Power Line
Steven Hayward, John Yoo, and "Lucretia" bring you a whisky-sodden perspective on the week's big headlines, and occasional deep dives into law and philosophy. Listen to the Three-Whisky Happy hour, along with more than 40 other original podcasts, at Ricochet.com. No paid subscription required.
Episodes
May 9, 2025 • 65 mins
We're up a day early with this special emergency edition of the 3WHH because it isn't every millennium when you get an American Pope. With John Yoo hosting this week we hold ecumenical court on what to think about an American Pope who displays some progressive political sympathies, but is a math major and an Augustinian, which are more promising indications. We offer a few things to watch for as this papacy unfolds.
Next up: what to...
Next up: what to...
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May 3, 2025 • 69 mins
Lucretia hosts this week as the Three Musketeers are back together again, taking on Trump at the 100 Day mark, the latest in lawfare, the dismal Canadian election, whose solution John Yoo suggests is straight up imperial conquest—why make Canada the 51st state when we can make it a territory to be exploited like Puerto Rico and Greenland?
We're so back that Lucretia even revives some good old fashioned lookism in this episode!
We cl...
We're so back that Lucretia even revives some good old fashioned lookism in this episode!
We cl...
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April 26, 2025 • 61 mins
Friday was cap and gown day for Steve at Pepperdine's commencement for the School of Public Policy class of 2025, while John Yoo is on the road somewhere at an undisclosed location, so Steve and Lucretia kick around a couple of seemingly unrelated stories about the Amish (the ultimate opt-out community) and the latest Supreme Court argument involving human nature and the right of parents to opt-out from public school nihilism.
And t...
And t...
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April 19, 2025 • 59 mins
Another whirlwird week of controversies that exceeded our bandwidth to keep up (or at least to compress into an hour), but John Yoo, this week's host, leads us in revisiting the question of "birthright citizenship" under the 14th Amendment, which the Supreme Court has rather unusually agreed to take up in May—surprisingly late for such and important oral argument. We take note of the growing number of scholars who think the current...
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April 12, 2025 • 63 mins
John Yoo is back this week, bringing the 3WHH up to full strength again after last week's astonishingly congenial episode, which can mean only one thing—not even high tariffs, which this week's host (Steve) vainly tried to impose on ths discussion—could stop a vigorous free trade in ideas.
After our discussion of where the tariff matter stands as of the end of this week, we turn our focus to the week's continuing legal and constitu...
After our discussion of where the tariff matter stands as of the end of this week, we turn our focus to the week's continuing legal and constitu...
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April 5, 2025 • 61 mins
The 3WHH crew is down a glass this week because John Yoo is down with a bug and unable to join us—or was he afraid of subjecting himself to Lucretia, host for this week's episode. With fear, trembling, and trepidation Steve barved the peril with all the aplomb of the Black Knight in Monty Python, and yet by the end of this episode still ahd all four limbs attached! Lucretia's fancy whisky must have mellowed her, as this surprisingl...
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March 29, 2025 • 61 mins
As if to put an exclamation point to the crazy story of the week about the Trump national security team adding a hostile journalist to their Signal group chat about bombing Houthi and the Blowups, Steve accidentally texted the Zoom link to this week's taping to John Eastman (who was otherwise pre-occupied).
In any case, after reviewing the completely out of whack signal-to-noise ratio of Signalgate, and the latest machinations in th...
In any case, after reviewing the completely out of whack signal-to-noise ratio of Signalgate, and the latest machinations in th...
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March 22, 2025 • 59 mins
Trump does more consequential things in a day that most presidents do in a month, so we may need to measure his tenure in office in dog years. It must certainly seem like dog days for the left, which is lying prostrate on the ground much of the time, panting and out of breath, gnawing on a bare bone.
After ticking through a number of happy stories this week—the end of DEI at Berkeley; Greenpeace getting nicked for $667 million dolla...
After ticking through a number of happy stories this week—the end of DEI at Berkeley; Greenpeace getting nicked for $667 million dolla...
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March 15, 2025 • 60 mins
The only truly functioning high-speed rail in America today is the Trump Train, and not even the prospect of a 200% tariff on the core commodity of this podcast—single malt scotch whiskies—can dampen the 180-proof spirits of Lucretia, host of this week's episode.
But we still manage to get in some disagreements about how to understand what is going on, especially with the Ukraine War endgame. In fact, we got John Yoo to out himself ...
But we still manage to get in some disagreements about how to understand what is going on, especially with the Ukraine War endgame. In fact, we got John Yoo to out himself ...
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March 8, 2025 • 59 mins
The whole gang is finally back together behind the bar this week, with John Yoo in the host chair skillfully leading our unruly gang in a round-robin three-subject format that we're alternating this year.
Steve leads off wondering if Gavin Newsom, and Senate Democrats, are at last having their "Sister Souljah" moment about the transgender millstone around their neck, though Steve points out that Democrats will have great difficulty ...
Steve leads off wondering if Gavin Newsom, and Senate Democrats, are at last having their "Sister Souljah" moment about the transgender millstone around their neck, though Steve points out that Democrats will have great difficulty ...
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March 5, 2025 • 42 mins
Why let our frenemies at the Commentary podcast (frenemies since they dissed the sacred McRib recently) have all the fun with their emergency podcasts: after today's errant Supreme Court rulings, it was necessary for the 3WHH bartenders —well two of us at least—to jump to our mics to express our outrage, but also to celebrate briefly Trump's tour de force speech before Congress last night. And not to mention the second installment ...
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March 1, 2025 • 47 mins
John Yoo is away this week, so the 3WHH has brought in a 180-proof guest in John's place—the great Richard Epstein, who speaks at an average rate of 125 words a minute, with occasional gusts of 200 words per minute. We discuss two of his many extraordinary books, the first being his 1992 title Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws, which is newly salient in the aftermath of recent Supreme Court decision...
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February 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Our long-running intramural argument on this podcast over the Ukraine War has become just like the Ukraine War itself—lots of casualties on both sides, but very little movement from week to week. But is Trump actually on the cusp of a breakout? There's one thing Trump did this week that is surely causing Putin to wipe the smile off his face, and no one seems to have figured it out. It's all part of Trump's Great Reset.
There is mor...
There is mor...
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February 15, 2025 • 68 mins
With Lucretia hosting both the episode and the bar this week (with three different whiskies just for herself), we manage to keep John Yoo from excessive gloating about the Eagles win in the Super Bowl by distracting him with his favorite subject—executive power, about which he seldom thinks there can be excessive use. But maybe we found some limits this time?
The intensifying pace of President Trump's exertions of executive power lo...
The intensifying pace of President Trump's exertions of executive power lo...
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February 8, 2025 • 58 mins
We're only 19 days into Trump's term, but it seems like 19 months have passed already since January 20. When Alexander Hamilton wrote of "energy in the executive," he had no idea that a real estate tycoon would become the greatest example of this understanding of the presidency.
This week's episode reviews five of Trump's biggest fights that are interrelated in ways that could rebalance out constitutional order in ways conservative...
This week's episode reviews five of Trump's biggest fights that are interrelated in ways that could rebalance out constitutional order in ways conservative...
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February 1, 2025 • 60 mins
This wide-ranging, round-robin format episode begins with celebrating the end of "Dry January" (which we, um, didn't much observe), mockery of Bernie Sanders' obsession with "onesies," a brief account of a Steve roadtrip to Villanova University, and a declaration of war against the Commentary podcast. (It's serious: it involves McRibs.)
After we clear away this opening frivolity, we get down to serious business. Lucretia is in high...
After we clear away this opening frivolity, we get down to serious business. Lucretia is in high...
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January 24, 2025 • 65 mins
The 3WHH bartenders raise their glasses high for the first 100 hours of Trump II, which bid to replace FDR's famous "Hundred Days" for breathtaking executive action. You'd think that this is Trump's first term, and metaphysically, Steve argues, it is. In just the way we've come to expect of Trump in all things, he may have turned the usual presidential cycle on its head. Even John, champion of executive power, is impressed. And one...
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January 17, 2025 • 52 mins
Nothing "jejune" about this edition, except perhaps for the first-ever use of "jejune" in a podcast, but it is the perfect term to describe Joe Biden's "farewell address," which, aside from its jejune content, is a most welcome sound, since he will be gone in about another 48 hours, never to be heard from again one hopes.
This week we take up three topics—one from each of the bartenders: Behold, President Biden amended the Constitut...
This week we take up three topics—one from each of the bartenders: Behold, President Biden amended the Constitut...
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January 11, 2025 • 62 mins
With this episode the Three Whisky Happy Hour emigrates into its very own identity on Ricochet and Steve's new group Substack, "Political Questions," but not to worry—the old Power Line Show will live on in its old format as an interview show. The 3WHH, meanwhile, is rebooting with some new formats. We'll be doing some show with a single-subject format; on some we'll do a round robin of hot topics and reflections on currtent news i...
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December 31, 2024 • 64 mins
Since so many of our fellow conservative podcasts are taking the holidays off, we decided to do another special mid-week edition to observe the new year, and gear up for some changes.
Last year's end of year show featured some low-probability but plausible predictions for 2024 (inspired by the late Wall Street guru Byron Weins' annual practice, which was often right), and unlike other shows that never track prediction accuracy (lik...
Last year's end of year show featured some low-probability but plausible predictions for 2024 (inspired by the late Wall Street guru Byron Weins' annual practice, which was often right), and unlike other shows that never track prediction accuracy (lik...
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