deal with someone who disagrees with them all
the time. People do take that stuff personally, you don't
think so.
Speaker 2: No, I do. And that's my point. When I was
first in DC, and this was like definitely the Bush
era of foreign policy, and I didn't agree with it.
People would very politely listen to my views about nation
building or interventionist wars or a foreign policy that should
have national interest prioritized, and they would sort of pat
me on the head and say, oh, that's sweet, but here,
now we're going to go bomb Libya or whatever. And
once that power dynamic changed, I still felt like, oh,
these are people I can talk to. We just disagree,
and they felt more like I hate you and I
hate everything about you, and they were very hostile. So
they should have more humility too, like we all should
have humility about how our views are not universally held,
and also think about how to persuade people when we're
out of you know, when you don't have the power
at the moment, you should think about persuading people and
how to reach out to Peter, I think.
Speaker 1: And also people in power should remember that that is
always temporary. It is voters are fickle. Things change. One
event can happen tomorrow and everyone will turn on on
whatever you know is happening. So it's important to Yeah,
it's important. I do think though that people you know,
it's difficult to disagree all that people that you know,
and and and that can affect friendships and stuff. It shouldn't.
I think it's more on the left and the right.
Obviously you see it in polling. They don't want their
kids marrying a Republican, they don't want to be near Republicans,
they want to hear from them. If that is your worldview,
it's going to be very hard for you to win
national elections because you need to convince those people to
come onto your side.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I was thinking. Is interesting right now
is I think the Democrat Party is in a bit
of a pickle and they need a Bill Clinton type
to get them back into the real reality world. They
have some system systemic issues in their party that are
going to make that difficult. So you have not heard
a lot of people coming to terms with the reasons
why they lost and what role they played in that loss.
And that could be you know, that could include the
lawfair that they ran against their Republican opponents and how
repulsive that was to a lot of Americans. And they
have this base of the party that wants to compromise
in no way. I mean, they want to demand purity
tests on radical trans issues and other radical issues that
are not appealing to a general public, and so I
think that party will be very interesting to watch in
the next couple of years to see whether they get
a Bill Clinton type figure or whether they just trust
that once Donald Trump isn't on the scene so much
that they can secure narrow victories and keep the progressive
march going.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a Bill Clinton out there
for them right now, honestly. And I also think it's
different in that Clinton era had you know all this
probably but they had there was a big chunk of
working class, middle class people who are basically Democrats, like
you know, their parents are Democrats, it was, but the
culture within the Democratic Party and the progressivism, those are
the most energetic activists in that party. They can't just
their coalition is cobbled together by all these groups that
you lose a whole you know, you'll lose a whole
group if you all of a sudden you're like super
pro is or you lose a group, if all of
a sudden you're like, yeah, we don't need as many regulations.
You lose you know, you'll lose teachers. There's so many
different Whereas Trump's coalition is much easier to hold together
for whoever comes after him. Though again, like I said
last time, you know, he is a very singular force
in American politics. I don't know that there's any candidate
who's going to have that kind of appeal, but just
Republicans in general, I think. So, I don't know, I
don't see a Bill I mean, wasn't Joe Biden supposed
to be the Bill Clinton. I mean, he was supposed
to be the moderate right, and he he was, but
he adopted almost every left I mean, he draped the
White House in rainbow flags and hat you know. I mean,
like there's no left wing position he did not adopt
during during the filter.
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton was also that way a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the.
Speaker 2: Whole way he campaigned was as a moderate who did
not hate working class voters, and he maybe didn't live
up to it in office as much as Bill Clinton did.
But that's that was a big reason why they were
able to drag him across the finish line in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: But also with Clinton that when the House went Republican,
he essentially just went along with most of what they wanted.
So I think he was less ideological and just wanted
to wanted to be a popular president, which some extent
he was, so anyway, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we the vibe shift is a
real thing. You can see it in how young people
are glombing on to Trump, how young influencers are having
fun with the Trump Dance and stuff like that. It's
become cool to be non Democrat in a way that
I haven't seen in a very, very long time. And
we are headed into the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of this country, which I just kind of think people
are going to get really excited about being American in
a way that the Democrat Party has fought America for
much of the last well many many decades, but particularly
in the last eight years or so, and so they
need to figure out their way. And it seems chaotic
and bad, and I'm not seeing a ton of media
attention to it when it really is a big story.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're a young person.
Speaker 2: Badness of the Democrat Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're priggish, humorless, you know, nanneistic.
Speaker 2: You know, are you super excited about the Trump appointments nominations?
I should say that we've seen in the last week.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird thing because some of them, I'm like,
this is awesome, you know, I like I think that
like a lot of the foreign policy people are I
don't know what the terminologies I would call them realists,
like I don't think they're neo cons and I don't
think they're you know, halioconns. I think there's somewhere in
between those two, like Marco Rubian, people like that. So
I was happy about that some of them, obviously we've
gone through. I don't like RFK especially. I do like Jay.
I don't have a parentist's name Jay Boticharia.
Speaker 2: J Boticharia is awesome, my fellow Bradley Prize winner and
one of the bravest, most.
Speaker 1: Interesting and NIH right, Yeah, he should have been the
HIHS guy in my opinion. I mean, I just think
that he has all the qualifications and also the spine
to take on that kind of job in a really,
really good way.
Speaker 2: I just remind you that for ansists, Collins, the previous
head of NIH, and Anthony Fauci conspired to destroy the
reputation of Ja Bodicharia for opposing their lockdown policy and
though beautiful, and then they did censor him. I mean,
he was he was completely censored on Twitter. Oh, that's
such an interesting thing to see how everyone in corporate
media cannot handle that Twitter is a free speech platform
where people who they don't agree with also have the
right to express their opinion. And so you're seeing all
these people saying, oh, it's this unbearable right wing platform
simply because people on the right are not censored in
the way that they had been for much of Twitter's existence.
And Jay Bodicharia is a great example here. He is
this great mind, co author of the Great Barrington Declaration
and an important voice to listen to during COVID, and
he was ground to a halt on Twitter, like you
could not see his stuff. And nobody in corporate media
had a single problem with this while it was going on.
And now they're all complaining that they're receiving pushback on
Twitter from people who don't share their politics who previously
would not have been allowed to exist on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And I saw the did you see the story about
how a lot of Chinese state China, Chinese state organs
are on x and that they have this great influence,
you know, they have the big followings and stuff like that. Whatever.
It was a story, but listen. I think that's worth
it to have a neutral speech platform. I don't care.
I no one dislikes communism more than me. But if
we're talking about it, oh, I will deal with what
they have to say or all these anti semites that
bug me all the time if we have, it's worth
to have a neutral site because in the end, people
control speech will not get rid of, you know, the
Chinese state media. They're going to get rid of voices
like Jay Boticharia who they don't like, and that's what's
going to happen. So I'd rather have this than that.
And if they want to go to Blue Sky where
they're in this site speaking of the Democratic Party in
the future, you have all these big names going to
Blue Sky where I'm on there and I watch them,
you know, they're they're in the siloed you know, place
where nothing changes. So I'm not sure how that what
that says about their future.
Speaker 2: Honestly, if people can't handle the moment, they need to
go to a safe space, as they put it, or
decline their use of social media or other media. That's
not the worst response.
Speaker 1: No, you do what you like. Yeah, but I my
thing has been again, I don't want to sound you
know whatever. Is just my thing is that if you
can't understand the argument of your opponent, you can't really
debate him and and and you should and if you
can't honestly portray and frame their argument, then you're not
really debating anymore. It's just propaganda and and boring, you know.
So I'm happy and I'm happy that we get to debate,
and I like to see what they have to say.
I think it's off and dumb, but whatever, you know,
they have no in in that, they have no.
Speaker 2: Interest in My ideas changed by reading other people and
being encountering new ideas, And it's actually kind of fun.
And I will say the older you get, you know
that it happens less the older you get, but when
it happens, it is so it just makes you feel
alive that you have been challenged and you've considered it
and you've changed your mind, you know, on the basis
of reason or whatever the thing is. I don't know,
it's just a it's a fun little reminder of how
much that was happening when you.
Speaker 1: Were I thinks, for I mention, I was just thinking
about this the other day, like you have a framework
your your belief system. Right, and when I do change
my mind, as I have on for instance, abortion years ago,
but I did, it's because it like someone convinced me
that it falls within my overall view of the world.
You know what I'm saying. It's not like you have
to change your whole world view. It's that you didn't
fully think through something, and then when you did, you
realize it. So I've also changed my mind sort of
on immigration. I don't mean that I'm anti immigration at all,
but I think that we have to be more careful
with who we let in here because not everyone assimilates whatever.
That's just one issue. So, right, and if you had just.
Speaker 2: Closed your mind off to anyone saying anything different than
what you at first felt or thought, then you wouldn't
just be a boring, less interesting, less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why the left and just keep on
this second, constantly revising history. That's why the sixteen nineteen
project exists. You know. They need to kind of score.
This is why someone says, yeah, sure a boy can
be a girl, you know what I mean. They need
to ignore science, ignore history. It's kind of post truth
place where everything they say is true because you know,
they can make anything they want up.
Speaker 2: That's what I was trying to say earlier. So they
had their big American Anniversary in twenty nineteen. I think
they rolled that out, maybe even a little earlier. So
during that first Trump administration, they did the We're going
to revisit our history project and it was so awful
and it led to horrific, deadly riots and destruction of
cities and self hatred and increased facial animosity. I mean,
it was a complete and utter success for them and
a failure for the country. And we're heading into a
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the United States of
America at a moment when people are sick to death
of the self loathing and hatred and racism embodied in
the left's history projects. It's not good for them.
Speaker 1: And that's a good point on BLM and post truth ism.
I guess is that there were a slup incidents that
spark that that had literally no racial component in them,
do you know what I'm saying, Or were completely fabricated
incidents like Michael Brown or whatever. So that's definitely part
of it, definitely part of it. So I don't doesn't
vote well for their future.
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Speaker 2: So what about other nominees, Well, there are two.
Speaker 1: I just like Laurie Chavez Remner. I think is her
name a remer. She's just pro union, anti right to work.
I just maybe it's just kind of like Trump is
rewarding some union members who voted for him or whatever,
but still bad policy, you know, I don't, you know.
I just think that the woman is poorly suited to
being a Republican administration. And I hope that senators who
live and right to work states and stuff like that
are going to stop that. I mean, it's, you know,
something they should be able to do. I don't know,
what do you think. Have you thought about that one
at all?
Speaker 2: We had a piece today that was looking at why
she's a bad pick, and it's not the pro unionism
that is a problem, particularly with private sector unions, but
her ideas are very hostile to business creation, small business creation,
even though she builds herself as being a big proponent
of that. I'm worried about that one. I do see
that when you win an election, there are spoils that
go out to everyone who helped you win the election.
And the unions did a big solid for Trump, not
just by well they didn't endorse or in some cases
they did endorse him, but the lack of endorsement was
huge and the lack of putting resources behind getting Kamala
elected was a big thing for them, including in the
vote totals. And so you why you get involved in
helping people in elections. You get some wins out of it.
And I've been finding it kind of funny how some
people who were extremely hostile to Trump on the right
are upset that they're not getting cabinet positions for their
coalition of people when they worked really hard to make
sure he wasn't the nominee and then worked hard to
make sure he wouldn't be elected, And now they're like,
but we should all have the DOJ positions. Well, it's
kind of how it works. Is when you aren't involved
in the victory, or you're even worse involved in trying
to prevent the victory, you're not going to be rewarded
with plump spots.
Speaker 1: I fee I feel like I'm arguing with everyone over
this stuff. Like, on one hand, no, he's Donald Trump.
He won, You're not going to get the positions if
you didn't support him. That's normal for any president. It's
always happened. On the other hand, the Senate is an
independent body that gets its own say and you know,
and it is not beholden to the president necessarily. I mean,
you're in the same party. But if they don't like
someone like this Chavez ram or they should they have
every right to, you know, they think it's going to
undermine their state and stuff like that. Policies. I also
like Treasury Secretary Scott Best, and I think that's how
you pronounce it. I don't love everything he has to say.
But I was just reading the speech she gave. It
was like a Manhattan Institute thing, I think, and says
a lot of good things about Reagan, which I like. So,
I mean, he basically puts Trump as the sort of
inheritor of Reagan's kind of dynamic policies, and I agree
in this first term most of his policies were that,
I just worry that a second one.
Speaker 2: Even, I think Scott Bessent has done a really good
job of explaining tariffs as a negotiating tactic and how
the real health of the economy is when you have
it be unbridled and let the market dominate. And Reagan,
of course also felt the same way and also used
tariffs as a negotiating tactic, but not as a be all,
end all desired end result.
Speaker 1: Well, the President said that the word he loves, the
word the tariff, is a more beautiful word than love.
So I'm not sure he agrees with the not saying.
Speaker 2: They're approaching it the exact same way. I'm just saying
there's a lot more similarity in.
Speaker 1: Style, and I hope so, I hope, so, I mean, for.
Speaker 2: Sure there was in there in there same idea about
American economic dominance, I should.
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, who else was there? And then the surgeon General?
I forget her named Jeannette something is that here?
Speaker 2: You know? I think I think she was a Fox
contributors and I think I have been on with her before,
and I don't know how to pronounce her name, and
I'm so sorry. I want to say, like Nasra.
Speaker 1: Watt, Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 2: Did you did you know that her sister is married
to Mike Waltz. I did not, And that also her
other sister was for twenty years married to Scott Stapp,
the Creed singer.
Speaker 1: No, that's weird.
Speaker 2: I think they just just divorced. I just think that's
a funny collection of people in one.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did not expect you to say those things
in that order.
Speaker 2: I also was like, maybe Creed will perform at the inauguration.
Speaker 1: I hope they get a really big crowd, so when
Trump says it's the biggest crowd ever, it will actually
be true this time. I think there will be a
lot more excitement.
Speaker 2: I think that'll be more excitement. I don't know. I
was thinking about how he wills his own ideal situation
into existence in the most difficult way possible. I'm sure
it'll be. I mean, I know, just based on my
set of acquaintances and family and friends, the number of
people who've told me that they are making plans to
be out here is extremely high, and the lack of
hotel rooms would indicate that there is that interest too.
So what do you think about her though? This surgeon
in general?
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is going to sound so unprofessional, but I
remember reading about her and not liking her at all,
but I don't remember exactly. Why isn't she pro COVID
lockdown and stuff like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she definitely was a pro COVID lockdown person. And
it's weird because so many of the other picks for
these health positions are those who did bravely stand up
against the group think and the authoritarian impulse in the
face of COVID. So a lot of people have reason
to not trust her or like her. The comfort for them,
I would say, is that the surgeon general is not
a very important position. Yeah. I really like that Florida
Surgeon General Joseph Fladoppo, and he showed a lot of
courage during COVID and has restored I think a trust
in public health in Florida that is missing elsewhere, so
he would have been a great pick. I think I
heard DeSantis was even thinking about him for the Senate
appointment Senate seat appointment. I don't know enough about him,
about him on all the other issues to know if
that's a good idea or not. But anyway, Pam BONDI,
I've heard a lot of good I don't know her
very well. I've heard a lot of good things about her.
My concern is the situation at the Department of Justice
and FBI is so serious and such a threat to
the country that it will take someone with a tremendous
amount of courage to take it on. And I don't
know enough about her to know whether that's her. I
saw Julie Kelly had a note from one of the
Trump attorneys talking about how much he liked her, and
he said in the note it was something like, she
won't do anything dramatic. Will she won't blow up the
Department of Justice. She will change the culture. And that
very much depressed me, because she won't change the culture,
and changing the culture is difficult to do without very
dramatic efforts, and so the permanent DC establishment has done
a lot of damage through the Department of Justice and FBI,
and the permanent DC establishment is going to fight any
efforts to decrease their power. And so I don't know
well enough to know whether she'll be able to do that,
but I do think that some of her deputies are
really good, really good so and brave and showed courage
in the law space at a time when very few
people did, even on the especially on the right.
Speaker 1: Well, people just should need to remember that these are
not listen. If someone's not working out, they can be replaced.
As we saw in the first Trump administration, people replaced
all the time, and would very well be the case.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the FBI, did you see how some people
were really upset about how there are various nominees who
won't be going through the FBI vetting process for their
confirmation proceedings. Actually, I was thinking, just constitutionally speaking, I
do believe the Senate has a responsibility or has the
authority to vent some of these people. Separately, I don't
see where the FBI doing it works for the constitution.
Eisenhower set it up where the FBI did it at
a time when people probably thought the FBI was somewhat
independent and trustworthy, and so.
Speaker 1: Can I just quickly say it's always been completely a
corrupt organization, right, It's very founding. It was a dictoriate,
you know, there was a dictator in charge of all
all of it. And yeah, I'm sorry, I just it
hit me recently, like the FBI has always been terrible
in many in a lot of ways, but you know,
background check. You probably used to trust them, right, well, except.
Speaker 2: That background checks are the means by which they gain
information on people that they can then use against them
or leak. The Senate has broad subpoena authority, and they
have really good investigators, and some committees in particular, have
really good investigators. And so I think I'm kind of
an article one enthusiast. Anyway, I think the Senate should
claim its power and be doing more of these types
of vette, including of judges.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, that's how it should work. Obviously,
there's nothing from what I read, the Trump administration will
do its own vetting of these people and then after
they're in charge, have the FBI do it, and that's
their prerogative to do. But the Senate's really the responsible
for making sure that these cabinet members, you know, for
whatever reason they deem but also because of security risks,
are appropriate for the president. That's the whole point, right
and so right.
Speaker 2: The problem is, you know, you take someone like Tulci
Gabbard and they'll say, oh, because basically she's picked for
policy reasons. She has a different policy approach, both to
surveillance of Americans and foreign policy, and those foreign policy
positions she's had and those surveillance positions she's had make
her an enemy of the very people who are supposedly
going to vet her, the same people who put her
on a watch list for some of these policy views
that she had. And so that's where you see that
having an FBI and a corrupt FBI, in particular, being
having any say in determining whether someone's appropriate for an
intelligence position. You basically the intelligence community gets to say
whether anyone's appropriate for the intelligence position, and that means
that they will always be picking people who will enable
their corruption and power and never picking or approving people
who are a check on that.
Speaker 1: It's also that the double standards are incredible. Now, I Tulsi,
when I met with us sad once I didn't like
that at all. I still don't like it. But Chris Murphy,
do you think anyone want to he met with, you know,
Iranian intelligence, you know whatever, Iranian people or tons of
people in the administration right now in the Pentagon, there's
someone who literally is an asset of Iran. I know
you reported that. I remember I broke that. Yeah, you did,
you did. You didn't report it, you broke it. It's
a great story. And you know, if the Logan Action
ever be used, it should be on Chris Murphy, you know,
and John Kerry.
Speaker 2: But well, the Litman Act shouldn't be used. And it's
not just Democrats. I mean, Lindsey Graham has met with
so many bad guys, but he's done it because he's
a legislator and it's part of what he wants to
be doing to do his job. Well, I mean, I'm
not a huge fan of him or of these other people,
but they actually do get to meet with these people.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but not exactly like in my opinion, if
the Trump administration has a policy, the executive branch is
in charge of foreign policy. The Senate is only there
to say yes to treaties and so forth. And if
Donald Trump has a certain policy against Iran, and then
Chris Murphy goes to Europe to undermine the President's policy
and the policy of the United States. I think that's
a big problem.
Speaker 2: Have you read this book now, Waging War by David Barron,
The clash between Presidents and Congress from seventeen seventy six
to isis you would I think you would really like it.
I really enjoyed it, and it deals with just what
you're saying, which is sort of who gets to make decisions.
Speaker 1: About Again, I'm not saying the Logan Act should be
invoked or anything. I'm just saying that to me, that's problematic,
especially when I disagree with the people secretly, because if
Molly Hemingway doesn't break the story, like do we know
that he did that? How many times has he done that? Well? Wow?
Speaker 2: So that was my big problem with it was this
was at a time when they were trying to do
a coup on the president for his incoming national security
advisor having completely appropriate talks with his Russian counterpart. Meanwhile,
they're out there meeting with the worst elements of the
Iranian leadership in an effort to undermine our foreign policy.
Speaker 1: This is a good segue actually for me right here.
Yesterday the Israelis agreed to a seiz fire deal with
the Lebanon which essentially means they agreed with Hisspala and
they only did this. They only did this because the
Biden administration keeps threatening not to send them any more weapons,
keeps threatening Netayaho in different kind of ways, and Benjamin Netanyao,
in my view, said, okay, I will agree to the ceasefire,
which is ridiculous because there's no enforcement mechanism really to
keep his Bola out from the south because he's waiting
for Donald Trump, right, But this is just another instance
of the Biden administration filled with pro Iranian people bailing
out an Iranian proxy in my opinion, And.
Speaker 2: Okay, so first off, I would just point out that
the Biden administration was trying to get Israel to do
a ceasefire three months ago, which was before all of
this amazing destruction of Hisbola's power and capacity, And had
they agreed to that ceasefire three months ago, that would
have led to much, in my much greater long term conflict.
Not that there will ever not be conflict in the
region so long as people walk the Earth. So the
three month delay I think show Israel made the right
decision by not agreeing to it earlier. But I also
noticed that the way that they agreed to it, they
said that they viewed any attack as a violation of
this ceasefire. Obviously, but also any rearmament by Hisbola would
be a violation of the ceasefire. So they did they
really agree to a ceasefire, you know what I mean?
Like the modent Hesbola tries to rearm, which will be today,
they will view that as a violation and it'll be off.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, but I just think it's Nete was
biding time for Trump to commit. Now, listen, I don't
think Trump's Trump administration is going to be okay, Israel
do what you want, you know, go to Terran and
drop a nuclear bomb. I don't think it's going to
be that way. But I do think they're going to
be much more sympathetic to Israel's need to create some
defensible border so that its civilians aren't under constant attack
at the very least, you know, So I look forward
to that. I think that that's you know, Trump's Midi's policy.
He was pretty good and yeah, anyway, one last thing
on foreign policy, this is more in your you know,
your concern or it is more of your concern. The
Ukrainian imm concerned too. Did you see the story about
how a Biden administration had okay Ukrainian weapons being used
American weapons sent to Ukraine being used deep in Russia.
Speaker 2: Which I think is a much bigger scandal than people
are treating it as. You just had an election which
included two presidential debates with two different candidates, but both
you know, the president and vice president articulating their support
for an expanded war against Russia in Ukraine, and Trump
saying it needs to end and it's horrific. And then
the American people voted and that was one of the
issues they voted on, and they voted for Donald Trump.
And then Biden was like, what if we expanded the war?
Right now? What if we did this thing that we
have not allowed prior, which is the use of long
range missiles to go deep into Russia. So within hours
of him providing that allowance, they take them up on it.
And there's a misnomer here when the way we talk
about it, basically, we're running this war and it's a
proxy war. We give them the money, we give them
the weapons, we give them the intelligence about where to strike.
We do everything, except that the Ukrainians are the one
who are ones who are giving like up up to
a million of their men in casualties to this war.
I mean, it's a million total between Russia and Ukraine
casualties as of September. And then they're the ones who
actually hit the button after we do all the other work.
So within hours of giving this permission, they go deep
into Russia. Russia responds with a long range missile of
its attack of its own, and a lot of increased
rhetoric about how the next step is nuclear war. It's
just reckless to do this, and it's particularly I mean,
it's reckless. Putting yourselves on the brink of World War
III in a poorly designed war is reckless. Doing it
in a transition is I think, just it's reprehensible. Having
said that, I was talking with someone who's really smart
in this space. He was pointing out that the pro
Ukraine war people in America have been claiming that if
only Ukraine could use long range missiles, then they could
take on this nuclear power, which is insane, but that's
what they've been saying, and once they see that the
fundamental nature of the war doesn't change. It is another
example of how the people who are arguing for a
more realistic approach to this problematic situation of Russia invading
Ukraine and seizing territory, that it'll just show, like once
again that they're right on the fundamentals. I don't know,
it's just a mess, and it's like it's a million
men mess, and nobody seems to care about the complete
destruction of Ukraine, these deaths, the mood of the people,
and you know, they're not being allowed to have elections
right now in part because I think they would vote
for a changed approach. So it's a horrific situation and
people just kind of like gloss over it, like it's
no big deal for all the concern about Israel and
Gaza and people don't seem that concerned about the death
and destruction in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Well, it's crazy because Democrats say that it's you know,
constantly push ceasefires on Israel, but they won't would never
ask Ukraine to engage in a ceasefire, do you know
what I'm saying. It's like it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Well, not every conflict needs to have the same out right,
you don't push this, but I actually think what you
just said is right. They should flip the approach. They
should be pushing for as good of a situation as possible.
And again not because in a perfect world, Ukraine would
not be so mismatched here versus Russia. But Russia has
an existential desire for this land. They view it as
as necessary for their country's survival to have this access
that this land provides. And they have six thousand nuclear warheads.
So you may wish Ukraine could win, You may really wish,
but do you have what it takes in America to
prosecute a hundred year war against a nuclear power if
they didn't go nuclear, like you just it's just unrealistic.
And then on the opposite side with Israel there like
you must do a ceasefire, you must just stop all
of this when they're just trying to be let go
to actually win a very winnable war.
Speaker 1: Well not just win a war, but prevent an enemy
and an enemy of the United States in many ways
from obtaining a nuclear weapons like that should be a
huge think about what this world looks like if Iran
has nuclear weapons and they do whatever they want in
the Red Sea, you know, all over because we can't.
You know, you don't want to have a nuclear war
with a bunch of religious fanatics. So it doesn't make sense.
And hopefully it will make more sense come end of January.
We'll see. All right. I think that's enough on politics.
It's Thanksgiving. Let's talk about something.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about culture.
Speaker 1: Yes, you have one of my favorite topics coming up.
Speaker 2: So I watched the new John Benet Ramsey documentary on Netflix.
Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: I have not. I just saw that it existed. I'm
like another one, But yeah, I did not.
Speaker 2: So even though I'm from Colorado and I felt like
I was pretty well read on the topic, and of
course I have read your your many pieces on this
dating back to the Rocky Mountain.
Speaker 1: News Denver Post.
Speaker 2: But yeah, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1: Okay, we were the broadsheets.
Speaker 2: That I did not There was a lot I did
not know about this.
Speaker 1: Oh really, okay, So I quickly just want to say
I was in Colorado after this happened a few years
after when I arrived, but I became obsessed with the
case as many people in Colorado have been and do
I actually met people who were part of the investigator
you know, Bolder Police at the time. I spoke to
people who were involved, and I spoke to reporters you know,
who were there. So I became obsessed. Now I haven't
thought about it in a few years since the last
documentary they made. Does this doc well, you'll tell me,
but does this documentary now, uh? Does it give you
a potential person who did it or anything like like
was it good? Actually? Just tell me about it, tell
me what you think.
Speaker 2: Uh No, And I'm okay with that, Like, I don't
want to give it away because it's a three part
documentary and we have not had anyone arrested for the
killing of John Bennet, so I had. One of the
things I like about this documentary is it looks deeply
at how much the Bolder Police department messed thing up,
and also how much the media trafficked in falsehoods about
the Ramsey parents. I would say it's very friendly toward
the Ramsey parents, and since you have already fingered them
as the slaughterers of their child, you will probably not
like that. But I found it very persuasive, like I
didn't realize that there was DNA including in the girls'
panties for an adult white male, and that the adult
white male was no member of the Ramsey family or
anyone else who was plausibly in the home, but have
gotten on.
Speaker 1: At the Macy's where they bought it. It doesn't. It's
here's the thing, at least from my perspective, every cop
who was there, every detective, initially thought Patsy did it.
There was no one thought that there was anyone else
who could have done it. Piece one of the pieces
I wrote for the Federals years ago, I list all
of the reasons they all thought Patsy did it. They
the Boulder Police are completely incompetent. They ruined, They let
people go into the scene and there's DNA all we
don't even know if it was a neighbor's DNA. DNA
all over the place points to them, and they they
One of the key things that cop said is they
have gotten met Patsy in a room alone initially, as
they do normally for any case like this, they feel
like she would have broken for sure. I mean, you know,
I don't want to go before we keep going I actually.
Speaker 2: I'm appalled at how poorly the Boulder police handled this,
and it was taking me back to this moment.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The mayor was Leslie what was her name, Leslie Durgan
or Leslie Duggan.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Older is even as a town is even more lefty
than the university. Oh yeah, I believe was an a
abortionist who became mayor.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 2: So they give you an idea of like what the
people Boulder think is good. So it's also weird to
have someone who was an abortionist. And of course Boulder
is also the site of one of the worst late
term abortion clinics in the country, run by doctor Warren Hearn.
You just it doesn't seem they don't deal with a
lot of post birth killings there in Bolder.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: True, but there was just like a general weirdness about
the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And and.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I have this horribly unprincipled belief which people
get mad at me for. It's I mean it kind
of as a joke, even though it's not a joking
matter that the moment, anytime a wife is killed, you
just arrest the husband because it's it was him. You know,
I don't really mean that. But there is a reason
why you look close. When there's a kidnapping or killing.
You look close because that's where most of them occur.
And I know how difficult that must be for the
people who are innocent who get looked at, But you
look at those people for a reason, particularly when the
girl is found in the house. Oh, even that that
they didn't do a thorough search of the house is
utterly bizarre, that the police didn't do that, That they
let people just trapes all over the house, completely corrupting
the crime scene. And then for all of the obvious
reality that they thought the parents did it, they didn't
really interrogate the parents anyway, So major problems. But then
I would also say, because they thought the parents did it,
I do think it made them closed off to looking
at any other potential scenario. And you mentioned like, oh,
it could have happened at the Macy's that a white
male adult DNA got on her panties and then mixed
with her blood from her assault in that region, Well,
they actually did look into that, and they tried to
trace DNA all the way back to like the factory
in China and find a white male working at the
factory in China, so that they could discount where that
DNA came from. But it wasn't just on her underwear.
It was also in other they found DNA, you know,
not just there, but elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Listen, the pivotal fact of the whole case is this
that And detectives asked this and no one could ever
answer it. This is the sex crime was staged. John
Benny was killed with a fast light over the head,
probably that smashed her. That was in the house. What
kind of sophisticated sexual predator endpoints of this house, breaks
into this house, doesn't bring a single thing with him.
Everything used to stage that scene was from inside the house.
Then after doing this, staying in the house with everyone
in the house, goes and hours hours sits un a
death at a desk, writes a long ransom note using
Patsy Ramsey's marker and notepad and notepad. After they're done,
puts back the pen or the marker into where he
took it from, lays out this note that Patsy Ramsey
supposedly stepped over, which later they tried to recreate and
could not. She could not have stepped over it, and
doesn't bring a single tool to trade, writes a ransom
note for some reason after killing the chide. None of
it makes any sense other than if it was a person.
Every FBI psychological exam and look at the crime came
up with someone in the house did it.
Speaker 2: So The documentary also features a Colorado's Sherlock Holmes as
one of the people puts it. Who was the El
Paso detective? Do you know who I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: I forget the name, but go on.
Speaker 2: Schmidt was his last name, and he had solved previous
mystery killings in Colorado, including one that involved a child
killed in her home or abducted from her home or yeah,
I think killed in her home. Nope, she her remains
were found elsewhere where they thought that the parents had
done it, and so his he recorded his findings in
audiotapes and also involved other detectives from El Paso in
the process. And so he would say that in fact,
there was definite evidence of a break in from outside
entry from outside physical evidence of that, and an easy
exit route from that was near the location of where
the body was found, and all sorts of other things
like it just didn't like nothing makes sense, including I
would say that the parents did it. Like, obviously, a
girl is dead, somebody killed her. But I wouldn't say
that any of the theories put forth by the Boulder
police really made sense. There. Theory was that Patsy had
gotten enraged that John Bennet had wet her bed, except
there was no evidence of her having like what the
bed that night, you know, not that six year old
kids don't want beds, and then as a result, she's
sexually assaulted and murdered her really like a totally that
doesn't really As a mother, that doesn't really make sense
to me.
Speaker 1: She wasn't sexually assaulted. That was staged. She was killed
with blunt trauma to the head. I believed the neck
stuff and the rest of it was staged.
Speaker 2: Well, there's even debate about that because of the distress
that was in her body from the the garat that
was around her neck. So also, you know, there was
this theory that the brother had done it, which I
am so sad to say. I had entertained and watching
this documentary and seeing this little tiny boy who was
not capable of building a complicated garrot to you know
what I mean, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Don't think actually, yeah, if the parents.
Speaker 2: Did the garat. Shouldn't you have been able to how
do you say that word? Grot?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't you have seen evidence that they well how to
do that?
Speaker 1: The theory was that the maybe the brother killed her
and then the parents set the stage the scene, you
know what I mean. But the problem was, I believe,
I'm just thinking about this stuff again for the first
time in a while, that the reason all of it
was contaminated because John found the Ramsey found the body.
His neighbor incidentally was with him in the basement, said
that he yelled out before he had turned on the
light to find the body that he had you know
that it was he thought it was just all acting.
That's his friend saying this, not you. But anyway, I
just want to quickly talk about the So take the
ransom note for instance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the argument for her doing it.
Speaker 1: But go on, Yeah, the whole ransom note the FBI
we trust on that said, was written only to be
a diversion and to to you know, focus and and
you know, on to blame someone who wasn't there. So
she put the exact amount as a ransom money that
was in John's bonus check so only people who worked
with him would know that, or someone in his family.
But she mentioned foreign factions and all these things that
literally were on the TV that night and the night
before that. She might have seen every FBI profile or
thought she had done it, that she had written that note.
All the evidence points to her. There might listen. I
think what happened was I do think probably she killed
her and that everyone they staged the scene. But I'm
not sure what happened in the house exactly. No big theory.
I mean, I'm not one hundred percent sure why she died,
but the idea that there was a break in or something.
There was one footprint in the snow. Snow, no one
broke into the Oh that's.
Speaker 2: One thing you got wrong. I went and reread your stuff.
Speaker 1: So the other thing, what was the first thing I
got wrong?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Sorry?
Speaker 2: That was something that you wrote that I don't think
was borne out by the facts.
Speaker 1: What was that?
Speaker 2: So there was not snow in the backyard at all,
like they have pictures of the crime scene photos, because
I think it was south facing in the back the
snow had already melted. There was some snow in the
front yard, but not in the back.
Speaker 1: Not in the back, So I just said they saw one.
They found one footprint. I don't know what I wrote exactly.
I could go back, but they they found a footprint
in the front. But I mean the.
Speaker 2: Crime scene photos of the area by the door show
a completely dry side, like completely dry, saying sidewalk and
dry yard.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, if you have this
kind of murder, do you think this is the first
time the person did it? Do you think that they
would do it again? Why hadn't they done it again?
Why was there this weird ransom note? Why? Why did
the person not bring a single thing with them to
the house. Why did he leave the child there? Why
did he feel the need to divert and write a
ransom note after the child was dead? No one ever
answers any of these questions. Who try to point fingers
away from the ramses well.
Speaker 2: The saying point fingers away from them. I do believe
very strongly in innocent until proven guilty. And I'm not
saying that there aren't weird things in play here. But
just because there are weird things in play doesn't mean stuff.
The note was very weird. I think you had written
that it would have taken like twenty plus minutes to
write it, which does not match with a crime scene situation.
But also, and I'm not saying that parents don't kill children.
Obviously that has happened throughout time, and you're like, oh,
these people don't. These people had like unfair advantage because
people thought that they couldn't do it. But there's really
not much in their life that would suggest that they
were capable of anything like this. You know, it was accidental, accidental,
but then staging like a really complicated, dramatic death scene,
you know, it just doesn't seem I.
Speaker 1: Mean, they were sophisticated people, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, they weren't unsophisticated, but they weren't like totally
sophisticated either. I mean, this was a beauty queen pageant
and her beauty queen and her daughter who she also
had in beauty pageants. These aren't They're not like doing
testing on.
Speaker 1: How about how they acted after? So think about this.
They refuse to give interviews to the police. First of all,
the police, like you said, I believe in the presumption
of innocence as well, but the police messed this up
so badly that it's we can never really know, so
we can theorize.
Speaker 2: In the documentary, he explains that the dad explains that
he had gotten a call from someone in his business
who said, you should know that the Bolder police one
hundred percent think you did this and you should lawyer
up immediately.
Speaker 1: And so he did, Yeah, lawyer up. But within I
have it here. I think it was less than a
half an hour after the car shoot. If he got
on a plane, private plane and went to Atlanta, that's
the other.
Speaker 2: Thing you got wrong. Sorry, it so it was reported,
it was leaked to the media that he flew his
own private jet to Atlanta m HM days after with
its daughter's casket, and that just wasn't true. He didn't.
He doesn't fly.
Speaker 1: No, I did say he flew it. I said he
was on a he had a private plane and it
was taken to Atlanta.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, he's a wealthy Boulder executive who flew a
private plane with his daughter's casket rather than flying.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I don't know. I don't
think I wrote about the casket. I think, oh yeah,
with his book Daughters about I have to look into that.
But in any event, here's the thing.
Speaker 2: But they have a reporter who got it wrong, and
he's like, I totally got it wrong. I trusted someone
and I shouldn't have.
Speaker 1: All the cops interviewed. The best book on this is,
in my opinion, is uh. I've got the guy's name, Schiller.
I think it is, and I forgot the name of
the book.
Speaker 2: But is it the cop who wrote the book about
how it was John Benet's mother who did it.
Speaker 1: No, it's he doesn't come to any conclude it's perfect murder,
perfect town. It's just a really well documented book. So anyway,
all the cops involved thought that the Ramseys acted incredibly
weird and guilty. All the evidence points to them. No,
you know, the intruder theory, but of course any crime
you can have an intruder came in and did. But
there's no evidence of any break in. You just said
there was, but I don't think there was any broken window.
There was no broken door.
Speaker 2: Nothing there. Oddly enough, there was a broken window that
was not broken that night. It had been broken earlier
and hadn't been repaired. But then there was glass from
that break that was on the suitcase right below the
window that someone might have used to climb in or out.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna have to refresh my memory on
all this. But I you know, as I my obsession
with this, you know, is just that in my recollection
of this is that almost everyone involved in this case,
other than some people, in my opinion, were out there
looking to make a box, thought that the Ramseys had
done it.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, you're going to be angry when you watch this,
but I did think it was pretty well done, although
too friendly perhaps to the Ramsey parents. And I found
it very persuasive that I had assumed. I had basically
just assumed they had done it and came out of
it much more open to other theories. Have you seen
anything that you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Just real quickly, I saw I have my list
here somewhere. Anyway, I went to see Gladiator too. Yeah, like, listen,
it's a movie about Rome and Gladiator. As I'm in,
you know, there's battles, Denzel Washington's in it, all of that,
But the story itself, the writing, it just it was
just very ham fisted. The connection to the old movie
was just it just I wasn't buying it, so I was.
I was. I was pretty disappointed in general, but you know,
it's still this big, beautiful extravaganza. You know, a lot
of a lot of blood, a lot of arms being
chopped off and so on. So and then I've been
I've been really into watching Golden Girls. Have you ever
watch that show? Yeah, with Maud and all those It's
so much edgier and like funnier than I remember it being,
you know, And now that I'm a bit older, I
find it like funny and I don't know, kind of
ated to watching it. So that's all I've been watching. Okay,
all right.
Speaker 2: I also watch Diplomat.
Speaker 1: Oh I see that? Shah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like me?
Speaker 1: Good you did.
Speaker 2: I don't like the Kerrie Russell character, and I like that.
I don't like her, you know, it's it takes courage
to make an unlikable main character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I'll check it out.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: I hope you do, and I hope everyone else does
as well. And people should remember to email us at
radio at the Federalist dot com.
Speaker 1: Yep, we'd love to hear from you. And uh also
buy my book if you'd like. It's called Blue and On.
You can buy it everywhere books are sold. Great and
we'll be back next week. Until then, be lovers of
freedom and anxious for the fray.