August 4, 2026 • 45 mins
Mark Davis fills in for Hugh and talks with Noah Rothman, James Lileks, Terell Wright, and Connor Boyack.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things
Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
take advantage of the many free online courses there and
of course the listener to the Hillsdale Dialogues all of
them at HF Hillsdale dot com or just google, Apple,
iTunes and Hilldale.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And there we are. Take a look at Washington, DC,
take a look at the nation's capital where all kinds
of things are happening every day. Chronicling things that are
happening every day on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Mark Davis
in for Hugh. Quite quite the week for me. I
got Hugh today and tomorrow. Scott Jennings on Wednesday. I
think I'm coming to your house to do the windows.
I think on Thursday or Friday or something like that.
Trying to be the renaissance man in an ever expanding industry.
(00:41):
Salem Radio Networks, Salem News Channel. However you are listening,
however you are watching, just however you are consuming the product,
we are very very grateful to you and thanks for
hanging out with us again. Follow me on Twitter at
Mark Davis Mark Davis. If you're inclined to do that
all things Hugh, of course, at Hugh Hewitt. So as
we begin this Monday, this third day of August, it's
(01:04):
one hundred degrees in Texas, which is going to be
until Thanksgiving. It's what we do, it's how we roll.
But it's hot all over the place in terms of
hot topicality. Got some Trump cuts from the Oval Office
in just the last hour, hour and a half. He's
talking some Iran, He's talking some Spain. So many lessons
to learn from that? Was it sixty thousand a football
(01:27):
stadium filled with with battle age young men there where
Morocco meets Spain. Are there lessons in that for the
United States, for the Blue States, for any states? RFK
Junior versus Dana Bash was fun on CNN State of
Union over the weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That was.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Say what you will about Bobby Junior. He just ain't
having it. And in fact, that's Representative Rubio out of
the President's cabinet, Governor DeSantis, Governor Abbott, my governor. The
days of just laying out and being steamrolled by the
(02:12):
narratives of the left, those days are over. It's not
like Trump waived some magic wand and made that all happen.
But with him walking the point, with this mindset, it's
funny as with the flamethrower cranked up to the max
every day from the White House. By comparison, anybody that
(02:33):
just cranks it up a little bit in their governor's mansion,
from their congressional office, from whatever office they hold, is
going to look is going to look positively measured by comparison.
So let me tell you the tools of the trade today.
We got a lot of great folks that we are
going to welcome. Noah Rothman from National Review, wonderful, James Lylacs,
(02:55):
colonist and writer, extraordinary. They'll be with us this hour.
You can be with us this hour or any hour
as we talk about stuff from South Carolina to Iran,
to Spain, to the mid terms to the DSA lunacy.
Let me just give you the phone number. It's where
you can hop on get staged. We'll screen your calls
hot and intersperse your thoughts amid mine and some of
(03:18):
our great guests today. And you know the Hugh Hewitt
Show phone number, or you should. It's one eight hundred
five too oh one two three four one eight hundred
five two oh one two three four, grab that line
or just shoot me something. In the world of Twitter.
They're at Mark Davis and I will see that. The
phone number is one eight hundred five to two oh
one two three four. All right, let's go just a
(03:40):
few within the last hour, hour and a half in
the Oval office. This is going to be cut nineteen.
The press gaggle was gathered. The idea. Usually when you
gather the press sometimes there's a theme, and this theme
was military spouses the theme. So there was so Pete
Hegseth was there, Missus tag Seth was there. Emblematic of
(04:03):
the home front, military spouses, the war at home. It
is the person in uniform who puts on that uniform
and walks toward global trouble spots and who might die.
We had just a service this past weekend for nineteen
year old Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, twenty minutes from
(04:26):
where I'm sitting. This beautiful nineteen year old young lady,
she had just graduated from high school and was willing
to put on the uniform of this country, died in
the Iranian attack in Jordan. And it's not like any
one life jumps out at you more than any of
the others. But this young lady, her death, her life
(04:49):
have resonated so deeply here in this community, and I
know just about wherever you live, and really during any war,
I mean it's not just this war, but obviously any conflict,
the Gulf War, of the War on Terror, back through
Vietnam and before. Communities are always impacted by the sons
and daughters that they lose. So any you have the
(05:10):
people who pack their stuff head off into the war zone,
and then somebody's left at home to not just keep
the home fires burning, as the familiar saying goes, but
to keep the household operating to oh, I don't know,
take care of the kids, make sure that the household
(05:30):
is secure and functional. And in a way, I'll tell
you the way that everybody in the military views this.
A man in a war zone views his wife at
home as a partner in the war effort. A woman
in the war zone would feel the same way about
a husband at home. That is, it's not just people
who go off to war. Families are part of this
(05:53):
war effort. And so today's White House event was about
showing honor and showing some preciation for military spouses and
I can't think of a more honorable and appropriate use
of time. Needless to say, after a while, the president's
best use of time is taking a bunch of questions
from a bunch of reporters. This is cut nineteen where
(06:15):
we could eat with Iran over the weekend. It was like,
we've seen this short film before. We're gonna hit you.
We're gonna hit you so hard you're not going to
know what your name is anymore. But then somebody's on
the phone saying, hey, there may be progress. Maybe we
lay back for a little bit, and the President says, okay,
let's lay back for a little bit. See what happens.
(06:36):
It's a bargaining tactic. It's optics, it's positioning. Fine, that's
all great. If it please Lord, let it all be
advancing us toward something like a satisfactory resolution with a
non nuclear Iran with no five dollars gas and this
all wrapped up. It'd be really nice if it was
by you know, the end of September, just saying you
(06:58):
hate to run a war on a we're running a
woe on o'clock. You don't ever want to do that.
President Trump will say he's not running one o'clock. And
I know if success, real success, takes till February, Okay,
that'll be more That'll be more important than any intervening
political event, even though the midterms are obviously huge. But
when you look at the way America viewsed this war,
(07:22):
and not just Democrats, you'all familiar with Matt Walsh, love
him ninety percent of the time. Nobody better on gender,
nobody better on all kinds of other things. He had
a post earlier today that said, grocery prices are insane.
Every Republican ought to be talking about affordability. Affordability, affordability,
(07:44):
stop the stupid foreign wars and focus on that. And
I read that, and I could see a bunch of
people going, yeah, I feel the same way. I don't
mean to get greedy, but is that a necessary binary choice?
You mean to tell me that I could either have
affordable eggs or a non nuclear Iran. I somehow believe
(08:05):
that both are possible. I think it's possible for this
administration to absolutely focus on affordability, show people in the
midterms that Conservatism is the best path toward affordability, while
also beating down the threat of a nuclear Iran. Call
me crazy. I think both are possible. So we're at
a pause right now. But as he will do, President
(08:27):
Trump says, if things don't progress, the pause will end.
This is cut nineteen with a hint from the President
on what will happen now off and they're going on
right now.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
It's an amazing thing. We have a little problem with
iron because we have many talks that will say we
have or we don't have, you know, straight about it,
but they deny it. But they're not denying it now.
They just put out a savement not denying it.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But for some reason they.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
When they're talking, they don't like saying that they're talking.
So I say, we're in talks, big deal, we're in talk,
and they'll sometimes deny it, even though they spent hours
and hours together talking. Now the talks are going along,
we're going to hit them very hard. Yesterday, very very hard,
harder than any attack I think I can say general
(09:15):
from a point of knowledge, any attack since World War Two.
That's pretty big. And we were set to go, and
they called, and in addition, Sodi Arabia call and h
u a E called.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Guitar call.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I call some numerous people. I don't want to use
the word begging, but some.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Let's go ahead and hop out little pick up on
the other side, Mark Davison, for you.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Out of the treat of life, I just picked me
a plown. You came along and everything started to long.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
National events, world events come and go. But on only
one day, and this is that day. Will we observe
the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Tony Bennett.
So you're going to get some Tony Bennett today, Other
artists to be sure, because when I come, I bring
an entire vault full of chart history and other delightful things.
Tony Bennett, the best is yet to come nineteen sixty two.
(10:20):
Please let that be true on various fronts. Let's talk
about how things are going well, not well, and everything
in between with a great senior writer at National Review,
Noah Rothman. Noah, welcome, How.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
You doing, sir, very Willmark? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Nice to have you listen. I know you've been doing
a couple of things in the last couple of hours,
putting sort of some of the final edits on your
most recent piece at National Review, which is thoroughly depressing.
Were you also did you watch any of Trump over
the last couple of hours and the barrage of questions
he was bandying back and forth.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
Yeah, I had my head down for most of it,
but I caught a couple of clips. I'm not sure
where you want to go with that, but they were
all new worthy.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Yes, they typically are.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
They were, So I tell you what, let's do what.
Anytime you have one of those multi topic combinations of
President Trump making various pronouncements, jabbing at the occasional you know,
twenty three year old reporter from MS now or anything
in between, it kind of gives you an overall thought
of where his mood is, where things seem to be going, war,
(11:23):
mid terms, affordability, what's the broad temperature that you take
here as August begins, and then we'll dig into some
of what you say about the war and your just
posted peace.
Speaker 7 (11:37):
That's an interesting approach to this question. Like a thirty
thousand foot perspective, the president seems more imperturbable than I
think Republicans would like him to be. I think they
honestly want to see the president respond with some passion
to what they regard as an existentially political calamity, the
earth killing media that everyone can see from miles out
(12:00):
is bearing down on the Republican Party ahead of November.
And there are plenty of Republicans who have different perspectives
on how the GOP can write this ship, but all
of them center on getting the president to focus on
and talk more about economic issues and specifically what this
Republican Congress has done to shape pocketbook narratives and pocketbook
(12:21):
issues that the public is generally concerned about. That side
affordability thing you're discussing, and that's where you get into
the war. And I don't think it's possible to look
at the president's job approval ratings at least the average
is compiled by places like RCP and see no connection
between the Iran war and the president's job approval ratings.
Specifically the resumption of high tempole hostilities high temple combat
(12:43):
operations earlier this month, which are on and off. You know,
you could say that the war started again, but it's on.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Some days, it's off some days. Either way.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
The public took notice because you can see in the
visualization of that data the president's job approval rating declining
even as his job disapproval rating declining, rather as his
job approval rating remains stable, So it's tethered to the
Iran War in the public's mind, and the public has
just not bought in with this campaign. I think it's
(13:11):
an pronounced national project, a very important national project. But
Trump has not approached the public consistently, often and with
sincere and genuine, observable deference to public opinion. What is
expected of Americans, what we're supposed to absorb in the interim,
(13:32):
and what we're going to get out of the Iran War.
I can answer all those questions, I think, because I
think the President has said this, but you know, it's
not good enough to say it once.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
You have to repeat it.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
You have to say it so many times if becomes
a mantra so that your voters can actually articulate it
independent of you. And I don't think the President has
done a very good job of that. He seems to
not really trust the public with an accurate assessment of
where we are in this conflict, and I think voters
have repaid that mistrust in kind by withholding it from
this presidency.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's an interesting sort of psychological observation. What does it
look like to trust the public with the really daunting news,
some of the details of which you mentioned in your
brand new piece on the corner at NRO. When it
comes to Iran, the Trump administration leaks like a sieve.
So if you have a piece written that says this
(14:21):
war's not going well and it may get worse before
it gets better, that could come from a Democrat senator,
or it could come from someone who believes in the goal,
believes in the operation, and is frustrated that it hasn't
gone better. Presuming you are the latter, give everybody a
little of a summary of what you've what you described
in that piece, of the various snippets of really daunting
(14:45):
news that have come out into the public square.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Well, I got one more for you. It could come
from a Democratic senator who wants to undermine the war
for it come from a well meaning Republican who wants
the war effort to go better. It could come from
somebody in the intelligence and military apparatus who does not
want this war to go well, who did not want
this war to begin in the first place. And there
are plenty of those in the president's orbit who are
suspicious and hostile to the extroverted presidence of the United States.
(15:09):
On the world stage, certainly military activity like this against
avowed American adversaries. I don't know where these leaks are
coming from. I am suspicious of them, why because they
all air in one direction. Maybe if we got one
leak from the intelligence or military community that said, Wow,
things are going kind of bad for Iran in this
very specific way, but we never get those. All we
(15:31):
get is how time is on Iran side. Everything is
going their way, and this could not be going worse
for the United States. Which is not to say that
I don't trust the information that's being leaked. I mistrust
the conclusions that are being retailed along with the information
that's being leaked. Among some of these claims that Iran
maintains roughly seventy five percent of its ballistic missile capabilities,
(15:54):
that the United States only did cosmetic damage to the
Iranian nuclear program, that they're digging out of the damage
that they already that was done to the nuclear program,
and the Ranian regime has the capacity to outlast the
US blockade. Now we can argue about the particulars, and
I think some of those particulars need to be argued with,
but the conclusion that is bandied about along with them,
that the US has no option but to engage in
(16:17):
a humiliating retreat and surrender the strait of hormones to Iran.
I don't think one follows the other. You could very
easily say that all of this information suggests that the
US should go full bore, because you know what, maybe
Iran has seventy five percent of its ballistic missile capabilities.
It had one hundred percent of its ballistic missile capabilities
at the outset of Epic Fury. Those missile launches slowed
(16:39):
to a trickle by early March, not because they didn't
have the missiles, because they didn't have access to the missiles.
And when they launched those missiles, they were interdicted by
US assets or they were fired upon by offensive military
operation offensive assets in the air. There's some concern over
our defensive munitions, specifically these really high end ballistic missile
interceptors that were running low on that's again classified information
(17:01):
that should not be with the general public. But let's
say it's true. You can compensate for a lack of
defensive ordinance by using a lot of offensive ordinance. Now
is that risky?
Speaker 6 (17:11):
Yes? It is. This whole adventure was risky.
Speaker 7 (17:14):
If we didn't have the heart for it, we shouldn't
have started it in the first place. But you can't
go back in history. We cannot go back to a
world before this war started. The status quob is behind us.
We have a new status quo in front of us,
and it's up to us to shape it. So I
just I don't see these leaks as serving the purpose
that I think if they're in malign and intent, and
they may very very well be, just because they want
to force the president into a box from which he
(17:36):
can't escape, that doesn't mean that we have no options
available to us. The Pentagon has given the President a
lot of options. He's reluctant to pull the trigger on
them for a variety of I think very good reasons.
But that doesn't mean that we won't have options that
we can't execute.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed, and some of the exact details of what I
was talking about is in his brand new piece there
at Nationalreview dot Com. When it comes to Iran, the
Trump administration leaks like a sieve, he writes in there,
to the tails, great to talk to you, Thank you
so much for being on the program. Mark Davison for
you Hewitt, we cruise through the bottom of the hour,
we pop back out. Let's talk a little bit about
what this all means, what it's like to run a
(18:09):
war on a clock, what the options are, and how
the American people may or may not have a stomach
for what's necessary. Mark Davison, for you stick around, much
more to come. You may be asking yourself, why would
(18:31):
I do this to you? If I try to usually
bring in some cerebral collection of musical birthdays and chart history.
What in the world am I doing destroying your day
with Los del Rio the Macarena? Because it is chart history.
This kid's was the number one record in America thirty
years ago today. I did not plan this, but this
(18:54):
happens to be the segment where we do a little
bit of a palette cleanser away from everything depressing and
say hi to one of my favorite writers who I
don't think I've ever had the chance to say hi to.
Let's let's let's head to the Land of ten Thousand
Lakes or whatever the count is up to right now.
James Lylex is here. How you doing, sir?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I'm doing fine, and it's a pleasure. Mark.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
I used to listen to you back in d C
in the nineties when I was working out of the bureau.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Get out of town. That it is. It's a real,
real pleasure, thank you very very much.
Speaker 8 (19:20):
And also in the nineteen nineties, of course, I was
at a political convention when the macarena was very popular.
Jack Omen, my friend who was the cartoonist for one
of the papers, and the syndicate in a hilarious cartoon
of Al Gore doing the macarena, which just consisted of
very six still pictures of Gore not moving Higgs and.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I would expect, I would expect nothing like that, you.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
Know, very that very that.
Speaker 8 (19:43):
But that very night Gore got up on stage and
did the same thing himself, not moving to parody himself
and my friend's eyes, entire syndicated cartoon.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Go up in ashes, and there was not that he
could do. Oh the nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That it is the feeling of powerlessness. So in taking
a look at the various things that James is up to,
you're always in good shape. Spending a segment on see
if I have this list complete food, film, pets, and
sci fi. So I've been taking a look at some
of the things I've been writing about you and I.
Everybody else has, but you and I have not done
sixty seconds on the Odyssey. What do you make of
the film and the talking sport that it has become.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
The talking sport that has become is great because you
can get a good quick view of where somebody is
politically depending on what the object to or what the
objections of the object to.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
It's great that we're talking about it.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
I mean, here's something fundamental piece of Western civilization and
we're arguing about it, which is great. Everybody gets to
have their opinion on racial casting and the rest of it.
We can have that argument. I was discussing actually with
somebody at the other day why some people actually have
an objection to race swapping and historical dramas, and it
was news to this guy. I mean, it was a
sort of way of looking at it that he'd never
(20:49):
considered before. So good conversations come out of it. And
of course there's that great tie in. Apparently you can
get approach and horse bucket where you dig the popcorn
out of the belly of the thing. That'll be a
collective collectable on eBay for at least three dollars and
fifty cents ten years.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Hence, so let's say, let's do I knew that every
answer would give my next question. I could not care
less that Helen of Troy was black, could not have
possibly cared less. I am the most activist person you'll
find on trans lunacy and how that cult must be defeated.
But I didn't mind three on screen minutes of Elliott Page.
(21:27):
I just don't care. Now that having been said, help
me square this. Do I need Idris Elba or anybody
else to be black James Bond? I do not make
him a cool black British spy, make him double O
eight is are those? Is it possible to feel both
of those ways at the same time?
Speaker 6 (21:46):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Matter of fact, I agree, there's no there's no problem
with think having a black James or a black secret
agent working for MI five with a license to kill.
But what people object to is the notion that you
don't get to have the stories of yourture. Now, you
can't do anything with the stories of these cultures because
that would be colonialism, appropriation and all the rest of it.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
But you have to have all of your stories an
adults rator.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
And if you said, okay, so we can't do Woody Harrelson,
it is not your Ralph Abernathy.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
No, you don't.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
You can have a black Hell and Detroy. So I mean,
I don't care either except what people get behind. This
is the message as a great YouTuber who talks about
these things is.
Speaker 8 (22:28):
And unless they're giving you the message, somehow they feel
as that they've failed on the responsibility to educate you
on what's necessary to think. So but again, Elliott Page
in the movie, I couldn't care less. So yeah, but
the idea of just al but going to work with
the James Bond theme in a tuxedo and doing the
work of the West, I'd pay good money to see that.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
In a second, I want to tell you what I
would pay. I'd do a house payment to see what
Doy Haroldson has talked to. Ralph Abernathy. So, speaking of
the culture and things like the Odyssey that can be
high minded and popcorn munching entertainment, you wrote a piece
called from Concertos to Cage Matches. It seemed to celebrate
America's comfort zone mixing high and low culture. I've always
(23:10):
mixed high in low culture in my brain and found
ways to enjoy both. I don't see how that is
even a disconnect.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
No, now that do I.
Speaker 8 (23:18):
And unfortunately you're referring to something that I wrote probably
a month ago, which I have absolutely no memory whatsoever.
You write this much, your brains just sort of goes
terms like an etches sketch upside down and wipes it out.
But I seem to recall that the great thing about
the country was, yes, you can have this American celebration
that Trump had in the White House that has kid
rocked at all, And that's as much of America as
the high blown Leonard Bernstein works that we found, which
(23:42):
found a new way to express Western civin American tenalities.
I mean, so that's what I love about this country
is the way that we've always done that and the
way we've also had a middle brow culture. But the
middle brow is going away. It's being squeezed. We have
less high brow than before because people are suspicious of it.
Middlebro seems to be evaporating, and unfortunately we're getting able
a little bit too dominating, I think by the lowbrow
culture that swamps the gun Wales, and I wish we
(24:04):
had a little bit more of the middle brow aspiration
to cultural goodness.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
But what would be I agree with you, what would be?
I could certainly give you an example of high brow
and lowbrow, ten examples each. What would be what is
your go to middle brow cultural taste?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
Well, perfect example Norman Rockwell.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
When I was growing up, of course, everybody had to
sneer at girl Norman Rockwell because it was just oh
so American, an obvious and cliche and a magazine cover.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
And then later in life you realize the technique the manhad,
and his ability to tell.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
His story so simply, and the wonderful ability to inhabit
American culture.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Rockwall is perfect middle.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
Brow, but it's the middle brough of an era when
artistic standards were still in place.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
The middlebrow aspiration of the fifties and sixties was.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
I'm going to get that boxed set of the greatest
things pieces of Western literature. I'm going to get those
forty five records that tell me the five symphonies I
need to do. I'm going to get this serious mega
see that explains modern painting to me. All of these
things had required work. They required work and talent, and
were simply somebody doing graffiti on a wall or putting
(25:11):
a bucket of vomit on the you know, in the
museum biennial and saying this is O No, there was
still something that required actual talented technical ability.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So I knew I would have fun, and I hope
you all did too, and it's always great. His substack
Twitter feed is at Liles l I L e K s.
Best to your great state of Minnesota, filled with great
with crazy people, but beautiful things of beautiful people as well.
Former Star Tribune legend and now somebody you should read
every day, the great James Ilex, Mark Davison, You Hewitt
(25:42):
back in a moment, back into issues of the day
and more of your calls to hear. Thanks Mark Davis.
Will you glad you're here in for Hugh Hewitt today
and tomorrow? And we're keeping track of anything going on
in the days, continuing breaking news, taking a look at
large thematic things as we work towards the midterms, and
in this particular case, as we begin this half hour,
looking at a question that a lot of people are
(26:04):
asking with a gentleman who wrote a piece that I
saw over the weekend that I went to Danielle and
I said, hey, let's see if we can find this guy,
and we have succeeded. I'm very very pleased about that.
If there is anything that Democrats are curious about, it's
the question what in the world is going on in
the Democrat Party. If there's anything Republicans are interested in
and talking about, it's what in the world is going
(26:27):
on in the Democrat Party? It is listen, obviously, Republicans,
we got issues on Tapa issues, you know, how do
we message how do we fend off disaster? November third?
But just as as MAGA and the Tea Party started
as sort of insurgencies within the Republican sphere, what is
this DSA thing? What is this multi headed serpent? And
(26:51):
it is that the proper metaphor? Or is it the
kind of thing that can inject energy into the party
and give them even more success? So it's calling through stuff.
In there with the wallstre Journal from a gentleman named
Terrell Wright was an article called these Democratic voters are
battling over what their party stands for. And I talk
to people who are discussing that every day. So I
(27:12):
figured let's see if we could get mister Wright, Terrell
Mark Davison for you. You it is a pleasure to see.
How are you doing, sir.
Speaker 9 (27:19):
Markham?
Speaker 6 (27:20):
Good? How are you?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Absolutely great? Give me a little bio on you. How
long what is a news associate? And how long have you
been at the Wall Street Journal?
Speaker 9 (27:29):
So the news associated is I'm basically a reporter with
the Wall Street Journal, just early career here reporting out
of Washington on our politics coverage. So I've been covering
the midterm elections for the past few months in the
run up and all of the exciting, crazy chaotic moments.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Only more adventures lie ahead. And where are you're from?
Where'd you go to school? What's your story?
Speaker 9 (27:52):
Yeah, I'm from Georgia. I'm from Walton County, Georgia. If
any of your listeners know where that is, that's right
outside of Atlanta. Went to school in Connecticut and graduated
and lived here in DC currently Connecticut College and studied economics.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And well, this is a really, really fine piece of
journalism because you found out now, was this you compiling
conversations that a lot of people did, or from Michigan
to New Jersey? Were you actually talk at all these
people yourself? Because you certainly curated it in a way
that was a really nice snapshot of how various Democrats
are feeling.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
So I went to Detroit to talk to a few voters. Particularly.
I followed around Donovan McKinney, who is a Democratic Socialist
running for a seat in Detroit. His race is actually tomorrow.
He's running against Representativestry on Indoor, and I just went
on door knocking, sort of went on a door knocking
(28:50):
campaign with him and and tagged along and I interviewed
several voters who said they were supporting him.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
I also talked to voters in.
Speaker 9 (28:59):
Primary throughout the country in New York, Colorado, and then
some voters who are close to some of the epicenters
of where democratic socialism is really having a moment.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right now, gotcha. So some of the examples you found
and the people used to they're wonderful pictures of all
of them, and it made me want to have conversations
with them myself. A lady named Christine McClellan, she's from Detroit.
She's seventy two, so she's seen some things done, some
voting in her life, and she says she is supporting
mister McKinney, the Democrat socialist, because he wants to end
(29:31):
American wars overseas. Other people say they're supporting the socialists
because of their what that strikes them as better messaging
on affordability, and those are things that mainstream politicians can feel.
I'm guessing that mister McKinney at no point began his
conversation by saying I want to do away with the
(29:51):
Pentagon and have no borders and no prisons. Is it
because he doesn't feel that way? Is there's not one
cut and paste democratic socialist. What's what's your thought?
Speaker 9 (30:03):
I think, like President Trump, one thing that's really interesting
is that these Democratic Socialists candidates are seen as insurgents.
They're not running on track records per se. They're running
on sort of promises and ideas that are very popular
among a lot of voters. For example, Christine McClellan, that
seventy two year old her nephew is abroad right now,
(30:24):
and she's incredibly worried about what's going on in the
Middle East and in the the Iran US War. And so,
you know, McKinney, not once when he was campaigning, when
I was with him, did the word socialism come out
of his mouth. But what came out of his mouth
was talking about ending wars abroad and stopping sort of conflicts,
(30:44):
and that was what really sold her. So I think,
like President Trump, sort of this insurgent message of you know,
we're going to change the party. We're here to fight
for people, rather than sort of, you know, the party,
the GOP itself. The message is actually the selling point.
It's not necessarily a detracting attribute to a lot of
(31:07):
these candidates, and it's why we see them winning, specifically
in heavily democratic districts where Democrats we are going to
win anyway. But these are Democrats who are sick of
the party because they don't feel that the fight against
President Trump is hard enough.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Your article, also for balance, features of some voters who
are alarmed by this leftward lurch, not thrilled with the
whole socialist vibe, concerned about anti semitism, and it would
seem like I'm describing maybe an older traditionalist jfk Era voter.
The one I'm looking at is an eighteen year old
from New Jersey who you identify as a moderate, who
(31:44):
says the rise of Democrats socialism has pushed him farther
away from the Democrat Party. He's Jewish, he says, Democrats
aren't doing enough to curb anti Semitism. And again he's eighteen,
so it's not just the older folks who remember the
can Eddies, the Humphries, the LBJs who are raising an
eyebrow at this trend of the moment.
Speaker 9 (32:07):
Absolutely not. And I think one fascinating thing about the
entirety of this piece is that a lot of the
voters that we talked to were of different age ranges,
and they had kind of surprising views. You know, for example,
like a seventy two year old is supporting a Democratic Socialist.
That's a little confusing even for me when I was
interviewing these voters. But yeah, Sam Kaine, who was an
eighteen year old in New Jersey, one thing that was
(32:30):
really important to him was moderation and not really having
sort of this sort of combative spirit and attitude that
Democratic Socialist had. He was someone that really valued American
sort of principles like like free markets and whatnot, and
said that, you know, these Democratic Socialists are taking the
party further away from the principles that it should be
(32:53):
far more focused on, and kind of jolting in a
direction that is Unamerican, as he described, and his representative
Josh Gottheimer, who has been rather combative with the Democratic.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Socialists on social media, said that, you know that socialists
are not representative of the Democratic parties and uh and
he actually felt that way as well.
Speaker 9 (33:16):
He said that, you know, I don't share sentiment with
these people. They don't They don't believe in the same
things that that I believe in. And as a Jewish American,
I think that they've been rather combative of the Israeli government,
which is one thing, but he feels that they've gone
a little bit too far and making Jewish voters feel uncomfortable.
(33:37):
So there's there's you know, there's a lot of different
perspective from a lot of different age ranges. It's it's
not just you know, one size fid all that this
group supports socialism, this group doesn't support socialism.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
It's it's far.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
More sort of chaotic of a fight going down in
the Democratic Party than one might assume, I.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Want to say, And everybody to the Wall Street Journal,
Terrell right, and the title is these Democratic voters are
battling over what their party stands for. Yes, they are,
and how that fight goes is important to Democrats and
pretty important to Republicans as well, mister Wright. Pleasure to
meet you and congrats on the great work and thanks
for being with us on my friends.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
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Speaker 2 (37:02):
I'm mean, Hewett, and I thank you for you. It's
a pretty usual drill. I know we're going to talk
about stuff on a play, some clips, talk about stuff
in the news, take some calls. But I also know
that I'm going to try to find things that are
of interest, to find pieces that people have written that
raise my eyebrow. And one of them was by a
gentleman named Connor Boyak and the Washington Examiner, and it's
about these flock cameras. Piece is called you never approved
(37:22):
this camera, so why is it watching you? Connor is here. Welcome, Sarah,
nice to meet you.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
Thanks for having me. Mark look forward to chat with you.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So you're the president of something called Libertas. What's that?
Speaker 11 (37:35):
So Liberta's institute actually our statue of liberty. Her name,
the Roman goddess of liberty, is Libertus, so we take
our name from her, and our institute is a think
tank that works on a variety of policy issues dealing
with free markets and education, but also privacy, and so
a topic like these flock cameras is of interest to
us as we're trying to figure out how state legislators
(37:56):
can better protect the privacy of Americans and make sure
that law enforcement does not just allow these devices to
create a surveillance drag at society that nobody, or I
should say few people in America wants. So we focus
on how can we change the laws to better protect
privacy and that's what we're working on with Fluck.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
The very first paragraph of your watching of your Examiner
piece jumped out of me because it's a visual from
right down the road for me, Connor writes, on the
morning of July fourth, someone in Houston cut two surveillance
cameras in half and draped an American flag over the wreckage.
That might be the most Texas thing that happened on
the fourth of July. I totally get it. I get
(38:37):
the privacy concerns. I also get if a law enforcement
officer tells me, you know how many child rapists we
might find, you know how many drug dealers we might find,
you know how many escape convicts we might find. There
is a balance here. Tell me how that balance looks
to you, And do you while you come down on
the privacy side, and I don't come down against that side,
(38:59):
can you see? And how some people might think these
cameras are pretty awesome?
Speaker 11 (39:04):
There's no question, And in fact, in my op ed,
I concede that these types of technologies absolutely do enable
law enforcement to better be able to investigate crime and
find and punish criminals, and that, on its face.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Is a good thing.
Speaker 11 (39:17):
However, the job of citizens and their citizen legislators is
not to make the job of law enforcement easy. By contrasts,
their job is supposed to be difficult. The Fourth Amendment
in particular makes it difficult. One might imagine the British
Red Coats two hundred and fifty years ago saying, oh,
but it's so easy for us to write our rits
of assistance and search wherever we want for those rabble
(39:37):
rousers who are breaking into law and violating the King's edicts.
But the founders did not like that. They said, in
the Fourth Amendment, we have to have what's called particularity,
which means we have to suspect an individual of an
actual crime, none of this blanket searching and fishing expeditions.
They said, you need probable cause, which means that you
need judicial review right, and you have to get a warrant.
(39:58):
And so these are the basic requirements that law enforcement
have had to operate under. The problem with FLOCK and
other technologies like it is they create this massive database
that law enforcement has easy access to. No judicial oversight,
no warrant, no probable cause, no individual suspicion of crime.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
They can just go on.
Speaker 11 (40:16):
These broad fishing expeditions. And so our balancing test has
already been achieved by the Founding fathers. That is to say,
databases and cameras and the like are okay on their face,
but if law enforcement wants to use them, if they
want to access people's private information and be able to
quote unquote spy on people, they just need to go
through the proper steps, which the Fourth Amendment lays out.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
So in describing what they have to do to get
into our house, to get into our businesses, you're completely right,
and I obviously that resonates with me as a Fourth
Amendment fan. But everybody driving, you're not in your house,
The flock cameras aren't looking at you in your living room.
Everybody is out on the public streets. So what are
the negatives? What's the downside of?
Speaker 6 (40:55):
Again?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I guess I can imagine in my own head the
notion of finding a license plate of note, everybody knows
where you are, they are able to track you all
over the place. We presume the benevolence of a praiseworthy
law enforcement effort, but in the wrong hands, all that
information can come back and bite you hard in the butt.
Speaker 11 (41:16):
Yeah, you actually raised a very important question mark. And
I might offer another example other than the one that
you cited, and that is January six Everyone remembers January sixth,
and what happened. FBI literally drew a map around the
Capitol and they handed it to Variezon and Google and others,
and they use what's called a geofence search, which allowed
them to say, hey, cell phone companies, we want to
(41:37):
know anyone who happened to be within this radius during
this period of time so that we can go investigate them.
And so it just creates a problem when you have
these huge databases full of information. So I'll answer your
question more acutely, why should we be concerned if we're
out in public? You rightly point out that the Fourth
Amendment was primarily concerned with people's papers effects in their home,
in their private spaces. But when we have new technologies
(42:01):
that give a step change of new functionality for the government. Right,
license plate readers have been around for years and years
and years, and when it's just tracking your license plate,
that's fairly benign. So, yes, you have a reasonable expectation
of privacy in your home, do you really have one
if you're out and about, well, when the government now
has an easy ability to map everywhere you've gone, including
potentially controversial places, embarrassing places. When they have a massive
(42:25):
database where your ex spouse or enemies or others can
go on a fishing expedition and find that information out
about you. When they can create a fingerprint of the car,
as they call it, which isn't just your license plate,
what's the make, what's the model, what bumper stickers does
it have, they're basically creating a surveillance system to track
you're everywhere about. This is very different than decades or
(42:47):
centuries ago when the government would you know, a policeman
would be standing on the side of the road and
happen to him or herself observe something. We're now talking
about a dragnet society. And I think there has to be,
because of these new technologies, a different balancing test, and
that is to say, people do have a reasonable expectation
of privacy when they go about their day, they go
to their church, they go to their work, to not
(43:08):
have this constant or willy in society documenting their every move.
And so I think that's a balancing test or a
conversation that needs to be had so that the courts
can better catch up with what these new technologies are
empowering the government to do when it comes to tracking us.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
In our last minute or so. Nobody's going to condone
the vigilante destruction of these cameras, But you have a
great sentence. A nation's law breaking, like its laws, can
be informative. Americans defied the fifty five mile an hour
speed limits so universally that it had to go away.
Prohibition era juries often refuse to convict bootleggers, sending a
clear message about their perception of the laws in justice.
(43:45):
Do you think that is the fate of the flock camera?
People will look at the wreckage of them on street
corners and say, we got to dial this back.
Speaker 11 (43:54):
I think the fact that we are seeing this lawlessness,
as many would call it, is emblematic of the fact
that the pendulum has swung too far, that we've gotten
ahead of ourselves. That law enforcement agencies, however excited they
are to solve crimes, have adopted and introduced into their
communities technologies and surveillance capability that the citizens were neither
aware of nor consented to. And so what that suggests is,
(44:17):
while you've got these law breakers out there cutting them down,
Hey lawmakers, you're a city councilor a mayor a state legislator,
maybe we need to have more awareness, more oversight, more transparency,
more conversation to say, is it right that law enforcements
set these up in the community without there being a
discussion or awareness by citizens. And so I just think
what we're seeing by people cutting down those polls, what
(44:40):
they're doing is reflective of the fact that law enforcement
has gotten ahead of their skis a little bit. We
got to pull it back and we got to have
a better conversation as a people about what do we want. Yeah,
we could if we lived in a surveillance state have
no more crime. In theory, I don't think that's really true.
But what is that balance and have we achieved it?
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Just spectacular segment. Sure, thank you Connor Boyak C boyag
b O y A c K on the old ex
Twitter there. I knew that would be great and it
was
Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things
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Speaker 2 (00:18):
And there we are. Take a look at Washington, DC,
take a look at the nation's capital where all kinds
of things are happening every day. Chronicling things that are
happening every day on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Mark Davis
in for Hugh. Quite quite the week for me. I
got Hugh today and tomorrow. Scott Jennings on Wednesday. I
think I'm coming to your house to do the windows.
I think on Thursday or Friday or something like that.
Trying to be the renaissance man in an ever expanding industry.
(00:41):
Salem Radio Networks, Salem News Channel. However you are listening,
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hanging out with us again. Follow me on Twitter at
Mark Davis Mark Davis. If you're inclined to do that
all things Hugh, of course, at Hugh Hewitt. So as
we begin this Monday, this third day of August, it's
(01:04):
one hundred degrees in Texas, which is going to be
until Thanksgiving. It's what we do, it's how we roll.
But it's hot all over the place in terms of
hot topicality. Got some Trump cuts from the Oval Office
in just the last hour, hour and a half. He's
talking some Iran, He's talking some Spain. So many lessons
to learn from that? Was it sixty thousand a football
(01:27):
stadium filled with with battle age young men there where
Morocco meets Spain. Are there lessons in that for the
United States, for the Blue States, for any states? RFK
Junior versus Dana Bash was fun on CNN State of
Union over the weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That was.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Say what you will about Bobby Junior. He just ain't
having it. And in fact, that's Representative Rubio out of
the President's cabinet, Governor DeSantis, Governor Abbott, my governor. The
days of just laying out and being steamrolled by the
(02:12):
narratives of the left, those days are over. It's not
like Trump waived some magic wand and made that all happen.
But with him walking the point, with this mindset, it's
funny as with the flamethrower cranked up to the max
every day from the White House. By comparison, anybody that
(02:33):
just cranks it up a little bit in their governor's mansion,
from their congressional office, from whatever office they hold, is
going to look is going to look positively measured by comparison.
So let me tell you the tools of the trade today.
We got a lot of great folks that we are
going to welcome. Noah Rothman from National Review, wonderful, James Lylacs,
(02:55):
colonist and writer, extraordinary. They'll be with us this hour.
You can be with us this hour or any hour
as we talk about stuff from South Carolina to Iran,
to Spain, to the mid terms to the DSA lunacy.
Let me just give you the phone number. It's where
you can hop on get staged. We'll screen your calls
hot and intersperse your thoughts amid mine and some of
(03:18):
our great guests today. And you know the Hugh Hewitt
Show phone number, or you should. It's one eight hundred
five too oh one two three four one eight hundred
five two oh one two three four, grab that line
or just shoot me something. In the world of Twitter.
They're at Mark Davis and I will see that. The
phone number is one eight hundred five to two oh
one two three four. All right, let's go just a
(03:40):
few within the last hour, hour and a half in
the Oval office. This is going to be cut nineteen.
The press gaggle was gathered. The idea. Usually when you
gather the press sometimes there's a theme, and this theme
was military spouses the theme. So there was so Pete
Hegseth was there, Missus tag Seth was there. Emblematic of
(04:03):
the home front, military spouses, the war at home. It
is the person in uniform who puts on that uniform
and walks toward global trouble spots and who might die.
We had just a service this past weekend for nineteen
year old Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, twenty minutes from
(04:26):
where I'm sitting. This beautiful nineteen year old young lady,
she had just graduated from high school and was willing
to put on the uniform of this country, died in
the Iranian attack in Jordan. And it's not like any
one life jumps out at you more than any of
the others. But this young lady, her death, her life
(04:49):
have resonated so deeply here in this community, and I
know just about wherever you live, and really during any war,
I mean it's not just this war, but obviously any conflict,
the Gulf War, of the War on Terror, back through
Vietnam and before. Communities are always impacted by the sons
and daughters that they lose. So any you have the
(05:10):
people who pack their stuff head off into the war zone,
and then somebody's left at home to not just keep
the home fires burning, as the familiar saying goes, but
to keep the household operating to oh, I don't know,
take care of the kids, make sure that the household
(05:30):
is secure and functional. And in a way, I'll tell
you the way that everybody in the military views this.
A man in a war zone views his wife at
home as a partner in the war effort. A woman
in the war zone would feel the same way about
a husband at home. That is, it's not just people
who go off to war. Families are part of this
(05:53):
war effort. And so today's White House event was about
showing honor and showing some preciation for military spouses and
I can't think of a more honorable and appropriate use
of time. Needless to say, after a while, the president's
best use of time is taking a bunch of questions
from a bunch of reporters. This is cut nineteen where
(06:15):
we could eat with Iran over the weekend. It was like,
we've seen this short film before. We're gonna hit you.
We're gonna hit you so hard you're not going to
know what your name is anymore. But then somebody's on
the phone saying, hey, there may be progress. Maybe we
lay back for a little bit, and the President says, okay,
let's lay back for a little bit. See what happens.
(06:36):
It's a bargaining tactic. It's optics, it's positioning. Fine, that's
all great. If it please Lord, let it all be
advancing us toward something like a satisfactory resolution with a
non nuclear Iran with no five dollars gas and this
all wrapped up. It'd be really nice if it was
by you know, the end of September, just saying you
(06:58):
hate to run a war on a we're running a
woe on o'clock. You don't ever want to do that.
President Trump will say he's not running one o'clock. And
I know if success, real success, takes till February, Okay,
that'll be more That'll be more important than any intervening
political event, even though the midterms are obviously huge. But
when you look at the way America viewsed this war,
(07:22):
and not just Democrats, you'all familiar with Matt Walsh, love
him ninety percent of the time. Nobody better on gender,
nobody better on all kinds of other things. He had
a post earlier today that said, grocery prices are insane.
Every Republican ought to be talking about affordability. Affordability, affordability,
(07:44):
stop the stupid foreign wars and focus on that. And
I read that, and I could see a bunch of
people going, yeah, I feel the same way. I don't
mean to get greedy, but is that a necessary binary choice?
You mean to tell me that I could either have
affordable eggs or a non nuclear Iran. I somehow believe
(08:05):
that both are possible. I think it's possible for this
administration to absolutely focus on affordability, show people in the
midterms that Conservatism is the best path toward affordability, while
also beating down the threat of a nuclear Iran. Call
me crazy. I think both are possible. So we're at
a pause right now. But as he will do, President
(08:27):
Trump says, if things don't progress, the pause will end.
This is cut nineteen with a hint from the President
on what will happen now off and they're going on
right now.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
It's an amazing thing. We have a little problem with
iron because we have many talks that will say we
have or we don't have, you know, straight about it,
but they deny it. But they're not denying it now.
They just put out a savement not denying it.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But for some reason they.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
When they're talking, they don't like saying that they're talking.
So I say, we're in talks, big deal, we're in talk,
and they'll sometimes deny it, even though they spent hours
and hours together talking. Now the talks are going along,
we're going to hit them very hard. Yesterday, very very hard,
harder than any attack I think I can say general
(09:15):
from a point of knowledge, any attack since World War Two.
That's pretty big. And we were set to go, and
they called, and in addition, Sodi Arabia call and h
u a E called.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Guitar call.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I call some numerous people. I don't want to use
the word begging, but some.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Let's go ahead and hop out little pick up on
the other side, Mark Davison, for you.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Out of the treat of life, I just picked me
a plown. You came along and everything started to long.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
National events, world events come and go. But on only
one day, and this is that day. Will we observe
the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Tony Bennett.
So you're going to get some Tony Bennett today, Other
artists to be sure, because when I come, I bring
an entire vault full of chart history and other delightful things.
Tony Bennett, the best is yet to come nineteen sixty two.
(10:20):
Please let that be true on various fronts. Let's talk
about how things are going well, not well, and everything
in between with a great senior writer at National Review,
Noah Rothman. Noah, welcome, How.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
You doing, sir, very Willmark? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Nice to have you listen. I know you've been doing
a couple of things in the last couple of hours,
putting sort of some of the final edits on your
most recent piece at National Review, which is thoroughly depressing.
Were you also did you watch any of Trump over
the last couple of hours and the barrage of questions
he was bandying back and forth.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
Yeah, I had my head down for most of it,
but I caught a couple of clips. I'm not sure
where you want to go with that, but they were
all new worthy.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Yes, they typically are.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
They were, So I tell you what, let's do what.
Anytime you have one of those multi topic combinations of
President Trump making various pronouncements, jabbing at the occasional you know,
twenty three year old reporter from MS now or anything
in between, it kind of gives you an overall thought
of where his mood is, where things seem to be going, war,
(11:23):
mid terms, affordability, what's the broad temperature that you take
here as August begins, and then we'll dig into some
of what you say about the war and your just
posted peace.
Speaker 7 (11:37):
That's an interesting approach to this question. Like a thirty
thousand foot perspective, the president seems more imperturbable than I
think Republicans would like him to be. I think they
honestly want to see the president respond with some passion
to what they regard as an existentially political calamity, the
earth killing media that everyone can see from miles out
(12:00):
is bearing down on the Republican Party ahead of November.
And there are plenty of Republicans who have different perspectives
on how the GOP can write this ship, but all
of them center on getting the president to focus on
and talk more about economic issues and specifically what this
Republican Congress has done to shape pocketbook narratives and pocketbook
(12:21):
issues that the public is generally concerned about. That side
affordability thing you're discussing, and that's where you get into
the war. And I don't think it's possible to look
at the president's job approval ratings at least the average
is compiled by places like RCP and see no connection
between the Iran war and the president's job approval ratings.
Specifically the resumption of high tempole hostilities high temple combat
(12:43):
operations earlier this month, which are on and off. You know,
you could say that the war started again, but it's on.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Some days, it's off some days. Either way.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
The public took notice because you can see in the
visualization of that data the president's job approval rating declining
even as his job disapproval rating declining, rather as his
job approval rating remains stable, So it's tethered to the
Iran War in the public's mind, and the public has
just not bought in with this campaign. I think it's
(13:11):
an pronounced national project, a very important national project. But
Trump has not approached the public consistently, often and with
sincere and genuine, observable deference to public opinion. What is
expected of Americans, what we're supposed to absorb in the interim,
(13:32):
and what we're going to get out of the Iran War.
I can answer all those questions, I think, because I
think the President has said this, but you know, it's
not good enough to say it once.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
You have to repeat it.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
You have to say it so many times if becomes
a mantra so that your voters can actually articulate it
independent of you. And I don't think the President has
done a very good job of that. He seems to
not really trust the public with an accurate assessment of
where we are in this conflict, and I think voters
have repaid that mistrust in kind by withholding it from
this presidency.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's an interesting sort of psychological observation. What does it
look like to trust the public with the really daunting news,
some of the details of which you mentioned in your
brand new piece on the corner at NRO. When it
comes to Iran, the Trump administration leaks like a sieve.
So if you have a piece written that says this
(14:21):
war's not going well and it may get worse before
it gets better, that could come from a Democrat senator,
or it could come from someone who believes in the goal,
believes in the operation, and is frustrated that it hasn't
gone better. Presuming you are the latter, give everybody a
little of a summary of what you've what you described
in that piece, of the various snippets of really daunting
(14:45):
news that have come out into the public square.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Well, I got one more for you. It could come
from a Democratic senator who wants to undermine the war
for it come from a well meaning Republican who wants
the war effort to go better. It could come from
somebody in the intelligence and military apparatus who does not
want this war to go well, who did not want
this war to begin in the first place. And there
are plenty of those in the president's orbit who are
suspicious and hostile to the extroverted presidence of the United States.
(15:09):
On the world stage, certainly military activity like this against
avowed American adversaries. I don't know where these leaks are
coming from. I am suspicious of them, why because they
all air in one direction. Maybe if we got one
leak from the intelligence or military community that said, Wow,
things are going kind of bad for Iran in this
very specific way, but we never get those. All we
(15:31):
get is how time is on Iran side. Everything is
going their way, and this could not be going worse
for the United States. Which is not to say that
I don't trust the information that's being leaked. I mistrust
the conclusions that are being retailed along with the information
that's being leaked. Among some of these claims that Iran
maintains roughly seventy five percent of its ballistic missile capabilities,
(15:54):
that the United States only did cosmetic damage to the
Iranian nuclear program, that they're digging out of the damage
that they already that was done to the nuclear program,
and the Ranian regime has the capacity to outlast the
US blockade. Now we can argue about the particulars, and
I think some of those particulars need to be argued with,
but the conclusion that is bandied about along with them,
that the US has no option but to engage in
(16:17):
a humiliating retreat and surrender the strait of hormones to Iran.
I don't think one follows the other. You could very
easily say that all of this information suggests that the
US should go full bore, because you know what, maybe
Iran has seventy five percent of its ballistic missile capabilities.
It had one hundred percent of its ballistic missile capabilities
at the outset of Epic Fury. Those missile launches slowed
(16:39):
to a trickle by early March, not because they didn't
have the missiles, because they didn't have access to the missiles.
And when they launched those missiles, they were interdicted by
US assets or they were fired upon by offensive military
operation offensive assets in the air. There's some concern over
our defensive munitions, specifically these really high end ballistic missile
interceptors that were running low on that's again classified information
(17:01):
that should not be with the general public. But let's
say it's true. You can compensate for a lack of
defensive ordinance by using a lot of offensive ordinance. Now
is that risky?
Speaker 6 (17:11):
Yes? It is. This whole adventure was risky.
Speaker 7 (17:14):
If we didn't have the heart for it, we shouldn't
have started it in the first place. But you can't
go back in history. We cannot go back to a
world before this war started. The status quob is behind us.
We have a new status quo in front of us,
and it's up to us to shape it. So I
just I don't see these leaks as serving the purpose
that I think if they're in malign and intent, and
they may very very well be, just because they want
to force the president into a box from which he
(17:36):
can't escape, that doesn't mean that we have no options
available to us. The Pentagon has given the President a
lot of options. He's reluctant to pull the trigger on
them for a variety of I think very good reasons.
But that doesn't mean that we won't have options that
we can't execute.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed, and some of the exact details of what I
was talking about is in his brand new piece there
at Nationalreview dot Com. When it comes to Iran, the
Trump administration leaks like a sieve, he writes in there,
to the tails, great to talk to you, Thank you
so much for being on the program. Mark Davison for
you Hewitt, we cruise through the bottom of the hour,
we pop back out. Let's talk a little bit about
what this all means, what it's like to run a
(18:09):
war on a clock, what the options are, and how
the American people may or may not have a stomach
for what's necessary. Mark Davison, for you stick around, much
more to come. You may be asking yourself, why would
(18:31):
I do this to you? If I try to usually
bring in some cerebral collection of musical birthdays and chart history.
What in the world am I doing destroying your day
with Los del Rio the Macarena? Because it is chart history.
This kid's was the number one record in America thirty
years ago today. I did not plan this, but this
(18:54):
happens to be the segment where we do a little
bit of a palette cleanser away from everything depressing and
say hi to one of my favorite writers who I
don't think I've ever had the chance to say hi to.
Let's let's let's head to the Land of ten Thousand
Lakes or whatever the count is up to right now.
James Lylex is here. How you doing, sir?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I'm doing fine, and it's a pleasure. Mark.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
I used to listen to you back in d C
in the nineties when I was working out of the bureau.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Get out of town. That it is. It's a real,
real pleasure, thank you very very much.
Speaker 8 (19:20):
And also in the nineteen nineties, of course, I was
at a political convention when the macarena was very popular.
Jack Omen, my friend who was the cartoonist for one
of the papers, and the syndicate in a hilarious cartoon
of Al Gore doing the macarena, which just consisted of
very six still pictures of Gore not moving Higgs and.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I would expect, I would expect nothing like that, you.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
Know, very that very that.
Speaker 8 (19:43):
But that very night Gore got up on stage and
did the same thing himself, not moving to parody himself
and my friend's eyes, entire syndicated cartoon.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Go up in ashes, and there was not that he
could do. Oh the nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That it is the feeling of powerlessness. So in taking
a look at the various things that James is up to,
you're always in good shape. Spending a segment on see
if I have this list complete food, film, pets, and
sci fi. So I've been taking a look at some
of the things I've been writing about you and I.
Everybody else has, but you and I have not done
sixty seconds on the Odyssey. What do you make of
the film and the talking sport that it has become.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
The talking sport that has become is great because you
can get a good quick view of where somebody is
politically depending on what the object to or what the
objections of the object to.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
It's great that we're talking about it.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
I mean, here's something fundamental piece of Western civilization and
we're arguing about it, which is great. Everybody gets to
have their opinion on racial casting and the rest of it.
We can have that argument. I was discussing actually with
somebody at the other day why some people actually have
an objection to race swapping and historical dramas, and it
was news to this guy. I mean, it was a
sort of way of looking at it that he'd never
(20:49):
considered before. So good conversations come out of it. And
of course there's that great tie in. Apparently you can
get approach and horse bucket where you dig the popcorn
out of the belly of the thing. That'll be a
collective collectable on eBay for at least three dollars and
fifty cents ten years.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Hence, so let's say, let's do I knew that every
answer would give my next question. I could not care
less that Helen of Troy was black, could not have
possibly cared less. I am the most activist person you'll
find on trans lunacy and how that cult must be defeated.
But I didn't mind three on screen minutes of Elliott Page.
(21:27):
I just don't care. Now that having been said, help
me square this. Do I need Idris Elba or anybody
else to be black James Bond? I do not make
him a cool black British spy, make him double O
eight is are those? Is it possible to feel both
of those ways at the same time?
Speaker 6 (21:46):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Matter of fact, I agree, there's no there's no problem
with think having a black James or a black secret
agent working for MI five with a license to kill.
But what people object to is the notion that you
don't get to have the stories of yourture. Now, you
can't do anything with the stories of these cultures because
that would be colonialism, appropriation and all the rest of it.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
But you have to have all of your stories an
adults rator.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
And if you said, okay, so we can't do Woody Harrelson,
it is not your Ralph Abernathy.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
No, you don't.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
You can have a black Hell and Detroy. So I mean,
I don't care either except what people get behind. This
is the message as a great YouTuber who talks about
these things is.
Speaker 8 (22:28):
And unless they're giving you the message, somehow they feel
as that they've failed on the responsibility to educate you
on what's necessary to think. So but again, Elliott Page
in the movie, I couldn't care less. So yeah, but
the idea of just al but going to work with
the James Bond theme in a tuxedo and doing the
work of the West, I'd pay good money to see that.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
In a second, I want to tell you what I
would pay. I'd do a house payment to see what
Doy Haroldson has talked to. Ralph Abernathy. So, speaking of
the culture and things like the Odyssey that can be
high minded and popcorn munching entertainment, you wrote a piece
called from Concertos to Cage Matches. It seemed to celebrate
America's comfort zone mixing high and low culture. I've always
(23:10):
mixed high in low culture in my brain and found
ways to enjoy both. I don't see how that is
even a disconnect.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
No, now that do I.
Speaker 8 (23:18):
And unfortunately you're referring to something that I wrote probably
a month ago, which I have absolutely no memory whatsoever.
You write this much, your brains just sort of goes
terms like an etches sketch upside down and wipes it out.
But I seem to recall that the great thing about
the country was, yes, you can have this American celebration
that Trump had in the White House that has kid
rocked at all, And that's as much of America as
the high blown Leonard Bernstein works that we found, which
(23:42):
found a new way to express Western civin American tenalities.
I mean, so that's what I love about this country
is the way that we've always done that and the
way we've also had a middle brow culture. But the
middle brow is going away. It's being squeezed. We have
less high brow than before because people are suspicious of it.
Middlebro seems to be evaporating, and unfortunately we're getting able
a little bit too dominating, I think by the lowbrow
culture that swamps the gun Wales, and I wish we
(24:04):
had a little bit more of the middle brow aspiration
to cultural goodness.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
But what would be I agree with you, what would be?
I could certainly give you an example of high brow
and lowbrow, ten examples each. What would be what is
your go to middle brow cultural taste?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
Well, perfect example Norman Rockwell.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
When I was growing up, of course, everybody had to
sneer at girl Norman Rockwell because it was just oh
so American, an obvious and cliche and a magazine cover.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
And then later in life you realize the technique the manhad,
and his ability to tell.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
His story so simply, and the wonderful ability to inhabit
American culture.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Rockwall is perfect middle.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
Brow, but it's the middle brough of an era when
artistic standards were still in place.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
The middlebrow aspiration of the fifties and sixties was.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
I'm going to get that boxed set of the greatest
things pieces of Western literature. I'm going to get those
forty five records that tell me the five symphonies I
need to do. I'm going to get this serious mega
see that explains modern painting to me. All of these
things had required work. They required work and talent, and
were simply somebody doing graffiti on a wall or putting
(25:11):
a bucket of vomit on the you know, in the
museum biennial and saying this is O No, there was
still something that required actual talented technical ability.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So I knew I would have fun, and I hope
you all did too, and it's always great. His substack
Twitter feed is at Liles l I L e K s.
Best to your great state of Minnesota, filled with great
with crazy people, but beautiful things of beautiful people as well.
Former Star Tribune legend and now somebody you should read
every day, the great James Ilex, Mark Davison, You Hewitt
(25:42):
back in a moment, back into issues of the day
and more of your calls to hear. Thanks Mark Davis.
Will you glad you're here in for Hugh Hewitt today
and tomorrow? And we're keeping track of anything going on
in the days, continuing breaking news, taking a look at
large thematic things as we work towards the midterms, and
in this particular case, as we begin this half hour,
looking at a question that a lot of people are
(26:04):
asking with a gentleman who wrote a piece that I
saw over the weekend that I went to Danielle and
I said, hey, let's see if we can find this guy,
and we have succeeded. I'm very very pleased about that.
If there is anything that Democrats are curious about, it's
the question what in the world is going on in
the Democrat Party. If there's anything Republicans are interested in
and talking about, it's what in the world is going
(26:27):
on in the Democrat Party? It is listen, obviously, Republicans,
we got issues on Tapa issues, you know, how do
we message how do we fend off disaster? November third?
But just as as MAGA and the Tea Party started
as sort of insurgencies within the Republican sphere, what is
this DSA thing? What is this multi headed serpent? And
(26:51):
it is that the proper metaphor? Or is it the
kind of thing that can inject energy into the party
and give them even more success? So it's calling through stuff.
In there with the wallstre Journal from a gentleman named
Terrell Wright was an article called these Democratic voters are
battling over what their party stands for. And I talk
to people who are discussing that every day. So I
(27:12):
figured let's see if we could get mister Wright, Terrell
Mark Davison for you. You it is a pleasure to see.
How are you doing, sir.
Speaker 9 (27:19):
Markham?
Speaker 6 (27:20):
Good? How are you?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Absolutely great? Give me a little bio on you. How
long what is a news associate? And how long have you
been at the Wall Street Journal?
Speaker 9 (27:29):
So the news associated is I'm basically a reporter with
the Wall Street Journal, just early career here reporting out
of Washington on our politics coverage. So I've been covering
the midterm elections for the past few months in the
run up and all of the exciting, crazy chaotic moments.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Only more adventures lie ahead. And where are you're from?
Where'd you go to school? What's your story?
Speaker 9 (27:52):
Yeah, I'm from Georgia. I'm from Walton County, Georgia. If
any of your listeners know where that is, that's right
outside of Atlanta. Went to school in Connecticut and graduated
and lived here in DC currently Connecticut College and studied economics.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And well, this is a really, really fine piece of
journalism because you found out now, was this you compiling
conversations that a lot of people did, or from Michigan
to New Jersey? Were you actually talk at all these
people yourself? Because you certainly curated it in a way
that was a really nice snapshot of how various Democrats
are feeling.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
So I went to Detroit to talk to a few voters. Particularly.
I followed around Donovan McKinney, who is a Democratic Socialist
running for a seat in Detroit. His race is actually tomorrow.
He's running against Representativestry on Indoor, and I just went
on door knocking, sort of went on a door knocking
(28:50):
campaign with him and and tagged along and I interviewed
several voters who said they were supporting him.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
I also talked to voters in.
Speaker 9 (28:59):
Primary throughout the country in New York, Colorado, and then
some voters who are close to some of the epicenters
of where democratic socialism is really having a moment.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right now, gotcha. So some of the examples you found
and the people used to they're wonderful pictures of all
of them, and it made me want to have conversations
with them myself. A lady named Christine McClellan, she's from Detroit.
She's seventy two, so she's seen some things done, some
voting in her life, and she says she is supporting
mister McKinney, the Democrat socialist, because he wants to end
(29:31):
American wars overseas. Other people say they're supporting the socialists
because of their what that strikes them as better messaging
on affordability, and those are things that mainstream politicians can feel.
I'm guessing that mister McKinney at no point began his
conversation by saying I want to do away with the
(29:51):
Pentagon and have no borders and no prisons. Is it
because he doesn't feel that way? Is there's not one
cut and paste democratic socialist. What's what's your thought?
Speaker 9 (30:03):
I think, like President Trump, one thing that's really interesting
is that these Democratic Socialists candidates are seen as insurgents.
They're not running on track records per se. They're running
on sort of promises and ideas that are very popular
among a lot of voters. For example, Christine McClellan, that
seventy two year old her nephew is abroad right now,
(30:24):
and she's incredibly worried about what's going on in the
Middle East and in the the Iran US War. And so,
you know, McKinney, not once when he was campaigning, when
I was with him, did the word socialism come out
of his mouth. But what came out of his mouth
was talking about ending wars abroad and stopping sort of conflicts,
(30:44):
and that was what really sold her. So I think,
like President Trump, sort of this insurgent message of you know,
we're going to change the party. We're here to fight
for people, rather than sort of, you know, the party,
the GOP itself. The message is actually the selling point.
It's not necessarily a detracting attribute to a lot of
(31:07):
these candidates, and it's why we see them winning, specifically
in heavily democratic districts where Democrats we are going to
win anyway. But these are Democrats who are sick of
the party because they don't feel that the fight against
President Trump is hard enough.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Your article, also for balance, features of some voters who
are alarmed by this leftward lurch, not thrilled with the
whole socialist vibe, concerned about anti semitism, and it would
seem like I'm describing maybe an older traditionalist jfk Era voter.
The one I'm looking at is an eighteen year old
from New Jersey who you identify as a moderate, who
(31:44):
says the rise of Democrats socialism has pushed him farther
away from the Democrat Party. He's Jewish, he says, Democrats
aren't doing enough to curb anti Semitism. And again he's eighteen,
so it's not just the older folks who remember the
can Eddies, the Humphries, the LBJs who are raising an
eyebrow at this trend of the moment.
Speaker 9 (32:07):
Absolutely not. And I think one fascinating thing about the
entirety of this piece is that a lot of the
voters that we talked to were of different age ranges,
and they had kind of surprising views. You know, for example,
like a seventy two year old is supporting a Democratic Socialist.
That's a little confusing even for me when I was
interviewing these voters. But yeah, Sam Kaine, who was an
eighteen year old in New Jersey, one thing that was
(32:30):
really important to him was moderation and not really having
sort of this sort of combative spirit and attitude that
Democratic Socialist had. He was someone that really valued American
sort of principles like like free markets and whatnot, and
said that, you know, these Democratic Socialists are taking the
party further away from the principles that it should be
(32:53):
far more focused on, and kind of jolting in a
direction that is Unamerican, as he described, and his representative
Josh Gottheimer, who has been rather combative with the Democratic.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Socialists on social media, said that, you know that socialists
are not representative of the Democratic parties and uh and
he actually felt that way as well.
Speaker 9 (33:16):
He said that, you know, I don't share sentiment with
these people. They don't They don't believe in the same
things that that I believe in. And as a Jewish American,
I think that they've been rather combative of the Israeli government,
which is one thing, but he feels that they've gone
a little bit too far and making Jewish voters feel uncomfortable.
(33:37):
So there's there's you know, there's a lot of different
perspective from a lot of different age ranges. It's it's
not just you know, one size fid all that this
group supports socialism, this group doesn't support socialism.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
It's it's far.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
More sort of chaotic of a fight going down in
the Democratic Party than one might assume, I.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Want to say, And everybody to the Wall Street Journal,
Terrell right, and the title is these Democratic voters are
battling over what their party stands for. Yes, they are,
and how that fight goes is important to Democrats and
pretty important to Republicans as well, mister Wright. Pleasure to
meet you and congrats on the great work and thanks
for being with us on my friends.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
You've probably seen the headlines are worse. Your latest bill,
Big Wireless is raising rates again. That means you could
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Do not need. That's not right.
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Listen to this.
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Speaker 10 (35:34):
Half a century later, Watergate still shapes how Americans view power,
scandal and trust.
Speaker 8 (35:41):
This weekend, the.
Speaker 10 (35:42):
America two fifty film series presents Watergates, Secrets and Betrayals.
Revisit the investigation through archival footage, interviews, and new arguments
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Speaker 1 (36:03):
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(36:23):
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Speaker 2 (37:02):
I'm mean, Hewett, and I thank you for you. It's
a pretty usual drill. I know we're going to talk
about stuff on a play, some clips, talk about stuff
in the news, take some calls. But I also know
that I'm going to try to find things that are
of interest, to find pieces that people have written that
raise my eyebrow. And one of them was by a
gentleman named Connor Boyak and the Washington Examiner, and it's
about these flock cameras. Piece is called you never approved
(37:22):
this camera, so why is it watching you? Connor is here. Welcome, Sarah,
nice to meet you.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
Thanks for having me. Mark look forward to chat with you.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So you're the president of something called Libertas. What's that?
Speaker 11 (37:35):
So Liberta's institute actually our statue of liberty. Her name,
the Roman goddess of liberty, is Libertus, so we take
our name from her, and our institute is a think
tank that works on a variety of policy issues dealing
with free markets and education, but also privacy, and so
a topic like these flock cameras is of interest to
us as we're trying to figure out how state legislators
(37:56):
can better protect the privacy of Americans and make sure
that law enforcement does not just allow these devices to
create a surveillance drag at society that nobody, or I
should say few people in America wants. So we focus
on how can we change the laws to better protect
privacy and that's what we're working on with Fluck.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
The very first paragraph of your watching of your Examiner
piece jumped out of me because it's a visual from
right down the road for me, Connor writes, on the
morning of July fourth, someone in Houston cut two surveillance
cameras in half and draped an American flag over the wreckage.
That might be the most Texas thing that happened on
the fourth of July. I totally get it. I get
(38:37):
the privacy concerns. I also get if a law enforcement
officer tells me, you know how many child rapists we
might find, you know how many drug dealers we might find,
you know how many escape convicts we might find. There
is a balance here. Tell me how that balance looks
to you, And do you while you come down on
the privacy side, and I don't come down against that side,
(38:59):
can you see? And how some people might think these
cameras are pretty awesome?
Speaker 11 (39:04):
There's no question, And in fact, in my op ed,
I concede that these types of technologies absolutely do enable
law enforcement to better be able to investigate crime and
find and punish criminals, and that, on its face.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Is a good thing.
Speaker 11 (39:17):
However, the job of citizens and their citizen legislators is
not to make the job of law enforcement easy. By contrasts,
their job is supposed to be difficult. The Fourth Amendment
in particular makes it difficult. One might imagine the British
Red Coats two hundred and fifty years ago saying, oh,
but it's so easy for us to write our rits
of assistance and search wherever we want for those rabble
(39:37):
rousers who are breaking into law and violating the King's edicts.
But the founders did not like that. They said, in
the Fourth Amendment, we have to have what's called particularity,
which means we have to suspect an individual of an
actual crime, none of this blanket searching and fishing expeditions.
They said, you need probable cause, which means that you
need judicial review right, and you have to get a warrant.
(39:58):
And so these are the basic requirements that law enforcement
have had to operate under. The problem with FLOCK and
other technologies like it is they create this massive database
that law enforcement has easy access to. No judicial oversight,
no warrant, no probable cause, no individual suspicion of crime.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
They can just go on.
Speaker 11 (40:16):
These broad fishing expeditions. And so our balancing test has
already been achieved by the Founding fathers. That is to say,
databases and cameras and the like are okay on their face,
but if law enforcement wants to use them, if they
want to access people's private information and be able to
quote unquote spy on people, they just need to go
through the proper steps, which the Fourth Amendment lays out.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
So in describing what they have to do to get
into our house, to get into our businesses, you're completely right,
and I obviously that resonates with me as a Fourth
Amendment fan. But everybody driving, you're not in your house,
The flock cameras aren't looking at you in your living room.
Everybody is out on the public streets. So what are
the negatives? What's the downside of?
Speaker 6 (40:55):
Again?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I guess I can imagine in my own head the
notion of finding a license plate of note, everybody knows
where you are, they are able to track you all
over the place. We presume the benevolence of a praiseworthy
law enforcement effort, but in the wrong hands, all that
information can come back and bite you hard in the butt.
Speaker 11 (41:16):
Yeah, you actually raised a very important question mark. And
I might offer another example other than the one that
you cited, and that is January six Everyone remembers January sixth,
and what happened. FBI literally drew a map around the
Capitol and they handed it to Variezon and Google and others,
and they use what's called a geofence search, which allowed
them to say, hey, cell phone companies, we want to
(41:37):
know anyone who happened to be within this radius during
this period of time so that we can go investigate them.
And so it just creates a problem when you have
these huge databases full of information. So I'll answer your
question more acutely, why should we be concerned if we're
out in public? You rightly point out that the Fourth
Amendment was primarily concerned with people's papers effects in their home,
in their private spaces. But when we have new technologies
(42:01):
that give a step change of new functionality for the government. Right,
license plate readers have been around for years and years
and years, and when it's just tracking your license plate,
that's fairly benign. So, yes, you have a reasonable expectation
of privacy in your home, do you really have one
if you're out and about, well, when the government now
has an easy ability to map everywhere you've gone, including
potentially controversial places, embarrassing places. When they have a massive
(42:25):
database where your ex spouse or enemies or others can
go on a fishing expedition and find that information out
about you. When they can create a fingerprint of the car,
as they call it, which isn't just your license plate,
what's the make, what's the model, what bumper stickers does
it have, they're basically creating a surveillance system to track
you're everywhere about. This is very different than decades or
(42:47):
centuries ago when the government would you know, a policeman
would be standing on the side of the road and
happen to him or herself observe something. We're now talking
about a dragnet society. And I think there has to be,
because of these new technologies, a different balancing test, and
that is to say, people do have a reasonable expectation
of privacy when they go about their day, they go
to their church, they go to their work, to not
(43:08):
have this constant or willy in society documenting their every move.
And so I think that's a balancing test or a
conversation that needs to be had so that the courts
can better catch up with what these new technologies are
empowering the government to do when it comes to tracking us.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
In our last minute or so. Nobody's going to condone
the vigilante destruction of these cameras, But you have a
great sentence. A nation's law breaking, like its laws, can
be informative. Americans defied the fifty five mile an hour
speed limits so universally that it had to go away.
Prohibition era juries often refuse to convict bootleggers, sending a
clear message about their perception of the laws in justice.
(43:45):
Do you think that is the fate of the flock camera?
People will look at the wreckage of them on street
corners and say, we got to dial this back.
Speaker 11 (43:54):
I think the fact that we are seeing this lawlessness,
as many would call it, is emblematic of the fact
that the pendulum has swung too far, that we've gotten
ahead of ourselves. That law enforcement agencies, however excited they
are to solve crimes, have adopted and introduced into their
communities technologies and surveillance capability that the citizens were neither
aware of nor consented to. And so what that suggests is,
(44:17):
while you've got these law breakers out there cutting them down,
Hey lawmakers, you're a city councilor a mayor a state legislator,
maybe we need to have more awareness, more oversight, more transparency,
more conversation to say, is it right that law enforcements
set these up in the community without there being a
discussion or awareness by citizens. And so I just think
what we're seeing by people cutting down those polls, what
(44:40):
they're doing is reflective of the fact that law enforcement
has gotten ahead of their skis a little bit. We
got to pull it back and we got to have
a better conversation as a people about what do we want. Yeah,
we could if we lived in a surveillance state have
no more crime. In theory, I don't think that's really true.
But what is that balance and have we achieved it?
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Just spectacular segment. Sure, thank you Connor Boyak C boyag
b O y A c K on the old ex
Twitter there. I knew that would be great and it
was
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