Speaker 1: By the way, the new bagels sandwiches are awesome. Oh
Speaker 1: I'll bet I think they're using real cheese. I think
Speaker 1: they use like some kind of cheese sauce.
Speaker 2: RFK would not appreve Why think alone when you can
Speaker 2: drink it all in with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
Speaker 2: Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International
Speaker 2: Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Where they lap.
Speaker 2: David at on the soda.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the latest episode of the Three Whiskey
Speaker 1: Happy Hour, which I think is the first one, shocking
Speaker 1: as it is to believe, ever hosted from a McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Since we are now doing the video, I am going
Speaker 1: to show our loyal listeners the amazing surroundings where your
Speaker 1: show comes from today.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't tell that apart from a Cracker barrelde,
Speaker 2: at least the new cracker barrel, which I guess we're
Speaker 2: not going to get. Oh anyway, I.
Speaker 3: Can't talk about what eating at McDonald's can do to you.
Speaker 3: Based upon that survey you just took of the dining room, John, it.
Speaker 1: Makes it makes me want to go out and shoot
Speaker 1: foreigners and conquer a new territory.
Speaker 2: Now, John, if i'd known you were going to host
Speaker 2: from such a you know, Lucretian has been telling me
Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks if we're going to be
Speaker 2: doing video, I got a dress better, but so I
Speaker 2: you know, I wore sure.
Speaker 1: You are well.
Speaker 2: I'd draft you better than this if i'd known we
Speaker 2: were being hosted for McDonald's class Joinney.
Speaker 1: Now, this is a great McDonald's is two blocks down
Speaker 1: the street from Sloat Avenue. I'm sure that call that
Speaker 1: name causes terror amongst the woke. I think that was
Speaker 1: the admiral that came out to San Francisco and conquered
Speaker 1: the northern California for the United States and the eighteen
Speaker 1: forty eight war. And just down from the Naval Postgraduate
Speaker 1: Institute where I'd in for the last two days, Steve Lucretia,
Speaker 1: how are you and where are you guys?
Speaker 3: I'm home, and I want to say we're John's eating
Speaker 3: bagels and mcmuffins for breakfast. It is actually breakfast time,
Speaker 3: which means that even I can't quite get myself to
Speaker 3: be drinking whiskey at this early hour. However, I am
Speaker 3: coming through for the three whiskey happy hour podcast with
Speaker 3: some amazing tea. The first one is Whiskey Rebellion Tea,
Speaker 3: which is Bourbon's smoky tea in celebration of the two
Speaker 3: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. And that's
Speaker 3: black tea. And then I put these together. This is
Speaker 3: gunpowder tightly rolled explosive green tea, which is also put
Speaker 3: out in honor of the American Revolutionary War. So it's
Speaker 3: actually the gunpowder and Bourbon in my tea.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Steve, how about you.
Speaker 2: I'm just drinking coffee, but I am bringing it in
Speaker 2: this wonderful Age of Reagan coffee mug that they give
Speaker 2: out now the Reagan Library, which you know, not really
Speaker 2: in honor of my book, but I'll take it anyway
Speaker 2: and claim that it is.
Speaker 1: And you know, Stevie should be drinking in the nice
Speaker 1: swag You're going to be getting us, right the three
Speaker 1: Whiskey Happy Hour slash sub stack merchandise.
Speaker 2: Eventually, eventually, one thing in the.
Speaker 1: Way Lucretia's hat that says mass deportation on it. In
Speaker 1: yours it says the Golden Age has returned.
Speaker 3: What does yours say? John?
Speaker 1: You know, none of it was clearmont slogan's really hit me.
Speaker 3: Imagine that.
Speaker 1: I guess they had one that said Nature's law, Nature's God,
Speaker 1: or something like that. You guys probably know better than.
Speaker 3: The laws of nature and nature's God. That'd be it,
Speaker 3: the phrase from the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: John that. Okay, that's a great way to start our episode.
Speaker 1: So the first issue that we would like to discuss
Speaker 1: is the terrible news of the school shooting at the
Speaker 1: Denunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Young man slash woman.
Speaker 1: I guess there was man transitioning into a woman.
Speaker 3: A man full stop, but go ahead.
Speaker 1: Got outside a church as a school year was starting
Speaker 1: children at prayers. I think right now two children have
Speaker 1: been killed and at least eighteen were injured, in addition
Speaker 1: to staff and adults who were also sent to the hospital.
Speaker 1: And this has led to the same, I think predictable
Speaker 1: demands for gun control, tough gun control laws and doing
Speaker 1: something about these school terrible school shootings. Lucretia, why don't
Speaker 1: you start off what are your thoughts about the shootings
Speaker 1: and the coverage and what it means for policy.
Speaker 3: Well, so, first of all, it's not just a call
Speaker 3: for gun control which is, of course, is ridiculous and
Speaker 3: as stupid. Who was it? Stephen King, one of those
Speaker 3: idiots who thinks that they have a right to comment
Speaker 3: on anything, came out and said, Oh, the problem isn't
Speaker 3: that he was trans. The problem is that he had
Speaker 3: a gun. No, absolutely, the problem is that he was trans.
Speaker 3: I am willing to bet the lucretia compound mortgage on
Speaker 3: the fact that the drugs, the hormone therapy, the puberty blockers,
Speaker 3: all of the things that they give to already mentally
Speaker 3: ill people. By the way, these are people who are
Speaker 3: so illusional that they somehow think they are born in
Speaker 3: the wrong body. The stupidest thing that has ever become mainstream,
Speaker 3: I think in my entire lifetime, is that stupid phrase.
Speaker 3: Let me just tell you. I have a friend who's
Speaker 3: her friend, her cousin. Actually, I'm going to call cousin grandma.
Speaker 3: Grandma has a grandson that she has custody of because
Speaker 3: the mother was a drug addict and the son has
Speaker 3: now some mental disabilities. He's a teenager and he comes
Speaker 3: home from school every day from his special education courses
Speaker 3: saying that Nana, they tell me, I'm really supposed to
Speaker 3: be a girl, Nana, They tell me, I'm really supposed
Speaker 3: to be a girl. So the most evil part of
Speaker 3: the less project in destroying nature and destroying you know,
Speaker 3: God's beautiful creation of human beings as men and women,
Speaker 3: is that they target the mentally ill, the mentally disabled.
Speaker 3: They target the call it the genuinely marginalized. I'd have
Speaker 3: another anecdote with that I won't share right now, but
Speaker 3: the Left is just evil. They are profoundly, profoundly evil.
Speaker 3: And the idea that they go after these most vulnerable
Speaker 3: people is me, look at what that idiot. I don't
Speaker 3: have enough negative, insulting adjectives to describe the left these days.
Speaker 3: But what's his name, Frey, fried Brain, whatever his name is?
Speaker 3: For the mayor of Minneapolis. Oh, the thing we really
Speaker 3: have to make sure that we don't do right now
Speaker 3: is call out and put our hatred towards the trans community. Okay,
Speaker 3: not towards the trans community, but how about the irresponsible
Speaker 3: I don't have enough adjectives responsible leftist politicians who make Minneapolis,
Speaker 3: Minnesota a trans sanctuary state, encouraging mental illness. If Steve
Speaker 3: told me that he's suddenly identifying as you've heard this before,
Speaker 3: this is not mine a pirate? Am I going to
Speaker 3: insist that Steve can have his eye gouged out and
Speaker 3: his hand cut off and and a parrot stuck on
Speaker 3: his shoulder so that he can fully embrace who he is.
Speaker 2: I've got the shirt going for it right now.
Speaker 3: But okay, it's a good shirt. Anyway, I'm done, and
Speaker 3: I'm not going to talk about gun control, and I'm
Speaker 3: not even going to talk about mental health. I'm going
Speaker 3: to talk about the leftist There are words, but I
Speaker 3: can't use them who prey on vulnerable people and then
Speaker 3: turn around and also have an entire propaganda campaign about
Speaker 3: how Catholics are evil and Trump is evil and Jews
Speaker 3: or evil, and you go on and on and on,
Speaker 3: and you know, we could talk also about shutting down
Speaker 3: mental institutions. Steve probably knows a lot more about that
Speaker 3: than I do. And I don't mean it because he
Speaker 3: belongs in one, because he follows those policy issues. It's sick.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely sick. And of course, despite what jenfist, stupid
Speaker 3: Pisak had to say about it, everyone I know has
Speaker 3: been praying fervently for the families that you know, that's
Speaker 3: what you do when evil strikes you pray because that's
Speaker 3: really what you need to do, even on a personal level.
Speaker 3: So I'm done, Steve, there's my rant for the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah wee. Do you think that this has something to
Speaker 1: do with transgender ideology and treatments and what about some
Speaker 1: of the things people on the left have said about
Speaker 1: stop praying, you should stop praying? Oh, do something about it? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah? In reverse order, this is really exposing how hostile
Speaker 2: the left is to expressions of piety, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't even you know. Jd Vance said it best, says, no, Look,
Speaker 2: we don't pray as a substitute for action. We pray
Speaker 2: because we think God is listening and that's what you need.
Speaker 2: And the left hates that they won't. Okay, I'll just
Speaker 2: stop there going a long time about that. I agree
Speaker 2: with lu Creation about Mayor Jacob Frey of Minnesota, and
Speaker 2: I'm a little baffled that he is being so out
Speaker 2: aggressive in his allying himself with transgender ideology because his
Speaker 2: rival to be mayor is a Somali Muslim, who if
Speaker 2: he wins, and who knows he might, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: guessing he's not going to be very sympathetic to the
Speaker 2: LPGBQ plus agenda. It's been interesting that some of these
Speaker 2: cities in Michigan, where you've had a Muslim majority elected,
Speaker 2: the local city councils have canceled, you know, rainbow sidewalks
Speaker 2: and the flags and all the rest of that, and
Speaker 2: suddenly all the liberals and Michigan are saying, what, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, we didn't mean this when we embraced diversity.
Speaker 2: And then finally, I'll just say two more things. One
Speaker 2: is I don't think we know well. I try to
Speaker 2: follow the seventy two hour rule of these things, wait
Speaker 2: till we get information. First, more information, and then initial
Speaker 2: information that is confirmed. So there's a lot we don't
Speaker 2: know yet, but a lot is leaked out. Unlike the
Speaker 2: transgender shooter in Nashville last year, where they actively suppressed
Speaker 2: the manifesto and anything about it. I am watching a
Speaker 2: news media tie itself in knots to avoid any consideration
Speaker 2: of this issue and the irony. I think I sent
Speaker 2: you guys a text about this. I'm watching the NBC
Speaker 2: Nightly News the other night when it happened, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, the lead story, no mention at all of
Speaker 2: the gender angle of the shooter. And then later in
Speaker 2: a segment we get to later in the broadcast, we
Speaker 2: get to a segment they're running as a series right
Speaker 2: now called cost of Denial, and it's all about health
Speaker 2: insurance problems. Hardly a new topic or a new story,
Speaker 2: but they're making a big deal about health insurance covers,
Speaker 2: denials and so forth. But I thought the title that
Speaker 2: cost of Denial, well, we're looking at a very high
Speaker 2: cost of denial to refuse to acknowledge that this is
Speaker 2: even an issue to be considered. And so you know, here,
Speaker 2: the thing I'm following is, while we await more details
Speaker 2: to nail down some things, is I'm just amazed at
Speaker 2: the media malpractice over this. I shouldn't be. We know
Speaker 2: the media is terrible about these things, but this one,
Speaker 2: even the media is having trouble keeping a straight face.
Speaker 2: Uh you know, So the New York Times NPR, instead
Speaker 2: of using she has occasionally lapsed into they because apparently
Speaker 2: the shooter used. They then pronouns sometimes right, it changed
Speaker 2: from moment to moment, so, uh, you know, to be continued. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll just stop there.
Speaker 1: I think, oh, go ahead, and there, please, John, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I actually think this is something that the federal government
Speaker 1: could do something about, which is, let's have a study.
Speaker 1: One thing that worries me is that I agree with
Speaker 1: the creature. The ideological bias is strong, so strong here
Speaker 1: about even asking questions that one thing you could do
Speaker 1: is do a study and see are these transgender involved
Speaker 1: mass shootings occurring at a higher rate than their alleged
Speaker 1: part of the population. I was trying to see if
Speaker 1: any data. Yeah, we have these stories anecdotal evidence, but
Speaker 1: let's see some you know more, you know, rigorous studies.
Speaker 1: The Justice Department could do that, the FBI could do that.
Speaker 1: The figure out and you can do it.
Speaker 3: That's the problem, and it is so small and seriously,
Speaker 3: since twenty twenty three, for instance, there have been four
Speaker 3: school shootings, two of which are by confirmed self described transgenders,
Speaker 3: and two of which are questioned about whether that was
Speaker 3: a factor. Out of four, now here's the problem. What
Speaker 3: constitutes a mass shooting? If somebody commits suicide, if you
Speaker 3: know this or that, But if you look at if
Speaker 3: you if you can find mass shootings to a narrow
Speaker 3: set of propositions, which are you know, some person who
Speaker 3: just goes off on a school There's been four since
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and two of them have been committed
Speaker 3: by transgender persons. So, you know, I think that the
Speaker 3: more important thing is to figure out what the drugs
Speaker 3: and the scientific experimentation that the what's his name, the
Speaker 3: Nazi Bengali left want to carry out on on vulnerable children.
Speaker 3: That's where we should be studying too.
Speaker 1: This is another thing where the Scrammty case at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court over this summer allows states to go ahead
Speaker 1: and do that. Now, so Lucretia's theory is right, then
Speaker 1: states should start, as some have like Tennessee and SCRAMMTI,
Speaker 1: start banning these kinds of treatments for people who are
Speaker 1: minors and maybe even adults if they're having these kind
Speaker 1: of consequences.
Speaker 3: And all I'd say Steve is I do agree with
Speaker 3: you about waiting to hear about everything, and a lot
Speaker 3: of things came out. However, they did have a manifesto,
Speaker 3: an online YouTube manifesto, so calling him transgender was not
Speaker 3: I mean, I would consider it, of course an insult
Speaker 3: or a direcatory his term, but he didn't he you know,
Speaker 3: so there is there are things out there that A
Speaker 3: could not be suppressed and B I guess you might
Speaker 3: even go so far as to say elections have consequences
Speaker 3: because we are seeing more transparency now that we have
Speaker 3: a different administration in charge of the FBI.
Speaker 1: Well, Steve, one other question for you, what do you
Speaker 1: make about the demands for tighter gun control. Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: would have thought probably already has the tightest gun control
Speaker 1: laws you have in the country under our federal system.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if that the tightest gun control laws,
Speaker 2: but they've got some very strict ones apparently I'm no
Speaker 2: expert on it, and these guns were all apparently purchased legally.
Speaker 2: And so notice by the way they are now calling
Speaker 2: for I mean, I've always had this problem in Chicago,
Speaker 2: New York, Washington, d C. You very tough handgun control
Speaker 2: laws and so forth. So pay attention. They are now
Speaker 2: saying we need a national band. They want the federal
Speaker 2: government to impose something stronger than the controls we've already got,
Speaker 2: because you know, the gun grabbers know that what they've
Speaker 2: got now isn't working. I don't think a federal law
Speaker 2: would make much difference if it survived a Second Amendment
Speaker 2: challenge in the first place.
Speaker 1: Here's what I think, where the lucretious argument becomes especially
Speaker 1: sneaky is because the left has always wanted to have
Speaker 1: mental fitness as a requirement to buy guns. But if
Speaker 1: you were to define mental fitness here to exclude people
Speaker 1: under transgender medical treatment, which would have prevented this person
Speaker 1: from getting the guns, I think the Left would go nuts.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know that we know that he had
Speaker 3: the Your your point is well taken. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: in this case that he had guns legally. That has
Speaker 3: not been determined as far as I am aware. Maybe
Speaker 3: I'm wrong, Steve, you're right.
Speaker 2: Well, the news stories say that he's right, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean the new stories are correct.
Speaker 3: Again, So yeah, I mean again, Minnesota's gun laws are
Speaker 3: are stronger tough then probably every place other than Chicago
Speaker 3: and Washington, d C. Which we'll leave that one alone
Speaker 3: for now because it'll come up after the break.
Speaker 1: Yes, So Lucretia as always one step ahead of me.
Speaker 1: We're going to finish this issue, and we're going to
Speaker 1: go to a break, and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to turn to the Federal Reserve. Welcome back to everybody,
Speaker 1: and now we're going to turn from the Second Amendment
Speaker 1: to structural features of the Constitution, namely, what does the
Speaker 1: president's executive power mean in terms of his control over
Speaker 1: the agencies. This has been brought to the fore by
Speaker 1: last week's firing of Lisa Cook, a member a governor
Speaker 1: of the Federal Reserve Board. The statue creating the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve says that the president cannot remove governors except quote
Speaker 1: unquote for cause. President Trump says that Lisa Cook lied
Speaker 1: on two mortgage applications claiming that they were her primary residence.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to do that, you know, I allowed
Speaker 1: to say I have two primary residences. Being having a
Speaker 1: primary residence gets you more favorable mortgage terms, for example,
Speaker 1: lower I think, lower home insurance rates and so on. Now,
Speaker 1: she hasn't been charged with this crime, she hasn't been prosecuted,
Speaker 1: certainly hasn't been convicted, but she's been referred for prosecution
Speaker 1: to the Justice Department by William Poulti, who heads of
Speaker 1: I think the Federals called the FAJA the Federal Housing
Speaker 1: Authority or something like that, but the federal agency does
Speaker 1: in charge of home loan mortgages. Lisa Cook has already
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit in court in her today to say
Speaker 1: that her firing would be illegal. The reason this raises
Speaker 1: a constitutional question is if the courts agree with her
Speaker 1: and say this is not a ground for firing, then
Speaker 1: President Trump's firing of Cook would have to be constitutional
Speaker 1: under his authority as president to fire at will all
Speaker 1: members of the executive branch. One last little tidboot before
Speaker 1: we go to Lucretian Steve is over the summer of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court upheld President Trump's firing on a temporary basis,
Speaker 1: upheld it of members of the NLRB, and they have
Speaker 1: a similar for cost protection requirement. And in that case,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, we think that in the end
Speaker 1: the president will win on the merits. And then it said,
Speaker 1: but it's not the case. This would require the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve and its members to also be under the same
Speaker 1: presidential control, because the Federal Reserve is kind of like
Speaker 1: the First Bank of the United States, Lucretia's favorite federal institution. So, Lucretia,
Speaker 1: what do you think about President Trump? Now you have
Speaker 1: to explain the difference to the less motif.
Speaker 3: Actually I find this Actually, you know me, when it
Speaker 3: comes to this economic stuff, I get bored to death.
Speaker 3: But I do think that this is a very interesting
Speaker 3: case for a variety of reasons. That reasons I know
Speaker 3: you both will agree with me, and that is a
Speaker 3: what does this actually mean for the the concept of
Speaker 3: the federal whatever the hell it's called now I can't
Speaker 3: keep up with. I'll call it the Federal Bank. It's
Speaker 3: supposedly more quasi independent status than other quasi independent agencies.
Speaker 3: And then the Supreme Court actually called it out as
Speaker 3: being more quasi independent. But nevertheless, it is my understanding again,
Speaker 3: you guys, I'm going to be a blonde when it
Speaker 3: comes to this, but it has an incredibly important role
Speaker 3: in the execution of the federal government's policies regarding the economy.
Speaker 3: That's the simplest way to put it from me from
Speaker 3: the blonde. Okay, why is the president not fully in
Speaker 3: charge of that? Why is the presid Is it not
Speaker 3: the person who gets to decide not just what those policies,
Speaker 3: but the people entirely? If he wanted to fire the
Speaker 3: entire board, I believe that under a executive power unless
Speaker 3: you can explain to me, and I imagine that our
Speaker 3: listeners would love to hear this too. A reason why
Speaker 3: somehow the federal Reserve Board should be exempt when executing
Speaker 3: executive powers from the article to requirement that it be
Speaker 3: executed by one person, and so all of those things
Speaker 3: make it interesting.
Speaker 1: Let me jump in and back to Steve. Is what
Speaker 1: you say, John, my expertise and channeling of the left.
Speaker 1: So there's they would make two arguments. One is sort
Speaker 1: of just a policy argument. One is a constitution arm
Speaker 1: The policy argument is everybody knows you don't want politicians
Speaker 1: to control the interest rate. The study I think this
Speaker 1: is fairly agreat on. The study show that presidents always
Speaker 1: want the interest rates to be lowered right before their
Speaker 1: reelection campaigns to juice the economy.
Speaker 3: Done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is done Even with these protections. The short
Speaker 1: term gain for the politicians is outweighed by the long
Speaker 1: term harm to the economy when we vow that to happen.
Speaker 1: That's the policy argument. So they would just say everybody
Speaker 1: agrees we should have central bank independence. A more interesting
Speaker 1: constitutional argument goes back to well, the founders seem to
Speaker 1: think the Bank of the United States back in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine was constitutional, So why isn't this bank constitutional too?
Speaker 1: They allowed the creation of this weird creature back you
Speaker 1: know at the time of the founding shows that the
Speaker 1: founders might have had a more flexible view of the
Speaker 1: separation of powers in the executive than we do today. Steve,
Speaker 1: you're a great lover of central bank independence. You're a
Speaker 1: big defender of Paul Volker and Reagan in your book.
Speaker 1: We see. Yeah, However, I may bring it away.
Speaker 2: Let's let's go about a slightly different way. I do
Speaker 2: think that the argument for an independent central bank, if
Speaker 2: we're going to have one at all, is good in
Speaker 2: the abstract. The hypocrisy here is the is the left saying, oh,
Speaker 2: Trump's trying to politicize the Federal Reserve and make it
Speaker 2: bend to his political will. I am sorry, That's what
Speaker 2: the left has been doing forever by expanding the mandate
Speaker 2: of the Federal Reserve, like the Humphrey Hawkins Act in
Speaker 2: the seventies. And in the particular case of the appointment
Speaker 2: of Lisa Cook. Let's just go back from it and
Speaker 2: remember why she was appointed, because.
Speaker 3: Before she was a brilliant economist. Anything else, you racist.
Speaker 2: Hold on a minute, because you're where everyone is forgetting
Speaker 2: that she was appointed after I think this is right
Speaker 2: after Biden's first nominee was rejected by the democratically controlled Senate.
Speaker 2: There was that Sarah Bloom Rascin, woman who's married to
Speaker 2: Jamie Raskin, whose father, Marcus Raskin, was a Castro loving Communist.
Speaker 2: What did she want to do? She said, I want
Speaker 2: to go on a reserve and argue that because we
Speaker 2: need to fight climate change, we want to cut off
Speaker 2: oil companies from access to federal reserve and other banking facilities.
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, the big banks that are
Speaker 2: going along with this, we're going to be tough on
Speaker 2: them too. That had nothing to do with monetary stability,
Speaker 2: which ought to be the only mandate of the federal
Speaker 2: reserve right, so they not made cook obvious DEI hire her?
Speaker 2: She was John, a student of for a PhD of
Speaker 2: Paul Romer at Berkeley, who's a pretty sensible guy. But
Speaker 2: I went through her CV and you know, her politics
Speaker 2: are pretty radical. It seems to me now, John, that
Speaker 2: the turn of the legal question, you can fire for cause.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I think that Supreme Court opinion
Speaker 2: to mention it was a curious thing too. I think
Speaker 2: they were hoping, I think that was blatantly political, hoping
Speaker 2: to dissuade Trump from causing an immediate crisis for the
Speaker 2: court by firing Powell. But now Cook is a different matter.
Speaker 2: He's saying, I'm firing her for cause she lied on
Speaker 2: her mortgage applications. People, do you go to jail for that? Sometimes?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: The question is who determines that? Now, by the way,
Speaker 2: there have been at least I look this up, a
Speaker 2: couple of regional Federal Reserve governors who've had to resign
Speaker 2: when they were credibly accused but never convicted, of insider
Speaker 2: trading and other dodgy financial things. So it's not unusual
Speaker 2: to remove somebody for credible allegations of financial misdealing. And here,
Speaker 2: by the way, Clok has not denied that she put
Speaker 2: in false applications. Still not denying the charges. She's saying,
Speaker 2: Trump can't remove me. So who determines this? And I
Speaker 2: don't think you have to wait necessarily at all for
Speaker 2: a court or an actual trial to determine this. It
Speaker 2: seems to me there's a cloud over her. Uh huh.
Speaker 2: And I think finally you mentioned vulgar. I won't tell
Speaker 2: the stories. I'll just say that you know Reagan's strategy
Speaker 2: when he wanted Vulgar to change course gradually was to
Speaker 2: simply when vacancies came up, fill the Federal Reserve with
Speaker 2: his more sympathetic appointees, and finally they out voted Vulgar. Normally,
Speaker 2: all these Fed governors, they defer to the chair because
Speaker 2: the chair is there every day. They've got the staff
Speaker 2: under control. They control the agenda. But you can a
Speaker 2: determined president, as Reagan was as his term went on,
Speaker 2: force the hand of the Chair of the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2: And so you know Trump wants to do that. Good
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 3: Came back at the beginning that you said, I actually
Speaker 3: want some clarification for you. Un this John again, I
Speaker 3: think our listeners will be interested. I have heard I
Speaker 3: do not know the law nor even how I would
Speaker 3: look up the law, and whether it's federal because it's
Speaker 3: Fannie may or whether it's state law on mortgages. But
Speaker 3: my understanding is if you lie on your mortgage application,
Speaker 3: it is a possible thirty year jail term if you
Speaker 3: are convicted. Now you guys probably both know that. Our
Speaker 3: good friend and Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Paul Krugman,
Speaker 3: came out and said, no, no, no, no, this is just
Speaker 3: like cheating on your third grade math exam.
Speaker 1: No, no, it's not. No, it's not it's not.
Speaker 3: And they are good reasons why it's illegal. So I
Speaker 3: just I don't necessarily want to come in on just
Speaker 3: so two things out there. One is that let's be
Speaker 3: clear about why it's so important that people not lie.
Speaker 3: I mean, one person lying on their on their mortgage
Speaker 3: application probably doesn't have the systemic wide effects of you know,
Speaker 3: causing the two thousand and eight mortgage meltdown. But there
Speaker 3: are reasons why you have to say, this is my
Speaker 3: primary home, I live there, I take care of it,
Speaker 3: you know, da da da da, And then you get
Speaker 3: lower interest rates, lower homeowners rates or homeowner insurance rates.
Speaker 3: And then the idea that Fannie May and Freddie May
Speaker 3: Mac fre Freddie Mac have been allowing this sort of
Speaker 3: thing and not following through seems to me to be
Speaker 3: also a little bit suspect, and it's time to go ahead,
Speaker 3: Steve Well that look.
Speaker 1: Can I just make a comment about the importance of
Speaker 1: not lying on your mortgage application. One need only go
Speaker 1: back and read about the commentary about President Trump's prosecution
Speaker 1: from last year. Right they left went to the met
Speaker 1: to defend him being prosecuted for allegedly inflating his assets
Speaker 1: on his mortgage application. And remember there's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a systemic attack on the way the whole mortgage
Speaker 1: system works. And people didn't tell the truth on their
Speaker 1: mortgage applications, the whole system would collapse on and on
Speaker 1: and on. So we don't even have to We could
Speaker 1: just go and look at I'm sure people like Drugman
Speaker 1: and people like that made those arguments about a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago to defend Letitia James's prosecution of Trump.
Speaker 1: But the go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the other interesting story that went by unnoticed
Speaker 2: this week that's connected to this. And the Trump administration
Speaker 2: is proposing an initial public offering to fully privatize Fannie May.
Speaker 2: And Freddie Mack and Democrats here Thursday Friday said, oh,
Speaker 2: that might lead to higher mortgage rates. We can't do that.
Speaker 2: That's not economic policy. Talking Fannie May has been a
Speaker 2: sinecure for Democrats for decades now. I was once actually
Speaker 2: this is back in the nineties, and I was asked
Speaker 2: to talk to the board of directors of Fannie May.
Speaker 2: And I was stunned to see it was all it was,
Speaker 2: it was all all. The other person was talking to
Speaker 2: him that day was Ram Emmanuel, who was then working
Speaker 2: for Bill Clinton, President Clinton, and I was stunned to
Speaker 2: see all these Jamie Gorelik and all these Democratic grandees
Speaker 2: who have no background in finance. We're given these, you know,
Speaker 2: seven figure jobs at Fannie May on the board of it.
Speaker 2: That's why Democrats don't want to change it. It's another
Speaker 2: financial institution that's a dumping ground and pay off for them.
Speaker 1: And they're not going to say, right, yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: We say that federal subsidizing of home loans has just
Speaker 1: been a disaster. Yeahs public policy. But the one little
Speaker 1: small thing before we go to our next break is,
Speaker 1: you know, the former federal Justice Department official and me,
Speaker 1: I actually went and looked at the referral and it's
Speaker 1: potentially much worse than just lying on a mortgage application.
Speaker 1: One of the eight things about it. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: help but look at the details. The second home she
Speaker 1: purchased was a condo in the fourth seasons in Atlanta. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she put it up for rent and then the
Speaker 1: referel says, says it just as as so matter of
Speaker 1: factly Ms Cook did not report any rental income on
Speaker 1: her income taxes from this unit. So that's way worse
Speaker 1: than just lying on the worded application. She made filed
Speaker 1: fraudulent tax returned by not reporting rental income of her
Speaker 1: which in the unit she never lived in, the unit
Speaker 1: that she in the four seasons in Atlanta where she
Speaker 1: wasn't living that where she was bought for rental purposes.
Speaker 1: That puts that in You're in a whole nother world
Speaker 1: of her. But I'm surprised that hasn't really been focused
Speaker 1: on because that's something I think all Americans can understand,
Speaker 1: is people lying on their tax returns. May it's something
Speaker 1: we can address after the next set of messages coming
Speaker 1: up right now. Well, welcome back everybody. I'd love to
Speaker 1: talk about law fair, but I have another burning, burning
Speaker 1: question to get to. First, Oh that was bad.
Speaker 2: That would be a one one on the James Lilac
Speaker 2: scale of transitions and seges okay, And then.
Speaker 1: Oh you hurt me, Steve, You deeply, deeply wounded me.
Speaker 1: And this is the announcement this week by President Trump
Speaker 1: that he is going to resume prosecution because it's a
Speaker 1: federal crime to burn the American flag. This is very
Speaker 1: interesting because in nineteen eighty nine, by five to four decision,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that may
Speaker 1: made flag burning a clime. This is someone who burned
Speaker 1: a flag at the Republican National Convention, I believe in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Interestingly, the majority and DISSENTI views did
Speaker 1: not align in the usual ideological directions, where you had
Speaker 1: Justice Stevens noted liberal writing the main dissent, and Justice
Speaker 1: Scalia noted conservative, supplying the fifth vote to Justice Brennan,
Speaker 1: who wrote the majority opinion. Congress then passed a law
Speaker 1: to restore making a federal climb to burn the flag,
Speaker 1: and the following year, in a case called Eichman, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court again struck that law down. I have to
Speaker 1: say my own personal involvement is when I was General
Speaker 1: Counsel of the Senate Traditionary Committee under Senator Hatch. Lucretia's
Speaker 1: going to love the story. I surprised she isn't know it,
Speaker 1: but she's going to love me for it is that
Speaker 1: I worked on the Constitutional Amendment to overturn these decisions.
Speaker 1: It's make clear that whatever the scope of the free
Speaker 1: speech clause is that the flag was not one of
Speaker 1: the burning the flag was not covered by expressive speech.
Speaker 1: We failed in the Senate by one vote, lucretia. Can
Speaker 1: you guess which Republican senator did not supply the crucial
Speaker 1: last vote to send the amendment to the States for
Speaker 1: Radical John McKay.
Speaker 4: No, even better, your favorite Senator Mitch McConnell, Young Senator
Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell, Right, you voted down at the amendment and
Speaker 4: deprived us of that two thirds majority necessary to send
Speaker 4: the amendment to the States for hopefully ratification by three
Speaker 4: quarters of the states.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you, guys. Let me start with
Speaker 1: Steve maybe this time, do you think that flag burning
Speaker 1: could be protected by the First Amendment? Obviously President Trump
Speaker 1: is doing is trying to get the Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: reconsider those decisions. None of the justices on the Court
Speaker 1: from that time are on the court today. Did the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court get it wrong?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: If so, is President Trump doing the right thing by
Speaker 1: trying to get it Because was this some massive bait
Speaker 1: and switch where President Trump is trying to get people
Speaker 1: to stop talking about Epstein and talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's all silly. Look, I mean, as you know, John,
Speaker 2: but many listeners may not. The Executive Order is very
Speaker 2: careful to try and work a corner or le qni,
Speaker 2: you might say in the Supreme Court opinion by saying
Speaker 2: not banning flag burning per se or categorically, but to
Speaker 2: say flag burning if it is part of an incitement
Speaker 2: to violence or some disorder, can then be an arrestable offense. Now,
Speaker 2: maybe that would hold up, but I'm not sure it would.
Speaker 2: So maybe that is an attempt to get the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court to revisit it. You note it was a five
Speaker 2: to four decision and this court I think could very
Speaker 2: well rule the other way. Second, I did see on
Speaker 2: social media a bunch of lefties are having flag burning
Speaker 2: protests this weekend at various places around the country. So,
Speaker 2: like you know, the old cat, the laser pointer in
Speaker 2: the cat, Trump has done it again. And we've had
Speaker 2: this argument before, and I'll just say in one sentence,
Speaker 2: I think the long line of jurisprudence that made free
Speaker 2: expression so flag burning, naked dancing pornography fit under free
Speaker 2: speech of the First Amendment is mistaken. That's a long,
Speaker 2: long story and long argument carried out by our great
Speaker 2: mentors Frank Canavan and David Lowenthal, among others. And so finally,
Speaker 2: I think we got to float that amendment again and
Speaker 2: let Democrats vote against prohibiting flag burning, because that would
Speaker 2: just be a fun day to make them do that.
Speaker 3: So I have two comments about this. One is that
Speaker 3: I think that the Supreme Court's inclusion way back when
Speaker 3: of the idea of expression was a huge mistake and
Speaker 3: evidence of their failure to understand the purpose of the
Speaker 3: First Amendment to begin with. Does that mean that you
Speaker 3: know that it has to be speech per se, not necessarily,
Speaker 3: but their whole line of constitutional reasoning regarding expression is
Speaker 3: just stupid. It's I don't know how else to say it.
Speaker 3: It's stupid. It's it's not rational, it's not logical. So
Speaker 3: flag burning is not speech. It is freedom of expression,
Speaker 3: which is not protected in the First Amendment except by
Speaker 3: Supreme Court dictate. Right, let's be clear about that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I get that ship as sailed John, You know, I
Speaker 3: do fully understand that the reason we have a First
Speaker 3: Amendment is so that we can criticize our government, among
Speaker 3: other things. But flag burning is not criticizing the government.
Speaker 3: Flag burning is saying I am opposed to everything that
Speaker 3: this nation that has granted me the freedom to do
Speaker 3: something stupid like burn a flag. I am trying to
Speaker 3: destroy that. I think the arguments just are very simple.
Speaker 3: If you stop confusing the issue so much, could I
Speaker 3: do think though, honestly, John, very many kudos to you,
Speaker 3: that the right thing to do, because this has become
Speaker 3: an issue, is to get a constitutional amendment and have
Speaker 3: just you know a few things very specifically protected because
Speaker 3: of what the flag symbolizes, it is of a it
Speaker 3: is of a different category, I would say, than just
Speaker 3: regular expression, you know, the draft. Excuse my language, sorry,
Speaker 3: but that's what it said on the T shirt. Sorry,
Speaker 3: family show. I hope you believe that.
Speaker 1: Steve, you know this is interesting when you when you
Speaker 1: go back and read the opinions, you have to say
Speaker 1: that Brennan's opinion is better, uh than request ren Quest is,
Speaker 1: you know very much. You know Renquist and Stevens, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Stevens's opinion and rencast word World War two veterans, right,
Speaker 1: they had, you know, fought on behalf of the flag,
Speaker 1: and so for them, I think it was something that
Speaker 1: was beyond free speech doctrine, whereas you know, Brennan's our
Speaker 1: opinion is very much. This is a very standard opinion.
Speaker 1: I was liked what just As Scullia said. He said
Speaker 1: years later in a speech he said famously said if
Speaker 1: I were king, he said, I would throw every uh yeah,
Speaker 1: what did he say? Every sandal wearing Oh Harry weirdo
Speaker 1: who wants to burn the flag in jail. Then he said,
Speaker 1: but I'm not the king. So he said, like Lucretia,
Speaker 1: if you want to ban flag burning, get a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 3: It was never an issue until recently, right until you
Speaker 3: know sixty is what seventy eight years ago?
Speaker 2: Yeah, however, as that was, that was Ronald Reagan in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies governor saying, how do we reduce air
Speaker 2: pollution get the kids to stop burning the flag? That
Speaker 2: was I looked up the boat, right, yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Mention it, right, yeah, I think I think I said.
Speaker 1: They would appeal to you, two guys, you natural loss,
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, loving people is are there? Isn't it possible
Speaker 1: to say, there's some things that involved the nation, the
Speaker 1: creation of the nation, existence the nation, that have to
Speaker 1: pre exist the First Amendment. You can't have the First
Speaker 1: Amendment unless there's a nation around to protect it. And
Speaker 1: maybe there's some things which are so important for a
Speaker 1: nationhood that you they're elevated above something like free speech.
Speaker 1: Important as free speech is to our ability to have
Speaker 1: self governing politics.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've wondered about you know, a prominent
Speaker 2: protest tactic in the sixties was burning draft cards, and
Speaker 2: I believe that was a crime. And that's because the
Speaker 2: draft cards themselves are actually government documents. Right, yes, So okay,
Speaker 2: so I get the connection there.
Speaker 1: This is a it's called O'Brien. Unfortunately, this is the
Speaker 1: one that created the idea that of expressive conduct, that
Speaker 1: speech could just be actions. Even though, as you said,
Speaker 1: it did say the card and it was weird. They
Speaker 1: said something like, but if you made a copy of
Speaker 1: the card, you could burn that and that would be okay.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've been saying for years I want
Speaker 2: to burn my Social Security card only after I laminated,
Speaker 2: which is against the law. For some stupid reason.
Speaker 1: You can have mine because you guys are going to
Speaker 1: bankrupt the fund. I'm never getting any so you can
Speaker 1: have my card. Use it in good health. I'm going
Speaker 1: to see burn in mind just to warm my house.
Speaker 3: Sure somebody else does your card?
Speaker 2: John r U.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that brings up on our last break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to talk about punishing
Speaker 1: other people for their First Amendment rates when we return. Okay,
Speaker 1: we just finished the topic of whether the free speech
Speaker 1: protects the burning of the flag as expressive conduct, and
Speaker 1: now we're going to discuss whether the First Amendment prevents
Speaker 1: President Trump from burning up John Bolton. Because the news
Speaker 1: hit this last week that the FBI had executed a
Speaker 1: search warrant at John Bolton's home and his office. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I don't need to tell the listeners that John
Speaker 1: Bolton was a National security advisor in President Trump's first term.
Speaker 1: Has become a terrible one of the sharpest critics of
Speaker 1: President Trump since and wrote a book, The Room Where
Speaker 1: It Happened, about his time as National Security Advisor, over
Speaker 1: which there's much wrangling whether it contained classified information or not.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen, I think, any official documents that describe
Speaker 1: why Bolton's home was searched, but there have been some
Speaker 1: weeks I claimed that the investigation is related to whether
Speaker 1: Bolton miss handled classified information. Personally, my view, just to
Speaker 1: trigger lucretia, is that any man who keeps a mustache
Speaker 1: in such perfect condition would never mishandle classified information. But
Speaker 1: more partly, is this not retaliation against John Bolton for
Speaker 1: being such a sharp critic, rather than really going after
Speaker 1: him about classified information? Apprecia.
Speaker 3: Can I just say that the idea of having to
Speaker 3: kiss somebody with that disgusting creature take to his lip
Speaker 3: just makes me want to vomit. Okay, that being said,
Speaker 3: it's you know, the mainstream lamestream media is trying to
Speaker 3: make a very big deal about the book and whether
Speaker 3: or not Bolton put classified information in the book that
Speaker 3: is not actually, if you can actually get outside of
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the
Speaker 3: New York Times, what they are investigating the leaks say
Speaker 3: is the fact that when he was fired, he immediately
Speaker 3: sent via his private email a number of classified documents
Speaker 3: to his wife and daughter. And that private email was,
Speaker 3: if I'm getting the story correct, intercepted by foreign adversaries.
Speaker 3: And that is what he is being investigating for, not
Speaker 3: the book. And if that's true, I mean, we know
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton did the same thing and she hasn't been prosecuted.
Speaker 3: But you got to start somewhere, right, You got to
Speaker 3: You've got to start cleaning up this cabal of intelligence
Speaker 3: people on the inside, thinking that they're more important than
Speaker 3: the president, thinking that they're more important than the public
Speaker 3: that they supposedly serve, and that they're above the law.
Speaker 3: So I'm all in favor of taking Bolton. And even
Speaker 3: if they don't get to the end of it ever,
Speaker 3: because it's very difficult. They won't want any of this information,
Speaker 3: this classified information, to become evidence in a public trial,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Put him through the ringer, yep,
Speaker 3: law fair against John Bolton. I am all in favor
Speaker 3: of it, and I think he should shave that ugly mustache.
Speaker 1: You're telling me, mister Lucretia hasn't returned from war zones
Speaker 1: after he's assassinated various extremists without mush, without a mustache
Speaker 1: and a gigantic beard.
Speaker 3: We're not French, you know that, Napoleon. I'll be home
Speaker 3: in a.
Speaker 1: Month, don't. Oh gosh, Well, we can all agree that
Speaker 1: none of us ever want to be French, have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the French. I never will do anything
Speaker 1: with the French. Yeah, So I thought about the John
Speaker 1: Bulton controversy.
Speaker 2: Well, first I want to take up the mustache angle
Speaker 2: initially because I remember, you know, I'll come back to
Speaker 2: this too. You know John, who I know a little
Speaker 2: bit because his office was right next door to mine
Speaker 2: an Ai back, you know, fifteen years ago, and we
Speaker 2: used to be the first people in the office of
Speaker 2: the morning. I sometimes arrive at seven and he was
Speaker 2: already there and we checked our coffee. Some I don't
Speaker 2: know him well, but he was helpful to me a
Speaker 2: few times on when I was chasing after the UN
Speaker 2: and their climate change nonsense. And I did joke that
Speaker 2: you never want to be between John's corner office and
Speaker 2: the elevator when he was on his way to Fox
Speaker 2: News to do a segment, because you would get run over.
Speaker 2: But because he was always starting in and out right,
Speaker 2: I'll say that I'm a little tripping. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you knew Veronic Rodman and Ai. She was Peter Rodmins,
Speaker 2: late Peter Rodman's wife, and you know, had been a
Speaker 2: wonderful person. Oh yeah, No, she's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: And she'd been a.
Speaker 1: Producer and descend into the Egyptian royal family.
Speaker 2: I believe, I think that might be right. And she'd
Speaker 2: been a producer in ABC news. But she used to
Speaker 2: tell Bolton, I'd see this in the lunch room. John,
Speaker 2: you got to shave that mustache and get better suits.
Speaker 2: If you're ever going to be national security advisor, you
Speaker 2: just can't look slovenly like this. Pretty funny, now that's said,
Speaker 2: I'm a little surprised that he would be a sloppy
Speaker 2: about handling classified documents, as these stories seem to suggest,
Speaker 2: because he always had a neat desk, and you know,
Speaker 2: he always seemed very orderly. But it's possibly true. And
Speaker 2: and by the way, the New York Times did report
Speaker 2: that this investigation began under the Biden administration. It's not
Speaker 2: retaliation from Trump at all. And because the Biden people
Speaker 2: were concerned that you really did have a problem here
Speaker 2: and that he'd been very loppy about it. My final
Speaker 2: point isn't personal observation. I'm a little hesitant about this
Speaker 2: because this is just maybe subjective. But you know, I
Speaker 2: always thought from the beginning of John bolton Is four
Speaker 2: or five years ago, was a terrible fit for Trump,
Speaker 2: and I'm amazed that he didn't know that. And by
Speaker 2: the way, one of the big stories, the bigger stories,
Speaker 2: is between Trump one and Trump two, Trump one. Remember
Speaker 2: he went with a lot of conventional choices. Uh, you
Speaker 2: know what's his name? Well, so, I mean, you know
Speaker 2: Tillerson for Secretary of State, he did not like and
Speaker 2: secretive and this term he's not doing any of that.
Speaker 2: He's not taking any conventional Republican establishment choices. Quite the opposite.
Speaker 2: If you're that kind of person, you don't even get
Speaker 2: in the front door of your resume.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so you know he had McMaster, and I'm a
Speaker 2: fan of McMaster, who's been critical, though not as critical
Speaker 2: as Bolton. I just think it Bolton's ambition got the
Speaker 2: better of him and thought he could make a go
Speaker 2: of it, and bitter that he couldn't. Maybe that's not right,
Speaker 2: but I just think it was a a stake from
Speaker 2: beginning for both them to take that job. But it's
Speaker 2: a job he always wanted, and I think that's you know, so,
Speaker 2: I think maybe the sort of the moral table here,
Speaker 2: moral fable or lesson here is beware of ambition that
Speaker 2: will make you make some choices that you probably ought
Speaker 2: not to make.
Speaker 3: So Steve, the other thing I want to correct there
Speaker 3: is I don't think anybody is saying in terms of
Speaker 3: the espionage part of the Espionage Act, part of the
Speaker 3: investigation that John Bolton did this sloppily. The whole point
Speaker 3: is that he did it absolutely intentionally. He sent the
Speaker 3: classified documents so he would have them so that.
Speaker 2: He could write a book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so he could write a book or harm
Speaker 3: Trump in some other way. I can't say. I can't
Speaker 3: speak to his motives.
Speaker 2: Well there's another Well, there's another question about this, right.
Speaker 2: So I remember when Angelo Codevia wrote his terrific book
Speaker 2: on intelligence thirty some years ago now, and it had
Speaker 2: some dynamite stuff in it, all of which he had
Speaker 2: cleared thoroughly by the CIA. Now, in the case of
Speaker 2: this book, it does look like Bolton use some classified information.
Speaker 2: They say it was cleared, but maybe it wasn't completely.
Speaker 2: And the judge said, well, we've already got two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand copies of the book out there, so the horses
Speaker 2: out of the barn door and nothing we can do
Speaker 2: about it now. So it's ambiguous whether he was properly
Speaker 2: clear to ever or not. And and that's assumed that
Speaker 2: all the accounts are correct and complete, and I'm not. Again,
Speaker 2: we don't just because this reporter doesn't mean it's true
Speaker 2: or complete. I'm still surprised that a person, as to
Speaker 2: my impression, careful as he is, would have been You
Speaker 2: may you may be right. Maybe he wasn't sloppy. Maybe
Speaker 2: he was deliberate, he didn't care, and that's actually very bad.
Speaker 2: That's even worse to being sloppy.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been friends with John for a while,
Speaker 1: We've co written a few pieces here and there. I
Speaker 1: actually have to say he was sort of more Mega
Speaker 1: than before Mega showed up, before Trump showed up. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned it, Steve the one defining issue I think
Speaker 1: in his career was to restore American sovereignty to fight
Speaker 1: off all these international groups. And he himself was quite
Speaker 1: a critic of the intelligence community before conservatives were on that.
Speaker 1: So I I mean, in many ways he developed a
Speaker 1: lot many of the arguments that you hear coming out
Speaker 1: of Trump and Vance and people about restoring American control
Speaker 1: over its territory and borders and not listening to the
Speaker 1: UN or the ICC or bodies like that. I don't
Speaker 1: know the fact. I really can't imagine he misused classified information,
Speaker 1: but there was a big fight about this at the
Speaker 1: end of the first term. Because we can have a
Speaker 1: different debate whether advisors should ever write books about their
Speaker 1: presidents while they're still in office. That's not a classification issue,
Speaker 1: that's just a what's your favorite word prudence issue. But
Speaker 1: remember the book was originally cleared for publication by the
Speaker 1: NSC staff, and then political appoint tried to block it.
Speaker 1: And then remember Bolton sued in court to get it released,
Speaker 1: as you're allowed to do under the procedures, to say
Speaker 1: it's not really classified, it should be released, and he
Speaker 1: won and judge allowed, you know, judge allowed it to
Speaker 1: go forward in publication. So I don't understand how really
Speaker 1: he could be attacked for uh Misshandley classified information when
Speaker 1: a federal judge already found everything he did related to
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 3: Was acceptable for publishing book.
Speaker 1: I know it's things outside the book, but he's going
Speaker 1: to say the whole thing is the right. It is
Speaker 1: the stuff in the book. But anyway, the thing I
Speaker 1: actually wanted to mention before we go to the end
Speaker 1: of the show, our closing, is that I think this
Speaker 1: is I think this is setting a bad precedent for
Speaker 1: Trump and his relationship with his advisors, because who's going
Speaker 1: to want to work for him again? After seeing the
Speaker 1: ways treated Pompeo and Bolton. You know, we're moving their
Speaker 1: security details and now, you know, potentially prosecuting one over
Speaker 1: classified information. He's not going to get the best people
Speaker 1: to work for him for the rest of his turn.
Speaker 3: I think pomp is a different story. I kind of
Speaker 3: agree with with Steve on his analysis of what might
Speaker 3: have motivated John Bolton. I think that what you had
Speaker 3: was you had those establishment Republican those those really you know,
Speaker 3: highly decorated, not that that matters in today's military too much,
Speaker 3: but highly decorated generals come in and Trump thought these people,
Speaker 3: you know, they're patriots, they would be great. And one
Speaker 3: gets the sense, you know, he certainly couldn't defend this
Speaker 3: in a court of law, but one gets the sense
Speaker 3: that the thing that they were most upset about with Trump,
Speaker 3: more than anything else, was that he didn't listen to them,
Speaker 3: that he didn't think that their advice was, you know,
Speaker 3: it had to be taken to the bank, and that
Speaker 3: Trump would would often substitute his own judgment for theirs.
Speaker 3: And of course, you know, they thought he was just
Speaker 3: this feed crafts bumbling New York real estate guy, and
Speaker 3: and and we're extremely offended when he did not bow
Speaker 3: down and follow their every word and every bit of advice.
Speaker 3: I think that that, you know, I hate to see
Speaker 3: that because I was a fan of John Bolton once
Speaker 3: too and many of the things that he did. But
Speaker 3: I do think that he let his hubris get ahead
Speaker 3: of him. Shall we say, but that's that's so? What
Speaker 3: so Lucretia thinks that what does that mean? Absolutely nothing?
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, And Lucretia's word I fear more than
Speaker 1: that of any basic assistant US attorneys so and budling
Speaker 1: FBI agents conducting search barts.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, John, are we not going to talk
Speaker 2: about the Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift tie. This is the most.
Speaker 1: None of actually the most supportant issue. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: talk about this because it means Egos are going to
Speaker 1: beat the Chiefs again in the super Bowl. But no,
Speaker 1: the one last issue and talk about is us. Even
Speaker 1: though you kicked me off the podcast last week, you
Speaker 1: were victorious in your demands that cracker Barrel, Cracker Barrel,
Speaker 1: not crackle Barrel, Cracker Barrel change its ways and go
Speaker 1: back to its old Southern loving roots and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: cracker Barrel has gone back right, and it's just like
Speaker 1: New Coke, Old Coke or some other humiliating corporate retreat
Speaker 1: from some makeover to be woke. Steve, how did you
Speaker 1: do you realize you have such influence on the cultural zeitguys,
Speaker 1: that you're able to force the great corporations of the
Speaker 1: land to change their wayward ways.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not me, but I think you know when
Speaker 2: Chris Rufo and Robbie Starbuck go public that they're going
Speaker 2: to be after you. I think that's now going to
Speaker 2: be paid attention to in boardrooms and the wider phenomenon.
Speaker 2: So I think it's quite sick. I think maybe the
Speaker 2: story was overblown to begin with, but I do think
Speaker 2: that the result of this is a sign that corporate
Speaker 2: America has now woken up to the fact that they
Speaker 2: don't want to give into wokery or they're risk paying
Speaker 2: a serious market price for it.
Speaker 3: So remember, though, guys, that it's not just changing the
Speaker 3: logo and the interior and getting rid of the country
Speaker 3: focused atmosphere. It turns out that Cracker Barrel was again
Speaker 3: a supporter of the less most perverse, perverted, degraded sort
Speaker 3: of activities drag queen shows for children and grooming and
Speaker 3: you know, all of the worst excesses of the perversity
Speaker 3: of the LGBTQ plus community, shall we say. And so
Speaker 3: that was a little bit in the background. They finally
Speaker 3: only got rid of that link on their website like
Speaker 3: yes today. But the pushback was for I mean, okay,
Speaker 3: you take the old guy in the rocking chair off
Speaker 3: the cracker barrel, make a lot of fun of that,
Speaker 3: but it was really how bad the descent into wokery
Speaker 3: for an icon of you know, white, poor white America,
Speaker 3: poor Mexican America. And it's not a white America thing,
Speaker 3: even if it is Cracker Barrel. You know, it's with
Speaker 3: families go there when they're on a road trip and
Speaker 3: the kids have fun in the you shop in the stores,
Speaker 3: and it was an American experience and they just the
Speaker 3: left can't leave anything untouched. But thank god America is
Speaker 3: pushing back. I'm all about that. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: go to Cracker Barrel, probably won't for a while until
Speaker 3: I know they've become completely sound again.
Speaker 1: But I have to admit I've never been to or
Speaker 1: stop putting a cracker barrel. I don't go to the
Speaker 1: same feat restaurant that you guys go to. It's out
Speaker 1: of my price range. When I'm on a road trip,
Speaker 1: you know where I go. I go to McDonald's. Why
Speaker 1: would you go up scaled a Cracker brow Like, that's
Speaker 1: your truth fault here. I was trying to rob elbows
Speaker 1: with the the elites, so, uh, you know.
Speaker 3: If you can get a cracker barrel John click why
Speaker 3: And whenever I went, I would always get it. They
Speaker 3: have these foot long tutsie rolls, and I it's my failing.
Speaker 3: I don't eat them anymore because you know, they're like
Speaker 3: corn syrup and seed oils. But but it's my probably
Speaker 3: my favorite thing in the world is a tutsi roll.
Speaker 3: And there was this foot long bigger than round in
Speaker 3: my thumb. It would take me the rest of the
Speaker 3: trip to eat it. And that that was my favorite
Speaker 3: thing about Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 1: But they don't even have and we asked why they
Speaker 1: lost their Michelin stought, Okaysia, do you have any babblon
Speaker 1: b headlines?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I have so many. You guys are just
Speaker 3: gonna have to shut me down. Speaking of over correction,
Speaker 3: Cracker Barrel ads confess a flag to logo and change
Speaker 3: his name to the South will rise again. This one,
Speaker 3: we didn't talk about it, and I'm not sure it's
Speaker 3: where where it's all landed, But I like I like
Speaker 3: the sentiment. Genius Trump enacted plan to dumb down Chinese
Speaker 3: population by inviting them to attend American universities. How about
Speaker 3: Trump and Vale's giant cannon for faster, more maintaining, entertaining deportations.
Speaker 1: I know, I love it.
Speaker 3: This one's for you. Travis Kelcey finally acquires ring without
Speaker 3: help of referees.
Speaker 1: Yes, that I agree with, completely, completely agree.
Speaker 3: Human trafficker says it's inhumane to be trafficked to another country.
Speaker 3: We'll leave that. How about how about our good friend
Speaker 3: what's his name? Madabbi? Bobby Bobby, Bobby Bobby? How I
Speaker 3: need a spotter, Chrisman Donnie struggling under five pound yoga dumbbells.
Speaker 2: That's a great story. It was great.
Speaker 1: The story was. The story was that he could have
Speaker 1: benched some very light amount of one.
Speaker 3: Hundred and thirty five pounds, Yeah, one hundred and then
Speaker 3: Riley Gaines, who uh you know the swimmer, posted a
Speaker 3: video of herself. I think she she bench pressed one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty five pounds something like that. Something like that. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Mayorship of New York to be awarded the first candidate
Speaker 3: who can bench press the bar. We didn't talk.
Speaker 1: We didn't.
Speaker 3: We ran out of time, folks, But it was because
Speaker 3: it was fun. But we didn't talk about Trump's crackdown
Speaker 3: on crime. But picture of Chuck Schumer somber Democrats moren
Speaker 3: DC going a record ten days without a murder.
Speaker 1: All right, and it's for my role to close us
Speaker 1: out with always drink air whiskey met I believe the
Speaker 1: next one is buy more books and Steve, what interesting
Speaker 1: new ai haiku slash pong have you brought for us today?
Speaker 2: Okay, this one's a mixed bag. It's the Three Whiskey
Speaker 2: Happy Hours understood by Jay Alfred Proofrock. If you get
Speaker 2: the reference. Some parts of it are good, some parts
Speaker 2: so it's t s Eliot Lucretian. That's who is. The
Speaker 2: love song of j Alfred Proofrock was one of his
Speaker 2: famous early poems, and if you don't know it, then
Speaker 2: you will miss the beginning, which goes as follows. Just
Speaker 2: a little bit of it. Let us gather than you
Speaker 2: and I when the evening is spread out dry, like
Speaker 2: precedent over parchment, and the republic size beneath the weight
Speaker 2: of another week. Between the murmurs of power and parody,
Speaker 2: the amber light spills into glass measure, deliberate, as if
Speaker 2: the world could still be parsed by careful men and
Speaker 2: a clever woman with bourbon tongues and mind's like razors,
Speaker 2: dulled only by politeness. Some of that's good, but some
Speaker 2: of it doesn't work. The politeness part. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: it's fun. See you next week.
Speaker 1: Ricochet joined the conversation