November 14, 2025 • 43 mins
While it was sorely tempting to devote the entire show to celebrating the return of Sydney Sweeney to the public eye last week, we decided to turn our attention to the serious matter of antisemitism on the right, and just what the heck "groypers" (groyperism??) is all about. Rod Dreher passed along estimates that up to 40 percent of young conservatives in Washington are closet Nick Fuentes fans or groyper-adjacent, though this estimate has received strong challenges. We review a few of the counter-arguments that seem to be left unsaid at the moment.
Then we turn to a brief recap and critque from Lucretia on our brief segment last week with Akhil Amar about his new book Born Equal. We didn't have time to get very far with the subject, but the amazing thing is that Lucretia and John were together on their end of this episode, and Lucretia didn't hit John once (though she may have spiked his whisky).
Oh, and we did have time to talk briefly about Helen Andrews's legs. You'll just have to listen to find out what this means in this compact, ad-free episode.
Then we turn to a brief recap and critque from Lucretia on our brief segment last week with Akhil Amar about his new book Born Equal. We didn't have time to get very far with the subject, but the amazing thing is that Lucretia and John were together on their end of this episode, and Lucretia didn't hit John once (though she may have spiked his whisky).
Oh, and we did have time to talk briefly about Helen Andrews's legs. You'll just have to listen to find out what this means in this compact, ad-free episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, whiskey, come and take my pains all right, Oh whiskey.
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's three whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
John You and the international woman of Mystery, Lucretia where.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They slapped it up and David, ain't you easy on
the shoulda tap?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Got agive me?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And let that? Well, folks, we are I want to
say live that's not really correct but for listeners, and
we don't have the live stream working. John and Lucretia
are sitting two feet apart from each other.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I haven't smacked him once.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And you know, for the people who try to find
me after my death, I have my Apple tech.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Track it right. And you know, there's of course some
risks that not only will Lucretia reach over and smack
you some point, but you could catch her cooties John,
and so who knows.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
But I feel like I'm in an episode of Breaking
Bad and Lucretia is going to bury me in the
desert out here in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And you know what they say in casino, always dig
the hole first, because if you don't, somebody's didn't come along.
You'll be digging holes all night. You know that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, now, why don't we just tell listeners what you
guys are? What brings you two guys together? Uh, since
you're not about.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I'll tell you because I'm excited about it. So John
is here. It started out that John was coming to
speak to uh, mister Lucretia's intelligence intelligence studies. The actual
program is Intelligence and Information Operations Program, a class to
talk about his sundry things. And John you is such
(01:53):
a celebrity that it has ballooned and blossomed into a
major talk with under cover police officers of course, because
for security and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And he's actually going to talk.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, he can take him. But all he asked for
actually was the opportunity to be able to carry concealed Unfortunately,
the even though the police are good friends, they wouldn't
allow me to do that, So they're going to be
there undercover.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Actually, I'm looking for Lucretia's handbag because I want to
see the guns she must have in it. You left
your guns in the car, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, I mean, look, things are getting kind of I
mean to be semi serious for a minute. I mean, John,
you and I are around. But I'm assuming you guys
have seen the news that Antifa turned up at Berkeley
in force a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was teaching that day and we were oh, yeah,
I was on campus, but it did as far as
the law school. But I know if you were there, Steve,
you would have gone down, of course in person, to
oh yeah, I miss the insanity. But I was like,
I hope they don't block traffic on my way home.
I don't want to have to run over more people
than I usually do when I drive in downtown Berkeley.
(03:02):
But yeah, I know they I mean, you saw that
our friend Harmeat Dylan, head of the Civil Rights Division,
is announced that the Justice Department has announced an investigation,
and you know there's questions about whether the security is
adequate for people to exercise their free speech rights.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, right, Well, I mean, you know, borrow a
statement of an old friend of mine. I would think
that the only thing to protect Antifa in Arizona would
be the game laws. But I don't know, right, But
who knows well. So, first of all, so this is
a little unusual episode since where you guys are there together,
(03:41):
and we'll see how that goes. I did have a
few people tell me they listened to last week's episode,
which we taped live in the lobby of the Washington
Hilton in a you know, sort of a random fashion
of who was available, and they said, well, that was interesting,
but that was strange, and you know, is it normally
like that? And I said, of course, oh no, it's
usually much worse. But that was rather gonzo. And maybe
(04:03):
we'll come back to all that. Look, we got some
serious things. Well there's always serious things going on, but
we're not going to follow the headlines today exactly, but
I do want to just plant a sequel. Well, Sidney
Sweeney's back in the news, and it's always fun to
be able to mention her.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
But also, wait a minute, I want to point something
out here. So Sidney Sweeney lost thirty pounds in order
to be able to well, she gained thirty pounds in
order to be able to be the be in the
movie Christy, and she lost back the thirty pounds seven weeks.
All I want you guys to know is and she
(04:40):
talked about how she went from a size twenty seven
back down to a size twenty three. And I want
you all to know that Sidney and I have something
in common. I wear the size twenty seven that she
wires when she's thirty pounds heavyer.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, but the difference is while she was just playing
a boxer temporarily, you do that at three sixty five
twenty four seven. I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
She's in a movie as she plays a one boxer.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah yeah, really yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
You would never know what was her just looking at her,
not even because she's thirty pounds heavier, but because she's
got dark, curly hair and yeah, it's all.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Much yeah yeah, And apparently the movie did very poorly.
That's opening box office weekend. But interesting she picked up.
I mean, okay, we'll spend twenty seconds on this. All
the sensation about her interview with a Gentleman's quarterly where
she humiliated the interviewer. That's happening a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Oh oh yeah, it was so good.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So imagine if I was at that age, mature and
had the same attitude as I was today. That's Sydney
Sweeney in that interview. She just the lady says, well,
you know, are you sure you don't want to apologize
for making those comments about your jeans and you know
a lot of people to you know, anytime I actually
(06:05):
feel I need to explain myself about something, I can
assure you I'll do so.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Oh yeah and she oh, and she had this wonderful
dismissive look on her face because she is a you know,
a talented Hollywood performer.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
My my favorite one, by the way, my favorite meme
on that was the obnoxious chick from MSNBC asks her,
you mean happy holidays, right?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Then, and Sydney Sweety's in this you know, Santa Baby
costume right that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Look, I have a whole collection of those memes. But
I mean, needless to say, when they finally make the
movie of the three Whiskey Happy Hour, uh, Sidney Sweeney
will obviously play you, Lucretia, and then John. I mean,
you've already been played in at least one movie I
can think of.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And so like twenty year old Korean you know, Maile.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
After I told you in the report, I was offended
because they made the guy instead of this handsome squash
playing worked out, they made him kind of a dopey,
little chubby Korean guy and it really busters.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
That is most Korean guy that was.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I was very offended by.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That stereotypes, right, oh god right?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Anyway, you know Don Rickles is no longer.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I know it was Don Rickles. And you want to
find the you want to find the human equivalent of
the Swedish chef from the Muppets.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That's always the one that's practically your avatars.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I know exactly. So I'll just say last word on
Sidney Sweeney. I've seen a couple of interviews with her
which makes me think she's supremely intelligent, and only because
of the way she discussed how she thinks about her
career and business opportunities and other things. So, and she's
willing to take risks like playing this role, but you
wouldn't expect from what she's done before. You know, rom Comms,
and you know some of the White Lotus she was in,
(07:57):
which I never watched because I don't have time, So
you know, keep your eye on her.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The other bitter story, a little more serious, uh, in
ideological terms, is what I'm calling Helen's legs, and I
mean Helen Andrews, and I am.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I've never obsessed with this article. Well, but the thing
is a feminization.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Of well, I just make this obsert Well, right. I
mean there there continues to be a lot of chatter
about it, and this is now a month old article,
and so you know Ross doubt that had a podcast
about her with somebody disputing it and greading some and
lots more secondary commentary on substack by all the you know,
a lot of different substackers. And I'm starting to think,
(08:38):
I think I know what's going to happen next. And
I think she's I expect she's going to write a
book on this. If not, some publisher is going to
beat a path through her door, and that book will
be the next closing of the American mind, in other words,
a big public publishing sensation from the right that will
then spark a whole lot of discussion and debate for
months or years. And the reason I think that is,
(09:01):
you know, not quite a historical analogy, but you know,
Bloom's famous book, which took everyone to my surprise, began
as a magazine article in National Review in nineteen eighty three.
I remember the article was the cover story. Jack talked
about it all.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A bit.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, but Bloom and Helen Andrews have so much in common, well,
I don't know, Well, no, actually, he's a pull up,
professor of political theory at the University of Chicago, and
his book had nothing like you know, his book was
like most people write it, probab didn't understand like ten
percent of it. Well, I'll come back to that polarization
of you know, just feelings people have about society. Well,
(09:40):
i'll slow down you too, political theory in it.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, when i'll slow down you two. You know that
book began as an article in National Review. Jaffo actually
brought to class and talked about it. It was the
semester I had with him, the first semester I had
with him. And then lo and behold, five years later
he's got or four years later, he has a book
out about it because somebody said you should do a
book on this. Uh, if you know the story. Simon
and Schuster printed ten thousand copies and was hopeful they'd
(10:03):
be able to sell those, but they weren't sure, and
of course it becomes this monster bestseller. Now why did
it become a best seller? Well, a couple of things,
but one of them was he had that somewhat ridiculous
chapter on rock and roll music where he obsessed with
Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. It doesn't read very well,
but a lot of people seized on that. But then
there was the very long and very very serious chapter
(10:26):
towards the end, which was called from Plato's Republic to
Heidegger's Rector's Address, although he put the hidigger in German
and that was very dense and difficult, and nobody got
through that, and it was not included on the audiobook's
version of the book. So you had everything from soup
to nuts in that book, and you know, it caught
everyone by surprise, including Bloom. I could see Helen's book
(10:47):
and probably she'll throw in something outrageous. That's the equivalent
of taking after Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger, and then
we're off to.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
The racist after Boomers.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Sure, but that's an easy target now exactly. Well, actually,
well maybe that leads us then to our first a
serious topic on the agenda. So to put it bluntly, Washington,
d C. Where I am right now is in the
grip of gropersm Do you know what grouperism? John is? John?
You probably don't.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's the followers of Nick fun Days.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Is that right? It's kind of like it. I think
it goes beyond him. I'm not sure I could define it,
but it's definitely.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
After the stupid frog.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, that's it was, see right, and that's been around
a while now then I've ignored that. And but you
know there's a I'm calling this, by the way, new
right four point five, and I could go through one
through four and why it's four point five, but I won't.
I'm going to be doing that on Friday up at
Yale for the Buckley Institute.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Rodreer wrote a substack note because he was here over
the weekend along with the Hungarian delegation visiting President Trump
and Vice President Vance. And he wrote a long substack
here a couple days ago. That's getting a ton of attention.
He's a good writer and a good reporter, and he's saying, gosh,
we got a ton of these gropers, and by most
(12:09):
estimations of in fact, there's an ambulance going behind me.
I don't know if you can hear it. I'm on
Connecticut Avenues. Okay, good. Anyway, he's saying that, you know
what we're told is And the backdrop here, of course,
is this the STM and dron at the Heritage Foundation
and Kevin Roberts going on right now, that's also gripping
the town. And so the point is is he says,
(12:32):
you know, like thirty to forty percent of the young
conservatives working on Capitol Hill and for the think tanks
and the media organizations are you know, Flente's adjacent. I'll
put it at least that way, right, And they like
Tucker Carlson, and they hate the baby boomers. They have
contempt for Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley and you
know boomer conservatism, and the twitter wars right now on
(12:54):
this are quite intense, I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So I don't know, if you didn't know that that's
that's the right figure, that seems like a real exaggeration
to me.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Well, I don't know. I mean, he said, that's just
I'm talking to people around town. And yeah, I'm a
little suspicious too, but I think I do think this
is a five alarm fire because well, I mentioned to
you guys, I mentioned on the Ricochet podcast that these
really bright students I met at Mississippi a month ago.
I really like them. They've read stuff, they're smart, they're
(13:23):
going places, and several of them said, we kind of
think Nick Fins might be the successor to Charlie Kirk.
And I said, but you know what about the crazy
You know what he's said about Hitler, and you know
Eddie's an anti Semitic and all the rest of that.
And they said, oh, yeah, that's kind of crazy stuff.
But we like that he's outrageous. And then he's you know,
(13:44):
just rejects all the conventions. And so a key sentence
in Rod's piece was, h this is not people who
are looking for an end of wokery and return to normal.
They're looking for revenge. And I don't that may or
may not be an overstatement. I didn't get that from
the students I talked to at Mississippi, but they certainly there.
(14:06):
If they're out for revenge, they're taking you out against
old boomer conservatives like me and you. I suppose to right.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
These people, as far as I understand their views, are
ignorant and racist and misogynists and ill deformed, fairly educated,
and I think are much smaller proportioned. I've met no
students who say good things about Nick flent Days or
any of these gropers. I mean, it sounds to me
(14:34):
like they're these people sitting in their basements of their houses,
you know, posting and engaging in social media, which has
effective exaggerating how many people you think really agree with
them because they post a lot. But that doesn't I
mean thirty or forty percent. I think that. I think
that's might be three or four percent or five percent.
I've not met anyone who takes these views seriously. Amongst
(14:55):
the young people. They might like that, you know, he's
raising a ruckus, and they might like a chaos going
to the Heritage Foundation. But actually people who agree with
his views, which I take it he thinks Hitler was cool,
and that he thinks Stalin is interesting and Maw too,
I suppose, And I mean they actually go. I've not
heard young people say they actually agree with these things
(15:16):
I have.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
That doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with everything you said.
I have actually talked with quite a few young people.
And you guys probably don't remember this. It might have
been with Richard epste We were on a podcast and
I mentioned this, Oh, I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It was Amy. It was Amy Wax And I.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Mentioned that there's a at my university, there's a course
on the Holocaust that teaches that it was all the
Jews fault, really really, and I guess what I would
argue when you said that they're ignorant, and then you
said that they're racist and anti Semitic. They are racists
and anti Semitic because they're ignorant, because they, as Reagan
(15:58):
would say, they know so much that isn't true true,
and that that's the failure that and you know, let's
give some credit to conservatives for at least taking seriously
the idea that however large that percentage of call it
the conservative, the right wing, whatever, however large that is,
(16:20):
we don't just ignore it, thank goodness, or we're going
to find ourselves with, you know, a Nick Flintes type
becoming mayor of New York City before you get it right.
I mean, it's, you know, all of this angst over
Tucker Carlson and Nick Flintes. I find all of that
stuff highly, highly objectionable. But at least, you know, conservatives
(16:47):
actually look at the views of each other and and
do demand a certain kind of call it homogeneity on
these views.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
We tolerate Libertarians.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
John and I were having a really interesting discussion about
libertarianism before this. Sorry the Gora, but I was telling
John that I saw this. I think it was the website,
the huge banner on the website of the Colorado Libertarian
Party abolish Ice.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, you take at all.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
These nuts that come under the big tent on the
conservative side. But we at least pushed back on some
of these things, and hopefully we make those ignorant young
people who are resentful about what they've been through. You know,
there's white males don't go to college anymore. Why not
just because college is a waste of time, as we've
(17:39):
all learned recently, but because they.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Weren't welcome, right, they weren't welcome.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And you know, and if they got there, what were
they going to study? And even if they went into
a stem field, they'd be like one of my kids
who went there and was told on the first day
and his physics first day with his physics advisors, that
your only purpose here is to make sure that you
may get marginalized students through this program. Your success depends
(18:06):
on this, you know. So they have a reason to
be resentful. Yeah, and we didn't protect them when we
should have.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Right, Well, let me give let me give one Crusius
said that I agree with is that you have someone
on the Democrats side who's now the right. He's the
mayor of the largest city of the city with the
largest number of Jews outside of Israel, and he's clearly
anti Semitic, and his party in the end embraced him.
(18:36):
And because they don't, I think that's there. They don't
police is the wrong word, but they don't, you know,
cultivate what's right and wrong amongst their members. And the
one healthy thing I think out of all this is
that you see a number of leading people coming out
and condemning what Nick Flin takes thinks. Tucker carlsrom for
(18:58):
giving him such a softball interview, and he and Kevin
Roberts for giving Pucker pass. I think that's entirely healthy
and good for conservative movement. That's out in public and
we can have a debate about it. And yeah, I
think people, you know, you know that this view should
be stifled, not for First Amendment, not stifled in first Ammican,
stifled because it's wrong. Right, The Democrats are very happy
(19:20):
to have antison Mites in their political coalition.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Oh no, I think that's quite right now.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Sean Davis, of whom I'm a huge fan, by the way,
but he can be a little extreme.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
From time to time.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Sean Davis from the Federalists says that this whole reaction
by the you know, the donors that these think tanks
and on and on and on, is really because they're
they're desperate to turn the Republican Party away from Mega
to ruin any chance that JD Vance becomes the heir
apparent and and get the GOP back on its country
(19:53):
club and Chamber of commerce routes where it belongs.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, now I've heard that, and I I think that's overdone.
But let me offer I.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Like to put the ideas out there right.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Well, I don't think it's wholly wrong. And let's hold
the JD answer for a moment because that's and we
maybe end on that. But let me give you an
end of one, in other words, one data point, first
for John's benefit, but also to show that the framing
of this it's a young male problem, right for all
the reason that are quite right. And that's my driver
in Mississippi on now four trips to and from the
(20:28):
airport over this last year. She's graduated but working at
the Declaration of Independent Center. She's really smart. She knows
stuff she's a good evangelical Christian, but but young lady, right,
And she says, yeah, I kind of like nickquentn taste.
And I said, okay, why and yeah, he said some
crazy stuff and all that, and she's just very sweet,
(20:50):
and she says, but you know, I really don't understand
why we give so much money to Israel. And by
the way, I don't None of the students there struck
me as having a rop of anti Semitism. There's none
of that there, but I think in this particular by
the way, then John I went and explained why we did.
Here's the whole history of it, and this is a
little bit like a Ukraine argument. We're developing military technologies
(21:13):
jointly that benefit us and that we're using and they
buy our stuff and so forth. And at the end
of my explanation, that was just on that part of it.
You know, I've never heard that before. That's a good explanation.
So we're following. And I think we've assumed that we
conservatives Republicans didn't need to make this case. Well now
actually we do. And then the second thing I talked about,
and this is the week before Vance went there for
(21:36):
his big appearance, and if you remember the highlight reel,
there was a student that got up, had a maga
hat on and he was asked a very anti Israel
question happed with the sentence at his last sentence was
and by the way, you know, they're a country that's
not even our religion. And I did we Okay, I
didn't know if I had with you or not. But
(21:57):
the point is Ronald Reagan would have said we called
through Judeo Christian tradition for a reason. Vance didn't do
any of that. He just said an America first explanation,
which I think actually played into what's driving all this.
I think a lot of foreign sources, other bad faith
actors have been insidiously trying to reach people like some
of these students I met there and elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I think our argument has to be stronger than that,
because I guess you can make that argument right, which
I've made, about why Israel is a good ally of ours,
regardless of it's exactly just significance.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I personally think people who don't want Israel to exist,
and so they're saying, oh, you know, they're against Zionism.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What are they called it?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
That is anti Semitic too. So there's this idea that
you saw in these questions and the conversation, you know,
with your new girlfriend from Mississippi, whatever her name is,
that there's something it's okay to say, I'm not a Zionist,
but I'm not anti semi sub that it's okay for
(23:01):
me to think Israel should not exist as a state,
but I'm not anti Semitic. That's totally different than saying, Okay,
well I don't think that. Now, who's been a great
prime minister or I would have run the gods of
war differently. You know, those are questions, you know, of policy,
But I think there's this theme now that's emerging. You
know that Israel shouldn't be a state. But I'm not
(23:22):
anti Semitic for believing that. I think that's wrong.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You don't hear people coming out challenging that view like
you're saying, Jade van Stein, come out and challenge that view.
And you know I was talking. I was talking to
a liberal student who said, what's so wrong about saying
from the river to the sea Palestine shall be free?
It just means that everybody should get along and live together. God,
I was like, do you realize what territory this is
(23:49):
the river.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
To the sea.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
If it's Palestine, that means Israel actually can't exist because
that's the entire state is Israel. A lot of young
people think think this, that the state of Israel has
no legitimate right to exist. I think we should harder
on all those people who think that are really useful
idiots for anti Semitism.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
What's the only country you know? The answer this what's
the only country in the Middle East where Arabs get
to vote in free elections? It's called Israel.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
To the student, if you will behind the veil of
ignorance or in the state of nature, and you knew
you were going to be Arab, and you didn't know
where you were going to be born, you would hope
you would be born in Israel. Well that's good, that's
a good Arab country, right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, although I hate even leaving the door open a
crack sneaking rolls in his veil of ignance. But oh
that's okay, all right, yeah, okay. Well, now, speaking of
libertarians to change gears, our friend Richard Epstein has what
he's written this article about, Oh, the unitary executive theory
(24:49):
threatens to eat up the independent judiciary, and this is terrible.
And maybe John, you're going to or have already done
a law talk with Richard about this question. The part
I thought the mean, I thought, this is John, youugh
bate was where he said there's very little textual support
for the unitary executive in the constitution. I think I'm
gonna turnover to you. But I think what we have
(25:09):
here at Lucretia is this is a proxy debate between
Thomas Hobbs who is John, and Adam Smith, who is Richard.
And because Richard is pure libertarian and so I don't know,
a lot of the article is dense about the cases
going back to the eighteen fifties, and I got kind
of bored with it in hurry. But I do think
(25:31):
I thought it was quite wrong headed.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Actually, John gave gave me an excellent sort of summary
of the article.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay, well, give sure, go ahead. John.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Why it is that Richard came to this.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean I think so. One thing is I
think he's wrong about the text. And most of the article,
as you said, Steve, was a strange technical discussion of
not even the executive branch, but of these weird courts
that Congress has created called Article two courts, which are
not federal Article three one Article one courts. Article three
courts are the ones that we know and love, like
(26:04):
the Supreme Court. Right, but people will be shocked to
know most cases under federal law, like social security benefit
disputes and things like this, get heard by these courts
which are not really federal courts. They're handled by these
fake judges, and they're called articles. We call them Article
one courts because.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That would be just give an example. Isn't the Court
of Federal claims an Article one court claims a tax court?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But then number immigration courts are the best example. These
are people who do not have lifetime tenure, their salary
can be reduced, they don't have judicial independence.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And before you go on, I just don't have it
in front of me. But the one line that he
threw in there was, of course, their their development was
not constitutional. It was haphazard. And he had a funny
turn of phrase that he said. In other words, this
was just sort of thrown at us, and we accepted it.
But now, of course we have to bow down and
realize that our constitutional fall apart without it.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Go ahead John Well.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
So one thing is Richard's a libertarian, and so libertarians
traditionally like ineffective government, right, They don't like to have
an effective executive branch. They would prefer Congress do very
little and a very powerful judiciary because they want the
judiciary to protect individual rights against the government and against majorities.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
They also fear just majorities, especially because majorities trample on
individual liberties. So Richard's argument, you know, when you look
at it, is basically just fitting into the traditional libertarian
approach to government. But the second thing is he then
overlays us with this weird approach to constitutional interpretation. He's
(27:42):
not an originalist, he's not a textualist either. He is
actually very close to what you may think of it as
like a history and tradition guy. So when he talks
about these weird article on courts, he just as Lucretia says,
he just accepts them because they've been around a long time.
Which is strange because he doesn't have that same attitude
to the executive branch, which he thinks must be stripped
(28:03):
down to some magical eighteenth century, you know, tiny executive.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
But he accepts.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
So we've had these debates about affirmative action, and I
give him a really hard time. See supports race based
affirmative action. It's been around a long time, and it
you know, things that have been a long time constitutionally
have some claim to permanence, which I just think that's
completely wrong because why writing down the constitution that quick question.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
On that does that? Does his view differ in any
substantial way from just reliance interests, which is often comes
into play.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It's not so much narrow idea about Okay, Starry decisive,
but this is just you know, it's like treating the
Constitution as if it were just the common law and
you just build on it and build on it, you
never go back to the original beginning. And then the
last point is the one you suggest to see, the
idea that there's no textual foundation for the unitary executive
is just exactly right when the Constitution says, right, the
(28:58):
executive power has vested in the pre and then it
gives them the commander chief power and the take care clause.
I mean, it's like, what what what part of it
is not justifying?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I mean he has a throw off line about Locke
in there too, as if somehow Locke says something about.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It, but who cares. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You and I actually believe that the the the beginning
of Article two that says the executive power shall be
vested in as compared to the beginning of Article one,
which says the legislative powers hearing granted, But that he
and granted that's the hearing granted. Okay, I'm but but
I have a minor point here. Article three begins, the
(29:40):
judicial power shall be vested in. So how is it
we are not arguing that all of these Article one
courts in and of themselves are unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
No, that's exactly rightly a cretia. This is why Richard
doesn't like the constitutional text, because if you actually read
the constitutional text, he would be utterly wrong because he's saying, oh,
the executive power of being vested in the president. That's
just ceremonial language that has no substance. But Article three
says the judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court. Right,
(30:12):
that sentence is the only sense that really justifies judicial review,
justifies the independence of the Article three courts in their
power over certain classes of cases. Is why the Congress
can't just take cases away from the Supreme Court. Whenever
it feels like the claim of you know, this judiciary
is an independent, equal branch comes from the same exact language.
(30:33):
But yeah, Richard would say, oh no, that vesting of
the judicial powers undermined by the history of these fake courts.
But at the same time, right, he was like, oh love,
but the same language an Article two has no meaning
at all, and we can reduce executive branch to basically
I think, you know, a president at a desk with
(30:54):
a pencil in the White House and no substance of
powers at all. Now we gotta have Richard on the show,
and I'm sure he could speak for thirty minutes straight
about why he's right. So this is cause, he said,
he wrote a book about it. I called it up
out of library. He says, the constitution is we have
a constitutional convention. By not convention, isn't a meeting, but
conventions like just things. The way we do things, he
(31:16):
calls us exactly, he calls us the prescriptive constitution. We
do things which are good policy. They might be unconstitutional,
but we accept them. And so another example he would
use would be the independence of the Federal Reserve Bank.
He said it doesn't make sense under the Constitution, but
(31:37):
it's just such a good idea. We've accepted it and
now we have to keep it because it's so efficient.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, maybe it's a good idea.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Well, I would.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Say that, however, that this, you know, we're kind of
making a little fun of Richard and don't mean too,
because he's obviously very serious.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Call no, no, no, no, I mean to I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
But here's this is actually an important question because the
context of the article you should probably link to it, Steve.
The context of the article is the Supreme Court needs
to reign in all of these needs to reign in
Trump and.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
At least uphold all of these.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Other court decisions that have tried to reign in the
executive power. And that's the context of the article, which
is very important and one of the things that you
I think we have to give credit to the Supreme Court.
Maybe not Katangi, although Katangi came through last week.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Let's get credit where credits do.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
They are indeed trying to separate what the Constitution says
about executive power, even what their prior decision said about
executive powers, from Trump and realize that it is as
Marshall would say, it is a constitution that we are expounding.
It is not the Trump presidency. And I hope to
(32:59):
God that Robert he seems to have so far, keeps
on the straight and narrow and doesn't cave because of
all the criticisms that are coming about coming against the
Court because they're taking Trump's side in things, because it really,
I mean, Trump is making some really important corrections to
(33:20):
our constitutional system, not out of any because he wants
to be Hitler or an Autocrat, but because those corrections
needed to be made. And I hope the Court sees
that and looks to the future and says, yes, of
course it can be abused by a future president. Of
course it can. Of course it could have been abused
by one in the past, which it was. But the
(33:43):
answer to that is not the Court's reigning it, and
the answer is the American people.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, Yeah, well, okay. I tend to incline to the
old fashioned and maybe too simplistic view that Article one
is the first article to Constitution for a reason that
the founders thought Congress ought to be the most important
and dominant branch for driving American progress, not the president.
President proposes and all that I know, and maybe that's
(34:11):
too strong. On the other hand, I've always liked someone
who said, I don't know who it was, John, someone
who said that Richard's ideal bill of rights would have
consisted of the sentence Congress shall make no law, period
and we all go home. Right. Yeah, that's right. But
(34:32):
my thought experiment here that would be fun is, uh,
you know, I just thought of this while we were talking.
It would be fun to lock Richard in a room
and force him to read Harvey Mansfield's book on executive power,
Taming the Prince, and watch his head explode and just
wait for all the emanations from Richard's very fast thinking brain.
That could be pretty amusing.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So maybe one thing to also say in his defense
is he has different reasons for it, but his view
is probably the same view that most American constitutional laws
scholars have, right, which is they think the executive branch
is out of control. Trump has stopped and you need
a especially strong judiciary to do it, and you shouldn't
(35:12):
let it be broken up with all these weird courts.
You should just focus on, you know, the bolstering the
independent federal Article three judiciary so that can stand up
to Trump.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
They don't make these arguments when Obama and Biden are president.
They didn't make these arguments when Biden tried to cancel
all the student loans in the country or force everyone
to get a vaccine. But right when Trump's president, they
suddenly resurrect this this suspicion of executive power that is
part of the American American political tradition. There's always been
this suspicion of power.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
You don't need to you don't need to go into
some deep theoretical justification for it. On the surface, the
idea of a powerful, responsible and accountable executive makes perke sense.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
If you and you can look at the experience across
states that have plural executives. You know, the governors elected
separately from the lieutenant governor. Ex that a lot of
them do that nowadays as this way of supposedly, I
don't know, who do you blame for the abysmal ca
UH state of schools in California?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Who has to be who's responsible for that?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah? We have an elected supervisor in public instruction who
you know, used to be a big deal, but now
the governor Okay, right.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
So, but you can't hold someone accountable either if they're
not responsible, if they don't have the power and the
responsibility to make things happen, you can't hold them accountable.
So who do you hold accountable for the mess that
are our interest rates?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Who do you like for that?
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Well? Well, interest rates are not set by the Federals.
There only the like the overnight rate, that's the only
thing that but they're.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Not also not doesn't there there's a perfect answer to
my question, or illustration of the answer to my question.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Nobody knows who you blame.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, well, okay, that's a I think it's some of
a different category. But one other point, though, John is
I'm having fun pointing out to my liberal friends that
Trump isn't asserting any powers. That Franklin Roosevelt didn't want it,
and it was always a controversy when the court got
in his way, right, and they finally capitulated, right. And
(37:26):
I do think Trump's.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Face all the cases we've been talking about so far,
the court even was there. Trump is just saying the
statue grants me the power. Yeah, He's not like FDR
saying I can just close the banks because I feel
like it for a week, right, go off the gold standard,
right right, right, right, yes.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Right, right, Well, I mean I do think we'll follow this,
you know, maybe at the end of this next term.
But it seems to me the Supreme Court is getting
the kind of workout by the assertion of executive power
that it has not seen since the nineteen thirties, Right,
Roosevelt and the Congress were doing all these crazy things.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And yeah, I mean, I think the last big moment
there were some cases when you know, the Reagan attacks
on the independence of the Special Council, But I think
I think the other big moment was Watergate and Nixon. Yeah,
you know this this is a similar moment of you know,
what constitutional cases going to think of all the cases
they got the Pentagon papers, you know, and you know,
(38:21):
Nixon himself being subject to subpoena. There are a lot
of big nick but ye, Nixon, and then the previous
one would be FDR. Now Trump would like it to
just stay at the Nixon level and not elevate to
the FDR court, Packing right, packing level, although that's the court.
You know, then we could just move the podcast to
the Supreme Court. Since all three of us will be there.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, yeah, all right. So uh on related matter, Uh,
you know, I knew John last week when we were
talking to Aki Lamar about his new book Born Equal,
that oh boy, we're gonna be in trouble with Lucretia
and I should mention the Creatia that after your trip
to Hawaii got canceled. I thought the last minute, I
thought about mention this to John, maybe we should make
(39:02):
Lucretia come back here for the Federal Society Conference just
to sit in. Problem was, it was sold out, and
so it was a moot point. And next year, right,
and they're gonna move back.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
And ask that we be able to do our yeah
pod cast next year at the Federal Society Convention for
a live audience.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
That'd be huge fun. Right. We've got a lot of
listeners there. A lot of the judges will hide in
the back, you know, with masks on or something. I
don't know, listen to us, right, you know who you
are out there? Anyway? You know, it's really great to
get a kill. Right. He's a busy guy, the big deal.
We thought we'd be lucky to get him for five
minutes to say what's your book about? But he hung
around for a while, you know, despite it, despite the
(39:40):
interventions of Roger Palan, and you know Hadley turned up
and Judge Pryor was great, and anyway, I don't know
hard to handle all this. This is the second book
of a trilogy. As I understand John that he's writing
on how we quality is unfolded under the Constitution from
the founding up to present time, and LUCRETI did you
want to make him observation just that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
He doesn't understand anything about equality, and he doesn't understand
anything about jaffa. I find his his deference to feminism
revolting and evolution of Lincoln's thought. M But we don't
(40:23):
have time to do that today. I'm afraid because I
have to take the celebrity here.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Important engagement. So Steve, with your permission.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I'm just gonna do a couple of Babylon bes with
your permission, of course, the top one of Democrats sombrely
remove some breros singing and of shutdown.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I thought you'd like that one. Fans, this one's not political.
Speaker 5 (40:52):
But for those of you who you know follow any
kind of social media fans can't believe how much rock
singer has aged And the last fifty years or sixty.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
Right, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Jack's still alive. I heard, I.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Know, dances across the stage like he's forty five or something.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Banks now requiring your grandkids to co sign your fifty
year mortgage? Oh boy, yeah, Auschwitz Guard explains he doesn't
hate Jews or anything, just Zionists. Yes, that one's for you.
And then I'll end it with this Congress prepares to
pivot from doing nothing because of the shutdown to doing
(41:35):
nothing because they're Congress.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
That's good, right, all right, John.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'll kick us out. Well, always drink your whiskey, Neat,
buy more books than Steve. What latest ai confection do
you have for us?
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I didn't have time to do a new one because
I was taking down my government shutdown decorations and putting
up my Jeffrey Epstein decorations. Since let's go back to that, right, So,
by the.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Way, I have to end with the only the only
negative thing that's come out of at least the release
of stuff today is the fact that that Jeffrey Epstein
ended his relationship with Bill Clinton because he was a
pathological liar.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
All right, by bye, right, Bady We'll be back next
week with a more normal like me.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
So h
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Ricochet join the conversation.
Well, whiskey, come and take my pains all right, Oh whiskey.
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's three whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
John You and the international woman of Mystery, Lucretia where.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They slapped it up and David, ain't you easy on
the shoulda tap?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Got agive me?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And let that? Well, folks, we are I want to
say live that's not really correct but for listeners, and
we don't have the live stream working. John and Lucretia
are sitting two feet apart from each other.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I haven't smacked him once.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And you know, for the people who try to find
me after my death, I have my Apple tech.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Track it right. And you know, there's of course some
risks that not only will Lucretia reach over and smack
you some point, but you could catch her cooties John,
and so who knows.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
But I feel like I'm in an episode of Breaking
Bad and Lucretia is going to bury me in the
desert out here in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And you know what they say in casino, always dig
the hole first, because if you don't, somebody's didn't come along.
You'll be digging holes all night. You know that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, now, why don't we just tell listeners what you
guys are? What brings you two guys together? Uh, since
you're not about.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I'll tell you because I'm excited about it. So John
is here. It started out that John was coming to
speak to uh, mister Lucretia's intelligence intelligence studies. The actual
program is Intelligence and Information Operations Program, a class to
talk about his sundry things. And John you is such
(01:53):
a celebrity that it has ballooned and blossomed into a
major talk with under cover police officers of course, because
for security and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And he's actually going to talk.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, he can take him. But all he asked for
actually was the opportunity to be able to carry concealed Unfortunately,
the even though the police are good friends, they wouldn't
allow me to do that, So they're going to be
there undercover.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Actually, I'm looking for Lucretia's handbag because I want to
see the guns she must have in it. You left
your guns in the car, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, I mean, look, things are getting kind of I
mean to be semi serious for a minute. I mean, John,
you and I are around. But I'm assuming you guys
have seen the news that Antifa turned up at Berkeley
in force a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was teaching that day and we were oh, yeah,
I was on campus, but it did as far as
the law school. But I know if you were there, Steve,
you would have gone down, of course in person, to
oh yeah, I miss the insanity. But I was like,
I hope they don't block traffic on my way home.
I don't want to have to run over more people
than I usually do when I drive in downtown Berkeley.
(03:02):
But yeah, I know they I mean, you saw that
our friend Harmeat Dylan, head of the Civil Rights Division,
is announced that the Justice Department has announced an investigation,
and you know there's questions about whether the security is
adequate for people to exercise their free speech rights.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, right, Well, I mean, you know, borrow a
statement of an old friend of mine. I would think
that the only thing to protect Antifa in Arizona would
be the game laws. But I don't know, right, But
who knows well. So, first of all, so this is
a little unusual episode since where you guys are there together,
(03:41):
and we'll see how that goes. I did have a
few people tell me they listened to last week's episode,
which we taped live in the lobby of the Washington
Hilton in a you know, sort of a random fashion
of who was available, and they said, well, that was interesting,
but that was strange, and you know, is it normally
like that? And I said, of course, oh no, it's
usually much worse. But that was rather gonzo. And maybe
(04:03):
we'll come back to all that. Look, we got some
serious things. Well there's always serious things going on, but
we're not going to follow the headlines today exactly, but
I do want to just plant a sequel. Well, Sidney
Sweeney's back in the news, and it's always fun to
be able to mention her.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
But also, wait a minute, I want to point something
out here. So Sidney Sweeney lost thirty pounds in order
to be able to well, she gained thirty pounds in
order to be able to be the be in the
movie Christy, and she lost back the thirty pounds seven weeks.
All I want you guys to know is and she
(04:40):
talked about how she went from a size twenty seven
back down to a size twenty three. And I want
you all to know that Sidney and I have something
in common. I wear the size twenty seven that she
wires when she's thirty pounds heavyer.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, but the difference is while she was just playing
a boxer temporarily, you do that at three sixty five
twenty four seven. I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
She's in a movie as she plays a one boxer.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah yeah, really yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
You would never know what was her just looking at her,
not even because she's thirty pounds heavier, but because she's
got dark, curly hair and yeah, it's all.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Much yeah yeah, And apparently the movie did very poorly.
That's opening box office weekend. But interesting she picked up.
I mean, okay, we'll spend twenty seconds on this. All
the sensation about her interview with a Gentleman's quarterly where
she humiliated the interviewer. That's happening a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Oh oh yeah, it was so good.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So imagine if I was at that age, mature and
had the same attitude as I was today. That's Sydney
Sweeney in that interview. She just the lady says, well,
you know, are you sure you don't want to apologize
for making those comments about your jeans and you know
a lot of people to you know, anytime I actually
(06:05):
feel I need to explain myself about something, I can
assure you I'll do so.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Oh yeah and she oh, and she had this wonderful
dismissive look on her face because she is a you know,
a talented Hollywood performer.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
My my favorite one, by the way, my favorite meme
on that was the obnoxious chick from MSNBC asks her,
you mean happy holidays, right?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Then, and Sydney Sweety's in this you know, Santa Baby
costume right that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Look, I have a whole collection of those memes. But
I mean, needless to say, when they finally make the
movie of the three Whiskey Happy Hour, uh, Sidney Sweeney
will obviously play you, Lucretia, and then John. I mean,
you've already been played in at least one movie I
can think of.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And so like twenty year old Korean you know, Maile.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
After I told you in the report, I was offended
because they made the guy instead of this handsome squash
playing worked out, they made him kind of a dopey,
little chubby Korean guy and it really busters.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
That is most Korean guy that was.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I was very offended by.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That stereotypes, right, oh god right?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Anyway, you know Don Rickles is no longer.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I know it was Don Rickles. And you want to
find the you want to find the human equivalent of
the Swedish chef from the Muppets.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That's always the one that's practically your avatars.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I know exactly. So I'll just say last word on
Sidney Sweeney. I've seen a couple of interviews with her
which makes me think she's supremely intelligent, and only because
of the way she discussed how she thinks about her
career and business opportunities and other things. So, and she's
willing to take risks like playing this role, but you
wouldn't expect from what she's done before. You know, rom Comms,
and you know some of the White Lotus she was in,
(07:57):
which I never watched because I don't have time, So
you know, keep your eye on her.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The other bitter story, a little more serious, uh, in
ideological terms, is what I'm calling Helen's legs, and I
mean Helen Andrews, and I am.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I've never obsessed with this article. Well, but the thing
is a feminization.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Of well, I just make this obsert Well, right. I
mean there there continues to be a lot of chatter
about it, and this is now a month old article,
and so you know Ross doubt that had a podcast
about her with somebody disputing it and greading some and
lots more secondary commentary on substack by all the you know,
a lot of different substackers. And I'm starting to think,
(08:38):
I think I know what's going to happen next. And
I think she's I expect she's going to write a
book on this. If not, some publisher is going to
beat a path through her door, and that book will
be the next closing of the American mind, in other words,
a big public publishing sensation from the right that will
then spark a whole lot of discussion and debate for
months or years. And the reason I think that is,
(09:01):
you know, not quite a historical analogy, but you know,
Bloom's famous book, which took everyone to my surprise, began
as a magazine article in National Review in nineteen eighty three.
I remember the article was the cover story. Jack talked
about it all.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A bit.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, but Bloom and Helen Andrews have so much in common, well,
I don't know, Well, no, actually, he's a pull up,
professor of political theory at the University of Chicago, and
his book had nothing like you know, his book was
like most people write it, probab didn't understand like ten
percent of it. Well, I'll come back to that polarization
of you know, just feelings people have about society. Well,
(09:40):
i'll slow down you too, political theory in it.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, when i'll slow down you two. You know that
book began as an article in National Review. Jaffo actually
brought to class and talked about it. It was the
semester I had with him, the first semester I had
with him. And then lo and behold, five years later
he's got or four years later, he has a book
out about it because somebody said you should do a
book on this. Uh, if you know the story. Simon
and Schuster printed ten thousand copies and was hopeful they'd
(10:03):
be able to sell those, but they weren't sure, and
of course it becomes this monster bestseller. Now why did
it become a best seller? Well, a couple of things,
but one of them was he had that somewhat ridiculous
chapter on rock and roll music where he obsessed with
Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. It doesn't read very well,
but a lot of people seized on that. But then
there was the very long and very very serious chapter
(10:26):
towards the end, which was called from Plato's Republic to
Heidegger's Rector's Address, although he put the hidigger in German
and that was very dense and difficult, and nobody got
through that, and it was not included on the audiobook's
version of the book. So you had everything from soup
to nuts in that book, and you know, it caught
everyone by surprise, including Bloom. I could see Helen's book
(10:47):
and probably she'll throw in something outrageous. That's the equivalent
of taking after Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger, and then
we're off to.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
The racist after Boomers.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Sure, but that's an easy target now exactly. Well, actually,
well maybe that leads us then to our first a
serious topic on the agenda. So to put it bluntly, Washington,
d C. Where I am right now is in the
grip of gropersm Do you know what grouperism? John is? John?
You probably don't.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's the followers of Nick fun Days.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Is that right? It's kind of like it. I think
it goes beyond him. I'm not sure I could define it,
but it's definitely.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
After the stupid frog.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, that's it was, see right, and that's been around
a while now then I've ignored that. And but you
know there's a I'm calling this, by the way, new
right four point five, and I could go through one
through four and why it's four point five, but I won't.
I'm going to be doing that on Friday up at
Yale for the Buckley Institute.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Rodreer wrote a substack note because he was here over
the weekend along with the Hungarian delegation visiting President Trump
and Vice President Vance. And he wrote a long substack
here a couple days ago. That's getting a ton of attention.
He's a good writer and a good reporter, and he's saying, gosh,
we got a ton of these gropers, and by most
(12:09):
estimations of in fact, there's an ambulance going behind me.
I don't know if you can hear it. I'm on
Connecticut Avenues. Okay, good. Anyway, he's saying that, you know
what we're told is And the backdrop here, of course,
is this the STM and dron at the Heritage Foundation
and Kevin Roberts going on right now, that's also gripping
the town. And so the point is is he says,
(12:32):
you know, like thirty to forty percent of the young
conservatives working on Capitol Hill and for the think tanks
and the media organizations are you know, Flente's adjacent. I'll
put it at least that way, right, And they like
Tucker Carlson, and they hate the baby boomers. They have
contempt for Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley and you
know boomer conservatism, and the twitter wars right now on
(12:54):
this are quite intense, I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So I don't know, if you didn't know that that's
that's the right figure, that seems like a real exaggeration
to me.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Well, I don't know. I mean, he said, that's just
I'm talking to people around town. And yeah, I'm a
little suspicious too, but I think I do think this
is a five alarm fire because well, I mentioned to
you guys, I mentioned on the Ricochet podcast that these
really bright students I met at Mississippi a month ago.
I really like them. They've read stuff, they're smart, they're
(13:23):
going places, and several of them said, we kind of
think Nick Fins might be the successor to Charlie Kirk.
And I said, but you know what about the crazy
You know what he's said about Hitler, and you know
Eddie's an anti Semitic and all the rest of that.
And they said, oh, yeah, that's kind of crazy stuff.
But we like that he's outrageous. And then he's you know,
(13:44):
just rejects all the conventions. And so a key sentence
in Rod's piece was, h this is not people who
are looking for an end of wokery and return to normal.
They're looking for revenge. And I don't that may or
may not be an overstatement. I didn't get that from
the students I talked to at Mississippi, but they certainly there.
(14:06):
If they're out for revenge, they're taking you out against
old boomer conservatives like me and you. I suppose to right.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
These people, as far as I understand their views, are
ignorant and racist and misogynists and ill deformed, fairly educated,
and I think are much smaller proportioned. I've met no
students who say good things about Nick flent Days or
any of these gropers. I mean, it sounds to me
(14:34):
like they're these people sitting in their basements of their houses,
you know, posting and engaging in social media, which has
effective exaggerating how many people you think really agree with
them because they post a lot. But that doesn't I
mean thirty or forty percent. I think that. I think
that's might be three or four percent or five percent.
I've not met anyone who takes these views seriously. Amongst
(14:55):
the young people. They might like that, you know, he's
raising a ruckus, and they might like a chaos going
to the Heritage Foundation. But actually people who agree with
his views, which I take it he thinks Hitler was cool,
and that he thinks Stalin is interesting and Maw too,
I suppose, And I mean they actually go. I've not
heard young people say they actually agree with these things
(15:16):
I have.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
That doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with everything you said.
I have actually talked with quite a few young people.
And you guys probably don't remember this. It might have
been with Richard epste We were on a podcast and
I mentioned this, Oh, I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It was Amy. It was Amy Wax And I.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Mentioned that there's a at my university, there's a course
on the Holocaust that teaches that it was all the
Jews fault, really really, and I guess what I would
argue when you said that they're ignorant, and then you
said that they're racist and anti Semitic. They are racists
and anti Semitic because they're ignorant, because they, as Reagan
(15:58):
would say, they know so much that isn't true true,
and that that's the failure that and you know, let's
give some credit to conservatives for at least taking seriously
the idea that however large that percentage of call it
the conservative, the right wing, whatever, however large that is,
(16:20):
we don't just ignore it, thank goodness, or we're going
to find ourselves with, you know, a Nick Flintes type
becoming mayor of New York City before you get it right.
I mean, it's, you know, all of this angst over
Tucker Carlson and Nick Flintes. I find all of that
stuff highly, highly objectionable. But at least, you know, conservatives
(16:47):
actually look at the views of each other and and
do demand a certain kind of call it homogeneity on
these views.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
We tolerate Libertarians.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
John and I were having a really interesting discussion about
libertarianism before this. Sorry the Gora, but I was telling
John that I saw this. I think it was the website,
the huge banner on the website of the Colorado Libertarian
Party abolish Ice.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, you take at all.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
These nuts that come under the big tent on the
conservative side. But we at least pushed back on some
of these things, and hopefully we make those ignorant young
people who are resentful about what they've been through. You know,
there's white males don't go to college anymore. Why not
just because college is a waste of time, as we've
(17:39):
all learned recently, but because they.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Weren't welcome, right, they weren't welcome.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And you know, and if they got there, what were
they going to study? And even if they went into
a stem field, they'd be like one of my kids
who went there and was told on the first day
and his physics first day with his physics advisors, that
your only purpose here is to make sure that you
may get marginalized students through this program. Your success depends
(18:06):
on this, you know. So they have a reason to
be resentful. Yeah, and we didn't protect them when we
should have.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Right, Well, let me give let me give one Crusius
said that I agree with is that you have someone
on the Democrats side who's now the right. He's the
mayor of the largest city of the city with the
largest number of Jews outside of Israel, and he's clearly
anti Semitic, and his party in the end embraced him.
(18:36):
And because they don't, I think that's there. They don't
police is the wrong word, but they don't, you know,
cultivate what's right and wrong amongst their members. And the
one healthy thing I think out of all this is
that you see a number of leading people coming out
and condemning what Nick Flin takes thinks. Tucker carlsrom for
(18:58):
giving him such a softball interview, and he and Kevin
Roberts for giving Pucker pass. I think that's entirely healthy
and good for conservative movement. That's out in public and
we can have a debate about it. And yeah, I
think people, you know, you know that this view should
be stifled, not for First Amendment, not stifled in first Ammican,
stifled because it's wrong. Right, The Democrats are very happy
(19:20):
to have antison Mites in their political coalition.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Oh no, I think that's quite right now.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Sean Davis, of whom I'm a huge fan, by the way,
but he can be a little extreme.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
From time to time.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Sean Davis from the Federalists says that this whole reaction
by the you know, the donors that these think tanks
and on and on and on, is really because they're
they're desperate to turn the Republican Party away from Mega
to ruin any chance that JD Vance becomes the heir
apparent and and get the GOP back on its country
(19:53):
club and Chamber of commerce routes where it belongs.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, now I've heard that, and I I think that's overdone.
But let me offer I.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Like to put the ideas out there right.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Well, I don't think it's wholly wrong. And let's hold
the JD answer for a moment because that's and we
maybe end on that. But let me give you an
end of one, in other words, one data point, first
for John's benefit, but also to show that the framing
of this it's a young male problem, right for all
the reason that are quite right. And that's my driver
in Mississippi on now four trips to and from the
(20:28):
airport over this last year. She's graduated but working at
the Declaration of Independent Center. She's really smart. She knows
stuff she's a good evangelical Christian, but but young lady, right,
And she says, yeah, I kind of like nickquentn taste.
And I said, okay, why and yeah, he said some
crazy stuff and all that, and she's just very sweet,
(20:50):
and she says, but you know, I really don't understand
why we give so much money to Israel. And by
the way, I don't None of the students there struck
me as having a rop of anti Semitism. There's none
of that there, but I think in this particular by
the way, then John I went and explained why we did.
Here's the whole history of it, and this is a
little bit like a Ukraine argument. We're developing military technologies
(21:13):
jointly that benefit us and that we're using and they
buy our stuff and so forth. And at the end
of my explanation, that was just on that part of it.
You know, I've never heard that before. That's a good explanation.
So we're following. And I think we've assumed that we
conservatives Republicans didn't need to make this case. Well now
actually we do. And then the second thing I talked about,
and this is the week before Vance went there for
(21:36):
his big appearance, and if you remember the highlight reel,
there was a student that got up, had a maga
hat on and he was asked a very anti Israel
question happed with the sentence at his last sentence was
and by the way, you know, they're a country that's
not even our religion. And I did we Okay, I
didn't know if I had with you or not. But
(21:57):
the point is Ronald Reagan would have said we called
through Judeo Christian tradition for a reason. Vance didn't do
any of that. He just said an America first explanation,
which I think actually played into what's driving all this.
I think a lot of foreign sources, other bad faith
actors have been insidiously trying to reach people like some
of these students I met there and elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I think our argument has to be stronger than that,
because I guess you can make that argument right, which
I've made, about why Israel is a good ally of ours,
regardless of it's exactly just significance.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I personally think people who don't want Israel to exist,
and so they're saying, oh, you know, they're against Zionism.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What are they called it?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
That is anti Semitic too. So there's this idea that
you saw in these questions and the conversation, you know,
with your new girlfriend from Mississippi, whatever her name is,
that there's something it's okay to say, I'm not a Zionist,
but I'm not anti semi sub that it's okay for
(23:01):
me to think Israel should not exist as a state,
but I'm not anti Semitic. That's totally different than saying, Okay,
well I don't think that. Now, who's been a great
prime minister or I would have run the gods of
war differently. You know, those are questions, you know, of policy,
But I think there's this theme now that's emerging. You
know that Israel shouldn't be a state. But I'm not
(23:22):
anti Semitic for believing that. I think that's wrong.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You don't hear people coming out challenging that view like
you're saying, Jade van Stein, come out and challenge that view.
And you know I was talking. I was talking to
a liberal student who said, what's so wrong about saying
from the river to the sea Palestine shall be free?
It just means that everybody should get along and live together. God,
I was like, do you realize what territory this is
(23:49):
the river.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
To the sea.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
If it's Palestine, that means Israel actually can't exist because
that's the entire state is Israel. A lot of young
people think think this, that the state of Israel has
no legitimate right to exist. I think we should harder
on all those people who think that are really useful
idiots for anti Semitism.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
What's the only country you know? The answer this what's
the only country in the Middle East where Arabs get
to vote in free elections? It's called Israel.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
To the student, if you will behind the veil of
ignorance or in the state of nature, and you knew
you were going to be Arab, and you didn't know
where you were going to be born, you would hope
you would be born in Israel. Well that's good, that's
a good Arab country, right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, although I hate even leaving the door open a
crack sneaking rolls in his veil of ignance. But oh
that's okay, all right, yeah, okay. Well, now, speaking of
libertarians to change gears, our friend Richard Epstein has what
he's written this article about, Oh, the unitary executive theory
(24:49):
threatens to eat up the independent judiciary, and this is terrible.
And maybe John, you're going to or have already done
a law talk with Richard about this question. The part
I thought the mean, I thought, this is John, youugh
bate was where he said there's very little textual support
for the unitary executive in the constitution. I think I'm
gonna turnover to you. But I think what we have
(25:09):
here at Lucretia is this is a proxy debate between
Thomas Hobbs who is John, and Adam Smith, who is Richard.
And because Richard is pure libertarian and so I don't know,
a lot of the article is dense about the cases
going back to the eighteen fifties, and I got kind
of bored with it in hurry. But I do think
(25:31):
I thought it was quite wrong headed.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Actually, John gave gave me an excellent sort of summary
of the article.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay, well, give sure, go ahead. John.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Why it is that Richard came to this.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean I think so. One thing is I
think he's wrong about the text. And most of the article,
as you said, Steve, was a strange technical discussion of
not even the executive branch, but of these weird courts
that Congress has created called Article two courts, which are
not federal Article three one Article one courts. Article three
courts are the ones that we know and love, like
(26:04):
the Supreme Court. Right, but people will be shocked to
know most cases under federal law, like social security benefit
disputes and things like this, get heard by these courts
which are not really federal courts. They're handled by these
fake judges, and they're called articles. We call them Article
one courts because.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That would be just give an example. Isn't the Court
of Federal claims an Article one court claims a tax court?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But then number immigration courts are the best example. These
are people who do not have lifetime tenure, their salary
can be reduced, they don't have judicial independence.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And before you go on, I just don't have it
in front of me. But the one line that he
threw in there was, of course, their their development was
not constitutional. It was haphazard. And he had a funny
turn of phrase that he said. In other words, this
was just sort of thrown at us, and we accepted it.
But now, of course we have to bow down and
realize that our constitutional fall apart without it.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Go ahead John Well.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
So one thing is Richard's a libertarian, and so libertarians
traditionally like ineffective government, right, They don't like to have
an effective executive branch. They would prefer Congress do very
little and a very powerful judiciary because they want the
judiciary to protect individual rights against the government and against majorities.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
They also fear just majorities, especially because majorities trample on
individual liberties. So Richard's argument, you know, when you look
at it, is basically just fitting into the traditional libertarian
approach to government. But the second thing is he then
overlays us with this weird approach to constitutional interpretation. He's
(27:42):
not an originalist, he's not a textualist either. He is
actually very close to what you may think of it as
like a history and tradition guy. So when he talks
about these weird article on courts, he just as Lucretia says,
he just accepts them because they've been around a long time.
Which is strange because he doesn't have that same attitude
to the executive branch, which he thinks must be stripped
(28:03):
down to some magical eighteenth century, you know, tiny executive.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
But he accepts.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
So we've had these debates about affirmative action, and I
give him a really hard time. See supports race based
affirmative action. It's been around a long time, and it
you know, things that have been a long time constitutionally
have some claim to permanence, which I just think that's
completely wrong because why writing down the constitution that quick question.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
On that does that? Does his view differ in any
substantial way from just reliance interests, which is often comes
into play.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It's not so much narrow idea about Okay, Starry decisive,
but this is just you know, it's like treating the
Constitution as if it were just the common law and
you just build on it and build on it, you
never go back to the original beginning. And then the
last point is the one you suggest to see, the
idea that there's no textual foundation for the unitary executive
is just exactly right when the Constitution says, right, the
(28:58):
executive power has vested in the pre and then it
gives them the commander chief power and the take care clause.
I mean, it's like, what what what part of it
is not justifying?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I mean he has a throw off line about Locke
in there too, as if somehow Locke says something about.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It, but who cares. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You and I actually believe that the the the beginning
of Article two that says the executive power shall be
vested in as compared to the beginning of Article one,
which says the legislative powers hearing granted, But that he
and granted that's the hearing granted. Okay, I'm but but
I have a minor point here. Article three begins, the
(29:40):
judicial power shall be vested in. So how is it
we are not arguing that all of these Article one
courts in and of themselves are unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
No, that's exactly rightly a cretia. This is why Richard
doesn't like the constitutional text, because if you actually read
the constitutional text, he would be utterly wrong because he's saying, oh,
the executive power of being vested in the president. That's
just ceremonial language that has no substance. But Article three
says the judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court. Right,
(30:12):
that sentence is the only sense that really justifies judicial review,
justifies the independence of the Article three courts in their
power over certain classes of cases. Is why the Congress
can't just take cases away from the Supreme Court. Whenever
it feels like the claim of you know, this judiciary
is an independent, equal branch comes from the same exact language.
(30:33):
But yeah, Richard would say, oh no, that vesting of
the judicial powers undermined by the history of these fake courts.
But at the same time, right, he was like, oh love,
but the same language an Article two has no meaning
at all, and we can reduce executive branch to basically
I think, you know, a president at a desk with
(30:54):
a pencil in the White House and no substance of
powers at all. Now we gotta have Richard on the show,
and I'm sure he could speak for thirty minutes straight
about why he's right. So this is cause, he said,
he wrote a book about it. I called it up
out of library. He says, the constitution is we have
a constitutional convention. By not convention, isn't a meeting, but
conventions like just things. The way we do things, he
(31:16):
calls us exactly, he calls us the prescriptive constitution. We
do things which are good policy. They might be unconstitutional,
but we accept them. And so another example he would
use would be the independence of the Federal Reserve Bank.
He said it doesn't make sense under the Constitution, but
(31:37):
it's just such a good idea. We've accepted it and
now we have to keep it because it's so efficient.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, maybe it's a good idea.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Well, I would.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Say that, however, that this, you know, we're kind of
making a little fun of Richard and don't mean too,
because he's obviously very serious.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Call no, no, no, no, I mean to I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
But here's this is actually an important question because the
context of the article you should probably link to it, Steve.
The context of the article is the Supreme Court needs
to reign in all of these needs to reign in
Trump and.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
At least uphold all of these.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Other court decisions that have tried to reign in the
executive power. And that's the context of the article, which
is very important and one of the things that you
I think we have to give credit to the Supreme Court.
Maybe not Katangi, although Katangi came through last week.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Let's get credit where credits do.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
They are indeed trying to separate what the Constitution says
about executive power, even what their prior decision said about
executive powers, from Trump and realize that it is as
Marshall would say, it is a constitution that we are expounding.
It is not the Trump presidency. And I hope to
(32:59):
God that Robert he seems to have so far, keeps
on the straight and narrow and doesn't cave because of
all the criticisms that are coming about coming against the
Court because they're taking Trump's side in things, because it really,
I mean, Trump is making some really important corrections to
(33:20):
our constitutional system, not out of any because he wants
to be Hitler or an Autocrat, but because those corrections
needed to be made. And I hope the Court sees
that and looks to the future and says, yes, of
course it can be abused by a future president. Of
course it can. Of course it could have been abused
by one in the past, which it was. But the
(33:43):
answer to that is not the Court's reigning it, and
the answer is the American people.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, Yeah, well, okay. I tend to incline to the
old fashioned and maybe too simplistic view that Article one
is the first article to Constitution for a reason that
the founders thought Congress ought to be the most important
and dominant branch for driving American progress, not the president.
President proposes and all that I know, and maybe that's
(34:11):
too strong. On the other hand, I've always liked someone
who said, I don't know who it was, John, someone
who said that Richard's ideal bill of rights would have
consisted of the sentence Congress shall make no law, period
and we all go home. Right. Yeah, that's right. But
(34:32):
my thought experiment here that would be fun is, uh,
you know, I just thought of this while we were talking.
It would be fun to lock Richard in a room
and force him to read Harvey Mansfield's book on executive power,
Taming the Prince, and watch his head explode and just
wait for all the emanations from Richard's very fast thinking brain.
That could be pretty amusing.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So maybe one thing to also say in his defense
is he has different reasons for it, but his view
is probably the same view that most American constitutional laws
scholars have, right, which is they think the executive branch
is out of control. Trump has stopped and you need
a especially strong judiciary to do it, and you shouldn't
(35:12):
let it be broken up with all these weird courts.
You should just focus on, you know, the bolstering the
independent federal Article three judiciary so that can stand up
to Trump.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
They don't make these arguments when Obama and Biden are president.
They didn't make these arguments when Biden tried to cancel
all the student loans in the country or force everyone
to get a vaccine. But right when Trump's president, they
suddenly resurrect this this suspicion of executive power that is
part of the American American political tradition. There's always been
this suspicion of power.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
You don't need to you don't need to go into
some deep theoretical justification for it. On the surface, the
idea of a powerful, responsible and accountable executive makes perke sense.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
If you and you can look at the experience across
states that have plural executives. You know, the governors elected
separately from the lieutenant governor. Ex that a lot of
them do that nowadays as this way of supposedly, I
don't know, who do you blame for the abysmal ca
UH state of schools in California?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Who has to be who's responsible for that?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah? We have an elected supervisor in public instruction who
you know, used to be a big deal, but now
the governor Okay, right.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
So, but you can't hold someone accountable either if they're
not responsible, if they don't have the power and the
responsibility to make things happen, you can't hold them accountable.
So who do you hold accountable for the mess that
are our interest rates?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Who do you like for that?
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Well? Well, interest rates are not set by the Federals.
There only the like the overnight rate, that's the only
thing that but they're.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Not also not doesn't there there's a perfect answer to
my question, or illustration of the answer to my question.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Nobody knows who you blame.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, well, okay, that's a I think it's some of
a different category. But one other point, though, John is
I'm having fun pointing out to my liberal friends that
Trump isn't asserting any powers. That Franklin Roosevelt didn't want it,
and it was always a controversy when the court got
in his way, right, and they finally capitulated, right. And
(37:26):
I do think Trump's.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Face all the cases we've been talking about so far,
the court even was there. Trump is just saying the
statue grants me the power. Yeah, He's not like FDR
saying I can just close the banks because I feel
like it for a week, right, go off the gold standard,
right right, right, right, yes.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Right, right, Well, I mean I do think we'll follow this,
you know, maybe at the end of this next term.
But it seems to me the Supreme Court is getting
the kind of workout by the assertion of executive power
that it has not seen since the nineteen thirties, Right,
Roosevelt and the Congress were doing all these crazy things.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And yeah, I mean, I think the last big moment
there were some cases when you know, the Reagan attacks
on the independence of the Special Council, But I think
I think the other big moment was Watergate and Nixon. Yeah,
you know this this is a similar moment of you know,
what constitutional cases going to think of all the cases
they got the Pentagon papers, you know, and you know,
(38:21):
Nixon himself being subject to subpoena. There are a lot
of big nick but ye, Nixon, and then the previous
one would be FDR. Now Trump would like it to
just stay at the Nixon level and not elevate to
the FDR court, Packing right, packing level, although that's the court.
You know, then we could just move the podcast to
the Supreme Court. Since all three of us will be there.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, yeah, all right. So uh on related matter, Uh,
you know, I knew John last week when we were
talking to Aki Lamar about his new book Born Equal,
that oh boy, we're gonna be in trouble with Lucretia
and I should mention the Creatia that after your trip
to Hawaii got canceled. I thought the last minute, I
thought about mention this to John, maybe we should make
(39:02):
Lucretia come back here for the Federal Society Conference just
to sit in. Problem was, it was sold out, and
so it was a moot point. And next year, right,
and they're gonna move back.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
And ask that we be able to do our yeah
pod cast next year at the Federal Society Convention for
a live audience.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
That'd be huge fun. Right. We've got a lot of
listeners there. A lot of the judges will hide in
the back, you know, with masks on or something. I
don't know, listen to us, right, you know who you
are out there? Anyway? You know, it's really great to
get a kill. Right. He's a busy guy, the big deal.
We thought we'd be lucky to get him for five
minutes to say what's your book about? But he hung
around for a while, you know, despite it, despite the
(39:40):
interventions of Roger Palan, and you know Hadley turned up
and Judge Pryor was great, and anyway, I don't know
hard to handle all this. This is the second book
of a trilogy. As I understand John that he's writing
on how we quality is unfolded under the Constitution from
the founding up to present time, and LUCRETI did you
want to make him observation just that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
He doesn't understand anything about equality, and he doesn't understand
anything about jaffa. I find his his deference to feminism
revolting and evolution of Lincoln's thought. M But we don't
(40:23):
have time to do that today. I'm afraid because I
have to take the celebrity here.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Important engagement. So Steve, with your permission.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I'm just gonna do a couple of Babylon bes with
your permission, of course, the top one of Democrats sombrely
remove some breros singing and of shutdown.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I thought you'd like that one. Fans, this one's not political.
Speaker 5 (40:52):
But for those of you who you know follow any
kind of social media fans can't believe how much rock
singer has aged And the last fifty years or sixty.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
Right, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Jack's still alive. I heard, I.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Know, dances across the stage like he's forty five or something.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Banks now requiring your grandkids to co sign your fifty
year mortgage? Oh boy, yeah, Auschwitz Guard explains he doesn't
hate Jews or anything, just Zionists. Yes, that one's for you.
And then I'll end it with this Congress prepares to
pivot from doing nothing because of the shutdown to doing
(41:35):
nothing because they're Congress.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
That's good, right, all right, John.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'll kick us out. Well, always drink your whiskey, Neat,
buy more books than Steve. What latest ai confection do
you have for us?
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I didn't have time to do a new one because
I was taking down my government shutdown decorations and putting
up my Jeffrey Epstein decorations. Since let's go back to that, right, So,
by the.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Way, I have to end with the only the only
negative thing that's come out of at least the release
of stuff today is the fact that that Jeffrey Epstein
ended his relationship with Bill Clinton because he was a
pathological liar.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
All right, by bye, right, Bady We'll be back next
week with a more normal like me.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
So h
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Ricochet join the conversation.
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