Speaker 1: And I made my decision at the base of the
Speaker 1: Tarquin Rock, which is where they used to throw the
Speaker 1: criminals off. You'd get convicted of a crime and they
Speaker 1: drag you to the rock and throw you off. And
Speaker 1: if you look in the guidebook, it says that it
Speaker 1: is not wheelchair accessible, which isn't surprising and all. The
Speaker 1: guidebook also said good for kids.
Speaker 2: Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask
Speaker 2: what you can do for your country.
Speaker 3: Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Speaker 1: It's the Ricassee podcast with Charnols, C W. Cook, and
Speaker 1: Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lilys today with doctor ray onn
Speaker 1: Slam about the events in New York plus Iraq plus
Speaker 1: supreme courts. More than enough for a podcast.
Speaker 3: So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file
Speaker 3: to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have
Speaker 3: been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship,
Speaker 3: ending sanctuary city fund, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding,
Speaker 3: shopping federal taxpayers from paying for trans gender search.
Speaker 1: Welcome Everyone is the Ricochet Podcast number seven hundred and
Speaker 1: forty seven.
Speaker 4: Buckle up as.
Speaker 1: They like to say on the Internet when they're about
Speaker 1: to tell you something. We've got some interesting things to
Speaker 1: talk about. I'm James Lalyx in Minneapolis, where it's very cloudy,
Speaker 1: very cool, but the Karellion atop the City Hall tower
Speaker 1: was playing Blue Skies, which was just a nice way
Speaker 1: to end the week. Steven Hayward I assumes in sunny California,
Speaker 1: Charles C. W. Cook is in some drenched and probably
Speaker 1: human beyond human belief Florida. Gentlemen, we span the nation.
Speaker 1: How are you today and what's in your mind?
Speaker 5: Well, I think both for Charles and I, it's a
Speaker 5: banner day at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: That's the end of the term.
Speaker 5: All the lingering decisions we've been waiting for were released
Speaker 5: here this morning Friday. And Charles, I think you've actually
Speaker 5: read them because you had a three hour head start
Speaker 5: on me. But it sounds like it's a clean sweep
Speaker 5: for our side, and so I'll toss over to you
Speaker 5: and you pick out what you think is most notable.
Speaker 6: Well, it wasn't quite a clean sweep. There was a
Speaker 6: case Consumers Research which was about the non delegation doctrine
Speaker 6: and Neil Gorsuch was so upset by the majority opinion
Speaker 6: and it joined in his upset by Alita and Thomas,
Speaker 6: and he wrote a thirty five page which I would
Speaker 6: recommend reading. I was disappointed by that. I can't say
Speaker 6: I was surprised by that, Steve, because the Court has
Speaker 6: not been good on non delegation questions since about nineteen
Speaker 6: thirty five, so we've got ninety years of precedent here.
Speaker 6: And then there was a case about the structure of
Speaker 6: an agency that has to do with Obamacare and was very,
Speaker 6: very complicated, and I instinctively sided again with Gorst, Chelita,
Speaker 6: and Thomas.
Speaker 4: But on the big cases that everyone.
Speaker 6: Normal was paying attention to, it was a clean sweep
Speaker 6: for the original and originalist adjacent sidon. The biggest case
Speaker 6: of the day, perhaps of the year, was one that
Speaker 6: started off as a challenge to President Trump's executive order
Speaker 6: on birthright citizenship, but somehow along the way became not
Speaker 6: a case about that or the merits of that question,
Speaker 6: but about nationwide injunctions. And six to three the Court
Speaker 6: decided that with a couple of caveats and with a
Speaker 6: standard that will need to be applied to be understood, properly.
Speaker 6: Nationwide injunctions in the way that they have been used
Speaker 6: for the last twenty or so years are gone.
Speaker 1: John pod Horiz said that bunkerbusters were used twice this week,
Speaker 1: once in Iran and once in Emmy COMI parent Responding
Speaker 1: to Justice Jackson, I don't know if you've seen that.
Speaker 1: There is some delicious language in this. Before Charles goes
Speaker 1: on to tell us why this is a great thing,
Speaker 1: she said, we will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument,
Speaker 1: which is at odds with more than two centuries worth
Speaker 1: of president not to mention the Constitution itself, we only
Speaker 1: observe this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing
Speaker 1: an imperial judiciary. I mean meow boll of friskies for
Speaker 1: the lady, that is anyway. So Charles tell us more
Speaker 1: about the We all hate the national injunctions because they
Speaker 1: seem like a drastic overreach of the Court's authority that
Speaker 1: anyone could just step in and say, Nope, executive can't
Speaker 1: do that. That's the end of it. I'm here in Hawaii.
Speaker 1: I say what it's going to be in the law
Speaker 1: of the land. You said that there were some things
Speaker 1: yet to be ironed out. Might those things mean that
Speaker 1: the injunctions still continue to be a thorn in the
Speaker 1: side and the paw.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm sometimes squishy if I have national injunctions. We've
Speaker 6: talked about this before. I don't if you were on
Speaker 6: that episode. But I am persuaded by the majority opinion.
Speaker 6: The only question the Court was authorized to look at
Speaker 6: is whether or not they're constitutionally permissible and how they
Speaker 6: interact with statute, and I think the majority got it right.
Speaker 6: There are points elsewhere in the opinion, James, in which
Speaker 6: Amy Coney Barrett is equally disparaging toward Jackson. She describes
Speaker 6: her at one point as having offered a startling argument
Speaker 6: that is completely unmored from the Constitution or American history.
Speaker 6: It is a taught force. So I think the Court
Speaker 6: did get this right. And as this goes, that's the
Speaker 6: only thing that matters, because the Court is the court
Speaker 6: and not a dictator. So there are a couple of
Speaker 6: caveats here. And I'm not a lawyer, so I'm understanding
Speaker 6: its as best I can, having read it through once.
Speaker 6: First off, anything that has to do with the Administrative
Speaker 6: Procedure Act is exempt because Congress included an exemption when
Speaker 6: it passed the law, so if there is litigation over
Speaker 6: APA claims, there can be a nationwide injunction. Second, there
Speaker 6: is I think called Rule twenty three that I don't
Speaker 6: perfectly understand, but Rule twenty three litigation could still yield
Speaker 6: a national injunction. Apparently it's quite hard to satisfy the
Speaker 6: provisions of Rule twenty three. But Justice Alito is worried
Speaker 6: that what will happen now is lower courts will just say, oh,
Speaker 6: it's a Rule twenty three issue and start doing the
Speaker 6: same thing that they've been doing all along. And of
Speaker 6: course this is obvious, but it needed to be said.
Speaker 6: The third exception is the Supreme Court itself, which is
Speaker 6: allowed to impose national injunctions because that's what it's there for.
Speaker 6: Here is my take on it, before I shut up.
Speaker 6: I think this was the right decision legally. I think
Speaker 6: it is also the product of congressional abdication. Congress is
Speaker 6: allowed to set a whole bunch of rules around this
Speaker 6: that it hasn't, so the Court was only asked to
Speaker 6: do this because Congress hasn't laid out in what circumstances
Speaker 6: national injunctions are permissible. It should now do that. I
Speaker 6: worry a little bit though, that unless Congress starts taking
Speaker 6: back some power from the president, that this is going
Speaker 6: to empower the executive branch even more than it has
Speaker 6: been empowered. Not criticism of the Court. Again, Jackson's obsessed
Speaker 6: with She shouldn't be. It's not her job to worry
Speaker 6: about that. But as a citizen, I want Congress now
Speaker 6: to say, all right, here are the things the president
Speaker 6: can and can't do. Because although Kavanar is clear at
Speaker 6: one point to say that the court should take emergency applications,
Speaker 6: you are in effect going to be left after this
Speaker 6: with a situation in which it will take a lot
Speaker 6: longer to litigate pretty important questions. And if you look
Speaker 6: at something like, for example, Joe Biden's obviously disastrously deliberately
Speaker 6: unconstitutional student loan order, by the time that that had
Speaker 6: been decided by the Supreme Court, he could have spent
Speaker 6: two or three hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 4: So unless this.
Speaker 6: Is accompanied by the Supreme Court's willingness to take cases
Speaker 6: quickly and Congress taking back its power from the executive
Speaker 6: I do worry that not just under Trump, but under
Speaker 6: the next Democratic president. Let's say president AOC, you could
Speaker 6: see some really disastrous consequences, but that's a Congress problem,
Speaker 6: not a Supreme Court problem.
Speaker 1: That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. A AOC
Speaker 1: will be the vice president to Gavin Newsom. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to correct that, Steven, you're taking well.
Speaker 5: I think I agree with Charles. I think the rule
Speaker 5: twenty three business connects to the whole class action. That's right,
Speaker 5: that's right classification. So yeah, I think you're right that
Speaker 5: judges will be quicker to try and quant class action status.
Speaker 4: I do think that.
Speaker 5: I mean I should need to go back and look
Speaker 5: at the numbers here, but I actually think the Supreme
Speaker 5: Court moved with great speed, greater than maybe they ever have,
Speaker 5: which is why i'd have to go back and look
Speaker 5: in history. But do you think of the cases that
Speaker 5: were taken up and decided in the last well, just
Speaker 5: take this one. You know it was about executive order
Speaker 5: Trump issued his first day in office back in January,
Speaker 5: so barely six months ago, and the Supreme Court scheduled
Speaker 5: an oral argument late. It was heard in what a
Speaker 5: month ago, six or eight weeks ago, and we have
Speaker 5: the decision today. And I think that was the Chief
Speaker 5: Justice or a majority of the Court anyway, saying we
Speaker 5: can't let this linger into the next term because it's
Speaker 5: just creating too much uncertainty. So they moved with really
Speaker 5: quite astonishing speed for the Supreme Court. You're not allowing
Speaker 5: it to filter through the DC Circuit or the other
Speaker 5: circuit courts of appeal, which would resulted in circuit splits
Speaker 5: and no decision at all. There was the you know,
Speaker 5: the executive immunity case, wasn't I think that was this term,
Speaker 5: wasn't it?
Speaker 4: Anyway?
Speaker 5: I think the Court is now stepping up to try
Speaker 5: and fill the gap for some of the lassitude of
Speaker 5: Congress that you rightly point out, Charles. And so right
Speaker 5: now you have Congress as a spectator to the judiciary
Speaker 5: and executive trying to work out a new equilibrium here
Speaker 5: on these things.
Speaker 6: And it's probably very encouraging that that note in the
Speaker 6: decision was written by Kavanaugh, who is now the immediate
Speaker 6: in justice on the Court, rather than by Conress Thomas,
Speaker 6: because it did no perhaps of willingness to step in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 4: I mean, I love Charles's argument.
Speaker 1: That this actually no sort of deprives us of a
Speaker 1: tool that you can use to get these things in
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court faster. Should we just develop like Disney
Speaker 1: has a fast pass lane for certain cases.
Speaker 5: Well, they have been doing the shadow docket business they
Speaker 5: called for a while now, where they do take cases
Speaker 5: and dispose of them quickly without necessarily a full oral argument,
Speaker 5: briefing and so forth. I think now in this particular case,
Speaker 5: once again, the executive order was about the birthright citizenship controversy,
Speaker 5: and they sidestep that. As we expected that, that was
Speaker 5: pretty clear that they weren't going to take up a
Speaker 5: substance of that. But now we'll have to. And so
Speaker 5: that case will be probably coming up next year and
Speaker 5: so a year from now, and there they can't I
Speaker 5: think repair to process and history. Well, I shouldn't have
Speaker 5: said that it won't be a process argument or a
Speaker 5: jurisdiction argument. They're going to have to rule on the
Speaker 5: substance of the teeth Amendment and that's going to be
Speaker 5: a big fight.
Speaker 6: I think, James. One thing that is always important with
Speaker 6: court decisions to stress is that the Court is not
Speaker 6: expected to or allowed to come up with an answer
Speaker 6: that makes everything perfect. And you say, where are we Now,
Speaker 6: there are some downsides to this, even though I think
Speaker 6: it's the right decision. For example, it is offensive to
Speaker 6: our constitutional order to have circuit splits on matters that
Speaker 6: are really crucial. I mean, for example, let's suppose that
Speaker 6: your president, Gavin Newsom says that he intends to start
Speaker 6: confiscating firearms, and let's suppose that the Fifth Circuit says
Speaker 6: that's illegal under the Second Amendment, and there's no staturgy justification,
Speaker 6: but the Second Circuit says it's fine. What you have
Speaker 6: then is a situation in which it is o k
Speaker 6: for the federal government to confiscate firearms in New York
Speaker 6: but not in Texas, which, by the way, would be
Speaker 6: the sensible way of doing it, given out heavily armed
Speaker 6: everyone is in either place. Now, that is a problem, right,
Speaker 6: And if you take the country's history just after the
Speaker 6: Civil War as perhaps a more realistic example, it would
Speaker 6: be a problem if it were fine to discriminate racially
Speaker 6: in some parts of the country and not in others.
Speaker 6: But that is it seems to be the way that
Speaker 6: the system works until the circuit splits are resolved. But
Speaker 6: we aren't always going to like it. And I think
Speaker 6: what I just find so annoying about some of the
Speaker 6: responses to this that I've seen and about Jackson's descent
Speaker 6: is she seems to think, and those who have criticized
Speaker 6: his decisions seem to think that if there is any
Speaker 6: potential downside to any decision that is faithful to the law,
Speaker 6: it's the job of the Supreme Court to step in
Speaker 6: and prevent that.
Speaker 4: But it's not.
Speaker 6: We're going to have times in our life as American
Speaker 6: citizens where things are bad. So you know, one of
Speaker 6: the things that it leaves us with should be the
Speaker 6: expectation that we elect people who aren't bloody awful.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And there we are a a new slogan for
Speaker 1: the conservative side. Sometimes things are going to be bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, it actually is the truth of the matter.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways you make them better is
Speaker 1: to get together with friends. And we'd like to remind
Speaker 1: you as always that Ricochet has meetups where people get
Speaker 1: together in person. And if you're thinking, you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to sit around other people and I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that and talk politics, you'd be surprised.
Speaker 1: How little will we talk about politics? Actually, it's everything
Speaker 1: under the sun. Because you meet people like minded you
Speaker 1: find you have similar interest hobbies and passions. It's a
Speaker 1: great fun. Last one I had was in New York.
Speaker 1: I got COVID. It was worth it. Matt Bauzer is
Speaker 1: holding the annual German Fest meetup that's July twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty seventh in Milwaukee. And our old friend Randyandy Wandy Wivova,
Speaker 1: Sandy Rivo, Randy you know you love. He's assembling a
Speaker 1: group to meet in Detroit and that will be interesting
Speaker 1: seeing the revived state and status of some of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful skyscrapers in America. So go to ricochet dot com,
Speaker 1: check the member meet up panel, and if you're in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, you know, show up or start your own
Speaker 1: and just see how Ricochet people come to you. We're
Speaker 1: like that. One of the things we're also like is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we want a little solace at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Right, y'all got your checklists between the
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Speaker 6: Well, I was under the instruction in the sense that
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Speaker 1: And thanks to Charles, we not only have the new
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Speaker 1: those things. Joining us now. Ryan Salam, president of the
Speaker 1: Manhattan Institute. In two thousand and nine, he co authored
Speaker 1: A Grand New Party with the Rosstatt, and his latest
Speaker 1: book is Melting Pot or Civil War. He can also
Speaker 1: find his writing in The Atlantic and National Affairs.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Hi guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I love New York. I'm tired of it after about
Speaker 1: three or four days. I say you win and I leave.
Speaker 4: But I love New York.
Speaker 1: And like everybody who grew up in the Midwest casting
Speaker 1: their eyes towards Gotham, I've always felt an attachment to
Speaker 1: it that seems irrational, emotional. But it's America in its
Speaker 1: most vigorous and proud form, and lately the choices that
Speaker 1: they make mystify us. But you think they can probably
Speaker 1: get past in Eric Adams, they can probably endure, you know,
Speaker 1: de Blasio. It's a strong place now, this guy. Basically,
Speaker 1: that's my question, and it's not even a question this guy.
Speaker 2: So when you're thinking about Zoronmndani, we're tempted to think
Speaker 2: about the discontinuities because he seems so different, he's so
Speaker 2: much younger. He just you know, seems you know, so
Speaker 2: dangerous to many of us. The interesting thing are the continuities. Now,
Speaker 2: consider that New York City had a self described Democratic
Speaker 2: socialist mayor. His name was Bill de Blasio some years ago.
Speaker 2: Now consider also, when you're looking at the way New
Speaker 2: York City is governed, we are in the thick of
Speaker 2: a really profound affordability crisis. Is it something that is
Speaker 2: the product of a free market in housing. Decidedly not.
Speaker 2: It's the product of a crazy accretion of rules that
Speaker 2: essentially treats building private housing as though it is a
Speaker 2: kind of suspect activity, you know, borderline criminal. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just, you know, any number of things. So on
Speaker 2: one level, you know, I am tempted to get drawn
Speaker 2: into the discontinuity. This is a guy who says things
Speaker 2: that are incredibly alarming to me as a conservative. And
Speaker 2: by the way, I should stipulate, I'm speaking on my
Speaker 2: own behalf, not as a spokesperson for the institution I
Speaker 2: lead or anything like that. So just to make that
Speaker 2: crystal clear, I will say that this is someone who
Speaker 2: says totally alarming stuff all the time. But we should
Speaker 2: also just recognize that, like the proverbial frog and the
Speaker 2: boiling pot, it's not as though we're flipping a switch
Speaker 2: and we're going from robust free market capitalism to a
Speaker 2: bolivarian revolution by the Hudson. You're just really the conditions
Speaker 2: that created this were the accretion of failed policies, call
Speaker 2: them socialists, call them progressive, call them whatever you want
Speaker 2: that actually contributed to this real crisis.
Speaker 1: You're right about the accretion of strange laws and bylaws
Speaker 1: and regulations that prevent good housing from being built, even
Speaker 1: at the same time that they can build the most enormous,
Speaker 1: waving in the wind pencil thin skyscrapers by Central Park.
Speaker 1: Now they can bail those, but they can't build regular
Speaker 1: housing for people and the rest of the city. This
Speaker 1: guy with his talk of rent control and the rest
Speaker 1: of it, and the usual progressive platitudes, Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: say there's continuity. There's somebody like Deblasio, But Deblasio struck
Speaker 1: me as both sort of lazy and incompetent and not
Speaker 1: particularly motivated to do the things that would destroy New York.
Speaker 1: This guy seems to have a fire under him, or
Speaker 1: is he just a striver who's got a good presentation
Speaker 1: and is going to use this tool set of ideas
Speaker 1: that appeal to the shoot to the Luigi Manjohni fan
Speaker 1: club in order to insert himself into the machine and
Speaker 1: profit thereafter.
Speaker 4: Forever does he mean it?
Speaker 2: If there were, it's all it's just a matter of
Speaker 2: what does he mean right? Because you know, here's the thing,
Speaker 2: you know, the reason why this person is a skillful
Speaker 2: politician is that he says different things to different audiences.
Speaker 2: He's able to hit different registers. You know, he's someone
Speaker 2: who is you know, granted you up until now accomplished
Speaker 2: relatively little in life. But he's someone who is charismatic,
Speaker 2: and he's someone who has a seductive ability to mirror
Speaker 2: to people what exactly it is they want to hear. So,
Speaker 2: you know, to the kind of revolutionary socialist crowd, they're
Speaker 2: very confident he's one of them, and he winks at them,
Speaker 2: and he kind of makes it clear that he's one
Speaker 2: of them. In all sorts of ways. This is someone
Speaker 2: who has really been a kind of professional anti Israel
Speaker 2: obsessive for his entire adult life, and yet he's also
Speaker 2: able to say, how dare you accuse me of being
Speaker 2: an anti semi. I will I will increase the amount
Speaker 2: of spending, you know, to fight hate crimes by eight x.
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to do this. We're going to
Speaker 2: do that. You know, it's this is his talent. It's
Speaker 2: the ability to be all things to all people. And
Speaker 2: there literally are the same nonprofit progressive establishment that is
Speaker 2: responsible for New York's dire state. These guys are reconciling
Speaker 2: themselves to him because you know, he represents another face
Speaker 2: for the same kind of failed policies with more aggressive
Speaker 2: agro language turned up to eleven. That's one version of it, right,
Speaker 2: Another version of it is that, you know, how do
Speaker 2: you actually kick the door down? People are calling him
Speaker 2: a socialist, and the problem with that label is that
Speaker 2: what people hear as they hear well sweet Sweden right,
Speaker 2: Norway right, Denmark right, when actually this is you know,
Speaker 2: you're looking at the ban Dung generation, you know, come
Speaker 2: back to life. When you're looking at is a kind
Speaker 2: of third worldist position. And you're also looking at someone
Speaker 2: who's a left wing populist. You know, if you're looking
Speaker 2: at socialism and Northern Europe, you're looking at we have vats.
Speaker 2: You know, middle class working class people pay really high
Speaker 2: consumption taxes and they, you know, and they get some stuff.
Speaker 2: You pay with one hand, you get something else on
Speaker 2: the other hand. Right, What this is instead is a
Speaker 2: kind of punitive egalitarianism. They raise taxes when they were
Speaker 2: flushed with revenue. They raise taxes because they want to
Speaker 2: raise taxes on the rich, even if it actually does
Speaker 2: huge damage to the working in middle class people because
Speaker 2: there's bigger you know, fish to fry. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is a different kind of agenda. But the problem is
Speaker 2: it's totally prodean. It's totally prodean. So it can be
Speaker 2: one thing one minute, it's going to be another thing
Speaker 2: another minute. It's going to be like, hey, Brad Lander
Speaker 2: has a million position papers here, and oh, it's ridiculous
Speaker 2: to catastrophize. It's ridiculous to think you've got to take
Speaker 2: him seriously, not literally.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It is a classic populist playbook. And the democratic establishment
Speaker 2: is hollow, it is dead, it is bereft, It is
Speaker 2: completely lacking in talent and imagination and energy. And they
Speaker 2: were there for the picking.
Speaker 6: Hey Ryan, nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Nice to see you too, Charlie.
Speaker 4: Here's my question.
Speaker 6: I grew up in England, US, you know, and I
Speaker 6: had this conception of history that essentially guarantee that if
Speaker 6: things got really bad, people would be sensible, because I
Speaker 6: learned about the seventy and then I learned about Margaret
Speaker 6: Thatcher coming in and she fixed it. But now if
Speaker 6: I listened to my friends and family back home, they
Speaker 6: sound like people did in the seventies. New York seemed
Speaker 6: to me, especially when I lived there in the glory
Speaker 6: days twenty eleven and so on, to be of the
Speaker 6: same pattern that it had been awful in the seventies
Speaker 6: and eighties. But then New York has got sensible, and
Speaker 6: they brought in Giuliani, and then they kept electing Bloomberg,
Speaker 6: you know, not my favorite guy, but it's mayor of
Speaker 6: New York, pretty terrific. And then wow, they've gone to
Speaker 6: de Blasio and Eric Adams and now this guy probably
Speaker 6: And I wonder how you see it, because on the
Speaker 6: one hand, we tend to think as conservatives, if things
Speaker 6: get bad, then people will be sensible and they'll fix it.
Speaker 6: But then I look at Chicago, and Chicago's never done
Speaker 6: what New York did, and Chicago seems basically incapable of
Speaker 6: fixing itself. So are you worried that New York could
Speaker 6: be in the same place or do you do you
Speaker 6: think there's enough about New York, whether it's Wall Street
Speaker 6: or just the fact that it turns over all the
Speaker 6: time where it's just so dynamic. That means that even
Speaker 6: if this guy is awful and screws everything up, there'll
Speaker 6: be a backlash and you'll get sensible policies.
Speaker 2: Again, the hard part is that when you're thinking about
Speaker 2: the electorate, you know, who are the individuals who are
Speaker 2: learning and how are they learning? You know, you always
Speaker 2: have to keep it in mind that we're looking at
Speaker 2: a dynamic, changing electorate. So, you know, the white population
Speaker 2: of New York City is not that much lower, perhaps surprisingly,
Speaker 2: than it was you know, call it in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. What's different is that it's no longer
Speaker 2: multi generational New Yorkers. You know, folks who are third
Speaker 2: and fourth generation, you know Italian and Irish, you know
Speaker 2: working class, lower middle class, you know homeowners, and so
Speaker 2: it's a different group of people. So the white population
Speaker 2: in New York right now is much more college educated
Speaker 2: than it had been before. You've got a lot of
Speaker 2: folks who are transplants. But you know, so that's one thing, right,
Speaker 2: there's one narrative that, oh, you know, these guys, it's
Speaker 2: these guys are rich and this kind of thing, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's luxury beliefs. And I actually think that
Speaker 2: there's a lot to that. My colleague Rob Henderson, you know,
Speaker 2: is the is the one who's kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: advanced this luxury beliefs thesis. But another part of it
Speaker 2: is this. So you know, if you're looking at the
Speaker 2: New York City housing market, and allow me to bore
Speaker 2: you for a moment, you know, you've got about sixty
Speaker 2: eight percent of the units are rental units, multi family
Speaker 2: rental units. Of those units, I believe it's about forty
Speaker 2: eight percent are in the so called unregulated market, and
Speaker 2: then fifty two percent are rent control, rent stabilized. So,
Speaker 2: you know, people have observed that Cuomo seemed to win
Speaker 2: in really poor neighborhoods and then in this tiny sliver
Speaker 2: of really rich neighborhoods precincts with a median income of
Speaker 2: over let's say, tw hundred fifty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: You know, Cuomo did well in those two but in
Speaker 2: that middle when you're looking at you know, people in
Speaker 2: neighborhoods with a median income. You know, look seventy five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars or so. These
Speaker 2: people aren't poor. But it's a really interesting population because
Speaker 2: if you think about the people in New York, the
Speaker 2: people who kind of make it here, it feels more
Speaker 2: and more like you make it here if you have
Speaker 2: a side deal, if you inherited a rent stabilized apartment,
Speaker 2: if you're living in Nischa housing, you know, and you
Speaker 2: have forever, which is not great, by the way, really
Speaker 2: terrible and miserable. Public housing isn't great, but it's a
Speaker 2: place to live where you're not buffeted by the fact
Speaker 2: that you know, rents went up this last year by
Speaker 2: sixteen percent in the private market, you know the media,
Speaker 2: and rent for a two bedroom apartment in New York
Speaker 2: City right now it is fifty five hundred dollars. Wow,
Speaker 2: these numbers are completely staggering, Okay, And that's the problem
Speaker 2: is that, you know, if you're a new cumboer in
Speaker 2: New York, you're a college kid, you didn't just move
Speaker 2: into it. You know, you didn't just going to find
Speaker 2: one of the handful of rent regulated apartments that are
Speaker 2: on the market. Rent regulated apartments get passed down from
Speaker 2: generation to generation, right now, Okay, what you're dealing. You
Speaker 2: moved into that unregulated sector, and then you've got I mean,
Speaker 2: there's so many dynamics to hear to who's living here. So,
Speaker 2: you know, do you think that those guys were making
Speaker 2: you know, it's they're making decent money, low six figures
Speaker 2: anywhere else in the country that would afford you a
Speaker 2: pretty great life, But in New York City it means
Speaker 2: that you're on a knife edge. In New York City,
Speaker 2: who means you're spending a third of your income on
Speaker 2: rent and you're living with roommates, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: the kind of indignities that you have to endure. And
Speaker 2: then they look at the other, you know, kind of economy,
Speaker 2: the rich, glamorous economy that gets the attention in New York,
Speaker 2: the capital accumulation economy where you know, housing price appreciation
Speaker 2: is part of it. But then also just the people
Speaker 2: who own assets, they own equity, they're not just collecting
Speaker 2: a professional salary and navigating the housing market. These are
Speaker 2: the guys who are the most totally radical out there.
Speaker 2: They want to burn it down. And these people are
Speaker 2: not the people. They don't remember New York City. And
Speaker 2: they also by the way, you know, under Eric Adams,
Speaker 2: like in the last year, he's not perfect. Yes, crime
Speaker 2: has gone down markedly in twenty twenty five. So weirdly,
Speaker 2: the fact that some things were kind of okay and
Speaker 2: limping along actually meant that, you know, Zara Mangani could
Speaker 2: come in and zero in on the fact that your
Speaker 2: rent is a hell of a lot higher now than
Speaker 2: it was when you first moved here five or ten
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 4: Why is Krimdell.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's a lot of complexity to that. You know,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of colleagues who thought very deeply
Speaker 2: about this. So, you know, part of it could be
Speaker 2: pay you know, there are big national trends. They're big
Speaker 2: and complex. You know. Part of it could be that
Speaker 2: we have a truly you know, we have a really
Speaker 2: excellent police commissioner right now, who is someone who has
Speaker 2: been a public servant for a very long time. She
Speaker 2: knows the police department extremely well, and to the extent
Speaker 2: that there was a kind of cronyism and laziness in
Speaker 2: the department she's been really thoughtful about bringing that downe
Speaker 2: and improving morale in the police force. If you look
Speaker 2: at law enforcement around the country, morale has been a
Speaker 2: real challenge, and that's been pronounced in New York. You know,
Speaker 2: you have a huge number of folks have retired. You
Speaker 2: have people who are experienced NYPD officers who left to
Speaker 2: other jurisdictions. When you have competent, effective leadership, that can
Speaker 2: make a difference. So again, there are many different factors.
Speaker 2: There are also real things cutting against us. You know,
Speaker 2: for example, we have a bunch of laws at the
Speaker 2: state level here in New York that are real outliers.
Speaker 2: You know, there are a ton of places that embrace
Speaker 2: criminal justice leniency. They called it criminal justice reform. New
Speaker 2: York actually really embraced policies that were really out there
Speaker 2: even by the standards of that rush towards leniency. And
Speaker 2: so you basically have some you know, folks in law
Speaker 2: enforcement who are doing their best to manage that. And
Speaker 2: then you have prosecutors. So I would say that the
Speaker 2: prosecutors in two of our five boroughs are particularly bad.
Speaker 2: In Manhattan and the Bronx. You've got other prosecutors who
Speaker 2: are not great. They're not necessarily the people that I'd
Speaker 2: want to be there, but they at least live on
Speaker 2: planet Earth, which is helpful. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: complexity to what's happened on the crime front. I do
Speaker 2: think that, you know, there is more effective leadership right now.
Speaker 2: And another thing, you'll hear a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 2: New York is actually the safest big city in America. Oh,
Speaker 2: this is exaggerated, and actually, look there's something to that.
Speaker 2: You know, New York City is an immigrant rich city.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, New York City is a place that's denser.
Speaker 2: You know, we do have some firewalls against crime, but
Speaker 2: at the same time, disorder counts for a lot more
Speaker 2: in New York City. Charlie Cook used to live here
Speaker 2: and he, like me, was packed in like a sardine
Speaker 2: on the subway. So if you have, you know, someone
Speaker 2: walking down the street, you know in the suburbs of Jacksonville,
Speaker 2: who is you know, half naked, wearing short shorts and
Speaker 2: you know, kind of ranting and you know, smelling like
Speaker 2: he may or may not need a bath.
Speaker 4: You know, that's exactly Charlie.
Speaker 2: Charlie can get on his golf court and then speed
Speaker 2: up and then kind of go away. If you are
Speaker 2: on a subway with this person, uh, you know, then
Speaker 2: that that's a different situation. And actually the value proposition
Speaker 2: of New York City is density. It is the fact
Speaker 2: that you get to be kind of around other people.
Speaker 2: You get the vitality that comes with that that can
Speaker 2: spoil rotten if you have, you know, people who are
Speaker 2: bad apples. That's why there is a natural, naturally authoritarian
Speaker 2: element to effectively running a city like New York City.
Speaker 2: That's something that you know, Mike Bloomberg, for all of
Speaker 2: his cosmopolitanism, understood it was you know, kind of a
Speaker 2: you know, an iron fist and a velvet glove. He
Speaker 2: understood how that worked. By the way, build a Blasio.
Speaker 2: Early on he understood that if he was going to
Speaker 2: demonstrate that a democratic socialist could run a city and
Speaker 2: be the successor to Bernie Sanders, which was his great dream,
Speaker 2: that you know, actually you could not let crime get
Speaker 2: out of control. He thought that right up until Democratic
Speaker 2: party politics changed circa eighteen twenty nineteen twenty twenty. But
Speaker 2: you know, much more to say there.
Speaker 5: So Rahan out here in California, we're a little bit
Speaker 5: annoyed that the New York is so effectively challenging our
Speaker 5: monopoly on bad elected officials and progressive policy. Right, So,
Speaker 5: and I wish I could have your equanimity about the scene.
Speaker 5: So a couple of questions, one on the substance of
Speaker 5: the mayor's office in New York and then one about
Speaker 5: the politics of this election campaign to come.
Speaker 2: Just Steve, just want to say, no equanimity here. What
Speaker 2: I am as a realist and I want to love
Speaker 2: everything that's going on squarely dead in the eye. So
Speaker 2: people understand that things were rotting a long time before
Speaker 2: the last seventy two hours when people stopped started paying attention.
Speaker 2: But please, yeah, okay, yeah, well all right.
Speaker 5: So you know one thing that I didn't know until
Speaker 5: I learned this in graduate school forty years ago, is
Speaker 5: that municipal government is really odd in America. We have
Speaker 5: what we call weak mayor systems and strong mayor systems,
Speaker 5: and so it's always surprising for people to learn that
Speaker 5: Chicago has a weak mayor system. And you say, well,
Speaker 5: Richard Daly was one of the most powerful mayors in
Speaker 5: American history. Well, that's because he was such a skillful
Speaker 5: politician and built a machine. New York has a strong
Speaker 5: mayor system. By that, I mean they've got the mayors
Speaker 5: I understand. It gets to set the budget with pretty
Speaker 5: strong authority over It gets to appoint the heads of
Speaker 5: all the departments without necessarily the unlike Chicago, where the
Speaker 5: pointees have to be ratified by the city Council and
Speaker 5: so forth. So you have a very strong executive in
Speaker 5: New York. It was always tempered. Sorry for the history
Speaker 5: lesson here, keep it short for listeners. It was always
Speaker 5: tempered by the democratic machine that would cough up a beam,
Speaker 5: especially right. And it's been and you said itself, the
Speaker 5: democratic establishment is in New York is dead. It's been
Speaker 5: dying ever since I think ed Koch probably. So now
Speaker 5: we have this thirty two year old or thirty three
Speaker 5: year old kid who's very charismatic, as you say, and
Speaker 5: he's going to be given some powerful keys to a
Speaker 5: powerful engine.
Speaker 4: And you already mentioned that.
Speaker 5: Gatshi's said he's going to spend more money on hate speech. Well,
Speaker 5: I don't doubt that he might well do that, but
Speaker 5: I'm worried that it's really going to be the kind
Speaker 5: of hate speech that we're worried about, meaning you know,
Speaker 5: the anti Semitic outbursts, seeing all.
Speaker 4: The rest of the place.
Speaker 5: So anyway, I'm just extremely there's more of a comment
Speaker 5: than a question, but it's designed a photic reaction. I
Speaker 5: think that this is an order of magnitude more serious
Speaker 5: than Deblasio's progressivism was.
Speaker 4: How what do you think?
Speaker 2: So here's the dilemma for people who oppose Zorn Mom, Donnie, Okay.
Speaker 2: The dilemma is that there is a symbiotic relationship between
Speaker 2: people who are saying that you know, basically you know,
Speaker 2: not that you're saying this Steve, that people are going
Speaker 2: to get shot in the streets. You know what I mean,
Speaker 2: they're going to be firing squads in Central Park, which
Speaker 2: is not what you're saying. But there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people might you know, look, I am alarmed. I
Speaker 2: am alarmed by many many things. I don't know. If
Speaker 2: you want me to talk your ear off, I'm happy
Speaker 2: to do it, you know, for the next you know,
Speaker 2: twelve hours about basically, you know, kind of what this
Speaker 2: gentleman has said, what he evidently believes about Israel, the
Speaker 2: threat that you know, kind of this kind of third
Speaker 2: worldist brand of socialism represents to peace and security in
Speaker 2: a very diverse city, in a city that is home
Speaker 2: to a population of close one million Jewish Americans, you
Speaker 2: know there's a lot that's extremely combustible. So make no mistake,
Speaker 2: I am not dismissing that one bit. I think it's
Speaker 2: dire and I think it's dangerous. What is even more
Speaker 2: dangerous is what has happened more broadly, if you're looking
Speaker 2: at national democratic politics, this is the reality that the
Speaker 2: people who are running against Zora Mondania did democratic primary
Speaker 2: did not seem to understand. If you look at the
Speaker 2: views of democratic primary voters nationally and in New York
Speaker 2: about Israel, about capitalism, about a great many other basic
Speaker 2: realities of life, it is not what it had been
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. So because of that, what it
Speaker 2: means is that certain attacks that people made because they
Speaker 2: believe them, because they're right, because they are legitimate attacks
Speaker 2: to make their legitimate criticisms, did not land. Not only
Speaker 2: did not they not land, but there are people who
Speaker 2: are fueled by the fact that when something seems like
Speaker 2: an establishment stitch up, when it looks like all of
Speaker 2: the shadowy, powerful forces are uniting against you, what does
Speaker 2: that mean? So that is something that is extremely important
Speaker 2: to keep in mind. And by the way, you said
Speaker 2: the never establishment is dead, that's actually not quite what
Speaker 2: I meant. What I'm in is at their bereft of ideas.
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of folks who are
Speaker 2: still there. And by the way, the establishment in New
Speaker 2: York City for a while has been a non profit
Speaker 2: progressive establishment. And this nonprofit progressive establishment represented by someone
Speaker 2: like Brad Lander, they've taken off one mask and they're
Speaker 2: putting on another mask, and that now they're trying to
Speaker 2: get behind Mandani and they're kind of deeply interconnected. And
Speaker 2: so what they're going to try to do is have
Speaker 2: another new breath of life, which is that well, we've
Speaker 2: been thoroughly irradiated and discredited and kind of this way
Speaker 2: you would be in a fair world, right, except they
Speaker 2: actually still hold all the levers of power. They're still there,
Speaker 2: and now what they're seeing is that, ah, this is
Speaker 2: another opportunity to be in touch with a TikTok generation.
Speaker 2: So this is the contradiction here, And you know, is this,
Speaker 2: you know, going to be Havena on the Hudson Okay,
Speaker 2: On the other hand, is it a corrupt, broken nonprofit
Speaker 2: progressive establishment that actually caused the affordability crisis, that actually
Speaker 2: they were the ones who went it was fashionable to
Speaker 2: say defund the police. Did now they say Department of
Speaker 2: Community Safety and then the idea that they could to
Speaker 2: have a new breath of life by us saying that actually,
Speaker 2: this is totally different from what came before. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we want to let people off the hook
Speaker 2: that way, Steve, That's that's the kind of an awkward question here.
Speaker 5: Well, all right, I've been thinking back to a parallel
Speaker 5: from here in California from a very long time ago.
Speaker 5: It's amazing Hut's forgotten a new deal history that in
Speaker 5: nineteen thirty four Upton Sinclair won the Democratic primary to
Speaker 5: be governor, and it's set the same kind of headlines
Speaker 5: you're seeing in the Wall Street Journal this week. Panic
Speaker 5: in the business community, hysteria in Hollywood, and it took
Speaker 5: weeks for people to gin up the app. Oh, by
Speaker 5: the way, he's running against the mediocre Republican incumbent who's
Speaker 5: kind of roughly the equivalent of Eric Adams. It's a
Speaker 5: great story that says, I say, it doesn't make the
Speaker 5: history books. Everyone always talks about Roosevelt being worried about
Speaker 5: Huey Long, but they were worried about Upton Sinclair being
Speaker 5: elected governor of California.
Speaker 4: Went in a in a jungle primary. Oh that's pretty good.
Speaker 4: I gotta borrow that.
Speaker 5: I should write an article I think for your city
Speaker 5: General Y Haunt about that the lessons of that campaign,
Speaker 5: because what ultimately turned it around, and it took weeks
Speaker 5: for people to say, what are we gonna do about
Speaker 5: this guy? He's world famous, he's popular. By the way,
Speaker 5: it was called the EPIC campaign that was short for
Speaker 5: End Poverty in California. Sounds a lot like like a
Speaker 5: Bond dobby. And what it took was Hollywood stepped in.
Speaker 5: It was uh, Louis B. Mayor was the ringleader. And
Speaker 5: by the way, you know, just as Hollywood is today.
Speaker 5: The writers and actors loved Upton Sinclair rights, but it
Speaker 5: was the owners of the studios and some of the
Speaker 5: business interests, and what they did was went back through
Speaker 5: you might say, the equivalent of Sinclair's Twitter feed. Right,
Speaker 5: He'd said a lot of crazy stuf for years and
Speaker 5: used it very effectively against him and ended up re
Speaker 5: electing this mediocre Republican Okay, so we're hearing all these machinations.
Speaker 5: Now that's well, maybe Andrew Cuomo shouldn't drop out, Maybe
Speaker 5: she'd run as an independent. Maybe we'll get Curtis Sliwa
Speaker 5: to drop the Republican line and make Adams the Republican
Speaker 5: nom you know, all kinds of things like that. So
Speaker 5: it's going to take a while, I think to see
Speaker 5: any opposition. But my suspicion is, even if Wall Street
Speaker 5: puts up a lot of money and the sort of
Speaker 5: non or I'll put it this way, the for profits
Speaker 5: segments of the Democratic establishment try to draw a line,
Speaker 5: I could actually see that helping mom Dommy, because he's,
Speaker 5: you know, like you say, charismatic, is going to have
Speaker 5: a lot of national interest and attention, and if he wins,
Speaker 5: he'll probably get off to a big, flashy start. And
Speaker 5: my prediction is he's his name will be immediately floated
Speaker 5: as a Democratic candidate for twenty twenty eight for president.
Speaker 5: So would you have any prognostications or expectations of how
Speaker 5: this might unfold.
Speaker 2: You've given me a lot to work with here, So yeah,
Speaker 2: so thirty three years old, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: about you know, kind of there there are a lot
Speaker 2: of different uh, you know, bumps in the road before
Speaker 2: you get to twenty twenty eight, I made the Deblasio
Speaker 2: comparison right, which understandably, you know, we recoil from him.
Speaker 2: He's a different figure. But you know, one difference is
Speaker 2: that Bill de Blasio was a Red Sox fan. Bill
Speaker 2: de Blasio is not someone who lived and breathed New York.
Speaker 2: He didn't really kind of come across to people as
Speaker 2: someone who just really loved the city. And when you
Speaker 2: look at you know, Mike Bloomberg, you know, he was
Speaker 2: not beloved by the city's you know, kind of progressive cadreds,
Speaker 2: but you know, he was someone who didn't have to
Speaker 2: be in that job, and he's someone there was a
Speaker 2: certain kind of affection for him. If you look at
Speaker 2: Mam Donni, Mam Donnie does seem to actually like New York.
Speaker 2: You know, he's someone who actually, you know, he loves
Speaker 2: the Halal carts. He loves that. You know, there's something
Speaker 2: about him that seems earnest and approachable. And also, you know,
Speaker 2: he's thirty three, so he has a lot of time.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think that if you want a
Speaker 2: scenario where a guy like this can become a really
Speaker 2: you know, formidable threat, you know, on a national scale.
Speaker 2: I actually don't think it would be rushing to a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight presidential bid. And my suspicion is that
Speaker 2: he gets that. And I think that when you're looking
Speaker 2: at the fact that AOC was a very critical mover
Speaker 2: in getting behind him, I think that there's a line,
Speaker 2: and I don't think he's going to be looking to
Speaker 2: jump that line. When you look at this world of
Speaker 2: hard left political organizing, when you look at the DSA,
Speaker 2: when you look at the people that they look to
Speaker 2: as their you know, standard bearers, their inspirations, they believe,
Speaker 2: you know, in building a discipline movement. You know, this
Speaker 2: guy knocked on over one and a half million doors.
Speaker 2: He did not do that by himself. He did that
Speaker 2: with an army of volunteers, tens of thousands of them.
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, the I suspect the
Speaker 2: moves are to basically co oct that nonprofit progressive establishment.
Speaker 2: As you're governing cadres, you know, you take the helm
Speaker 2: of certain key institutions, the commanding heights. The Department of
Speaker 2: Education employs an awful lot of people. It's educating eight
Speaker 2: hundred thousand plus students. You know, that's going to be
Speaker 2: something very important when you have a grand ideological project
Speaker 2: with the NYPD. I'm not sure exactly where they're going
Speaker 2: to land, but there are a few different places when
Speaker 2: the kind of people who are the people that you
Speaker 2: know that I think of a civil terrorist in the streets,
Speaker 2: people who claim to be protesting but who are in
Speaker 2: fact intimidating and engaging in you know, basically manipulating the
Speaker 2: fact that we are now not enforcing various laws, you know,
Speaker 2: to create menacing protests. When those people feel as though
Speaker 2: they have an ally in city hall, well maybe they
Speaker 2: behave differently, right, maybe you know, kind of this is
Speaker 2: going to be really interesting and complex because it could
Speaker 2: be that he's a total imbecile and that he you know,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a crisis day one and this
Speaker 2: streets are going to be you know, a flame, and
Speaker 2: then you know, kind of that's that. Another possibility is
Speaker 2: that the city is already you know, it's already a
Speaker 2: slow burn, it's already a death by a thousand cuts,
Speaker 2: in which you basically are driving out private capital. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know you're driving out you know the kind of
Speaker 2: working class, middle class moderates. Okay, you're trying to kind
Speaker 2: of like raise the temperature to do that. It's the
Speaker 2: curly effect that doesn't necessarily hurt you if what you're
Speaker 2: looking to is consolidate power over a city government that
Speaker 2: has three hundred thousand employees. So you know, there are
Speaker 2: many different ways this can play out. But I uh,
Speaker 2: and by the way, what where I thought you were
Speaker 2: going is that you can imagine. I think you can
Speaker 2: imagine a spirited Eric Adams campaign, and we can talk
Speaker 2: a bit about that. But I think that you know,
Speaker 2: you can call it. You know, is Momdani the odds
Speaker 2: on favorite? Of course he is. But I also think that,
Speaker 2: you know, we should learn from having seen crazy things
Speaker 2: happen that other crazy things can happen too.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: If Trump gets the economy back on its feet and
Speaker 1: everything comes along and industry is resure like General Electric
Speaker 1: announcing they were going to do today, then people will
Speaker 1: feel in twenty twenty eight as though they have the
Speaker 1: permission to indulge in luxury beliefs because things are going someway.
Speaker 1: Or if everything is cratered by twenty twenty eight, then
Speaker 1: they'll think, well, we have no other choice. Let's give
Speaker 1: repudiation of capitalism to try and see how that goes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, who knows, and it will be interesting. I
Speaker 1: do know this. I am. As I said at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this. I love Manhattan. I wanted to thrive.
Speaker 1: You know, However, if he crashes the office market, it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible that they will not build the Commodore tower,
Speaker 1: which means that it won't overshadow the Chrysler building, which
Speaker 1: is something that I worry about. And why I worry
Speaker 1: about that sitting here in Minneapolis, I don't know, only
Speaker 1: that I sort of want to be able to go
Speaker 1: there and see that magnificent inspire from every angle, and
Speaker 1: I'll be blocked out by Commodore. And I hate the
Speaker 1: new JP Morgan building. I gotta say, what do you think?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: I just love capital investment, I love and employers who
Speaker 2: want to create jobs in New York City. Yep. And
Speaker 2: you know that's that's where I.
Speaker 1: Stand, all right, from an esthetic standpoint, we will have
Speaker 1: to well, you know, we'll see, but yes, no, I
Speaker 1: love the commitment that it represents, just like all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. And will New York be still standing
Speaker 1: in two or three.
Speaker 4: Years, of course it will.
Speaker 1: Will it be as interesting a place?
Speaker 4: Well, we'll talk to you again then about that.
Speaker 1: We thank you for joining today. We'll have you on
Speaker 1: to talk about the book, which we didn't get around to.
Speaker 1: But melting pot or civil war seems to be the
Speaker 1: question that's in front of everybody these days. So give
Speaker 1: that a pickup, and you can read his writing in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic and National Affairs as well.
Speaker 4: Ryan sol I'm thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, And we didn't get it. We didn't get
Speaker 1: in the book. Hey, excuse me for interrupting here for
Speaker 1: a second, but you know, we're talking about the effects
Speaker 1: of all these things on business. Maybe you got one,
Speaker 1: and maybe you started your business because it was your passion.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you listening to this saying, hey, yeah
Speaker 1: that's me. I started a business. I was passionate about it.
Speaker 1: But you know what, maybe you fell into HR hell
Speaker 1: as your business got going. No, nobody's an expert in
Speaker 1: all areas, and that includes HR. And that's why we're
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Speaker 1: sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. Well, it's been a consequential week.
Speaker 1: What else can we talk about? Anything happened in any
Speaker 1: place else? I think we sent a plane that dropped
Speaker 1: the something on a manhole and then sent five precision
Speaker 1: guidance venitions after it. And well, if you, of course
Speaker 1: listen to what CNN was telling us, low impact didn't
Speaker 1: really do anything, set them back about a day and
Speaker 1: a half. Steven Charles, your thoughts on the ear on strike.
Speaker 4: Wait, wait, James, did you just say manhole?
Speaker 5: I mean it's there, please the personnel access covers.
Speaker 1: Now, Ah, you're right here. I'm using gendered language again.
Speaker 1: That was what an old style guy.
Speaker 5: I still call him that too. No, well, look, I
Speaker 5: don't really have anything. I don't know, either original or
Speaker 5: consequential to say.
Speaker 4: I'm pleased that we.
Speaker 1: And that has stopped us all, that has stopped us
Speaker 1: all when exactly here.
Speaker 5: Exactly right? Yeah, yeah, I mean I have to say that. Well,
Speaker 5: first of all, a general comment that may upset Charlie
Speaker 5: a little bit. The whole progress of Trump so far
Speaker 5: seems to be reminding me, you're giving off an eighties feel,
Speaker 5: you know, when Reagan came in and things just started
Speaker 5: going well. And there are some parallels including, you know,
Speaker 5: when the Israelis bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in what
Speaker 5: June of nineteen eighty one and upset everybody, but privately
Speaker 5: everyone was saying it was great. But here we now
Speaker 5: know that Trump practiced active deception in several ways.
Speaker 4: Right. You know, we said, well, I'm going to wait two.
Speaker 5: Weeks to make a decision, when in fact the decision
Speaker 5: had already been made, and the news has come out
Speaker 5: late in the week that there was a lot more
Speaker 5: coordination between Trump and net and Yahoo, and a lot
Speaker 5: of deliberate misinformation fed out to the media to mislead
Speaker 5: the Iranians. Topped all top with the fact that we
Speaker 5: sent a whole lot of planes or conspicuously toward Guam,
Speaker 5: which was thought to have been an effort to mislead
Speaker 5: the Iranians, but I think might have had the secondary
Speaker 5: purpose of telling the Chinese, you know what, we're paying
Speaker 5: attention to your increased harassment of Taiwan and the Philippines.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, Trump seems to me to be
Speaker 5: dealing from a load of aces these days. And then
Speaker 5: you know, lay here in the week NATO members say, okay, well,
Speaker 5: increased defense spending to five percent of GDP, and another
Speaker 5: headline that, oh, European country is saying what tariffs and
Speaker 5: barriers can we give up and trade with the United
Speaker 5: States to please Trump?
Speaker 4: That looks to me like a guy who's on a
Speaker 4: roll morning in America.
Speaker 1: The strike with the strike with the equivalent of the
Speaker 1: Granada invasion. And I don't say that lightly. That was
Speaker 1: just one of those things that said, hey, we actually
Speaker 1: can do something like this without crashing all our helicopters
Speaker 1: in the desert and the faint towards Guam is you noted,
Speaker 1: may indeed have been a reminder, nice little three gorgeous
Speaker 1: damn you have there if anything happened to it, which
Speaker 1: of course I don't think we would do, because the
Speaker 1: loss of life would be absolutely fantastic. But you never know,
Speaker 1: you never know, Charles, You thought.
Speaker 4: Why would that upset me, Steve? Oh, only because I know.
Speaker 5: You you're disdained for Trump is transparent and well worn,
Speaker 5: well argued.
Speaker 4: I respect it, but in.
Speaker 6: Many quarters, sure, but I think I'm fair minded in
Speaker 6: evaluating what he does, and I think what he did
Speaker 6: here was good.
Speaker 4: I am of the view.
Speaker 6: That Congress is necessary, but that's a view that takes
Speaker 6: issue with seventy five years of American president all with Trump.
Speaker 6: Trump did nothing here that wouldn't have been done by
Speaker 6: Obamba or Bill Clinton or Harry Truman. This was a
Speaker 6: good decision I thought was well executed. I'm interested to
Speaker 6: see what happens next. I'd love to know who is
Speaker 6: right in the international community and their evaluation of how
Speaker 6: much damage this did. But at the very least, it
Speaker 6: seems that this is set back the program by months,
Speaker 6: if not years, and given that we were in the
Speaker 6: middle of a conflict that Israel began, justifiably, I think
Speaker 6: it was correct of the United States to piggyback and
Speaker 6: make sure that all three of the facilities were set
Speaker 6: back or hopefully completely destroyed. This is, you know, something
Speaker 6: we would not have got under President Harris, and we
Speaker 6: should acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: No, but it's interesting that people are saying that President
Speaker 1: Trump is all of his disinformation and lying in two
Speaker 1: weeks and the rest of it has lost credibility. Now
Speaker 1: nobody can really believe what he says, which is just
Speaker 1: a sort of reflexive anti Trump nonsense you hear from
Speaker 1: time to time. I mean, I've been on this podcast
Speaker 1: many a year, and it's no secret that I have
Speaker 1: different opinions on the man and his character and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. But it doesn't matter in the end.
Speaker 1: What matters are the actions, and what matters are the
Speaker 1: consequences of the actions. And I thought this was just great.
Speaker 1: I mean, the display of American power and precision is
Speaker 1: awe inspiring, you know. And people equate this somehow with
Speaker 1: as though we'd loaded everything up and attacked a Tehran
Speaker 1: daycare center. I mean, this is a very specific application
Speaker 1: of American morals as well as anything else, and that
Speaker 1: appalls people who say, why just you know, Israel can
Speaker 1: have nukes but Iran kent. Yes, that's absolutely true. That's
Speaker 1: absolutely the way it works the country is that it
Speaker 1: is a liberal democracy that grants free rights to all
Speaker 1: sorts of people, regardless.
Speaker 4: Of their ethnicity.
Speaker 1: That is a tech superpower that is remarkable in its ingenuity. Yes,
Speaker 1: those people who pose no threat to the Western civilization,
Speaker 1: they get to have nukes.
Speaker 4: And these guys over.
Speaker 1: Here, a few of whom believe that the twelfth the
Speaker 1: mom is going to clamber out of a well at
Speaker 1: some point and caused the infidels to go up and smoke.
Speaker 4: They do not, I don't know.
Speaker 6: Wrong, it doesn't past the background check. Progressive instinctive, they
Speaker 6: understand this. Israel and Iran both went through a background
Speaker 6: check for these weapons, and Israel passed and Iran failed.
Speaker 1: That's a very good point because somebody who on TikTok
Speaker 1: was saying, so, I don't know why the conservatives are
Speaker 1: so upset, really, I mean, it's not you know, guns
Speaker 1: don't kill people. People kill people, so you know, nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons don't kill people.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know it.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I mean, in a sense that's exactly what
Speaker 1: we're saying, is that these are not the people that
Speaker 1: you want toss in AR fifteen too. So there's that apparently, though.
Speaker 1: I mean the native thing is interesting as well. But
Speaker 1: it's also I think today when we're doing this is
Speaker 1: the seventieth anniversary of America getting involved in the Korean War,
Speaker 1: and I always cast my mind back to that and
Speaker 1: think of the people who were still remembering the bruising
Speaker 1: conflict of World War Two and the thought of getting
Speaker 1: into another and the thought of it being as attracted
Speaker 1: as it was. But yet the only lasting cultural impact
Speaker 1: that it seems to have given us is Mash, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, basically a Vietnam parable. He doesn't occupy the
Speaker 1: same sort of space in the American imagination that Vietnam
Speaker 1: or World War Two is.
Speaker 4: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll give you a couple of theories, partly reflecting
Speaker 5: what my dad used to talk about in the Korean War,
Speaker 5: which he was called up for out of the Navy reserves,
Speaker 5: having fought throughout the entirety of World War Two in
Speaker 5: the Navy, and he stayed in the reserves because a
Speaker 5: lot of people that coming out of World War Two,
Speaker 5: when their formal service ended, you know, it was one
Speaker 5: hundred bucks a month, whatever it paid. And my dad
Speaker 5: was a flyer, so it was a chance for him
Speaker 5: to keep his flying current when he was a person
Speaker 5: with you know, no means at that time, and so
Speaker 5: it was nice to be able to fly on Uncle
Speaker 5: Sam's dime. But he said that when suddenly the war
Speaker 5: started and they called up the reserves to send to Korea,
Speaker 5: a whole lot of the reserves said, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: we didn't think this meant going back to war, right,
Speaker 5: and there was a lot of people trying to get
Speaker 5: out of it and so forth. Anyway, my dad went
Speaker 5: and began in Korea, and I think that you had
Speaker 5: going for them then. Was you hinted to this, James?
Speaker 5: There was the recollection that you know, we did pretty
Speaker 5: well in World War Two. It was long and difficult,
Speaker 5: but we won that, and so we had the track
Speaker 5: record you might say, of winning conflicts, and you know,
Speaker 5: Korea became very unpopular by degrees, to the point where
Speaker 5: I think Truman's approval rating in fifty two, which is
Speaker 5: one reason he didn't stand for reelection, was something you know,
Speaker 5: in the high twenties or something dismal, and I think
Speaker 5: the parallel here.
Speaker 4: It's not perfect, it never is, but.
Speaker 5: You know, there's this lingering unhappiness on all sides about
Speaker 5: how badly things went, you know, fifteen twenty years ago
Speaker 5: in Iraq and Afghanistan. And therefore you saw, you know,
Speaker 5: we talked about this once before a lot of our
Speaker 5: I guess i'll use the term paleocon friends like Dan
Speaker 5: McCarthy and others saying absolutely Trump cannot back Israel and
Speaker 5: get into this war in any fashion because it means
Speaker 5: regime change in twenty years of occupation of Tehran and
Speaker 5: other nonsense like that, I think it's pretty clear that
Speaker 5: Trump has no intention of doing that, although he has
Speaker 5: teased the idea of regime change, which I think is
Speaker 5: a more important question than how bad the damage is
Speaker 5: to Ford out elsewhere. So I mean, I think that's
Speaker 5: I think the pendulum goes back and forth. Right, For
Speaker 5: the First Gulf War in nineteen ninety ninety one, we
Speaker 5: were told that that finally ended the Vietnam syndrome, but
Speaker 5: then the Vietnam syndrome came back ten years later with
Speaker 5: the Iraqi Afghanistan syndrome.
Speaker 4: So you know, here we are.
Speaker 5: I think the lasting effects of this will be good,
Speaker 5: although that you know, depends on events as always.
Speaker 1: Well, with Afghanistan and Iraq, we won. We just hung
Speaker 1: around and did skid things. I mean, we want that
Speaker 1: wasn't a case of protracted a year after year slog
Speaker 1: after slog. Afghanistan was a fairly fairly fast walkover, and Iraq.
Speaker 4: Too as well.
Speaker 1: Of course, the whole pacification and depatification and the rest
Speaker 1: of that stuff's a little bit more complicated with that's
Speaker 1: another podcast, Charles, anything else you want to tell.
Speaker 4: Us before we go out?
Speaker 1: Is there a British equivalent to the Korean experience in
Speaker 1: this century?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 6: The British famously stayed out to Vietnam, which gave British
Speaker 6: people and military personnel and eighties a different view of war.
Speaker 6: But the British have the same political trauma over the
Speaker 6: Second Iraq War that the Americans have, and so they've
Speaker 6: been brought into line.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Well, that is true, but as we know, things change,
Speaker 1: minds are focused elsewhere quickly, and we'll see what the
Speaker 1: rest of the year has to go, he says, obviously
Speaker 1: wrapping things up. We'd like to thank Cozy earth Boy.
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Speaker 1: get people to go over to ricochet dot com and
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Speaker 4: Days on the web.
Speaker 1: Forget Facebook, forget your Twitter, forget your Bumble, forget your
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Speaker 1: right now. But I'm not going to say any of
Speaker 1: that because I'm tired of it. I am not, however,
Speaker 1: tired of talking Steven and Hayward. But it's Steven En
Speaker 1: Hayward and Charlie En Cook. But it's time. But it's
Speaker 1: time to go, and I've said too much. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll see everybody in the comments at
Speaker 1: Ricochet four point zero.
Speaker 4: Bye bye