Speaker 1: Well, whiskey coming fame my pain. Honey? All right, oh whiskey?
Speaker 1: Why think alone when you can drink it all in
Speaker 1: with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 1: John You and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia. Where
Speaker 1: the lap lapp? And David?
Speaker 2: Ain't you easy on the should taps?
Speaker 1: You gotta give me? And let that whiskey flo It's
Speaker 1: the three Whiskey Grumpy Hour. No, that's not it. Let's
Speaker 1: start again. It's the three It's the three Grumpy Whiskey Hour.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, hold on, that's not right either. Let me
Speaker 1: get an extra Snickers bar listeners and then we'll be
Speaker 1: ready to go. So okay, I've had my phill Snickers.
Speaker 1: It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour. U recording on a
Speaker 1: Saturday morning because that's the only time we could find.
Speaker 1: So we're not live like we would like to be.
Speaker 1: But here we are. I'm having coffee instead of whiskey.
Speaker 1: Are you guys having coffee? Tea? Anything? Fun? Irish? Whiskey? Coffee?
Speaker 3: Twelve mug?
Speaker 1: You're eighteen twelve mug? Right?
Speaker 2: What happened in eighteen twelve? Pardon what happened in eighteen twelve.
Speaker 2: That's on your mug. There was this little war John
Speaker 2: really Madison's Folly. It was called Madison's Folly.
Speaker 3: Remember, I say, but I actually think that it's the
Speaker 3: the Francis Scott Key over Fort what what's its name?
Speaker 1: What fort? Was it McHenry? Wasn't it?
Speaker 3: Was it Fort McHenry? Anyways in Baltimore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to say I'm embarrassed to say I'm
Speaker 2: drinking out of my Sheets mug, which is for those
Speaker 2: of you who, like you two, know nothing of the
Speaker 2: East Coast. Sheets and wah Wah are in a contest
Speaker 2: for world domination. So Sheets is from Pittsburgh and Ohio area,
Speaker 2: and wah Wah is Philadelphia. So every now and then
Speaker 2: the Amish Country is right in the middle. So when
Speaker 2: you go the Amish Country, you have Sheets and Wawa
Speaker 2: next to each other. So I have mugs from both.
Speaker 1: Aha. Well, all right, I'm drinking out of an Age
Speaker 1: of Reagan coffee mug from the Reagan Library. It's not
Speaker 1: name for my win I know, I win Well, it's
Speaker 1: not named for my book exactly, although they decided to
Speaker 1: use that title for the conference. The Academic Conference they
Speaker 1: do every other year, so they always have to invite
Speaker 1: me since they're using the title. Okay, but while we're
Speaker 1: talking about food and comestibles, two things. One is I
Speaker 1: think I sent you guys that poll from Pew about
Speaker 1: what people think is immoral, and I was pleased. I
Speaker 1: think it's a stupid pole but never bind why. But
Speaker 1: I was pleased to see that only four percent of
Speaker 1: Americans think eating meat is immoral. And yet why does
Speaker 1: it seem that fifty percent of America's gone vegan? Because
Speaker 1: it's the hel from the corners or something, right?
Speaker 3: Anyway, I just think they're louder Steve, I don't think.
Speaker 3: And now they have their their soy boy champion in Texas.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'll come back to him very briefly in a moment.
Speaker 1: I do have an interesting piece of McDonald's trivia for you, John,
Speaker 1: and it has to do with the legendary fact checking
Speaker 1: of the New Yorker magazine. If you know in journalism,
Speaker 1: the New Yorker is legendary. Are used to be for
Speaker 1: their fact checking, and you know they would find any
Speaker 1: little mistake in the process. And so I was reading
Speaker 1: this in John mcfee's memoir of All the writing he
Speaker 1: did for New Yorker, and he said one time he
Speaker 1: had an article that went in said there are two
Speaker 1: Illinois rivers, one in Illinois and the other one in
Speaker 1: Arkansas and Colorado, And of course the fact checking department
Speaker 1: comes back and says, oh, actually, there's like five of them.
Speaker 1: There's one in Oregon, there's one in a couple other places.
Speaker 1: And so you know they're like that. You know, nothing
Speaker 1: gets by their fact checking. Well, guess what. They published
Speaker 1: a short story in two thousand and five where the
Speaker 1: characters said they bought chicken mcdugad's chicken McNuggets at McDonald's
Speaker 1: on a visit in nineteen seventy nine, and exactly, well,
Speaker 1: the readers. It turned out that they weren't introduced till
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. Everybody knows that, well, anybody but the
Speaker 1: New Yorker fact checking department, which I thought was kind
Speaker 1: of funny. And as you can imagine, New Yorker readers
Speaker 1: loved pounds in any factual mistake they might make in there.
Speaker 2: I remember as a kid when they came out and
Speaker 2: I of course rushed to get them and we were all,
Speaker 2: I mean, and my friends are trying to figure out
Speaker 2: like where what is this made of? Like where did
Speaker 2: it come from? How did they make this? Like where
Speaker 2: did the bones go?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Questions that still remain unanswered.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, Jay Leno used to have a great routine
Speaker 1: about the chicken McNugget back in the eighties, cause it's all,
Speaker 1: you know, pressed and formed chicken. And he says, you
Speaker 1: could put a bunch of these in front of a
Speaker 1: chicken and they'd look down and say, I see nothing
Speaker 1: here that defends me because they're fair, right, Or you
Speaker 1: could dig it up in five hundred years and say, oh,
Speaker 1: look a chicken McNugget and probably still be edible. Right.
Speaker 2: But the other other statistic I saw that bears on
Speaker 2: your four percent is I saw a report that steakhouses
Speaker 2: are killing it. Yeah, absolutely killing it. Like that's the
Speaker 2: most popular segment in the restaurant business right.
Speaker 1: Now, even with the high price of beef.
Speaker 3: It's because of the high price of beef, because people
Speaker 3: don't want to spend you know, nineteen dollars a pound
Speaker 3: on a nice ribbi and then take it home and
Speaker 3: ruin it. Oh okay, that's the reason.
Speaker 1: That's a good theory. I like that one.
Speaker 3: But meanwhile, I'm I'm sorry. Told it's not a theory.
Speaker 3: I'm told that's the reason.
Speaker 1: Could be, Yeah, it makes sense. Meanwhile, we have Causus
Speaker 1: belly to raise the Jolly Roger. So I've recently been
Speaker 1: listening now and then to a brand new podcast it's
Speaker 1: just been going three four months that's a little bit
Speaker 1: like ours because it's two dudes and a chick. You
Speaker 1: know how many podcasts are you know? Two dudes and
Speaker 1: a chick like ours?
Speaker 2: And it's called Sounds.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but well, but it's about politics, although
Speaker 1: they're not political philosophers or economists. Mostly it's it's it's
Speaker 1: called Central Air because they think they're centrist. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure Lucasia would say they're all radical, progressive soft headedness,
Speaker 1: although they do oppose Tallerico in Texas and thought he's
Speaker 1: a terrible nominee, not because they favored what's your name,
Speaker 1: but because they think they were both hopeless and anyway,
Speaker 1: it's Josh Barrow, whose father is Robert Barrow, the Harvard
Speaker 1: economist John who you may know of. He is actually
Speaker 1: pretty good. And then Megan mccardal at the Washington Post
Speaker 1: who writes his really good economic articles, and then the
Speaker 1: third person is why I would actually kind of like.
Speaker 1: It's Ben Dreyfus, who actually is pretty far out there.
Speaker 1: He used to work at Mother Jones and his father
Speaker 1: is the actor Richard Dreyfus, and he's actually pretty funny.
Speaker 1: But his substack is called is to you the sense
Speaker 1: of these guys and why you can actually listen to them?
Speaker 1: His substack is called calm down, Well, calm down about what?
Speaker 1: Calm down about Trump? He says, you know, he's anti
Speaker 1: Trump derangement syndrome, even though he doesn't like Trump, which
Speaker 1: it kind of marks him out as unusual because you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be all in on hating Trump. And so
Speaker 1: he says, I don't care about the ballroom. I don't
Speaker 1: care about the Kennedy Center. People are sort of dumb.
Speaker 1: That people are dumb to get worked up about all
Speaker 1: these things. But here's the problem. The other day, I'm
Speaker 1: listening and they went off for twenty minutes about McDonald's
Speaker 1: and the new big Archie Burger. Here's a quick sample
Speaker 1: of what I mean. This is Central Air. You wrote
Speaker 1: about McDonald's this week because of the video. I wrote
Speaker 1: an article on McDonald's this week and the number of commenters, yeah,
Speaker 1: who were like, I would never eat at McDonald's. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I like a big mac and I
Speaker 1: thought they can't do that. That's our territory. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: Megan mccarnald made a really interesting point. This was you know,
Speaker 1: if you remember the controversy, the head of McDonald's, crisins Pinski,
Speaker 1: whatever his name is, took this dainty little bite out
Speaker 1: of the burger and got ruthlessly mocked on social media
Speaker 1: and the other burger come Breeze actually their own videos
Speaker 1: mocking him. Megan makes a simple point, what did that
Speaker 1: just do? It made much bigger news that McDonald's has
Speaker 1: a new burger, and then they went and talked about
Speaker 1: the burger salmon with mixed reviews. You've had one, right, John,
Speaker 1: I think, yes.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was so bad. But look, this
Speaker 2: just tells us more about the NEPO baby power structure.
Speaker 2: You just explained. These people are hosts who are distinguished
Speaker 2: solely by having the blood of more famous parents, and
Speaker 2: so they were coddled in life. They weren't raised on McDonald's.
Speaker 2: They've probably been in McDonald's maybe five times their whole
Speaker 2: lives I don't trust their taste. Right, they're one of
Speaker 2: those four percent who probably think eating meat is immoral.
Speaker 2: And I bet all of those people on that podcast
Speaker 2: have gone through various phases of not eating this, not
Speaker 2: eating that, denying the omnivivorous nature of mankind. Right, you
Speaker 2: guys should like that. It's human nature to be omnivorous.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, John, they wouldn't have disappointed you
Speaker 1: if you listened through, because they talked about other chains
Speaker 1: like five guys and in and out. But then they
Speaker 1: did live up to your stereotype, which is they said,
Speaker 1: but you know, burgers really aren't very good for you,
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't have Oh exactly, I said, No, that's
Speaker 1: where they lost.
Speaker 2: It, right, hamburgers aren't good for you.
Speaker 1: Come on, you know it should be a rare treat.
Speaker 1: I thought, No, you're all wrong.
Speaker 2: And anyway, instead of their lightly grilled cucumber sandwiches they
Speaker 2: probably have at high tea, I would arm wrestle either
Speaker 2: of them after they had one of their will to
Speaker 2: desparegas burgers. All right, sorryn but Lucretia was going to
Speaker 2: comment and she's you know, she's in a Hamburger testosterone
Speaker 2: Field household over there with mister Lucretia and Lucretia Junior.
Speaker 2: I mean that sounds like a great idea for a
Speaker 2: burger Lucretia or the Lucretia Jr.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So nobody in my house eats, except for me
Speaker 3: on occasion, eats anything but meat as a as a
Speaker 3: health as a matter of health, it's yeah, I can't
Speaker 3: even imagine that people think that somehow taking some a
Speaker 3: bunch of products and processing them to the hilt and
Speaker 3: making soy the central thing and then eating that, actually
Speaker 3: eating that. It's just amazing to me. The only thing
Speaker 3: I'll touch with soy and it is soy sauce because
Speaker 3: it's fermented. So yeah.
Speaker 2: Can I tell a story about how I took the
Speaker 2: Lucretia family to dinner in San Francisco once and the
Speaker 2: Tadditch Grille, which is kind of like a steak has
Speaker 2: a great place, and I have to say, uh, there
Speaker 2: were some large pieces of meat produced brought to the
Speaker 2: mill of the table, and you know those like African
Speaker 2: safar shows where like the cow goes down and then
Speaker 2: the hyena pack comes in and then you just see
Speaker 2: the movement of the animals and pieces of fly out,
Speaker 2: but you don't see anymore of the piece.
Speaker 3: I'm embarrassed that you would say that, because I do,
Speaker 3: at least you, Lucretia Junior, learned better manners than that.
Speaker 1: I haven't been here in a long time. They still
Speaker 1: serve the lamb shoulder. Isn't it one of their specialties? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, Actually, I mean the thing they love. They actually
Speaker 2: serve corned beef hash for dinner.
Speaker 1: With past good. That's what I had. All right, all right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break from one of our sponsors
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and get into some serious topics.
Speaker 1: All right, John, you're up first today in our free
Speaker 1: for all round robin format, and I think you want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Ron, I'll just say quickly, yes,
Speaker 1: set you up that I finally figured out this week
Speaker 1: how you can tell that we're winning you know, fog
Speaker 1: of war. We don't know the details, but the light
Speaker 1: bulb went on and said, oh, I know why we're
Speaker 1: winning this war, and we're winning it big because the
Speaker 1: media is telling us it's a quagmire. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you go back to what they did in Vietnam, reported
Speaker 1: everything completely backwards, like the tet offensive and so forth,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, oh, I don't need to chase
Speaker 1: after details of the media says it's quagmart means we're winning,
Speaker 1: So over to you.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought I would kick off this topic with
Speaker 2: the resignation of Joe Kent, who was I guess the
Speaker 2: deputy to Tulsa Gabbard, who's the National Intelligence Director, and
Speaker 2: it's thought to be along with jd Vance, of center
Speaker 2: of the non interventionist wing, if you want to call
Speaker 2: that in the administration. And one he made two points,
Speaker 2: both of which I think are wrong but also the
Speaker 2: wrong standard. He said first that Iran raised no imminent
Speaker 2: threat to the United States and so he had to resign.
Speaker 2: And then he said that the United States have been
Speaker 2: I don't know, enticed into war. Would that be the
Speaker 2: right word by Israel and its American lobbyists. So I
Speaker 2: think raising this anti semitic, raising the anti Semitic flag him,
Speaker 2: I think making his true nature clear. I would actually
Speaker 2: not have questioned his motives if he had just left
Speaker 2: it at I don't think Iran's an imminent threat, and
Speaker 2: I'm happy to have a debate about it. But then
Speaker 2: to say, and it's the Jews, the It's like, what
Speaker 2: is what these people? I mean, every time they say something,
Speaker 2: they just attached and it's the Jews right afterwards to
Speaker 2: every problem in the United States. But it did raise
Speaker 2: questions too. We're talking about I think, one is how's
Speaker 2: the war going? And then two what does this mean
Speaker 2: for you know, the Trump the Trump administration and the
Speaker 2: MAGA movement. Now, I think as exactly as you said, Steve,
Speaker 2: the more the media makes it seem like the war
Speaker 2: is lost. Right if you read the headlines of the
Speaker 2: New York Times, you think the war has been lost.
Speaker 2: Even the Wall Street Journal news page has a story
Speaker 2: today saying Iran may be winning and they might be,
Speaker 2: you know, ropidoping US, and then at the end of
Speaker 2: the war they'll control the straight Offoe moves. You know,
Speaker 2: we have an argument about whether the strategic choice to
Speaker 2: attack Iran is the proper one. I tend to think
Speaker 2: it is. But at the level of operations and tactics,
Speaker 2: we are kicking the hell out of Iran. I mean,
Speaker 2: how much better could it go. We have totally wiped
Speaker 2: out their top leadership. The president hasn't been you know,
Speaker 2: the president of Iran hasn't been seen, not the president,
Speaker 2: although he hasn't been seen either, I think. But the
Speaker 2: you know, the Ayatola sign, yeah, actually runs Iran has
Speaker 2: not been seen in public. There was a very I
Speaker 2: don't know, kind of to me comic example where the IRGC,
Speaker 2: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is their real religious
Speaker 2: military and really runs the country, came out with a
Speaker 2: press release saying the United States isn't winning, Israel's not winning,
Speaker 2: We're still building lots of missiles. And then there was
Speaker 2: a press release later just later that day saying the
Speaker 2: spokesman has been killed by a strike. So it gives
Speaker 2: you examples. But you know, the the Iranian name at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean, the Iranian Air Force is
Speaker 2: nowhere to be seen. You know, the missiles attacks and
Speaker 2: drove attacks are way way down to ninety percent down.
Speaker 2: And then the heart, just the strait of Hormuza just
Speaker 2: strikes me is the hardest problem, because two guys with
Speaker 2: a drone can start shooting at tankers in that very
Speaker 2: twenty mile isthmus. But that's a good problem to have,
Speaker 2: is that If that's the challenge facing us now, I
Speaker 2: think that means we've pretty much won the war. From
Speaker 2: a military sense, this mal political issue. And then the
Speaker 2: last point, I think this idea of that Joe, the
Speaker 2: Jews drove us into it.
Speaker 1: It is just crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's just crazy. I really worry
Speaker 2: about the right wing of the Republican Party that it
Speaker 2: accommodates people who blame the Jews for everything.
Speaker 3: I'd like to go back to your Joe Kenton start there.
Speaker 3: My understanding I would never listen to it, but I
Speaker 3: read it is that. In the midst of his latest
Speaker 3: podcast with Tucker Carlson Interview with Tucker Carlson, about thirty
Speaker 3: minutes in, he talks about the fact that the reason
Speaker 3: he knows, the reason he knows that there is no
Speaker 3: threat from Iran is because one of those iotolas. I
Speaker 3: can't keep them straight. Why can't they have different names?
Speaker 3: But anyway, one of them. Five six years ago, in
Speaker 3: the midst maybe even longer, sorry, maybe closer to eight,
Speaker 3: in the midst of all the nonsense with you know,
Speaker 3: Obama sending palettes and negotiating the deal with Iran, he
Speaker 3: sent a KAHMANI sent a communication to the I think
Speaker 3: it was the UN. I'm not going to remember the details.
Speaker 3: You can look it up. But in which he said
Speaker 3: that they that the Iranian people, the Iranians believed that
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons and chemical weapons were what's it called haram haaram?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, evil bad, just like homosexuals, and
Speaker 3: so all those things and dogs, right, nuclear weapons are
Speaker 3: that as if that was a a fat wah And
Speaker 3: so he claims there's a fat wah against a nuclear weapon,
Speaker 3: and b how stupid do you have to be to
Speaker 3: think that because Kamane says something, it means anything. You
Speaker 3: know that in the Koran, what is it called tekia
Speaker 3: something like that. I can't keep it straight there. It
Speaker 3: is a tenant of Islam that you can lie and
Speaker 3: dissemble and be disingenuous and do whatever you have to
Speaker 3: do for the good of the whole. So that is
Speaker 3: his argument. My understanding was left out of any kind
Speaker 3: of briefings on I run for the last several months.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a misinformation campaign or what.
Speaker 3: But supposedly for the last several months he hasn't heard
Speaker 3: any of the briefings and so doesn't know what the
Speaker 3: actual strategic and tactical reasons were and so on. But
Speaker 3: that's his argument. So let's start there. I want to
Speaker 3: mention Yesterday in my class, I asked students about was
Speaker 3: it true that most young people believe that we're fighting
Speaker 3: this war because of Israel, that you know, we were
Speaker 3: too afraid not to join it, Trump was too afraid
Speaker 3: not to join it, that Israel has an outsized impact,
Speaker 3: outsize leverage on our foreign policy decisions. And one of
Speaker 3: my students, he's a very smart student, looks at me
Speaker 3: and says, he says, does anybody understand who Trump really is?
Speaker 3: Can you imagine him actually being plowed by Netan Yahoo
Speaker 3: into doing something which came from a young person, Okay,
Speaker 3: which I thought was a really, really smart So I
Speaker 3: wonder I just want to mention one more thing. John
Speaker 3: the CNN, I don't know, CNN announced it that guy
Speaker 3: Henry Henry Harry Harry, what name Harriet, that's him, was
Speaker 3: talking about the fact that mag is basically one hundred
Speaker 3: percent behind Trump on this war. So what we ended
Speaker 3: up discussing in my class, for what it's worth, was
Speaker 3: this is all that winning the war is going to
Speaker 3: require the political will to do so, and that's going
Speaker 3: to require the political messaging that keeps a majority of
Speaker 3: the public behind the war. Does that make sense. That's
Speaker 3: going to be not our military capabilities, weapons capabilities, but
Speaker 3: actually whether or not Trump can and his people can
Speaker 3: convince the Americans across the board that we needed to
Speaker 3: do this. And of course things like Joe pan Bring,
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson, and Megan Kelly, all of those things make
Speaker 3: it more difficult. Never Mind, you know the Democrats, so
Speaker 3: they're not even worth thinking about. But to see this
Speaker 3: split is very upsetting. But I don't think the split
Speaker 3: is as big as they're I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Uh. I meant to send this to you guys, and
Speaker 1: I just look out of time. The most startling to that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I expect Tucker and Candice Owens to go berserk,
Speaker 1: and the American Conservative magazine, which is fully isolationist and
Speaker 1: hates Israel. What startled me the most two or three
Speaker 1: days ago was Christopher Caldwell in a Spectator coming out
Speaker 1: with a very harsh article just out of nowhere, it
Speaker 1: seemed to me, saying this is the end of Trump,
Speaker 1: a total betrayal of everything he stands for and ought
Speaker 1: to be doing. And it was startling. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was no equivocation about it. He just and and you Look,
Speaker 1: Chris is a smart guy. I've had my disagreements with him.
Speaker 1: I've also thought he's reporting on Europe is the best
Speaker 1: for an American and this that just staggered me to
Speaker 1: see that.
Speaker 3: And that's just Steve. Do you mind my saying that
Speaker 3: that may be the reason why he gets this so wrong,
Speaker 3: because he is, in fact, call it, I would call
Speaker 3: it maybe obsessed with Europe, and that that sometimes I
Speaker 3: think changes his perspective because you know, you're Europe is Europe,
Speaker 3: and I do think you know, he's critical, He's been
Speaker 3: critical of France. He's certainly the most knowledgeable American reporter
Speaker 3: writing about France and so forth. But at some point
Speaker 3: that kind of influence has to have. The European way
Speaker 3: of thinking about things has to seep steep in there somehow,
Speaker 3: is what I'm thinking could be.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was totally I thought you did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I couldn't. I was just staying.
Speaker 3: And then he came out with another one a day
Speaker 3: or two later, with another anti war person, I forget, Yeah, unspectator,
Speaker 3: inspectator right right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the latest news I saw first thing here Saturday
Speaker 1: morning is that Iran fired long range missiles at Diego Garcia,
Speaker 1: which is twenty five hundred miles away. We had doubted
Speaker 1: they had the capacity to shoot something that far. Apparently
Speaker 1: it didn't hit. I'm not sure if they fell short
Speaker 1: or were just inaccurate, but that range puts most of
Speaker 1: European capitals in range of Iran right now. And you know, okay,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting fact.
Speaker 3: Well, they're already changing their minds to some extent after
Speaker 3: basically turning their backs on Trump, and Trump saying sorry,
Speaker 3: we don't need you. All the businesses, oil and everything
Speaker 3: else is causing some of them at least to resthink
Speaker 3: to their position and send some help, shall we.
Speaker 1: Say, Oh yeah, Well, that's an interesting point is that
Speaker 1: they're much more dependent. Everybody's more dependent on the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Straits of Hormus being open than we are now.
Speaker 1: Oil is traded on a global market, and so whatever
Speaker 1: the world price is is going to be the price
Speaker 1: here and so. But we're not going to have gas lines,
Speaker 1: we're not going to have shortages. Apparently Australia is only
Speaker 1: forty five to sixty days away from running out of oil,
Speaker 1: and you know, China and the others and the Europeans.
Speaker 1: They've got a big problem and we don't. All right,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you've said, Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Did I hear you say this right? That you think
Speaker 1: Trump could be better in his communications? There needs to
Speaker 1: be more direct or vigorous, and it can occasions of
Speaker 1: why and how we're doing this. Is that what you
Speaker 1: said or is that a student who said that?
Speaker 3: I actually think I think that's probably true because and
Speaker 3: it's it's really because the legacy media, of course is
Speaker 3: going to report it exactly like John said. And Trump
Speaker 3: has been good on true social I mean, he's sort
Speaker 3: of outlining the war for us day by day, minute
Speaker 3: by minute, practically on true social but and that that
Speaker 3: has a reach, but I don't know that it reaches
Speaker 3: far enough. I don't know how, for instance, you would
Speaker 3: recreate the tire yellow ribbon phenomenon from the original Desert storm, right,
Speaker 3: I don't know how you do that, But something like
Speaker 3: that really needs to be done, if that makes sense
Speaker 3: to in order to make this an American project that
Speaker 3: Americans can get behind. And I know that there's never
Speaker 3: been a war that there hasn't been opposition, and we're
Speaker 3: losing and all those other things. But there's the political
Speaker 3: side of it too. He needs to do that or
Speaker 3: get out in time for people to recover for the midterms.
Speaker 1: Right, well, could Yeah, the gas price thing is going
Speaker 1: to be a problem.
Speaker 3: Can I just make one last comment, which is that
Speaker 3: my students believe that that he does that that if
Speaker 3: he doesn't fix gas prices and so on, he will lose,
Speaker 3: but that Trump doesn't care. This is I thought this
Speaker 3: was really interesting. Of course, you know this is anecdotal,
Speaker 3: this is not even data, but that Trump thinks he's
Speaker 3: doing the right thing regardless. Now I know he said that, right,
Speaker 3: we had to do this if gas prices go up
Speaker 3: a little bit, But that message really needs to be
Speaker 3: pound at home because the Democrats approach our pound in
Speaker 3: the opposite.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm in heated agreement with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's remember that Trump said that he was against stupid wars,
Speaker 1: not any war, and the next thing he always said
Speaker 1: was we never win wars anymore. He wants to win
Speaker 1: this one. Now we know he's got this ProTem capability
Speaker 1: declare victory for anything he does. Right, he always wins,
Speaker 1: But I think he has to really mean it. In
Speaker 1: other words, this has to be a real victory and
Speaker 1: not simply a rhetorical one, or you know, even the
Speaker 1: supporters will be disappointed. And that's the exit question. John is.
Speaker 1: Of course, Trump is has his usual inconsistencies and improvisations,
Speaker 1: like saying the Japanese Prime minister the other day, gosh,
Speaker 1: why did you tell us about Pearl Harbor?
Speaker 2: What Trump really meant to say it was it was
Speaker 2: the Jews who were behind Pearl Harbor. There you go,
Speaker 2: the good surprise attacks.
Speaker 1: Right right, sur But by the way, some of the
Speaker 1: America first people in nineteen forty did think he was
Speaker 1: the Jews, dragons, the never mind rule. But here's my observation.
Speaker 1: You both can chime in on this. But and then
Speaker 1: we'll go to a break. I have been on the
Speaker 1: whole very impressed with Trump. He's steady, he seems calm,
Speaker 1: he seems resolved. I think, by the way, the creature
Speaker 1: of the true social post may be a better way
Speaker 1: of communicating than doing an oval office address, which people
Speaker 1: don't watch anymore. And he's not very good at I
Speaker 1: don't think, but leave that aside. But the point is
Speaker 1: is that this is Trump at his finest hour, I think,
Speaker 1: and he has risked everything on this, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: another thing about him that is sort of remarkable, and
Speaker 1: so I'm pretty confident in the guy. I don't worry
Speaker 1: he's gonna wimp out or or or as Lucretia says,
Speaker 1: I don't think he's going to bend to the pressure
Speaker 1: on this. I think he's going to see it through.
Speaker 1: And what that means I don't know. But I've been
Speaker 1: very impressed with the guy.
Speaker 2: What have you thought, Well, one thing, your comment and
Speaker 2: the creatious comments prompt meet to think. What I had
Speaker 2: thought before coming on was no matter what Trump does,
Speaker 2: he gets criticized for so before it was he's you know,
Speaker 2: he listens too much to the magabase, was his Now
Speaker 2: it's he doesn't listen enough to the megabase. But you know,
Speaker 2: if we wanted to find presidential leadership, is doing the
Speaker 2: right thing even at the cost of popularity or when
Speaker 2: the people initially are against them and have to be
Speaker 2: persuaded of it. And we you know, look at Lincoln
Speaker 2: in the early years of the Civil War as that
Speaker 2: you know, one of the great examples of this. Well,
Speaker 2: that's what Trump's doing. He's uh he I mean, I
Speaker 2: think it is the right thing to remove Iran or
Speaker 2: the Orenian regime from power. And I think picking off
Speaker 2: all of China's trouble making allies in the world makes
Speaker 2: a lot of strategic sense to us. And actually, our
Speaker 2: allies in the world should be happy with this. If
Speaker 2: they're all getting their oil through the strait of horror moves,
Speaker 2: we don't need it because we're energy independent. We're actually
Speaker 2: doing a service again for our allies and the rest
Speaker 2: of the world, not for ourselves. That seems to me
Speaker 2: like one of the very definitions of leadership. It'd be
Speaker 2: easy for Trump not to have war, just coasted into
Speaker 2: the midterms with low gas prices and relatively stable foreign policy,
Speaker 2: and now the other the one downside people criticize them for,
Speaker 2: although I don't think this is what the MAGA base
Speaker 2: would criticize. But he's a bit of a gambler, right
Speaker 2: He's he's rolling the.
Speaker 1: Dice on this.
Speaker 3: Yep, there's no certainties in these kinds of things. I
Speaker 3: just wanted to ask you if you thought that there
Speaker 3: was any kind of argument, any kind of attack that
Speaker 3: could be made against Trump. That's sort of similar to
Speaker 3: the first Bush going in just for oil. And remember
Speaker 3: remember the comments too bad that Kuwait's number one export
Speaker 3: wasn't broccoli. And you know, because this is a war
Speaker 3: for oil that under the second Bush it was for
Speaker 3: you know, this was for Chenese friends at Halliburton, and
Speaker 3: you know those kinds of there's a an ulterior motive
Speaker 3: that is this base and as you know, pernicious as possible.
Speaker 3: There isn't one of those for Trump, right, there's really
Speaker 3: I mean, all they can say is it's the Jews.
Speaker 3: That's about the best that they can do. Right, Am
Speaker 3: I missing anything? No?
Speaker 2: No, I was gonna mention that was to notice how
Speaker 2: the it's all about oil has completely disappeared from the
Speaker 2: used to be all it's all about the oil. Well,
Speaker 2: now we have plenty of oil here, so you got
Speaker 2: to find something else.
Speaker 1: Well, all those people who said, you know, fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: years ago that Sarah Palin was an idiot for saying, drill, baby, drill,
Speaker 1: we couldn't drill our way out of oil dependence. They
Speaker 1: should keep it discreet silence about this and just shut up.
Speaker 1: So and we're going to shut up about this topic
Speaker 1: down and go to a quick break and then come
Speaker 1: back for Lucretia's turn to set the table. All right, Lucretia,
Speaker 1: you're up. What's on your mind? Or should I say
Speaker 1: what's not on your mind? This week? It's usually it's.
Speaker 3: Everything, but yeah, everything, I want to chan Maga's absolute
Speaker 3: complete and total frustration with John Thune. Now, I will
Speaker 3: remind you, guys that I was against any one of
Speaker 3: the Johns from taking over for Mitch McConnell. I wanted
Speaker 3: not the John in present company. If John in prison
Speaker 3: company was actually a majority leader of the Senate, I
Speaker 3: would be thrilled to death, even though he's a little shaking. Yes,
Speaker 3: But I mean, this guy's been worse than you could
Speaker 3: have imagined. He's accomplished essentially nothing other than I guess
Speaker 3: you could say the big beautiful bill. Tell me what
Speaker 3: else is really that that he has used any kind
Speaker 3: of political capital to get something done. Compare him, and
Speaker 3: I know it's not the same to compare a majority
Speaker 3: leader in the Senate with a Speaker of the House,
Speaker 3: but compare him to Nancy Pelosi, who could get her
Speaker 3: caucus to do anything practically even when she had really
Speaker 3: serious when the squad was coming in, and so one
Speaker 3: seems incapable of managing anything in the Senate, so right
Speaker 3: now here we are, it's it's what's the date today,
Speaker 3: the twenty first? How many days have we not had
Speaker 3: funding for organizations that have absolutely nothing to do with
Speaker 3: the Democrats disingenuous and ridiculous demands about ICE, which was
Speaker 3: we know is funded for what three years? And they
Speaker 3: can't make this argument. They can't they can't come out
Speaker 3: and embarrass Democrats, and Democrats get up there and gaslight
Speaker 3: about the fact that it's all Republicans fault, and then
Speaker 3: the Save Act is even worse. I mean, how does
Speaker 3: he not realize that? I really do believe that if
Speaker 3: Republicans can pass the Save Act, they we will get
Speaker 3: back to a level playing field. If they don't, they
Speaker 3: if we can continue to have the kind of manipula
Speaker 3: bowl I'll say it like that electoral practices across places
Speaker 3: like California that are you know, so completely one state,
Speaker 3: et cetera. If we can't do that, Republicans are done.
Speaker 3: And John Thune obviously knows that, and he doesn't care
Speaker 3: because he's too much of a swamp creature. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know what his problem is. I'm so frustrated.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mostly agree with you on this. I can't.
Speaker 1: But actually I can't believe it. And well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I did hear. Oh, I'll leave it to you. I'll
Speaker 1: say two things quickly, John, and you can try and
Speaker 1: do your worst to say the worst. I heard Thune on.
Speaker 1: I was in my car and listening to one of
Speaker 1: the Sunday chat shows on satellite radio and Thune was on,
Speaker 1: and boy was he weak. I mean, there was sort
Speaker 1: of no attack on the Democrat. What it was his
Speaker 1: very meanly mount attacks on Democrats. But that raises a
Speaker 1: bigger point, which is I mean, I think I think
Speaker 1: there's an argument about what is the prudent course on
Speaker 1: the philipbuster, Natah all the rest of that. Can that
Speaker 1: out for a long time on both sides. But I
Speaker 1: recall now I forgot about this, but about back around
Speaker 1: maybe twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you know, Thune was a
Speaker 1: rising star. There was talk he might be a presidential
Speaker 1: candidate at some point in the near future, and so
Speaker 1: some friends of mine, uh you know, sort of heavy
Speaker 1: hitters and Saturn California hosted him for a small dinner
Speaker 1: at the California Club. I wanted to size him up.
Speaker 1: I think former Governor Wilson was there and I was
Speaker 1: invited and Thune gave a talk, and the verdict afterwards
Speaker 1: was unanimous. Boy is he unimpressive? That guy's going nowhere
Speaker 1: near a presidential campaign. He has not got it. I
Speaker 1: mean I and this is before a friendly audience. You
Speaker 1: think he'd know at least some red meat or something.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't believe how unimpressive the guy was. I
Speaker 1: think the only reason people talked him up is he
Speaker 1: was tall and handsome. Supposedly, I guess I don't know, and.
Speaker 3: A new I know that my day friend believes that.
Speaker 1: Well wait, never mind, So I'm so it was kind
Speaker 1: of a week leader.
Speaker 3: But before John goes, Steve, I just want to say
Speaker 3: that that maybe the most annoying thing he said to
Speaker 3: me all throughout all of this was we can't do
Speaker 3: the talking filibuster. And maybe John can even explain that
Speaker 3: a little bit because people seem somewhat confused, which would
Speaker 3: not be a change of any kind. First of all,
Speaker 3: he said, the talking philibuster has never worked. What a
Speaker 3: moron has he heard of the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four? Jesus, what a moron? But anyway, he says,
Speaker 3: if we have a talking philibuster, we won't get anything
Speaker 3: else done. Explain to me what they're getting done in
Speaker 3: the meantime. Nothing, absolutely nothing. And he's also kept the
Speaker 3: Senate from going into recess, so Trump can't make recess appointments.
Speaker 3: I can't think of one good thing about that guy,
Speaker 3: but I'll be quite known. Let John defend him. His namesake.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, who did you want to be Majority leader?
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz or other other supporters of the institution. I mean,
Speaker 2: the problem is not the Yeah, the problem is not the.
Speaker 1: It's Thune.
Speaker 2: It's the institution. I mean, the Senate exists and the
Speaker 2: way it does because anybody can, any single Senator can
Speaker 2: stop it from operating. Right, That's the that's the way
Speaker 2: it works. It's very different from the House. They're completely
Speaker 2: different animals. I mean that the speaker has enormous power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and kind of just jump in right there, sorry,
Speaker 1: interrupt the difference. I mean, Lucretia rightly brings up Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi who had narrow majorities and still got stuff through.
Speaker 1: Why because her members feared her. Now, you're right, the
Speaker 1: senators have more power individually than the House member has.
Speaker 1: But you know what, Lyndon Johnson was the most successful
Speaker 1: Senate majority leader because people feared him. Nobody fears John
Speaker 1: Thune and the Republican Caucus. I think some of them
Speaker 1: did fear Mitch McConnell and.
Speaker 2: Right, but this idea that, I mean, the only way
Speaker 2: you really get anything done in the way you guys
Speaker 2: want is to have sixty votes in the Senate. Right,
Speaker 2: there's just no major legislation passed that has a sir
Speaker 2: purity to it other than something like Obamacare when they
Speaker 2: had briefly six sixty senators. And I really think getting
Speaker 2: rid of the Philipbuster would be real, I mean, would
Speaker 2: really harm us more than progressives. The progressives remember what
Speaker 2: they wanted to do and came within two votes of
Speaker 2: doing at the beginning of Biden's term. If it hadn't
Speaker 2: been for Lucretia's favorite senator from Arizona, right, the Philipbuster
Speaker 2: would have been gone. And what happened, well, they would
Speaker 2: act the Supreme Court add to liberal right to liberal
Speaker 2: Commonwealth I don't know what their territories to the DC
Speaker 2: and Puerto Rico to the Senate, which would permanently change
Speaker 2: the structure of the Senate, I think against us and
Speaker 2: pass their own voting rights bill HR one right, which
Speaker 2: would forbid voter I D even by states that want
Speaker 2: to have it. Meanwhile, what would we do with it.
Speaker 2: We would have a rule to require voter ID, which
Speaker 2: the Democrats would change immediately when they got the Congress back,
Speaker 2: and they wouldn't have to have a filibuster because we
Speaker 2: got rid of it.
Speaker 3: But I'm not asking for that.
Speaker 2: You just said we should get rid of the filibuster.
Speaker 3: No, I never said that.
Speaker 2: That's one of Thune's problems.
Speaker 3: I said that we should have that. He should start
Speaker 3: a talking filibuster, in other words, a real filibuster as
Speaker 3: it was intended, which would mean that the Democrats would
Speaker 3: have to get up there and talk about all the
Speaker 3: reasons why they do not think voters should have voter
Speaker 3: I D et cetera, et cetera. They would have to.
Speaker 3: They would the best thing that happened, but they would.
Speaker 2: There's no way we would overcome a talking philibuster. There's
Speaker 2: not enough votes. But yeah, you could say, make the
Speaker 2: Democrats get up and talk and they can.
Speaker 3: Eventually they quit. Eventually they quit because they're embarrassing themselves.
Speaker 3: That's what would happen. You don't have to have the votes,
Speaker 3: you just have to they don't keep talking. The talking's over,
Speaker 3: you vote, I have fifty one.
Speaker 2: No, The way the talking filibuster works is right, So
Speaker 2: the Democrats will have the right to speak, there's no
Speaker 2: time limit on it, so they will keep yielding the
Speaker 2: floor to each other. There's basically forty five of them,
Speaker 2: so it's easy to keep the talking philibuster.
Speaker 3: But what's that going to look like? People are going
Speaker 3: to actually pay attention to what's happening in the Senate,
Speaker 3: and at some point they're just going to look ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That's how it worked in nineteen sixty four, Well you had.
Speaker 2: Well also nineteen sixty four we had much more of
Speaker 2: the votes on our side because of it, and we
Speaker 2: all said the right that. The good thing about the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four filibuster is that the defenders were just
Speaker 2: these racist segregationists in the South, like John Thurman. Whereas
Speaker 2: I think that Democrats can just say I don't think
Speaker 2: the federal garment should have right rote or I d
Speaker 2: I think it's racist. So they can say that over
Speaker 2: and over again for hours and hours. They don't feel it.
Speaker 2: They don't feel any shame defending that.
Speaker 1: You know, in Urnst majority doesn't believe it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a majority of Democrats favor the main features of
Speaker 1: the Save Act, and I think I'm with the Crees
Speaker 1: on this. I think they make them pay a cost
Speaker 1: for their obstruction. It might not succeed because, by the way,
Speaker 1: I do think that you know, you want judges approved,
Speaker 1: you want to you want to get funding for DHS
Speaker 1: and get secure a TSA people back working again.
Speaker 2: But those are all but those are all things we want.
Speaker 2: The problem with the talking filmbuster is there's nothing that
Speaker 2: Democrats want to pass that where that's being held up
Speaker 2: by just having talking of you know, talking about their
Speaker 2: you know, our voting rights bill.
Speaker 1: The all the all the.
Speaker 2: Harm that occurs politically for keeping the Senate basically shut
Speaker 2: down while they do this is to the Republicans, right, Well,
Speaker 2: that's why it's different.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, okay, Well they still have there's.
Speaker 2: Going to be the Iraq Fund, the war funding bill,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a bill to reopen the TSA
Speaker 2: and parts of the DHS that aren't already closed. Right there,
Speaker 2: all the.
Speaker 3: Times they've come up for a vote five times it's
Speaker 3: been defeated by Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: It's things that the administration wants, right. The Democrats sits
Speaker 2: that there they don't get anything out of passing those bills,
Speaker 2: so they don't mind the harm from a filibuster.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what I think I get explained For the
Speaker 3: political side of it, John, is the point the fact
Speaker 3: that eighty percent of Americans believe we should have voter
Speaker 3: ID and cares.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, the Democrats have been stopped the Democrats.
Speaker 2: They they say on polls they care, but the Democrats
Speaker 2: have been stopping this kind of legislation for like twenty
Speaker 2: five years. Don't do they really suffer any harm at
Speaker 2: the polls for being against voter ID?
Speaker 3: Really they might this time with the talking philibuster if
Speaker 3: they stand up there and talk about how it's racist
Speaker 3: and we should because what it's really doing is going
Speaker 3: to keep married women from being able to vote. And
Speaker 3: they did make all those other stupid arguments. If they
Speaker 3: have to do that, John, that means that that people
Speaker 3: are actually paying attention to what they're saying.
Speaker 1: And you know, you can say this about any bill.
Speaker 2: You could say this about any bill that you favor,
Speaker 2: that we ought to have a talking philibuster.
Speaker 1: That's the point of the Senate.
Speaker 3: That's the point of the filibuster, because.
Speaker 2: The way you believe that the American people will suddenly
Speaker 2: awaken themselves and politics will suddenly shift because of the politics.
Speaker 2: I just don't think it makes a big It doesn't
Speaker 2: make a big difference, all.
Speaker 3: Right, All its are on our side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get out with this observation about how insincere
Speaker 1: the Democrats are in our opposition. If they really believe
Speaker 1: that this bill would prevent married women from voting, they
Speaker 1: would be for it because married women vote overwhelmingly Republican.
Speaker 1: They're just making stuff up.
Speaker 3: It's the polite term for it, right, which is what
Speaker 3: would happen if they had to actually defend it on
Speaker 3: the floor of the Senate. People would realize how disingenuous
Speaker 3: and really ridiculous their arguments are, and at some point
Speaker 3: it's going to have an effect on their electoral prospects,
Speaker 3: which is the only thing, of course, they care about.
Speaker 2: The only sample you have is the nineteen sixty four
Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act, which shows you how far out of
Speaker 2: proportion the real victory over this was versus the small
Speaker 2: potatoes of this bill. It's just not worth it. You
Speaker 2: want to pass something like monumental like the sixty four Act.
Speaker 1: That's what this is. Like.
Speaker 2: This is just not as not even remotely in the
Speaker 2: same universe as.
Speaker 3: Important I think it is. I think if we don't
Speaker 3: get the Save Act.
Speaker 2: We are that's war. It's a warp sense of politics.
Speaker 1: Let's remember one little detail about the sixty four filibuster.
Speaker 1: In those days, you had to have sixty seven votes
Speaker 1: to break it was hotter, So you know, that's why
Speaker 1: it dragged on so long, is because that allowed it
Speaker 1: an even smaller minority the minority to block it, whereas
Speaker 1: what they changed it to sixty votes, I think in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, coincidentally, when Democrats are starting to roll
Speaker 1: up big majorities in Congress, but were still divided enough
Speaker 1: about things that they couldn't get some of the things
Speaker 1: they wanted through.
Speaker 2: They still had Southern Democrats.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Well, you had liberal Republicans too,
Speaker 1: so it was still a scramble mess. But the point is,
Speaker 1: I think it's easier now to impose a political cost
Speaker 1: and control the debate if you I just think it's
Speaker 1: whimpy to not try it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do too.
Speaker 2: Let me just remind really symbolic and performative politics, because
Speaker 2: there's no chance it would actually pass.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that. I absolutely didn't agree, I think.
Speaker 3: Let me just remind you what George Washington said about
Speaker 3: the Senate. I think it was George Washington, why do
Speaker 3: you have a Senate? And he says, why do you
Speaker 3: pour coffee into the cup? Oh, from the cup into
Speaker 3: the saucer? Why do clear? I can't imagine doing that
Speaker 3: because I don't like my coffee cold. But the point
Speaker 3: is is that the Senate is actually supposed to be
Speaker 3: supposed to debate these things, genuinely debate them. And that's
Speaker 3: why you have had the filibuster begin It's only a rule,
Speaker 3: it's not in the Constitution. In case anybody's confused about that,
Speaker 3: I get it. But the whole point was to reflect
Speaker 3: the deliberative sense of the Senate so that you could
Speaker 3: actually discuss these things. And if you had a minority
Speaker 3: opinion that was important enough and they could defend it
Speaker 3: for thirty days or whatever they did talking about it,
Speaker 3: then great. But if not, if you've got a majority
Speaker 3: opinion in the country, eighty percent is unbelievable in terms
Speaker 3: of an absolute that's unanimity in a country like ours.
Speaker 3: If you can't, if the Democrats can truly get up
Speaker 3: there and make the case for why they shouldn't have this, okay,
Speaker 3: then but force them to do it when the rest
Speaker 3: of the country is against it, and that's why they
Speaker 3: don't want any part of it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So there's a big difference between your hopes about how
Speaker 2: the Senate would work and how it actually works, all right,
Speaker 2: And the fact is there has not been an override
Speaker 2: of a filibuster since nineteen sixty four. And you really
Speaker 2: think that this voting Rights Bill is as important as
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act. That is an
Speaker 2: example of how exaggerated people's sense of winning and losing
Speaker 2: is today over minor things versus the important things of
Speaker 2: things like the Voting Rights Act of nineteen Now the
Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act is sixty four, the Virus six, So
Speaker 2: this is the pales in comparison. All right, important those are,
Speaker 2: But my point is there are so many other pieces
Speaker 2: of legislation since nineteen sixty four and sixtyo didn't go
Speaker 2: overcome a filibuster, which are also more important. This and
Speaker 2: you have to compromise in the Senate to get those through.
Speaker 2: We're not we don't have. The Senate is not the
Speaker 2: greatest deliberative body anymore.
Speaker 1: I think I maybe never was. I think that thesis there,
Speaker 1: John might not be historically accurate. But have to go
Speaker 1: back and check and parse them all out. But instead,
Speaker 1: but would know.
Speaker 2: My main point is there hasn't been an override of
Speaker 2: a filibuster since nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't That doesn't mean it hasn't been
Speaker 1: used effectively. But that's a new topic. I want to
Speaker 1: look into the sum For now, I am going to
Speaker 1: appeal to the three whiskey happy hour parliamentarian who will
Speaker 1: rule that by a two to one vote, we are
Speaker 1: going to overcome Lucretian. Are going to overcome your filibuster
Speaker 1: on this topic, John, and we're going to go to
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll go to our wrap up.
Speaker 2: I don't filibuster. I am short and concise you guys,
Speaker 2: youu Straussian's philibuster endlessly.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, all right. A lot of passings this week,
Speaker 1: the passing of Paul Irlick, the passing of more and
Speaker 1: more Iranian leaders, the passing of Caesar Chavez is a reputation.
Speaker 1: But I think the most important passing of the week
Speaker 1: has to be Chuck Norris. And I'll bet our friends
Speaker 1: of the Babylon B and elsewhere because more Chuck Norris
Speaker 1: has generated some of the greatest memes for the last
Speaker 1: what twenty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just want to point out that Steve debated
Speaker 2: Paul like and and Steve killed him twice.
Speaker 1: But anyway, and.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll come back to Chuck Norris in a moment,
Speaker 3: but just this one's for John. John Thune vows to
Speaker 3: say to bring Save Act up for vote as soon
Speaker 3: as he's sure it won't pass.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: Sorry, iran update current tax dollars winning battle against tax
Speaker 3: dollars from three years ago. That's notice, I don't get
Speaker 3: that palettes of cash. Yeah, yeah, sorry, my dogs are
Speaker 3: out here with me, which I really would be. You
Speaker 3: can't hear him?
Speaker 1: Oka?
Speaker 3: Good, Well, I would just say I'd normally be embarrassed
Speaker 3: about it, but since you know, I'll just leave it
Speaker 3: at that. Man bravely it's a picture of Joe kent
Speaker 3: Man bravely resigns from Trump administration at great cost of
Speaker 3: doing podcast tour, getting book deal. Okay, how about this one,
Speaker 3: Kevin the Janitor now most senior military official left in Iran.
Speaker 1: That's about right.
Speaker 3: I like that Democrats fear higher price excuse me, higher
Speaker 3: gas prices could affect Molotov cocktail production to get it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, if you California's really quick. California celebrates installation
Speaker 3: of single la trash can that costs four hundred billion
Speaker 3: and took eighteen years to build.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not that much of an exaggeration. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 3: Newsom allocates nine hundred million for black Bear orta potty. Okay,
Speaker 3: back to the the Chuck Norris one. Fear not, says
Speaker 3: Chuck Norris to calm trembling angels. And then this one
Speaker 3: is actually not Babylon V. It was a a meme
Speaker 3: posted on x and it's a picture of Chuck Norris
Speaker 3: in his gee and it says, oh, come on, God, wrong, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I know there'll been a time of great ones already.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, right, right, but that's my favorite for today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I have one last one, if you'll forgive me.
Speaker 3: Confirmed in his final days, Charlie Kirk came to agree
Speaker 3: with whatever you believe.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is an ugly story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've never talked about all that craziness with
Speaker 2: what's her name, canvae Owen and Charlie Kirk's wife and
Speaker 2: all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I prefer to give it a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I prefer not to give that any more oxygen than
Speaker 1: it already has.
Speaker 3: But yeah, finished, Steve, yep, many more, But I'm finished.
Speaker 2: God, Well, always drink your whisky, meet, buy more books,
Speaker 2: and Steve, I'm told you have a new AI enhanced
Speaker 2: ending for the show.
Speaker 1: Well for today anyway, a custom ending. I'm still working
Speaker 1: on new stuff because I want to work in the
Speaker 1: proper acknowledgments of our new sponsored the Civitas Institute. But
Speaker 1: I was listening to you John yesterday on law Talk, uh,
Speaker 1: extending yourself on the definition of imminent, because you know,
Speaker 1: Lucretia roughed you up on imminent a couple of times
Speaker 1: and other and generally people said this, there was an
Speaker 1: imminent threat from Iran, And I got to thinking, I
Speaker 1: wonder if we can mess with John's head by asking
Speaker 1: him to think about not imminent but immanent. Right, you
Speaker 1: know it's I look so imminent. I am m I
Speaker 1: and t im Man is a whole different time exactly, Lucretian.
Speaker 2: You know you Strausats are so crazy. Not only now
Speaker 2: do you care about the single word in a sense,
Speaker 2: but the single letter in a word?
Speaker 1: What new people? Well, I asked GROC to give us
Speaker 1: a John Yu memo about imminentizing versus imminent, and I
Speaker 1: got a lot of stuff, but I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you just two quick paragraphs from it because I think
Speaker 1: they're fun. So Introduction, and some listeners will know the
Speaker 1: reference here and others it won't matter. Introduction. The esketon
Speaker 1: the final perfected state of burger being has long been
Speaker 1: deferred to some future, heavenly happy meal. Gnostic heretics, vegans,
Speaker 1: and the Ninth Circuit have insisted that such perfection cannot
Speaker 1: be forced into the temporal realm without grave constitutional peril.
Speaker 1: Yet recent events such as the limited time introduction of
Speaker 1: the Big Arch present an opportunity to reconsider. The question
Speaker 1: is not whether the end can be imminentized, but whether
Speaker 1: the President possesses Plenary Article two authority to do so
Speaker 1: through unilateral executive mastication.
Speaker 2: Finally, something I can understand, and what you just said,
Speaker 2: there's more, not much more, I conclude he does and
Speaker 2: so PARTA is inherent executive ingestion power.
Speaker 1: This isn't very long. The Framers, living in an age
Speaker 1: before frame broiling, could not foresee the Big arch yet
Speaker 1: to endow the president with those powers necessary improper to
Speaker 1: the office see McCullough versus Maryland, but substitute Maryland with
Speaker 1: extra value sizing the take care, claus red and light
Speaker 1: of the Commander in chief power authorizes the President to
Speaker 1: consume and thereby sanctify objects of national gastronomic significance without
Speaker 1: congressional interference. To hold otherwise would convert the Oval Office
Speaker 1: into a mere suggestion box for calorie counters. There you go, John,
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty good parody of you.
Speaker 2: Now, you guys, Seria, I don't exactly real know the reference,
Speaker 2: but you guys are into this phrase imminent ties, the escton.
Speaker 1: What the hell does that mean? Again, that's what this
Speaker 1: all take off here. Now, Yeah, it's essentially communist, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, I'll just add for I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know this, Lucretia, but uh, it's it's very
Speaker 1: weird stuff. Mark Blitz at Claremont, who's written some really
Speaker 1: good books about Heidegger, who's just impossible. Right, So Mark
Speaker 1: Blitz gets hideger. But he told me not long ago
Speaker 1: that Mark Blitz did that he took a semester course
Speaker 1: with Vogelin and didn't understand a single word. The guy said, so,
Speaker 1: and I know, I know that's that's saying something, right.
Speaker 3: I guess it must be a little bit like people
Speaker 3: who can read Burke.
Speaker 1: That's right. But uh, I'll add that. There was once
Speaker 1: a debate at the Philadelphia Society back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: and it was a resolution, and the resolution was resolved,
Speaker 1: this house will not imminentize the escaton. And one of
Speaker 1: the debaters on the negative was Judge Danny Boggs, who
Speaker 1: were going to have dinner with next month. So and
Speaker 1: and maybe he'll regale us with tales of that because
Speaker 1: one of the other debaters was Mike Yelman. That's funny.
Speaker 3: So, yes, John, the simplest way to understand it is
Speaker 3: bring perfection here, now make it happen.
Speaker 2: Now, you mean it as a joke, You don't mean
Speaker 2: you say you guys say it as an insult. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: I'm just.
Speaker 1: It's a way of everyone. All right, we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna imminentize the escaton of this show and draw to
Speaker 1: a close. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll be back next week,
Speaker 1: probably live next week. We're gonna try and do I
Speaker 1: think a Friday afternoon evening next week, but we'll see.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned by everybody.
Speaker 2: Sor to the.
Speaker 1: So much of a bu funny ways, A fun.
Speaker 3: More bye live.
Speaker 1: What you think for your own funny ways, a fun
Speaker 1: muchmore mm hmm my ways, A strange them nevever, change, Ricochet,
Speaker 1: Join the conversation.