And at one point I go, oh, this is so dumb, and the guy next to me turns to me goes, are you Lucretia whiskey?
Come and take my pain, the money, my bray. Don't why think alone when you can drink it all In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Heyward, John You, and the international woman of Mystery, Lucretia. Where this lapstop it? David? Ain't you easy on the should task? Gotta give me that whiskey?
Welcome everybody to a new episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. We hope you're listening on the Three Whiskey Happy Hour approved telephone technology app Signal, But if you are not, If you are listening to us on our normal distribution change, don't worry. We will explain Signal and all sclory how you can use it to reveal our secrets to the Russians and Chinese. I am joined today by my co host Steve Hayward, who has been on a worldwide tour of the land of cheese, grits and gravy.
Have you been doing, Steve, where have you been What have you been eating?
Well? First of all, can I just add to your intro that there's no podcast that gets the signal to noise ratio greater than the three Whiskey Happy Hour. No I just spent it. I want to give a shout out to these guys. I just spent two wonderful days in Oxford, Mississippi, and it really does live up to the name, you know, the home of Oldness. And there is there one of these civic education centers that's been quietly growing for quite a while now. And this is
kind of funny. It's the Declaration of Independence Center. And I said, you know, kind of ironic to have a Declaration of Independent Center in the Deep South, right, And I made a point of wearing my Abraham Lincoln socks just to live dangerously. But no, it's really great people they have there, and they've got this wonderful program, and they had me down to give a lecture and do
a student seminar. And two things about it. One is I did meet two faculty members who said the regular listeners of this podcast, including one from the economics department, who says he agrees most with you, John.
Of course, the economists agree.
With me, unlike most of our listeners who you know, side with lucre.
Have real educations.
You don't know how many lurking economists there are listening in.
But now the other thing, John is I mean, as many listeners will know. If you come from California or New York or anywhere from the South and you say, oh, yeah, we do I barbecue a lot, they will, you know, deport you because barbecue that is a serious subject in the South, as we know, and it's part barbecue. So it was with some hesitation I asked, so what do people think about the McK rib And I was told, oh,
people love it? Is it really? And the person that told me this says, personally, I think it's disgusting, but I know most people love it, and it's a very popular item down here in Mississippi. So it is past the sort of you know barbecue, you know, smoked pork bar at least in that part of Mississippi, which I was not expecting.
Mississippians are just admitting the truth when most other people lie. Lucretia, what have you been up to? Where are you? Do you have a nice scotch?
Open?
What have you been up to?
I have a nice scotch? Here you go and I have had I didn't even want to talk about it. My work is so awful. I'm just going to leave it at that. But I did attend a nice, a nice conference where we talked about revolution, and everybody was afraid actually to talk about revolution because it was a bunch of conservatives and the whole idea. At least half of them said at one point or another that even talking about the notion of revolution made them very uncomfortable.
This is the Philadelphia Siety last week, John, Yeah, you can. You can tell people the name of it. I mean, we have listeners who were there, so.
I know, and I forgot the name of it.
Sorry about the people in the United States afraid of talk about revolution are illegal aliens from Syria right now?
Well? You know. Leo Strauss liked to point out that he felt at home in America because one of the most reactionary organizations was the Daughters of the American Revolution, and he thought that was great, you know, a perfect paradox.
Okay, Lucretia, we interrupted your story about the Philadelphia Society.
No, I just I was. I was. Steve has to be honest and say that when we ever compared notes on these things he tended to agree with me, the most revolution to two revolutionary panels, panels that actually sort of addressed the idea of revolution and didn't clutch their pearls over it, as my new saying lately. The one that Steve moderate, which was with with our good friend now my very good friend because I love her to death, Edith Jones, and Johnny's.
A judge of the US Court Appeals in the Fifth Circuit text right right.
And then there was another guy who did Steve seemed to know. I didn't know, but he was, he was okay, he was fine. Oh he was a former assistant DA assistant Attorney General.
He'd been a Zach it was Zach Smith from the Me Center to Heritage Foundation, and he'd been a federal prosecutor. Uh no, I don't know him, but I mean the ME Center I know, and our you know, our friend John Malcolm is the grand Pooba there. So anyway, yeah, he was fine. But of course the real fireworks was John, of course, and Judge Jones, and.
A judge Jones was more radical than John was. John was a little it's all about me again, But.
You mean you mean John Eastman?
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, well, I was. The Bar Association came up about, you know, the problems with them, and a little bit about the Trump taking on big law, and I did get a little carried away saying, I want Joe McCarthy scorchedter taxic on the American Bar Association, and you know, I want Jade Vance to give a Spiro agnewtype speeches attacking law schools. That got some applause. Actually, but.
Brian Williams was great. He was really, really great. He talked about basically what he said was we need a revolution against the uh, the destruction of our constitution in the deep state and so on. It was good. It was very good.
So I want to get to that law firm story in a second. But I thought maybe what we talked about first would be, I think the story of the week the use by the basically the leaders of the National Security Cabinet to use signal a non secure app to discuss the attack on the whutis a Yemen?
Well, what do you mean by non secure in the sense that it has not.
Done it's not government it's not government secured for classified information, sorry, not.
For classified, but it is government approved for use for communications that are not classified. So that's the important part.
Yeah.
Sorry, So you know, as I'm sure the listeners know, by mistake, the it appears that Mike Watson, National Secure Advisor, not only included Marco Rubio and the Secretary of Defense and the head of the CIA and Tulsa Gabbed, but Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, And so that's
how it all came to light. And then after some debate about what was actually in the text, Goldberg released them and they had you know, I would think information that ought normally be classified, like what time different weapon systems were going to be used, what time the attacks are supposed to land, what kind of targets were being sought. So it seems to me like a debacle. I mean, on the other hand, Trump has responded by not firing anybody, by saying this is a story by failing media outlet,
and that was a distraction. So, Lucritia, why did you give us your thoughts? You are in the industry as it were.
Yes, here's a really really simple point. No, there was not classified information in anything that went back and forth. Number one, and if there was, Jeffrey Goldberg should be tried for treason, tried for violating the laws regarding classified information, because you are not excused from the prohibition on releasing or publicizing classified information just because you came about it
unwillingly or involuntarily. He can actually if, if, if anything that was in those texts, and he tries to claim that there's still some stuff he hasn't released that might be deemed classified. If if he releases anything that actually would fall under classification authority, which again is only Trump, he could be tried and convicted for a very serious time, spend decades in jail in federal prison. That's thing one.
Thing two. Does anybody really believe that this was a mistake? Seriously, does anybody really believe that there isn't some kind of a think back to the whole first impeachment effort and that scumbag Vinman, the little fat, little chubby Ukrainian piece of you know what, remember he listened in and yeah, I mean he the whole point of which was to undo Trump. You don't you think that all of a sudden all of those people are gone from the State Department, the CIA, the Da Da da da da. Of course
they're not. So someday They're going to figure out that somebody on Walls's staff was responsible for this nonsense, and Wallas is probably trying to protect whatever till he knows who it is. And the idea that we would fire anybody over something that had no adverse consequences whatsoever, none, as Trump pointed out, an absolutely successful operation. And we didn't fire anybody after Afghanistan or the thirteen soldiers and marines and that were killed after Afghanistan, or or or
or who got fired ever in the Biden administration? Did Eric Holder get fired after Fast and Furious? I mean, come on, I'm okay, I get it, Steve. If there weren't double standard students, there wouldn't be any standards at all. But at some point logic has to enter into some of these discussions. I'm so sick of that whole thing. Yeah, it is all the Democrats have, and our stupid ass Republicans are so dumb they won't look at it and say shut up.
No.
Oh. It was a terrible blunder on Trump's part, but maybe he can recover from it. And then you have seven stupid Rhino senators. Establishment senators too cowardly to come out and say what they really think with their name attached. So they go to what the Jewish whatever the heck
it was, and say how awful it was. The things that Vance is accused of saying on the Earth actually recorded saying on the signal chat because they the only thing they want is to make sure that we continue to be in every war there is ever on the planet so that they can keep lining their pockets with defense contractor money. Sorry, okay, I'm done anything else.
Eve, Yeah, So four quick thoughts. My My first reaction when I heard this was when did Christopher Buckley take over the script for the second Trump administration? Right? This is right of one of his comic novels, like The DC Mess. I think you may maybe already be working on a new one called Thank You for Texting Stopping. But I actually do think there's something to lucretious theory that there's something fishy about this. How did Jeffrey Goldberg's
number or signal thing get on the list for this call? Now, maybe it's just a weird blunder. And you know what, once Marts, what's what's the NASH security advisor's name? Marts or Waltz Walls. I keep getting more confused other people welts. I mean, maybe he knows. I don't think so. He was a congressman from Florida. Goldberg doesn't slum it with members of the House.
I just think we exchanged a brief conversation atos function.
Who knows. But the the other thing is, I do think this, Lucretia, is the prosecution of Goldberg. Unfortunately, the merits may be solid, but I think that ship sailed
the Pentagon papers case fifty years ago. Now. But finally, and here I think you will agree with me, is the important thing about the outcome of this is Trump and the White House saying, no, you know what, We're not going to bend to the conventional wisdom and the braying hounds of the media and the weak need Republicans that someone has to be fired because exactly that reason. Where was that? Here's what Lucretia is right, Where was that chorus of accountability and the day after day media
pounding for any of the instances that she mentions. Now, it's only when Republicans do it, and that you know, Republican presidents have a history mostly for the last fifty years, of giving into that. And that's one of Trump's strength is that he doesn't. So I kind of like to think that this is deliberate setup, although that's working to eight or ten dimensional chests, and so I don't think that's true.
But I'll say, what's wrong with this A simple explanation that you had all these people all around the world who were trying to discuss this. They couldn't use, uh, you know, the government classification, the classification approved systems for discussion because they are large and unwieldy, they don't travel well, and so they use signal to talk about it, and by mistake they added somebody who shouldn't have been on it.
Right.
Isn't that like just like to me, people are constantly like sending you emails and texts where they put people on by mistake. Why why not just say we made a mistake, no harm came of it, leave it at that.
I think they're actually they are saying mostly that. But I do think that the the the level of coincidence that had to have happened for Jeffrey Goldberg of all the lying, duplicitous you know, he has been behind every single faux story against Trump that's been out there. You know, the losers and on and on it. I mean, the guys just foul in every possible way. And his boss, you know, the widow of Steve Jobes is equally awful.
The odds of Jeffrey Goldberg, of all people, being the person that somebody put the wrong number in for are I'm sorry, They're astronomical. There's just no I mean, you.
Mean, if they had added Laura Ingram by mistake, you think this was true?
Joe Blow from Indiana?
That that right?
I know, I know, but that that would make no more sense.
Well, it does kind of remind me of the press conference that was held at the Four Seasons Garden supply store there in twenty twenty.
But you know, what, do you do you think this story has but Lucretia, do you think this story has any more legs? Do you think that this is uh? You know, obviously Democrats are trying to turn it into a scandal. Even Hillary Clinton made an appearance, I believe, writing an open saying they accused me of this and this is much worse what they're doing. Do you think the story is going to die out? Is it? Or is it something that's more symptomatic of a bigger problem.
It's not tragic any problem on the Trump team. What what is symptomatic of is there There is not a word that I can think of in the English language that describes the level of hypocrisy, delusion, lack of self awareness that it would take for the Democrats in general, but someone like Hillary Clinton especially to actually say that
there's something wrong with what happened there. I mean so, And you know, again, Republicans as usual are are probably as much to blame as Democrats are because they're cowards and they're all those other things that instead of just saying, shut up, look at what your side did, they have to Oh, it was terrible, kind of like you know, January sixth was a horrible insurrection. But you know, I hate it. I hate Republicans. I especially hate those kind
of Republicans, you know, the kind of Republicans I like JD. Vance. I do have to say, when it comes to mistakes, I can't tell you how many times I'm assuming Steve is actually texting his wife and it's never anything you know, lovey dovey or anything that he's texting. But he'll text me do you want to stop at da da da Dad? And I'm thinking uh no, because I'm two thousand miles away. But then he'll write back wrong person. And he does that all the time, don't you, Steve. And it's probably
because it comes whatever comes up first. You don't pay attention for some reason.
I just keep getting Steve's mobile takeout order from McDonald's.
I don't know why.
Well, lucky guy yet mcgrib lover.
I can let listeners know John that on that point thecreat just made. I accidentally texted the zoom link for this show tonight to John Eastman. He may show up yet, who knows.
Don't get John in a zoom conference.
I know that that part of your argument makes sense, not that that that random person ended up being Jeffrey Goldberg, because I actually am among Steve's contacts and John Eastman is actually among Steve's contacts.
Well, the interesting story I saw about this was that there are many people in the White House who are assuming Waltz did it and are wondering why is Jeffrey Goldberg and Waltz his contacts? Yeah, Steve, any closing thoughts on controversy.
It's over. It's the'll be something new next week.
So okay, Well, I do have I did have to pull It's not a babbel and best I have to put it in. Now this guy is becoming my favorite Congressman Tim Burchett, Yeah, gets pull this, you know. Soy boy reporter comes up to a mos iPhone. Do you trust Trump's national security team to keep our war plans top secret? And brgant answers? Do you trust your mother every night to fix your hot pockets and make sure your game boy is turned on? I gotta laugh, bun you guys, So.
I'm going to use that. Okay? Well, I thought maybe the second story we talked about also just came up today, but you guys mentioned it earlier when you were reviewing the Philadelphia Society is uh, I think unprecedented attack by President Trump on some of the leading liberal law firms
in the country. Uh. The news out today is that Paul Clement, my former co clerk for Larry Soccer, who was the Solicitor General, that's the guy who argues all the United States' side in the Supreme Court, has agreed to represent one of these firms and to sue the Trump administration on the ground that the Trump administration sanctions on these firms violates their right to free speech, violates the right of counsel of their clients, and punishes these
firms without due process. Some of the firms like Paul Weiss in New York and now we just learned also today SCAT and Arps. I think the largest of the top corporate law firms have made deals with President Trump saying that they will end their dei hiring practices, that
they will do probota work for the President's causes. But the excuse me, but other firms like Wilmer Hale, which is the firm that employed Robert Muller, or the firms that employed some of the prosecutors like Covington and Berlin, the Special Council prosecutor under Jack Smith, or employed some people worked in the New York prosecutions, these firms are instead suing. So, Steve, what.
Do you think.
Is the president making a mistake? Does this go too far? Is this a fair game after all the lawfare of the last four years.
Well, well, first of all, you used an interesting word, you said, this is unprecedented, and if by that you mean no president has ever taken as aggressively after law firms as Trump is, that's probably accurate. But if you mean that more broadly, I mean, I can think of lots of parallel examples. Let's take just one, and you may not think it really applies, but it's you know, Truman seizing the steel industry in nineteen fifty two, or you know, I could go through a long list of
Franklin Roosevelt intimidating companies, threatening to jail executives. In other words, this is heartball politics, and this fits with a broader pattern of Trump. Trump is using the powers that have leached out in various ways to the executive branch over the years. You can say this about the tariffs too, against the left, and you know, I kind of like it. I mean, I do understand that this is.
Mean.
I'm going to understand some reasonable criticisms of it, but I think these a lot of these law firms richly deserve it. And by the way, I think also, and here's a question John for you, I think that the actual step being taken is stripping them of their security clearances and access to classified documents, which is important for a lot of their clients. It would be defense contractors, and you know lots of other people clients that may
be individuals. They may be representing. Seems to me that's entirely within the president's legitimate powers. And then the settlement talks is where Trump is running a heart bargain saying, you know, you refuse to I mean, I do think these law firms that refuse to a higher Republicans or any alumni the Trump administration. You know, Bill Crystal Nuthers had operations to blackball lawyers who'd served in the Trump
White House and a Trump administration and Trump won. Uh. They deserve to be punished for that, you know, and so they won't ever do it again. And I think it's also costless in this sense. Uh again the sort of the moral equivalent. People say, well, when you get a Democratic president, they'll do that to Republican big law firms, and I say, name me one.
There's only one.
Well I don't which is who would that be? I mean Jones Day? Okay, we all right, maybe it'll be tough on Jones Day, but you know our friends at Constaboya McCarthy, you're not big enough for them to go after and and they're not doing anything that that would have you know, a security clearance would effect anyway, right, So I'm all for it. And uh, I expect you may disagree and think this is worrisome, but that's because you're too conventional.
Agrecia, what do you think about this?
I you know, I gave my views last week. I'll quickly, and it really is that you start from the premise that no law firm has a right to claim some sort of largest from the federal government, from the executive branch, and it can be pulled for any reason by the executive branch. I'm sorry, it's just that simple. And you know, I say that knowing that Steve could come back and say, yeah, but there's only if they do it to Republicans. There's
only one law firm. I don't care. I first of all, I don't think that we should be that the federal government should have its tendrils quite so far out. But I certainly don't have a problem with pulling them back when those very same grants and the grants of security clearance and all those other things are being used against the executive I mean, what world would you live in where that wouldn't happen. I'm serious. I mean, to me, it just seems so obvious.
I know.
I'm not a lawyer like you, are John, and I imagine this hits a little closer to home for you than it does for me. But I, you know, I think that that everything that Doge and Trump are doing is absolutely legitimate under their executive power, absolutely legitimate. And
I haven't seen one instance yet. Maybe either you or Steve brought it up last time, the sending the MS and trend diagua gang bangers to El Salvador without some sort of due process to prove that, as Boseberg said, somebody saying oh they're not they should be able to prove they're not really gang bangers. Yeah. Right. Maybe there's an argument to be made that that went a little too far against individual rights, but I no, I don't
see it. I don't see anything wrong with it. And if democratic presidents want to retaliate next time around, if they ever get in power again, which is a big if.
I'm okay with that too, will but they're okay.
Maybe not in my lifetime.
Well hopefully.
Well let me ask you. Let's go back to Steve then, because he said there are examples, other examples in history, would you be comfortable if the Democrats were in charge using these same powers to say I don't like the president of Chrysler and their view. Oh it's not even called Chrysler, sorry, Stilantis Ford. I don't like that Ford's views.
So the US government will no longer buy Ford cars and trucks for the government, and we will no longer and we will investigate anybody in the government who contracts with for This is what the executive order basically does with regard to law firms. It only singles out specific firms that had lawyers that probably you know, went after
the visiting president. But yeah, still it's not all law firms, which would be easier, right if you said you extu an executive order, any law firm that has a DEI program is going to get its government tracks cut off or it's classification cut off if they represent China, right, I mean, yeah, that would be I think Lucas should be completely right.
There's no problem.
I don't think there's a problem with that. The problem is what was singling out individual companies and firms because they harmed the president in the past personally.
Yeah, but by the way, you picked bad examples, John, because if the President said I don't want to buy cars st the Lances, I would probably approve of that. But well it's not that you know, that's a longer story. It goes all the way back to the Chrysler bailout.
For you, they still owe the government money.
Oh no, no, they all take quickly. And actually, well that's a better point that two thousand and eight bailout is different. But that I don't know about. But although you know, actually I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but some of the stuff the Obama
people did was absolutely outrageous. I mean, they canceled bond holders with legitimate claims and threatened them if they if people who had genuine legal recourse said they might actually try to vindicate their financial rights to debt instruments and things of that kind. I mean, it was talk about
lawless and I think they're parallel cases. I do. I mean, I have some sympathy with your argument that when it comes to legal representation that's maybe a little different than straight up commerce like selling cars or debt instruments for general motors and things like that. But on the other hand, they're not going to change unless they're have their nose blooded. So that's at the end of the day, I come down on that side of the matter.
Again, we're not also in a We're not in a what would you call it, We're not in a zero sum game environment. The most of the lawfair conducted by law firms in DC are conducted against Republicans, and especially against Trump. And it wasn't just Trump that couldn't find representation. It was also all the January sixth people and so
on and so forth. So if we ever had a level playing field, we might be able to look at this again and say, yeah, there's something kind of not right about the president using his awful power as a chief executive to ruin an industry or ruin a law firm or whatever it might be. But we're not in
a level playing field. And I kinda I know this isn't a constitutional argument, but I tend to agree with Steve on that if you don't punish them somehow, and you know, maybe look at it as the Morrison versus Olsen scenario, where what did it take to finally get it wasn't the Court fixed who fixed the situation with the Independent Council. It was Democrats who saw what happened when it was turned against them. Now, the Court was
terribly wrong in their decision on that one. But it turned out to be more or less a mood issue, because hey, this is a really stupid idea, because look what they're doing with it. You know, I think that might apply here.
Yeah. Yeah, Democrats thought the Independent Council was only meant to be applied against Republicans, And when I was applied against I often sometimes wondered if ken Starr dragged that thing out with the intent of killing it off. He succeeded exactly, and so for that maybe I'll think more kindly of him.
But okay, okay, maybe one more topic before we go to our deep think part of the podcast, and that is a lot of action on the Court's front involving the future of the administrative state. So on one level, this week, the administration suffered a defeat in the DC Circuit, where the DC Circuit is the appeals court sitting in Washington, DC, which upheld Judge Boseburg's temporary restraining order on the Trump administration from continuing to deport anyone under the Alien Enemies Act.
So chalk that up as a loss in raising questions about how far can which we talked about last week, How far can federal judges go in second guessing the decisions of the political branches on how to protect our
national security. But just today the d C Circuit, same three judges that decided that case handed a big win to the Trump administration by upholding the firing of a member of the National Labor Relations Board and basically saying Humphrey's Executor, which still allows these independent commissions to remain
free of presidential control, was headed for the dustbin. Even though the Supreme Court has yet to overall Humphrey's Executor, that d C Circuit basically said its time is over based on what's been going on in the last twenty five years. This would be a cardinal win for the Trump administration to establish their principle that there are no independent regulatory agencies. They're all under presidential control.
What was the vote, John was a three zero or two.
To one, two to one. So if you want to get into the judges in the depinion on Judge Boseburg, there was a judge appointed by George H. W. Bush, Karen Henderson, who voted to uphold the ban on the Venezuelan flights, but she also voted to strike down the constitutionality of the independent regulatory agency. She's the she would be the person in the middle. She'd be the Anthony
Kennedy of YEA. Then the balancer Judge Judge Walker. I started coughing and laughing because people can't see Lucretia doing her imitation of the karate kid right now, so chopping up. I don't know what. But Judge Walker, Justin Walker, who was appointed by Trump, voted to overturn Judge Boseburg and so he was in dissent, but he wrote the main opinion in the case about the nl RB. And Judge Patricia Millett, who is I believe it. Yeah, she's an
Obama appointee. She voted uphold Judge Bosberg but also uphold these independent agencies. So it's really Judge Henderson, the Bush appoint to, who you know went between the two the conservative legal sides typical.
Yeah, well, Steve, what's.
Your thought on the latest goings on the latest efforts by Trump to expand presidential power and how he's faring in the courts. What do you think is going to happen?
Yeah, well, you know, I can't really say about the immigration case. I don't sort of know enough about how that law works and what the grounding of that might be on the firing part. Though. My question now is that's why I asked what the vote was. If it was three zero, I could see the Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal and say, you know what, we're gonna let the DC Circuit do the dirty work on
this so we don't have to do it. But if it's two to one, I don't know, or maybe somebody will create a circuit split somewhere else and they'll have to take it up. But pretty bold. I think I haven't read that opinion, but you tell me it's pretty bold. A DC circuit to say, as you characterize it, Humphreys is a dead letter. Uh, And you're just going to say the we're going to save the Supreme Court the trouble of having to do it, and so that could be potentially huge.
I think the Descent says that the Descent says you're not allowed to overturn Humphreys. Only the Supreme Court can overturn humph.
So you have to uphold it.
Who do you think you are?
Right? Okay?
Right? So no, No, they're very aware of what they're doing Yeah, I.
Imagine that it's such a wild wild West out there right now, in the whole land of the judiciary, that I think people think they can do whatever the hell they want to. If you want to know my opinion about it, Let's see how far we can go before it all comes crashing down. There's my deep, deep theory
about it. I mean to get my point, John, seriously, the whole idea again that these these judges like Boseburg, whose daughter, by the way, is employed by directly by a legal legal aid fund that gets money from USAID and guess who they represent Ms thirteen and trendi Agua his daughter. Why on earth did that guy not recuse himself?
I told you he was corrupt as hell. You didn't believe me, John, But anyway, my point really is bigger than that, and that's that right now people are judges are acting in ways that nobody ever thought they ever could conceivably do, and they're getting away with it. So hell why not? Anyway?
Sorry, I don't I think the story arc here, John, If I you know, an optimistic predition is this again, if there's a parallel with the new deal, and here I'm going to do a historical analogy just to annoy Lucretia before we get to our main subject, which will annoy her analogy.
Man.
Well, I mean, you know, the story arc of the New Deal was is the Supreme Court had a mixed record in Roosevelt's first term. They upheld some New Deal things, they thumped hard on some others, but then in the second that completely surrendered. And I think if Trump is persistent, and he's nothing if not persistent, I think his odds improve of either forcing the Court to back him up with well considered and so many of their moves are. It seems to me much more prepared and grounded in
the law than the first term. And or Congress is going to start saying, you know, we can't have instability and terror policy. Maybe we need to revise the delegation of tariff setting the presidents that we've had in place for forty fifty years, which in my mind would not necessarily be a bad thing anyway. So that's what I think. I think Trump's going to win most of these battles at the end of the day.
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that's remarkable is how much success Trump is having, and he's reflected in the opinion polls, which we talked about a little bit in the last week. Brings to the forefront the last issue for our podcast, a topic we rarely talk about, which is on this podcast. Although I can't wait to hear what Lucretia has to say, what's wrong with the Democratic Party?
Well, how much time should.
We got about you know, good balance left on the show? What should the Democratic Party be doing? And part of this is raised by we can't help the shadow freud. We enjoy reading all these stories in the press about how the Democratic parties in disarray, confused, doesn't know what
to do. There are several bell weather elections on Tuesday for two Republican House seats that have been vacated and a election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which will probably, depending on that will have a big say on whether Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature engage in severe partisan cherrymandering that could flip the House. At the same time, you have Democrats winning some minor last week, some minor state races here and there, one in my home state of Pennsylvania.
I actually can't believe that the county where this election happened to actually voted for a Democrat. But they did, Yeah, but.
By like seven hundred votes. I mean it was very close.
And this is Trump country. I mean I've been this is Trump. This is like basically Amish country.
This is ly I know. But look, I mean this is very typical off your elections. After a new president comes in of another party, the minority party often picks off seats that they otherwise wouldn't win just because they're more motivated and they turn out people. It's easier for them to turn out people, and Republicans if they're in power or Democrat that they stay home in larger numbers. So, look, the turnout is half in those elections, John and what
it was some time. Yeah, I think this is in this case, it was half of what it was just four months ago in November. So I think it's I mean, look, you don't like to lose. A win is better than losing. And I think the Florida I think Republicans will hang on in Florida, but it'll be a lot closer, and Democrats will say, look how close it is. And Trump was unpopular, and so I think that's a you know,
I think that's all ephemera myself. I think more interesting is the clash between This is why I'm so interested in the abundance agenda that's suddenly getting all this publicity right now. The celebrities and the Democratic Party and the base is excited about this tour of Bernie and AOC, And what it looks like to me is Bernie has already said he's not going to run again because he's one hundred and eighty years old, and I think he is passing the torch to Alexandria Okazia Cortes, and I
think she's going to run. I think what for president.
In the next election.
Yes, I think is old enough.
Yeah, she is. She will be. And by the way, I mean, the clue of this will be if she decides not to run against Chuck Schumer for the Senate in New York, which he's terrified about and there's been talking of for a long time, and that will have to be decided within a few months, I suspect. And so that's going to mean she's gonna run for president probably. So the progressives are, the grassroots are very excited. But
meanwhile you have the thinkers of the Democratic Party. You know, both of them might like to say, it's not that small, but you know some that you and I know John, I mean, I don't know if you've met Ruy to share at Ai, who's you know, an old social democrat, small pe, not insane progressive who had to go to AEI because the Center for American Progress essentially kicked him out. And he's been saying, for instance, democrats are nuts to
go along with the climate change crazy people. And then lately he's been saying, look, if Democrats want to get back in the game and restore their fortunes, somewhere where Democrats run a city badly, they should fix it and show that they can govern competently where a lot of people live. And good luck with that. By the way, I don't know if you've heard the news Los Angeles, the city of Lost Aigle Angels is a billion dollars in the red. They're not even bothering asking Washington for
a bailout. They're asking Gavin Newsom for a bailout, which I think he can write out of his own check book myself. But okay, but look the abundance. Guys are
all saying, golly, we over regulate things. This is really bad and it's been funny to watch Ezra Kline, who's you know, a real piece of work, do the media blitz here in the last week about the new book he's written with Derek Thompson from the Economists, and they go, they're saying things that people like me have been saying for forty years about why the regulatory process is perverse. And by the way, if you're an egalitarian, it disproportionately hurts.
The further down you get on the income scale, the more it hurts people. Right, It's why we can't have you affordable housing in California. Do you know, by the way, John, that the Civitas people are all over this. The greater metropolitan area of Houston in the last seven eight years has built more year than the entire state of California every year. So just one city in Texas builds more housing than all of California. There's something obviously wrong there.
Everybody knows what it is, and Ezra client has done got the receipts. And it does annoy me that these guys act like they're discovering this problem for the first time because part of their they don't want to acknowledge. The Conservatives are right. I also think a big defect here is and I've only read, by the way, it's not the only book. This other one I just got today is Why Nothing Works by some guy named Mark Dunkelman at Brown University. You know, who killed progress and
how to bring it back? And I've dipped in it a little bit, and it's there's no acknowledgement. The conservatives have been saying this for forty to fifty years, and they act like they're discovering this problem of over regulation
for the first time. But they go into great detail about you know, what are the reasons why Obama, sorry Biden, appropriated forty two million dollars for rural broadband access and as of today, and that was four years ago, as of today, zero houses anywhere in the country have been connected to broadband, And then go through all the steps involved why it can't happen, and it's oh, this guy does tell the story of what's his name, you know, the mayor of New York in the eighties. The guy
used to say, how am I doing? Cotch? How they spent fourteen million dollars to try and fix the skating rink and central a skating rink in Central Park and there was a big flop and then to tear it up. And finally Trump comes in and says, I'll do it for seven million, and by the way, if I can come in cheaper, I get to keep the savings. And he did. He came in, you know, very quickly in a few months and built the thing back. And that's part of the Trump legend, right And you know, then
I'll tell you something right there. The last thing I'll say about.
This is, I bet they never said that about Trump in the book.
Oh this book they do. I mean this, this book actually tells the story in some detail of Trump coming in and doing.
It, but not the Abundance Book.
I don't know. I've got very far in it. Thereafter some there's a different lineup. I think that there. It reminds me a little bit of the ferment among conservatives in the late seventies early eighties, like, well, there's a real parallel here, because Klein said we need supply side progressivism a couple of years ago, and I had a joke about that because I heard him say it, and I raised my hand and said, do you have a napkin? Do you have a curve? If you don't have a
napkin at a curve. It's not really supply side anything. It's just sparkling neoliberalism. And everybody laughed except him. He's a real humorless twit.
Anyway, he'd probablyn't understand what you were referring to us. What he probably didn't understand you were referring.
To, like the laugh of curve.
Well, well you might be right, he might. It might have totally gone over his head. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, he is the guy twenty years ago, in his bush hating face who said one of the TV shows got our constitution. Nough, it's over one hundred years old. It's really obsolete. It was just ludicrous how ignorant the guy is, but pretty typical. My point is is, I
think it's it's interesting. I've actually been close to some of the people who have been pushing this direction for a long time, like Rui to Shia and my pals at the Breakthrough Institute really incubated a lot of this
thought among smarter left of centered people. They're going to get nowhere with the Democratic Party grassroots, and you know, one of the important things about you know, the supply side revolution was you had Jack Kemp and ultimately Ronald Reagan, who said, you know what, you guys have a great idea, and we're going to make it part of a campaign. I can't think of a single Democrat who will grab these ideas and say, you know what, we need a serious reform of all this stuff that our team has
been building up for the last fifty sixty years. And last point, sorry I went on too long. Lucretia Blin was on Gavin Newsom's podcast just two or three days ago, and Klein went through some of this stuff and he brought California and Newsom. Instead of capitulating like he did Charlie Kirk on DEI and other stuff, Newsom said, well, you got to understand the circumstances here are really responsible.
In other words, he weasel out of it. I mean, there's anybody who want to grab this, except he can't because he's been running California into the ground. And by the way, here we are saying we're going to lift all the regulatory requirements to rebuild the fire zones. There have only been four building permits issued so far to rebuild houses in all the places that have burned down down in the LA Area four and you know, in three months, so he'd had to put up or shut up.
And I think he knows he can't. But I think there's nobody of the charisma and seriousness of say that you saw in Jack Camp in seventy nine and eighty who's going to take up this cause? And so I think it's going to hit the wall. But it's fun to watch and interesting, and you know, as all the I mean every other page, I'm saying that's right, And I heard three things you guys are wrong about and but still I kind of like to see this. Sorry, And the lucretia.
Lucretia is this abundance idea that intellectual life preserver the Democratic part should be reaching for or if not? And I saw you taking your head many times while Steve was talking if not, what should the Democratic Party do to win an election someday for the press.
I do believe that you asked me that question before the election. And what would I do if I was advising the Democratic Party? I don't even remember what I said. But here's the problem I see with the column the center left, more thoughtful Democrats trying to convince their party not to be radical nut jobs. The problem is the inherent contradictions between what the party claims to claims in a public way to stand for and what they really believe.
And I'll give you an example that actually comes from one of the articles Steve sent us. Forgive me, but I'm gonna read a little bit of it. But you know, in how in this house we believe signs it make you just want to go, bring the doorbell, punch the person in the face when they answer. But you know they're all over These people get a set by the waymen I say those things, John, we get negative comments when I talk about people in the face. And yeah, but on.
This side, I thought our listenership went up every time you wanted to physicize, because.
More people like it than don't. But some people do get upset. Those people are probably very similar to the ones I'm going to describe here. In a moment it says that that you know this in this house, we believe it. Basically, I just the crippling problem, he says, of the abundance agendas agenda's viability on the left liberalisms.
Forgive me for this liberalism's mutation into an elaborate status game for affluent climbers, whose putative beliefs are almost entirely a matter of blaring fashionable catchphrases which signal their moral superiority while leaving unchanged the material conditions of those supposedly in need. That is what Trump honed in on in a way nobody ever thought was possible. He went to places we talked about this before, like Brooklyn, you know what,
I'm not going to hand you anything. I'm just gonna set the conditions that mean that if you try, you can be successful. Democrats don't care about the poor. They don't care about people struggling. They don't care about the middle class. They just want to look like they care
about the middle class. My favorite silly anecdote about this is from Al Gore who's sitting with his family when he is still married to Tipper and you know, their kids, and they're sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Washington, d C. And some homeless guy comes up and asks for food or money. I forget this has been a long time, obviously, and one of the kids says to dad, Daddy, can
we give this guy some money? And he says no, no, no, much better that we support government policies that help homelessness.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's your liberal, that's your Democrat. They don't give a damn about anybody suffering. What you guys can take a picture quick, Steve. All right, So, in case you're wonder why we're all laughing our ghost of a podcast, what do you call the usurper's changed his screen zoom screen name to Jeffrey Goldber for The Atlantic. Sorry and completely you know, derailed my my dietrap. But that's okay,
you guys. You guys know how I feel about this, and so talking about how you might address these many problems homelessness, lack of housing. We're not building green energy, you know, takes how many years to uh let's see the the light rail system or whatever the hell it's called in California is supposed to be done speedil speed rail in twenty It was supposed to be done in twenty twenty, and they only recently what laid the first piece of track.
It's gonna well, if they're lucky, yeah, I mean they're now saying, is that another seven billion dollars to lay half the track by the year twenty thirty. So it's ridiculous why.
I mean, that's that's the abundant. Why can't we do this? Why it is nothing working? But you know how I would love to know how much they spent on environmental impact studies.
Only just that Oh my god, Oh it's oh, I know, I know a little bit.
And I would actually relate it. My last thing I'll say about this, John, is I would relate it to the whole thing going on with Tesla's where you have these lefties who claim that all they care about is the planet and and ending fossil fuels and we all have to drive electric cars. And I think that stupid Mayor Karen Bass Bass whatever name is, said that she's gonna give preference to building permits that claim to build
houses that are all electric. You know, they never end with the nonsense, but you know they're out there destroying Tesla's, destroying Tesla dealership, destroying people who probably bought Teslas. Not me, not me, let me just make that absolutely there, but people who probably bought Teslas because they hear about the environment and they want to drive an electric car. And you know, it's the typical. The leftists are dumb, Their
ideology is stupid, and they can't think. So you got all those things together, you try to come in and sort of convince them that this would be the way perhaps to achieve the goals you have. They're not their goals. Yeah, they're not their goals. That's the problem.
See, I think John, to answer your opening question and then we maybe close out as I think there's a huge opening for some clever Democrat office seeker or holder to say, let's make liberalism great again, and by that I mean they to bring up how or to their own party that liberals used to build stuff. You know, the California that Lucretian I grew up in when we were very small kids. But it was Pat Brown's governor,
Jerry's dad, old fashioned new deal builder. So what was going on in the you know, fifties and we're born in sixties, is we were building a big water project. We were building dams, we were building lots of highways we both lost.
State highways, which we were wonderful.
Exactly, and and school lots of schools, and boy, you could build housing like crazy in the state. And really it's it was up until the time the no growth movement started, which really did start here in California in the seventies. You know, home prices in San Francisco. I don't know if you know this, John, home prizes in San Francisco were about the same as the median price for the country as a whole. It was actually a
reasonable place to live. And it all started when the you know, the environmental movement going, this is the big thing they would have to turn on to be serious about this, They'd have to turn on the environmental movement. And I think they're too terrified of that because it's they're too powerful. They give too much money to Democrats, and so that's why they're not going to do it.
So my my little read on it, not having read these books, but read some of the articles and commentary, is that this is just another species of Democrats wishing they had Obama back, because what they describe is Obama's pitch right, Oa, no drama, Obama. You know, he would make the government work work. They just want the government to work more efficiently. They don't want to change their values.
So that's what Obama said he was going to do, right, he was going to be you know, their you know, their version of let.
Me remind you of the rollout of Obamacare.
John, Yeah, no, I'm not saying actually he was that good at it, but that was what they thought he was.
And remember how much he pressed pressed the idea that it was the government and not individual uh, innovation, hard work, initiative and all of that that that. You know, Remember you didn't build it. I think Obama build it.
Aama's promise to the way Democrats. So Obama was that he would make government more effective, but at the same time he would still push all their values of diversity and you know, climate change. Isn't this basically just a Isn't there another Obama out there who can make this same pitch? Anyway, that's my small read on it. We are coming towards the end of the show, so Lucretia, do you have our Babylon be headlines?
I do, And remember I said something really dumb last time, which was that the Babylon Bee wasn't going to be funny anymore because there was really nothing. But man, did
they hit it out of the park. So we didn't talk about Pete Haigsa's tattoo, but which turns out to say, underneath his Christian tattoo, there's a tattoo that in Arabic that called what that says infidel And of course everybody's upset about this, and this is just a terrible because it's going to make the Muslim world think that, you know, we were enemies of them. Of course we're enemies of the Muslim world. Islam is the greatest source of evil
in the world today and every thinking person knows it. Okay, that being said, concerns raised as hag Seth Unveil's new kill all Kamis forehead tattoo, okay, British and then then of course you know that Starmer is going to abolish all make illegal the ownership of all ninja swords by summer.
When I saw that, I thought that was actually the baton behavo. That's actually true.
Real, actually true. So British Prime Minister announced this prosecution of King Arthur for pulling dangerous sword from Stone.
Well. I also liked the picture they did of the ninja protest in London. It's just the blank.
Test, Okay.
Back to the beginning conversation about Signal hag Seth kicking him self. We're not just getting thirteen soldiers killed and giving eighty billion dollars in weapons to terrorists. Not funny. Political neutrality. We didn't talk about the PBS hearings either, but not that much to say.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, sorry that we only had an hour.
Yeah, political neutrality of PBS questioned after new footage of Elmo keying cybertruck.
Well there was the other one too, where it was an NPR or maybe it was. PBS presents full range of view, from partially comedy to fully commy.
So true. Jasmine Crockett says she was just criticizing GOP policies when she called Governor Abbott honky boy in the wheelchair whose legs don't work. Sometimes I think we have to do an entire.
Well do we have to?
Journalist? Just happy to be included in group text for once? That was pretty funny. Last one I get. This one isn't the funniest one. I shouldn't have saved it for last, but I'll say it anyway. Another security breach hunter, Biden discovered to still be living in White House tool shed. So they're back. They're back. Oh wait, there was one for you, Steve, hold on you. State allows I get two more. Sorry, State allows open alcohol containers in cars for parents teaching teenagers how to drive.
Oh yeah, that's.
Inside. It's yeah, I know, federal judge rules. God overstepped his authority. Adam and Eve can return.
To Eden that one, okay, Steve, Well, it's my turn. They always drink your whiskey, Neat and Steve.
So, in light of what the Christy was saying about the Aldhore liberal hypocrisy, I'm instead of doing a custom ending, I'm going to go straight to music landing and it's going to be phil oaks. Love me. I'm a liberal.
I died when I shot John Lennon.
That tears ran.
Down by Fie and I cried when I saw Chay as though I lost the father of mine.
Now come out and I see he had it come in the.
God what the time?
Sound though? Love me, Love me.
I'm a go to pro choice Sally recycle my hands and job you love the dead, A funny gunstaff down st talk from my bird of the Shine. Let's go hang a little bit too far?
So love me, love I give.
I cheer.
When Clinton was chosen my faith, I don't do anything to say I stood.
My cats don't say too much more.
And I love blacks and Latin noise as.
Fun as the trouble of the song don't Love Me, Love Me.
I'm a Giver.
Ricochet joined the conversation. Ye