'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 156: Proud To Be An American

Join Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway and RealClearInvestigations Senior Writer Mark Hemingway as they discuss declining patriotism in America, analyze Sen. Thom Tillis' retirement announcement, break down the Supreme Court majority's scathing rebuke of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and review F1.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to a new episode of You're Wrong. I am
Molly Hemingway, editor in chief at The Federalist, and we
have a special guest this week, filling in for the
vacationing David Harshani, the handsome and talented and brilliant Mark Hemingway.
We are only related by marriage and Mark is senior

(00:41):
writer at Real Clear Investigations. It's great to have you here.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Mark glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
If anyone has any email for the show, please send
it to radio at the Federalist dot com. We had
some great email this week, including lots of commentary from
people about our recent trip to Colorado and a variety
of other things, So thank you for those emails. Actually,

(01:08):
I just want to mention another one. Someone sent in
this fascinating video from a guy who was trying to
build a made in America product, and it goes through
the difficulties of that process and for people who are
interested in trade policy, sort of the hollowing out of
the manufacturing base in America. It is such a riveting video,

(01:32):
and he does end up making a mostly made in
America grill scrubber. The cost is insane, but the value
he makes the case for it, and I would highly
recommend people watch them.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
This sounds like a dystopian version about what's that film
about the pencil? You know, but all the effort and
how great capitalism is that all these forces come together
to make a.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Pencil eye pencil. Well, so he was really trying to
avoid purchasing things made in China, but even sometimes things
made supposedly made in other countries are actually made in China.
Or he goes through how there's a popular conception that
labor is much cheaper in China, and so we come
up with the ideas, we come up with the designs,

(02:17):
but they just manufacture it for cheap. And because we
have spent so many years doing this and moving like
molding systems over to China, they actually have the expertise
now on molding the products for manufacturing, and we're the
ones who don't have it all of a sudden. So
it's just it's it's not like a judge or super

(02:39):
ideological video, but it does help explain the process and
all because of a great reader.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
And what's one of the craziest things that's happening is
China has moved all these manufacturing resources actually to North
America to Mexico to Canada or whatever. So you know,
you have factories that are stamping you know, Hechio and
Mexico and stuff, when the reality is is like it's
all Chinese expertise. All the money is going to fund
the Chinese government, and you know, you don't know any better.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
By the way, you're getting an eighty dollars grill scrubber
for Father's Day. It's a little delayed, but.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Have a feeling you could have got into a cheaper one.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well yeah, but he was. The whole point was to
actually try to avoid those like that was that was
my joke. Yeah, okay, the bristles on the scrubbers and
how they always get into food and can cause major damage. Anyway,
we have had a busy week. It is Independence Day week.
We get to celebrate Independence Day on Friday, and I

(03:38):
think it was Gallup came out with a poll. Did
you see this about Americans' attitudes toward like their patriotic
attitudes and how they differ over time and how they
differ by political party.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, it's absolutely nuts. I mean basically, if you didn't
see the poll what it did. It shows that, like
I think currently about thirty six percent of Democrats or
self identified liberal or I forget how they qualified it,
thirty six percent of you know, liberals or Democrats are
proud to be an American and it's just like cratered

(04:11):
under Trump, whereas about ninety percent of self identified conservative
Republicans say they're proud to be American. And this is
this figure has remained remarkably consistent over time. It's been
like high eighties, low nineties, depending on whether Obama's president
or whatever. It's just stayed the same.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Right, Gallup has put out they're pulling from two thousand
to twenty twenty five or two thousand and one to
twenty twenty five. And in two thousand and one, everybody
was pretty proud to be American ninety percent of Republicans,
eighty seven percent of Democrats, and then the low group

(04:50):
was eighty four percent, and that was independence. Now Republicans
are even more proud to be American than they were
in two thousand and one, ninety two percent. It's reached
ties like it looks like during the Global War on
Terror they reached ties of nearly one hundred percent, whereas
Democrats have I wouldn't say steadily declined. They have precipitously declined,

(05:15):
with some moments of it being not so bad. So
in twenty twenty one, sixty two percent of Democrats were
proud to be American, whereas in twenty twenty only forty
two percent worse. So that seems like they are very
they're proud to be American based on whether they have
political power at the moment, but also even when they

(05:38):
have political power, they are much less proud to be
American than Republicans are, I mean much less. It's like, that's,
you know, fifty six point difference right now between Republicans
and Democrats when it was three points before. I mean,
that's crazy. It's not goodal for America. I'm not good

(05:59):
for the Democrat Party. I don't think.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I always feel a little bit like when you start
bleeding about Marxism, that you know you're going off into
some sort of extreme territory here. But I mean, I
think in some ways it's kind of exactly what's going
on here. I Mean, the thing with Marxism, right was
that supposedly people who hate capitalism and freedom or whatever
are living under a false consciousness that just don't understand
how things are bad. It seems to me like Democrats

(06:24):
and especially the hard left and its influence on the
sort of the mainstream liberal America has been has been
steadily creating this false consciousness about how terrible and corrupt
America is, you know, for you know, decades now, but
it's really starting to bear fruit. Basically, like, you know,
this place is you're a deemably racist. You know, the
economic priorities are unfair, even though you know, the average

(06:44):
American has a standard of living that is, you know,
so far beyond you know, what people had even thirty
forty years ago, and we really need to like step
back and take a look at this. And it's it's
really kind of insane to me that, you know, a
house flying an American flag is now essentially a conservative
dog whistle.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, although did you notice our neighbors during the Biden
presidency some of the left wingers would fly an American
flag like Okay, we're happy to be American.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Now, Well, that's true. I think that's also the big
part of because we live within the orbit of the
nation's capital, if that makes sense. Yeah, just sort of
more patriotic, nationalistic you know displays around here. I imagine
if you know, you think about you know, living in
Seattle or Portland or flying in an American flag right now,
what that would mean? It would probably mean your house
gets vandalized.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Oh my favorite version of this is when Martha and Alito, Justice,
Alito's wife flew an Appeal to Heaven flag because she's
like super into flags, She's super into the like into
different flags for different occasions. And the New York Times
claimed that this was like a symbol of j sixers

(07:50):
or something like that. And San Francisco's city Hall had
been flying an Appeal to Heaven flag for like sixty
years at that point, and so they quickly took it
down because they were like, we can't be associated with
a flag that's associated with anyone who's not a crazy
left winger. So that's yeah. So the American flag also,
of course causes problems. You might remember The New York

(08:11):
Times remember had that reporter who was saying how threatened
she felt because she was driving out on Long Island
after the twenty sixteen election and she saw American flags
and it felt very hostile to her.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I mean, and that's exactly it.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
The thing is you can't have a revolution in this
country unless you convince everyone that, you know, the entire
place is rotten, and the fact that it's like filtering
down to like our most basic symbol. I mean, it
used to be we would have all kinds of disagreements
in this country about you know, how we were living
up to our principles, right. You know, the whole point

(08:45):
is that, you know, America is that you know, all
men are created equal, and yes, slavery was a failure
to live up to that ideal, right, but we could
all agree on the ideal that was foundational to our country.
And now it's like there's they want to destroy any
sort of foundation, tional agreeing principle right down to the
most basic symbol of our nation, so that people you

(09:06):
know want to burn things and you know, destroy the
place and you know, build up something new.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
So we were at the Army two hundred and fiftieth
birthday celebration and we were right where the action was,
and Lee Greenwood came out at the end to sing
Proud to be an American, a sort of unofficial anthem,
and it was, you know, it was very cool to
hear him sing this. But I used to not like

(09:33):
this song. I thought it was overdone. It was a
little schmaltzy, and so I didn't enjoy it. And I
have a sister in law who became an American citizen,
and I went to her naturalization ceremony, and it was
a large naturalization ceremony in Colorado. I mean, like, I
think five thousand people became Americans that day. And first off,

(09:57):
it was really funny because they were having people they
were welcoming people to America from different countries by the
name of the country, and so they'd be like from Albania,
and then like two people would be flying their little
American flags standing up in the stands to signify that
they were from Albania. And they get to the end

(10:17):
and they're moving on, and then the MC was like, oh,
did I forget a country? Was it Mexico? And then
like half of the stands erupt and they're all like
waving their American flags from Mexico. So it was like
a funny, delightful experience. But when they played Lee Greenwood's
Proud to Be an American, it makes me cry, just

(10:39):
like everybody was singing it, and it was such a
beautiful like occasion. I was like, I am never going
to dislike that song ever again. To see these new
Americans talking about how proud they are to be an American,
like they already knew the words to the song, it
was so great. Okay. On that note, our American school

(11:00):
have been teaching hatred, hatred of America for decades, and
you and I had a little bit of this probably
in our growing up. Like I remember in high school,
I told my parents that it turns out Christopher Columbus
was not a perfect person and we should not honor him.
And my parents both mocked me, like just openly made

(11:21):
fun of me for falling for this agate prop from
my teacher. But we now have decades of people having
been instructed to hate their country, hate the founding, view
their country as irredeemably evil and racist, as having sin
that is again irredeemable. And I do think the less

(11:45):
you create people resistant to that propaganda, the more you
create people who hate America. And that's the problem right
now with unfortunately the Democrat Party and a lot of
independence they've been taught to hate their country and it
shows well yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Again though, That's what I'm saying, is like, that's the
point I mean that's what they're actively trying to do.
I mean, this has been a project of the left
for decades because the thing is is America's you know,
system of governance is actually really well designed in key
ways to maximize individual freedom and you know, allow for
class mobility in ways that you know, the previous European

(12:22):
governments hadn't allowed. So it makes it much more resistant
the kind of like you know, bottom up you know,
left wing collectivist vision of government that they want. You know,
it involves consolidation of power and you know, installing totalitarian
you know sort of you know powers in order to
to in the name of quote unquote social justice. So

(12:43):
you know, again you have to completely destroy this conception
of America and what's possible here. And you know, the
even basic education of what are your rights? What, you know,
what can you do? Even this notion that you teach
people that America is a place where you have enough
freedom that you can go out and create your own
success is dangerous to them. And look, I think there's

(13:06):
a lot of things wrong with this country in terms
of you know, inequality and social mobility and other things
like that. I mean, I think there's a lot of
things that need to be fixed, no question about it.
But the reality is is there's a reason why everyone
in the world is trying to get to this country.
This is a country where you still have the best
chance of coming, you know, to a place and succeeding
on your own merit, you know, regard without other people
and the government, you know, getting in the way. So

(13:28):
not to say there aren't problems with those things, but
that's just the case. And so they have to completely
destroy this notion of America as a place that people
want to be, a place where your dreams can come true,
a place that you know, has historically been a force
for good in the world, and that's what they've succeeded in, unfortunately.
But the crazy thing about it to me is is
it's it involves a lot of you know, just teaching

(13:51):
people falsehoods. That that's the craziest thing to me. You know,
you cite the Christopher Columbus stuff, but I mean, you know,
it's you know, I got a little bit of that,
and you know, and Howard's in college and all of
this stuff. You know, there was always this sort of
like counter left wing narrative, but now it's not a
counter narrative. It's literally all BLM. America's evil, like that's
the dominant discourse in a lot of places.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
So I also think though, that apart from this being
the best country on earth, which is true objectively, I
will fight anyone on that, there's also just the character
trait that you should love your country in the same
way that you should love your family, even if your
family is flawed, And it is a character deficiency to

(14:34):
not love your country and publicly proclaim your happiness to
be associated with it. I think we've talked about this
with our children. You and I are both from the West,
and we are a bit of supremacists about how much
better the western portion of the United States is from

(14:56):
the Eastern portion, and we're stuck here in Virginia, and
we don't love the weather and all this. Our children
who were born here sometimes get mad at us for
not being appropriately loyal and praising of Virginia. I love
that they feel this way, even though I think they're wrong.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Colorado is clearly a much better state. But they they
find it beautiful here and they love the history here,
and I think, like that's just a normal, proper maybe
not normal, but it's the proper approach that they should have,
and I admire them for having it and not needing
to feel like they have to be negative about where
they're from, but the opposite that they need to defend it.

(15:39):
And it's a good trait that the will show also,
like hopefully when they have families of their own, that
they absolutely must always speak highly of their family in public,
you know, and also privately, but that you would never
run down your spouse, or your children, or your parents,
or your state or your country, because that's just a

(16:01):
bad character trait.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Right. No, I think that's right. And I think also
though you talk about us both being Westerners and sort
of you know, bonding over that relative to our kids
East Coast upbringing, I'm but I'm mean I think that
that's like a really healthy instinct. It's like the part
of the part of the thing we like about being
Westerns is like we're more American than most Americans, right,
you know, you know I am I am the descendant

(16:23):
of two Wild West sheriffs. You know, you know my
great grandfather was you know, friends with you know, nomadic Indians,
you know that that sort of thing where you know,
we were descendants of people that really you know, carved
their own you know fate, you know, out of the wilderness,
and you know, the belief and that kind of you
know rugged you know American spirit, that kind of optimism,

(16:45):
that kind of you know, you really have to put
in the effort to you know, succeed out of nothing.
I think really stems out of the you know, experience
of the American West in the last two hundred years.
And you know, being very proud of that legacy is
you know, speaks to that, you know. But you know,
at the same time, there's a lot of you know,
wonderful things to be proud about. You know, are kids

(17:07):
being raised in Virginia. I mean, this is the land
of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and you know, you know,
give me liberty and give me death. I mean, all
this stuff comes out of Virginia too, And so you know,
learning to appreciate where you're from, I think is really
really you know, like you say, it's a character deficiency.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, either way, I'm very excited for Independence Day. I
love fireworks. Also, our town of Alexandria is even older
than the United States, and so we celebrate the birthday
of our town the week after Independance Day, and I
think it's is it a big one this year?

Speaker 2 (17:42):
I think I don't know what the actual anniversary for
Alexandria is. To be honest, I should know.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
But I think it might be two hundred and seventy fifth,
but maybe not. And I am horrible with anniversaries truly.
At breakfast today, I was talking to.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Someone, what's our anniversary? Honey?

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, okay, so I'm at breakfast and someone asked me
what year we got married? And I just looked like panicky.
And I always, you know, I'm always like, I remember
that I'm married, That's the most important thing. I don't
remember the year, but I think it was. I don't know.
I don't even know if we need to talk about that,
but no, please, I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Was it.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
We should share this kind of personal information. I believe
it was two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Six, and that is correct. Okay.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
So a few years ago I told my assistant that
I wanted to do something special for you for our
anniversary because it was an important anniversary, and she just said,
what what do you believe is in.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
We serish seventeenth anniversary? Like?

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Oh, I thought it was a different one anyway. Okay,
so big beautiful bill has passed both the House and
the Senate, and now it's back in the House right
for right reconciliation purposes. And so are you following that?
Are you following every detail of that?

Speaker 2 (19:07):
No, to be perfectly honest, I know that there's obviously
certain controversial provisions involving medicaid requirements and you know how
that relates to illegal immigrants. There's some stuff that people
have been grumbling about in terms of after school funding
and things like that, funding for after school activities and

(19:27):
things like that. Part of it, though, the reality is is,
and I wish this weren't this way, but it seems
like we've settled into this routine here where a new
administration comes in and they basically get one shot at
passing one big piece of legislation and then that's basically
it for the entire term. And you know, this is
kind of the way it was in twenty sixteen, kind

(19:49):
of the way it was under Biden, and now here
we are under Trump. So the reality is heading into
the midterms, you know, Trump and Republicans are just looking
for like something they can just point to as a
big win. Regardless of whathether or not it is, you know,
a win across the board, or it's a complicated piece
of legislation that does some good things, does some bad
things and it's just, you know, otherwise non inspiring.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
So, like you, I have not been following this every
portion of it, in part just because it's not worthwhile
to do it. Unless you are a Capitol Hill reporter
talking to everybody who's a big player on the nitty gritty,
you're not going to have a good handle on whether
it's going to pass or what's going to be removed.

(20:31):
And so I just sort of watched the top line.
Having said that, I am very frustrated at I understand
that there are many, many good provisions in the bill,
but it also seems that all of the good provisions
are being fought even by the Republican parties supposed members.
You have a situation where Medicaid has become a welfare program,

(20:54):
and not just a welfare program, but like a welfare
program for a lot of illegal families. And Bill Clinton,
who Republicans always said was like a super lefty squish,
was better on work requirements for Medicaid than nearly the
entire Republican Party. I mean that's appalling to me.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well yeah, and also remember you know when there was
that famous incident where Barack Obama said in a State
of Union address, you know, no legal immigrants will get
health care through Obamacare, which i e. Medicaid, And you
know that congressman from South Carolina stood up and said,
you lie. And it was this whole like, you know,

(21:37):
offensive thing, like how dare anyone question Obama's integrity? Well yeah,
it turned out by the end of Obama's term it
was patently obviously was lying. But regardless though this, you know,
this is the one way ratchet, right, you get to
a point where you get enough Americans dependent upon something
and not even you know, it's impossible for an elected

(21:59):
representative make any principal, principled stance on whether or not
this is cost effective, whether or not this is fair,
you know, whether or not this is a burdened other taxpayers.
It's just, oh, it's going to affect too many of
my constituents. And that's by design.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
And I think this was Tom Tillis's big thing, is
that he wanted to make sure that nobody worked to
make Medicaid in any way fiscally responsible and claimed that
doing so would be a violation of the contract Trump
had made with the American people, and so he was
causing major problems with it.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
And at the same time, what's really frustrating to me
is there are ways to get more Americans health coverage.
It requires doing actual hard legislative work and retooling the
healthcare system and all of the healthcare regulations, like they
promised when they were going to repeal Obamacare, when Republicans
were going to replace it with something much better. But

(22:54):
they don't want to do the hard work. They just
want to like tweak the existing system, which we all
know is broken and it's just emerging money. You know,
healthcare costs in this country are like an existential threat.
And again, nobody wants to do the hard work. And
to the extent that they want to make any reforms whatsoever,
they're even Republicans that are opposed to it. It's really

(23:16):
not a good look all the way around for our legislators.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay, so Trump took a break from his normal criticism
of Congress, which is when he criticizes fiscally responsible conservatives
for aiming to have like a responsible budget and instead
went after Tom Tillis for his joining with Democrats to

(23:40):
you know, increase taxes and make sure that illegals who
don't that you don't have work requirements for Medicaid and
you don't have you know, that illegals get all their
free money from taxpayers. And then Tom Tillis announced that
he would not be running for reelection. Are you surprised

(24:01):
by this?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
No, I mean, the reality is that the Republican electorate
is getting wise to a lot of this. I mean,
I think the Republican electorate obviously when we saw what
the reelection of Trump is demanding more. I mean, the
prospect of Doge really really excited the electorate, for instance.
Unfortunately the execution of Doge was not nearly as exciting.

(24:24):
But the reality is that there's a hunger for big
systemic change and Republican leaders out there are the establishment
types that are go along to get along, types like
Tillis and Cornying down in Texas who looks like he's
in deep trouble. You know, are are just nobody wants
those kinds of Republican politicians anymore, which, you know, at
the same time, it's all the more frustrating that It's

(24:45):
clear the electorate wants more dramatic change, and yet they
get you know this, you know, unholy mess of a
bill with a bunch of stuff you know, wrapped up
into it that isn't you know, doing nearly as much
you know, systemic change, and it doesn't have you know,
big bul fresh ideas or anything out of the sword.
It's just you know, tweaking the margins of what exists
and adding in some tax codes.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
So since I'm is just complaining a lot, I'll note
that in addition to not loving the weakness of the
Republican Party elected officials, I also just blame Republican Party
voters who keep electing absolute losers to Congress and then
not being happy with the results, Like, you guys are

(25:27):
the ones who put this person in office. Tom Tillis
has been pretty bad on a lot of stuff for
a while. I was not surprised when he announced his
intention to resign or not run for reelection after his
term ends, because he seems like he's been lining up
his post senate career, Like if you know, there are
people who act as senators and they're thinking, like what's

(25:49):
in the best interest of the country or how do
they best represent the interests of their state. Tom Tillis
has always struck me as someone who's very interested in
lining up work post retirement. You know, how can I
please the various special interests so that I can get
paid by them once I leave office. He has not
seemed interested in re election. I was a little worried

(26:10):
that if he ran for reelection he would not have
enough Republican support. He might win the primary, but he
wouldn't have enough Republican support to win what tends to
be a very close state. It also, by the way,
will be challenging to win that seat, given that they're
likely have a popular Democrat running for the Senate seat.

(26:32):
Have you thought it all about who might run for
that seat?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
No, I haven't. I mean, obviously there was the who's
at the lieutenant governor, the people who that was very
briefly popular.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
The Memberson will not be running.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and he's the only other like in a big
time Republican that's going to be national press in the
last couple of years.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
I would say Laura Trump probably would be a big contender.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Oh oh sure, But I was just thinking of you
know this existing, you know, North Carolina state.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Oh my gosh, who's the who's the RNC chair from
from North Carolina?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Oh my gosh, hold on, Michael Whatley.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Uh, I'm back again. I hope they he would be.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I think like they've also got quite a few members
of the House who would probably be interested. So it'll
be interesting to see how that primary goes. But if
it's Laura and Trump Baxter, I would just say it's
probably going to be difficult to unseat her from being
the nominate.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah. Well, you're right about the fact that there's a
bit of schizophrenia among Republican voters, right They they clearly
hunger for you know, sort of big change, but then
they do have this tendency to go and just vote
for the establishment, or they aren't as involved in the
grassroots of their you know, state and local parties in
order to get you know, new candidates and fresh blood in,
which is really what needs to be happening right now.

(28:02):
So you know, if you're out there and you're unhappy
with the state of the Republican Party, you know, you
really should probably think about actually getting involved, which I
think far too few people are are getting. I will
say at least in the case of Tom Tillis. You know,
North Carolina is a pretty purple state, so you know,
getting elected as Republican does probably require maybe a little
bit more moderation than most. What I can't believe is

(28:25):
how many Republican, solidly Republican states have lukewarm representatives in Congress.
You know, obviously we finally gotten to a point where
Cornyn is in trouble in Texas, but you know, you
have guys like, you know, the biggest liability for the
Republican Party, you know in twenty twenty four basically was
the Senator from Oklahoma, James Langford. You know, how does

(28:48):
a guy you know who's you know who did that
immigration mass end up a senator in one of the
red estates in America.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I am so glad you brought that up, because I
do think it's worth revisiting what everyone in corporate media
said about his trash garbage bill and a you cannot
be very bright and fall for Mitch McConnell's approach to like, oh,
we're going to take away Donald Trump's signature issue by

(29:17):
claiming to fix the border but not really fixing the border,
and everyone in the media in corporate media seemed to
go along with this whole claim that Democrats were actually
going to care about the border and that there was
no way to fix it, no way to fix it
at all, no way except for Congress passing this James

(29:38):
Langford bill that he had worked so hard on. And
so now we are a few months into the Trump administration,
the shutdown of the border has been epic and monumental, Like,
much more needs to be done in terms of deportations,
but as far as closing down the border, it's been
dramatic and somehow managed to happen without James Langford's bill.

(29:58):
Isn't that amazing.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Enforcing existing law? Imagine that? Yeah, that's exactly right. But
it's also just you know, again, there's all kinds of
examples of that of what you're dealing with with these
luke warm Republicans, And it's really sort of amazing. You know,
I've been in DC for twenty six years, how possible
it is to see people just get so thoroughly captured

(30:20):
by the establishment and their own egos they can't see,
you know, five feet in front of them.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, so I'm always very forgiving of a Susan Collins
in Maine, she's the only Republican in the state who
could be elected. She caucuses very well with the Republicans.
She's very open about her beliefs, so you're never really
surprised when she votes against something she should vote for.
A totally different situation than ruby red Oklahoma or other

(30:46):
states like that, where you're like, Okay, if you come
from Wyoming, I expect you to make everybody else scared
by your conservatism. And I want to also say North Carolina,
though a purple state, is not Maine, even their Democrats
win by claiming to be conservative. So you can do
you know, yes, you have to appeal to different people,

(31:08):
and you have to be more moderate than a person
from Oklahoma or Wyoming, but you can still be a
conservative leader. And Tom Tillis was more like a leader
for the other side.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
I think the issue with Tillis is not so much
that we had to accept that he was going to
be more moderate than other Republican senators because he was
from a purple state. The issue was really that so
much of the stuff that he did seem to be
driven by his own personal animus at other conservatives, and
was you know, highly specific and or you know, personal

(31:42):
and not necessarily like like, oh, I'm a principal moderate
and I'm just going to be more moderate on this issue.
It was I'm Tom Tillis and I don't like Trump.
That was the problem.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
I love this because people are always like talking about
Trump's character flaws, which you may have witnessed yourself, and
they're like, and he's so petty and vindictive and sure,
absolutely true, although he wears it all out right ready
to see, and he's quite honest about it. And he's like,
and by the way, if you stopping hostile to me,

(32:12):
I'll be your new best friend. Whereas a lot of
these people in the Senate they are such girly men,
like they are much more petty, much more vindictive. I mean,
they like stew at night like they are fourteen year
old girls in junior high school. And yet they claim
that their problem with Trump is that he's petty and vindicative.
Is like, buddy, we all see what you're doing here,

(32:34):
Mitch McConnell, right.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
But but the thing about us, they're just they're not
being transparent about it, Like you know, if they just
if they just stood up and said I'm doing this
because I don't like Trump or I'm doing this because
I think you all are acting too conservative. They would
have to deal with the consequences of that. Instead, they're
trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth,
and they end up looking much much worse.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Right, I should point out that Mitch McConnell, in addition
to being petty and vindictive and focusing most of his
i R on his fellow party members, has also done
much good work. I don't want to don't want to
be too extreme mon.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
It a handful of lawyers in this town that we're
frantically writing anyngry emails about what he'd done for the judiciary.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, okay, speaking of the judiciary, did you follow the
end of the Supreme Court term which seemed to happen
like a little bit early this year. I guess it's not,
But did I.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Follow the Supreme Court? Does the Pope poop in the woods? Yes? Yes,
I was paying attention to the Supreme Court?

Speaker 1 (33:38):
But did you see the Kaitanji Brown Jackson dissents?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Kind of hard to miss? It was really amazing, Like
I you know, obviously, there was a lot of talk
about Amy Cony Barrett's you know, SmackDown of of of KBJ.
But the thing is is, I don't know if there
was enough attention like actually paid to her descents in
terms of like even just how they were written. I mean,

(34:05):
they're full of all this like snarky language like wait
for it, you know, or if we get with the
other big phrase full stop, you know, to make a point.
I feel genuinely bad for that woman for having such
idiot clerks that are like leading her down this primrose path,

(34:25):
you know. But I don't know, maybe I shouldn't feel
so bad because clearly she's the person in charge of
those clerks, so she should be you know, doing something
to act respectful and like worthy of the institution. Instead,
she's you know, writing to scents that are just absolute embarrassments,
and not just as a matter of the law, but
does a matter of like even the English language.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
So it's interesting. We've had so much commentary about the
makeup of the Supreme Court and the quality of their
jurisprudence in this in these last few terms, and a
lot of conservative like judicial conservatives are reasonably frustrated with
some of the Republican appointed justices that they should be

(35:09):
much better at enforcing rule of law and making sure that,
for instance, the nationwide injunctions aren't going crazy as an
undemocratic means to stopping political opponents. But as someone who's
covered the Court and has written about the Court, I

(35:29):
think conservatives, while their criticisms are legitimate, should be aware
that the quality of this court is higher than literally
any court in our history. Throughout the Court's history, people
were appointed to the court for political reasons by virtue
of being friends with the president or maybe being a

(35:51):
political opponent of the president that they're trying to sideline
being just like a good old political activist, and this
is kind of a reward.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
They tended to be people who were somewhat well read
in the law. But when you look at the caliber
of the average justice on the court right now, it
is exponentially higher than throughout much of the history of
the court, including recent history. But it is true that

(36:21):
Katanji Brown Jackson to a great extent, and Sonya Soda
Mayor to a substantial extent, are so dragging down the
average on that that it's embarrassing. Like, say what you
want about Alana Kagan, she is a smart, savvy, respectable
justice who understands the long game, understands the short game.

(36:44):
And you know, she might be a very political player,
but she's smart and worthy of being on the court.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
He's even respectful of the legal process and good on
certain issues from you know, narrow conservative perspectives. I mean
she and that's because she's simply principled. I mean, that's
what's not overstated. I mean, but she she's not like,
she's not principled in other ways, and she signed on
to some decisions. I've been very surprised by that. We're
i think we're overtly ideological, but I'm just saying that

(37:11):
there are times when it comes out she's making very
very principled arguments that conservatives can agree with. You know,
she you know, even though she didn't do anything when
it came up as a matter before the court. I mean,
she even had the guts to come out and say that,
you know, injunctions being done by district court judges were
a problem you know a few years back.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
And court shopping, circuit shopping to get decisions you like,
was inappropriate. You know, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, right, But the real problem here, and this is
the thing that the Democrats that just don't want to
talk about, which is that you have maybe two of
the worst justices in Supreme Court history. I mean, look,
you know they didn't sign on to you know, dread Scott,
but they're you know, certainly in terms of their you know, capabilities,
or two of the worst justices in American history. And

(37:57):
they were both explicitly affirmative action picks. Like I mean,
this is a direct result of identity politics pressure on
the Democratic Party. When Barack Obama picked you know, Soda Mayor,
he said she was a quote wise Latina. Remember this
was a big part of her somehouse selling point that
this was a minority or whatever that had not been
on the Supreme Court before. And then you had guys

(38:19):
like Larry Tribe, you know, the famous liberal Harvard law professor,
coming out and writing a memo that got leaked saying
basically that she wasn't very bright and she was going
to alienate the other justice and like said this openly,
and lo and behold, what has happened with her tenure
on the court. She has exhibited the fact that she's
not very bright, She's alienated other justices. And then with

(38:42):
the case of the KBJ, Biden could not have been
more explicit. I am picking a black woman. I promised
to pick a black woman. Did I mention I was
going to pick a black woman. Well, he got a
black woman good and hard. You know. I'm you know,
there's very possibly there are black women out there in
the judiciary that could have done a fine job, you know,

(39:03):
representing you know, liberals on the court. But that's not
what they got. They got someone who's a public embarrassment.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Now, yes, so it'll be. And she was more open
this term about not caring about rule of law and
only caring about results. If we're being honest, This is
true of a lot of judges and justices, but usually

(39:31):
they're constrained significantly by a desire to appear legitimate, to
be legitimate, to have clear, consistent and coherent thinking. And
she was kind of openly disdaining legal analysis. And it
was notable to read Amy Cony Barrett's pushback against her.

(39:56):
Amy Cony Barrett is an incredibly nice, genuinely nice and
respectful justice. She is, you know, young on the court.
She is very conscious of having good relations with her
colleague and to be kind of openly disdainful of the
thinking that Katanji Brown Jackson had in her dessense I

(40:20):
think was telling it was sort of a saying up
your game. Actually, So in the book that I don't
know if sorry, the book on the Supreme Court that
I'm writing that'll be out next year, one of the
stories that was told was about how sometimes the older
justices will throw a brushback pitch against the younger justices,

(40:44):
kind of just a okay, remember where you are, and
you know, this is the big leagues. And in the
case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she did this with Alito
kind of unfairly by the way, in that he had
written a decision on something that was very much about
statutory interpretation. It was very logical and typical Alido, and

(41:09):
she read her descent from the bench to kind of
embarrass him and to make it a very political thing.
But the justices do by and large or historically have
gotten along pretty well. But sometimes they will go ahead
and send a message. And Katanji Brown Jackson has been
very public about her hatred of her colleagues or her

(41:30):
hatred of their jurisprudence, in a way that is not
what we would normally expect from a justice. And to
do that while also being so unnecessarily loquacious and having
poorly reasoned descents. I think that's why you saw this

(41:51):
pretty strong brushback from amy Cony Barrett.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Well, yeah, there's a brushback pitch and then there's a
fastball to the batting helmet, which is basically what ACB
did to her. I mean it's pretty clear that the justices,
and you can see from if you listen to oral
arguments how much she talks and what she says, they're
sick of it. You know, she is just not representing herself. Well,
I mean the thing about this is is there actually

(42:17):
is space right now because politics are so polarized and
the Supreme Court has become such a hot issue for
the left. Well, you could be the resistance judge. You know,
you could really get out there and you could say
some bold and crazy things and descents or whatever and
people be cheering, Yeah whatever. KBJ just doesn't have the
rhetorical skill to pull even that off. You know, there's

(42:39):
a way that you could get out there and play
to the crowd and work the refs, and she is
she's failing spectacularly at trying to do exactly that. And
it's like the worst possible thing that she could do,
because it undermines her credibly ability both with the public,
you know, who she needs on her side in the minority,
and inside the judiciary, where she's going to be totally

(43:01):
unpersuasive and actively alienating the people that she needs to
get votes on things. So, I mean, it's just a
terrible situation all around, and it's really you know, frankly,
I'm embarrassed as an American this even happened, especially when
you're you know, comparing the you know, guys like Samuel
Alito and Clarence Thomas side by side with this woman.
I mean, it's right.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
There's also the thing though about in poker, you know
how sometimes like someone who doesn't know what they're doing
at all can be more dangerous than a really good
player because they're.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Just making wild bets and totally unable sense.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
And I do wonder if that's something of her calculus
or the Democrats calculus. They look at the court, and
the fact is that if you follow like a rational jurisprudence,
if you say things like our laws matter and how
they interpret how they're interpreted should be something that we
all are kind of open and honest about what our

(43:59):
pro to that is, you're going to lose. I mean,
that's what the success of the conservative judicial movement has
been over the last forty years was just coming up
with a coherent philosophy for interpreting our laws actually acting
like the Constitution matters, and then you know, educating people
and implementing it throughout the judiciary. And it has been

(44:20):
losing a long, losing game for the left. Right now,
you have six of the nine justices appointed by Republicans.
By the way, wasn't it eight to one in the
early nineties with the Casey decision that went poorly, So
being appointed by Republicans doesn't really mean that much in

(44:41):
Supreme Court history. But it's also true that the left
has just been kind of losing on the merits. And
so if you're losing on the merits and you don't
really have a chance of winning on the merits, maybe
just throwing bombs and causing chaos is the best approach.
Like that's kind of what the left has been doing
with their attacks on the court. It's not really a quote.
They're not making like an argument against the court. They're

(45:02):
just trying to like get the justice killed, which is,
you know, kind of an effective way.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
That's what I was trying to say, though, is that, Yeah,
I think there's actually space for that approach. I've been
look at what RBG did. I mean, she created this
entire like, you know, badass persona that everybody on the
left was excited by and you could get behind you.
Even when she had bad opinions, it was like, oh,
well RBJ said, RBG said this. But you know, in
order to get to that point, you know, where she

(45:27):
could be the sort of chaos agent, she had to
build up her own credibility.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Also, say what you want about her, though, I like
to joke with people, like when they're telling me they're
a big RBG fan, Like, so, what's your favorite opinion
she ever wrote? Well, that's a bit of an unfair
question because she was never on the right side of
a winning argument, so she didn't have the opportunity to
write like a real ton of like landmark decisions. She
did do the I think the vm I one, but

(45:55):
she was respected by her colleagues for her statutory interpretation.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Absolutely, she was very qualified. Right you know, KBJ has
come right out of the gate and been in laughing
stock since day one.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I mean, so that's what I wanted to talk about.
Here's the other thing that just annoys me no end
is media coverage and analysis of the court. So first off,
you should go here in oral argument because it's really
fun and you can do it because you live nearby,
and readers or listeners you should also do it.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
But my wife has a subjective definition of fun. And
just so we're clear, but not all of us are legal.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Nerds, you know, listening to oral arguments or going and
witnessing how it's done. You see that everybody has their
own approach, and there have been you know, some some
are very clean and crisp with their questioning, some are
near silent. You know, for a really long time, Justice
Thomas never asked a question in oral argument because he

(46:50):
just thought it was kind of unnecessary and wasted the
time of the of the advocates. But when Neil Gorsich
got on the bench, this is a man who asks
good questions and is somewhat wordier than some of his colleagues,
and the media mocked him and they said everybody hated

(47:12):
him on the court because he was so using so
many words. Blah blah blah, First of all, I don't
think that was true. But Katanji Brown Jackson gets on
the court and she makes Neil Gorsich look like a
French mime. I mean, she is just talking constantly. She's

(47:34):
asking questions that don't make sense. She is, in some
cases saying more than all the other justices combined. And
instead of being condemned by the Washington Post and the
New York Times, they're like, she's just getting right in
there right away, look at her. You know, they're very
positive about it. They put this spin on it, like
it's just great. When I do think it's fair to

(47:56):
say that she has annoyed some of her colleagues, Like
you even had the Chief this year during one of
the arguments kind of express a little bit of frustration
with her questioning. And I just hate the I hate
the way the media play these games.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Oh yeah, no, We'll remember when she was nominated. I mean,
there was a lot of hype, you know, a lot
of black girl magic happening there. And you know, again,
I'm like, you know, I don't know, I you know,
I happen to be the school thought that doesn't have
anything to do with it, you know, let's get her
on the bench and see, you know, she can she
see what she can prove, do to prove herself. But

(48:34):
it's just like I think it. But it almost the
media stuff that you talk about probably hurts her, right,
you know, she probably needs voices in her ear that
she's paying attention to to say, hey, okay, settle down,
you know, establish her credibility, you know, do this, do that.
Instead she's constantly hearing she's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
And what she do. She goes out there and she
you know, you know, speaks, you know, as if everybody's

(48:57):
hanging on her every word when they're clearly not.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
She's very good on Broadway. Oh she should she should
lean into that more. The decisions themselves that were interesting.
So the way the court works is decisions come out
when they're ready to come out, and they're the reason
why the end of the Supreme Court term. So like

(49:20):
typical Supreme Court term begins in October ends in June.
The reason why the end is always so exciting is
because that's when the difficult decisions come out. They're difficult,
they take more time. You don't have, you don't just
have the majority writing their opinion, but you have the
descent or descents, and then you have to have the
response to the descent, and so it just it just
takes more time. Some end of terms have been really exciting,

(49:44):
and this one we ended with quite a few unanimous
opinions and then some interesting stuff on like the trans
the trans indoctrination case out of Maryland and the ruling
against nationwide injunctions, with some interesting concurrences about how that
ruling should have been stronger and what did you think

(50:08):
at the end, like in terms of the quality of
the decisions.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
So the injunctions thing was interesting, and you know, given
the Trump has been subject to what forty injunctions or
something like that and the first six months of his term,
obviously things are building their critical mass and the Court
really needed to address that if they were going to
maintain the credibility of the judiciary re at large. But
the injunction thing was the side show to a larger

(50:33):
case about birthright citizenship, which the Court is kind of
punted on. So so it's you know.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
I didn't really hunted. They just returned it for you know,
to continue, Like it's not that the case is over
it's just that they chose to decide the issue of
nationwide injunctions relative rather than you know, the birthright citizenships.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
It's a very semantic argument for punting. But yes, nothing
definitive was decided in that case, right, So my point
is it's just it was a little anti climactic in
that sense. You know, people were hoping for clarity. They
didn't get clarity because the short court shows process. So
you know, the everything ended up being about the injunctions

(51:16):
and the KBJ SmackDown in that which, you know, I
think we've sort of already covered, but there's a lot
that I still think needs to be hashed out, even
with the injunction stuff too.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
You know, well that's what Alito's concurrence was about. You know, yes,
they sent a strong signal against this abuse of nationwide injunctions,
but they didn't issue any clarity on using third parties
to secure a nationwide injunction. And the same day, some
of like the worst law fair abusers were saying like, okay,

(51:50):
well they didn't you know, they didn't say anything about
third party so let's try to destroy democracy that way.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, well, so that's what that's I'm just sort of
talking about how like the whole thing was just kind
of anti climactic, and with the exception of the whole
you know, intra court drama between KBJ and the ACB
and that whole sort of like you know.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Smack downing though, which is that people were expecting a
retirement at the end of the term and that did
not happen or hasn't happened.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Hasn't happened yet, Yes, But but my point though is
that it's it's as a court watcher, it's really hard
to sort of draw a lot out of that in
terms of, you know, what are the lasting consequences of
that that particular decision beyond, like I said, the the
interpersonal drama between the justices. So I just that felt
anti climactic to me. The Maryland case about whether or

(52:44):
not parents could opt out of what was a pretty
darn extreme, you know sort of sexual education curricula that
I think went down to like actual like even like
kindergarteners and grade schoolers was much clearer, and and that
was you know, a decision that obviously conservatives were happy

(53:05):
to see. On the other hand, like, it's just fascinating
to me that we've reached this point where there are
all these issues, like, you know, things that are really
matters of local governance that are rapidly being elevated to
the Supreme Court because the Democratic Party has essentially lost
its mind. I mean, you know, teaching you know, kindergarteners

(53:26):
about trans people is like an eighty twenty issue even
I mean, you know, even Democrats are probably you know,
wildly against that, even in enclaves like you know, Chevy Chase,
Maryland or whatever, which I think where this case came
out of our Montgomery County, Maryland. And it's just it's
not healthy to me that we live in a society

(53:47):
here where the culture wars are being you know, rapidly
punted to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Well, there was this, you know, not a crazy left
wing journalist to forget his name, I follow him, you know,
it was I think a radio guy covering the White
House for a long time. He was like, if parents
can opt their kids out of trans indoctrination, what's next,
Are they going to opt them out of algebra? And ay,

(54:13):
I actually do think parents have a lot of have
a significant role in their children's education and that they
should absolutely be able to weigh in on various parts
of the curriculum. And I don't think that's a crazy thing.
And my parents certainly were very involved when I went
to government schools. We're so involved with our children that

(54:34):
we keep them out of government schools. But it's also
not even about the substance, you know, these rulings are.
They're not just about the substance of the issue, the
trans issue. They're also just about whether we're a society
that believes in family and parental rights and a parental
role in education. And so it just seemed like a

(54:55):
good ruling all around.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Right, But like the sexual education of this indoctrination of
you know, radical ideas like trans stuff and anything. This
is wholly new stuff, right. This is not something established
like you know, algebra. This isn't even like established like
basic sex education. I mean, this is a political project,
and ironically enough, it is a political project to destroy

(55:18):
the nuclear family. The whole idea is, you know, if
you tell kids from the earliest age that there are
no sex distinctions, then what's the point of having a
family anyway? Right? And I I don't know, I'm sort
of mildly alarmed and simultaneous to relieve that these issues
are getting, you know, swatted down, but it's really really

(55:41):
something that the Supreme Court deals with issues like this.

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Speaker 1 (56:31):
This is a perfect segue to move into a couple
other trans things I wanted to ask you about, But
before we do that, I also want to just talk
about how this year was a year where for the
first time in a really long time, conservatives started being
a little more critical of the Republican appointed justices on

(56:54):
the Court. And so when we're talking about the nationwide
injunction opinion that was authored by Barrett. Yes, and a
lot of people were pretty pleased with that, although to
Alito's point, it was not as strong as it should
have been. That's not an Amy problem. Necessarily, she had

(57:17):
to write it to get the majority right right. But
then you had a lot of people who were making
fun of people who had been critical of Amy Coney
Barrett during the term. They're like, oh, I thought Amy
Cooney Barrett was supposed to be a lib. And I
just want to talk about this in general, the criticism
of Supreme Court justices and the merits of those criticisms.

(57:41):
There are schools of thought, and I've talked with people
who I greatly respect and I know you would too,
who really think you just shouldn't criticize just you shouldn't
criticize Amy Coney Barrett. And a lot of their case is, well,
some of their case will be if you get down
to the nitty gritty, she's you know, she might be
in the weeds a bit, and she might be her

(58:05):
thinking might be a little weedy, but it's defensible. So
she was involved in joining with Roberts or Kavanaugh on
some of these decisions that didn't put a stop to
the nationwide injunctions earlier, or that allowed some of the
most degreeious nationwide injunction situations to continue, if that's what
she was getting criticism for now. The left are masterminds

(58:28):
of manipulating the justices, and any Republican nominated justice knows
that if you want good coverage, you will throw the
left a lot of bones. And if you don't do that,
you will be obliterated by the New York Times. They

(58:49):
will call you a rapist. They will spend their entire
lifetime trying to destroy you. You know, Pro Publica, which
is sort of the journalism fund of the Democrat part
spent I think it was forty two million dollars in
one year to try to take out Justice Thomas. And
by the way, that year was last year. He's been

(59:11):
on the court since nineteen ninety one, and because he
won't do the left's bidding, he faces death threats, he
faces the most horrific attacks on his family, on his friends,
and he's unwavering. However, there are other justices for whom
those attacks have proven to be very useful. For the left,

(59:32):
they do struggle with being unliked by their peers in
elite circles. They do want to be invited to fancy
law schools and have the red carpet rolled out for them.
They do want to be able to vacation without any oversight.
You know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg vacationed a lot and nobody
ever had a problem with it. You know, she was

(59:52):
partying with some pretty fancy friends. But if a black
man Clarence Thomas has a single wealthy friend, why that's
cause for impeachment, you know. And so the New York
Times has been working really hard to cultivate Amy Cony Barrett.
Last year at the end of the term, they were like,
you know who's actually really great is Amy Coney Barrett.
They did this gauzy profile and she just looked amazing,

(01:00:16):
and all the Libs were coming out and saying, like,
we're really impressed with how she's going. But when the
right says, in response to the very same cases that
the left are praising her over, that they don't feel
like she's lived up to her potential. Because you might
remember that nobody said Brett Kavanaugh was going to be
like the most amazing conservative justice right right, that was

(01:00:40):
said quite a bit about Amy Cony Barrett. You know,
she's not just going to be good, She's going to
be like history's greatest justice. And so it does take
people a few years to figure out their way on
the court. But people were kind of like, when does
this get going? When does the impressive start get going?
And as years passed, they were like, Okay, this is
we're starting to get nervous that we're dealing with someone

(01:01:01):
who's you know, not living up to what we were told.
And I actually think she's still in her period of
figuring out, you know, what her role is exactly going
to be. She's very smart, she's very capable. I think
there's you know, there's room for interpretation. Her decisions, even

(01:01:25):
the ones I disagree with, are defensible, you know, all
this stuff, right, But I don't mind if people criticize her.
I think that's totally fine. And also one of the
things people say about why you shouldn't criticize her or
other justices, they'll say, you're going to send them running
into the arms of the left. I just think it's
funny that the left is allowed to do just multi million,

(01:01:51):
like massive, multi million dollar pressure campaigns against justices, and
then the right is supposed to respond by doing nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Right, right, Yeah, I don't you know know what's it
about it because you pretty much have said it all.
But yeah, it is really something how there is just
this completely asymmetric situation when it comes to this sort
of you know, criticism. I mean, I yes, we absolutely,

(01:02:24):
that's right, No, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
The other thing I just say is the big argument
from the conservative judicial movement, of which I fancy, you
know myself a big supporter, is that the conservative justices
are not motivated by politics or you know, the outcome.
They are just very principled people. Well, if that's true,
and I actually do think that's true in a large part,

(01:02:48):
a pressure campaign shouldn't matter at all, right, right, I
get they're just bound by principle. It wouldn't matter if
everyone's yelling at them. They'll just do what they should
be doing anyway, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Right though, But I mean I don't think it's possible
to be so bound for principle that you don't think
about ends. I mean, the whole point of principle is
that they're you know, basically heuristic to get to a
specific end. Right, What is the end that it produces
the most human flourishing? What is the end that you
know is the best for all Americans. You know, there
are all kinds of different ways of evaluating these things,

(01:03:20):
and it's simply absurd to say that conservative justices should
only care about principles and not about ends. But the
reason why they did make that argument so much is
because it's a dodge not just about public accountability, but
it's a dodge for you know, sort of criticism. Well,
our hands are bound because we just interpreted the law
the only way that we could, and I just don't
think that that is honest at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Okay, I do want to say one more thing on
the battles over pressure of the justices. The Scurmetti decision.
I don't remember when that came down. I think it
was like a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, that's the
one that also dealt with trans issues and whether the
state of Tennessee could have a law banning chemical castration

(01:04:03):
for children for children who are like subject to demonic
trans ideology. And in that decision, ACB sorry, Barrett Thomas,
and Alito, they all like they wrote separately about this,

(01:04:24):
but they would have all said that, like, the trans
group is never a suspect class But in order to
have gotten in order to have been able to write
the majority opinion, they would have needed two of the
remaining three Republican appointed justices to agree with them. So

(01:04:49):
that's the Chief Roberts, Corsich, and Kavanaugh. And it's a
really important issue that affects the litigation landscape, right, And
they could have completely won the trans issue from a
litigation standpoint, like right then and there, had they had

(01:05:10):
two of those three join with them. But because they
didn't have that, because the majority did not hold that
TRANS isn't a suspect classification entitled to Heighten's scrutiny. Uh,
these cases are going to continue and there will be
many bad holdings and then the court will have to
fix it at some point, but it'll be after a

(01:05:31):
very long and difficult period of time, right, right, And
you know how I think were you talking about the
The New York Times had that big like hit piece
on Chase Stringio or whatever his name, lawyer in Matti

(01:05:51):
And how bad she it's a woman who goes a
woman identifies as male. Okay, how bad she was on everything?
She was going around saying, like the Screamtti decision could
have been much worse if Amy Coney Barrett, Alito, and
Thomas had had their way right right now, if Amy

(01:06:12):
Coney Barrett had been on the wrong side of that
decision she would have been or if she had not
gone with if she had been the cause of the
majority not being able to be done a broader ruling,
people would be screaming at her. But somehow, like Gorsich,
who's also bad on the trans issue in the Bowstok

(01:06:35):
decision like to understate wildly, Roberts and Cavanaugh, like nobody's
screaming at them like they would be screaming at her.
And part of that is because again, people were promised
that she was going to be amazing. Nobody ever said
these other guys were going to be like as amazing
as we were told that Amy would be. But it
is worth pointing out that there seems to be a
double standard in the attacks, or not a double standard,

(01:06:55):
but just uneven standards, and that if you're going to
do pressure campaigns, you should feel welcome to do them
against everybody who rules poorly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Right, Well, don't you think to some extent that's personal,
you know, in the circumstances like Amy coneyber was very
publicly identified as a strong Catholic, whereas you know Roberts,
you know, Corsicch and Kavanaugh. You wouldn't make any real
claims to having you know, pre existing strong religious beliefs
to comport with this, because like acb right out of
the gate, basically did you know d Roe v. Wade,

(01:07:26):
which was about as bold a vote as you could take,
But it also comports with, you know, a worldview for
that she has that we were promised, and I'd say
similarly in terms of human dignity, you know, her position
on Scurmetti would be consistent with that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
I just want to remind the New York Times has reported,
and I have reason to believe this is accurate, that
she did not vote to grant cert in that Dobb's case.
So while she did join with the majority properly on that.
That's part of the reason why people have started to
be like, Okay, we should move on from this. We've
talked about this way too much, so should we talk

(01:08:02):
at all about any other trans issues here? Because there
were a couple things that happened this week the University
of Pennsylvania, Yeah, had to admit that including men in
women's sports was a violation of the law, and that
they apologized for it. They have to write like handwritten
letters of apology to each of the women who they
abused by having men take away their rankings, by allowing

(01:08:27):
men into the women's swimming program.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
I mean, to be clear, they're doing this at the
point of a gun, basically because the Trump administration came
in and you know, started you know, enforcing some of
this specific sex definition stuff, and then made a point
of it with what was there was an executive order
that touches on this. But the point is is that
I'm not sure they did. They would be doing this

(01:08:51):
if it weren't for the outcome of the election last November, which,
if anything, I think is sort of a warning sign.
It gets again. I mentioned this before with the Maryland
Supreme Court decision. You know, this trans stuff is like
an eighty twenty issue with the American public, and you know,
and the vast majority of normany Democrats are against it

(01:09:13):
as well, and yet you still have the powers democratic
power structures in this country, the liberal power structures enthrall
to these minorities of radicals. And I still don't quite
know what we can do about that. I mean again,
if it takes basically the federal government coming in and saying,
you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, it's not billions

(01:09:34):
of dollars to your university are being threatened. If you
don't you're recognize that men and women are fundamentally different.
Like we're still not in a particularly good place. And
I'm a little alarmed by.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
That, right, I think it shows why when you're in power,
you need to use that power to achieve any gains
you can. A lot of people were so excited by
this University of Pennsylvania agreement that they were you know,
they were wrong, and they said they wouldn't do it again.
They were going to have compliance with the law. They're

(01:10:03):
not going to be putting men in women's sports and
violation of the law. It's all good, it's nowhere near
good enough. Like an apology letter. I think they should
be forced to pay out like a ton of cash money.
What they put those girls through is horrific. And also
side note, So last night I was at Fox doing
Laura Ingram and years ago, like in the first Trump administration,

(01:10:27):
when I first started working at Fox, it was so
awesome to go in to do TV because it was
just like the Star Wars Cantina bar of like everyone
on the Hill, you know how Senate White House, like
everyone was in there constantly for TV and post COVID,
so much of everything went remote, right, so you have

(01:10:48):
hosts and guests just hitting from wherever they are, so
it's much less action in the bureau. But before I
was meeting our kid, before I went up to the
Fox green room and was talking to her about this
big decision out of University of Pennsylvania, and we were
talking about Riley Gaines and what a courageous young woman

(01:11:09):
she is. And we walk into the green room and
Riley Gaines is there, and we were so excited. We
were like, oh my gosh, we were just talking about you.
And then also Scott Bessent is it Bestent or percent
was there, which is also kind of exciting. I just
watched like two long form, you know, video podcasts of him.
Then Linda McMahon was there, and it was Charlie Hurt

(01:11:31):
was in town from New York, and it was like, oh,
this is like the old days. It was very exciting. Anyway,
my main point though, is Riley Gaines had to do
a lot that men should have done or people older
than her, And I have so much admiration for her
that she did wage this fight with people even as
recently as a couple of weeks ago. Simone Biles like

(01:11:52):
bullying her for defending women in women's spaces, like she's
put up with a lot and she shouldn't have had to,
And I'm just she did.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
I don't know if you remember this, but it was
in last year we spoke of the Issues et cetera
conference which we're speaking out very shortly in Chicago, and
Riley Gaines was one of the speakers there. And what
was fascinating was Riley Gaines shows up to speak in
this conference where hundreds of people come to Riley Gaines
shows up and out of nowhere, there was like one

(01:12:22):
hundred teenage girls that just showed up. Like when into
the auditorium saw Riley Gaines speak and leave, I mean,
that woman has done amazing things for this country and
this debate, and she's got charisma, despair and boy wow,
she'd been an example to young women everywhere and you

(01:12:44):
and you're right about that. And also I just want
to add about what you were saying about why men
have not done more on this, Like it is to
this country's eternal shame that we're having track meets and
you know, basketball games or whatever where men are on
the court against women and not a single father has
come out of the stands and made a scene. Not
one I know, like Ken, I'm aware of. Maybe it's

(01:13:06):
happened somewhere, but like I mean, you'd think these clips
would be all over the internet where you know, you know,
the fathers of these girls are going together and going
down and saying no, no more.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Yes, Well, my husband to our children's school in part
because they took a stand against men and women's sports
like years ago when nobody was doing it. And that's
kind of how we found out about it. But okay,
so much less important. But in related trans news, the

(01:13:36):
anti trumpist never Trump outlet the Dispatch, and I would
like the record to show I got the right name
on the first try, because I always get them confused
with the like even more crazy anti trumpist never trumpest
outlet the Bulwark, but the Dispatch, which is like David French, Well,
this is differentch.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Was one of the founders. He met the New York Times.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
Is he still at the Patch.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I think he is actually, But anyway, David French, Jonah Goldberg,
Steve Hayes, your former colleague, Steve Hays your former colleague,
Joah Goldberg, your former colleague.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
There's a couple of my former colleagues over there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
So they have this like anti trumpist outlet, and so
they hired this guy who used to be known as
Brian Reedl and he now asks that people call him
Jessica Reedl, and he claims to I mean, he's whatever,
whatever the deal is, and he's sort of like a

(01:14:36):
middling budget guy, worked for Senator Portman, writes on budget issues.
I don't think he's ever made like a huge mark
on anything. But he's like not the worst. You know,
he works at the Manhattan Institute and now at the
at the Dispatch. But hesh, I don't know. It's a

(01:14:56):
couple of months ago. He's like, So, by the way,
you know, you might have noticed I've been wearing women's
clothing out and around town a lot, and like now
I'm ready to fully claim that I'm a woman. It's
no big deal and I don't want to be political.
But also Science says that this is real, And like
the Manhattan Institute, which is headquartered in New York City

(01:15:19):
and by law, is very constrained, I will point out,
they immediately change his bio to claim that he's a woman,
so like they sort of indulge the false claim that
he's a woman. They use female pronouns, and then he
starts getting like a little more into it. So I
don't even remember what happened this week, but he said

(01:15:41):
something else about how the science actually says he has
a lady brain.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
He has this there's this elaborate theory out there that
brain scans show that trans people have brains that are
more female or whatever, if you're a man who thinks
he's a woman. And like, ironically enough, there was actually
a great articleblished back in March by the Manhattan Institute
about Friedle's employer saying these brain scan studies are just

(01:16:07):
absolute garbage. But also it just stands to reason that,
I mean, it's just look, if we could diagnose trans
people with brain scans, we would, but we don't, so
you know, it doesn't happen, but we can't do that,
so we don't do it. Basically, it's just absolute garbage. Pseudoscience,
And so you have a situation here where here's a

(01:16:28):
guy whose job is doing like hardcore empirical analysis who
is spouting pseudoscience on this other issue. Now, look, there
are certainly circumstances where people are completely bonkers on one
issue and are very astute on others, right, Like, I
get that, But journalism is also an issue that's also
about public credibility, right, And I have a very hard

(01:16:52):
time with the idea that the Dispatch, which was a
publication that was founded to counter Trump, specifically because they
did not believe Trump was principled and conservative enough, specifically conservative,
and one of the issues that they were very you know,
adamant about was that Trump had given into And I
think this is actually a fair criticism and the dispatchion,
I'm very consistent about that Trump was given to fiscal

(01:17:15):
prolificacy and way that traditional Republicans were not. Trump stopped
talking about entitlement reform. Trump, you know, just gave in
to all this stuff on fiscal issues, and Reedal is
like a fiscal hawk, right. But if your idea is
that you're going to convince the right to be more conservative,
and one of the specific really important issues is that
you know, uh in title reform is an existential issue

(01:17:37):
for the United States, and then you hire a trans
guy to be the voice of that, Like, what are
you doing here? Like? Who who's your audience for that?
Is it? Is it the left who's going to be
convinced to do embrace fiscal conservatism, you know, for the
first time ever in the history of anything, or is
it the audience that you said you were specifically going

(01:17:58):
after when you had to separate yourself from Trump the
quote unquote principle of conservatives that were left. I mean,
it makes zero sense from a journalism or like public
credibility standpoint that they would willingly choose to hire an
out transperson as a result of this. Never mind that
you have these other issues here where you have David
French suddenly interviewing this guy in the New York Times

(01:18:21):
and using female pronouns when you know when years ago
he was writing columns about how he would never use
female pronouns because it's giving into a lie and he's
not explaining himself.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Yeah, so well, I mean the last set about the
losers there, the better probably, But that's the issue I
kind of wanted to talk about which is you and
I both publicly kind of pointed out problems with his
false claims that the science backs his claim to be
a lady. He used the slur sizz, which is like

(01:18:53):
a slur used against people to kind of make them
embrace gender ideology, and and it's just like a hate
term that's used by some transactivists. And he, you know,
he blocks you, He blocks everybody who doesn't indirectly. But yes,

(01:19:14):
but I also got some pushback through what like a
left wing I think I'm as presumably Washington Post budget
writer who like Reedle, is not an economist, like I
think it's funny people are like, this is the right's
most essential economist. And there was someone I knew who
said something like, I have to read he's not an economist.

(01:19:35):
His entire life's work is making obvious charts in Excel.
There is nothing wrong with that. Who doesn't love a
good chart. But he's never done interesting work in the
two decades I've known him, And I find this line
that he's an essential conservative economist to be utterly laughable.
So that's about Reedl. But there's this guy I think
his name is Stein. I can't remember his name and
Washington Post, and he said that me speaking truthfully about

(01:19:58):
whether men are women was like gratuitous and obscene and
vile and evil, and this guy is just trying to
privately live his life. I just want to remind everybody
that when you publicly post your transactivism in a public
forum like Twitter, X, people are allowed to respond to it.

(01:20:20):
You've taken your auto gynophilia out of the bedroom and
you've moved it to X. Now. I'm not making it
my practice to investigate sexual perversions such as auto gynophilia
or other things like that that certain men have. I'm
like less known about it, the better from my perspective.
But when you drag that out into a public forum
like the Dispatch or X, yes, people are allowed to respond.

(01:20:43):
Don't be ridiculous. Of course people can respond, And particularly
in an environment where the ap guideline which most media
outlets follow, in which ours does not, and for which
we've faced a lot of a pobrium, is to falsely
affirm delusions of trans identity by using false pronouns, by

(01:21:03):
calling a man a woman. It's not like it's a
it's an environment where people are allowed to just have
their own thoughts. I mean, up until a few years ago,
you faced draconian censorship for not bending the knee to
radical transactivists. And so yes, you're allowed to respond when
people publicly make false claims such as the science says

(01:21:26):
I have a lady brain, but I'm a moon whatever
like that. You're of course allowed to respond to that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Are you? Are you ready for a really spicy take
on this retal controversy. Okay, remember Jeffrey Tuban, uh huh
for those of you that don't recall, Jeffrey Tubman is
a well known shall we say, legal analyst, and you know,
very left leaning, and he was a longtime writer at
The New Yorker and he eventually got fired because he

(01:21:53):
was on a zoom call with his New Yorker colleagues,
and he got caught on the zoom call on camera,
albeit unintentionally how we should shall we say, what paying
pocket pinball. And the natural result of, you know, Tuban
being engaged in a sexual act in front of his
colleagues was that he was to be fired, right, He

(01:22:14):
got fired from The New Yorker over this. Well, what
Retal is doing is actually worse than what Tubin did,
actually worse and The reason why is because what Tubin
did was unintentional and he had some shame about it.
If you are a middle aged man who is a

(01:22:35):
who claims to be a woman, almost universally, you are
what we call an auto gynophiliac, which means you get
a sexual thrill from dressing up as a woman and
making others And this is part of the thing, making
others confront your female persona. You get a sexual thrill
from that by forcing others into uncomfortable situations where they

(01:22:56):
have to confront the fact that you're a woman, and
there's a power dynamic there where you have to call
them by your preferred pronouns and treat you as a woman. Right,
every day that Brian Ridelle shows up in a workplace
dressed as a woman exhibiting his kink, every day that
he goes out there publicly with his picture next to
his column or whatever we knows a man obviously dressed

(01:23:19):
as a woman, he is making everyone else participate in
his thing where he gets a sexual thrill from making
other people accept that he's a woman. He is forcing
other people to participate in his sexual kink. And I
think that is one hundred percent wrong. You should not
be involved in your colleague or a stranger's you know,

(01:23:41):
sexual activity and one way or another, not in any
small or tiny way. You should be totally absent from that.
And I don't think that's too much to ask.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
Well, this Washington Post budget writer would probably disagree with
him on that, and he would say, you're being mean.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
Well, that's the thing. And this is the other thing,
is like the left wing, Like it's amazing how the
bias towards left wing nuttery, like, you know, exhibit exhibits itself,
Like can you imagine the Dispatch hiring a you know
guys does solid econ analysis, but he's also a nine
to eleven truther or god forbid, he's a solid econ analyst,
but you know he's he says he thinks the great

(01:24:25):
replacement theory is true right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Verse, and also he if he like tweeted about it
and then said, you're not allowed to respond about my
you know, weird theories. A few weeks ago, I was
in town taking said daughter to an appointment, and then
I was like at a shop nearby, and while and

(01:24:51):
I was on the phone with I was on the
phone with Julie gunlock actually, and a transman wearing a
completely inappropriate ensemble rolls up. I think he was on
roller skates. He was wearing like lingerie and two short

(01:25:13):
mini skirts. You're just seeing everything, And I'd wanted to
go into the store, but he walked into the store,
and so I just waited outside the store because I
was not going to go in there. And then the
proprietor of the store encouraged him to leave. He screamed
at her, He screamed at me. He then screamed at
other people, like nearby in the neighborhood. And I was thinking,

(01:25:36):
it is not that long ago that encountering a situation
like this, I would have called the police and said, hey,
we've got a situation here. We've got a crazy guy
wearing lingerie in public, harassing people. I've got young kids here.
Could you come help out? Would I call our police now? No,
I'd probably go to jail, you know what I mean.

(01:25:57):
Or they would be like, ma'am, you're disrupting the piece
by having a problem here. And so there's also this
issue of I've had enough, you know, like the I'm
so happy to live and let live. And also I
don't want my children encountering men in gross laundry with
all their bits hanging out in public. You know, Yeah,

(01:26:19):
I'm just done. And it's like, to your point, like
this is clearly some kind of fetish. I don't need
to know about it. I don't want to know about it.
I want people to just have a society where we're
all working together to have like a healthy public.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Environment, right right, Well, like I said, you know, look,
if he's going home at night and putting on women's
clothing or whatever and doing his thing in the privacy
of his own home, you know, what can I possibly
do about it? But the thing is is he is
enrolling the rest of us in his kink and I
don't want any part of that. And in your darn right,
I'm going to speak up about it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
So I do want to just say I'm not sure,
Like you're right, and this is something that I'm glad
people are increasingly talking about that auto ginophilia is a
major driver of the trans radicalism among middle aged men.
It's also, I guess possible that there are other issues
in play as well. Okay, and he clearly is not well,

(01:27:16):
you know, clearly not well. Obviously, anyone who does this
to their wife and kids is not well. I pray
for him. I pray that he gets the help he needs.
I pray that his children and wife get the support
that they would need enduring this. And I pray that like,
just like he's, he's healed of this. I mean, it's
a it's a horrible thing to be subject to, and
I'm thankful that, like I don't have some of these

(01:27:38):
issues that other people have. So I wish him the best.
I hope he gets back to making Excel spreadsheets that
people enjoy to whatever extent they enjoy them. But I'm
not going to be told that I'm not allowed to
speak against radical transactivism or wrong science.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
Look, he's exactly right. I agree with everything you said.
I mean, I am, and I genuinely feel bad for
the guy because I think he's under the you know,
throw of something, you know, something bad. But at the
same time, you know, what he's doing is publicly offensive,
and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Yes, and I'm
not going to be told I'm a bad person for
saying this offends me. I don't want to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
You're here, okay, So culture we always end the podcast
by talking about what we've watched. In our case, we've
probably watched most of the same things. Yes, So I
would like to begin by talking about what you did
for us this weekend. You took us to see a
blockbuster film called F One, which I had I don't

(01:28:36):
know why I was interested in seeing because I wouldn't
think of myself as a car person. We saw it
on Imax. We spent a small fortune to go to
the Imax theater to watch it, and I loved it
a little bit long, I would say, almost no character development,
and I loved it. I thought it was a super
fun movie about F one racing.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Yeah, if you're going to see one movie in theaters
this year, I mean it's probably F one. I mean
it's just a gigantic spectacle and goes to a big
screen where the image is extremely sharp and the sound
is loud. Is it's a real visceral experience, and it's
it's genuinely exciting, and you know, overall it's just like
a weird sort of it's it's kind of a throwback

(01:29:20):
movie in a weird way that's just kind of this like,
I don't know, sort of ambitious, optimistic, vibe as it were.
I'm just to give you a sense. It was directed
by Jerry Ways, not Jerry Joseph Kazinski. I always confused
the author and the film director Joseph Kazinsky, who's the
same guy that directed Topkin Maverick. He was also one
of the writers on Twisters, which was probably the best

(01:29:43):
blockbuster of last summer. So and all of these films
kind of have a similar vibe in common, you know,
in terms of I don't know, make you feel good
about basically being you know, a lot of American archetypes
more or less. I certainly embodies out in this, you know,
the washed up racer that comes out of retirement and

(01:30:04):
it's only doing it for the love of the game,
you know, and taking risks and you know, mixing things up,
and it's just exceptionally well directed and well made like
all the way around. It's I think it's technically PG. Thirteen.
It's very similar to Topkin Maverick, and that there's one
sort of sex scene. It's not really a sex scene,

(01:30:25):
but you know it's there.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
They're not married and they're in bed together.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
Right, but it doesn't get terribly explicit and overall and
overall things. You know, by the standards of modern entertainment,
it's it's relatively safe. I'm remember, we're like we're grading
on a sliding scale here. But if you can handle
Topkin Maverick, you can handle this film. And most people.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Did, Okay, what else did we see?

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
I don't know how we got sucked into this as
one of these things that we're like free on one
of the streaming services, watched this movie called Indian Summer
that was from.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
It was like so bad it was good.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
So I'd always been sort of curious about this film
because when did it come out. It came out in
like nineteen ninety three. I think, yeah, I came out
in nineteen ninety three, And it starts this like it
stars Alan Arkin, but beyond that, it's like this who's
who of like who were up and coming stars at

(01:31:28):
the time. It has Diane Lane and Bill Paxton and
Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Pollock and Vincent Spanel Kimberly Williams from
Father of the Bride fame, and somewhat amusingly, there's this
bit part that exists in the film purely for comic relief.
This that's played by Sam Raimie, the famous film director

(01:31:51):
of the Evil Dead films. Anyway, the film is about
a bunch of thirty year olds that go back to
a reunion at the summer camp that they all attended.
And I don't know, like who was standing around and saying,
you know what, we could really use a mashup of
meatballs and the Big Chill. But that's exactly kind of
what it was. And it's like it was a really

(01:32:13):
bizarre film where like there's all these like incredibly mature
things happening, where like married couples are like their marriage
is falling apart and people are thinking about cheating on
their spouses and like all this like crazy adult stuff
is happening. Well, meanwhile, they're like reliving the races they
used to do at the summer camp, and the whole
film felt like they were just kind of making it
up as they'd go along, to just be like one

(01:32:35):
like weirdly dramatic situation flowing into another. And I don't know,
but like in other ways it was weird. It was
like it was shot beautifully yophy it actually didn't have
bad ratings, and I don't know, it must just be
like pure nostalgia or something, but it was. It was
very very strange film in so many ways. But yeah,

(01:32:57):
I don't know, it was it was interesting, you do,
a film like this would never get made today. It
was like this pure star vehicle with a lot of
adult themes. It was very strange.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
Yeah. We also watched a Netflix movie called carry On.

Speaker 2 (01:33:15):
Yeah, I'm still trying to like wrap my head around that.
It's like this actually was better than I thought it
would be. It's an action film about a TSA agent.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
Have you a hero A hero TSA agent?

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
It's not a superhero, but yeah, I mean it's like,
have you ever encountered the TSA at any point in
the last twenty through two three years of their existence.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
I've got some really good interactions with TSA. Like I'm
not a big fan obviously of what of the whole
like approach to air security. But they're not all bad.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
It's not even that, it's just the idea that they
would be Like, you know, I don't know, action star heroic,
you know, whatever is who's.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
The guy, who's the who's the bad guy in the film?

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Jason Jason Bateman.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
Yeah, so he's always good and I kind of I
kind of enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
It was very derivative of a lot of previous action films,
Like I mean, it's very derivative of Diehard Too and
some other things, which you know, there's nothing wrong with that,
especially since it was it was I would just say this,
it was solidly entertaining. There were a lot of things that,
even by the standards of action films, sort of strained
some credulity, but if you just go with it in

(01:34:28):
the various mcguffins, it was better than I thought it
would be.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Anything else, I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
I don't Yeah, I don't really have a lot to add. Well,
we were traveling. I watched Department Q.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
Oh, yeah, David's been watching them. I think I can.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
It's gotten some pretty good ratings and it is a
better than average procedural, but it's very much a procedural.
There's like nothing new there. Like the protagonist Cop is
like cantankerous and doesn't get along with anyone, and there's
a lot of like necessary gore and involving the killings,
and it's very dark and moody, and it follows a
relatively predictable pattern. If you've read Various you know Cop

(01:35:11):
procedurals and serial killer novels. I don't know it's gotten
better ratings than I think it deserves to be perfectly honest,
but it is well cast and well made.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
Mark. I said last week that I'd seen the Bansheese
of Intron, and first off, I want to say that
a reader wrote in to correct me or mock me
by saying that my description of the movie as about
as it being about two men whose friendship falls apart,
was like ludicrously bad. And so I just want to
clarify it is a horror film and it's weird. I

(01:35:40):
didn't want to give away anything, and so I chose
to describe it that way. But Mark, if you could
watch it so we could talk about it, I would
be most appreciates.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
Right, Well, I think I told you, like so, that's
a Martin McDonough film, and like Martin mcdonna is maybe
one of the most famous playwrights alive. And I've kind
of a love hate relationship with a guy like he
did in Bruges, which is maybe one of the most
underrated films the list, you know, twenty some years or whatever.
It's like, it's a really really entertaining black comedy. But
he also did three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, which like

(01:36:08):
one a bunch of oscars and stuff, and I did
not care for that at all. So I don't know.
Maybe I need to see this third film and break
the tie here.

Speaker 1 (01:36:20):
Okay, great, okay, did you want to talk about fight
of the week or anything? Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
Well, did we have a fight of the week? Do
you wanted to talk about it?

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
I don't know. I'm just bringing this on you. So
Mark and I used to have a podcast at Ricochet
called I Think Well.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
No, it was not called the Week, it was just
called The Hemingways.

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
But we always ended with a fight that we'd had,
and then we talk about our two sides of the fight.
Then people would weigh in, but did we have a fight?

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
I'm sure we did, but I think the strength of
our marriages is where we're not really remembering them the
way that we used to. Yeah, I know it was.
That really became the most popular feature of the podcast.
And I'm sorry you're springing on me because I can't
really like think of anything. I mean, all the fights
we had have been in like entirely one sided. Like
I didn't see that thing that was sent to my
email three times in a row, and you know you

(01:37:06):
got frustrated with me, but you know it's not really
much of a fight. It's more me being been, more
me being me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
Yeah, I can't remember anything. Sorry, we'll work on it
for next time. You guessed, next time, David abandons us
and if there is next time, okay, great. Well that's
it for this episode of You're Wrong. If you have
any comments again, please email us at radio at the
Federalists dot com and other than that be lovers of

(01:37:37):
freedom and anxious for the prank.