Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and fame, my pain, the money, my way, whiskey.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all in
Speaker 2: with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy.
Speaker 1: Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the
Speaker 1: International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Speaker 2: Where the laps it up?
Speaker 3: And David, ain't you easy on the should taps?
Speaker 2: Got to give me and let that whiskey blo.
Speaker 4: Welcome everyone to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. We are
Speaker 4: very happy to be here again altogether, Me Lucretia, the
Speaker 4: International Woman of Mystery, with my favorite co hosts also
Speaker 4: my only co host, but they are my favorite, uh,
Speaker 4: Steve Hayward and the media sensation, John.
Speaker 3: You, my media sensation.
Speaker 2: Well look, right.
Speaker 4: Time I turned around your you're somewhere John, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: But look forget about all the Fox News shows he does.
Speaker 1: He made the big time this week Steve Bannon's.
Speaker 2: War Room Whoop, Whoop.
Speaker 3: I only went on because Governor Newsom had declared it's
Speaker 3: safe for America.
Speaker 2: Well we'll come to that maybe.
Speaker 4: Are you always listen to what govern governor.
Speaker 3: Actually wanted to go find I wanted to find out
Speaker 3: were all the hubbo bus, because I assume that's where
Speaker 3: Lucretia gets all our news from. But I was disappointed.
Speaker 4: I'm not a video watcher. If I can't read it,
Speaker 4: I make exceptions, quite frankly, John, only for you. That
Speaker 4: is a actually a subject of some some difficulty in
Speaker 4: the in the Lucretia household, because I want to read
Speaker 4: and mister Lucretia wants to watch videos like that all day.
Speaker 4: We are different kinds of learners, shall we say, And
Speaker 4: so it's it's it's always been a point of contention.
Speaker 4: But I actually listened. I did it when he wasn't
Speaker 4: in the room, so he wouldn't know. Listen to you
Speaker 4: on Rumble on war the war room, the war room.
Speaker 4: Isn't that where that little hottie Natalie Winters isn't she
Speaker 4: a doesn't she work for Bannon?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's that or something. I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I know you know I'm talking about the wind they
Speaker 4: consider inappropriately dressed, right, yeah, John, shaking his head. No
Speaker 4: she's not, No, she's not.
Speaker 5: I had no idea about any of this, realized, Lucretia,
Speaker 5: you have just confessed to a live audience, live audience,
Speaker 5: that you only have eyes for you for you.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I couldn't help it, but.
Speaker 4: I'm always interested in what John has to say, and
Speaker 4: lately I can read it for sure.
Speaker 1: But since since you're the host, I get to interrupt
Speaker 1: this episode and listeners want to know, Lucretia if your
Speaker 1: support for Trump is still unwavering in light of a
Speaker 1: two tariff on Scotch whiskey, which hits close to the
Speaker 1: bone for the show. I mean, I'm down here on
Speaker 1: my last half Inchipny.
Speaker 4: Because you're more on Steve. Look, first of all, who
Speaker 4: actually thinks that this terriff war is going to go
Speaker 4: on for any length of time, years or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Everybody knows that, you know, Trump is going to figure
Speaker 4: out how to end it and get them to do
Speaker 4: exactly what he wanted from the beginning. So ay, I'm
Speaker 4: not worried about that, and be unlike you, I probably
Speaker 4: have thirty bottles of Scotch in my house. Yeah, at
Speaker 4: least twenty of which are excellent bottles, and I could
Speaker 4: keep drinking it from now until doomsday before I ran out.
Speaker 2: So you're a Scotch prepper, then, is that what you're
Speaker 2: telling us?
Speaker 4: Doesn't everybody have a full wine cellar and a full
Speaker 4: liquor cabinet of bourbon and Scotch, and then you know
Speaker 4: that other stuff that people drink. You don't really quite
Speaker 4: understand why run vodka things like that. I mean, I
Speaker 4: have an entire break front of building alcohol. I don't
Speaker 4: even understand this whole idea about worrying about tariffs. I mean,
Speaker 4: if my mask oponent, my Italian flower gets more expensive.
Speaker 3: But I was hoping this would be a buying opportunity
Speaker 3: because the throat of the tarts are going to drive
Speaker 3: all the fake people out of the market, and people
Speaker 3: with some money and true discretion can now enter and
Speaker 3: pick up the bargains.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't set the liquor store, Steve.
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't been for a while.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have my eye on this ninety seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars bottle of Highland Park that set. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it's a McCallan that's at a very fine liquor store
Speaker 1: near me.
Speaker 2: But I'm saving up for that. And now it's kind
Speaker 2: of like, you know, gonna be three hundred thousand dollars with.
Speaker 3: No Steve, Steve, it doesn't apply to goods already here, Steve,
Speaker 3: Now see what I'm talking about. This is exactly a lot.
Speaker 2: When I enter the market, it starts, no, that is
Speaker 2: that is mistake.
Speaker 1: And John, you know you don't you know the economic
Speaker 1: principle of replacement costs.
Speaker 2: The liquor store is gonna they use it. Never Mind,
Speaker 2: I hope never mind.
Speaker 4: Let's just say that I'm not worried. You're not worried
Speaker 4: Trump and I support Elon in case you know all
Speaker 4: of those listeners out there who gave me such a
Speaker 4: hard time, including YouTube, by the way, for buying the Tesla.
Speaker 4: I love my Tesla. I love everything about my Tesla.
Speaker 4: It is the fastest car I have ever driven. It
Speaker 4: is the most fun car I've ever driven. And it
Speaker 4: makes me happy every day to drive on to campus
Speaker 4: and look at all the sneers I get from people
Speaker 4: because I am driving at Tesla.
Speaker 2: And it's computer.
Speaker 4: It is a computer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's most subsidized car you've ever bought.
Speaker 2: Well, no, not mine.
Speaker 4: You have to you have to buy the low end
Speaker 4: ones for Tesla's to be subsidized. I didn't get a
Speaker 4: single penny of subsidies subsidies for my my car. I
Speaker 4: did for my Tesla solar system. So our energy system
Speaker 4: in power Wall, and so I got some serious tax
Speaker 4: subsidies for that, and which is why it was purchased
Speaker 4: in the first place. But it's wonderful.
Speaker 2: You were an early adopter all the way around.
Speaker 1: You were an early adopter of Trump back in twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen, and an early adopter of Tesla.
Speaker 2: Before it was cool.
Speaker 4: So yeah, okay cool, Well, well before it was cool
Speaker 4: in the circles I run in.
Speaker 2: That's my me.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, I mean I took a lot of heat
Speaker 4: across the board from of course, but I also have Starlink,
Speaker 4: so I don't know what else I can buy from
Speaker 4: Elon to show my support. I tried to talk mister
Speaker 4: Lucretian too, buying Tesla stock to show support, but he
Speaker 4: says that's not how we do investments in the Lucretia
Speaker 4: households whatever.
Speaker 3: Okay, enough of that says in the Lucretian house was
Speaker 3: just Ammo makers, McDonald's and boos stocks. Rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's alcohol, it's back on firearms or it's not
Speaker 1: a government bureau.
Speaker 2: It's a way of life. Yeah.
Speaker 4: You remember there's that store up in in Flagstaff, Arizona,
Speaker 4: that is a drive through liquor and gun store. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: it's so awesome. It's so awesome. And this really beautiful
Speaker 4: bluep uh Doberman pincher that kind of just sits and
Speaker 4: watches everything.
Speaker 2: That do they have a six pack and six shooter special?
Speaker 4: No, they they sell real stuff there. They still really
Speaker 4: I mean you you can go and buy a good
Speaker 4: bottle of bourbon and hollow point, you know. Okay, So anyway,
Speaker 4: all right, enough of that. What we do have to
Speaker 4: give just one second to Schumer caving and have a
Speaker 4: little bit of uh chadam freud about that one, because oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: they're going to stand up to Trump and how long
Speaker 4: did it take? And why do you suppose Schumer caved?
Speaker 2: Guys, you want me to go, all right, I'm happy to.
Speaker 4: But you should probably tell what I'm talking about. Nowadays,
Speaker 4: news travel so fast eve that we can't that we
Speaker 4: can't assume that everybody knows what we're talking about, this
Speaker 4: being on something else by the time this comes out tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, that's uh, oh, the great Senator John Kennedy
Speaker 1: of Louisiana said, uh, what did he say? Schumer doesn't
Speaker 1: make the same mistake twice, He usually makes the same
Speaker 1: mistake five or six times. Look yeah, for people who
Speaker 1: didn't hear I'm usually chiding you about this is uh. First,
Speaker 1: the Senate Democrats said they were going to block the
Speaker 1: continuing Resolution that they passed the House, which is not
Speaker 1: It's kind of a nothing burger, except the House did
Speaker 1: stick in some things that point the error in the
Speaker 1: right direction.
Speaker 2: Not huge.
Speaker 1: But but the Democrats said they just want to throw
Speaker 1: they want to slow Trump down, so let's shut down
Speaker 1: the government. And I raised the point on Twitter, would
Speaker 1: you like to be among the hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: employees told to stay home that are furloughed, that you
Speaker 1: are not essentral when Doge is watching.
Speaker 2: All of this. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think the terror, the lemma that occurred Democrats was
Speaker 1: oh my god, it was shut down to government. We
Speaker 1: just made Elon Musk's job a whole lot easier than
Speaker 1: They're terrified of that, and they don't want to be
Speaker 1: blamed for government shutdown. I think I said it here,
Speaker 1: I said it somewhere recently that the real sign of
Speaker 1: political realignment or the tectonic place shifting. I think I
Speaker 1: said here last week is when you made the other
Speaker 1: party move your direction and I thought, oh, Democrats are
Speaker 1: going to take the most self defeating move of Republicans,
Speaker 1: which is a government shutdown, and Schumer was going to
Speaker 1: get blamed for it. Republicans were already out with the
Speaker 1: message that it was going to be Schumer's shut down,
Speaker 1: which is great alliteration, and so he caved. And now
Speaker 1: the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves supposedly at a caucus
Speaker 1: meeting Wednesday or Thursday. You could hear them yelling at
Speaker 1: each other outside in the hallway, so it's lovely to watch.
Speaker 1: And the continuing Resolution passed late Friday afternoon. And I
Speaker 1: don't know the details, life is too short, but I
Speaker 1: do gather that our team has stuck in some spending cuts,
Speaker 1: some spending increases in the right places, and some other
Speaker 1: conditions that, as I say, represent a sign that finally
Speaker 1: Republicans know how to play this game.
Speaker 4: So there they did first step.
Speaker 3: What do you think, John, Well, One thing I think
Speaker 3: is interesting is that I haven't seen anyone really comment
Speaker 3: on it yet, is this might actually help the Doge
Speaker 3: Musk effort a great deal, because remember the fight over
Speaker 3: impoundment that we talked about two weeks ago or last
Speaker 3: week depends exactly on how an appropriation is written. Remember,
Speaker 3: in the fact the time of the founding Congress would
Speaker 3: just say the president can spend up to one million
Speaker 3: dollars on these things. So it was a ceiling, and
Speaker 3: so presidents of course would say, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: spend five hundred thousand and save them money. So Congress,
Speaker 3: you know, the modern Congress tries to get around that
Speaker 3: by saying, we're gonna Setspacific targets and then we're going
Speaker 3: to issue these committee reports and statues have long lists
Speaker 3: of what you have to spend it on. Continued resolution
Speaker 3: doesn't have that. Continued resolution is like a founding era
Speaker 3: spending statue just says, you know, the Commerce Department will
Speaker 3: get two billion dollars to spend consistent with last year's
Speaker 3: you know, appropriation. This actually might be the opening of
Speaker 3: the door that now dose really needs to give legitimacy
Speaker 3: and quell these legal doubts about all these spending cuts,
Speaker 3: and then they can say in court, Congress knew what
Speaker 3: we're doing. They gave us this ceiling. They didn't specify
Speaker 3: we had to spend on any specific program, So why
Speaker 3: aren't we allowed to do this? So this, This might
Speaker 3: accelerate the Dosh efficiency drive now rather than retard it.
Speaker 4: So just out of curiosity, you're going to kill me
Speaker 4: for this, Steve, and he's probably going to make me
Speaker 4: cut this from the Oh. But what you bring up is,
Speaker 4: you know, we're going to be discussing different aspects of
Speaker 4: the the universal injunction by these ridiculous district court judges
Speaker 4: and things that the a little bit of a discussion
Speaker 4: about what you think is an attempt by the Trump
Speaker 4: administration to get certain things prepared as good, good facts
Speaker 4: for good cases to go before the Supreme Court to
Speaker 4: challenge say Humphreys Executor and some other things. My question
Speaker 4: to you what you mentioned is about committees writing these
Speaker 4: reports and then going even so far as to writing
Speaker 4: the reports and then if they don't like the way
Speaker 4: that the agency was spending the money, going back and
Speaker 4: you know, making changes to it after the fact, after
Speaker 4: the legislation has been passed, otherwise known as the legislative
Speaker 4: veto at the committee level. Even though in I ins
Speaker 4: versus Chada in nineteen eighty three, the Supreme Court said
Speaker 4: that the legislative veto is unconstitutional. Congress engages in it
Speaker 4: all the time is there. Do you think a reason
Speaker 4: in all of this for that to be re challenged
Speaker 4: and have the Supreme Court say, if it was good
Speaker 4: enough that we could tell Congress that can't do it,
Speaker 4: we can certainly tell the committees they can't do it
Speaker 4: now that we have broken the iron triangle between committees,
Speaker 4: congressional committees, lobbyists and agencies, you know, as political scientists
Speaker 4: learn about those things. Are you following anything I'm trying
Speaker 4: to ask you, John.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's a shot issue because some
Speaker 3: of the statutes, you know, specify what should be spent
Speaker 3: and then in the committee reports. You're quite right under
Speaker 3: chata they have no legal authority because they're never passed
Speaker 3: as part of a statute by both houses and signed
Speaker 3: by the President. But agencies pay a lot of attention
Speaker 3: to them, right because they don't want to be on
Speaker 3: the bad side of the oversight committee for their agency.
Speaker 3: So I think you're quite right that what DOSE is doing,
Speaker 3: if it really takes advantage of the cr the way
Speaker 3: I'm describing that, will continue to undercut the ability of
Speaker 3: committees to boss around these agencies unless still willing to
Speaker 3: put what they want in statutes where people vote on them,
Speaker 3: and we know what they're doing. So I don't know
Speaker 3: whether it would cause the Supreme Court to have to
Speaker 3: get involved, though, because I think Chada is the Other
Speaker 3: interesting thing about Chada and the legislative veto is that
Speaker 3: even though they're struck down in Shada, apparently Congress keeps
Speaker 3: adding him to the law anyway. They keep sticking him
Speaker 3: into new laws all the time.
Speaker 4: Is there what's different? Is it fair for me to
Speaker 4: say what's different here is you've actually changed the incentives
Speaker 4: for at least one party in the whole dynamic and
Speaker 4: the whole equation. You've changed the incentives for them not
Speaker 4: to spend more money on initiatives that please the three
Speaker 4: people in that that incessant loop. Because of those, you've
Speaker 4: actually got the executive branch saying we want control over
Speaker 4: spending power again, and we're not conceding that control to
Speaker 4: agencies which may or may not be as I independent
Speaker 4: and Clause I blah blah blah. So that that that's
Speaker 4: what I took away from what your discussion of the
Speaker 4: continuing resolution, not just that the mechanism itself has made
Speaker 4: it more difficult for agencies and committees to have that
Speaker 4: that incestuous relationship, but it's it's created the possibility in
Speaker 4: a mechanic way for that for for someone to step
Speaker 4: in and destroy that relationship in ways that never happened before. Right,
Speaker 4: does that There's an.
Speaker 3: Insane I think with I think with independent agencies, with Trump,
Speaker 3: I mean there's another that's a I think separate question,
Speaker 3: but it does involve spending, which is, suppose Congress gives
Speaker 3: SCC one hundred million dollars and the FCC, because it's
Speaker 3: organized to be independent of the present, just wants to
Speaker 3: spend all the money and won't listen to omb about it,
Speaker 3: won't listen to the White House about cutting spending or employees.
Speaker 3: So a different track, you know, which actually might be
Speaker 3: the first one to get the Supreme Court of Cases, is,
Speaker 3: you know, can the president fire the members of the independent
Speaker 3: committee independent commissions and direct them what to do? And
Speaker 3: I think that solves the spending issue there. Okay, I really.
Speaker 4: Went too much into the weeds, and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 4: gonna before Steve fires me from being the host today,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna move on to discuss I actually think our
Speaker 4: knowing what I see our listeners comment on they'll be
Speaker 4: very interested in that whole discussion because they bring it
Speaker 4: up frequently. But we'll move on, and I want to
Speaker 4: make one quick comment and ask for one quick comment
Speaker 4: from you guys about the imploding Democrats imploding because they
Speaker 4: have no message, they have no idea how to resist Trump.
Speaker 4: They're all either dying or resigning.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's I know.
Speaker 3: Kind of morbid.
Speaker 4: I don't really mean it to be that way. I
Speaker 4: knew nothing about the guy who replays Sheila Jackson Lee.
Speaker 4: I can't say that I cried big tears when she died.
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about the guy who replaced from Houston.
Speaker 4: But I despised rage Rahalva for a whole variety of reasons,
Speaker 4: not the least of which was the way he went
Speaker 4: after Steve.
Speaker 3: At one point he went after Steve.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Ago, Oh well, so Ruy Grialva, how are
Speaker 1: you saying his name? He sent letters to I think
Speaker 1: five or six universities about particular people, demanding to know
Speaker 1: if we were on the.
Speaker 2: We're in the pay of the Cooke Foundation. So it
Speaker 2: was me.
Speaker 1: It was Roger Pielke, junior at the University of Colorado.
Speaker 1: Me and Pepperdine at that time ten years ago. David
Speaker 1: Legatis at the University of Delaware here for other people,
Speaker 1: maybe J Curry at Georgia Tech, I think still at
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 2: And the answer in every case was no.
Speaker 3: But I'm so disappointed. I would have respected you more
Speaker 3: if you were in the pay of the Coke brother
Speaker 3: I met.
Speaker 2: A couple of small grants from them way back.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen nineties, but it never at a I.
Speaker 1: And but the problem was is that by the way,
Speaker 1: he was a ranking member on some committee.
Speaker 2: He wasn't even a chairman. He had no authority to
Speaker 2: give us us peanut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh it uh at Pepperdine, they're very nice
Speaker 1: people there.
Speaker 2: Threw them into a tizzy because you know, they thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god.
Speaker 1: And the Malibu Times, the local paper there, they had
Speaker 1: a front page story that said Pepperdine professor investigated.
Speaker 3: I called up reporter never next to the youth surfboard ads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The reporter never called me normally competent reporting as you'd
Speaker 1: call the person my picture, but it never called me
Speaker 1: for a comment or quote or anything. And so I
Speaker 1: called the lady up and said so, first of all,
Speaker 1: you realize there's a ranking member. There's no investigation here.
Speaker 1: It's just a dumb ass back bench congressman sending a
Speaker 1: letter and you're doing that. I really I complained to
Speaker 1: the editor and I think I am embarrassed him, and
Speaker 1: the university said, oh, we like to get along with
Speaker 1: the paper. I'm sure that's true, but I thought it
Speaker 1: was anyway and nothing. Of course, nothing happened. All it
Speaker 1: was ludicrous.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, he's terrible in a lot of ways, right,
Speaker 4: But but I've ever since that episode, Steve, he's been
Speaker 4: on my list. So yeah, but it's not just Gene
Speaker 4: what's her name from New Hampshire has decided, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, so Democrats are seeing the writing on the wall.
Speaker 4: At least in twenty twenty six. The polls show that
Speaker 4: they're really in trouble. And I think we don't have
Speaker 4: to go into that. I think we just have to
Speaker 4: have a moment of silence ingratitude for winning, winning, winning,
Speaker 4: before we go on to discuss I hope you're gonna.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think most of our listeners are subscribing
Speaker 4: to your substack, Steve, but you should link to your
Speaker 4: article anyway about Trump and Putin and I don't know
Speaker 4: something about the Soviet Union, this or that John wants
Speaker 4: to discuss it.
Speaker 2: Did you want to be on my article? What's on
Speaker 2: John's mind? That's you're just supposed to ask, Lucretia, tell what's.
Speaker 4: On your mind about Steve's article?
Speaker 3: And I mean, Steve actually wants everyone to talk about
Speaker 3: That's why I put it, put it out in public,
Speaker 3: and his massive sub stack with the huge subscriber base.
Speaker 2: Not really, Uh, go ahead, I.
Speaker 3: Don't want to. I don't want to unfairly summarize your article,
Speaker 3: but let me try to describe for people who haven't
Speaker 3: read it yet. And it's not very long, and it's
Speaker 3: very to the point. And Steve makes the argument that
Speaker 3: just like we're seeing this renewed assault on progressivism domestically,
Speaker 3: which we associate with Wicher Wilson in the administrative state,
Speaker 3: we are also witnessing an assault on Wilsonian progressivism globally,
Speaker 3: not not I'm sorry, not terms of globally, in terms
Speaker 3: of foreign affairs. And that's actually what most people think
Speaker 3: of when they hear Wilsonianism, right. They think of the
Speaker 3: idea that moral value should guide our foreign policy, not realism.
Speaker 4: Democracy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, open covenants openly arrived at international organizations like the
Speaker 3: League of Nations banning the banning all war and the
Speaker 3: nations of the world engaging in collective self defense.
Speaker 2: So is that fair, Steve Well, yeah, that's part one.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a two part series. But look at
Speaker 1: what I was doing, was I was pushing back against
Speaker 1: the critics of Trump saying that his handling of Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Was another Munich.
Speaker 1: You know, Munich nineteen thirty eight, you know, and the
Speaker 1: fact that Advance gave his speech in Munich. And what
Speaker 1: I did is I commented he saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: somebody who disagreed with that was the greatest critic of
Speaker 1: Munich thirty eight, and that was Winston Churchill, who really
Speaker 1: said implicitly Woodrow Wilson was a disaster and we should
Speaker 1: have stayed.
Speaker 2: Out of World War One.
Speaker 1: And I think that Trump is working on that line.
Speaker 1: The sequel is when I said, but there is another
Speaker 1: side of the street. And that's I thought, upset you
Speaker 1: because I championed your sparring partner, the late Angelo Codevilla.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then you said that it has been a
Speaker 3: mistake to follow with Sonianism. That was Sonium has been
Speaker 3: the dominant approach of our foreign policy ever since, and
Speaker 3: it's been a terrible mistake. Led us do these terrible
Speaker 3: disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and we're finally coming to
Speaker 3: our senses. That'd be fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so, but but well sorry, go ahead, but
Speaker 1: well Part two took the other side of the street,
Speaker 1: so to speak, because I was actually, you know, I
Speaker 1: was kind of pushing back a little on the Cretia,
Speaker 1: although it was maybe not obvious in the peace, and
Speaker 1: she found it boring, which means I succeeded in escaping
Speaker 1: her steely gaze. Now, look, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: people like Tucker Carlson, this a very interesting guy named
Speaker 1: Michael Millerman, who I respect a lot.
Speaker 2: But they've been saying Putin's not such.
Speaker 1: Such a bad guy, and really Russia's territorial claims on
Speaker 1: parts of Ukraine have some historical legitimacy. There's some truth
Speaker 1: in that latter part, I think. But what I decided
Speaker 1: to do was saying, let's not go down that road.
Speaker 1: I think that's a mistake. I think Putin is a
Speaker 1: thug and not to be trusted. That doesn't mean Trump
Speaker 1: is not doing the right thing and what he's trying
Speaker 1: to do, and that we shouldn't deal with Putin.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, let's be clear on what we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: But then even more so, since I think Lucretia is
Speaker 1: completely contemptuous of Ukraine. I quoted our late friend Angelo Codevilla,
Speaker 1: who said it surprised me. He said that Ukraine's independence
Speaker 1: and i'll quote him here is very much a US interest,
Speaker 1: but it is beyond our capacity to secure.
Speaker 2: And then his book, his.
Speaker 1: Last book, published posthumously, said here's how John Quincy Adams
Speaker 1: thought about these questions two hundred years ago, and what
Speaker 1: he thought then is just as valid today. And by
Speaker 1: the way, that book, as I understand it, was commissioned
Speaker 1: by the first Trump administration saying, would you send us
Speaker 1: some extended thought to give some coherence on an America
Speaker 1: first foreign policy? And this book is what Angelo came
Speaker 1: up with, and I actually think to a large extent
Speaker 1: it explains the deep background of what Trump is trying
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: So that's all.
Speaker 1: The first piece was just to add a second dimension
Speaker 1: of things, and I think it.
Speaker 2: Bothered you, So yeah, I didn't like it at all.
Speaker 2: I bothered you, of course, you didn't.
Speaker 3: Well, So one thing I loved Angelo, and you know,
Speaker 3: I got to say in the summers at the Claremont
Speaker 3: Institute fellowship programs usually Angelo and I would have a
Speaker 3: debate for the fellows every summer because I you know,
Speaker 3: I'm on the original, original gangster neocon right, I'm og
Speaker 3: n C and Angelo. I don't know what Angelo is,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't really fit neatly into any of the
Speaker 3: traditional boxes about American formulations. But if I could summarize
Speaker 3: what I think his view is, and I think you
Speaker 3: adopt his view, but I think it is mistaken, is
Speaker 3: that he thinks that a country's form policy is really
Speaker 3: driven by the nature of its domestic political regime. He
Speaker 3: sees them as a continuum different And this goes back
Speaker 3: to I mean, if you want to again, this goes
Speaker 3: back to people who debate the right the Peloponnesian were right.
Speaker 3: It was Sparta versus Athens. Was it in their nature?
Speaker 3: It was in the nature of Athens to be expansionist
Speaker 3: and aggressive because of the nature of commercial what we
Speaker 3: would call today a sort of commercial democracy or whatever.
Speaker 3: And where the Spartans who were right that tyranny. As
Speaker 3: far as I can tell built on you know, slaveocracy
Speaker 3: by nature passive and peace loving, which is not actually
Speaker 3: how I would describe, for example, our version of the Confederacy.
Speaker 3: But so Angelo thinks that, uh, you know, the domestic
Speaker 3: regime and the international foreign policy cannot be detached. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure that's correct. Most I think international relations scholars
Speaker 3: don't think that's true. You know, I was saying last time,
Speaker 3: there's a great philosopher, theorist of international relations, Michael Waltz,
Speaker 3: who might I'm sorry, Ken Waltz, who might have been
Speaker 3: one of the greatest or of the great and he
Speaker 3: wrote a growth book called The Man State and War,
Speaker 3: and he said, if you break down all the complaints
Speaker 3: about why there's war, some people say has to do
Speaker 3: with man. Right, the very same argument Angela is making
Speaker 3: about regimes could be made about mankind. You could just
Speaker 3: say men are always gonna go into war because it's
Speaker 3: their nature. Or then people say, oh, well, we love men.
Speaker 3: It could be the states, right, it could be because
Speaker 3: you know, this is a version of the Bush administration theory. Actually,
Speaker 3: if we could just turn everyone into democracies, then they
Speaker 3: won't be so warlike. But Waltz's argument that it's the
Speaker 3: nature of the system that causes war because we're we
Speaker 3: live in an anarchy. We live in a system of
Speaker 3: very national anarchy where countries can't trust each other and
Speaker 3: they always have to in the end look out for
Speaker 3: themselves for their own security. That's what breeds essentially instability
Speaker 3: and war. It doesn't have to do with domestic regimes
Speaker 3: the way Angelo thinks, but I you know, Angelo is
Speaker 3: coming from this, you know this, reading a few cities.
Speaker 3: This one. My second problem is that I don't think
Speaker 3: Wilsonianism has really governed our foreign policy clearly for all
Speaker 3: that long. I think America has been quite realist quite
Speaker 3: often throughout our history, particularly the twentieth and twenty first century,
Speaker 3: and we're not going around to Africa and Latin America
Speaker 3: is saving all the people there, which I would think
Speaker 3: Willsonian Wilsonians was, I think, how many lives could we save?
Speaker 3: How many lives can we improve with the great moral
Speaker 3: force and military? The United States, I mean maybe Clinton
Speaker 3: for a few years tried it, but I think actually
Speaker 3: the United States had been pretty coldly realist in the
Speaker 3: way it's conducted itself since I think World War One,
Speaker 3: World War two, and the Cold War were pretty realist enterprises.
Speaker 3: So I don't think there's this wilsonianism to go abroad
Speaker 3: to slay Steve to quote your quote of Angelo's quote
Speaker 3: of John Quincy Adams, who's.
Speaker 1: Being naw okay, that's all I will say.
Speaker 4: I have a more important point, But I want to
Speaker 4: go back to something John said really quickly, and that is,
Speaker 4: first of all, you can't. I don't think you can
Speaker 4: make a continuum from the time of Woodrow Wilson to
Speaker 4: where we are today and say that there's somehow just
Speaker 4: been nothing but realist foreign policy. What I would do
Speaker 4: is look at recent foreign policy, because that's all that
Speaker 4: really matters. And I don't see that as being Wilsonian
Speaker 4: in the way you describe it, because I think, like
Speaker 4: everything else about progressivism, Wilsonian, progressive international foreign policy, whatever
Speaker 4: you want to call it, has also morphed into I
Speaker 4: find it. The easiest way to describe it is it's
Speaker 4: a secular religion where the Jake Sullivans of the world
Speaker 4: just want to feel guilty about first world prosperity, first
Speaker 4: world success, and they want to punish others for they
Speaker 4: want to punish us. I guess is the right way
Speaker 4: to put it, but not themselves necessarily, because they want
Speaker 4: to be above it all. We need to be punished,
Speaker 4: and we need to be much more like the third world.
Speaker 4: Rather than us going to help the third world, Let's
Speaker 4: just make America more like the third world, which is why,
Speaker 4: of course they opened up the borders and let in
Speaker 4: every third world excuse the expression x whole country, refugees, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 4: into the United States, so that we could become like
Speaker 4: Haiti and like Venezuela and like all those other god
Speaker 4: forsaken places. That way, we don't have to feel guilty
Speaker 4: about enjoying our success. And of course it's not them,
Speaker 4: it's it's always you know, the poor, middle, lower class
Speaker 4: Americans in Ohio that have to suffer this. That's what
Speaker 4: I think explains foreign policy for the last twenty years,
Speaker 4: especially under Obama, and is in his ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Take over this. Yeah, but Lucretia, don't leave out George W. Book.
Speaker 1: I mean, remember that second dress, well, that declaration and
Speaker 1: the second Inaugural Address that it is now that what
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing, it is now.
Speaker 2: The mission the United States and the tyranny.
Speaker 1: In the world and we want to spread democracy and
Speaker 1: freedom to the whole world. That speech, I'm sure was
Speaker 1: written for him by the late Michael Gerson, who I
Speaker 1: couldn't stand for his sanctimonious never mind, I'll just stop
Speaker 1: there because he has passed away. But that I can't
Speaker 1: imagine a more unconservative thought. And then, John, look, we
Speaker 1: don't have to.
Speaker 3: Agree that that speech went too far.
Speaker 1: In Oh, by God and by the way, to their credit,
Speaker 1: National Review, and I think it was where Meshperneuru with
Speaker 1: the byline said that was insane at the time. So
Speaker 1: you know, for all the shade that some people throw
Speaker 1: at National Review, I'll put it that way. Look, John,
Speaker 1: we can argue a long time and it would take
Speaker 1: the whole show and be on. I don't want to
Speaker 1: about exactly how you do the spectrum of realism to
Speaker 1: Willsonian internationalism and various places at times the timeline well,
Speaker 1: but I want to mention one fact, which is why
Speaker 1: I'm right, which is a seven hundred million dollar embassy
Speaker 1: compound in Kabul that was part of our State Department's.
Speaker 2: Design for what we should do after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: I think our embassy compound in Bagda is one point
Speaker 1: one billion dollars. That's more than just the extravagance of
Speaker 1: thinking there's no money is no object. But it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear to me that when the State Department and our
Speaker 1: foreign policy planners sign off on something that extravagant, it
Speaker 1: shows that they had no intention of really leaving Afghanistan
Speaker 1: or standing up a stable regime of whatever kind that
Speaker 1: they intended. That their view was that place could not
Speaker 1: exist without our active and close supervision and a lot
Speaker 1: of our money.
Speaker 2: And that's it.
Speaker 4: Why do they care about that place and say not?
Speaker 4: You know, all over the world, Christians are being massacred,
Speaker 4: Wigers are being massacred. Why do we care about Taboul?
Speaker 4: Why do we care about any of those places? We
Speaker 4: don't care about Syria now anymore, we don't care about Nigeria,
Speaker 4: We don't care about all of those places that are
Speaker 4: they really are you know, just oh Westerners about Palestine
Speaker 4: and it becomes Palestine.
Speaker 1: Well, look, the reason there is because their budget isn't
Speaker 1: big enough, or they wouldn't care about.
Speaker 2: Every one of those places. No, I think that's true.
Speaker 2: I do think that's true. By the way, why do
Speaker 2: you care about Palestine for the same reason.
Speaker 1: It's because you have a loud and active political lobby domestically.
Speaker 2: You talk about John.
Speaker 4: Why, That's what I'm trying to get at. You guys
Speaker 4: are missing the point. Palestine what a joke, The fact
Speaker 4: that that that anybody takes Palestine seriously. It's a manufactured
Speaker 4: crisis to feed their secularized guilt that they love to
Speaker 4: wallow in, because guilt is in fact the greatest self
Speaker 4: indulgent human emotion there is.
Speaker 1: Right, But the New York Times is going to talk
Speaker 1: about it every day, and that's what the State Department loves,
Speaker 1: and they feed off of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But again, why, I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying what they do, That's what they do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a good enough psychologist to tell
Speaker 1: you why. We'll have to ask John's mom for help
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: She probably pays by the hour. But I just want
Speaker 3: to point I wasn't making the claim that the United
Speaker 3: States has always pursued realism. I think Israel is a
Speaker 3: good example. It's not necessarily the case. Israel is the
Speaker 3: right if you are being really cold about it, whether
Speaker 3: Israel is the country we would want to support, or
Speaker 3: we'd even spend a lot of time on the Middle
Speaker 3: East now that where energy is self sufficient, but we
Speaker 3: still do and I'm glad we support Israel and it's
Speaker 3: one of our closest allies. But I think it is
Speaker 3: because of that, is because of a Wilsonian instinct. I think,
Speaker 3: because we do love their country and the democracy and
Speaker 3: the economy that they've built, and we you know, because
Speaker 3: it's the Holy Land. That shouldn't that should not matter
Speaker 3: to a realist.
Speaker 4: Right, John, When I was back many thousands of years ago,
Speaker 4: when I was an undergraduate in my National Security studies
Speaker 4: course was taught by a retired admiral and I remember,
Speaker 4: and you know, he claimed to be at least a Republican.
Speaker 4: He was probably very much a Rhino. But anyway, and
Speaker 4: I remember him saying, and being so confused about it
Speaker 4: at the time, what why is it that Republicans have
Speaker 4: this obsession about Israel? What do we get from Israel?
Speaker 4: We don't give a damn about oranges and that's all
Speaker 4: they have to offer. I just had anecdote.
Speaker 1: Well, it's actually I heard that's an old one, But John,
Speaker 1: I mean, we did treat Israel with indifferent But I've
Speaker 1: also I heard that from a lot of friends of
Speaker 1: mine skeptical about our ties to Israel over the years,
Speaker 1: but we were indifferent to Israel in the forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: and sometimes even hostile through the sixties, right, right, And
Speaker 1: I mean, I think John, it's not will Sony internationalism
Speaker 1: that weds us to Israel.
Speaker 2: It's we have slowly woken up to.
Speaker 1: The fact that they are an outpost of Western civilization
Speaker 1: in a place that needs it the most.
Speaker 2: I think it's that's my view, right.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, that's not realism, right, That's not the
Speaker 3: cold calculation of what's in our national security interests. It's
Speaker 3: that's a cause, which is fine. I'm glad we do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want our nation to be coldly realist,
Speaker 3: but I think it is way more realist than people
Speaker 3: give it. I mean, that's what people accuse the United
Speaker 3: States of all the time, and clearly that we are,
Speaker 3: you know we are. The United States does pursue with
Speaker 3: self interest pretty vigorously, But we use their rhetoric of
Speaker 3: Wilson to palliate is around the world.
Speaker 4: Isn't it possible to use the rhetoric of our exceptionalism
Speaker 4: and that in so far as our founding principles are
Speaker 4: built upon a fundamental view of human nature, which applies,
Speaker 4: in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to all men at
Speaker 4: all times, that there is a certain obligation within limits,
Speaker 4: within prudential limits, John Uh, whatever that means, to recognize
Speaker 4: those countries and those peoples who are pursuing the same,
Speaker 4: the same set of principles roughly defined. I think that
Speaker 4: that's a fair thing, and that doesn't necessarily fly in
Speaker 4: the face of realism, because those people tend to be
Speaker 4: allies as opposed to enemies, and reliable allies in many cases,
Speaker 4: as opposed to enemies, at least until Europe became what
Speaker 4: Europe is now, and we don't we consider them what
Speaker 4: not allies anymore. And I won't go there. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: move on. So, John, you have been in fact the media, Darling.
Speaker 4: I'm seeing you everywhere and I'm loving it because it's
Speaker 4: it's a very happy thing for me to turn on
Speaker 4: the radio Fox News on my radio, or turn on
Speaker 4: the TV, or go to look up an article about
Speaker 4: something Steve sends me and what do I see your
Speaker 4: face talking about it? Oh, it's lovely. I love it.
Speaker 4: But anyway, you have been busy this week. Tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit about what you talked about on your
Speaker 4: show with John at excuse me, with Steve Bannon is
Speaker 4: called war Room.
Speaker 3: War Room. Yeah, I mean, isn't it fair to say
Speaker 3: that's like the leading mega podcast in the country.
Speaker 4: I never saw it before.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean I can't. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know in terms of numbers, but
Speaker 3: in terms of influence, it's constantly being quoted what Bannon
Speaker 3: said this. Bannon said that on war Rooms. I mean,
Speaker 3: he drives the mainstream media crazy that show.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I only broke down and said yes when I
Speaker 3: saw that. You know, the Governor Newsom had had Bannon on.
Speaker 2: His show, right, I know, yeah.
Speaker 3: Which is also interesting to talk about what the Newsom
Speaker 3: has been saying and trying to do.
Speaker 2: But no, I thought, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought the show had this reputation for being bruskin combative.
Speaker 3: But actually we got into a pretty good discussion of
Speaker 3: Article two of the Constitution and the presidency and the
Speaker 3: lawsuits been filed against President Trump's various executive orders and
Speaker 3: what I thought was going to happen. Bannon did not
Speaker 3: call for the impeachment of Amy Cony, Barrett or any
Speaker 3: other judges, and I think we call me discussed how
Speaker 3: President Trump was setting up these test cases to challenge
Speaker 3: these Watergate post Watergate laws that I think constitutionally tied
Speaker 3: down the executive power, and how I think the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court would probably rule in Trump's favor on several of them.
Speaker 3: Some of them we've talked about on the show, like
Speaker 3: the removal power, some parts of the power to impound
Speaker 3: parts of the power, for example, to say no DEI
Speaker 3: in the government and no DEI by government contractors and
Speaker 3: so on. I thought I was going to get there
Speaker 3: in the war room and I would find Lucretia already
Speaker 3: there with like an honorary seat. But I didn't see her.
Speaker 3: I was so disappointed.
Speaker 4: Now I've been superseded by Natalie Winters, who, by the way,
Speaker 4: was a Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Okay, cool, They get
Speaker 1: all the best people, Uh yeah. But what caught my eye,
Speaker 1: John was less that than your article out on Fox
Speaker 1: News here Sunday morning. And I hope, unlike last week,
Speaker 1: he won't be behind the paywall. Maybe it will maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And they got to pay the big bucks Steve.
Speaker 2: Oh, I guess maybe that's it. Uh So.
Speaker 1: Uh So, look, you're your article with your co author,
Speaker 1: frequent co author Robert Della Hunty says, there's no constitutional
Speaker 1: crisis here.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you go through a very nice history of these
Speaker 1: constitutional controversies over executive power going back to the founding
Speaker 1: and you mentioned Jackson's veto the Second National Bank. Uh
Speaker 1: And then you know Trump being compared to Nixon and
Speaker 1: so forth.
Speaker 2: Perfectly solid article.
Speaker 1: Oh and then culminating with a challenging Humphrey's executor and
Speaker 1: upholding Trump's power to fire people in the executive branch. Okay,
Speaker 1: so far, so good, two little nitpicks.
Speaker 3: And and just the point was what we're going through
Speaker 3: now doesn't come close to any of these historical which
Speaker 3: everyone should agree with, constitutional crises.
Speaker 2: I agree completely. Take that.
Speaker 3: That's the new that's the new tagline for the show.
Speaker 4: Well, well, I agree with everything, John says.
Speaker 1: I agree, except that have gone further. That's that's what
Speaker 1: I try and figure out here. By the way, I thought,
Speaker 1: what we're supposed to say, John, is we agree with
Speaker 1: Lucretia or Lucretia was right. Isn't that the Okay, I'm told.
Speaker 4: Steve are you, I don't interrupt, but I wanted to
Speaker 4: bring one little point into your soliloquy.
Speaker 2: There, go ahead.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say the one thing I was
Speaker 4: a little surprised you didn't make the point stronger, was
Speaker 4: that the actual constitutional crisis is what has happened to
Speaker 4: our separation of powers, to to our federal government in general.
Speaker 4: It has been a legitimate constitutional crisis. Probably the mundane
Speaker 4: best example of illustrating that is the it's a danger
Speaker 4: I'm saving our democracy trademark. The fact that we have
Speaker 4: somehow convinced the entire country that we're in a democracy,
Speaker 4: you know, defined as you know, the left is in power.
Speaker 4: That is a constitutional crisis. The fact that our most
Speaker 4: you know, even intelligent people. You you actually in your
Speaker 4: article list, I forget a thousand law professors, said a
Speaker 4: thousand law professors. I mean, of course, they don't expect
Speaker 4: law professors, besides you, to understand anything about the constitution,
Speaker 4: especially not constitutional law professors. But the idea that that
Speaker 4: you know, they can't put their parties in politics aside
Speaker 4: long enough to recognize the importance of the presidency in
Speaker 4: the separation of powers, the importance of the presidency, as
Speaker 4: you put it very clearly, that energy and the exis
Speaker 4: executive is the very definition of good government, all of
Speaker 4: those things. The constitutional crisis is not what they say
Speaker 4: it is. It's that they are calling what's happening a
Speaker 4: constitutional crisis. That's, to me is a huge problem. And
Speaker 4: whether Trump put on that is iffy.
Speaker 1: If you really want to if you really want to
Speaker 1: send the legal Professoriat into a total panic that we're
Speaker 1: having a constitutional crisis, it wouldn't be about whether there's
Speaker 1: a threat to Humphrey's executor. Can I just share with
Speaker 1: you briefly a few lines usually overlooked from Franklin Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: first inaugural address, And here's this Tordiendas, the part that
Speaker 1: never gets quoted. He said this, it is to be
Speaker 1: hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority
Speaker 1: may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us.
Speaker 1: But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need
Speaker 1: for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from the
Speaker 1: normal balance of public procedure. And then he goes on
Speaker 1: to say, I'm gonna recommend stuff to Congress. Uh and
Speaker 1: and ask them to adopt things speedy. But if they
Speaker 1: don't to continually.
Speaker 2: Says, then.
Speaker 1: I shall not evade the clear course of duty that
Speaker 1: will then confront me. I shall ask Congress for the
Speaker 1: one remaining instrument to meet the crisis, broad executive power
Speaker 1: to wage war against the emergency, as great as the
Speaker 1: power that would be given.
Speaker 2: To me if I were in fact invaded by a
Speaker 2: foreign foe. End quote. Put those words in Trump's mouth
Speaker 2: that his inaugural address, and.
Speaker 1: Liberals would be absolutely going berserk out of their mind,
Speaker 1: And so would I.
Speaker 4: You would, well, that is not what Trump is doing,
Speaker 4: and I think are absolutely clear.
Speaker 1: Well okay I I, well, okay, I could go along
Speaker 1: with that. I think we agree as usual by different paths.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's why, Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: That's but John made that that very same point that
Speaker 4: they're they're hypocrites, that it's not about looking at the
Speaker 4: actual article to assignment of power to the executive and
Speaker 4: what exactly that means, and theoretically understanding executive power, understanding
Speaker 4: the separation of powers, understanding checks and balances. It's not
Speaker 4: about any of that. It's about pure naked partisanship. They
Speaker 4: don't like Trump. They like big government because they have
Speaker 4: fed at the public trough. And it's not a constitutional
Speaker 4: crisis except that those people have way too much power,
Speaker 4: and that's the crisis. Yeah, they teach our law students.
Speaker 4: John can't teach all the students in all the law
Speaker 4: schools and get them on the straight and narrow.
Speaker 2: Well, we could, We could put that in the Constitution
Speaker 2: as a requirement.
Speaker 3: I don't know that's that's called involuntary servitude.
Speaker 2: It doesn't.
Speaker 3: Amendment point about one. Let's point about this that came
Speaker 3: to mind because of what Lucretius said is and maybe
Speaker 3: that helps why the Democrats, as we started talking about,
Speaker 3: are in such a state of depression. They don't know
Speaker 3: what to do. They're flailing, they have no agenda there
Speaker 3: you know, they're infighting. I love the talk in the
Speaker 3: papers to that AOC may running the primary against Schumer.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But part of it is if you make your whole
Speaker 3: campaign about democracy, democracy, democracy, and the people reject you
Speaker 3: in the elections, you have no form. And in fact,
Speaker 3: now what they're doing is they're you know, HAIDI, behind
Speaker 3: the most non democratic features of the constitution to put
Speaker 3: up any defense. Right, they're going straight to court the
Speaker 3: least democratic branch, and they are their future depends on
Speaker 3: the filipbuster. Right. They're they're, they're, they're, they're. They should
Speaker 3: be glad that democracy did not advance the last four
Speaker 3: years the way they wanted it to.
Speaker 4: Harry Reid very much.
Speaker 1: These days, oh well, oh well, Harry Reid and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden are gonna inhabit a Democrats circle of you know,
Speaker 1: the ninth Circle of Purgatory and Dante or something.
Speaker 2: It's uh, they're going to be so hated in retrospect.
Speaker 1: But can I can I just add two quick observations, John,
Speaker 1: There's some subtleties in the article, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you intended them or not, But the first is
Speaker 1: your paragraph about it subtle.
Speaker 3: If it's subtle, then no.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I don't know, I'll make them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, look in your paragraph about Jackson vetoing the Second
Speaker 1: Bank of the United States. He was constitutionally correct, but
Speaker 1: you say at the end of the sentence, uh, Jackson
Speaker 1: took all the federal funds in the bank and triggered
Speaker 1: a financial panic. It was sound constitutionally and it was
Speaker 1: an economic disaster. And I just say and Lucretian is
Speaker 1: gonna be upset with me. That's what makes me worried
Speaker 1: about Trump and tariffs is this.
Speaker 3: Could I agree with you? That was actually on purpose? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was I wondered.
Speaker 1: If you were sort of hinting at that in a way,
Speaker 1: and so you have to treat those things separately.
Speaker 2: But then second, the other one I liked.
Speaker 4: Was, can I respond to that before you go on sure,
Speaker 4: because it'll be lost if you go onto your second pard.
Speaker 4: I just want to say, I actually think that that's
Speaker 4: consistent with my theory of executive accountability. If a president
Speaker 4: takes a perfectly constitutional action and maybe you know, stretches
Speaker 4: the boundaries a bit, but that's again perfectly constitutional. What
Speaker 4: is it? What are the ramifications? What checks are there
Speaker 4: on that exercise of power? Failure, whether it be economic
Speaker 4: failure or military failure or foreign policy failure, whatever it
Speaker 4: might be, causes that political check and holds the president accountable.
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody should discount the idea that when
Speaker 4: you act with dispatch and energy and all of those
Speaker 4: nice things, you better damn hope you're right, because when
Speaker 4: you do all of those things, you are putting yourself
Speaker 4: out there and you will be judged by the success
Speaker 4: of those actions. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: But yeah, right, No, it's perfectly fine. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: good for Trump for you know, going where nobody would
Speaker 1: have gone before so and so many.
Speaker 3: Steve, I totally agree with Steve. I mean, I agree
Speaker 3: with both of you. I think, LUCRITI, you're completely right.
Speaker 3: The benefit of you know, the executive branch, the way
Speaker 3: we think it should be is that if Trump screws
Speaker 3: up the economy through tarifs, and every people will know
Speaker 3: who's responsible.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also have to agree with Steve. I think economically
Speaker 3: these policies don't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it depends, but let's save that for
Speaker 1: another time because it takes a while.
Speaker 3: But well, my my f one K wants to have
Speaker 3: a conversation with you, Heyward.
Speaker 2: Well I'm just only if you're a four on K
Speaker 2: is an idiot, But I'll leave that aside too.
Speaker 3: That's because I'm not buying gold like Steve.
Speaker 2: No, Well, it's down, it's a good thank god.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, my second observation, John is of another subtlety here.
Speaker 1: So when you do the comparison of Trump with Nixon,
Speaker 1: and there's a sentence that says Watergate, by contrast, arose
Speaker 1: from the Nixon re election campaigns, dirty tricks and the
Speaker 1: White House's obstruction of justice that allegedly followed. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you hadn't dropped the allegedly in there, I was
Speaker 1: gonna be very angry. And it's like, oh, aren't you
Speaker 1: guys great?
Speaker 2: I might might, I might even quarrel with dirty tricks.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was some silly stuff in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: with you know, the Muskie campaign, but that was nothing.
Speaker 1: And and even the Watergate burglary is we still don't
Speaker 1: know what that's about. But anyway, it's, uh, why.
Speaker 3: Is important, Steve? Why is allegedly important?
Speaker 1: Well, well, well, you know, I had Jeff Shepherd on
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago because the entire history of Watergate,
Speaker 1: including especially the prosecution of Nixon, needs to be rewritten wholesale.
Speaker 2: And and I think it's this year.
Speaker 1: Next year, some more files that have been closed for
Speaker 1: fifty years are gonna come out, and we're gonna learn
Speaker 1: about how badly judged Serrica misbehaved, how badly and unethically
Speaker 1: the prosecutors behaved, and and you know, the whole campaign
Speaker 1: to drive Nixon from office for the sin of humiliating
Speaker 1: them in the seventy two election, and that's gonna be
Speaker 1: one of the great revisions histories of all time. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the things Nixon was trying to do,
Speaker 1: Trump is trying to do also and getting command of
Speaker 1: the government. And Trump looks like he's going to succeed
Speaker 1: where Nixon was stymy by a fake scandal.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just want the record to show. I just
Speaker 3: want the record to show that anticipating that Steve would
Speaker 3: give me a hard time caused me to change one
Speaker 3: word in my article. I added that word allegedly because
Speaker 3: I thought about that. I say, oh, if I don't
Speaker 3: put in allegedly, Heyward's gonna give me a heart than
Speaker 3: today because you've been handing me about how watergates this
Speaker 3: made up scandal. I'm still waiting to see the evidence
Speaker 3: all come out.
Speaker 2: Read Jeff Shepherd's books. They're they're very good, They're.
Speaker 3: Very I listened to that episodes. I've heard him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've read some of his writing. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: whether there was this is the question I have is
Speaker 3: whether there were ethical improprieties in the contact between church
Speaker 3: Circa and the Special Council, which is definitely should not
Speaker 3: have been did Nixon The fundamental question is, really, did
Speaker 3: Nixon intend to cover up the investigation into well, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's obstruction of justice. Did you know?
Speaker 1: Did you hear this little item that sort of blurted
Speaker 1: out here a week or two ago when it was
Speaker 1: what the fiftieth anniversary of Saturday Night Live and Bill Murray,
Speaker 1: part of the original cast, was on with I think
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan and he said, yeah, I started reading Bob
Speaker 1: Woodward's book about Oh come on, the Guy who Died
Speaker 1: John Belushi, and he said, I was eight pages into
Speaker 1: that book reading all this nonsense, and it occurred to me,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, they lied about Nixon, didn't they. You know,
Speaker 1: so when you know they're now pennantsating popular call, a
Speaker 1: guy like Bill Murray says, oh wait a minute. These
Speaker 1: guys lie to us and they mix stuff up. So
Speaker 1: that's why I say, I think, okay, I've said.
Speaker 4: Before we leave this broader subject entirely, I do want
Speaker 4: to ask John really quickly. He's our go to on
Speaker 4: this question every single time. So the Trump administration is
Speaker 4: now trying to get and don't let me say this wrong, John,
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court to consider the universal injunction on the
Speaker 4: birthright citizenship and argue that explain it better so that
Speaker 4: I don't mess up on this.
Speaker 3: No, that's I mean, this is a looming issue. It's
Speaker 3: not really it doesn't have to be the birthright citizenship
Speaker 3: cases or EO that's involved. But then this is also
Speaker 3: some I talked about on the War Room with Bennon,
Speaker 3: was that a lot of Trump's eos are now being
Speaker 3: enjoined by individual district judges. There's one out here in
Speaker 3: San Francisco who just ordered the administration to rehire thousands
Speaker 3: of federal employees. There's one, I think in Rhode Island.
Speaker 3: There's another one in Maryland who you have stopped. There's
Speaker 3: one in Washington State.
Speaker 4: The transgender in the military.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all and so the basic question. And so
Speaker 3: apparently there are three district judges now who have issued
Speaker 3: injunctions against President Trump's birthright Citizenship executive order, putting the
Speaker 3: merits to that aside the government. You know, very fine
Speaker 3: lawyer actually collected for Justice Thomas as I did, and
Speaker 3: Judie Silverman as I did. Named Sarah Harris. She's the
Speaker 3: acting Solicitor General. She's gone to the Supreme Court and said,
Speaker 3: you this regard have to answer once and for all
Speaker 3: whether this practice of universal injunctions is actually legal or not.
Speaker 3: They could have done it in Hawaii versus Trump back
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, that was the travel Bank case, but
Speaker 3: they chose to to they chose to not address it there.
Speaker 3: Several of the Justices have been calling on the Court
Speaker 3: to do it because come up under both parties too.
Speaker 3: I mean, Republican conservatives have done it to Biden and
Speaker 3: Obama too. But I think it's an extremely important, underlying,
Speaker 3: permanent issue that sits behind a lot of these a
Speaker 3: lot of these cases, and it involves an important question
Speaker 3: of what the proper role of the courts are. Why
Speaker 3: can't a judge tell the executive branch how to run
Speaker 3: its operations nationwide when that judge only has power over
Speaker 3: a specific, usually very tiny jurisdiction.
Speaker 4: Okay, it'd be interesting to see what they decide, because
Speaker 4: I will tell you from a layman man about town position.
Speaker 4: That seems to be the thing that infuriates confuses angers
Speaker 4: people the most is why can't a judge blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: You know you know the argument. All right, I guess
Speaker 4: we've probably text our listener's patients long enough. I'm going
Speaker 4: to move on to Babylon Bee's. Hope they're good because
Speaker 4: we know Steve's final send off is going to be
Speaker 4: lame because it's been lame for the last month. He
Speaker 4: can't He's a little bit like the Babylon Bee. He
Speaker 4: can't do anything good when he can't make fun of someone, right,
Speaker 4: that's the problem. So the Babylon Bee my personal favorite,
Speaker 4: and I'm really hoping that this is not a satire.
Speaker 4: It's Tesla is updated with self defense mode where they
Speaker 4: transform into anthropomorphic battle robots which immediately go into self
Speaker 4: defense mode and attack anybody who's attacking Tesla, And.
Speaker 1: So Tesla meets Transformers in other words, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well it's practically that anyway, So it's all good.
Speaker 3: How we spawned a blockbuster, multi billion dollar movie series
Speaker 3: out of stupid Japanese toys is beyond me.
Speaker 4: I thought there were dumb movies, but they were very popular,
Speaker 4: very popular. Are you like this one? John Asian mom
Speaker 4: disappointed son is just a regular surgeon.
Speaker 3: That's true. He should be the he should beat the sold.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's an old Jewish mother joke, you know,
Speaker 2: is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Have the archoslas to tell the joke of you know,
Speaker 1: Cy Goldberg graduated number one in his class from Yale,
Speaker 1: top of his class at Harvard Law School, chief Surgeon,
Speaker 1: resident of Caesar Sinai, winner of all these prizes, and
Speaker 1: still a disappointment.
Speaker 2: To his mother.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Uh, Russia says, see, this is shows I can
Speaker 4: be balanced. Russia says it will agree to cease fire
Speaker 4: as soon as it is done conquering Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: They're not even anymore guys to choke. Trump announces creation
Speaker 4: of strategic jd Vance meme reserve. Do you get that
Speaker 4: John not being on social media? That the thing on
Speaker 4: social media is taking jd Vance's face, which I think
Speaker 4: works because he has those piercing blue eyes and putting
Speaker 4: him into like, there's a whole set of emojis that
Speaker 4: you can get with jd Vance's face in the emoji
Speaker 4: memes on and on and on and and jd Vance
Speaker 4: thinks it's great. He thinks it's hilarious, and of course
Speaker 4: the left is thinks that you know, he's being humiliated
Speaker 4: by it, and.
Speaker 2: It's about cluely.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, are why are the mag of
Speaker 1: people making fun of jd Vance?
Speaker 2: It's like, I have I have a secret for you liberals.
Speaker 2: We think it's funny. You guys wants with the problem, right.
Speaker 4: They don't have a sense of humor.
Speaker 3: So you how.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, but how much you lose out?
Speaker 2: Yeah you're missing a lot man, Yeah you're missing.
Speaker 4: Federal judge appoints himself.
Speaker 2: President yep, coming soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not funny. I'm sorry, They're just not funny anymore.
Speaker 4: Too serious Democrats. Democrats gather at the Legion of Doom
Speaker 4: to strategize for midterms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not that funny.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: They said they weren't going to be funny. They said
Speaker 4: they were going to shut down because everything was going
Speaker 4: to be perfect under Trump, remember, and so they practically
Speaker 4: have they all they really have anymore? That's funny? Are
Speaker 4: there their religious ones? And I won't I won't, I
Speaker 4: won't bore listeners with that. I'll leave with this one.
Speaker 4: Enough is enough. Supreme Court rules First Amendment does not
Speaker 4: apply to Megan Markle.
Speaker 3: I get that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, good right, all right, John.
Speaker 3: Always drink your whiskey. Meat and Steve you are going
Speaker 3: to have a new tagline or are you're sticking with
Speaker 3: the old one.
Speaker 1: No, I am going to retire the mode of the
Speaker 1: last several weeks, and in light of the massive layoffs
Speaker 1: taking place in the legacy media, this week's sign off
Speaker 1: is slightly modified. Don't forget to milk the mass media meltdown, dividend.
Speaker 2: Bye bye, everybody.
Speaker 6: I nailed it by everybody.
Speaker 2: Ricochet joined the conversation.
Speaker 1: H