Well whiskey, come and fame, my pain, the money, my way, whiskey.
Why think alone when you can drink it all in with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy.
Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Where the laps it up?
And David, ain't you easy on the should taps?
Got to give me and let that whiskey blo.
Welcome everyone to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. We are very happy to be here again altogether, Me Lucretia, the International Woman of Mystery, with my favorite co hosts also my only co host, but they are my favorite, uh, Steve Hayward and the media sensation, John.
You, my media sensation.
Well look, right.
Time I turned around your you're somewhere John, it's yeah.
But look forget about all the Fox News shows he does. He made the big time this week Steve Bannon's.
War Room Whoop, Whoop.
I only went on because Governor Newsom had declared it's safe for America.
Well we'll come to that maybe.
Are you always listen to what govern governor.
Actually wanted to go find I wanted to find out were all the hubbo bus, because I assume that's where Lucretia gets all our news from. But I was disappointed.
I'm not a video watcher. If I can't read it, I make exceptions, quite frankly, John, only for you. That is a actually a subject of some some difficulty in the in the Lucretia household, because I want to read and mister Lucretia wants to watch videos like that all day. We are different kinds of learners, shall we say, And so it's it's it's always been a point of contention. But I actually listened. I did it when he wasn't
in the room, so he wouldn't know. Listen to you on Rumble on war the war room, the war room. Isn't that where that little hottie Natalie Winters isn't she a doesn't she work for Bannon?
I'm not sure if it's that or something. I'm not sure.
I know you know I'm talking about the wind they consider inappropriately dressed, right, yeah, John, shaking his head. No she's not, No, she's not.
I had no idea about any of this, realized, Lucretia, you have just confessed to a live audience, live audience, that you only have eyes for you for you.
Sorry, I couldn't help it, but.
I'm always interested in what John has to say, and lately I can read it for sure.
But since since you're the host, I get to interrupt this episode and listeners want to know, Lucretia if your support for Trump is still unwavering in light of a two tariff on Scotch whiskey, which hits close to the bone for the show. I mean, I'm down here on my last half Inchipny.
Because you're more on Steve. Look, first of all, who actually thinks that this terriff war is going to go on for any length of time, years or anything like that. Everybody knows that, you know, Trump is going to figure out how to end it and get them to do exactly what he wanted from the beginning. So ay, I'm not worried about that, and be unlike you, I probably
have thirty bottles of Scotch in my house. Yeah, at least twenty of which are excellent bottles, and I could keep drinking it from now until doomsday before I ran out.
So you're a Scotch prepper, then, is that what you're telling us?
Doesn't everybody have a full wine cellar and a full liquor cabinet of bourbon and Scotch, and then you know that other stuff that people drink. You don't really quite understand why run vodka things like that. I mean, I have an entire break front of building alcohol. I don't even understand this whole idea about worrying about tariffs. I mean, if my mask oponent, my Italian flower gets more expensive.
But I was hoping this would be a buying opportunity because the throat of the tarts are going to drive all the fake people out of the market, and people with some money and true discretion can now enter and pick up the bargains.
Yeah, I don't set the liquor store, Steve.
Well, I haven't been for a while.
I mean, I have my eye on this ninety seven thousand dollars bottle of Highland Park that set. Oh no, it's a McCallan that's at a very fine liquor store near me.
But I'm saving up for that. And now it's kind of like, you know, gonna be three hundred thousand dollars with.
No Steve, Steve, it doesn't apply to goods already here, Steve, Now see what I'm talking about. This is exactly a lot.
When I enter the market, it starts, no, that is that is mistake.
And John, you know you don't you know the economic principle of replacement costs.
The liquor store is gonna they use it. Never Mind, I hope never mind.
Let's just say that I'm not worried. You're not worried Trump and I support Elon in case you know all of those listeners out there who gave me such a hard time, including YouTube, by the way, for buying the Tesla. I love my Tesla. I love everything about my Tesla. It is the fastest car I have ever driven. It is the most fun car I've ever driven. And it makes me happy every day to drive on to campus and look at all the sneers I get from people because I am driving at Tesla.
And it's computer.
It is a computer.
Yeah, it's most subsidized car you've ever bought.
Well, no, not mine.
You have to you have to buy the low end ones for Tesla's to be subsidized. I didn't get a single penny of subsidies subsidies for my my car. I did for my Tesla solar system. So our energy system in power Wall, and so I got some serious tax subsidies for that, and which is why it was purchased in the first place. But it's wonderful.
You were an early adopter all the way around.
You were an early adopter of Trump back in twenty fifteen sixteen, and an early adopter of Tesla.
Before it was cool.
So yeah, okay cool, Well, well before it was cool in the circles I run in.
That's my me.
Yeah right, I mean I took a lot of heat across the board from of course, but I also have Starlink, so I don't know what else I can buy from Elon to show my support. I tried to talk mister Lucretian too, buying Tesla stock to show support, but he says that's not how we do investments in the Lucretia households whatever.
Okay, enough of that says in the Lucretian house was just Ammo makers, McDonald's and boos stocks. Rights.
Yeah, it's alcohol, it's back on firearms or it's not a government bureau.
It's a way of life. Yeah.
You remember there's that store up in in Flagstaff, Arizona, that is a drive through liquor and gun store. Oh yeah, it's so awesome. It's so awesome. And this really beautiful bluep uh Doberman pincher that kind of just sits and watches everything.
That do they have a six pack and six shooter special?
No, they they sell real stuff there. They still really I mean you you can go and buy a good bottle of bourbon and hollow point, you know. Okay, So anyway, all right, enough of that. What we do have to give just one second to Schumer caving and have a little bit of uh chadam freud about that one, because oh, yeah, they're going to stand up to Trump and how long did it take? And why do you suppose Schumer caved?
Guys, you want me to go, all right, I'm happy to.
But you should probably tell what I'm talking about. Nowadays, news travel so fast eve that we can't that we can't assume that everybody knows what we're talking about, this being on something else by the time this comes out tomorrow.
Right, Well, that's uh, oh, the great Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said, uh, what did he say? Schumer doesn't make the same mistake twice, He usually makes the same mistake five or six times. Look yeah, for people who
didn't hear I'm usually chiding you about this is uh. First, the Senate Democrats said they were going to block the continuing Resolution that they passed the House, which is not It's kind of a nothing burger, except the House did stick in some things that point the error in the right direction.
Not huge.
But but the Democrats said they just want to throw they want to slow Trump down, so let's shut down the government. And I raised the point on Twitter, would you like to be among the hundreds of thousands of employees told to stay home that are furloughed, that you are not essentral when Doge is watching.
All of this. I don't think so.
I think the terror, the lemma that occurred Democrats was oh my god, it was shut down to government. We just made Elon Musk's job a whole lot easier than They're terrified of that, and they don't want to be blamed for government shutdown. I think I said it here, I said it somewhere recently that the real sign of
political realignment or the tectonic place shifting. I think I said here last week is when you made the other party move your direction and I thought, oh, Democrats are going to take the most self defeating move of Republicans, which is a government shutdown, and Schumer was going to get blamed for it. Republicans were already out with the message that it was going to be Schumer's shut down,
which is great alliteration, and so he caved. And now the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves supposedly at a caucus meeting Wednesday or Thursday. You could hear them yelling at each other outside in the hallway, so it's lovely to watch.
And the continuing Resolution passed late Friday afternoon. And I don't know the details, life is too short, but I do gather that our team has stuck in some spending cuts, some spending increases in the right places, and some other conditions that, as I say, represent a sign that finally Republicans know how to play this game.
So there they did first step.
What do you think, John, Well, One thing I think is interesting is that I haven't seen anyone really comment on it yet, is this might actually help the Doge Musk effort a great deal, because remember the fight over impoundment that we talked about two weeks ago or last week depends exactly on how an appropriation is written. Remember, in the fact the time of the founding Congress would just say the president can spend up to one million
dollars on these things. So it was a ceiling, and so presidents of course would say, Okay, I'm going to spend five hundred thousand and save them money. So Congress, you know, the modern Congress tries to get around that by saying, we're gonna Setspacific targets and then we're going to issue these committee reports and statues have long lists of what you have to spend it on. Continued resolution
doesn't have that. Continued resolution is like a founding era spending statue just says, you know, the Commerce Department will get two billion dollars to spend consistent with last year's you know, appropriation. This actually might be the opening of the door that now dose really needs to give legitimacy and quell these legal doubts about all these spending cuts, and then they can say in court, Congress knew what
we're doing. They gave us this ceiling. They didn't specify we had to spend on any specific program, So why aren't we allowed to do this? So this, This might accelerate the Dosh efficiency drive now rather than retard it.
So just out of curiosity, you're going to kill me for this, Steve, and he's probably going to make me cut this from the Oh. But what you bring up is, you know, we're going to be discussing different aspects of the the universal injunction by these ridiculous district court judges and things that the a little bit of a discussion about what you think is an attempt by the Trump administration to get certain things prepared as good, good facts for good cases to go before the Supreme Court to
challenge say Humphreys Executor and some other things. My question to you what you mentioned is about committees writing these reports and then going even so far as to writing the reports and then if they don't like the way that the agency was spending the money, going back and you know, making changes to it after the fact, after the legislation has been passed, otherwise known as the legislative
veto at the committee level. Even though in I ins versus Chada in nineteen eighty three, the Supreme Court said that the legislative veto is unconstitutional. Congress engages in it
all the time is there. Do you think a reason in all of this for that to be re challenged and have the Supreme Court say, if it was good enough that we could tell Congress that can't do it, we can certainly tell the committees they can't do it now that we have broken the iron triangle between committees, congressional committees, lobbyists and agencies, you know, as political scientists learn about those things. Are you following anything I'm trying to ask you, John.
Yeah, I don't think it's a shot issue because some of the statutes, you know, specify what should be spent and then in the committee reports. You're quite right under chata they have no legal authority because they're never passed as part of a statute by both houses and signed by the President. But agencies pay a lot of attention to them, right because they don't want to be on the bad side of the oversight committee for their agency.
So I think you're quite right that what DOSE is doing, if it really takes advantage of the cr the way I'm describing that, will continue to undercut the ability of committees to boss around these agencies unless still willing to put what they want in statutes where people vote on them,
and we know what they're doing. So I don't know whether it would cause the Supreme Court to have to get involved, though, because I think Chada is the Other interesting thing about Chada and the legislative veto is that even though they're struck down in Shada, apparently Congress keeps adding him to the law anyway. They keep sticking him into new laws all the time.
Is there what's different? Is it fair for me to say what's different here is you've actually changed the incentives for at least one party in the whole dynamic and the whole equation. You've changed the incentives for them not to spend more money on initiatives that please the three
people in that that incessant loop. Because of those, you've actually got the executive branch saying we want control over spending power again, and we're not conceding that control to agencies which may or may not be as I independent
and Clause I blah blah blah. So that that that's what I took away from what your discussion of the continuing resolution, not just that the mechanism itself has made it more difficult for agencies and committees to have that that incestuous relationship, but it's it's created the possibility in a mechanic way for that for for someone to step in and destroy that relationship in ways that never happened before. Right, does that There's an.
Insane I think with I think with independent agencies, with Trump, I mean there's another that's a I think separate question, but it does involve spending, which is, suppose Congress gives SCC one hundred million dollars and the FCC, because it's organized to be independent of the present, just wants to spend all the money and won't listen to omb about it, won't listen to the White House about cutting spending or employees.
So a different track, you know, which actually might be the first one to get the Supreme Court of Cases, is, you know, can the president fire the members of the independent committee independent commissions and direct them what to do? And I think that solves the spending issue there. Okay, I really.
Went too much into the weeds, and I'm gonna I'm gonna before Steve fires me from being the host today, I'm gonna move on to discuss I actually think our knowing what I see our listeners comment on they'll be very interested in that whole discussion because they bring it up frequently. But we'll move on, and I want to make one quick comment and ask for one quick comment from you guys about the imploding Democrats imploding because they have no message, they have no idea how to resist Trump.
They're all either dying or resigning.
Oh.
I mean, that's I know.
Kind of morbid.
I don't really mean it to be that way. I knew nothing about the guy who replays Sheila Jackson Lee. I can't say that I cried big tears when she died. I don't know anything about the guy who replaced from Houston. But I despised rage Rahalva for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which was the way he went after Steve.
At one point he went after Steve.
Oh yeah, Ago, Oh well, so Ruy Grialva, how are you saying his name? He sent letters to I think five or six universities about particular people, demanding to know if we were on the.
We're in the pay of the Cooke Foundation. So it was me.
It was Roger Pielke, junior at the University of Colorado. Me and Pepperdine at that time ten years ago. David Legatis at the University of Delaware here for other people, maybe J Curry at Georgia Tech, I think still at that time.
And the answer in every case was no.
But I'm so disappointed. I would have respected you more if you were in the pay of the Coke brother I met.
A couple of small grants from them way back.
In the late nineteen nineties, but it never at a I. And but the problem was is that by the way, he was a ranking member on some committee.
He wasn't even a chairman. He had no authority to give us us peanut.
Yeah, and uh it uh at Pepperdine, they're very nice people there.
Threw them into a tizzy because you know, they thought, oh my god.
And the Malibu Times, the local paper there, they had a front page story that said Pepperdine professor investigated.
I called up reporter never next to the youth surfboard ads.
Yeah, exactly.
The reporter never called me normally competent reporting as you'd call the person my picture, but it never called me for a comment or quote or anything. And so I called the lady up and said so, first of all, you realize there's a ranking member. There's no investigation here. It's just a dumb ass back bench congressman sending a letter and you're doing that. I really I complained to the editor and I think I am embarrassed him, and the university said, oh, we like to get along with
the paper. I'm sure that's true, but I thought it was anyway and nothing. Of course, nothing happened. All it was ludicrous.
Well, I mean, he's terrible in a lot of ways, right, But but I've ever since that episode, Steve, he's been on my list. So yeah, but it's not just Gene what's her name from New Hampshire has decided, right, Yeah. I mean, so Democrats are seeing the writing on the wall. At least in twenty twenty six. The polls show that they're really in trouble. And I think we don't have
to go into that. I think we just have to have a moment of silence ingratitude for winning, winning, winning, before we go on to discuss I hope you're gonna. I mean, I think most of our listeners are subscribing to your substack, Steve, but you should link to your article anyway about Trump and Putin and I don't know something about the Soviet Union, this or that John wants to discuss it.
Did you want to be on my article? What's on John's mind? That's you're just supposed to ask, Lucretia, tell what's.
On your mind about Steve's article?
And I mean, Steve actually wants everyone to talk about That's why I put it, put it out in public, and his massive sub stack with the huge subscriber base.
Not really, Uh, go ahead, I.
Don't want to. I don't want to unfairly summarize your article, but let me try to describe for people who haven't read it yet. And it's not very long, and it's very to the point. And Steve makes the argument that just like we're seeing this renewed assault on progressivism domestically, which we associate with Wicher Wilson in the administrative state, we are also witnessing an assault on Wilsonian progressivism globally, not not I'm sorry, not terms of globally, in terms
of foreign affairs. And that's actually what most people think of when they hear Wilsonianism, right. They think of the idea that moral value should guide our foreign policy, not realism.
Democracy.
Yeah, open covenants openly arrived at international organizations like the League of Nations banning the banning all war and the nations of the world engaging in collective self defense.
So is that fair, Steve Well, yeah, that's part one.
I mean, it's a two part series. But look at what I was doing, was I was pushing back against the critics of Trump saying that his handling of Ukraine.
Was another Munich.
You know, Munich nineteen thirty eight, you know, and the fact that Advance gave his speech in Munich. And what I did is I commented he saying, you know what, somebody who disagreed with that was the greatest critic of Munich thirty eight, and that was Winston Churchill, who really said implicitly Woodrow Wilson was a disaster and we should have stayed.
Out of World War One.
And I think that Trump is working on that line. The sequel is when I said, but there is another side of the street. And that's I thought, upset you because I championed your sparring partner, the late Angelo Codevilla.
Yes, and then you said that it has been a mistake to follow with Sonianism. That was Sonium has been the dominant approach of our foreign policy ever since, and it's been a terrible mistake. Led us do these terrible disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and we're finally coming to our senses. That'd be fair.
Yeah, yeah, so, but but well sorry, go ahead, but well Part two took the other side of the street, so to speak, because I was actually, you know, I was kind of pushing back a little on the Cretia, although it was maybe not obvious in the peace, and she found it boring, which means I succeeded in escaping her steely gaze. Now, look, there's been a lot of people like Tucker Carlson, this a very interesting guy named Michael Millerman, who I respect a lot.
But they've been saying Putin's not such.
Such a bad guy, and really Russia's territorial claims on parts of Ukraine have some historical legitimacy. There's some truth in that latter part, I think. But what I decided to do was saying, let's not go down that road. I think that's a mistake. I think Putin is a thug and not to be trusted. That doesn't mean Trump is not doing the right thing and what he's trying to do, and that we shouldn't deal with Putin.
I'm just saying, let's be clear on what we're dealing with.
But then even more so, since I think Lucretia is completely contemptuous of Ukraine. I quoted our late friend Angelo Codevilla, who said it surprised me. He said that Ukraine's independence and i'll quote him here is very much a US interest, but it is beyond our capacity to secure.
And then his book, his.
Last book, published posthumously, said here's how John Quincy Adams thought about these questions two hundred years ago, and what he thought then is just as valid today. And by the way, that book, as I understand it, was commissioned by the first Trump administration saying, would you send us some extended thought to give some coherence on an America
first foreign policy? And this book is what Angelo came up with, and I actually think to a large extent it explains the deep background of what Trump is trying to do.
So that's all.
The first piece was just to add a second dimension of things, and I think it.
Bothered you, So yeah, I didn't like it at all. I bothered you, of course, you didn't.
Well, So one thing I loved Angelo, and you know, I got to say in the summers at the Claremont Institute fellowship programs usually Angelo and I would have a debate for the fellows every summer because I you know, I'm on the original, original gangster neocon right, I'm og n C and Angelo. I don't know what Angelo is, but he doesn't really fit neatly into any of the
traditional boxes about American formulations. But if I could summarize what I think his view is, and I think you adopt his view, but I think it is mistaken, is that he thinks that a country's form policy is really driven by the nature of its domestic political regime. He sees them as a continuum different And this goes back to I mean, if you want to again, this goes back to people who debate the right the Peloponnesian were right. It was Sparta versus Athens. Was it in their nature?
It was in the nature of Athens to be expansionist and aggressive because of the nature of commercial what we would call today a sort of commercial democracy or whatever. And where the Spartans who were right that tyranny. As far as I can tell built on you know, slaveocracy by nature passive and peace loving, which is not actually how I would describe, for example, our version of the Confederacy. But so Angelo thinks that, uh, you know, the domestic
regime and the international foreign policy cannot be detached. I'm not sure that's correct. Most I think international relations scholars
don't think that's true. You know, I was saying last time, there's a great philosopher, theorist of international relations, Michael Waltz, who might I'm sorry, Ken Waltz, who might have been one of the greatest or of the great and he wrote a growth book called The Man State and War, and he said, if you break down all the complaints about why there's war, some people say has to do with man. Right, the very same argument Angela is making
about regimes could be made about mankind. You could just say men are always gonna go into war because it's their nature. Or then people say, oh, well, we love men. It could be the states, right, it could be because you know, this is a version of the Bush administration theory. Actually, if we could just turn everyone into democracies, then they won't be so warlike. But Waltz's argument that it's the nature of the system that causes war because we're we
live in an anarchy. We live in a system of very national anarchy where countries can't trust each other and they always have to in the end look out for themselves for their own security. That's what breeds essentially instability and war. It doesn't have to do with domestic regimes the way Angelo thinks, but I you know, Angelo is coming from this, you know this, reading a few cities.
This one. My second problem is that I don't think Wilsonianism has really governed our foreign policy clearly for all that long. I think America has been quite realist quite often throughout our history, particularly the twentieth and twenty first century, and we're not going around to Africa and Latin America is saving all the people there, which I would think Willsonian Wilsonians was, I think, how many lives could we save? How many lives can we improve with the great moral
force and military? The United States, I mean maybe Clinton for a few years tried it, but I think actually the United States had been pretty coldly realist in the way it's conducted itself since I think World War One, World War two, and the Cold War were pretty realist enterprises. So I don't think there's this wilsonianism to go abroad to slay Steve to quote your quote of Angelo's quote of John Quincy Adams, who's.
Being naw okay, that's all I will say.
I have a more important point, But I want to go back to something John said really quickly, and that is, first of all, you can't. I don't think you can make a continuum from the time of Woodrow Wilson to where we are today and say that there's somehow just been nothing but realist foreign policy. What I would do is look at recent foreign policy, because that's all that
really matters. And I don't see that as being Wilsonian in the way you describe it, because I think, like everything else about progressivism, Wilsonian, progressive international foreign policy, whatever you want to call it, has also morphed into I find it. The easiest way to describe it is it's a secular religion where the Jake Sullivans of the world just want to feel guilty about first world prosperity, first world success, and they want to punish others for they
want to punish us. I guess is the right way to put it, but not themselves necessarily, because they want to be above it all. We need to be punished, and we need to be much more like the third world.
Rather than us going to help the third world, Let's just make America more like the third world, which is why, of course they opened up the borders and let in every third world excuse the expression x whole country, refugees, etcetera, etcetera, into the United States, so that we could become like Haiti and like Venezuela and like all those other god forsaken places. That way, we don't have to feel guilty
about enjoying our success. And of course it's not them, it's it's always you know, the poor, middle, lower class Americans in Ohio that have to suffer this. That's what I think explains foreign policy for the last twenty years, especially under Obama, and is in his ridiculous.
Take over this. Yeah, but Lucretia, don't leave out George W. Book.
I mean, remember that second dress, well, that declaration and the second Inaugural Address that it is now that what I'm paraphrasing, it is now.
The mission the United States and the tyranny.
In the world and we want to spread democracy and freedom to the whole world. That speech, I'm sure was written for him by the late Michael Gerson, who I couldn't stand for his sanctimonious never mind, I'll just stop there because he has passed away. But that I can't imagine a more unconservative thought. And then, John, look, we don't have to.
Agree that that speech went too far.
In Oh, by God and by the way, to their credit, National Review, and I think it was where Meshperneuru with the byline said that was insane at the time. So you know, for all the shade that some people throw at National Review, I'll put it that way. Look, John, we can argue a long time and it would take
the whole show and be on. I don't want to about exactly how you do the spectrum of realism to Willsonian internationalism and various places at times the timeline well, but I want to mention one fact, which is why I'm right, which is a seven hundred million dollar embassy compound in Kabul that was part of our State Department's.
Design for what we should do after nine to eleven.
I think our embassy compound in Bagda is one point one billion dollars. That's more than just the extravagance of thinking there's no money is no object. But it's pretty clear to me that when the State Department and our foreign policy planners sign off on something that extravagant, it shows that they had no intention of really leaving Afghanistan or standing up a stable regime of whatever kind that
they intended. That their view was that place could not exist without our active and close supervision and a lot of our money.
And that's it.
Why do they care about that place and say not? You know, all over the world, Christians are being massacred, Wigers are being massacred. Why do we care about Taboul? Why do we care about any of those places? We don't care about Syria now anymore, we don't care about Nigeria, We don't care about all of those places that are they really are you know, just oh Westerners about Palestine and it becomes Palestine.
Well, look, the reason there is because their budget isn't big enough, or they wouldn't care about.
Every one of those places. No, I think that's true. I do think that's true. By the way, why do you care about Palestine for the same reason.
It's because you have a loud and active political lobby domestically.
You talk about John.
Why, That's what I'm trying to get at. You guys are missing the point. Palestine what a joke, The fact that that that anybody takes Palestine seriously. It's a manufactured crisis to feed their secularized guilt that they love to wallow in, because guilt is in fact the greatest self indulgent human emotion there is.
Right, But the New York Times is going to talk about it every day, and that's what the State Department loves, and they feed off of that.
Yeah.
But again, why, I don't know why.
I'm just saying what they do, That's what they do.
Yeah, I do you know.
I mean, I'm not a good enough psychologist to tell you why. We'll have to ask John's mom for help on that.
I think.
She probably pays by the hour. But I just want to point I wasn't making the claim that the United States has always pursued realism. I think Israel is a good example. It's not necessarily the case. Israel is the right if you are being really cold about it, whether Israel is the country we would want to support, or we'd even spend a lot of time on the Middle East now that where energy is self sufficient, but we still do and I'm glad we support Israel and it's
one of our closest allies. But I think it is because of that, is because of a Wilsonian instinct. I think, because we do love their country and the democracy and the economy that they've built, and we you know, because it's the Holy Land. That shouldn't that should not matter to a realist.
Right, John, When I was back many thousands of years ago, when I was an undergraduate in my National Security studies course was taught by a retired admiral and I remember, and you know, he claimed to be at least a Republican. He was probably very much a Rhino. But anyway, and I remember him saying, and being so confused about it at the time, what why is it that Republicans have this obsession about Israel? What do we get from Israel? We don't give a damn about oranges and that's all
they have to offer. I just had anecdote.
Well, it's actually I heard that's an old one, But John, I mean, we did treat Israel with indifferent But I've also I heard that from a lot of friends of mine skeptical about our ties to Israel over the years, but we were indifferent to Israel in the forties and fifties, and sometimes even hostile through the sixties, right, right, And I mean, I think John, it's not will Sony internationalism that weds us to Israel.
It's we have slowly woken up to.
The fact that they are an outpost of Western civilization in a place that needs it the most.
I think it's that's my view, right.
I'm just saying, that's not realism, right, That's not the cold calculation of what's in our national security interests. It's that's a cause, which is fine. I'm glad we do that. I mean, I don't want our nation to be coldly realist, but I think it is way more realist than people give it. I mean, that's what people accuse the United States of all the time, and clearly that we are,
you know we are. The United States does pursue with self interest pretty vigorously, But we use their rhetoric of Wilson to palliate is around the world.
Isn't it possible to use the rhetoric of our exceptionalism and that in so far as our founding principles are built upon a fundamental view of human nature, which applies, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to all men at all times, that there is a certain obligation within limits, within prudential limits, John Uh, whatever that means, to recognize those countries and those peoples who are pursuing the same,
the same set of principles roughly defined. I think that that's a fair thing, and that doesn't necessarily fly in the face of realism, because those people tend to be allies as opposed to enemies, and reliable allies in many cases, as opposed to enemies, at least until Europe became what Europe is now, and we don't we consider them what not allies anymore. And I won't go there. I'm gonna move on. So, John, you have been in fact the media, Darling.
I'm seeing you everywhere and I'm loving it because it's it's a very happy thing for me to turn on the radio Fox News on my radio, or turn on the TV, or go to look up an article about something Steve sends me and what do I see your face talking about it? Oh, it's lovely. I love it. But anyway, you have been busy this week. Tell us a little bit about what you talked about on your show with John at excuse me, with Steve Bannon is called war Room.
War Room. Yeah, I mean, isn't it fair to say that's like the leading mega podcast in the country.
I never saw it before.
Really, I mean I can't. I'm not sure.
I mean, I don't know in terms of numbers, but in terms of influence, it's constantly being quoted what Bannon said this. Bannon said that on war Rooms. I mean, he drives the mainstream media crazy that show.
Yeah.
But I only broke down and said yes when I saw that. You know, the Governor Newsom had had Bannon on.
His show, right, I know, yeah.
Which is also interesting to talk about what the Newsom has been saying and trying to do.
But no, I thought, I don't know.
I thought the show had this reputation for being bruskin combative. But actually we got into a pretty good discussion of Article two of the Constitution and the presidency and the lawsuits been filed against President Trump's various executive orders and
what I thought was going to happen. Bannon did not call for the impeachment of Amy Cony, Barrett or any other judges, and I think we call me discussed how President Trump was setting up these test cases to challenge these Watergate post Watergate laws that I think constitutionally tied down the executive power, and how I think the Supreme Court would probably rule in Trump's favor on several of them.
Some of them we've talked about on the show, like the removal power, some parts of the power to impound parts of the power, for example, to say no DEI in the government and no DEI by government contractors and so on. I thought I was going to get there in the war room and I would find Lucretia already there with like an honorary seat. But I didn't see her. I was so disappointed.
Now I've been superseded by Natalie Winters, who, by the way, was a Lincoln.
Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Okay, cool, They get all the best people, Uh yeah. But what caught my eye, John was less that than your article out on Fox News here Sunday morning. And I hope, unlike last week, he won't be behind the paywall. Maybe it will maybe, I don't know.
And they got to pay the big bucks Steve.
Oh, I guess maybe that's it. Uh So.
Uh So, look, you're your article with your co author, frequent co author Robert Della Hunty says, there's no constitutional crisis here.
Uh.
And you go through a very nice history of these constitutional controversies over executive power going back to the founding and you mentioned Jackson's veto the Second National Bank. Uh And then you know Trump being compared to Nixon and so forth.
Perfectly solid article.
Oh and then culminating with a challenging Humphrey's executor and upholding Trump's power to fire people in the executive branch. Okay, so far, so good, two little nitpicks.
And and just the point was what we're going through now doesn't come close to any of these historical which everyone should agree with, constitutional crises.
I agree completely. Take that.
That's the new that's the new tagline for the show.
Well, well, I agree with everything, John says.
I agree, except that have gone further. That's that's what I try and figure out here. By the way, I thought, what we're supposed to say, John, is we agree with Lucretia or Lucretia was right. Isn't that the Okay, I'm told.
Steve are you, I don't interrupt, but I wanted to bring one little point into your soliloquy.
There, go ahead.
I was just gonna say the one thing I was a little surprised you didn't make the point stronger, was that the actual constitutional crisis is what has happened to our separation of powers, to to our federal government in general. It has been a legitimate constitutional crisis. Probably the mundane best example of illustrating that is the it's a danger
I'm saving our democracy trademark. The fact that we have somehow convinced the entire country that we're in a democracy, you know, defined as you know, the left is in power. That is a constitutional crisis. The fact that our most you know, even intelligent people. You you actually in your article list, I forget a thousand law professors, said a thousand law professors. I mean, of course, they don't expect law professors, besides you, to understand anything about the constitution,
especially not constitutional law professors. But the idea that that you know, they can't put their parties in politics aside long enough to recognize the importance of the presidency in the separation of powers, the importance of the presidency, as you put it very clearly, that energy and the exis executive is the very definition of good government, all of those things. The constitutional crisis is not what they say it is. It's that they are calling what's happening a
constitutional crisis. That's, to me is a huge problem. And whether Trump put on that is iffy.
If you really want to if you really want to send the legal Professoriat into a total panic that we're having a constitutional crisis, it wouldn't be about whether there's a threat to Humphrey's executor. Can I just share with you briefly a few lines usually overlooked from Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address, And here's this Tordiendas, the part that
never gets quoted. He said this, it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from the normal balance of public procedure. And then he goes on to say, I'm gonna recommend stuff to Congress. Uh and and ask them to adopt things speedy. But if they don't to continually.
Says, then.
I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis, broad executive power to wage war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given.
To me if I were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. End quote. Put those words in Trump's mouth that his inaugural address, and.
Liberals would be absolutely going berserk out of their mind, And so would I.
You would, well, that is not what Trump is doing, and I think are absolutely clear.
Well okay I I, well, okay, I could go along with that. I think we agree as usual by different paths. But yeah, that's why, Uh.
Yeah, that's right.
That's but John made that that very same point that they're they're hypocrites, that it's not about looking at the actual article to assignment of power to the executive and what exactly that means, and theoretically understanding executive power, understanding the separation of powers, understanding checks and balances. It's not about any of that. It's about pure naked partisanship. They don't like Trump. They like big government because they have
fed at the public trough. And it's not a constitutional crisis except that those people have way too much power, and that's the crisis. Yeah, they teach our law students. John can't teach all the students in all the law schools and get them on the straight and narrow.
Well, we could, We could put that in the Constitution as a requirement.
I don't know that's that's called involuntary servitude.
It doesn't.
Amendment point about one. Let's point about this that came to mind because of what Lucretius said is and maybe that helps why the Democrats, as we started talking about, are in such a state of depression. They don't know what to do. They're flailing, they have no agenda there you know, they're infighting. I love the talk in the papers to that AOC may running the primary against Schumer.
Right.
But part of it is if you make your whole campaign about democracy, democracy, democracy, and the people reject you in the elections, you have no form. And in fact, now what they're doing is they're you know, HAIDI, behind the most non democratic features of the constitution to put up any defense. Right, they're going straight to court the least democratic branch, and they are their future depends on
the filipbuster. Right. They're they're, they're, they're, they're. They should be glad that democracy did not advance the last four years the way they wanted it to.
Harry Reid very much.
These days, oh well, oh well, Harry Reid and Joe Biden are gonna inhabit a Democrats circle of you know, the ninth Circle of Purgatory and Dante or something.
It's uh, they're going to be so hated in retrospect.
But can I can I just add two quick observations, John, There's some subtleties in the article, and I don't know if you intended them or not, But the first is your paragraph about it subtle.
If it's subtle, then no.
Okay, well I don't know, I'll make them. Yeah.
Well, look in your paragraph about Jackson vetoing the Second Bank of the United States. He was constitutionally correct, but you say at the end of the sentence, uh, Jackson took all the federal funds in the bank and triggered a financial panic. It was sound constitutionally and it was an economic disaster. And I just say and Lucretian is gonna be upset with me. That's what makes me worried about Trump and tariffs is this.
Could I agree with you? That was actually on purpose? Yeah, that was I wondered.
If you were sort of hinting at that in a way, and so you have to treat those things separately.
But then second, the other one I liked.
Was, can I respond to that before you go on sure, because it'll be lost if you go onto your second pard. I just want to say, I actually think that that's consistent with my theory of executive accountability. If a president takes a perfectly constitutional action and maybe you know, stretches the boundaries a bit, but that's again perfectly constitutional. What is it? What are the ramifications? What checks are there
on that exercise of power? Failure, whether it be economic failure or military failure or foreign policy failure, whatever it might be, causes that political check and holds the president accountable. I don't think anybody should discount the idea that when you act with dispatch and energy and all of those nice things, you better damn hope you're right, because when you do all of those things, you are putting yourself out there and you will be judged by the success
of those actions. Does that make sense?
But yeah, right, No, it's perfectly fine. Yeah, and and good for Trump for you know, going where nobody would have gone before so and so many.
Steve, I totally agree with Steve. I mean, I agree with both of you. I think, LUCRITI, you're completely right. The benefit of you know, the executive branch, the way we think it should be is that if Trump screws up the economy through tarifs, and every people will know who's responsible.
Yeah.
I also have to agree with Steve. I think economically these policies don't make any sense.
Well, I think it depends, but let's save that for another time because it takes a while.
But well, my my f one K wants to have a conversation with you, Heyward.
Well I'm just only if you're a four on K is an idiot, But I'll leave that aside too.
That's because I'm not buying gold like Steve.
No, Well, it's down, it's a good thank god.
Yeah.
Well, my second observation, John is of another subtlety here. So when you do the comparison of Trump with Nixon, and there's a sentence that says Watergate, by contrast, arose from the Nixon re election campaigns, dirty tricks and the White House's obstruction of justice that allegedly followed. By the way, if you hadn't dropped the allegedly in there, I was gonna be very angry. And it's like, oh, aren't you guys great?
I might might, I might even quarrel with dirty tricks.
I mean, there was some silly stuff in New Hampshire with you know, the Muskie campaign, but that was nothing. And and even the Watergate burglary is we still don't know what that's about. But anyway, it's, uh, why.
Is important, Steve? Why is allegedly important?
Well, well, well, you know, I had Jeff Shepherd on a couple of years ago because the entire history of Watergate, including especially the prosecution of Nixon, needs to be rewritten wholesale.
And and I think it's this year.
Next year, some more files that have been closed for fifty years are gonna come out, and we're gonna learn about how badly judged Serrica misbehaved, how badly and unethically the prosecutors behaved, and and you know, the whole campaign to drive Nixon from office for the sin of humiliating them in the seventy two election, and that's gonna be
one of the great revisions histories of all time. And all of a sudden, the things Nixon was trying to do, Trump is trying to do also and getting command of the government. And Trump looks like he's going to succeed where Nixon was stymy by a fake scandal.
That's all.
Yes, I just want the record to show. I just want the record to show that anticipating that Steve would give me a hard time caused me to change one word in my article. I added that word allegedly because I thought about that. I say, oh, if I don't put in allegedly, Heyward's gonna give me a heart than today because you've been handing me about how watergates this made up scandal. I'm still waiting to see the evidence all come out.
Read Jeff Shepherd's books. They're they're very good, They're.
Very I listened to that episodes. I've heard him. Yeah, I've read some of his writing. I mean, you know, whether there was this is the question I have is whether there were ethical improprieties in the contact between church Circa and the Special Council, which is definitely should not have been did Nixon The fundamental question is, really, did Nixon intend to cover up the investigation into well, I mean, that's obstruction of justice. Did you know?
Did you hear this little item that sort of blurted out here a week or two ago when it was what the fiftieth anniversary of Saturday Night Live and Bill Murray, part of the original cast, was on with I think Joe Rogan and he said, yeah, I started reading Bob Woodward's book about Oh come on, the Guy who Died John Belushi, and he said, I was eight pages into that book reading all this nonsense, and it occurred to me,
Oh my god, they lied about Nixon, didn't they. You know, so when you know they're now pennantsating popular call, a guy like Bill Murray says, oh wait a minute. These guys lie to us and they mix stuff up. So that's why I say, I think, okay, I've said.
Before we leave this broader subject entirely, I do want to ask John really quickly. He's our go to on this question every single time. So the Trump administration is now trying to get and don't let me say this wrong, John, the Supreme Court to consider the universal injunction on the birthright citizenship and argue that explain it better so that I don't mess up on this.
No, that's I mean, this is a looming issue. It's not really it doesn't have to be the birthright citizenship cases or EO that's involved. But then this is also some I talked about on the War Room with Bennon, was that a lot of Trump's eos are now being enjoined by individual district judges. There's one out here in San Francisco who just ordered the administration to rehire thousands of federal employees. There's one, I think in Rhode Island.
There's another one in Maryland who you have stopped. There's one in Washington State.
The transgender in the military.
Yeah, they're all and so the basic question. And so apparently there are three district judges now who have issued injunctions against President Trump's birthright Citizenship executive order, putting the merits to that aside the government. You know, very fine lawyer actually collected for Justice Thomas as I did, and Judie Silverman as I did. Named Sarah Harris. She's the
acting Solicitor General. She's gone to the Supreme Court and said, you this regard have to answer once and for all whether this practice of universal injunctions is actually legal or not. They could have done it in Hawaii versus Trump back in twenty eighteen, that was the travel Bank case, but they chose to to they chose to not address it there. Several of the Justices have been calling on the Court to do it because come up under both parties too.
I mean, Republican conservatives have done it to Biden and Obama too. But I think it's an extremely important, underlying, permanent issue that sits behind a lot of these a lot of these cases, and it involves an important question of what the proper role of the courts are. Why can't a judge tell the executive branch how to run its operations nationwide when that judge only has power over a specific, usually very tiny jurisdiction.
Okay, it'd be interesting to see what they decide, because I will tell you from a layman man about town position. That seems to be the thing that infuriates confuses angers people the most is why can't a judge blah blah blah. You know you know the argument. All right, I guess we've probably text our listener's patients long enough. I'm going to move on to Babylon Bee's. Hope they're good because we know Steve's final send off is going to be lame because it's been lame for the last month. He
can't He's a little bit like the Babylon Bee. He can't do anything good when he can't make fun of someone, right, that's the problem. So the Babylon Bee my personal favorite, and I'm really hoping that this is not a satire. It's Tesla is updated with self defense mode where they transform into anthropomorphic battle robots which immediately go into self defense mode and attack anybody who's attacking Tesla, And.
So Tesla meets Transformers in other words, yeah, yeah.
Well it's practically that anyway, So it's all good.
How we spawned a blockbuster, multi billion dollar movie series out of stupid Japanese toys is beyond me.
I thought there were dumb movies, but they were very popular, very popular. Are you like this one? John Asian mom disappointed son is just a regular surgeon.
That's true. He should be the he should beat the sold.
But you know, that's an old Jewish mother joke, you know, is that right? Yeah?
Have the archoslas to tell the joke of you know, Cy Goldberg graduated number one in his class from Yale, top of his class at Harvard Law School, chief Surgeon, resident of Caesar Sinai, winner of all these prizes, and still a disappointment.
To his mother.
Yeah. Uh, Russia says, see, this is shows I can be balanced. Russia says it will agree to cease fire as soon as it is done conquering Ukraine.
Yeah, I know.
They're not even anymore guys to choke. Trump announces creation of strategic jd Vance meme reserve. Do you get that John not being on social media? That the thing on social media is taking jd Vance's face, which I think works because he has those piercing blue eyes and putting him into like, there's a whole set of emojis that you can get with jd Vance's face in the emoji memes on and on and on and and jd Vance
thinks it's great. He thinks it's hilarious, and of course the left is thinks that you know, he's being humiliated by it, and.
It's about cluely.
I mean, it's like, are why are the mag of people making fun of jd Vance?
It's like, I have I have a secret for you liberals. We think it's funny. You guys wants with the problem, right.
They don't have a sense of humor.
So you how.
Yeah, I know, but how much you lose out?
Yeah you're missing a lot man, Yeah you're missing.
Federal judge appoints himself.
President yep, coming soon.
Yeah, not funny. I'm sorry, They're just not funny anymore. Too serious Democrats. Democrats gather at the Legion of Doom to strategize for midterms.
Yeah, not that funny.
You know.
They said they weren't going to be funny. They said they were going to shut down because everything was going to be perfect under Trump, remember, and so they practically have they all they really have anymore? That's funny? Are there their religious ones? And I won't I won't, I won't bore listeners with that. I'll leave with this one. Enough is enough. Supreme Court rules First Amendment does not apply to Megan Markle.
I get that one.
Yeah, okay, good right, all right, John.
Always drink your whiskey. Meat and Steve you are going to have a new tagline or are you're sticking with the old one.
No, I am going to retire the mode of the last several weeks, and in light of the massive layoffs taking place in the legacy media, this week's sign off is slightly modified. Don't forget to milk the mass media meltdown, dividend.
Bye bye, everybody.
I nailed it by everybody.
Ricochet joined the conversation.
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