Well Whiskey coming day don't From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the Three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Gott A giving Wilon where you're in loud.
Down and lod Welcome everybody to a special Turkey Day edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, where, if you haven't already fallen asleep by watching three terrible NFL games yesterday while eating turkey and red wine guaranteed to make even the Philadelphia Eagles look like a boring team, put
you to bed. We have for you now now a special out of order holiday episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, And as usual, I'm joined by my co host Steve Hayward, who is if you can't see him, and I hope he posts a photo of this has some deliciously inviting landscape behind him.
Where are you, Steve? I am still in Italy. I didn't come home like you guys did. I'm in Positano on the Amalfi Coast, where I've spent today. Mostly I've spent the day outside of my balcony writing until it started raining. But it's great.
I hope people are following Steve's feet on Facebook, where he's been posting pictures of the Italian countryside and food and Lucretia, where are you.
I'm home. I am happy to be home. No. I had a lovely time in Italy, especially with our friends, the Baron and the Baroness. I got to spend some quality time with the Baron after the poor Baroness had to go to Japan, which was really sad. But what a lovely man he is. And I'm just I'm sort of still warm and basking in the fun of it all. But I'm back to the usual Lucretia grind, cooking, cleaning, playing with the cat, you know, playing with the dog, that sort of thing. So life is boring again.
But I have to say listeners that Lucretia was in an uncommonly good mood in Italy, because if you looked at the Steve's substack, there's a photo of Lucretia and I at a very high window in a castle in Kante. She's not trying to throw me out.
Well, that's what commenter said, is it's dangerous for you John to be standing so close to Lucretia near an open window. I guess he thinks you're a clumsy Russian or something.
No, she thinks she equates he obviously she or she obviously creates Lrisha. Lucretia with the effectiveness of the KGB just something.
I never doubted.
Okay, so well, I'm back in the good old United States. But we did have a wonderful trip talking about natural rights, common good, constitutionalism, and the elections all in Italy. And we're going to talk about our reflections on the election, which I think are actually enhanced by being in another country and seeing it from the outsider's perspective and trying to explain to them what happened in the November election.
But before we get to that, let's just talk. Let's mark a little bit that we're here on Thanksgiving weekend and start with Steve, what do you have to be thankful for? Howard did you celebrate Thanksgiving in Italy? Points to any listeners who know the Italian word for Turkey, it's a kino, which makes no sense at all. I'm sure the Turkey must have come over from Europe from the United States. I don't think they had turkeys before the discovery of the New World.
I'm not sure.
But anyway, Steve, did you have turkey?
Did you drink?
You watch bad football?
What do you do? No? No, we we had some pizza and some good Italian or derbs and things like that. I we didn't know. That's just that's just every day in the Hayward house.
Or why did you go two thousand miles for that?
Well not really, don't eat that much pizza at home. Oddly enough, Well, there wasn't any turkey around that I saw, or turkeno or whatever you call it. By the way, Tino, by the way, it's one of the I mean, there's no reason to waste more than ten seconds on this, but it's one of the attacks of the left on Thanksgiving, you know, because a colonial set colonials of oppression thing, right, But that you know, they didn't really have turkey at
the first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts. It was just some wild bird they found there, so who knows what it was. But no, So I've just had Italian pluisine, and I have to say that I like coming here. I've never been to the Mouthy Coast, and I wanted to try the.
Other example of o. Steve Hayward is a Barbarian and a Cretn But.
Go on, Well, it's the off season here and most of the hotels are a lot of other places are still open, and I'd say at least three quarters of the restaurants are closed, in part because they're doing major road construction and nobody can get to them. It's a little tricky getting around. So but we're having a great time.
Yeah, that's good.
I'm reading about crazy football games, but I did not see any of them.
Isn't it funny how nobody ever challenges other cultures, other countries' longstanding traditions. So if Turkey was or wasn't at the first Thanksgiving, does it really matter the fact that there's this lovely American It's hard to establish traditions that are sort of country wide nationwide, but Thanksgiving has become
one of those. And I think that every time somebody wants to make some snarky comment about colonialism or imperialism or you know, Native American genocide or something like that, I just smack them. I'm tired of it, really. I mean, Thanksgiving is an absolutely lovely tradition, and I saw some dull article in the Washington excuse me, what's it called? The Wall Street Journal? The Wall Street Journal the other day about don't pretend to be grateful if you're not grateful,
because that's more harming to your soul. I think they use the word soul. That's more. That's more harming to your well being than if you're just acknowledged that you have nothing to be grateful for.
Well, you know, I think in your well, I think from a point of view of the cultural left, Europe may be worse than America because it's holidays go back many you know, Millennia are more right. Yeah, I mean I was in I was in Rome one year, many years ago. I think it's August fifteenth as the feast of the Assumption, and the whole country closed down. I mean there was nothing open.
But nobody celebrates it.
They just well, okay, yeah, well that could be right. But the point is there are explicitly religious holidays here and ours are sort of that typical America and mix a religious and secular together, which confuses you know, our Supreme Court.
Needless to say, I did the fun of being a visiting professor for a semester in Italy, and it was the best because all Roman Catholic holidays were state holidays, right, so we got we had almost we had vacation after vacation.
I think Germany had more. Actually it was very interesting. I think Germany has more state religious holidays. I guess for Luther or something. I don't know. But every other day you couldn't do anything because it was a federal holiday and you had to stay home. I do want to say something before we move off this topic about
my I'm going to be serious for a moment. It is my firm belief that the most important what would you call it, the most important virtue, I guess, is gratitude and the absolutely beyond any anything else in the world that someone who is grateful, shows gradude, lives with gratitude, is happy. And I think that if I were going to in two sentences define what's wrong with the left is they're bitter and resentful and they're not grateful for
what they have. And you see that all of the time, whereas the people who are happy, the people who are content, it doesn't matter what they have or how much they have, they're disgrateful for having it. And so that's my Thanksgiving Day message.
Great, you're here.
I'm very grateful. I mean, we live if you live in the United States. My priest likes to have this little thing in some of his homilies, and he stands up in front of the parish and and imagine this long continuum of all the people in the in the world. You can even see me doing this, But and imagine all the people in the world. And you can look in one direction or the other. If you look in this direction, you can look at the people who have more than you, who are better off than you, et cetera,
et cetera. If you look in the other direction, you can see the people who who don't enjoyed the same material and other blessings, freedom and so forth. And if you live in the United States, you are in the top half of one percent if you live in the United States of the people who look back on everyone else. And you know, that's just something to be also to be grateful for that we live in a country with amazing blessings.
Although I'll add one last contrast from over here in Italy. It finally occurred to me driving the terrifying roads yesterday to get out here on this very formidable coastline, and also looking at the buildings I've been in and so forth. If Italy had OSHA and NITSA and all other safety bureaucracies, three quarters of this country would be shut down in an instant, because you know, we're whiny, you know whats and there's still some Roman virtue intact here.
Well, Allison and I were discussing the fact that you're driving through these crazy streets that are I mean, they're more narrow than my bathroom, right, and they've got cars on either side of them in motorcycles and mopeds and scooters, and they're driving these vans and people are in and out and there's no right of travel, right of way. I mean, it's just crazy. The entire time you're on the roads, and you never see even a fender bender.
You never see an accident, you never see anybody crashing. You never know. Steve was watching my face as we were driving down this really narrow road. Then there's this whole line of motorcycles parked and the mirror on the van was like a quarter of an inch away from these motorcycles. As we're driving down. I'm probably only going about forty kilometers, but Still it's just you know, these people are One thing is they don't text while they're driving.
They pay attention. You could not pay attention.
So yeah, but I still don't see how any cars in this country have their mirror still on them. But they do. Somehow they all do.
You don't see it. You don't see them scratched. You don't see in those tiny places where they make those redible terms with the vans and the so forth. You know how if you can go into a parking garage in the United States and there'll be a pole you get to push the button and that pole will just be absolutely covered with little crashes. You can tell that that. You know, literally thousands of cars ran into that pole as someone who was driving up trying to get their
drinner to go to parking. None of that. In Italy. Nobody ever hits anything. It's amazing. They don't need.
For those listeners who are studying to take the Italian driver's license exam, you can stop taking notes now let's get to this. Although I do want to reinforce what Lucretia just said, I don't I think, at least on Thanksgiving, we should appreciate despite all our nation's problems. How truly lucky we are to live in the United States at
this time in history. As you said, if you were to draw a graph of and my utilitarian graph of human happiness and welfare, we would definitely be at the tail end, all the way at the right hand side of the X and Y axis.
I see what you did there, John, I see it. I'm not going to take the.
Base utilitarian sentence. Is there such a thing.
That's what we're measuring? Utles? Yeah? Yeah, no.
I thought one thing we might talk about is actually the substance of the panel that we held at the University of Florence between in front of a packed audience of Italian students and faculty. I have to say that they were, I think, really really deeply fascinated about our elections, maybe more so than their own elections. Maybe actually what happens the United States is of such critical economic and security importance to Western Europe that they should be more
interested in our elections than their own. But we had a great panel, and I want to repeat some of the things that were said, which I think I think set Stephen Lucretia off and hear what they had to say. Have you here let's hear what they have to say about So one of the panels said that we shouldn't make too much of the election because one it was
really really close. It's starting to look like President Trump won by one point five percent around there between one point less than two percent, maybe about two million votes or three million out of about out of one hundred and fifty million votes. So in one sense, this panel said, we're not talking about a landslide. We're talking about actually one of the closest margins of popular vote victory in
the last century. I think he said, out of the forty eight last presidential elections, this was the forty seventh, the largest smallest majority that the winner had held of
the popular vote. So this panelist said, rather, he was worried that President Trump and Republicans would overread the election and that they should view it as a plea for moderation in policy, which is actually something that conservative said about Biden right, that Biden also misinterpreted the twenty twenty election, Revelt Celtz, and that rather than see it as a mandate for ideological horse stable cleaning, we should just see
it as a plea for more moderate policies. Rather than a man, and not to think of it as a as a huge mandate of a kind that Reagan got in eighty or eighty four. So, uh, Lucretia, how about you. I think you were seething. I could feel the heat from your end of the pen. I was the moderator, by the way, I could see the flames emerging from Crecia's air while this was being said.
But luckily for the call for the okay, yeah, Luckily for the panelists, we didn't have a second round because we ran out of time, so we don't know what the creature was going to say in response to.
This, So those comments were actually in response to many of the things I said originally. Excuse me, by the way, let me just mention quickly that excuse me I had been I had been prepared with remarks when I came in. And then our good friend Eduardo was kind of behind moderating this whole or organizing this whole thing, asked me to since I was the only woman on the panel to speak about women's issues, which you.
Know, Throught was on the panel. Steve Steve's loves to talk about women's women's issues, and I'll come why we don't let him talk about the clean era, because eventually he starts talking about women's issues.
I'll come back to what I had to say about women in a moment, but that's quite all right. But it was it was me who said that we could we could consider the electional landslide, and I stand by that because it's not in terms of simple number. So I mean, we were told that Clinton had a mandate with forty three percent of the vote, and not a single person on the left or the squishy middle the right rhinos ever challenged that for even a moment. But
it's really a deeper question. It's not merely a numerical question. I would say, first the fact that Trump won despite every effort by the left to destroy him electorally, personally, legally, financially. You go on and on and on, and I mean they brought their a game to try to destroy him, and he came out Victoria victorious, which I understand was also an element in his victory because you know, there are a lot of people out there who said, if they can do that to Trump, anyway, we can go.
Lots of people have spoken about that, but you know what I mean by that, So knowing that everything was stacked against him. Let me one more tangent Off and Steve may have something to say about this, But it came out last week that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post were pressuring very hard for the more accurate polls like the I don't want to say Atlas shrug, that's not what it's called, Atlas whatever.
Falgar and Rasmussen, who who really are in many ways the gold standard of for accuracy, They were being pressured to wait their weight their samples better and then Real Clear Politics was being pressured to weight their polls. In other words, they were being asked to uh. Instead of just doing what they do, which is a simple average of political polls uh. They were being asked to wait
for Falgar and those other kinds of polls down. It was absolutely critical to the left to maintain the fiction that Kamala Harris had a bump, that Kamala Harris was surge, and all of those things, because that was really their only hope of convincing people that they could go to the polls and vote for Kamala hair. So, knowing all of that, sorry, that was a long way to get to where we are. People are tired of what they saw the Biden Harris administration do. They're tired of runaway
power and money spending by bureaucrats. They're tired of the open borders. I was at of friends who lives I've mentioned that those friends before. They're the ones who were attempted, kidnapped by illegals and being led by a cartel. Mentioned that a long time ago. There's a pathway. They don't
live permanently in this house. There's a pathway through their yard where they've actually cut through a gate and put their own gate, cut through a fence, putting their own gate illegal aliens and the cartels, and put a gate in that they have the lock, the key to the lock on the gate. I mean, it's if you live in the southern southeastern part of Arizona. Any I suppose anywhere south in Arizona. You know how bad illegal immigration is. But the rest of the country got to feel that too.
They saw the absolutely uneven handed there's probably a better word for it, administration of justice. You know, a mother, a young mother of three, goes to jail for twelve years for protesting outside of an abortion clinic and you know, all of the scum and the George Floyd sub human scum never suffered a single thing for the most part. You know, they're just tired of it. So to dismiss this result as anything other than astounding, in my opinion,
is just to have your head in the sand. Okay, I'm done, Steve, I talk too much.
Go ahead, well, Steve, Yeah, First of all, I think you're right that each call it a landslide, and the people want to say yeah, but on the numbers, it's really not. Are miss something important? So it's true that it looks like Trump will probably finish slightly below fifty percent of the total vote cast. But of course Bill Clinton never broke fifty percent. He only got forty nine
percent in his second election in nineteen ninety six. That's because Pero was running again and still got five percent of the vote or something like that. But if you go back to Reagan in eighty Reagan only got I think like fifty point five percent of the total popular vote. And the reason and if you hadn't had, oh, let me go through a few numbers. So the reason he got four hundred and eighty nine electoral votes is the voters were distributed more evenly way back in that election.
But on the other hand, if you hadn't had a third party candidate run like John Anderson, Reagan might well, or I should put it this way, Carter might well have won four or five more states. He might well have won New York. I think a lot of Anderson did well in New York, and Reagan won the state narrowly. I think a partner might have won Oregon. The point is everyone called that a landslide because it was so shocking and unexpected election. A couple are things about the
eighty election with Reagan Reagan. One, let's see Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama by less than thirty thousand votes in each state. It's not the red state landslide we think of those southern states today. It was actually quite close. But he did take them from Carter, because remember Carter sweeping the South is the only reason he won the nineteen seventy sixth election. And nowadays, this was the beginning of a realignment.
It was the beginning of Democratic voters were saying we could vote for Republicans for president and later for other offices as well, And so you know, it seems to me that what is important is the vote shifts that take place. It's one thing if Trump had only won by motivating the Republican base of suburban nights and capturing traditional Republican constituencies. But as we now know, he did massively well among groups he's not supposed to do well
with Asians, Hispanics, black, Native Americans. He got a majority of the Indian vote. To put it that way, you know, American Indian vote, right. I guess all those land acknowledgements didn't work, and so you know if the geography. Oh, and the Democrats lost the most votes in terms of raw numbers in their strongholds in California, in New York and Illinois, which ought to terrify them, it seems to me.
And then finally, no one thought, as Lucreatius said, that Trump had any hope of winning, or if he did, it would be like twenty sixteen by an inside straight with narrow victories in the electoral college, but not the popular vote, and so that is shattered and lying on the ground. So with a closely divided country like we have, it seems to me that the shift of this kind is it really does qualify as at least earth shaking, and by the way, earth shaking is what leads to landslides.
And last thought is yeah, I mean the critics are right to say. The big question is can Republicans hold onto these votes? And then you know, I could see you know, bad economy or some bad events happening and Republicans doing the midterms. I'd bet on that now. But I do think that, you know, next few election cycles
that will be interesting to see. And by the way, my ideal matchup for twenty twenty eight would be jd Vance against Pete Bhudha Judge and then I think you will get a real, honest to god optor vote landslide. They're the perfect exemplars of the country's divisions, and I think I know who would win that one.
John, let me follow under the JD vancing really quick. That remember that, for as long as I can remember, since Trump's victory in twenty sixteen, people would say this is a Trump victory, a Trump victory, only you know, his somewhat strained relationship at times with the Republican Party itself would has led people to say, well, Trump can do it, but nobody else can. And there were a lot of people who kind of went against DeSantis for
that reason. The brilliance of him choosing JD. Vance is that there is, in fact a standard bearer for the Trump Republican Party, and instead of it having to become a new party. I know I've said this before, we talked about it, there's not going to have to be a third party, a Trump Party, a make a you know, a mega party. The Republican Party is now the mega party and it has a standard bearer because of JD. Vance in the future in my area.
Can I add one more thought to that point. You know Patrick Graffini, who's a Polster and a you know, serious numbers guy. He makes a pretty persuasive case that the advanced debate with Waltz was actually a key turning point in the fall campaign. Normally vice presidents of debates don't matter at all. He thinks that one did, and that's a curious fact. The other thing I'll add is, you know, the Republicans are going to have you know what like a three or four seat majority in the House,
which is razor thin. That's because Trump's appointing too many Republicans to the cabinet. But for the second election in a row, Republicans won what you might call the House popular vote. Republican candidates nationwide got three percent more vote than Democrats they did in twenty twenty two. The reason the numbers are closer or for you know, a bunch of quarks, but also the way the districts are drawn and so forth. But that looks like a durable sign
of a solid base Republicans. That is arguably larger than Trump's.
Question Steve, about that, I mean, so the generic congressional vote, is that what you're talking about? Yes, right now, Well, so the generic congressional polling has never had Republicans up by three? Am I correct in that? Okay, that's correct.
The usually run at least two points ahead of what the generic ballot says.
Yes, sorry, yeah, well I thought just my own two cents and then maybe one more round on the election and what it means for in the left's favorite policies like TI you.
Know, there's this just this is your guys world. There's this theory in political science about what they call critical elections and they don't. There's lots of argument about what causes a critical election or even how you mention it. I mean measure it, but you know they are basically they agree on or you know, Washington's election, which has to be the first one. Then Jefferson Lincoln, uh, and then after Lincoln is a sorry Jackson Lincoln, and then
a long period of Republican stability. The next one is not till FDR and then I think this was hard for Wells is a kind of an anomaly. So the and then Reagan is the last one. So this doesn't mean like the Republicans or the Democrats win all the elections in that period. But the way you can tell allegedly coined to these theories is that even even people in the opposing party like Eisenhower winning, they don't try to upset the basic choices or values of that time.
So Eisenhower didn't try to get rid of social Security, for example. So I will I do think this was an important election. I actually read it as a reaffort that we're still in the Reagan period. Obama and Biden are the anomalies, and you don't see people saying really, I mean saying we should raise taxes would be and getting away with a majority support with that would be a sign that the Reagan peeriod was over or saying yes, we really want big government. Only government can solve our problems.
But even Biden and Obama when they ran, they would not say things like that. They all couched it as so I still I think, I actually I don't see us entering some different.
Kind of time yet.
I mean, maybe this or conservative populism would have been saying that, maybe it will become that by the next election, But so far to see this as a reaffirmation of the values Americans voted into office in nineteen eighty. Okay, but go ahead, Lucretia, do you want to talk about that? And also you want to talk about what this means for some of what this election means for some of the liberals favor pieties like DEI for example.
And I think the answer all goes together to some extent, John I, whether it's a critical election, whether Obama was a critical election that moved the entire populace into a different direction, like say FDR. I leave that to the real political scientists to decide that. That's a little bit
uninteresting to me. But what I will say is that the left has been incredibly successful since at least George H. W. Bush and to some extent in destroying some of Reagan's better possibilities for a true political realignment, not so much of voters, but of actual policies. I mean, Reagan did some things, but he never stopped the march of the left. He never stopped our culture, our institutions from becoming more and more leftist all the time. So that's what I
consider different than what you're saying. And excuse me, even I mean, to the great extent, even Trump is not going to dismantle He's not going to have Elon Musk dismantle the federal government and fire eighty percent of the workers like Elon Musk was able to do. For Twitter, right, we could do that, We could do it very easily. But I do think that the fact that the less lies, and I believe that's true. You said it yourself. They always had to hide what they really wanted to do.
I mean, Obama, I'm going to transform America. He said it, he meant it, and people took that to mean something good, when of course he had in mind the destruction of the entire country. And so I think that Trump is the only one who has truly been able willing to call out the left on what's really happening, and they they're still shocked by it. They're still shocked that somebody would doubt their lies, doubt their attempt to dissemble and
be disingenuous about things. In you mentioned is I think the perfect example of it. I can remember a time. Actually it's probably still true at my university. Let me scratch that start up. It's impossible for you to challenge the idea that there's something fundamentally evil and racist about the entire DEI project. To do so makes you a Nazi or something worse than a Nazi if there is something so. The fact that Trump is willing and able to begin to dismantle DEI at the federal government, and
everybody else is looking at it. Michigan's going to dismantle theirs. You know, all of that is I think the success of Trump's election is it's so deep that people like me, I've never been afraid, but you know what I mean, people like me can actually go out there and say, no, this is crap. We don't need to do this anymore. We need to go back to a meritor a system
of merit. And let me one last thing, and I'll let Steep, go that the fact that they have gone so hard after some of Trump's appointees, like the Pete haigesf thing, what a you know, a whole pile of crap, that whole he raped a woman thing? Is you know, they haven't given up on that tactic because they've got nothing else. All Right, Sorry, Steve, go ahead, Steve.
I don't really have too much to add to that. I mean, I can keep going on realignment theory and all the rest of that, but we'll really bore listeners. I think there is one more thing though, and maybe you wanted to go in this direction, is it is one thing is what's this? Realignments also involved new coalitions of voters. And that's why, by the way, eighteen ninety six is considered a realigning election, as McKinley for Republicans assembled a new coalition of voters going forward, and the
new deal does the same. Okay. One of the odd things is if you look at Trump's cabinet picks, you have some really solid people. You have some former Democrats like Tulca Gabbard. Then you also have this Labor secretary pick, this former Republican. Well, see, the thing is is Uh. Everyone says she's pro labor and pro unions in a way that has actually pleased even Randy Winegarden of the American Federation of Teachers, who I think is a stalinist.
Really Uh, and that's what's going on here. I mean that thing.
Don't forget my favorite, my epithet for her, the world's worst female person.
That proud. Okay, here's the thing we've been hearing for years now.
Uh.
That part of well, it's part of the working class, right. Uh. And you have a lot of the people who are in the nationalist conservative movement who are saying the conservative Republicans, Trump, whoever, need to be more pro labor or more pro union. And I think this is very problematic in a bunch of ways. But this is an odd way. Possibly it may be deliberate of wanting to, you know, reshape the coalitions. I mean it was other time. Maybe we'll talk about
the tariff questions, and that's completely heterodox Republican economics. And you know, Trump was kind of restrained about it in his first term. He did some but I think now we're going to get We're going to get it for real. And that's would have been heresy up until Trump arrived on the scene.
I mean that's true. I think you're seeing an economic policy that would not really have been Reagan's economic policy.
Yeah.
Uh.
And so that you have a kind of realignment of the issues too, that may be part of a realignment of the coalition, although, like I said, I don't think we've seen enough yet in this election.
Yeah. Let me add, you know, it's just as Trump is going to Royal foreign policy with his heterodox views. I'll add the good, the really unalloyed good part of it is. You know, I know Chris Wright quite well, his Energy Secretary designate, and Doug Burgham. I hear nothing but good things about Actually Chris because he does a lot of his oil drilling in North Dakota, knows Governor quite well. So they don't need to get to know each other. And I think they're not only going to
be aggressive about energy production at home. I think, together with Trump and other people in the White House, they are going to smash the little bits the entire international energy climate nonsense. And in fact, you already see them in retreat. But I think they're gonna smash what's left of it into nothing before they're done, and that'll be a great thing to watch.
About women. Wait, because I was forced to talk about women, let me just say this really quickly, John, You know, I could not be ungracious and decline the opportunity. Uh So, what I really said was women were expected to vote for kam Lem and Ding Dong. They didn't. I mean they didn't in the numbers that they were expected to that as a matter of fact, Trump is not going to make them all wear handmaiden's costumes and take away all of their rights and turn them into sex slaves.
And I don't know whatever else. I think that I offended a few of the women lawsuits in the audience because I was sort of unwilling to unwilling to couch my remarks in the feminist terms. And anyway, I very quickly brought it back to a subject that you know, matters. Who cares about women? Sorry, I'm just kidding. All right, that's enough of that.
Well, we did have that one. The student questions audience, by the way, were great, but there was that one lady who sounded like she attended an American university because it's all about the patriarchy and being hostile to women. That's sy What are you gonna do with this?
Oh?
Well, it's fun.
I will I will say that this, as far as I can remember, this was Steve's favorite panel ever in history, because at the end of the session all the students crowded around Steve and basically ignored the rest of us after.
He was too lazy to get and Steve.
Steve did not.
This is also a first Steve refused to go to dinner. Steve wanted to stay behind and talk with all the students and had to be torn away from his new Italian fan club. So let's move on, actually to another related issue involving the new administration. What do you guys make of this Department of Governmental Efficiency DOGE that's been created by President Trump is being headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami. A strange committee that has no government authorities,
not actually to be located inside the government. It's going to be outside the government and supposed to identify ways to save money and shrink the government. Gosh, I remember Reagan did something like this called the Grace Commission, And I remember even Al Gore said that he was, yeah, we may forget that we forget most things about al Gore, but al Gore is vice president was also in charge of a government committee to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse he.
Would call it.
So let's start with Steve this time. Steve, what do you think of this committee? Do you think is just political posturing? There's no real chance that such a committee would actually succeed, That it will crash on the same shoals of bureaucracy that have defeated numerous other efforts to slim down the federal government. How much money can you really save when we're spending so much money on entitlements and interest on the national debt.
Steve, Yeah, all right, Well, well, first of all, let's just stipulate and not waste time on the fact that the real money is in the entitlements, and you're not really going to shrink the deficit and the debt until we get a handle on those, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. I think that, unfortunately, it may require a major financial crisis on the level the one we had in two thousand and eight. But let's leave
that for another side. Trump is appointing people who understand this problem, like our old friend Kevin Hassett is going to go back in and he understands as well, so we'll see. But look, I mean the Grace Commission you mentioned, John. I wrote a piece about the lessons of the Grace Commission for DOGE for our Political Question Substack a few
weeks ago. The Grace Commission is kind of thought of as a bus They identified I think three hundred and twenty five billion dollars of savings over three years that was real money in nineteen eighty five, and the General Accounting Office as it was called then, they said, yeah, it looks more like ninety billion to us. A lot of these savings aren't real, and there it is true that some things were accounted for by the weird and
byzantine accounting of the federal government. And you can also say, well, that's the government covering for itself. It's probably a valid criticism to make. But the point is a commission, whether it's official or not, that has the president's backing, especially with an administration of this disposition, might actually make some headway. So I'm optimistic about it. I'm sure they'll come up
with some really wild ideas that will be crazy. We to'll probably come up with some good ones that get through. But I think the model it ought to be followed. I said, fine, if you don't like an unofficial commission, let's have an official one. Why don't we recreate for cutting the budget the something like the Base Closure Commission of the nineteen nineties. I don't know if you remember that, John,
you were, you know, down Washington, right. And for listeners who don't remember this, you know, after the Cold War we had a lot of military bases we didn't need anymore. It cost a lot of money. But the problem is if you say let's close you know, Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, the local California Congressional delegation will scream and yell, oh, you can't do that. It's important
to the local economy. It has these functions and the dynamics of politics and the House for such especially the House, such that there'd be lag rolling going on. You know, you give me your vote to keep this base open, and all vote for your base, so you couldn't break the logjam. And it was dick army, you know. It came in part of the Gigrich Revolution. Is said, I have an idea, Let's have a base closure commission that tries to weigh on the merits what basis should be closed.
And the deal that Congress had to vote for to set it up was the commission will send back their list of base closures and Congress has to vote it up or down, with no amendments, no fiddling around, no exceptions. And that worked. Now it's hard hard, well, I know there, No, I know, yes, I understand. No, listen, I understand how the politics went on the commission itself. However, in terms of actually doing something rather than nothing, it is a
relative success, I think. But forget whether that particular case. How about a budget cutting commission? Uh, and again it'd be subject to massive political pressure. But what about that vehicle of saying to Congress, Okay, here's things we can start to cut up or down, vote no, you know, no, no amendments and so forth. And maybe that's something we got to propose.
We didn't we had that. What the heck was it the guy from Texas that brought about sequestration. They tried that one that was.
But that was that was but that was sort of yes and no, that was sort of automatic cuts that kicked in and we tried it again. By the way, under George w USh, I think under Obama, but actum Obama.
OK. So I'm going to disagree with Steve never mind about Brack. By the way, I I can't get upset about Brack because I of course live right next to an army base that has lost since we lost John McCain. Uh, we've got idiots for senators now, or at least in Mark Kelly. We have lost quite a few missions from Fort wa Chuka over the years because we don't We've
lost them to you'll never guess Alabama. But anyway, that being said, Uh, the Lucreatia compound was immeasurably benefited by the last BRAC because they talked seriously about shutting down. Uh that so, so we were able to buy a new piece of property to build a house on at a tiny fraction because BRACK was looming. And then Brack came through and said it was going to you know, my army base was going to stay open, and so we sold the house we were living in for a
ridiculous amount of money. So I'm happy about Brack and all of that. I'm not saying that, but there was a lot more politics to it than you're giving it credit for, Steve. But anyway back to your argument that it should be official and not official. The first thing I thought of when I saw a Department of Government Efficiency inside of the government was laughing out loud, right, I mean, the only reason you can take it seriously
is because it's an unofficial commission. And you know, because every it's like something out of a Joseph Heller novel, the Department of Government Efficiency that's going to cut government. But the fact a, I know that probably most of the people that work for DOGE are going to be paid, but Vivek and Elon are both volunteers. They're taking no money for this. They're doing this out of altruism, whatever
you want. So let's hope that out of this they can do things like I saw today that they're planning on moving many, many, many, many of the bureaucrats that they're not getting rid of out of Washington, d C or the Washington DC area and into parts of the country where they're actually relevant. And think what that will do for housing prices in Washington, d C, which are
the highest. Think what that will do for you Maryland and those really poorly governed states, Maryland, to some extent Virginia, but much more the case Maryland, Delaware. All of those places will actually have to do, if they're successful at this do without those incredible tax revenues that come in from all of those overpaid federal employees working in Washington, d C. Who not only are overpaid, but the cost of living the cola increases are the cola extra pay
is ridiculous. So that's my thought on the matter. I don't want it to be official, Steve Well.
One thing that's going to be required is congressional approval and cooperation. One of the proposals I saw Elon Musk came out with two days ago was let's get rid of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. I totally agree, but
you'd have to get Congress to pass the law. You know, the president can't just shut an agency down and return the money, although that might bring us to an interesting constitutional confrontation because there's also a word that President Trump wants to revive the empowerment power and actually claim that the president has the constitutional authority not to fully spend
appropriated funds. This actually was something that Thomas Jefferson did and many presidents did all the way through till Richard Nixon, and because of Watergate, Richard Nixon provoked a bill passed by Congress called the was it called the Budget Empowerment and Control control.
That prohibits it.
And also this Supreme Court is in decision a case called Train, which I teach in class, which also held that the president had no constitutional authority to refuse to carry out an appropriation. Although who knows, we may see a different outcome of this went to the Supreme Court this time.
Steve Well, is that that that Train case was that Russell Train, the administrator of a certain particular agency was see that you don't remember.
It is to go unnamed Steve unnamed Well.
That was very sneaky of you. I know it was. I was trying to get back at you for the utilitarianism, cost benefit and market the outset. Look. I mean, I've always thought that.
By the way, it is Trained versus City of New York. Okay, yes it is, and it is an environmental law case. I'm sure Training is one of the figures that you have in portraiture on in your Office of the UK Administrators every years.
I believe Russell Train was the first administrator of the e PA when Nixon created it and anyway. So look, I've always thought that, but I haven't looked at it closely. So this is just off the top of my head that that Budget can Empaunment Control Act was perhaps unconstitutional or at least challengeable. Maybe not, I don't know. Yeah, And as an empirical matter, federal spending really started galloping
ahead after that act passed. I mean had already grown a lot through you know, great Society and the Nix's to presidencies. But that took off the last restraints the executive had to you might say, arm wrestle with Congress overspending because now you've got to veto everything, and they passed over your vetos and anyway, So I think that's
been a very bad thing. Oh, by the way, the other side of the deal was Congress was supposed to have this new budget process where they pass it's elaborate, but you pass thirteen separate appropriation bills for the major cabinet agencies and departments of government. And I think they've only gone according to process twice in almost fifty years.
And some presidents Republicans usually Reagan, complain about very late in his administration too late in my opinion, you know, sit still for this and this is what's led to the government shutdowns and these omnibus bills every year that are just a travesty. So I think it'd be very much worth challenging it. And you know, let Trump get sued by fifty different people all over the you know, all over the country, and it could be fun to see how that turns out. It certainly it'll fight worth having.
So I would go back for a moment to what we discussed near the beginning, and that is whether or not this is a mandate and a landslide, because if you're going to talk about the Budget Impendment and Control Act of nineteen seventy four.
Yeah, fifty years old, right.
No, No, nineteen seventy four Watergate. So right, Here's here's my quick off the cuff theory about all of that, and that is that Nixon's Nixon's failures in many ways, and the failures of Republicans afterwards to challenge the growing bwocracy, to challenge the left's cultural takeover of our federal government had to do with the fact that Nixon was was bowed and defeated by the legal system. Now, you know,
we could spend all day talking about Watergate. I don't intend to do that today, but one could have made the argument just as easily that Nixon didn't deserve what happened to him. He certainly didn't, he wouldn't have he shouldn't have been impeached, et cetera, et cetera. Regardless he did, he was defeated, and he and he resigned. Trump, on
the other hand, refused, absolutely refused to be defeated. And I mean, how many of us really thought that that every single one of those law fair cases against Trump would fail and fail as miserably as they had. I'm sure, I know I was worried. I was. I thought they were all bogus, but I was worried that they would
be successful. Not only were they not successful, they made him stronger, and so thinking about thinking about an assault on entrenched bureaucracy and government spending in all of those things. From the point of view of someone victorious versus someone constantly hampered by law fair or you know, even Reagan with around contra, I think Trump has a chance because he doesn't give a damn and why should he. You know, everybody, every other Republican wants. You know, people don't like them
and Trump. I mean, why would Trump like a single person on the left or in the squishy middle that didn't stand up for him? He owes those people nothing, and Elon muscows those people nothing. You know, talk we never talk about the fact that Elon Musk, even more so than Trump, is being persecuted and prosecuted from every angle. I think I saw something that almost every single agency has some kind of what would the right word be,
persecution against Elon Musk for some violation of some stupid regulation. Right, So who cares?
Can I just add a little bit to that. I have a somewhat different narrative than Lucretia, but it parallels hers. You know, there's a moment after the seventy two landslide when Nixon, This is well documented in a couple of places that most people never pay attention to. But after that massive landslide, which had little, very little coattails, he
didn't bring in a lot of Republicans with him. But Nixon had so much contempt for Congress and his own party in Congress that he actually amused aloud to people about maybe I should start a third party. Now this went nowhere, of course, but the point is that kind of sounds like trump pianism, right is populism or rejection
of both party establishments. And why this is important is part of the fury against Nixon from the left, beside the fact that they hated him viscerally, was that he did intend on a serious attack on the bureaucracy and on the indiscipline of Congress. Cresci's dodggerhead. She knows the story. It's the story John Marine and others tell very well. And you know, the view was among that spread even to some Republicans, is Mixon has to be stopped. And
here was the excuse to do it. Right now, in hindsight, I think there's the growing I'll just mention here in passing that I just finished today writing a long review of a memoir of Pennkachigian, who was you know that's a speechwriter for Reagan. But also I didn't know this. He was one of the diehards in the Nixon White House, along with Bruce Hurschinson and three or four other people
saying mister President, don't resign. You fight this to the end, and we think you can beat it, but al Hag and others said, no, no, you got to go to never mind the details of that. But I thought I was interesting to learn that about Ken, who I know slightly and is a very good guy. But I think now, looking back in hindsight, more and more serious people say, you know, boy, did we get all that? Not entirely wrong? But there was another side of that story. Nixon might
well have survived. It would require several things to have been done differently than they did. And I'll bet if Nixon were alive today, he'd be looking at Trump. He'd be nodding his head and saying, damn, that guy is good and I should have been like that. So I don't know, a few stray thoughts and all that.
And just to follow a note of dissent, I think Nixon is actually a bad fellow and should not have remained. We could we could have that debate later, I mean the construction of justice. And he was on the tape.
Uh well, we won't get off into that. I helped Shepherd on once to talk about I will just say, uh uh in Nixon's first term was a disaster substantively, And that's why, you know, my old Palace, stad Evans said, I didn't like Nixon until after Watergate, because you know, after wage and price controls and the EPA and opening the China, Watergate was a breath of fresh air. I always liked that.
So why don't we turn to the Let's see, we have a actually last issue, which is President Trump had a little phone call with the president of Mexico and apparently, according to the Trump side of the call, the president of Mexico's agreed to reduce immigration into the United States and to try to stop the flow fuendol into the United States. So that brings to my two questions, what do you think is really going to happen with Trump and immigration?
Are there enough resource?
Congress is going to provide enough resources for the Immigration and Citizenship Service, now headed by fellowing Tom Homan, to actually go out and remove millions of illegal aliens in the country. Will it may actually make a difference?
That's one? And then two.
Is Trump already having an effect on immigration just by threatening to do it? And is it going to be able to change the flow of immigration and I guess drugs into the country, whereas Mexico just going to wait a mout that it did last time. So let's start with lucretia.
Yep, I think so. And here's one of the things you have to remember, is there really is how do I but it makes a difference what the official attitude I don't want to even say policy attitude coming from Washington, d C. Is So I know I've said this before, I say it quickly. When SB ten seventy passed in Arizona, illegal immigration stopped behind my house. It was a nightly thing. There was trash, there was do you know that it was constant, the flow of illegal immigrants behind my house.
It stopped literally after SB ten seventy was passed. It never quite picked up as much. They found different routes after much of it was overturned. Here's the point. If you know, if you're an illegal immigrant and Biden is promising that you can come in, Biden is promising you that you will be transpor to someplace else in the country and then you can go there and you can get welfare, you can get you know, EBT cards or whatever,
all of the different things that happened. Why not come here And you can say, well, you shouldn't be breaking the law. But if you're from a poor country. On the other hand, if you make it very very clear that you come here, you're likely to be deported. You're not going to be sent to live with some distant family member. So you stop the large swath of persons who were just coming here genuinely looking for a better life. I am being sincere about that, despite the fact that
they're felons. They were. But when you stop that massive amount of illegal immigration, because people know that it's not going to be easy if they get here, then it's harder for the cartels and all those other people that are exploiting you know, child sex trafficking, women's sex trafficking, et cetera, and the fentanyl and the drugs. It's harder for them to mask their activities under the flow of illegal immigrants. That's what I would say, is thing one.
Thing two. I am not entirely convinced that you would need to raise the to increase the resources being given to ICE and HSI and so forth. Why because massive numbers of those people are currently babysitting processing taking care of illegal immigrants as they come across the border. They're no longer doing enforcement activities. They're basically welfare workers and so if you and they don't like it. By the way, they're not happy. I talk to agents all the time.
They're not happy doing paperwork all day long. They're not happy taking care of children who are supposedly, you know, being reunited with their parents and things like that. They would much rather be out there enforcing the law. And you know they've ICE has simply hemorrhaged agents over the last four years. And so my point is, maybe it's
going to take additional resources, maybe not. And then I think you'd actually find National Guard activity in some of these states, if it all can be done legally and constitutionally, willing to help out. Not in Arizona. While we've got that twit Katie Hobbs as governor, but she won't last much longer. So anyway, that's my thought. Steve's laughing at me. She's a twain. That's the nicest thing I can say about her.
No, I'm laughing at the image of somebody put up in the chat. Was that you or John? Oh? Well? Anyway, definitely not me. Yeah, Well, there's a I mean, there's true other things to be said about it. Who knows what actually happened on the call, but to announce publicly that they're going to agree, and then the president of Mexico, who's right left I think, has so try to yeah, but it's right trying to put some distance between them.
But I think there's a you know, it's fun sometimes to declare someone has said something because who you know, you maneuver and put some people in a box. But a couple of things here. I mean, I've been going crazy for more than ten years saying, wait a minute, people don't get from you know, South American all around the world up to the American border without assistance. Mexico at the very least permits this to happen and more likely facilitates it. And you know, nothing happens for no
good reason. That's the way I've been putting it this. You don't having you know, million people a year coming to the border spontaneously their help. We know there's some NGO groups and probably funded by the drug cartels.
And who maybe you're wrong on our federal government and.
Our federal sure all kinds of sources for it. And so that's if you can get Mexico to stop that, and if they can't stop it, by the way, or won't stop. It doesn't matter, which it gives Trump a good pretext to say, the government of Mexico is no no longer has control over its sovereign territory. And therefore, and this has been talked about for years, I'm going to declare the Mexican cartel supporters terrorism and authorized direct
military action against them. Now you can easily see Trump doing this, and Tom Holman is like a real breath of fresh air speaking of a breath of fresh air. And so I mean, I think Trump has all the high cards in this debate. And by the way, you John, I think you asked the question, what if Congress doesn't appropriate the funds? Well, I think then President Trump calls up Governor Abbit and says, you know, you guys, do what you want with your state police. Now, California won't,
Arizona won't. I'm not sure about New Mexico. Texas will. And at that point things get interesting because the pressure will be on the other states, you know, because the I think a lot of the because of Texas's measures that have had some effect. You hear that a lot more of the migration has shifted to California and New Mexico, not sure about your state, Lucretia. But so that begins to another red state blue spate division, right, And so it'll be interesting to watch. We'll just have to see
what happens. As Trump like to say so often, Christia.
No, no, I agree again. Never well again, never underestimate a welcoming attitude versus you're not welcome here. You can come through legally and you're welcome. And never underestimate how important it was that huge numbers of Hispanics, first generation Hispanic citizens, voted for Trump, and how important that is as well, because the left has I think, uh managed this sort of disingenuous kind of attitude. Well, you can't come out against immigration, and so the why the stupid
Republicans always passed immigration bills. Oh well, we can't afford to alienate our Hispanic voters. And they've just been wrong about that. So and Trump knows it. And that is going to be a big thing, I think, keeping them from preventing Trump from uh pursuing at least some of these policies. And again, I don't think it's going to take as much force as people are arguing. That's again that's it's a straw man argument.
In my opinion, it's one, you know one. Two more footnotes to this one is, you know I mentioned on the panel the other day, and I'm not sure my number is exactly right that Trump would deport I predicted Trump would deport fewer people than Obama did. I don't know what the Obama numbers were. They were pretty large. They're partly phony, but they're important for this reason.
Uh.
The Obama administration, by the way, they did it quietly. They didn't want to make a big deal about deporting people or stopping them at the border. They claimed large numbers of deportations of people who crossed the border, and they turned them back and made them go back right away. The Biden administration didn't turn anybody back that we're aware of. They let everybody in. And so the Obama people liked to brag that they were tough on immigration when it
suited their purposes. And the Obama administration, the Biden administration set it for you, every come in. You know, we don't care. So that's one important point, I think. But what you hear the Trump people is they know, as a practical matter, you can't deport a or nine million people.
That's just physically impossible. They want to target a million people for deportation, and they want to target the people who have bogus asylum claims, criminal records, have no vetting of what countries they come from, people who are economic migrants, and they think that will send a signal for people to stop coming and maybe a lot of other people
will decide to go back where they came from. You know the old self deportation line in Mitt Romney's in felicitous phrase, and you know that'll be a significant change.
In thous about it.
I like it, I know what you do. It just it was clunky at the time.
Okay, well that's what's changed. You know, rhinos can't even argue like Rodney did.
You know there's a reason rhinos are endangered species.
So we've come to the end of our episode. We're going to maybe maybe we'll just plug it now. We have more rounds about natural versus positivism that are going up on Steve's substack Political Questions, which you are all welcome to read and to subscribe to. And maybe, since I hope December will be a slower month, although there's no signs of it being, maybe we will get a chance to have that debate on the podcast, but for now, I think we have to end this special Thanksgiving episode.
Lucreciate you have some Babylon Bee headlines for us, Yes.
I do, so we didn't discuss not that who cares anymore. Kamala Harris's recent whatever it was, she was talking to a lot I don't even remember, but she was very obviously not sober, or at least brain did. I don't know if there's a difference, but the Babylon b Kamalan Kamala officially unburdened by sobriety. Don't let anyone take your power, tipsy aunt, Kamala tells confused five year olds at Thanksgiving
table Thanksgiving kids table. Yeah, you do that. I put in the chat and maybe Steve wants to post it because I think it's hilarious. It's the headline is it's official Trump now has the hottest cabinet of all time, and it's Pam Bundy, Christine Levitt, Christy Nome and Tom Homan. And if you go into the actual article, it says I just can't stop googling that borders our guy, the hottest cabinet of all time. I guess you have to see the picture.
Oh yeah, I'll.
Back to your question about Mexico. Trump proposes twenty five percent tariff on imports from California. Report. We didn't even discuss this either. I mean, what a what a this? Let me let me stop for just a moment. The idea that the Kamala Kamalam Dingdong campaign spent what is it, one point five.
Billion billion dollars billion.
Dollars in one hundred days to lose as badly as they did, and then the way they spent money, it was like you know, giving your your sixteen year old kid at your credit card with no limit. And the interesting thing about it is the left is just those big left donors are are furious about the way their money was wasted. So they're not they may not even invest money into the twenty twenty six elections because they're just disgusted. So report Kamala is twenty twenty eight campaign
already seven hundred million dollars in debt. That's pretty funny, if you have to admit just a couple more. Trump announced his plan to deport five thousand illegal immigrants in one three owned high on the civic You kind of have to be a border town really to appreciate that one. So just a little Thanksgiving one. A couple man does his part to prepare Thanksgiving by not going into the kitchen so you won't be in the way.
I like that.
Yeah you don't get it, do you, John?
No, I don't. It's where the servants go who prepare my news.
Yes, just check.
I knew they went somewhere. I love pumpkin pie. This is man spring gallon of ready Whip over pumpkin pie. I will simply not I don't eat ready Whip, obviously, but I simply will not eat pumpkin pie unless it has real whip cream on top.
Oh yeah it's not.
It's there's no point. And I put in the chat this is not a Babylon b I'm not sure where I got it, but I was sending it to Steve for his weekend pictures. And it's a picture of Kamala and Oprah standing in front of a big crowd of people. It says paid two million dollars to rent Oprah and lost. And then the picture below is Trump in the in the brand new garbage truck. Put a sticker on a garbage truck and one.
Yeah, that's about right.
All right, Well, Steve, I hope you have you the next thirty seconds to think of some new sign off line, because we're gonna close it on with yeah, and we're gonna have to come up with another one once Biden's gone, which is that happened months ago, but the finally he'll be gone at the end of the year. Always drink your whiskey, meat, Let's go, Brandon and Steve.
So my first draft for now I'm gonna work on it is unburdened by what has been. We won't give up the power we never had. I like that very good? All right, everybody next.
To everybody.
Ricochet join the conversation.
S