Speaker 1: And welcome back everyone to a new episode of You
Were Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the
Federalist and David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner.
Just as a reminder, if you'd like to email the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com.
Molly loves to hear from you. The mail we got
was so ridiculous this week, Molly, Oh my lord, My
favorite was this email that this guy sent where he
portrayed me as a Venezuelan drug lord, like you put
the little do hickeys over my name to make it
Spanish and so forth. Because of our debate last week
over I don't know what were we even debating. Oh yeah,
the Judicial Review and the Alien State Act or whatever
it's called. Molly. The other day, I can let you speak.
Get the other day I got an email that said,
Molly Hemingway will be appearing in front of a Congressional
Congressional committe. Which committee was it?
Speaker 2: It was the Senate Judiciary Committee, Shared Constitution Subcommittee.
Speaker 1: Wow, So we can talk a little bit about what
you discussed. I think that's really interesting. But I'm also
I have never been asked to speak in front of Congress,
and I'm sure that most listeners haven't done that either,
So I was just kind of interested, like, how does
it happen? Who asked you to be there? For instance?
And what is the process?
Speaker 2: So I actually get asked regularly to testify, and I
almost always say no. This was my second time saying yes,
the first time in the Senate. So I've done once
in the House, once in the Senate. And the reason
why I said yes in the House was because they
were discussing election administration and I wrote a book on
election administration. It's like, you know, one of these areas
where I know a ton and I think is really important,
and also so so many of the people who speak
on it know next to nothing or their conspiracy theorists,
and so I did want to talk about that. And
I enjoyed that. I mean, I can't say I enjoyed it.
I survived it. I don't know. It's a little nerve
racking because you're under oath and you just want to
be very careful. I always am very careful with what
I'm saying, but I don't want to say anything that
blows back on anyone or whatnot. And so for this
one this week, it was a really important topic that
is near and dear to my heart, which is the
censorship industrial complex. And Senator Schmidt is the new chair
of this subcommittee, and he brought a case against the
Biden administration for their role in mass censorship related to COVID,
and so he's that's a topic that he really cares
about and he seems to really understand it at a
deep level. It's always disappointing when you meet these members
of Congress or senators and they don't actually know much
about what they're opining about. That is not the case
for him on this topic. He really understands it and
cares about it, understands the reason why we have free
speech the law surrounding it. You know, he was Attorney
General of Missouri when he brought the case. And because
the Federalist has been a victim of the censorship industrial
complex and I myself personally have been a victim of it,
I wanted to talk about it because it's one of
the only times you'll be asked to talk about something
where you're the victim and you have a personal story.
And so I did talk about it.
Speaker 1: Did to some random questions. Do you so you give
a you have prepared remarks when it starts? Do you
do you submit that to the committee beforehand or just
get to say whatever you like? Or like, how does
that work?
Speaker 2: So I don't remember exactly all of the stuff, but
I also am thinking about this from when I used
to cover congressional hearings. When I used to cover them,
you know, you go in and everybody has their written statement,
everyone has their written testimony. Some of them also have
a separate oral testimony, and there are all these pieces
of paper that you're juggling to try to get a
story out of. The submitted testimony can be very long,
like eighty pages, whereas the oral testimony. You can't speak
more than five minutes in your opening, so that's shorter,
like six hundred seven hundred words. But I didn't feel
the need to submit longer written testimony in either case.
I mean, I wrote the book on the first one,
and the second one, I just I don't have time
to do that kind of work, and so in both cases,
I just submitted my oral testimony. And you do submit
that twenty four hours in advance. Maybe maybe you would
do that for both things, and yeah, so I just
wrote that over the weekend and made sure it came
in under five minutes. I had so much more to say.
I could have spoken for like an hour. In fact,
it's like one of the rare times I actually wish
I could have because it's hard to say. It's hard
to explain a complicated topic like that in a short
period of time.
Speaker 1: Did you you're on television, You speak in front of
you know, you know people all the time, you give
speeches all over the country. Is it daunting to speak?
If more daunting? Or speak in front of you know,
senators and congressmen. What is the experience like? Is it
different than speaking in front of, say, a crowd of people.
Speaker 2: It is daunting because you're under oath, But I wouldn't
say because of the people who are there. I remember
when I first testified that I was the last person
to go. I think and the people who went before me,
they had all of these flourishes at the beginning, like
your honor, this, and to the most valued members such
and such this, and it is an honor to be
asked to speak to you. I think that my gen
x anti authoritarian impulse is not great here because I'm like,
I'm not. I mean, I'm very thankful to the people
who asked me to come and give my expertise, but
I don't feel the need to say it. And also
they're just members of Congress, Like in my view, it's
more like they work for me than I'm honored to
be there for them. And then once again, I was
the first to go this time, so I just started speaking.
Every person after me was like, thank you to this
committee and thank you to this person, and such an honor.
And I'm like, I did it again, and I wasn't
intending to do it. I just sort of forgot that
that was the way you're supposed to be. But I
guess what I'm saying is I don't have a ton
of respect for these people like on this subcommittee well,
first of all, and I do not begrudge these people
at all. It was a very busy day in the Senate,
but most of them didn't show up. The ones who
showed up on the Republican side are all like, you know,
you might disagree with these people on certain things, but
they're they're pretty solid. It's Eric Schmidt, Josh Hall, Kennedy.
Why am I forgetting his first name, John, John Kennedy, Blackburn,
Mike Lee. You know, people who I'm just saying, these
are people who generally care about the Constitution. They have
differences of opinion, you know, ranging from like the John
Kennedy to the Josh Holly but whatever. And then on
the other side, the people who are on the subcommittee
include Adam Schiff and Sheldon Whitehouse, two men who I've
written quite a bit against, and I have no doubt
that's why they want to censor me. A very lovely
ranking member who I was rude to. Frankly, I'm having
a little regret about that, named Peter Welch. Corey Booker
was there, so every time I talked about Brett Kavanaugh,
I would just look at Corey Booker, like to kind
of remind him that I knew who he was. And
then Dick Durbin, who said he was going to come
after me, but then quickly got scared and instead attacked
a different witness, Ben Weingart, for things that I had said,
because he clearly was like, I'm not messing with that girl,
because I'd kind of gone after the ranking member for
something and he just realized it wasn't going to go.
Speaker 1: Well for him, he didn't know what wrong speak was
or a wrong thing sorry was.
Speaker 2: He said, there's a witness here today who has said
something about wrong think it's be I'd like talk about
that all the time. And also who said that the
DOJ should have spent less time going after Grandma's who
entered the capital and more time more time after like
other crimes. He then says she should not be allowed
to say these things, and then goes on a tirade
about January sixth and how he was there. Well, buddy,
I was there too. I covered it. I'm still somewhat
traumatized by it, like it was not my happiest day
in life. But you're still allowed to debate whether the
Department of Justice should have gone after these people. Then,
by the way, Dick Durbin says that the highest honor
of any attorney would be to go John Adams like
and give a defense to someone who you don't think
is worthy of a defense, which is the entire thing
I was saying about Jay six Ers and how we
should be thinking about like the allocation of resources of
how we're going after them. Anyway. Anyway, he's like Ben Weingarten,
did you come up with this word wrong think? And
been like, I don't believe so, but I would be
happy to take credit for it, And then he gave
a great definition of what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think it is thought crime, not
wrong think actually, but okay, so did you feel like
it was it's useful.
Speaker 2: I do worry that Congress, through its own actions over
the last one hundred years, has completely become like this ridiculous,
impotent branch of government, handing over all of its authority
to the administrative state. And the Senate was always kind
of known as a debating society, but it was not
the most thoughtful debate there. I was not impressed with
some of the people. And my husband said something like,
it's weird to see Dick Durbin both being super uninformed
and phoning it in like he didn't really seem to
have put much thought into his day.
Speaker 1: It was nice to see your husband Mark behind you,
sitting there there in support.
Speaker 2: I love that he comes to me with these things,
or it comes with me to these things. And I
also love how much people love seeing him there, like
people sending notes about how they they like that he
supports me, and it's just so funny because in our
marriage that is a very normal thing, and you wonder, like,
does this not happen in other people's marriages. I don't know,
but he has a very wonderful supportive spouse. So and
Jonathan Turley was teasing us about him being there, not
teasing us, but just pointing out that he didn't have
anyone there. And he was also testifying, and he was
really great and substantive. Ben Weingarten also and the Democrats
have two witnesses, one of whom is on in a
different place than I am on speech, but is fairly
sane and normal. Like his name is Gabe Rotman, and
he's at the ACLU. ACLU should be so much better
than they are on speech, but they struggle at being
too bad because of their history. And I think he
tries to legitimize some of the anti speech efforts that
are out there, but he's not super super bad. The
other witness was this woman Mary Anne Franks, who's at
George Washington Law, and it was just clearly a mistake,
just a mistake to have her there. She is a
genuine radical. She thinks that the Second Amendment should be
redrafted to remove the right to self defense and to
include a right to kill unborn children. She says that
the First Amendment is a relic of a white patriarchal
like fascist past. She opposes speech, and so when she
was out there talking about how there's no censorship industrial
complex and how the real threats to free speech are
from the Trump administration kicking out the ap from the
Oval Office and going after people who have organized pro
Hamas protests, like, she just came off really poorly. And
she likes to tweet a lot, and I do too,
and I understand, you know how that can be bad,
but her tweets are really extreme and she probably shouldn't
have a social media account, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's exciting, though, I mean, not a lot
of people get to say, I mean, you're in it
a long time, but not a lot of people get
to say, I've spoken from a congressional committee.
Speaker 2: It's cool, right, I've now testified in the House and
the Senate, and I don't really feel the need to
do it unless it's really appropriate. But it's not the
worst experience in the world. Yes, Now, Jonathan Turley, I
was talking joking with him, like he's just such a
regular congressional expert. He's very thoughtful, he's very balanced. He's
not partisan. I think he's been you know, he's like
evenly a Democrat or Republican witness depending on the topic,
and he adds a lot of light to debates. But
I'm not a lot of profit. I'm a journalist, so
the opportunities to do this will be from my perspective,
will be limited, even if I sort of get regularly asked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, still cool thing.
Speaker 3: Do you believe in the ghosts of Social Security?
Speaker 4: The watch Dout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
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Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Speaking of journalists, let's move on to our first big
topic here in the news of the week, which I
would call signal I don't want to call signal gate
because I hate putting gate at the end of things.
It just makes it easier. But I want you to
set it up, if that's okay, okay, because every time
I start setting these things up you don't like how
I frame it.
Speaker 2: I totally defer to you. I want to in fact,
I would love to hear.
Speaker 1: You said it up, okay, So please interject specifics if
I get them wrong, Like, for instance, I believe that
we're talking about a signal chat between a bunch of
very important people in government, including the Vice President, the
Defense you know, the Secretary of Defense and so on,
about bombing of the huties. I think this went on
a week before the bombing started, but before the bombing
at least days before, right, And I think in essence
or initially, they're discussing whether it's a good idea, right,
And I think jd. Vance doesn't think it's a good idea.
Maybe the only one in that conversation as far as
I can tell, who thought that. You know, I forgot
how he put it. I think he wanted to wait longer.
He said that it kind of conflicted with the Donald,
with the Trump administration's position on the Ukrainian warren Away. Anyway,
it's a very enlightening conversation I think. I mean, I
was fascinated's stepping out of the whole controversy. I was
fascinated to see how these things are discussed. I'd like
to talk about the vance part separately after this, But anyway,
someone invited Jeffrey Goldberg into the chat. Everyone assumed that
it was National Security Advisor Michael walt who had invited
him in. Waltz denies that that's that he did in
an interview today I saw. But in any event, initially
Jeffrey Goldberg said there were war plans discussed, which is
classified information and that and we withheld that part of
the conversation until today, where basically they said, you know,
people are telling him produce it, and he did, and
now we have that too. Anyway, does that set to
seem fair? Did I miss anything? I think it's an
incredibly fascinating situation. First of all, I want to say,
this isn't the Pentagon papers, Like you know, I think
that as usual, the left gets hysterical about stuff and
often hides an actual story and problem on the other side.
You know, I don't know why people, and this happens
with every administration. You can't just say we messed up. Hey,
you know we mess this up. We're not it's not
going to happen again. We're going to figure out why
it happened and that's it. We're sorry. Like, why can't
you just say that? And there's a lot of sort
of excuse shifting. There's a lot of like the Atlanta
can't be trusted maybe, but you're saying, this conversation actually happened,
So something bad happened, and it is. It's a bad
thing in my opinion. I don't know, So let me
just ask you, how do you like? What's your feeling
about what happened here in general?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you basically articulate my view on it. There's so
much more here though. I think it's a really interesting story.
So yes, I agree with you. There's the substance of
the conversation, which was wonderful to see. It was exactly
the type of high level conversation you're hoping the principles
in an administration are having. It's not just a bunch
of raw raw. Yes, men, they're having a free and
open not free, but like an open discussion about is
this a good idea? Is this not a good idea?
How do we message this? You know? So that was
good because you could imagine that if someone invited Jeffrey
Goldberg into a different chat, it might have been a
complete and utter disaster in terms of the actual content
of the discussions. But having said that, I'm oh, my
favorite letter, I want our favorite email we got last
week was when someone very kindly told me something that
you should have told me, David, or that any of
the people in my life should have told me, which
is that I know this misuse the word mortified, and
I was just about to do it again, but this
wonderful lady was like, I know, I've got to be
the four hundredth person to tell you that you're misusing
that word. And I'm like, nope, that would be the first.
And it's very embarrassing mortified. In fact, I should say
I'm mortified that I was using mortified incorrectly. Uh, I'm
horrified that Jeffrey Goldberg. I would I don't want any
journalist in any group chat. Jeffrey Goldberg is literally the
worst person to involve in a group chat like that,
it is. It boggles the mind that he was included.
It's horrific operational security, and that bothers me because signal
is a great way to communicate, it's encrypted, it's efficient,
assuming you don't have idiots putting Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat.
It's a wonderful way to have quick, reasonable conversations. And
the other thing I want to say is have you
noticed that relative to the first two months of the
first Trump administration, we've had pretty much no leaks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean clearly this administration they were planning ahead
and brought in people who are actually on board with
the presidents.
Speaker 2: There also staying off the bureaucratic channels. So I think
what we're seeing with these signal typescussions that they moved
off the bureaucratic channels. The bureaucrats are unable to leak.
You know, we would see all this high level leaking
from top officials and the Trump administration supposedly. I think
a lot of that was just bureaucrats who, yes, are
high level, who were leaking information that they were privy
to when the principles were discussing on the bureaucratic channels.
Once they moved to signal, it's locked down. I think
we want to put a pin in that because I
think that might be related to this.
Speaker 1: So I've tried to segment this conversation into the important things,
and you'll you'll add others that I might not have
thought of. But let's talk about signal now. It's encrypted.
It's pretty good, right, And you know I was trying
to read up on this. Is it legal? It's kind
of hazy in a way. You're supposed to save these conversations.
But I wonder sometimes if government officials use a signal
because they don't want others ever to see these conversations.
I think that's somewhat concerning when you're talking about transparency,
don't we worry? I kind of worry that I have
app and that people are talking about war on that
same app. I feel like there are better, more secure
ways to have these discussions.
Speaker 2: I think I disagree on that. I think signal might
be the best way to have secure conversations, assuming you
don't invite Jeffrey Goldberg into the chat. It's a very
good encrypted form. It's my preferred way to speak with
sensitive sources or sources with sensitive information, and it's all
open source, so you can kind of test it, and
I trust that more than a bureaucratic channel that is
leaking a lot. I also want to point out that
Mike Waltz said something in the chat about how coming
in on the high side, coming in on your high
side is some information. He was referring to the classified
the means by which they receive classified information, and so
it does show too that they understand that they put
the classified information in on that system, and they're having
the kind of chat on signal, which is different.
Speaker 1: So I don't yeah, no, I just we can talk
about the classified aspect in a minute, I mean, or
we can talk about now. Actually. So initially the verbiage
used was war plans, which and you know by the Atlantic,
which not intimates, but is saying that this is classified information.
So today when he released that part of the conversation,
I would say this, it doesn't really matter to me.
It seems like they're exchanging some information that's certainly I
don't know if it's classified or not, but it is
not something any journalist should should see before or anyone
should see before we go. There's packets, there's targets, there's
I mean, if that's not class I mean what I'm
saying is I think that the distinction might matter legally,
but I don't know that it really matters as far
as the story goes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I think that in fact that is exactly right. Yes, technically,
legally speaking, the Trump administration is in the right and
Jeffrey Goldberg is in the wrong. But you look at
what he posted today of the plans, and I think
a lot of people would forgive him for calling them
war plans.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I will say this, Jeffrey Goldberg presents himself
and has since he pushed the Weapons of mass destruction
hoax as a national security reporter, that he actually understands
these issues. He definitely overplayed what he had but and
also he's kind of like being hypocritical about it. He's
at the one hand claiming that it's like incredibly classified,
delicate information that should not have been shared with anyone.
By the way, I agree, it should not have been
shared with people like Jeffrey Goldberg, and then on the
other hand, he's like posting it on the website of
the Atlantic. It's like, well, I mean, which is it.
Speaker 1: Administration dared him to do it, right.
Speaker 2: That's what I would say, is like, I think they
have I just agreed with how you put it at
the outset. If they would have said, obviously it was
a huge f up to invite Jeffrey Goldberg into a
signal chat. Thanks be to God that this is not
that it wasn't so sensitive, that this was a success.
We are working on all of this. You know, like
if they had just said yep and then moved on
and stopped talking about it, I think that would be
better then all this other stuff. I do want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not just saying I think we'll argue about this
next point. I don't think Jeffrey Goldberg did anything wrong.
I think that in a journalist, a journal's job is
to get his hands or her hands on stuff they're
not supposed to see. He reported what he saw, and
he actually I should preface all this by saying, I
think he's been terrible for a very long time, but
in this story he actually showed some restraint. He didn't
do it. He didn't he waited for the bombing to happen.
Then he spoke about it. He didn't release the war
you know, the attack plan or whatever you want to
call them, and off the bat. So I don't see
anything wrong with how he conducted himself, just you know,
in this story, I think he conducted himself as any
journalist would. If I was invited onto a chat like that,
I would take down every single word and write about it,
would you, huh?
Speaker 2: I don't. I saw some reporters saying, Jeffrey Goldberg's a
better person than I am, because I would have stayed
in that chat till twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 2: I am reluctant to speak either favorably or unfavorably about
how he handled himself until we know more about how
he got in there. And I'm saying that in part
because I was Okay. I will tell you that on
day one was over at Fox, I thought we would
talk about it on Special Report. We didn't. I said
something very similar to what you said. I said, I
hate Jeffrey Goldberg. I've hated him since we of mass destruction.
He was also a Russia collusion hoaxer, and he invented
the ein Marn hoax, in which he said that he
had four anonymous sources who said something that every single
person on the record disputes about Donald Trump supposedly hating
the military and those who had died for their country.
So he's a bad guy. He either is too stupid
of a reporter to know when he's being had by
the WMD or iin marn hoax people or Russia Gate,
or he is knowingly participating in information operations. So having
said that, I said also a few days ago, I
didn't see anything wrong with how he had handled this,
But then you started seeing people disputing how he had
characterized the material in question, and I do think that's legitimate.
I think he overhyped what he had. And you said,
this is information that shouldn't be shared with anyone. I
think my while it's already publicly said, this was information
that was shared with overseas partners. What that means is
it's not classified, you know, and or it's not highly
sensitive if you're sharing it with other countries also just
for your knowledge. They usually give that type of information
to broadcast outlets who will be covering such strikes. It's
held very carefully, but it's shared so that people can
be ready with the resources needed to give it the
proper coverage.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it's not. That's all very fair
what you're saying. I understand that, but it's slightly besides
the point. The point is they could have been discussing
something far more serious, and Jeffrey Goldberg might have been
in there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's still sensitive. And I liked your original point
of like, why not just say you messed up instead
of getting in a semantic dispute about what type of
plans they are? Because I think it just looks bad
to see this kind of information shared. I just want
to say this one final thing, though, which is I
saw Matt Tayebe and Walter Kern on a Megan Kelly
podcast and she asks Matt Tayibe what he thinks about
this story, and he was like, I need to know
more about how jeff Goldberg got in the chat, he said,
because of who he is, because he is By the way,
Donald Trump told me personally that the story that upset
him more than any other fake story that he was
subjected to in his first term was Jeffrey Goldberg's ein
marn hoax. Okay, so not just a reporter, but that reporter.
He said, the odds that this was accidental are just
impossible for him to comprehend.
Speaker 1: But mally, no big story that's ever been broken from
the Pentagon papers on. It's always classified in illegal information.
You're getting your hands on which is probably illegal for
the person to have. The journalist and he does it
or she does it anyway, Let's say he got in
there somehow, he should deal with the consequences. But that's
what journalists do. It's like, I like to quote Tom Wolf.
You know, he said, journalism is not a craft, it's
an attitude. And the attitude is I have a right
to see things I'm not supposed to.
Speaker 2: Right, Let's go on a hypothetical journey, because I don't
think I think we're saying two different things. I agree
with you insofar as what you're saying is like the
full story. Let's say the full story is something else.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I referenced earlier how the first Trump administration had nothing
but leaks and we haven't seen that in this administration.
What if there was a goal to force high level
operatives back onto the channels that can be more easily leaked.
What if someone to force that said we have to
like do something just forgive me for like not thinking
this all through.
Speaker 1: Now I understand what you're doing.
Speaker 2: The three year Let's say we've got to do something
that embarrasses them off of signal back onto the channels
that we can leak from, because if we can leak
from them, we can more easily control their foreign policy
or other things, or we can constrain them. As it is, now,
we've got nothing because they're not they're not leaking. We're
the leakers. And so someone engages in illegal or like
very bad behavior to put Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat,
that kind of changes the story. Now maybe I would
say too.
Speaker 1: Can'd say two things about that real quick One, the
person who did that is acting in a way that
should be punished, like that is illegal, it undermines national security.
But the journalist would be a nut not to let
that person do that. So you know, when you go,
you know, any big story, let's say Watergate, you had
people leaking from the administration, you had them telling journalists
things they weren't supposed to know. But secondly, quickly, we're
always because the deepest which I think exists, has done
a lot of bad things, we always think there's some
Macavelian savant behind everything when the most obvious answer probably
is the right one, like ninety percent of the time,
that someone just effed up here and got the wrong
you know, had him, had Jeffrey Goldberg in their signal chat,
which is something maybe they shouldn't have and that actually
accidentally put him on this call. I mean, it's very
possible that that's the explanation.
Speaker 2: Right, possible, It's possible. It's a little shocking, and there
are a few things that have been said that might
make us pause here. Let me just say that when
this story broke, it was kind of funny to me
how the different camps were responding to things. Pete Haig
says said it himself. No, you know, there was no
information shared that shouldn't have been shared or that was
like a super big problem to share. You saw the
Jdvance people kind of getting attacked. And we'll talk about
this in a minute. For there for the fact that
Jade Vance was not as gung ho about this plan
as everybody else was, so they were just wanting to
make sure it's clear that he's not undermining the president,
and different people had different interests in how the story
was spawn personally, I was very upset that Mike Waltz
had put to someone in the chat who should not
have been there. But since then, he's kind of said
things that make me wonder if he were not a
victim of this as well. He was on Laura Ingram
last night, and I just want to say, I do
know Mike Waltz. I have found him to be a
truthful person. And I understand that everyone has the capacity
to say things, but he's a pretty straightforward person. And
I thought if you watched his interview with Laura Ingram,
he's kind of suggesting that he wasn't directly responsible for
putting Jeff Goldberg into the.
Speaker 1: But then there should be an investigation. If that's not
what happened, we should have an investigation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what we need to find out
is and then further, if I'm reading between the lines
too much, forgive me, but it sounded like he was
given the contact information for someone where the name and
the number did not match. Who gave him that contact information?
Who is that person? Why did he do it or
she do it? What's going on there? And then was
that person the victim of something or not? You know?
And so just kind of like figuring out the thing here,
because it is very improbable that Mike Waltz, the National
Security Advisor, like it's possible that he was like I'm
going to add Jeff Goldberg to the chat.
Speaker 1: But well that brings us to another topic though. You know,
right away, when something like this happens, all the factions
move to get someone fired who they don't want around anyway. Right,
So then a bunch of the more I called him
paleotypes want Michael Waltz out right there, immediately going after him.
Then a whole bunch of other pro mostly Democrats, one
hes get out right because he you know, that's a
big that's a yeah, that's a big one. He needs
to resign. Let's just also just take a step back here,
and with all our criticisms of what happened, note that
Democrats have no le like to stand on here. There
are massive hypocrites. We literally there was not a single
call to remove anyone after the disaster that happened in
Afghanistan where thirteen American soldiers were murdered because of preternatural
I believe I.
Speaker 2: Just want to say I'm understanding that Mike Waltz has
a defense here and that I told you that I
was pretty upset that he had put Jeff Goldberg in
the chat, but I forget where I was going with that,
so forgive me sorry. I did want to read this
other thing, which is Shelby Talcott, who's at Semaphore, said,
Trump responds to The Atlantic publishing more texts this morning
from the signal chat. He said, there weren't details, and
there was nothing in there that compromised, and it had
no impact on the attack, which was very successful. A
thing like that, maybe Goldberg found a way, maybe there's
a staffer, maybe there's a very innocent staffer. But I
think we'll get to the bottom of it very quickly.
And it's really not a big deal. I think what
he's saying is this and this could have been bad,
but it wasn't bad given the actual content of the information.
I agree it's a big deal, but I also I
am just saying it seems like he understands the game
that's being played, that people are trying to exploit this.
Like you just said, there's going to be more investigation
of this incident than there was of all of the
disasters under Obama or under Biden, and that's ridiculous, and
so you don't need to play along with that game,
even as you could be very frustrated by the lack
of operationalscuturity. Yeah, oh, my alternate examples. Sorry. So, just
a couple of weeks ago, someone had some really good
information on someone who's in the Trump administration, who has
someone like it's kind of a curiosity that he was
allowed in given some of the things in his past.
And so I looked into the story and assigned it
to someone and it turned out that the information that
we were given was actually kind of correct, But it
also turned out that we were in the middle of
something that was much bigger, where we were being perhaps
used to accomplish an outcome that was unrelated to the
information we've been given, and we couldn't yet or we
haven't yet figured out the larger part of that story.
And until we do, we don't want to just be like, oh,
someone gave me the stuff, so we're going with it.
We have to figure it all out. That is something
a lot of report don't do. They just allow themselves
to be used by a source without in any way
thinking about the bigger story. Most dramatically, in the Russia
collusion hoax. For sure, the FBI is tolding me this stuff,
so I'm going to run with it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Maybe the FBI is actually running this scam.
Speaker 1: Now, maybe there is any just local reporting for me,
anyone who got in touch with me. I immediately knew
that they were using me for something. That doesn't mean
the information is always wrong or anything like that. But
you have to figure out the bigger picture before you
move forward, that's for sure. Yeah, I understand. I'm not
saying so, I'm not just saying, listen, you know, Jeffrey
Goldberg should just release anything this FBI tells them, or
CIA or whoever, whatever deep state sources he has or
she has done. I'm just saying that you'd look at it, right,
for sure.
Speaker 2: So, and I have another, you know, example of this
from the first Trump administration, This known fabulous and liar
Cassidy Hutchinson I think her name is. She wrote in
her book that I had illegally received classified information in
a clandestine meeting in Georgetown or something like that, and
it wasn't true. I do actually go through some rigor
to make sure I'm following the law about sensitive information,
and that is to protect me and my sources, and
so I just want to say, like, just because someone
offers you something does not actually mean that you go
sure looks like meet up in a parking lot in
Georgetown and give it to me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not saying that. Yeah, but you know, it's
very possible that Jeffrey Goldberg thought he was on there
by accident, right, or that he doesn't understand the full
picture of why he's on there, but that it's still
worthwhile news to report on it is.
Speaker 2: I do not take Jeffrey Goldberg at his word. I
just don't, and I will point out also I saw JD.
Vance saying something about how Jeffrey Goldberg had claimed that
Ratcliffe was like outing an active CIA officer, so he
wasn't going to name him, and Vance was like he
was referring to his chief of staff.
Speaker 1: You know, listen, it's fair to go after Goldberg, and
I get it. You know, I see a lot of
Republicans I forgot, which I mean, like administration officials calling
it a hoax and stuff that's just dumb. But it's
Jeffrey Goldberg's fault that he's so easily dismissable because of
his long history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I would say. The man behind he
was the biggest proponent of the weapons of mass destruction hoax. Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't argue about that. I don't know what his
role was, but it was not a hoax in the
same way the Russia collusion thing was a hoax. In
my opinion, I think there are legitimate people who earnestly
believe that.
Speaker 2: And I will just say, one of my very first
articles on the Russia collusion hoax, I referenced Curveball or
whatever his name was, which was the WMD hoax. Okay,
So I disagree. I think that that was an intel
operation designed to get people into a war that they
wouldn't have gotten into had they known the facts. It's
to me exactly like the Russia collusion hoax. WMD hoax
he does. The Russia collusion hoax he does. He actually
is like the author of the Ein marn hoax, the
idea that you would question his veracity, Like, if you're
not questioning his racity, you're an idiot, because all he
does is lie and make up elaborate hoaxes designed to
do something other than what they first appear. And so
it's possible. It's possible that in the weirdest of all circumstances,
Jeffrey Goldberg is telling the truth that he was accidentally
added to a chat, and that he's not just saying
this so he can avoid prosecution for laws about handling
of handling classified information, but because he really did think
maybe it was a mistake, or that it was a sorry,
that it was people pretending to be Mike Waltz, et cetera.
I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: By the way, the chat is real though, so we
know the chat is real, but yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, but the point being, like all of the Russia
collusion stuff, was it real that James Comy briefed President
Trump elect and President Biden President Obama? Yes, it was real,
but it was still a hoax.
Speaker 1: Now I understand what I'm saying is that many of
the Russia collusion things were maybe even snippets of real things,
completely misconstrued, placed out of context, whatever. But this is
in full context, not how he got it. But the
chat itself is not disputed, so it's a real story,
and that he's in that.
Speaker 2: Chat call me briefed Obama and briefed Trump was real, right,
it was still a hoax, So you have to be
able to like just and again, maybe it really is true.
Mike Waltz fat fingered jeff Jeffrey Goldberg into a sensitive chat.
That is certainly a possibility. It's also possible that that's
not true.
Speaker 1: But I am not talking about that, okay. But the
chat and the fact that a journalist was in it,
and the fact that he could have released that information
before the bombing even began, and the fact that we
had these conversations are all real and they're not a hoax.
And you know, yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, maybe the
real I don't know, we don't know the reasoning. We'll see.
Can we talk about Vance for a moment and the
whole conversation and how you framed it. You said it
was great to see people discussing things and arguing about
them in essence, And I think that's all right. I
think Vance being a voice of dissent, I think he
was really the only voice of descent there is a
good thing. But it also tells But Vance then says,
I won't you know, he shows admirable loyalty, in my
opinion of vice president should not be out there undermining
the present. He says, I'm going to you know, support
this publicly. But it does make me think Vance isn't
actually aligned with Trump in many ways on foreign policy.
I don't think that Advance is the type of guy
who would punish the whoties. I don't. I think he's
far more you're going to jump down my throat. He's
far more isolationist or he rolled your eyes or inclined
in that direction than Trump is. Trump is has promised
to punish people who attack our ships, who you know,
undermine are shipping you know, international shipping lanes and stuff
like that. I don't think. I think Vance is much
more on the you know, in the Tucker end of
things or whatever. And I think that's fair to discuss
as well. I think, you know what I'm saying is
I saw Charlie Kirk saying, it just shows this conversation
that everyone's on board and no one says something in
public that they're not saying in private. That's not true.
Vance is saying something in public that he doesn't say
in private, and he admitted that literally.
Speaker 2: Well, what Vance said in that conversation matches with things
that Vance has said in public prior to becoming vice president.
So I think he's consistent, and that shows us that
he genuinely holds these views. I think it's so let
me just first off say that I actually do think
that it is in our country's interest to strike the
hooties and treat them as the terrorist group that they are.
They're bombing shipping routes. One of the first and earliest
uses of our military was the preservation of shipping routes.
It's a it's a long standing tradition that we secure
shipping routes. It's it's almost a way of understanding the
purpose of our military. I support going after the uties,
and I was upset when Biden on day one you
removed the terrorist classification and sort of let them bomb
shipping containers with abandon or fire on shipping containers. It
is also true, as jd. Vance pointed out, that those
aren't really our shipping routes so much as you're shipping routes.
Europe gets a lot of its goods in that region.
We do not, And so what his point was is,
once again, we are doing the defense for a continent
that is freeloading off of us so that they can
build massive welfare states and cause like great global disruption
because they're saying, oh, the US military will handle our
defense needs and our defense posture while we're the beneficiaries
of it. And as he was pointing out, our argument
with them with NATO is that they should be stepping
up much more to defend themselves against Russia and not
relying solely on or so much on US. He's right,
that's just true. Europe needs to grow up. It's been
eighty years since World War Two and they should be
handling far more of their defense, including preservation of their
sh shipping roots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they can't do it now. They wouldn't be
able to defend those shipping routes in a real way.
They freeload. I totally agree to agree with that. I've
written a book about it. But we created that opportunity,
right and we elect administration after administration until very recently
that has no problem with that really, So yes, things
need to change, but they it's like a change today,
Like the Europeans cannot protect those shipping leans right now,
They're just incapable of it. I think someone on that
chat actually said it, and we either we do it
or takes it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so either we do it.
Speaker 1: Now or no one does it. So if you want
to teach them some lesson, that's fine, I guess, but
you're just hurting us as well right now. I think
Europe needs to step up. I think NATO needs to
be reimagined, I maybe called something else or whatever, and
Europeans need to take a leading role. I agree with
all of that, but you know, you can't just one
day decide, after you know, enacting enacting a certain kind
of policy for you know, sixty seven years, and then
just one day say, oh, now you're on your own.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, But it is also true that
you can't have people mature out of a coddling situation
without stepping back. Like if you take care of everything
that your children ever need, they never become adults, and
you can't. There's a difference between you know, doing everything
and doing nothing and pulling back someone.
Speaker 1: Just just to take a step back from this. You know, everyone,
if you say we should do this with Iran or whatever,
you're called the neo kind and I just there's a
distinction I think between nation building trying to force people
to you know, dub democracies and bombing your enemies who
attack you and helping people who already want democracy, right.
I mean, I think those are two very different kinds
of philosophies and people I think, like Vance and others.
I don't want to just attack him because I think
it's perfectly reasonable for him to make his case in
a private call before war. It's good that everyone's not
agreeing on it, right, But I think that's a debate
we need to have and start talking about. But not
at this moment right now.
Speaker 2: Well, there's another since we're kind of getting into some
of this subtech stuff. I think the interesting thing it's
interesting to see how unified the administration is being in
response to this story from Jeffrey Goldberg. There are internal
disputes in play, including that including things that aren't going
to come through in that signal chat. The inside the
White House hush or like thinking is that there's jocking
between the National Security Advisor, the Defense Secretary, and other
interests for a leadership role that you know, some people
said that the National Security Advisor was feeling like he
was being shut out a little bit, that the attack
the uties plan was an effort to kind of be
out there having a successful attack. That gives him more
sway in the White House, which is, by the way,
one of the arguments why I think he might be
telling the truth about him not having brought Jeff Goldberg
into the chat.
Speaker 1: And it was a successful mission, right, and that has
been obscured here. The UTI bombing was incredibly successful, I
think at least, and you know, it's a shame I
think for the administration that they couldn't just say this
part was a mess up, but we did a good,
good thing overall. Is kind of obscure as that. Now.
Speaker 2: Uh no, that's that's why I was saying. I thought
Trump was actually handling it pretty well because it's basically
what he's saying, and that other people are being too
defensive on their part of the mess up to just saying, yeah,
it's a huge mess up. I even because I'm so
paranoid about all this stuff, and I also know that
I operate against the deep state, so I have to
be so careful about everything I'm doing. If I am
added to a group chat, I actually do run through
and ascertain what all the numbers I don't know are
before I say anything. Yeah, I mean, that's like everyone
else at a high level should be doing that as well.
Speaker 1: That just seems like self preservation. I do wonder, and
I don't know enough about it to have a strong
opinion about the usage of signal. Like I said, it
is easy to get rid of the evidence, right if
you're having conversations, So transparency laws say you can't do that.
Speaker 2: So I do wonder do they say that about deliberations
like this.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think they do. I think all
communications have to be preserved, right, But I don't know.
But I've read many stories about local government and state
government where people are starting to use these encrypted chats
and then not saving the conversations. You know, emails are
very difficult to get rid of, but an encrypted discussion
on a chat can Let's say.
Speaker 2: These people were all in a skiff, Yeah, exactly do
you have to record that?
Speaker 1: I think so? No, I do wonder. Is it like
a phone conversation. I mean, if you're writing something down
but you're just having to But then he did send
attack plans. You know, there's targets on there, there's you know,
there's a lot of what do they call them packets
like attack you know, to tell you what's going to happen.
So I don't know. I don't know enough about that.
I just I always like, if I have this technology,
I want you to do have something better than me,
like so much to have.
Speaker 2: If it's a problem, I mean, I noticed that the
Trump White House today was sending out something written in
the Atlantic during the Biden administration praising the book the
Biden administration for using signal for discrete conversations. So if
it were a problem, and maybe it is, I mean,
I'm totally open to the idea that it is. I
think people should have been raising it when it was
publicly announced that Biden this isn't agatcha.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, in the bigger picture, are these chats
going to mean that we don't see a lot of
the deliberations that go on in the future for the story,
for the record or not. I don't know. I don't know.
It doesn't seem like this was a conversation anyone would
have had to have had seen. There's no war crimes
here or anything. It's just completely I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to say something else, like you know, and I
obviously have been trying to run down what all happened
here since the story broke, But I think this matches
with what Mike Waltz said on Laura Ingram. But I
think he was given a contact with the wrong name
and Jeff Goldberg's number, And whether that was an accident
or a malicious thing, I think needs to be determined.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I see a lot of it was responsible.
Speaker 2: For that, Like again, whether that was and I think
you're hearing this also in Trump's comments is saying like
maybe it was a staff, or maybe it was an
innocent staff, or we're going to figure it out. We're
going to look into it. But if this was an
effort to get people off of signal so that things
could be leaked, it kind of is an important part
of the conversation too. If we don't have any means
of communication for the elected officials appointees that will not
be weaponized by a hostile, bureaucratic, administrative state, that's a
threat to national security too, I know.
Speaker 1: But you know, in another part of this that annoys
me is that suddenly the right is very concerned about
classified information being handled by journalists, But then they want
to think David Reeboy mentioned this, you know, then but
then they want Snowden to be pardoned, you know, I mean,
you can't have it both ways. If he's a hero,
then Jeffrey Goldberg did nothing wrong either. It's not. In fact,
Jeffrey Goldberg, in this one case, was much more responsible
with that information than Snowden or any of these people
who just like put almost everything christ off.
Speaker 2: That's if he's that's if Goldberg's telling the truth, which
would be like a first.
Speaker 1: But what about what I don't understand why that would matter.
Why Snowden procured that information illegally too.
Speaker 2: We're relying on things that Goldberg said, when the one
thing we know about Goldberg is he's a liar.
Speaker 1: No, that's not what I'm talking about the information itself.
I'm not talking about how he obtained it.
Speaker 2: So I the way I'm the way I have heard
these people talking about it is okay, So you all
supported a raid on Mara Lago on the grounds that
Donald Trump, former president, should not have even had any
like sensitive information in his possession. So what are you
going to say about jeff Goldberg.
Speaker 1: That's the same they're given it. They're massive hypocrites, the
massive hypocrites.
Speaker 2: That's how I understand. I didn't see what reeboy said.
But the complaints I've seen toward Goldberg, Like, if Goldberg's
telling the truth that this was highly classified information, what
is he doing with it? And how does that relate
to whether he should be prosecuted?
Speaker 1: I think didn't the Atlantic change its headline? I think
he's he oversold it by calling it war plans, which
intimated classified, and I forget how he characterized it in
the piece itself. And now it's attack plans, and like
we said, that's.
Speaker 2: A magic thing. War plans really would be detailed. They
would actually give coordinates, they would actually talk about who
was involved. The plans that were listed were of a
much more spare age generally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the way if the war looks.
Speaker 2: Like plans of some kind at least, but.
Speaker 1: Even if the war plans for the Houties were out,
we would still be able to destroy them. It's not like,
you know, like we have to remember, well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it could put people's lives in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: I mean sure, That's why I think it's a big story,
you know, I mean it could have been something more serious. Okay,
all right, let's do culture. I think I'd like to
begin this section by revisiting a show I spoke about
last week called Adolescence, which I loved. I thought it
was I think it's a work of art in a way,
and it's just incredibly provocative and all that. So, as
you saw, you got a bunch of letters and I
was attacked on Twitter for for well, how can I
say this for telling people the show is great, but
that in fact it was actually an anti white television
series because it's it's the story is initially about I
think they might have been immigrants, but two black thirteen
year olds who stabbed a white a girl in England.
But the truth is that, you know. So I read
up on this, I don't you know, I think, well, anyway,
I read up on it, and one of the creators
said that yes, he had seen a you know, a
string of knife attacks by young young people and that
was one of them compelled them to write about it.
That was the you know, that was the inspiration for
the for the script and all that. So it's not
actually the telling of that story. It's a telling of
a story I find out ident. I just I didn't
feel any kind of anything about race in the show.
I didn't find it political really at all. I think
this is an overreaction and people just looking to be
offended by things. I hate to break the news to folks,
but plenty of white kids have done things like this.
Even last week, a thirteen year old girl stepped someone,
killed someone, murdered someone, or was accused of it in Poland,
like it happens in the world. It's a weird thing.
The show is more about in this new world. Do
you know what your kids are doing behind closed doors
on the computer? Like who are they talking to? What
are they reading? And I just thought it was a
really interesting show, and I just I didn't feel lectured too.
I didn't feel like it had anything to do with race.
It was just a bunch of individuals and I don't
know that's how you know. So anyway, I just wanted
to explain myself to these people writing yelling at me
about this.
Speaker 2: Well, I have not seen the show. I do want
to say that that I did get a chance to
watch some television this past weekend and I said, oh,
David was raving about this one show and Mark said,
I'm going to stop you right there. So I thought
that was pretty mean of him, and I want to
pass that all.
Speaker 1: I'll stop you there because of me, not because of
the show. All right, Yeah, that's nice, Mark, We'll see.
Speaker 2: But I found so Yeah, you did get a lot
of pushback on your recommendation of the show. All of
it seemed to be on the grounds that the show
is propaganda, not that they disagreed with you about the
quality of the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't about the quality.
Speaker 2: And this one person went through in great detail about this.
The basis for this story is a really interesting story
about crime done by immigrants or family members of recent
immigrants against non immigrants, and how the story has been
upended to be exactly the opposite and is now being
used by political forces in the UK to go after
people for not being tolerant enough of immigrant groups. And
he was saying it was like if you were to
say how cinematically great triumph of the Will is and
not be thinking about the context in which it's being
So you did not find that compelled. I thought it
was a pretty compelling email.
Speaker 1: I thought that was the worst email I got all week,
And I'll tell you why. First of all, the rest
of it was just annoying because a lot of people
think that if because you're not uplifting their point of
view that you're somehow weak, you know, like I forgot
is that the guy told me to get to eat
wheaties or like, oh no, he said I was was
a beaten wife? What is it battered wife syndrome? Right, which,
because I don't agree with his particular take on something,
it's not how it works. But this show had nothing
to do with immigrants. The victim was not an immigrant.
There is one immigrant character who's friends with the person
who was killed. And incidentally, I'm gonna just these are
spoilers coming, so I'm just it is what it is.
It doesn't spoil the show, but you're going to know something.
They portray the victim as a terrible person, a bully.
The girl in who's the victim was terrible to the
person who stabbed them. So I never got the feeling.
It was complicated, you know, you felt sympathy for the
attacker in a way, you know, because of this, like
he was being bullied online by these girls, and I
just didn't see any of that. Now I'm always I'm
willing to say I was wrong. I'm not going to
rewatch it because it's a little bit too much. Yeah,
it's not a kind of show you're going to like
watch all the time. But I just don't buy that.
I didn't see that, And I think people being just
a bit too sensitive. Now if there's a problem of
immigrant kids stabbing you know, locals or natives or whatever
you want to call them in Britain and elsewhere, and
it's being used in a certain way. I mean, you
know a lot of good things are misused by by
by people for political purposes. Historical events are misused, you know,
Nietzsche is misused, Like you know what I mean, Like
you can't. I can't worry about that. I think stand
alone on the show that it's a good show, and
I just I didn't see it in a racial way
at all. I saw it about individuals struggling. The parents.
One episode is about the parents struggling to understand how
they can have a kid who did this? You know,
like it's just interesting on that level. Wait, you watch
some TV? Did you watch anything?
Speaker 2: I did? I got a couple more episodes of White
Lotus in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So watching that no yet, and maybe I will.
Speaker 2: I love it. I find it so interesting in my speed,
and it's not family friendly viewing. I feel like I
need to reiterate that, but I find the character super interesting.
In part I've seen all these people say nothing is
happening this season, but I actually think that's kind of
the whole situation with White lotuses. It's just people on
vacation or at a resort, and in fact, quite a
bit happens. I mean, there's been an armed robbery and
a snake bite, and like, to me, it's very dramatic,
but it's a different way of telling stories. And I
find even just like the craft of how this Mike
White guy blends the different stories together, but how they're
all kind of very separate. I just like all of that,
and I like the actors, and so I'm hoping it continues.
I saw some warning that there's an episode involving incest,
which I do not want to see at all.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I only hear good things about
the show, generally speaking, but it does seem like the
director or the writer whoever, feels the need to occasionally
like do something transgressive that's going to like freak people out,
you know, and it doesn't sound like it needs it, really,
but I don't know even mind.
Speaker 2: And then one of the subplots are these three friends
from childhood who are going on vacation together, and one
of the women is like a Hollywood actress, maybe a
TV show actress. Another one is a Trump voter from
Texas who's married to I think a wealthy businessman, and
then the third is a divorcee who lives in New York.
And it's portrayed as a toxic three way friendship in
that the women when they're when it's only two of
the women together, they talk ill of the third. And
what I find interesting about that is that I have
a three way, very close friendship from childhood where I
still am close to my two besties from that, you know,
from junior high school, and I am so thankful for them,
and we are very different. We're all very very different,
but at least from at least at least as far
as I'm aware, nobody's ever talked ill.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you don't know if they're
talking about you, like.
Speaker 2: Maybe they are, but they've never spoken ill to me
about the other. And it's always and we're and it's
not like we're all in agreement. I know they don't
like my politics, and they're very polite about how they
say it, but they're very also like straightforward about it.
Speaker 1: You are fascist friend, she's our fascist.
Speaker 2: No, but like they love me and we've been through
a lot together and we love each other, and I'm
just so thankful to have a That is one thing
I don't love is how female friendship is portrayed, always
so negatively, and in my experience, I have literally never
had anything other than positive, like extremely positive female friendships.
And I have really close friends. Who are you know
that I've met?
Speaker 1: Did you grow up with these two friends of yours?
Do you know them since you're young? Yeah? I think
those are different kind of friendships than the ones you
make later in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But it isn't for me. I just have, at least again,
to my knowledge ship, I've had nothing but really really good, supportive,
loving friendships. And even my girlfriends when they disagree with me,
they'll just say it. They don't do anything like whatever
the popular conception of women being conniving, it has not
been my experience.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's nice that you have those friendships, you know,
I feel that those are the older I get. As
you know, we've had a whole episode on how I
have trouble making friends. You'd be very proud of me. Lately,
I've been walking up to people left and right. Nice
but yeah, trying to start conversations. It's very difficult. But anyway,
the uh, the friendships I have that I formed when
I was young, those are stronger. I think just because
you've had experiences together for so long, you can deal
with each other, whereas new people might not like your
quirks or you know, it's hard to, for instance, be
friends with someone who doesn't share your politics because people
are very emotional about that the day. I'm not that.
I never would, you know, push someone unless they were
like a pro Hamas person or something. I wouldn't, you know,
I'd be friends with any anyone with other positions.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I have one more. I just want to watch it.
I think you had said you watched Say Nothing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's like the mystery one of those mystery
British ones.
Speaker 2: Like a I thought it's about Oh, Say.
Speaker 1: Nothing's Irish one. No, I read that book a few
years back. Yeah, I can now watch the show on Hulu.
You watched it? Was it good?
Speaker 2: I've only seen one episode, but it is good thus far.
It's just like a while you're rowing kind of thing.
So I'll let you know how that goes.
Speaker 1: But I have two quick ones. I went, I've been
going to this Jewish film festival and there's the documentaries
called The Book He Didn't Earn, which is about Hitler's library.
So I assumed there would be an excellent documentary where
they're like, well, Hitler had this book and here's what
this author's philosophy was, and here's how it affected his thinking,
and that's why, you know. Instead it was just this
just terrible documentary that basically kept flashing up pictures of
Donald Trump and like conservatives, and so they talk about
anti semitism, and you know, they show at least five
times I think during this documentary the Charlottesville Jews will
not replace Us or whatever March not one. And this
guy gets on and he says, first of all, I'm
in there with hundreds of people just like making all
kinds of noises every time something stupid. Oh yeah, they
said Fox News is they go after Fox News is
the most you know, racist station. And then they say
the guy says, literally every attack against Jews over the
last ten years has been perpetrated by right wing nationalists.
I made like the biggest noise. I mean, Islamists don't
attack Jews. I don't even know. Yeah, yeah, anyway, don't
see it. It's awful and really blew a really good idea.
I thought, sorry I interrupted you. We're gonna say something.
Speaker 2: I just imagined you in the theater being like, come on,
like when I watched Basic Instinct with my mother in
the theater and she was appalled.
Speaker 1: I did. I think I made some of the people
around me uncomfortable. But I want to kind of walk out.
But here's the thing. We were in the in the
middle of the aisle, and there were a lot of
old people, so walking out would have taken me like
a half an hour. So I didn't want to subject
everyone to that.
Speaker 2: It was this is a total curb your enthusiasm, skin.
Speaker 1: People keep calling me grouchy, and I don't know that
that's true really. But and then I so I had
started watching severn So, which everyone talks about, and I
watched the first season whenever it came out twenty twenty two,
and I thought it was okay, actually good. I thought
it was good. Started watching the second season. I was
kind of bored, so I quit. But then everyone was talking, talking,
about it. So I just been binge watched it, and
again I thought it was okay if you don't think
too deeply about it. There are some real have you
watched it?
Speaker 2: I watched one, like the first one of the first season, okay,
and it was it was fine. It did not grab
me at all, and I was like, yeah, this is it.
Also someone I saw someone tweet that it was a
low IQ's a low IQ person's idea of a high
IQ show. And I haven't watched enough to assess whether
that was accurate, but that was exactly how I felt
after one episode.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to some extent. But there are
some interesting ideas within it, like what if you were
actually two people and you didn't know each other? Right?
So is that separate person's morality doesn't matter what they do?
Are you responsible as a whole for it? You know?
Are you killing one of them if you turn it off?
You know? And things like that, which isn't especially high
IQ but interesting enough. I thought, fine, it's also technically
well done, and if you don't think too deeply about it,
it's interesting, but it suffers slightly from the lost problem
I call it. I don't know if you watch Lost, but.
Speaker 2: I only read David Harsani's thoughts on Loss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I felt like they constantly The mystery itself
is so interesting, the premise is so great, and severance
I think has a great premise. It's very difficult to
kind of deliver on it, you know, what is actually
going on, So basically you just go from you answer
a question with another giant question and so on, and
at some point you have to actually answer a question fully,
and when you get there, it's always kind of a
letdown in the you know, there's there's gonna be another
season and all that. But anyway, here's the thing. I
like the attempt of shows sometimes to be a little
bit smarter, even though it's not as smart as maybe
the show thinks it is. You know, I just there's
so much, so many dumb shows on there, so I
appreciate the effort. I guess I'd say that's all. That's all.
Speaker 2: It does remind me of this. Did you ever watch Westworld?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I did not love it.
Speaker 2: Well, I loved I was really, this is fascinating. I'm
enjoying where we're going. And I was like, and I
just cannot wait for the payoff. Yeah, and there was
no payoff. It was the stupidest ending. I don't even
remember what it was, but I was angry. And Mark
makes fun of me because I haven't always watched a
ton of television like he did growing up, so I
can more easily get into a show, and then when
it ends with nothing, he's like, that's just normal, that's how.
Speaker 1: Television it is.
Speaker 2: But it enraged me, and I was like, I'm never
giving my life over to a TV show ever. Again.
Speaker 1: Finales are usually terrible and I'm the only person though
on Earth I think that I know who thought that
the Lost finale was fine. I didn't hate it. There
was really no way to extricate yourself from that storyline
without doing what they did. I appreciate again a show
that's well done and pose us some questions that I
enjoy pondering. I guess, okay, that's it from me. Anything
else I don't think, so okay. Remember you can email
us at radio at the Federalist dot com. Be nicer
this week, please if you can be And oh I
love it.
Speaker 2: You don't care what people say, and then you ask
them to be nicer after ripping on them throughout the show.
Speaker 1: The truth is, I don't care what people think about it,
but I do care when people send me emails making
bad arguments or misrepresenting my position. That annoys me and
I can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about you thank all the nice people who
sent you nice mail this week, which we also got
a lot of.
Speaker 1: I love you people who send me nice mail, especially
one guy I forget his name, I apologize who has
been reading me since I was at the Denver Post.
Appreciate him. I wish I could remember the names of
the people I don't appreciate. I might make a list
and read it on air. Now. I'm just kidding. Keep writing.
I like people to challenge my thinking and challenge the
things I say. It's interesting. I think I'm gonna cut
all this out though, now Okay, well, anyway, keep sending
that mail and we'll be back next week. Until then,
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.